Yeah, so..I was sitting in sociology, bored out of my mind (which always leads to me scribbling something)...and, since I've had Itachi on the brain recently, this is what I ended up with. XD Very short (probably the shortest piece I've written), but whatever. Comments are welcomed, yo.

Bloodstains

There was blood on his hands. Blood beneath his fingernails. Blood spattered on his face, blood clinging to his hair, blood saturated in his clothing.

He knew exactly how it got there, and why.

None of it was his.

There was a body on the ground, cold, lifeless, rigid as a board, eyes wide, frozen in utter disbelief.

He made sure to leave the head intact, because perfection should never be blemished. The strong jaw hung slack, the bright eyes were dull, but that was to be expected.

Beauty is a chameleon. It comes in many forms.

There was a hole where the chest should have been, a yawning chasm of gore, mutilated tissue coupled with shards of bone strewn about in no particular pattern, as if the artist had relinquished his vision to impulse, allowed the muse of disorder to guide his hand. Limbs were bent at impossible angles, a grotesque mockery of the human figure. Blades of crimson tinted grass writhed in a macabre dance around dead flesh, like the worms that would slowly decompose it over time.

Funny, to think that every living creature will eventually rot, no matter how it may appear on the outside.

Perhaps he ought to have felt something other than curiosity at the way the blood continued to pulse sluggishly out of exposed arteries and veins, at the position the hands had settled in, stiff, curled inward like claws. Those hands were capable of murder, once, powerful, deft hands. He knew because he watched them.

People are taught how to be people by their elders, since they have existed longer, seen more of the world. If this happens, you should be happy; if that happens, you should be sad. There are times to laugh and times to cry and times to be ruthless and times to be merciful, but you have to get them right or consequences will follow. In the world of a shinobi, the consequence was death, so you must follow orders, turn your emotions on and off when commanded, become as heartless and empty, cool and aloof as the situation requires. Personal gain is contemptible when you’re part of a whole, one extension of a greater purpose, even if that purpose is not your own. You don’t need to know what it is; you just need to do what you’re told.

Hadn’t he been an obedient son? Hadn’t he allowed his father’s pride to dictate his actions, become a manufactured tool, mind so detached that the body moved on its own without prompting? See the objective, don’t pause to analyze it. See the target, neutralize it.

And when you come home, weary, bitter, your faith in the system close to broken, you hear the words, “As expected of my child.”

But that is not all. You hear the unspoken words too.

Good. Now go do it again. I’m counting on you. Don’t fail me, or you’ll regret it.

He already does regret it. He should not have been such a compliant little boy.

“Shisui.”

A name is a method of identification, a means of association. Before, the name that rolled off his tongue had meaning, conjured images, memories past and present, of the individual it belonged to. Now, when he said the name, all he saw was a hunk of meat.

This was his best friend, was it not? Centuries of conditioning demanded he fall on his knees, howl out his grief, his rage, his loss…

The blood on his hands was becoming hard, so that when he moved his fingers, patches of it cracked and flaked off. He’d have to wash them soon. The tight, stinging sensation against his skin annoyed him.

It is normal to cry for your friends, isn’t it? Particularly when they’re lying dead at your feet.

But when he looked down, there was no recognition, no remorse, just a corpse with a pretty face and a hole in its chest.

Someone once said, in order to get what you want, you have to be willing to give something up in return. Nobody knows who said it, or when, or under what circumstances, though it is a philosophy that has held fast through the ages, passed from one generation of human beings to the next.

He knew what he wanted, had always known. His father may have boasted his son’s genius, elevated him to prodigal status, and, ever dutiful, Itachi allowed the older man his delusions, but all the while he kept the truth hidden.

A gust of wind whistled past, ruffling his long, raven-black hair and the shredded tatters of the cadaver’s jacket. The air was brisk, and sharp as needles, yet he welcomed it.

He had found the means of escape, the path that led away from the clan that spawned him, the institution that suffocated him, and the proof was right here, lying prostrate before his eyes.

The body on the ground was merely a body, not his best friend, not Shisui.

“I will not be your dog any longer.”

Uchiha Itachi had unlocked the secret of the Mangekyou, the ultimate manifestation of the sharingan, and in exchange, he had offered his humanity.

And the strange thing was, he did not think he would miss it.