“Daddy! Stop it!”
My brother struggled to his feet, blood dripping from his mouth and forehead. “Why are you doing this?” my brother asked, coughing even more blood in the process. “Is it because of that slut you’re seeing?” I could tell he had gone into his psycho-mode--that’s what I call it when he gets really, really mad--because he was using bad words around me. He never uses bad words around me. Plus, he had that evil smirk he gets when he has an evil idea.
My father glared at my brother even harder. “She is not a slut,” he screamed. I knew he was drunk because he was slurring his words. “You just don’t like her because she’s not your mother. If you’re gonna be mad somebody be mad at him-” he pointed at me. “He’s the one who killed her. If it wasn’t for him your mother would be alive!”
When my father said things like that it always made my brother even more mad. I never understand what he means by “he killed your mother”. I never met my mother. I was told by my father’s best friend, Orochimaru, that she died shortly after she had me.
**BEGIN FLASHBACK**
“Did I kill her?” I remember asking, a horrified expression on my face.
“No! No, no she was already deathly ill when she was pregnant with you.” I breathed a sigh of relief. He continued, “I remember her telling me, about a week before she went into labor, ‘Orochimaru, I know I won’t live to see my child the day--maybe even the hour-- after he is born, so please tell him this. Tell him I love him, I hope he lives a better life than his father. Most importantly, tell him: no matter what anyone says, even his father, that it was not his fault for my death. And, that I know he and Itachi grow up to be respectable adults.’”
**END FLASHBACK**
My father turned towards me. “It’s all his fault,” he said as if he had just realized something important. “He’s the reason my sweet angel isn’t here anymore!” He grabbed a knife from the table and started walking towards me. My brother jumped on his back and began rapidly punching and biting him. My father threw my brother off of himself and turned back to me. My brother’s head hit the edge of the counter and he slid down to the floor. Normally, he would have gotten right back up and charged my father again. I saw the blood oozing from a deep gash on his forearm and back of his head. I knew, in that moment, my brother--my best friend--was dieing.
I heard the front door open. Any time I would have run to see who it was, but my father was blocking the way. If I tried to run I would end up right by him and even I, at four years old, knew that was a very, very bad mistake.
My father stalked closer to me. "Hello," someone yelled from the corridor. I know that voice. It was Orochimaru. "Anybody home?"
With my father getting closer by the second and my brother slowly dieing--if not already dead-- a few yards away from me, I formulated a plan. If I screamed now Orochimaru, as fast as he is, wouldn't make it here before I had at least one severe stab wound.
I jumped to the side far enough away from my father that that there was at least a yard-and-a-half distance between him and me. I waited until he was about a foot away from me with the knife raised ready to come down on my fragile little figurine self at any minute...
I screamed as loud as small lungs would allow me to in my frightened state. Just before the knife sliced into me, my father went flying to the side, as if hit by some invisible force.
It wasn't an invisible force. It was Orochimaru. He ran to me and scooped me up into his arms, hugging me almost chokingly tight.
"Are you alright?!" He patted me from head to toe finding a few bruises here and there. I felt tears forming in my eyes. Before I could try to hold them back they spilled out of my and cascaded down my face. "Did that hurt? I didn't mean to. why are you crying?" I sniffled and wiped my eyes enough to see my brother and pointed at him. Orochimaru glanced over and then back at me, then back at Itachi real fast as if he didn't see quite right the first time. His eyes widened, "Oh, my Gods." He picked me up and ran over to Itachi.
He put me down, squatted next to Itachi and turned him onto his back. He leaned his ear over Itachi's chest and stayed there for a second or two. He straitened up and moved Itachi's hair from his face. Orochimaru lifted Itachi's eyelid then the other and felt his pulse. He placed a hand over his own heart and breathed a sigh of relief. "He's still alive," he said, clearly relieved. "For now."
"What do you mean 'for now'?" I asked. "Is big brother gonna be alright?"
"He will if we get him the right treatment. Go get the phone."
"Why-"
"Don't ask, just do it!"
I didn't ask. I got to the door when I saw my father move, out of the corner of my eye. Orochimaru yelled to me, "Don't worry about him. Get the phone."
I don't remember much from the rest of that night, except flashing lights, an ambulance and a hospital.
I do, however, remember what happened the naext morning, as clear as if it was just yesterday. I remember waking up in a hospital bed, next to my brother's bandaged, sleeping form. I looked around the room and saw Orochimaru asleep in the chair.
"Oro-chan?" Orochimaru stirred and blinked a few times before finally looking at me. "What is it?" he asked sleepily.
"Is big brother alright?"
"Yes. The doctor said he would be fine. Hejust has to heal, that's all."
"Oh. Oro-chan?"
"Hm?"
"Why am I in the hospital bed with big brother?"
"Last night when Itachi regained consciousness, you asked if it would be all right if you slept with him. The doctor didin't object and neither did Itachi."
"Oh." Orochimaru stood up and walked towards the bathroom. After he had closed the door, I asked, "Oro-chan?"
"Yes?" I heard the toilet flush and waited for the sound to die down and the faucet to come on, until I finally said, "Thank you."
"For what?" he asked coming out of the bathroom.
It wasn't me that answered him, "For everything." I looked up at my brother to see him smiling the nicest, if not rarest, smile I ever saw on his face. The best part about it: It was for me!
A few days later, my brother was released from the hospital. I was excited that we would be able to go home.
I was sitting on my brother's lap in the front passenger seat, when I finally realized what going home would mean. After that thought I started to tremble, crying silent tears. As I thought more and more on our return, my body started shake more, my silent tears turning into full out sobs.
"Sasuke?" my brother asked, hesitantly. "Are you okay? What's wrong?"
I twisted on his lap, turing to face him, as my sobs began to subside. "A-are we going home to...to...daddy?" I asked weakly.
It was quiet for awhile. Then, Orochimaru said, "No." Itachi and I both looked over at him. He was staring straight ahead, focusing on the road. "You will both be living with me and Tsunade from now on. Neither of you will be seeing your father again." He glanced over at us, taking in Itachi's bruised and sratched form and my, still slightly, trembling self and added, "Unless you want to."
"No!" we both blurted at the same time.
Orochimaru turned back to the road. "I didn't think so."
After several more minutes of silence I finally said, "Orochimaru, what's going to happen to daddy?"
He tensed slightly and hesitated be fore relaxing and saying, "I don't know, Sasuke. I don't know."
Later that month Tsunade dressed Itachi and me in our best clothes and took us to a court room, where a bunch of professional looking guys and one very big and muscled guy named Jiraiya, asked me a bunch of questions about what would happen when I was living with Daddy. I don't remember much after the questions stopped: I had fallen asleep. I was woken up by the judge saying, "In the case of the abuse of Itachi and Sasuke Uchiha, the defendant, Fugaku Uchiha, is determined: guilty. Sentenced to six years in prison. Case dismissed." He banged his hammer thingy and everyone got up and began talking softly.
Itachi, who had been sitting on the opposite side of Orochimaru and Tsunade, stood, reached over to me and picked me up, squeezing me in his arms. "It's over, Sasuke. Father won't be hurting us anymore."
I remember Tsunade hugging us both tight against her. And telling us, "Everything is going just fine."
I believed it. I believed it with all my heart and soul. We all piled into Orochimaru's black porsche and drove home to begin our new lives.
//~~**~~\
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