Blindfolded 14

Chapter 14
The Reason He Lived For


It was a miracle he was able to fall asleep that night.
And another miracle was that his dreams were surprisingly peaceful.

In his dream he had already died, and he was watching the Konoha village from somewhere far above, like a spirit not ready to let go of this material world yet.
And he felt no resentment or anger towards anyone. Not even against that man… Because no matter how cruel he was acting, he was only doing what he believed to be right.

His only regret was that he hadn’t been able to do more to protect his home village…


Then something woke him up, and for a moment he was surprised to be still alive. His dream had felt so real…
But then his senses were back to reality again. He was sure he had heard something through his sleep, a sudden, unusual sound had woken him up.

Getting mentally ready for anything, he sat up on his bed, just listening. And there it was again, a silent thud as if something or someone had fallen on the floor.
Then after more waiting, there was the sound of the key being turned in the lock…

And when he heard the silent footsteps of someone entering the room, and heard the sharp sound of a sword being pulled out of its scabbard, he was suddenly sure he knew who the intruder was.
He had to suppress a warm smile when he next felt the sharp blade being pressed against his neck.

“Hello, little brother”, he said looking straight at his visitor through his blindfold. “What are you doing here?”
“I heard you were here”, a cold voice told him. “So I came to kill you.”

Again he had to fight against smiling. So, an angel of death had come to give him a more easy death…
Now if only he had a change to get his hands free… he didn’t want to die being helpless like this.

“So, little brother…” he started with his dark evil guy voice. “Are you sure you can kill a man who can’t even fight back?”
“Don’t tell me what can I do”, an equally dark voice replied to him, and now he felt the edge of the blade making a small cut on his neck. “I could just cut you in pieces right here, feeling no regret.”

There was a short silent moment. He was thinking quickly, not wanting his little brother to become a ruthless murderer like that.

“Coward”, he then said. “After all these years of trying to defeat me, you must now feel proud of yourself getting a change to kill me without a fight. Or are you too scared to even look me in the eyes?”
After saying that, he could feel the dark anger in the chakra of his little brother growing even more intense.
Then he felt the edge of a kunai-knife pressing against his face, and then making a quick move to cut away his blindfold.

You are so predictable… he thought in his mind with a hidden smile.

And then he looked his little brother straight in his own sharingan-eyes.
Sasuke still had no mangekyou. Secretly, he was happy about that.

It became a fight between two strong minds, of two skilled genjutsu-users trying to crush each other with their terrifying skills of horror and torture…
Or actually he wasn’t really trying his best to defeat his little brother.
No, he wanted him to win, but he didn’t want it to be too easy.

So finally they both collapsed on the floor after using too much of their chakra.
But Sasuke got up first, picking up his sword again, and pointing it against his big brother’s chest.

He waited calmly for the final stroke… but it never came.

Sasuke cursed. The hand holding the sword slowly dropped down.
“You’re right…” he then said, biting on each word with his anger. “I can’t kill you when you’re like that. So…” He put his blade back in its scabbard again. “Hurry up and get out of here, and get ready to die next time we meet.”

And after saying that, his little brother walked out of the room, closing the door behind him.

He slowly got up from the floor, and then he looked around. Yes, there it was, the kunai Sasuke had used to cut through his blindfold.
So he went and picked it up. It was a sharp knife, but still it took a moment to cut his hands free from the rope, his fingers had become too numb after being tied up for such a long time.

Then armed with that knife, he went to open the door. And it was locked again.

Stupid little brother… he thought, but not really meaning it. If you want to help your evil big brother escape from a prison, please at least leave the door open…

He tried to break the lock with his knife, but no matter how he tried, it didn’t open.
So he only had one choice left…

He gave the door a sharp sharingan stare… and burned it down with the black flames of Amaterasu.

After doing that he felt exhausted, but the sudden hope of escaping gave him new strength.
Silently he left the room, to find a few guards lying on the floors.  He could see from their chakra that they weren’t dead, and he was happy about that. He didn’t want anyone to die, and also he was happy his little brother hadn’t become a coldblooded murderer.

But after some more silent walking, he encountered a guard who wasn’t knocked down.
He moved fast, reflexively, and the next second he was both holding a knife on the guard’s neck and grabbing a hold of his mind with his genjutsu.
“I’m going to leave now”, he said calmly as if he was checking out of a hotel room. “And there are a few things I need to get back. Tell me where to find them, or I will kill you slowly… with a fork.”

Well, he didn’t know why he had added that last one. He wasn’t really planning to kill anyone with a fork, and he didn’t even have one with him.
But somehow he just really wanted to say that.

The poor man broke down and told him the room where the things taken from the prisoners were kept. He put the guard to sleep with his genjutsu and went to get his stuff back. Thanks to Ibiki Morino, he already had his Akatsuki cloak back, but there were other things he couldn’t leave behind. First, the Akatsuki ring, which was important, then his necklace, and he didn’t mind having back his headband and shoes too. (They had taken away his shoes so it wouldn’t be so easy to kick anyone.)

And after getting his property back, he was ready to leave the prison. Good thing he found an unguarded window, he didn’t have enough chakra left to use Amaterasu again.

It was difficult to describe his feelings when he was out in the open air again, after such a long time being trapped inside.
Simply, it felt incredible. The fresh air felt so good to breathe, the starry night sky above him was so beautiful.

Being too weak to jump from roof to roof, he moved along the streets, walking fast from shadow to a shadow, not running if he didn’t have to.
It was a silent night and he was easily able to hide from the few people who were passing by. The only creatures noticing him seemed to be the crows… their friendly croaks sounded like they were welcoming him back to the outside world.

Altogether, his silent escape seemed to be going well…

Until a large dark shadow suddenly blocked his way.

“I had a feeling something was wrong…” the familiar voice of Ibiki Morino said to him. “And I don’t have any idea how did you get out mister Uchiha… but I’m taking you back in.”

He didn’t know how had Ibiki Morino being able to guess that he had escaped, but he was sure about one thing…
He wasn’t going to let that man take him back again. No, he would rather die here.
To die free, under the open sky.

So he made a quick attack with his kunai-knife, not really trying to seriously hurt or kill mister Morino, he only wanted to be able to escape past him.
Ibiki dodged well for a big guy like him, and then he turned and replied with a hard kick.
He tried to dodge… and to his big surprise, he failed.

The force of the kick hit him on the ribs, making him crash on the ground.
He got up as fast as he could, barely blocking the next attack with his arm.

“Why so surprised mister Uchiha?” Ibiki Morino asked him. “Even the strongest ones take a fall sometimes.”
He didn’t reply. He already had enough to do when blocking another strike. Then he dodged down and made a low cut with his knife.
It made a scratch on Ibiki’s leg, but he could feel it wasn’t a deep cut, it wouldn’t stop that big man from moving around.

No, it only seemed to make him angry. Ibiki’s next punch was hard and fast, and even though he blocked it with both of his arms, its force was still strong enough to throw him against a wall, the impact hitting all the air out of his lungs.

“Give up”, he heard Ibiki saying. “You’re just too weak to fight.”
Sadly, he had to agree with being too weak… but giving up… never.
As a sudden distraction he threw a few shurikens he had picked up from a fallen guard.
Ibiki dodged two of them, but the third one cut him on the arm.

For a moment they were just looking at each other, although Ibiki was clearly trying to avoid a too straight eye-contact.
Not that he felt strong enough to use Tsukuyomi anyway…

Then that big man made some quick ninja hand signs.
“Torture Chamber”, he said with an ominous dark voice.

And it was too late to run away. He knew this technique, Ibiki had tried it on him the first time when they had started to hurt him physically. And it hadn’t worked, he had been able to resist it.
But this time… he suddenly felt invisible chains wrapping around his both wrists, pulling his arms on the sides. He struggled to get free, but those chains just became more real, more visible, and the same time he could see the metal bars of a cage starting to form around him and Ibiki Morino, while the village behind those bars was slowly disappearing in a ghostly mist.
He couldn’t believe it. He was losing to someone in a simple technique like this.

He struggled more, trying to fight against a feeling of panic suddenly growing inside of him.
He hadn’t even known it was possible to feel this way, so afraid of losing control…
But the memories of pain were almost taking over his consciousness.

Forcing his mind to focus, he closed his eyes, stopped struggling and simply concentrated in imagining how did it feel to be free, strong and always in control of whatever that was happening to him…
It worked, the chain around his right wrist weakened and he was able to pull his arm free.
Quickly, he focused on the left one next…

“Oh, no you won’t”, Ibiki’s voice said strictly. “You’re not getting out of it this time.”

The feeling of pressure around him became worst. And then his right arm was caught again. And not just it, another chain was also wrapping around his chest, becoming tighter and tighter, pressing his lungs together, feeling like it would break his rib cage any moment…
And to his surprise, that crushing pain forced a shout out of his lungs.
His mind almost went black.

Then he felt someone grabbing his throat.
“So… you are a human after all, mister Uchiha…” a calm but merciless voice told him. “How does it feel?”

…It feels like crap… he just replied quietly in his mind, because he really couldn’t talk right now.
He had to struggle to even keep conscious.

“Even the strongest ones take a fall sometimes…” a voice was echoing in the depths of his mind, and now, he really felt like he was falling…

But there, in the darkness of despair, deep under his usual consciousness, there was a sharp edge of unnatural strength, forged in the fires of fear and pain, a strength he had never used before.
No, he hadn’t… because he hadn’t had to.
But now it was the only strength he had left.

Suddenly, he opened his eyes, meeting the surprised stare of Ibiki Morino. Obviously that man had already thought he had passed out.
There was a short battle of two strong wills, and finally, for his big surprise, Ibiki lost.

In one moment, the situation changed. The interrogator had suddenly become the prisoner, and his weakened victim was now the torturer.
But he didn’t raise his blade to stab him.

“You’re lucky, mister Morino”, he said to him calmly. “I’m too tired to use my genjutsu on you. So I’ll be just saying goodbye now…”
First, Ibiki just looked at him. Then he suddenly smiled.
“Goodbye then, mister Uchiha”, he said. “And thank you.”
“Thank you, mister Morino”, he replied to him politely.

And then, still holding Ibiki’s mind with his illusion technique, he reached his hand to press a nerve on the back of his head, making that big man fall on the ground unconscious.


The rest of his escape was quite easy.
He distracted some gate-guards with a shadow-clone, and then used a secret Anbu-exit to leave the village.

And finally, when he was far enough to be safe, he stopped to rest, looking over at the village from his high hiding place. His body was very tired and in pain, but his feelings were calm. And not just calm, but he also felt strangely warm inside.
In the light of the full moon, Konoha village looked beautiful. And even despite all the pain it had cost him, he loved his village with all his heart.
To protect that village and its people… it was the reason he lived for.

But that wasn’t the only thing making him feel warm inside.
He also felt a huge relief for being free again. It felt amazing… as if he had been reborn into a whole new life.

His sharingan felt sharper than ever.
The colors of chakra around him looked beautiful.
As if he was seeing the whole world with new eyes…
A world of re-gained life and freedom.

And in the light of the full moon, there was a rare smile on his face.
And this time it wasn’t an evil guy smile…
It was a happy smile.


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And one more (short) chapter left…

Ibiki: I told you to try a happy smile, mister Uchiha.
Itachi: You’re so lucky I couldn’t use Tsukuyomi on you…