#oh oof--

[shikkotsunin]

"Do you every think Sarada suffers by not being surrounded by her clan?"

Sakura sighed more audibly than she intended to. "...I know she does. Maybe she doesn't seem like it, and she seems happy enough with her teammates, but it always seems like something's missing, y'know? Something I can't give her, no matter what. But, what can I do? The only Uchiha alive for the past ten years have either contributed to the Uchiha Massacre, or should've been dead to begin with. How the hell is that fair to a little girl like her?"

[asaraltu]

“this is the real world.” from Konan?

"And what is that world but a pit of rotting corpses off to kill each other and others. Isn't that the world you grew up in, Konan?" he addressed the woman with a sarcastic lilt and wolfish smirk beneath his mask, perhaps evident in the sole good eye's faint crinkling. "They fought, you suffered. Your families died while theirs were protected behind high walls, free to live while you never had that choice. But now, this vengeance can be taken. Now, you can make them suffer as you suffered.

"That is the real world."

[asaraltu]

“ nothing made sense to me. ” ( from sasuke to madara )

It were as though he were looking at himself in a mirror, at his great-grandson that looked uncannily the same as he. The older the boy became, the more they looked alike; at some point, they might even pass as brothers to the untrained eye. And as many had cited before, they were practically alike with the eyes of their brothers. Hearing Sasuke’s confusion after all had been said and done made his heart ache for the boy. Too many parallels, too much of the same pain and failure. Riddled with an inability to save their clansmen, except through hollow consolations and vengeance. 

Taking Sasuke by the back of his head and pressing his brow to his descendant’s, Madara sighed exhaustively. 

“There, it’s guaranteed not to. Together, however... maybe something can be, Sasuke-kun.”

[asaraltu]

“ the truth is that this world can be so sour. ” / from itachi

In every way, in every form, he was trying to forgive Itachi for everything he’d done, in being the lout between the village and the Uchiha. Though the Uchiha were intact, it seemed as though it were by a thread. And, to think--this boy looked like he could be Madara’s flesh and blood son. Similar face shape, nearly identical in the eye, same way the flesh around their eyes seemed to betray years of exhaustion when they were still young. And he loved Itachi like a son, of that it couldn’t be mistaken. Even if the caustic fire of resentment burned just as hotly in his gut.

“I loved my brother more than you’ll ever love yours. Don’t you dare think otherwise, whelp.”

[asaraltu]

@sennenryuu​ asked: "This season; the midsummer's heat and misty humidity in the air. It reminds me of that night. How cloth clung to my shoulders before you laid me bare... It seems so long ago now. But, it is a memory I return to, remembering how right it felt...and how things haven't been since you left me."

It had been similar to that night, too, hadn’t it? When they had joined together via their bodies in a moment neither had expected to happen. A guileless crush become real when war had dragged them apart, having only the humidity and the harvest moon as their witnesses while clothes had been shed like a chrysalis and something new had emerged between young bodies. They lay upon only their shed clothing, Madara able to feel the leeching warmth slowly deprived from his person as it was carried back into the soil. Mud shaped to their backs, Chitose’s wavy maroon locks mingling with his black as night. It was a beautiful contrast, he had to admit, molded into his side utterly nude and streaked with perspiration and the grime they incidentally touched. Except, instead of a river did the burgeoning rooftops of Konoha span like a sea, ablaze with light. A hand upon his chest, cheek on his clavicle, while his arm looped around Chitose’s form to anchor her closer. 

He gazed into the bright moon that stared impassively down at them, brows furrowed and mouth pursed. Guilt at him, but so too did a raze of emotions that ran counter to the idea of abandonment. 

“As clan leader,” he began with a voice clumped with sentiment, “they would’ve expected me to wed another by now. Yet... I couldn’t. Not while I thought of you. It’s our greatest strength, but also a source of hubris, isn’t it?” He wondered if Chitose understood what he meant, only able to insinuate it; the Uchiha’s great and unfathomable love that could drive them to despicable acts if lost, as much as it could anchor them them totally to one person. Much like how a younger man’s foolish folly could blossom into something far more whole and consuming.

“...I didn’t lay with another. I couldn’t. Not while you were there, on my mind... But, it’s foolish, isn’t it? Getting so... focused on one person. I’m a fool like that. But, I hope it’s my only great weakness. One I can be in control of.”