Commissioned story: Heart of glory (House of the Sun/Naruto: Sasuke centric): chapter 1: All our yesterdays are knives

A drop of blood hits the floor. Then another. Then another.

It began as it always did.

The drip.

Sasuke’s mother knelt in the hallway, her braid coiled neatly over her shoulder. The scent of jasmine tea—her favorite—still clung to the air. She smiled at him, the way she did when he’d sneak sweets before dinner. “Sasuke,” she said, voice soft as rice paper.

Then the knife slid through her throat.

Not a clean cut. Itachi sawed through sinew, deliberate, the blade catching on cartilage. Her head tilted, suspended by a thread of tendon, eyes wide and wet. Blood pooled beneath her knees, black in the moonlight, seeping into the tatami mats.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Sasuke’s scream lodged in his chest, a stone.

A child’s laugh, warped into a wet gurgle.

This time, it was his cousin Shisui.

They were happy, chasing fireflies in the garden. Shisui’s laughter rang bright, his Sharingan flickering like a struck match. “Bet you can’t catch me, slowpoke!”

The memory frayed.

Shisui’s body lay splayed on the training grounds, fingers clawing at the dirt, eyes gone. Itachi stood over him, foot pressed into his spine. “You trusted me,” Itachi murmured, twisting the knife in Shisui’s gut. “Stupid.”

Sasuke’s lungs burned. He tried to shut his eyes—couldn’t.

A lullaby, sung off-key.

His aunt Mitsuri hummed as she stitched his torn training shirt. Her hands, steady and sure. “You’ll grow into a fine shinobi,” she said. “Just like your brother.”

Itachi’s blade erupted through her chest.

Not a knife this time—a kunai, serrated. He dragged it downward, splitting her sternum. Ribs cracked like kindling. Her hands kept stitching, even as her insides spilled onto the floor.

“Stop,” Sasuke whispered.

Itachi looked at him. “Make me.”

A festival drum, slowing to a funeral march.

Summer festival. Paper lanterns glowed gold above the compound. Sasuke rode on Itachi’s shoulders, sticky with candied apple. “Look, Sasuke,” Itachi said, pointing to the sky. “Fireworks.”

The explosion wasn’t fireworks.

Bodies rained from the rooftops—his uncles, his cousins, his father. They hit the ground with wet thuds, limbs bent wrong. Itachi set him down gently, then carved their eyes out one by one.

“Why?” Sasuke choked.

Itachi pressed a finger to his lips. “Quiet. You’ll miss the finale.”

A tea kettle whistling. It doesn’t stop.

The kitchen. His mother poured tea, steam curling into the shape of cranes. “Itachi’s late,” she said. “He’ll miss his favorite blend.”

Itachi arrived.

He didn’t use a blade.

He used his hands.

Fingers hooked under her jaw, thumbs pressing into her eyes. She didn’t scream. She couldn’t. The tea kettle shrieked, louder, louder, until Sasuke’s eardrums burst.

Blood filled his ears. Silence.

A clock like ticking. It’s not a clock.

His father’s study. Fugaku polished his katana, the steel singing. “A Uchiha does not falter,” he said. “Remember that, Sasuke.”

Itachi took the katana.

He didn’t swing it.

He broke it.

The blade snapped, shards embedding in Fugaku’s eyes. Itachi knelt, collected the fragments, and pressed one into Sasuke’s palm. “For you,” he said. “A keepsake.”

Sasuke’s hand bled. He didn’t feel it.

Cicadas. Always cicadas.

The compound’s courtyard. Cicadas screamed in the pines. Sasuke’s cousin, Naori who took her time to try to teach him shurikenjutsu when Itachi could not. “Aim for the heart,” she said. “Always the heart.”

Itachi’s shuriken took her throat.

And his father’s.

And his mother’s.

And his own.

Sasuke clutched his neck, blood bubbling between his fingers. “P-please—”

Itachi tilted his head. “Does it hurt?”

A record skipping. Repeating. Repeating.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

His mother’s head hit the floor.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

His father’s eyes emptied.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Shisui’s laugh.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Aunt Misturi red eyes, fading to gray.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Itachi’s blade.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Itachi’s blade.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Itachi’s blade.

A child’s music box, rusted gears grinding.

His cousin Ami, six years old, pressed a folded origami crane into his palm. Her fingers sticky with glue. “For you, Sasuke-nii! It’s a hawk! See the wings?” She giggled, ink smudged on her cheek.

The memory twitched.

Ami lay on her bedroom floor, limbs splayed like a broken doll. Itachi crouched beside her, methodically peeling the skin from her hands. “Hawks need feathers,” he said, pressing a bloodied strip of flesh into Sasuke’s grip. “Don’t they?”

The origami dissolved in Sasuke’s fist, wet and red.

Rain on a tin roof. Or is it nails?

His uncle Yashiro taught him to sharpen a katana. “Pressure here,” he said, guiding Sasuke’s small hands on the whetstone. “Steady. Like your heartbeat.”

The blade slipped.

Not Sasuke’s.

Itachi’s.

Yashiro’s throat opened, a second mouth gasping. Blood sprayed the whetstone, turning the rainwater pink. Itachi pressed Sasuke’s face to the puddle. “Drink,” he whispered. “It’s all you’ll have left.”

A hearth crackling. Fat popping

Winter night. His aunt Hana stirred a pot of stew, her pregnant belly round under her apron. “You’ll be a cousin soon,” she smiled, patting his head. “Better teach them how to trounce Sasuke, hm?”

Itachi’s hand plunged into the pot.

He didn’t retrieve a ladle.

He retrieved the baby.

Small. Blue. Silent.

Hana’s screams curdled. Itachi cradled the thing gently, rocking it. “Shh,” he cooed. “You’ll scare them.”

A koto string snapping. Twanging

His grandaunt’s hands, gnarled as tree roots, plucked a folk tune from her instrument. “This song,” she said, “was old when the Uchiha were just sparks.”

Itachi severed her fingers.

One by one.

He threaded them onto the koto strings, plucking a discordant melody. “Better,” he said. “Don’t you think?”

Sasuke vomited bile. It tasted of copper.

A shoji door sliding open. Closed. Open. Closed.

His toddler cousin Ren played hide-and-seek, toddling behind screens. “S’uke! Find me!” Peeking through gaps, giggling.

Itachi found him first.

He pinned Ren to the wall with kunai through his palms, feet dangling. “You lose,” he told Sasuke.

Ren’s giggles turned to hiccuping sobs. Itachi hummed the folk tune.

A brush painting kanji. Scratching.

His great-uncle transcribed clan history, ink blooming like bruises on parchment. “The Uchiha are born of fire,” he said. “Remember that, boy.”

Itachi set the scroll aflame.

Then his hands.

Then his eyes.

The old man didn’t scream. He recited.

“The Uchiha are born of—"

Ash filled his mouth.

(Sound: A dog whining. A choke chain rattling.)

His civilian cousin’s dog, Akio, licked his face, tail thumping. “He likes you,” his cousin teased. “Traitor.”

Itachi skinned the dog alive.

Slowly.

Peeled the pelt off like a jacket, held it out to Sasuke. “For you,” he said. “Cold nights ahead.”

The meat beneath still twitched.

A needle threading cloth. Pulling taut.

His cousin-in-law, pregnant again, sewed a kimono for the unborn child. “Crimson for strength,” she said. “Like your family’s eyes.”

Itachi used the needle on her eyelids.

Sewed them shut.

“Better,” he said. “Now she won’t see the mess.”

The kimono soaked through, crimson deepening to black.

A tea whisk frothing. Bubbles bursting.

His niece, four years old, served him bitter matcha. “Like Papa makes!” she beamed, sloshing it over the rim.

Itachi made her drink it.

All of it.

The porcelain cup shattered in her small hands. Shards cut her gums. She spat teeth.

“Too sweet,” Itachi said.

A firework whistling. No explosion.

The entire clan gathered for Obon. Lanterns floated down the river, carrying prayers. One of Sasuke’s little cousin—clung to his arm. “Look, nii-san! The lights!”

Itachi lit the river with katon.

Bodies bobbed among the lanterns, skin sloughing off like wet paper. His little cousin hand melted in his grip.

“Make a wish,” Itachi said.

A wind chime, glass bones clinking.

His cousin Mari, twelve and fierce, trying to teach him to dance the Uchiha fire kata. Her laughter crackled like kindling. “Loosen your hips, Sasuke! You’re stiffer than granduncle’s old armor!”

The memory snapped.

Mari’s body hung from the rafters, strung up by her own intestines. Itachi adjusted her limbs like a puppeteer, forcing her corpse into a grotesque pirouette. “Better,” he said. Blood dripped from her toes, sizzling where it struck the lanterns. “Now you’re fluid.”

Sasuke’s throat closed. He tasted bile, ash, her.

A cradle rocking. Empty.)

His infant nephew, swaddled in silk, gripped his finger. “He likes you,” his mother, a older cousin said, exhaustion softening her edges. Sasuke had been the reason why she had been able to give birth safely after informing the others of the clan after she fell. She gave the child his name.

“Wants to be just like his hero.”

Itachi drowned the child in the bath.

Held him under until the water stilled.

“Heroes,” he said, lifting the tiny corpse by one foot, “are just corpses who haven’t finished rotting.”

The bathwater swirled pink. Sasuke’s finger, once held, now ached.

A loom weaving. Threads snapping.

His grandmother wove a funeral shroud, humming. “This one’s for me,” she chuckled. “Might as well get used to the fit.”

Itachi unraveled her.

Not the shroud—her.

Peeled her skin thread by thread, weaving it into the cloth. “There,” he said, draping it over Sasuke’s shoulders. “Now you’ll never forget her.”

The shroud clung, warm and alive.

A sake cup clinking. Shattering.

His uncle Toji toasted to his entrance and his good grades in the academy. “To his bright and happy future!” The clan cheered, cups raised.

Itachi poisoned the sake.

Bodies convulsed, frothing black bile. Toji clawed at his throat, eyes bulging. “S-sa… suke…!”

Itachi refilled Sasuke’s cup. “Drink,” he said. “Or is your will as weak as your heart?”

A samisen’s string humming. Then silence.

Kaede, played a lullaby on her samisen. “For the nightmares,” she winked. “Scare them off with something louder.”

Itachi broke the instrument over her skull.

Plucked her vocal cords with the splinters.

“Louder,” he agreed.

Her screams harmonized with the broken strings.

A cherry blossom petal hitting the ground. Multiply.

Hanami picnic. His cousins scattered petals over his head, giggling. “Pretty prince!”

Itachi buried them alive.

Blooms filled their mouths, their lungs, their eyes. Petals sprouted from their eye sockets, roots cracking bone.

“Still pretty,” Itachi said, tucking a flower behind Sasuke’s ear.

The same drip. The same scream.

His mother’s voice again. His father’s corpse. Itachi’s blade.

Over.

And over.

And over.

Each time, he begged. Each time, he tried to move. Each time, he failed.

"Stop!" he shrieked, voice cracking. "STOP IT!"

Itachi didn’t stop.

The knife came down.

It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real.

His brother wouldn’t do this. His brother loved him.

But the blood kept dripping.

The screams kept coming.

At some point, the begging turned to bargaining.

"I’ll do anything," Sasuke sobbed, throat raw. "Just—just stop. Please. I’ll be better. I’ll train harder. I’ll—I’ll never complain again—"

Itachi tilted his head, considering. Then he drove the knife into their mother’s chest.

Sasuke screamed until his voice gave out.

Then he screamed silently.

Then he stopped screaming altogether.

And Itachi’s eyes never wavered.

A moth chewing through silk.

The Tsukuyomi ruptured.

Not shattered—opened.

A door yawned where Sasuke’s heart had been, edges jagged like broken teeth. Through it spilled:

—A Woods without walls, trees bleeding sap like molten copper.

—A Well brimming with liquid shadow, whispering his name in his mother’s voice.

—A Temple where the Hours peeled their own skins, hungering for worship.

The Mansus did not comfort. It consumed.

Itachi’s illusion frayed, eaten by moths with lanterns for eyes. The crimson moon cracked, revealing a sun older than fire.

Sasuke fell—

—not into darkness.

Into Glory.

The Mansus took his pain and reshaped it.

—His mother’s corpse became a Root, burrowing into the earth, feeding on forgotten wars.

—His father’s blade became a Thorn, sprouting from the Well, thirsting for kingsblood.

—Itachi’s smile became a Door, unhinged, leading nowhere and everywhere.

“Welcome, little brother,” the Woods hissed. “We’ve been waiting.”

Sasuke’s eyes burned. Not the Sharingan.

forge.

Knock.

Edge.

Winter.

Lantern.

Heart.

Grail.

Secret Histories.

He breathed, and the Mansus breathed back.

The Hours came.

—The Moth perched on his shoulder, wings shedding dust that smelled of Ami’s origami.

—The Red Grail pressed a chalice to his lips, filled with Ren’s laughter.

—The Wolf Divided gnawed his spine, growling: “Break. Break beautifully.”

Sasuke drank.

Ate.

Became.

He returned.

The Uchiha compound lay silent, drenched in false moonlight. A perfect copy of himself stared at him, eyes sputtering like a choked flame.

“What… are you?”

Sasuke smiled.

His shadow had too many teeth.

“You,” he said.

The first lie.

A cicada’s shell, hollow, crumbling.

Something divine, something cursed pulsed in his veins.

His family’s blood, once a chain, now a key.

He pressed a hand to the fissure in his chest.

Knock.

The world screamed and the crimson moon above broke.

Beneath a moon chewed raw by moths,
we laid you on the altar—
small throat bared, wool combed to snow,
(they said sacrifice tastes sweeter
when it doesn’t struggle).

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Your knees sank into hymnbooks,
psalms clotting the air like flies.
We taught you to pray with a butcher’s tongue

Drip. Drip. Drip.

devour the sin, the skin, the scream—
while your ribs bloomed cracks
where our fingers pressed too hard.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Innocence is a lung.
We filled yours with smoke.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

They promised a saviour would come,
all teeth and tenderness,
to kiss your eyelids shut.
Instead, the knife birthed nothing
but the wet gasp of a chrysalis
torn too soon.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

(You were always too soon).

Now your blood inks the pews
a sacrament we slurp from thimbles,
starved for the ghost of your bleating.
Little martyr, did you know
how easily a lamb’s spine
unzips to a ladder?

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Rungs of bone, marrow-slick.
We climb toward heaven
on the stench of your afterbirth.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

But listen—
the dark is chewing.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Something stirs in the wreckage
of your unlearned prayers:
a wet click of hooves on stone,
a hunger older than the hands
that shaved your fleece
to kindling.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

You return, but not as ours.
Not as lamb.

Your new teeth gleam like betrayal.
Your eyes—two pits where we’ll drown
our hymns.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Run, little demigod.
The slaughterhouse is singing.
And the gate?
The gate was never locked.