Title: Kick The Habit

Summary: The one where Sasuke gets dropped back in time and doesn't make one single, selfless, honest effort to alter the future at all. Except to ensure Itachi's happiness, of course. As always, Sasuke's big brother comes first. [Gen. Big Brother!Sasuke. AU.]

Notes: Not that it needs to be said but everyone should be aware that from the first episode of Naruto, this dumb tsundere little kid was my favourite and it's been that way ever since. Additionally, I wanted Time Travel Sasuke but didn't want to get too angsty about it. Therefore… OOC-warning! Also Sasuke's poncho is the hideous rainbow-colored thing from the latest Naruto Shippuden game and it's official, it is. COVER ART from coincidentallyicanimgay on tumblr!

Warnings: One or two instances of profanity, (mild) mentions of body mutilation, decapitation, nothing serious, really.

Kick The Habit

- X -

In the end, Naruto isn't the only shinobi dedicated to keeping his word. Perhaps he's the most trustworthy, the softest of them all, but he didn't invent the concept of dedication or loyalty. While Sasuke's claim on that last concept isn't exactly strong, he still beats out anyone still alive on the former.

You see, once Sasuke makes up his mind, it takes a hell of a lot to change it: earth-shaking secrets, unexpected betrayals, four reanimated Kage, to name a few. If Sasuke does something once, screw the scientific method – it's a pattern, right from the get-go.

Creature of habit, he could be considered. Resistant to change. Uneased by surprises. Low on agreeability.

At five, he resolves to surpass his older brother. Two years later, he resolves to kill him. Sasuke fulfills both of these promises because without them, truthfully, he's at a bit of a loss of what to do with his life. But he keeps on going on. He said he would, and so he does. There's no other option for him.

Based on that logic, the first time Sasuke takes (what he believes is) a fatal blow for Naruto should have been something of a warning for everyone. A few flags might have been raised. Sasuke values routine; if he's done it once, who's to say he won't do it again? But then, Sasuke doesn't actually die that time. Everyone else decides it isn't the thought that counts after all and moves on.

Poor decision-making skills, there.

It is absolutely the thought that counts.

Madara – dressed in white, more psychotic than previously believed possible, narrowly avoiding death by sacrificing his shadow-selves (which, okay) – is the one to deal the blow. It's meant for Naruto (because of course it is). It's one of his shadow-selves taking initiative this time and the weapon it's holding is effective, or it seems as much, and the attacker is moving fast enough that it's barely more than a blur. It's coming in from behind and Sasuke is the only one between them who can see the shades, and –

And he's always been quicker.

Habit.

Death-by-Haku was painful, though not the most painful experience of young Sasuke's life.

Death-by-Madara is … markedly different. Mostly in that it seriously fucking hurts.

The thing with being impaled in multiple places in your body is that not even being the reincarnation of a son of the Sage of Six Paths can save you if you are impaled in the heart. It's … pretty much a one-way trip at that point. A train with a single destination and no intention of stopping.

So, Sasuke takes the fatal blow.

Naruto cries. Sasuke calls him a stupid crybaby – not his best work, he knows – with his last breath. As he loses the energy to keep his eyes open, the incandescent rage on Naruto's face is almost enough to reassure him of the outcome of the war.

The idiot isn't the only shinobi to keep the promises he makes, sure, but he is the most trustworthy.

(When he was twelve, plugged full of senbon and dying, Sasuke trusted a teammate to kill a certain man in his honor. Bleeding out at seventeen, Sasuke stays true to habit and asks just about the same exact thing of the same exact teammate. More or less, anyway.

At least this time, he actually dies.)

- X -

Or not.

Sasuke, against his better judgement (another pattern of his), opened his eyes. His first thought?

'Trees.'

Lots and lots of trees. That narrowed down his location to approximately the Land of Fire. Literally no other country had as many trees as Fire did. The only one that came close was Lightning, and given that most of that country was mountainlands, it didn't count. Currently, the air was too easy to breathe so he wasn't in Kumo. Luckily enough. The Raikage still had it out for Sasuke.

His second thought was: '… Why am I alive?'

He breathed (how?) and flexed his fingers. Ten of those. He checked his chakra levels. Nearly empty, which might have been concerning if Sasuke didn't have a shit load of chakra to begin with and wasn't fresh from a war zone. Eyes: two of them, one more purple than the other. Legs weren't missing, luckily, but more importantly–

Sasuke reached for his hip and wrapped his fingers around the hilt of Kusanagi. Good. His sword was important to his fighting style. While Sasuke was more than capable of surviving without it, he preferred not to. Kenjutsu wasn't as effective without his sword.

Altogether, he seemed … pretty much okay. Bit tired. Still wired for a battle, sure, but Sasuke lived in a constant state of wanting to fight someone to the death so it wasn't particularly difficult to smother the urge for now.

However, there was a suspicious lack of dying shinobi. The world around him was offensively peaceful.

"Kai."

A bird abandoned it's perch in the trees to sing to the clouds.

Eternal Tsukiyomi didn't work on him as far as he and his Susano'o were concerned, and that problem had been dealt with by the time of his death. This couldn't be Sasuke's idea of a perfect world. There was a decided lack of his older brother, for one, and too many singing woodland animals on top of that. Not his ideal world. Not even close.

He needed to find a town. Somewhere to gather his bearings, intelligence, and maybe some new clothes. The shirt he was wearing had multiple blood-stained holes, after all. It was hardly conspicuous.

- X -

"One room."

The Inn-Keeper eyed Sasuke's attire – the outfit he was wearing when he woke up in the forest except with a stolen dirty poncho thrown over it – and made a visible effort not to judge too harshly. He smiled. "Of course, sir! That'll be 5,000 yen for the night."

Sasuke blinked. '5,000?' He didn't bother checking his pockets. There was nothing to be found.

Typically, Sasuke didn't bother keeping money on him. His years as a nukenin didn't create many shopping opportunities; if he did go out, he got away with not paying by getting someone else to do it for him.

Problem. Sasuke did not have anyone else with him to cover his fees.

His right eye spun. The Inn-Keeper promptly passed out, hitting the wooden floor with a painful 'thump'. Sasuke chose a key at random and went to his room, where he passed out on the single-bed for 12 hours.

Upon waking, he acquired new clothes. He put any salesclerk who offered help into a deep, possibly indefinite sleep. He kept the poncho. It was light, protected him from the elements, and hid his sword from initial assessment. Also, he was fond of the coloring. Sasuke decided to let himself enjoy it while he had it.

Clothes successfully stolen, Sasuke moved onto the next agenda on his list: information. Namely, where was he, why was he here, why wasn't he dead, how could it be that there was no war happening? All in all, questions that needed answers if he wanted any idea on how to move on. While Naruto's self-righteous rage might end the war, Sasuke wasn't about to trust in that. He needed to get back and help.

The dobe was going to get the entire world destroyed without Sasuke at his side.

- X -

Squadrons of dead shinobi were not difficult to come by, all told.

Sasuke kneeled at one such corpse and grunted, turning the red-clad body on its side. Did he know why a squadron of Iwa shinobi were dead inside the Land of Fire? No, and he didn't really care. What he did care about was that they'd all been beheaded and looted of any noteworthy equipment, but retained their Bingo Books and basic tools.

Dead shinobi still had their uses.

Sasuke left the bodies behind (they'd obviously been left there for other Iwa shinobi to discover) and read through a Bingo Book: a shinobi's bread and butter. Most shinobi had their own copy of the Book. The only one Sasuke knew of who didn't was Orochimaru, who considered himself too powerful to concern himself with others.

While Sasuke was arrogant, he wasn't stupid. He had owned a Bingo Book. His first Bingo Book had a lot of red pen in it, with X's and kunai and the words 'DIE! DIE! DIE!' scribbled over his older brother's page. After he killed Itachi, he needed a new book so he could do the same thing to Danzo's page while pretending that Itachi's page wasn't covered in tear drops and teenage regret.

Anyway, Bingo Book.

First page? Namikaze Minato. S-rank. Flee-on-sight. Followed by the Sannin themselves, including Orochimaru, who was listed as being affiliated with Konoha. 'Student of Hiruzen Sarutobi,' it said. Present tense. No mention of him being a complete psycho who experimented on children and was thrown out the village, which probably meant that he hadn't been.

The idea was unsettling to Sasuke. If he couldn't trust in Orochimaru to remain consistently amoral and creepy, what could he trust in?

At least all the dead Iwa shinobi started making a bit more sense. Considering where – or when – he was, if he ventured into the Earth country, he'd expect Konoha shinobi crucified at every forked road. That wasn't even accounting for all the outposts and active battlefields he could encounter at literally any time.

The fact that this was a real concern was laughable. Crucified, mutilated bodies weren't new to Sasuke. He was a student of the Snake Sannin. Grossly disrespected corpses came with the territory.

Slightly less laughable? Sasuke was, maybe, supposedly, possibly, in the past.

In the past. During the Third war. Where Naruto's idiot father was still alive and wiping out thousands of Iwa shinobi in one sweep. Where Orochimaru hadn't been caught killing orphans. Where Kakashi was probably a child–

Sasuke's thought processes ground to such a sudden, screeching halt that there was smoke.

If Kakashi was still a child …

… then so was Itachi.

Making the snap decision was not hard at all.

Screw Naruto and his war!

Sasuke had already died for it, he didn't intend on giving anymore than that. He was sent back in time for a reason, he figured, and whatever reason it was, it couldn't be a coincidence that during this period, Itachi was a child. An innocent, pacifist, genius, only child.

('Such a creature of habit,' a voice whispers in the back of his head. It might be his conscience; Sasuke ignores it, as he always does. Who cares about predictability? Sasuke's first priority has always and will always be his older brother. Whatever it takes, Sasuke is getting Itachi out of that village. Damn the rest.)

- X -

What's that phrase? 'Easier said than done'? Well, luckily, that logic didn't apply to the possessor of the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan, the Rinnegan, and the blessing of the Sage of Sixth Paths.

Sasuke's first order of business was to look for trouble.

Simple enough. He followed the fighting. There was a lot of that, and he left a fair trail of bodies behind him on his way to the frontlines (cleaning up after himself was too much effort). He arrived at the heart of the fighting within a month of his arrival.

Secondly: establish himself as an ally to Konoha.

Potentially problematic. Not complicated but it would require more effort than the first step, as Sasuke didn't wear Konoha green and it was the frontlines.

However, he also didn't wear Iwa red, or Kiri blue, or whatever it was Suna wore. So while he was caught in the crossfire, he wasn't, like, targeted or anything. At first.

He was mostly attacked indiscriminately. It didn't matter that he wasn't obviously affiliated with anyone. He wasn't obviously affiliated with allies, so he was the enemy until proven otherwise.

Sasuke let his sword handle the interrogation. If they weren't Konoha, they were cut down. He made a dramatic example of his Sharingan and fire jutsu as to remind the Konoha shinobi surrounding him that he was an Uchiha. He might be unfamiliar to them, but there would be no doubt of his lineage or that he killed in defense of Konoha shinobi, and for now – for now, that would be enough for them.

Sasuke fell into a trance. Killing was not new to him. Nor were long, exhausting battles. He stuck to kenjutsu when possible, staying away from any lightning jutsu to preserve his energy. It wouldn't do to tire himself out and make himself an easy target.

Easy targets were dead targets.

He wasn't dying again.

This war was different from the war back in his time. Sasuke hadn't been present for the meat of it – had let the Alliance throw themselves at reanimated S-rank shinobi while he muddled around behind the scenes, picking at bones – so testing himself against so many shinobi was … interesting. A learning experience. Preservation of energy and chakra was essential. Flashy jutsu were to be hoarded until absolutely necessary to victory.

(War tactics were kind of exciting, not that Sasuke would admit as much, or even use that word out loud, ever.)

They won the battle.

Sasuke wasn't saying they (the side that was losing, by the way) triumphed because of him, but he sure as hell helped. A lot. Significantly. He must have saved, like, more than a dozen lives out there. Considering Sasuke was naturally predisposed to the idea of Konoha's assured destruction, this was a big thing for him.

The throat-cutters fanned across the alternatively scorched-upheaved-swampy field to finish off survivors or cart back wounded to the tents. Sasuke flicked his blade free of blood and returned it to its sheath.

Footsteps, in his direction. Sasuke turned and met the eyes of who he was sure was Shikamaru.

Or probably just his dad.

"You're an Uchiha,"

Said like a fact. Sasuke nodded.

"You don't wear a forehead protector. You have the skills of a jōnin yet I have never heard of you before, not even as a defector."

Sasuke nodded again. All sound observations.

"Who are you?"

He kept his left eye closed and answered, "It's proper manners to introduce yourself before demanding the name of someone else."

Shikamaru's dad reacted marginally better to that than Neji did. This was accomplished by not reacting at all. He shoved his hands in his pockets, shoulders and torso tense: still prepared for action. Sasuke chanced a look at the ground and saw that their shadows were already overlapping. Shikamaru's dad had put the sun behind him.

'Smart.' Sasuke could appreciate that. However moronic every other Konoha shinobi was, at least the Nara remained the same.

"Nara Shikaku. Jōnin Commander."

"Uchiha Sasuke. Unaffiliated."

Shikaku raised an eyebrow. "Is that so? You introduce yourself as a member of a Konoha clan, you defend the lives of Konoha shinobi at the expense of your own–" Sasuke withheld a snort, because yeah right, "–you linger in the aftermath for a conversation with a Konoha shinobi of standing. That doesn't sound unaffiliated to me."

Sasuke dipped his chin slightly in acknowledgement. Or something. "And what does it sound like to you, Shikaku?"

Poncho or no poncho, Sasuke was very obviously a teenager, Shikaku his senior. Sasuke felt a curl of satisfaction in the way Shikaku's eyes narrowed at the familiar, disrespectful address.

(It was the little things.)

"It sounds like you need to come back with me ... " said Shikaku, satisfying Sasuke's cynicism by following with, "... as a prisoner until your intentions have been examined and you prove that you have no ill-intentions towards the village."

Sasuke hummed. "If I had ill-intentions towards the village, I would have wiped you out here. You were losing. I didn't have to help." Sasuke scoffed. "Do whatever makes you feel safer, Shikaku."

Shikaku narrowed his eyes harder.

Sasuke didn't smirk or anything. Nothing so obvious. His mocking cooperation made itself obvious in other ways, however.

Little victories.

- X -

The supposed Uchiha (pale face, dark eyes and hair, Sharingan, proficiency with fire jutsu, there was hardly any doubt at this stage) was handcuffed, slapped with chakra suppression seals, and guarded by three chūnin at all times. There was no way he was escaping – not under Shikaku's guidance, and certainly not with all the precautions – and while there was no way a potential member of the Uchiha clan was being harmed, any prisoner would be feeling the heat about now.

It was Shikaku's hope that the kid would start talking. Shikaku had his own theories (bastard kid, parent/s were nukenin with Uchiha genes, parents were merchants who got lucky, orphan, runaway–) but it didn't do to commit to one of them when you knew nothing about the target.

But the kid wasn't sweating.

He was unemotional for someone of his age. Not calm, no one could think that after witnessing him fight, but certainly cold. Another point towards his heritage. The Hyūga and Uchiha were unique in that most progeny from those clans had an innate ability to look you in the eye and communicate how little they cared about your continued existence in the world without saying a word. It was unsettling to see that look wielded with such proficiency by a teenager.

Whatever it was – psychopathy or bad genes – the kid wasn't bothered by his treatment. The chakra suppression seals were limited to two (one over his heart, the other over his tailbone) as anymore could prove life-threatening. Apart from a minute twitch in his eye and a considering, thoughtful flex of his fingers, the kid was unaffected. The handcuffs had to be readjusted four times as the prisoner maneuvered himself out of them. He seemed to do it just to prove that he could.

If that wasn't concerning enough, his chūnin guards were afraid of him.

(It was the staring, apparently. The lifeless, cold, unimpressed stare that gave the chūnin the 'chills'. What was happening to the force if war-hardened chūnin couldn't survive the bored attention of a teenage boy?)

The sword had been taken as well. Shikaku was holding onto it himself. The way the prisoner was looking at it caused him to believe that if the kid really wanted it back, Shikaku couldn't do much about it. Considering Shikaku was Jōnin Commander, it wasn't a comforting thought to have. Their prisoner was chained up four ways to Sunday. He was powerless. He was in their control. He was outnumbered.

So why did it feel like Shikaku was being allowed this?

There was an alarmed shout from the head of the formation. "How are you doing that? We tightened those cuffs as far as they could go, you shouldn't have been able to – do you not have any bones?!"

The prisoner clicked his tongue and dropped the cuffs on the floor. The chūnin panicked. One of them prodded the prisoner's wrists to check if he did have bones. Another turned to Shikaku beseechingly. Shikaku felt a headache come on. "Nara-sama, can't you watch him?"

'What a brat,' Shikaku dragged a hand down his face. "Watanabe, Kurosawa, by the time I get there, the prisoner better be wearing those handcuffs!" He marched for the incompetent shinobi and ignored their graceless squawking. To think on it would be to invite the behavior to stay, which was one thing it certainly wasn't doing.

By the time Shikaku got there, the prisoner was once again handcuffed, surrounded by none of his chūnin guards, and – and was that his sword?

Shikaku checked his hip.

"How did you–" The prisoner almost made a facial expression before deciding that radiating sadistic satisfaction would suffice. Shikaku sighed. "Never mind, I don't care. Just don't attack us. You can keep the sword."

The prisoner raised his eyebrow contemptuously. 'Uchiha. For sure.'

"But I'm taking your containment into my own hands," Shikaku said. He caught the prisoner in a Shadow Possession jutsu and felt childishly thrilled by the glint of annoyance in the prisoner's eyes. 'Yeah, how's it feel, brat?' "Don't try and fight me. All it will do is exhaust you."

Potential-almost-guaranteed-to-be-an-Uchiha rolled his eyes.

They marched to Konoha in perfect harmony.

- X -

The damn brat called the Sandaime-sama, "Sarutobi", and bowed only when everyone in the room cleared their throat and stared him down. It was a shallow bow, more disrespectful than the absence of one in the end. Shikaku's headache levelled up into migraine territory.

'This kid…'

Sasuke flashed his right Sharingan, cited an injury of the left eye, survived a mental evaluation from a Yamanaka (Inoichi was on a mission, which boded ill in Shikaku's opinion), and was slapped with some tag seals, and held to a promise to be evaluated by multiple shinobi to establish his skill level.

At least the new Uchiha (confirmed by Uchiha Mikoto herself) promised to participate in the war effort, so that was one good thing to come out of Uchiha Sasuke's mysterious arrival to the village.

And as far as Shikaku was concerned, it was probably the last.

- X -

Sasuke's mother was chattier than he remembered her being. She quietened after repeated unsuccessful attempts to garner a response from him, but the fact that she'd tried in the first place was honestly disturbing. It made Sasuke's skin crawl. The rest of the walk to his district – much closer to the center of the village than he remembered it being – was spent in silence. Blissful, quiet, no-noised silence.

It was music to Sasuke's ears.

He decided to ignore the ANBU following him. He wouldn't let the suspicion affect him. His plans were coming along nicely and he was one step closer to his goal of extracting Itachi from the village. There was nothing anyone – not ANBU, not ROOT, not even the Sandaime himself – could do about it.

Now, what happened afterwards wasn't something Sasuke had thought of. That was okay though, because he could always fill in the details later. For now, a simple, solid, achievable statement of intention would serve.

Get Itachi out of the village.

See? Easy.

- X -

Nope.

Nope, nuh-uh, no.

Not easy, not easy.

An issue presented itself immediately upon Sasuke's entrance to the Main House. The problem was the 'reality of the situation'. It turned out that knowing that Itachi was a small, gullible child and meeting a four-year-old version of his older brother were two completely different things.

He had not been prepared for this.

Sasuke's older brother still sucked his thumb, apparently. It was nauseatingly endearing. Mikoto cleared her throat at Itachi. He stopped, face placid as if he'd never been caught nibbling on his finger, bowing at a perfect 90° angle. "It's nice to meet you, Sasuke-san,"

If Sasuke spoke, it would undoubtedly be an indignified choking noise, so he decided not to. Itachi's eyes were so huge. Those were the biggest eyes Sasuke had ever seen on a child before. It was adorable. Sasuke bowed his head in response and defeat.

Mikoto said, "Sasuke-san will be staying with us until your father can organize a house inside the compound for him, Itachi-kun. Is that okay with you?" Itachi didn't seem to understand why his opinion mattered. He was pouting. Pouting.

Sasuke frowned, now significantly troubled. This … This was the cutest thing he had ever seen.

"It's okay, Mama. Um… Sasuke-san, can I ask – nnng?" The sudden pause in talking was because Sasuke's fingers, detached from the possibly underdeveloped part of his brain that reasoned away bad ideas, had gone forward to poke Itachi's forehead. "S-Sasuke-san?"

'That pout...' Sasuke closed his eyes. It was the only way to survive this. "Yes?"

"... Uh I wanted to ask... I've never met you before," said Itachi, audibly trying to move past the experience of a weird stranger poking his forehead without warning or explanation, "Is there a reason?"

Sasuke opened his mouth. He'd fabricated a story in order to sneak past the Yamanaka clan jutsu. The only solution he could think of to distract the Mind-reader from his actual thoughts was to push something else forward: some sort of lie, concept, or idea that Sasuke both believed whole-heartedly and had been told enough times that his brain didn't struggle to substitute it with the truth.

Mikoto grabbed his arm in a vicious grip, psychically aware of what he was thinking. "Sasuke-san is an illegitimate child," She said tightly.

The grip was beginning to hurt. Itachi looked confused. "Illegitimate child?"

"A bastard," Sasuke answered. Mikoto suddenly sprouted claws. Holy shit, Mother. "I'm a bastard. Child. A bastard child."

"A bastar–"

"It's a bad word," Mikoto said quickly, "You shouldn't repeat it, Itachi-kun. But… yes, it's what Sasuke-san is," Sasuke thought on his genin days. It sure was. "That's why he's going to be living with us for now." That, and there was no better way to control an unaffiliated stranger in possession of the Sharingan than by surrounding him with even more Sharingan, in hopes that the Uchiha would know what to do about a rogue Sharingan-user than literally anyone else in the world.

Showed what the Sandaime knew. The only way to control his clan, Sasuke knew, was the slaughter them all in one night and wash your hands of them. Don't even leave one alive; a complete culling and nothing less would do it. The Uchiha were much more likeable without any members around to remind everyone why they sucked. Sasuke would know. It might have been part of the reason why he defected from the village.

"Not forever?"

"No." Said Sasuke. It was the truth. He wasn't staying forever. Neither was Itachi. Not that Itachi knew that right now, but, whatever.

"Can't you live with your parents?"

"I could," said Sasuke, technically not lying.

"That's not an option," corrected Mikoto, unaware that she was lying to her cute four-year-old son, "Sasuke-san's parents aren't Konoha citizens."

… Maybe not towards the end, no.

Itachi scrunched his eyebrows together. "Oh, okay then. Welcome home, Sasuke-san. Or is it more appropriate if I call you Sasuke-nii since we live together now?"

And then, as if that verbal blow wasn't fatal enough, Itachi smiled at him. Sasuke closed his eyes to protect himself from the dazzling sweetness of it.

Damn it.

'This changes nothing,' Sasuke reminded himself, 'I'm still taking him away from this place. I'll just have to be more careful and make sure I don't traumatize him on the way to freedom.'

"... Sure."

Mikoto made a pleased noise. Itachi smiled wider and chirped, "Welcome home, Sasuke-nii! Mother, can we have some mochi now?" Sasuke was too busy trying not to die at the fact that Itachi really did just chirp to cringe at the thought of mochi. Too sweet. "Sasuke-nii, do you want some?"

Sasuke looked at him. This was a mistake. Itachi's ginormous eyes were sparkling. Suddenly, the idea of Sasuke being trapped in the Eternal Tsukiyomi wasn't so absurd. He sighed in resignation and murmured a bitter, "I guess,"

Was this how Itachi felt looking after him? Was it really that hard to resist? Sasuke was filled with a newer, deeper sympathy towards his big brother.

Mikoto clapped her hands, "Alright! Then, Sasuke-kun," 'Don't call me that.' "Itachi-kun, wash your hands! I'll prepare everything and then I will show you to your room," She patted his shoulder kindly. "Do you have any luggage we need to pick up? Maybe at the Hokage's office?"

Everything Sasuke owned was underneath his poncho, which incidentally, wasn't even his. He'd stolen it from some poor civilian's clothesline. This might have been evident. Mikoto seemed to have no trouble deducing as much. "We'll have to go shopping later, it's no problem."

And yet, Sasuke was having trouble thinking of anything worse.

… He'd deal with it later.

After washing his hands, Sasuke sat at the table while his mother served mochi.

Creature of habit. Lover of routine. Reliant on patterns. Sasuke was a difficult person to persuade. He was naturally resistant to change in the same way that others reveled in it. Unpredictability had the potential to seriously fuck Sasuke up, so he generally avoided it and was all the more stable for it. That was the sticking point in his personality. It was an anchor.

Was an anchor.

Sasuke chewed on the sickeningly sweet mochi.

Itachi and Mikoto smiled at him.

Sasuke swallowed the sickeningly sweet mochi.

"Do you like it?" Itachi asked with those big eyes of his. Sasuke wanted to gag; unable to do that, he merely nodded, forcing his chopsticks to pick up another one. "I like sweets as well, Sasuke-nii! We can get dango together, can't we?"

Sasuke loathed dango. He never willingly ate dango. He normally wouldn't eat dango on pain of death. It was a disgusting ball of sugar that barely constituted as edible food.

"... Sure."

Damn it.