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cradle your head in your hands, and breathe
They need to be burned, Sasuke thought, his mind wandering. Their eyes need to be burned.
He'd seen it happen once, the extraction. The Uchiha, as a major clan baring one of the Shinobi world's deadliest kekkei genkai, learned at an early age what it meant to wield such eyes. What enemies would do to you if they captured you. What they would force you to give if you were alive and what they would simply take if you were not. Elder Chitose gathered up the younger academy students, those who were joining the academy within the next few months, and brought them to one of the many temples located in the Uchiha district.
There was a hint of ceremony to it, hinoki cypress burning so the already barely lit temple was both dark and smoky. The scent of lemon had hung heavy in the air. Sasuke hadn't recognized the Uchiha laid out on the slab, their body still covered in the clothes they had died in. Their throat had been slit open; half-stitched up before whoever had been helping them stopped at the realization that they weren't going to make it.
It was the most gruesome sight Sasuke had seen up to that point. He remembered being frightened, his heart beating fast in fear as Elder Chitose had them gather around the dead body. It was morbid, Sasuke knew, but it was tradition, and what were the Uchiha if they weren't stuck in the past?
The Elder had waved smoldering wood around their fallen comrade, her wheezing voice echoing in the chamber as she read the death rites. Then, with a flick of her wrist that was clearly practiced over many years, Elder Chitose pulled out a scalpel. It was slim and streamlined, but old in a way that even from a long distance you could see its age. The Elder said nothing as she let the wood rest in an incense holder and then deftly stuck two of her fingers in between the closed eyelids, scooping down and popping out a hazy white eyeball.
The girl next to Sasuke gasped allowed, a gagging sound following from somewhere behind him. Sasuke had been unable to look away when Elder Chitose had lifted her scalpel and cleanly cut the eye loose. Their other eye took just as little time to remove, smoke swirling around Elder Chitose as she held both eyes up for the horrified students to see.
"This is what they want from your clan," she'd whispered out, eyes steely. "Alive or dead, it does not matter. Through forced breeding or extraction after death, they would have our power and they would take it for themselves. Unworthy swine, greedy monkeys, all of them," Elder Chitose had snarled, frightening Sasuke enough that he had to stop himself from taking a step back.
"You must burn the eyes first," she'd continued her harsh lecture, "and then the body. Eyes can be implanted and used if one has enough chakra. A dead Uchiha is not one that can breed, so the body devoid of eyes is less important. Chanting allows us to navigate our way home knowing we are not alone, but it is rarely used in battlefield rites. Uchiha are born from fire, and we must make sure we are sent back to it upon death." She had hidden her scalpel once more and grabbed the burning cypress, turning and facing a large goblet full of flames that had been burning behind her. She'd raised the hand holding the eyes, her voice almost melodic as she further recited rites that Sasuke couldn't even being to understand. Then, when a single spark escaped the goblet, she tossed the eyes into the flames.
They had turned black instantly. Sasuke had let out a frightened scream, his terror echoed by the other children around them. They had all huddled together as far away from the flaming goblet as they could get, none of them able to look away from the sputtering black flames. Elder Chitose had ignored them until the flames flashed purple and then returned to their glowing orange color. She had turned to them, face grim, and asked them a single question before ushering them out of the chamber and temple: "Can you do what is necessary for your clan?"
Now, as Sasuke sat in the hospital, shaking under a security blanket, he was reminded of Elder Chitose and her grim lesson. His entire clan was dead. There wasn't anybody left to perform death rites or to burn the Uchiha back to where they had originated from.
Only Sasuke.
Sasuke wanted to stop the tears that continued to stain his cheeks, but even as he stood shakily, the tears continued to fall.
"Sasuke-kun-," the nurse in his room started, her hands reaching out to stop him.
"Don't touch me!" Sasuke shuttered, a snarl forming on his face. "I need to go back."
"Sasuke-kun, that isn't a good idea," the nurse tried to dissuade him, her voice pitched low to try and soothe him. "The Hokage is organizing a team to help, um, clean."
"No," Sasuke insisted, sliding past the surprised nurse, "No, I won't allow it!"
"Sasuke-kun!" the nurse shouted after him as he took off. His head throbbed in pain as he forced his shaky legs to move, his heart beating in overtime as his lungs struggled to allow him to run while trying not to hyperventilate.
His legs burned as he rushed towards the other side of the village, his tears blurring his vision as the early morning dawn light slowly bled up and over the tall trees that surrounded the village. He had to get back to the compound, back to his family's corpses, and make sure they got sent to the right place.
It wasn't long before Sasuke heard shinobi behind him, the slight thuds echoing in the early morning silence as they followed him without a word. Over a small hill, just at the entrance to his clan's district, stood the Hokage, his red and white cloak like a beacon to Sasuke's sight.
"Sasuke-kun," the older man sighed, his arms held behind his back. "You should still be in bed."
"H-Hokage-sama," Sasuke hiccupped, performing a poor imitation of the bow his father had tried to teach him. "Please don't take anyone."
"You don't have to worry about anything, Sasuke-kun," the Sandaime said, a worried frown on his face. "Please, let someone escort you back to the hospital to rest."
"They need death rites!" Sasuke argued, his small hands clenching into fists. "Every Uchiha that is able has to go through a ritual so they can be returned home."
"Home?" the Sandaime asked.
Sasuke bit his lower lip, meeting the Hokage's gaze for a second before looking away. "Please, Hokage-sama. It's tradition."
The Hokage let out a heavy sigh, his lips pursed as he furrowed his brow in indecision. Sasuke felt panic rise within him, worrying that he had rushed over for nothing and that it was too late, that his clan would forever be ghosts among the living, wandering and lost, unable to return to fire's warm embrace.
"I feel as if I'm going to regret this," he sighed before raising a hand and using a single seal. Soon enough, several shinobi appeared behind him, most of them eking their way out of the cracked compound gates. "As an apology for not being able to stop this tragedy from occurring, I will allow you to follow your clan's rites without interruption. But, Sasuke," the Hokage stressed, making sure to meet Sasuke's eyes, "please know that you are not alone. Anyone in the village would be more than willing to help if you only ask."
Sasuke gave a second bow, staying hunching over for several long seconds before he rose once more. "Thank you, Hokage-sama," Sasuke replied as formally as he could manage, hoping his avoidance of the offer for help wouldn't be pointed out. The Sandaime simply nodded gravely and stepped past him, the shinobi at the gates following him. Several gave him pitying looks or hesitant smiles, but Sasuke kept his face blank, immensely glad he had finally gotten his crying under control.
He stayed facing the gates, their height suddenly ominous as the bronze sunlight of dawn made his own shadow long and thin in front of him. He hesitated, his limbs shaking and his mouth trembling, before he took one and then two steps forward, pushing the gate open just enough for him to slip by before closing and latching it shut behind him. He took in a deep breath and immediately regretted it, choking and gagging as the faint, odd smell from outside turned into a strong wave of rust.
Sasuke wasn't stupid; he knew exactly what the smell was. Desperately trying to keep himself from throwing up, he turned away from the gate and finally allowed himself to look. Hundreds of bodies laid out in the once peaceful streets, drug from their homes and cataloged by the shinobi who had been here before him. Dozens were already in white cloths, but most had yet to be wrapped up and hidden from view. He stared out at the bodies in front of him, overwhelmed at the task he had assigned himself.
How could he even begin to give them peace? There were hundreds of Uchiha that lived in their district, hundreds of lives stolen by It—by his brother. How was Sasuke, an academy student, supposed to give them the death rites he had only seen once?
"Uchiha are born from fire," Sasuke whispered to himself, frightened eyes slowly filling with determination, "and we must make sure we are sent back to it upon death." He gave himself a nod, trying to convince himself he was far more confident than he actually felt, and he made himself approach the body closest to the gate.
It was Elder Chitose.
A hitching cry left Sasuke's throat before he slammed his hand over his mouth, his eyes burning at the sight of the old woman. Just like the body from her demonstration, her throat was cut open, her once traditional garb now covered in rusty brown blood. On the ground next to her was a slightly burnt piece of hinoki cypress. Sasuke whined at the sight; his quivering lips locked tightly together. With a deep breath, he bent down and picked the blackened cypress up. His attempt at flames was shaky at best, the poorly performed jutsu one his father would have heavily criticized him for, but it succeeded in lighting the cypress enough to let a small stream of smoke release from the top.
Not wanting to let himself think for too long, Sasuke searched for the scalpel Elder Chitose had used when showing them the rites. It wasn't laying on the ground and it suddenly occurred to Sasuke that he would either have to search her stiff body or try to perform the ritual without it. Sick at the idea of trying to pull hundreds of eyes from their sockets without any help, Sasuke braced himself before slowly searching for the hidden scalpel. He didn't find it in any of the obvious pockets, but whatever luck he had left reared its head when he found it strapped to her right wrist. He struggled briefly with getting it out of the tight strap, but it did eventually fall into his grasp.
He immediately took several steps away from her body, closing his eyes as he tightly clutched the scalpel. It took him several seconds before he glanced down at his hand. He hadn't noticed in the dark chamber, but there were inscriptions on the black metal, characters etched into the handle.
"Amaterasu," he read out loud, gently turning it around, "release us from this Earth and return us to the Hearth from whence we came." Swallowing around the sudden thickness in his throat, he clenched his jaw and once more approached Elder Chitose. Sasuke noted several things as he kneeled, his brain trying its best to ignore what he was about to do. As he gently sat his smoky cypress down, he noticed that the Elder before him had died with a frown on her face. He lifted the scalpel and wondered how she could have such white hair when surely, she had once had the signature Uchiha black. A scooping motion was started and his thoughts refused to acknowledge the cold squish and instead noted the wrinkles that were now permanently etched upon her forehead. How old were you? Sasuke wondered as he tugged sharply, his motions stopped abruptly. How old were you when Itachi decided you no longer deserved to live?
He tightened his grip and cut.
They felt like grapes. Peeled grapes, slightly dried from being out too long.
Sasuke turned and vomited, heaving violently onto the ground. He had enough mind to keep the eyes held loosely enough in his hand to not crush them, but that was as far as his mind would go before another wave of vomit made its way up and out of his burning throat.
He stayed hunched over, the smell keeping him on the verge of being sick once more, before he wrangled himself under control, standing straight once more and turning to the Elder. "Burn the eyes," he muttered weakly to himself, "focus on the eyes before you focus on the body."
Looking around, Sasuke frowned in frustration. The Uchiha temples were on the other side of the district. Sasuke didn't particularly want to carry around several sets of eyeballs. He was almost positive the ritual was meant for a single person's eyes anyway. Sending more than one set of eyes off to the Hearth at one time wasn't done.
Grimacing, Sasuke opened his palm and met the gaze of the disembodied eyeballs in his hand. He stayed there, his brain quieting as he struggled to make his decision. He didn't think he had enough to burn something as big as a body. He knew he had hundreds of pairs of eyes to burn, hundreds of clan members to send home, far too many to burn with the chakra level and control he currently had.
Decision made, Sasuke set the eyes gently on the ground away from Elder Chitose's body, taking a single step back. He picked up the cypress, the smoke now almost extinguished, and warily waved it around the eyes. Stuffing the scalpel into his pocket, Sasuke numbly went through the necessary signs before kneeling and lighting the eyes on fire.
Much to his surprise, the flame turned black upon contact, his heart skipping a beat at the sight. Sasuke obviously believed in what he was doing, knew that this was necessary to make sure the ghost of his clan didn't linger, but he never expected to see the black flames, proof that what he was doing was working.
He realized he was crying moments later, the small black flames quickly eating away at the soft eyes encased within. He worried slightly that the fire might spread, but it stayed small and contained, burning out into a small purple and then orange flame before snuffing itself out for good. He stared at the dark ashes on the ground, a shaky breath escaping him before he straightened.
Sasuke turned and walked to the next corpse. Extraction, smoke, fire. Extraction, smoke, fire.
Extraction, smoke, fire.
Lemon and rust permeated the air.
(It takes him several days and countless hours. Corpse after corpse. Smoke, citrusy and thick. He doesn't notice how tired he truly is, how his chakra is being used for more than just starting a fire. He sees the extraction for years afterward, crystal clear.
He never notices his tears turning red.)