Iron maiden - With great power, a terrible price.

He dreamt of beetles.  A swarm that coated everything.  They poured through the gate of the compound.  Flowed up the walls and collapsed them like paper.  His house, his family, his pride and joy.  The dark tide took him last, but before it reached his shoulders, the dream changed.

Pain converged on his main arm.  Every joint rattled, every fiber felt like it was being crushed.  His bones floated in a river of senseless chaos that was his own flesh and blood.  The beetles bit down, turning into leeches.  He felt his chakra bending and twisting about them.

At last, he couldn’t take it anymore.  He forced his eyes open at the sound of screams.  A steel case wrapping his left arm.  He could practically see the places where it lanced through his flesh in the shapes mounted to it.  All that metal weighed on his conscience, but it gave with enough effort.

The shouts drew him to wakefulness.  Sleep was like a rubber sleeve.  It clung and warped to keep any form of clarity at bay, yet he waded through it.  His chakra was sluggish.  Several fire breathing techniques a day had that affect on people, and to top it off his arm felt like murder.

Every flinch was like dashing it against a rock.  Every breath refreshing the ache.  Every shift of his weight felt like wolves were tearing into it.  It felt like ages before he found a rhythm he could stand.  He didn’t wait to find it.

The room was back-lit with the glow of fire.  Orders echoed from afar.  And steel clashed.  His clan was fighting something, and dream or otherwise, he wouldn’t leave it to chance.  He had to *know*.

Someone muttered something to him, but by the time he made room to listen, they were gone, joining those gathered at the gates.

Itachi would be there.  There was no way he’d miss something like this.

The air was uncomfortably warm.  The light of the flames was painful to stand in, but he forced himself to adjust.  It dulled the pain in his arm somewhat.  There, in a green toga and striped vest, was the cause of the disturbance.

But that didn’t make any sense.  The ribbons around his chest weren’t singed by the heat.  There wasn’t a scratch on him despite the forty plus weapons scattered around.

An Uchiha couldn’t miss that badly.

The figure raised an arm, and it was as if he’d slapped a giant.  The entire sea of flames shifted to one side.  From flower to bud, the flames regressed, casting the main road in temporary darkness.

Sasuke blinked, suddenly mistaking one of the Uchiha behind for the man in question.  The latter just appeared elsewhere.  Six clan members rounded with a shout, putting blades where his vitals should have been, but all they killed was an afterimage.

They attacked an illusion.

Sasuke rubbed his brow to loosen the sleep that muddled his thoughts.  He was seeing things, and had other concerns to see too.  Itachi was somewhere.

It wasn’t hard to figure out that those stalking the intruder were just a front.  The shinobi of the family were hidden in the eaves, watching and studying.  Orders were passed back and forth, and tactics were passed along to the front.  Every now and then, a fireball launched from the shadows and belted the man.

Sasuke wasn’t worried.

Itachi wouldn’t be found.  He wouldn’t want to be.  Not by the enemy, not by their father.  He was strong enough to take the man down on his own, so if he was anywhere he’d be exactly where no one could find him.

Which is how Sasuke found him.  By avoiding anything that he could sense or imagine, and letting the others do the sorting for him.  It wasn't something he did often.  Itachi was the strongest in the village.  He lived and breathed the shadows.  It was a drain on his reserves to track him down, but Sasuke had done it before.

He’d never had the sharingan turned on him though.  Sasuke choked in dismay.  A memory at the back of his mind fogged over and lurched away.  He’d normally bide his time as that chakra ran it’s course, but this time it hurt.

A splitting headache that lashed at his nerves, sending pins and needles through his chest and shoulders, and dropping lead into his gut.  It was enough to send him too his knees, but his arm.  His arm was so much worse.

The wolves tore it apart.  Cloned seven copies, wired them to his shoulder and then wrenched them open again.  An iron rod could have been used to pit roast the limb and he wouldn’t have known different.

Then he took a breath.  It was like Itachi’s words were pulling teeth.

He didn’t want them anymore.  As much as he loved his brother, Sasuke wasn’t prepared to die, and Itachi couldn’t revive the dead.

Chakra washed through his head and shoulders.  The bolt in his arm was stripped of its poison, allowing his body to recognize the bone for what it was.

“What is-” Sasuke swayed drunkenly, the two shadows before him fraying to pieces, as he passed out on his feet.