Chapter 10

                                    

                                          
Sasuke Uchiha was always that one person who everyone wanted to be friends with.
Even if he didn't like it.
At the academy, he had quickly set himself apart from most of his classmates by acing his exams and eventually physical training. All the boys in his class wanted to be him, all the girls in the class wanted to be with him, the teachers praised him and said that he was a genius.
But there was always that underlying current that Itachi was better than him.
It had all started with his father, Fugaku Uchiha.
When Sasuke was young, when times were simpler and when he didn't have to deal with the world, his father was fairly distant. Oh, if what his mom said was true, then Fugaku cared about him a lot.
But no matter the veracity of that statement, father had a terrible way of showing it.
He was distant, cold, and rarely gave praise.
In response, Sayuri had distanced herself from the clan, rarely participating in clan activities and preferring to hang out with other, non-clan girls in Konoha. Which Sasuke was completely fine with.
Sasuke, however, he wanted to be like Itachi. He wanted praise from his father, wanted to escape the towering shadow that Itachi's achievements cast on his life.
He had even learned archery to try to impress him!
So he pestered, and pestered Fugaku until he finally caved and taught Sasuke the Fireball Jutsu. Sasuke, after a week of hard work and trying his absolute utmost, cast the jutsu in front of his father.
And for the first time Sasuke received his father's acknowledgement, with Fugaku saying, "That's my boy," accompanied with a hair ruffle. 
But then Konoha closed the Uchiha clan off and secluded them in their own section of Konoha. All the way on the outskirts. 
Naruto was cut off from him outside of class time. A supporting pillar in his life was forcibly removed outside of the very limited school hours.
And then Fugaku began to grow even more distant. He and Itachi talked behind closed doors, a guard standing outside the door to dissuade snoopers. Sasuke was very rarely allowed to speak with his father, who was always attending a meeting or doing some kind of planning. His sleep became erratic, he closed himself off, and he became fairly irate.
Despite this, he was still eager to make his father notice him, and he tried to pester Itachi for training.
Not like it ever worked though. Itachi always said "Next time Sasuke. Next time," and then tap him on the forehead. The excuse was always that he was going on a mission.
At the tender age of nine, almost every single person that Sasuke knew was killed. By Itachi, no less. He, Naruto, and Sayuri had confronted Itachi, but he had put him and Sayuri in that cursed genjutsu. Tsukuyomi, he had called it. For an hour, he had been forced to watch the slaughter of his clan in graphic detail. He had seen every kill.
Every stab, every illusion. Children, women, and the elderly. Those who couldn't fight back against the Bloody Eyed Devil of the ANBU corps.
Understandably, he and Sayuri tried to get the hell out of dodge as soon as they were free from the illusion. And Naruto, bless that self-sacrificing paragon, had stayed behind to stall Itachi.
The rest of that night was a blur, but he remembered some key points. One, if he acquired the Mangekyo sharingan, he could have a power to match Itachi's. Two, he had awakened his sharingan. 
And since that point, with some guidance from Naruto, he and Sayuri threw themselves into their training as hard as they physically could.
Those shallow girls, those whose sisters had chased after Itachi and been recommended to in pursuit of 'honour' and the 'clan name' had thrown themselves at his feet and begged him to go out with them.