DevilinDetail
Salty
Apologies in advance for the incoherence ahead; I'll edit this tomorrow, maybe, if I remember.
Before I start on the topic, I'd like to preface this by stating that Sasuke is probably my favorite Naruto character. I also believe that there are a lot of ways to develop a character from their canon origins. Using a "mental break" to describe the direction you took his character is a cheap cop out for anyone to use - stating that a character is behaving this way rather than how they normally do due to mental trauma is always a cheap way to say "I want the character to act like someone else."
That's fine normally, except Sasuke is one of the only characters that actually has suffered a mental break before, and more or less exactly as you've described. Sasuke has - word for word - "had his plans shattered and had nothing to strive for" before.
In the past, when Sasuke has suffered major overhauls to his mindset and a complete loss of his immediate goals, he's exhibited similar behaviors each time. Generally speaking, he replaces his current goal with something else, and often has a phase where he is vulnerable to manipulation. As an individual, Sasuke is generally extremely focused and determined, although this changes depending on the exact phase of his development. One could argue that there are two major mental breaks Sasuke suffers across the series.
The first would be when he kills Itachi and he's picked up by Tobi. He learns that Itachi isn't behind the murders, suffers a period of immense self-doubt and anger, and immediately replaces it with a new goal and target. Next is when he is defeated by Naruto at the end of the series, and has his self-appointed goal taken from him - he immediately replaces it with an excuse of a nebulous Kaguya's threat after subordinating himself to Naruto, leaving his child to go wander off into nowhere after a period of doubt.
Of course, this is only my interpretation of his characterization, but there are a lot of ways to characterize how he handles mental breaks. I'd say he deals with them by immediately setting up another difficult goal or target in his mind. Some could argue he attempts escapism, immediately blaming something else for his problems or using it as a convenient focus to not think about other things. At any rate, Sasuke is literally the guy who left his unborn child to wander between dimensions for years at a time because the nebulous possibility of an unknown threat to Konoha. To think that immediately after falling in Bet with his Rinnegan intact, he wouldn't try to get back home is kind of ridiculous - failing that, develop some other great goal.
But when I was criticizing Sasuke's characterization, I actually wasn't talking about bigger picture stuff, since all of this is up to interpretation, although in my opinion I find myself having a hard time justifying how Sasuke's decisionmaking worked there. My issue was with the tone and prose around Sasuke's internal monologue.
He is not a "broody emo duck butt," no, but Sasuke is generally portrayed as stoic, confident, socially awkward, and prideful (though this fluctuates depending on the specific time, I think this more or less captures his mindset at the Kaguya fight. Is he the type to beg "Please work!" before casting a risky technique? I could buy grim acknowledgement of the odds, or perhaps even hesitation at the potential difficulty that he quickly squashes, but hoping something would work? It's little things like these that make or break the character. "Asking curiously" for the name of someone he's supposed to be just using for food and shelter?
In a first person fiction, the characterization is felt through not only the character's actions, but the prose, how things are described, the entirety of the piece. That's why most (good) readers look at first-person fanfiction and go ugh, because it's so easy for them to feel a wrongness when reading about a character to feel about. There's a reason why so few first person fanfiction are 'well-written.'
Then there are the weirder things. Sasuke learning how to act and pretend is already a little odd - yes, Orochimaru was an infiltration specialist, but Sasuke was also a power-desperate at the time, and I doubt he would be interested in infiltration that requires acting. He's never displayed acting abilities before, and even if he was learned - I doubt he'd have the patience to do so, to be frank. Not to mention that it falls under a lot of assumptions. You seem to forget that Sasuke was raised in a place where child soldiers and bleak outlooks were common. Subjecting themselves to the mercy of an unknown government without research? Assuming he'd get food and water at his age when other villages have precedent of pressing orphans to military service? The entire series of events is a little questionable.
At any rate, I didn't really like the piece. This one's much better, though. Less grammatical issues than your previous work, too.
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