Title: Gravity
Disclaimer: don't own, not claiming to, not making money off this! so don't sue!
Pairings: none, really
Genre: Drabble
Rating: G
Warnings: ah, possible OOC, lots of sorta-symbolism
Notes: written for the "Angels and Demons" challenged at Sasunaru100 on livejournal, and received third place in the drabble section. the angel and demon theme is written in as more of a symbolic thing than a literal thing, which I did on purpose because everyone else who submitted did it literally, with either Naruto or Sasuke Falling, and I thought it would be interesting to try something different. the repetition, btw, is deliberate.
Summary: It had occurred to Neji, once, to wonder how many times a person could fall before they would no longer be forgiven.
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A common misconception about Team Gai was that Gai and Lee were the most poetic of the group. But though he hated to admit it, Neji knew he was.
He, who had grown up believing one's fate in life had been decided at birth. He, who saw people in terms of living in the light, or the dark.
He, who classified people as either angels or demons.
In Neji's eyes, he lived in a world full of demons.
And yet, the one person those around him saw as a demon was one of the few angels he had ever had the chance to meet.
Uzumaki Naruto.
Naruto, who was a beacon of white, white light in the dark world of the ninja. Naruto, who loved and fought to protect a village which had pretended he didn't exist. Naruto, who saw the best in people despite whatever flaws were displayed for the world to see. Naruto, who had saved Neji himself from the darkness so many ninja sank into, as though pulled by gravity.
One such ninja was, without a doubt, Uchiha Sasuke. In a world of demons, Sasuke was an angel whose fall was unacknowledged by most. The villagers had always held him in high regard, falling short of deifying him by mere inches. The darkness slowly creeping across him as the years passed was totally, blissfully, deliberately ignored.
At one point the only thing redeeming Uchiha Sasuke in Neji's eyes was Naruto's faith in him.
But even such faith could do nothing, and Sasuke was pulled inevitably downwards, farther and farther, until Neji could no longer forgive him for the pain he caused Naruto.
And yet, Naruto did.
But then again, that was why Naruto was the angel, and not Neji, or Sasuke.