The Avenger - Prologue


The sand was soft beneath my fingers. It was raining, a literal torrent of mindless water that Konoha hadn't seen for years. I laughed weakly. It was a fitting scene, for the valley of the founders. Fitting, I knew, for my final farewell from everything that mattered to me, anything that would ever matter to me.

He was unconscious beneath me, my brother and friend, rival and peer. His brightly colored clothes had torn from the titanic battle that altered the landscape. How did he look so peaceful as I hovered over him? Did he not know I could end his life with a single stroke? That all I had to do was pierce his heart with arm? My body tensed with killing rage, and I was angry at him. I was angry that he wasn't strong enough to stop me. I was angry that he was he was strong enough to make me regret, to make me hesitate for even a split second. And I was angry that he looked so much like the damn Naruto I had come to cherish that I didn't lay down the killing blow.

No, I decided in that moment. I would not become remain trapped under him any more. Itachi, the one who had murdered my parents and my clan and had claimed the innocence and trust of my childhood, would know longer control my actions. Though I would not gain the Mangekyou sharingan, the kaleidescope eye that set him on a whole different level then him and I, I would still gain power my own way.

I leaned down, pressing my forehead against his. He was so warm, I thought. Even in the cold when my skin seemed to glaze over with ice, his warm body still permeated that intense heat that had always drawn mine attention.

My voice broke first. "Naruto!" I cried out, even though I knew he was deaf to my words. "You said you would stop me!" I screamed those words over and over again until my voice scratched over with pain like a dying disk. "You...idiot." I was choking back the tears, pounding my fists against his chest in a useless gesture. I must have looked pathetic.

"You idiot...it's all over now. Everything is over..."

I closed my eyes for a few minutes and let the pain wash away from me with the rain. It was supposed to end like this, I knew. In the back of my mind, this scene had become inevitable, a destiny that neither I nor Naruto nor Sakura nor anyone else had the power to change. As I watched him grow in power and skill, and even manage to challenge me on equal footing, I had harbored a secret hope that maybe he would stop me. Maybe he could save me from my ambition. How wrong I was to dream.

Lifting myself up, I said my final words to him and turned my back away. I walked across the lake to whatever dark path my destiny had set me on.

I'm sorry Naruto, sorry that things had turned out like this. But you couldn't change who I was. I won't say that you, or Sakura, or Kakashi never meant anything to me, because you did. I secretly cherished you all like my new family. But some memories are stronger than others. And though we've gone through so much together, I still am whom I am. That's right, I'll chase my one ambition to the ends of the planet, even if I have to sell my soul to a snake like Orochimaru.

I am still the avenger.