Hi guys. Here is another (angsty this time) fic. I hope you'll enjoy it :)
Title: Mercy
Rating: T
Genre: Angst, Futurefic, Oneshot
Summary: The world has ended, and Sasuke is still standing.
A thousand thanks to my beta!
Warnings! Angst, character death (several of them).
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto - and hope the series won't come to this...
Mercy
The scream was still ringing in his ears, a faint uninterrupted echo underlining the sudden, eerie calm all around him.
He was standing on the remnants of what had once been a mountain, looking down at an ocean of ruins and cracks and rubbles and abysses. For miles and miles and miles, there was absolutely nothing that was still alive it seemed, nothing that could whisper or mutter or sing or simply speak, nothing left. Nothing except him.
Juubi hadn't touched him.
The world had ended, and still Juubi hadn't touched him, the last law of the universe had absurdly held, the Ten-Tails had bowed in front of the wielder of the Sharingan. He hadn't come closer, hadn't tried to seize this power, to take it for himself only to be torn to pieces like Madara had, and Juubi hadn't touched him.
But the scream was still here.
Unwavering and unrestrained and unbearable, the scream was still here. But that was all right: as long as he heard it, it meant he could walk in the direction it had come from, it meant he could find him.
Because since he had heard the scream - painful and inhuman and irrepressible, ripped from his body, tearing his throat to shreds, breaking every one of his bones and oh Gods - he found himself unable to think of anything else than go to him.
So he walked.
Juubi hadn't touched him, and the scream was still here.
The first person he came across and recognised...
He was lying on the ground, his legs and middle crushed by rocks like his teammate's had been long ago. And just like his mask that had been torn and now hung limply on the side of the face it was meant to hide, his hitai-ate wasn't covering his left eye anymore, ripped away and lost in the middle of a fight no one could have won. Both irises, black and red, were entirely still, raised towards the sky they couldn't see.
His teammate, his best friend had died to give him this eye, and still the grey-haired ninja had remained incomplete, powerless against the demons of the earth, the Ten-Tails as well as his own.
He had never been an Uchiha.
His face never betraying any emotion, the standing man delicately caught the corner of the torn mask and unfolded it back over his former teacher's mouth and nose. Then he pressed a hand to the pale forehead before trailing it down and closing the unseeing eyes.
He closed his own for a second, as if in prayer, then righted himself and stepped back.
He started walking again.
There would be time to bury the dead, later. He would take the time.
But for now, the scream was still here.
The second person...
The pink-haired kunoichi was kneeling on the ground, head hanging low, mumbling to herself, hissing through her teeth and the blood dripping down her face, her arms pressed tightly around her middle.
When he approached, she took a deep, trembling breath and stood up once more. But then she stumbled, her legs shaky and weak, her body unable to sustain itself any longer.
He was at her side before she could fall down. She struggled, tried to get free, her eyes demented and riveted to the horizon, never looking up at him, never noticing his presence.
"I have to find him," she was repeating, choking, sobbing, a mantra addressed to herself that she was unable to hear. "I have to find him, I can do something, I'm sure I can do something, anything, I have to find him..."
"Calm down," he softly but firmly said.
And surprisingly she did, looking up at him with too green eyes that were too young, too lost, too trusting, younger than they had been when Team Seven had been formed and destroyed. He swallowed and added: "I'll bring you to him."
She smiled at him like the first breath of spring at the end of winter, like the murmur of water at the end of the desert.
"Will you?" she whispered, her voice as broken and exhausted as her body. She closed her eyes and sagged against him. "Good, 'cause... I find it difficult to walk." She looked back up at him, her pupils hazy and slightly unfocused. "I don't know why."
"I know," he replied, slowly kneeling to the ground and taking her with him, making her lie down. "You should rest for now."
Her eyes weren't leaving his face, her hair covered with dust and grime and blood spread out on the dark fabric of his clothes. "Yeah," she faintly agreed. "You're right."
He thought she wouldn't say anything else, but then:
"Sasuke?" It sounded almost timid, hesitant.
He let his eyes meet hers, knowing she didn't really see him anymore but knowing it would be enough.
"He... he always knew... He always knew..."
She sighed, slowly closed her eyes.
"I should have known..."
She would never reopen them.
He stayed like that for a minute, two, looking at her pale face, at how her features had changed and matured, at what he had never taken the time or the chance to see. Then he slipped his hands under her head, supporting it until he could gently put the body down.
The gash that had torn her middle in two had stopped bleeding.
He stood up and started walking again.
The scream was still here.
Even after all this, the orange garment was still obnoxiously, stupidly visible.
He heard him before he saw him, though. A short, raspy, choking breath, barely audible before he walked around a large, jagged-edged boulder and finally, finally found him.
He was lying on the ground, alone, away from anyone else, because every last creature standing close to him, hoping to protect him, had been played with and swept away and annihilated when threat and destruction had come from the very person they had sworn they would die for.
And died they had.
And here he was now, alone and away from anyone else, a strange and ironic reminder of the curse that had plagued his whole existence. Now the curse had been released, had laughed and triumphed and crushed and left to join its fellow demons, not caring anymore about the pitiful, broken cage it was leaving behind, not even deeming it worth its revenge for all the years it had spent in the darkness, biding its time.
The walking man had stopped and was now looking at him - could do nothing but look at him.
His body that had always been strong and moving and exuberant and ready to stand back up again and again and again... His body was broken.
He was lying on the ground, unable to move, defeated at last, every last one of his once solid bones entirely shattered, crushed by the beast that had been pulled through them, every single inch of his once golden skin speckled with red and blue and black where his blood vessels had exploded, giving out under the pressure. His naked arms were streaked with strange marks following his fractures like dark crevasses revealing the wounds of the earth. His fingers were dotted with dark stains, useless after years of holding chopsticks and throwing kunais and balling into fists and catching anything coming at him.
He was lying on the ground, broken, a forlorn doll abandoned by a capricious, violent, cruel child that had had enough of playing with it.
But his eyes...
His eyes were still there, still moving, still alive, still a startling blue in the middle of dust and shadows and torments. His eyes were looking up at the other man now, and the other man couldn't breathe.
He could only wonder if he was seeing him, feared he couldn't, feared...
But: "B...Bastard," he feebly said, and time would have stopped if it hadn't already disappeared. "The whole... earth could... in... in pieces and... and still you wouldn't have... a single hair out o... place."
He blinked slowly, and the standing man didn't know how to react, how to move, how to be.
But he went on: "Your haircut is st... still really, reall..." He closed his eyes and swallowed, and the other crouched down at once, fearing it had been too much, fearing... "... dicule, by the way," he finished in a last effort and it hurt to see him this way.
So weak.
He had noticed how much closer they were now, however, noticed the grim expression on the other man's face, noticed perhaps that the last shreds of his strength were leaving him.
The crouching man saw his hand twitch and for a second he thought he would raise his arm and bring his fingers to his pale face. For a second, he forgot that these fingers would never move again, never strike, never scratch, never caress.
"Did you..." He brought his eyes back to the blue irises when he heard the voice, the sigh, when he realised... "Did you... find... what you were... looking for?" he asked.
Those eyes. It was like falling.
Looking.
He thought about the answer. About rage and revenge and peace, at last. But there was nothing left now, nothing left standing - the village, the world, their world had been swept away, and with it all the past and hurt and history and hate and torment and madness. So much madness in all this. So little sense.
It felt so distant now. So vain and absurd. There wasn't any proof left that any of it had happened. Soon it would be as if it never had.
As if no little boy had ever cried over the bodies of his parents, murdered by their own flesh and blood in the name of peace.
As if no teenager had ever thrust a hand through his friend's chest, believing it was the only choice, believing it would mean something.
As if no young man had ever heard a scream and realised his mistakes as his heart stopped beating and the world shattered.
Had he found what he was looking for?
He was looking at him now, calm and relieved and at peace, somehow.
Yes, he had found. Finally, finally found.
There was no need for words. He understood this, and he was at peace. His whole world had ended, his family and village and dream and life, all destroyed like they were never meant to be, and still he found something to appease him, still he was breathing. Choking, gasping.
Dying.
It would take him hours to die.
Hours to realise and remember and regret and feel like he should have found a way for this not to happen. Hours to hurt and suffer and live the torment that he had known since the first day of his existence all over again. Hours of a painful, slow agony, for his mind and body, and hadn't he suffered enough already?
Hadn't they all suffered enough?
The crouching man lowered himself, down on both knees and the sheath of his sword rasped against the ground. It would take hours...
His sword, Kusanagi, still resting at his side, its weight familiar and strong. Hours?
No, not hours.
He slowly raised his right hand and rested it on the hilt, as if to make sure that it was real, that he could do something, that there still was a way...
"Hey, Sasuke?"
He met his gaze, his bright blue eyes veiled by pain, clashing with the rivulets of blood staining his face, but which still managed to shine along with his wavering smile.
Don't smile, you idiot. You're hurting yourself.
"Yes," he softly replied, because it was not the time to refuse his attention, because he would choke if he didn't. He raised his left hand and cupped a scarred, bloody cheek, feeling how surprisingly soft it was under his calloused palm. And for a moment he almost saw, almost felt another time, another reality, where such a gesture would have been familiar, comfortable, natural. A whole life passed in a second.
But it was already gone.
Even if he shouldn't have, he slightly turned his head to lean into the soft touch and took a breath to speak. He choked - stop it, stop it, you imbecile, the other wanted to say, but wouldn't - and brokenly whispered: "Welcome home."
The kneeling man bent forward and closed his eyes, squeezing his stinging eyelids, pressing his lips together to hold back anything that might escape-
-pressing them harshly against a burning, once golden forehead.
Then he raised his other arm, raised his sword - his eyes meeting bright blue irises, holding his gaze for a minute, for an eternity - and then he brought it down, right through this dying body, right trough his best friend's heart.
And then there was silence.
...
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