Warning: Character death, angst, war. Uncreative title. Maybe manga spoilers, but not really since it's 10 years in the future and it's all mostly made up in my head. Not my best but, haha, not my worst. :)

The End
by vernajast

unrequited
sasuke x naruto x sasuke

(The end of everything.)

When Sasuke fell, I didn't think.

I ran.

I scrambled across the battlefield, ignoring everything, eyes focused on the singular spot that held my heart in my throat. The place where I saw him stumble to one knee to be immediately swallowed up amidst bodies and blood and death.

The leader of Sound might have fallen, but his troops continued fighting, as did mine.

But I didn't care.

I burst through a crowd of shinobi—the Leaf-nin who parted when they saw me approach and muttered acknowledgments of "Hokage-sama" that followed along behind me.

I didn't know what to expect, but definitely not my ex-best friend lying prone and curled on the churned-up soil. Muddy with grit and blood, mostly his own that seeped down from an empty socket that used to house his vanished right eye.

Definitely not that.

A feral growl from deep in my chest went unheeded by me, though it caught the attention of those gathered around us and I could feel their stares bore into my back as I carried him away. Sound and Leaf; both knew not to approach when that red, bubbling chakra started to slide off my skin. I couldn't help but feel protective over the bastard. A lifetime of relying on one another can't really be denied.

He shivered when I placed him on my cot, trembling limbs reaching blindly as I examined his wounds.

Someone had taken his Sharingan, and the ghost of our sensei rose and fell with a shake of my head. He'd been dead ten years, and besides...Kakashi would have been more thorough in the hate he visited against our former team mate.

Still, someone had managed to get near enough to wound Sasuke. A part of me twisted jealously, and it was this realization that brought me back to the present.

We hadn't been so close in years and now I was nearly on top of him, surrounded by the sounds of fighting, of death in our names. Our hands were entwined and my fingers brushed matted hair from his brow as he slipped into shallow sleep.

Between the two of us, 'enemy' and 'friend' had never been more than vague concepts. We simply were, and to define it any more sharply was to invite pain and disappointment. There was a time we were both convinced of this, but watching him lie there, I couldn't stop myself bending down and pressing my lips to his.

I lost all conviction for the fight in that moment and could no more see continuing to wage war against my (ex)best friend than against my own village. "I'm sorry—"

Dirty, shaking fingers curled around the back of my neck and yanked me down without warning, swallowing my apology in the sour taste of his poison mouth as he kissed me back, desperate to lose his heart, to give it to me before it ceased pumping.

Poison...

Sakura formulated it herself and ensured each of my soldiers was equipped when we left Konoha so many weeks ago. And this is just one more thing I can never tell her—that Sasuke died with us both on his lips, in his heart.

As it should be.

And now...now is the rest of my life. The short span of breaths in which to grieve for what I've lost.

His hands are already cold; I'm absorbing his heat into myself, letting it boil over. Rich, dark laughter fills my head—the fox foresees the inevitable. I've failed to bring him back and broken the promise I made so many years ago when there was a rightness and an order to the world that no longer exist.

Cannot exist, not when Sasuke is dead and our comrades are dying...because I couldn't let him go. And now I'm alone with no one left to stop me, alone and there is more dark laughter and my vision clouds red...

"SASUKE!"

[ .end ]