Victims of Ourselves
 PROLOGUE

"Tsunade-sama, a word, please."

Tsunade was at her desk, scribbling furiously on the stack of papers before her. Her eyes were squinted, like she couldn't see what she was reading, or she was trying to understand what she was. Shizune stepped into the office nonetheless, biting at her bottom lip nervously. She looked at her Hokage for a few moments, not getting a response from the village's strongest, most respected Kunoichi.

Shizune cleared her throat and tried again. "Tsunade-sama–"

"What?!" Tsunade snapped, tearing her eyes away from her work.

Shizune cowered on instinct, backing away even though she wasn't anywhere near her desk. Her cheeks reddened in half fear, half embarrassment. She never knew why Tsunade-sama got angry at her so easily when all she ever wanted to do was -

"What is it, Shizune?" Tsunade pressed, her voice calmer, hazel eyes locking with Shizune's dark ones.

Not wanting to waste time since she finally had her undivided attention, Shizune spoke as fast and clearly as she could.

"It's about the verdict you announced earlier this evening."

"What about it?" Tsunade replied, just as fast. Her eyes were back on her papers and Shizune felt a heap of relief at the drop of eye contact.

"With all due respect, don't you think it was a little..." Shizune fumbled for the right word, "Harsh? I mean, he's only a child -"

"He will be 18 next year. As far as I know, that is the transition from being a teenager to an adult. Far from a child, as far as I'm concerned."

Shizune forced a smile. "I meant... compared to you and I. He's had a difficult childhood, a doomed clan, I mean; it could have been anyone of us–"

"Shizune, we're not going to sit here and dwell on what could have been. The only thing that matters is what has been. And that 'child' has been a threat to this village since the day he left it. If you thought I'd just allow him to run free after he chose to abandon his comrades only to return with the intent to destroy them along with the rest of Konoha, you were sorely mistaken," Tsunade countered.

Shizune knew Tsunade-sama was right. But the verdict had made her sick. Sure, the idea of seeing the village destroyed and everyone, including herself, dead at the hands of a rouge ninja thirsty for vengeance didn't make her feel so good either, but... the alternative felt so... so wrong.

She didn't even want to know how Naruto was dealing with it at the moment. She'd glanced over at him once during the verdict that evening, and wished she hadn't. He'd looked absolutely broken, like he hadn't eaten or slept in days. He never took his eyes off the defendant, their eyes burning into each other's. There'd been such a strong connection in the courtroom that Shizune wouldn't have been surprised if the entire place exploded from the tension.

And that's when the verdict was announced, and that's when she looked away.

"So it's final then? Uchiha Sasuke... will be sentenced to death," Shizune breathed the words. "What about... Naruto-kun?"

The hand that had been writing stopped abruptly as Tsunade raised her head to meet Shizune's very sorrowful expression. The corner of her mouth twitched and she sighed, placing her free hand to her forehead. She stared at nothing in particular for a moment before meeting Shizune's eyes once more.

"Naruto is a very strong young man. He will overcome this," Tsunade said, her voice hard. "Besides, shinobi are often faced with hard decisions. And I don't think there's ever been a harder decision for Uzumaki Naruto than Uchiha Sasuke."

Naruto could not understand why he kept puking. There was absolutely nothing in his stomach to come right back up. When his sight came back into focus, he was able to make out the transparent-slightly gray vomit in his bathroom sink, devoid of any actual color.

He was coughing now, his eyes stinging with tears as wave after wave of nausea struck him like lightning, choking him, causing his breaths to come out in short, chest-tightening heaves.

'Death,' 'DEATH,' 'DEATH!' The word had repeatedly mind-fucked him since he'd left the courtroom. He didn't know how he'd managed to actually walk, unlock his apartment door, and actually make it inside. He didn't understand how he was even functioning at this point. He was freaking out, he knew he was, but he couldn't help it.

He never thought there'd be a day where he'd have to hear that his best friend was going to be put to DEATH. He never thought he would be in the room, staring him DEAD in his even more DEAD eyes as the word DEATH sliced through the air around them like a katana. He never thought he would even have a friend, let alone a best friend to begin with. But then Sasuke came along, and he'd become the most important person in Naruto's whole world.

Their history together went way deeper than what anyone in Konoha would know. There were things he and Sasuke had that couldn't be expressed with words, that wouldn't do them justice. What he and Sasuke had was complicated and explosive and dirty and damned and... Theirs.

And now, with a snap of the Hokage's finger, all of that was going to be destroyed. Erased. Dead. And it didn't take a genius to know that once you were dead, you were gone. Forever. Naruto would be damned if he'd let someone take Sasuke away from him permanently, Hokage or not.

Trying to sedate Sasuke's hatred was like discovering the cure for cancer. Not impossible, but not so easy either. Naruto wasn't going to let all that training, blood, sweat, and tears be for naught. Sasuke was finally, finally back where he belonged, and not so much as days later, sentenced to die.

"Fuck... that," Naruto ground out, his voice nearly gone from all the held back tears. His shaking hands slipped off of the edges of the sink and he fell to his knees, his sweat-coated forehead pressing against the cool of the bottom. He tried to slow down his breathing, his eyes shut as tight as they could.

There was nothing to cry about because Sasuke wasn't going to die. Sasuke couldn't die.

365 days until Sasuke was scheduled to leave the world indefinitely. On his birthday, at that. Naruto felt a swelling in his heart and the tears fell past his blond lashes after all.

It was then that he realized just how fucked up Konoha really was.

TBC

A/N: Well, I hope you enjoyed! This was short due to it being a prologue. The NaruSasu shall commence! You'll just have to be patient. I hate to rush, it totally kills the fic, ya know? So, I hope you can bear with me. This will be a multi-chapter fic, depending on if I get feedback or not. So, if you've read it, please let me know what you think! A review doesn't take long, but writing? Oh lord… xo