Chapter 400 of the manga was very intense for me, mostly because I kept on imagining how Sasuke must be feeling while he hears the truth at last. I kept on toying with the idea of writing a little drabble or something about it, and then finally there was this one image of him where he just looked so stricken, and that clinched it. He didn't look childlike or innocent, he simply looked pain-ridden, and I really wanted to write something to commemorate his angst. So here's the product!
Disclaimer: I do solemnly swear to thee that Naruto is no property of mine.
WARNING: Vague spoilers for Chapter 400 of the manga.
Expire
by LutraShinobi
It was Sasuke's worst nightmare. Worse than the agony of fangs in his neck and black tendrils in his mind, worse than the time he'd stuck his fist through his best friend's chest, groping around inside the strong-beating life there, worse than that catalyst of gore and tragedy, the night of twisted beginnings.
Who was this man, bringing his walls crashing down verbal blow by blow? Who was that man, the one with the eyes and face so like his own, who had died by his hand? He didn't believe in names anymore. Uchiha. He trembled, sweat freezing into painful ice needles on his bare, bruised skin.
"What would you have done?" A rhetorical question; but Sasuke's hateful well of self-knowledge struggled to conjure an answer.
Choose between his mother's warm arms, and Sakura's innocent, tentative, sincere smile. Choose between his father's strong, protective teachings, and Naruto's thoughtless, motivated, wise words. Choose between his clan, his true family, and the people whose loyalty had never wavered, still prompting them to search for him today. Choose between life with death and life with death. And guilt.
Don't forget pain, his subconscious whispered as he strained to hear a lie in the even, mocking timbre of that narrating voice. Or hate...
He couldn't feel his body. Numb like non-existence.
He'd trusted Itachi, stupid as it was after the betrayal. Why would he have lied at the end? Sasuke felt like the excluded little brother again, ignorant, alone, so torn. Nonsensical sounds and phrases hovered at the edge of his haze of fatigue and disbelief, like a baby's cluttered, vague consciousness. But he felt old, wrinkled, scarred, stained. There was no rebirth or reincarnation, only reparation.
Some protector you were, Aniki.
The numbness was giving way to other things, and he tried to call it back. He couldn't take the stirrings of uncertainty, the shreds of remorse that made his breath come out in jarring gusts. He longed to punch something, crush somebody much bigger than he was, shatter a mirror large enough to stretch over the entire expanse of the Earth. He no longer wanted to reflect; but this weakness, this empty weight in his bones, dragged him down to this dark cell.
Lies...lies...he didn't realize he was repeating the word out loud until the voice stopped, the storytelling torturer pausing purposefully to allow the shadows more room for entrance. Sasuke was seeing demons in everybody now, and he had never before seen them so clearly in himself. He bowed his head, then raised it again, eyes hollow and wandering.
When he spoke, intentionally this time, he was reminded of his younger, fairer self, on that night he'd cried, "Why?" Not because his voice shook the same way, but because of that suppressed quavering of his vocal chords that he could now fight but not deny, and because of the slippery fingers clumsily digging their nails into his palpitating heart. "You have to be lying..."
Sasuke knew what he would have done. He would have broken.
Like he was breaking now.
A/N: Can ya just feel the angst? If so, my mission is accomplished.