The sound of the flushing water deafened the remoteness of the landscape as it violently descended into a majestic waterfall. Far away from any sense of civilisation, a disastrous duel had ended, pronouncing a victor and claiming a victim. With the two roles having interchanged relentlessly at a very unstable pace, everything seemed determined the moment steel touched upon the rough surface of the ground.
For that moment, and for that moment alone, a feeling of secular silence prevailed between the two, decisively muting the effect of any external influence that might have distracted them from one another's eyes. Thoughts and meanings dared not touch upon this silence, and were voicelessly transmitted from dekko to dekko. With such an effect achieved through mere eye-to-eye glances, a new spark was ignited, setting off an endless staring duel. The screaming dekkos were silenced by a spine-chilling snicker.
"So…" the boy scoffed with a smirk. "It looks like we have a winner!"
Slightly disturbed by the sensation of the cool steel upon his throat, he swallowed as if to scare it away. With no hidden tricks upon his sleeve to change the tide, no secret techniques to alter the imminent result and no other ways to outdo his opponent, he let his body loose against the stony wall he had been pushed onto. With his back steadied on the flat surface, he felt the other's body weight smothering his own. After his muscles had somewhat relaxed, he became conscious of the blood upon his face, flowing from his eyes down his cheeks like tears. Fixed upon a face as calm as his, this appeared to be the only element of weakness smearing his countenance of confidence. Ending with his jawline, the furiously red liquid dripped on the rival's clenched fist, sliding over the blade that threatened to slice the throat any moment now. With the grim foreboding alerting him in vain, the fallen raised his dark, bleeding eyes, a perfect blend of red and black into his captor's, and spoke anew, pressing for some action; "What are you waiting for?"
The victor, lingering in inertia, was overwhelmed by the implicit demand to proceed. With his body growing trembling and loose, he needed to reaffirm his grip about the reddened blade that was to seal the outcome of their duel. In spite of his senses heightened, the victim did not perceive the vacillation of the other's quaking body pressing on his own, until he discerned that shade of doubt flashing into those nostalgically familiar blue eyes.
"Naruto…" There, the fallen ceased with a smile, unaccustomed to tasting the vibrations of this name onto his lips after all this time. The addressed victor, similarly stirred by hearing his name so smoothly and cajolingly voiced after so long gasped, and nearly lost grip of the knife. Sensing the blade lose touch with his skin, the fallen swallowed with pride. "Do not humiliate me by procrastinating…" Clenching his teeth, he felt his hand crawling upwards and, against his will, it coiled about Naruto's, pressing, thus, its blade onto his own throat. "Seal your prevalence over me, and rid me of the humiliation of weakness and submission!" he hissed.
Lowering his head, Naruto shielded himself against the effect of the other's eyes. Shocked by such a reaction, the victim went on, raising the tone of his voice this time. "Unlike you, I will show no mercy…" His fingers clasped more firmly about Naruto's wrist this time, and they were met with irresistible rigidness when they directed the shiny blade to smite his skin. "Idiot!" he moaned exhausted after the futile attempt. "I will crash the land in which you were born, I will eliminate your heroes, I will annihilate your comrades, I will eradicate your friends…" Thinking of his next words, he scoffed with unnecessary sarcasm. "… even that useless girl you love…" Anxious to elicit some reaction, he was intrigued to witness none. He did not give up; his grip fastened about Naruto's, even more desperate to move it now. "Claim the final instance of your victory and kill me! I shall not abide such humiliation!"
"Sasuke…" Leading his free hand upon his friend's face, Naruto greatly astounded him. "I shall not protect everyone by eliminating you as if you're something vile…" However stunned by the gesture, Sasuke did nothing to evade it. Shielding his feelings against the other's insight with a thin veil of indifference, Sasuke was prepared not to react when his rival wiped the blood off his cheek. "I will always try to understand what depths of hell you hide behind those eyes…" With his thickest finger ending up on his friend's lips, Naruto thumbed the blood off their corners, gentle and careful lest he excited any twitch of pain. Even though it was this gesture that stirred him up the most, Sasuke had yet to repel it. "As for your so-called hatred…" Here, Naruto led his moist forehead to collide and eventually stick with his friend's, earning a new proximity "…I shall always blame it on myself for not quenching it…"
It was this new in-depth proximity, and all the sensations emanating from it, which awakened Sasuke back to the reality at hand. Confirmed by the incessant flushing of the waterfalls, and with his attention no longer divided by Naruto's words, Sasuke focused on the other's countenance. Lacking the usual confidence and radiance in which such words of faith were typically uttered, it was now tinged with tears signing the abrupt ending of all struggles. Feeling the body to be equally passive and apathetic, Sasuke could only perceive this as resignation.
"Am I not taken seriously, then?" Focusing on his fingers that had yet to unclasp from Naruto's armed hand, he smirked. With a swift movement, he escaped the warmth on his face from Naruto's hand and forehead, and pinned himself behind his rival. Having secured his emotions out of sight now, Sasuke's one arm embraced Naruto from behind like a python, forcing him, thus, into inertia, while the other, still wrapped about the armed limb, pressed the blade firmly on Naruto's throat. "Is this why I was spared?" Naruto coughed with the sudden pressure culminating about his stomach. "You wish to be defeated in such petty and girly ways?" Sasuke hissed, gluing himself upon his rival to secure his prevalence over the other's immobility. Feeling the blade pierce his skin ever so lightly, Naruto did not fidget at all. He swallowed with obeisance, awaiting the fatal blow to his mortality. "Be it shall so desire you, then, for I do not intend to spare you!"
"Be it shall so desire I…" the blonde whispered stoically, admitting, thus, his resignation. "Kill me, so that I won't have to see my village in flames, my friends slain and you hated and despised by all as I would never hate and despise you…" Desperate, he led the knife to crush upon his throat with might. Just in time, he was hindered by Sasuke's grip sustaining his own to inaction. However shocked by this decisive move of hesitation, Naruto was given very little time to perceive it; suddenly, he found himself tossed on his back, straddled by a furious friend.
"Why…" Sasuke grabbed Naruto by the scruff of his neck, pulling him upwards. "Why won't you fight me? Is this how weak you take me for? Is this why you leave me struggling against you while you give yourself to me?"
Giving in to the exhaustion of their duel, Sasuke allowed himself to collapse over his speechless rival's chest. With any sense of distance once again violated, they could now feel the furious gasps and pants fusing and blending with one another's, breathing in their mutual air. Staring into each other's eyes, they felt the pace of their breathing severely infuriated rather than appeased. During the speechlessness of this actual moment, they both took advantage of their proximity, and the access into one another it had granted them with, to trace the trigger of their duel.
Fusing with the tension in the other's eyes, Naruto attempted to discern the sentiment of being stared at by any vengeful villager as opposed to being stared at by his once best friend and comrade. With their proximity on his side, Naruto scraped those layers of coolness and indifference Sasuke's dekko had always been coated and honed with, only to find himself pierced by the uniqueness of a feeling solely inspired by himself. Unable to name it, label it, let alone act upon it, Naruto could only attach to this dekko and accommodate it into his own being, recognising it as the main reason why he wished to become stronger; to expose that humanity anew. Aiming for a new level of clarity and connection, he once again stretched his hand to touch Sasuke's other cheek and, fondling it, he released it from the burden of blood.
Significantly stirred by the benevolence of the gesture, Sasuke could not abstain from exposing his surprise. "Naruto… Why?" His fingers unclenched from the blonde's shirt, leading their chests to clash. Delving into the other's eyes, he was shocked to see a reflection of his own being, a self he had long ago forsaken. The intensity of the blue stare fixed on him took him to better days and a mutual past the future of which couldn't alter. The evanescent serenity stemming from Naruto's nostalgic and tearful eyes was too unbearable for Sasuke to acknowledge. It was the light under which he would always be remembered and loved by that one person; a shade of his own vacillation and weakness which had allowed the person in question to be alive right now, staring back with those caring eyes. Wondering to what extent he had indeed redefined the essence of that blue dekko itself, he eventually recognised its owner to be a sense of himself, a conscience. He panted under the burden of the unspoken bond that kept them at such proximity and intimacy. Even now, rid from the burden of his own blood, Sasuke had clearly felt into the other's eyes the main reason why he shouldn't have been that weak. Heaving a sigh, he acknowledged the existence of the man below him, his rival, as the toll of his eternal weakness.
Deeply shaken and decomposed, Sasuke rose back on his feet. Naruto shuddered at the sudden release from the trembling burden he had so quickly grown accustomed to. Relieved from the additional body heat, he steadied himself on his elbows to acquire a better view of his standing friend, whose sight had now emptied.
The temerity of the flushing waters about them underlined their furious panting. The prevalence of the landscape over the two rivals bewildered Naruto, who could only marvel at his usually arrogant friend's hesitant movements. Staring at the other, the blonde felt the weight of the waterfalls crushing upon his soul, asphyxiating and overwhelming him with a vicious foreboding of what was to become. The blackness of this vice poured out of him decisively, unclasping him from the balance of his elbows and dragging his back to crush upon the ground. Disturbed at the vivid sensation, he clenched his eyes shut as if to shelter himself from the foreshadowed calamity.
Opening them, he released himself from this blackness which, he feared, had accelerated the inevitable. A feeling of immeasurable relief overtook him as he eyed Sasuke sympathetically. The sudden sensation of the other's youth and beauty reassured Naruto that his friend was the same unpredictably genuine person he had always been, corresponding with his own memories of childhood bond. Ignoring how lost Sasuke looked, Naruto found the thought soothing and reassuring of their former connection. Taking note of the pallid brunette's grieving expression, the blonde's shocking feelings were alleviated to the point of oblivion. In all his sadness and grief, Sasuke was the one Naruto remembered him to be; and with these emotions so gracefully unveiled, he was more real than he had ever been. "Sasuke…" There was nothing that needed to be said; Naruto only needed to taste this word upon his lips to remind himself of whom he was speaking to.
As if on cue, Sasuke raised his shaking hand towards his face and pierced Naruto with his blank, but drilling stare. In response to the blonde's affectionate dekko, the brunette felt his own cheek. A gasp of surprise escaped his lips, silenced by the surrounding waterfalls. Careening, with no particular direction in his album stare, Sasuke took a timid step backwards to farther distance himself from his once friend and comrade. The absence of this ruddy coating of blood upon his face perturbed him far beyond reason. In all this upheaval, Sasuke's mind whirled about Naruto's affectionate fingers coaxing and fondling him off his red burden but moments ago. He stared back, almost betrayed, with a last redeeming glance at the speechless blonde, who now mirrored his own despair.
With tears flooding his mien, Sasuke's nails clenched onto his juvenile cheeks. Neither the eyes fluttered, nor did the lips flinch. Naruto gasped as he watched the self-inflicted trails of blood upon his friend's beautiful face, along with the coats of youthful complexion so viciously extirpated. The shock of such a sight sent the blonde's reactions to slumber, overwhelming his desire to protect this beauty so vainly annihilated. Sasuke's nails full of blood and abused skin snaked all over the smitten face with a tremble. "Don't!" was all Naruto managed to utter. Before he even rose back on his feet, Sasuke's fingers had claimed the one and only reminder of their undeniable bond.
Blood freely flowed now from the black and violated sockets upon the entire face, occasionally waving and oscillating with the brunette's heartbreaking sobs. The sounds did no longer reach Naruto; his own eyes remained fixed upon this red, furious and vengeful fluid that descended upon his friend's once glorious and majestic countenance. The essence which unites siblings from the womb and severs them to the tomb emerged from those dark, empty holes in rivers, staining the arrogance and pride that used to hone this unique stare. The empty now sockets were covered by a murderous yet quivering hand, painted red by its own feat of delusion.
The endless quantities of blood still flowing downwards gained in horror and atrocity, as if Sasuke' abyssal depths of hell had indeed sprung forth from it. Naruto rushed to support his collapsing friend who had fallen on his knees reduced to tears. The fingers gripped the tragic figure by the shoulders, even though the eyes doubted that humane aspect of his once untouchable role model. Witnessing that one and only side Sasuke had saved for him alone, Naruto cringed as he felt the moistness of that liquid drill inbetween his digits, which vibrated in tune with Sasuke's sobs. With a random glance upon the hapless eyeballs on the ground, Naruto found himself with all the evidence he had never hoped to come across. "Sasuke… Is this the abyss you wished to strike me with?" Mesmerised, Naruto watched as his friend's white chest was ruthlessly stained with the dripping liquid of sorrow, painting his shirt as well.
"Why?" Naruto whispered, counting his life now as a benevolence of Sasuke's eventual humanity. The clueless and guileless question seemed to excite new waves of weeping from the blinded youth.
"Shut up!" Even though he did nothing to escape the supportive grasp he had surrendered to with spasms, Sasuke now brought both palms forth to hide his empty sockets in shame, humiliation and fear. "Don't look at me with those eyes, weeping for second sight and bonds of other times! I can't stand them!"
"Sasuke…" Feeling the warmth of the red cascade shudder in tune with the seizures of mourning, Naruto could only become aware of the way it had swept over the heat of the dekko that had previously engulfed him. "Was I not strong enough to secure our bond? Was I not strong enough to protect your second sight?" It was forever gone, reduced to two humiliated and bloody eyeballs on the ground, and so was Naruto's own uniqueness forever acknowledged and indicated by it. "Or was I too strong to have exposed it?"