Something running circles around my head lately. Angst and character death. Almost everything is open for interpretation. Hope you guys enjoy it.
--
"So this is the end," Naruto smirks, blood dribbling from his lips. "Shouldn't you be smiling?"
Sasuke gripped the blade that penetrated Naruto's chest. "When have I ever smiled?" He plunged it deeper, and Naruto chokes.
"I thought you'd be happy. Now you can find revenge." Naruto laughed weakly, stifling another bout of coughing, "That's what you've always wanted."
No response.
"Well, Sasuke. There's no time for words now, is there? Guess I couldn't save you. There's a lot of things I couldn't do. But now, I'll make sure..."
Sasuke flinched as Naruto reached up and pulled the traitor in a vicious kiss.
"I'll never let you forget me, Sasuke. Every time you breathe, you will feel my last breath. You will taste my blood. You will relive this over and over, until the day you die."
Naruto's blood smears across Sasuke's lips, and the Uchiha does not have the will to speak.
"I will never forgive you."
Naruto slumps against him, life escaping his body.
--
Sasuke removes the katana with a sickening crunch, and the body falls to the unforgiving ground. He performs a chiburi, before sheathing his sword and turning away.
But the soul does not cleanse as easily as the blade.
--
That night, Sasuke dreams for the first time since the Uchiha clan massacre. In it, he is in Konoha again, the place he can only visit in dreams, and Naruto is sprinting up to him, grinning. But before the blond-haired boy can stop, the feeling of steel piercing his flesh halts him.
"I'll never forgive you, Sasuke," Naruto sneers, twisting the blade.
Sasuke awakes in a cold sweat, alone.
--
"How could you, Sasuke?" Sakura sobs, throwing a chakra-laced punch his way. The blow grazes his face, and he can taste blood on his lips.
"He lived for you! He fought for you! And now, he's dead for you, and you don't feel anything… nothing at all."
Tearful Sakura looks him straight in the eye and says, "I'll never forgive you," before throwing her fist at him, missing by a narrow margin, but carving a monstrous crater into the earth.
Before he lands on his feet, a split-second thought crosses his mind, "Maybe I've made a mistake."
The thought is quickly forgotten as power surges through him, and he turns toward Sakura.
Through her seventy-two hours of torture, she does not flinch once. When she falls to the ground at last, he swears he could see a shimmer of blue in her eyes. For the first time in a very long time, he flees.
--
"So, the jinchuuriki is dead. Do you have enough hatred now, otouto-san? Enough hatred to fulfill your revenge?"
Sasuke does not speak, but seethes in rage. An understanding crosses between them, and the next moment, they have vanished. The two brothers clash in a deadly dance that a shinobi might very well describe as beautiful, and neither give way for quite some time.
But very gradually, Itachi begins to falter, and the opportunity opens. Sasuke finds his opening, and begins to form the Chidori. He dashes toward his brother with such speed that he feels he is transcending space and time with birds screeching in his head, and just inches away from the strike...
He deflects the Chidori into a tree.
Itachi looks upon him with utter disgust. "You still remain too weak to kill me. Even after killing your dear friend."
But Sasuke cannot erase the blue eyes and blond hair and whisker marks from Itachi's face, and he falls to his knees.
I thought you'd be happy. Now you can find revenge. That's what you've always wanted.
And there was nothing.