A/N: just something I came up with while listening to Evenesence, Good enough. It's sad and there's character death so be prepared.
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I remember the first day I saw you. We were little back then, free of the burdens that life would lay upon us as we aged and as we gained an understanding of the world.
You had smiled at me.
It was the first day at the academy and we were all excited, all the girls and guys separated still by the invisible force we titled 'cooties.' The excitement had been so electric in the air, even you, the son of the great Uchiha clan couldn't help but give way to the butterflies in your stomach.
You're smiling at me now, your lips are tilted up almost imperceptibly and your face is soft and happy. I wish you could see yourself, see how beautiful you look.
Then I remember that your eyes are closed.
I want to know where you are. What you're seeing, feeling and what you're doing. If you're still happy like your smile or if that's just the way your body looked when your soul left it.
It's not that important. I'll be following you soon.
My chest pains me and my breaths gurgle in my blood filled lungs now, my body subconsciously fighting, in vain, to live.
Your katana is still inside me, still sticking through me up to the hilt. The blood from my wound drips onto your cold hand that still grips the handle.
I kept it there as you were still departing, knowing that you'd always liked the feel of my blood on your skin. The same way I've always relished the feeling of your dark red blood soaking through me, that's why my hand is still in your chest.
My eyes are starting to cloud and the corners of my vision go black.
That last bit of regret flits through my head and I am too weak to push it away.
Why did it have to end like this? Why couldn't we have lived longer, together? I wasn't strong enough to take you back, or you were too strong.
God, why did you have to be so stubborn, Sasuke?
Konoha wasn't a bad place, it didn't try to warp your very being like Orochimaru did, like Akatsuki did.
I stop that train of though immediately.
It wasn't right to lie just before I depart from the world.
Because Konoha did warp you, it did torment you and it left just as many scars upon your soul as any other place.
That still didn't make it right to run. That still didn't make it okay to attack your best friend when he was trying to help you.
It did make it right for this to be the end.
It was perfect. Two people who would never have been together in life were brought so close by death.
That's how it always was, wasn't it?
The highest of the high and the lowest of the low could be killed by the same kunai, in the same stroke, and buried in the same earth.
The saint and the criminal.
The mother and the child.
The victim and the villain.
The best of friends and the worst enemies could lie side by side, awaiting death.
And death came, slipping over him and steeling his soul with his last clean breath, a shadow departing.
The sun emerged from the clouds hours later to assist in the discovery of two men laying side by side, each with a hand in the other.
One had dark midnight black hair and a pale moon-like face that was softened by a loving smile.
The other had blonde spiky hair and a tan whiskered face that was graced in, not a smile, but a look of utter devotion in the way his lips were parted and his eyebrows angled.
Naruto and Sasuke.
Sasuke and Naruto.
Friends
Rivals
Brothers
Enemies
Lovers
Saints
Criminals
Victims
Villains
Soulmates
Drawn together in a bittersweet ending.