It was hard to remember where this all had really begun. It was hard to tell when it had really gotten to this point where Naruto wasn't sure who he was anymore.
It was hard to hold back, panting and soaked to the bone from the cold rain as it fell over them and hit hard against the surface of the waterfall.
How was it that they were always meant to meet here at the end of all things? The Valley of the End, the place where Konohagakure's fate had first been decided in the earliest days of its existence. The place where two friends, such as themselves, had found themselves locked in a battle that would leave one of them forever ostracized, possibly dead.
This was the place where everything ended.
Where only three years ago, a friendship that had grown slowly but strongly over many years had been fractured and pulled to pieces. Where two young shinobi had faced each other and shed tears and blood and regrets. Where the innocence and naiivety of childhood had ended and the cold, hard reality of adulthood had begun.
Yet here they found themselves again, Naruto's chest heaving almost painfully as he stared across the way at a boy who looked so much alike and yet so different from a friend he'd known three years ago. Someone who only seemed to be half of the Sasuke that had been as good as the only family he'd ever known.
However, there were those eyes staring at him with as much emptiness and disdain as they had been the last time they had met here. Staring at him, staring into him, knowing the person that Naruto used to be, knowing the person that he'd once wanted more than anything to become.
But Sasuke didn't know him anymore. Not really. He'd let go of childish dreams in his effort to track down this boy that had been, for so very long, his closest friend, one of the most important factors in a lonely child's life.
The first person that he'd -if it was possible to describe it in such a way- loved. Sasuke had been his brother. The most important person in his life. The glue that had held him together when he hadn't had anything left.
It was his father's voice in the back of his head, echoing softly, a reminder that if he gave in, allowed the Kyuubi full reign of his body, let him out to kill, kill, kill everything that had ever hurt him, that it would release him completely and he'd never be able to see any of those faces that had pulled him through the hard times. That he'd be lost in the darkness where he'd forget what it was in the first place that had made him want to be the Hokage, that had made him want to be the person who could keep everyone safe.
His own words echoed in his mind as well. 'I'm stupid and I'm not a great ninja!' And at that moment it had been so true. Truer then anything he'd ever uttered, but now. When he found himself face-to-face with one of the main reasons that he'd longed for so long to become the best thing that he possibly could have been. To be good enough to be noticed by Sasuke, to be good enough to be better than Sasuke.
That he'd be able to finally -finally- be able to protect all of those people that he had always wanted to prove his worth to. But it was all gone now. The village destroyed, gone, he'd not been able to protect it. Tsunade, the old granny... she'd believed in him, too, and now... Kakashi. His teacher. They were all... the whole village had practically been destroyed.
But he could do this. He could do the one thing they had always meant for him to do. What it seemed as though he'd been born to do. In this moment it didn't matter that he'd been born the son of the Fourth. It didn't matter that Sasuke was an Uchiha. The Uchiha. Nothing mattered.
It was a few more laboured breaths and another moment of staring at his ex-teammate before Naruto shifted his weight and made the leap across the sculptures to where Sasuke was standing, finding them face-to-face now.
He'd been wrong in his initial observation of the situation. The gaze with which Sasuke kept his attention on Naruto with was nothing like the one Naruto had seen those years ago. This one lacked intent, lacked everything that would have ignited a fury in Naruto regularly. There was nothing about it that ignited a flame of familiarity within him. There was just a wave of coldness that was over him, making him shiver, and blue eyes narrow slightly.
His eyes were dull, and his lips were pulled into a tight line and they stood like that a moment, just staring at each other, Naruto trying to figure out what kind of trick this was supposed to be.
He knew that Sasuke had succeeded in killing his brother during his stay with Orochimaru. Knew that the other boy had even managed to kill Orochimaru himself. He had also heard hushed whispered rumours about the chance that it had been Sasuke who had assisted the Akatsuki in capturing the other jinchuuriki, that Sasuke had been partially related to the fact that Pain had found himself so easily in the village, so easily destroying everything in the world that Naruto held dearest to himself.
But why? Why had everything changed so drastically in so short a time. There had been a point where Naruto had felt- even if it were only for a short while- that Sasuke had loved Konoha. That something inside of him was tied so intimately with the village that he couldn't help but to feel at home here. To feel as though he were in harmony with it.
Everything really had changed now, though. He'd been telling himself, on some level, perhaps, that there was still a chance that everything would be able to go back to normal. That Sasuke and Sakura and Kakashi and himself would be ale to return to being a team, a family, for a few more years. Years that could have been happy, and maybe even until Sasuke had finally given in and married Sakura (he flinched inwardly at the thought of that), and he'd have been there, at their wedding, if for no other reason than to see that smile on Sakura's face, to know that everyone was happy.
If it was that way, he'd have known that everything really was going to be okay. That if he died and the world was at peace in such a way, that it would be worth it.
Yet here they were. Those thoughts and dreams and hopes that he'd built up around himself were shattered and as he stood in there, his body shaking lightly in a mix of despair and cold, he stared at that man across from him, staring, his face shadowed as blond hair stuck stubbornly to his face.
"...Sasuke."
He didn't know what to say. His voice almost shook with the force of the emotion that was boiling furiously inside of him.
"Naruto."
There was no hesitation, no hint of anything telling in his voice. It was as though that all Sasuke felt was conveyed in that one word. His name.
He felt a painful tightening of his chest and he shook his head as he lunged forward, leaping across the space the separated them, throwing the full weight of his body at Sasuke.
He was no longer untrained, innocent, or intent on saving his best friend's life.
He was a different Naruto than the one that Sasuke had known all those years ago. He was a man full of the intent to save his friends, his ifamily/i. To save every precious thing that was left in his life.
The battle didn't take long, there were flashes of light, the releasing of power that was never meant to see the light of day or feel the crushing and piercing of skin and bone, tears that fell almost unseen against cheeks that were covered with the spattering of blood that was never meant to be shed by the other's hand.
And then it was over.
It was so different from anything Naruto had imagined. The sound of a body falling to the ground, something most people would barely hear, something that, in a battle such as this, something that would better be classified as a war, where one body falling was barely noticeable.
But as his eyes faded from crimson to blue, Naruto's whole face crumpled faster than the body he'd been watching, and he moved with a speed that he'd almost forgotten he'd possessed. Sasuke. Sasuke. His Sasuke. His best friend. His brother. His...
The one thing that had mattered to him even in the darkest of nights.
Shaking his head, Naruto's arms caught the lighter boy before he made contact with the ground, his eyes searching the pale face.
He could still hear the beat of Sasuke's heart, slow and unsteady, but still there. Still forcing him alive. He couldn't die. Not now... not because of this.
Not in this moment where the wounds that were still bleeding on Naruto's body, too deep and insistent to be healed instantaneously because of the Kyuubi, but were still not important enough for him to feel.
Not in this moment where it seemed as though everything he'd trained for, that he'd wanted and needed and desired and dreamed... all of it was washing away as that heartbeat slowed, became less insistant.
"Sasuke..."
He'd never dreamed that it would end like this. Never imagined...
And then those eyes were open again, furious sharingan melting back into the dark eyes he remembered staring at him for years with such disdain, such irritation, such... familiarity and comraderie.
And then Sasuke did something that Naruto hadn't been expecting. He snorted. A sound that was almost a soft laugh. The humour of the moment, however was dulled by the trickle of blood that bubbled from Sasuke's lips and dripped slowly down his chin.
Naruto frowned, an irritated look mixing with the confusion and grief there.
"What the hell are you laughing at?" he asked, wondering if the lack of blood and oxygen had really gotten to Sasuke. If he was now delirious.
A slight shake of Sasuke's head, and Naruto noted that the hair was matted slightly with blood. A pang of guilt that he knew was unnecessary. This was a war. This was what he was supposed to do.
He parted his lips as if to speak, frustrated moisture burning in his eyes. In this moment. In this last moment (for Sasuke's heart was slowing at a pace that insisted one thing. Death.), why had Sasuke decided to be that person again? The person Naruto had been searching for for so long? Why now...?
"Figures," came the sputtering sound of Sasuke's voice. Softer now, more like the young voice he'd always been accustomed to. Weak, almost, though, and it sent another jolt of pain through Naruto.
"Dead last."
There was another sputtering laugh and then a cough and then the sight of Sasuke's eyes, a little wider now as he tried to fight with his body's insistance that he was dying.
It was hard to watch. Naruto had never watched someone die before. The fear and uncertainty in Sasuke's eyes as he fought to breath, as his lips tinted blue and his limbs twitched slightly.
This was the way it had to be. He'd known that if Sasuke had refused to to come back to the village, if he'd continued trying to run, trying to kill, trying to be that person he'd become... that he'd have to die.
This was what he was trained for. To be a killer. To watch people die and to feel nothing. To be at ease with the way nature had intended it.
Instead, though, he clutched Sasuke's body tighter to him, the other boy's head lolling slightly against his chest, as he let out the most painful sound he'd ever imagined could be possessed inside of the human body.
Tears were streaming easily down his cheeks now, and he closed his eyes, unashamed of the guilt and despair as they washed over him and he couldn't do anything now but clutch the lifeless body closer to him, howling into the wind.