Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto
I'm gonna be Hokage one day! Dattebayo!
He felt the rain. He felt the fire within himself driving him one way, the cold, bitter ice holding him back.
Please, Sasuke-kun? For me?
He felt the strain. Wanting to destroy the part of him that felt the thrill of battling beside his comrades…it only made him weak.
Look underneath the underneath.
His mind was split, his heart, his soul, his very spirit withering with the sorrow of never going back, because he was already too late. He was already gone.
I heard that Naruto is like a brother to you. At least, that's what Sakura said.
The heavens wept. The entire sky littered the world with countless tears, as the biting winds created a barrier around Sasuke. He had given in long ago, and even now, unbeknownst to those around him, the Sasuke that had seemingly died and given birth to a monster had revived himself, and was fighting his way out, trying to emerge, trying to come home.
He remembered his cold, rigid hands around Sakura's neck, choking the life out of her, bringing the kunai forward. He remembered her being snatched from his grip. Part of him was entertained by her torture and her tears—the inside of him, the old Sasuke was reaching out for her, and for Naruto. But he was so deep, so sunken in regret and revenge and melancholia that he'd nowhere to look for a hold, nowhere he could even start his journey.
I'll come home, his inner, his true side self-proclaimed.
But the outside was eating away at him.
In his pool of dark, depressing emotions were slight but legible emotions of other feelings—happiness, comfort, friendship, love, compassion. They were impossibly small, but they were there, and they were the only reason he was managing to climb back out of the hole he'd fallen into. But hunting these feelings, in fear of his heroism returning, was Sasuke's outer core, his monstrous cover. He hunted them and killed them.
Though he could only encounter so many. If he killed one, another would resurface. They cannot die off completely. One day, he was going to find a grip at the very top and he was going to pull himself back out.
But today was not that day.
Today was the day that Sakura was running around the medical unit, putting all her effort into saving precious lives. Today was the day that Kakashi and Sai were fighting bravely against grim numbers on the battlefield. Today was the day that Naruto was going to change the tides.
But it was still a day of Sasuke's recovery.
And still a day of his descent into the darkness.
Truthfully, there were two people who could pull him back out.
Only two.
Blue eyes plagued his vision, then green eyes. They stared at him with all the love and care and protectiveness that he'd seen for so many years, even after everything he's done.
He was still there for him.
She was still hoping for him.
They still loved him.
The world was dreary, the chances of fate low.
But the red string of fate, they all knew, would never break.
Sasuke!
Please…oh, God, Sasuke.
Sasuke…
His eyes opened for the very first time. In this turbulent pool, he saw…light?
It was his grip. His hold. His ticket to the life he'd wanted to live after his revenge. He'd found it.
He reached out. He almost had it. A little more.
Just a little more.
He'd grab it. He'd tale it. He'd come back.
He…
He had it.
He was spiraling, spiraling out of control until it was his own eyes, and he saw the world, and he saw Team Seven, he saw his future. He saw himself fighting by their sides once more, as a team, as a force.
As a family.
Fate had been against him, they'd thought. But fate was not an object, nor a determining factor. Fate was different for everybody, and nobody's perspective would change the fate of an individual. Fate was an attribute.
That was why nobody saw it coming. Because no one determined his fate but himself. It took many speeches from the loudmouth best friend and angelic rosette, but in the end, he decided on his own fate.
We come back, he'd decided.
Heroes come back.