Two Eyes for One:
A Naruto and Sasuke Short Story
Sasuke… do you remember when we were in the academy? I was such a nuisance to you before, wasn't I? We were both the same. Alone without any family to watch out for us, but even still, you were so much better at ninjutsu than me. I was jealous because I could never catch up, but I tried so hard just to get to your level. I wanted to beat you and make you see my worth. I wanted to be your friend Sasuke.
My eye was destroyed that day. It was the day when I tried to defeat Madara by myself. With his Susano, he stabbed me in the eye. I screamed in agony and went insane, but not so much from the pain, but the fact that it was actually Itachi's eye. He stabbed my brother's eye, the one I took from him in order to heal myself of blindness and reach my goal of obtaining complete visual prowess. The second my eye was stabbed, it felt like my brother had died a third time. A truly painful experience.
Naruto was the one who rushed to my side. "Sasuke! Are you okay?" I didn't answer. I just kept screaming. But in the corner of my other eye, I saw the disgusting smirk of my Uchiha ancestor. I cursed him in my mind for fooling with us yet again.
"Naruto-kun, Madara is still with us. We need to defeat him quickly," said the reanimated forth hokage. I expected Naruto to just leave me here and take all the glory for himself. We were almost there, and Madara wouldn't last that long now that he was physically alive, but dammit! I should have been the one to kill Madara. He is from my clan! No one else deserved the honor.
But Naruto didn't budge. He looked at me with a serious yet concerned expression. "It's okay, Sasuke-san. I won't leave you alone. I'm going to heal you of your eye," he said.
Eh? I thought. How could he? No matter how powerful he was, he was no medic ninja. I don't think even Sakura-chan could heal me of my injury. He stabbed my deep, and the blood wouldn't stop flowing down my cheek like a cascade.
"Sasuke," he continued to say. This time he smiled. He smiled as if I were still his friend. Well, I wish he didn't. Just because I was helping him in this war, that didn't mean that we were pals again.
I told him clearly, "Don't get the wrong idea. Madara is just an obstacle in the path towards my goal. I'm still your enemy."
Naruto's smile still didn't budge. "You don't really mean that. You're like Sakura-chan. Both of you like to lie to each other. I know this because we are a team. And as your teammate – no, as your undying friend – I will give you my eye."
I just stared at him in utter surprise. Naruto's father was still close by us. He turned around towards the fourth and said, "Otto-san, give us some time! Sasuke needs my help."
Minato stared at us for a couple of minutes, examining the situation, but like his son, he also smiled and said, "Okay, Naruto-kun. Heal him soon, though." Then he flashed away with the rest of the ninja force.
"You'll actually give me your eye?" I asked him.
He shook his head. "Of course! I can't defeat Madara without you. Besides, I think you need it more than me."
I hesitated a bit, not believing that Naruto would actually do that for me. Then I remembered what my brother told me and how he never relied on others. He always tried to do things himself. I decided to trust in Naruto, and I told him that he could give me his eye.
Naruto called on Sakura-chan. When she came, she looked completely shocked and worried over me. "S-S-Sasuke-kun? What happened?" she asked. I remembered that I was always making Sakura worried. She hadn't changed.
"I'm okay," I simply answered, avoiding eye contact.
"Sakura-chan, I need you to switch our eyes," Naruto told her.
"W-What? But Naruto, what about you?" she asked.
"I'll be fine. I don't really need both eyes as much as Sasuke does. Complete the operation. We don't have much time."
I could tell that Sakura didn't want to do it, but at the same time, she understood the situation. We couldn't afford to lose here. The operation needed to be done immediately. She called for Shizune who was not that far away and told her to get the medic equipment, stat!
Shizune looked shocked. We were in a middle of a war zone. The medic equipment weren't that close by, but she said that she would try her best. Sakura tried to stop the bleeding with her chakra in the meantime, and fifteen minutes later, she returned with the bag of medical tools and handed them to Sakura.
She took out a knife and cut my eye lid open a bit so that she could take out the eye from its socket. It hurt tremendously. I almost lashed at her but tried to control myself. When the eye was gone, it was Naruto's turn next. He was more relaxed with the operation than I was. She took the next couple of minutes, transplanting the eye into my empty socket. Naruto now only had one eye.
But the minute the eye was in and the open eyelid was stitched, I experienced something unimaginable. In a series of flashbacks, I looked at all of Naruto's thoughts and felt all of his feelings. They just all flooded in like a tsunami. There were parts of Naruto that I had never known about. You could say at that moment that I had changed… at least a little. I was still too stubborn to express myself properly, but I was more considerate towards the feelings of my ex-team.
Sakura made me stare at her. I didn't know what to tell her while she covered my new eye in a bandage. I wanted to touch her cheek and tell her thank you, but I didn't have the power to do that. Dammit! I had trained for so long, but I couldn't even thank her properly.
Then she did Naruto and bandaged him up. When she was done, she gave the bag back to Naruto. He stood up and said, "Yosh! Now let's go defeat Madara… together!"
"Yes!" Sakura shouted.
"Let's do this," I said, coolly.
And we did defeat him… finally. But I wasn't the same after that. Sakura had me and Naruto stay at the hospital. Naruto was released a week before me so I stayed there longer than him. Sakura and Naruto came to visit me one day. Sakura gave me a large hug and cried. "Thank goodness, you're back. I missed you Sasuke!" she said weekly. This reminded me of the last time I was in the hospital. I threw away the food she had prepared for me. I was a jerk back then. This time, I just let Sakura hug me, closing my eyes.
Naruto just stared at us, happy that we were finally reunited again. Tsunade came in soon afterwards. I was surprised that I wasn't being put on trial. The village was treating me normally, like I never did anything wrong. She smiled and said, "Okay, it's time to take off that bandage of yours."
She removed them to reveal a bright blue eye underneath them. It was Naruto's eye along with my brother's eye accompanied it. I realized that this whole time, I never really had my own set of eyes. I've been borrowing from others. I knew that I had to repay them one day.
Tears welled up in my borrowed eyes. Damn, I was becoming weak again, but I couldn't help it. "Thank you," I said and I repeated it over and over again, my heart getting rid of all the hatred and sadness it had been carrying for so long.
Sakura, Naruto, and Tsuande said nothing. They hugged me, reassuring me that everything was going to be alright. The hug felt warm and new. Something even my own parents never gave me. I really was thankful.