Peerless Wanderer
AN: This is my first fanfiction. Please review with advice and constructive criticism.
This fic will be my perspective on what would/should have happened had Naruto killed Sasuke in their final battle.
Two shinobi stand unsteadily across from each other. Their bodies broken and damaged their spirits, resolute.
These two shinobi are Naruto Uzumaki and Sasuke Uchiha.
Naruto stands at 5' 7 inches tall. Blue steely eyes and an unruly mop of golden spikey hair being his most distinguishing features. Naruto radiates an aura of power and inner calm, a warm resolve like freshly quenched steel a startling juxtaposition to his battered body. Hanging around his form is the tattered remains of an orange and black jacket/pants combo, revealing a fishnet shirt underneath hugging his wiry form. Possibly the most powerful shinobi to ever exist, he is the reincarnation of the first heir to the sage of six paths philosophy of Ninshu, Ashura.
Across the precipice of the broken landscape stands Sasuke Uchiha. Sasuke stands at 5'8 inches tall a mix matched set of black and purple eyes lay in his head. The fabled Rinnegan stands starkly against his pale skins and dark hair. Garbed in a high collared short sleeved grey shirt and purple pants the current generations most talented shinobi and reincarnation of the sages elder son Indra.
The battle had dragged on for several hours between the two. Their bodies showing clear signs of egregious fatigue and strain. The broken valley around them stood as a testament to their power and resolve.
The last conflict here between their predecessors Madara Uchiha and Hashirama Senju reshaped the landscape and created the Valley of the End; a large canyon formed from a plane stretching to the ocean.
Their conflict would near drain the ocean dry.
Their gasps for air permeated the devastated landscape. The only noise to exist for miles the battle having destroyed all the living things around them. The Senjutsu techniques having deprived almost the entirety of the nature around them of its very life essence. The devastation of Indra's arrow created an entirely new estuary in Fire Country.
The silence a deep miasma which seeped into the bones would suffocate those around it. The noise of their ragged respiration only giving a chilling contrast to the void which they had created. The destruction wrought here a scar terrestrial forces shouldn't have been able to reap.
Though the respite of this battle was not long for this world, both resolved in their intentions.
Naruto and his desire to save his best friend.
Sasuke and his will to sever the only bond he has.
Both of them have, in a way, lived their whole lives for this coming moment.
Naruto promised to bring Sasuke back, this desire becoming his resolve, pushing him farther and farther into the echelons of legend. Somewhere along the way it became the defining test, a great filter for his aspirations and a consonant challenge. For how could he become Hokage or protect anyone if he could not save his best friend?
Sasuke and his desire to see the world pay for what it did to his family. Revenge has always been his drive, his relationship with Naruto pivotal to his power or so he thought. The man who's friendship was once a means to an end has become an end in and of itself. The only one with the power to stifle his ambitions, the only person in the entire world who he cared about. His only weakness.
"WHY! Why won't you give in? WHY CAN'T I KILL YOU!" Sasuke shouted as loud as his ragged breath could manage. The frustration boiling over into almost a sort of desperation.
"Because I can't give up, ever. I'll drag you back to the village with every bone in your body broken in a thousand pieces! I'll break this cycle of hatred." Naruto said. His voice becoming steel as he finished his sentence. His eyes stone. Meeting the Uchiha's laden stare evenly.
The eyes of his fow bleed into the red of his Sharingan the totems spinning into a cascade of Genjutsu, more out of habit than any real attack.
He, a perfect jinchuriki, had nothing to fear from that level of ocular Genjutsu. Naruto set his stance, and breathed deeply, charging with speed that would be considered average for a Jonin, but abysmally slow for the fastest man currently alive.
Sasuke set his feet. Lightning chakra coating his hand to razors edge. His Sharingan blazing a deep crimson tracking and predicating Naruto's every move, the eye almost seemed to glow in a tracible pattern as it darted from side to side taking in every minute detail.
Sasuke's visual prowess was legendary. Not a detail was missed by him, he notices Naruto leaning ever so slightly to the left favoring the side with less broken ribs. He notices the taters of his cloths as they wind in the wind, the precise color of Naruto's eyes, the slight asymmetry of his shoulders, the trajectory of every grain of dirt kicked up by his rivals sandals, the flow of the air particles in the buoyancy of the air The level of information Sasuke could take in was truly astonishing, an amount so vast as to give him a sort of quasi precognition, all the while charging Naruto with his Chidori, aimed perfectly at Naruto's chest.
No attack slow enough that his body could react to could defeat counter him in his resolve. No quarter would be given. This was the end for Naruto. Were Sasuke's firm thoughts. This right here was a dance he had done so many times before, and the results were always the same. His Chidori rending the heart of those who stood against him. Just like Kakashi did to Haku all those years ago. Sure, he was damaged, but Naruto was too, perhaps even worse then him. He was slow. Vulnerable.
These firm beliefs of Sasuke's made it all the more surprising when Naruto hit him so hard in the jaw he flew into a cliff. He didn't see it coming at all.
"Hmm. Impressive to notice his Sharingan deactivated at that instant, kit." the voice of Kurama the Kyuubi intoned deeply in his head. "I have gathered the last of this areas chakra, release it all at once on him so the bastard can't absorb it with that Rinnegan of his." The fox commanded.
"NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!" with every word Sasuke's fist blasted small fissures into the cliff side. "I will not lose. I WILL NOT!" a crazed look entered Sasuke's eyes as his face as the last of his chakra coated his hand lightning wrapped around with the black flames of Amaterasu.
"So this is what it's come to" the thought entered Naruto's mind unbidden. Flashbacks of their first fight like this ending much the same way. The memory hardening Naruto's heart. He'd have to give it everything he had. Like Kakashi said all those years ago come at me with the intention to kill. Sasuke could handle it.
"This is what it always was meant to come down to wasn't it Sasuke? Just you and me, at the very end. One last clash."
The somber tone of his friend calmed the anger in Sasuke's eyes. He remembered the mutual respect they shared, the bond he so desperately needed to break, for if he didn't his duty could not be done.
Sasuke remembered the good times on team seven, the mutual respect shown in spite of his previous contempt, the challenges they faced together, the losses they suffered, the understanding they had.
Sasuke remembered their first class, the red chakra, the raw fear he experienced, the exhilaration of power, and the determination in his friends' eyes. How he failed to break the bond of friendship they had, just as Naruto refused to take his eyes with that final attack.
Finally, Sasuke remembered that this was no longer the small runt, the dobe. Standing before him was his only peer. The only man alive who could match him, who could perceive the world as he had now through the sage's chakra. Despite all his conviction, his pain, and his anger. Sasuke felt something else, an inkling of something that was a bit foreign to him now. Looking at how the warm blue eyes of his friend had turned a deep cobalt he felt a bit of fear.
"Hn. I suppose it was, Naruto" Sasukes voice was an even baritone. His words carrying little inflection, but Naruto knew what they meant all the same.
And so, the two peers charged at each other for the last time. Naruto's Rasengan forming instantly and colliding with Sasukes Chidori, the instant of the collision Naruto poured every ounce of his chakra, his feelings, his will into his attack. Sasuke did the same. In that microsecond of their chakra colliding they truly understood each other, the nature of chakras original purpose showing itself, the potency of their chakras providing a deeper understanding, their familiarity and previous clashing compounding the effect. For just a brief instant, the smallest amount of time conceivable they were at peace in their understanding.
But the briefness of their interaction was apparent with its jarringly ended, a fleeting moment of understanding and contentment, if not for the power of the interaction they might have thought they imagined it. But, inevitably, their chakra fulfilled the purpose they had truly set it to, death.
Another time they may have been evenly matched, they may have used that moment of understanding to make amends when they recovered, they may have ended the cycle of reincarnations fighting endlessly, forever.
But that was not this time. Naruto's Rasengan proved to be the superior attack of the day, enhanced as it was with the sudden surge of nature chakra from Kurama. The wind of the rotating sage chakra extinguishing the flames of amaterasu the shear rotational force and density of the natural chakra grinding the blade of lightening down into Sasuke's fingers, then his wrist, his arm, and as the Rasengan expanded it grinded away the entire arm of Sasuke Uchiha and begain to work on his abdomen. All in the blink of an eye. It would have ground him to dust too, if Naruto wanted. Yet, he stopped as soon as he realized it was over.
Shock registered on the face of Naruto. Hot tears begin leaking from his eyes, a panicked expression morphing into horror as he jumped into action.
He called upon the chakra of the sage, his chakra now, but none answered. The power that reignited the chakra pathways of Guy and reformed the eye of Kakashi could have saved Sasuke. It would have been trivial, but none was left after the battle.
Desperately Naruto tried and tried again, the strain causing an unbearable pressure on him until finally he passed out.
He tried to do something, he truly did, but all his effort were for not.
Sasuke Uchiha was dead.
That's it for the intro. This fic will be updated as I can as I have a lot of real life commitments. Please review, thanks!