Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or the song used.
1
..
Milk
it for all it's worth, make sure you get there first
The apple of
your eye; the rotten core inside.
We are all prisoners; things
couldn't get much worse
I've had it up to here;
you know your end is near.
..
There was blood on his hands.
Blood on his hands and a body at his feet. A living person soon to be a corpse. A person who-he swallowed-used to be his closest friend.
Used to be.
Ruins surrounded him, scorching and smoldering. No building remained higher than a foot or so. A few lazy flames still licked the torn edges of the place, but there wasn't much left to burn. The destruction was recent and total-nothing was left. Nothing and no one; the survivors had made themselves scarce. And said survivors were terribly few.
Bodies littered the beaten ground like sick, bloodied rag dolls tossed aside by a child. Some had limbs twisted in unnatural ways. There were bodies without heads, and vice versa. Shinobi, mostly, but mixed in was the odd civilian or child. Collateral damage; accidental and unnecessary.
Konohagakure, arguably the most powerful of the Five Great Shinobi Nations, had fallen. The ninja world would soon be turned on its head by the turn of events, but that was the future-something he did not want to think about right now. Or ever.
Looking around, bile rose to his throat and he had to close his eyes to keep from heaving; not that he had anything to throw up in the first place. The scent of blood-fresh and dry-would have been overpowering to anyone only just entering the area, but he had gotten accustomed to it, which was a sad thing in itself. He recognized many of the dead, even if they had become mutilated beyond recognition.
These sights had sickened him before. Now he felt only numbness as he stared down at the broken form of the person whose fault it all was.
That boy-a teenager physically; a bitter old man mentally-used to be hailed as handsome, back when they were kids. Now his famously unruly hair was splayed out like a spider that had just been stepped on; his dark eyes were half-lidded and impossible to read, and there was a gaping hole in his chest that oozed every ounce of his life's blood. He had put that hole there.
He had expected to feel regret after it was done. There was no time for that while the deed was about to be done; things had happened so fast, and a glaring lack of choices had forced his hand.
A lack of choices, not to mention the corpse of the girl he loved lying in the dirt, killed by their shared teammate.
He did what had to be done, despite previously swearing he wouldn't. This was different. He had no cue who this-this thing-was anymore. It wasn't the boy he had known and cared for as a friend. Still, he had stood still afterward and awaited the crushing guilt and sorrow.
It never came.
He figured it was shock that prevented him from really feeling the loss of one of the most important people in his life. But time passed while he stood there, frozen, and at some point he gave up on waiting for the guilt. Because it wouldn't come. There was grief within him, buried under layers of shock, but there was little remorse for what he had done. Little regret-for the act itself, at least..
I'm sorry that you made me do this to you, he told the other person silently.
He couldn't regret killing him, though. Because Sasuke had brought it on himself when he carried out his mission to destroy Konoha and its residents.
I'm sorry that you lost yourself to the darkness.
He'd done what he had to do, because the other boy had given him no choice. No way out. He had truly turned into someone else.
I can't regret stopping you, but…
"Dammit," he hissed through clenched teeth. "Why did you have to do this to yourself?!"
I'm so sorry that I couldn't save you.
And Naruto cried, but they were tears of anger and not of sorrow.
..
When
all is said and done
I will be the one
to leave you in your misery and hate what you've become.
..
A/N: Part two will be out soon. After that, I need to quit writing morbid fics like these for awhile.