A/N: This kind of happened on a whim. It was meant as a birthday present to my friend, Serenity's Angel. So... Here ya go, Ren!
I've been working with it for a while though so I figured it was worth posting.
There might still be a few errors, please let me know if you catch anything.
Reviews are awesome, they get you cookies. Thanks in advance!
Enjoy. ^-^
In the past, whenever he'd looked at his hands, he'd seen them covered in blood. His brother's, Orochimaru's, the elders. He'd never considered the after-all of the scrubbing it would take to make them recognizable. All of the stains that would forever pigment the lines of his palms.
There was a time though, a brief moment, when the idea had been forced into his mind under the guise of choice. The same day the frightening voice of Truth had echoed off the walls of a damp cave, crept into his wounds and infected him.
It was fine though. Revenge had been his life, his mission. His only purpose. Now there would be no hollowness. None of the pain or the scrubbing that fleeting voices from his past had cried at him. He could completely crush those whispers now. There was no more doubt, there was no more pain; only justice.
"Avenger?" he chuckles. Not out of humor; laced with pain and lined with bitterness. "You're a murderer, and you're doing exactly what Itachi sacrificed so much to stop your family from doing." His blue eyes, lined by smudges of blood, remain frozen with determination. "You're a monster. I know it too." He laughs that twisted laugh again. Maybe they are more alike than Sasuke had previously acknowledged.
"But I still can't give up on you."
Not that it matters. Naruto will never change, not really. He is useless.
"You're protecting the real monsters." Sasuke tilts his chin and draws his sword. "And you're a fool." He bends, preparing to strike.
"Yeah," his mouth settles into a tiny, ill smile. "Yeah, I am."
"You'll die like one."
Naruto nods, waiting. "I know."
Sasuke makes a noise of disgust. "Idiot." He moves, fast and sure. Naruto doesn't even flinch.
The point of Sasuke's blade is almost to the boy's throat-his muscles pull, grip tightens, and he is ready. He is ready. He is ready.
Naruto moves with a new swiftness and blocks his blade with the tip of a kunai. When he skids to a halt a few feet away, there is no surprise in his face. No more gaping mouth, no more pain. Sasuke sneers; satisfied. About time the screw-up learns.
"I really can't save you."
Sasuke's fingers slip on the hilt and he slices the blade through the air to regain his grip. "It's long past the time for you to realize that I don't need saving." He dives back in. One step closer to his last into furthering darkness.
Naruto doesn't dodge, he doesn't leap or jump; he simply moves away from Sasuke's strikes. And Sasuke is careless, he forgets himself in the swing of his sword, the glint of metal. He sees the blood. What he's already spilt and what he will in the future.
There is-has been for a long while-this thing stirring in his chest. It squirms and wriggles. It thrives in the carnage. At first, he wasn't sure what to do with it. Only a few short years ago, it might even have frightened him. Now he calls it friend, calls it Hatred. And he feeds it the corpses of the guilty slain. Its hunger is insatiable.
But it withdraws now, hisses and hides, coils in his spine. As usual, Naruto isn't good enough.
From the distance that stands between them Naruto has adopted an almost blank countenance. Sasuke revels in the loss of that stupid grin and the empty hopelessness in his almost soulless blue eyes. Maybe this time, they really will fight on equal terms.
Sasuke is panting. He shouldn't be tired already, but he is. The edges of his vision are smoky, and the clouds are starting to move in. He can't afford to go blind because of Naruto of all people. He decides to end this quickly.
But it doesn't matter how fast he moves, Naruto is always just a tiny bit quicker. It's not as if he misses completely. Naruto is bruised and cut. As it stands though, Naruto knows that Sasuke should already be able to see inside him. He should know his resolve every time Naruto counters one of his attacks. But this thing, the black-eyed creature screaming and swiping at him doesn't comprehend. And it will not be satisfied until it's cut him open.
Sasuke feels it moving in his back. The crawling sensation of it makes him sick-sicker. It doesn't approach Naruto, won't get close to him, but it lashes at Sasuke's insides; punishes him for not being good enough to just end him already. The pain doesn't make him stronger. It simply distracts him, frenzies him.
Now he thinks that maybe he's named it wrong. Hatred is his heart, this living weapon is Rage.
But Sasuke is strong. He has given everything up to be strong and he ignores the tongues licking at the back of his mind. This time, as Naruto sidesteps-so easily and almost languidly-Sasuke doesn't see the emptiness anymore. He sees anguish, he sees resolution. He sees the end.
It won't be his.
Sasuke shifts and presses Naruto against the wall between a kunai and his sword. He borrows Naruto's twisted smile and tells him, "I told you so." They share the shadows as Sasuke's blade comes alive with the Chidori. Naruto doesn't move.
At least, not until the wicked tip of the sword breaks through the first layer of flesh. There's barely even a sound. Sasuke watches the blade disappear into the boy's torso and he feels the nerves scream. The awful tearing sensation, the pressure. He'd stopped grinning as soon as he'd won, but when he feels blood running down his leg to pool at his feet, he can't help it.
"I'm sorry," Naruto whispers.
Sasuke feels the pressure let up and Naruto removes the kunai from his ribs as pulls free his sword. He doesn't know what Naruto hit, but he knows it was vital. He falls to his knees and laughs through his coughing. Naruto remains standing.
He looks up and into the despair. "So…" Sasuke licks at the blood dripping from his mouth. "How does it feel?" He chokes. "How does it feel to finally win?"
Naruto's ever-young grin quivers. "Like hell."
Sasuke laughs again, but the bitterness is hard to find. The thing in his back is leaking out of him with the rest of his life. "Good."
Sasuke falls over, and Naruto voluntarily rolls next to him. He won't die, they both know it. Once again, Naruto has broken his promise. Sasuke tells him so. "Pick a new nindo, or you'll always be a liar."
Naruto nods and the idiot is actually crying. Tears for the monster.
Sasuke is tired of looking at him so he stares at the open sky from the rock bottom of the pit they made. He feels Naruto beside him. If he ignores all the slight trembling, it's sort of like being thirteen again. On the grass, sleeping through a mission night. Of all the times he's woken up, imagined he could actually feel all the blood on his hands-running sticky and sick between his fingers-he'd always wondered when some of it would finally be his. If he'd have to do it himself. But as usual, Naruto has to be the hero.
He also has to have the last word, "I'm sorry."
Sasuke doesn't know who he's bothering to apologize to. He's already far away, fast asleep in the woods, whishing the idiot would stop talking and just go to sleep.