The Pilgrimage
by Lpandora
I will save you, Naruto swore then. He was a brutal blaze of warmth that burned fire to ash. The heavens crackled with blood and the earth crumbled under the heaviness of memory.
I will not be saved, said Sasuke. There was nothing of him to save but broken bones for the dogs.
He took hate in one hand. Naruto took love in another. They sped forth, colliding in a storm of promise and fate. But Naruto pushed through the lightning in his hands—pushed him into the light. For an instant, they touched, and were flung to opposite ends of the earth.
Sasuke soared through an endless tide of whiteness. He thought of death, and all that lay beyond.
(then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free—)
—and he slammed into a coarse and grainy wall. The brightness cut his eyes. Choking up dust, he tried to blink away the blood, but lost the world to pain.
He awoke to heat and darkness and wondered if Naruto had thrown him straight to Hell. Every pressure point burned. The ground scratched him like hot sandpaper. Wincing at the soreness in his abdomen, he inhaled, and smelled the cleanness of the desert.
It came to him then that the scorching heat was the midday sun. He blinked—once, thrice—but could not see it. The cloudless sky and slopes of sand rose in his mind like a mirage, but their hazy colors were constructs of memory.
I'm blind.
A breeze blew hair into his eyes. Grimacing, he raised a slow hand, and brushed away the strands. So his eyeballs still had some feeling. Good. Perhaps they were not unsalvageable. By instinct and experience, however, he knew he would be better served carrying on without this hope than continuing because of it.
(Caw. Birds in the darkness.)
Sit up, he told himself, and dug his palms into the sand. His chest heaved.
Water. He needed water.
Where would he find it? How could he find it? In better days he might have summoned a torrent of rain in cloudless skies with a wave of his hand. He might have carved a well into the ground with bare hands; he might have molded chakra into great, rippling lakes.
I am Uchiha Sasuke, he thought, and clenched the sand.
The arid elements were not kind to blind, broken men. It would make scant difference if he laid in the sand until his thirst buried him or if he dragged his decaying legs across the endless, grainy slopes in hopes of stumbling upon a rare oasis or a kind traveller who had a canteen to spare. Neither choice appealed to him. But—
Neither choice repelled him.
In better days he would not have entertained the kindness of strangers. Now he could only pray for the tides of fortune to bring him assistance. Dry heat bore down on his festering wounds like lashes of a whip.
It was just like Naruto to take his eyes but leave his life.
Without a channel to bleed from, the darkness in his heart swirled around restlessly, drawing his anger and bitterness further into himself. No. Naruto did not save him. No. He hatedhim! He hated. Hated. Hate took him by the throat. Plunged him in the darkness. Choked him, drowned him—
(Caw. Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.)
Panting, he gripped his head as if it were a lifeline. It was dark out there, in there, nothing but darkness dark with nothingness. He was blind and going mad.
But first: water.
(Who provideth for the raven his food?)
He thought of his father then. Of Itachi, of Orochimaru, of Danzo, of Obito. (Of Naruto.) Somewhere along the way he had lost his path and taken another. Now he was lost again, with nothing but the dark desert wind whispering in his ears.
I hate you, he whispered back.
Stretching his head to the black sky, he unleashed a scream that shredded the veins in his throat and shook his soul. Then he stood, trembling, and plodded into the void. Perhaps he would find a path there.
In the darkness, he walked, and walked, and burned. The air settled into a chill upon his bare skin, and the sand grew cool under his scalded feet.
Something in the air tickled his nose, calling out to the very blood in his veins. He froze and took a second whiff. Smoke. There was fire. Stilling, he held his breath, and willed the wind to help him hear.
Voices. The scrape of rubber soles on sand. People. Not shinobi—too clumsy, too unguarded. Civilians, then. An old one and a young one.
Reaching into the darkness, Sasuke scraped around for remnants of chakra and cast a quiet Henge. In his mind's eye he fashioned long, pale hair, a flat nose, and a stout chin. It would get him by.
Spirits rising with the smoke, he trekked forth. The two voices trickled to silence as the scents grew stronger and the familiar warmth of fire ghosted his face.
Sensing no killing intent, but a strange, silent curiosity, Sasuke dropped his shoulders and sunk to the sand.
Kind travelers, he gritted out, could you spare a drink of water?
Silence. Some shifts of sand later, he felt cool porcelain pressed to his lips. Water had never smelled so sweet. He drank and drank and drank from the bottomless cup until his throat ached and his withered spirit grew strong.
Thank you, he said, and caught his breath.
The cup-bearer said nothing, but pushed something warm and smooth into his hands. He felt around the rim—a bowl—and took a deep breath. Rice gruel. Tipping the bowl past his lips, he reveled in the thick slide of warmth down his throat.
Thank you, he said again, and licked the bowl clean.
The cup-bearer lifted the bowl away. There was silence.
You have had a hard journey, spoke the one who was not the cup-bearer. His voice was deep with age and calm like a lake in spring.
More or less, said Sasuke, thinking of fresh clotting wounds and wounds that bled (bleed) for years.
We are making a journey, too, said the calm voice. We are leaving the desert behind.
Will you join us, young man?
Sasuke fought down the immediate, ingrained impulse to refuse. He was blind, he reasoned. They had water. They were leaving this Godforsaken no-man's land. They had eyes to find the way. He could find his way.
Count me in, he said, and turned to the fire.
They slept, walked, ate, breathed. Elder navigated through meditative trances like divine clockwork, while Younger took care of the food and the routine prayers. Having never developed an appetite for the spiritual, Sasuke kept silent and listened to the winds.
When I get out of here, he thought with each step, strong and sure. But with each step further he found he could not finish the thought.
In the chill of night he dreamed the death of a dream, and screamed through his awakening.
As Younger pressed a hasty cup of water down his hoarse throat, Elder's voice alighted on his shoulder like a breeze:
Young man, he said, would you care to hear a story?
...A story? said Sasuke. His head spun and rang as if it had been plunged underwater.
Younger put away the cup, and for the first time, sat by Sasuke. Elder's voice ebbed and flowed like the waves of a mantra. Sasuke wondered hazily if he was being drawn into some secret ritual.
There was once a sky, said Elder. Beneath the sky lay a land, and upon the land lay the darkness of war.
Mothers lost sons. Sons lost daughters. Daughters lost themselves. Brother hunted brother (here, Younger shivered). Hope bled from Man in red, forking rivers.
Strife split our people into warring factions. Nobody remembered why we fought, but nobody could stop fighting, lest he found his own demise at the brutal, desperate hands of another.
We strangled our children and buried our mothers.
From this barren, weeping earth, a single man rose. He was a simple man who lived by the outskirts of war in a village of ash. His neighbor had abandoned his two sons to join a band of bloodthirsty rebels. The man himself was childless. He took on the role of the children's caretaker and vowed to carve for them a better world.
They became family.
Soon, their small happiness was shattered. The band of rebels the children's father joined had been exposed as a key player in a violent uprising against the chief warlord of the region. To make an example of the rebels, all members were rounded up for public execution. Their male kin were to be seized and killed for the same.
Now, the man who had taken in the rebel's sons would sooner take his own life than give the two brothers up to the caprices of vengeance. His neighbors did not see him tuck the boys under his arms and flee into the night. But the warlord's soldiers seized them for treason, and hung death sentences over their heads.
Hearing of their plight, the man knew he could not in good conscience let them die. But he had two boys to hide. The soldiers were closing on them with each fretful hour. Before he shut his restless eyes that night, he clenched his teeth, dried his anguished tears, and begged for guidance from powers that had long fled the cesspool of the world.
That night, he dreamed. He woke with his answer.
In the haze of morning sun he embraced the sleepy boys and told them he would be out to handle some business. They were to stay put at all costs. Strapping a sword to his back, he headed for village square, footfalls grim but firm.
Stripped to mean rags that hooded their groin, the criminals lined up before the bloodthirsty crowd gathered at the square. Among them were young men, old men, sick men, lost men. The two boys' father knelt at the head of the line. They had beaten and bruised him and tied a dirty cloth over his eyes because his last wish had been to see the cold red sky.
Kill. Kill. Kill. A mantra of death snaked through the crowd.
Rising with the people's chants, the man leapt between the prisoners and the people. Stop this madness, he cried. How many more of our own sons shall we bury?
The crowd stilled.
Bearing a thousand gazes on his back, he walked to the man who had abandoned his sons, who now knelt before the heavy silence. The low footfalls coming his way struck coldness in his heart. Before he could pull against his chains, two fingers slid under his blindfold and tugged.
He saw light.
You are free, said his savior. I have returned you your freedom.
Now you must return to your sons.
Seize him, cried the chief warlord. The crowd thundered. Swords were drawn and chains were shattered.
Uncle, uncle, came a cry. The two boys had wandered from the hiding place and found him. But this was not a place for children.
Move, he cried. Too late. Spotting their father, the two boys ran forth. One of them tripped, and stumbled into the arms of death.
Brother! cried the other child.
The chief warlord shook the young body off his sword. It rolled to a stop in front of the people.
The man was too stunned to cry.
This cruel end of his surrogate son, this spilling of innocent blood—was this his fault? Was this what everything would come to?
It was one meaningless death in many.
But...
What would it take to make it the last?
He turned to the sky. Then he turned to the war. With the second, screaming boy hauled over his shoulder, the warlord strutted over to the boy's real father, who could do nothing but tremble by the pool of his dead son's blood.
The people watched. Overhead, the clouds rolled fast and red.
Placing the tip of his sword by the broken father's neck, the warlord made to swing, but was halted by a command.
Stop.
It was the man.
Spare them, he said.
Why? said the warlord.
For each person you spare, he said, you may cut off a piece of my body. He held out his wrists, and a shudder ran through the crowd.
This will be a good show, said the warlord, as he cast a glance over his agitated subjects. Very well, he roared, and let loose a low bellow of laughter.
With a swift swing of a sword, the man lost his hands. The father and his son were released into the crowd.
This is the price of my freedom, thought the father, staring at the blood on his hands.
And so it continued. There were forty rebels. He was cut into forty pieces. Not once did he scream.
Stop it, whispered a young girl, as his feet flew from his legs.
Stop it, said a young man, as stumps of his arm were carved away.
Stop it, cried the people, as his head was cleaved from his lifeless body.
The people led the charge on the warlord and his troops, and the rebels, trembling with invigorated spirit, stayed hot on their heels. They made quick work of the tyrants. It was strange, in retrospect, that they had not ousted him earlier, but they had only known to fight for their lives; they had not known how to fight for something greater.
As the fumes of death evaporated into the red sky, the clouds parted for the first time. The world changed. With the passing of war, a new birth of freedom and a new lease of life lay beneath the golden sky.
But the father never forgot the price of his freedom.
He saw it every day in his younger son. The son who never blamed him, always forgave him, despite all he had lost.
Uncle would have done the same, the boy said.
I must repent, decided the father one day. This is the only way I can begin to pay back my debt of life.
I must leave all of this behind.
Paying last respects to the shrine of his savior, the father distributed his worldly goods, took his last son in hand, and left for the desert.
A pause. The wind filled the chasm of silence. Younger stood up to hand Elder a cup of water. He drank it in like a memory. Sasuke clasped his hands and thought of his father.
At the other end of the desert lies the Village of Mirrors, Elder told him. That is where our path leads.
Sliding his fingers over the planes of his face, Sasuke felt a nose and chin that did not belong to him. Blind men had no use for mirrors.
Perhaps six days had passed. Perhaps one more. In the darkness, Sasuke stopped counting the sunsets.
How much have I given up? he thought, and tried to forget. In the end there were more things he did not want to count than those he could choose not to.
Naruto had burned his chakra reserves to crisp. They were singed and tattered like shredded curtains baring his infirmities for the world to see. Only the slow creep of time would restore them. Younger's gruel and water were just enough to keep his Henge from flickering into wisps of smoke.
What would he do once he left the desert? He had never given much thought to the comings and goings of blind civilian men. Perhaps if his eyes healed—no. They were far too damaged.
The Great Sharingan had fallen.
Shame gripped him tighter than he could breathe. He was Uchiha Sasuke. S-Rank international criminal. Slayer of Orochimaru. Destroyer of Konoha. Wielder of the Mangekyou Sharingan. Avenger.
But Brother-Mother-Father had left a long time ago. Who was left for him to avenge?
The Uchiha?
His Sharingan was gone. What gave him the right to be an Uchiha—
What made him an Uchiha?
His power was gone—
What made him a shinobi?
What made him Uchiha Sasuke?
Even the face he wore was not his own.
What did his true face look like? Did it matter if he could no longer see himself?
Who was Uchiha Sasuke?
The darkness did not falter.
He walked and walked and burned under the sun.
TBC