A/N: Short SasuNaru story . . . my first fan fic so please comment!
Fine Line
It was hard to breathe with the purple nails digging into his neck. Sasuke tried desperately to pry the fingers off his now bruised neck, but the long fight had left him weary and barely able to think.
"Foolish little brother," a labored breath that betrayed the other's mutual exhaustion.
The grip tightened. "Do you not learn from your mistakes? Did you think that you could defeat me with just intense dislike and an imagination of what it's like to kill? Why are you here without real hate in your eyes?" A chilling laugh made Sasuke's heart shiver. It was immediately followed by a hard punch to his stomach, making him retch up more blood – the metallic taste stinging the back of his throat. Another punch to his side sent a white flash to his vision.
Slowly, the white melted into a bright yellow, brilliant as the sun though it didn't sting his eyes as the white burning had done. The yellow sharpened further into golden locks of hair that turned around to reveal beautiful blue eyes – piercing, loving, pure. A brilliant smile broke across lush lips and Sasuke felt his heart warm and then contract in pain as he saw the smile grow cold, the eyes cringing in suffering as Itachi suddenly appeared, only to dig a long hand into the golden locks, pulling out something red and barely yielding. As the last bit of the demon fox left its vessel, the warm light faded, collapsed and broken on the ground.
Sasuke saw red; his eyes snapped open to stare intently at his brother. Itachi looked up in shock to see the tomoes morph into a new shape. Sasuke realized at that moment that the man before him was the last one left who could ever hurt the one he cherished the most in the world. He felt a rush of power rise from within himself, his chakra flaring up to send shock waves through his body.
"Chidori!"
The sound of ten thousand birds barreled through the very center of Itachi, emerging on the other side, sizzling to a dull crack, and dying off. As Sasuke withdrew his bloody hand, Itachi fell backwards onto the ground, still looking up with shock at his blood-splattered brother. Slowly, he slipped into unconsciousness as he felt the pull of the Shinigami. As he faded away, the last thing he heard was a calm cold voice: "There's a fine line between love and hate, foolish brother."
