Notes1: For the past couple days, I've been in the process of planning revisions for Heart of Fire, Soul of Calamity and plotting narrative threads that are still barebones in the brainstorming process but given just enough material to remind myself what I'm working on whenever I go back to the notebook that currently contains them.
As I was doing so, I decided to take a look at the Sasuke Recovery Mission Arc as part of the research process (and as of this post, that's all the spoilers you're getting out of HoFSoC!). I'm honestly not sure what compelled me to write this beyond the simple fact that, in a lot of Naruto-centric fiction, those stories begin with Sasuke and Naruto capping off their fight at the Valley of the End with the Chidori and the Rasengan, a scene that has established itself a signatory defining moment in the franchise canon but also a standard cliché that, more often than not, ends with Naruto either dragging Sasuke home to get banished by a laughably OOC cast (save Hinata, because she often serves as the primary designed love interest; and love interests like her have to be as pure as driven snow to fit that particular narrative mold), get the shit beat out of him by an evil!OOC!Kakashi and get taken back to Konoha...only to be banished because...he accomplished his mission? What?
Barring the serious implications that arise from exiling a hidden village's one and only Jinchuuriki for committing to his duties while said village itself is getting back on its feet right after being invaded by Orochimaru (a notorious rogue ninja) and Sunagakure (which was manipulated by the former, who was under the guise of their Kazekage) just as they've installed Tsunade as Fifth Hokage, I always found the banished!Naruto stories (regardless of whether or not he ends up in another village, into the West, or somehow miraculously rebuilds Uzushio in a span of three or so years) to be poorly written that suffer under the same shlock and bullshit that is usually become run-of-the-mill for Naruto fanfiction.
So I wanted to do something that is - hopefully - a little different than the standardized norm that's precedence in the VotE fight. It's a very short story; I don't think this will go any longer than two chapters, and they are simply meant to be short in length. I doubt this will be expanded upon, either, outside of my own lackadaisical leisure; if anything it'd just be a retread of pretty much all of Shippuden minus Boruto, and it would render the entire backdrop Asura and Indra have that retroactively affected all of canon very, very moot. (That is, if I were to go down that route, but it'd be more introspective and much less bombastic/DBZ-lite than how Shippuden wound up being.)
In this moment, with the high cackles of birds drowning out the falls and the stifling, broiling heat of demonic chakra setting the water to steam, the world forever changes.
They meet at the center of the valley, Chidori and Rasengan. Their cries resound in their heads, though their mouths move; who would care to hear them? The colossal buildup of energy explodes outward, conceals them in a dark sphere and shields the naive and the bold from witnessing the war that wages from within.
Sasuke snarls at the blond, whiskered face that matches his own. The fire in the pit of his stomach, that which had smoldered and spat sparks with each blow traded, blazes to a volcanic inferno at the pair of red cat's-eyes that bear down on him. Eyes that are filled with the righteous fury of a crusade that will be found and met with all the ungodly determination humans are wont to express at their most ambitious.
They are lamp-bright, like the first stars to appear in eventide.
They are nothing like Itachi's, cold and stark in the husk of an automaton installed with only a singular purpose. The perfect soldier in a world of righteous killers and ignorant optimists.
But even perfection can die. No one thing can last forever, not even the prodigal son of the Clan Uchiha.
(Not even Sasuke himself.
(Sasuke doesn't believe that. He was kept alive for a reason. All that power within a single person, and for what express reason other than to show the world what kind of person Uchiha Itachi really is? There is no glory to be had in it. There is no honor.
He made the wrong choice, that one. The worst one a genius like him could have ever made in his life.)
All the answers to his problems—and the road to the future he will carve himself—lie within his grasp.
Sasuke reaches out at the same time Naruto swipes elongated claws at his forehead protector. Reaches for the flame that rises up from his belly, scorches the walls of his heart, and sets every single thought in his head alight until only the face of his brother backlit by the cold, uncaring cosmos remain. Mocking. Eternal.
Naruto coughs blood. His jaw goes slack.
His arm goes wide, missing Sasuke's forehead protector.
An ember in the ashes begins to glow. Slowly, flickering.
And then the world behind his eyes burns.
When the light fades and the ringing in his ears subside, Sasuke stirs, prostrate on the ground. There's a copper tang in his mouth, almost steel, and the incessant pounding in his limbs and his head is almost enough to make him pass out again.
The flaring of the curse mark on the back of his neck reminds him not to, and so for several moments Sasuke sucks in large gulps of damp air, one shaky breath at a time.
Something small and red falls and splashes into view.
Sasuke blinks, and another drop descends. It lands on orange fabric and spreads thin, reedy tendrils across it.
They touch the larger, darker patch next to it and merge.
His breath catches, sudden and painful. He sits up, hissing at the dizziness that tosses his vision sideways and sets his stomach to roll and fumble. Inhaling sharply through his nostrils, quieting the discontent within, Sasuke presses his lips tight and forces himself to focus.
In this moment, the world stops moving.
Naruto lies underneath him, scarcely breathing. His eyes are no longer feral red but the calm, soothing blue of a sunny afternoon. They look past Sasuke, past the sky, at the residual chakra that rises like birds taking flight.
Blood pumps out from the hand buried in his chest.
Sasuke stares.
"You did it…Sasuke," Naruto rasps. His lips barely move, so the words come out less coherent and more of a drunken, sleepy slur. The tip of his tongue pokes out and doesn't recede back into his mouth, like a turtle with only the crown of its head sticking from its shell. "You really...did it. You got...exactly what you...wanted."
A few, trembling, shallow breaths—breaths that make the heart under Sasuke's palm twitch erratically.
Then:
"Are you...happy...now?"
Sasuke yanks his hand out, rises, stumbles away from Naruto as though he's infected. Clutches it to his breast, glances down at it, sees the blood caking it all the way up to the wrist and dribbling in rivulets toward the pointed slope of his elbow.
Bile rises in his throat, and this time he can't fight it. This time he turns around and lets the contents come out.
Once he's done, he falls to his knees, gasping and shaking. He throws his hands out and catches himself just as he's about to hit the ground face-first.
He sees his reflection in a puddle of water before him, broken and stabbed repeatedly by rain he hasn't noticed until now.
Staring back at him, alarmed, pale, and agape, is a pair of peculiar Sharingan. The tomoe are gone, melded together into a red, six-pointed star, inlaid against an iris that has gone completely black.
His mind hearkens back to the night of the massacre, of Itachi standing tall and imposing above his sniveling, kneeling form. The moon, towering above the compound, its buildings purged of life, its streets littered with broken bodies and running with the blood of their ancestors and their lost future. His Sharingan were conjoined in harmony, black scythe-blades fit for harvest.
Sasuke raises his hands, stares at them. Lowers them and stares at his mirror image.
Hate me, Sasuke. Hate me and live, like the coward you are. When the day comes and you have my eyes, only then will you find me again.
Only then will you have the power to destroy me...and, perhaps, restore the honor you have so foolishly clung to for so long.
The Mangekyo Sharingan, he thinks with awe. I have it...I finally have them. I finally have the power to kill Itachi.
Coughing, harsh and ragged, but weak. Still, Sasuke's head whips up in Naruto's direction, wondering if the boy's gotten back up on his feet somehow. Wonders if the hole he made from the Chidori has healed, has knitted his lung back together, stitched the torn muscle and built fractured bones in his arms and ribs anew with that odd, sinister chakra that looks just like-
No.
It doesn't matter anymore.
Uzumaki Naruto is going to die.
His closest friend.
Sasuke stares.
All around him, the rain continues to pour.
Time passes by without a care. Sasuke doesn't move, doesn't so much as stir.
Then—a pinprick, like static cling on cloth. The hairs on the back of his neck rise. The spittle on his tongue goes dry. His heartbeat picks up a frantic tempo and runs away with it.
Sasuke gasps awake.
Chakra, flashing and ephemeral, is coming this way—fast.
Sasuke glances at Naruto's body. No other sound has escaped him since. With these new eyes, he can tell, in clear detail, how shallow, how ghostly his breathing has become.
Something settles in his chest, like a weighted stone. Presses down, down, down.
Cracks-
(He will not be the first. He is far from the last. How could he be?)
The chakra draws closer.
Sasuke takes one step back. A second, a third. He dares not tear his eyes away from Naruto.
Then he turns around and runs, runs as much as his battered body will allow him. He bites back the hiss of pain that slips out as he staggers and slaps a hand over the curse mark that radiates heat through and keeps going, making a beeline straight for the woods on the other side of the valley and onto the unbeaten path within.
From there, he lets the Mangekyo Sharingan guide him west, toward Sound Country.
Are you happy now, Sasuke?
You got exactly what you wanted.
Are you happy now?
Sasuke's breath hitches, digs his nails deeper into the curse mark. Pulls the line of chakra into his eyes to brighten the surroundings and quickens his pace.
He doesn't stop running.