Team 7, unrequited NaruSasu; warnings for violence and character death.
Dry Mouth, Dry Eyes
by VernaJast
(it's all right to cry when your whole world is broken.)
Remember...when you were twelve.
He vaguely hears her telling him how she had begged him to stay-"Sasuke-kun..."
And he knows, without looking, that her eyes are wide and green like the forest, intensified by red puffy lids and more glistening, unshed tears.
She will never look so broken for him.
But Naruto comforts himself in the knowledge that he does not look half as stricken, though his heart stopped minutes ago and fell to pieces in his chest.
He's gone.
The boy makes his Number One promise and walks away as well, with dry mouth, dry eyes, and that unbreakable smile Sasuke's already managed to tarnish.
Remember...when you were sixteen.
"Sasuke..."
When Sasuke literally stabs him in the back, it is with a profound sense of deja vu that Naruto slumps against his former teammate and breathes in a scent that has only ever belonged to him. No one else.
His heart doesn't burst when the blade slides in between his ribs. Sasuke misses. Sasuke doesn't ever miss.
"How can someone who can't even save a friend become Hokage?" The words are ice in his veins, but that word...'save'...strikes home, and the conversation with Kyuubi no Kitsune in the metaphorical heart of Naruto's psyche lights a fire that can't be diminished. All of it together pushes him toward his goal.
Sakura watches him grow strong, though he often misses the half-hidden smile she covers with cold fingers whenever he looks her way. It is a shame she never tells him how proud she is; he would sorely like to hear it.
Sasuke.
"You...idiot! You can't die, not like this!" Red chakra burns Sakura's skin as it leeches off of the crumpled body in front of her, and she bites her lip, trying to think through the pain. She has been training for this moment. Everything comes down to this.
Sasuke is still backing away. He was holding the body when she arrived, the young snake lord reduced to trembling hands and wide black eyes, "Save him!" For all of his many jutsu, he cannot master healing; it isn't in his nature to create and cure. So he runs when he's sure she won't abandon the blond. He doesn't look back.
The last of the demon's chakra dissipates, and only Naruto is left. Without a pulse, without breath. All that he has are Sakura's hands on his chest, her eyes closed, silent thanks to Chiyo-baasama and Tsunade-shisou...
And a whispered goodbye.
"Save him, Naruto. Bring Sasuke home. I'm sorry, for lots of things, but mostly for never..."
One heart stops and another starts up again with a gasp and a sputter from Naruto's corpse. The seal reactivates in a spasm of fiery, twisting chakra, and he's lucky he's still (mostly) unconscious.
If it's Sasuke's blood on his hands, he can't say it's anything new. But what could possibly be left of Sasuke inside of that thing?
He watches as it transforms back into the (pale skin, lean body, beautiful) Sasuke he remembers.
The fox rages for more. More blood, more death, more pain, more spindly, broken threads of control. More.
He won't save you this time, will he? You've killed your savior. The last Uchiha. The only one who could-
'Shut up.'
But it doesn't 'shut up;' it keeps up the litany of abuse right through Naruto's tears/not tears. His eyes are dry. There is nothing left to mourn.
And you should know...the fox understands exactly what this death has cost its host. It has seen the proof in Naruto's stickiest dreams-he loved the boy with black eyes and black hair.
Now the locks are matted with blood, but Naruto still strokes them, holding the demon fox back to take one selfish moment with his final failure, his final fuck up, final mistake.
It's almost a relief to admit he's a dobe, an idiot, a loser, a failure in the end. Sakura gave her life for nothing, and Naruto would give it back in an instant.
"I'm sorry, Sakura, Sasuke."
His blue eye/not eyes falls on the Sharingan, open and staring up at him, and he doesn't see any problem in a little more bloodshed (and perhaps that's telling in itself). Two fingers scoop out his friend's right eye before he can think about the sloppy feel of it on his fingertips, and Naruto concentrates on the things Sakura has taught him. She would know the correct jutsu for this, of course she would, but she's gone, so he slots the eye into his own empty socket and does his best to heal the tissue around it.
It will do. So will the pain. "Sensei, does it always feel like this?"
Don't talk to yourself, dobe.
He tugs his hitai-ate down to cover the Sharingan, and Sasuke's eye rolls in his head before it all goes black.
Naruto doesn't feel the strong arms that pick him up not long after, nor the brush of silver hair on his cheek when Kakashi realizes what his student has done and holds him tighter. They leave Sasuke's body where it's fallen, leaving the job of disposal to others, though the remaining Sharingan is destroyed by Kakashi's heel before turning back toward the village.
He brings his boys home with a cold heart, dry mouth, and dry eyes. Obito tells him as much, that he is frigid and arrogant, unfeeling.
The last Hatake nods, satisfied. He is a true shinobi, and unlike his own guilty burden, his own Uchiha, he never learned that it's all right to cry when your whole world is broken.
[ . end ]