From the Chaos, Sweet Creation
xx
There was always something. Something more, that could never be fully taken away. It was always there, like the Sun or blood in one's veins. But what, exactly, was 'it'?
Sasuke could never find the answer, as he tended to take more than he gave. But he always saw it. No matter how badly he flattened a village with the help of his team, or how brutally they murdered an enemy, there was always something left behind. In the wake of their destruction, something existed, something they could not touch.
He wanted to figure it out, this thing that annoyed him to no end, because how dare it try to hide from him? He wasn't dense, not by a long shot, but this...uncovering this truth was harder than it seemed.
It was intangible. Like wisps of smoke or spider web, only not, because those he could see. And touch, to a certain extent. He knew what they were; the leftovers of fire, the house of an arachnid. Sasuke was not dense, definitely not. Maybe he just wasn't receptive.
He'd played with this notion before, but then had always asked himself receptive to what and he had to admit he did not know, and thus was left feeling frustrated and anxious. He never liked not knowing things.
xx
Naruto had seen him standing once, at the edge of the battlefield they had just demolished. It was their first fight in four years that hadn't been against each other, rather with each other, and against the corpses now littering the ground.
"What are you staring it?" Naruto asked as he scanned the area around them, wiping at the trail of blood that trickled down from a cut under his left eye.
"Do you feel that?" Sasuke answered a question with a question. His eyes were narrowed, reflecting the blood that was pooling in the hard dirt. Naruto raised an eyebrow and waited, but the other did not elaborate.
"Feel what, bastard?"
"I don't know!" Sasuke snapped angrily, shoulders tensing with his sudden anger. "It! Just...it!"
"Oh, right, it. Yeah, I so feel it," Naruto said sarcastically. "Know what else? You are never cryptic." Sasuke angrily blew out his breath in a huff, then knocked his teeth together. He hated not knowing. It was so strong.
"I think I figured out a bit of it..."Sasuke said slowly, head still rotating around them. "The more there are, the more I feel it. Like when he killed my family, it was strong. And I only knew that because I was there. But since then, when there are a lot of them, I feel it again. Except..." Sasuke frowned.
"Except now...it's not directed to me. Like it was then. Now and then, they're different. Because I knew that it used to concern me. But now it doesn't. Because now I'm like him, and the me is the ones who live and knew them all, are affected by this."
Naruto stared in obvious confusion, mouth slightly open as he looked at Sasuke. "What the hell are you talking about?" he asked very slowly, as though thinking that the slower he spoke the better chance Sasuke had of understanding him.
Sasuke tossed a dismissive glance his way. "Pfft. And I thought I wasn't receptive." Abruptly he leapt from Naruto, running across the packed field and stopping in the midst of the carnage. He crouched low and glared at the body in front of him.
Naruto came up beside him, and looked down at the man. Nothing particularly special about him; dressed in gray and black, had fought with a scythe that had invaded Naruto's personal space one too many times to be forgiven. Eyes half-open and misted over with death. The killing blow still seeping dried blood through his vest, a kunai in the heart. It had been necessary.
He looked at Sasuke, still crouched next to the body. He'd closed his eyes and seemed to be concentrating. On what Naruto did not know. The silence stretched around them, and Naruto found himself oddly drowsy. He was sure he was about to fall asleep standing up when a great, shuddering breath to his right startled him.
Sasuke rocked back on his heels and stood, still looking down at the man. "He really had it. I think he has a family. Probably a big one. Wife. Few kids. Shit," he muttered and turned away. Naruto shook the haze from his head and trotted after him.
"Uh, is that a bad thing?"
"No shit. Now I have to..."
"Have to what? Pay your condolences?" Naruto scoffed. He really didn't understand the train of thought. Although it seemed like it had been derailed long ago and was just dragging its' wreckage through a valley.
Sasuke stood still, gaze sweeping over the plains. He sighed, and his shoulders slumped slightly. "You don't get it," he told Naruto in a low voice, one that held the traces of sadness.
"I think I do, finally. It's what I've felt after every kill, since that day, when Itachi...it's a feeling. Not mine though, theirs." He waved his hand absently at the bodies littering the field around them. "It's what they felt, the last thing they felt, before they died. Before I killed them."
"Well...don't take all the credit, I got my fair share too," Naruto reminded him, hoping to wipe the dark look from Sasuke's face, to no avail. He rewound Sasuke's words in his mind. "What do you mean 'the last thing they felt'? Pain or something?"
"Not physical, moron," Sasuke hissed derisively. "Their feeling. Or what they thought would happen once they were dead, and their comrades or family found out. Like when my family was killed, and they knew that I was the last one alive." He faced Naruto. "You don't get it yet? It's their belief that their deaths will be avenged. That the one who killed them will be made to pay. I felt that, years ago.
"When I was standing in the middle of my parents' blood, and Itachi was gone, I felt it and knew then what I had to devote my life to: avenge them. The whole clan. It was the least they could expect of me, so they did. Expect it. And I couldn't very well let them down, now could I?"
"I don't follow," Naruto said, his mind working to try to sort out what his friend was saying. It didn't make sense. "I get that you could maybe 'feel' that or whatever, but why do you feel it now? You killed them. If anything, they'll be avenged by your death at the hands of their family or friends or whoever."
"Exactly!" Sasuke nodded, seeming pleased that Naruto had caught on. "The ones that have someone to care about them, they're the dangerous ones. Because now there's going to be a whole new ... fleet of us. People to ruin and waste their lives, all for the sake of revenge. You remember, Naruto, when I left Konoha for Sound. What did you feel then?"
Naruto's jaw clenched of it's own accord. "You know what, bastard. I was so damn angry, at that snake bastard for taking you away from me...from us. It wasn't only me. Kakashi and Sakura were the same way."
"And why did they feel that way? What brought all of this on? Revenge," he answered his own question. "Because I wanted revenge on him for killing my family, so I squandered everything I once cared about to follow Orochimaru.
"You know what they say about snakes, Naruto? Where there's one, there's two. And where there's two, there's a whole nest of them." Again he looked back at the masses of bodies surrounding them.
"There's always another Orochimaru, Naruto. These kinds of people don't just fade away, or allow only one of them to exist. They thrive off of idiots like me, who are so damn gullible they'll do anything to avenge a pile of dust. Because that's all they, " he waved his hand around, "really are. So why do people like me throw away their lives for people who don't even care?"
He sighed and shook his head, staring at the stained earth. "So I figure, the least I can do, is kill them. The would-be avengers. I do them a favour, and let them be satisfied with the life they lived, and not waste it, trying to avenge the dead people. This way no Orochimaru figures can copy what he did. I guess it's a kind of...twisted nobility."
"But...you don't need to kill them all," Naruto said, brow furrowed in confusion. "I don't think anyone could be as stupid as you were. And still are."
"The need for revenge makes you do strange things. Morals, principles, beliefs, all mean nothing. Revenge requires a one-track mind. You can't get hung up on anything else." The silence stretched around them for long moments, a cool breezed lifting loose shirts to ruffle lightly.
"This isn't only a grave site, you know. It's a birthplace of the most demented kind. What we are witnessing, Naruto, is the creation of an avenger, in the roughest and most primal form. But you know what?" Sasuke cocked his head and glanced over at Naruto, who looked slightly disturbed, and put out. But no longer confused.
"It gets the job done. Because from this perfect chaos comes perfect opportunity." Sasuke bent and assimilated the hitai-ates to the villages, mapping out his noble course.
"And when a chance like this approaches you, all you can do is grab it and hope for the best. Opportunities like this only come around once in a lifetime."
So Sasuke left the birthplace of the potential generation of avengers, to save them from themselves as he had not been saved. And Naruto was left standing, reflecting, and wondering just what the hell this whole day was all about.
xx
Friday night, and I am ultimately bored. Therefore, second oneshot posted tonight. Note to self: get a life.
Note to you: please review.