New chapter out. It's like all those ideas are bursting to come out and I can't sleep till I put something on again.
Prompt: Waiting for the end, by Linkin Park.
j.
The heavens rip open with a silence that contradicts the incessant ringing in his ears, echoing in a way that's constant to the earth and its orbit. Sasuke thinks he's sick of the rain, tired of watching it fall and patter on the dry ground to fill up tea-coloured puddles the way memory bombs still, tea-coloured minds; the sound reminds him of damp underground trenches and journeys through the fog, of an age and memory he wants to burn out like the black flame that burns in those images behind his lids.
It had rained the day he had entered a sealed up Uchiha compound, tracing his steps on the cobble stone pathways with a reverie that rivaled that of the dead. It had rained the day Itachi had died, a rueful smile twisted on his lips as the blood seeped out of him and left him dry- Sasuke has had bad memories linked with the rain, and yet the gray clouds follow him like faithful strays.
The kyuubi's chakra dies down like muted sunlight before a storm, and as Naruto blinks back to his blue eyes, Sasuke thinks that maybe he's been wrong of him being the indestructible one out of the four of them. He thinks of his brothers words and of the war they had fought to the end, burning out their limbs to ash and blood and ancestry; of standing silent in crowds of moving people who never looked back to the rubble of the past, necks bent to facilitate their views of the ground because it hurt too much to see the horizon. Sasuke thinks of the burst of colour in his mind and the spark of spring in his mouth, of the memory of rain in his lungs and the scent of wet grass in his nose and how it never really changes no matter where you are. He thinks maybe its time to change the flow of history and be the one to bring her back home this time.
"Where did she go to?" The words float past his lips in a cloud of white mist, the rainwater mixing with the sound of his voice. He sees Naruto smile.
"Hell if I know. Hell if I ever knew," he says, voice tinted with a self resigned sadness that reflects his guilt. But then he looks at him and Sasuke knows there's something that binds them, an intangible string that beats and hums and stretches taut but never breaks.
The rain accompanies the spell of silence that follows.
Then: "Kakashi-sensie is gonna be so mad when he hears of this," the blonde besides him groans, holding his head in his hands as they survey the remains of the broken training ground. "He's going to kill us."
"You," Sasuke corrects, pushing the kusunagi back in its sheath, "He's going to kill you."
Naruto sputters.
"Whaa- bastard, don't abandon me. This is your fault too! Wait, don't walk walk away from me, Sasuke. SASUKE!"
The smirk that pulls on his lips is the last thing Naruto sees before he transports himself to the Hokage tower.
"YOU ASSHOLE!"
A dash of well-deserved humor at the end.
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