October 23, 2014
The Sky
by Hic Iacet Mori
Chapter 33
The light was blinding. Searing. It forced his eyes shut but something inside him was crying out, willing him to fight back, force them wide open. You'll regret it, was the chant, deep and endless and digging into his body, carving fissures into his soul, you'll regret it if you don't, open your eyes, fight back—
His nostrils flared at a weight crushing on his chest. His mouth parted slightly in response—it was akin to a gasping scream abruptly cut short before it could begin, and blood swiftly flooded within and dribbled down his chin. He thought he could hear a little gurgling sound, reminiscent of a distant brook, but he knew it was his mind trying to trick him when he couldn't hear a thing at all. It was quiet, jarringly so, a complement to the white blindness that glued his eyelids shut.
His throat felt parched. Needles of thirst stabbed its arid desert. Strange, when blood kept rising as if to drown him.
He swallowed. His body jerked with a rack of coughs.
He didn't feel it.
Somewhere inside him he knew he should feel pain. Feel something. Anything.
—lift up your hand, wimp, lift it up and stop this, you'll regret it if you don't—
There was nothing.
—before it's too late—
There was nothing, and the light was seeping into his eyes, his ears, his mouth, his skin, coating his numb body like blood dripping from above in fine mists of rain.
—stop him!
Blood not his.
Stop!
But there was nothing, and there was nothing he could do.
From the silence of nothing wrapped around him like morning fog, Sasuke heard a tiny drop.
"You protected me…?"
It echoed in his ears with the tinkling of a chime.
"How the hell… should I know?"
Like raindrops on a lake, creating ripples of silver.
"I hated you. My body moved on its own—"
Muddling the images in the bank of his mind.
"Don't die."
His breath hitched. His body seized in response, breaking into little spasms as if touched by live wire. Blood gushed up from within. Flowed down from without.
Cut ribbons on a picture already blurred by rain.
"It's time to make your choice! Kill me and become a hero, or die at my hand and be another one of my victims!"
Blood.
"I'm not gonna be your victim or go down in history as the hero who killed you!"
Rain.
"Neither!"
They mixed in the palette of an invisible artist, drawn over existing paintings to craft a new portrait.
"He's just a bastard!"
"Baka! Stop calling him that!"
"B-But Saku—"
"Ne, ne, you want to go someplace else, Sas—"
"You're both annoying."
Did over the images he had forcefully buried in his mind for years.
"New mission! Find Tor—"
"You're making the future Hokage find that stupid cat again!?"
"I hate to agree with him but he's right. This is the fourth time already, sensei! Shijimi-sama should just let him go."
"Yeah! Plus I'm tired of E's and D's! We're stronger than that!"
"Usuratonkachi makes sense for once."
"Teme—!"
Sounds and images swiftly rose after the other. Where before there was stillness now chaos reigned unchecked, each memory running rampant with no hint of order. Scarlet twists of ribbons streaked, splashed with warm rain, heightening the cacophony that tried to mend itself—when out of the white vastness of steady deconstruction and reconstruction came an unexpected drop of rain, lingering on his lips before slipping down his tongue.
Suddenly he could taste.
(The dark metal of blood. The light salt of tears.)
There never was rain.
Stop…
"—mise, you'll be okay, okay? Everything will be oka—"
Suddenly he could hear.
(The beat of a dying hope. The rhythm of a breathing faith.)
There were promises and there were his and the difference made his world.
You don't have to do this, stop it…
He shivered violently as another weight threatened to crush him.
Suddenly he could feel.
(The heat in his eyes. The ice in his heart.)
There was a coldness ripping to his soul from the blood on his skin, emanating from the emptiness curving around his chest.
Don't hurt anymore…
He desired to move and his finger twitched.
His mouth widened in a silent scream.
"—like new, and you'll get the life you deserve, what you're supposed to ha—"
You don't understand, I don't want this anymore—
An emotion surged within him, stealing his breath away for one, powerful second as every moment that led up to here (the rivalry and friendship, the acknowledgment and betrayal, vows of death and life for a family, a village, a brother, a friend—bonds denied and accepted and broken and healed) settled into place and brought everything to light with stunning, bone-shaking clarity.
I'll live. For you.
He struggled to take a breath for the first time in ages.
Because I—
His heart cracked.
—you—
Ice, melting.
—enough to live—
Overflowing.
—for you…
Rising to his throat.
Don't… N-Na—
Falling down his eyes.
I'll live! he cried out. His mouth moved but there was no sound. There was pain, only pain, resonating from his chest.
He longed to cry out, let everything out—
Stop! he tried again. Fire trickled from his eye, scorching his skin. He felt he was bursting into flames as the chill of fading memories plumbed the depths of his mind.
"You'll forget me and—" a terrible sob from above tore down to his chest, freezing his heated blood, "—and live—"
No.
You'll regret it, came the whispers, looping inside his head once more. He realized it was himself, urging him with a desperation that threatened to destroy, Fight back, fight him, or you'll never see him again—!
No, he whispered. The voiceless air cracked from his lips and suddenly, he could see—
Naruto.
—suddenly he could move, and Sasuke gathered the last of his strength to knock a hand soaked in blood from its post above his head.
Everything stopped. In the wilderness echoed silence, punctured by harsh breathing of two young men panting for air.
High above the sunlit skies, a patch of dark clouds passed, casting a shadow upon the earth and letting loose a shower of light, cool rain. It fell upon them gently, mixing with blood and tears, diluting the lines and curves of runes and words painted upon the canvas of pale, scarred skin.
As swiftly as it appeared, the clouds rolled past and the sun shone upon them once again.
Wild, blond hair darkened by the rain stuck on cheeks whiskered and bruised. It framed eyes scrunched tight and jaws clenched shut, the parts that made him whole narrating a story of a hurt so deep it transcended his mortal flesh.
Though he himself hurt, Sasuke knew—
He had driven that pain in.
With a weak, unsteady hand, he grasped the hilt of his katana and pulled it out of the trembling body that had shielded him from the rain.
The one above him lurched in a twisted, bloody dance, catching himself on vermilion palms before he could crash on the one below.
"Sasuke," Naruto choked out, eyes blown open. The sheen of blue eyes lit the rest of him in harsh relief, before the blond head bowed forward and hot tears dripped from its cracks.
"Sasuke!" he screamed.
"Since when," Sasuke rasped, his arm falling to the side, the fall of his katana a faint memory, "do you listen to me."
Naruto replied with a soundless sob that racked his entire frame. His palms slipped and he landed on his elbows, his arms on either side of Sasuke, caging him. Tears kept falling, seeping into his skin, as Naruto wept so close to his naked chest.
An arm rose up, a pale hand lightly tracing a back casually torn open by his katana. By his own hands.
He remembered how easily the blade sliced past skin and muscles and organs. He remembered blood spurting out, dark red and warm. He remembered the breath he held on a whim of the hilt in his tight, bloodless fist.
He remembered a gasp stuttered out in the middle of a promise.
Naruto flinched and he swallowed thickly, his fingers skimming the map of his cruelty. Blue eyes rose to meet his and Sasuke's breath stuck in his throat.
Fear.
Despair.
Grief.
They lived in his eyes, and Sasuke felt a part of him shrivel and die.
He had never known Naruto to display fear. Never known Naruto to succumb to despair. He had never known Naruto to grieve outside of himself. But there they hollowed at the back of dimmed eyes, ravaging the innocence that lingered in Naruto's face despite adversities, despite loneliness, condemning Sasuke for its murder in cold, merciless blood.
He felt sick.
Naruto was afraid—for him.
Naruto was losing hope—because of him.
Naruto was grieving—over him.
Naruto was dying right before his very eyes, all to fulfill what Sasuke had asked—demanded—of him.
All to keep Sasuke in the world of the living.
It echoed in his head, a laugh so hysterical his words were wheezed out, "Why do you come—so far—hah, usuratonkachi?"
Eyes somber and lips quivering, inhaling a shaky breath. "Yarou... Don't you get fed up... asking me that? My answer's still the same." Blue squeezing shut, hiding a world of pain. "You don't care... but I do. And it's enough for me. Because Sasuke—"
Opening to show a light within its accepting skies.
"—you are my most precious person."
Then Naruto leaned back, and proceeded to die.
Then Sasuke fought back, and decided to live.
"Enough," he whispered, the word choking past the blockage in his throat. His fingers ran through the wild mess of yellow with a tenderness he never knew he was capable of. "That's enough, Naruto."
He closed his eyes when Naruto shook his head, sniffling like the child the both of them still were, tears and mucus streaking all over his face in a mess unbecoming. Such a child—but that's what they still were, after all this time. Children. Naruto was still the boy who had no one and Sasuke was still the boy who lost everyone, and they had tried to grow up as fast as they can to overcome who they were but it was never quite right.
It was never enough.
Sasuke was eight when he began to die. Today, at the end of his goal, with an empty heart and an empty path stretched endlessly before him, he decided to kill himself at seventeen. There was nothing left to live for, nothing left of him—not even the hatred he kept alive, kept him alive all these years.
It was all over.
Then that idiot—
A dry chuckle escaped his lips. He only noticed when he felt Naruto's breath freeze against his chest, and even then Sasuke did nothing to stifle it. Blue eyes dawned with wonder until the small laugh tapered off into a hidden smile.
Naruto had no one and Sasuke lost everyone—maybe this time, together, maybe they could finally grow up. Maybe, this time, that would be enough.
After all, as Sasuke finally understood while trapped in endless dreams—
"Let's go, dobe."
He still had a family.
"W-Where?"
Naruto was family.
"And stop calling me that! Teme!"
Naruto was—
"Home," Sasuke murmured. He looked up to the skies one last time, before looking into eyes that rivaled its brilliance.
"Let's go home."
But it wasn't so.
Sasuke clutched the arm above him, his gaze dark and empty.
"What a nice dream."
The Sharingan blazed above like a mocking sun.
"It is."