Spider-lilies
Disclaimer: Naruto is Kishimoto's property. I'm not making any money from this story.
Warning: Morbid content. Reader discretion is (strongly) advised.
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The body jerked, rope tightening about the neck, and the eyes . . . wider and wider opened they, deep ochre about sky's rim; red bled out to the surface, a tighter frame—tightest he had ever known it to be. Was this a farewell, an apology to the father's gift in the eyes? Was it mockery? He felt the air . . . sing!
Be still—be still—still, he commanded the flesh in vain, Kami a throb in veins, thunder; but the spirit, infibulated, un-keen now to see this marriage through to the end. How death had come . . . too soon for the eyes? He had walked into this home, empty, for the boy had fled to other places in search of him. How he wished to see him now . . . call thy name, Sasuke . . . did a whisper his heart feel? Silly little boy.
Only this morning, sky, oceanic, had welcomed thee, he thought a fleeting thought for the pain had overtaken the mind, body thrashing, neck twisting, spine a delirious wave, immolated in-between the flesh. He wanted this to reach an end, a final end, but dying was not as easy as living. How many had buried memories into his blade? Quick—perhaps that was the way to go, for Shinobi, truly, never could endure . . . but Sasuke, his little heart in peril, had breasted all that he had sent his way, every little misdeed. Change, he almost mused, head leaning further back in agony, eyes looking at pearlescent gossamer a spider had woven to tempt death to its home; feast, its lustre; Genjutsu, its teeth, a promise; and in its naïve gluttony, he could see a bit of himself, too.
And said the spider to the fly, how do you wish to die? The world laughed, worms squirming in their eyes, limbs upon limbs of them, you buried them all!
Life's will, colours and spills, segued into the next . . . fast—so fast; and into this tree's roots he would go, inosculated to the bone. Hark, and there he would wait for the one he loved—loved the most; his impeccant beauty and soul, this little one's, enmeshed in the last dream's nets. All else effaced, his spirit less reluctant as moments went on . . .
Abattoir in the house and beyond, a scent of death defeated by his own; at this threshold, neither dead nor alive, he could see them all, staring, spider lilies affixed to their bodies in the multitude; but it had grown dark, so dark, that the shadow his body made had deepened to soot. Had night fallen already, silvering tulle that seduced the world's shape? Slower and slower time fell, a droplet which stayed insert in the air. Rain had fallen down below, into his world? And by their eyes, red agglutinated, staying as finality. Ghosts—and they came to taunt him now! The tales that they had told the darling—Lies! he could have hissed, but the air was gone, and what little remained hurt dully.
Moon, with impassioned fecundity, stirred night, and sky changed more and still more. How long must he stay like this, un-moving? Yet where body slept, mind awakened with greater certainty, and he thought more and more of the boy he loved, like an obsession that had grown deadly in its singularity. The boy's temperament, mercurial, but how sweet he was . . . different in a way he never was? From the little one's spirit, Fire's will was excoriated, and he had been set . . . free! And here he struggled, a single point, a moon-drop, in blackness. Down and down he went, his daemons cast out; death went in, danced, demeaned what little of him was left in the heart.
Sasuke . . . darling child . . . brother . . . won't you see me now before I'm set free?
Silence, his feet pointing downwards, shadows beneath the tips and behind the hanging body. It was still—he was still—like a stone. Soon, wind would claim the last of him, steal the odour, scatter it about into the winds. Is that all that was left of him now, a smell, a little piece? Endure—endure—endure, his heart wept, red about the nose and lips, for death had made him earn its love. Fight. Conquer! Liberty was harder than the will he had known . . . and life was to be forfeited with the best passion at death's door; nothing less was permitted. Had he not done everything in his power . . . just to meet death at its own terms? Shinobis could endure? he almost asked himself, unable to let the smile blossom upon the lips, for his body was no longer his own, but for thee.
Beats went out, each a loud and delirious den in the flesh; and there was fear, too, incalculable, inconsolable, and he heard it at its clearest, loudest, proudest at the peak of the stalling heart's call. Thump . . . thump . . . thump, his veins heard, and in unison, they rattled against the pandemonium he had turned this place into. Dust to dust you shall be—come, come near me, look inside my heart that speaks in the eyes!
Lonely, body a refuge for an ailment that had eaten him through to the spirit, wrenched from his the fires and abandoned him bare. Why had he returned to a home he had left, turned to a sepulchre for all time? There was beauty in coming back . . . to a place that had created. Is it not what he had done, brought silence to a place from where he had come wailing? Ah, let this final memory be worthy of cherishing, a love for the ages! And there was lust about Higanbana's shore, passions dancing about the waves' underside. His mother, father, others . . . looking, but not calling unto him, a coldness death had made meaner; and here and now, meek, he wanted to see him with the worst desperation that he had ever known.
Come here . . . to me, Sasuke . . . ring, ring, ring the air spoke into the ear, for the boy was lost to his heart. O', how he wanted to see him now, let the eyes wed themselves to the love he would allow them this time. The last of him did not wish to leave, not easily. Death was better if the spirit was ripped from the body in a beat, a blade's flash and its heat, a quick mercy. Shinobi have to endure . . . why must they endure? Had he not done enough to look upon the darling he cherished?
Sasuke . . . look, see, hear . . . here I lie, for you! Your heart. My heart. We are one!
Itachi smiled, for Sasuke was carved into the heart that set fire's light to his eyes. Then the beats fell, but so did the heart, his world red spider-lily . . .
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The End
