THE VALLEY OF THE END by Kiraya
Drabble IV: Nakama... Soshite Raibaru
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"To me... you have become my closest friend."
How could he let such poisonous words slip from his lips when everything he's just done to you has been a denial of that? People don't try to kill their closest friends, Sasuke. Life doesn't work that way. It never has, and it never will. Why is he so serious? Does he really mean to... to...?
Can you kill me calmly, Sasuke...? Without emotion, without guilt or grief or even the smallest bit of regret?
You don't think he can. You hope against hope that, somewhere inside the anger and hate and lust for power and even that overwhelming, everlasting hurt that is eating him alive, there remains some small trace of the old Sasuke, your Sasuke, the one you fought alongside proudly, the one who, though it would kill you to admit it, you always strove to be like...
"I want to fight you."
His first true acknowledgement of you meant more than that of anyone else, and oh, how much you've wanted to battle him since!
...but not like this. This was not how it was supposed to be. You were supposed to fight as rivals, yes, but honourably, each using the other as a measure of his abilities, each striving to better himself by setting the strength of the other as his goal.
But this... this is how it is. This is how it will have to be.
And you hate it.
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Note: "Nakama" is Japanese for "friend" or "companion." "Soshite" means "and," and "raibaru..." well, all I really need to tell you is that it's a conjugate, right?