Meridian
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It is a beautiful summer evening, and the forests are devoid
of all human life: save for a pair of brothers, who stand together in a man-made
clearing and stare one another down.
The elder is impaled on the younger's hand.
Sasuke's fingertips twitch in Itachi's chest. They catch on fragile vessels and the intact pericardial membrane.
It's almost surprising to realize that Itachi is made of the same frail things that any other human is. Were Sasuke to rip through this thin bit of membrane, he could touch the heart that keeps Itachi's Uchiha blood racing through his body.
He could shut it down. Itachi forfeited his right to this blood long ago.
The screaming, almost-painful desire to end it all writes itself plainly into Sasuke's narrowed Sharingan. It is but the work of a moment for Itachi to read it.
Itachi smiles. The expression is filled with slow-welling blood. "So... you still believe that foolishness. Surely... at this point, you must understand."
Sasuke reads into Itachi's coiling smile-- reads into the strange feeling of apprehension and dread that sits coldly in his chest as Itachi's life drips out around his hand-- and his eyes widen as he begins to understand in bits and pieces.
"I held you when you were born," comes Itachi's voice: indifferent even now.
In a frenzy of hatred, revulsion, and terror, Sasuke forces his arm forwards. His chakra shreds Itachi's flesh: but it does not silence his brother's calm, malicious words.
"I watched you when you took your first steps."
Itachi's words come up red with foamy blood. Sasuke's horrified mindlessness stands in stark contrast to Itachi's deliberate calmness. Itachi's red eyes are cool, analyzing his little brother as Sasuke understands more fully with every passing moment.
"I have doubted your ability to come this far, on occasion."
Sasuke's hands brush Itachi's shattered bones as he forces his hand through his brother. The broken edges of Itachi's ribs claw Sasuke's intruding hand open, where the fluxing chakra does not protect it. He must finish this: finish it before he completely understands the meaning behind Itachi's cruel satisfaction and his own creeping dread. Before he understands that in winning... he has lost.
"But you have not disappointed me."
Sasuke's lips part soundlessly, his eyes a highway of madness. If he had had the voice to speak, he would have been screaming for Itachi to shut up: denying the very acknowledgement he's wished for all his life, just as he finally receives it. This isn't the acknowledgement he wants--
"You have given me everything I have asked of you; I have all I have ever wanted. And you--"
Sasuke rips Itachi's heart apart. It stops the voice, but it doesn't get rid of the smile. It doesn't get rid of Itachi's final words. Because even if Itachi did not get the chance to speak them, Sasuke knows what they would have been.
You live with what you know.
You live alone.