This was the deciding battle. Everything was deathly quiet, not even the leaves dared to rustle. The silence was suffocating but necessary for the focusing of chakra…the tension…tangible…

The ground was drenched in blood and ruined carcasses lay abandoned, everywhere there was the look of devastation and despair. And standing amongst all the chaos, corpses and decay were two mere boys. Although mere would have been too inefficient word to describe them. One had blazing red aura pouring out of him from every pore. He was growling in a canine way with pointy teeth, reddened eyes and his face more whiskery than normal. He was covered from head to foot in scratches, cuts, bruises and grazes. Dust was mixed with blood and sweat and his body seemed worn but the energy radiating from him was dizzying and fearful…he was abnormal.

To turn your gaze to the other boy however, and you would have thought the yellow-haired figure was plain average! His skin was the colour of dark dull grey and his hair was a mane of shaggy lighter shade of grey. Two huge bat-like wings protruded from his back, except they were made of skin and had claws lining the edge of the limbs. His eyes were a darker shade of red with three trailing dots around his pupil, a four-pointed star-like shape blacked across the bridge of his nose. He looked even more frightening and unstable for although he looked calm, the so inhumane appearance gave him the impression of a demon – which, undoubtedly most people would say he was.

They glared at each other, across a six metre distance. Both measuring time and space. Then, as unlikely as a typhoon going off on the land – the blonde boy snorted. He gave a shark-like grin soon after, his eyes fixed and his hands steadily clutching a diamond-shaped dagger called a kunai. "So…I guess, this is what happens at the end…eh?" he waved a hand around at the mixture of bodies, sound ninjas, leaf ninjas, sand ninjas and members of the akatsuki all littered around disorientated.

Sasuke gave a chilling grin, "Yeah…it's what happens in the end Naruto, you die and I go to find Itachi, the bastard - and kill him."

Naruto relaxed his shoulders and shifted the kunai to the other hand, "I'm just curious but what are you going to do afterwards?"

Sasuke was silent, the smile wiped off his face without a trace. "Doesn't matter, it all ends after he dies."

Naruto stared up at the sky, now turning into a deep shade of red and mauve, "Sorry Sasuke, but the last time I checked the world did not revolve around Itachi."

Sasuke ground his teeth, "Shut up, what would you know moron…"

"About what?" Naruto asked feigning innocence, he was too tired and exhausted to be exactly angry with his ex-pal who turned into a dangerous psycho-criminal but so many deaths in a day was overwhelming and most had been his comrades…his friends…

Sasuke gave a tight-lipped smile that looked more like a grimace, "About my life and what I have to do…so don't talk like you know everything, you naïve baka!"

Naruto gazed steadily into his opponent's eyes, "DO you know what your problem is Sasuke?"

"My problem is Itachi…"

"I thought you would have said me"

"You're not that important,"

"That was always your problem Sasuke…you couldn't look forward. You always dwelt on the past. You couldn't even accept the new me and not the me of the past so there would have been no way you could every let go the killing of your clan…it was murder but losing your loved ones…you must have felt that you could find them again!"

"Loser, you can't revive the dead…"

"I'm not talking about the dead…when I mean find your loved ones, it means find someone else you have loved without yourself realising it…you did have loved ones Sasuke, you had friends, comrades, teachers…peers…fellow villagers. They were your important people…after your clan was killed, they were…"

Sasuke bared his teeth, "Don't talk trash you don't know about, I had to avenge the clan, kill him for taking away my whole identity…I don't care about the minor details so quit lecturing me."

"You're meant to be the genius but sometimes you are so narrow-minded. I told you already, the loss of your clan was great but it wasn't big enough to steal your life in the way of vengeance. You say it is because you lost the people you loved and therefore destined to be on a road of loneliness but that's just a lame excuse. You had Sakura-chan, me, Kakashi-sensei, the other six rookies…we were the ones that you loved. You blamed yourself for not protecting your clan? They were your responsibility right? Since you loved them…but then you failed twice, you also didn't protect us from yourself…you betrayed us…"

Sasuke's face was hard, he wasn't admitting to anything. Naruto pressed on, the words he had wanted to say before, bursting from his mouth,

"And I'm not that stupid as you to ignore something else as well…Itachi, who you swear you hate and want to kill…you still love him…as part of your family…as your brother. You said the reason of being weak was because I lacked power and feeling of hatred? I'll tell you now why you can't kill Itachi…it's because you don't hate him enough…a little part of you still love him….and I don't blame you, he's your only living family isn't he? Without him…you truly would be lost, your identity…your purpose, you will truly be isolated as the only Uchiha…"

Sasuke didn't want to hear anymore, he shouted something like 'bastard' and lunged at Naruto, his wings flapping hard as he shooted across the six metre distance and tightened his hand around Naruto's neck. Naruto got pushed onto the ground, Sasuke's hideous hand squeezing his wind-pipe but Naruto was smiling, "You getting so angry, you must have been listening…hehehe but I'm not finished, there's something else as well…you're just like Itachi you know…you're no better than him…you're only worse because you are a coward…and you borrowed someone else's power for your own gain…you are the worst of the worst. Between you and Itachi, you should be the one to die."

Sasuke's grip tightened more alarmingly as he heard these last few sentences. His face was consorted into fury but Naruto was still not finished, he waved a hand around the clearing again, his face taught, "You killed more people than Itachi killing the whole clan and he kept you alive. You were so vulnerable and it wouldn't have hurt killing one more person but he didn't kill you…"

"Shut up you moron! That's because he wants me to kill him! He wanted my life to be absorbed into vengeance so he can have his fun one day! Don't tell me to try and comprehend his twisted mind!"

"You were called the 'survivor'…heh…I wouldn't exactly interpret it that way but whatever…you have no life Sasuke…you are just plain sad, you have no life except the one Itachi gave you. By doing what he predicted you would do you have proven to him to have no value…it's really simple and you're meant to be the genius."

A vein pulsed in Sasuke's jaw and his hand dug into Naruto's neck even further in rage,

"And don't give me all that crap about destiny. Didn't I tell you, nobody can shape someone else's destiny. You made your own path, you've got nobody to blame but yourself…even if you kill me now I have no regret…even Hokage isn't so tempting now…seeing you turn like this, I am glad that I even made it up to this stage without being blinded by ignorance."

Naruto started coughing and he wheezed raggedly, "I really feel sorry for you…I thought I could save you from darkness but I guess you just went too far down in your own mind…I'm sorry I couldn't' do anything for you…"

Then his wheezing stopped abruptly and his eyes were like of glass. There was total silence as Sasuke withdrew his hand. His expression was frozen as he stared down at his once bestfriend and stared at the hands that had made the gruesome marks on the blue-eyed boy's neck. His skin suddenly glowed red, then little waves of the dull grey withdrew from his skin, taking away the star stamp across his nose, his red eyes, contracting his mane of hair and his wings. In a matter of seconds stood a pale boy with black hair that stuck out at the side.

He continued to stare at his hands…he collapsed, his eyes still not leaving his worn hands.