Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
Rise
Chapter 16
"What did you do?"
Sasuke ignores the question, instead focusing on the force behind his throw as he runs through a senbon drill. Fifteen senbon pierce cleanly through their respective targets, all placed at one foot intervals away from each other.
He nods to himself, satisfied, before suddenly finding his vision clouded with yellow and orange and a furious blue gaze.
"I asked you a goddamn question," Naruto growls.
Sasuke swallows past the crushing guilt rising in his chest and replies smoothly, "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Bullshit." Naruto's eyes flash red. "Dammit, Sasuke." He shakes his head. "After all the three of us have been through, why—"
"If you have nothing important to say"—Sasuke pulls out another set of senbon and moves away from the blond, eyeing his next targets in the forest beyond—"I'd like to get back to practice, dobe."
He tries to tell himself he's not acutely aware of the frustration and disappointment Naruto's very aura exudes but fails miserably. He takes a deep breath and prepares to fire—
"Sakura-chan would do anything for you, you know."
Sasuke freezes in the motion, senbon clenched between his fingers.
"Especially if it meant she could make you happy." Naruto sounds wistful, wise beyond his years. "And she would go to the ends of the earth if it meant she could take even the smallest bit of your pain away."
"The truth is... I've always known in my heart that there was nothing I could have done for you," Sakura says, voice cracking. He doesn't turn around, not wanting to know what kind of look she might be giving him. "But I love you! No matter what's happened, I still care about you more than I can bear… And if I could have taken all your pain onto myself to comfort you, I would have."
His fingers tighten around the senbon until his knuckles turn white.
"I'm not one hundred percent too sure what happened between you two," Naruto says. "Sakura-chan wouldn't tell me no matter how much I begged. You know what she said, though? What she told me as she cried and squeezed her arms around me so tight I thought she was gonna snap my spine in half?"
Sasuke lowers his hand to his side in an attempt to hide its shaking.
He's shaking from where he stands. It's like he's twelve years old again, listening to her cry out for him to stay in the village. Her love for him—steadfast and unending—reminds him too much of his family, and it makes his resolve falter, makes him consider not challenging Naruto to fight at the Valley of the End.
And so he buries that weakness so deep inside himself that it's easy to pretend it never existed.
Naruto continues, "She said that you are the most stubborn asshole she's ever met and you can push her away all you want for the rest of your life, but that will never change the fact that she loves you more than anything."
The senbon drop from his hand and Sasuke finds himself falling to his knees, fingers digging into the grass before him.
"And she said that no matter what it is you're beating yourself up about, she forgives you." Naruto's voice wavers like he's fighting back tears.
"She just wishes you'd learn to forgive yourself."
It's a whole half an hour after Naruto leaves that it takes for Sasuke to pick himself off the ground and begin his slow journey home. He walks away from the training grounds with little recollection of his surroundings—a mere ghost slinking through the streets, silent and invisible.
His motions are mechanical when he arrives home an unknown amount of time later. He unlocks the door, slips off his shoes, and just as he's poised to continue on something prompts him to pause. For a second he takes in the darkness of the apartment before him, the deafening silence throughout.
He inhales deeply. Closes his eyes.
A memory floats up to greet him, small and wavering. A memory that—like so many others—he locked away in the deepest parts of his mind for so many years he's surprised it resurfaces so easily now.
Sasuke holds the memory in his hand. Draws it close to him, hesitant, before letting it wash over him entirely.
Suddenly he's six years old again, walking through the door of his childhood home after finishing at the academy. He smiles, the smell of cooked meat permeating the air, and almost trips over himself in the process of kicking off his shoes, so excited he is to see what okaa-san prepared for dinner.
"Careful, Sasuke. Not so fast."
Sasuke's eyes widen. He sees nii-san walking down the stairs across from him, dressed in his casual long-sleeved t-shirt and black pants.
"Nii-san!" he exclaims. He's barrelling down the hallway in the next second, hands spread wide as he throws himself into his brother's arms. "You're home early!"
Itachi chuckles as he holds Sasuke to him in a brief hug. "My mission ended sooner than I thought."
He puts Sasuke back on his feet. Undeterred, the younger Uchiha beams up at him, elated to see Itachi home when he thought he'd be gone for at least another week.
"Itachi-chan! Sasuke-chan! Dinner's ready!" okaa-san calls from the kitchen.
"Let's go eat," nii-san says.
Sasuke pouts, crossing his arms over his chest. "But I want to hear about your mission."
He blinks at the two fingers that poke him gently on his forehand, scowling right after. He knows what's coming, after all.
Smiling softly, Itachi responds, "Maybe next time, Sasuke."
Sasuke touches his hand to his cheek, shocked to find that it comes away wet. He doesn't know at what point he started crying, nor what specifically may have caused it. Maybe it was the memory of the delight he felt at seeing his brother, whom he adored like no one else. Maybe it was the simple joy he found in coming home to the smell of dinner cooking, the comforting knowledge that his family was there to greet him after a long day.
Such innocent, insignificant details he took for granted long ago. He feels the absence of them now more so than ever before as he stands at the threshold of an apartment that could smother him with its emptiness.
Sasuke swallows, the action nearly painful, and blinks the remaining tears from his eyes. With heavy steps he continues to the bathroom to shower.
It's not until he's met with the sight of his own face in the bathroom mirror that he stops and stares, unmoving.
"I'm not too sure what's going on, Sasuke-kun. I promise I won't push you, just—please. It kills me to see you like this. Please don't walk away from me."
Sakura's voice plays in his head, looping time and time again as he stares at his reflection and nearly breaks down at what he finds there.
Uchiha Sasuke looks in the mirror and sees a seven-year-old boy, screaming and terrified with his life ripped clean in two. He sees a twelve-year-old genin, unhinged and angry with the world. Sees the empty eyes of a seventeen-year-old traitor who's convinced himself that revenge and cruelty are all he knows. There's tears and piercing heartbreak from a teenager who realizes he just took the life of the brother who loved him all along. Then wonder and disbelief on the face of a young man as he bleeds out beside the friend he should've known would never give up on him.
Gratitude and remorse and the feeling of his heart swelling as that young man takes in the dirt-speckled face of the girl who's decided to heal him despite everything he's done.
And for the first time in years, he looks in the mirror and forces himself to see what's truly there. He sees a nineteen-year-old, broken and so very lost. A nineteen-year-old who's just barely a man, yet with eyes betraying the toll of years of trauma to such a degree no person should ever have to endure.
He takes in those bloodshot, tired eyes. The deep circles beneath them that speak of countless nights of nightmares and lost sleep. The downward curve of a mouth that rarely smiles because happiness is something he struggles to believe he deserves.
Uchiha Sasuke looks in the mirror and sees someone who can't seem to move on from his past, someone who's hated himself for so many years it's become second nature.
And for the very, very first time, he decides he's fucking tired of it.