Erebus on the Cusp of Dawn
by Hic Iacet Mori
And it falls, without a sound—the light, the snow, the sun against the night. Like the leaf, red and gold, as it drifted to the ground. Like a man, cursed and tainted, as he succumbed to the calls of sin. Like a life, tired and spent, as it looked to eternal rest.
His heart was jumping out of his rib cage.
"So..."
Her empty gaze held his, trapping him from where he hid. In a world suddenly narrowed to the blue canvas of her eyes, Sasuke couldn't move. Couldn't think. Couldn't breathe.
With eyes as mirrors of the soul, did he exist in its reflection at all?
"What's the story?"
Blue flickered to white, so subtle, so swift, transferring back to the masked leader like they had always been there. As if those seconds hadn't occurred, those seconds their eyes connected, as if he had dreamed it wide awake like he had dreamed of her touch before. He was only certain it was real because he was suddenly free—because suddenly he could move, could think, could breathe.
And it ached, the first rush of air. It was a ruthless gust of cold, freezing him inside. A brutal ghost haunting him with the hovering specter of her last.
No wonder Kakashi knew her, spoke of her with an odd familiarity he had taken for granted. No wonder they had managed to infiltrate this warehouse so easily, so ridiculously easily. No wonder she was here, right now, staring down sixteen barrels of guns trained between her eyes, all with the accuracy of a deadly marksman. No wonder she made him run.
Suicide mission. She had turned this—this into a fucking suicide mission.
He took a shaky breath, frustrated. The complete moron. After letting him know, she wanted to die?
"Kakashi!" he hissed, his face ghostly white, his eyes pure black maelstroms of tumultuous emotions. His body thrummed with anxiety, fear, with a build-up of energy waiting to be released in a sudden burst of action. He could feel his blood pumping painfully in his veins, and even his lungs, filling with air, releasing air, hurt with each motion. "Kakashi, dammit, we have to do something!"
The ANBU didn't answer.
"Care to tell, Kyuubi-chan?" Madara taunted. Sasuke could hear the rumble of the bastard's laughter. Thunder. The storm was getting nearer and he hated storms, hated thunder, hated this man who destroyed the people he loved, the person once his world. He couldn't let this bastard destroy his world again.
Sasuke leaned forward, eyes dark with a promise. This despicable bastard would never destroy anything of his again.
"How did you and my dear nephew form your alliance to bring us down? What did you do to convince him?" There was such malice in his words that Sasuke could feel hot anger spilling in his soul, the air around him crackling with the intensity of his rage. His fists clenched, bloodless, white as his face, blood pulled taut and pooling in the crimson fury of his eyes.
They swallowed his face with the bastard's next words.
"Did you tell him who I am and promised my head on a platter? Or," Madara paused, chuckling, prolonging his amusement, "is it the other way around? Itachi convinced you?" He leaned forward with a loud stage whisper, an intrusive gossip, spiteful, carelessly disregarding the gun now deeper on his chest. "Did you have fun, Kyuu-bi-chaaaaaan?"
Something was restraining him. A hand, hands. Iron, gripping his arms. That masked freak Kakashi was forcing him down and what the fuck was the asshole stopping him for?
Sasuke turned behind him, scarlet vengeance in his glance. Kakashi's grip faltered before strengthening. It was blue, however, a shot of blue that stopped him with its icy warning.
"Control yourself," Kakashi repeated, this time more urgently, more angrily. Sasuke gritted his teeth, furious with him, furious with her. Did they expect him to sit and watch her dance around a rain of bullets? Did she think it would make him happy when he knew she planned to die?
His fingers wouldn't stop twitching, longing to break something. He struggled to summon a measure of calm as his jaws clenched with the effort. He drew in a shuddering breath, trying to be calmer. But he needed—needed to do something. Waiting was killing him.
A shaky hand climbed up, covering his eyes. Damn it. Why couldn't he help her? She had—had always been there for him. Helped him even when he didn't ask for it. Even when he acted like an ingrate and turned it against her. Even—Even when she turned him against her with the poison of her words, enraged him enough to hurt her and curse her body and soul. Even when she forced his hand to kill her, she was still helping him. Saving him.
Why can't I save you?
Everything was so twisted. He even felt a little gratitude to this Zetsu for forcing her to alter her plans. Had it just been him and her, Naruto would have been dead and he would still be damning her soul to the depths of hell. But if it wasn't for this same moron, she wouldn't be in this danger right now, her very existence threatened, caught in this circle of creatures endemic to hell.
"It's as simple—as this."
And he wouldn't have known the truth, or even just a measure of it, and he wouldn't have known how its weight had been tearing her apart.
"And I enjoyed every minute of it."
But which was true, which was false? In the webs of deception she had spun with her tongue, which thread of truth was breaking her beneath her careless air? Which subtile length of lie covered the cracks in her smile?
Did you, at all?
She was so dauntless, so foolish, facing the inevitable with such audacity. And yet she was a coward, choosing death over life when she could do so much more. Giving up when she showed him in her laughter, in her light, that he shouldn't give up because there is more to life than the darkness of its other side.
You're a damned hypocrite, usuratonkachi—
And yet against beliefs, against reason, against peace, against sanity, Sasuke still loved her beyond mortal understanding.
Like me.
Her upper lip curled in a sneer, mocking. Teeth bared, challenging, glinting sharp against the light. A vivid flash of lightning in infinities of dark skies.
Sasuke stiffened. Thunder was to come next. How swiftly it came would show how near the storm was.
"You talk a lot, o-ji-ji," she taunted, raising a finger to rub her nose like an incorrigible rascal. "A little less talk and a little more action, yeah?"
His breath caught in his throat.
"Of course," Madara agreed. With speed so fast it was nothing short of a sleight of hand, Madara aimed his gun on her shoulder and a shot immediately rang out. Naruto bit down her lower lip enough to draw blood, a hand clutching her wound as she stifled a cry of pain. Blood immediately gushed out, a waterfall of crimson. Sasuke watched orange darken with red.
Red moon. Dawn.
Akatsuki.
Sasuke jerked up, enraged. Kakashi pulled the furious young man with all his might, a hand scrambling to catch a falling wooden crate with his other hand over the snarling mouth. The ANBU breathed a silent sigh of relief at the save before fixing an angry glare at the emotional Uchiha, tightening his left hand enough to make the other wince. Sasuke halted long enough to return Kakashi's glare with a dark glower of his own.
"What part of control yourself can't you understand?" the older man whispered irritably. "Itachi had more control in his eyelash!"
Sasuke's eyes narrowed, his movements stopping completely. Kakashi removed his hand and backed an inch away, slight wariness at the change. Sasuke leaned forward, expression chilly as his voice—he still hadn't forgotten how ANBU played a role in his brother's life and perhaps, he never will.
"Don't speak of my brother ever again," he said, his eyes chips of sharp black ice. Kakashi answered the silent threat in his eyes with a careful nod of his own. Sasuke disliked him, immensely so, opting to dismiss the other with another glare before returning, his heart beating wildly, to where she stood.
Naruto, dobe —
To where she was shot.
Don't die, hang on—
She was grinning. Or grimacing, it was quite difficult to tell. It was getting hard to see—the world was blurring and she looked softer for some reason. He could see her in a snow of white jasmines, a soft glow in her smile, in her eyes, the vision blurry but beautiful, the way she looked now as she bled before his eyes.
Heat prickled behind his eyes, damning him every second. She was hurting and it hurt with every second he watched—
And then it dawned on him, horribly, that she was buying more time in exchange of her life.
Another shot rang out. She couldn't dodge, she was hurt. She was surrounded. She was dying.
He was on his knees watching her die.
Naruto tumbled to the ground with a silent cry, blood gushing out faster from her shoulder shot twice on the same area. The second bullet was tangled in her veins, steel wrapped in red. Tinsel strewn on the floor, each coil glinting like silvers and rubies.
It's Christmas in less than a month.
"You're quite the masochist, dear little fox," Madara commented. He crouched down, slowly, cupping her chin with the gentleness of a father's touch, forcing the hissing blonde to look into his eye. "I wonder how tortu—ohhhh."
Torture.
Blue eyes dulled with pain slowly narrowed at the knowing voice. Sasuke stopped breathing.
No.
And then, his heart stopped beating.
Nonononono.
"Did it hurt you, Kyuubi?" Madara purred. Her face, already devoid of color, turned into ash. "Torturing your partner? You really were in love with him, little vixen?"
"No one should have to. But if it's needed, I am."
She wasn't lying.
"Fuck you," Naruto gasped out. Her eyes, glasses of blue, were beginning to crack. Hairlines of white, virgin snow, crossing the false certainty of a river solid with ice.
"No one should have to torture and be tortured."
She really did kill his brother.
Madara leaned forward, a gleeful child, perverse in his joy at getting what he wished. "Do you dream about it?" he asked, his voice theatrically hushed. Anticipating a vile secret that would ruin people's lives.
"Sometimes, you have to torture, even if you don't enjoy putting someone else in that kind of pain."
She really did torture him.
"Go... to... hell..." she whispered. Too weak to raise her voice, too weak to stop her eyes from showing the brokenness she hid inside. Shattering into shards of blue. Stabbing where it hurt the most.
"He's alive but already dead inside, and what's worse is, he keeps dying even when there's no soul left of him to die."
She really did love Itachi.
"Does he haunt you, when you try to sleep?" Madara went on, standing, circling around her prone figure. A vulture, waiting for his prey to die. He lived in carnage. "Do you remember what you used to do on that bed, you dirty slut?"
"He can't wish to be dead because he is dead, and dead people can't wish and he doesn't deserve it anyway, for making someone suffer."
And they made her—made her—
She coughed, spitting blood, attempting a cocky air as she struggled to stand, piece the fragments of blue in the ocean of her eyes. How many times, how many times had she been forced to do it? Close her eyes against the pain, curve her lips into a smile? "Fucking d-die... already..." she spat again, dark red on dusty gray, stark life against death. She looked up, splintered blue on pale ash, eternally fearless against fear, "smelly... old... bastard..."
"The worst is having to torture someone you care for just so everybody else won't have to suffer."
Made her torture and kill the man—the man she loved.
Madara went on, reveling in her obstinacy. She would die standing up, her head held high, and he would enjoy forcing her on her knees until she breathed her last. "What does he tell you, Kyuubi?" he murmured. So softly, so brutally. The hand that caressed in one breath and stabbed in the next.
"Three years of work will go down the drain, not to mention that a lot more people will be compromised."
Madara... ANBU... They forced her to kill him against her will...
She was swaying but she was standing, her hand pressed on her shoulder to staunch the ceaseless flow of blood. A burdened figure, lopsided, shoulder higher than the other, weight unevenly dispersed yet still so stubborn, so proud, carrying a load she couldn't bear alone anymore. "Die..." she rasped out. Her eyes shone so much, like facets of divided diamonds. Brilliant against the sun. Hurting in its shine.
"Sasuke. It's his choice."
Even... Even his own brother...
Madara preferred the brilliance of power, prestige—her eyes were too bright for his taste though it teased his senses, the hint of tears in her eyes. "Does he regret everything?" he taunted.
"And for the record, this is Uzumaki Naruto-sama and Uchiha Itachi-chan would be my pretty little wife, hohoho!"
How did it feel? Forced by circumstances beyond her control, her power, forced by the words she had to regard as law? Forced by the man she gave her everything to—her heart, her body, her soul, her life—forced by the man she promised to spend forever with? How deep was the betrayal, the despair, the grief? How sharp was the guilt, the sorrow, the pain? How dark was the world through the blood on her hands, how dark was the world through the blood in her eyes?
"Stop..."
"But it's our purpose and we accept it, so there'll be people like you who can choose."
No wonder... No wonder she wanted to die...
A mocking whisper. "Does his precious little brother know everything you did?"
"Thank you."
"Shut up!" Sasuke roared. And he was moving, fury in motion, too fast for him to reconcile his actions with his thoughts, knowing only that he was going to hurt the motherfucking bastard for everything he did until the last drop of his despicable blood came out of his mutilated carcass and burn. His mind repeatedly screamed the words his body moved to follow—Uchiha Madara would die die die!
Eyes crimson with rage devoured the sixteen people staring at him with varying degrees of surprise on their faces. Time stood still, each wretched creature frozen in a second, before the next second came and everything moved with hair-raising speed.
It was surreal, how time sped up and slowed in snippets of milliseconds. He wouldn't have believed it if he hadn't been a part of it.
Madara turned around.
Naruto darted forward.
Fifteen guns moved in sync.
Eight guns swerved abruptly.
Sasuke lunged.
Naruto shouted.
Kakashi raised his gun and fired.
A succession of shots echoed just as men in navy blue and bullet-proof vests poured inside the building, spilling like water from every orifice of the warehouse. Everything was happening at the same time and Sasuke stopped, bewildered, panting hard and wondering just what the hell happened as his shocked eyes tried to take in as much as he could.
Everything was a blur and it took moments for his world to come to focus.
Before him, Uchiha Madara was crumpled to the ground, rivers of blood flowing from a gunshot on his chest, his throat, between his eyes. The orange mask, now with two holes, lay beside the prone figure, a basin of thick red waters. Dark eyes studied the man with detached interest and confusion.
What—What happened—?
He heard footsteps approaching behind him. Sasuke risked a glance and saw Kakashi, his gun still smoking, slowly lowering his arms. There was a grim smile visible beneath his mask as he moved forward, past the unmoving youngest Uchiha, checking to see if Madara was still alive. His fingers sought for a pulse on the base of the pale throat. Sasuke tried to move.
Is Madara—?
"I shot him on the throat. Gaara between the eyes," Naruto muttered, wheezing with every word, cocking her head to a redheaded man with black circles around his eyes at the end of her statement. She ignored the officers in dark blue who stood around them, eyeing instead the seven people lying in a circle with bullet holes on their temples. The other eight stood motionless as the officers approached them warily.
Are they backup? They look... his brows furrowed. ... familiar.
When the redheaded man, Gaara, moved to approach her with his gun still in his hand, an officer froze. "Guns on the floor and hands in the air!" the man yelped. The remaining eight underworld figures turned to Naruto, their faces devoid of reaction yet managing to convey their question. She wheezed again and gave a weak nod. They put their guns down and raised their hands, faces identically blank.
Are they Jinchuuriki? ... Like Kyuubi? Like—
"Naruto..." Kakashi sighed. Finding no pulse, he stood up and approached the wounded girl. As if a veil was lifted from his eyes, everything suddenly cleared and Sasuke could see.
Naruto?
He could see her, breathing, and he couldn't move at all.
Move... Move, dammit!
The ANBU slammed a heavy hand on the yellow crown of hair—Naruto whined at the treatment, wincing with every stab of pain from the smallest of her movements. "Some kindness, will ya? Blood replenishing pills don't last forever and I'm fucking dizzy," she grumbled, wheezing intermittently with every gesture of her hands. She was weaving stories once more with her words and her hands, and Sasuke wanted so much to stand before her and watch it end with her smile.
Naruto...
"You idiot," Kakashi growled. He hit her upside the head and ignored her protests, eyes showing clear displeasure. Sasuke disliked this ANBU, so so much—how could he not like a story that ended with her alive? "Don't ever pull a stunt like that again. You disobeyed a direct order, Uzumaki. You could have—"
Naruto, dobe...
"—compromised the operation?" Naruto cut in with a roll of her eyes. It was such a familiar action it brought a lump in his throat. It was so familiar it could only be real.
You're alive...
"—been killed," Kakashi corrected with steel in his eyes. He regarded her with an appraising look. "How did you know all the Akatsuki will be here?"
Sasuke struggled to move. He wanted to reach her, so much. He needed to touch her and assure himself that she was alive, alive, alive.
She shrugged. "I thought they'd come together, see, if Madara suspects treachery. Like... Like with Itachi," she ended in a whisper.
He needed to assure her that he didn't hate her for what she did.
The ANBU's eyes narrowed. "You know you're being watched so you took advantage of it." Kakashi sighed, a hand over a crimson eye. "You made a huge gamble, do you know that? Be as it may, you're one lucky girl." The mismatched eyes curved. "Mission accomplished."
He needed to tell her that his feelings hadn't changed.
Naruto nodded with a small smile. And then she turned to the frozen figure standing a distance before her, finally acknowledging him with uncertainty in her eyes. She took a step, and another, and another, stopping a few steps before him. Her head was tilted up, bravely facing him. Her hands were clenching and unclenching on her side.
I love you.
From the window behind her, Sasuke could see hints of gold and pink breaking the purple-gray skies. Light snuck in from its yawning wide cracks, tumbling on her hair to dance with each strand. Wind, cool and crisp, blew the red ribbons on her hair, each lace slapping her cheeks, a ripple of silk against skin. Jasmines enticed his senses, faint yet strong against copper, overwhelming him with memories and the welcome scent of home. The silence between them, heavy, was broken by the chorus of larks.
A new day was coming and the sun was beginning to rise… and he felt—he felt—
I love you so much.
He felt so happy.
"Naruto," he choked out—in joy, in relief, in emotions catching in his throat. They could watch it, finally. Could watch it, together. The approaching dawn beside him, the perfect end to the longest night of his life.
It was the perfect beginning.
"Sasuke," she said, her voice soft, her eyes looking into his. They glistened so brightly, her misty eyes, glowing with blue drops of dew against the melted cracks of ice. She was so strong, so beautiful, and he was falling all over again.
"You're not s'posed to be here."
Sasuke released a shuddering breath as his feet finally moved. She seemed so far and he couldn't wait to reach her. He couldn't wait to take her hand and pull her outside, to see the sun breaking through the skies. To pull her to his chest and see the sun rise in her eyes.
For now, nothing else mattered. She was alive and he was happy and the sun was rising. And snow, light and gentle, was falling from the skies once again.
"You're an idiot," he replied, dark eyes shining, drops of rain against the sun. He swallowed, pausing a beat to capture a semblance of control. There was so much he wanted to say, so much he wanted to ask. But today was their day and they had tomorrow for painful questions and answers. And they had—if he worked hard enough—the rest of their lives to forgive and forget. Even if it seemed impossible, forgetting. Nothing was impossible today and today they would celebrate the promises of future.
His lips lifted at the side, the beginnings of a smile that he couldn't stop from forming. He wanted to laugh. He did. "I'm sup—"
She suddenly jerked forward.
"—Dobe?"
Her eyes were wide circles of surprised electric blue. Naruto slowly looked down, her eyes sliding lower, stopping at her chest to regard it with silent wonder. She raised a steady hand and touched the red blooming near her heart. Liquid red, thick and warm. Hypnotizing.
"You're the only one I'd give a chance."
"... Ka... Kashi?"
"... come after me, yeah?"
"Sorry, Kyuubi," Hatake Kakashi said as he lowered his weapon. Behind him, an old man in navy blue—the well-known color of Tokyo's police force—drew nearer, a lukewarm smile on his weather-beaten face. "Mission's over."
"... catch me."
Naruto fell, quietly, the last maple leaf floating gently to the ground.
"Then I'd finally get to rest. Maybe even get to watch the sunset one last time."
Vivid blue slid shut, hiding the sky from his eyes. Lips slightly parted, a daring attempt to breathe, lips that would never curve with the most beautiful of her smiles. Silky strands of yellow, a halo on her crown, liquid gold against the sunlight streaming softly past the windows.
"We can watch it together, dumbass. Don't say stupid things."
The sun had risen.
"But the sunrise is better. It's... indescribable."
"The Akatsuki is neutralized. Mission accomplished, Danzou-sama."
"You'll have to—have to see it for yourself."
Sasuke didn't register the screams until his throat was bleeding. Until relentless hands were forcing him away. Until there was blood on his hands, on his clothes, on his face, on his lips.
"Maybe."
Blood not his.
"Until then, you'll stay. Here."
The sunrise on her blood was mesmerizing.
"I love you."
The way she mesmerized him the first time he saw her by his brother's grave.
"Thank you."
They should have killed him too.
And it falls, without a sound, woven dreams unfulfilled. Like hot tears, silent, from where a heart was supposed to be.