Brothers
Scarf pulled high, clothes hanging off his muscled body, the jinjuriki walked into yet another bar, ordered yet another drink, and yet again, took in his chaotic, atmospheric surroundings.
Despite the repetition he felt from these much too familiar actions, he had been forced to abstain from his usual shinobi bar visits ever since his battle with Kakashi. The hunter squads quickly disbanded, scattered like crazy, and from then he was simply travelling across the armpit of a region which was the land of hotsprings. It had been wrought with economic turmoil from the wars previous until it rebranded itself as a home for the rich and wealthy of the surrounding lands, ending up as a sort of caste state, the poor working for little pay serving the upper class in every way they could. And that meant everyway. Waiters, chefs, prostitutes.
Despite that feeling of prosperity and harmlessness, every village he came across was destroyed. Burnt to the ground, dead civilians sliced and stabbed and executed. If he didn't know better, he'd have thought a war was going on, but here he was, in a bar full of missing nin and mercs, and not a single one was talking about deployment, about scavenging battlefields and killing high bounty targets like he'd have thought. Either he was right behind a major offensive so destructive and hidden people had yet to hear about it, or it was a group, small. Maybe even one man.
His first thought was Akatsuki, but they seemed to be making a move on jinjuriki, not world domination or whatever. Senseless slaughter didn't seem to be their aim. The blond was stumped, so out of concern and curiosity he ventured into the first place he could find, in the aim of figuring out what the fuck was happening.
A large burly man sat next to him, smelling of alcohol and body odour. He must have been 8 feet tall, and almost 500 pounds, but he still somehow sat on the small chair, the wood creaking under his weight, just barely holding on. He looked at Naruto's drink, clasping an unwelcome hand on his shoulder.
"Juice? What are ya? A pussy? Drink some real manly shit like-"
He was cut off by a kunai ripping through his neck.
Then the bar exploded.
Naruto, of course having better reaction speeds than near everyone in that shithole of a place, managed to escape by diving out of a window seconds before a riptide of lightning cracked down with an insane pressure and power, vaporizing anything in sight, destroying the roof, walls, crashing every window in a 50 meter radius, and crushing the foundations.
He rolled up to a stand, turning around, scanning to see the perpetrator.
And then he saw a man, standing, a chakra infused hand aimed to the heavens. Black raven esc hair. Pale skin. Soft features. And, of course, two red eyes, copy wheel spinning insanely. Right at him
"Sasuke!" The jinjuriki said, shock, and memories building up in a matter of moments.
The brooding boy turned man turned his hand, waving, a venomous smile placed on his mouth, eerily reminiscent of his former master. "Before you attack me, let's talk, shall we? If either of us win I'm sure we'd want to know what the other did since we last met."
It took every bit of will Naruto still had to not smash his foe, the traitor, right in the fucking face. One breath, two breaths. He nodded.
"Alright. Explain. It was you who destroyed those villages right?"
Sasuke smiled wider somehow. He looked deranged, unsettling. Like instead of the brooder he was before, everything had come unfurled, and he wasn't confined by any idea of being an avenger or a ninja. Hair darker, body lither, eyes wider, everything about him was more, too much even. His outfit was a medley of blackened blends of purple and charcoal, bare traces of blue, trailing falling cloth tinged with red amongst the sea of night, draped over tight, body fit clothing, so close to his skin you could see the tight muscle underneath.
"Yes. You want to know why, I am guessing? Simple, to get to you, I needed to attract you, make myself a threat you couldn't ignore. I used to not care about the fucking fool jinjuriki Naruto Uzumaki, hell Orochimaru needed to force me to learn about you. Said I needed to know your weaknesses in case I ever came back and needed to face you. Of course, then you left, 15 years old and you followed in my footsteps."
Naruto scowled. "It wasn't like that."
The 'avenger' laughed, mean and cruel and maniacal. Too loud and too long.
"No, it was worse. You attacked your teammate because you were jealous. Because she was a threat to you."
Naruto went to object, but he couldn't. He stayed silent, frustration building.
"I understand it. Really, I do. You never cared about her, just the idea of her. And when that idea of a perfect world was gone, you saw no use for her, cut her away. Just like him."
Confusion welled up inside Naruto right next to his anger. "Him?"
"Itachi. Just like him, you lied, said we were your friends, were the most important people in the world to you, and then when you saw no use for us, you cut us apart. I wondered which version of you was lying, but then I realised just like him everything about you was a lie. You say you care about your friends, but you have none. You say you want to create peace, but every conflict you are in you create war. Everything you have ever done is a contradiction, is a falsehood."
Sasuke looked right at the jinjuriki with every word he spoke. He savoured the sanguine taste of Naruto's reactions, the delight on every response he gave. He was worse than Itachi, worse, so he could play with him. A worse liar, so he could poke holes through him and watch his breath leave his body until it left him dead.
The sage shook his head. "No, never. I am nothing like him. I chose to never abandon my friends-"
"Yet here you are, alone!"
"I would never slaughter an entire clan-"
"I know what you did to that hunter-nin squad."
"I never lied! I would never lie about what I am-"
"You are different. Too different."
Naruto knew Sasuke was trying to get to him, trying to put him off, but part of him accepted what the Uchiha was saying.
"How?"
Sasuke laughed a bit, lunacy reaching almost a peak. "The Naruto of old would have never attacked Sakura, never had left the village, never had left his loved ones, never had killed indiscriminately. Yet, here you are. The only reality where that makes any sense is one where that Naruto was never real. A ploy, to make us closer to you, so you could manipulate, use us, and get whatever you needed from us. Sakura, she might have been useless, but she had at least some potential, and as much as I don't like to admit it, she was important to me once. And me? Sasuke Uchiha, strong, young, and a sharingan wielder. The worst outcome, if I was close enough, would be to steal my eyes and run away."
Baring his teeth, Naruto's frustration nearly reached a peak. "I would never! I cared for you two, both, but then I realised you weren't worth it! You hated me, abused me, used me, and I got nothing from it. Sakura attacked me, you nearly killed me."
"Look at you. Do you truly believe that lie? We were friends, we cared for each other. We weren't perfect, but still we would have died for each other. It was a broken relationship. But you and Sakura could have been together still, even without me."
"Why do you think of me as a villain, Sasuke?"
His smiled turned from a happy one to a sad one, then dropped altogether.
"Because you remind me of him. Reminded me of Itachi when he was younger, though dumber. I thought that meant I could ensure you'd stay good, but it was folly. He was never good, like you were never good. Both liars, even to yourself. Even if you hadn't attacked Sakura, hadn't left the leaf, had stayed your old happy self, it would have been a lie, just like Itachi's brother loving self. Lies so deep they override everything. Lies so strong they seem like truth even to you, but what you don't realise, is that in reality, you two are soulless. You both held onto those falsehoods until they became inconvenient, and then you threw them away for others.
Say what you want about me, Naruto. I have always remained truthful to myself. I hate Itachi. I want him dead, not because he hurt me, but because he is a pathetic waste of humanity, who should be culled from the world. And you? You are the exact fucking same. I let you live, not only do I not get my practise on the prototype of the Itachi variant of scum, but I also let a waste of breath, vacant soul and self, loose on the world again."
The blond looked to the side, letting out a laugh, not of humour, but exasperation and rage, expelling both in an effort to keep it together without breaking.
"And you are the arbiter of goodness? Destroying village after village in an effort to find me?"
Sasuke smiled again, tutting. "Never said I was a good man. Just that I would kill a worse one."
He unsheathed his tanto from the fasten on his back.
Naruto breathed. Slowed it. Calmed himself, collected every single bit of hate and rage, and tried to let it go, but he couldn't. He decided it didn't matter, to collect that Nature chakra anyway. It would take time though. Time, he noticed as Sasuke sprinted towards him fast, he didn't have.
The Uchiha, running low, uppercut with an upwards swipe of his sword, Naruto flipping back to avoid the attack, somersaulting and launching a fan of kunai at his attacker, forcing a deflection, granting the Uzumaki enough space to spawn a few clones, all 4 of his bodies rushing at Sasuke. The first threw a too obvious punch, Sasuke slicing his jugular with a well placed slice, the second rushing through the smoke but too slow, as it was stabbed through. Naruto rushed from the side, body flicker enhancing his speed, a rasengan formed in his hand, aiming to ram it into the raven hair's ribs. In a moment though, the Uchiha generated a spark of lightning in his hand, pointing it at Naruto's heart, and firing an arc, blasting through and making a huge hole. Then he popped.
The real Naruto burst through the second clone's smoke, spinning mid-air and smashing a kick into the side of Sasuke's head, hard enough to make him roll. Both landed on their feet, the lightning user flashing a couple of air emanating strikes at Naruto almost instantly, his body barely swerving around all seven of the strikes in quick succession.
Then the dust settled, and both men stared at one another.
One, blond, Uzumaki, who felt like he never truly had anyone, owned anything fighting hard to get whatever he could.
And the other, brunet, Uchiha, who had lost everyone, who was nothing and knew it, and wanted to end everything with nothing left, wanted to return everything to where it was.
The ran at each other once again.
…
A/N: Cliffhanger I guess. I am back (maybe). Sorry for the minor hiatus but hey, I had shit to do. Since university is starting chapters will probably take longer to come out, especially since I have a few personal projects to do. Expect updates to be sporadic.
The reason chapters are short btw is because I am lazy, and most of the reason I write these two stories is because reviews. You get more reviews with more chapters, so hence I write less and upload more chapters. If you want to see more quicker, review, and if you are really desperate read my other stories.
Also, if you have any questions I'll probably respond to them in these authors notes.
I find the difference in some of the reader's opinions to be fascinating tbh. This story has multiple perspectives and im glad I managed to make each one valid enough for people to disagree. I have my own personal opinion and there is an end point, but I find the people who think Sakura is wrong, that Naruto is wrong, that Kakashi is a failure of a human, all very interesting. In the end, the point of this story was to get reactions, so I am very glad I managed to do that.
Anyway, cya till next time.
