Pyrrhic Victory

By EDelta88

Rated T for Trauma

Insert Disclaimer Here

Background and Beginning Notes:

Another time travel idea that I cooked up years ago but never really played with because it was so heavily tied up in the heavy psychology of the characters and just wasn't my cup of tea at the time... still isn't really. However, a very good friend of mine has a Master's Degree in Psych and she finds this idea interesting.

Keystone Theme: A Pyrrhic Victory is achieving victory at a catastrophic cost. A cost so steep that the victory achieve is no victory at all.

In the simplest terms. It is sacrificing the war to with the battle and, in this case, I decided that Sasuke got to win. He wanted to be an Avenger? Well, in this little thought experiment, he gets to be. He kills everyone. Then, when the dust settles, he gets to be alone with the consequences so that he has no one left to point a finger at and really processes what he's done.

Enjoy.

Pyrrhic Victory

Once upon a time, when he was very little, Sasuke's mother told him a story about a young prince that was cursed by a witch for his greed. "May you find what you are looking for," she said to him. Sasuke hadn't understood then...

The Valley of the End was prophetically named Sasuke decided as he walked slowly over the now placid waters of the historical basin.

It was here that the world-changing friendship of Uchiha Madara and Senju Hashirama was shattered. It was on these waters that he had severed his ties to Konoha and broken his bonds to his so-called friends. So many great moments ended here…and now it was the last stand of the last free shinobi, the watery grave of Rokudaime Hokage, Uzumaki Naruto.

And it was here that Sasuke finally admitted, if only to himself, that there was no one that he respected more than Uzumaki Naruto. An end to one of his longest, deepest personal illusions.

'How fitting,' Sasuke thought tiredly, almost disappointed as he stared down at the still form of his rival as she lay in the shallows at the feet of Hashirama's statue. He felt… cheated? Yes, cheated seemed like the right word. Their final confrontation was hardly what he would call a fight, certainly not something befitting their rivalry. But what could he expect? It was no small miracle that she had been able to survive the extraction of the Kyuubi in the first place, much less kill the last remnants of Akatsuki and escape in the process; she'd even managed to blindside that piece of shit Black Zetsu. By the time he had caught up with Naruto she could barely stand, much less put up a real fight.

With a disappointed sigh, the last Uchiha turned to leave, only to freeze as he felt something grasp his ankle and jerk his leg out from under him, sending him face first into the water.

"Ha ha," he heard her mumble raggedly, her voice barely above a whisper.

Sasuke scowled at the noise. It was so weak, so unlike Naruto.

Naruto made a gurgling noise that might have been an attempt at actual laughter. "I get the last laugh, get it?" she wheezed, giving him a pale imitation of her usual bright smile.

Sasuke just rolled his eyes as he swiped his hair out of his eyes. "Aren't you dead yet, Usuratonkachi?" he asked with no real venom in his voice as he turned back to her.

"You wish, I'm going to live forever," she shot back dully, not even bothering to open her eyes.

Sasuke's lip twitched. "Is that so?" he asked her. Breaking her hold so he could sit himself down next to her.

"Mhmm," she replied smugly before forcing her eyes open to stare up at him. "Sasuke?"

"What?"

"You're… an asshole," Naruto muttered weakly.

"Your last words... and you choose to tell me that I'm an asshole," Sasuke replied dryly. "You really need to get your priorities straight, Usuraton-"

Then, without warning, her hand snapped out grabbing ahold of his collar. Alarmed, Saskue's hand dove into his weapons pouch, snatching a kunai to end it…

And then she kissed him.

Sasuke was so startled by the action that he reacted reflexively, holding her just a little closer and, after a moment, returned the kiss. It was… pleasant. For a moment that seemed to draw on forever, they stayed there in the shallows. Just the two of them, soaked to the bone, bleeding, and lost in each other. For a moment, there was just this, just Naruto and Sasuke,, and all was right in the world.

Then Naruto released him, giving a thoughtful hum as she settled tiredly in his lap.

"What...Wh-Why did you do that?" Sasuke stammered, confused.

"Just… wanted to see what that felt like when I did it on purpose," she explained with a small smile. Then, after a moment, "It was nice," she decided, unknowingly parroting his own thoughts. A moment later she blinked and gave a small laugh.

Sasuke blinked down at her, baffled.

Naruto stared up at him, her normally bright eyes dull and unfocused. "Did you know you're the only boy I ever kissed?"

"Really?" Sasuke asked with a bemused blink. He… had he kissed anyone else? Had it only ever been Naruto?

"Uh huh… never really thought about that 'til now. I guess it's true that you think about weird shit when you're dying," she mumbled, her eyelids drooping ever so slightly.

Sasuke stayed silent, suddenly very still as the reality of the situation finally began to set in. Dying… Naruto was dying. It hadn't really… he hadn't-he didn't-

"Sasuke?" she whispered as she pulled away every so slightly, struggling to keep her eyes open.

"Hn?" He didn't trust himself to say more.

"I feel," Naruto murmured, losing her voice for a moment as her eyes fluttered weakly. "I feel, cold…" she sighed, her voice trailing off as she lost the battle to keep her eyes open as they fluttered shut.

'She looks like she's asleep,' Sasuke thought as he stared down at her, only realizing that he had activated his Sharingan as he watching the last vestiges of her once vibrant chakra wafting off her, slowly becoming weaker, like... 'Like smoke from a dying fire. How appropriate,' Sasuke observed with a detached sort of numbness as the world seemed to slow down to a crawl.

It was over.

They were dead. They were all dead. Everyone who had had anything to do with betraying his family or benefitted from it was dead. He had killed them all.

He'd done it, he had finally won.

Everything he had been chasing since the massacre… he'd done it all. He'd achieved everything he had ever wanted.

So… what now?

Once upon a time, when he was very young, Sasuke's mother told him a story about a young prince that was cursed by a witch for his greed. "May you find what you are looking for," she said to him… perhaps Sasuke should have listened more carefully.

His mother told him that the prince laughed at the old crone as she left because how could getting everything he wanted be a curse?

For the longest time, the prince looked on the witch's spell as a blessing. The his treasury began to overflow with gold, his kitchens with only the best foods. Women flocked to him and merchant's flooded his city to sell him their wares. He had everything he could ask for.

But then, over time, the prince began to feel bored. The merchant's wares were nothing new. Women fell at his feet without chase or challenge. Though the food was plentiful, his dining hall was filled with the same talk, the same dances, and the monotony of the experience stole the taste from his favorite dishes. He would visit his treasury with its mountains of gold and trunks full of jewels and wonder what he could use if for now that he had everything.

He had everything he had ever wanted…

It was then that he realized the insidious nature of the witch's curse. She had taken everything he had once taken joy in and turned it against him. She had stolen the thrill of a challenge, the joy of success, she had hollowed out his life and elevated him so far above all who surrounded him that he was left alone in a crowd. Though he had everything he had ever desired, her curse had stolen everything that gave them meaning.

He knelt in the water stained red with his friend's blood and he asked himself again...

What now?

Sasuke had never really thought about what would come after he'd avenged his family. If he was being honest, he hadn't been brave enough to think of it, brave enough to hope. Some small part of him might have considered it, but on some level he had always believed that he would never succeed. In his heart of hearts, he had never believed he would survive to see his vengeance through. Now though? Now that he had? Now that he was here... there was nothing left.

And in his heart of hearts, Uchiha Sasuke recoiled at that thought, his eyes unconsciously twisting themselves into the starburst of his Mangekyo Sharingan, throwing the world into vivid definition as the last vestiges of Naruto's chakra guttered out, burning the image into his memories as something like doubt curdled in his stomach like spoiled meat.

Sasuke hadn't understood his mother's story all those years ago, but here, knelt in the shallows of the Valley of the End clutching the cooling body of his rival, he might finally have begun to understand. Here, now, at the moment of what should have been the realization of his ambition, his greatest triumph, he could see eternity stretched out before him. He could see his whole future stretched out before him and it was…

Empty.

Slowly and then all at once, the shock faded and was replaced with a bone deep revolution as Sasuke began to process this strange new reality. With the preternatural awareness that the Mangekyo gave him, he began to realize that this was it, all of it. He had won and there was nothing left.

"I didn't want this," Sasuke murmured, shaking as he mourned the furtures he had given up pursuing his revenge as he tracked the last wisp of Naruto's chakra. Whatever he had pictured? It hadn't been this. He had never wanted this.

But hadn't he? A traitorous little voice wondered.

"I don't want this," he whispered, trembling violently as Mangekyo Sharingan began to spin furiously.

No, not this.

Never this.

Anything but this.

Sasuke screamed, releasing a decade of repressed pain, suffering, and guilt as his chakra roiled and his soul howled.

And for the second time that day, Uchiha Sasuke brought his world to an end.

Sasuke woke up flailing, throwing them off with such violence that he heard something tearing.

Where was he?

What was going on?

He didn't know. He couldn't tell. No matter where he looked he couldn't…

He couldn't see.

He was blind.

A wail of despair tore its way from Sasuke's throat. What fresh hell was this? What kind of cruel joke-

"Sasuke?"

Sasuke froze, he knew that voice.

"Sasuke, what's wrong?" the intruder asked. "Did you have a nightmare?"

"K-Kachan?"

End Notes

Welp, that's enough torturing Sasuke for now. Works a bit like a fix-it from this point, but he's hardly earned a happy ending yet. I'm just lulling him into a false sense of security for the moment.

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