Categories > Anime/Manga > Naruto > To One in Paradise

mute, motionless, aghast

by SongLin 0 reviews

Part III, Sasuke. The lights went out in all of their eyes in the end, and they died before they were even all the way gone.

Category: Naruto - Rating: PG-13 - Genres: Angst - Characters: Naruto, Sakura, Sasuke - Warnings: [!!] - Published: 2006-08-17 - Updated: 2006-08-17 - 996 words

0Unrated
To One in Paradise

Part III: mute, motionless, aghast

Sasuke didn't care when Orochimaru died, or that it was the Hokage who had killed him. Sometime between when Naruto and Sakura tried to bring him back and Kabuto's defection to Suna, he simply stopped caring.

Orochimaru's death, in fact, made things easier. He had been a few weeks shy of sacrificing his body to become Orochimaru's new holding pen. Now he could hunt down Itachi in his own fashion, and did so. He caught up with him somewhere in the Wave country.

He was alone, and so much older than Sasuke remembered. He was almost ashamed.

"You've grown weak," he spat. "How was I afraid of you?"

Itachi smirked. "You have hate now, brother," he whispered as he died. "But once I am dead, where will it go?"

It was a good question, and Sasuke pondered it for some time after he washed his arms of the blood (his, Itachi's, all the same, really) that wreathed his arms. He couldn't return to Konoha. He had been declared an S-rank missing-nin years ago, and after his involvement in the death of that Hyuuga girl, Naruto and Sakura would never take him back.

Naruto and Sakura. His old teammates. Perhaps he could hate them?

No. He did not hate them. He could not. They had done nothing to him. They had tried to help him, even. And Sasuke realized, with a pang of regret, that had things been different, he could have loved them.

Did he? Did he love them now?

He had no cause to hate them, did he?

There, by where he laid his brother's body to rest, Sasuke wept. It was the last time. There in the empty, battle-scorched field, Uchiha Sasuke found that the only one left that he could stand to hate was himself.

He had no reason to live, but neither did he want to disgrace himself with suicide. So he came as close as he could bear - he found Itachi's ring and took his place in the Akatsuki.

Even after so many these years, they were still obsessed with obtaining the power of the Jinchuuriki. Specifically, the last Jinchuuriki, the only one they had not captured. Sasuke was thrown back into a world full of Naruto, of how to fight him and capture him and deal with the beast sealed inside him, but found to his surprise that it no longer affected him. There wasn't enough of himself left to care.

And Sasuke, being the strongest of them, was sent after the Kyuubi. He had no partner, because there was no one who could match and compliment his abilities.

They told him to start acting up, to get the attention of the Konoha ANBU squad. Their trigger-happy new Hokage would surely send their top squad out for him, which was, naturally, Naruto's. Sasuke obediently hid out in an abandoned town, occasionally appearing in nearby cities, allowing himself to be spotted, killing here and there. Rumors of Akatsuki sightings reached Konoha.

Sasuke heard them coming. First came Hyuuga Neji and Sai. They proved to be no challenge at all. He carried them to the point that they had arranged to meet Sakura and Naruto at and laid them out on the street, crossing their arms across their chests. They were weak, but shinobi nevertheless, and they would be presented as such in death.

Unfortunately, the particular ninjutsu he had used on them had a degenerative effect over time, so that when Sakura tried to move them, they simply fell to pieces in her arms.

She fell back and screamed, bloody hands clapped over her face in horror. Naruto roared in rage. The marks on his cheeks darkened, his fangs stretched, and (Sharingan) red blossomed over his irises.

Sasuke saw his target. He pointed at him. "They'll have you this time."

Naruto screamed something at him. Sasuke didn't care to listen.

Fight, fight, fight. Sasuke was proud of him. Naruto was stronger, really. But in every movement he made, every word he spoke, Sasuke saw that Naruto was in love with him, and that made him weak.

So Sasuke fought and won. So what if he had killed the Kyuubi in the process? Akatsuki was nothing in the face of battle such as this.

Then he saw Sakura. He saw in an instant that she was stronger than Naruto by miles. Something had happened to stop her heart, the empathy that weakened Naruto.

Sasuke choked on a bitter taste in the back of his throat. Perhaps, it was him?

His face didn't move. His eyes stayed the same. But Sasuke was alive again, the Sasuke that had accidentally kissed Naruto on their first day as shinobi, dove in front of Haku's needles to save his life at the risk of his own. The Sasuke that had first grown ill when he saw his brother standing over their parents' bodies with a sword in his hand. The Sasuke that had begun to die in earnest when Orochimaru bit him in the Forest of Death and the cursed seal first blossomed at the curve of his neck.

That Sasuke could never bear to kill Sakura.

She was monstrously strong. Her first strike shattered his ribs and punctured his lung. The second crushed his heart. She wrapped her fingers around his throat and drew him close, almost as if she would kiss him. Sasuke did not close his eyes. He knew better.

Those fingers dug in tightly, and tore. Blood splattered. He fell.

Above him, Sakura was whispering something. He couldn't hear what. He could not speak, but he had words of his own dancing before his eyes, fiery script blazing above his face as his life ebbed away.

For, alas! alas! with me
The light of Life is o'er!
No more-no more-no more-
(Such language holds the solemn sea
To the sands upon the shore)
Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree,
Or the stricken eagle soar!
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