[ There's no pain in muscles torn by the impact of blow after blow, or shredded through ceaseless exertion that leaves every limb heavy. No, the adrenaline coursing through his veins refuses to allow him to acknowledge just how far he's pushed a body fueled now by little more than his own hatred. It's burning a line through him; his skin feels hot to the touch. And why shouldn't it? Why shouldn't his normal stoicism be shed in the aftermath of his victory? One mask removed from the village and one mask removed from him.
Danzou is dead, and Uchiha Sasuke is ecstatic over that fact.
"One down" feels like ten when his catch is so significant. A hokage, the very symbol of a fetid village that he doesn't just resent, but is enjoying loathing. The death, one that leaves him manic, has him reflecting on the sheer absurdity of his hesitancy up until now. On how conflicted he'd been and how much more he'd forced himself to suffer by refusing to acknowledge a simple fact: if the fruits of a tree are rotten, why shouldn't its roots be the same?
There's true peace in that simplicity, but it doesn't last long.
"I'm no longer a part of Team 7," he hears himself saying, voice hoarse and eyes struggling to make out blurred figures but even that is cathartic. Sakura? Kill him? Kakashi? Absurd, it's fucking absurd... just like the arguments of one clear voice above all the others, the only one that threatens to jeopardize raw pure emotions with needless nuance. Naruto bludgeons his way through a disagreement with their old teacher like he always does, too stubborn to accept that taking Sakura back and leaving a battle against a sharingan user to another sharingan user isn't just easiest, it's prudent.
Kakashi has always been weak to him, too. Sasuke does little to hold back his scoff when a tortured sensei gathers his still-crying student to draw her away from the battlefield. It truly is disgusting. ]
Two symbols of Konoha's destruction, leashed and kept under her rooftops to be used and abused until the tiniest slip up offered them truth, left in the shadow of yet another battlefield to speak alone. ]
Naruto.
Shouldn't you be licking their wounds? Kakashi really slipped up, leaving you here to me... maybe that's what pure sentimentality gets you. But if you come at me now, I won't hesitate like I did before.
There won't be another kind "whim" of mine to save you.
[Hurt is a pale, ugly language—written in coarse brush strokes of pain and grief. But between them, it is also a communion: a thousand different ways of saying I understand. These days, this alphabet seems like the only way they can communicate. The sharply angled characters are burned blood-hot into both their hearts, born from childhoods of tragedy and abuse. For all that Naruto believed that he had risen above his past, his best friend always seems to drag him back. As he watches Kakashi gently shepherd Sakura away, the jinchūriki steeps himself in that shared language of hurt once again. When he turns to regard Sasuke, it is with eyes stained red.]
I know you won’t hesitate.
[Naruto can acknowledge that, having just barely arrived in time to prevent Sakura from a brutal death at the cold hands of her beloved. Even now, as he stares across the too quiet river, he is unable to banish the sight of her maimed face from his vision. His chest is so tight—feeling like every heartbeat is being wrenched counterclockwise as a familiar rage soaks his soul. The biju within him is still, watching hungrily. And after witnessing Sasuke nearly kill their teammate, Naruto is hungry too.]
She loves you, y’know, [he says suddenly, voice strained under the tremendous weight of an anger that swells inside like the rising tide.] She always has.
[Somehow, it feels as if he were not discussing Sakura. Maybe Sasuke will understand that too.]
[ Even were he calm the ugly bark of a laugh that claws its way up out of strained lungs would be nigh impossible to leash. More than anything it's bitter, like Naruto has just told him an inside joke that's humor is its tragedy. And he has, and it is. ]
She loves me? [ When did he first become aware of that? No... when did he first recognize her infatuation with a colorless silhouette named "Uchiha Sasuke", moldable and uncomplicated and loyal? What in his personality meant so much to her? The mask? The mask he's refusing to wear, nerve-endings agonizing and exposed in each tortured expression of emotion that's driving him to burn down every single thing that might rub his wounds raw? She doesn't know him. She never knew him.
How fucking dare Naruto say something like that to him... when Naruto knows, he knows that that love is nothing. It's a seedling in the shadow of an oak that they both know far better, because yes, Sasuke understands. Naruto has always understood him far more deeply than anyone else on the surface of this godforsaken planet, for as much hatred as that's engendered in him and how much bile it's caused them to spew at one another. ]
How long are you going to wield that weapon against me? "Love"? Should I indulge her fantasy? Feel guilty because of her blindness towards me?
She's acting out a dream I told her was never real... I told all of you, again and again, but still you never listen!
[ The shout is punctuated with a sudden burst of chakra that explodes against the surface of the water, shrinking the distance between them in a fraction of a second. Already chidori is charged, arm cocked back, and a strike of piercing electricity directed right at his best friend's heart. ]
[There is a moment where he grieves. Just a moment. And then Naruto’s heart becomes the stuff of fire-heated steel, forged in the bright depths of a friendship he cannot suffer the loss of. Unseen, the imprisoned kitsune smiles. A ghastly power explodes in a rippling ring around the jinchūriki, sending forth wobbly waves of water toward Sasuke. But the brunet is afforded no opportunity to challenge them; three tails fanning behind him, Naruto appears from above, clinging to Sage Mode with what little self-control he yet possesses. Their unadulterated auras collide before fists can meet, and Sasuke sinks—forced below the surface by the monstrous chakra trying to devour him whole. Naruto follows, striking the other boy with a blow to the temple that should have been countered; the Uchiha is slower than usual, no doubt suffering the aftereffects of his recent battle with Danzō.
Good, comes a sharp, edged thought. Naruto’s startled to hear it in his own voice—and not the biju’s.
Their battle is brief. Despite his blatant exhaustion, Sasuke scored more than a few hits on Naruto, with each gruesome wound only further igniting something dark and voracious inside him. Dragging Sasuke’s limp body to shore, he collapses boneless and heavy into a straddle over the teen. Deep, wheezing pants saw forth from his chest; yet again, Sasuke has blown out one of his lungs. But even as blood unspools from his body like rope, Naruto heals—rapid now that he hovers perilously close to Version Two.]
You’re the one who doesn’t listen, [he hisses, fangs glistening red. Naruto laps at his upper lip, tongue trailing blood like warpaint.] Violence is all you understand.
[His hands seize thin, pale wrists and pin them overhead. Even with his opponent so weakened, Naruto still needs to thrust the majority of his weight into that hold just to prevent Sasuke from breaking free. Meanwhile, his knees clamp down on hips, struggling to keep the other boy level. The chakra tails elongate; like appendages, they grasp legs and force them straight. But their corrosive aura begins to eat through cloth, slowly destroying Sasuke’s clothing. Naruto doesn’t notice.]
[ Emotion fills his chest before water fills his lungs and only one of the two truly burns at him. Adrenaline that should've run its course returns to flood his veins, chemically separating him from any awareness of his body's screams at him to rest, to acknowledge his pain, and to set aside his own hate for the sake of his self-preservation.
In the end it's chakra exhaustion and not ripped muscle that wears him down, dragged through dirt and rubble with labored breaths that can only mimic those wheezed guturally through his best friend. Once severe dark eyes, so dark they appeared black, are cloudy – it's a light grey that peers up into red now, barely able to sketch out the lines of a form that wields strength against him he struggles to comprehend. His waning battle high has left him disoriented and how is Naruto this far above him right now? How is he strong enough to haul him here, strong enough to combat fire and hate that still simmers in him even now, ready to lash out blindly at any one person who would dare get close enough? ]
You... [ The single world is snarled in a deep, haggard voice, dredged out of a teenager whose demons were never quite so tangible but no less real. ]
Are you finally going to do it? [ Weight settles, broken ribs shift, and the burn that sears its way through cloth and into his skin hardly makes him flinch. Bloodied teeth are already grit; there's nothing more he can do to him in his mind. Nothing save one last injurious strike. ]
Kakashi wanted to kill me, but in the end it's you...
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
1/2
Danzou is dead, and Uchiha Sasuke is ecstatic over that fact.
"One down" feels like ten when his catch is so significant. A hokage, the very symbol of a fetid village that he doesn't just resent, but is enjoying loathing. The death, one that leaves him manic, has him reflecting on the sheer absurdity of his hesitancy up until now. On how conflicted he'd been and how much more he'd forced himself to suffer by refusing to acknowledge a simple fact: if the fruits of a tree are rotten, why shouldn't its roots be the same?
There's true peace in that simplicity, but it doesn't last long.
"I'm no longer a part of Team 7," he hears himself saying, voice hoarse and eyes struggling to make out blurred figures but even that is cathartic. Sakura? Kill him? Kakashi? Absurd, it's fucking absurd... just like the arguments of one clear voice above all the others, the only one that threatens to jeopardize raw pure emotions with needless nuance. Naruto bludgeons his way through a disagreement with their old teacher like he always does, too stubborn to accept that taking Sakura back and leaving a battle against a sharingan user to another sharingan user isn't just easiest, it's prudent.
Kakashi has always been weak to him, too. Sasuke does little to hold back his scoff when a tortured sensei gathers his still-crying student to draw her away from the battlefield. It truly is disgusting. ]
2/2
Two symbols of Konoha's destruction, leashed and kept under her rooftops to be used and abused until the tiniest slip up offered them truth, left in the shadow of yet another battlefield to speak alone. ]
Naruto.
Shouldn't you be licking their wounds? Kakashi really slipped up, leaving you here to me... maybe that's what pure sentimentality gets you. But if you come at me now, I won't hesitate like I did before.
There won't be another kind "whim" of mine to save you.
no subject
I know you won’t hesitate.
[Naruto can acknowledge that, having just barely arrived in time to prevent Sakura from a brutal death at the cold hands of her beloved. Even now, as he stares across the too quiet river, he is unable to banish the sight of her maimed face from his vision. His chest is so tight—feeling like every heartbeat is being wrenched counterclockwise as a familiar rage soaks his soul. The biju within him is still, watching hungrily. And after witnessing Sasuke nearly kill their teammate, Naruto is hungry too.]
She loves you, y’know, [he says suddenly, voice strained under the tremendous weight of an anger that swells inside like the rising tide.] She always has.
[Somehow, it feels as if he were not discussing Sakura. Maybe Sasuke will understand that too.]
no subject
She loves me? [ When did he first become aware of that? No... when did he first recognize her infatuation with a colorless silhouette named "Uchiha Sasuke", moldable and uncomplicated and loyal? What in his personality meant so much to her? The mask? The mask he's refusing to wear, nerve-endings agonizing and exposed in each tortured expression of emotion that's driving him to burn down every single thing that might rub his wounds raw? She doesn't know him. She never knew him.
How fucking dare Naruto say something like that to him... when Naruto knows, he knows that that love is nothing. It's a seedling in the shadow of an oak that they both know far better, because yes, Sasuke understands. Naruto has always understood him far more deeply than anyone else on the surface of this godforsaken planet, for as much hatred as that's engendered in him and how much bile it's caused them to spew at one another. ]
How long are you going to wield that weapon against me? "Love"? Should I indulge her fantasy? Feel guilty because of her blindness towards me?
She's acting out a dream I told her was never real... I told all of you, again and again, but still you never listen!
[ The shout is punctuated with a sudden burst of chakra that explodes against the surface of the water, shrinking the distance between them in a fraction of a second. Already chidori is charged, arm cocked back, and a strike of piercing electricity directed right at his best friend's heart. ]
no subject
Good, comes a sharp, edged thought. Naruto’s startled to hear it in his own voice—and not the biju’s.
Their battle is brief. Despite his blatant exhaustion, Sasuke scored more than a few hits on Naruto, with each gruesome wound only further igniting something dark and voracious inside him. Dragging Sasuke’s limp body to shore, he collapses boneless and heavy into a straddle over the teen. Deep, wheezing pants saw forth from his chest; yet again, Sasuke has blown out one of his lungs. But even as blood unspools from his body like rope, Naruto heals—rapid now that he hovers perilously close to Version Two.]
You’re the one who doesn’t listen, [he hisses, fangs glistening red. Naruto laps at his upper lip, tongue trailing blood like warpaint.] Violence is all you understand.
[His hands seize thin, pale wrists and pin them overhead. Even with his opponent so weakened, Naruto still needs to thrust the majority of his weight into that hold just to prevent Sasuke from breaking free. Meanwhile, his knees clamp down on hips, struggling to keep the other boy level. The chakra tails elongate; like appendages, they grasp legs and force them straight. But their corrosive aura begins to eat through cloth, slowly destroying Sasuke’s clothing. Naruto doesn’t notice.]
And me? I’m sick of talkin’.
no subject
In the end it's chakra exhaustion and not ripped muscle that wears him down, dragged through dirt and rubble with labored breaths that can only mimic those wheezed guturally through his best friend. Once severe dark eyes, so dark they appeared black, are cloudy – it's a light grey that peers up into red now, barely able to sketch out the lines of a form that wields strength against him he struggles to comprehend. His waning battle high has left him disoriented and how is Naruto this far above him right now? How is he strong enough to haul him here, strong enough to combat fire and hate that still simmers in him even now, ready to lash out blindly at any one person who would dare get close enough? ]
You... [ The single world is snarled in a deep, haggard voice, dredged out of a teenager whose demons were never quite so tangible but no less real. ]
Are you finally going to do it? [ Weight settles, broken ribs shift, and the burn that sears its way through cloth and into his skin hardly makes him flinch. Bloodied teeth are already grit; there's nothing more he can do to him in his mind. Nothing save one last injurious strike. ]
Kakashi wanted to kill me, but in the end it's you...