New fic: In Their Love (continued)
SEE PREVIOUS POST FIRST!!!
***
“-and someone I could never give up on, even if I tried,” he smiles, but it fades almost instantly. “Because I…” his voice gives out, and the sound is swallowed up by the fire.
He sighs, and Sakura thinks it sounds like a requiem.
And so, silence falls upon the Uchiha complex once again.
"Why are you doing this?" comes the quiet, almost desperate question, from between them.
Naruto turns and looks in that direction for the first time since the onset of the funeral.
"Bastard," the smirk tugs at the corners of his mouth, his eyes dancing in the firelight, "don't you understand?"
***
Sasuke forgets everything when he senses-no, sees-his brother’s chakra emanating from Naruto.
Until he hears Naruto mention Itachi-intertwines Itachi with all his insufferable babbling about promises and nindo-
(In the back of his head there's an imperceptible noise-like a fine veneer cracking, or the last pieces of a 10,000-piece puzzle finally clicking into place.)
Then he doesn’t know what to feel anymore, what to think-
He knows only the electricity rippling through his palm as it surges forward and smashes through Madara's mask, straight into those godforsaken eyes-knows only the song of a thousand birds and the memory of his brother's fingers poking his forehead.
“Amaterasu,” he feels himself whisper, pupils spinningspinningspinning… and then all is dark.
The black flames swallow up everything, even the sun.
He hears Naruto curse, stumble, and wrench himself from whatever hold was placed upon him. Time moves too fast, and then not fast enough. There is a flare of chakra as Naruto molds a Rasengan-the sphere is a whirling, gyrating mass of blueblackredblueblackred-
Another scream-
When the last of Amaterasu’s flames flicker out, it is over.
Sasuke steers his eyes away from the remains. His eyes are burning (from the Sharingan or the fire within them?)… In the distance, Naruto is hunched over Pain’s body. Blood trails across the rocks in dark rivulets, diluted in spots by the spray of the falls.
Sasuke walks over to him on suddenly unsteady legs, stray shards of orange crushed into nothing under his sandals.
When Naruto finally looks up at him, his eyes are hollow. They hold each other’s gaze for a long time, searching.
“I killed him for the living, not for the dead,” Naruto tells him, and somehow each syllable is a plea of hope.
Blood runs down Sasuke’s face, staining his tear ducts, and falls like crimson beads of rain upon unforgiving stone.
***
“No, I don’t understand,” Sasuke scowls, and the look with which he regards the fire is more skeptical than anything else. The sun is lounging against the horizon line, the blue sky starting to be tinged with pinks and oranges. “Why did go through all the trouble to bring me here… just to give me a ‘funeral’? In case you haven’t noticed, dumbass,” he sneers, “I’m alive.”
“I know you are, Sasuke,” Naruto can’t help smiling, “I know you are...”
Sakura watches them, and can’t stop the small smile that grows on her face at the sight of Naruto’s.
-In the end, they had both been carried back to Konoha. (They were a little broken-as always-but to her eyes, they looked the closest to whole that they’d ever been.) The various Pain-incarnations had all fallen to Konoha shinobi, or died when Naruto killed Pain. Their mission complete, Suigetsu, Karin, and Juugo had fled without incidence. Though damaged, Konoha was far from beaten.
The strain Amaterasu had inflicted upon his eyes left Sasuke unconscious for days in the hospital. Despite the near-removal of the Kyuubi, Naruto seemed no worse for the wear-though he healed a bit more slowly than usual. The moment he regained consciousness, he had asked about Sasuke. Sakura had practically needed to bind him to the bed to keep him in it; the moment he had been cleared for release, he was in Sasuke’s room.
(Sakura recalls standing in the doorway, observing Naruto watch their sleeping (ex?)teammate with a look so intense it almost made her wonder if he would punch Sasuke when he awoke, or…kiss him. She wasn't in the room when he did awaken, though, so she supposes she'll never know for sure. Perhaps it was both.)
…When the nurses finally removed the bandages from Sasuke’s eyes, the first thing he saw was Naruto.
After that, the next several months of his life became a blur of imprisonment, ANBU investigations, and trials- He’d never expected that they’d let him live. He had betrayed them and launched an attack upon the village with the intent to obliterate it.
But somehow, Naruto never ceased to vouch for him. (“Yeah, he’s a stupid bastard and has done some stupid, bastardly things. But he’s come back to Konoha. He did the right thing in the end, isn’t that what counts? Everyone deserves a second chance.”)
And somehow, the council decided to let him live, but just barely. (Perhaps having several eye-witnesses present and attesting to the fact that he’d killed the seemingly immortal Uchiha Madara was enough to soften the blow for his other…transgressions?)
The last trial had ended a few days ago. He was sentenced to constant surveillance and home arrest-there are at least four ANBU lurking in the trees around his property right now-and barred from using chakra until further notice.
But. It is over. He is alive.
Naruto had shown up on his doorstep with Sakura (and Kakashi) a few hours ago, had tugged him off to this spot without explanation, and had proceeded to build a fire in total silence. Until he declared it to be a funeral. For Sasuke.
“…but sometimes when it seems like everything has ended, there’s nothing to do but just…begin again.” Naruto continues. (Though he has lived and dreamed and hoped and bled in Technicolor, he has a habit of seeing things in black and white.)
Sasuke’s black, black eyes reflect the firelight. Slowly he raises them, casts them up to the heavens. The dying light of the sun leaves the sky awash in brilliant orange.
The words Naruto screamed at him (that time in the Valley, it was truly the End. Or was it the Beginning?) still ring within his head-
(“I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth, Sasuke! Hell, I’ll even race you there!”)
-they resonate within his ribcage, push past his lungs-
(“You’re not alone, you’re never alone, bastard, because I won’t fucking let you be alone!”)
-his chest cavity pulses with aftershocks of their reverberation-
(“I don’t know why but I’ll never stop chasing you, Sasuke. I can’t.”)
The sky is the brightest he’s ever seen it.
(“Goddamnit, you bastard, I-!”)
"Don't you see, Sasuke? The life you've always known is over; that you is dead," Naruto's eyes flicker to the fire, and then return to bore into Sasuke's. They are brighter than the fire, brighter than the sky. "Now comes the 'resting-in-peace' part, but without all the resting. Now you can finally start to live."
Sasuke meets his gaze, and holds it.
(From where he’s perched, Kakashi dares to entertain the fleeting thought that Team 7 might not, in fact, have been a cataclysmic failure after all.)
Sakura takes a few steps back, takes in the sight of their backs as the two of them stand shoulder-to-shoulder.
They stand impossibly tall, arms at their sides. The fire burns before them (for them?).
And in the moment she catches sight of their fingers just barely brushing, she finds she can at last truly believe that hope is the strongest foundation with which to (re)build a life.
They all watch as the last of the sunlight is stolen up by the dark. They watch, and wait for dawn.
END. [BEGINNING?]
Well I had a dream I stood beneath an orange sky
Yes I had a dream I stood beneath an orange sky
With my brother standing by
With my brother standing by
I said Brother, you know you know
It’s a long road we’ve been walking on
Brother you know it is you know it is
Such a long road we’ve been walking on
And I had a dream I stood beneath an orange sky
With my sister standing by
With my sister standing by
I said Sister, here is what I know now
Here is what I know now
Goes like this..
In your love, my salvation lies
In your love, my salvation lies
In your love, my salvation lies
In your love, in your love, in your love
-“Orange Sky” by Alexi Murdoch
(This fic was orginally inspired by this song--because really, the key to Sasuke's "salvation" lies in the love of Naruto and Sakura. Since the first time I heard it, I'd always wanted to write a fic that had Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura standing together under an orange sky. Little did I know that when I finally wrote it, it would turn into... this.)
So. How on earth did I manage to convince myself that I could even attempt to write action scenes? DDDX
And sorry for the treachery about... you know. :D
***
“-and someone I could never give up on, even if I tried,” he smiles, but it fades almost instantly. “Because I…” his voice gives out, and the sound is swallowed up by the fire.
He sighs, and Sakura thinks it sounds like a requiem.
And so, silence falls upon the Uchiha complex once again.
"Why are you doing this?" comes the quiet, almost desperate question, from between them.
Naruto turns and looks in that direction for the first time since the onset of the funeral.
"Bastard," the smirk tugs at the corners of his mouth, his eyes dancing in the firelight, "don't you understand?"
***
Sasuke forgets everything when he senses-no, sees-his brother’s chakra emanating from Naruto.
Until he hears Naruto mention Itachi-intertwines Itachi with all his insufferable babbling about promises and nindo-
(In the back of his head there's an imperceptible noise-like a fine veneer cracking, or the last pieces of a 10,000-piece puzzle finally clicking into place.)
Then he doesn’t know what to feel anymore, what to think-
He knows only the electricity rippling through his palm as it surges forward and smashes through Madara's mask, straight into those godforsaken eyes-knows only the song of a thousand birds and the memory of his brother's fingers poking his forehead.
“Amaterasu,” he feels himself whisper, pupils spinningspinningspinning… and then all is dark.
The black flames swallow up everything, even the sun.
He hears Naruto curse, stumble, and wrench himself from whatever hold was placed upon him. Time moves too fast, and then not fast enough. There is a flare of chakra as Naruto molds a Rasengan-the sphere is a whirling, gyrating mass of blueblackredblueblackred-
Another scream-
When the last of Amaterasu’s flames flicker out, it is over.
Sasuke steers his eyes away from the remains. His eyes are burning (from the Sharingan or the fire within them?)… In the distance, Naruto is hunched over Pain’s body. Blood trails across the rocks in dark rivulets, diluted in spots by the spray of the falls.
Sasuke walks over to him on suddenly unsteady legs, stray shards of orange crushed into nothing under his sandals.
When Naruto finally looks up at him, his eyes are hollow. They hold each other’s gaze for a long time, searching.
“I killed him for the living, not for the dead,” Naruto tells him, and somehow each syllable is a plea of hope.
Blood runs down Sasuke’s face, staining his tear ducts, and falls like crimson beads of rain upon unforgiving stone.
***
“No, I don’t understand,” Sasuke scowls, and the look with which he regards the fire is more skeptical than anything else. The sun is lounging against the horizon line, the blue sky starting to be tinged with pinks and oranges. “Why did go through all the trouble to bring me here… just to give me a ‘funeral’? In case you haven’t noticed, dumbass,” he sneers, “I’m alive.”
“I know you are, Sasuke,” Naruto can’t help smiling, “I know you are...”
Sakura watches them, and can’t stop the small smile that grows on her face at the sight of Naruto’s.
-In the end, they had both been carried back to Konoha. (They were a little broken-as always-but to her eyes, they looked the closest to whole that they’d ever been.) The various Pain-incarnations had all fallen to Konoha shinobi, or died when Naruto killed Pain. Their mission complete, Suigetsu, Karin, and Juugo had fled without incidence. Though damaged, Konoha was far from beaten.
The strain Amaterasu had inflicted upon his eyes left Sasuke unconscious for days in the hospital. Despite the near-removal of the Kyuubi, Naruto seemed no worse for the wear-though he healed a bit more slowly than usual. The moment he regained consciousness, he had asked about Sasuke. Sakura had practically needed to bind him to the bed to keep him in it; the moment he had been cleared for release, he was in Sasuke’s room.
(Sakura recalls standing in the doorway, observing Naruto watch their sleeping (ex?)teammate with a look so intense it almost made her wonder if he would punch Sasuke when he awoke, or…kiss him. She wasn't in the room when he did awaken, though, so she supposes she'll never know for sure. Perhaps it was both.)
…When the nurses finally removed the bandages from Sasuke’s eyes, the first thing he saw was Naruto.
After that, the next several months of his life became a blur of imprisonment, ANBU investigations, and trials- He’d never expected that they’d let him live. He had betrayed them and launched an attack upon the village with the intent to obliterate it.
But somehow, Naruto never ceased to vouch for him. (“Yeah, he’s a stupid bastard and has done some stupid, bastardly things. But he’s come back to Konoha. He did the right thing in the end, isn’t that what counts? Everyone deserves a second chance.”)
And somehow, the council decided to let him live, but just barely. (Perhaps having several eye-witnesses present and attesting to the fact that he’d killed the seemingly immortal Uchiha Madara was enough to soften the blow for his other…transgressions?)
The last trial had ended a few days ago. He was sentenced to constant surveillance and home arrest-there are at least four ANBU lurking in the trees around his property right now-and barred from using chakra until further notice.
But. It is over. He is alive.
Naruto had shown up on his doorstep with Sakura (and Kakashi) a few hours ago, had tugged him off to this spot without explanation, and had proceeded to build a fire in total silence. Until he declared it to be a funeral. For Sasuke.
“…but sometimes when it seems like everything has ended, there’s nothing to do but just…begin again.” Naruto continues. (Though he has lived and dreamed and hoped and bled in Technicolor, he has a habit of seeing things in black and white.)
Sasuke’s black, black eyes reflect the firelight. Slowly he raises them, casts them up to the heavens. The dying light of the sun leaves the sky awash in brilliant orange.
The words Naruto screamed at him (that time in the Valley, it was truly the End. Or was it the Beginning?) still ring within his head-
(“I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth, Sasuke! Hell, I’ll even race you there!”)
-they resonate within his ribcage, push past his lungs-
(“You’re not alone, you’re never alone, bastard, because I won’t fucking let you be alone!”)
-his chest cavity pulses with aftershocks of their reverberation-
(“I don’t know why but I’ll never stop chasing you, Sasuke. I can’t.”)
The sky is the brightest he’s ever seen it.
(“Goddamnit, you bastard, I-!”)
"Don't you see, Sasuke? The life you've always known is over; that you is dead," Naruto's eyes flicker to the fire, and then return to bore into Sasuke's. They are brighter than the fire, brighter than the sky. "Now comes the 'resting-in-peace' part, but without all the resting. Now you can finally start to live."
Sasuke meets his gaze, and holds it.
(From where he’s perched, Kakashi dares to entertain the fleeting thought that Team 7 might not, in fact, have been a cataclysmic failure after all.)
Sakura takes a few steps back, takes in the sight of their backs as the two of them stand shoulder-to-shoulder.
They stand impossibly tall, arms at their sides. The fire burns before them (for them?).
And in the moment she catches sight of their fingers just barely brushing, she finds she can at last truly believe that hope is the strongest foundation with which to (re)build a life.
They all watch as the last of the sunlight is stolen up by the dark. They watch, and wait for dawn.
END. [BEGINNING?]
Well I had a dream I stood beneath an orange sky
Yes I had a dream I stood beneath an orange sky
With my brother standing by
With my brother standing by
I said Brother, you know you know
It’s a long road we’ve been walking on
Brother you know it is you know it is
Such a long road we’ve been walking on
And I had a dream I stood beneath an orange sky
With my sister standing by
With my sister standing by
I said Sister, here is what I know now
Here is what I know now
Goes like this..
In your love, my salvation lies
In your love, my salvation lies
In your love, my salvation lies
In your love, in your love, in your love
-“Orange Sky” by Alexi Murdoch
(This fic was orginally inspired by this song--because really, the key to Sasuke's "salvation" lies in the love of Naruto and Sakura. Since the first time I heard it, I'd always wanted to write a fic that had Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura standing together under an orange sky. Little did I know that when I finally wrote it, it would turn into... this.)
So. How on earth did I manage to convince myself that I could even attempt to write action scenes? DDDX
And sorry for the treachery about... you know. :D