For: jaderlife
For: jaderlife
Title: This, He Learned
Rating: PG
Summary: Naruto had learned many things from Sasuke (…) perhaps it was high time Sasuke learned something from Naruto instead. For a change.
Warnings: …. It’s angsty?
A/N: Okay, including the sunflowers gave me a bit of a headache, but I LOVED writing this! I hope you enjoy it, Ryuu. ;) It was a labor of love.
Mod note: Reminder for the author/artist of this submission, please do not reply to comments signed in, if you want to reply anon commenting is enabled.
The flower field stretched out as far as the naked eye could reach. With the noonday sun directly above, the tallest of the flowers loomed over them, revealing only thick stringy stems and the underside of yolk-yellow petals that curled outwards faintly. They cast spindly shadows across the narrow path that cut across the plantation.
“It’s like… an infestation of yellow yellowness,” Suigetsu muttered, taking a swig from his water bottle. “I already hate it here.”
“You hate everything that isn’t covered in three feet of snow,” Karin replied, her tone more tired than snappish. She tried to brush her fingers through her hair flippantly, but it was a rat’s nest and her hand caught in the tangles.
“Yeah. I kind of do.” Suigetsu readily agreed with her, proving how tired he felt in that small gesture. “Good thing we’re not staying long.”
Juugo glanced at them both for a few moments, as if judging the odds of the current conversation turning into a fight, before he turned to Sasuke. His brown eyes were lined by shadows of exhaustion and pain, though his expression was straightforward and calm. “Sasuke, are you sure about this?”
Sasuke stared at the seemingly endless expanse with blank eyes and nodded. “The port is only a few miles ahead.”
Karin shifted uneasily then. “Are we really doing this? I mean…”
“None of you are obligated to come,” Sasuke cut her off coldly. “In fact, none of you have to go a step further if you don’t want to. Our alliance has outlived its purpose already.” The air was warm and the sun beat uncomfortably on all their backs. Sasuke felt a trickle of sweat slip from his neck into his shirt. He felt the weight of their eyes, like the heat of the sun. “Taka is pointless now.”
Suigetsu drank from his bottle again and gave him a resentful look that Sasuke did his best to ignore. “What the fuck is that suppose to mean?”
“It means we are all tired,” Juugo murmured, walking ahead of them all. His pace was brisk and belied the discomfort he was probably in, after so many days on the road. He was dwarfed by the tallest flowers, an incongruous shape in such a cheery picture. None of them belonged in that field.
Sasuke watched him impassively. A part of him wondered if he shouldn’t be feeling something by now, but all that came to him was an aching sense of being hollowed out and dry. Suigetsu’s anger and Karin’s anxiousness, even Juugo’s calm acceptance, they all washed up against him like feeble whispers in a deserted hallway.
A gusty breeze moved through the fields, jostling the sunflowers with the sound of rustling paper and old husks. Still, they remained as they were, each one facing the sun. A whole sea of suns, arched up towards the blinding blue sky. The entire horizon was a gold and blue splash of color that made Sasuke shiver, suddenly.
(You don’t have to do this, you know?)
Sasuke clenched his fists and stepped forward. “Juugo is right. We need to rest.”
Karin’s eyes were full of anger - and pity - and Sasuke walked straight ahead rather than dwell on that, or call her on it.
* * *
Sakura knelt on the ground, great heaving sobs tearing through her body. Almost everyone had left by then, but she remained by the funeral pyre, watching as the flames slowly died down. As Tsunade’s pupils, she and Shizune would have to gather up the ashes at the end. Embers glowed within the dying blaze, crackling and sparking in the warmth of the summer night. Sasuke wondered if she would wait until they were well and truly cold before scooping them up into the small box Shizune held.
Sasuke stood beside Naruto on the tree branch, watching from the distance. It was uncomfortable to be there and yet, he found he could not be elsewhere at the time. Naruto had been one of the first to leave the village square, only to perch upon that tree, watching as the flames licked away at the Godaime’s body. To think that the old woman had packed such a punch in her to the very end…
“Why aren’t you down there with her?” Sasuke asked at last. He spoke without turning his face, eyes still upon Sakura’s hunched figure in the distance. It was easier to look at her than at Naruto, somehow.
It was Naruto who turned to him, forcing Sasuke to look at him as well. His eyes gleamed wetly, though his face was set. “I think Sakura-chan and Big Sis probably need some time alone.”
Sasuke frowned, a prickle of discomfort creeping over his spine. The Naruto in his mind had always been an idiot, and a tenacious one at that; however, he had known little to nothing of personal space. The man who stood beside him was nothing like that image. He stood, quiet and proud in the face of so much grief, watching over the village he had sworn to protect. This was not, surely this couldn’t be--- Naruto.
“You were right, you know?”
The non-sequitur startled him out of his dark reflections. A part of him wanted nothing more than to be gone, but another could only acquiesce to this, so right, so fitting: to be drawn in and engage. “How so?”
“Back then, when we fought at the valley… I didn’t know how you felt at all.”
Sasuke allowed himself only to breathe in, anything else might have betrayed too much.
Naruto took his silence for permission, perhaps, and continued. “I didn’t know what it was like to have a father, or a family, or any kind of loved ones. I was only beginning to understand what it meant to have, how could I possibly dimension the pain of losing?” Naruto smiled thinly. “You taught me that. To lose a brother….”
“Don’t,” Sasuke cautioned, turning his face away. He told himself it was because he was weary and he still hadn’t recovered from his wounds, but he found it difficult to steel himself against the barrage of Naruto’s words. Now that it was all over, he felt pared down to the bone and Naruto struck the wrong chords in him all too easily.
“Jiraiya and Granny Tsunade… they weren’t just my teachers, they were the closest I’ve ever had to parents. But even knowing how much it hurts to know they are dead, to know they were killed… I would never wish to not have had them. It’s still so much better to have had them, than to have been utterly alone…”
Sasuke shivered, shaking his head. Naruto cocked his head sideways, a feral smile playing upon his lips as he continued.
“You see… you didn’t know how I felt at all, either. You have never been truly alone, Sasuke, not like I was. You will always know that you have been loved, probably as much as you are hated.”
“Shut up!”
Naruto’s smile faded. His expression was one of brittle calm, strained over something deeper and churning just under the surface. He slowly tipped his head back towards the dying fire, watching the plumes of smoke that rose into the night.
“It’s hard to believe we won, isn’t it?”
Sasuke gritted his teeth and stayed resolutely silent.
“Danzou and Madara… all of Akatsuki… it’s hard to accept that they are truly dead. I keep expecting one or the other to jump out of a shadow and start giving a speech about how death is but a minor setback in their master plan.” Naruto smiled, eyes crinkling.
Sasuke breathed in sharply; it felt like swallowing glass. “The Kyuubi lives, though.”
Naruto’s eyes lidded, the smile turning sad upon his lips. “But now there is only one person alive who can make of him a summoning spirit. Only one person who can control him.”
“And when I die… the pact will be broken. The power that harnesses the Kyuubi in this plane of existence will fade. Only the gods know how the shinobi way of life will change once the bijuu are gone.”
Naruto nodded faintly, resting his fingers against the rough bark of the tree. “The frogs spoke of a revolution like this one. Jiraiya believed in it too. Their prophets have songs about this day and age.”
They have songs about you, don’t they? From utter loser to cornerstone of fate and faith. No, this was not, in any way, or under any possible lens, the Naruto that Sasuke remembered. And yet… here he was.
Sasuke looked at Sakura for a long time.
When he faced Naruto again his eyes were drawn to his hands, which looked unsteady. Sasuke licked his lips and spoke: “Why haven’t I been detained yet? I thought our truce was only good for as long as Madara lived. Kakashi said----”
“Kakashi is Hokage now, his word is final. You helped save Konoha… no. You helped save Fire Country, and all of our allies’ lives too. Despite your past actions that make you a criminal, the truce holds… for now.” His hands were definitely trembling, Sasuke saw, whether from fatigue or grief, he did not know, but Naruto’s fingers shook faintly.
For now, he said; which could mean any number of things, though Sasuke was rather sure he knew which ones, in this case.
He had never been openly communicative, and speaking now felt like dragging barbwire out of his own throat. “I am a threat to you, aren’t I?”
Naruto glanced at him once, a flash of something startled and hurt in his eyes. “The sharingan…”
“….Yes,” Sasuke agreed. “And what I can do with the Kyuubi, even now.” Sasuke snorted once, derisively. “You all are as mushy as ever. Killing me would be a much simpler option.”
“That’s not an option,” Naruto growled darkly, clenching his fists. “That has never been an option. You are my…” Naruto stopped and shuddered, turning his back on Sasuke.
Sasuke looked at the line of Naruto’s shoulders, watching the muscles bunch up under his scrutiny. His hair was getting longer and shaggier, sticking out in the craziest way, making the resemblance to the Fourth ridiculously obvious. They had both lost so much and gained so little out this war, out of life as a whole. It was bordering on ironic that Naruto could try to claim that Sasuke was something of his, after all that had trespassed between them.
“I am your what, Uzumaki?”
Naruto sighed and collapsed abruptly, folding into himself to sit on the branch. Sasuke jerked as if to catch him until he realized the idiot was only sitting down.
“If you need me to say it, then you are not the genius everyone claimed you were.”
Damn you, Sasuke whispered in his mind, because he had hoped to avoid this conversation altogether. “I am not your brother, your friend, your teammate or anything of yours, Uzumaki. I am not even your enemy, anymore. We are nothing to each other.”
Naruto nodded vaguely, as if he had expected this answer from the very beginning. “Genius, but a bloody-minded one, I guess. You always were the master of being in denial.”
“Fuck you.”
“Fuck you, Sasuke. At least I can own up to how I feel.”
Sasuke blinked a few times, telling himself it was the smoke that made his eyes uncomfortably hot. “You really are an idiot.”
“Perhaps,” Naruto agreed. “But it’s just the way I am.”
It was.
Too honest, too bright and full of hope; that was Naruto. He had crashed into Sasuke’s life and made him think of living when he should have been thinking of nothing but revenge. When darkness threatened to take him over, Naruto was only a few steps behind, threatening to overtake him, feeble though his attempts were at first. He was a driving force that had drawn blood from stone where Sasuke was concerned. Even now, he was warmth and peace and possibilities.
And the Kyuubi.
“My team and I will be leaving at dawn.” It rolled off his tongue like so many insults had before. Naruto stiffened, alarmingly sharp claws digging into the tree bark. Sasuke heard him lick his lips; he watched the struggle for control and felt it keenly within himself.
“You don’t have to do this, you know?”
“I do. Do you honestly think the other hidden villages will stand to have the both of us living in the same city, knowing what I can do? Do you honestly think I will be allowed freedom and shinobi rights in Konoha, after everything I have done? Would you have me live the rest of my life in a cell, hidden away to rot? You would have to anyway, just to keep me away from the constant attacks from the many enemies I’ve gained-and since I probably wouldn’t be allowed any weapons or chakra use, putting me in a cell would be the best option.”
“No!”
“Then think, Naruto. For once in your life, use your head. Kakashi hasn’t refrained from ordering my capture out of honor or any sense of gratitude… he understands this just as well as I do. I have to go.” Kakashi was a wily old fox and he understood what had to be done, and the only way in which it could be done, that Naruto might forgive. They couldn’t kill Sasuke and ever hope to keep Naruto’s allegiance and Sasuke knew this. And they knew he knew.
Well, fuck them, and all their underneath the underneath.
“Sasuke…” Naruto’s voice was rough and low, and his eyes were summer blue, but disturbingly cat-like.
“If anything happened to me, you’d make an easy target. You want to know what I am? I am your biggest weakness, Uzumaki. I am the only thing that can be used against you without fail.” Sasuke sat down heavily, a dull throb had settled in his chest. “I have to go.”
Naruto was looking at him with the strangest expression Sasuke had ever seen. Horror and fascination shifted in his eyes, caught in the eddies of longing and sorrow that Sasuke had come to associate with seeing his own reflection in the blue irises. “Are you… serious?”
Sasuke gazed back tiredly. “What?”
“Are you seriously doing this… leaving Konoha… for me?” Naruto sounded torn between laughter and tears, which was fitting, because it summed up the truth of his feelings as well. Sasuke thought it was probably the first and last time they would be so in tune, the grandest of all ironies that it should be now.
Sasuke closed his eyes and smiled bitterly. “You want to know something, Uzumaki? The first time I left Konoha… I was leaving because of you. Now I am leaving for you.”
The sound of Sakura’s sobs had subsided. Cicadas were chirruping in the warmth of the night and Sasuke could almost pretend he wasn’t speaking those thoughts out loud. With his eyes closed, all he could see was a comforting blanket of shadow. He was tired of all the things he could see with his thrice-damned eyes.
Sasuke tensed, feeling Naruto move suddenly.
Instinct warred with the rational knowledge that the idiot wouldn’t hurt him. His skin jumped a bit when he felt warmth all too close and realized Naruto was only a few inches away from him. Sasuke opened his eyes just in time to see Naruto close his.
It was a sloppy kiss, all things told. It still made Sasuke’s heart skip into an odd rhythm, one that ached and thrummed within his body. It was a moment that felt too long in the making and Sasuke wondered if it would have even happened at all, had it not been for Naruto’s lack of finesse and proper timing.
You take what you can, when you can. Sasuke closed his eyes again and parted his lips.
Naruto breathed in sharply, startling them both with a soft sound of pleasure. Sasuke felt his cheeks flush uncomfortably but he ignored that, opting instead to reach up in order to caress the side of Naruto’s neck. He ended up digging his hands into his shoulders and their teeth clicked together when Naruto groaned again.
Sasuke parted for breath and opened his eyes again. “You sound like a bad porn actress,” he snarled, because it was somehow embarrassing and how could Naruto not see that and keep his stupid moans silent?
Naruto didn’t open his eyes. He crouched in front of Sasuke, breathing erratically through wet lips. “I figured… if you are leaving either way… then I can’t lose more than I will already lose. If that is so… anything else we do now is something we have gained. It’s something we can take with us, wherever we go.” He opened his eyes then. “Wherever you go. Until we meet again.”
“I don’t think we will,” Sasuke murmured in a strained whisper. It was a thought that suddenly hurt in the face of everything else that he had already lost.
Naruto laughed, startling them both. “You said that the first time too, and we met plenty of times. You just have to believe it, bastard. That’s all it ever took.”
* * *
“The whole point of sunflowers is that they always face the sun. Even when it’s a cloudy day, you can always tell where the sun is by the tilt of the flowers themselves,” the woman chattered away, cheerfully stacking the packets of seeds and bottles of oil. “You are so lucky to have arrived when they are in full bloom, they make quite a sight, don’t they?”
“I’ll say,” Suigetsu snapped, earning himself an elbow in the ribs from Karin.
Juugo smiled at the woman. “I understand that they are not only the town’s main produce, but also your pride?”
The woman beamed at them. “But of course! The flower that always looks towards the light, what better symbol of Fire Country’s determination is there?”
Suigetsu burst out laughing but, thankfully, said nothing more.
The woman paused, frowning. “Anyway, I’m glad that you slept well. Our beds aren’t as fancy as the main inn’s but---”
“They were fine,” Juugo assured her. “Thank you for your help.”
Sasuke let them deal with the last few details. He sat on a bench near the small inn’s stables, studying the four tickets in his hands. A part of his mind kept insisting they should weigh a lot more.
Juugo’s shadow made him look up slowly. “Sasuke, I know we’ve said this many times already but… are you absolutely certain you want to leave this continent?”
No. “Yes, I am.” His revenge was finished, all of it.
Rebuilding his clan was not an option either, at least not here. For as long as there were Uchiha in this land, the Kyuubi could be summoned and weapons like the jinchuuriki would continue to exist. Weapons like Naruto, who was not a weapon at all, but could not be viewed as less than one either.
Someday, a few generations down the line, Sasuke’s descendants would probably repeat history - it was in their very blood to do so. The sharingan was a cursed bloodline, and Sasuke knew he would have to come to terms with that.
But not here.
If he stayed, Naruto would always be in danger. Sasuke’s very presence in the continent put him at risk, because he was the Kyuubi’s vessel, and because - whether he wanted to acknowledge it or not - he was the person Naruto cared about the most.
Sasuke drew in a shaky breath and pocketed the tickets.
Juugo drew back and gave him a solemn look. “… you may never see him again.”
Sasuke gave him a sharp look, stabbed by a feeling so acute it was almost a sensation. They knew him well by now, these new team members. It no longer seemed like such a terrible thing. “Perhaps I will. Perhaps I won’t.”
Juugo frowned, tilting his head sideways. “What do you mean… perhaps?”
Sasuke look at the line of yellow flowers in the horizon. He listened to the distant roar of the sea at his back. Once they got on that ship, they would sail for a month or two before reaching the next continent, in which there were no shinobi, no bijuu, no Uchihas and no memory of who and what they were. It was a world in which Sasuke could be whatever he chose to be.
He had lived his whole life aiming for revenge. He had never stopped to consider what might become of him once it was over. Now he found himself thrust into the midst of that decision and no closer to making up his mind, except----
( Wherever you go. Until we meet again.)
Naruto had learned many things from Sasuke, in the end. He learned about death. He learned about family and brotherhood. He learned about loss and the ache of betrayal. Sasuke taught Naruto about revenge and darkness and the single-minded drive to seek justice again. All of these things Naruto learned from him.
So perhaps it was high time Sasuke learned something from Naruto instead. For a change.
Sasuke breathed out, feeling a deep seated ache in his chest that would never quite leave. But he also felt lighter. “What I mean is… you never know how things will turn out in the end.”
(You just have to believe it, bastard. That’s all it ever took)
Sasuke had taught Naruto about all the dark things in his life; but at the end of their road together, when it seemed like they might never meet again, Sasuke realized that Naruto had taught him something too, in return.
Juugo frowned. “Sasuke?”
Sasuke turned his face towards the ocean breeze and breathed in deeply. “No matter what strange roads we might take from now on… there is always hope.”
One faces the future with one's past.
-- Pearl S. Buck
Title: This, He Learned
Rating: PG
Summary: Naruto had learned many things from Sasuke (…) perhaps it was high time Sasuke learned something from Naruto instead. For a change.
Warnings: …. It’s angsty?
A/N: Okay, including the sunflowers gave me a bit of a headache, but I LOVED writing this! I hope you enjoy it, Ryuu. ;) It was a labor of love.
Mod note: Reminder for the author/artist of this submission, please do not reply to comments signed in, if you want to reply anon commenting is enabled.
The flower field stretched out as far as the naked eye could reach. With the noonday sun directly above, the tallest of the flowers loomed over them, revealing only thick stringy stems and the underside of yolk-yellow petals that curled outwards faintly. They cast spindly shadows across the narrow path that cut across the plantation.
“It’s like… an infestation of yellow yellowness,” Suigetsu muttered, taking a swig from his water bottle. “I already hate it here.”
“You hate everything that isn’t covered in three feet of snow,” Karin replied, her tone more tired than snappish. She tried to brush her fingers through her hair flippantly, but it was a rat’s nest and her hand caught in the tangles.
“Yeah. I kind of do.” Suigetsu readily agreed with her, proving how tired he felt in that small gesture. “Good thing we’re not staying long.”
Juugo glanced at them both for a few moments, as if judging the odds of the current conversation turning into a fight, before he turned to Sasuke. His brown eyes were lined by shadows of exhaustion and pain, though his expression was straightforward and calm. “Sasuke, are you sure about this?”
Sasuke stared at the seemingly endless expanse with blank eyes and nodded. “The port is only a few miles ahead.”
Karin shifted uneasily then. “Are we really doing this? I mean…”
“None of you are obligated to come,” Sasuke cut her off coldly. “In fact, none of you have to go a step further if you don’t want to. Our alliance has outlived its purpose already.” The air was warm and the sun beat uncomfortably on all their backs. Sasuke felt a trickle of sweat slip from his neck into his shirt. He felt the weight of their eyes, like the heat of the sun. “Taka is pointless now.”
Suigetsu drank from his bottle again and gave him a resentful look that Sasuke did his best to ignore. “What the fuck is that suppose to mean?”
“It means we are all tired,” Juugo murmured, walking ahead of them all. His pace was brisk and belied the discomfort he was probably in, after so many days on the road. He was dwarfed by the tallest flowers, an incongruous shape in such a cheery picture. None of them belonged in that field.
Sasuke watched him impassively. A part of him wondered if he shouldn’t be feeling something by now, but all that came to him was an aching sense of being hollowed out and dry. Suigetsu’s anger and Karin’s anxiousness, even Juugo’s calm acceptance, they all washed up against him like feeble whispers in a deserted hallway.
A gusty breeze moved through the fields, jostling the sunflowers with the sound of rustling paper and old husks. Still, they remained as they were, each one facing the sun. A whole sea of suns, arched up towards the blinding blue sky. The entire horizon was a gold and blue splash of color that made Sasuke shiver, suddenly.
(You don’t have to do this, you know?)
Sasuke clenched his fists and stepped forward. “Juugo is right. We need to rest.”
Karin’s eyes were full of anger - and pity - and Sasuke walked straight ahead rather than dwell on that, or call her on it.
* * *
Sakura knelt on the ground, great heaving sobs tearing through her body. Almost everyone had left by then, but she remained by the funeral pyre, watching as the flames slowly died down. As Tsunade’s pupils, she and Shizune would have to gather up the ashes at the end. Embers glowed within the dying blaze, crackling and sparking in the warmth of the summer night. Sasuke wondered if she would wait until they were well and truly cold before scooping them up into the small box Shizune held.
Sasuke stood beside Naruto on the tree branch, watching from the distance. It was uncomfortable to be there and yet, he found he could not be elsewhere at the time. Naruto had been one of the first to leave the village square, only to perch upon that tree, watching as the flames licked away at the Godaime’s body. To think that the old woman had packed such a punch in her to the very end…
“Why aren’t you down there with her?” Sasuke asked at last. He spoke without turning his face, eyes still upon Sakura’s hunched figure in the distance. It was easier to look at her than at Naruto, somehow.
It was Naruto who turned to him, forcing Sasuke to look at him as well. His eyes gleamed wetly, though his face was set. “I think Sakura-chan and Big Sis probably need some time alone.”
Sasuke frowned, a prickle of discomfort creeping over his spine. The Naruto in his mind had always been an idiot, and a tenacious one at that; however, he had known little to nothing of personal space. The man who stood beside him was nothing like that image. He stood, quiet and proud in the face of so much grief, watching over the village he had sworn to protect. This was not, surely this couldn’t be--- Naruto.
“You were right, you know?”
The non-sequitur startled him out of his dark reflections. A part of him wanted nothing more than to be gone, but another could only acquiesce to this, so right, so fitting: to be drawn in and engage. “How so?”
“Back then, when we fought at the valley… I didn’t know how you felt at all.”
Sasuke allowed himself only to breathe in, anything else might have betrayed too much.
Naruto took his silence for permission, perhaps, and continued. “I didn’t know what it was like to have a father, or a family, or any kind of loved ones. I was only beginning to understand what it meant to have, how could I possibly dimension the pain of losing?” Naruto smiled thinly. “You taught me that. To lose a brother….”
“Don’t,” Sasuke cautioned, turning his face away. He told himself it was because he was weary and he still hadn’t recovered from his wounds, but he found it difficult to steel himself against the barrage of Naruto’s words. Now that it was all over, he felt pared down to the bone and Naruto struck the wrong chords in him all too easily.
“Jiraiya and Granny Tsunade… they weren’t just my teachers, they were the closest I’ve ever had to parents. But even knowing how much it hurts to know they are dead, to know they were killed… I would never wish to not have had them. It’s still so much better to have had them, than to have been utterly alone…”
Sasuke shivered, shaking his head. Naruto cocked his head sideways, a feral smile playing upon his lips as he continued.
“You see… you didn’t know how I felt at all, either. You have never been truly alone, Sasuke, not like I was. You will always know that you have been loved, probably as much as you are hated.”
“Shut up!”
Naruto’s smile faded. His expression was one of brittle calm, strained over something deeper and churning just under the surface. He slowly tipped his head back towards the dying fire, watching the plumes of smoke that rose into the night.
“It’s hard to believe we won, isn’t it?”
Sasuke gritted his teeth and stayed resolutely silent.
“Danzou and Madara… all of Akatsuki… it’s hard to accept that they are truly dead. I keep expecting one or the other to jump out of a shadow and start giving a speech about how death is but a minor setback in their master plan.” Naruto smiled, eyes crinkling.
Sasuke breathed in sharply; it felt like swallowing glass. “The Kyuubi lives, though.”
Naruto’s eyes lidded, the smile turning sad upon his lips. “But now there is only one person alive who can make of him a summoning spirit. Only one person who can control him.”
“And when I die… the pact will be broken. The power that harnesses the Kyuubi in this plane of existence will fade. Only the gods know how the shinobi way of life will change once the bijuu are gone.”
Naruto nodded faintly, resting his fingers against the rough bark of the tree. “The frogs spoke of a revolution like this one. Jiraiya believed in it too. Their prophets have songs about this day and age.”
They have songs about you, don’t they? From utter loser to cornerstone of fate and faith. No, this was not, in any way, or under any possible lens, the Naruto that Sasuke remembered. And yet… here he was.
Sasuke looked at Sakura for a long time.
When he faced Naruto again his eyes were drawn to his hands, which looked unsteady. Sasuke licked his lips and spoke: “Why haven’t I been detained yet? I thought our truce was only good for as long as Madara lived. Kakashi said----”
“Kakashi is Hokage now, his word is final. You helped save Konoha… no. You helped save Fire Country, and all of our allies’ lives too. Despite your past actions that make you a criminal, the truce holds… for now.” His hands were definitely trembling, Sasuke saw, whether from fatigue or grief, he did not know, but Naruto’s fingers shook faintly.
For now, he said; which could mean any number of things, though Sasuke was rather sure he knew which ones, in this case.
He had never been openly communicative, and speaking now felt like dragging barbwire out of his own throat. “I am a threat to you, aren’t I?”
Naruto glanced at him once, a flash of something startled and hurt in his eyes. “The sharingan…”
“….Yes,” Sasuke agreed. “And what I can do with the Kyuubi, even now.” Sasuke snorted once, derisively. “You all are as mushy as ever. Killing me would be a much simpler option.”
“That’s not an option,” Naruto growled darkly, clenching his fists. “That has never been an option. You are my…” Naruto stopped and shuddered, turning his back on Sasuke.
Sasuke looked at the line of Naruto’s shoulders, watching the muscles bunch up under his scrutiny. His hair was getting longer and shaggier, sticking out in the craziest way, making the resemblance to the Fourth ridiculously obvious. They had both lost so much and gained so little out this war, out of life as a whole. It was bordering on ironic that Naruto could try to claim that Sasuke was something of his, after all that had trespassed between them.
“I am your what, Uzumaki?”
Naruto sighed and collapsed abruptly, folding into himself to sit on the branch. Sasuke jerked as if to catch him until he realized the idiot was only sitting down.
“If you need me to say it, then you are not the genius everyone claimed you were.”
Damn you, Sasuke whispered in his mind, because he had hoped to avoid this conversation altogether. “I am not your brother, your friend, your teammate or anything of yours, Uzumaki. I am not even your enemy, anymore. We are nothing to each other.”
Naruto nodded vaguely, as if he had expected this answer from the very beginning. “Genius, but a bloody-minded one, I guess. You always were the master of being in denial.”
“Fuck you.”
“Fuck you, Sasuke. At least I can own up to how I feel.”
Sasuke blinked a few times, telling himself it was the smoke that made his eyes uncomfortably hot. “You really are an idiot.”
“Perhaps,” Naruto agreed. “But it’s just the way I am.”
It was.
Too honest, too bright and full of hope; that was Naruto. He had crashed into Sasuke’s life and made him think of living when he should have been thinking of nothing but revenge. When darkness threatened to take him over, Naruto was only a few steps behind, threatening to overtake him, feeble though his attempts were at first. He was a driving force that had drawn blood from stone where Sasuke was concerned. Even now, he was warmth and peace and possibilities.
And the Kyuubi.
“My team and I will be leaving at dawn.” It rolled off his tongue like so many insults had before. Naruto stiffened, alarmingly sharp claws digging into the tree bark. Sasuke heard him lick his lips; he watched the struggle for control and felt it keenly within himself.
“You don’t have to do this, you know?”
“I do. Do you honestly think the other hidden villages will stand to have the both of us living in the same city, knowing what I can do? Do you honestly think I will be allowed freedom and shinobi rights in Konoha, after everything I have done? Would you have me live the rest of my life in a cell, hidden away to rot? You would have to anyway, just to keep me away from the constant attacks from the many enemies I’ve gained-and since I probably wouldn’t be allowed any weapons or chakra use, putting me in a cell would be the best option.”
“No!”
“Then think, Naruto. For once in your life, use your head. Kakashi hasn’t refrained from ordering my capture out of honor or any sense of gratitude… he understands this just as well as I do. I have to go.” Kakashi was a wily old fox and he understood what had to be done, and the only way in which it could be done, that Naruto might forgive. They couldn’t kill Sasuke and ever hope to keep Naruto’s allegiance and Sasuke knew this. And they knew he knew.
Well, fuck them, and all their underneath the underneath.
“Sasuke…” Naruto’s voice was rough and low, and his eyes were summer blue, but disturbingly cat-like.
“If anything happened to me, you’d make an easy target. You want to know what I am? I am your biggest weakness, Uzumaki. I am the only thing that can be used against you without fail.” Sasuke sat down heavily, a dull throb had settled in his chest. “I have to go.”
Naruto was looking at him with the strangest expression Sasuke had ever seen. Horror and fascination shifted in his eyes, caught in the eddies of longing and sorrow that Sasuke had come to associate with seeing his own reflection in the blue irises. “Are you… serious?”
Sasuke gazed back tiredly. “What?”
“Are you seriously doing this… leaving Konoha… for me?” Naruto sounded torn between laughter and tears, which was fitting, because it summed up the truth of his feelings as well. Sasuke thought it was probably the first and last time they would be so in tune, the grandest of all ironies that it should be now.
Sasuke closed his eyes and smiled bitterly. “You want to know something, Uzumaki? The first time I left Konoha… I was leaving because of you. Now I am leaving for you.”
The sound of Sakura’s sobs had subsided. Cicadas were chirruping in the warmth of the night and Sasuke could almost pretend he wasn’t speaking those thoughts out loud. With his eyes closed, all he could see was a comforting blanket of shadow. He was tired of all the things he could see with his thrice-damned eyes.
Sasuke tensed, feeling Naruto move suddenly.
Instinct warred with the rational knowledge that the idiot wouldn’t hurt him. His skin jumped a bit when he felt warmth all too close and realized Naruto was only a few inches away from him. Sasuke opened his eyes just in time to see Naruto close his.
It was a sloppy kiss, all things told. It still made Sasuke’s heart skip into an odd rhythm, one that ached and thrummed within his body. It was a moment that felt too long in the making and Sasuke wondered if it would have even happened at all, had it not been for Naruto’s lack of finesse and proper timing.
You take what you can, when you can. Sasuke closed his eyes again and parted his lips.
Naruto breathed in sharply, startling them both with a soft sound of pleasure. Sasuke felt his cheeks flush uncomfortably but he ignored that, opting instead to reach up in order to caress the side of Naruto’s neck. He ended up digging his hands into his shoulders and their teeth clicked together when Naruto groaned again.
Sasuke parted for breath and opened his eyes again. “You sound like a bad porn actress,” he snarled, because it was somehow embarrassing and how could Naruto not see that and keep his stupid moans silent?
Naruto didn’t open his eyes. He crouched in front of Sasuke, breathing erratically through wet lips. “I figured… if you are leaving either way… then I can’t lose more than I will already lose. If that is so… anything else we do now is something we have gained. It’s something we can take with us, wherever we go.” He opened his eyes then. “Wherever you go. Until we meet again.”
“I don’t think we will,” Sasuke murmured in a strained whisper. It was a thought that suddenly hurt in the face of everything else that he had already lost.
Naruto laughed, startling them both. “You said that the first time too, and we met plenty of times. You just have to believe it, bastard. That’s all it ever took.”
* * *
“The whole point of sunflowers is that they always face the sun. Even when it’s a cloudy day, you can always tell where the sun is by the tilt of the flowers themselves,” the woman chattered away, cheerfully stacking the packets of seeds and bottles of oil. “You are so lucky to have arrived when they are in full bloom, they make quite a sight, don’t they?”
“I’ll say,” Suigetsu snapped, earning himself an elbow in the ribs from Karin.
Juugo smiled at the woman. “I understand that they are not only the town’s main produce, but also your pride?”
The woman beamed at them. “But of course! The flower that always looks towards the light, what better symbol of Fire Country’s determination is there?”
Suigetsu burst out laughing but, thankfully, said nothing more.
The woman paused, frowning. “Anyway, I’m glad that you slept well. Our beds aren’t as fancy as the main inn’s but---”
“They were fine,” Juugo assured her. “Thank you for your help.”
Sasuke let them deal with the last few details. He sat on a bench near the small inn’s stables, studying the four tickets in his hands. A part of his mind kept insisting they should weigh a lot more.
Juugo’s shadow made him look up slowly. “Sasuke, I know we’ve said this many times already but… are you absolutely certain you want to leave this continent?”
No. “Yes, I am.” His revenge was finished, all of it.
Rebuilding his clan was not an option either, at least not here. For as long as there were Uchiha in this land, the Kyuubi could be summoned and weapons like the jinchuuriki would continue to exist. Weapons like Naruto, who was not a weapon at all, but could not be viewed as less than one either.
Someday, a few generations down the line, Sasuke’s descendants would probably repeat history - it was in their very blood to do so. The sharingan was a cursed bloodline, and Sasuke knew he would have to come to terms with that.
But not here.
If he stayed, Naruto would always be in danger. Sasuke’s very presence in the continent put him at risk, because he was the Kyuubi’s vessel, and because - whether he wanted to acknowledge it or not - he was the person Naruto cared about the most.
Sasuke drew in a shaky breath and pocketed the tickets.
Juugo drew back and gave him a solemn look. “… you may never see him again.”
Sasuke gave him a sharp look, stabbed by a feeling so acute it was almost a sensation. They knew him well by now, these new team members. It no longer seemed like such a terrible thing. “Perhaps I will. Perhaps I won’t.”
Juugo frowned, tilting his head sideways. “What do you mean… perhaps?”
Sasuke look at the line of yellow flowers in the horizon. He listened to the distant roar of the sea at his back. Once they got on that ship, they would sail for a month or two before reaching the next continent, in which there were no shinobi, no bijuu, no Uchihas and no memory of who and what they were. It was a world in which Sasuke could be whatever he chose to be.
He had lived his whole life aiming for revenge. He had never stopped to consider what might become of him once it was over. Now he found himself thrust into the midst of that decision and no closer to making up his mind, except----
( Wherever you go. Until we meet again.)
Naruto had learned many things from Sasuke, in the end. He learned about death. He learned about family and brotherhood. He learned about loss and the ache of betrayal. Sasuke taught Naruto about revenge and darkness and the single-minded drive to seek justice again. All of these things Naruto learned from him.
So perhaps it was high time Sasuke learned something from Naruto instead. For a change.
Sasuke breathed out, feeling a deep seated ache in his chest that would never quite leave. But he also felt lighter. “What I mean is… you never know how things will turn out in the end.”
(You just have to believe it, bastard. That’s all it ever took)
Sasuke had taught Naruto about all the dark things in his life; but at the end of their road together, when it seemed like they might never meet again, Sasuke realized that Naruto had taught him something too, in return.
Juugo frowned. “Sasuke?”
Sasuke turned his face towards the ocean breeze and breathed in deeply. “No matter what strange roads we might take from now on… there is always hope.”
One faces the future with one's past.
-- Pearl S. Buck