Chapter Text
The battle had ended. Naruto won, because of course, he did, Sasuke thought, vaguely, almost resentfully. They lay side by side, bleeding out from multiple holes in their bodies, and Naruto was grinning like the idiot he always was. Sasuke loved him so much, it hurt.
“What exactly does “friend” mean to you?” – Sasuke asked, because he didn’t get it, even though he did. And it, whatever it was, was not friendship. Sasuke wanted to shout, or he wanted to roll over and just climb on top of the idiot, to do what exactly? He didn’t know, but there was something in his chest begging to be let out, and Naruto was still smiling, even though his eyes were so swollen Sasuke could barely see the baby blues and all of their hidden intensity.
“I can't explain it either, teme. It's not like I really understand it. Just that when I see you take on stuff and get all messed up…it kinda…hurts. It hurts…inside so much, I can’t just leave it alone”.
And what was Sasuke supposed to say to that? He had nothing left to offer, and nothing to fight for anymore, and Naruto still looked at him like he held his entire world in his hands. He turned his face to the other side because he could not face those blue, blue eyes, and he did not want Naruto to see him cry, either.
“Shup up, Usuratonkachi.”
He lost, and they were bleeding out, and he could feel himself slowly losing consciousness. But they would be alright, Sasuke thought, eventually. Naruto was warm, so warm beside him, their fingers almost touching.
“I love you, Sasuke. More than anything. Don’t you ever forget that.” Naruto suddenly said, all urgent, with a note of final desperation that Sasuke did not understand. He turned his face back so fast, his entirely exhausting body protested. The last thing he saw was a flash of sheer determination in those blue eyes before he was pushed off the cliff they were lying on by a strong, directed wind, that somehow managed to lay him harmlessly onto the rocky surface several meters down from where he was on. Naruto’s wind, he vaguely acknowledged. He still had this charka within him?
He looked up only to see huge piles of rock crashing right onto where they were lying next to each other just a moment ago. Right on top of Naruto. No. No. No. NO. NO. NO. Naruto! Their battle earlier had weakened the mountain’s structure, causing a landslide that would have killed both of them in their exhausted states if they were on the receiving end of it. And Naruto, the absolute idiot, had spent the last of his charka to save Sasuke, and not himself.
Someone was screaming so loud, it hurt Sasuke’s ears. It took him some time to realize the screaming voice, full of horror and anguish, sounded identical to his own.
---
He woke up in prison, surrounded by darkness. Where was Naruto? Naruto, Naruto. The image of Naruto’s battered body buried under huge piles of rock flashed through his mind, and he screamed, again, and again. His fault, his fault, his fault. Naruto couldn’t die like that, could he?
“Naruto, Naruto, Naruto! Where is he? Answer me! Answer me!”
He screamed until his throat was burning and he felt like he couldn’t get another word out. He pulled until the chains bit into his skin and warm liquid slicked his fingers and feet. He barely felt the pain.
He tried screaming again, and it came out hoarse and bare. He tried begging instead.
“Please, please, Naruto…” He didn’t care that he was crying. That he sounded so weak and pathetic, his dead family must be frowning upon him right now. All he could think of was Naruto, so warm, so full of life, and always there. Whenever he looked back, Naruto was there, running after him, begging him to go home, fighting him, saving him.
“Sasuke, teme”
“I will bring you back to the village safe, even if I have to break every bones in your body”
“I will bear your hatred and die with you”
“It hurts so bad I can’t leave it alone”
“I love you, Sasuke. More than anything”
“Sasuke, Sasuke, Sasuke…”
Sasuke, for this first time in years, prayed to a God he was not sure he believed in. Please, please let him be safe. Sasuke would do anything, anything. He would come back and be a loyal dog to the village that slaughtered his family. He would spend the rest of his days in this dark, suffocating dungeon. He would give Naruto everything he ever wanted, be it friendship or otherwise. Please, God, just let him be safe.
Sasuke winked in and out of consciousness. Days bled together. There was food put through the dark, mental door of his cell, which he barely touched. No one came to see him. Whenever Sasuke did manage to sleep, or just passed out, he dreamt of the sun. And blue, blue eyes.
Someone was outside his door. He did not recognize the charka signature, but it didn’t matter. People equaled news about Naruto.
The door opened, revealing a thin, battered face of a guard shinobi who had seen far more than he asked for. He did not look like someone coming out of a war victorious, just barely surviving.
“Naruto…” He asked, or he tried to, anyway. His voice did not sound like his own.
At that, the guard’s mouth thinned into a cruel, hurtful smile:
“Congratulations, Uchiha. You finally managed to kill him”
Sasuke’s blood froze at the words. Liars, liars, liars.
The guard leaned closely to him, eyeing the charka-absorbed chains he got around his body.
“I will make sure you have a proper celebration”
He didn’t even flinch when the hits came.
---
He escaped the prison. The guards’ hatred of him drove them careless. They cared more about hurting him than actually guarding him, and a slip was all he needed.
He spared a moment to look back at Konoha on his way out. The whole village looked lifeless. Like it, too, was in mourning. There were white banners everywhere, and withering flowers on the street. He could still destroy this place, he thought. Sasuke turned around to leave. He never looked back.
He found himself inside some shady bar half way across the continent, drinking his days away.
Konoha, or someone else, he could not tell or care, sent shinobis after him. He killed them all, and the ones after that, and the ones after that. The shinobis ended up leaving him alone, because he was simply too powerful to be challenged. And he was doing a fine job of killing himself after all.
Sasuke found being drunk was slightly better than being sober. In his drunken dreams, there were a pair of blue eyes looking into his dark ones, and gentle hands combing through his hair, and someone said “I love you, Sasuke”.
Sometimes the nightmares came, and he woke up in cold sweat, the disappointed looks of his brother fresh in his mind, and Itachi was dead, and Naruto was dead. He was dead. They all were, everyone that ever mattered.
His Taka team sought him out at some point, and he drove them all away.
Sasuke started hallucinating. Maybe the Uchiha was truly designed to be insane. It was coded into their DNA, into their unimaginably powerful eyes. The price for power was sanity. That, and hatred, apparently. The thought made him want to laugh. He felt like he hadn’t laughed in years. Maybe he hadn’t.
Sasuke saw Naruto now, even when he was reasonably awake. Naruto, still a pink-cheeked teenager with unkempt hair, still in his terrible orange suit, and damn why did it have to be orange? Sasuke smiled, soft and longing.
Naruto said “Teme, you look like shit”
Naruto said “Eh, the other day I saw this bird, you know, like big and blue, and with real shitty attitude, and it makes me think of you. Bird Sasuke. Sasuke-tori, with like, big wings and blue feathers and shit” Naruto was flaying his arms around, his face scrunched up. He spoke with his entire body, and he looked so silly it made Sasuke laugh and laugh until his belly hurt.
Naruto said “You can’t do that, can’t drink on empty stomach. Shouldn’t drink at all, teme”.
Naruto said “I am worried about you, Sasuke”.
Itachi said “I am worried about you, foolish little brother”.
Naruto said “I am here, Sasuke, I am not going anywhere”.
“Sir, you are talking to yourself, sir.”
Sasuke snapped out of it to look at the tiny girl who stopped by his side in the corner of this whatever town, in this whatever country.
“What?” He asked, momentarily confused.
“Why are you talking to yourself, Sir? There was nobody there.”
He looked back at the empty spot by his side. There was nobody there, indeed.
“…Go home, kid.”
Naruto said “Where is your home, Sasuke?”
“Wherever you are, Naruto” Sasuke answered.
---
He returned to the Valley of The End in the middle of the night. He stood where he used to stand, at the start of his battle with Naruto, all those years ago. Had it really been years? He did not know how he made it here. He hadn’t been sober in months. Longer, even.
Naruto was by his side, looking wary. Naruto was always looking wary these days, and damn it how could an illusion look wary? He was supposed to be whatever Sasuke made him out to be. And not wary, he thought, or at least tried to. Nothing made much sense in his mind these days.
Naruto said, gently, the way an adult tried to sweet talk a child who didn’t know any better “Hey, Sasuke, I don’t think you should be here right now. How about we get off this mountain and you go sleep it off, and I can, I dunno, play with your hair or something?”
Sasuke smiled. Even the Naruto he made up in his head couldn’t manage to sound anymore intelligent. Such a dumbass. Stupid, so stupid, for dying for someone like him.
“Im going to kill myself today, Naruto.”
Naruto’s face screwed up at that, and he looked like he was in so much pain.
“Sasuke…”
“Will I find you on the other side? Will you let me find you once more, Naruto?”
Naruto looked at him, and was his eyes always this blue? Or maybe Sasuke was making this up too, and he started to forget how Naruto’s eyes actually looked like. He panicked for a moment, but the Sharingan would not allow that, would it?
“Sasuke, you will always find me. Every lifetime, and all of the universes”
Sasuke smiled. Always so good with words, his Naruto. He looked down, and yes, no one would survive a fall from this height without charka. And he planned to use none of his.
When he jumped off the cliff, he felt as light as a feather. He sent his last wish to the starry sky above, the words gently left his lips: Bring me to wherever Naruto was.
His Rinnegan, dull due to years of unused, flashed to life. The world went purple for one moment, and Sasuke disappeared midair.
---
In another universe, Naruto peaked up from his Hokage office, his heart beating so fast he felt like it would jump out of his chest. He felt it, the charka signature that he thought he would not get to feel again in years, if not more. His head suddenly emptied of all thoughts except for Sasuke.