Silence reigned in Konoha, dust and soot dancing in the light breeze before delicately falling to the ground. Bricks shattered into the distance, the sound echoing in the ruins of the fallen village. What once were busy marketplaces, shops or apartments had crumpled to the ground in a mismatch of tiles, bricks and paint. The only things left were the broken remains of the once powerful village and the bone crushing, deafening silence.
Konoha was gone.
Suddenly a form emerged from a big pile of rubble and stood in the daylight. Despite the dust and the sand covering his hair, its deep onyx color was unmistakable, and so was the red glint of his sharingan. Sasuke hovered over the remains, the shock caused by the whole situation still lingering on his thin frame, blinding his senses and his thoughts.
He was dizzy, maybe from the shock still numbing his body to protect it; or maybe, he thought, because of the cut on his arm that he barely registered was still bleeding. He lifted his head towards the clouded sky and breathed deeply, absentmindly thinking that it would rain soon and that hopefully the others had found a shelter.
That’s when it hit him, like a forceful blow to the stomach that drained all air out of him as he fought to regain lucidity: the village was silent.
Way too silent
There were no civilians calling for help, no shinobi roaming around to rescue the wounded, only the wind that howled at his ears like a pack of hungry wolves.
Where were the others?
Where was everyone?
Where was…
Sasuke felt like he was being choked as a clear picture appeared in his mind: tan skin and blond hair and whiskered cheeks and the bluest eyes one has ever seen.
Where was Naruto?
He felt his body move forward, barely registering the movement because his mind was screaming at him to find the blonde and he was panicking because what if he was trapped, what if he was injured, what if…
Sasuke screamed his name, voice more desperate than he had ever heard it before. The cold remains of the buildings echoed the sound until it was broken, distorted.
But no one answered.
So he screamed again, and again and again and again, not caring the least that his throat was turning painful, he screamed the name of the one person he wished to see alive more than anyone else like a mantra, as if it was the only thing keeping him sane. It probably was.
He kept staggering in the dirt, tripping over metal bars, concrete and things that looked way too much like body parts and made him nauseous. He ignored the pain in his whole body, the pain in his arm, the pain in his eyes as his sharingan desperately tried to notice any movement. The only thing keeping him from crumbling down was the thought, the wish, the prayer that Naruto was somewhere and he was fine.
Sasuke clung to that idea like a lifeline as he kept searching.
Minutes went by, or hours, he didn’t know. His ears were ringing, he felt like he was underwater and he knew he was on the very edge of a panic attack, but he kept on screaming, until his voice died down and shouts turned into whimpers.
Suddenly his knees gave up on him, and he fell to the ground, his body refusing to move even as he tried to haul it forwards.
That’s when the first drop of rain hit the ground.
In a few seconds the drop turned into a downpour and Sasuke found himself soaked to the bone, but he couldn’t find it in him to care. His mind was forcefully brought back to that night, the night where he had lost everything. There had been rain too, and he had also been screaming the name of the person he loved above all else, alone in the broken remains of his home.
Just how cruel could fate be?
“Please” he whimpered, voice strained and broken, “please …Naruto…Please don’t do this. Don’t leave me alone, please…I don’t want to be alone” his voice broke as a sob escaped his lips “Not again”.
He desperately tried to control the shaking of his limbs, to suppress the sobs that needed to escape his chest, to keep the dignity that his bloodline had preserved for centuries;
But there was no one left so why bother?
Sasuke bowed his head, and for the first time since that night when he was seven, he let himself give in to the sadness he had sworn to never feel again.
He let himself give in to the ghosts that still lingered in his mind
He let himself feel
That’s when he heard it, a voice, so faint that he thought it might’ve been his own, but then it resonated again, louder and louder until Sasuke could make out what it was screaming:
“Sasuke!”
Sasuke shot up, ignoring the wave of dizziness, ignoring the dull ache in his every cell and the pain in his arm, because not only was the voice shouting his name, he could recognize it.
He knew that voice. He would know that voice anywhere, the voice that he longed for;
The voice that he loved
With a sudden burst of energy, he started running and running until in the distance he saw blond hair that looked that they had been dipped in sunlight.
His eyes saw the outline of his other comrades: Ino’s long blond hair, Sakura’s pink one, Gaara’s kanji, Shikamaru’s ponytail; but his mind pushed them aside, focusing solely on the boy in front of him.
They were running towards each other and in that instant the whole world vanished and nothing else existed but their two bodies, craving to be together so much it felt like a magnetic pull.
“Naruto!” He screamed again, and never had he ever felt such genuine pure happiness as when Naruto called back to him with a huge smile on his face.
One second they were running and the next they were touching, gripping to one another like it kept them alive. Sasuke found himself buried in the orange jacket of the ninja, surrounded by the familiar smell of miso soup and pine tree; and Naruto was there, touching him, supporting him and so, so overwhelmingly beautifully alive that Sasuke laughed, a genuine laugh he hadn’t heard in ten years.
The raven pulled away from their embrace to face his sun, his light, and his long, delicate pale fingers were all over the whiskered boy’s face, softly caressing every inch of skin they could find-cheeks, whiskers, forehead, temples, nose, lips- as if to commit it to memory while he drowned in the endless pools of blue of Naruto’s eyes.
Perhaps it was impulse, perhaps it was still the shock of the whole catastrophe, or perhaps it was just him craving the touch of the blonde boy, but as his lips brushed over Naruto’s he knew, he knew that this is what his soul had been waiting for all along; this is what his heart had been desperate to find again
Love
Far from backing away, Naruto gently placed his calloused hands on the raven’s cheeks, and brought their bodies impossibly closer as fireworks exploded inside his chest, skin tingling from the touch of the other.
When they pulled apart, Sasuke’s stoic face had returned, but a lone tear was making its way down the alabaster skin of his face. “Please” he whispered only for Naruto to hear, lightly gripping the fabric of the blonde’s orange shirt as he bowed his had “Don’t leave me alone”
With a gentle smile Naruto brought their foreheads together.
“Never”
And there, after years of being alone; after years of hatred, in the ruins of the village they had loved and loathed, two boys had found a home.