The wind howls across the ruined battlefield, carrying the acrid scent of blood and scorched earth. My vision falters, drowning in a crimson tide, my breath ragged and shallow. A spear of crackling blue lightning—Sasuke's Chidori—pierces my chest, a searing agony that eclipses all else. Pain is no longer a sensation but a certainty, an immutable truth that anchors me in this moment between life and death.
Somewhere through the haze, I see them—Kakashi-sensei, Sakura. Their faces are frozen in horror, etched with disbelief. Their figures blur at the edges, framed by the ruin we have wrought—a battlefield born of shattered ideals, a friendship turned to ash.
This was never supposed to happen. We were Team 7, bound by destiny, by camaraderie, by the dream of protecting the Leaf. We were supposed to be legends. Instead, we stand on the edge of ruin, the weight of our choices pressing down like an unrelenting tide. Sasuke's ambition, his insatiable thirst for power, his desire to reshape the world—it has led us here, to this moment of ultimate reckoning. I had believed, foolishly, that we would find a way through it. That no matter how far he strayed, our bond would endure.
But belief is no shield against betrayal. The truth is written in the electricity searing through my chest, in the bitterness that coats my tongue like venom.
The wind keens, a mournful dirge, a whisper of grief that echoes my own. This battle, this final, inevitable clash—it nears its end. Darkness coils at the edges of my vision, eager to claim me. And yet… something within me refuses to yield. A flicker of defiance, a dying ember of hope. Even now, standing at the precipice of oblivion, I cannot let go of the belief that our bond—broken, bloodied—can still be mended.
Sasuke stands frozen, his breath unsteady, his eyes wide—mirroring the chaos of the battlefield and the turmoil within him. His hand, still outstretched from the strike, trembles ever so slightly. "Why… why didn't you attack me?" he whispers. The words are hoarse, laden with something unspoken—confusion, anguish, perhaps even fear.
I try to smile, though my lips barely obey. A tremor runs through me, weaker now, fading. My vision blurs, but I turn to Sakura, her tear-streaked face swimming before me. "Sakura…" My voice is barely a breath, fragile and fleeting. "I… I couldn't." A pause, the weight of my failures pressing down like a final burden. "I tried everything. I failed to bring him back." A shuddering inhale. "Now, I have only my life to offer. How… how could I ever hurt him?"
The words feel small in the face of everything—of years spent chasing after him, of wounds both seen and unseen, of a bond that neither time nor war could sever.
The darkness creeps closer, the cold seeping into my bones, but just before it swallows me whole, I see it—something flickering in Sasuke's gaze. Not just shock. Not just disbelief. But understanding. And, perhaps, regret.