“From here on, our paths diverge,” he said quietly, almost gently.
Prompt: Day 2 of SasuSaku Month, Side by Side
Sound track: “Sadness and Sorrow” by Toshiro Masuda–the best composition from the anime, IMO.
A/N: Canon divergence from Chapter 181. No real content warning for this post, but it’s a bit dark.
Sasuke could have fled the village that night in stealth and in haste, without alerting a soul to his movements. He could have gone off the beaten path, simply avoided Konoha’s main thoroughfare. He could have circumvented me as I waited on those old, cobbled stones, worn so smooth from decades of padding feet and cartwheels. He could have left without disturbing a single blade of grass…. Yet he hadn’t. He hadn’t done any of those things.
And he hadn’t told me no.
–
“He will come to me, seeking my power….”
My feet took me toward the place I knew I’d find him, some sort of bizarre, celestial prescience guiding my steps.
I’d felt him slowly slipping further and further away, ever since the Snake first crossed our paths in the Forest of Death. But how was it I was the only one who could see him being eaten alive? How was it those on whom we depended most in the world—our friend and teammate, our sensei—were so blind to his descent, even after the savagery that had hospitalized him…after what had taken place only hours ago?
They hadn’t experienced Orochimaru’s inescapable will like Sasuke and I had, hadn’t heard his screams, hadn’t held him as he writhed, hadn’t seen him rise like a reanimated demon to gleefully wrench a transgressing arm from its socket….
Somehow, I had pulled him from the darkness then, hadn’t I? Perhaps just once more… He’ll listen, he’ll come back to me.
Gravitation
Published
SasuSaku Month 