Disclaimer: I do not own Uchiha Sasuke or any of the rest of the Naruto cast. They are property of Masashi Kishimoto.

No Regrets

By Endless Rain

I refuse to regret any of the choices I’ve made in my life. Regret is for the weak and I’ve worked too hard to eliminate my weaknesses during my life to suddenly add a bad habit to the list.

I don’t apologize for taking up any burdens for my clan, especially not the role of being the avenger. Since my birth, my life has always revolved around my clan. I would never be able to turn my back on them.

I’m not remorseful about alienating society from my life. People are trivial and fickle and I really don’t have any use for the large majority of them.

I never look back in shame on my decision to defect from Konoha. At that point of time in my life, I wasn’t gaining anything from being in the village in the first place. Even a bluntly idiotic dobe was escalating in power faster than I was. Besides, sacrifice is a necessity when it comes to fulfilling a goal. It just so happened to be that my sacrifice would amount to me turning my back on the village of my birth.

I am not and will not be sorry for the time I spent under the Legendary Sannin, Orochimaru. Under the tutelage of the snake summoner, I was able to learn techniques that that porn-reading pervert, Kakashi, wouldn’t have been able to teach me.

I do not mourn meeting Aniki on that fateful summer night that both ended the nightmare I had been living in and began for me another—trying to start over again. I don’t think that Aniki would grieve over it either, for he chose so many times not to end my life when he had the chance. It almost seemed as if he wanted to die. And when you want to die, you do not regret. He had always been skeptical of life anyway.

I’m definitely not regretful about slicing the Snake’s throat. There’s only so much of his whining that one can take, after all. I have the sneaking suspicion that Kabuto was planning on ridding the poor, unfortunate world of Orochimaru’s presence as well. He always did have a strange way of looking at the sannin.

I am not upset about returning to the (godforsaken) village of Konoha. It is, and always will be, the village of my clan; it is where the souls of my family reside, after all. Except for Aniki, that is. But I think that he’s probably returned to be with them as well. And in the end, I can never abandon my beloved clan, my precious family.

I do not stress about facing the punishment for the choices that I’ve made. They were my choices first and foremost; some made with conscious, deliberate thought and others maybe not so much. I could not possibly say that I’ve made any mistakes in this life of mine, for a mistake is a matter of interpretation in the first place. I can say that all of my decisions have come with counter-productive consequences; however, I have accepted all of these consequences in stride.

Sakura often marvels at how coolly, how calmly I’ve taken to the consequences of my defection.

What more can I say?

What more would there be for me to do?

I only became a shinobi in the first place to honor my clan.

I only continued in the shinobi path after my clan’s massacre in order to avenge their deaths.

… And I have.

I have taken an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Itachi took every living Uchiha’s life with the sparse exception of mine, and in return, I have taken his life.

There is nothing more for me to do in regards to the shinobi way.

And if all of these convictions prove to eventually be false; if I, one day in the future, take back all of the words that I have just spoken; there is one aspect of my life that I refuse to regret for the rest of eternity.

I will never repent for meeting Uzumaki Naruto.

I will never lament the feelings that I have acquired for him over my life.

He may be everything consisting of idiot, but he’s the only idiot who’s ever seen past the defense mechanisms that I’ve set up to block out the outside world. He’s only person to ever see the me that I wish I could be. And despite the fact that I may never get to the point where I can be that Sasuke, that stupid, moronic, idiotic usuratonkachi will still always accept me.

So, therefore, I refuse to ever regret the time that I spend with the one person who has become the true light and laughter in my life—as dank and dark and cursed as it is.

Because I love the damn dobe too much to ever let him go.

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Okay, so yeah, this is basically a random one shot that popped up out of nowhere from the recesses of my mind last night when I was trying to fall asleep.

Anyway, I hope that you liked it.

Please R&R—fluff comments are always welcome; constructive criticism is encouraged; flames are tossed into the garbage can and taken immediately to the compost heap.

Thank you!

Let The Rain Fall,

Endless Rain