Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

AN: I just recently found this in my computer’s documents folder. I don’t remember writing this and it was initially untitled. The document was called ‘Rain challenge’, which makes me think I wrote it long ago, most likely years ago, for a prompt on LJ.

It’s short, but there’s something about it I like.

I decided to finally post this up on ffnet under the completely uncreative title below.

Rain

“You…”

The word was released in a breathy whisper and undertoned with disbelief, despair. Eyes as dark as the blackest night widened within a façade as pale as the moon. The source sat stiffly at the base of a tree, water drops trailing from the points of his raven locks and along the pallor of his cheeks.

The windows to his soul fell upon cerulean pools that reflected the pain and betrayal so often shared between them.

Eyelids shut, blocking blue depths tinged with purple. Tan fists clenched as pale hands slackened.

“Why?” the whispered question drowned in a thunderclap from above and around them, but the blond did not adjust his voice – as though he was talking to himself. “Why did you leave us?”

The pale face remained still, the eyes unemotional and frozen in time – stoic under an unbreakable mask.

“You..!” the word was thrown like an accusation, meant to slice and puncture the heart and the soul. The body wasn’t enough. It could never be enough. Not between them. “You bastard! Still a coward behind that mask, looking at me as though I mean nothing…arrogant ass!”

But the other didn’t retort, he failed to even twitch a finger at the insults, the slander – the displeasure of his long lost friend and eternal rival. He said nothing and his open eyes remained blank, just staring.

“It’s just like you to sit there and ignore me,” the blond stepped forward and his sandals squished into something that bled deep into the ground. He ignored the nagging feeling at the back of his mind and stepped through the sludge. The rain stung his face and the open wounds that refused to heal – he ignored that too. “I made a promise to Sakura-chan and everyone else who you left behind…”

He staggered and fell beside his enemy – his best friend – and grabbed bare shoulders that were cold and wet. Blood trickled between his fingers and ran down the pale skin before the rain washed it away. The eyes only stared back at him, the head lolling back and forth with every violent shake the blond mustered.

“Do you hear me, Sasuke?!” He shook him more vigorously. “I’m taking you back!”

But his captive said nothing and did nothing as though he was completely oblivious to the blond’s presence at all. Even in such a compromising position he was still an arrogant ass who never gave his friend the time of day – never acknowledged anyone at all.

That nagging feeling – that strange bile that began to rise in the back of his throat– gnawed at the back of the blond’s mind, but he continued to ignore it.

Anger broiled in his gut and the crack of his fist colliding with Sasuke’s jaw rang throughout the surrounding forest. But Sasuke remained irritatingly irresponsive.

“Sasuke!!!” The blond roared, droplets of liquid flying as he pounded the other over and over again. “Listen to me! I’m going to take you home!”

“I’m gonna take you…!”

“Naruto!”

Naruto whipped around to see Sakura, sillhouetted in the moonlight as she stood precariously by a tree. Her face look horror-struck and her clear green eyes shone ethereally as they widened.

Kakashi came up behind her slightly after, his form completely blocking the broken moonlight and casting Naruto in the dark.

Naruto stiffened as Sakura took an unsteady step closer, looking down at him as though he was a monster… the same way the villagers used to look at him as a child.

“Get back!” Naruto’s voice was strained with panic, and Sakura stopped walking but her expression remained accusatory. “I-I need to take him back home…I’ve saved him for Sakura-chan…I need to take him back home…”

“Naruto…”

Naruto’s ripped clothing felt uncomfortably wet and sticky but he pressed Sasuke further against his chest, almost blocking the boy from Sakura and Kakashi’s view. The sticky wetness was warm, but he shivered as the rain increased and soaked its chill down to his very bones. He watched the intruders warily.

“I’m gonna take care of him now…I’ll make him better.” The phrases tumbled out of Naruto’s mouth in a long string, but he felt choked by the water that drenched his hair and fell into his mouth…and why wouldn’t Sasuke say anything? “I have to bring him back…I have to make him better…I’m gonna take him back…”

A loud whoosh entered his ears, but by then it was too late, and a blow hit him in the back of his head. He fell into a pleasant darkness shortly after.

………..

Kakashi carefully pried Naruto’s unconscious form from Sasuke’s stiff limbs, leaving the boy’s dead body awash in a pool of his own blood. A gaping hole resided within Sasuke’s abdomen, still oozing blood into the already oversaturated forest floor.

Naruto’s hands were covered in clumps of crimson and there was almost no part of him that wasn’t smattered in blood. His blond hair barely peeked out through the morbid stains.

Kakashi sighed. He was no stranger to horrific scenes like this, but for it to have happened to his own students.

“Kakashi…sensei…?”

Sakura stepped toward him jauntily, her medical training via Tsunade the only thing keeping her strong enough to stand. Her face was stained with tears that continuously flowed from her wide open eyes. Kakashi immediately knew she was in shock.

“It’s alright, Sakura.” He spoke beside her ear, the sound of rain falling just in the background. “It’s time to rest now.”

And, suddenly, the rain stopped.

Owari