The Clash of Shared Agony
While Kakashi remained behind to tend to the unconscious Sakura, Naruto's grief for his friend's shattered heart transformed into a roar of primal fury. He didn't just want to stop Sasuke anymore; he wanted to force him to look at the wreckage he had left behind.
The confrontation shifted, moving with the violent speed of two gods toward the Valley of the End. The statues of Madara and Hashirama stood as silent witnesses to a cycle that refused to break.
Naruto didn't start with a Rasengan. He started with a scream that tore through the mist.
"You think you're the only one who knows what it's like to be alone?!" Naruto yelled, his orange chakra flaring into the four-tailed cloak. "You look at Sakura—you look at the wall she just built—and you think you're superior because you're the one who pushed her? You're a coward, Sasuke!"
They collided in mid-air, a brutal exchange of taijutsu that shook the foundations of the valley. Sasuke's Susanoo ribs flickered into existence to block a blow, but Naruto's fist, fueled by the Nine-Tails' rage and his own heartbreak for Sakura, cracked the ethereal armor.
"She would have walked through fire for you!" Naruto roared, landing a kick that sent Sasuke crashing into the stone feet of the Madara statue. "And I would have followed her to make sure she didn't get burned! We were all hurting! Do you think I don't see the ghosts of my parents every time I close my eyes? Do you think Kakashi doesn't wake up screaming from the people he's lost?"
Sasuke rose from the rubble, his clothes torn, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. "Your 'bonds' are just shackles, Naruto. They make you soft. They made her weak."
"Weak?" Naruto laughed, a bitter, jagged sound that mirrored Sakura's sarcastic laugh from the bridge. "She's the strongest one of us. She had the courage to keep loving a shadow while you were too scared to love anything at all. You didn't kill her feelings, Sasuke—you just made her realize that you aren't worth them. And that's a pain you're going to have to carry when you're sitting alone on your throne of revenge."
Naruto lunged again, but this time, he didn't aim for a vital organ. He grabbed Sasuke's collar, pulling him close until their foreheads surged with static electricity.
"I felt your pain in the academy," Naruto hissed, his blue eyes bleeding into red slits. "I felt the coldness in your house. I tried to understand. But you never tried to understand us. You just assumed your darkness was deeper. Well, look at the valley, Sasuke. Look at what you've done. You aren't 'avenging' the Uchiha—you're just making sure the name ends in a bloodbath of the people who actually cared if you lived or died."
For a split second, the coldness in Sasuke's eyes wavered. The image of Sakura—not the crying girl, but the girl who looked at him with clinical indifference on the bridge—flashed through his mind. He felt a phantom sting in his arm where her chakra-enhanced punch had landed.
He realized then that the "annoyance" was gone. The warmth that had always been there, waiting for him like a light in the window of a home he'd burned, had finally been extinguished.
"It's too late," Sasuke whispered, his voice cracking just enough for Naruto to hear. He shoved Naruto back, his Chidori screaming with the sound of a thousand birds. "The wall is up. For all of us."
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