The Fall

"Heh, you sure are fucking stupid, dobe,"

Naruto glares at him, the fingers on the shovel tightening, his lips already dry.

It's hard to move. The weight of the chains... and whatever Kabuto is giving him in the arm every night, it's just enough to keep him from breaking free.

Sasuke, who has long since slain his brother and returned, a gallivanting grin plastered on his pasty face... has done as he wished. The snake-freak is paranoid, and won't allow Sasuke off the compound for fear of the bastard's karma catching up with him, but Sasuke doesn't seem to mind staying. He actually seems to revel in his life here.

And naturally, since returning, Sasuke has been watching him. When he's not ordering around other prisoners, Sasuke is hovering over his shoulder, as though he's expecting to escape at any moment.

Not that he was misguided. He had tried. Twice, already.

Foolish didn't even begin to describe it.

But now? He couldn't even consider escaping –– heavens forbid it.

Sakura's life was in his hands.


The people of Oto are strong. They work long hours for little pay and if they don't want their children to do the same, they are forced to send them either to a brothel, where they'll likely never see them again, or to a ninja academy, and there, that outcome's even more likely.

Yet everyday, Naruto watches them. Leaving from stripped buildings and into the smoggy streets of the city – day after day, week after week. Until the days all lose meaning and today again rolls around.

He knows they're strong. And he knows because they're helpless, vulnerable; death's noose tightly cinched around their necks –– and against that, they still resist.

For a time, he understood them; why they struggled. But now...?

Uzumaki Naruto, once praised for his strength...

It evaporated in his sleep. Maybe someone had borrowed it and forgotten to return it. Whatever the cause, it was gone. That usual exuberance for life and the future: everything would work itself out in the end. It was gone.

Had he simply run out of endurance?

As the days grew shorter and winter approached for the second time, he began to realize that life would work itself out as usual. Only, it wouldn't leave room for him, this time.

While it wasn't the end, it seemed to be. He was resigned to that. He was defeated.

That didn't mean he had to give Sasuke the satisfaction.

The holes are deep. A little longer than deep, but still deep.

But they've lost a foot since when he first started. Whether that's any indication or not, he's unsure, but it may mean the end of the war is coming.

"C'mon, dig faster dobe, are you getting tired already? Maybe you want to try chatting with me again?"

Always that smirk. Like he's won already. He may have, but winning only tends to attract loss.

The great countries have been at war for almost a decade now, there's almost nothing left to fight for. Whether Oto is defeated or not, there will be nothing for him to revel in anymore.

The graveyard is no longer a forest, still, large oak trees litter the field. Graying grass and blighted stumps are all that remain for miles. That, and the mounds. Sound has probably buried over a thousand ninja in the last year. The graves are now ubiquitous.

Sasuke slaps Naruto across the face, waking him from his stupor.

"What are you doing? Don't just stand there staring off into space. Quit slacking."

Naruto stands still, looking at Sasuke impassively, the metal of the shovel handle collapsing around his grasp.

"Dobe, I said, quit fucking slacking," Slap. Slap.

When Naruto continues to stare into the abyss of Sasuke's gaze, a twitch forms in his lips, he tries to keep it from breaking into a full blown grin but--

Sasuke punches him in the gut.

He doubles over, choking on air.


Tayuya, a statuesque red-head (somehow still out-ranking Sasuke by two titles), and overseer of the current Base of Operations, squawks to them both, "Fucker! I told you to stop bugging the prisoners! Now he won't be able to concentrate all day! Just fucking take him back to his cell, you shitface!"

Sasuke raises his finger on her, but she just does it right back. He has to restrain a snicker, even as pain blossoms in his gut again.

Sasuke withdraws his knee from Naruto's stomach and snatches his wrist, dragging him along. Having enough experience with Tayuya to know when arguing with her is useless. She'll get what's coming to her, soon.


Walking from the field and down into the cave system, Naruto snorts, smiling.

"Still popular with the girls, aren't you, Sasuke-kun?"

Sasuke growls at him, but recovers after a moment, that smirk festering on his face again.

"More than you'll ever get, shithead," It's not as spiteful sounding as it should be.

Naruto goes stiff in Sasuke's grip. His eyes widening and turning a slight purple color.

It's such a stupid thing to get angry over, but Naruto shoves his body into Sasuke's sending him straight into the stone wall with a surprising force.

"It was never about popularity you shit head. The only girl I ever loved... who ever loved me. That's all I wanted. I didn't want anything else. I'm not jealous of you."

They briefly stare into each other eyes and the molten air leaves his chest. Sasuke swats him away, and Naruto goes with it, satisfied to see his ex-friend weak and winded.

"Is that so?" Sasuke's grin is different this time. A promise of malice.

"Is that so?" he says it again, and shoves Naruto forward by the collar. Moving down several winding halls, passing the living dead, bodies confined to tight airless rooms, he finds Naruto's cell. It's one of the last, one of the smallest.

Drawing a key from thin air, he unlocks it, then pushes Naruto inside.

"So she loves you?" He laughs, and turns and says gruffly, "Get some rest. I'll see you tomorrow."

As the light vanishes and Naruto's world turns into darkness, he growls inwardly.

You've got nothing over me, Sasuke. I don't care who you think you are. There's nothing you can do to hurt me. I'm already dead.

Coward.


[Edited and abridged this chapter, everything's getting an overhaul]