The Slave of Sound

The Slave of Sound
Chapter 17

Naruto stood there, head down, in the echoing silence of their bedchamber. His breathing slowly leveled out, and bitter tears breeched his tightly shut eyes. So much for dying like a man. He would live this damnable life, forever. Now that Sasuke knew he wanted to die, he knew he would never be able to find a way himself. His master, and that word was more sour, more vile upon his mind than ever before, would see to that. Obviously, Naruto had not yet suffered enough for whatever offense that it was that the Uchiha deemed him guilty of. He would live this dreary life, day in and day out, until he died of it.

Without looking up, he listened as Sasuke moved around, rustling of cloth and running of water. Then, a gentle hand took his bloodied one, and carefully, tenderly, used a warm wet towel to wipe the evidence of Naruto’s rage, his crime, away.

Naruto finally looked up, but Sasuke’s head was lowered, and what the blonde could see of his averted face, he was paler than normal. And the gentle hands that tended him were shaking.

And when there wasn’t a speck of blood to be seen, the older man gently kissed his raw knuckles, and then slowly released him.

Still, no words were exchanged.

And then Sasuke gently slid Naruto’s robe over the blonde’s arms and shoulders, and snugly tied the sash.

Naruto was even more bewildered. Why was he tending to him like he was the slave, and not Naruto? What was Sasuke up to?

“Why?” He whispered softly.

“Because I love you, Naruto.” Sasuke’s words were as quiet and defeated as the blonde felt. And this time, the declaration only made Naruto feel even more damaged than ever. All this… because of love?

“You don’t have to say anything,” the raven went on in the same, almost dead voice. “Let me do the talking. Seems I’ve done enough of it over the years. But I’ve never said the right words.”

Still a little stiff and aching despite Kia’s ministrations, Sasuke shrugged into his own robe, tying the robe shut with a harsh yank.

“When I killed them… Itachi and Orochimaru, and you were there… I… I realized I’d been an idiot. You should have been there, beside me, all along. We should have done it, together. You were right. You were always right. We should have grown stronger, together.”

Sasuke sighed wearily, raked a hand through his tangled hair, and sat with an ungraceful flop upon one of the ever present chairs in the room. Numbly, Naruto sat in another one, not too close to the man that had tormented him for so long, and now told him he loved him.

“I took you. I stole you, Naruto,” Sasuke went on, his voice still eerily even and quiet, “I brought you here because I finally admitted to myself that I loved you. I had all along. From the day we met at the dock, through the years of rivalry and exchanges of insults, I loved you. That’s why I couldn’t kill you, back at the Valley of the End. I lied each and every time I told you it was on a whim. I lied. I saw you, with my hand through your chest, and I was horrified by what I had done, what the seal had caused me to do. I couldn’t kill you, because I loved you so much.”

Sasuke looked drearily out of one of the mullioned windows at the bright sunshine outside that belied the dark winter in his cold and empty heart. “I brought you here with me, that day of the battle, because I wanted you at my side. I wanted you at my side, in my arms, and in my bed. I wanted you to be my lover, my consort, and rule Sound with me. As you learned when you came here, I’d been suborning the men and women here. I charmed them into following me instead of Orochimaru. I knew I could lead them to a glorious future, when that snake was only using everyone for his own nefarious ends.”

He laughed bitterly, still unable to look at the one he loved with every breath in his body. “What irony… ne? I dare to say Orochimaru had nefarious ends.” He drew in a shaky breath. “Anyway, I brought you here, filled with hopes and dreams that my life could finally start again. I bought the idea of my dreams, by stealing you, and denying you yours. For how could you be Hokage if you were my lover? I knew I could never return to Konoha, yet still I wanted you, and my dreams. So I brought you here.”

Finally, he looked at the quiet blonde, who listened intently with a passive face. “I didn’t know… then… what you’d been doing while I’d been gone. Sakura told me, just today. How you fixed up my home, and were looking for lovely ladies to tempt me into a life of happiness, into renewing my clan as I’d always said I would do. That even though you loved me like I loved you, you were generous enough to put aside your dreams of love, to help me achieve all of mine.”

Sasuke blinked away tears. What right did he have to cry? “When you pushed me away that day, I didn’t know, didn’t understand. I thought you were rejecting me. Me, the great Uchiha. I could have any woman, and probably more than a few men, anyone I wanted, and you refused me. Rejected me. Make no mistake, Naruto. I am not excusing my actions. I was like a spoiled willful child denied a treat, and... and…”

Sasuke choked, coughed, and cleared his throat, his voice dropping lower and gaining the nasally quality of restrained tears. “I raped you. Beat you. Violated your body and mind and heart. Your very soul. And felt I was justified. Justifed.” He looked away again, unable to bear looking into that beautiful and expressionless face any longer.

“I was the great Uchiha, bent upon a glorious destiny, and you denied me. And for that I broke you, demeaned you, destroyed you, and made you yearn for death…” And here Sasuke broke, tears coursing down his face.

“I’m so sorry, Naruto,” he wept brokenly. “I do not ask your forgiveness, for there is none to be found for what I’ve done. But… but… I just wanted you to know that… pitiful and ridiculous as a mere apology is… I’m sorry.”

Naruto was silent. What could he say? That he forgave Sasuke? He couldn’t. The last seven years had been a nightmare of titanic proportions, and that gentle and generous love of years ago had long ago burned away and its bitter ashes blown to the farthest reaches of the world by the cold winds of life. He didn’t forgive him. He didn’t think he would ever be able to forgive him. And he certainly didn’t feel charitable enough to even lie and pretend he did.

In the face of Naruto’s stony silence, Sasuke rose, red eyed and filled with the calm of despair, and moved to the armoire and began to slowly dress.

Naruto didn’t watch him, but had lived with him so long he could tell what he was doing just by the sound. And when Sasuke moved slowly, like an old man, to the door, he finally looked up.

“So now what?” He asked, his own voice as quiet and dead as Sasuke’s.

Sasuke paused with his hand on the door. “I’m going to do what I should have years ago. I’m going to set you free.”

And without another word, Sasuke walked out the door, and closed it quietly behind.

“But what good will that do?” Naruto whispered to the empty room. “What good is life for me, when my memories are nothing but nightmares?”

And so he sat there, and pondered his fate to be sent away from Sound, where life was intolerable, to Konoha, where he would forever be a slave to the memories that would torment him until the end of his days, taunting him with what ifs, could be’s, and whyfores. He was but a broken shell of a man now, and he would never be Hokage. Not now. He would never marry, never sire children, never know the pleasures of a justified old age with grandchildren at his knee. Konoha would simply become a very different sort of nightmare. And he would still long for the silence and blessing of oblivion.

And so Naruto sat there, silently, eyes burning with unshed tears, as the day wore on, and then began to die, as all things must; even days. The day was dying so gracefully, and would pass into the quiet of night, to be born again, a new day, with new hopes and dreams. And he, Naruto, would still go on. He would never have hopes and dreams, he would never have a bright and sunny future. And he would never give his heart to anyone ever again. His life would continue without love, without joy, without the possibility of a lover to find passion with, or children to cherish and teach. He would never love again. He would go on, no matter where, enslaved to his memories, to his heartbreak, and to his never ending loneliness.

And just as the last light of the setting sun glimmered and danced and set prismatic fires in the mullions of the window, Naruto rose, dressed numbly, and began to wander like a wraith doomed to haunt the opulent halls of Otogakure forever.