The Slave of Sound

The Slave of Sound
Chapter 20

For the rest of them, it was only a second that everyone was frozen in horror. Only a second, but it lasted for each and every one of them for what seemed an eternity. Even as the blood was still falling, Sakura broke free of her paralysis with a scream of denial of her own and scrambled to the fallen blonde’s side.

As she fell to her knees beside him and gingerly took one of his broken hands in hers, tears exploding from her frightened eyes, the others too found the will to move.

“Naruto, hold on,” Sakura sobbed, hands scrabbling to find the worst damage. But there was so much! So much blood. So much torn flesh. So many shattered bones. “Hold on!”

Deep down, she knew the damage was too extensive, too complete. Without the Ninetails healing capabilities, Naruto would be dead in minutes. There was a chance though. If she gave him everything she had; poured her very life and soul into him, perhaps it could be reversed. With her sacrifice, he might be saved. Even as those thoughts filled her mind, her hands began to glow.

“Sa..kura…” The sound of the blonde’s voice was horribly distorted by blood rapidly filling his lungs. “No…”

“Shut up, baka,” she wailed, hands moving across his ruined chest.

“No…” Naruto whispered, somehow finding the wherewithal to reach up and take one of her hands into his broken one. “Sakura… Look… at me… please…”

Shuddering with grief, she looked into his eyes. And saw.

Naruto was so very tired now. Tired of serving, tired of suffering, tired of living. It would be a blessing to die. Die and be utterly gone; nothing left of him. He didn’t want any afterlife, any reincarnation, any resurrection. He just wanted to stop, completely and for all time.

“No…” She moaned.

“Yes,” he whispered softly, unable to breathe except in short sharp pants now. “Let… me… go… please...”

“Naruto…” Unable to speak clearly through her tears, she bowed over him. “I… we... love you…”

As if through a haze of white noise, she heard the others behind her; crying, sobbing, shouts of denials, demands someone do something. Save him! Let him go…

They were surrounded. Layers of people softly gathering close, reaching out to gently touch Naruto, to let him know he was not alone, that he did not go into the darkness unnoticed, unloved, or unmourned.

But Sakura was oblivious to all this, even if Naruto was not. He was dying! Leaving her alone. She had a hand in bringing the blonde to this pass; rationally, she should know that it was but a horrible twist of fate, a perversion of what should have been. But… She was not rational, she couldn’t be rational. It was her hand that broke the pillar supports, it was her decision to tell Sasuke to stay. She had led Naruto under the falling column of stone. And now, Naruto was dying, leaving her. Her light, her anchor was leaving, going away, and at his request, she could not deny him. “….love you….”

“I… know…” His eyes were dimming, she couldn’t bear to watch, but she couldn’t bear to look away. “Love… you… too…”

The noise around her faded even more, until all she could hear were his quick, tortured breaths, his slowing heartbeat. Part of her agonized that it was happening too quickly, but yet not quickly enough. It was too soon, she wasn’t ready. But she would never be ready, and he had suffered enough, and this final indignity was hurting him more than any pain before. Let him go. Let him go.

“Goodbye…” She whispered, staring into his eyes.

He smiled. For the first time in years, it was a brilliant and genuine smile, heartbreakingly beautiful, despite all the blood and dust.

And then, like a candle snuffed out by a sharp breeze, Naruto Uzumaki was no more.

She couldn’t tear her eyes away. They had thought his eyes empty before, but now… like this… gray… void… utterly empty. He was gone. Gone. Gone. She thought she would die from the pain of it.

Pale fingers intruded, and gently closed his unseeing eyes.

Sakura looked up wildly, snarling at the audacity. And was lost in the pale and stricken eyes of someone who had loved him more and longer. Hinata.

A scream tore free from behind clenched teeth, knotted jaw. “Naruto!” She fell face first into Hinata’s torn and bloodied shirt, weeping wildly.

Another endless moment passed and Sakura finally mastered herself when she felt Naruto’s lifeless body shifting slightly beneath her.

Sasuke sat at his head, dark eyes as empty as Naruto’s as shaking fingers combed through the blood soaked and tangled golden strands. Soft strangled whimpers were leaking from his slightly parted lips.

At first the raw and wild pain emanating from the Uchiha softened her heart. But she stiffened. He had brought them all to this pass, not her. He was the reason Naruto lay dead right now, with the badge of slavery still around his neck. How dare he grieve? What right did he have to mourn?

“Take it off,” she snarled, tempted to bat his hands away, but daren’t, lest Naruto’s hair be pulled. “Take the damned collar off!”

But Sasuke was lost to the world. His most precious person, his lover, his mate, his everything was gone, and he could not survive it. He would sit there, and pet Naruto’s head until the end of time. Nothing else mattered now.

“Take it off!” Sakura screamed, almost demented. “Take it off take it off take it off!”

“Sakura,” Hinata whispered, her voice hitching as she feared the insanity in her friend’s eyes.

Sakura ignored her. That damned collar had to come off and come off now! In her wild grief and rage, she dug her fingers around the collar. It must come off. It must come off!

Someone tried to pull her away. With a wild scream, she let go long enough to punch whoever it was away, unremarking who it had been, or how far the person flew. Then she was again at her task. It must come off!

Her bloodied hands slipped a moment, and she growled and took another grip. She groaned with the effort, head thrown back, teeth bared, the tendons in her neck and arms standing out in sharp relief. It must come off!

There was a creaking noise. Then a crack, sharp and clear in the frightened hush that followed the breaking of Sakura’s sanity. It must come off!

That which was impossible was made possible through the love and strength of a single human heart. With the sound like the retort of a gun, the collar snapped in two in her hands. She fell back from the sudden loss of resistance.

“Holy shit…” Was all someone got out.

A sudden wind screamed out, rising hot and livid like fire. Red chakra boiled up from Naruto’s body like lava from a volcano. Burning with an inferno of rage, the Ninetails was freed at last.

Everyone was sent sliding back from the blast of fiery energy released from its seven year solitary confinement. The shape of a slavering giant demon fox rose from the steaming remains of someone so beloved. It snapped and snarled as it tore itself free from what had been its prison for twenty two years.

“Fuck…” Shikamaru’s note of disgust was heard even over the shrieking of wind and rage. He had one hand clamped around Sakura’s waist, to keep her from sliding even further away. “We’re all gonna die. How troublesome.”

“Yeah,” Sakura said softly, not really caring at the moment.

But the fox didn’t attack. It writhed above Naruto’s body in an agony of motion, screaming and growling and snarling. It scoured the rapidly disintegrating ceiling with foot long talons. Only by the capricious will of fate was no one else crushed by falling stone. Those not closest to Naruto scattered with screams of panic. The nine red tails lashed the ground, rising dust and debris. More people ran from them in fear. Then it lowered its ghastly head and fixed its enormous slit red and black eyes on the Uchiha, who had somehow managed to stay put, fingers still buried in Naruto’s sticky hair.

“YOU!” An accusation in a hell bound voice, louder than thunder, and twice as frightening.

Sasuke let go, and stood up slowly, never taking his eyes from the monstrosity before him. His eyes were filled with sudden clarity and wild relief. He laughed with reckless joy, and spread his arms in supplication. “Yes. Here I am. Take your vengeance. I am more than ready.”

Quick and bright as a lightening strike, the fox pounced, saliva dripping fangs snapping shut, and tearing out Sasuke’s throat in the blink of an eye. Blood spattered wildly in the demon’s fury. Talons gripped and tore and shredded. The raven’s body flew apart. It growled and gibbered and snarled as it continued to rend and claw and bite.

“Stop.”

Kyuubi shuddered, tails flickering, and then shuddered again.

“Let him go.”

In the sudden ensuing stunned and terrified silence, for the retaliation had been so swift, so complete, so graphically and horrifically bloody, no one could move or speak.

“No,” Kyuubi thundered, reluctantly releasing what little was left of the Uchiha’s mangled body. “He must suffer.”

“It is finished.” The voice, soft and gentle, was so familiar. But it couldn’t be. What was left of Naruto had split asunder in the Ninetails’ escape, and was in as bad condition as the late Otokage’s. “There has been enough suffering. Let him go.”

Kyuubi shuddered again, ears flattening, tails shifting then tucking down like a chastised dog. He shuddered again, and scuttled backwards, claws shuffling in the blood soaked rubble. He shook his great head, and shuddered a last and final time, eyes squeezed shut.

“Let’s go home, my friend,” Naruto’s voice whispered. The Ninetails’ eyes opened, and they were no longer slit, no longer red and black, but as blue and bright and beautiful as a cloudless summer sky. That bristling, brazen red fur rippled as if in a breeze, shifting to a golden hue, like liquid sunshine, wild and free.

The ground groaned, shuddered, rocked suddenly, as the fox’s form began to lose coherency, shifting and eddying like a whirlpool of red and gold, black and blue, spinning, spiraling, breaking apart the star spattered vault above and illuminating the sky that had always paled in comparison to Naruto’s eyes. The wind once more whistled in everyone’s ears, raked their hair, stung their eyes. It gathered itself up in a streak of fire and shot away to the south.

And all was still.

The Ninetails was gone, and so were Naruto and Sasuke.