Last Words

“My….my eyes,” Itachi’s voice rasped, cutting through the
air still charged with the previous electricity from Sasuke’s last incredible
attack. He stepped closer, black sandals crunching the destroyed stone at their
feet.

Exhausted but enraged, Sasuke found an ounce more of strength
and leapt, katana held high, aiming for his brother’s heart with a loud cry.

“Die!” he yelled, screamed, to that approaching figure only
to be thrown back as Itachi’s Susano’o stopped him in
his tracks. Skidding, he came to rest some feet away; unable to move for a few
crucial seconds that allowed Itachi to come closer.

Out of options. His class=SpellE>chakra had been long depleted and his katana was now gone. class=GramE>Out of time. Itachi was there, right there in front of him
and closing in fast. Sasuke stepped back on shaky legs. Out
of space. A wall, the only standing structure left, was at his back blocking
any movement to retreat.

Eyes wide, shocked, Sasuke could only stare at Itachi as the
young man’s blood drenched hand came forward in slow motion, intent on plucking
their prize from his skull. He couldn’t blink, he could only stare at that hand
coming closer and closer to rob him of sight as it had robbed him of so much
else.

Focused as he was on that hand, Sasuke never saw the small,
almost non-existent, smile stretch his brother’s lips. He never heard, over the
erratic thumping of his heart, his brother’s last words before the fingers of
the hand that so held him captivated, touched his forehead, then slid wetly
down the side of his face; leaving a long blood trail in their wake.

“I’ll protect you.” Those were Itachi’s last words as he
transferred all the eye techniques he’d painstakingly learned over the
years…………to his little brother.