Sea of Faces

20Faces Chizu

It'd been seven years. Seven long, long years. He'd destroyed Konoha, and with it, her feelings for him. But she lived, he knew; the only one he'd saved, the only one who could look at him now, and know the blood that still stained his hands. Karin, Juugo, Suigetsu; Naruto, Hinata, Kakashi. On both sides, all those voices were gone. Had grown cold in their heads, because they could no longer hear them and be refreshed.

Ten million people swarmed this country, this continent. In their city lights, they felt so safe, like their lives were so lost in the crowd that nothing they did could make them stand out enough to become a target. Did the grocer who always bagged his purchases so cheerfully realize that when her hand brushed his, she was touching something so dirty and defiled that those he once loved had sought his life? Of course not. She looked up at him and smiled happily, chirping her thanks for his constant business.

"Maidou arigatou gozaimasu, Uchiha-san!"

He hadn't told her his name; she'd just gotten it off his tab when he'd been a little short for cash one month. Her blue eyes were wide and innocent, and reminded him of a certain fox in the way that they would look at him guilelessly, but of a certain girl in the way there was affection for him.

He moved through the automatic doors, eyes moving up to the starry night sky as the wind ruffled his raven-black hair, the same way that his brother once had; a gesture and thought mixing to produce the desire for the warmth of that hand to appear again. His eyes returned to the ground, and he ignored the people along the sidewalk as he moved. They were talking, singing, laughing, crying… they were living. Living.

Could they feel it at all, the sin that hung around him like Kaguya's celestial robe?

A little boy looked up at him, fawn-like eyes wide as he followed his mother. The young man returned the stare. The child did not flinch, did not look away.

Was it a good thing or a bad thing? He turned away and continued down the sidewalk, and though his feet moved silently, you couldn't tell for the noise of the city. The feeling of anonymity was suddenly suffocating.

He ran.

The citizens were pampered city folk, or the foreigners that were starting to make themselves too comfortable in this country so far removed across the seas. They paid no attention to a black streak that darted from shadow to shadow, up to windowsills and across the tops of streetlights. That lithe form would shoot across the tops of buildings, and he ignored it as he passed by a mugging occurring in an alleyway beneath. Screams echoed in his ears, and though they were soon swallowed up by the noise and clamor of traffic, those screams showed him memories of murder, of fire; hopelessness used as a foundation for power. He steps stopped.

The city lights were blinding. The people were hateful and ignorant. You would be sucked into this pit once you entered it, and become one of a thousand crawling ants, all working for a selfish, self-serving power.

He spun around. There she was.

Her hair was even shorter now, cut closely and curling about her head in a way that made her look feminine and yet constantly deadly serious. Her clothes were always black on top of white- a white, kimono-reminiscent top covered by a short, black vest, and white boots that disappeared under heavy black pants- her very nature of a pure soul dyed with sin there for all to witness. Beryl eyes that danced with shadows and the mixed reds and golds of the street lights below and flickering radio tower above gazed at him. From much further away than she ever had been, and yet closer and more dear than she ever had been.

She looked at him with nothingness. She saw only a man she once knew. If she forced herself to hate him, her love would interfere, and if she forced herself to love him, her hate would interfere, and in this endless war, he himself had become nothing.

But she was everything.

The last scrap of hope, the last thread of pride; his lone solace, that he was not forgotten.

Into the overwhelming city lights, she would disappear again.

AN: Okay, so it's not my usual stint. I finally got around to reading some alerts that had been in my email inbox for AGES and they just happened to be SasuSaku, and it REAWAKENED THE FANGIRL IN ME. And then I was listening to music. I will do requests for those who tell me the name of the band and song that I used for this. It's not hard to find, honestly.

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