When he dreams he dreams about them.
Not always. Mostly Sasuke dreams about nothing at all. Mostly he slides into sleep as coolly and cleanly as a knife sliding into butter – he slides out of it the same way. He thinks about nothing. Sleep is a necessity. For Sasuke life is like a void, smooth and empty except for his one cause; life is a blank canvas with nothing but dark lines drawing out his purpose. He even feels little hatred. He feels little of anything. Emotions are a baggage, something to drag a person down. There is only cold logic for him. Logic is the way of survival, and he must survive to finish his cause.
But when he dreams, he dreams about them.
He wakes up one day with the telltale spark of pink strands before his eyes; the familiar glint of a bright blue gaze swimming in his mind. He wakes up one day to the sound of their voices – and their voices are so familiar. It's ironic that, after all this time, Sasuke still hasn't forgotten what they sound like. What they look like.
And then he realizes that this is not a dream. It's real. He sees them in front of him because they are in front of him, because this is happening. And his hand is shaking imperceptibly from the tension of battle, and his fist is clenched like steel. And his face feels like stone – because it is.
He has never mixed his dreams and his reality before. They are two separate things – they do not belong together. They do not like each other. But here they are, one and alike.
"Don't go, Sasuke," she says. She watches him steadily, fierce in her determination, fierce in her belief of him. She has changed but then she hasn't – she is stronger but she is still willing to fall. The same poised beauty.
"You can still come back!" her companion shouts. The blue gaze is narrowed, like fire the color of sky. He is the same too. His determination burns even brighter than her; bright enough to blind.
Sasuke doesn't answer.
He doesn't.
He doesn't tell them what he already knows with a bitter humor: that some mistakes can never be forgiven. That this has already gone too far. There is no turning back now. That that is no longer his choice. Revenge isn't a tool, it's a purpose. It's a life. It's a sacrifice. Maybe he was wrong but when it comes down to it, what does it matter anymore? What matters is which side of the line he is on. And now he is not on their side. Revenge is a purpose. It carries itself out, even after its holder has changed his mind.
This road is ending, already. There are no more choices, now.
"No," he says – does he know the meaning of his own word? Is he refusing them or is he refusing himself? He wants to refuse the world; he wants to destroy it for what it never gave him and what he never gave it – but he can't do that, can he, so he says this instead –
He takes the last step.
And because it is not a dream... There is no waking up.