Naruto Fanfiction: Damage Them Beautiful Tonight

[Hyuuga "Corkskrew" Te]

Author's Note: Please, flame if you so desire. It gets quite dark and cold when I write SasuNaru angst...

Title: Damage Them Beautiful Tonight
Rating: T for battle scene and barely visible shonen-ai
Genre: Romance/Drama/Action
Summary: Boys, demons, whatever they are, I don’t care. Just damage them beautiful tonight. Tonight, while they kill each other again.
Pairing: SasuNaru

Two boys face each other. This scene is far too familiar for the both of them, but this time both know this is the end. Either one will die here, or the other will be forced to return to where he can’t reach his sole ambition. Both are determined not to lose this battle.
The blond stares at his opponent with a many-layered scowl. There is pain, hatred, anger, fear, determination, and something the other never could quite figure out.
The raven-haired boy smirks to hide his own pain, to try to force it to where he never goes in his mind.
They ready themselves, to bring back the emotionless mask that is the mark of their profession. For they are shinobi, and shinobi never show their emotions, especially not to their enemies.
To any watcher viewing this next action, the combatants are no longer boys, but demons. Shadows cross over the dark-haired boy’s skin and solidify. The blond sees this and red energy infuses his own body, forming three tails at his back in his rage. Fitting. A demon of shadow and a demon of fire.
And they clash. In an explosion of black, white, purple, blue, and red, the first blow is struck, and half the battle is done. Blood rushes from a wound, and the pain burns both of them.
One boy tells himself, with a mind barely sane, that he’s doing this for his friend. She is not there to watch, that glass broken heart enveloped in sakura pink. And he knows, just barely, that she is beginning to pick up the sharp shards of her glass heart. Briefly, as reflex takes over, he wonders, in the back of his mind, why can’t he do the same?
The other wants power, craves it, so he can have the revenge that has eluded him for so long. So, so long. And as the red eyes meet, they are back to where it began, years before. The pain is as fresh as the blood from the blonde’s wound, and it sears even worse.
The rain pours down. Just another reminder of the day the other left. The blond lets his mask come crashing down, replaced by a pained look that shows the scars on his heart. He howls, a broken sound filled with remorse, and pain, and anger, and a vicious, almost bestial desire.
The other makes no sound, but his eyes betray him. The fear, the shadows, the loss; all are there. He has tried to blame his aniki for this as well, but now, it is futile, as he knows that it is his own fault that he is alone, and lost. He can’t admit it now, but he desperately wants to be saved.
Again, they clash. Their strength is so evenly matched, they know each other’s weaknesses so well, it seems fated that neither can outlast the other, in the end.
In the end, they land, unconscious and tangled together.
In the end, a girl with midnight hair reaches the place where they’ve collapsed. And she knows that it was Fate this time, and her moonlight eyes confirm this. The enigmatic, sad smile is still worn by her, even long afterward.