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It’s during one of their usual sunset sparring sessions that Naruto realises fighting with Sasuke feels different today.
There’s always the opponent’s telltale hum of chakra, a force he can feel when he catches Sasuke’s fists and blocks his kicks - they learn this in one of the more advanced lessons at the Academy, and this is definitely not it. What he senses goes deeper than that hum, and slices straight to the bone.
He launches himself as far from Sasuke as he can.
It feels like a solid core of pure despair buried under layers and layers of rock, whose chill is still able to leak out and sear skin.
Sasuke…?
Leaves spin and fall around him, and Sasuke appears from above. A kunai catches the light in his hand and his eyes sparkling with mirth. Naruto throws a shuriken but Sasuke avoids it easily and grabs his forearm before pushing him against a tree. Today, they are fighting on top of a hill, and the orange glow of the dying sun and the force of Sasuke’s grip makes his eyes water.
“At least try to make it harder for me to win,” Sasuke says, quickly loosening his grip on Naruto’s arm. He smiles cockily, but it wavers and Naruto can see the shock in Sasuke’s eyes as he realises what Naruto has felt, and the understanding that reflects back in Naruto’s gaze.
Through this new touch, Naruto can almost taste it, that chill: a hopelessness that leaves him aching and empty. It’s a feeling Naruto’s only ever allowed himself to feel on one or two occasions. Once, it was during a stormy night (when he could hear the steady drip, drip, dripping from the ceiling and he was too small to reach the hole to patch it up because he had no parents) with nothing for his mind to anchor itself to.
From Sasuke, it feels like inevitability. The emptiness of an ancestral compound falling to ruins brick by brick, greying colours of family photos that are fading in their frames, no matter how far he keeps it from the windows and its light, and a figure who was his world, until his world destroyed everything.
This...this is how Sasuke feels?
“Sasuke-” Naruto starts, hand unconsciously reaching out towards him. Sasuke seems to understand, because his eyes never leave Naruto’s outstretched palm. Sasuke takes one shaky step back, and runs.
--
Naruto doesn’t catch up to Sasuke that day. By the time he runs to the bottom of the hill, the sky is dark and there’s nothing but the village gates awaiting him. There’s something heavy in his chest, but it’s not entirely unwelcome.
He doesn’t know this yet, but this is the first line of Sasuke’s soul, mapped out within his consciousness.
--
The first time they really fight, it’s on a sunny afternoon. The hospital roof gleams a dazzling white under the sunlight.
His head is filled with the sound of static as Sasuke’s chidori draws closer and closer and he doesn’t even flinch as they collide, energy meeting energy.
There’s a pause and then it’s complete silence. It’s like a vacuum has sucked them both in and there’s nothing to see or hear even though he still can sense Sasuke. What’s left is only what he can feel .
It’s a heat that builds slowly, enveloping him comfortably. He’s always been warm: in personality, in smiles, in the warmth that radiates from his skin. Sakura-chan always complains that he’s running a fever, so can they please go on this mission as a duo, without Naruto?
Across him, he feels Sasuke starting to squirm, as though he’s trying to pull away. The heat is getting heavier, more solid. It’s not uncomfortable, but suddenly he wants it to stop.
Sasuke gasps, and in that very moment Naruto feels it.
True rage.
It comes in flashes: getting picked last in class, getting picked first as the one to blame. The boy with no parents, no natural talent, no future.
Rage feels like thousands of eyes burning into skin; it sounds like the noisy creak of a swing.
There are other emotions that coarse through him, feeling similar but making no sense, like the glare from a pair of blood-red eyes, the sound of metal cracking bone.
Just as quickly as it begins, it ends when his arm is slammed into the metal tank. He catches his breath and looks up to find Sasuke, who’s looking up at the tank. That rage has subsided, but the heat remains - Naruto sees the water that pools around him rising as steam.
This emotion isn’t something he pays much attention to. It lives deep within him, curling its talons into the softest parts of his memories, decisions, actions. Most of the time, he can ignore it perfectly. He can’t give in, because a Hokage will never give in to such a vile emotion.
Many people think they know what it feels like to feel anger. Rage. Fury. Destruction. Not even Sasuke has anger this pure, this complete, within.
He tries to catch Sasuke’s eyes, but again he turns to run: across the floor and over the fence, disappearing from view.
This time, it’s Sasuke’s turn to map out a part of his soul.
--
The Valley of the End is the beginning.
“Do you know, Naruto? That if both you and your opponent are first-class ninjas, you can read inside each other’s minds when your fists meet.”
Sasuke is using his revenge as a mask, to power himself onto the path he’s forcing himself to take. Naruto can feel it, within every blow from his friend, his rival: it’s the inescapable despair of the weight of a prophecy.
“There is no need for words.”
Sasuke grabs him by the throat and the despair that seeps through is as cold as his grip. Warmth pools inside his stomach as Naruto’s rage breaks through, frothy and thick and hot.
Sasuke’s eyes widen and Naruto knows he can feel it too.
I don’t want to use my rage as power, Sasuke. But I will, for you.
The maps are taking shape, with more lines, more borders, more boundaries. But with this comes new land, new uncharted territories to discover.
Of course Sasuke was the first one to get it, but now, now Naruto understands.
--
Sasuke runs, and Naruto follows.
The pain, the relief, the understanding: they are a medley of difficult emotions that inscribe themselves onto Naruto’s heart. These tender lines keep him awake at night.
The pain keeps his breath short, and his mind out of focus, as though he’s looking at the world without lines. This is what it means to hold onto a bond, and this is exactly why Sasuke wants to sever them all.
--
“Why do you go so far?”
Because I know why Sasuke is doing all this, Naruto wants to say. Because I understand Sasuke’s soul. It’s not that hard to understand, once you have a map.
“A map?” a question will follow.
A map of the soul, Naruto will explain. It leads me to him, and it tells me how I will reach him. It’s drawn by emotions, you see? I will use my rage to find him, but it’s not so simple with Sasuke...Sasuke’s a bit lost. Instead of using what he feels, he’s allowed other people to use what he feels. But that’s just temporary! I’ll get him in the end - believe me.
Because he’s my closest friend, Naruto says instead, because it’s still the truth. And much easier to put into words.
--
When they fight for the last time, Naruto fights with these memories close and hopes that’s enough for Sasuke to feel; to map.
Two boys, one ending.
Two halves of a whole: sun, and moon.
One map only two people can understand.
--
“You’ll be back?” Naruto asks, the gates of the village framing him from behind. Opposite him stands Sasuke, older, taller, different. New eye, minus one arm, Naruto thinks wryly. Nothing more than topographical changes.
A light shrug. “All the roads lead back here.”
“To Konoha!” Naruto exclaims happily.
“Tch, you idiot. To you.”
Naruto expects Sasuke to look away, but his gaze is focused and locked on him. In it, Naruto finds the answer he’s been searching for since that evening on the hill.
This time, Sasuke is not running away.
Naruto grins as a blush creeps up his cheeks and this heat is a different kind of flush - a better one.
There’s still so much more ground to cover, so much left to map - together.