Fate Wheel | Naruto

𝟏𝟏𝟎| "The faults of loyalty"

CHAPTER 110 — THE FAULTS OF LOYALTY
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PRESENT DAY

Betrayal was a conscious choice for cold indifference.

To take a personal gain instead of a loss that would result to undesirable circumstances. To build trust, consolidate it with reassurance and strong emotions- and destroy it with a single act. And sometimes the backlash could leave you in total disbelief that the betrayal wasn't considered to be a betrayal, but a mistake that wouldn't be repeated. Until it was. Countless of times, a series of piled up emotions and miscellaneous events, and eventually, there was a limit to what you could handle.

Sasuke could still remember the first time he met Dawn. Unofficially, but it was the first time he ever laid eyes upon her and knew that whatever the feeling that brewed in his chest was- was going to change his life, good and bad.

And back then, unwarranted change alarmed him, he'd withdraw into his shell and ignore the signs that made him look up for once. Soon, the subtle shifts, stolen glances, words he regretted and words he should've said sooner turned into something much bigger than he had expected. It wasn't that he was afraid, it was whether he was willing to break out of this cycle of self-sabotage and accept happiness for what it was. To become a better version of himself, strong enough to face the challenges that may hinder the outcome.

Who would've thought that these challenges would be impossible to overcome? How could he have known that their future consisted of a downwards spiral and he had to choose between salvaging pieces of his heart or risk breaking himself even more in order to save the person he loved, despite the odds or the signs that screamed at him to let go?

Is it worth breaking yourself countless of times until you become numb, in order to know the truth?

Sasuke didn't know the answer. Everything he thought he knew, every bit of control he thought he had was nothing but a huge lie and still, he refused to leave her behind. He relished the darkness that inundated his consciousness, his skin, his hair, his bones, his blood, seamlessly dripping with an apparent scourge as he welcomed it like an old friend despite knowing that it was going to kill him in the end. He awaited sweet death, its journey strenuous and along the way discarded his morals and everything that made him human- everything that dictated how he interpreted life and its puzzling diversions, because nothing else mattered anymore other than knowing that even the apparent wasn't veracious and the truth was what he wholeheartedly decided to pour his faith into.

Only fools fall in love in a world like this. Orochimaru's words echoed in his head, words in which he embraced. And a fool he was, but faith was an unforeseen power strong enough to foment defiance.

No one attended their funeral.

Perhaps, the world had desensitised itself to grief that death was merely an overlooked occurrence. After all, the world itself was a graveyard that cemeteries were merely a token of goodwill and decoration. To conceal the truth of life in the wake of death, remembrance was considered a privilege and not a normality.

Strangely enough, he considered it to be a curse. To remember every aspect of a person that he chose to let in and love, the way they smiled, talked, laughed, the way their anger blazed in their eyes in the feat of drawback, the way they cried, slept, recalled memories, even if the memories were unpleasant, it made it all the more real. It proved that they were once real to him and not a cruel figment of his imagination and now, imagination wasn't an act of cruelty but a way of salvaging something that lacked proof. That, itself, was cruel, to see someone in everything.