The Angel's Ambivalence [Naruto]

No Return

"The saddest word in the whole wide world is the word almost. He was almost in love. She was almost good for him. He almost stopped her. She almost waited. He almost lived. They almost made it."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

It didn't make sense at first. It was almost as if time had frozen, as if the world itself had come to a complete halt around me, leaving nothing but Madara, myself, and the katana between us.

Except Madara wasn't Madara anymore.

Madara wasn't in front of me. Ryuu was. Madara wasn't staring at me. Ryuu was. Madara wasn't bleeding to death. Ryuu was.

Ryuu.

I couldn't understand it. All I could do was stare into the emerald green eyes that mirrored my own, eyes that I'd gotten used to, eyes that belonged to the person I loved most in this world.

But then the owner of those eyes coughed up blood, and time started once again.

"... Ryuu?" My voice was barely a whisper, a sound more broken than anything I'd ever made. I was speaking as if I was a child once again, a child who was absolutely terrified, and in that moment, that was exactly what I felt like. I felt like a child who was having an awful nightmare, only this time, I wouldn't wake up. I couldn't wake up, because this was my reality, the reality in which I'd just fatally injured my own twin brother.

"Heh... Nice shot, sis..." Ryuu muttered, and then his body swayed, and he was falling, katana and all. I caught him before he could reach the ground, gathering him in my arms and trying my best to make him comfortable. I stared at him, completely immobile, as my eyes took in the sight of him laying there, wounded and broken all because I'd been stupid enough to fall for Madara's little trick.

There was so much blood. It was everywhere, forming a pool around him and soaking the ground beneath us. It spread through his clothing and stained his pale skin red. I was left wondering how on earth a person could bleed this much, how a body could take this much pain and somehow still endure. His hands were pressed against his abdomen, covering the wound, but they did little to stop the bleeding. It was such an awful sight that for a moment, all I could do was sit there and stare, momentarily stunned, as I tried to make sense of the situation. I couldn't even feel the chakra rod that I knew was still sticking out of my shoulder, despite the fact that I knew that there was blood was dripping from the wound it'd created. My injury was so insignificant compared to Ryuu's, compared to the wound I'd personally inflicted upon him.

As I sat there, I attempted to figure out how things had ended up this way, how this situation had turned so completely horrible in only a matter of seconds. I remembered creating a barrier to separate Ryuu from Madara and I while I battled the Uchiha ancestor. I remembered Ryuu breaking that same barrier, joining our fight before vanishing from my sight. But most of all, I remembered Madara's single Rinnegan eye, boring into mine when I'd been holding Sasuke's dead body in my arms.

And suddenly, it all made sense: genjutsu. That was why everything had felt so off while I was fighting Madara. That was why it'd seemed like Ryuu had completely disappeared during our battle, even though I knew that he would never willingly leave me alone in a situation like that. Madara had warped reality using genjutsu, making me believe that I was fighting him when I was really fighting my brother.

And I, someone who was never good at countering and seeing through genjutsu, despite my kekkei genkai, had fallen right for it.

"... I can fix this," I announced suddenly, snapping myself out of my daze, except I didn't sound like myself. My voice was shaking and sounded hollow, as if I was on the brink of snapping. But I wouldn't do that, I couldn't, not when my brother still needed me. "I know I can. I have Saiki's chakra, now. It'll help me."