Confusion and Reunion

The rain had stopped.

Sasuke walked alone through the dense forest. The soaked earth sank deeply beneath every step. His left eye no longer stung, but a dry, weary ache had taken root deep in its socket. The pattern of the Eternal Mangekyou turned slowly within his pupil, each rotation seeming to remind him—there were still things he had yet to do.

He wasn't thinking about Danzo.

That old man's face, those ten closed Sharingan, that shattered counterfeit eye, that black ink that had swallowed everything—those things had sunk beneath the surface of his consciousness, settling somewhere he didn't need to deliberately touch. In their place came other images.

Itachi's face.

On the night of the massacre, Itachi had stood in a pool of blood, bloody tears streaming from his eyes as he told him, "You are my most beloved little brother."

Then there was Naruto's face.

That dead last, that loudmouthed idiot, that guy who inexplicably insisted on "bringing him back." Sasuke remembered their battle at the Valley of the End. He remembered the hand Naruto had held out to him. He remembered walking into the darkness without looking back.

He didn't regret it. But neither had he forgotten.

An open clearing lay ahead. Moonlight poured through a break in the clouds, bleaching the ground white. Sasuke stopped beside a dead tree, leaning against its trunk as he raised his head. The moonlight was cold, settling over his face like a thin layer of frost. His breathing gradually steadied, and the fire that had burned in his chest for so long became, for the first time, the warmth of dying embers.

He had no destination.

At least, not tonight.

He only wanted to be alone. Without Obito, without anyone.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the same forest.