Our Bond

As it burned, they stood there, watching. Reveling they were, in their own handiwork. Loving in the smoky air they breathed, knowing they did it. What could have been more perfect? Isolated screams of agony and desperation mixed with the crackling and hissing of burning fire, and it was music to their ears. The last remaining survivors were burning off, one by one. The embers lit up the starless black void hovering over them, accompanying the full moon that haunted them both.

But not anymore, they thought. Not anymore, with this new burning beginning. It was indeed possible to rewrite the meaning of a night, a night scarred in faded screams and renewing hate. Nothing could stop them now.

Nothing.

"Look, Fire," The Sun addressed the Moon. "Look what you've done," he said with smug contentment. "Look what you've done," he whispered, smiling.

"No, Wind," The Moon addressed the Sun. "Look what we've done."

The two gazed from their perch atop the village, atop the world, holding their accomplishment before them for all to see. They wanted all to know that it was them who brought this once proud village to its knees, and burned it to the ground. From this mountain with carved and mocking faces they watched. They watched and lived it. Lived and breathed and heard and smelled and felt it. They felt everything. The Sun and the Moon were basked in the ethereal glow of the lapping flames, destructive and life-giving. Destroying their pain, and giving them a new life. What they believed – no, what they did – deserve. The village owed them this. The world owed them this.

"It's about time, Fire." The Sun said, half-turning to speak to the Moon. "Don't you think?"

"To destroy the rest?" The Moon asked. "No," his voice dropped in volume. "Not yet, Wind. Let me watch for a few moments more. Just a little longer." Let me bask in this glory. In mine. In yours. Our glory.

The Sun nodded and allowed his lively eyes to sweep once again over the burning village of Konoha. It had been their home, but no more.

"Ah," The Sun noted in muted excitement. "We've missed a spot. Care to join me?"

The Moon allowed his gaze to catch where the Sun was looking. He smirked.

"My pleasure."

In a split second they had relocated to the edge of the village where a house stood only half-burned. In front of it were figures, shadowed by the smoke and flames. There were two, one carrying the other on its back. They were emerging from the burning house, coughing and wheezing and crying all at the same time. The figure was speaking to the one on its back, one that appeared to be unconscious.

"I-It's okay, baby. We'll be fine. Everything's going to be o-okay. So please, please please, " the figure sobbed. "Don't fall asleep, okay? You gotta stay awake baby. Stay with me please."

"How sad," The Sun said in indifference.

The Moon sneered. "How pitiful."

The Sun's mouth turned upward at his companion's words. "Yes, that's the word I was looking for. Pitiful."

The figure walked further out to the road with the smaller figure still on it's back. The shadow's receded and their faces were revealed, Mother and Child it seemed. One trying to save the other. It would all mean nothing, in the end.

As she walked further out to the road she lifted her head up to see where she was walking, only to stop in her tracks, fear taking over the swimming emotions in her eyes.

"No," The word was barely audible over the cracking timber and burning air. "NO!" She screamed as the Sun and the Moon were recognized in her mind.

The Sun sighed and took a step forward. "Would you like me to do the honors, Fire? I know how you hate having to clean up so often."

The Moon stepped out further than the Sun did, his hand twitched out ever so slightly. "Actually, Wind, if you don't mind, I would like to have these honors."

The Sun smiled once more. "Not at all."

By this time the woman had already backed up so much she was almost touching the wall of her burning home. Her eyes never left the Sun and the Moon standing before her, conversing so lightly in the mist of the fire. From her vantage point the two of them, named the Sun and the Moon by the village they once cherished with all their heart, resembled gods. Their nicknames so true to their person they could very well be the ones who controlled the day and the night of the world. They had the power to do so, if they so wished.

"I'll make it clean cut," The Moon almost drawled out in a bored tone. His eyes, however, told a different story. They were glowing, and not just because of the fire, but from excitement.

"No please," The woman begged with the last of her strength, her knees already failing her. "Let my son go. Please let him go! He has done nothing wrong!"

"And who's to say he hasn't? You are his guardian, not his angel. You do not follow him like his shadow. You do not know what he does when no one looks. Yes, he deserves to die. If not, then for just belonging to this village. He, along with you, will burn with this village and all its sins. Burn to the ground." The Moon sounded as though he were repeating a rehearsed line, monotonous and uncaring what the woman in from of him thought. Because to him, his words were just.

He unsheathed his sword from its case on his back and swung it expertly, yet lazily, in front of him. The woman's legs were jelly under her, and she fell to her knees, her son sliding to rest on the ground to her left as she begged.

"No. That's not right...this is not right. IT'S NOT RIGHT!"

"May your soul rest where it is deserved," The Sun intoned as the woman's words turned into wails of fear-twisted agony.

"And may forgiveness be given where it is due," the Moon finished as he landed the blow that cut as clean as paper and ended the life of both without a wasted swing or a missed step.

"Graceful as ever," the Sun almost laughed as the Moon sheathed his sword in fluid movements.

"Just help me with this house, Wind," The Moon said as he glared at the still-standing foundation.

"And how shall we approach this, Fire?" The Sun asked as the two were already moving in practiced circles around each other.

"The same as we have been all night," the Moon replied dryly as he raised his hands and performed the practiced movements needed to do what had to be done.

"And chaste as ever," The Sun smiled as he too began a series of practiced hand-signs all his own.

With the Moon standing a bit behind the Sun, and the Sun crouching where he stood, the two finished weaving at precisely the same time. The Moon brought a hand up lazily to his mouth as the other rested behind his back while he kept his perfectly straight and perfectly practiced posture. The Sun was slowly retracting both hands to the right side of his body, gathering together the element he had so famously been named after.

And this was their perfection.

"Fire Element..." The Moon murmured as his head pulled back slightly, readying for the power of the blow fast approaching.

"Blazing Wind," the Sun finished low and dangerously.

The Moon shot an enormous stream of fire from his mouth, missing the Sun's head by mere yet clear inches. As the fire reached its point the Sun tensed his arms before they both shot out in front of him, bringing with them the wind they had been compressing. It was directed right at the stream of continuous fire, and blew up in front of them, extending out to the ends of their vision, running straight ahead for blocks at a time, and then some. It was a fire so tremendous it knocked the breath out of the air itself and stole away more than just awe from those watching. Even after the Sun and the Moon had practiced the move time and time again, they never tired from seeing the sheer size of their power in the form of pure fiery energy.

And this was only the half of it.

"Ready for the next one?" The Sun laughed cheerfully, jumping up as he watched their work catch on every living and weak thing in its path.

"Must you even ask?" The Moon sighed, yet still failing to conceal his own glee at their handiwork.

This was the bond of history. To bring fire and wind together. One enhancing the other, pushing, always pushing, carrying the other as far as it wished to go. The wind the legs for its fire. And yet, the wind would have nothing to carry if the fire did not exist, so with one and the other they are bonded, and they are the same. Fire, and Wind, as they so renamed themselves after the taunting they believed they had received from the village by being called the Sun and the Moon. They were believed to be two opposites that completed each other, for there would be no night to be defined if the Sun did not exist, and no day to be known if the moon did not signify the darkness. They accepted it, and yet, it was unacceptable. They would be the Sun and the Moon to the world, but to themselves, they would be Fire and Wind.

The Sun jumped into the air without a second thought, expertly, easily, weaving signs all the way up.

"Wind Element..." he murmured as he once again pulled both hands back to one side in a slightly modified position than the last.

The Moon jumped up mere seconds after the Sun, floating carelessly next to him.

"Dancing Butterflies," he finished for the Sun, just as the Sun shot out a small compressed ball of air.

The Moon sent a small and agile fireball trailing after it. Once it caught up the fire surrounded the ball of air, heating it up and making the air agitated. Just before the ball of flame and air touched the ground it exploded, sending a dozen miniature versions of itself into the air. They floated and fluttered, growing what seemed to be small misshapen wings at their sides for split-seconds, and even appeared to waltz around one another before exploding themselves, making an array of flaming fireworks over the village.

The attack didn't stop there. The Sun and the Moon continued their series of motions until there was almost nothing left to distinguish a building from the dirt. And even after they ceased their onslaught of attacks, the flames still exploded, and the butterflies still danced.

Without exchanging a word of agreement the two found themselves once again perched on top of the world.

"Is it time yet?" The Sun asked the Moon once again.

The Moon paused in his gazing at the flaming sea below them and retreated to his thoughts for a few seconds. Then, resigning to the wishes of the Sun, sighed and nodded.

"I suppose so. If we stay the whole night the smoke might actually hurt our lungs."

"Ehhh, you actually care about your body, huh?" The Sun snickered.

"Not how you think," The Moon replied calmly. "I only want a physical body to do what I need to do. If one wasn't necessary then I would have given it up long ago."

"One mustn't lie to themselves," The Sun replied in mock-thought.

"May we move on now, Wind?" The Moon asked, becoming a tad annoyed. "I thought you wanted to finish this now."

"Right, right," The Sun waved off the Moon's souring attitude. "The mountain, right? You set up all the devices and tags?"

"Of course," The Moon said as he turned back into a smirking pryomaniac. "All we have to do now is move a safe distance so as not to get caught in the blast."

"Oooh, this is going to be my favorite part," The Sun smiled toothily as they once again relocated themselves wordlessly. "Front row seats are always the best."

The Sun and the Moon were sitting side by side on a tree just outside the fire's reach, facing the mountain with the faces of their Hokages carved into its side. There were six faces there.

"The Hokages, huh," The Moon whispered to himself.

"Said to be the strongest ninja in the whole village!" The Sun exclaimed, albeit a bit sentimentally.

"Wind," The Moon addressed the Sun. "If you want me to, I could always leave his face – "

"No," The Sun replied with finality. "All of them. Take them all down."

The Moon still paused. "And the last one?" He asked. "The last face as well?"

The Sun gazed at the face carved in furthest to the right. "Especially the last face."

Yet the Moon still stalled, and shook his head. "You would think, you, the proud Sixth, and last Hokage, would want his face to stay, as tribute to all you've done-"

"It gives justice to the wrong things," The Sun replied icily, glaring at his own face, gravelly and etched in the fading stone.

"What," The Moon laughed breathily. "Are you no longer striving for you life-long goal, or have you already accomplished it? Or," he continued as he turned to face the Sun still gazing at the face being licked by the edges of flames. "Did you realize being Hokage isn't all it's worked up to be. Are you no longer Konoha's Number One Most Surprising, Orange-clad Ninja, Uzumaki Naruto?"

The Sun hissed warningly at the Moon. "Never utter the name my father cursed me with, the one which the villagers utter in spite. No," he closed his eyes, frowning at unwelcome memories. "I am no longer the Uzumaki Naruto everyone knew. No longer the son of the Fourth Hokage, or the son of the last survivor of the Uzumaki clan...The Nine-tails host before myself." He opened his eyes once again and focused them on the Moon's face next to him, gazing with unmasked contempt. "How about you, huh? Are you still Konoha's Avenger, Uchiha Sasuke?"

It was the Moon's turn to scowl as he turned his eyes away from the Sun. "Never again can I hold the name Uchiha with pride. Not after all they've done. Not after all my brother's done...All he's sacrificed for me. Uchiha Sasuke doesn't exist. Not anymore."

The Sun gave a dry lopsided smirk to the Moon and turned to face front again. " Well then, I guess there's only one thing left to do," he said in natural, and airy happiness. Then his expression hardened as he growled out his next words. "Bring it to the ground."

The Moon lifted up his two hands and brought them together, waiting just a second more, gazing at the last remnants of Konoha. These were the last of anything to be called Konoha, their home. The Sun and the Moon's home. The Fire and Wind.

Naruto and Sasuke.

"Katsu."

And just like that, its was all gone. Everything that ever meant something to them, was gone. As the vibrations of the explosion shook the earth it also shook them to their core. The Sun and the Moon sat their with their breath caught in their throat as they destroyed history. Their history. Starting with the First, to the Second, then the Third, all the way to the Sixth. The mountain collapsed in on itself, the fire created by the new events combining and forming and melting together with the already existing sea created by the destruction of the village.

And to the Sun and the Moon, it was the most beautiful thing.