#ragnarokr

The conversations fall away and the men turn their attention to him.

He tells them that they will ride, they will bring death, they will not yield, and they will show no mercy. He tells them they will spill blood—and as he speaks the words, they begin to scream their agreement. He tells them they will paint this valley red, and they will appease the gods of war and death. They will crowd the Great Hall with the men and women they cut down with their swords and axes and spears. Sasuke moves Ozora down the line, telling them that there will be songs of this day. The battle cries spread down the line of his men, widening even past the periphery where his voice can be heard, until it’s just one loud rumble of screams, of men lowering their spears in salute to Sasuke as he rides past them with his message. The war cry is picked up around the Valley, as the northerners on the eastern and western lines realize that a rallying cry is going up for another charge.

There will be songs, Sasuke roars, of when Otogakure rose from the ashes, when a fierce battle made the Omine Valley a place of fire and death and ashes.

We ride, he tells them, and we will be victorious.

His ears ring when the men start screaming. Sasuke turns Ozora so he can face the enemy. The Shodaime liked to recite from the book of his God. At the worst of times when the demons were laying waste to the horizon, he told Sasuke, he’d think of the end times.  

“I looked, and behold,” Sasuke he recites in a low voice, and wills Madara and Pein to hear him. He wants them to look south and see Kakashi at the mouth of the valley, moving in with Itachi at his side. He wants them to look north and see Sasuke, and know with certainty that they are surrounded.

“Behold, an ashen horse,” Sasuke murmurs, holding up a hand aloft, and willing his gods to hear him, to see him riding into battle to serve at their pleasure. Behind him, Yonabaru sounds the battlehorn of the death-riders, deep and unassailable, once, twice, and then a third time, a trinity that signals to Jugo—and everyone else who hears it—that Sasuke is preparing to ride into battle. It settles over the valley, and the enemies turn to face it.

Madara’s warriors are turning outwards in a circle of their own, but it is disjointed because Kakashi’s attacks are relentless still. There is line after line of Konohagakure soldiers, spinning towards the flanks of the enemy army and retreating back after making impact. Sasuke cannot see Pein or Madara, but he thinks they must be in the beating heart of the enemy army.

“And he who sat on it had the name Death,” Sasuke murmurs to himself. He can almost feel the chill of the Shodaime sitting next to him on the hotel bed while Sasuke read aloud from their holy book; he can hear the Nidaime’s voice calling out to him from across the training field, Rise, Uchiha.

“And hell followed with him,” Sasuke finishes. He lets his hand drop, and Ozora strikes out in a gallop. The Northern warriors circling the enemy army move simultaneously.