Word Count: 600.
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
The rain is falling, steady and drilling like beating on a drum. The bodies litter the soaked battlefield as blood mixes in with mud and water to form dull red rivulets carving the earth away.
Nagato's harsh, heavy sobbing drives the air to madness, and Konan would drive kunai into her ears not to hear it.
Yahiko lies on the ground, white and cold, his eyes screwed shut and his lips turning blue. All his dreams, all his hopes are running away with the blood flowing down hill.
Nagato is distraught and overcome with horror and pain, on his knees in the mud, but Konan is hollow and standing, barely aware of the rain flattening her cloak against her skin and putting her blue hair down in long hanks.
Was it my fault? Why did I have to get caught? Konan stares down at the ash blue lids of Yahiko's eyes, and wants them to open, even if it's only to accuse her, to condemn her.
Every rational thought, every piece of knowledge about the shinobi world both condemns her for her weakness and tells her that his death was not his fault. Shinobi die every day, at the drop of a hat and their lives fall down like black rain made of blood. But they don't die for their comrades; shinobi are always to choose to save their own lives in such a crisis.
Then again, Yahiko has always been a lover of unconventional behavior. Why choose to die for me? Why on earth didn't you just flee and save your own life, and take Nagato with you? Was I worth that?
"Konan?" a sad, shaking voice reaches her ears, and Konan looks around and sees Nagato stumbling towards her, the water in his hair making it stick apart and make his eyes visible. His multi-ringed eyes are as ever, inscrutable, but the red rings around them and the scarlet tint of his nostrils are not. "Are you alright?"
Konan bites her lip and folds her arms around her body. Nagato in response wraps his arms around her shoulders, pulling her to his slight frame. Konan closes her eyes and nestles her head against the crook of his neck as Nagato rests his cheek against her hair.
"Neither one of us would have seen you hurt, you know," Nagato mumbles senselessly. "I wouldn't have. Not ever."
For the first time, Konan's eyes sting. Her teeth grit tightly. That's what makes it so terrible. Yahiko died because he didn't want to see her die. He died for her, and she can't do a thing.
It's a terrible weight on the heart to be so important to someone that they are willing to die for you, yet to be unable to do the same. It really makes you wonder what makes you worthy of someone's devotion, to the point that that someone will die for you. Why was Yahiko willing to die for me?
The rain continues to fall, beating down on them, too steady, too straight. It's almost like its mocking them and belittling their grief as it continues to drench their bodies.
Nagato is despairing, Konan guilty, and Yahiko is only growing colder as they stand there.
"What is it?"
"I just wish…I just wish I could see his eyes open again."
Nagato pulls away slightly, and gives her such a strange look that Konan feels something like cold fear unfurl in the pit of her stomach. Her heart pounds unsteadily as she looks at him, and her cracked voice rises above the rain.
"Nagato?"
"It's…nothing, Konan. It's nothing."