This story is kinda like Haku's demise...Please R&R! Here goes nothing...!

You'll Love Me When I Die

The sun breaks the horizon as the early morning chill begins to leave the air. In the distance, hidden behind a forest of trees, are three lonely figures, their shadows clinging to the wet earth.

Sasuke and Sakura huddle over the limp and motionless body of their comrade: Naruto. Both are speechless. Naruto's pale face is stained red with his blood; his eyes are still open with surprise.

"Oh, Naruto!" Sakura wept as she laid her head on the stomach of the slain boy. Sasuke shuts his eyes and turns away from the horrible sight.

"Don't turn away." A voice within Sasuke calls. Kakashi?

"This is the meaning and the way of the Shinobi. We are merely tools to be used by our homeland when needed, and when we're broken…"

Sasuke slowly turns to the by who vowed long ago that one day he would become stronger than anyone he would every face. Memories. They flood through Sasuke's troubled mind, too many to make sense of. A silent rush of the times that he and Naruto had shared. The kiss, the fight with Haku, the training they both of their bodies suffered though, Naruto's voice… "One of these days they'll be calling me Lord Hakage. Believe it!"

"Naruto." Sakura whispers, her face still buried in the orange jumpsuit of Naruto's.

"Naruto, you fool!" Sasuke hissed suddenly. Sakura looks up in alarm.

"Sasuke…?"

"You always had to be the hero! You screw-up, you big-talker, you loser…!" In his frustration, Sasuke kicks Naruto's arm with enough force to flip Naruto's body over as it rolled on the cold grass wet with dew and blood. Yelling, Sasuke leaps onto the fallen boy and begins to strike at him, each blow twitching Naruto's body and causing his ninja leaf headband to come loose until it eventually fell off. The hitai-ate clattered to the ground and as it did so.

"Sasuke!" Sakura shrieks as she pulls the weeping boy off Naruto. Sasuke turns form her and slumps to the ground in mortal defeat, his body shaking.

"Sasuke…" Sakura hopeless whimpers. She reaches out for his hand, but Sasuke jerked out of reach.

"He's the second person to make me cry." Sasuke utters, looking over his shoulder to glance at Sakura. A single tear fell from his eye. Sasuke's face, a face on the cusp of manhood, contorts in an indescribable pain. His eyebrows bend low and shake, as if deciding whether to show pain. Sasuke's nose crinkles up and his mouth shudders as his tear descends the smooth hillside of his face. He looks at his hands.

"I used to hate him, you know."

Sasuke clenches his hands until a trickle of Kekkei Genkai blood dripped to the morning earth. Sakura, in shock of seeing the boy she once knew to be so cool and emotionless drown in a torrent of unknown feelings for Naruto, his hated comrade. She turned to Naruto.

"You made me feel wanted," She whispered then chuckled lightly. "Even if I didn't wish to be wanted by you!"

She closed her eyes and gently brushed her lips to Naruto's. Sakura sat up and walked past Sasuke who sat there motionless like Naruto.

Gradually, Sasuke turned and stumbled to Naruto's body, falling to a clutter at his feet. Keeping his eyes down, Sasuke gently picked up the headband on the ground and placed it firmly in Naruto's stone cold hands. Sasuke looked towards Sakura, shrinking in the distance, then to Naruto: the boy as isolated and as lonely as himself. Sasuke lightly closed Naruto's staring eyes and murmured, "So this is goodbye. I'll miss you…You Big Dunce!" A trace of a smile came to Sasuke's lips. He leaned down and placed a kiss where Naruto's headband used to be. With his steely eyes locked on Naruto, Sasuke pulled himself up and then headed in the direction of Sakura, who will be waiting for him. She always had been…

A drop of rain suddenly fell from the sky, only a single droplet. With a small plit, it landed perfectly on Naruto's eyelash. The droplet slowly slipped down the cheek of the prisoner of the Nine Tailed Fox who was now in heaven and in freedom of its evil. Naruto. He was the boy who would have been the greatest Hokage of the land Hidden in the Leaves…