If she closed her eyes, she could still feel his merciless fingers gripping her throat, intent, undoubtedly intent, on squeezing the life out of her. It no longer shocks her. Rather, it leaves her with a cold pool of utter nothingness in her gut. That wasn't him, she tried to convince herself. That was not the boy I fell in love with. Am still in love with. Must still be in love with. Duty and love tended to blur into one these days – there was no longer any escape from the childish confessions she'd made as a naive little girl. Everyone held her to them.
Tsunade. Kakashi. Ino. Even Naruto.
Her lip twitches when she thinks of the light of her world. How can he presume to know her heart? To know anything about her? He is just as guilty as the dark-haired boy with the unrelenting, choking grip of abandoning her. His entire life, his entire being is a lie. She knows the burning rage he hides inside, hides behind that wide, stupid grin. She's witnessed it. Suffered its wrath. He still denies it has any control over him. And he accuses her of lying to herself. Hypocrite.
She knows that the boy she confessed her heart to one cold, blustery night is long gone. Dead, she occasionally likes to think to herself, because the thought makes his dissent easier to deal with. Dead. Dead. Dead. That man who bears his face (same sharp cheekbones, starved eyes, just older, wiser...madder) is an imposter. She hoped that detaching herself from this empty shell of a look-a-like would make killing him, ending his devastating betrayal of her, of Naruto, of all of them, easier. But she still crumpled at the last hurdle.
He had no such qualms.
And she is almost glad of it now. It has given her enough proof to finally trick herself into truly believing that the beloved boy of her sweet, innocent childhood is really gone for good. Dear, brave, dark-eyed boy who would never have laid a harmful finger on her. Ever. He had been protector, saviour, idol. Now, this imposter has twisted his image into destroyer, monster, enemy.
She was torn the last time she saw this final transformation of him from her saint into something...less than human. His eyes had bled and she had still wanted to heal them, tend to them, to him. Like the devoted little puppy she had used to be. The shell the maddened impostor wore had still got to her last time. Still made her heart skip a beat, her palms sweat, her mouth go dry. Now, when she chanced to see him across battlefields, behind lines of enemies he now called allies, the same process happened. But for entirely different reasons.
Her heart skips a beat in fear. Her palms sweat with the anticipation of battle. And her mouth goes dry. Why? She just can't find the words to tell this shell, this imposter, how much she hates him for destroying the boy of her memories.