Warnings: Multiple character death, maybe some eerie-ness/creepy-ness?

Disclaimer: Original names, characters and places don't belong to me. I don't own anything except the general ridiculous plot-less plot and OC(s), if any. Yadablah.

Riot of Color

It is dark.

All you see is black, until your eyes slowly adjust to make out your surroundings.

You see a shadowy space, violet-tinged, as your eyes adjust. The walls are roughly hewn stone under your tentative fingers. As you strain to make out the markings on the wall – claws, it looks like – you think you see light out of the corner of your eye, and spin.

Your kunoichi reflex has you reaching for a blade that isn't there.

In your mind, you can hear her voice, calm and as cool as ice. In your mind's eye, you see her hard eyes, cold, flat, and blue stones. "As if the light would hurt you." She says. "As if she can harm anyone in this village."

But yes, you do see a light in the space, in the crude cell hewn from the mountains. It would be too kind to call the place a room. It was a cell, with no light save for small gaps of ventilation from above. But there is a light.

For a moment, you think that it is an angel.

The light you saw, it is actually hair. Beautifully cared for long blonde hair that hangs straight down, nearly caressing the floor, the heavier locks knotted atop the creature's head. And it is dressed in white.

You can't help but creep closer, like a moth drawn to a flame, a bee to nectar.

It is bent over a raised platform of stone. Your subconscious registers it as a probably a makeshift bed. A bed that contains a body. For a moment, the child in you shrieks at the thought of a dead person before your training kicks in: you've seen death too much to be fazed… right?

Instead, you watch. You observe.

As your eyes, your aged eyes, finally manage to make out the face of on the bed, you want to gasp. The body is male, but the features. You would never forget eyes like those, that beautiful blood-tinged black you wasted much of your youth mooning over. His hair flickers between the salt and pepper of age and the pitch black of youth, its style never changing. You recognize the genjutsu for what it is.

The angel laughs at his attempts. Gently. Softly.

Sadly.

It speaks; its voice mellow, low. You can't hear it, your hearing has gone with the glory days, but you see the slight scowl on an all too familiar face before the genjutsu is dropped altogether.

He says something nasty, you're pretty sure about that, judging by the glare he levels on the creature. But like with your senses, his intensity has faded with the days gone by and it pales it comparison to his teenage angst-ridden death glare.

The angel turns away, and you catch a glimpse of what looks like the glitter of tears, and you think that his temerity to insult accurately and painfully hasn't changed. Then you see him reach out to clasp its hand in apology, and you realize painfully how much time has passed since you saw him last.

Because…

He was never one for apology; he had gone soft, and not for you.

Because…

In that action, you could see just how frail he had become, your childhood dream. His hand was too thin, trembling ever so slightly. And his pale skin was sallow against the slender sun-darkened fingers of the creature's hand.

Funny, weren't angels supposed to be pale and ethereal?

They speak in low voices, until it turns back to him and settles itself on the edge of his 'bed.' You watch, unable to turn away, even as its free hand threads through his hair rhythmically, soothingly, as they converse and you read the fear, the apprehension in his eyes. And then you see the peace and serenity you've never seen in his face before set in, even as he fights to keep his eyes open and on the creature at his bedside.

It laughs again, the same sad laugh, and this time its voice carries over to you. Although it is a strain for your old ears to make out the words, its characteristics are clear: distinctly female, soothing, if a little exasperated, wrapped in love, envy and regret. "Rest, Sas, there's nothing left to be said. All is forgotten, forgiven. I'll miss you too."

He smiles, an actual happy smile that you would have given the world to see in your youth even as his eyes droop shut into the world of sleep.

The angel sits unmoving save for the rhythmic motion of its fingers.

You stand in the shadows, unable to shift your gaze from the sight.

He breathes, in sleep, slower, and shallower, and slower.

And it stops.

You see it, hear it. Sense it.

You can only stand, frozen as the angel bends over his still warm body, and its hair obscures what view you have of its actions. You assume she is saying goodbye, and grief chokes your throat, knowing that your old teammate, your childhood crush is gone – and you can never, ever say goodbye. Never, ever say how sorry you were.

For being so foolish in your childhood. For being so weak that you dragged the team down. For being too weak to save him from himself. For being so useless that you couldn't stop the council when he was captured with her. For being so gullible that you believed the edicts that he was dead, along with her. For being so slow that you only sought the truth now, and was too late.

For not being everything a proper kunoichi, a proper teammate was supposed to be.

Then the angel raises its head, and you hear a sob rise in its throat, and you wish you could cry too. Except that you have no right to cry. Not over him, when you've failed so.

"Kami, why do you do this to me?" The angel's anguished voice carries to your ears, though it hasn't risen in hysterics. "You took away my family before I knew them. You took away my only protection from the world. You took death away from me through him. And now, you take away Sas too. What else can you take from me?"

Another sob wrenches through the still air in that mountain cell.

"Kami-sama, just give me my death back and take my life." The creature whispers.

Yet somehow you hear its voice, loud and clear.

It turns away from the cooling corpse of your teammate in grief. It registers your presence at last and for a fraction of a second, your eyes meet.

And it is as though the world grounds to a halt.

Recognition ricochets through you, as you realize that the creature, the angel, was none other than your last teammate. The demon, the Fourth's heir and legacy… Disbelief and denial quickly follows. After all, how can she look barely eighteen after so many decades have passed? You quickly blame the demon's influence, and then question their intimacy from before. How can one love a demon, the way he seems to love her? It itches, the thought of it, and it sticks in your craw.

You realize that you are nothing. You are truly the most worthless of them all. After all, a demon is better than you.

At those thoughts, you realize how much like the council you sound. And even as you accept that you are nothing compared to them, who both suffered so much and found comfort in each other…

Your world is focused on shimmery blonde, the violets, greys, blacks, of shadow, the shine of the imminent sunrise on her face: dusty orange, the pink of shock, and the odd greens that decorate the hem of her flawless white clothes… and the hard cold plates of bright blue that are her eyes.

The myriad of colors riot into white that fills your vision, your world.

Even as you feel the pain of your body being ripped to pieces, you hear the most calming melodic voice. "Child, you had but to ask. Your task is done. The line has ended, your promise fulfilled. Come now and meet your heart."

Amid the white, your eyes close, and you know nothing but sleep, everlasting.

A/N: So to explain this piece: I'd been inspired by the whole idea of Natsumi (i.e. Fem!Naru) being bound by blood to Itachi, who was both her betrothed thanks to Minato&Fugaku as well as her protector when she was a child. The overall idea was something like Itachi dying, and making her promise not to follow and to protect their family lines. As they are blood bound, the promise is sealed in blood, unbreakable. And as the Namikaze/Uzumaki line as we know it ends with her, the only other line is Itachi and Sasuke's. And since Sasuke wants to restore the line, and Natsumi has Kyuubi, the promise manipulates her lifespan to the point of immortality until the line dies. So she is effectively stuck in the land of the living, and in the nth generation, history starts repeating itself and she is restored to her mortal lifespan with reborn!Itachi and they... somehow work things out.

That was the original plan. But I got too confused by it so I decided to revamp the prologue into just a oneshot, and this came out instead. Sasuke doesn't restore the Uchiha line but is instead found with Natsumi and they are criminalized by the council, and stuck in prison till they die. They both believe that Natsumi is doomed to eternal immortality in that mountain cell, and yea.

In case you didn't get it, the dying dude was Sasuke, the "angel" was Natsumi (come on, blonde?) and it's Sakura's point of view. I don't really favor Sakura but... Team 7, what can I say? This was an experimental piece, more than anything else, for second person narrative. Constructive crit would be very much appreciated, since I'm really quite dissatisfied with most of the pieces my writing style is turning out lately :S R&R please!

-iirse