This is my tribute to the end of an era.

Thank you for everything, Kishimoto.

There was something oddly familiar about this place.

Everything from the towering trees to the blades of grass echoed fiercely in his mind, though no matter how hard he tried, he could not pinpoint the feeling of knowing that writhed in the pits of his stomach. As they ventured deeper into the overgrown fauna, the unpleasant weight in his stomach became too much to bear, and so, he stopped in his tracks.

Something wasn't right.

Turning on his heel, he cast a glance behind him, and then to the left. Yes, he had definitely been through this particular part of the forest so often that he could walk it even while under heavy sensory deprivation. He knew every tree, every winding path of dirt and even the native names of all of the plant life that blossomed before him… but what was this feeling? It was like he'd forgotten something.

"Hey, Sasuke, what is it?"

The low voice from beside him jolted Sasuke from his moment of confusion. He turned to see the blond staring at him, his cerulean eyes tight with focus. Sasuke noticed his hand hovering over the kunai holster on his thigh, also seeming to sense his friend's immediate unease with this section of the forest.

Despite all they had been through, it still struck Sasuke as odd to see Naruto so serious. In their younger years, he had always failed miserably in stealth missions; Naruto was too rambunctious and impatient and lacked any understanding in the meaning of the word quiet. However, Sasuke had to begrudgingly admit that the blundering idiot had grown into a very mature man with prominent features that proudly resembled his late father's. At the solid age of twenty-five, Naruto was still his old knuckle-headed self at times, though it frequented much less than when they were children.

Sasuke didn't respond to the question. Instead, he let his eyes flicker to that unmistakable shade of red as they roamed up toward the canopies, eyes slowly drinking in how the fresh green leaves burst up from the dark ashes left by the recent Great War. Many years had passed, and although the memories of the war were now nothing but, the earth still shone with heavy craters and crumbled cliff faces – however, it seemed that his particular part of the forest hadn't been hit as hard. In fact, only a small fraction of the trees had been burned, while the rest remained virtually untouched.

So, why was it still bothering him?

"It's nothing. Come on, let's keep moving."

Sasuke stalked off, not bothering to look back to see if Naruto would follow. As they moved through the forest, the feeling of unease did not leave him. It clung to him with a fierce grasp, and no matter how far they walked, the feeling only grew stronger, burrowing into his lower gut with renewed fervor.

He heard Naruto catching up behind him, his footfalls almost silent over the grass. The blond didn't question him any further, and a small part of Sasuke was thankful that the boisterous part of Naruto had lessened over the years, along with that annoying tendency to repeatedly ask questions.

For the longest time, the two simply walked by side by side, silent except for the rustling of their footsteps and of the leaves in the summer breeze. The sun warmed their backs with soothing hands, and if they hadn't been venturing through the forest on such pressing matters, one might have been able to enjoy the weather.

As they pressed on, an overwhelming sense of familiarity suddenly washed over Sasuke, causing his vision to blur.

His brow furrowed slightly. Sasuke knew the outskirts of what once was the borders of Sound better than any other living person – so why was his mind and body positively reeling with this newfound familiarity?

His hand once more subconsciously reached for the hilt of his katana, and he heard the blond stiffen beside him.

"Sasuke, what's the matter?" Naruto paused, and Sasuke felt him stretch out his chakra. "I don't sense anyone nearby."

Again, Sasuke ignored him and they kept walking, his pace quickening slightly. This feeling, this unknown rush, was setting him on edge, and he grew increasingly agitated as his usually brilliant mind failed to pinpoint its source.

A rustle suddenly sounded from their left, and Naruto quickly reacted, whipping out a kunai from his holster and sending it swiftly into a shrub. It disappeared and landed with a dull thunk about twelve feet from where they were, and Sasuke rolled his eyes as a tiny brown rabbit came scampering out and bounded off into the dense shrubbery.

Sasuke cast a flat glance at his friend, who merely chuckled and rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly.

"Heh… sorry about that…"

Heaving an exasperated sigh, Sasuke turned on his heel and trailed through the shrubbery where Naruto's kunai had disappeared into. The shrub was much thicker than he had expected, and he cursed his friend under his breath as a large thorn grazed across the exposed skin of his forearm. Shortly, Sasuke caught the glint of metal as he spied the weapon sticking out of the grass.

He walked over and reached down, plucking the weapon out of the dirt. As he looked up, something caught his eye and made his blood run cold.

The kunai slipped through his fingers.

After another minute had passed, Sasuke still hadn't returned.

Naruto had watched as his friend's form as it ventured into the shrubs. When the Uchiha didn't return within the minute, a short pang of worry struck through Naruto's chest.

What was keeping him?

"Sasuke?" he called out. No answer.

He called a little louder this time, but he was still met with silence. Another pang.

Swallowing hard, Naruto pushed his way through the fauna, ignoring the sharp thorns. His pace grew quicker until the fauna finally thinned out into a small clearing, where his heart leapt in relief at the sight of his teammate standing, facing a tree.

However, something wasn't right. He wasn't moving.

Naruto took a cautious step forward. "Sasuke?"

The Uchiha appeared to be physically rooted to the spot. Naruto spied his kunai lying on the ground next to Sasuke's feet. He also noticed that his shoulders were hunched slightly, and his head seemed to be hung lower than normal. Strong arms lay dormant by his sides, fingers uncurled and limp.

Naruto was about to call out to his friend, when his blue eyes suddenly grew wide as they found the source of Sasuke's strange behaviour.

She was so young, he remembered.

Innocent, untainted and unabashedly pure – she was a physical embodiment, a living reminder, a pristine statue carved out of everything that he was not, that he could never be.

"I made this for you," she had said, holding up the necklace.

He didn't take it. And she didn't mind. Instead, she'd placed it aside with a warm smile, insisting that he wear it when he was ready. He could see the hurt in her eyes when he'd refused her kindness, and he didn't care.

He assumed that she did, to an extent, though children were always so disgustingly naïve.

And she was always so excited when he returned. During missions, Sasuke would often board at a small hostel around ten miles west of the base, owned by the young girl and her parents. The family was always kind to him, dutifully ignoring his lineage and treating him with no less respect. As Sasuke would wander up the road, he would always see her face in the window, small hands pressed against the dirty glass.

At first, he supposed that the parents had raised her to be kind to all travelers, though it wasn't long before he noticed how shy she became around him, how her eyes would grow wide with awe, or how she would giggle whenever – and if ever – he spoke.

"Did you get the bad guys?" she'd asked after he returned from a particularly long mission from the north. He could see her trying to avoid staring at the blood on his clothes and the cuts on his skin, though he never saw why he should hide what the real world was like. People died. Villages were massacred. The world wasn't the place she thought it was. The sooner she knew, the better.

He ignored the question, as he always did. Though, her next question was something he didn't quite expect.

"Did you kill them?"

For the first time, he looked directly into her eyes.

"Yes."

She then looked down to the floor, unsure of what to say next. Sasuke continued to sharpen his katana, eyes focused on the blade, though often looking over to her as she still seemed to be thinking over his answer.

"Are you a bad guy, Sasuke?"

For a long time, he didn't answer. In fact, he never remembered answering her question that day, or any other day she'd asked it. After a while, she seemed to come to terms with his silence and dismissive nature, though her attitude toward him never changed. She still welcomed him back at the window, still asked questions that he never answered, and still believed that he could never be the bad guy.

If only she knew what he was capable of, what he had already done in his short lifetime, of the lives he had taken and what dark, terrible depths awaited him in his future.

This girl would never survive in this world. She would perish the moment the world showed her its true colors – all of which were murky, depthless pits of emptiness that brought on nothing but death and destruction. The world of shinobi would always end as it had started; in piles of rubble and waves of ashes, and her life would be a fleeting piece of nothing compared to the grand scheme of the world.

And at one point, he had almost felt pity for her – almost. She would be gone before long, though he supposed it wasn't a complete loss; she would die before the real world could get to her. The innocence would still be hers once she passed on to the next life, and death would be kind and swift to her.

Little did she know that death would claim her in the very arms that tried to save her. And little did he know that those arms would be his own.

Sasuke still remembers the blistering cold; the wind biting at his already numb lips and the burning desperation that kept them both alive. He remembered the look in her eyes, buried within her suffering; she was pleading for a way out, but he wouldn't give it to her – couldn't give it to her – because he didn't want to let her go.

Everything had been in ruins – the hostel was completely destroyed, gutted by the fire that had ravaged through some days ago. He had returned eight months later in the winter to find her still alive, hidden away in a small storage closet, frail and weak.

He was tempted to leave her to die, he remembered as he towered over her frail body. The starvation would claim her within days, if the cold didn't get to her first, and she would perish alongside her already dead parents. It would be a far kinder death, one much more merciful than anything that awaited her beyond the charred walls and twisted metal that was now her home.

Though when he spied the trinket she had made for him lying amidst the snow covered rubble, the scene around him suddenly appeared all too familiar. Whether he would entertain the idea or refuse to see it, this little girl was no different than him; robbed of her childhood and forced to fight for her life in a world that she did not know.

She was just as he had been all those years ago.

And he wanted to hate her. By God, he wanted to hate her for reminding him of what he had lost, for what he had to endure, for what had led him onto his current path. But instead, he hated himself for taking her with him. He hated himself for not leaving her to die.

He hated himself because he could not hate her.

One might say that he was acting in impulse. Others might argue that the little girl reminded him of himself. Some would even say that he wanted her to have all of what had been taken away from him, and to live the life she deserved.

He would not dare admit to himself that it was the injustice of his own innocence being ripped away by someone that he once loved.

By the third day, she fell ill.

The nearest town was still miles away, and even then, she would still not survive the journey if he were to stop for shelter. The winter storms howled and raged mercilessly, and he could feel her growing weaker by the second. Snow lay thick over the terrain, and the blizzard slowed their journey considerably.

He heard her whisper his name over the harsh wind, though he did not stop. His grip on her withering frame only tightened as he pushed on, ignoring his own body's protests. The snow thickened over his eyes and in his hair, and he was sure that her body couldn't withstand the cold any longer, though the thought of losing her made his chest constrict painfully.

He couldn't lose her, not now, not after how much he had sacrificed to keep her alive. He could see the faintly flickering lights of the town just on the mountainside; they were less than a day away. She would be safe soon enough. She could get the care she needed, the family she deserved, the life he could never have.

But by the next morning, she died.

Leaning against the tree, he sank to the ground, his grip on her only tightening as he felt the last breath pass by her thin lips. He held her close, eyes screwed shut, and he screamed – his throat ripping and bleeding, choking and strangling him, though he only yelled harder against the pain. That night, he cried.

Regretfully, pitifully, painfully – he cried like a child.

Sasuke saw so much of himself in those eyes that it frightened him. And even now, as he gazed upon her tombstone, he could still see the pain, the suffering – he could see all of it.

Behind him, he heard Naruto speak.

"She was special to you."

It was more of a realization than a question.

Naruto watched as Sasuke knelt down and reached for something around his neck. Carefully, he watched in silence as Sasuke pulled a necklace over his head and placed it on the grave, running his fingers over the stone inscription of a name before standing to his feet.

Sarada.

"She still is."