Rating: PG-13 for some language and character deaths. Lots and lots of character deaths.
Spoilers: WARNING, the first three deaths are actual character deaths in cannon. Not the good kind either.
Pairings: Nothing graphic or overt, just light romance and hinting. Hinata/Naruto, Neji/Tenten, Shikamaru/Temari, Ino/Chouji, Sakura/Sasuke, unrequited-Kiba/Hinata.
A/N: TWO IMPORTANT THINGS
1) To answer the question that some of you might have, no, I don't know when I will be continuing Fire in Your Eyes. When I stopped, college had caught up with me and it hasn't slowed down until just recently. However, that fic was and still is my favorite and I do want to continue it. I even have most of a chapter written, potentially two, but I really don't want to make any promises that I can't keep.
2) Job searching, graduation and a broken computer have kept me from reading chapters of Naruto past Danzo's death. I would be very, very appreciative if people could avoid spoilers for any deaths that may have happened and aren't included in this story. You guys have always been very considerate when I have asked that of you, so thanks.
As to this fic, this one is also not exactly a new concept, but as I have said before, I write for my own enjoyment. Also, this fic assumes that Naruto can somehow pull a way to bring Sasuke back to the village out of his ass.
Now, you probably want to get to reading, so I'll finish any thoughts at the end.
Disclaimer: Don't own Naruto, just enjoy playing with him.
Summary: Shinobi live violent lives. The end is often sudden, but it is very rarely surprising. Multiple character deaths.
No Need for a Requiem
By Psychick
It is possible to provide security against other ills, but as far as death is concerned, we men live in a city without walls. –Epicurus
As far as Naruto could remember, the Sandaime was the first. Not the first one ever, of course, just the first that he knew, that he cared about.
For Sarutobi, it wasn't quick. It was long and drawn out, painful, and in the end all he managed to do was seal Orochimaru's arms and pray that Konoha would be okay. He spent the last minutes of his life declaring to his former student that Konoha was strong, that they would fight back, but he also spent those last minutes worrying.
He hadn't named a successor. It had been foolish and hopeful of him, but he had thought that maybe—maybe—he would get the chance to live long enough to see Naruto succeed. After all, he had lasted this long when very few shinobi did so why not wait a few years more? Now Konoha would be unstable, and unless one of his other students took up the mantle there was likely to be a power struggle. But Jiraiya felt he had a destiny to fulfill and no one had seen Tsunade in years. Sarutobi wasn't even sure that Tsunade had the mental fortitude to handle the position any more.
He wondered—his very last thought before being sucked into an eternal struggle—if Naruto would ever make it either. The boy had been making progress, but if someone didn't seriously take him under their wing he would never reach the skill level he needed to make Hokage. Somehow, that was what hurt the most.
So Sarutobi died, certain he was protecting something, but completely uncertain as to how long his protection would last.
Asuma, on the other hand, died quickly. Or rather, not quickly so much as faster than his father. And unlike his father he died without concern. Not without regret, of course—he wished he could see the unborn child Kurenai carried. But his students were okay and even though he knew they would grieve for him they were strong enough to get through it. Konoha had a new generation of shinobi that was surpassing even their teachers, warriors who had learned their trade in a time of war. In Asuma's opinion, anyone who believed that the children of Konoha would fall at their hands was in for a nasty surprise.
Jiraiya was next. He died with a million regrets, an unfinished book, and a broken heart, but more hope for the future than he had ever felt since he had graduated from the academy.
It's seven years before the next person that Naruto counts among his numerous friends dies.
Konoha's enemies were only getting stronger as the years passed and the Great Shinobi Alliance broke down. If the Rookie Nine and Team Gai thought that fighting would get easier, they were sorely mistaken. As they became stronger and more skilled, so did their enemies.
Chouji's death is beautiful, but only Sakura, just feet away from the young man and barely conscious, sees it.
She had managed to save their third teammate, only to watch him be impaled upon a sword. Sakura herself had been overpowered and, unable to adjust her body to take an impact safely, was fighting the darkness at the edge of her vision. Only some quick thinking and good timing from Chouji had saved her from being finished off, but that left him with a teammate to protect and two highly skilled fighters to face by himself.
Chouji—wonderful, loyal Chouji—puts everything on the line to protect his fellow shinobi and chooses to use the Three Colored Pills, knowing there is no way to get help once he took the red pill. He kills the two shinobi with time to spare on his own life and Sakura, in her confusion, is convinced a celestial creature is struggling to step towards her. That was the only thing she could imagine would have such dazzling wings, ready to lift him off the ground at a moment's notice.
When Chouji collapses she screams at herself to move towards him, but her body won't cooperate and so she is unable to try and heal some of the damage to her teammate's body, to give him more time. Instead she watches as Chouji gives her a small, painful smile that was meant to be reassuring and his gorgeous wings shatter into a hundred sparkling butterflies.
Shikamaru is devastated at the death of his best friend, but Ino is the one who takes it hardest. It wasn't as if either of them could have been there. Shikamaru was laid up in bed while the doctors tried to figure out where the hell the internal bleeding kept coming from. Sakura had taken Ino's place when the blonde had become violently ill on the morning they were supposed to leave for the mission. She had felt better by the afternoon, but by that time the team was already miles away, and the next morning she was sick again.
None of that changes the fact that both surviving members of Team 10 feel they should have been there to help Chouji, to protect him. Shikamaru deals by throwing himself into his student team's training once he finally does get out of the hospital. Ino, on the other hand, stops eating. Not completely, but she only takes in small amounts of food that meet the minimum requirement for being healthy, and frequently has to be pushed to do even that.
It doesn't help, Shikamaru knew, that Chouji had been planning to ask Ino to marry him once the mission was complete, and that Ino knew Chouji had been planning to ask her to marry him. She had been hinting at it for months, and the gossip wheel had gotten around to her that Chouji had picked out an engagement necklace after two weeks of searching for 'just the right one.' Even worse, it doesn't take long for Ino to figure out that she is pregnant after she keeps feeling sick and getting better, but the doctors tell her that, due to some medical condition, the baby probably won't make it past the first trimester. Sure enough, two weeks later she miscarries, which is when her eating habits became even worse.
For the first time in her life Ino is as skinny as, if not skinnier than, she had always dreamed she would be. For the first time in her life she doesn't care. She trains, takes missions and sits with Shikamaru but barely talks. So Shikamaru is again devastated, but not at all surprised, when he sets out to rescue Ino and her team only to find that she has starved to death while being held in captivity.
Ino's death was actually the third after Chouji's.
Before Ino there is Gai. Gai dies opening the Eighth Gate, protecting a group of children that have been enslaved. No one is really ever able to figure out what happened to the shinobi he was fighting, and the children are keeping their mouths shut on the subject for whatever reason. Gai's last thought is that, for the life of him, had can't seem to remember the score between him and his eternal rival.
Before Gai there is Tsunade. Sakura watches that death, too, and although this time she is fully mobile there isn't much one can do against a massive stroke, even as skilled a healer as Sakura has become.
Thankfully Tsunade has been training Naruto to take over her position for almost a year now, and luckily she had named him her successor to the council of elders two days before, although she was never able to officially announce it. Then, in a strange twist that no one in the village understands, the council decides to spend almost two whole weeks arguing as to whether this is a good idea.
They might have spent less time trying to decide if Naruto had been there to advocate for himself, but Tsunade's death, like Jiraiya's, hits him hard and he holes himself up in his room. Hinata has no luck with coaxing him out and Sasuke is tied up consoling Sakura, who has developed some symptoms of PTSD after not being able to save two people who were right in front of her.
Once someone gets around to telling Shikamaru he sighs, calmly walks over to Naruto and Hinata's apartment, and ignores the Hyuuga's protests while he kicks in the door and drags Naruto out of the room. Naruto gets pissed off, like Shikamaru had hoped he would and the black-haired man decks the Hokage-to-be in the face. Naruto demands to know what the hell that was for before he sees the look of disappointment and frustration on Shikamaru's face. For some reason, for one heart-stopping moment, Naruto is sure that all Tsunade's hard work to make him Hokage has been for nothing because he has wasted time feeling sorry for himself again. Being Hokage has been a dream for so long that when the woman he respects more than anyone hands it to him on a silver platter it hasn't even occurred to him that he has the responsibility to take it.
"Who did they make Hokage?" Naruto asks with his heart in his throat, disappointment and self-loathing crushing him down.
Shikamaru knows that the blonde is talking about the council, but Shikamaru has been out in the village and listening to its people and so when he answers, "You, dumb-ass," it may not be accurate, but it is entirely the truth.
Naruto blinks, kisses his wife on the cheek, runs around trying to make himself look presentable, and heads off to the last meeting the council convenes to determine who should be Hokage. Shikamaru is right behind him when the Rokudaime storms in and takes his rightful position.
Iruka dies in a freak fire. Later, an investigation will uncover that it is entirely an accident, a student showing off a fire jutsu for his friends. The fire spreads too quickly to stop it, but almost everyone gets out. Teachers are all counting their students, except one newer chuunin teacher can't seem to remember how many students are in his class and in his concern for the student's safety has forgotten the class roster. Iruka wants to punch the man for being so stupid, but instead remembers seeing a quiet, timid girl in the younger teacher's class that isn't there and runs into the building to try and get her out. The fire traps them both on opposite sides of the building.
When Shikamaru asks Naruto if he's okay, the blonde looks up at his ANBU guard, tired and strong and says, "No."
Shikamaru's heart breaks all over again.
Shino's death is horrifying. Kiba and Hinata are powerless to stop it because Kiba doesn't have enough reserves to break the genjutsu and Hinata can't get close enough without it happening to her. They try attacking the illusionist, but get caught in their own genjutsu and it's all Hinata can do to break them both out.
By the time their minds are free again, Shino has been devoured by his own insects. Normally, the bugs would have eaten the intrusive chakra and kept Shino from being trapped in a genjutsu, or broken him out of the illusion. Their opponent, however, has somehow managed to manipulate his chakra so that it affects the mind of the bugs the more they eat. As a result they drain their host instead of protecting Shino, believing him to be the intruder.
Sakura goes next. Her death is very average, which is surprising for someone so skilled. But it's a three-team mission that gets FUBARed and when no one is looking and everyone is distracted a rogue kunai plunges deep into her brain. She dies instantaneously.
Naruto grieves, but with the help of his family he copes. Sasuke, on the other hand, stops talking to any one who isn't his two children or Naruto. Not that he was very social before, but any pretense he has put up for his wife's or Naruto's sake has gone out the window.
Sai goes after Sakura. The Rokudaime is on his way to a diplomatic—and friendly—visit to Sunagakure when a group of ninja from Iwa tries to assassinate him. None of the ANBU, or the Rokudaime, can risk letting go of their ninjutsu and not finishing their assailants off, but another shinobi comes out of nowhere.
In testament to Sai's skill and determination he manages to position himself so that the Rokudaime is protected and he himself is not instantaneously killed. One of the other ANBU finally manages to kill his opponent and engages the new ninja, but the damage is done. There is enough time for Sai to end his original assailant before he collapses.
Once the battle concludes the Rokudaime rushes over to his teammate and begs him to hang on, but Sai knows better. Instead he smiles—a real smile, the kind he never knew before this man came into his life—and thanks Naruto for everything with his last breathe.
Sai gets a hero's funeral for sacrificing himself to protect the village's beloved Rokudaime. He never made very many friends, other than the ones who knew him through Naruto, but there is barely enough room for everyone who attends to stand.
Lee dies much like his teacher. His opponent is a ninjutsu and genjutsu master and though Lee is trained to fight against both, this shinobi is particularly strong and quick thinking, creative in a way reminiscent of Naruto. He is finally forced to open the Eighth Gate. Neji and Tenten manage to get there in time to see the end, and suddenly the silence of the children Gai saved no longer seems strange.
Naruto has to give some punishment for insubordination when Neji and Tenten refuse to debrief about that part of the whole mission, but it's a light punishment and the two teammates are very understanding about it considering the circumstances. Naruto just wonders if Lee taught any of his students the Eight Gates.
Gaara dies in his sleep.
At least this is what his wife, Keiko, claims. No one believes her at first. She's a civilian and everyone is sure she missed the signs of poisoning, or worse, did it herself.
Keiko moved with her merchant family into the village after the disaster at the chuunin exams and only ever caught the tail end of the animosity towards the now-Kazekage. A lot of people thought it strange that Gaara would marry a civilian, and for a while there were some nasty rumors about their marriage, possibly started by a few jealous kunoichi in the village. For their part, while they could never say that they saw it coming, Temari and Kankuro somehow weren't surprised at Gaara's choice.
Keiko was a kind and loving woman, but often found the dangerous side of being a shinobi difficult to deal with as a wife, which occasionally caused some tension in the marriage. She and Gaara had always worked it out, but that plus the fact that she wasn't native to Suna made some suspicious of Gaara's death.
As per procedure there is an autopsy and nothing sinister is found in the body, so Keiko is cleared. Gaara's siblings grieve, but while the former Kazekage occasionally slept after Shukaku was removed it was always very briefly, so they don't begrudge their brother his rest.
In retrospect, just as in every other case, the attack on Konoha should have been obvious. Iwa had been making its move for some time, but it was done in a way that even when looking for it no one realized what was actually happening until too late. The village is overrun with enemy shinobi and Konoha hasn't seen a battle this extensive since The Chuunin Exam and Orochimaru. Some even claim later that the damage done is reminiscent of the Kyuubi.
Kurenai goes first. In light of what happens, to the villagers every death comes 'first', but Kurenai's is the only one of Naruto's friends that he sees. Her son is facing off with a shinobi much more skilled than him and Kurenai wastes no time getting the boy out of a dangerous situation. The kunoichi clearly has the upper hand the entire time once she takes over and Naruto is debating on whether she would want his help or not when the ground shakes for a fifth time and the building Kurenai and her opponent are standing next to collapses without warning.
The Rokudaime bites back a cry as he feels her chakra suddenly snuffed out through Sage Mode and grabs her son before he can get himself killed. He finds Shikamaru easily enough, drops the boy off with the shadow ninja and races towards the Tsuchikage, determined to take him out.
It isn't that Naruto has given up on peace, but events have gotten so out of control that he feels he's lost his chance to be the one to bring it about. If only the Alliance had held out…
Instead, with the help of Shikamaru and Sasuke, Naruto has laid out a massive contingency plan for the future, banking on the idea that there will be someone else with the same dream as him and Ero-senin. Not his student certainly. He may have named the young girl his successor, but while he has no doubt she will protect Konoha and holds many of the same values as him, they had never seen eye to eye on the topic of peace. Her age isn't a problem. He has found documentation that Hiruzen had been younger than her when he had taken over as Hokage and there is no doubt she has the skill. But someone else will have to work towards peace in Naruto's place.
The tools for it are set and the clues to find them are almost in plan sight. Naruto can only leave the future of the village in the next generation's hands as has been done in all of Konoha's history.
Hinata catches up with him halfway to his goal.
"Kurenai's dead," he mentions briefly, not out of cruelty but because he didn't want to have hidden the knowledge from her with what was going to happen next.
Hinata takes in a sharp breath but this is all the indication she gives that the information is painful.
"I left her son with Shikamaru. You should go to them. It isn't going to be easy for Shikamaru to protect him and keep him from breaking down over grief."
"No." Hinata's voice is strong, calm, and certain, her grip on his arm to get him to momentarily slow down and look at her. "I know what you're planning. I'm coming with you."
It's not a suggestion or a question or a request. It is a statement of fact that she can no longer be left behind. Hinata is the Rokudaime's wife and there is no doubt in her mind that she deserves that title.
Naruto isn't so sure. "Hinata, no. I can't watch—"
"You don't have a choice," she tells him. "If you do this alone, there's still a chance that Iwa will recover enough to finish the village off. If I do this with you, Konoha is safe." Gently she cups his face, mindful that they don't have much time but desperate to convince him. "Please. Let me come with you."
The moment Naruto gives in is evident on his face and he kisses her, right in the middle of the village, of the battle, briefly but passionately. "I love you Hinata."
The way he says it can still make her blush, but she answers back with the same words, the same passion. They race off to face the end of this battle and Hinata stands with pride next to Rokudaime, next to her husband, next to Naruto as the jutsu that he created, with no small amount of horror at its discovery, consumes them both and wipes out an army.
Naruto dies like his father. Hinata dies as a shinobi. Together their death reduces the forces of Iwa so greatly that the Earth country has no effective military power and steps down as one of the five great powers of the world.
(Hinata's death leaves a vacuum of power in the Hyuuga clan, especially because she had abolished the caged bird seal and title of Main Family. In what becomes infamously known as a horrifying power struggle, Naruto and Hinata's middle child—who had always struggled with the fact that she was the weakest of the three siblings—assumes power with the blessing of the Hyuuga elders. Her first act—again, with the blessing of the elders who have barely known any different—is to reinstate the caged bird seal.
Neji, having lived outside the Hyuuga compound with Hinata's okay, manages to escape being sealed again and instead aids his cousins to remove their sister from power. They place the girl under an entirely different seal, but not before the younger boy dies. Hanabi helps the older girl execute the elders who had backed her younger niece for breaking village law.
Neji goes home to Tenten and cries on her shoulder, grief-stricken for Naruto and Hinata's broken family, their shattered peace.
Sasuke has stopped interacting with anyone, including his children. The oldest is in his late teens, which is about ten years older than when Sasuke had started taking care of himself, so he feels little guilt about that. They were more Sakura's children anyway, never having activated their Sharingan, though they looked more like Uchiha than Haruno. Most in the village wonder why Sasuke even bothers to stay, adhering to the ultimatum that he never leave the village unattended or risk execution.)
It comes as no surprise to anyone that Akamaru is the first to discover Kiba dying. What does cause confusion is that Kankuro is the first human on the scene.
Kankuro hates Kiba for what he did for a long time, and in his darker moments—the ones right before he drifts to sleep and when he's shit-faced drunk—wonders if Kiba did it on purpose. Logically he knows that the exact timing would have been impossible to plan out, but irrationally he sometimes thinks Kiba blames him, too.
What happens is this: Temari is unavailable, so Kankuro momentarily becomes the unofficial ambassador from Suna to Konoha. When he's done with his duties he decides to visit the only person that can keep him entertained in this boring little peace-loving village. Kiba, in a bizarre fit of unlogic that no one has managed to decipher yet (but Kankuro suspects had something to do with a certain Hyuuga), had decided to leave his family compound years ago and chose a building with neighbors who hated dogs, of all things, a short distance away. Unsurprisingly, Akamaru occasionally chose to venture out back to the Inuzuka compound to play with his own kind, especially when Kiba had to do Very Boring, Important, Human Things.
This was where Kankuro found Akamaru on his way to Kiba's apartment. Akamaru liked Kankuro, and he had been away from the house for a while by that point, so they walk back together, Kankuro even half-heartedly throwing a stick for Akamaru to jog up to and bring back.
They aren't that far from the house when Akamaru catches the scent of blood—Kiba's blood to be precise, and lots of it. He growls, bringing Kankuro's attention to the seriousness of the situation, and they take off towards the house. Akamaru is faster and body-checks the door in, but even he can tell that they are too late.
When Kankuro does make it in it is to the sight of Akamaru, whimpering and unsure, running around Kiba's form on the ground. Kiba is lying, kunai in hand, throat slit and blood pooling everywhere. What makes it hard to look at is that Kiba is still clearly alive but so close to death that it doesn't take long for his heart to stop. In those brief moments were he is still concious, Kankuro rushes to Kiba's side and puts his hands over the other man's throat, as if this will slow the blood or put off death. He vaguely registers that the younger man reeks of alcohol, and that several large bottles worth of sake lay discarded on the floor. Kiba's eyes catch Kankuro's before he dies, no emotion hidden in them, not sadness or fear or guilt or regret, and later (years later) Kankuro accepts that Kiba was dead before he actually died.
At the time, however, Kankuro panics. It's so stupid how he's lost his mother, his father, his younger brother, an entire team of students and watched his best friend from Suna get slaughtered, but here, now, when it's really very important that the situation not get construed badly, his mind goes blank.
Akamaru, in his grief, starts howling and then attacks Kankuro to get him away from the body. This is, of course, when ANBU show up, so that they don't see two grief-stricken friends, but an Inuzuka shinobi dog attacking an intruder with blood on his hands. By some miracle Kankuro is arrested instead of killed on the spot and spends two weeks in a Konoha cell.
Shikamaru and Temari work night and day, not only to convince everyone of Kankuro's innocence, but also to talk their respective Kages down from destroying over a decade's worth of peace between the two most powerful villages in the world. Temari is helped by the fact that the Kazekage is her former student. Shikamaru is helped more by the other Inuzuka dogs than anything. Akamaru isn't a shinobi-bred dog; he's just a very intelligent stray that Kiba found and so can't communicate in any human language. The other dogs aren't exactly stellar at getting him to talk and their loyalty to their pack makes them testy around anyone who tries to push Akamaru too hard, but eventually they have managed to coax out of him and translate to their shinobi companions that Kankuro arrived to the scene after Akamaru found his master, so the puppeteer is cleared of charges.
When Temari meets up with Kankuro to escort him home she notices that there are two suspicious tracks down his cheeks where his make-up is smeared. When she asks her younger brother if he's all right, however, he brushes her off with a curt, "Fine."
Akamaru wastes away a few weeks later and Temari never hears the name "Kiba" from her brother again.
Which isn't surprising as Temari is the next to die.
Her death is violent, probably the most violent of them all. There isn't a body to bury, not because she goes missing or it can't be recovered, but because the pieces are so unrecognizable as a human that what they cremate doesn't even make up half the mass of a human corpse. Her fan is missing, too, but nobody is willing to say whether that's because it was stolen or destroyed.
Neji would be incensed by his death if he could be. It almost seems ridiculous how he dies.
First of all, he's traveling through the Village Hidden in the Fog, a newer, very small shinobi village that no one has heard of. Or at least, everyone thinks it's new. It turns out that the village was simply so incredibly peaceful that they weren't even considered shinobi by their own country. In recent years, however, they have become bloody enough to rival the Village Hidden in the Mist in its heyday.
Neji is thinking about how accurate but redundant the village name is (everything is hidden in a fog, that's sort of the point of fog, they should just call it the Village in the Fog) when he crosses paths with a young girl. He thinks nothing of her, nothing of this tiny village and so is startled to find that his head has been cut off as part of a graduation ritual.
Tenten is just mad when she finally accepts that Neji is not coming home. Whose shoulder is she supposed to cry on, huh?
Konohamaru is next. He dies protecting Moegi, who dies protecting Udon, who—along with his student team—they had come to rescue. Their deaths are almost pointless as Udon dies protecting his students, trying to give them more time to escape. Two them die protecting each other and their third teammate, who actually does make it out of the whole mess. Unfortunately, he is so traumatized by the situation that a traveling merchant is surprised when the boy points to a hitai-ate he is carrying with the Konoha symbol and asks, "Mister, do you know what this is for?"
Tenten dies the way she lives, surrounded by metal.
The kunoichi was never very good at anything besides using weapons. Her chakra reserves are poor, even when she expands them through training, and so the only ninjutsu she focuses on are summoning jutsu for her weapons. Most people think Neji was the top of their class, Lee was the bottom and she was the one to average them out. The truth is more that Tenten was the bottom (though no where near Naruto from what she heard) and Lee kept their skill level even.
Tenten dies surrounded by enemies, exhausted with no escape. She had spent the last half hour fighting in closed quarters rendering most of her weapons useless, and with nothing but taijutsu, other ninjutsu and genjutsu to rely on she wears her chakra reserves down pretty fast. When she does break free into a room big enough to use her skills it is only to fall into an ambush. She is going to die. She is not giving up. There are just too many shinobi for there to be any other outcome.
So Tenten decides to take them with her to hell.
When her teammates find her after three hours of searching, they are stunned at the number of weapons in the area. At least sixty are embedded deeply into the walls; not because, as far as they can tell, Tenten had missed but rather because there were no more bodies to hit. Even with their combined knowledge, the two remaining Konoha shinobi can't name all the weapons Tenten had used.
Tenten likes the way her death sounds.
Shikamaru cannot believe how long it takes him to die. Not in the sense that he is one of the last of his classmates to go, but rather in the sense that it takes forever to finish bleeding out. The team he is working with won't think to come looking for him, he's taken care of that. For once in his life, the fact that he has planned things to a T, thought out every situation, has come back to kick him in the ass.
It really was one of the stupider moments of his life. Going over it again (it's not like he doesn't have the time) he thinks maybe it was the hair. Not the length—Temari's hair was always much shorter—and not the style either obviously. Just the fact that it was blonde, although to be honest the bright shade was closer to Naruto's than Temari's darker color. But it certainly wasn't the eyes. Orange was nothing like dark green. Definitely not the height. Temari would have dwarfed his opponent by a good foot, he's sure. And where Temari's smile could be sarcastic and calculating, this woman's was cruel and malicious.
She had fun killing people. She had fun playing with Shikamaru.
So really, Shikamaru isn't at all sure what it was. He just knows that, logically, it made no sense. To think, for one brief, stupid moment that if he reached out his hand, if he took that fan back he could see her face, her smile, her eyes. That behind it would be the beautiful, intelligent, strong, caring, sarcastic woman that he loved, that their son and the twins missed, that he missed every moment of every day since she had died.
Then the woman had swung Temari's fan with horrendous skill.
As he was being buffeted by the winds, Shikamaru couldn't help but think that if Temari had done it he would already be dead. If Temari had swung the fan he would have been shredded, the way she had been. If Temari had swung the fan it would never have been slammed into the tree that bitch was standing near.
Instead, all it did was slice into his chest deep enough to be a mortal wound, but not deep enough to kill him instantaneously. The rest of the wind tossed him around, and when he heard several cracks he didn't have to feel the pain to know that it wasn't the tree or the fan that had broken.
She almost finished him off, but shinobi instinct had Shikamaru playing dead and her teammates came to collect her, barely, to finish up their mission, what they were actually supposed to be doing.
So Shikamaru waits as he slowly bleeds out. Both his arms are broken, one above the elbow, so there was no putting pressure on it, and he didn't have to be Sakura to know that the human foot should not be facing 180 degrees in the wrong direction. Not that he could feel it with a broken back.
"So… trouble—augh, ahhhh, gaaah…" he coughs and tries again. "Trouble—un—some."
It wasn't like his team would be lost without him. All his plans had factored in the possibility that he wouldn't make it to them in time. So normally, the mission should have been completed, despite his death.
The one thing he hadn't counted on was that damn fan.
There was no point worrying about it now. Nothing he can do. Luckily he had landed in an area that was relatively clear, so he could see the sky easily.
Shikamaru also dies the way he lived, staring at the clouds and wishing his mind would just. Shut. U—
Sasuke's death reveals a pretty big secret; although everyone involved dies so nothing really comes of it.
Sasuke had been about to leave the village after Naruto's death. It wasn't necessarily intentional at first, but after he stepped out the door he found himself walking to the training grounds where the Gravestone sat and realized he was on his way to say goodbye. Not to Sakura or Naruto- their graves were in the cemetery. Not to any of his fallen classmates- he held no love for any of them, seeing as how they were on the side of Konoha. He didn't think it was to Kakashi either, although perhaps this would suffice. Not to Itachi, and not to his family- Konoha was not a place to say goodbye to them.
Maybe, he thought, I'm just going…to say goodbye to me.
When he got there, however, the training grounds were occupied. It was a young boy, probably around his youngest son's age, most likely still a genin. In fact, he realized, definitely still a genin. The kid's fighting skills were mediocre at best and the way he was training meant it would be a miracle if he improved at all. Resigning himself to leaving the village without much closure, Sasuke had turned around.
The electric explosion nearly touched his back. The hair on his neck rose up and the heat was intense. When he turned back around there were scorch marks in the grass, but the young boy seemed unharmed, at least physically.
He stared at his hands for a while, not saying anything. Sasuke tried to decide if he should just leave or ask the kid what the hell that was. He was leaning towards the latter, studying him and realizing that his chakra stores were almost as vast as Naruto (and before he could stop himself he was thinking damn it, not again) when the boy started laughing.
It wasn't a 'oh my god I can't believe I did that' laugh, or a 'that was hilarious!' laugh, or an embarrassed laugh, or any normal kind of laugh. This was Gaara at his worst, Kabuto when Orochimaru's DNA had broken down his mind, Juugo when the lust for blood was at it's peak. This was a laugh that came from everywhere, and nowhere, that was painful and thrilling, but most of all it was utterly, utterly terrifying to the person experiencing it.
He's Konohajin, Sasuke told himself, it doesn't matter. But Sasuke had felt that explosion, had felt the lack of control and knew if someone didn't rein it in, Konoha would be destroyed by one of its own. His sons would die by this stupid boy's hands. Sakura's children would be obliterated by someone terrified of his own mind.
Sasuke decided he wouldn't lose any more of his family to stupidity.
Stepping towards the genin, he radiated intent and introduced himself.
"Shut up."
Immediately the boy stopped laughing and looked at him warily.
From there it was easy to find out the kid's history. He was a genin, close to the bottom of his class, but unlike Naruto there was never any improvement. He wasn't hesitant to fight when he needed to, but he was no Rock Lee either. More like Hinata when they were his age but not as strong mentally. The kid's team had been on a simple C rank mission, but in a rather annoying coincidence by Sasuke's reckoning, their mission had turned into an A rank surprisingly fast. The kid's team hadn't been as lucky as Team 7. One of his teammates had died right in front of him, and his mind wasn't able to handle it. At the same time that he had a psychotic break, a new kekkei genkai had activated. His sensei and remaining teammate watched in horror as the kid used the lighting element combined with genjutsu (or something similar to it, his sensei was never really able to define it clearly) to torture the enemy shinobi who had killed his teammate. As far as they could tell, he was manipulating the man's nervous system and mind to have him screaming with terror and pain.
It wasn't without consequences, Sasuke noticed. Just by the kid's hand movements the Uchiha could tell he had nerve damage. If he used his ability too long, the kid's own body would break down, but he had no way of controlling it yet which was why Sasuke had found him training alone in an attempt to keep from hurting anyone. If he could teach the kid control and train him to fight competently enough that he rarely felt threatened, then maybe he wouldn't obliterate the mind of everyone in Konoha. So Sasuke took on his first student.
There was just one problem. It was illegal for Sasuke to have a student.
Naruto had managed to convince the village to take his best friend back, and Sasuke had made it no secret that he was there for Naruto and everyone else could go to hell. So the council, and a little more reluctantly Tsunade, had set down some conditions for his entrance back into Konoha.
1) Naruto was responsible for Sasuke's actions. This meant that if Sasuke unjustly murdered anyone, Naruto would also be executed. Essentially, they had just held Naruto hostage, but Naruto either didn't notice or didn't care.
2) Sasuke was not allowed to leave the village unsupervised or he would immediately be considered a missing-nin and killed on sight this time.
3) He was never to take on a student. The council hadn't wanted him to instill his beliefs on young impressionable minds. This included his own children, which was part of the reason they had never managed to active their Sharingan. If he did take on a student, he and the child would be executed immediately to prevent them from turning against Konoha.
This meant that Sasuke and his new student had to train secretly. It also meant that he nearly killed the boy twice in the first month.
He believed the only way to get the kid to improve was to push him beyond what he perceived as his limits. By the end of a training session with him, Sasuke's student could barely breath and was so sore that opening his eyes felt painful. It was about a week and a half in the first time the boy nearly died. Sasuke wasn't paying attention as much as he should have, so focused on the fact that he had almost mastered the skill they were working on, and so he didn't notice how dehydrated the kid was until he collapsed mid swing. Since he couldn't take the boy to the hospital, Sasuke frantically tried to remember everything Sakura had ever mentioned on the subject. Somehow the boy made it through and he told him to go home and recover the next day.
The second time was more direct. It was towards the end of the month when their paths crossed in the village and Sasuke feared that the kid's eyes would show recognition. The shuriken twitched in his hands as he prepared to run from the village. His student was the only thing holding him here, if he killed the boy he would be free to leave. Instead he looked past Sasuke and waved to a friend. At least that was what the Uchiha assumed. When the boy ran past him he didn't bother to turn around and watch.
There were other close calls over the years, but slowly the teen gained skill enough that he managed to pass jounin level and control enough that Sasuke no longer feared a random explosion of power. His mind never healed, however. Sasuke always felt a detached desire from him, one that didn't always see the other Konoha villagers as people but as objects to test his ability on, to understand what it would be like to manipulate a person's mind like clay with his hands, to make them scream in agony long after they were dead.
A year after Shikamaru is killed, Konoha is attacked again, this time by the new Raikage. The Seventh Hokage performs admirably, directing her forces where they need to be, but she has no fuuinjutsu to seal her opponent, no ninjutsu to annihilate them, no massive reserves of chakra to heal her forces, and slowly Konoha wears down.
Sasuke is not surprised when his student comes to the Hokage. He knows from experience that, while lightening abilities slow the boy down, it is almost unnoticeable in the face of his psychosis and chakra reserves, the way Naruto's injuries never slowed him down when the Kyuubi's chakra crept into his system. He also knows that the kid's parents were killed within the first minutes of the battle and that any semblance of control he had is quickly slipping away.
When the Hokage asks the younger man what he wants, Sasuke sees the terror in his student's eyes as his laughter takes over his ability to talk again and the Uchiha radiates intent until the boy can control himself enough to speak.
"Hey, hey, sensei, have you told them? Have you told them? Can I fight, too? Can I, can I? I want to play so bad it hurts. My head hurts so much sensei, let me have some fun…" He giggles and pulls at his hair and everyone around them can tell he's lost his mind, but he's looking straight at the Hokage, so Naruto's student has to ask.
"Who the hell is he talking to?"
Sasuke figures the game is up. There is only one way for this to end for his student, and he still means to protect his sons even though they are adults, competent shinobi in their own right, and he hasn't spoken to them since Naruto's death.
"He's speaking to me."
Everyone in the command center knows what this means and the tension level rises exponentially. Sasuke's student laughs again as if it's the funniest thing he's seen all day.
"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't kill you both right here," the Hokage says. Sasuke knows she intends to kill him eventually, but she's Naruto's student and she understands how much Sasuke meant to her sensei, so out of difference to Naruto she is giving him a chance to explain himself.
"Since I am his teacher, you can't deny that I know his abilities. Let him fight his way. He'll turn the tide of the battle."
"He's one shinobi! What can he do that the rest of us haven't already tried?"
Sasuke doesn't answer. The Hokage will either agree to it or not. In the end Naruto's student knows Sasuke has no love for the village, but has chosen to stay despite her sensei's death. She figures there's a reason and so decides to trust, not Sasuke, but the faith her predecessor had in the rogue ninja.
"Go," she agrees and spends the rest of her life wondering if she should regret the decision.
Sasuke takes down about a third of the Cloud forces left. His student takes down the rest. It isn't the trauma of the fight that scars the villager's nightmares in later years. It's the screams they hear coming up from the darkness—hours after the battle has ended—the screams that never stop when they wake up that morning. Centuries later, after Naruto's plan unfolds with the help of a young boy from the Village Hidden in the Mist, there are ghost stories about the dumping grounds for enemy bodies saying that if you put you're ear to the ground you can hear the skeletons shrieking in pain.
Sasuke meets up with the Hokage again when there are only a dozen enemy shinobi left. His student will handle them easily enough, and will probably find amusement in torturing the last corpse. Instead he turns to Naruto's student, knowing the question she will ask before it leaves her lips.
"How do we stop him?"
"You don't," he answers calmly having realized this years before.
The Hokage is furious. "You let me set a psychotic man loose with no way to stop him?"
"No," he replies, "You don't stop him. At this point, no one can stop him. He's too far-gone, too lost in the madness. Even if we could stop him, he's been going for hours straight. I'm fairly certain he's manipulating his own nervous system to keep himself breathing. His ability is too corrosive to his body. The only option left is to kill him."
The Hokage's blood freezes. She understands now why so many people are afraid of the Last Uchiha. To willingly send your own student out, to advocate it knowing that their only option is death was beyond cruel, beyond cold. There was no feeling to it, only calculation. Uchiha Sasuke had just calculated the murder of his student.
Sasuke glances to the side and then rolls his eyes. "Relax girl. I'll do it. It will take care of this whole mess quickly and save you the trouble of killing me yourself. Besides, I'm getting tired." His gaze suddenly takes on a far away look and something resembling sadness briefly crosses his face. "I miss…"
But Sasuke never says what he misses. Instead he turns to the two ANBU who have been standing silently beside the Hokage the entire time and tells them, "I'll let your mother know you said hello." The ANBU on her right, the one she knows is younger, reaches out a hand but the Last Uchiha has already vanished into the air, running up the building his student stands on.
The young man is facing his teacher the entire time but doesn't flinch, even when the sword pierces through his gut. Instead he smiles as the blood pours from his lips and almost lovingly reaches his hands around his sensei's face.
The ANBU on the Hokage's right clutches his ears. The ANBU on her left cries silent tears as they listen to their father die in agony.
"And that's about all I was able to find out about Sasuke's death," Kankuro tells the figure in the bed.
The old man raises his eyebrow slightly. "I'm suddenly concerned for the safety of Konoha if that's 'all' you're able to find out."
Kankuro smiles reassuringly, "Relax, the future of your village is in good hands. Rokudaime Hokage-sama's student is a very capable leader. I didn't get any of that from snooping around in Konoha's reports."
"Then how…" The question trails off into a cough as the old man's weakened lungs give out on him for a moment.
Kankuro answers anyway. "Kiba introduced me to a lot of his family. I think it was a pack thing. 'If the family doesn't approve…'" he shrugs and lets the figure in front of him fill in the blanks. He's rather impressed with himself that there is no longer any hesitation when he says Kiba's name. "I still keep in touch with a lot of them when I visit. I think some of them are even grateful that I was there for Kiba in his last moments. Kind of stupid when you think that if I had gotten there a few minutes earlier I might have saved him."
The older man looks out the window with a faraway gaze. "Sometimes people have to reassure themselves about their loved one's deaths in anyway the can."
Kankuro doesn't answer for a moment, feeling for the hundredth time in these visits like he is intruding on something personal, not meant for him to see. Sometimes the puppeteer isn't sure why he comes here and can only assume that it's because the old man is the last. Maybe he's looking for a connection that was never really there.
"Well, I'll say one thing about the Inuzuka. When they're loyal to you, you couldn't pry their mouth open with a crowbar. Get them in a roomful of people they trust, though, and it's pretty amazing how much they're willing to gossip. Plus they knew who I was reporting to, and I think they see you as one of their own in a weird way."
This time it's the old man who doesn't answer and Kankuro gets the feeling that their meeting is over. It's a shame, he's pretty sure this is the last time, too. Slowly he gets up, grabbing his scrolls before heading towards the door. He's about to grab the handle when the patient speaks up again.
"Kankuro…" The puppeteer stops and waits for the question. He's never managed to ask it before, but this time is different, this time is the last and Kankuro thinks it's too important to the old man not to say it now. Still, it's obviously hard for him to ask it. There's a full minute before he says another word.
"Do you think it's shameful for a shinobi to waste away like this? To not be able to fight when all the others…"
It's not exactly what Kankuro was expecting, but at the same time it's not a surprise. The old man's illness came as a shock to everyone, and the slow pace it set to eat away at his body, to deteriorate his functioning piece by piece hadn't been easy for anyone to watch, least of all his beloved students. Kankuro knew, through bits and pieces from the Inuzuka that the old man had lost everyone before. To watch it happen again, powerless to stop it must have been torture.
But Kankuro has already lost one friend who couldn't stand the pain. As much as he cared for Kiba, he still sometimes resents him for his choice and thinks that the old man's students would have hated it more if he had given up. That isn't the answer the old man needs to hear though, so instead Kankuro answers like this:
"You're Hatake Kakashi, the Copy Cat Ninja. If you didn't show up late to something, I'm not sure they'd know what to do with you."
Kakashi leans back into his pillows with a small laugh. "So you have no plans to join me then?"
Kankuro snorts in amusement. "Are you kidding? I still owe that little upstart, dead last ninja you taught for saving my brother. I've got to stick around to make sure this place stays standing. Plus my nephew is talking about some weird new alliance between Konoha and Suna. He's kind of pissed off that his father was from Konoha and his brother has citizenship here but he can't come visit whenever he wants because he's the big shot Kazekage now. Temari'd kill me if I went and left her son to do something stupid that broke Gaara and Naruto's peace. And that's not even touching on the fact that my new genin team can't even hold their kunai at the right end yet."
Kakashi's smile is hidden under his mask, but Kankuro can see it in his eye. "Sounds like you've got your hands full. You better get going then or the next Ninja War will start in your absence."
"Don't remind me," the younger man mutters under his breath as he opens the door and walks out giving a wave.
The visitors from Suna stick around for another week, so Kankuro hears almost immediately three days later from the Hokage that the Copy Cat Ninja's heart had given out over night. He shows up for a funeral with no other attendees, to find that they've already buried the body.
He doesn't think Kakashi would mind.
Hurray for angst \ o / ! Sorry if Kiba seems pretty OOC. I was going for a variety of circumstances and no one really seems like the type to commit suicide, so I picked him. In my defense, I tried to make the circumstances of his death extraordinary (ie he never would have done it if Akamaru had been around and he wasn't wasted.)
And interestingly enough while trying to avoid the stereotype of making all my throwaway OC's male or genderless I have fallen into the trap of making most of them female. (Sasuke's student was also supposed to be female until I realized what happened and changed it.) This makes them seem suspiciously like Mary-Sue's or self-inserts, which just means I have a long way to go before becoming a decent writer.
If you have any suggestions or comments, please don't hesitate to review. The only thing not welcome are flames.