Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or any of its characters, merchandise, TV rights, ect… (I think you get the point.)

Summery

ONE SHOT – Through the rain and the darkness he wondered if it was an angel that he was seeing.

Like all of my work this is just something that happened to float through the empty void inside my head. Like it or hate it please R and R as honest opinions are always welcomed, as are random acts of worship.

Lamb: I'm not really too sure what this is, I just kinda went on a description binge and this is the end result. I don't really know what to make of it but I thought I'd let you make up your own minds.

Muse: Yep, it might be a load of crap, but it's our load of crap so no stealing.

Dedi: The fic thief is back and had him in a right old state. This fic is dedicated to Drunksonic, and AkemiYumikov3, and since these are the authors of the three stolen fics. So Drunksonic, and AkemiYumikov3, this is for you.

Lamb: As always sorry for any bad spelling and if you feel the need to throw things at me please wait until I've hidden behind the sofa kay!?

Muse: On with the fic!

There's another world inside of me that you may never see,
There's secrets in this life I can't hide,
Well, somewhere in this darkness, there's a light that I can't find
Well, maybe its to far away, maybe I'm just blind,
Maybe I'm just blind,

Maybe

The world around him seemed to be melting, dissolving, even as the inky tides of oblivion reached out to drag him backwards into the ever waiting darkness. Mud coated his back, sapping what little of his strength remained as he tried in vain to pull himself free of the oozing mass that clung to him and held him nailed to the ground. Soft and slippery, it seeped between his fingers when his hands convulsed against his will as pain assaulted him.

He was dying, he knew it now and was no longer able to hide from the fact. Life was flowing from his body faster than the blood that was leaking from the three deep gashes that had penetrated his torso. It looked as if the voices in his mind had been right after all, he should never have returned to Konoha. Or maybe he was meant to come home, for that was what it was, what it would always be.

The rage and hatred had filled his heart, the betrayal festering like poison within his breast. And the loss, another wave of pain swept through him. The blood that he had spilled, trying to use the crimson flood to block out the burning lust for revenge that filled him. Only then to find out the truth. It seemed that he had not learnt the lesson the first time round and now here he was having tried to play the same game once more.

And he had lost yet again.

His limbs were leaden, now too heavy for him to even raise his hand to brush the rain out of his eyes. It was not really rain he thought, but a shifting sort of mist that soaked anything and everything it touched. But the strange thing, or so it seemed to him, was that as he lay on the sodden ground staring up into the sky he could still see the stars. They festooned the dark vault of heaven too gaudy in all their glittering brightness, as if someone had emptied a jewel box on a sheet of black velvet.

Without really thinking his mind turned to thoughts of those people he had lost. The comrades that had come with him tonight, no doubt now all either dead or captured, but he did not really care for any of them and could not find it within him self to grieve at their passing. From there to the family he had lost and that pain tore savagely inside of his heart, ripping at him with needle sharp talons. But swiftly on its heels came the memory of those he had left behind.

The people of Konoha, like the village its self, they had been his home but he had turned his back and walked away from them all. He wondered what his life would have been like if he had never left, if he had stayed and built a home and life here with the people who loved and cared from him. It wasn't pain, for he knew that serpent's sting well, what welled deep within him was a desperate, almost furtive longing, for the life that could have been his.

It was both life and death to him. He had always known that his days would come to and end in this place, the wind stirring the leaves like voices that whispered of his passing. But who was their now who would morn the end of his life? Everything in his life that had been bright and good he had wiped out. Snuffing out that brightness as easily as someone might blow out a candle.

The friends he had lost along the way, would they miss him? Or would the tears they shed be for the person he had once been? Would they cry for the person that he had killed so many years ago, taking care to wipe out any trace that he had once existed? For as long as he could remember he had always been on his own, a lone wolf, who neither needed nor wanted the companionship of others. But lying amide the dead souls in the after math of a battle where he had tried to destroy the village that had given him life for the first time in his life he felt lonely.

Tears slipped from his eyes and instantly mixed with the rainwater that coated his pale skin. They said that before death life flashed before ones eyes, but no one had ever warned him that when it happened he would be able to find the answers for the questions he had had. He hadn't been told that he would be able to see every wrong decision that he had ever made and that he would know what it was he should have done. No one had told him that when he looked back on his life he would see how alone he truly was.

Then suddenly though the rain she started to appear, in the darkness she almost seemed to materialise before him as if she were made of the rain its self. Almost as if in his last moments the world was taking pitting on him. In the darkness, with only the faint light of the stars flickering through the ever-shifting rains his new companion did not seem entirely really. She appeared somehow ethereal, like a creature that was not entirely earth bound.

The fabric of her out fit though dark in colour, was made darker still by the water that saturated it. Water that also ran in steady rivulets over skin that was of such a pale creamy hue it almost seemed to be translucent. But here and there it was a wash with a light pink shade where blood from the fresh cuts she bore painted the skin with the rosy tint. She knelt beside him, shifting her weight slightly as she settled on the ground, her expression a strange mix of sadness, anger and a world wearied resignation.

"Are you dead?"

Ice blue looked down at the man who had once been the boy that she had loved. She remembered that pain that had filled her, blooming like a bloody rose inside the hollow cavity of her chest, when she had learnt of his betrayal. But all too soon that pain had fled and left nothing in its place, she had been left empty and somehow separated from her life. Maybe she had been dying slowly, piece by piece every since. If she lifted her heart to her ear the kunoichi wondered if she would hear the sea.

"Maybe."

Any other time, any other place and he would have laughed, for how could someone answer such as question as she had just done. But looking up at her, that oddly pale complexion that some how gave her a strange other worldly beauty, he could not have said truthfully if she were fully dead or alive. For all he knew she could be hanging in the limbo that separated the living and the dead. The hand with which she brushed the hair from his eyes was a cold as if the limb, with its long and slender fingers, had been carved from marble.

"Did I kill you?"

A slight smile curved her lips but the gesture did not reach her eyes which held a deep sadness as if she had seen too much of the horror that the world contained. Had he killed her? She pondered the question. He had been the beginning of her end of that she was sure, but others had taken bits of her over the years. Slowly but surely people had drained her of all that she had to give until all that was left was a ragged scrap of colour snagged on the branches of her barren life.

"Maybe."

He did not wonder about her response, it didn't seem strange that she would not give him a straight answer. She was so pale, like a ghost, her skin as pale as an angel's skull but he didn't believe in angels. His mother had though, when he was young his mother would tell him that there would always be angels watching over him, that they watched over everyone. He looked up into the extraordinary light blue eyes set in a face framed by wet strands of pale gold hair and smiled softly.

"Are you an Angel?"

In spite of all the silent promises she had made to herself as she slowly approached the spot where his mutilated body lay spread-eagled in the mud, she could not stop the slight skip of her heart at his curious question. She was so many different things, as all kunoichi needed to be. She was cold, cruel and calculating, when everything was on the line she was heartless killer. But underneath that harsh exterior she possessed as warm and loving heart. Throughout her life she had been called many things, a bitch, a hero, a troublesome loudmouth and loyal friend. But an angel…

"Maybe."

If he had the strength he would have laughed at her expression. She looked so much like a confused child, a young girl who was trying to work out whether or no he was teasing her. That slightly bemused yet irritated look in soft pupiless eyes stirred at something in his memory, but even as he turned to examine it closer it slipped away from him. Just as everything was always slipping away from him. His family. His purpose. And now even his very life was fleeing from him.

"I think you are."

She was not sure what it was the prompted her action. Perhaps it was simply that in spite of all that had passed between them, the long years that separated them some part of her still deeply cared for the boy he had once been. Maybe it was that enemy or not she could not bare the thought of him believing that even in his final moments he was still all alone. Though most of all she thought it was the self-assured, confident tone of his voice, because more than anything she wanted someone to believe in her.

With fingers so numb from the icy rain she could hardly move them she tenderly took one of his hands in hers, exerting just enough pressure so he would know she was there. He watched as the sad half smile once more pulled at her lips, but it was so hard to keep his eyes open. The blessed emptiness of oblivion was dragging at him and he no longer had the strength to fight. But it didn't really matter, not anymore.

"Angel."

It was a breathless sigh, yet he sounded contented as if he had finally found something for which he had been searching all his life. The grip he had had upon her hand slackened, the fingers loosening one by one, before his hand relaxed completely and almost slipped from her grasp. Carefully she positioned the limb, folding it across his chest so that his palm covered the spot where his silent heart rested. Before finally she reached out and gently, with the ease of long practice, closed his eyes for the final time.

"Maybe."

Lamb: Like I said before I'm not really sure what to make of this.

Muse: No Stealing! (waves ninjaken around)

Dedi: (nods) And Drunksonic, and AkemiYumikov3, we hope you liked it.

Please R and R I'd love to know what you thought.

Big luv see ya

Lamanth