Title: The Funeral
Summary: Naruto reflects on a love lost at their funeral and tells them how much he really cares and will miss them now that they are gone. Hope you like.
Disclaimer: I own nothing!
Author's note: First Naruto fanfic ever so please be nice. Constructive criticism only.
Key:
Flashback
Flashback in a flashback
'Thought'
"Speech"
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I listened to the people as they shuffled in behind me in the graveyard each taking their carefully rehearsed seat so that everything would be perfect. Why did everything have to be so perfect for something like this? I did not turn in my seat because I already knew who was sitting behind me. They where offering me words of comfort and sympathy, two things someone in my state did not need. I looked up just in time to notice Tsunade and Kakashi standing at the podium together both on the verge of tears. I could hear Iruka telling me everything would be alright but I beg to differ.
"Today we mark the passing of a great shinobi Sa-" I blanked out before the name could conclude not wanting to hear their name ever again. Tears began to streak down my face as though I had not spent the last two nights crying them dry. I could feel Iruka's warm hands on my back trying to comfort my but his hands where not the ones I wanted to feel.
I remember it like it was only yesterday; well it was only a week ago.
I had been called to the Hokage tower for an emergency meeting. Since I was technically the acting Hokage with Tsunade acting as my proxy. When I arrived I remembered how eerily quiet the room had been. How everything appeared to move slower as though time was coming to a stop. Lying on the floor of the Hokage's office, no lying on the floor of my office was one of my precious people barely hanging onto life. I had immediately gone to my knees and lifted her head.
"Hinata what happened?" I asked in a gentle voice while moving some of her blood matted hair from her face. She looked at me with grave eyes as she motioned for something in her left breast pouch of her ANBU Medic Uniform. I gently opened the pouch and looked inside upon seeing the object I looked at her with shocked and disbelief.
"No, Hinata tell me it's not true!" I shouted suddenly loosing control over myself. She simply nodded her head to confirm my suspicion and I could feel the tears begin to fall. "Where are the bodies, Hinata?" I asked in a suddenly serious voice. Hinata moved to speak but instead managed to only spit up blood on herself and my protruding stomach. "Tsunade you have to stabilize her so we can find out where the others are."
"Brat I'm trying." Tsunade shouted as she began hooking Hinata up to the Hokage's private medical equipment which was kept in a hidden room in the office. Soon Hinata's heart calmed and the young woman was going into surgery to have her internal organs fully checked. I asked her again where the others where and she managed to say, "Valley of the End." before she passed out.
"...this shiobi's valiant efforts to protect the people of Konoha will never be forgotten. Sa-" Tsunade's voice suddenly pierced through my musing but I drifted out again as their name was mentioned. I wiped the tears from my eyes with a hand and looked to my left at the miniature version of my lover sitting beside me. Just looking at Kenji hurt me too much. I took my son's hand in mine and kissed it tears rushing a new from my face.
I stood in the clearing with my clean up team surveying the damage. I looked at the bodies of my men wishing I did not have to. Hinata was expected to make a full recovery but what good was it now that Kiba was gone? His body lay beside Akamaru unmoving and still. Both where currently being taken from the tree branches their bodies had fallen during the attack. It appeared that Kiba had bled to death probably fighting until the end; it appeared after all by their body temperatures that Kiba had out lived his fateful companion. I shook my head again as I turned and walked a little in the direction I came upon another precious person, one of the few that had remained close to my heart since the beginning of my chunnin days, since we'd had never been very close as gennin. Neji lay unmoving from where his body had fallen kunai lodged in his back just below the 3rd vertebrate. Which explained Hinata's horrible injuries; I could almost bet that Neji took most of the hits meant for her. Neji's body lay flat out in the path most likely where he had fallen after being fatally wounded from the puddle around him he died quickly. What was I going to tell Gaara or little Daichi and Hina? As I continued down the path that lead to Konoha, I could feel the tears falling from my eyes even though I had not seen the body yet I was already crying.
"Naruto you don't want to see. We'll take the body back to the village and clean him up first. Okay." I heard the ANBU I knew to be Sakura tell me but I felt my feet moving on their own towards a circle of ANBU. I stood behind them and motioned from them to move and spoke with a powerful voice.
There he lay in the moonlight pale skin glowing between rivers of drying crimson. I stared at my lovely raven haired prince as he rested in a very comfortable position. "You knew didn't you teme?" I said in a cold voice as tears continued to fall down my cheeks. "You knew you weren't coming back!" I shouted falling to my knees before the broken body of my lover. "My poor Sasuke, I'm sorry you had to do this to yourself and that you had to die alone. I should have been here for you." I cried as I looked at the mutilated body of my lover.
"As a precaution and for the safely of the village and our child, Naruto and I have decided..." Sasuke had begun his proposition before the Council, Clan Elders, and Hokage with her ANBU guard (me in disguise). "Should I fall in battle and am able to remain aware for only a few moments I will use those moments to destroy the Sharingan by ruining my eyes any way I see fit. Does the council agree to my pack?" Sasuke concluded waiting for a response.
The council voted unanimously to except the Uchiha's offer.
Sasuke's dark coal eyes which matched so perfect his raven hair now gouged out with the bloody kunai that lay at his side in a limp hand. I leaned forward over the body of my love and gently peeled back an eye lid just to ensure for myself and for Sasuke that he had indeed destroyed the Sharingan. Sure enough the only thing behind the lid was blood. I stood up from my men walked into the bushes and vomited before breaking down and falling into uncontrollable sobs. The fact that I was eight month's pregnant did not help any.
Sakura and Lee had to take me back home to the Uchiha district and dismiss the guards there for the night as they helped me lay in bed. I had fought them saying it wasn't right to sleep there without Sasuke. I was hysteric by the sudden loss of my most Precious Person. Finally Sakura was able to lie me down; just as my head had hit the pillow the door to my room slid open. I was still crying but I could hear Kenji's worried voice.
"Auntie Sakura what's wrong with my Mommy? Where is Daddy? He knows how to make Mommy stop crying." His small voice barely reached my ears as I felt the wetness form around my thighs my water had broken. "Mommy?!" Kenji shouted but I had blacked out.
Tsunade finished the eulogy by saying "Sasuke Uchiha was the last of the Uchiha but with the birth of his son, Kenji Namikaze, the Sharingan will live on. Naruto do you have anything you would like to say?" She looked at me with her make up running from all the tears she had shed. Kakashi looked at me too hoping I would say something. I look down at Kenji who looks up at me with those dark eyes that remind me so much of Sasuke. I nodded and moved to stand motioning for Kenji to walk with me to the podium.
"Where to begin... of course at the beginning when I met you on the dock that day..." I say as I begin to recount my childhood experiences with Sasuke to everyone listening, being sure to bring up the times Kiba, Sasuke and I trained together, the times Neji and I would go on missions to Suna together, the special moments team 7 had and before I knew it I had recounted our whole life together, all ten years. (Counted as the months they where on team 7 and then nine years after Sasuke comes back from Orochimaru which in this time line is when Sasuke and Naruto where 18. Current age is 28 for Naruto and Sasuke the month is December.)
'Getting up the morning of Sasuke's funeral was the hardest thing I ever had to do. With Haru now crying to be fed and Kenji needing to be bathed and dressed for the day I was over come with loneliness.' I sigh to myself as I remember this morning.
'I could swear I heard you laughing at me from the door way like you always did when I got in over my head but I realize something Teme you're really not there.' A tear falls from my right eyes.
"I wanted so badly to believe that the events that took place a week ago where merely some kind of dream, put today with the last of my pained precious people put to rest I am able to say I have woken up. Konoha has lost three great Shinobi last week due to the unethical tactics of our enemy The Sound. I promise I will protect Konoha to the best of my abilities as your leader and will not hide any longer in the shadows." I say in a confident voice to my remaining precious people. Many of them shocked that I have revealed myself as their Hokage.
I had looked out into the crowd and swore I saw you there smiling at me. Your smile was something special only I got to see and I'm happy for it. "Good bye love." I whisper to myself as I watch the spirit disappear.
"To my love Sasuke, you have finally gone somewhere I can't bring you back. Congrads, you are the only person to ever out run one of Konoha's Yellow Flashes." I wipe a final tear from my left eye as Haru shifts against my chest. "I would like to thank you for coming today. It means a lot of my sons and I. I know Sasuke thanks you as well." I say in a somber voice. Many in the audience to shocked to speak. Those who were not in ANBU after all have no idea that I am the true Hokage and that I am the son of the Legendary Hero the Fourth Hokage.
"Mommy look," Kenji says to me pointing out past the people sitting in the crowd staring at us. "Look..." he says again. I look at him and notice his eye have bleed red.
"Sharingan." I whisper as I follow his pointing finger. I look out past the people and see it too. Sasuke standing there again only this time not alone. Next to him are his parents, Mikoto, Fugaku with Itachi, Shisui and Obito. He looks at his parents and point to me smiling. His father who Sasuke said was always too hard to please look at me with an analytical glare before it softens and he nods to his son. Mikoto looks at Haru in my arms and Kenji by my side and waves a little, Kenji waves back. Itachi, Obito and Shisui look at me with mixed feeling. Itachi glared his cold glare. Shisui gave a soft more analytical glare. Obitio smiled and placed a hand behind his head, a move Naruto himself did in his younger days. I reach into my pocket and retrieve the item Hinata had carried back to the village for me. It was the necklace Itachi always wore with a ring attached to it.
I looked around as the people began to file out of the rows and towards the reception area. When they where all gone but a few I looked at the grave of my lover. I tell him sadly with eyes so dry they hurt because I cannot tear anymore.
I look at Kenji. 'Now he has no father Teme. Heh... how funny right Bastard?'
I look at Haru in my arms he looks back at me with large blue eyes and I smile. His hair is blond with back sprouts. I stare into his eyes for a few more moments before I feel a hand take mine. It's Kenji, he's ready to go. So I look back at the grave one last time and say.
"I miss you."
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End.
First ever Naruto Fan fiction tell me what you think. Please no flames cuz they are not welcome. All comments are taken to heart. Thank you.
Lokivsanubis
