The rain was heresy. It had no shame, no remorse, it just went on showering people like there was no tomorrow. Ruining perfect grace, marring the thoughts on which we wanted to remember someone. My mask plastered to my face. I wore two today so no one would see my lip quiver.
It was shaking almost uncontrollably.
We all stared at the unmoving orange body that seemed to slowly lose its life though it was already dead. With the color gone from his cheeks, he no longer looked like the whiskered Naruto they knew and loved. Knew.
Tsunade bit her lip as she bent down to the mahogany coffin and rested her hand on his chest. I saw her back muscles tense and her arms straighten. Was she really going to try again? Slowly, her hands began to light up as she put a healing jutsu into effect-her most powerful one at that. The bead on her forehead disappeared as she continued. He still didn't respond. No one moved, or spoke, or even ridiculed her futile attempts-for they'd tried too. Tears spilled down her sun kissed cheeks and onto his. I pitied her; this was probably a bad reoccurrence of déjà-vu in her mind. To remember back to when she couldn't save Dan, her lover; or her brother, which resembled Naruto so very much—the very thought sickened me and cut my thoughts off, only to direct them towards Obito. Obito…my hand unconsciously came up to my left eye. I smirked. Those two were so boisterous, so full of life, so wonderfully and madly energetic about the future only to have their dreams cut off short. I diverted my attention back towards Tsunade. Her blond pigtails feel forward and brushed his nose. Naruto always hated when they did that. It made him sneeze.
Sadly, He didn't sneeze this time.
"I-I'm s-sorry, N-Naruto," she choked on her own words. I felt the lump rising in my throat also. She blamed herself. She was, after all, the Hokage. No one blamed her though. Her eyes squeezed tightly closed and an array of tears spilled from her lifeless eyes. "I-I'm sorry I, I let them get you..." her knuckles tightened on the coffin's edge. "I should have been there." Her voice cracked. "I should have...I should have...I shouldn't have given you that necklace. Y-you're the idiot for making that deal with me," she held the wood so tightly it cracked. "Shizune told you!" she screamed in anguish, breaking into a flurry of chokes and sputters, tears that knew no end. It hurt to see Godiname this depressed. Shizune stepped forward and held Tsunade by the arm, starting to pull her away, Tsunade tugged back and kissed him gently on the forehead, making sure to place it exactly where she did every time. His lips partly slightly as hers pressed his head into the pillow. Tsunade allowed Shizune to pull her away from her beloved Naruto. Countless raindrops mixed with tears of grief. Like I said...
The rain had no remorse.
I looked around. Hinata was sobbing into Neji's shoulder-the first hint of compassion between the two cousins. Neji glanced down at her and pushed the stray hair behind her ear. He looked to the sky with those clear, clear eyes, as if looking for and thanking the mercy that allowed the rain to fall harder and drown out her sobs. Her fingers pressed into his toned chest, and his hair fell straight as it grew damper. How long had they been standing out there? An hour, maybe longer? It didn't matter. No one wanted to leave. Kiba, Shikamaru, Sai, Chouji, Ino, everyone else-all friends of his, all people he would have risked his life for and never turned down.
Sakura stepped up and buried her face in Naruto's clothes. "Idiot, y-you weren't supposed to die." She stroked his face lovingly and forced a slight smile. Her voice hoarsened to a whisper. "So wake up, okay Naruto? Please, wake up. Naruto, please, please, please wake up!" Her voice grew increasingly louder and broke the silence, giving off a feeling of grief as it condescended the rain that thought it had us all spellbound with misery. Truthfully, it did. Tears streamed heavily down her pale cheeks. This hurt her so much more than when Sasuke left. The memories of him alone stained her pillow for many nights. I could only imagine what Naruto would do to her. Quick intakes of breath grabbed everyone's attention. She was starting to hyperventilate. Just as the medics reached her, she broke into a scream that pierced everyone's hearts. They stumbled back. "Are you hurt?" "Miss Sakura, please speak to us." "Sakura, Sakura?" She buried her head in Naruto's shirt and continued to cry.
Everyone needed to ever so often.
No one spoke. Not Gaara, who was silent by nature but had a certain look of despair and calamity swirling around in those blue sea-foam colored eyes; nor Guy, who always had something to say. Kurenai blinked rapidly and tried to keep the rain out of her baby's eyes. They didn't need to be stained with cruelty at such a young age. I looked around. Everyone Naruto ever knew who was still alive came. Half the Sand Country, most of the Hidden Waves country, and all of Konoha. I dug my foot into the ground and made a hole in the dirt-going-on-mud with my shoe. I looked up expectantly and waited for the next person to speak. Their eyes were all settled on me.
I dipped my head and shook it. There was nothing to be said. It was simple. Naruto was dead. The Akatsuki caught him. True they put him in hiding, and true they did everything to protect him, but up against Madara and the resurrected members, Naruto was out of lucky. The Kyuubi wouldn't have mattered. The Kages sealed him with one of their combined jutsus so he couldn't be traced. Damn. My white hair fell in my eyes, masking them from his broken body and their broken hearts. He was 17. Seventeen for God's sakes. Tell me, where did we go wrong?
^.^
Naruto looked through the bushes and closed his eyes. It wasn't even right that he was doing this. But they had to be protected. He'd given himself up. True, he could have told them his plan. But that would make it harder for them to act at the funeral. The Shadow Clone jutsu alone was easy enough to master, but maintaining its form while not giving it any sign of life was hard. Neji and Hinata's Byakugan and the sensei's sharp skills could sense stuff like that. Naruto drew his kunai for no particular reason. "Damn it," it took everything he had to stop from bursting through those bushes and sprint the 100 yards towards them and scream, "Here I am! Naruto Uzumaki is ready to be made Hokage!" and strike the good guy pose. Instead he turned his back towards the friends he loved and trusted oh so much, and let them believe the fact that he was dead. Inside, he believed it too.
The great Naruto Uzumaki would never become Hokage.
The rain slowly dispersed his thoughts and left them on the ground-broken, shattered, like Haku's Ice mirror. They would have been friends.
He started to trudge through the falling tears of everyone above him and left his life as he knew behind.
Closed azure eyes tell no stories.