And I remember everything,

Everything I loved,

I gave it away like it wasn't enough

He looked down at her, eyes wide and panicked. He never meant to hurt her. She was never supposed to be involved in any of this; yet there she was on the cold hard ground.

He reached for her, but didn't dare touch her. Crimson liquid flowed from her head. Her skin looked paler and paler as seconds went by. He mentally kicked himself repeatedly for not sensing her sooner. Maybe if he was paying more attention…

"Sasuke!" a voice shouted, bringing him back to reality. He wasn't alone with the girl in front of him. The cause of this whole ordeal was shouting in his face. "This is your fault! Mari just wanted us to stop fighting!"

"I didn't see her!" Sasuke shouted right back at the blond boy. "And I'm not the only one to blame. Why didn't you sense her? Why didn't you stop her from coming here?!"

Blaming someone else seemed like the best option. This couldn't be all his fault. The blame couldn't lie solely on him. If Naruto hadn't followed him Mari wouldn't have come with him. If Naruto had continued their previous fight he wouldn't have been confronted by the Sound so quickly. If Naruto hadn't been getting stronger by the day, none of this would've happened.

"You're the one that hit her! Maybe if you hadn't left our home she wouldn't be injured right now!" was what Naruto kept saying. Sasuke didn't listen; he stared at Mari the whole time thinking she would open her eyes at any moment. She didn't.

"Just come home, Sasuke. Come back and we can forget all of this happened," Naruto started reasoning, but it fell on deaf ears. "I won't even say she got hurt from our fight, as long as you come back with me."

"No," came the simple reply. "I can't go back. Not now. Now that she's…"

He couldn't bare finish that sentence. He checked her pulse, and his hand froze from the lack of heartbeat he felt. Her skin was cold, blood no longer circulating through her body. Her cheeks were no longer rosy.

"Now that she's gone," he continued, choking back the tears he desperately wanted to shed, "I have nothing to go back to. You can't stop me."

Before Naruto could respond, Sasuke disappeared. He wanted to shout his name in frustration, beat him senseless until he came back, but all his efforts were to no avail. Sasuke was gone. Sighing with a broken heart, he finally kneeled down to Mari and checked her pulse. What Sasuke said caused his heart to skip a beat. Mari couldn't be gone, she just couldn't be. When he tried to find her pulse, however, he failed.

Finding a new goal, he scooped the girl into his arms and ran back the village in light speed. She had to make it. He already lost one friend; he refused to lose this one.