** HAKU **
The days were cold and the nights – colder. The moments passed like hours, and the months went by like years. Everything felt longer, colder, harsher than anything else. I remember sitting there in the freezing weather of Kirigakure, allowing the snow to pile over me because – at that time – the snow was warmer than the wind that cut my skin like razor blades, the touch of it so cold it burned.
Those times were desperate times, though. Times where I had no where to go during the hours of light, and no where to sleep during the hours of darkness. No place to belong, no place to call home. Everywhere was just an empty abyss that was distant to me; everything a thing I could never touch with my hands.
I was so afraid back then! So, so very scared. I was nervous and full of anxiety. It was almost as if I fear that, if I were to touch anything, it would break beneath my fingers. I reduced myself to stealing things, because I know that, if I bought it and it broke, it would be a useless waste of money. Things like what the commoners bought – material possessions – didn't even cross my mind. Not ever. I didn't steal those. I didn't steal anything but food. Yet they still treated me like I was a horrible disease, something they did not wish to live. So they left me in the cold, to die and become part of the ground that I slept on.
That was until you came to me. You found me, and took me in. You gave me a home, and a place to stay. You took care of me and helped me grow. You allowed me to grasp onto my strength instead of tearing it away from me. You told me that my hands weren't evil, that it I touched something, it would flourish instead of fall. You said that anything to be touched by me would be special, that I would make it become something better than what it was.
Because you said that was what I did to you. I made you better, made you stronger, made you have a reason for being instead of simply... being.
You made me a better person. You made me see that not everything deserved to die, that only things doing harm had the right to death. You made me appreciate the small things. You were the reason why I didn't become a bitter person because of my past.
It was all because of you. You, you, you.
So when I took that blow from the one called Kakashi for you, I couldn't find anything in me to regret it. I wanted that, to die for you. I wanted to save you, to give you just a few more minutes of life to do whatever you wanted, to say what you wanted, to just be what you wanted. I swore to you, years ago when you saved me, that I would do anything – anything! – as long as you were to be saved from harm.
So I can't say that I don't like this, even on my dying day. I can't say that I regret stepping in front of the Chidori, can't say that I didn't enjoy feeling the pain rush through my body because I knew, I knew, that you weren't feeling it.
I can't say that I didn't fall down with a smile, can't say that I didn't praise myself for the first time in years for doing something relatively right. I can't say that I didn't do this for you.
Because I did.
I did all this for you. I trained and I pushed myself under your command. I forced myself to be something I was not, to become a killing machine instead of a kind boy like my mother told me I would be. But I won't say that I cared. I never cared if I was something different for you than what I wanted to be.
Because I would change for you.
Because I would die for you.
Because I am dying for you.
For you.
Zabuza.
My friend.
My savior.