Howdy people! This is a One-Shot I've decided to post since I have grown annoyed and bored with Pink Thread of Silk as it has gone in a direction that I don't like.I might get back to it eventually, if I ever figure out where it was that I went wrong, but in the mean time there is this...
AND there is the new Naruto fic that I have started.
Anywayz, I hope you like and tell me what you think people!!
Disclaimer: I don't own naruto, never have and never will 'sniffles'
ENJOY! One-Shot:
My Last Breath
Pathetic.
Why was that the only word that came to mind?
Weak.
Why did that word haunt the only dreams that formed in her sleep?
Pitiful.
Why did no-one have to say them for her to know that they were true? Even though they did…
Vulnerable. Wasn't that what her sensei had called her? Weren't those the exact words that came from his masked lips?
Pathetic. Weak. Pitiful. Vulnerable.
She had heard them all and each had hit her in the chest like a freshly sharpened kunai. She couldn't quite believe how much she trusted the man that spoke those words…
But she knew why he had said them.
She finally understood…
…too late.
Mist fogged her vision with each breath and goose bumps scattered across her pale perfect skin.
Why was it that even after six years of not being under his tutelage he still felt responsible for her, that he still felt as if he had to protect her?
Was she really that weak?
A shiver ran down her back as a gale ran through her pink tresses and curled around her hunched form. Her teeth chattered silently, she couldn't stop them, not that she had tried.
She was weak…
…that's why his body is lying in a bloodied heap somewhere in the plush snow covered ground.
A slow tear slid down her frosted cheek. The gales slammed into her form with force, she could barely see a meter in any direction, but she didn't care.
Anything that nature would give her she deserved.
Bright blue eyes flashed through her mind as several more tears slipped down her cheek.
'Sakura-chan!'
She couldn't believe how dumb she had been, why hadn't she seen this coming from the beginning.
It was more obvious than predicting that the sun would rise each morning, because that's just who he was.
…he couldn't help himself.
He had held back as long as he could, but they all knew that it wouldn't last forever. His resolve would fail, his conscience would break and his mind would shatter.
No sense of morals or bonds inhabited his body. Not after so long of being neglected.
Not after so long of being neglected by her.
"…Sasuke." The name tumbled from her pale blue lips as she shut her eyes to keep the stinging wind from allowing any more tears a chance of escape.
She and Naruto had trained for so long to bring him back. They'd trained so hard to help him regain himself, to help him get back who he should have been and not who he was.
Because that was what she had promised him…
…that was what she had promised Naruto…
…that was what she had promised herself…
'Pathetic' 'Weak' 'Pitiful' 'Vulnerable'
Kakashi and Naruto knew more than anyone what had happened and was happening in his head. How his mind ran and the processes that led him to conclusions. That was why he had said those words to Tsunade; it was the only way to keep her from where she was right now.
But Tsunade knew her too well.
"…Naruto."
At least he was still safe…
…barely.
Her feet and hands were too numb from the cold to feel, but she felt more numb inside than anywhere else. The cold just seem to ease her pain.
Sasuke hadn't gotten what he had set out to gain.
A flash of dull onyx eyes screamed into her mind.
…or maybe he had.
They were dead because of her.
She had known that wherever they encountered Sasuke, Akatsuki wouldn't be far behind. Yet she hadn't taken that into account. She had gotten lost in those onyx eyes and in a promise all parties knew she couldn't keep.
She had naively walked towards him expecting something she couldn't quite recall anymore… love?
What she had gotten seared her even hours beyond the encounter. She obviously hadn't seen the kunai escape his hand before it was too late to move, and as the kunai sliced the frozen air the look in his eyes told her everything she needed to know and more.
She thought that when the time came for them to die, she would have been long gone. She had always been the weakest.
…but it wouldn't be long now.
Her eyes had closed as she waited for the kunai to take what she had obliviously offered without a care in the world. But no hit came.
She had felt the soft snow melt on the skin on her face as her eyes fluttered open. She couldn't hear anything because of the sight that beheld her.
Sakura guessed that she would never be able to forget what she had seen. If she did then it would be a sign of disrespect to his memory, because he died to save what he loved, he had died to save the people that mattered to him more than his life, more than anything he owned in the world.
Blood filled her memory as the image of Kakashi's back came to her. She stared through the needle covered branches of the pine tree she leant against at the grey clouded sky.
They had fought for hours, Naruto and Kakashi doing all that they could to take back what they had come for.
…but what had she done?
She had stood there, frozen to her spot with her jade eyes never leaving his form.
She could vividly remember every cut, punch, push and burn he took. She could vividly remember the broken arm from one of Naruto's almost lethal attacks. But what she could remember best was the kunai that he couldn't dodge to survive because he was already dodging one of Kakashi's. It lodged into his skull as his lifeless form fell to the ground…
…those dull onyx orbs.
Her teeth clenched as her eyes shut tight willing for the pain to stop and the tears to stay behind their dams.
By then Naruto and Kakashi were weak. She had used none of her so called 'amazing' healing techniques to try and heal them because she couldn't move.
When the murderers came out of the camouflage of the snow covered pine trees that littered the land Sakura had already lost any hope she had left.
"GO!"
Kakashi had screamed at her and Naruto, the fear in his eyes was more visible than any emotion she had ever seen him express.
And suddenly there was no time to argue, no will to argue. Neither she nor Naruto could argue with the look in his eyes because they knew what was coming.
Naruto had grabbed her arm and pulled her away from the clearing where they had fought for so long to gain nothing and lose so much more.
'Kakashi!'
She had screamed in sobs over her shoulder as she glimpsed at the array of kunai that sliced into every part of her sensei's body, he fell to the ground to follow the same fate as his previous opponent.
Tears slipped past her tightly shut eyes as a silent whimper escaped her lips.
They ran for what felt like hours.
Silence was what had formed around them as even after the initial shock wore off, there were no words that seemed to suit their situation.
At least she had done one thing right…
'Go Naruto!'
The look in his eyes told her more that the thousands of words that had ran through her mind at that moment. Because whether the four of them liked it or not, they knew each other better then they knew themselves.
Sakura knew that Naruto was internally injured and wouldn't last more than a few hours, and only one or two at most on his feet. They were near a border to Waterfall Country that was allied with Konoha. She knew he could make it in time for them to heal what she knew she had no time to now, she also knew that he wouldn't make if they stuck together.
The men that killed two members of the people she called family were still on their tail. They couldn't afford to mess up now.
Sakura had finally come into her own. She had pushed passed everything she had experienced and thought back to her training. She was ANBU, she was strong, she was a Konoha kunoichi and she could easily outsmart her opponents.
"Hide your chakra" Sakura had ordered as she carried some of Naruto's weight by the arm that she held tightly over her shoulders.
"What?" Naruto had replied uneasily.
"Do it!" Sakura snapped giving Naruto a fierce look as they stopped in a small moonlit clearing.
Without a word Naruto did as he was told, lifting his palms together in a single seal. At the exact same time Sakura put her own palms and pulled a few more seals into a complicated formation.
Naruto's eyes widened as he felt what had happened.
"No Sakura, I won't let you." He said shaking his head violently as tears already welled up in his bright blue orbs.
"You will because it's you that they are after and you are the one who's going to be unconscious in the next hour and a half." Sakura said sternly although her resolve on the inside wasn't half as solid as it was on the outside.
"No Sakura! …you're the only one I have left." He croaked as the Naruto she knew six years ago faced her rather than the man she knew that he was now.
"Get a grip!" Sakura hissed. "I'm fine! I'm a Konoha kunoichi and I will be in Waterfall at your side before you wake up in three days from the pneumonia that I'm sure you'll get."
Sakura gave him a small smile as she ushered him off.
He didn't move.
"GO!"
Naruto took two steps back, his gaze never leaving hers before it tore away and he jumped into the nearest branch of the nearest tree. He stopped on the branch and turned only his head.
"Sakura-chan…" She barely heard him. "…I love you."
He was gone faster than her mind had time to process his words. Her smile failed her as she gazed at the spot where he had left.
She had ran for only a few more hours, the only thing keeping her going was the fact that her plan had worked. She had perfected her own skills in the time that she had trained as the Hokage's apprentice and this was one of her favourites.
She had promised herself that she would keep all her boys safe and now two were dead, but at least she had saved the third. Maybe she wasn't totally useless if she could manage that.
Her strength had left her as she slowly came from a run to a slow walk before crawling through the snow filled gales under the tree she rested against now.
It wouldn't be long now before either nature took its course or they would find her…
She didn't know which one she wanted more; to fall asleep and never wake up or to die in the pain that she knew Kakashi had and she deserved.
As her sight became unfocused and her head spun she barely managed to notice the set of boot clad feet that stepped into the snow a meter from her form.
She stayed silent knowing that the chakra she had masked almost perfectly to feel like Naruto's was not fooling anyone anymore.
"Well look what we have here…" She barely heard those words as she slowly felt her world disappear around her. She neither grasped nor fought what inevitably would happen. She only wished that Naruto would live, she only wished that he would fulfil his dreams and survives to see the grand old age that he deserved…
She would meet two of her boys again. Then they could watch the third from wherever death would send her. She could look over him and protect him if she had the power to.
A small smile crept up in the corner of her mouth as she took her last breath.
Sooo... you like?
Tell me what you think dudes and dudettes!