If you've read the beginning before. Yes. I revised it. I didn't feel I lead into enough detail to make it interesting enough for people to leave a critique (a good one, hopefully) so I just added a little more, changed the title (hopefully a more fitting one at that) and the summary. So please, review, its healthy for my subconscious and hopefully (I'm using the word "hope" a lot) this story will be enjoyed by you, the masses :) Thanks to those who reviewed its previous title.

Happy reading!- Kineticfairy

There is no returning to that emptiness,
loneliness
The dream that lives inside of me
won't fade away, it's wide awake

Konohagakure burned. A black eternal fire that fed on half the village, while the other half of the village had been torn asunder by a onslaught of missing-nin employed by the infamous Uchiha Sasuke. Uzumaki Naruto heard a distant roll of thunder, opened his eyes and found his cheek pressed against the rough texture of the dusty ground. With urgent realization, he pushed himself up, staggering to his feet, dizziness overcame again and he fell again, at the edge of a massive crater. Down below, Naruto took in the sight of Sasuke's and his own reckless, destructive battle. His gaze cast about the whirlpool below, but there was no sign of the ninja. The water sloshed harshly about within the water chasm below.

The white froth breaking against the rubble and there on a sharp stone fragment it hung like a sail on a wind current, a piece of Sauske's clothes. He frantically looked about but he could not spot Sasuke's body. Slowly, painfully, Naruto raised himself up into a sitting position. His entire body protested the effort. His skull ached where Sasuke had tried to crush it. As he cradled his aching head between his hurting hands, he thought of his losses. Sasuke's attacked had sacked Konoha. Once again, he had failed Sakura. In addition, Sasuke was lost, dead or alive, he was not sure and he began to weep, the sorrow overwhelming him. Sakura's voice calling him finally pulled him back from that dark place and brought him to his feet. She rushed to his side, reaching to steady him. "Naruto, are you okay?" Beads of sweat broke on Naruto's brow and he swayed a bit under her small frame. He nodded a second before closing his eyes. He whispered an apology.

Naruto stared down at Sakura and his heart broke. He took her face into his hand, slowly turning it back and forth inspecting the damage. He looked at her, bloodied and bruised but so strong. He could not believe that anyone could intentionally mar such a beautiful creature. Her face had received some vicious blows, and her right eye had swollen shut. She had a dark bruise on her left cheekbone and her bottom lip, split, causing it to puff up. Worse yet, her throat, one big bruise. His fingers carefully trailed down her cheek, wiping her hair from her face. "I'm fine, Sakura-chan. Are you hurt?" despite her obvious appearance, Sakura shook her head.

"I'm fine, but… what happened? Where is Sasuke-kun?" There was an ache in his chest, a tight feeling that made breathing difficult. He closed his eyes; gritting his teeth, he could not bear to tell her that he failed her again. Sakura seemed to understand, he could see her struggle to steel her mind, to prepare for the fact that Sasuke was not coming home. It seemed that she tried not to even worry about where he might be. Naruto wanted to console her, but she only wrapped her arms around his torso and she helped him limp back towards the village, maintaining a formidable silence all the way. As Naruto reflected on his battle with Sasuke, the sun began to set; he saw the smoke and the ravens in the distance. As they entered the eastern gate, Naruto took in the sight of the once proud Hidden Village Konohagakure. Roofs torn off buildings, walls blasted apart. Splintered tree stumps poked through the rubble, litter and clutter blown everywhere. Traces of smoke from the smoldering fires and stink of explosives blanketed the whole village. The sight stirred dark emotions within Naruto. Except for a few dazed stragglers, the villagers either were dead or had taken flight. Sakura and Naruto wandered the littered streets and found several more casualties. Naruto's face flushed with anger as he searched. These ninjas were efficient… and deadly. They ignored the pleas of mother's for their children's lives. They killed old and young with no prejudice. Sakura put a hand on Naruto's shoulder and he clasped her hand.

"Where are the others, Sakura-chan?"

"I haven't seen them. We were separated and then I went to find you."

"Okay. We need to find them, make sure they're safe and look for survivors as well." Sakura nodded, Naruto hissed in pain and nearly toppled Sakura as his legs buckled under him. Sakura cried out in surprise and sunk with Naruto to the scorched spots on the streets. Sakura helped shift Naruto into a comfortable position.

"You're hurt worse than you think. You're hurt bad." Sakura said fretting over his injuries. Pulling her gloves off and emitting a green chakra into her palm. The gentle, healing green glow spilled from her hand, slowly and carefully, Sakura led the movement down Naruto's body. "Everything is lost and it all has to start all over again."

"Yes. We'll have to rebuild Konoha." Naruto said, feeling slight better thanks to Sakura's superb medical jutsu. She helped him back up to his feet and they began their trek of locating their fellow ninja. They found Hyuuga Neji further up the road, bloody and dirty, his long hair shielding his face. Naruto broke free of Sakura's hold and ran up to the pair. Sakura caught up, panting, she knelt next to them. Tenten lay in Neji's lap, unconscious. Her hair unbound and falling in long chocolate tresses over her neck. Neji allowed Sakura to take her from his arms and she worked her healing chakra over Tenten. A few moments later Tenten began to open her dark brown eyes. Neji smiled over her and she smiled back, blood coating her teeth. "You two rest and then when you're feeling up to it, meet up with us at the Hokage Residence." Neji nodded.

Sakura examined Tenten one last time and with the girl's reassurance that she was better, she moved on with Naruto. Naruto limped side by side with Sakura, she looked dejected and he could only guess what was weighing on her mind. If he had been a better Hokage, he would have prevented the downfall of Konoha with success. He could not bear her silent disappointment, but he would apologies to her later, when he found the others. His heart was heavy. He had caused this destruction through his interference and ineptitude. He was responsible for the complete and utter destruction and desolation of his home. He was a failure, a disgrace. The sounds of wailing and moaning from survivors filled the air; he could smell the decay and smoke on the wind. Blood stained the streets where the victims had fallen. The attackers had not spared the weak. Men cut down where they stood, women, children butchered or left for dead. Far in the distance, the sky glowed with more than the sunset. The Hokage Residence was alight with flame. Naruto's eyes went wide with horror. "No!" He screamed, Sakura tried to grab his arm, but he slipped past her, her fingers only tugging on his sleeve long enough to give him a slight tug. He stumbled on his bad leg, but he kept up a steady quick pace that had him catching his breath the closer he came to the residence.

Immediately, he stumbled and fell, his foot catching on broken debris. The ground rushed up to meet him at speed his momentum carried him face-first so that he felt a crunching impact when his face squashed itself against the earth. Cursing, he lifted himself up, his body aching all over again from the impact, his lungs protesting the way the air had been driven from them by the way the ground cause him under the ribs. He sat back on his knees and looked up to see a group of shinobi trying to get the fire under control. His gaze hardened and he clenched his fists, jaw ticking as he pushed back onto his feet. He rushed to help them put out the flames. Naruto rushed forward and jumped into the air, ignoring the protesting of his aching joints and bad leg. He summoned water and helped to douse the fire. When they extinguished the fire he sat with others and rested, Sakura walked over to the group and knelt next to Naruto. "You need some more healing, but I need to rest." Naruto nodded in agreement. He supposed they had to recuperate the old fashion way.

"Rest here, Sakura-chan. I'll find the others." Sakura started to object, but he shook his head. He was the Hokage; he was responsible for Konoha and its villagers. She begrudgingly accepted and let him go on his way to round up the others. Naruto promised that he would find all the survivors and bring them back with him as well. Sakura smiled, but her smile was weak, there was something missing, and he knew it that something was. He hated himself for it and he knew that he would always hate himself for it. He knew he could never amend his broken promise.

Night had fallen when the shinobi were found and gathered together at the Hokage Residence. All of them worse for wear. Naruto's throat tightened as he approached his friends and comrades. Naruto ran a hand through his hair, he was nervous, but when he began speaking, his voice was full and steady. "All is not lost; our home is lost, but not forever. We can rebuild. It will take time, but we are strong. Our forces are diminished but Konohagakure took time to build its power and as a people of fire our will is steadfast."

There was some debate about rebuilding, such as the loss of resources, but Sakura came to Naruto's aid as she always had. "We have our allies; with great care they won't take our fall as an opportunity to seize power. Konohagakure accomplished this goal once, many years ago and we can regain our supreme reign once more. This isn't the end of us." Once everyone was on the same page Naruto retired. The Hokage Residence was little more than a singular large room, the rest broken down to mere rubble. Sakura, Hinata and a few other medical-nins had secured housing for the remaining survivors He found little relief in that. He could hear the wailing of mothers, wives, sisters, and children. He could feel the rage of friends, fathers, sons, brothers. "What are you thinking?" Sakura's voice echoed around the room, he turned and faced her, feeling ashamed. She smiled at him, her face a little more healed each time he looked at her.

"That I let you down, again." He crushed his fingers in his fist. Sakura walked over to him and he turned his face away, looking at the wall, the floor, anywhere, but her face. "I don't know what happened to Sasuke… I blacked out and when I came too I…" he clenched his teeth so hard it made his jaw ache. He could not tell her that he saw a piece of Sasuke's clothing down in a ravine of swirling water. "I lost him. And I promised you I wouldn't." Sakura nodded, seemed to take in his words and then all at once she started to cry, just a few shudders at first, then loud wailing. Crying the claimed her whole body. He wanted to rush to her, wrap her up in his arms, and dispel her sorrow with a comforting embrace. Instead, Naruto approached cautiously, not sure what her reaction would be. He knew he should say something, offer her words of support, but he could not think of anything that would justify interrupting her grief. Slowly his arms came around her and he hugged her to him. He could feel her heart pounding.

Sakura clung to him, weeping into his chest. Naruto could feel her emotional pain seeping out of every pore of her body. As he tried to muffle her desperate cries, she continued to wail like a wounded animal. Then, she stopped, as suddenly as she had begun. With a blank stare shrouding her eyes, Sakura lifted her head and looked at Naruto. The raw, open pain he saw deep in her eyes sent him reeling. "We're going to get through this Sakura-chan." He sucked in a jagged breath. "I love you, Sakura-chan. I always will and we'll get though this together." His tears fell into her hair as he clung desperately to her convulsing body. She was silent in his arms, her tears and her rapid, uneven breathing ebbing. He did not expect her reply, hoped she had not heard with her hysteria. The silence stretched for what felt like an eternity, then she drew away from him, her wet eyes cast up to his. Her mouth parted slightly, she thanked him and withdrew. Naruto cursed silently and when he was sure he was alone, he cursed aloud.

This feeling of stupidity could never compare to any other he felt previously. Trying to tear his thoughts from what just transpired, Naruto thought on his battle with Sasuke.

They had fought on as vigorously as they did viciously. "This may be the last time we battle, Naruto…"

Sasuke had told him with a dark, emotionless tone. He had always been aloof as a boy, but when they had fought, as they had grown from boys to men, there was a new emptiness to Sasuke, as though his soul, his heart had been removed, there was only hate puppeteering the body of his erstwhile friend.

Azure eyes had glanced up slowly at the silhouette of the missin-nin he once thought of as his brother. He huffed rhythmically trying to regain his breath; sweat beaded on his forehead, his chest ached with each breath, his muscles aflame with each movement. He wiped his damp forehead, gritting his teeth as Sasuke plunged down from the height of the ledge, the hilt of his Kusanagi gripped in both hands, the blade alight with a black flame and pointed down with lethal intent. Naruto's heels bit into the rock and dirt, making a loud scraping noise as he jumped back out of the range of the aerial assault. Sasuke growled at him. As he pulled back the Kusanagi from the ground, it quaked with the aftershock. "I AM YOUR DOOM!" He screamed, the anger resonating off the hollow space of their battlefront.

Breaking from his unhappy thoughts, Naruto sat down and scrubbed his face with his palms. He blamed himself for Sakura's sorrow, but as he slammed his fist into the wall, breaking the plaster. Uchiha Sasuke was the one he blamed the most. How could anyone reject a woman as beautiful and strong as Haruno Sakura? Sasuke did not know what he had, but obviously; he was too stupid to know what to do with her love. He hated him for rejecting her. When he was younger, he thanked Sasuke for his denial of her, but with each year, as she grew older and more beautiful and even sadder he grew devastated by her devastation of the only man she loved rejection of her heart. Naruto hated his own roll in her life. He would always only be her unrequited love. He would always fail her in his quest to retrieve her unrequited love, their friend, their comrade.

Naruto sighed and rubbed at his face again, he was tired and beaten. It was past midnight when he started shedding his clothes with haphazard indifference. He peered up at the sky through the broken ceiling. Sleep claimed him all too quickly, and with it came the dread and the dreams- the suffocating darkness, the taunts and jeers and, worst of all, the supplications. Dreams brought him back to memories. He wished he had kept his mouth shut when he promised Sakura that he could bring Sasuke back to her, to them, to the village. Nevertheless, it was a lie. It was a lie that he promised because he longer wanted her to shed unhappy tears. He only wanted to make her happy and he knew that promise would do the trick.

Naruto… please… only you!

The only person… who can probably save Sasuke-kun now is you…

Naruto- Please- please bring Sasuke-kun back!

Her pleas provoked him. She had enjoyed his lie. He believed and so did Sakura, that he truly could reach Sasuke. She still believed it, even now. Naruto had seen it, in those bright green eyes filled with tears, despite everything. That killed him the most internally. That no matter what, he lost everything and even in sleep Naruto could not escape that reality. Everything was broken for good, lost, everything he could never get back. He lost his friend and with it, broke the heart of the woman he loved. Worthlessness swelled in his heart. He was useless. In his sleep, a groan of abject misery escaped him, and he thrashed about. He had not been able to bring Sasuke back.

How did he reach this pivotal point in life, a hero, a Hokage one of the "greatest" shinobi ever, only to fall so hard and so far in his own eyes? He could not bear for everyone to look at him the same as people had looked at him as a young boy. He had worked hard to be a respected and admire adult and still he could not look at his own self in that sense when it came to this deed. Sasuke, he was like sand or water, unable to contain within his hands, always slipping through the spaces of his finger.

As dawn broke, he finally fell into a deeper, dreamless sleep, his muscles still tight with tension. "Sasuke," he seethed in his sleep, "where'd you go, you bastard!"

The roar of water broke the silence in the forest. The current was a dizzying force of sloshing, rushing, freezing water that treated its intruder like a rag doll helpless in the grip of a whirlpool. Continuously swept downriver, sucked under the dark surface of turbulent water dipping its head underwater as the river picked up speed. The water whirled and foamed, dragging the invader under repeatedly. At all times, locked in a violent motion, the young man, now being turned over or around, and again, smashed against a rock. The current swept the man into a massive rock; the rapids were just getting started. Midway in the passage, the current picked up. Each time the river allowed his head to reach above water, air was able to enter his lungs. Below the rapid was a second pool, and here, captured by the eddy, the intruder was gently borne to the bank, and as gently, deposited on a bed of gravel. The bank was located on the fields of a rural farmland.

There were several workers in the fields, laboring under the hot sun. Dressed in fieldworker's clothes identical to several other harvesters, a young woman straightened her back from her workload. The afternoon sun beat down on her head making tiny drops of perspiration dampen her hair under the cloth beneath her wide brim straw hat. Removing the hat, she wiped her arm across her forehead and peered out to the river. She strained her eyes to see; not far ahead, she saw something that looked like a figure of a man washed up on the river's shore. She walked slow, more curious then alarmed, then she hurried catching, the attention of her fellow workers. "Mikako, what did you find?" Mikako knelt near the young man his face was cold, white, and still in the sunlight.

"Dead." one pronounced.

For a few moments she was sure he must be dead. Then, his eyes suddenly opened very fast: blood red eyes with three black comma-shaped spots circling the pupil in each. Slowly they morphed to pitch-black, without pupils, without irises. His eyes closed again. He was alive, all right. A trickle of blood ran down his cheek from a cut above his eye. Who was he? How long had he been lying there? The others called him a demon. They spoke frightened words. They pleaded for her to get rid of him. She hushed them and ordered them to help her move her to the house. With some protest, they helped carry him to the house beyond the field.

Awareness brought the soft voice of someone young. "Come on, wake up, huh?" Why should he wake up? He knew he would start hurting all over again if he woke up. Here between life and death he had no concerns, no thoughts, and no knowledge. He shook his head, moaned softly. He felt pain creeping back into his muscles. As he awakened to the pain of his body, he wanted to go back into the cold, numb darkness. The room was completely dark, a thick darkness that hung ominously like a blanket, hiding any indication as to where he was. As his eyes adjusted to the dark, he saw that he was lying in a narrow bed in a narrow room. The silhouettes of the objects around him became clearer. There was a table on the far side of the room, next to a window, which had no light behind it; an open door gave onto a tiny bathroom. The only other furniture was the dark bulk of a dresser with a television directly in front of him, a chair off to the right and a mirror lurking in the shadows against the wall. The sliding of the door made him look up. Two figures entered the room: a young woman and a small girl. "You're awake!" remarked the little girl with excitement. "I told you mommy!"

He took in the woman's face, framed by straight, dark hair. He did not think he recognized her. She came closer out of the shadows. Her eyes were dark black but her smile seemed warm. "I was worried you wouldn't make it. I'm glad you're awake."

He stared at her for a long moment, and then he asked, "Who are you?" his voice low, but with a current of intensity.

"My name is Ito Mikako. This is my daughter, Harumi"

"What happened to me? How did I get here?" He frowned. It was then that he realized he could not remember anything. "Who am I?" The question directed more to his self than to her. Silently he struggled with his mind to try to recall how he had come to be here; flashes of memories similar to incomplete dreams rolled behind his eyelids, but nothing was there that made any sense, nothing that gave any indication to who he was or how he came to be here.

"It was lucky I found you," Mikako went on. "You were unconscious and bleeding on the bank." She placed her head on her daughters head. "You just need to heal and rest. I am sure your memory will return very soon. You just have to be patient. In the meantime, you're welcome to stay as long as you want." When the woman left with the little girl, he limped out of the bed, hobbled a few steps to the mirror, and stared at his face. He suppressed a gasp as he regarded his image. There was heavy bandage covering his head so that he had only half a face visible. He had long thick dark lashes and black eyes, a pale face mottled with bruises, and his arm wrapped in a sling He looked at his bandaged side and pain shot down his left side. The dizziness threatened to topple him as he stood there fighting the thumping pain in his head; slowly and painfully he walked back over to the bed.

He ran his bandaged fingers through his spiked black hair and let out a hard, frustrated breath. Why couldn he not remember who he was? The sensation of being lost in his body was strange and awful. He could not remember who he was, could not remember what happened to him before he woke in this room. If only became his mantra. If only he knew his own name and that was his last thought before he fell asleep.

In his dream, someone was crying, a woman wailing in agony. She was calling a name, and he had a strong sense that it was his name, but her voice; only muffled weeping as if her face were in a pillow. He could not see her; he could only hear her weeping, her voice surrounding him, heartbroken cries of despair. He was lost in his mind, a dark void with no knowledge. It was worse than he had imaged. Now he wanted his knowledge back. His dream was a nightmare. His reality was a nightmare. Was there no escape? His memory was like trying to catch sand blowing in the wind. He hoped that the woman who rescued him was right. That he would remember soon. He had a sense that he still had things to accomplish.

Who am I?

Who knows me?

There must be someone looking, someone wishing for his return. Perhaps there was a friend, family, or a lover? Someone who could tell him who he was, return his memories anew. Where would he find this someone? When he healed, he would seek them out, those who knew him. He would regain his knowledge.

Where are you? Come Find Me!