A/N: Some stuff to get out of the way… This will not include any fancy writing or plot or whatever. Note the genre, please. The main purpose is just to make you think, which I suspect that I'm not skilled enough to anyway. Some assumptions to get out of the way:

1) Kabuto didn't bring Itachi back when he died.
2) Sasuke eventually lived a long happy life. Actually, a long life is enough, I neither know nor care about the happy part.

A million thanks to the great Jiang-Mei for helping me out with this.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Lessons along the border

This is it. The final death. No more walking along the border, no more waiting, no more resisting.

I'm not afraid of the final crossing. I already stayed way past my time, way past what even the others have stayed. I guess I have you to thank for that.

It's so strange how everything seems so white and warm here, even though it still feels just like the border we've walked for decades. Not that it felt like decades. Then again, any difference is probably just a figment of my imagination.

I'm not afraid. Not with the one I've waited for beside me. I feel oddly at peace with myself right now, like whether it's black or white or cold or warm doesn't matter anymore. Is this why you waited too, I wonder?

I guess after I'm past this I'll be completely, totally dead. No more pseudo-living. Nothing left at all. It's a bit like graduating from a school.

I wonder if there's anything that I left behind, anything that shows that I've lived and loved before I died. That I spent all this time walking, waiting, trying not to go insane along the border. Is there any record of that, even?

Then again, any record of that time would most probably start from the day I died.

7.30 am to 8.00 am: Reporting – No longer living

Is there a life after death, or do we simply cease existing when we die?

/

I was sure that I was dead. The last thing I remembered was looking at Sasuke with my half-blind eyes, poking him in the forehead, and then – nothing.

When I next opened his eyes, it was to pure black all around. I had my Akatsuki cloak once again, though it was supposed to have been charred into nothing. And I was walking forward, being led forward by you, a girl in a white kimono holding my hand.

You, a girl who looked exceptionally like my mother.

No, it can't be Mother, I realised after a closer look. You were too young. Younger than me, possibly.

Is this death? was my next immediate thought. I slowed my pace, and was disconcerted to find that a dirt path had appeared under my feet. A path leading nowhere I could see, although my vision seemed to have been perfectly restored. Probably a benefit of being dead, I thought. It was a path that I could see surprisingly clearly, despite having no light source.

"Yes, this is death," came a soft, gentle voice. You, the one leading me through the darkness. "I don't think it came as a shock to you, but you're not alive anymore."

I hadn't realised that I had spoken aloud. But you were right, my death was no surprise to me. I just hoped that Sasuke would be alright, wounded out in the ruins alone. Although what was happening out there was already beyond my control. I sort of felt bad about running off to the afterlife on my own but there was nothing I could do about it, not now. "Where are you taking me?" I asked.

"Beyond," you replied cryptically. "This is the border between life and death."

I thought about it. Strangely enough, I felt a compulsion to continue forward, break out of this black monotone and into what lay beyond. And at that moment I was so relaxed and peaceful that it seemed to make a lot of sense to just continue. Despite that, I couldn't help thinking, What's beyond? I knew that a lot of people thought that I always seemed apathetic on the surface, but I did keep a lot of my thoughts and emotions under control.

"I don't know. You'll have to see for yourself," you replied, smiling gently.

This time, I was sure that I did not speak aloud. I dug his heels into the path, which seemed to be extending of its own whim, and stared at you. Shinigami, I thought, though I didn't think they could appear as a human. The intellectual side of my brain noted that if I wanted to lead a soul somewhere to be devoured, the smartest thing to do would be to take on the form of someone the soul trusted.

"I am not a shinigami," you replied calmly. "I am merely a soul, here to take you to your final destination. I have no influence over death itself, and I certainly can't bring you back to life. Neither do I consume souls. As for this form, would you have felt better if I appeared to you as an old hag instead?"

I was definitely unsettled then. Not only could you hear my thoughts as clearly as my speech, you could seemingly read my memories as well. Then it occurred to me that you could be well hearing all this now as well, so I clamped down on those thoughts and asked, "Then who are you?"

"I'm one of the dead," you said simply. "Come now, you have to be on your way." You pulled at my hand again, though with little force.

I planted my heels more firmly into the ground and shook my head, a bit petulantly. "Not until you tell me what's beyond."

You sighed in your first display of honest emotion. "Did you do something bad while you were alive and are afraid of going to hell now?" You let go of my hand and faced me squarely. I couldn't help noticing how identical you were to Mother, even though you couldn't be the same person. "I can't tell you, because I've never been there. I don't know."

Then why aren't you there? I wanted to such words, when rerouted to my mouth, came out more politely, and I had every intention of rerouting my question. Except that before I could open my mouth to ask, I was cut off.

"I died, but I didn't cross the border. I'm hanging on out here, and in the meantime I help people like you across. You happened to call me in your last moments, so here I am. Now can we get a move on? I have more than you to look after," you said, losing your politeness and looking disinterested.

You can choose to stay? I felt hope flare in me once more. Maybe, if what lay beyond was nonexistence, I would be able to see Sasuke one last time, without hate in his eyes.

"Of course," you stated emotionlessly.

"Then I want to stay too," I said decisively. I'll wait for Sasuke.

You shrugged. "It's your choice." You turned your back on me and walked off the path, through the empty space. "Good luck with hanging on."

I started then. That's it? I thought. Then, as I watched your retreating back, shock hit. Am I supposed to figure this place out on my own?

I might have heard you sigh into the emptiness before turning back with a resigned look. "Learn to keep up, kid, or I'm leaving you behind."

Kid? I couldn't help protesting. Wait, how am I supposed to learn to walk through air? Before I could think twice, though, I stepped off the seemingly solid path and into the emptiness.

Whatever I was, I was no longer living.