The Eternal Soundtrack

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. That copyright belongs to Masashi Kishimoto.

"One Thousand Apologies" belongs to Demon Hunter.

Track 1: One Thousand Apologies

Armageddon has been gifted upon her world. Every joy and love, the constants and the needs in her life are self-destructing right before her bright green eyes. Life is corroding at an alarming rate, pulling with it the hope of tomorrow and the peace of an intact mind. Cracks within time itself seem to be forming about her, threatening to rend her reality to shards of the truths she once knew, and only barely now holds onto.

Her family is dying.

Half a kilometre away, her best friend---her brother---is in his death throes, as energy, like hell fire, spews in an animalistic form about him. He is disappearing. Within that cloak of dark intent, he is dissolving into nothingness, as the beast consumes him from the inside out.

With not even the presence of mind to scream in agony, as the menacing chakra he is drowning in burns his body to basic carbon, he is at the point of no return. Already, seven whips of energy---bestial tails that can level an entire village with one swipe---are dancing about his crouching, deformed body.

Two more and Uzumaki Naruto will cease to exist.

And not far from that realized incubus, stands her first teacher---her quirky uncle or her very young and offbeat father, she has never decided which.

He is dying, just as surely as Naruto is dying. The injuries he has sustained from the angry lashes of those demon tails are more than enough to kill ten men. But Hatake Kakashi is not one to let numbers and manpower get in his way. He has a job to do---a duty to Konoha and to his students; the one who is disassembling within the essence of the evil he was sealed with; the one who is watching in horror from five hundred metres away, unable to help for lack of chakra and debilitating injuries, also from the Kyuubi tails and; the one who is battling his own inner demon, as he is slowly losing himself to the terrible power of the curse that sits so innocently upon his neck.

Not one hundred metres behind her, he is dying as well.

Lost in a world of swirling black and deep purple auras that suffocate the soul, is the last member of her unconventional family---not her brother, nor her friend, he is her lover, albeit an absent lover, who is not even in consent to holding such a title in her heart.

He is massacring any who dare set foot within a fifty metre radius of him, literally rending their limbs from their bodies, mangling them beyond recognition of them even once being human.

And he is laughing.

The maniacal laughs and sadistic grin that accompanies the screams of anguish and crunching of bones and tearing of flesh are making her heart feel as though it is in the place of those doomed shinobi. Though they are the enemy, they are still human, and the end they are meeting, as she watches with horror-struck eyes, is as far from humane as it can be.

Uchiha Sasuke is falling into the death of the soul, as he draws ever nearer to the precipice where he will cease to be anything but a demon from Hell's Hell.

But she cannot allow that. If he dies to himself, then so will she, her heart and soul being swallowed by a void of despair. And Naruto too, will pass from their world, the Kyuubi gaining free reign once again, as it is unstoppable, to all but one. And Kakashi will die as well, his finely honed shinobi skills simply not a match for the mysterious power of the demon fox he is so valiantly opposing (for his team's---no, his family's sake).

Team Seven will perish if she does not do something quick. Her chakra depleted and her body wounded, Sakura has little to offer in terms of her shinobi talents. The battle that resulted in her current nightmare is responsible for that.

At a loss, she casts a despairing look at her friend and sensei, as the eighth tail begins to emerge from the sinister energy choking Naruto. There is no salvation for them if she is to focus her efforts upon the Kyuubi. She knows her limitations.

Desperate hope lights her eyes as she turns them upon her lost boy. Transformed into something almost unrecognizable---were it not for his blood red eyes---she still sees the boy who inhabits her heart as an absent occupant. He is still there…somewhere. And she knows the only thing she can do right now is to try to bring him back to himself.

She has done it once before, but that had been different. He had been in stage one, not stage two. And he had never used the curse seal before. It did not have the hold over him that it does now. She is not certain that she can help him in the state he is in. Perhaps he is too far gone. Perhaps she will be of no use after all. But she will try. Even if trying is all she will accomplish, she will see it through. Their lives depend on it.

//There you stood in disbelief,
Trying all you could to see through these lies
And every word that I could breathe,
Would find you more inclined to leave,
But I tried, I tried//

Somewhere in the back of what once was his mind, there is screaming. A heart wrenching, soul wasting, cry that makes his irrepressible rage pale in comparison to its intensity. Somewhere back there, hiding under the glow of a dark moon, he is sending out a plea for fury's end; for the blood to cease flowing from innocent veins.

But for all the passion in his resistance, it is futile. The Devil's grip is taking over, crushing the throat of reason, and suffocating its intent with bloodstained hands. His soul will (finally) belong to the Darkness soon. And the rivers will run black with the stagnancy of rotten blood, as his corrupted form draws the life out of all it sees.

He is dying… But he barely registers that vital fact. Deliverance is a ghost's breath, skating across the frozen Abyss---impossible, even if Hell did freeze over.

Then suddenly… Warmth. Alien warmth from an equally alien thing is seeping into his (dark and cold, like the bottom of the tempestuous sea) being. And it is…disgusting. Disgusting in how (selfless) human it is. He is no such creature. Not anymore. So he cannot comprehend this thing's actions toward him. At least, not as anything other than a threat. (Warmth brings cracks to frozen lands. Cracks are dangerous, harmful. Warmth can only bring destruction and pain to one who is incapable of feeling such weak sensations any longer (or anything else, for that matter…).)

"Stop! Please stop!" the (insignificant, soft, fragile---though that embrace is strong) thing cries out, voice muffled by his back, the roars of the red demon in the distance, and his own hell screams.

He whirls around, eyes gouging at the intruder's soul with malice. He vaguely registers that his left hand and arm feel something warm and wet encase them, but his violent mind does not deem such information worthy of its attention. Rather, this thing that dares to approach him, behind his back no less, is the focus of his wrathful eyes. The small detail that the thing is in fact a girl, a young woman by all estimation, also barely registers. She is a threat that begs to be extinguished. Her audacity to (warm his frozen soulscape)embrace and (show concern? Are those tears?) make requests of him are more than enough reason for him to do just that.

//And knowing what I've done to you,
With every thought you suffer through
My heart as black as evil can
And everything I could have been,
Erased by what I wanted then
I couldn't think a lesser man//

The girl's eyes widen for a moment, just a moment, realizing what has just happened, then return to their proper state, acceptance setting in. It will be alright. So long as she brings him back to his proper self, it will all be worth it. This is but a stumble; she will finish what she started.

"You have to stop Sasuke-kun. Please," she (begs) says (desperately) strongly.

And that voice… That voice is enough to form a cool lake in the glacier of his internal being. It conveys many things, but it is never confusing, nor convoluted. When it asks for something, it is really offering something; something far greater and more sacrificial than what he will ever be willing to give. (The warmth seeps in deeper, making its way into his very core. Rivers form. Glacial water flows.)

A soul breathes again.

//All the delicate ways
That I deepened our graves
My apology pales

Oh, the pain in your eyes
My regrets have never known such sorrow
Oh, the shame that you hide
Resolutions are the same tomorrow//

He collapses to his knees, head resting against her shoulder, right arm wrapped around her waist.

She strokes his shoulders and hair, comfortingly. With the monster repressed, he resembles a little boy more than ever. A lost little boy…

Part of her realizes that he will be all the more lost in only a few moments. But until then…she has found him again.

"You have to stop Naruto, Sasuke-kun. You're the only one who can repress the Kyuubi." Her voice is soft; strain that ought to already be present still plays shy behind her willpower.

"I know…" His response is breathless, reluctant.

A silence stretches on for scarce moments (eons… let it be a lifetime…).

"I am sorry, Sakura… So sorry…"

"It's okay, Sasuke-kun. I'm not upset." She gives a wry (though bitterness is curiously absent) smile. "I knew getting close to you was dangerous. But I chose to anyway."

//So now I reap what I have sown,
And any rapture I had shown has bled dry
And I walked the streets alone,
Accepting pain I'd never known,
As you died, you died//

He closes his eyes against her shoulder, a desperate need to erase the image of her eyes smiling down at him overcoming his desire to savour it (blood will eventually run cold, even in one so warm).

"You need to go now, Sasuke-kun. If the ninth tail forms, there is no telling what damage will result. And Naruto will… Just please go!" She is becoming distressed. Fear lurks just below the surface. But she still refuses to allow those emotions to be focused upon herself (a falling petal cares not for its descent, only the wind and its comrades who take the journey with it).

Somehow, he finds his voice as cold and dead as ever. (Is this his way of sharing in her fate?) "If I leave, I'll have to pull my arm out of you and you will bleed to death immediately."

He is acutely aware of his left arm's position through her abdomen, blood and flesh encasing his limb. It is enough to make him want to retch. The only reason he does not is because he has not looked at it yet. He will not have that image forever etched within his mind. Her eyes will be enough to torment him well after his descent into Hell.

"I'll die anyway."

How can such damning words sound so sweet? Does she not realize what he has done to her? Does she not comprehend the fact that he has put a massive wound straight through her body with a blade of lightning their own sensei taught him? Is she really so (forgiving) ignorant of what he is, not to realize the unpardonable betrayal he has done to her?

Vibrant light within deep green tells him she is just that (forgiving…).

"Yes, but it will be sooner if I go right now." (So cold. How is he even forming words with a throat so frozen? It should come out like the sound of ice floes shifting, trapping unsuspecting seafarers in a death trap.)

"I know…" She continues to run her fingers through his hair, over his shoulders, tracing the kiss of death upon his neck.

Her fingers are cold.

"I'm sorry---"

"I already told you, I'm not upset. You didn't mean to."

"No, I didn't mean to… I never meant to…" His voice comes out scarcely a whisper, weakness irrelevant in this one moment. (Just this one moment…I admit I am lost.) And some of her warmth is finally seeping into his words. He almost sounded truly apologetic to his own ears.

She is leaning on him, now. Strength gives out, and she drops to her knees. He lays her down, his arm still through her body, preventing the restless blood from rushing out.

"Go now…" It is just a whisper. (Falling snow screams in comparison…)

//Then I hurt myself to see it too,
To feel the knife I put in you
My heart as broken as my ways
I never should've let it pass,
This fall was never meant to last
The reason gone and damage stays//

"Will you be upset with me if I choose to avenge you?"

She gives that (sad, strong, pained) smile. "Yes! Don't you dare…" She winces in pain, a breath too deep drawing a protest from rent tissues. "Don't you dare…" (So softly…)

"I've never promised you anything. I'm not sure that I want to start now." He is being antagonistic. Petulant to the end; he cannot deny who he is. Even to a dying (and who's fault is that?) girl (she is a woman now. But he still sees a twelve-year-old's faith and trust, just as she still sees a lost boy…).

"Please, Sasuke-kun… Don't…" Quiet. (Did she even speak?)

//All the delicate ways
That I deepened our graves
My apology pales


Oh, the pain in your eyes
My regrets have never known such sorrow
Oh, the shame that you hide
Resolutions are the same tomorrow//

"I finally put all my ghosts to rest, and here I have made another one." (The ice water is becoming tepid now…)

"I won't haunt you Sasuke-kun. I won't…"

"But you will, Sakura. You will. You will be a flitting shadow over my every vision. I'll never see the same again…" (The ice is completely melted. And the water is such that it is impossible to tell where it begins and his corporeal self ends. Complete acclimatization, as it should have always been.)

//I'm sorry

Just what do you think you are doing?

My mind is gone

I can feel it

Goodbye

Count the cost of your final phase
So much cost your last//

"Go…now… Naruto…"

"I know… I'm leaving you now." (Waters deep and calm. But tempests are often preceded by tranquil seas…)

She offers a small smile, though it is not the least bit strained. (Giving. Always giving…) "This time…I won't…try to stop you."

He offers a smile of his own. Bitter and wistful, it will never be warmer than it is now. "This time, all it would take is for you to ask."

Smile still in place, she shakes her head. "Go…"

"Goodbye, Sakura."

//All the delicate ways
That I deepened our graves
My apology pales

Oh, the pain in your eyes
My regrets have never known such sorrow
Oh, the shame that you hide
Resolutions are the same tomorrow//

He slowly removes his arm and hand from her limp form. (Her blood feels like the warm water of a calm sea… Is that what he is feeling inside himself? Her blood?)

"Goodbye… I…love…yo…" And her words die as she does.

It is fitting, that her final declaration of love be cut short as she breathes her last. He has never allowed her to truly show him all that she feels. It is not to be any different in her death. He does not deserve to hear such pure strains come from one such as her, anyway. It is blasphemous to even have heard her say as much as he has. He has no right to steal such a moment from another who is more deserving.

//Count the cost of your final phase
So much cost your last//

A scream to drown out the roars of the nearly fully emerged Kyuubi, tears from the miasmic wasteland of his soul, as his vision is splattered with red. The blood of the slain swims as acid in his eyes, while darkness from the Abyss forms jagged pinwheels that tear at his essence with their unforgiving blades.

Here her legacy to him is formed. Eyes that see nothing but the endless sea of dead; perception veiled with pink, green, and red blending together in a grotesque, unholy manner. And it will never fade. Even when his now cursed eyes can no longer view the outside world, they will forever deliver the sight of when love was killed by a traitor's hand.

//Oh, the pain in your eyes (the delicate ways)
My regrets have never known such sorrow (I deepened our graves)
Oh, the shame that you hide (the delicate ways)
Resolutions are the same tomorrow (I deepened our graves)
Deepened our graves//

End of Track 1

Guttersnipe's Word: This is a new series I just started. It will be a collection of unrelated songfic one-shots (though a few might span two or three chapters; haven't gotten that far yet). I have tons of songs picked out, so this thing could very well wind up being many a chapter long, hence the title. We'll see. All of the songs used will come from artists I have listed on my profile page. Not all of the fics will be dark and/or tragic, like this one. They will range from dark and twisted (yeah!) to humorous and fluffy (gah!). There will be love relationships and friendships, hate-ships and even no ships. It's going to have variety. Let's leave it at that. Oh, and I'll probably do most of the regular couples and some not so common ones, since I support some of those more than the popular ones. But I don't do slash. It's just not my thing.

Please review! Thanksies!