It was almost funny, he thought, that they had been exactly like his old team. That didn't mean they'd died like his old team, though. And it was not an underachiever Uchiha that had taught a prodigy something about life, but the other way around. Naruto hadn't taught him fast enough, either.
(He had only realized his mistakes after the death of all he ever loved)
Sakura, sweet Sakura who was so like Rin it hurt, and Sakura, sweet Sakura who was so not like Rin it hurt – she was the first to leave, to fall into that never-ending blackness.
She died because she needed to. It was Sakura who had faced her love – her sweet Sasuke-kun who just wasn't who she thought he was – and had died because of it. Tsunade still didn't survive even though she sacrificed everything.
(All to save her best friend, Naruto, and her teacher, him, and her shishou, Tsunade)
Naruto had gone second. Naruto who was bright and sunny and loveable and no one could resist that in a friend. He had been killed by Pein and Madara who just couldn't keep away from him – who both needed him. He put up a fight and then had seen Sasuke – who just killed Sakura, her blood all over his hand, the one that made Chidori – kill Tsunade. He had crumpled in on himself in that moment, and then he was packed up and hauled off. The extraction took almost three weeks.
(Kyuubi, who Naruto had kept from killing so many, was set free.)
Sasuke was the last to go, killed by Kakashi himself. It had been part of the mission and he didn't mind admitting it was one of the hardest things he had ever done. Sasuke had only been defeated because of those long-dead bonds. He was composed on the outside but because the stoic man was so like him, and so not like him, he could understand him. He hid the crying, broken part of himself. And Kakashi couldn't understand why a genius would go around booby trapping himself like he did.
(The day he gained Mangekyou, he cried for the first time since the massacre.)
People worried about him. They whispered when they thought they couldn't hear, but he always heard, he could hear everything. And they worried that he would break down, that the loss of his second team would drive him insane. He spent more time at the KIA stone, where everyone he ever cared about was, but he knew he would always keep going. He would never stop living until he made his last mistake in a battle or he grew old and died, because someone had to live when there was nothing worth living for anymore.
(One thing he knew for certain was that a sensei should never, ever outlive his students.)
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Okay, so one of my first attempts at angst and this is the product. Tah-dah!
Have you ever noticed things go so good in your head but not-so-smooth when written down?