Author's note: I've been pissed of all day and this is what happens when I'm in a bad mood. I go emo.
Disclaimer: Naruto and its characters belong to Kishimoto Masashi.
Sorrowful skies and dark, crying clouds alerting them of disaster, destruction; death. Raindrops fell from crying heavens, drowned them, suffocated them and marked them. Their clothes smelled of blood, reeked of loss amidst the victory. Their humbly arched backs spoke of sadness while their necks, bowed before the crimson scene of slaughter, suggested defeat.
Hollow eyes and dried up throats mixed with empty hearts and the slowly numbing tongues. The silence, unbearable, and fate, unchangeable.
For a brief second, a fragment of time, some remembered. Recalled laughter, voices, caresses, tears, even moments of mutual hatred. For a brief second some regretted, doubted, cursed, feared--
Feared themselves and the darkness that hovered so gently above them, around them, inside them. The creeping voice of consciousness fading until the throbbing of heartbeats was all that resonated withing their chests. Time waits for no one, time reverses for no one. Fate is almighty and merciless, strict and stubborn.
Shocking.
Around them the world kept moving but the clearing was silent save for the drip, drip, dripping of blood, the splat, splat, splattering when the redness united with the pools in the grass. Red and green and a hint of black dirt. The colors of her eyes and his, together, the combination repulsing, they felt the sickness twisting their insides.
Corpses, tortured, ravished, abused, were not an unusual sight but for some reason the glimmering wetness of her flesh, carved open for the world to see, drew the taste of vomit and bitterness to their mouths.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
The world, already turned and confusing, must have made more sense from where she was nailed upside down, throat slit and chest bare. Countless stabs and pathways of dried and semi-dried ruby fluid slithering across her savaged body like tattoos. Despite the gore and her wide open, terrified eyes, the bloodied nails and pale, cracked lips, it was a beautiful scene. The very epiphany of the perfection she could never achieve during her short lifetime.
Drained of breaths, drained of heartbeats and soul. They couldn't remember her voice. It was gone, much like her existence. Forced out of the pits of their minds to make room for Grief. For every tear shed, a piece of her was lost. For every thought, it should have been me, her death became more and more in vain. For every silent prayer that she should come back, her entire life was made useless.
Anger fumed out of their parted lips like shallow breaths and their eyes, more dead than hers. Rage lived within them now, Fury was her neighbor. Hate resided close by.
Take me down.
Peeling her limp body off the tree, pulling the supporting blades from her corpse, no one wanted to do it. Perfection was right before them, welcoming them, how could they not stare? And keep staring, memorizing. Her life was drained from their brains, replaced with her death.
Don't remember me like this.
Initiative fled, frightened. Stillness entered, Denial followed. Insanity wasn't far away, already reaching out to clutch the helpless, vulnerable hearts. They were shaking, hands, lips, shoulders. They gave up, knees, and crashed to the ground.
A black mist before their eyes, so full of regret, filled to the brim with anxiety. The darkness sneaked closer and hugged their exhausted bodies forcefully while the heavens stopped their crying and the clouds were blown away by the wind. The sun made a grand entrance.
Warmth was around them but darkness kept it from entering their bodies; their cold, stiff, mesmerized bodies. Brightness had nothing to do with this scenery and the unwelcome rays of light trespassed, yet refused to leave. The half naked corpse now appeared paler than before, her eyes broken and not just lacking life. The raw sensuality was overpowered by final realization and twisted minds were set straight.
Kakashi was eventually the one to free her body from its caged state but couldn't stand looking at her physical container. Limpness fell to the ground and pink hair was dyed red by the blood spilled. He couldn't feel his arms, couldn't catch her before she fell. A few yards away, next to visibly trembling Sasuke, Naruto lay sprawled on the ground and hurled up whatever was left in his stomach. Sai was giving his former female teammate eternal life in one of his drawings. He was possessed by the feeling that this was the first and last time he'd feel this way. The irony that 'ugly' could become 'perfection' through such brutal means tickled his throat from the inside. It wasn't at all pleasant.
It's humiliating.
Underneath the clear blue May sky Haruno Sakura was pronounced dead, free from the captivity that was life. No birds cried and the tears of her closest companions had all dried up. She envied the blood that pulsed through their veins and arteries, forceful, rhythmic, steady, alive. The hearts that went thu-thump, thu-thump, thu-thump. Resonating like wolfish howling, desperate, lonely, taken for granted, ignored. A full moon would have been more suitable.
There was a line. An evident distance between them now. A group of four, all with vivid heartbeats, and the sliced up carcass, empty.
"We should hurry back", said Sasuke.
Naruto hurled again. Even his body rejected 'casualties'. Ignorant, immature, unrealistic, naïve were the thoughts that coursed through his blonde head. The ideal world he spoke of was, after all, just a dream. Her nothingness-eyes stabbed through his, he tore his gaze away but it returned, hopeful, traitorous, deceiving. The essential difference between them.
He inhaled.
She didn't.
He had memories.
She was one of them.
The blood oozed out from her wasted form in small amounts; she had already let it all out. Sickly pale skin the same shade as the whites of her eyes. A crimson substance dripping from her pink tresses, it never stopped. Hauntingly, mockingly, making fun of them.
Drip.
Drip.
Splat.
Joints creaked from forcefully being adjusted to hang obediently, conveniently, over Kakashi's backside and shoulders. Her fingernails were all torn, traced with blood, her opponents' skin, dirt. Fingers, now the equivalence of stiffness. Cheeks, now the equivalence of an unused canvas. Nothingness numbed their senses and they walked, through force of habit. One foot ahead of the other, one step, two, three.
And the sun smiled, and the leaves rustled and the birds flew merrily. A springtime of youth tainted with the color of a modest blush of innocent faces, a day like any other except during other days this was reality for someone else. Every second of every minute of every day someone was laughing. Every second of every minute of every day someone was crying. Life.
Blood on your shirt, sensei.