Disclaimer: I own nothing but the very sad plot.
Summary: They were a family, a team, so much more than anything anyone could think of. They were Team Seven, and these are their stories.
Summary of Chapter: Purgatory never seemed this bad in myths.
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I was drowning, in fire. Surrounded, surrounded by the blood red vibrancy of heat that emanated from the fire around me, coiling around my body like a snake. The same fire that came with the wonder that reaches from ash filling your mouth and lungs with the black remains of the once so kind element.
Drip
I felt a slow liquid run down my chin. It was blood. The copper taste could be nothing else as I bit my lips so hard I tore the skin, bringing more blood from my mouth. I almost retched at the taste but I couldn't, not for fear that if I did I would be weak. Not for the knowledge of the vile taste. But because of the one thing I hated at the moment. There was no hate for the man that did this to me. Only hate for the one cause of my lack of screaming.
The pain.
Dear god the pain was unbearable. The feeling of the white hot burning feeling spreading by poison into my bloodstream, ripping up my organs and destroying my innards, making me writhe in pain wrought forth in torment for my sins of murder and lies. I was strong enough not to lose my organs of ash. But I was too weak not to scream, not to plead for my life, and cry for all I was worth.
So I did.
I screamed and screamed until blood ripped from my lungs, making me choke and cry. The pain was terrible enough to make me scream and cry and plead and choke and burn. Just as I felt cold with death, something broke through to my ears. It was a scream, a scream to match my own. It was high-pitched, loud, fearful, and familiar.
It was Ino.
My dear sweet Ino-pig in all her blonde-haired ethereality was screaming for me. Memories slammed into my mind like a boulder. Flashes of a meadow, of a bouquet, of laughs. It was a whirlwind of little girl memories full of little girl things. But there was one memory that stood out like a beacon in the night shining on the world. It was of blonde-hair swirling with pink, of ribbons, of flowers, of friendship…and of one word that tore it all away.
Goodbye.
I walked away, I never wanted to see her again, or so I told myself. I wanted so badly to say I was sorry, but that meant giving up and if there was one thing she taught me, it was to never give up. And that was what I lived by. I lived by stupidity, because if there was one thing I learned as myself it was that there were times to fight, to prove, to live by determination. Then there came times to take a step back and see what you lost. And I know what I lost. I lost my only friend. I lost my Ino.
And so I burn in repentance.
Through the screaming I heard a sob, a heavy sob of anguish like that of the families I once had to tell had lost a person I should have saved. I knew those tears, I knew that pain, and I knew who it was. I knew it because I had heard it in the still of night during a mission. I'd heard it when Hinata-chan fell, badly wounded, at the hands of Kisame. Now she was healthy and happy with her children…with her husband.
Uzumaki Naruto.
My brother-in-arms, my best friend, my Hokage. I remembered his tan, strong arms wrapped around me in a hug when Sasuke left. I remembered his grin when he told me he was to marry Hinata, the love of his life. I remembered his reaction when Sasuke came back. A punch to the face, a kick to the gut, and a hug that made me flare with love. But mostly I remembered a day five years ago, a promise made by a boy no older than twelve, but with the heart of a twenty year old man reborn. A promise for love and a promise born out of love that he has not known. I remember his promise to me.
I'll bring him back; it's the promise of a lifetime!
I had smiled to him, a small grateful smile. Then he left. I waited for days, when I received news he had returned I dropped my work and ran from my sensei. I skidded to a stop outside of the gates and saw something horrific. Uzumaki Naruto, the unbeatable, was lying pale on the ground…as if he was dead. And I cried, he wasn't supposed to die for a stupid promise! But he was alive, brought from deaths door as quickly as he arrived. And I hugged him, with strained muscles, tired eyes, and a bleeding heart.
I gripped to him tightly, still crying. I whimpered like a child and breathed slowly. He relaxed a bit, holding tighter. He must've thought I was in less pain, I was getting better. The truth was, I was growing numb to the pain, and it was more of a sting. I blinked in and out of consciousness.
Then it happened. It was no epiphany of life, no. It was a rip of pain through my body. Just as soon as I drifted out, I was brought back. I felt a scream rip dangerously from my throat. I felt myself writhe and scream and plead for death. And all I thought, all I could comprehend was that even though I shouldn't have cared, I should've just been happy with the fact that the pain would stop, that all of my friends were here, was that…Uchiha Sasuke – my love and idol, the one I died for – wasn't even here.
The one you love the most, will be the one to hurt you in the end.
Well this was fun to redo.
~Aimlessly Unknown