FUCKIN YEAH!!! IM SO EXCITED!!! THIS was the most fun chapter I have EVER written!!!! I LOVED WRITING IT!!!! So you guys had better love reading it ;)

Kakashi sat with Nori all night, until she was ready to go home for the rest of the night. As she stood up, he stood as well, then looked down at her with a smile. "Jiraiya is taking Naruto for training tomorrow morning. Are you going to tell him goodbye?"

"Of course I am." She answered. "I love that kid like a brother. You know that."

He smiled. "I know. They're leaving at noon. I'll see you there, then."

"Definitely. Goodnight, Kakashi."

"Goodnight, Nori. And...sweet dreams."

She smiled faintly. Kakashi saddened when she smiled, because the smile that was there wasn't the one that used to be there. This one only amplified her sadness, emphasizing the circles under her eyes and the tired, pale look on her face. Then, she spoke. "I can try."

Then, she went off to bed.

Kakashi watched sadly as she slid through her open window. Then, he turned and walked away.

Nori was sleeping by three. Almost instantly, she began to dream.

"What is this place? Where am I?" Nori murmured, looking around. Then, she recognized the meadow. "It's Iruka's special place...the place he brought me to that one time to watch the sun set. What am I doing here?"

Just then, a shady figure began to immerge from the forest.

'Who is that?' Thought Nori.

Then, she saw. 'Oh, it's Kakashi. I wonder what he wants?'

Kakashi came closer and closer to Nori, until he walked up and paused right in front of her, taking her hands in his. "Nori...you know I like you, much more than is normal between friends. We're not meant to be friends, Nori. We were created by higher powers to be married. I'm sure you know that, deep down in your heart."

"Kakashi...I..."

"Noriko...kiss me."

"K-Kakashi..." She murmured.

Nori frowned in her sleep in concentration.

He took her into his arms and pressed his lips firmly against hers. She was too surprised at first to do anything but receive his kiss, but she returned it a few seconds later.

The second she returned his kiss, he melted away, and she felt a tap on the shoulder. She turned to find Iruka standing there.

"Iruka!" She yelped in excitement, but faltered at the expression on his face.

He looked at her sadly. "I thought you loved me, Nori."

"I do love you, Iruka! I do!"

He only frowned more. "You certainly have an odd way of showing it, Nori."

"I...I thought you were dead, Iruka! I would give anything to have you back! Please, what do I have to do?"

Nori began to toss and turn in her sleep.

Nori ran towards Iruka excitedly, but when she went to embrace him, he faded away before her eyes. "Iruka..."

She wasn't sure how she knew it, but she knew someone else was behind her, and she turned around.

Nori began to thrash around in her sleep, tears speckling her sheets.

When she turned around, however, it wasn't Iruka or Kakashi that was standing there. Nori gasped. "I-Itachi..." She breathed.

He looked at her with an utterly cold expression in his eyes. "Noriko...you killed me. How could you kill me?"

"I-Itachi...I...I had to. You would've killed me, and killed my village as well. I had to kill you, Itachi, don't you see? Besides that, you would've raped me!"

"I...well, that is true. I'm very sorry for that, Nori, but...I hadn't seen you in so long, and I was nearly insane with wanting you to stay. I know that's no excuse, but..." He sighed, then looked up and saw that she forgave him and continued. "Nori...I want you to know something. Listen closely, because this is very important." He drew closer to her, pulled her to his chest, and touched his forehead to hers. She had thought that she was dreaming, but now she almost felt him touching her. "I love you. I have always loved you, and I always will. But...you've got to let me go. Before you can face your husband's death, you must face mine. When you wake, you'll remember this only as a dream. It was, at least the first part, but I assure you, I am real, and I'm really here. I've spent far too long on a path of evil, so you and I won't meet again, neither here nor in the world above. I was allowed to come to you only because you are miserable, not as a favor to me. Umino Noriko, you must let me go. I'm lost to you, Nori, as you are lost to me. Let me go. Let me go, and let Iruka go. Kakashi is the one you are destined for. Iruka is on a higher level of heaven than even you can hope to achieve, and I...I am to spend eternity in hell. Let us go, Nori. Let yourself go."

"Itachi-kun..." Nori cried, tears rolling down her face, hardly able to keep eye contact with him even at that close range. "If...if this really is you..."

"It is."

Nori cried harder. "Itachi...I can go to hell with you!" The tears cleared out of her eyes, and she looked up at him excitedly. "You and I...we'll spend eternity together there!"

"You...you would follow me to hell?"

"Of course! If I was with you, it wouldn't matter where we were. Any place would be heaven, as long as we were together!"

Itachi smiled sadly. "No, Nori."

"W-what?"

"No. You might be willing to follow me to hell...but I am not willing to let you. Kakashi is for you. Iruka and I are not."

"Itachi...how can you stand there and say that? If you love me, how can you stand there and refuse eternity with me?"

"Because," Itachi's voice broke. "Because I do love you. You're the closest to heaven that I'll ever be, and I can't let you go to hell just to be with me. And besides that, Kakashi is the one you are destined to be with. You can break away from destiny...but it is rarely for the better."

Nori swallowed, looking into the black, black eyes of her first love. In that instant, she knew that this wasn't a dream. In that instant, she knew what she had to do, and that he was right. He was her past, Iruka was her present, and Kakashi...Kakashi was her future. But she also knew that, since this was the last time she would ever see Itachi again, she had to make it count.

So she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his tightly.

He pulled back in shock. "Nori, weren't you listening to me? I can't-!"

"I know, Itachi. But this is the last time I'll ever see you. I might as well make it count for something, right? So now, I'm doing what I was always afraid to do. What I should've done long ago, and maybe things wouldn't be this way today."

Itachi stepped forward again, slid his arms around her, and paused, his lips centimeters away from hers. "It's for the better." He whispered, before he cut off her contradictory response with his kiss.

She lost herself in the memory of their first kiss, that fateful night nearly a year before. She pulled her mind out of that memory and focused on his face in front of her, then shut her eyes and pressed her lips to his. She was fairly inexperienced, seeing as she and Iruka had never even used their tongues during a kiss, and Itachi seemed to sense this, seeing as how he didn't open his lips even a little. They simply kissed, although it was a rather fierce kiss, tasting of sadness, regret, and wistfulness.

Then, Itachi pulled away, hearing a voice that Nori could not. He looked down at her sadly. "I've got to go, Nori."

She sighed, feeling the tears coming. Then, she threw her arms around him, kissed his lips, and murmured, "Goodbye, Itachi. I'll miss you."

He hugged her back, kissed her lips, and wiped away her tears. "Goodbye, Nori. I'll miss you as well."

Then, he began to walk away. Nori looked down into the grass he had been standing in, seeing a glint out of the corner of her eye. She picked up his ring. "Itachi!" She called. "Your ring!"

"I don't need it where I'm going." He said quietly. "Keep it. Keep it and remember me."

"Then...you keep this." She slid her bracelet off of her wrist and threw it to him. He caught it and stared down at the sparkling stone that had the kanji for love inscribed on it. It was a practical bracelet for a ninja, strong and easily hidden.

He looked up from the bracelet and looked up at her, shocking her with the tears in his eyes. "Ironic, just how fitting this is. I love you, Nori. But please, remember. Let me go. Let Iruka go. Kakashi is your destined life-partner."

"I'll remember, Itachi." Her voice broke. "But I love you too."

A single tear slid down his cheek and into the grass of the meadow. Then, he was gone.

Nori sat up in bed, gasping for air and sobbing, fists clenched and tears falling down her face. She raised her right hand to her lips, almost sure that she could feel the tingles left from his kiss there, then looked down at her right wrist to her bracelet, but it was gone. Then, she opened her left fist.

Sitting there on her palm was Itachi's Akatsuki ring. Her eyes widened in complete shock, but she slid the ring onto her right ring finger, exactly the finger that Itachi had worn it on. She trembled and shook as she sobbed, trying to keep quiet as tears dripped down onto the kanji for 'scarlet'. Eventually, though, her tears stopped flowing, and she brought the ring up to her lips and kissed it. 'Itachi...I let you go now.' She thought. 'Iruka...I'm just beginning to release you. But soon...I'll be ready.'

'Soon.'

And she fell asleep, exhausted, with her very first love's kiss on her lips, his memory in her heart, and his ring on her hand.

That was it. WASNT IT FUCKIN AWESOME?!?!?! You'll have to excuse the language, I say 'fuck' a lot when I'm excited.

BD333, out!

If you review any chapter, review this one! PLEASE!!!!