How the hell has it been nine months since I last uploaded? Well, I mean, I live at work and squeeze in friends and family when I get my one motherfuckin' day off a week. This is what money-hungry cunts get. Also, it suddenly dawned on me 68 chapters too late that I could list music I listen to while writing. I can't for the life of me write in silence. I have a (currently) 312 song playlist for the story and I need that noise to get into the zone of different scenes and moods. So in case you give a shit, here's a few for this chapter specifically, in no real order:

Paris - Else

Time - Alan Walker, Hans Zimmer

War Zone - Unknown Brain

First Time - Josef Salvat

Jacuzzi - The F16s

7 Strings - Munro

Voices - Spilt Milk Society

Underground - MISSIO

Goodbye Brother - Ramin Djawadi

Italy - Reyn Hartley

Riot! - Arrested Youth (Young and Sick Remix)

To Lose My Life - White Lies

Autumn - WizTheMc

Chemtrails Over The Country Club - Lana Del Rey


Smooth sailing on choppy waters was rather eerie. Trusting the quiet backyard wouldn't wake, Suigetsu beckoned the pair hiding down the hall to follow. Slumped small and stealthy, the trio tiptoed shoeless across the floor, circling the stiffening shell of a woman once quite brave and beautiful. A few strides from the door basement door, loud voices in the night pointed them out.

Suigetsu gave Sai a harsh nudge. "Hurry the hell up!"

"Shut up! I can't think!"

Haku cried out, "Pull yourself together!"

Sai rubbed his temples for the fateful date that, ultimately, was the seedbed of this household massacre. The red screen lit up green and locks buzzed open. Haku hurried inside and down the few step drop into the partially ground-level basement. Suigetsu narrowly escaped the trigger of someone feeling lucky outside. Sai, a second behind, halted at the threshold. He frowned swearing something pinched his foot and slowly looked down to see a bloody spill soak his sock. It spread, he screeched, and Haku pulled him inside to struggle the heavy door shut, sealing them inside with Sai's howls.

"Oh my God, what the fuck, what the fuck?! What do I do? I've—I've never been shot before!"

"First of all", Suigetsu slapped him, "shut up."

Sai swallowed his shrill screams, Haku by his side as he fanned his flushed face.

"Calm, down, honey. Everything's fine, you'll be—"

"Fine? I can see through my foot!"

A budding headache crept up Suigetsu's stiff neck. "Just sit down and have a look."

Sai sank to the floor, took off his sodden sock and whimpered, "Fuck this. I didn't sign up for this shit."

Suigetsu struggled out of his kevlar vest. The stained shirt underneath had stuck to his side. "Man up. It's just a foot, you got two."

Somebody pulled on the door and wasted a petty bullet when it wouldn't budge.

"Just take a deep breath, darling." Haku sat down with a first aid kit. His dainty hands calmly popped it open. "This is going to sting a little, but keep still."

Splashed with rubbing alcohol, Sai spent his victim card in one go. "You cunt! Fuck you, fuck you, you piece of shit! The fuck did I ever do to you?!"

"I have a list", Haku hummed, loosening a roll of bandage. "A notepad, really."

Suigetsu squirmed out of his soaked shirt to take a look at how lucky he'd gotten. The shot had missed his vitals, barely dug a tunnel a little left from skin-deep. Gently he tidied it, tore loose some strips of bandage and inched them into both ends of the wound, wrapping the rest around his waist and hurt hand. Face beady with cold sweat, he found a spot to rest in the corner.

Haku gently bound Sai's foot as he twisted and turned, then huddled up to him for comfort. The ruckus outside roared the same, the two men lying in wait by the door persisted. Suigetsu found a small radio sitting on the shelf. His quivering grip scanned channels of white noise. Only one, a tad static made it through the thick walls. Two of three fluorescent lights flickered. They shut their eyes to not see it and tuned into the crackling jazz to not hear the hunt outside.


The instructions? Clear. The plan? Cunning. The odds? Those of the Devil rocking a halo. What could possibly go wrong?

Kankuro knew it was far-fetched, but circumstances had them cornered. They were running low on ammunition and the clamor had gone on too long for much more drawn out hide-and-seek. Sloppy marksmen or not, the enemy overwhelmingly outnumbered them.

Standing outside to spy on the backyard, Kankuro braced himself for a most unforgiving deadline. Ten targets, one trap, no room for error. Cakewalk, he thought wiping the sheen of sweat off his stiff lip, and flipped out his phone. Given the sour state of affairs, Naruto took his sweet time to pick up.

"You set?"

"Yeah. Are the bolts loose?"

The impact driver running in the background whirled to a stop.

"All fifty fuckin' four."

"The acid?"

"Halfway there."

"Good." Kankuro shook his stiff body lax. "Ready?"

"Ready. Ten seconds."

"Nine."

Kankuro sprinted inside, down the stairs and to the broken windows baiting the lurkers outside. They'd wisened up, no longer so eager to saunter straight to the frontline, and smartly hid in the blind corner farthest from the house, waiting for something to charge at. Even the smallest of pests could bring down colonies. A town of two should've been a walk in the park to conquer.

Kankuro pulled down the respirator sitting on his head, peeked through the drizzle of hydrochloric acid dripping down from the balcony above and searched his pockets for three emptied light bulbs stuffed with gunpowder and a poor man's fuse sticking out through the top.

Smelling the sting of flammable hydrogen forming from the acid etched steel, he lit the first, chucked it out as far north from the fumes as it reached, lit another and tossed it west. As the first one blew up, the second only half a wick behind, he hurled out the last awkward old-school bomb. The yard lit up for three split seconds.

The blasts weren't big or loud, but firecracker-like and meant to startle. Pitchy figures left their lairs to find the fuss, the whole herd doltishly gathered in the middle of the yard as they shouted at one another, predatory gazes twirling around. Patiently Kankuro waited to be noticed, dove out of sight and stuck two fingers under his tongue, lashing the night with a loud, lengthy whistle.

He'd pulled his weight. The rest was up to Naruto who, hands down, had drawn the short end of the dumbest idea they'd ever had.


Ten seconds.

Even through the respirator the fumes burned like cinder.

Nine.

Five plastic jerrycans down, another two to go.

Eight.

The leftover acid from bygone human-soup home cookery had sat idle in storage for too long anyway.

Seven.

Nostalgic, but a far cry from how he'd hoped to spend his Friday night.

Six.

The steel bubbled.

Five.

Time ran faster than the few drops left in the cans. He left them to leak onto the balcony below, raced across the roof, turned his back to the edge and stepped over it.

Maybe it ain't too late to find a filthy rich sugar daddy, Naruto half-heartedly hoped as he ran down the side of his house tied to a cargo strap, handling a heavy chainsaw. Out of sight from both yards, he hovered fifteen feet high gazing down at the trampled lawn. It wouldn't resprout till next spring.

Perfectly by it, Naruto glanced over the balcony, under it, and gave the build a slight shove. It creaked. He'd picked the right building inspector to bribe after a poor choice of contractors.

A spark flew across the back yard. Then another. Three combined, bursting into modest orbs of light, luring out a clumsy search team. Fingers pointed towards the downstairs window careless shots fired at. As the brave ones slowly sneaked into a sprint across the vast yard, Naruto held still listening, worried they'd bided their time for too long, when a shrill whistle cut through gunfire. A sharp sigh sprained his chest.

"I can't believe I'm doin' this."

Trusting the timeworn cargo straps, he yanked on the saw's pull cord and sank the chains circling teeth into the wooden beam bearing the balcony's most tender corner. The bolts he'd loosened popped out of their sockets between the floor and beams, the blistered steel frame soaked in hydrochloric acid bent under the tons resting on it, and as the beam split, the balcony buckled. Five seconds from struggle to descent, he counted.

Pressed against the trembling house, Naruto mourned the better part of his balcony plummeting to the ground. It was a quick and easy end to most, if not merciful to all. He hidden in the shadows, the chainsaw's whirr just disembodied noise among all other, none but one saw it coming.

A handful of bullets whizzed by his head, followed by the echo of an emptied chamber. All five missed him. They hadn't aimed to hit anything but his attention. And so it surrendered to a man standing by while his doomed army sprinted into peril. His tall, lanky frame stood sharply upright and still as a statue. Not frozen in fright, not to flee from fate, but to catch the gaze eyeing him from above. Startled, Naruto strayed from the plan and forgot to do a headcount of those charging at the house. The glance did not linger, barely brushed the blue taken by it. Still Naruto noticed the piercing hue of washed out teal and caught himself calling out to the stone-faced man.

"Hey! Wait—"

He was heard, but by then the teal stare had strayed and the man cast away his rifle to calmly walk into his demise. Baffled, Naruto listened to the godforsaken scream envious of the lucky ones dead on impact, and wondered what reason the stranger had chased to his death, for surely he must've had one.

He'd never know.


The ashen hardwood floor shook under him. In suffering screams, Kankuro waited for the house to settle. The floor leveled, the aching howls muted into whimpers. Braced for the worst, he prayed Naruto hadn't fallen into their own daring trap and ran outside to find the man fine on his own feet, hosing down the house and heap of rubble, calm as the cursed still begged for their last breath. He walked up and stood by him watching water drip down the white walls.

"What we doin'?" Kankuro wondered.

"We", Naruto aimed the garden hose higher, "are diluting the acid."

His voice rattled through the respirator. Reacting with water the fumes had thinned down into a liquid again, but he'd gambled enough.

"Ah. Of course." Kankuro was curious about many mysteries. "How far you think a balcony crashin' can be heard?"

Naruto cocked his head and rinsed out the gutter for good measure. "Ain't no ace at crashin' balconies but Imma say…'bout 500 yards."

"There ain't shot in hell no one's heard nothin'."

Naruto signed to Kankuro to spread his arms. Showered with cold water, his face folded into a deep cringe.

"Nearest neighbor's three, four miles away. Suppressed gunshots, impact driver, chainsaw, grown cunts cryin', half a house crashin'...They might've."

Kankuro took the hose and sprayed his friend up and down. "I get the feelin' you don't give a shit."

"Not at the moment." Naruto turned off the water and tossed Kankuro a pair of thick, black rubber gloves from his pocket. "It hasn't been that long and we still own the nearest cell site."

Kankuro's sweaty palms struggled into the tight-fitting gloves. "Hn, 'aight. Now what?"

"Now", Naruto grabbed the chainsaw he'd set aside, "we're countin' bodies."

Pullin on the cord, he walked up to the rubble and mercilessly cut through whatever crossed its cruel teeth. One man impaled by a steel rod a few unfortunate inches from a breezy death took on the chain with bare, acid burned hands, lost both, half a head and neck to rid the odd twitch in his eye. His comrade — lucid enough to stuff his spilling guts back inside — Naruto diced as he chopped the wooden deck into bits. Together they cleared what they could, gathered guts and stray limbs to keep count, but neither taut nerves nor jigsaw puzzles were either's forte.

"What the fuck goes where?"

"Count the heads."

"What heads? You made a human smoothie."

"Shut it. Just, gimme whatever. I'll figure 'em out."

Kankuro hurled a handful of leathery flesh at Naruto. "Here's your motherfuckin' meat confetti."

Naruto yanked down his respirator. "Wanna be human smoothie? I got a blender you can fuck."

Kankuro pulled up his. "You are exactly what happens when my brother's dick gets what it wants."

"Didn't say shit 'bout STD's, yet here you are."

"Want a helpin' hand, huh?" Kankuro tossed him half an arm. "Well there ya fuckin' go."

Naruto caught it mumbling under his breath as he carried on joining parts that vaguely matched. Chopping people was easier than reassembling them, he noted checking eyes for color when skinned faces hanging onto halved heads wouldn't fit together. Fifteen minutes of frustration profited four rough frames they stood over counting until numb. Ten had arguably been too ambitious. Naruto kicked a head into thirds he'd painstakingly put together.

"Five."

"Yup."

"Five."

"Well, most of five."

"This can't be all of 'em."

They slowly turned to see the dark house. Slowburn ire was a bomb with a patient fuse. Patient, but limited, and insane in the end. Laughing, Naruto grabbed a rifle off the gory ground and fired at the meaty mess at his feet to see it twitch. He wasn't asking for much. Just a little something to smile about.


The floor trembled and walls shook. Sai, Haku and Suigetsu held on to whatever was closest, fearing the ceiling may cave in. The rumble soon eased.

"What was that?" Haku worried, squeezing Sai who squinted at the ceiling.

"God, is that you?" His cheek took a soft smack.

"Not funny. What if something bad happened? Should we go look?"

"Probably just an earthquake", Suigetsu assured. "We'd just be in the way."

He was right, thought Sai until suddenly shifting away from the door, round eyes glued to the floor.

"Uhm, I think we got a new problem."

Puzzled, Haku and Suigetsu followed Sai's antsy stare and like he, saw a thin, long steel tube slither in through a small crack under the otherwise airtight door. Wide-eyed they gawked as it inched forth along the wall. When it stopped, so did they. When it let out a light wheeze, so did they. When a strange, stuffy garlicky smell mixed with the air from the AC vent, they scattered into corners pinching their noses. Gassing out the enemy was cowardly.

"It's arsine, don't breathe!" Suigetsu warned.

"Don't breathe?!" Sai hissed behind his hand. "Any other life-savin' ideas?!"

"Push the tube back!" Haku cried.

Sai tried but it would not budge, would not bend and was tightly stuck where the floor and wall merged.

"It won't move! Now what?!"

"We...open the door?" Haku suggested.

"And let 'em take over the only safe room in this fuckin' hell hole?"

Out of ideas, they turned to Suigetsu who shrugged his shaky shoulders. "I—I don't know."

Frantic to find a way, Sai limped to the shelves stacking everything from first aid kits to riot shields and ammunition, and rummaged through the clutter for gas masks, respirators, anything that'd thin out the toxin. He'd never been so let-down by a last resort.

"How? How is there a machine gun but no gas masks in a panic room?!"

A sudden scare stunned him. He slowly turned to the dizzy men and whispered;

"What 'bout the rest of the house?"

With one worried whimper, it stopped being about just the three of them. Suigetsu glanced at the ventilation grid connected to the rest of the house. If he turned off the ventilation, they would suffocate in a matter of minutes. If he didn't, if he took the risk, the arsine would leak into every floor of the house and poison anyone still standing. What if there were none? What if there were? Would the many broken windows be enough to air the gas harmless? If not, would the guys catch on and get out?

Reality weighed down the room and they didn't fight it off. The risk wasn't worth taking.

"I'm...I'm sorry."

He reached for the ventilation switch and flicked it off. The system shut down. Its propellers stopped spinning, the calming hum slowed down until silent, and in toxic air they chose not to drag down the strong with their dead weight. Even if the room took their lives, it still might save another.

A minute passed. Oxygen dwindled, so did their resistance. Suigetsu stood slumped in the corner clasping the knife Sasuke had gifted him, suddenly of faith and praying to relive the love he'd never grown out of after all. Haku, too, wondered what may come, hoping nothing would. Sai held the boy, braver than he'd believed he'd be draining his lungs for the last time.

Suigetsu's bloodshot eyes caught Sai's. They shared a somber moment, smiled, and closed their eyes.

It wasn't so bad, Sai thought, to suffocate. It crushed, but didn't hurt. The room spun like it would've after a drink too many. His body felt airy and the lighter it was, the further from it he wandered, until he stood outside it watching down at himself, waiting for a light to walk towards.

When almost on the threshold of losing sight of himself, the arms that'd slowly slackened around him fell away. The loss sucked him back into his body. He pried open his eyes to see the auburn-haired head resting on his chest, fair face peacefully asleep, and drew in a rattling mouthful of poison realizing he wouldn't be the first to go. As Haku's limp body fell into his lap, Sai decided he wouldn't be collateral damage of anybody else's self-sacrifice.

On wobbly legs he stood up and fell down, cursed how they fumbled as his numb arms carried precious weight. He saw triple, every step forward felt like a walk on water, but it didn't stop him from stumbling to the air vent and switching it back on.

The system spun to life, the rotor turned again and sucked in the fumes gifting fresh air in return. Sai clung to the steel grid and drew in a strangled gasp, kicking Suigetsu as he held Haku.

"Get up."

The man jerked cracking open his glassy eyes. Hanging onto the ventilation grid above, Suigetsu pressed his face against it and wheezed in clean air.

"You got a plan," he heaved between coughs, "or just tryna kill us all?"

"Not yet", Sai admitted shaking Haku, "C'mon, wake up."

The boy's eyes stayed shut, Sai's snapped up. With a budding idea in mind, he handed Haku over and staggered to the shelves again. Grinning from ear to ear, he spun around clutching hell in an aerosol can. Suigetsu eyed it leerily.

"Pepper spray. That's your idea?"

Sai tossed the can to Suigetsu, grabbed one for himself and rummaged through the clutter for a glass bottle of rubbing alcohol that he stuffed with white gauze, leaving the end hanging from the neck. Snatching a stray lighter off the shelf, he held up both for Suigetsu to see.

"Pepper spray and—"

"A Molotov cocktail."

Suigetsu pieced together Sai's plan, doubted it, but had nothing better in store. Arsine was flammable and they short on ideas.

"Meh, okay."

"Carry Haku. I'll spray one fucker, you deal with the other. Sack hard, there ain't no bro code tonight."

Suigetsu shut down the ventilation and smashed the switch to pieces, then yanked off the grid leaving a space not quite wide enough to crawl into but big enough to mislead, and picked up the boy he'd laid down. Both choosing a side of the door to stand by, they gave the gas a while to build up and then buzzed the door open.

Someone puzzled and shy pulled it ajar to peek through the crack. Coaxed by the empty room and open vent, two men trod in lightly. The switched-off ventilation dawned on them too late. They turned only to blunder back blinded by the spray that teared up their eyes, stung their tongues and burned skin wherever it sprinkled. Holding Haku, Suigetsu backed out.

With a small giggle, Sai lit the ethanol soaked cloth and hurled it at the frenzied duo fumbling for a way out, giddy to see their blurred eyes rounden as the flaming bottle soared their way. The gas caught fire, tailing the small flame that spread into ablaze wings wreathing the wailing men. Slamming the door shut, Sai and Suigetsu cackled at the muffled howls as blistering fists banged against their backs.

"A goddamn Molotov cocktail. Can't believe it worked."

"Finns burned down Soviet tanks with that shit. What's a couple dense cunts?"

"Touché."

Sai turned off the hissing gas tank. The fire would flame out as the gas burned, but the airtight shelter would finish what it'd started.

"Who the hell just casually walks 'round with a tank of arsine?" Sai mumbled.

Suigetsu squinted at the tank. 8 ppm, it read. Thinking back to unsought lectures on terrorism-for-dummies in his unfortunate youth with Orochimaru, the harm of inhaling eight parts per million arsine for ten rough minutes would wear off.

"This lot, trust me."

Haku lay on the floor, still unconscious. Sai felt his lips with the back of his hand. A soft breath brushed against it.

"He needs fresh air."

Groaning as he did, Suigetsu carried Haku to the stairway where a view to the backyard had been when he'd last hurried past it, now blocked by rubble that'd avalanched inside. Confused, he roamed over the ruins and gawked up at the door leading nowhere. Sai, soon there and like he, stared agape at the misplaced balcony and unsightly human goulash splashing under his shoeless feet.

"I think we found our earthquake", Sai assumed.

Suigetsu nodded slowly. "I'd say so."


They'd split up. Stealth now the only plan, the five runaways inside the house hid well. Naruto, not keen to play chicken with ammo, walked the second floor squeezing two pistols, Kankuro close behind. Spooked by them, three shadows had sprinted upstairs as they'd raced inside. Three out of five. Where the other two camped was anybody's guess.

Two unfruitful rounds later they stalled by the stairs, clasped hands for good luck and split up. Kankuro disappeared upstairs. Naruto stayed. Tired and worn, he deigned himself a while of adrift thoughts.

He was so close. Down to five from fourth of a hundred. Just five more and Gaara would have a home to come back to. And, maybe, he'd be there waiting, just like every day. Maybe so, or maybe he'd squandered those days long ago.

He should've been tougher than may, might and maybe, yet let them plant a seed of untimely regret and wondered; what if there was no such thing as too early?

All the too-lates he'd outrun in the nick of time weren't something to be proud of. All the desires he should've acted on sooner suddenly weighed on him unlike ever before. He should've been honest with himself sooner. He should've left his wife sooner, never have let Gaara leave, told him he loved him the moment it'd first sparked, said yes without a second thought when he'd nervously kneeled, and not hidden it from anyone. There should've been pictures of them together. Memories that'd long outlive the moments they'd been made. He swore to himself that, were he to be there for it, a keepsake of them would be left for loved ones.

The quiet click of a loaded round brought him back. His closed eyes snapped open and gun fired at the corner someone hid behind. The warning shot missed and scared them into a sprint out of the room next door. Unsure which clockway to circle the stairway, he poorly bet on counter-wise and ran after the woman racing towards the front door.

As he meant to aim, she kicked the pistol from his grip, hoisting hers. In a spot too tight to draw a gun, Naruto grabbed her wrist and struck his forehead into hers. The gun she clutched went off and, what Naruto realized snitching it, emptied the chamber. Elsewise useless, he smacked her across the face with its steel plated butt. Just as he fixed his backup SIG between her tapered eyes, the dim hallway burst alight.

The air vent a little south of the ceiling spewed out a sphere of flames and set the ceiling ablaze from there to the kitchen, splintering into fiery ribbons laced with muffled screams from deep within the vent it then drew back into to flame out. If not for the blackened plaster, neither he or the woman gawking at the pitchy streaks would have trusted that the top of two rooms had caught fire for five seconds.

Perplexed, they slowly turned to one another. She gave him a long, leery look. No wiser, he could only shrug. With his guard down, he took a kick to the gut and slammed into the wall her boot pinned his armed hand to. She had strength and wit, he admitted as a blade slashed his cheek and drew back to strike again. He flipped the gun to curl his thumb around the trigger, and praying the bullet would not drill through her leg unfortunately aligned north of his, fired with his eyes tightly shut.

She groaned, dropped the knife and fell holding her thigh. Naruto cracked one eye ajar to glance down. He might've shot blanks, but at least he still had a barrel to shoot them from, and celebrated with a shaky sigh.

"Thank God."

Relieved for the first time since sunset, he kicked away the bloody knife and shrugged pressing the muzzle between her scrunched brows.

"Not bad."

Sent off with a pinch of praise, she dropped limp to the floor. One down, four to go, thought Naruto watching the new tally in his hit book bleed at his feet. He gently touched the shallow cut on his face. His pretty boy days may be numbered.

His pocket buzzed. Naruto fumbled for his phone and tapped open the message. From Shikamaru, it read;

He's here.

For as long as he dared, Naruto hid under his arms and wept.


Two rooms. Standing at the top of the stairs, Kankuro's grim gaze shifted between two closed doors. He'd heard one slam shut but not seen which. Were he to pick the wrong one, his hunt would be over before it'd even begun. Pondering between the bedroom and the office, he listened for hints, realized only one room led to the roof and knew no one could've crossed it quietly.

Shephered by silence, he kicked in the office door and trod into darkness. The light switch shone on an empty room. Positive he'd picked the right one, he scanned the scant space furnished with a desk, chair, a filing cabinet and behind him another, shelved cabinet. Nobody squatted under the desk, no one could've fit into the filing cabinet and the shelves behind him were barely sparse enough to store books. But, to someone sly and smart, they might've looked like a ladder to a hideaway.

He spun around to see a guy crouched between the shelf and ceiling push it away from the wall. Too slow to duck as it came down backpacking a passenger, he took it head-on. The man riding its back jumped as it tipped over and threw a kick on his way down, already prepared to fight for the gun in Kankuro's sweaty grasp.

He was stronger than he looked. Wrist stuck in the man's rigid grip, Kankuro couldn't shake him off no matter which way he squirmed, and barely bruised his masked face elbowing it. He was different, one step ahead of even himself.

Too close to losing the wrangle, Kankuro disarmed them both by emptying the fought-over pistol into the ceiling. Full of fallbacks, the stranger pulled a bulky knife from his boot to take a swing at Kankuro. It missed, but the second stab sank into his shoulder and jaw took a right hook, leaving him dazed on the floor. When his eyes rolled open, the man was gone.


Shots from above startled Naruto. He spun around to see the stairs, heard a shoe pivot behind the kitchen corner and turned back to grip his gun at the wall. Somebody camped behind it, knew he lay in wait and bided their time hoping he'd take the bait. Wisely, he stayed put. When neither one would dumb down, they opened fire.

Two-way shots drilled through the wall between them. Neither one took a hit. Nettled, Naruto eyed the lead-stricken wall weighing his options, couldn't think of a single surefire one, and kicked his foot through the hollow drywall standing between him and a clear shot. He fired and missed. Both held at gunpoint, neither one blinked knowing that was all it took for one guy to gun down another. Seconds snailed by. Naruto knew he'd be the one to slip. The acid fumes, the dust from rummaging through the rubble; they still itched.

He blinked. Three bullets struck his chest; two got lodged in kevlar, the third bore through just deep enough for its neck to inch in below his collar bone. Both of them too close to miss again, they raced to fire first.

Two echoey clicks met in the middle. Wide-eyed they gawked at their empty guns, fingers twitching on the triggers to squeeze out one more round. Frustrated, Naruto threw his at the suddenly timid man shaking in his boots down the hall. Timid, but stubborn and packing a knife.

Ditching the guns, they lunged at one another. The fumbling guy swinging flimsy fists and sloppy stabs wasn't much of a close combat artist. Like leading a laid-back waltz, when the man threw a kick, Naruto leaned back and let it fly by his face, catching the next one to trip him off his feet. Trapped under Naruto, harsh hands tightening around his stocky neck, thin air wheezed from his quivering lips.

A striking pair of blue eyes he had, Naruto noticed, and sunkissed skin. Scarred hands, one of them scrambling for the knife it'd dropped pitifully out of reach. The duller those baby blue eyes dimmed, the tighter Naruto squeezed, puzzled to see a sudden sheen of hope spark in them. They gazed past him, over his shoulder at someone standing behind. He was too late to look.

A slender but strong arm wrapped around his head to tilt it back and ever so slightly left. He fought it, tried to drag his chin down to his chest, but before he could even feel the steel ghosting his neck, it'd slashed his throat from ear to ear.

The arm drew back. With void, upcast eyes he felt blood — thin and hot and vibrant — flow down his neck and under the bulletproof vest, soaking his chest as it dripped onto the man under his stiff, shivering body. His fingers reached to feel the slit from one end to the other, their shaky tips sinking in just enough to sicken. Gently they curled to seal it. Blood spilled from between them, so he held on tighter.

When his glassy eyes finally wandered down, they met vacant ones. Teal. Freezing teal on a masked, snowy canvas. A strand of long, white hair had escaped, framing the steely face of a tall, thin man standing by the door, looking down on him in thought that did not liven his soulless stare. Slowly the man bowed down to pick a pistol off the floor, loaded one round and aimed at Naruto who, lost in denial, marveled at the peculiar shade set on him and realized;

Child's play. That it'd been to him all along.

The man dawdled, changed his mind and instead aimed at his faithful follower who monotonously wondered;

"My execution?"

"Your execution."

In the next moment, he was gone, reaped by a bullet between those icy blue eyes Naruto had admired. Drawn back to the stare thinking lowly of him, pain finally caught up. It stung in the slit and spread from there to everywhere, turning him hot and cold at the same time, afraid and numb, weak but desperate to fight. Maybe to savor his raspy breaths, the cruel man stayed, watched and said;

"Live." He opened the door. "Father's will."

With a curious head-tilt, he left and the door closed. Softly, as if letting out an old friend. All alone, head lighter with every drop he bled, Naruto staggered to his feet gasping for air, clawing at his throat as it itched and ached, slowly slipping into delirium. The voice behind him sounded muffled, like bubbling up from underwater.

"Shit, man, I'm sorry, I tried stop him but—"

He turned. Aghast, Kankuro halted, too slow to catch the blond staggering along the wall, but by his side when his legs no longer carried. Hands wrapped over Naruto's, shaking around his neck, his mind ran in unhelpful circles.

"Fuck, okay, I—It's okay, you're fine, you'll be fine, I'll just—"

Just what?

"Let me take a look. Just a quick look."

Naruto dropped his hands. Seeing it, the slit that thinned and gapped with every shiver, Kankuro swallowed sick. It wasn't the cut. It was whose throat it grinned across.

"Say somethin'."

"Tell him I love him."

Unhelpful, Kankuro thought. Naruto could speak, he could breathe. The cut was shallow, Kankuro guessed, though felt no wiser knowing it. There was blood everywhere and help nowhere. Panicked hands tugged on his shirt. Kankuro hurried out of his kevlar vest to take it off, tore it into strips and tied a few around Naruto's neck, curling his fingers over the cloth as it slowly soaked.

"Listen. It ain't that bad, you'll be fine. Okay?"

Hollow promises echoed. They played deaf. "Okay."

Naruto closed his eyes. Kankuro spoke to soothe him. He listened holding on to help until the words muddled together, leaving his weightless thoughts to float in forgetful silence. His stiff jaws unwound and pained frown evened, a sudden numbness clearing his cluttered mind. There was no clock around, yet he could hear time ticking, saw sand in an hourglass grow a heap on the bottom, and knew the night could end only one of two ways.

Kankuro could gamble everybody else's time helping him, or gift his to the team Naruto was ready to take one for. Three helpless needed saving, one waited to come home. All four needed someone he couldn't be bleeding out, feeling oddly freer as he did. Resting his head against blood-spattered plaster, Naruto gently clasped Kankuro's wrist.

"It's fine." In ease, he smiled. "You can let go."

Kankuro's tan face drained white. "What?"

"There's two left. Just two more. Go get 'em."

"Wh—what? I can't just leave you for dead man."

"I'll be fine", Naruto groaned shifting his neck, "If it ain't me, it's someone else. It's either me or everyone else. Either me or you."

Met with a silent head-shake, he sought a heartstring to tug on.

"Either me, or your brother."

Slowly, Kankuro let Naruto give back the hand he'd lent.

"He'll never forgive me."

Naruto touched the sickening slit. He wished it'd bled quicker. Or slower. At any rate but the one unfortunate wedged between dumb luck and death.

"Hustle. It ain't that bad, right?"

Kankuro let his dark humor fly by. Torn, he mourned what it'd cost to bear the crosses of everyone else. There was no greater good to give himself to. No matter what he chose, someone would fall behind. Family was more than blood, and it pained, but maybe blood was thicker than bonds after all. Cussing out God, he tautened the reddening shreds of his gray shirt, praying it'd buy time.

"I'll come back", he promised. "Just hang in there, man. I'll come back."

Maybe to relieve him from guilt, Naruto smiled. "Yeah. I'll wait."

Kankuro clasped his hand tightly, picked himself up and walked away not looking back. Naruto didn't want him to.

Absent-minded, he held his tender throat, counting the bodies scattered around him over and over again to stay awake, until the blurry edges of his sight blackened and tired touch fell. Maybe he could've done more, thought outside the painful box shrinking around him, but the porch light seeping in blinded and soaked cloth choked. Minutes had passed and no one returned. So he calmly untied the swathes, reached for the light switch and turned it off. Casting a cold blue light on his sullied face, his phone sent out one last message. Last, because were it meant to be so, he'd let it.

'I'm sorry. I love you.'


Close to witching hour, Temari sat by Gaara with a book reading every line twice, letting the trite story scatter as she'd worry herself and feel for his vitals. She'd cleaned and covered his wounds with care, the number she'd called was safely tucked in her pocket to have help just a quick ring away. The needle in his arm had gone wonky, she noticed, and tweaked it.

Watch the salt, she'd been told, and religiously had brewing a pot of sterile saline. The makeshift IV bag, though rather easily made, she was particularly proud of. Shikamaru had been kind enough to drop by the closest 24/7 pharmacy for needles.

After another few forthwith forgotten plot twists, she finally laid down the book to visit the kitchen and returned with a cup of calming chamomile tea. About to sit down, Gaara's phone that she'd laid on the table lit up just long enough for her to see Naruto's name flash on the screen.

She slowly sat down, shyly reached for the phone and swiped the screen open, nervous to take a peek. Two lines popped up. With quick hands, she caught the gasp falling from her mouth.

She panicked and scrambled to delete it, but a sharp breath from beside scared the phone from her hands. Hopeful, Temari kneeled by her brother.

"Gaara?"

As suddenly as he'd collapsed at her feet, Gaara opened his eyes and sprung up panicked and delirious, as if pulled from a bad dream. Temari rushed to catch his stumble, fell as Gaara shoved her aside and yanked out the needle in his arm, struggling to his feet only to drop at every try. Gasping for air, he crawled into the closest corner, pitifully unsure of where he was and why. Very unlike him, he looked scared and confused. Temari tiptoed over.

"It's okay, honey. I'm here, you're safe", she promised in a hushed tone.

He didn't hear her, didn't see her, and looked around for something familiar. His glassy gaze grazed many safe sights, but none stuck. Too frantic to mind it, he let her brush his face beady with cold sweat.

"Why am I here?" he wondered. Snarled, but not unkind. Just bewildered.

"I'm...not sure", Temari admitted.

Gaara closed his eyes and struggled to think back. The nightmarish eve, garbled but vivid, struck his eyes open. When he rose and kicked Temari aside, she didn't dare whimper. He paced around aimlessly, caught by a nearby bookshelf when he faltered. Angry and upset, Gaara gnarled as if she was to blame.

"Where is he?"

Temari's timid gaze plummeted. She barely fled the shelf he kicked down.

"Where is he?!"

Trembling on the floor, Temari sniveled, "I—I'm sure he's fine— "

"Not what I fuckin' asked!"

He screamed at her, blamed it on her, hurt her when she dared to grovel too close. She didn't put up a fight, knowing better but pretending not to. When Shikamaru rushed in woken by the sound of her head striking the wall, she pleaded with him not to step in. He did, and each hit he took for her made him a little wiser.

"Stop! Please stop, don't hurt her, she's done nothing wrong."

"Honey", Temari spoke softly, "I know you're upset, but—"

Irked, Gaara threw Shikamaru aside just to get his hands on her anew. With her back up against the wall, she finally panicked when her throat closed up and toes no longer reached the floor.

"Please, calm down, I—I'm sure he's..."

The message she'd already forgotten led her astray. She didn't have the heart to tell him. So she lied.

"He's fine! He...called me. He's okay."

And he believed her. Slowly he unwound, let her drop and slipped from rage into misery. He slid down the wall to sit and hide under his arms, mumbling cryptic whispers to himself. Temari, gasping for air on all fours, shooed Shikamaru away to crawl next to Gaara and sit with him instead. He let her. If he even noticed.

"I left him." Gaara dropped his hands to watch the wall. Not really at it. Through it. "I just...left him."

Temari dared to scooch closer. "You did nothing wrong. He just wanted you to be safe."

He shook his head, eyes dim as if they'd burned out. "You don't get it. You don't get where I left him."

Temari finally asked, "Sweetie...What happened?"

Suddenly, the green eyes that'd cooled frosty lived again. Suffered, rather.

"Twenty-five."

His stare didn't stray from the blank wall across, as if hell had been projected on it and he watched it unravel.

"Twenty-five of 'em. Six of us. Now five. Maybe. Maybe there's no one left. There can't be anyone left. They're all gone. He's gone. They're all...gone."

Temari breathed in deep. The air locked in, turning stale in her lungs. "Who's us?"

Gaara looked her way to say nothing. He didn't have to. The plain wall he'd watched caught his eyes again. He found a numb place to nest in, where the sound of Temari mourning for Kankuro couldn't reach. He didn't care for her cries. He didn't care if he was the only brother left. Time turned in slow-motion, and his gaze to the phone on the floor.

Naruto had called Temari, he remembered crawling to it. She saw him pick it up.

"No! Please, put it down, don't touch—"

Temari floundered over, pried the phone from him and broke it under her heel, as if it'd undo what Gaara had read. He didn't go off on her, didn't even spare a glance, as if she and everything around him had snapped out of existence. Numb and betrayed, he slowly turned to Temari with infantile confusion, and looked at her like any lost child would. He didn't understand.

"But...you told me he's fine."

Never, not even in his naive youth had he looked so blindsided by injustice. As if there was a limit to hurt, beyond which no poor soul would have to travel, and even he in the roots of nihilism he'd sprouted from believed in. As if she couldn't have told a lie. He watched and waited for her to motherly nurture him calm, the way she always had.

Her cries tuned into a sorry note. He no longer felt numb.

Shikamaru didn't know what to do but to brand the carpet with a helpless look. Temari, blessed with a heart too kind, blamed herself for all Gaara screamed and cursed at, until he suddenly quieted. Anger eloped with fear. Only hyperbolic panic lusting for a way out stayed behind. Frenzied, he patted himself down for the pistol he'd found under the Streetfighter's seat.

Temari saw him spot the gun she'd laid on the table. They raced to reach it. Too slow to beat him, Temari hung from Gaara's arm to bring the barrel down. She was lighter than he was strong, but the myth of motherly strength that'd bloom when nothing else mattered weighed more than he'd ever carry. She hit him, kicked him to his knees and pried the pistol away. More fond than sorry, she raised it over her head.

"I'm sorry, baby."

With all her fleeting strength, she knocked him out. A blow to the head, however broken and bruised, was but a peck compared to a bullet that wouldn't have missed. He tamed at her feet again, she cast aside the gun in disgust. She hated them. She'd always hated them.

Shikamaru, who'd missed every chance to even flinch, mumbled; "Talk about jumping the gun."

Temari eyed Gaara quietly. She couldn't think of a next step and it pained her face into a quivering frown. Watching her, Shikamaru delved deep into loyalty. He questioned it. Not where his loyalties lay, but what it was. Was loyalty just giving up on lives he cherished because they wanted to fall in a fair fight? Or was loyalty protecting them at any cost? As Temari's shoulders sank along with her hope, he swerved off the path he'd so far trusted, and gave her a kiss on the forehead.

"I'll be right back, okay?"

Temari struggled to even nod. "Okay."

With a small smile, Shikamaru left the room, closed the door and slipped out his phone to tap on three numbers. His breath shivered as he called, hitched as they answered. Loyalty was love.

Wasn't it?


It was taking insufferably long. Sitting there in the dark hallway, still waiting for a promised light to walk towards, Naruto struggled to choose. Did he want to honorably suffer, or cowardly lend death a hand? For an existentially pivotal problem, it felt awfully dull, almost not worth the effort. But as the minutes passed and he didn't, toying with the knife lying half a reach away tempted. Soon it successfully seduced. He held it in his hand, his fingertips playing chicken with the blade that tickled the cut still lazily trickling a drop here and there. He squinted his eyes shut, pushed it into the slit, but couldn't do it. The knife clinked to the floor and he went back to tedious waiting.

Another minute, maybe two went by, his fingers fidgeting restlessly. Second thoughts suddenly crept up on him. He feverishly pondered why, unsure until feeling his thumb tinker with the ring on his finger. A rush of clarity ran through him. He'd so slowly forgotten why fight at all that it'd slipped away unnoticed, and came back swelling his lungs with a sharp breath. Every numb nook in his body jerked awake at once, sticky hands feeling for the light switch. Climbing over cooling bodies, Naruto lashed himself for having lazed away half a pint of blood while everyone else fought nail and tooth for their lives. No self-respecting widowmaker shot their own fiancé in the foot.

He clumsily crawled across the wet floor to the kitchen where he dumped out the freezer drawers to hold his cut throat with something cold. On lame feet, he stood slumped over the counter fumbling for his phone.

"Please, please, please, don't read it", he prayed as he called.

The number you have dialed cannot be reached, he was told and not touched by. He'd overcome obstacles greater than a worldwide answering machine. Falling and rising as he zigzagged looking for the car keys, Naruto found them wedged between the wall and a dead woman sprawled by the door. He tossed the melting ice pack, and with frostbitten fingers bound dry strips of Kankuro's shirt around his neck, tighter till they pained. Fist digging the keys into his palm, he stumbled out leaving behind a note to the friends he bailed on. It'd be hard to miss.


The eerie quiet distracted from guilt. Careful of every dim room and dark corner, Kankuro roamed the ground floor, antsier by every space he left empty-handed. Circling back to the bottom of the stairs, he stopped to sniff the air. A whiff of smoke lured him down the hall and to the basement door. It felt hot to the touch. He kept his calm and knocked.

"It's me. Open up." Nobody answered. "Shit, shit, shit. 2014, April...fuckin' somethin'."

He tapped through every date of April 2014. The 17th try finally buzzed the locks open and let him in. Seeing two charred bodies curled up across the scorching hot room, Kankuro cocked his head and cringed. Neither lightly fried human looked familiar, but did trick a man who'd skipped dinner to crave barbeque. His distasteful hunger passed as a glance around spotted none of the three men whose only task had been to stay in the room now a blackened kiln.

He searched the floor once more, stumbled over the rubble outside and found them in the yard, Sai and Suigetsu peering down at Haku who sat up coughing.

"What the hell happened? Why is the basement an oven and why aren't you in it?" he snarled, walking up to Suigetsu frowning as Haku got sick at his feet.

"Would you?" Sai huffed, holding Haku's hair. "Just be happy we grilled the last two."

Kankuro took a pregnant pause. "Last two? Those overcooked cunts were the last two?"

Sai's head snapped his way. "Well, do you see anyone else?"

Stunned, Kankuro backed away. Sai watched him bolt back inside.

"That can't be good."

Staring into the dark house, Suigetsu said nothing. He picked up Haku and ran leaving Sai to limp after them, and caught up with Kankuro in the upstairs hallway where he stood watching the wall. Weaving between bodies and clutter, thickening blood squelching under his feet, Suigetsu walked over to watch with him. He would've asked about Naruto, but let the bold, bloody writing on the wall speak for itself.

Crossed over with a bloody handprint, it read; HE NEEDS ME, followed by a change of heart; I NEED HIM.

It could've angered them, but one self-seeking deed from a man who'd cheated death a dozen times that night for everyone but himself; he'd earned it. They'd earned one another.

Sai crawled up the stairs, slumping down in the hallway. "Where's Naruto?"

Kankuro gazed at the gory goodbye. "He's where he needs to be."

Sai fumbled onto his feet. Suigetsu let Haku down and gently ruffled his hair. "You good?"

The boy nodded, and curious gazes glanced around. How the house would ever look like a home again, they couldn't imagine. From there to everywhere, bullet holes ran throughout, ruby red splatters painted the white walls from top to bottom and where they hadn't brushed the ceiling, pitchy burn marks colored in the pure spots. Half of the kitchen wall had been kicked down, all shelves and drawers overturned, bodies lounged every few feet from one another, and all that was only as far as the eye could see.

In surreal silence, they traded dazed looks; all a little lost and leery, scared to suddenly have nothing to fear. The quiet felt like a calm before the storm, but the storm had died and they lived, and nothing else should've mattered, yet trusting good omens felt careless. Nobody said it out loud, barely dared to think it, but the many dead surrounding them assured it was over. They'd won a war. Not the war, but were one blitzkrieg wiser, yet there was no praising the Lord on a believer's knees, no sighs of relief — nothing Lady Luck could mistake for arrogance — just a moment of silence and sober minds thinking ahead.

"Aight. Time to clean up."


Just as a btw, I'm yet fuckin again rewriting this shit from scratch. At this rate, remake premiering roughly around March 2056.