I woke to gloomy skies.

I could hear the peaceful sound waves softy hitting the shore and the cold pebbles underneath me were smooth. There was a thick fog in the morning air and a faint chirping of birds who were starting their day. The sun peeked from behind the lone mountain in the distance and it was an unforgettable sight as the light broke through the crevices and peaks, splitting in all directions.
I would have appreciated it more had it not been for the terrible pain in my chest. A hand rose to my heart but there was nothing. No wound. No blood.

The last thing I remember was driving my katana straight through my heart with every intention of killing myself. I had been staring at the horrified faces of my friends with a pained smile before it all went dark. It had been a bittersweet moment. The Fourth Shinobi War was finally over with my death. Finally, there was peace.

I sacrificed myself for them. My precious people — my friends.

Kaguya Otsutsuki, the Rabbit Goddess, wanted to end humanity. She had lost faith in us and longed for peace but had the twisted idea that humans would never be capable of it, and it was our demise that would usher the new era. It's not like I could fault her, either. I don't have faith in humans.

I am the prime example of the cruelty and violence we are capable of. I have been both the victim and the monster. I was born in bloodshed and raised in the dark. I am the White Demon of the Akatsuki — their perfect weapon, or I had been until I defected. What I had endured to survive, I would never wish it on anyone. Death had been drilled into me and I never hesitated when I ripped out hearts or slashed throats, but that did not keep me from hating every second of it. I despise killing. I loathe blood.

I had always known it was wrong — killing, I mean. Even as a six year old, when Uchiha-sama ordered me to kill the woman huddled in the corner of her house, petrified, I knew it was wrong. All the members always told me it was the just thing — in the name of peace, they said — but it never settled right with me. I had always ignored it, my thoughts, my feelings, because I was a shinobi and shinobi do not have emotions. Shinobi do not feel. They do as ordered so I didn't hesitate killing that woman that day, nor anyone else named a target.

That had been until I was ordered to kill a new born when I was twelve. His mother ordered the hit and was paying a handsome price. I killed her and took the baby to Konohagakure. The moment I made the decision, I knew I could never go back to the organisation. They would kill me like anyone does to defectors.

My plan had been to leave the baby in the security of the village and high-tail out of there as fast as I could, but I had been tired and got captured. It had been four days of running, nonstop, through arduous terrains and avoiding shinobi, and once I dropped the baby off in front of an orphanage, I had been so exhausted that I passed out in a nearby alley. I was in a hospital when I woke up and a healer told me I was suffering from severe chakra exhaustion, malnutrition, and untreated injuries I never realised I had.

The way I was raised made me immune to pain. That is not the best way to describe it, but pain had been with me since I was born. I could feel it and it could feel excruciating but it wouldn't faze me. I had learned to move past the pain to survive. There is no rest for the wicked and that is what the Akatsuki were.

If I was stabbed during training, I had to keep going — keep fighting. Burns. Electrocution. Disembowelments. Amputations. They always said it was practice if I ever got captured and tortured. If pain didn't faze me then the secrets of the organisation would never be spilt. Hunger was also justified with the same reasoning. I couldn't be starved if my body was trained to withstand strenuous conditions while empty. To survive, I trained my chakra to keep my heart pumping, my blood flowing — keep my mind active. I was raised in the dark, figuratively and quite literally.

Those years were a nightmare of bloodshed, pain, and darkness.

In Konoha, the Hokage awoke me from the nightmare. In Konoha, I learned there was another way to live. Shinobi could feel. Shinobi could dream. In Konoha, people believed there was love and it was the way to peace.

In Konoha, I found the light.

I found Naruto Uzumaki.

He was my first friend and he taught me everything there was to love about life. We were both orphans with no one but each other and we understood the pain of being alone but we were so different from each other. I knew how cruel and unforgiving the world was, far more than Naruto. I accept the world cannot change, people cannot change, but Naruto does. And he promised he would make friends out of everyone. He swore he was going to protect everyone in the village. He vowed to change the way of the shinobi. And Naruto never goes back on his word; that's his shinobi way.

I believe in Naruto. He is my light in my darkness. He is my brother in all but blood and I wasn't going to let anyone wreck his dreams. I had faith in the world he would create and I had given my life for it — even if I would never have the chance to revel in its grandeur. I would die again to protect Naruto because my shinobi way is to protect those I treasure.

I had been the only one capable of absorbing Kaguya's chakra in its entirety and leaving her mortal, so that I would then be able to run my katana through her and permanently kill her. It would be the end of her. She would never awaken again nor would she ever have her power again. I ensured that when I took her chakra and I had planned to force her chakra back into the earth by killing myself. It would be the end of the Divine Tree. It would be the end of the Progenitor of Chakra.

And I had done it. I killed her and I killed myself.

I destroyed my heart.

But was I dead, though? Was this the other side? Was I meant to spend the rest of eternity with this agony? This tormenting ache in my heart?

It hurt. It hurt so much.

Was Naruto okay? Sakura? Kakashi? Sasuke?

I sat up and took in my surroundings. Lush forests bordered the large lake and, in the distance, there was town resting deep in the water shrouded by the mist. There were the obvious chakra signatures of civilians roaming within it. I could feel the chakra within the trees, the life thriving around me.

I wasn't dead. I was very much alive and somewhere that I did not recognise.

I went to scramble to my feet but my hand got cut on cold metal and blood began to drip unto the rocks. It was my katana. It lay unsheathed beside me. The blade was covered in dried blood but the wooden hilt wrapped in bandages was save from it. I searched the area for the sheath and my eyes fell a the dark wood stick being pushed onto the rocks by the waves. I went to it and sheathed my weapon in the wood after wiping the blood away on my sleeve.

To the untrained eye, it looked like a walking stick, and it had always made my targets believe I was innocent young-traveler before I killed them. However, I don't think I could pass-by that way with my state of clothes.

On my haggard cream top, right over my heart, there was a large blotch of dried blood. It was right where I stabbed myself. Not even Sakura would have been able to heal the wound after I dug and twisted the blade around. There was no way I could have survived.

I took a deep breathe and my heart skipped a beat as I sensed the powerful chakra of Kaguya inside me, deep in my gut lurked her ominous presence.

I had failed to return her chakra to the earth but I had learned from Naruto to never give up. Determinedly, I unsheathed the sword and placed the blade to my throat.

For Naruto. For Konoha. For the World. I repeated like a mantra in my mind.

Contrary to what many think, I am human despite my control over pain, and like every human I have the engrained instinct to not harm myself. Stabbing myself was hard enough and I had done it as quick as possible before my brain could shut off my muscles and halt me. That was definitely easier than slitting my throat. Ironically, out of all the lethal injuries I had experienced, my throat had always been left untouched.

I didn't know what to expect. How would a slit throat feel? Would I feel the blood gushing out? How long would it take me pass out? I was no masochist. I took no pleasure in pain but my nerves were haywire because whatever I was about to experience, this death — life after death — was going to be new.

I took a deep breath and repeated one more time. For Naruto. For Konoha. For the World. As I exhaled, in one quick move, I slit my throat.

I dropped to my knees and let my katana clang to the ground. The blood didn't stop flowing and more and more of it pooled around me but I couldn't actually feel it gush out. My throat burned and I felt the instinctive need to hold the wound but I held myself back. For Naruto. For Konoha. For the World. I had to die to keep Kaguya's power from ever being wielded again. My finger began to tingle and soon after I felt cold. It was a numbing cold that you could feel your bones, though strangely peaceful.

I tumbled forward and my face pressed harshly against the pebbles. I admired the sun rise over the lone mountain.

Fifty-three seconds. It took fifty-three seconds for it all to go dark.

My throat hurt.

I forced my eyes open and pushed myself of the ground. The pebble shore was no longer as serene as before. The birds sang, the wind whispered, and the waves lapped at the stones like a steady drum. Mist still hung over the lake and the sun shined overhead. Yes, it was scene from a tranquil dream had it not been for the gory sight of blood.

Her blood splattered all over like there had been a massacre.

She should be dead but she wasn't. She was very much alive and her throat throbbed as terribly her heart had before.

"Crap."

I, Fern, made the biggest mistake of my life when I sealed Kaguya's chakra within me. For her chakra, while not flowing through me, refuses to return to the earth from which it came.

It refuses to let me die. It will curse me with immortality. It will curse me to live with my worst nightmare.
Loneliness.

For all those that I love will die.