CHAPTER 4

I blink. All I see is darkness. I'm lying down. I blink again. Someone is lying next to me. I squint to see the face. An eye staring back at me. Just one. A familiar one. Then I realize. I jump up and leave, but I didn't notice that he is holding onto my hand. I try to shake it off, but I have no strength. My inner self wants him to hold on, but my consciousness knows better.

"Don't," he begs. "Don't leave me again."

I look at him. All these tears in my eyes only worsen my sight in the dark, but his voice tells that he's also in tears.

"I ...can't! ...I can't face you," I say as I look away. "I'll only be a burden to you."

"I don't give a shit if you are!" He grips onto my hand tighter, although he is still weak. His voice then softens. "And you are not," he pauses. "Please. Don't do this again."

"Have you forgotten," I looked straight at him and ask the man I used to love-the man I still love, "what a terrible horrible unforgivable thing I have done?"

"It wasn't your fault," he tells me. He has repeated this same phrase over and over again, ever since that incident. I'm immune to it already.

"Stop trying to comfort me! It was!" Streams of tears run down my cheeks, and my knees fall. "It was… I made a mistake."

"Everyone makes mistakes," he says. "If you have to blame it on someone, then blame it on me. I was the one who broke the formation and gave our opponent a chance to attack!"

"But you broke it because of me! You wouldn't have broken it if it wasn't for me! It was ALL me!" I yell furiously. My free hand turn into a shaking fist. "The mistake I made cost the life of a comrade, an eye of my lover, my left arm, ... and my child."

Kakashi loosens his grip. He didn't know about that last part. I never told him. "What child?"