((DISCLAIMER: I don't own Naruto or any of it's characters.))
- Naruto's Thoughts -
' It's been a week that you've been gone, Sasuke-kun. No matter how much I wanted to help you, I couldn't. I only hurt people in the process. Sakura-san has started to forgive me. I had to lean on her shoulder as I cried when they buried you, and Sakura-san had to lean on Kakashi-sensei, and Kakashi-sensei had to cry by himself. We were surprised when they announced that they wouldn't disband Cell 7. I was sure they would; I even hoped they would. I knew we would be pathetic shinobi without you. I wanted to quit, but Kakashi-sensei talked me out of it. If I had, it would've just been Sakura-san, and as much as I didn't want to fight without you, I couldn't abandon her.
' It was hard enough for me to go through your things after you died. It was all in that room though; every piece of yourself that you left behind waited in that room. I slept in your bed the first night you were gone though. It made me feel more comfortable, as if you were there too and you hadn't left us. If we had never almost shared that bed in the first place, maybe I wouldn't have slipped up, and maybe you would still be here. For the past week, I haven't been able to say Sakura-san's name, because it was that name that made you leave us. I'm so sorry, Sasuke-kun...
' I was alone in our room today; I still call it "me and Sasuke-kun's room." I finally built up my nerve so that I could look through your stuff. Kakashi-sensei even promised Sakura-san and I one of your things. I don't know if that's disrespect or anything, but it really made me feel better that I got to keep something to remember you by. Kakashi-sensei let me look first. He even asked me to, since it was our room. Sakura-san had never known about you cutting before. I think Kakashi-sensei wanted me to hide anything that would show her that you had been a cutter. So, I looked today, and I only found one thing that I would have to hide from Sakura-san. It was the very last thing I looked at, because I remembered putting it there after I found you that morning. I opened up that drawer, and your kunai was there, sitting in a small puddle of your dried blood.
' I kept the kunai and nothing else. As I remembered how I had cause you so much pain and sorrow, I took your cold metallic blade and I pulled it across my warm tanned flesh for the first time, and a tear escaped my eye...'
These thoughts ran through Uzumaki Naruto's mind as he looked down at the reddish mark the remained on his wrist, not yet a scar, and the six others that sat with it. Taking out Sasuke's kunai, he didn't cry at all as he dragged his dripping blade across his weeping wrist for the seventh time that week, one for everyday he was without Sasuke.
' Sasuke, I tried to be your shield...'
- Owari -