All my life I've looked for love
All my life I've looked for love...
But could I find it?
I walk down this busy street in the middle of town without knowing what went wrong or even who I am. A dear friend of the family passes me, and without hesitation, I smile faintly back. What did I do wrong? What didn't I do right? Why did I loose the love of my life in just a blink of my eye?
So yes, I did find love. But it was smothered out like dirt suffocating the dying flame. Maybe it was never meant to be, but I didn't even get a chance to see if we were or weren't.
Why must love be so cruel? Why must there always be a loser in this damn game? I can't stand it! It makes me want to...
Cry.
Maybe if I run far enough away, I won't be troubled or haunted by the everlasting nightmares that cloud my vision day after day. Restless nights and heartbreaking days are my future, yet I can't seem to leave. My feet grow heavy and my legs are like concrete. Is this a side effect for losing the man I love?
For watching the man I love die?
The mission was almost completed. The teams were beginning to head back to Konoha. I snuggled in his arms and watched his black hair ruffle in the slight breeze. He was truly...
Breathtaking.
Every muscle, every ripple, every breath he took was so perfect. And he was mine.
All mine.
Maybe if it would have worked out between us, we could have gotten married and started a family. A family with my perfect man having the perfect dog in the perfect house. That was my dream.
But when you are a ninja, all dreams must die young.
He lowered his head and slightly puckered his lips enough to let me know that he was going to kiss me. I inhaled softly but quickly. Butterflies danced in my stomach as we inched closer and closer together. A slight brush of his soft lips on mine was enough for the butterflies to start reproducing in my stomach until it felt like thousands were in my stomach waiting with anticipation.
But then that noisy baka Naruto passed us on my right. I ignored him. Nothing could ruin this moment I had with him. Not even that baka.
But I was sadly wrong.
"Hey, hey! What are you two doing?" He exclaimed in his usual moderately sexy voice.
It was nothing next to my man's voice, but naturally after puberty, his voice changed. And let me say, if I didn't know him for the baka he was and didn't grow up with him, then I would have taken a run at him.
"Baka. What does it look like? We are affectionately loving each other without getting too graphic." I turned my nose up as I stated that smart-ass comment.
"Besides, what does it matter to you?" He turned to face Naruto with a glare. His deep voice rang through my head like a love song. I was warm and cozy inside my head as I pranced around to the tune of his song. 'This is love.' I thought to myself.
"Nothing, nothing! Geez. I was just asking. Why don't you just lighten up."
"Why? I don't understand the reason why you needed to know what we were doing."
"Because at the mere sight of you two, I threw up a little in my damn mouth. So I wanted to see what you two were doing in order to demand that you stop." Naruto laughed as he ran off.
"I'll be back in a second." He turned to me and smiled. His smile was beautiful. It was like a million angels had opened the gates to heaven and the light that escaped played on his perfect face and enhanced his flawless smile. 'Maybe,' I thought, 'I'll try and get my smile like his. I can't get it exact, but I can defiantly get it nicer.'
"No! Stop! Sweetie, please, don't go." I held on to his arm as if he was about to dive off a fifty-foot cliff into a five-foot deep fresh water stream.
My finger pressed against his skin. I could feel the heat from his irritated cells radiating into the tips of my fingers from protest. But I wasn't letting go. Not for the life of me was I letting go.
Quickly he kissed me. "I'm not going to let him talk to you or around you like that. I'm your man and I'm very protective over what the men say around you." He kissed me one last time, but this time, it was long and hard. He shoved his tongue in my mouth without warning and searched his territory. A little tease play with my tongue, a moan from the back of my throat, and I was all his.
As quickly as he entered, he pulled away feeling satisfied. "You're so fun to tease. Just when you think I'm about to do one thing, I do another. That's the many pleasures of being a man."
Before I could respond, he took off. But...
When did I loosen my grip? Was that the reason behind that wonderfully SHORT kiss? He just wanted me to release my grip on him...
Oh, how I love him.
But I was going to kill him whenever he got home! How dare he manipulate me like that!
Forty minutes passed and he still hadn't returned. Being an absolute basket case, I told Hinata that I was going out to look for him.
"If you aren't back in a hour, I'm sending a Jounin leader out to look for you."
"I'll be fine, Hinata-chan. I'm a Chounin now, not a Genin anymore." She smiled lightly at me. And I gave her one back as I started off into the trees the opposite way we were going. Back to where we came from.
The trees were whipping passed me as I traveled back towards the country of sand. Five. Ten. Fifteen. Twenty minutes had passed and there was no sight of them. Where could they be? I don't understand.
Ten more minutes had passed and there was still no sight of either of the two Chounin. A crash sounded off into the distance and I stopped. It was about half a mile away, but the trees were so thick, I couldn't see a thing. I started off again, and this time, I wasn't going to stop until I found him.
A sharp tree branch hit my shoulder and sliced through my shirt and gashed my skin. I winced but kept on going. The trees got thicker as I went deeper into the forest. This forest was the last forest before it turned into a barren wasteland and then eventually into a desert.
There was a cliff to my left a good distance away. Residing at the bottom was a shallow stream. It was the last water source before entering the sand country. The cliff was a good eighty plus feet, but it was so beautiful. It had it's own majestic and surreal beauty. It was one of the things everyone had to see before they died...
I flew from branch to branch and finally, after forty-five minutes of hot pursuit, I found them. I stopped on a tree branch and had a perfect view of the two. Naruto was walking up to my handsome man with his hand extended for a handshake.
But something wasn't right.
The air around me felt heavier than usual. It felt like I had a thousand pounds of gravity pressing down on my body all at once. But I was able to move. I got a little closer to the action. Tree by tree; I kept low so that they couldn't see me. I compressed my chakra as much as I could so that they couldn't sense me.
But once I got close enough, I could see what had me so worried. As Naruto walked up to him, with his truce hand extended, his enemy hand behind his back held a kunai!
"NO!" I exclaimed too late. As their hands linked, Naruto pulled him forward making him fly towards his body. Just before the impact of the two bodies, Naruto drove the kunai into the opposite man's side.
He fell to the floor and grasped the kunai and his side. He screamed in agony as blood started to trickled out of his side. The kunai was so deep inside of him that only the hilt remained on the outside of his perfect body.
I ran to his aid as fast as my legs could carry me. He lay there, on the ground, until I reached him. He tried getting up but I pushed and held him down.
"Don't move, sweetie. I'm here. I'm going to take care..."
"I love you." I paused. He said those three words for the first time. But they weren't for the last time.
"I love you, too, sweetie. But don't talk know or..."
And before I could even sense him, Naruto charged behind me. A sharp pain pierced my right shoulder where the trees had gashed my arm. Hot blood flowed down my arm and trickled off my elbow and fingers. I looked down to see a small four-pointed hunk of metal protruding out of my arm. It was a damn shuriken...
Blood was pouring down my hand and onto his. But he still remained holding it. "That boy has used up all of his chakra in the previous fight we had. I broke his arm and quite a few ribs. And now, he has an appendage sticking out of his side. If you ask me, it looks like he went through hell."
"Well, nobody asked you now did they Naruto?" I paused slightly. Naruto wouldn't say such things to his comrades. Nor would he even begin to think to hurt them like this! That wasn't Naruto...
I fingered through my pocket for my kunai, whirled around, and threw it at the imposter.
It hit him just below the shoulder blade! 'Yes! Direct hit!'
"Now show yourself! Who are you behind the fake skin?" I sounded terrified yet demanding. Bonus points for me.
He laughed as he began towards me. He tore the kunai out with brute force that probably caused the wound to be bigger than what it should have been.
"Don't you know who I am little girl?" He flung the blood on the kunai into my eyes. It stung and burned like red-hot coals. Blood shouldn't do that! I rubbed my eyes trying to get that damn irritating stuff out.
"Go ahead, rub it deeper and deeper into your eye sockets and blood stream." His voice was no longer Naruto's sexy voice. Instead it was cold and dark and mysterious. But not the hot and sexy mysterious that makes you want to pounce on them, but the one that makes you crawl under the covers and hope for the best.
There was nothing more in the world I wanted right then than a nice, soft blanket to cover up in. Hopefully then, I could wake up from this hellish nightmare.
"It's poison that'll paralyze a grown man in a matter of minutes. But for you, I give you less than one."
Already I could feel my body weakening. I stopped rubbing my eyes and looked at the man. The tears that had tried to help wash out the irritating substance blurred my vision slightly.
His hair was a little longer, a little past his shoulders, maybe, and it was black, jet black. His eyes were a deep green, almost brown looking. He had a rather nice natural tan to his skin, not too dark or too pale. His face was filled out perfectly. A distinct jaw line outline his already flawless face.
My heart skipped a beat.
It wasn't because I thought he was beautiful, even though he was. It wasn't because I was scared, even if I was terrified. It was because he resembled the man I loved, even if they looked nothing alike.
This man would be the one I would pick out of a crowd and go up to talk to. He would be the one that I could fall in love with and hope to live my life with him. He would be here instead of...
The man I loved now.
Did he have someone at home waiting for him? If they knew about it, would they be here like me protecting the one I love? If things were different, would I be protecting him now? Did he have anyone that even wanted to protect him?
Instead of asking anyone of those questions, I asked, "How did you get the poison in my eyes without getting some in your blood?"
He bent down and I could feel his breath on my face. "Because my blood is poison." My body trembled in fear and anticipation.
There was no way he could have anyone wanting to protect him. He was out murdering people for fun! Murdering people. Murdering dreams.
Murdering love.
I was no longer scared at the fact that I was going to die or even of this man. I was now scared because I could have picked him to love, just like I did for my man, but instead of the one I truly love being here, this strange man would be here in his place. Would he still be the same? Was he even given a chance to be loved? Or did they just breed him to be a ruthless killing machine.
I looked upon my love laying and waiting. What was I to do? If I didn't hurry and get him medical help, he would...
No! I would not let him go! Never would I let go of the man I loved so easy. I would not let him slip through my finger into the darkness of death.
I leafed though my pocket again and droved the kunai into the abdomen of the stranger. He stepped back several feet and rolled his eyes at my pathetic attempt to kill him.
But that wasn't my intention at all. I grabbed my fallen man's body and lifted him, with a great deal of struggle, onto my shoulders. The stranger was right; the poison was going to paralyze me.
"Still have life in you, eh? Like that matters, because the more you struggle the faster your blood will flow. Poison will pump its way thru every organ and every cell in your body. So run now, little girl, but I will find you in a heap on the ground next to your dead lover."
I stopped and turned around. But that's what he wanted. Before I could react, he came flying up beside me and hit me in the stomach. A great pressure built up around my naval as I went flying back.
I was in the air for what seemed to be an eternity. Trees flashed passed me until I finally hit the ground. I skidded back still grasping on to his body.
"NO!" my lover exclaimed.
I turned and looked. We were heading over the cliff! I tried to stop but the poison was almost in its full effect now. With my last bit of energy, I threw my right arm up.
Over the edge we plummeted.
I grabbed onto the side of the rock but felt his now heavy body slip out of my grip. Before I could say anything, he turned and grabbed onto my hand. We hit the side of the rock cliff with such force it split my three-inch gash on my shoulder and upgraded it to five.
Maybe we weren't going to make it out alive. Maybe we were going to die at the hands of this murderous stranger. Maybe we were going to fall to our deaths and land on the shallow rock bed below. I was beginning to realize what true terror really was.
"Hey. Calm down. You're going to get out of this." I turned to look at him.
"Who says I'm not calm?" My voice quivered a little. Dumbass.
"The look on your face has a lot to do with it. I know you."
"But, S--"
"Hush. He's coming back." He looked down towards the water and then back up at me. "I love you."
A rush of adrenaline coursed through my body. Was he planning on doing what I thought he was planning on doing?
"Don't you dare. Don't you dare leave go of my hand!" Tears were bubbling up on the rims of my eyes.
"You won't last much longer with the weight of both of us. Besides, I won't let you die. I promise. And a man never goes back on his promise."
"I don't care about promises!" I paused for a second.
"I care whether or not I'll be able to grow old with you. I care about our future together. I care about our children, our house, and our dog. But most of all, I care about you! And I care if you throw yourself over a cliff!"
He smiled. The same smile I had always loved. For that moment, I felt like this was a bad dream and I'd wake up in his arms and everything would be all right. But heavens delusional light flickered away as the stranger approached the cliff and peered down on us.
"So, there you two are."
"Shut the hell up!" I spat at him.
"A little temperament, don't you think?"
I turned to face my man once again. He looked into my eyes and I knew, right then, he had made up his mind.
"I love you."
"Don't you dare say good-bye! Don't you DARE!" I screamed as if it would help. Tears began to trickle down my face.
"I love you."
And with that last farewell I knew there was no changing his mind. He was going to go through with it. "I love you, too." I whispered softly. That was the last time I would ever hear those three loving words come from his mouth.
He smiled. He had gotten the answer he wanted. "Good-bye."
My eyes grew wide. I just couldn't take in enough of this. I felt his grip loosen, and then, he pushed off the side of the rock and began his descent.
"NOOOOOOOO!" I screamed after his body. But he just continued to smile. Tears streamed down my face.
The man had leaned over the edge far enough to watch. Tears continued to fall from my eyes. The man began to reach for me.
"I guess I had better finish my work."
Suddenly, the stranger's head flung back and then forward. A kunai stuck out of his forehead. He fell backwards onto the ground dead. I turned back towards Shikamaru. He gave one last smile and grabbed his kunai-less side. And then...
He hit the bottom.
A small splash erupted at the bottom. I closed my eyes and looked away.
I felt my hand go numb. Any minute now the poison would be in full course and I, too, would fall to my death. But I would be with my man. My love. My...
Shikamaru.
Would that solve everything? All these worldly troubles? All the grief and pain? All the lies and deception?
I felt a warm hand grasp my wrist as my thoughts processed through my head. A friendly pair of green eyes looked down at me. "I've got you now, Ino. There's no need to worry."
"Sakura." Her pink hair played in the wind as she reached down with her other hand to scoop me up. Then it began to rain.
The sky was crying for the man I loved.
To this day, Sakura says Shikamaru died so that I could be happy. But how am I happy without him? I have nobody here to love. Nobody here to protect. Nobody to wait for whenever they get home.
Shikamaru's body was found two hours later and three days afterward a funeral ceremony was held.
That is where I just came from. I just came from the death of my life partner. I said I wouldn't let him die. I said I wouldn't let him slip through my fingers.
But I did.
Yet, he told me I wasn't going to die.
And I didn't.
What did I do wrong? Did I not love him as much as he loved me?
"You loved him, Ino. As much as you could, you loved him." I looked over to my right. There, standing next to me, was a very dear friend. He must have followed me from the funeral.
"Naruto."
"Don't blame yourself over someone that couldn't have been saved."
"What the... What do you know? You weren't there! You didn't get to see your love splat at the bottom of a canyon floor! You..."
"I'm not talking just about Shikamaru, Ino." I stopped walking and looked at him puzzled.
"What do you mean?"
"You felt for the stranger that had been killed, too." He looked over at me to meet my answer, but when I didn't respond, he continued. "Did he have a wife? Kids? What was his name?"
I looked down at the ground and studied the little pebble that lay between my feet as his words continued to fill my head. "From your side of the picture, what he was doing was wrong. But on his side, what he was doing may have been right in his eyes. A picture says a thousand words but holds to it many more. In every battle, there is always a two-way mirror. Each side believes that what they are fighting for is right."
He paused for a second. "What I want to know is..." He stopped.
I looked up at him and gazed. "What?"
He slowly and softly stated, "Did he have any friends or loved ones that he wanted to protect so dearly that he'd risk his life?"
My eyes widened. It was astonishing that Naruto was actually comforting me right now. Before, he'd say something like, 'well, that baka shouldn't have jumped! I was on my way!' or 'geez, I wouldn't have ended up in a situation like that!'.
But maybe he felt remorse for the man taking form in his body instead of somebody else's. When Naruto heard of the news, it took everything he had not to cry in front of everyone. He had been told to stay secretly with Sasuke and Kakashi in the country of sand until word was sent back about our safe return. Since the first Chounin exams, the country of sand has remained an ally, but under close watch, too. Shikamaru was one of the ninja twelve and a dear friend of Naruto's, even if they didn't act it sometimes.
And I know Naruto cried many tears for his fallen friend in the sanctuary of his own walls and Sasuke's shoulder.
Shikamaru talked a lot about Naruto. I wonder if Naruto did the same for Shikamaru.
I smiled. "Maturity really has been nice to you, Naruto-kun."
"Do you mean what I just said? Up until the last part, all of that is just what Sasuke had said to me. It's all his material. But if by maturity you mean having a bigger brain that can remember things as extensive as that, then thanks!"
I began to laugh. The hardest I have laughed in a week.
"Let's go back to the funeral." Naruto said. "Everyone is waiting for you."
"Yeah. I want to see his face one last time."
And I needed to thank Tsunade for healing me, too.
The man I dreamed on marrying, the man I dreamed of living happily ever after with, the man I dreamed of having a family with were crushed.
I turned to face Naruto. His blonde hair ruffled in the air as we walked. His dream of becoming Hokage will be reached. I know it. And I will be here with him to realize that dream. Thus, not all dreams of ninjas will die young.
Most will have a full life span.
As we walked back, I began to think things over. Naruto had been the one, even with Sasuke's words, to open my eyes to why Shikamaru wanted me to live. He wanted me to grow old, have a future, and care about the people I loved here. My friends that always stood by me. The friends that we had shared. The friends that reminded me of all the memories of him. So even if Shikamaru is gone from this world, he still remains in my heart.
In my heart and the hearts of our friends, he will live on forever.
I love you.