Emotion Sickness

The hardest thing in the world is not to die for someone; it's to live for them. To continue when all else is lost; to not just exist, but to experience life in all its glory, when all one wants to do is lay down and die.

Everyone knew that Naruto and Sasuke were something special. They were fires blazing, consuming everything in sight and awing all before them. Deadly but fascinating, and capable of great destruction.

They were men made for history, and they dutifully carved their place in it.

To them, Sakura was but a candle. She could burn, and bite, and light your way when you were in need, but she lacked the potential for mass destruction the boys had.

Unfortunately, a fire that burns brightly is soon extinguished.

When their team was formed, Naruto had coveted a place on that hallowed rock. It was only when their team ended that he got his wish.

The ties that bind can overcome great distances, divided loyalties, and bloodshed. They can withstand years of abuse, and hours of inflamed passion.

But they cannot survive death.

She did not cry, as she carved their names into that rock. Her eyes were as dry as the cracked earth, the only moisture the sweat that ran down her face. Her fingers carefully caressed the grit out of their names, and still she did not cry.

Kakashi came up behind her and placed a heavy hand on her shoulder.

"You know the last thing Naruto said to me?" She asked, not turning her head. She knew what would be on his face: nothing. No expression, not of pain nor joy. There never was.

He didn't reply. Except for the warmth from his palm, he might as well have been his namesake, the scarecrow.

"He told me to live." Her voice caught a little, tripped over by the word 'live', but her face remained as expressionless as her teacher's.

"Will you?" He asked. The unasked questions crowded around them, screaming in the silence. Will you live? Or will you merely exist? Will you become like me, a man who walks still, but died long ago? Will you cover yourself in masks, and hide? Or will you go out there, and love again?

Would she become the Kakashi of her generation?

"I'm cold." She says, her hand covering Kakashi's, the heated metal burning her flesh. The sun beat down on their unprotected heads, and irrationally Sakura wished that it would rain. Someone should be crying, she thought, the sky should be crying. The world should be crying.

But still there was only sun.

Hesitating slightly, Kakashi crouched down next to Sakura and, with an oddly clumsiness, loped an arm around her.

There was nothing more in his gesture than a friend comforting a friend, an ex-teacher to an old student, but at that moment Sakura wished there was more to it. She needed there to be more to it.

So, in front of the only marker of her former team mates, she slowly turned her head and kissed her former teacher full on the mouth. The cloth dampened under her lips, and intense heat flared between her thighs. Harsh fabric shifted, and she could almost imagine what it would be like to kiss him without his mask.

But he did not move, and eventually she pulled away from him, eyes wide and full of grief and vulnerability.

His one visible eye studied her, watching her reaction. His arm had dropped back to his side, and although Sakura was pressed up against him, she no longer felt warm.

Once again he was the scarecrow; expressionless and lifeless, always watching, already dead.

For a moment she watched him watching her, and knew what he saw. Then she looked away, and once again her eyes sought Naruto and Sasuke's names. She reached out to touch the stone and, finally, tears filled her eyes. A terrible ache was released in her chest, and she sobbed sharply, twisting to seek out Kakashi, though whether for comfort or simple understanding, she could not say.

But he was already gone.