It was dark, and she could see nothing as she sank further down beneath the waves. Her team mate's ghostly eyes were closed, and yet haunted her even when she shut her vision, trying to turn away the sight. The woman could not retreat from this haunting image of accusation, which pierced her almost to her very core… but the hardness of her soul had taken away most pain, and she felt nothing.

Coolness rushed though her hair, soaking into what material she wore not already drenched. Water was usually refined and caught by gravity in this form. Liquid always dripped down rapidly to the earth, forming beautifully geometrical shapes. But here, in its own element, tides replaced the breezes the woman loved so much, whispering in a flow rather than whistle she was used to.

Gravity was but a speck, still present as it always was, but dulled greatly by the buoyancy of this liquid, a source of life for all human. The woman swam as if she were flying, arranging her arms as if she were diving, the spreading them out in wide arcs, swimming, and yet with all the patterns of flight. For her element was up on land – here, her weapons would corrode.

In her mind, she was free even though the woman was caught by the fragile yet strong binds of a miracle liquid. For there was nothing to hold her to the village she once adored and would have given her life to, no evidence She'd survived the attack of the ANBU chasing her… and they were right, weren't they?

From down here, sea foam was no longer visible, the only bubbles those of transparent breath. It was as if she were exempt from the cycle of life, the golden spiral that caught everyone in its mindless twirl, just what was in between. There was no tug of bonds here.

It was as if she were not alive nor dead, but somewhere in between in a mystical land of eternity, where time simply was not, and nothing changed for the better, but neither for the worst. It was steady, and stayed for eons longer than the solid Konoha, longer than perhaps even the earth – for who knows what humans could do to their world? But this place was forever, and yet less than a moment.

It was the conscious of a person before death.

She'd always heard that her life flashes before a person when he dies, and she had wondered almost as long the number of memories it would take to remember each and every person she had killed. Would their thoughts and emotions have filled the air around them in a spiritual way, their very souls floating though the winding road from their births in the past to their deaths now? Would those thoughts and emotions have crushed her with their intensity, bearing the lasts sparks of life a person felt?

Would any of them curse her before they died, so that those last hopes could act on something, fuelled with the pressure of hopes, dreams, disappointments, anger, revenge, hate, and rarely, love? The woman had never really believed in those old wives tales, but this particular story she always kept in her heart when she took a life meant to live on. And so, although she was not a generous or merciful person, she did not kill if she could help it.

The woman did not want those thoughts tracing her whereabouts, discovering her greatest fears, then exploiting them when she was weakest – namely, she had once believed, the moment of her death. But she felt no pain nor vulnerability, really, for she had nothing pending left behind in this world. She was already twenty-two years old, not ancient for her people, but one with a long life. Though now some of the events she triggered haunted her, she accepted her death in this moment. No. Although she was going through a period all humans, would have to.

It was strange, really, how much her view of life had changed.

The first day at the Academy, this woman had cried because a boy claimed girls were useless. Back then, her father had seemed to be a pillar, forever standing against the winds of time, never fading out until the end of an era. And to her, it still was, for the day her parent died had been the end of an eon of her conscious. She knew, but the knowledge was shaken by the sudden change. How could anything be the same after he died? She would hear no longer his deep laugh, booming voice and gentle smiles. She would feel no longer a kiss on her forehead at night not the comfort of a warm embrace when things got tough.

But the woman survived. But the blank she had once had of 'death' was filled with nothing but 'father' now, the innocent view lost – but it had been before that, really.

And even the life from the Academy to her first close death had overlapped with other disappointments and tragedies, criss-crossing and hiding the true beauty of life. The failing of her first Chuunin Exams. The Sound Invasion. They were all examples of illusions cast on life. But she had not understood, and called them 'the worst that ever happened'. And they were, really. But she had been able to see past them, and she regretted it.

And then, had been the time she was promoted to Chuunin. She'd been fifteen at the time, graduating earlier than the other three teams of Konoha Shinobi. It had also been when more news had come of a certain Missing Nin slightly younger than her. But happiness filled her spirits then, and the scene of death changed until it was filled with friends – for she could not imagine the pain their deaths, being the last one standing to grieve.

But now… she was experiencing the pain of death itself… and it wasn't pain at all but the dreaminess of a rest after days drawn out through missions, through training, though sweeping winds, and days spent lying around in the sun. And though she accepted it, she knew it was the end – there was nothing more after this.

A face caught her glimmer from below… it was her team mate.

There was something about him that brought the rush of emotions back again.

There was something about him that changed her.

He was lying on a reef of rock. This stance told all – he was already long dead… but still the sight provoked her memories back, those warm fuzzy days spent together. They were gone now, but…

((You are too stubborn… as likely to budge as a mule. Would you really give in?))

She could still hold on to that memory until this swept her away in it arms to eternal sleep under the shadows. She could still remember this scene, this life…

She could still have hope to come… for the first time in years…

"Thank you…"