Chapter 12: Resolve's End

Haruno Sakura

They were arguing now, I could hear the both of them.

"Just don't show Naruto the body. It'll be troublesome if we have an unstable ninja with us," Shikamaru warned.

"Why don't we just bury the body here? It'll be easier for all of us and if Hokage-sama asks we can just tell her it's here," Kakashi drawled lazily and Shikamaru sighed.

"It would be easier if we buried it here, but there are rules that say all dead ninja must be returned to their own country. So, we'll need to bring it to Konoha and from there a representative of Mist can pick it up," Shikamaru explained in annoyance and I could almost imagine Kakashi's shrug.

He reasoned, "If a representative of Mist shows up, they're more likely to burn the body the moment they leave Konoha rather than return it to Mist."

I left their room. I didn't want to hear anymore.

Uzumaki Naruto

It wasn't him. It couldn't be him.

"Shut up, blondie!"

It wasn't him underneath the white sheet. It wasn't his blue, lifeless hand poked out from under a pathetic cover.

I buried my face in my calloused hands, trembling. No matter how hard I tried to convince myself it wasn't him shrouded in a death sheet, the harder reality smacked me across the face. It had to be him.

I half expected him to rear up and yell at me, to protest against his death. But when I remembered how accepting he had been of his doom, how he had simply sat there as the bird fluttered down to rest on his shoulder…

He must have known.

She had run screaming from him. His most precious person, the person he had loved above everyone else in the world, had called him a monster and run away. She had done this all just before he had died.

I had lunged for her; I had tried to kill her when I saw her. She was everything he didn't deserve, an evil heartless bitch who lived in her own imagination. I had screamed at her, screamed at her that it was her fault that Kisame was dead and she had started crying.

Why the hell was she crying now? She should have been crying when he died, she should have been crying when he had accepted his death so calmly!

She started shrieking that she didn't know him, that she had never seen him before in her life and then Itachi had intervened. All eyes were on him, he had never spoken unless he absolutely had to. For a moment, he looked angry but I must have imagined it because when I blinked, his face was a stone slab once again.

Itachi's voice was laced with disgust, "You loved him when you were blind but the moment you laid your eyes on him, you condemned him to his own death."

"Condemned him to his own death…"

I reached over to the sheet with a shaking hand. No, no, no, Kisame wasn't dead…he couldn't be dead…

"I told you not to get attached to him," Kakashi's soft voice murmured from the entrance of the room. I didn't turn around to see him, I didn't want to see his face. I didn't need his words, not now.

"You're going to suffer from now on Naruto, you'll kill yourself from the inside knowing that you could have saved him if you were a second faster," He continued.

My hand gripped the white cloth tightly, my teeth gritting. I could hear his footsteps in the background as he approached me quietly. "You're going to have to live knowing that if only you had been a better ninja, he wouldn't be dead."

"I know, alright! I was wrong and I didn't listen to you, but fuck off! You were right in the end Kakashi, you must be so fucking happy that I was wrong," I yelled at him, tears streaming freely down my face.

I felt a hand touch my shoulder. A transparent, hopeless liquid dripped onto the floor, marking the wood with its temporary sorrow.

"I just didn't want to see you go through the same thing I had to."

Uchiha Itachi

I waited outside while the copy-nin spoke to his distraught student inside the corpse's room. I could hear the sounds of loud cries and even louder denials. I closed my tired eyes and sighed quietly.

He was and always had been an idiot. He was never meant to be a part of the Akatsuki. He could never truly master ridding himself totally of his emotions but liked to pretend he could. He had been so foolish.

He must have guessed that she would return to him with open arms and accept him for what he was, what he looked like. He must have supposed she would be in love with him, that they could both run away together and live a life on their own without hindrances.

He must have supposed that she loved him as much as he loved her.

There were so many fools like him, so many people who thought that they would get their happily ever after. There were so many people who thought that love could overcome all obstacles. They were all fools.

I had seen too many of them.

"So, what's this thing your dad wants you to get?" Shisui asked me, a hint of annoyance evident in his voice. We had broken into Uchiha Madara's tomb, because that was where we would find what I had been told to retrieve.

The flashlight Shisui held was the only light so far down here. It was actually mine but his had died out the moment we stepped into the tomb, so I gave him mine. It made sense since he was the one walking in front of me. The tomb had a long never ending, narrow tunnel and we could only walk one in front of the other.

"It's an ancient scroll with a Sharingan on it," I replied him. The tomb was crawling with bugs of every different size and shape. I wanted to get the damn scroll then get out as soon as possible.

"You'd think somebody might come over and clean out the old geezer's tomb every now and again," He murmured dryly, stopping every now and again to crush the occasional cockroach into oblivion.

I hummed in agreement. We fell into what I had thought was a comfortable silence and what Shisui had thought was an awkward one. Shisui spoke again, "You know, I'm going to propose to Ayame in a week."

My blood ran cold at his comment. I said nothing for a while and then commented casually, "Bit early."

Shisui shrugged, forgetting that I could only make out his dim outline. The happiness was evident in his voice when he said, "Well, I like her. And she likes me. She's just special."

I was quiet and said nothing. I agreed that Ayame was special but…I chose not to voice my own opinions. If Shisui proposed to Ayame and she said yes then I wouldn't interfere. It would be out of my hands by then, though I suspected it already was.

I had been wrapped up in my own thoughts but it hadn't escaped my notice that the tunnel was gradually getting larger. Shisui and I could now stand side by side and talk. I chose to linger behind him so that I didn't accidentally trip on something and make myself look like an idiot. I would leave that to Shisui.

Shisui stopped and whistled loudly. He was obviously impressed with what he saw. "Man Itachi, this guy had serious money."

He stepped aside to let me see.

There was a marble altar on which a large white marble casket was fitted into. A likeness, of whom we guessed must have been Uchiha Madara, had been carved into the top of the casket though his features were worn by age. Four unlit lanterns were hung around it and the place was about the size of my room. I approached the lanterns and lit them with blue fiery chakra, casting an ethereal glow on the area.

Shisui turned off his flashlight and slipped it into his back pocket. He approached the casket and looked around with his hands on his hips. He scanned the room and told me, "There's no scroll here."

I fought the urge to roll my eyes at him. "It's inside the casket."

His eyes bugged out and he glanced at the gloomy entrance doubtfully. You could ask a ninja to steal from a pitch black mansion with twenty or so elite guards surrounding it and they wouldn't bat an eyelid. Ask a ninja to do something like steal from the dead and it was a whole other story.

I ignored Shisui and walked briskly towards the stone coffin. Shisui looked like he was going to stop me but with a forceful push and a lot of chakra, the lid was off. It crashed to the floor with a dull thud and Shisui jumped, as if the thud was the warning of the dead not to retrieve the scroll. A cloud of dust rose from the upturned lid and surrounded the open coffin, a last and feeble attempt to throw us off our task. When the dust had cleared, my eyes scanned the coffin for the evasive scroll. I almost staggered backwards a step.

I tried to tear my eyes away from the coffin. It felt as though I was under a genjutsu but unlike other genjutsus, it was inescapable.

There was something other than the body of Uchiha Madara in his coffin.

My stomach wanted to retch but my self control told me to stay where I was. The floor underneath my feet was sticky and I could feel something warm seeping through my shoes. I took a step back, hearing my shoes squelch disgustingly beneath me.

I looked down and resisted the urge to jump. There was blood all over the floor and inside of his coffin, it seemed to be drowning the corpse. The body had floated to the surface but his skin was streaked a pinkish red with what I thought was his own blood. His body was perfectly intact but his eyes…

There were none. They were empty, bloody holes that gaped up at the ceiling.

"Itachi, I found the scroll," Shisui called to me and I nodded, his words not really registering.

I didn't even turn to look at him but instead activated my own Sharingan. The coffin began to shake violently and I steadied myself, reaching for my sleek black katana. A hand rose out of the coffin, a desperate bloodied hand and instantly I knew it to be an illusion. My sharingan wheels whirred in an attempt to see through it and as more and more of Uchiha Madara's body rose out of the coffin, they spun faster and faster.

"Hey man, are you alright?" Shisui asked me uncertainly.

Shisui wasn't trapped under the genjutsu, it was just me. I realized it was because I had looked inside the coffin and he hadn't.

My sharingan was failing and the illusion didn't go away. I raised my stiff arms and hands to form a seal, the very effort of doing that one thing made my veins bulge out with the extreme work. I whispered in an urgent undertone, 'Kai!'

What was once Uchiha Madara turned its body to look at me with a pair of unseeing, bloodied eye holes. I whispered the release incantation over and over again, trying to claw my way out of this nightmare made real. I took a step back and I slipped on the edge of the raised floor, falling with a heavy crash onto the marble floor. Shisui ran over to me. To my subconscious disgust, I was trembling and gasping with fear.

I knew I could stop this genjustsu but it was as though my chakra channels were too far out of reach. It was as if I had lost what control I had over my body and to stop and restart my chakra channels at a rapid speed was far out of my hands by this point. I could hear Shisui yelling my name, his tone growing gradually more and more urgent as I began to spasm sporadically like a dying cockroach. I gripped at his dark shirt, scrambling away from the embodiment of my terror.

I caught sight of a pale cream scroll with a malevolent Sharingan painted onto it. It began spinning gradually, dizzying in its hypnotic rotation. I reached out for it and touched it, only to begin breathing heavily as a sharp pain ripped through my eyes. I began clawing at my eyes, trying to stop the pain and was barely conscious of the blood trickling down from my left eye.

"Shi-Shisui," I gasped out his name unconsciously.

His hand closed tightly over my upper arm, his knuckles white. He was biting his lip and swearing in frustration at his own helplessness. His sharingan eyes were glazed over with angry tears and he wiped them away with his arm quickly.

"It's alright man, I'm here," I heard him try to reassure me weakly and I looked up at him with wide eyes.

My breath caught in my throat as I looked up at him. I tried to close my eyes but couldn't and tried to scream. My mouth opened and closed like a fish but no sound came out.

A gaping open wound opened in his neck, blood dripping down the pale skin and staining it a garish red. I reached up to touch it, to warn him he was dying, but he took no notice. Rivulets of blood trickled down from the corners of his mouth.

I could see his death.

My eyes narrowed unconsciously and I passed a fleeting hand over my face. For every memory I remembered I felt five years older than I was. I leaned heavily against the wooden wall. I ran a course finger over the scar underneath my left eye cautiously, as if it were to open again and bleed.

I heard the screen door beside me open quietly. Out of the corner of my eye, a head of spiky grey hair caught my attention. The door was closed carefully behind him with a soft roll. He let out an almost inaudible sigh and raised his eye patch to rub at his bloodshot Sharingan eye.

He turned his head to look at me unabashedly. I ignored his piercing look, staring blankly ahead of me. His mismatched eyes took in my face cautiously, as if he were looking for some hint of emotion in its recesses. I could hear the Kyuubi's quiet sobs from inside of the room. His figure cast a shadow on the rice paper sliding door, a pathetic, hunched over man.

"Konoha is foolish for encouraging friendship," I stated offhandedly, for once feeling a bit more talkative than usual.

Kakashi smiled a tired smile. "You're probably right."

Haruno Sakura

Was this what it would be like when Itachi died?

Would it be a time of choking silence, of badly concealed sorrow and of traitorous tears?

Or would it be a time of relief and detachment? A time where we could all say, "Well, I'm glad that's over. What's the next mission?"

The reason everyone was so quiet and contemplative was not because all of us had known Kisame well. Had it been any other day, no one other than Naruto and Hinata would have cared about Kisame's death.

It was the way he died that hurt us the most.

We were all ninjas, just like him. His death brought to life the reality that one day we could die alone, just like Kisame did.

The second thing was that…it was Naruto, Naruto, who was mourning his death. The sun kissed ball of energy, always ready with a confident smile and a loud proclamation of his greatness. When Naruto was sad, it was as if someone had dampened the days to come or had thrown a cloth over the sun and hidden away the light. It was heartbreaking to watch.

I stared up at the ceiling with an arm slung over my face, my eyes watery with thought. My mind drifted back to Itachi and I swallowed down the lump forming in the back of my throat.

When somebody else lost something precious to them, it made you realize what was truly precious to you.

I wanted to see Itachi again. I didn't care if he ended up killing me or beating me, I just wanted to see him again. I wanted to speak to him and have a random conversation about aluminium cans, or something! To hell with Shikamaru and Kakashi, he was a human and I was the only one who seemed to notice.

"Sakura-chan?"

I jumped at the sound of my name. For a moment, I thought that just maybe it was Itachi. Then I realized that it would be a cold day in hell when he called me Sakura-chan.

"Come in, the door's open," I called, sitting up in my bed. The sliding screen rolled open as a tall, blonde man shuffled into the room.

Naruto raised his head slightly to look at me through his bangs. He had been crying, his right eye was puffy and his voice sounded like he hadn't spoken in weeks. He hesitated and stopped where he was, unsure of whether he should approach me or not. I watched him, feeling my own eyes well up with tears once again.

I spread my arms wide open for him. There were no words between us.

He fell to his knees in front of me and hugged me around the waist, resting his tired face against my stomach. I made no move to push him away and began to stroke his golden hair soothingly.

There was a strangled sound in the back of his throat as he tried to hold back his tears. "Kisame…he…he was…"

His entire body suddenly began to shiver as he buried his face in my shirt, pulling me closer. My shirt was growing damp with his tears but I didn't complain.

"He was human."

His hands clenched at my shirt.

"You know that, right? Sakura-chan?" He begged me.

He knew I was the only one who would understand. He needed my comfort; he needed to know that someone else felt the way he was feeling.

"You and Itachi…you know, right?" His voice was barely a whisper.

His eyes looked up at me imploringly and my eyes had widened for a split second. How did he know? Did anyone else know? Was I a traitor? I…

"Naruto-" I began but my voice gave out on me, giving way to a strained breath.

I brushed angrily at my eyes, mad at my weakness. I was stronger than this, I wouldn't let Itachi get to me…I wouldn't…

"Sakura-chan…you love him, right?" He pleaded with me. His eyes told me he already knew the answer but he needed to hear it from me.

My tears burned my eyes as they struggled to come free, fighting against what little resolve I still had left. I could that resolve drifting away from me now, like sand floating away on a wave. There was so much to fight against, so many feelings to bottle, so many truths to bury and I was just so tired of it all.

I put my arms around Naruto's neck and hid my face there. I didn't want anyone else to know that he was right, I didn't want anyone else to know that I…that I…

That I understood.

"I love him, Naruto."

Uchiha Itachi

The ANBU squad captain had been a fool. He hadn't realized that the copy-nin and I had a room right beside Sakura's. He also hadn't realized that the rooms had interconnecting screens, so I would be able to slip through the door and 'kill' Sakura. If the copy-nin knew, he didn't let on.

I could hear someone crying in her room. The copy-nin was fast asleep so there was no annoying conversation or the slow turn of a page to hinder my ears. I could hear the muffled conversation she was having through the screen. I had been sitting with my back to the screen long before they had begun and I hadn't intended to listen in. It was impossible for me not to listen anyways, they were both so loud.

"…human…you know that, right Sakura-chan?" A male voice, the Kyuubi's voice, asked her.

My crimson eyes narrowed. What was that boy doing in there with her alone?

I opened the screen door slightly to let a slight draft in. Or so you say, a voice in the back of my head nagged at me. I ignored it and looked through the screen to get a look at what they were doing.

Something in my stomach tightened as I stared at the two of them. I was scarcely aware of the glare I directed at the Kyuubi boy. The two of them were embracing each other intimately, his face buried in her stomach. What was his face doing there? He had no right to touch my Sakura-

"You and Itachi…you know, right?" The boy continued and I grew more suspicious of the conversation as my name was mentioned. What would they be talking about me for?

And, why the hell did I care all of a sudden?

I watched Sakura's face, waiting for her answer. She swallowed and her hand paused where it was atop of the boy's head. I silently approved of this; she wasn't stroking his hair anymore. She didn't look like she would answer and it reminded me of how weak she was. She let a question defeat her.

"Naruto-" She began in a strangled voice.

Her arm rose to brush at her eyes feebly and as she drew it away I saw the liquid staining her arm. I had seen many women cry and most of them looked awful when they did it, their eyes grew blotchy and they collapsed into a helpless fit. Sakura didn't look at all horrendous when she cried and even though I knew there was a word for it, I chose not to use it.

Beautiful, huh? The voice nagged at me again. I made no move to neither agree nor disagree with it.

"Sakura-chan…you love him, right?"

I closed the door. I had no wish to hear the answer to that question.

"Stop spying on the girls, you naughty boy," A familiar, tenor voice chastised me. I closed my eyes and fought the urge to dig myself into a hole six feet under.

"You are annoying," I told the voice flat out and there was a quiet chuckle of amusement.

"Glad to see that captivity hasn't changed you a bit, yeah," The man commented.

Our voices were both low so that nobody would hear us. I opened my eyes to glare coldly at Deidara and he smirked at me. He made to approach me but thought better of it, lingering on the window sill to stare at me. It was a wise move; I probably would have hit him had he come any closer.

"Where's fish breath?" He asked, glancing around the room. His gaze fell upon the sleeping copy-nin, his lip curling upwards in disgust, before looking back at me.

"He's two rooms down," I informed him.

Deidara didn't look like he was leaving any time soon though. He sat down and I almost groaned. However, as his green eyes took on a mature quality, I decided that perhaps it would be alright for him to stay.

"I'm not a blind idiot, Itachi-san. I saw what you did for Salmon-chan, yeah. You're too nice, you know that?" he told me in an annoyed tone, scratching absentmindedly at one of his palms.

"You're the last person I should hear that from Deidara. You could have killed him earlier," I snapped back coldly and Deidara grinned.

"Well, you know, it wouldn't have mattered what time I killed him. He was going to die by the end of that day anyways, yeah," He defended himself smoothly.

I rolled my eyes.

Deidara suddenly laughed and I looked at him, a quizzical eyebrow raised. His laughter was loud but I made no move to tell him to keep it down; it was his fault if he got caught.

"What the hell was that? You've never rolled your eyes at me before, yeah. Not that I'm complaining, it's better than having you glare at me all the time, yeah," He commented, amusement lighting up his emerald eyes.

"You should leave and get Kisame now," I told him through gritted teeth.

He harrumphed and turned around, his cloak swirling about him as he did so. "I was almost going to help you escape, yeah. But since you want me gone, forget it. Ja."

His words hadn't affected me. He wouldn't have helped me even if I launched into I Feel Pretty and danced around like an idiot. Leader had given us all strict orders not to help out our fellow member unless you were partners. It was a sick sort of trust, he trusted us to be able to get out of any situation and if we didn't, oh well. He would let us retrieve the bodies of the others though. The Akatsuki rings didn't come cheap.

I rolled my eyes at Deidara's behaviour but stopped myself, my eyes narrowing.

Hoshikagi Kisame

"You're drunk, Kisame," He told me blatantly, staring at me through cold crimson eyes. I laughed loudly and stumbled as the earth shifted to the left, my vision blurring.

My face lit up sickeningly with a half hearted grin as my words slurred, "Sso what?"

He folded his arms and hid his pale hands in the black billowing sleeves of his cloak. I knew better than to lean on him for support, he would probably stab me through the back with his katana before I actually got the chance. Anyways, I wouldn't have known which one to lean on…there were so many of him…

It began raining and I looked up at the midnight sky, squinting as the raindrops fell into my onyx eyes. The stars twinkled down at me, clear despite the clouds that inevitably followed the rain. I reach a hand up to the stars that looked so much like Hikari and staggered to the right, catching my balance in the nick of time.

I looked around to find Itachi and saw him walking briskly ahead of me, obviously fed up with my drunken state. He wasn't one with much patience.

"Hey, Itachi," I called his name and tried running after him.

My feet didn't seem to follow and I found myself having to regain my balance more than once. I laughed at the thought of walking along a tightrope now; I'd probably fall to my death. Though, I supposed it was a better death than the probable mutilation some ninjas favoured.

"I know you think I'm pathetic," I called after him, having given up on catching up with him. Itachi made no move to show that he agreed or disagreed with me, if anything his pace quickened.

"But you know, there's this saying in the Mist," I continued, "That if you die on a rainy day then you're one of the luckiest bastards alive."

I knew he was listening, he always was. Even if I spouted complete nonsense, he always listened until it became ridiculous and he told me to shut up. He and I had this messed up sort of partnership but neither of us dared to use the word friend.

"They tell you raindrops are heaven's tears so you've got all these damn angels crying for you," I laughed at that.

I stared up at the sky, suddenly sober. The stars were suddenly hidden by the storm clouds and there was a loud crash of thunder as the rain began to beat against our backs. "Wouldn't that be nice, huh? To know there's at least one person up there crying for you."

"I found you," I whispered. Maybe she would hear me, maybe she would remember…

I could see Deidara's bird now; it was funny how it even looked like a dove. I hated this, I spent the last week of my life looking for a girl who didn't even love me and it wasn't even fucking raining. I felt so pathetic and supposed that maybe Deidara was doing me a favour. The white bird landed on my shoulder and rubbed its head against my neck almost soothingly.

"Ne, Salmon-chan, don't hold this against me, yeah?" I could hear Deidara's voice and almost laughed. It was the closest thing to an apology I would get from Deidara.

I looked up, looking for him. I caught sight of a black cloak atop the roof but it was the wrong person. I kept my gaze upon him anyways, his crimson gaze cold and impassive as usual. I stared at him because it was all I could do with the last of my will slipping away.

His eyes began to whir, a confusing pattern of red and black.

It started raining.

I could hear someone screaming my name behind me but it didn't matter anymore.

"Thank you," I whispered. I didn't know who I was thanking anymore, two faces flashed in my mind. I smiled at the irony; I was thanking the two people who had made my life a living hell.

I could hear the thunder rolling in the distance and loved the sight of the grey swollen rain clouds above me, feeling the rain caress my face. I was laughing, smiling even, as I could feel the rain soak through my coat. The wind whistled a soothing sonata to me, ripping through my clothes and purging me of all my sins, of all the regret-

"Kisame!"

A/N:
Hooey, guess who's back? Exam week is over so I've reached a freedom...of a sort. The catch is now, I have to do over 27 shows this June and I will be really tired so don't expect any updates from me. Uhh...speaking of the show, I should be heading to the theatre in two minutes...

What can I say about this chapter? The ending of this one is the original end of Kisame's death scene in his real execution in the last story (don't know if you guys remember that or not). I really wanted to bring it in but it was really difficult to fix it up and I'm still not that happy with it. Sakura's finally confessed her love for Itachi to herself and Itachi is gradually growing attached to her. Deidara's role isn't really significant but he'll become a lot more important in the sequel. I love the Akatsuki.

Selandora (the sickeningly emotional undeniably sexy one you must fear)