Hinata had lost someone close to her heart before, had seen so many people she cared for disappear, had seen many of them fight for their lives almost on the brink of death right in front of her. But none of that would compare to the moment she had to watch her two children go through the same experience for the first time in their lives.

Boruto and Himawari had gone to look for their father before she could even manage to move. The last time she heard about them, she was informed that they had completely separated themselves from the others. Her children were beyond inconsolable. She had no idea where they went, and she had no idea where she was going herself.

Her feet dragged her heavily across the woods, her breath caught painfully in her throat. Could be the crying, or the fatigue, she didn't know anymore. Sometimes she would stop when it felt like the world was suddenly spinning, but then it would become steady, then she would just have to go farther again.

Everything felt like a nightmare she needed to wake up from. None of it could be real.

The memory she had from earlier this morning flooded her mind.

000

She woke up to Naruto cooking, surprisingly, cursing to himself almost comically as flames burst from the frying pan. He tossed the pan and its contents entirely into the sink, only producing more smoke in the process.

"What are you doing?" Hinata asked, chuckling to herself, as Naruto removed the pot holder from his hands with disgust written all over in his face.

Naruto jumped in surprise. "Hinata! You're awake! Wait, wait. I was just cleaning up..." The groggy Hokage panicked, quickly grabbing the pan from the sink with his bare hand, only to toss it again and curse it under his breath for being too hot.

"Let me handle it," Hinata said, grinning as she opened the faucet and the exhaust fan to clear the smoke out.

"I'm sorry," Naruto grumbled, his eyes cast on the floor. "I only made a mess, didn't I?"

Hinata smiled at him. "It's okay. Why are you up so early anyway, Hokage-sama?" she asked playfully, trying to cheer Naruto up. "Got a lot to do at the office?"

"Huh? No, no. I just... Well, you remember I came home kinda early than usual last night and got a lot of rest and... you know. I just figured I'll make you breakfast for once," Naruto sighed. "You always do it for me."

"Of course I'll always do it for you," Hinata said, gently touching Naruto's nose. "Breakfast is the only time I can make sure you don't substitute your meal for ramen."

Naruto laughed, cupping his hands softly against Hinata's cheeks. "I love you, Hinata," he whispered.

"I love you too even if you don't know how to prepare anything else besides ramen," she whispered back.

"Eh, I'll try again! I promise! Maybe tomorrow... yes, tomorrow morning will be great. What would you want for breakfast?" Naruto asked, a smile displayed widely across his face.

000

That was just this morning, wasn't it? How then did it come to this?

And then she heard it, she heard her daughter screaming from a distance. It was a cry that pierced sharply through the air. Hinata broke into a sprint.

"Daddy!" Himawari was kneeling on the ground, begging for her father to wake up when Hinata arrived. There, sprawled on the dirt, was his husband, his body limp and his chest still. Way too still.

She ran toward him and lifted his head. Her fingers travelled from his cheek to his neck. Trembling, she lifted her fingers again and placed it against his wrist. None. Almost completely hesitating, she activated her byakugan and confirmed what she had been fearing. Her husband's heart had stopped beating.

Sakura was the second to arrive on the scene. Drenched in tears with her whole body shaking, the pink-haired medic collapsed beside her teammate's body. Her mind raced, her fingers digging into her own leg in frustration. How the hell do you save a jinchuriki with his tailed beast completely gone and nowhere to be found?

As if to answer her question, thunder echoed loudly above them and lightning flashed, rain suddenly plummeting heavily over them.

Boruto was the third to arrive. His knees gave way the moment he saw the lifeless body beside his mother. He wanted to scream but no voice left him. He wanted to move but his body froze. There he remained motionless and helpless, completely drenched and covered in mud.

Sasuke was the fourth to arrive. He watched as Sakura yelled something to him but he couldn't understand a thing. Everything around him seemed to have stilled and quieted.

"Sasuke… Sasuke! The nine-tail's chakra, even just a little… please," Sakura's voice gradually filled his sense, pleading, asking him to locate what had completely disappeared. Sasuke only stared, completely stunned at her request. Sakura knew what it meant.

'No,' she mouthed disbelievingly to him, tears falling freely from her eyes. "Hinata, breathe for him," Sasuke heard Sakura say. He watched helplessly as Hinata crawled over her husband's mutilated body, closing her lips with his. Naruto's chest rose as Hinata breathed air into his lungs. By then, several people had already arrived but no one moved.

Sakura had been in this situation before, but the first time it happened she knew exactly what she had to do. This time, she didn't, but she still had to do something. There was absolutely no way she would let him die. If he had pulled it off during the war, then he would pull it off tonight. There was no way in hell Sakura would stop until she saw, with her very own eyes, Naruto wake up with a clueless look on his face. No way, Naruto. Not now. Your family needs you. She lifted two fingers before her hand glowed with healing chakra. She tore Naruto's orange sweatshirt and swiftly made an incision at the side of his chest. She heard Boruto gasp.

Sasuke knelt behind Boruto, pulling his student toward himself as the young man began to thrash around helplessly on the ground. He could hear his student's suppressed whimper. Sasuke carefully lowered Boruto's headband down to his eyes so he wouldn't see more, as Sakura shoved her hand into Naruto's chest to manually pump his heart.*

Behind Hinata, Sarada approached Himawari, pulling her into a hug. The younger kunoichi hid her face, burying her face into Sarada as the older girl tried to calm her down. Hima continued to call for her father over and over, begging him to wake up.

"We have to bring him to the hospital," Sakura told the medics in the area, her voice cracked as she tried to withhold a sob. "Call Tsunade… please, I don't know what to do," Sakura was starting to break down. A group of medics responded to her command.

"Sasuke, the perpetrator," Shikamaru approached the raven-haired man who was still consoling a writhing Boruto. "We fear he is getting ready to leave."

Sasuke felt Boruto begin to fight back against his resistance, driving his fist angrily toward the ground. "They have to pay for this," Bolt hissed between gritted teeth. Before Sasuke could react, Bolt had gotten up and had begun to storm out. He grabbed his student by the arm.

"I'll make sure they get caught, Boruto" he said firmly, tightening his grip on his student's arm. "Stay with your family. Stay by Naruto's side," he added, while watching the medics insert a tube down Naruto's throat. Sakura continued to pump their teammate's heart with her bare hand. "I'll be at the hospital as soon as I can."

As his father was placed on a stretcher, Boruto relented and Sasuke took off by himself.

The operating room was filled with all the different noises which Sakura had already grown accustomed to. Today, however, it irritated her to the core. The ventilator whirred while the cardiac monitor beeped every time she squeezed his heart, its rhythmic beeping slowing as her hand grew tired against her will.

"Bullshit," she snapped, ripping the wires away from Naruto's chest. Her hand was starting to hurt - it had been forty-eight minutes since she started the cardiac massage. She didn't care how tired it made her, she would use both hands if she had to, but each time she squeezed, a bit of her remaining hope gradually slipped away. She placed her free hand on Naruto's forehead, pulling off the tape placed over his eyes. She lifted his eyelid with her thumb. Fixed and dilated. Sakura placed a kiss on her friend's eyelid as it closed. Pull off a miracle, please. She watched as the other medics tried to mend his other injuries.

"Tsunade-sama said she is on her way," the medic entering the operating room informed Sakura.

"Has she said anything else?" she asked.

"No."

Sakura's heart sank.

Sasuke strode hastily into the hospital, heading straight for the operating room. He stopped at the sight of Naruto's family sitting quietly in the waiting room. Hinata was leaning her head to the side against the wall, her hands tightly gripping Naruto's clothes on her lap. The silence was deafening. At the sight of his father, Sarada stood up. They locked eye contact for a moment before he walked past her, heading toward the entrance of the operating room. He pushed the door but it didn't budge –

"Papa," Sarada called out. "Mama instructed no one enters, except the Fifth Hokage."

Sasuke paused, before placing his palm against the door. After channeling enough chakra, the doors violently caved in.

"Sasuke," Sakura muttered, watching as her husband walked toward the other side of the operating table, only to see what had been keeping the cardiac monitor beeping. Their teammate's eyes had been taped shut and a tube was fixed in the corner of his mouth. His skin was as pale as the sheet that hung over his head. It took a while for Sasuke to process the sight before him before he stared right back at Sakura. Neither of them said a word. He brought his hand near Naruto's face.

"Snap out of this, Naruto," he said, poking his friend's head lightly. There was no response. "There's still one thing that can be done, Sakura," Sasuke said.

"Two, actually," Sakura responded. Sasuke looked at her. "Kisho Tensei," Sakura blatantly said, not bothering to explain any further.

"Save it. I've already lived a life that's way better than I ever deserved," Sasuke said decisively, placing his hands together to conjure a hand seal. Kakashi had been watching from outside the moment Sasuke entered the operating room.

"The Rinne Tensei, will you, really - ?" Kakashi asked, stepping into the O.R. just in time to stop Sasuke. The Uchiha froze at the former Hokage's question; he looked at Naruto. "Yes, why wouldn't I?" he snapped.

"What about your family? Your clan?" their former teacher asked. Sakura's eyes shifted from Kakashi down to Naruto, her free hand stroking the blonde's nose and eyes, as tears slid down her cheeks.

"Sakura and I have once talked about this. Told her I owed my life to him, and that in owing it to him I also owed it to the village," Sasuke's gaze fixed on his wife. "She never said anything against it. And Sarada…" he paused, taking a deep breath before continuing. "She will understand. I told her as much as she needed to know about mine and Naruto's past. Made her realize my world no longer revolved around myself and my clan. She's a smart kid. She will understand what I'm meant to do."

"It crossed your mind, then - that a situation like this might occur. It occurred to him too, you know," Kakashi said, his overall composed demeanor slowly collapsing under the weight of his own emotions. "And he approached me." Sasuke glanced at him, not quite grasping what Kakashi was telling him. "Asked me to help him find a way to… counter the Outer Path if used to revive him, just in case."

"That's not true!" Sasuke yelled, his insides burning in rage at what his former teacher was telling him. He placed his hands together and conjured the hand seal. Nothing happened.

Sasuke stared at Naruto in disbelief before turning to Kakashi, "How?!"

"I've been revived by the Rinne Tensei once, by Nagato. After studying it for a long time, we found out it can't be used on the same person twice. Allogeneic bone marrow transplant. It gives Naruto my DNA," the Sixth Hokage explained, his voice faltering at the weight of his former student's glare.

"Sakura," the voice of the Fifth Hokage resounded across the room. She stopped right by the entrance, her eyes resting on Naruto's unmoving form. "The nine-tails was released, wasn't it?" No one answered. The silence was enough for a confirmation.

"I can still do something, though," Sakura blurted out. She looked at Tsunade; she would know what she was talking about.

"I'm sorry Sakura," Tsunade's voice broke into a sob. She walked slowly toward her former apprentice, watching her student's hand move inside Naruto's chest. "There's really nothing you can do now."

Sakura ignored her, "But I can, I've learned it with Suna's permission, Lady Tsunade. If Sasuke can't - " Sakura paused. Sasuke tensed up. "I can try." Sakura raised his hand over Naruto's body and both hands glowed from green to blue. Tsunade placed her hand over Sakura's, suppressing the chakra.

"Suna also gave Naruto and I a seal to counter it," Tsunade said, now placing both hands over Sakura's arms. "Naruto never wanted you to use it."

Sakura refused to move her hands. "No, please," she choked.

"You've done enough, Sakura." The Fifth Hokage gently stroked Sakura on the shoulder. "You have to let him go now." A heart wrenching sound escaped Sakura's lips as she withdrew, her hands quickly losing their glow.

As the cardiac monitor flat lined, producing a long steady sound, Tsunade pulled Sakura into a hug, the younger woman's body trembling strongly against her mentor's embrace.

Hinata entered the cold room, her arms still holding Naruto's clothes tightly against her chest. She peaked, first into the door, and then she peaked at his face before sitting beside where he lay. He only looked like he was just sleeping. But Hinata knew he wasn't. She kissed him on the cheek. There were still so many things she wanted to say, so many things she wanted to tell him, but she kept her mouth shut, her hand weakly ruffling his hair.

He's not going to hear me now anyway.

Hinata stood up. She could no longer bear seeing him that way. With her remaining strength, she leaned over his body, embracing him one last time. She remained that way as her senses took it all in – the way he looked, the calmness in his face, the peacefulness in his presence, his scent, the touch of his skin.

His warmth, however, it had long gone.

Her lips touched his for the last time before she straightened up and placed the sheet over his face. She exited the room.

As soon as Hinata saw that the corridor was empty and that her children were nowhere in sight, she sank to the floor and let all her sorrows spill from her.

Kakashi watched as his former student cradled his remaining arm against his chest. It was bloodied and broken in different places. But his student didn't care. As long as he could still strike something, he would. Sasuke landed another blow on a boulder, disintegrating it instantly upon contact. Sasuke knew Kakashi was there but he didn't say anything. The former Hokage figured Sasuke needed his presence.

Sasuke targeted the ground beneath him next, his bone producing a loud crack on impact. The raven-haired man winced. He'd barely made a sound as he cradled his arm again. Soon, however, he began to wail.

Kakashi turned his back, overwhelmed by the familiar feeling of grief and guilt. Silently, the Sixth Hokage wished the Rinne Tensei never brought him back.

Time: 11:57PM
Date: 2nd, October
Crisis: Critical assault
Situation: Contained and resolved.
Injured: 157 Minor Injuries.
Casualties: 1

We do not know what kind of people we truly are until the moment before our deaths.
As death comes to embrace you, you will realize what you are.
That's what death is, don't you think?
- Itachi Uchiha

AN: Thank you for the reviews so far! Feedback, both criticism and comments are appreciated. つづく