Disclaimer: I DO NOT own Naruto.
It's the finale! The end! OWARI DA!
I hope you all enjoy my eccentric ending of an epic story I've been writing since Freshman year 4 years ago! this is my child! My masterpiece of over 100,000 words! Admire me and all my glory! Also be sure to read and review! I recently got a job in addition to my AP and honors classes! It's at a Japanese sushi bar, but sadly they're all Indonesian and none of them speak Japanese, so I'm definitely a little bummed out, but hey, it's still an Asian restaurant and it's a THOUSAND times better than other remedial minimum wage jobs. Especially since I don't make minimum wage. I make $8/hour or more :) I haven't seen yet, but that's what my friend told me who's mother works with me! There are only 8 of us in the entire restaurant kitchen hands, waitresses and all. They're crazy. The owner walks around the place in the down hours playing his guitar. The kitchen chef speaks Spanish, and everyone else just yells at me in Indonesian. They even made me eat the head of a fish last night. The only downside is I literally broke up with my boyfriend of one and a half years a few days ago because everything was just falling apart, and this restaurant is literally right by his house and they eat there all the time. Not excited for that one, but I do see a lot of familiar faces with less bad sentiment attached to them. I saw my friend Max's parents there just last night. Oh and last night was my first night. My friend felt bad (the one I worked with at Bamboo) about me being fired because they over hired and I wasn't prettier than the other girl, so she talked to her mom and got me the job at the sushi place. So I work with my friends mom :)
PLEASE WISH ME LUCK IN MY SENIOR YEAR, JOB, AND LIFE! enjoy yours as well :)
Also I'm playing Guild Wars 2, so don't expect Love Like This to be consistently updated hah... :3
Everyone besides Ino and Sakura who were fleeing were watching at distance from the trees. No one was expecting what came next.
"Stop doing this! You can't do this on your own!" Sakura was shouting as Ino was trying desperately to drag her away.
(play "bring me to life" by thousand foot crutch)
Sakura tried as hard as she could to dig her feet and move towards Sasuke, to protect him, to help him, to repay him for all the protection he gave to her. She had to fight his will to prove that her own was just as strong.
"Stay back!" he shouted but soon wished he hadn't taken his eyes off of Madara.
Madara knocked Sasuke off his feet and onto his back and restrained him with a snake that was under ground going over his neck.
"NOOOO!" Sakura screamed louder than when she was in labor.
At that moment she knew it was do or die, and she quickly handed Ino her baby, "Guard him with your life."
Ino watched in shock as the ring on Sakura's finger shattered into thousands of pieces and Sakura ran full force towards Sasuke. Right as the Uchiha was about to yell one last warning at her he realized the ring had no affect and Sakura threw herself on top of Sasuke. Then there was complete silence. Everyone watched in shock knowing that if they dove in to help their fate would be the same. It took Naruto every ounce of strength to keep in sage mode and out of 9-tails man-beast form. Sakura had taken a stab right through her back and the blade almost sunk into Sasuke but Sakura managed to reach behind and grab the blade, slicing her hand, to keep it from further piercing into Sasuke.
"Why?…" Sasuke whispered angrily confused as tears ran down his face.
He swore he was an Uchiha man, and Uchiha men never cried. But to him, it was as if ¾ of his world was dying right before his eyes.
"You can't control me. The fate you were afraid of befalling me is the same I feel for you. I warned you to never control me again." Sakura then felt her eye lids become heave as she coughed up a substantial amount of blood onto Sasuke's chest.
"Useless" Madara grunted as he roughly pulled out his sword and Kicked Sakura off of Sasuke causing her to roll several yards away, "I wanted to save her for later as mental torture, but I guess that part of my plan is ruined."
Sasuke felt rage completely fill his entire being and the curse mark on his neck broke its seal and overtook his body completely. Sakura watched with half open eyes as Sasuke ripped the restraint off of his neck in half and lunged at Madara. Sasuke soon realized that he again was unable to grasp hold of the devious man. Sakura had lost most of her strength and allowed her eyelids to close though she still heard most of what was going on around her.
"Wait for it…" Naruto grumbled as he controlled his earth style underground shadow clones just waiting for an opportunity to present itself.
Sasuke then decided to play it on the defense and as soon as Madara went with one swing of his sword. Naruto's clones popped out of the ground and grabbed him. There were at least 20 of them holding Madara down. There was no way he was going to get away this time. The terror showed on his face as he struggled.
"You're not going to use your Izanagi, you know why?" Sasuke growled murderously, "Because I'm going to rip every eye off your body, like I should've done to Danzou. You aren't getting out alive."
Madara looked around panicked as Sasuke gruesomely started with the eyes on his face ripping out both his regular sharingan and rinnegan. Sasuke then used his kusanagi to cut Madara's clothes off and find where else he kept the eyes. Once every single one of them was removed Sasuke let a malevolent chuckle escape his lips.
"How does it feel to be blind? Is it fun? Is this torture funny to you now?" Sasuke began spitting rhetorical questions at Madara as he made small slices in the man's skin, pulling on his veins and arteries 'just for fun.'
"I would suggest none of you watch" Sasuke said up into the trees where he knew his friends were. Sakura was dead so he didn't bother addressing anyone else.
Sasuke reached down and grabbed Madara by the neck shaking him senseless then took a kunai and but his entire mid section. He pulled out Madara's digestive organs first while the man screamed irrationally in pain. Most weren't watching, but Kakashi was hardened by the war he was in and could take it, he just didn't understand Sasuke's blood thirst in that form. Sasuke then proceeded to slice out Madara's heard causing the man to cease his screaming but still have his eyes wide with terror.
"Your beating heart is mine!" Sasuke yelled as he crushed Madara's pulsing heart in his hands to sludge.
The man lay on his back motionless and everyone else turned around to see the carnage of the aftermath. Kakashi wasn't horrified, but definitely shocked. Naruto was appalled and everyone else just didn't have words to describe the inhumanity strewn in front of Sasuke.
Sasuke wasted no time in rushing over to Sakura's motionless body. He knew the simple truth that no matter how much he mutilated Madara's body it wasn't going to bring Sakura back. He had lost his world and only had his son left, or so he though. He heard a small wheeze and gasp. She was still barely alive.
"Ino!" Sasuke shouted at the top of his lungs.
(play "surrender to hope" by immediate music)
Sasuke had slowly transformed back into his normal state of being from the monster he had been in. He was holding Sakura's body and could still feel a small fading warmth from it. Ino handed Shikamaru the baby as she ran then slid in the dirt wasting not even a second in examining Sakura's body.
"She's barely hanging on… this shouldn't be possible…" Ino muttered.
"Why? What happened?"
"Her heart's completely torn to pieces from the stab Madara inflicted, but she's still managing to control her chakra flow to pump her own blood."
Sasuke looked wide-eyed at the carnage of the pinkette. She was a medical specialist, but even Tsunade didn't come up with that. However they were in the mountains away from any equipment to possibly reconstruct Sakura's heart and Ino wasn't nearly skilled enough to perform a procedure that complicated. Shizune at the least might be able to pull it off, but all the specialists were back in Konoha.
"There's no way we can get her back to the hospital at home in time…" Naruto said sobbing.
"Bring me my baby…" Sakura's gasped reaching outward blindly.
Ino hesitantly took the infant from Shikamaru and placed it in Sakura's arms even though the jacket was getting soaked with blood and inadvertently soaking the baby with blood. Sakura laid a kiss on the baby's forehead before she altogether couldn't speak and felt her life force fading.
Almost everyone had tears in their eyes. Everyone had respect for the pinkette and she was going to die saving what she considered her world.
"No…" Sasuke gasped with tears splashing down on Sakura's face, "This was supposed to happen to me! How am I going to raise a son all by myself? How am I going to be able to just pick myself up off the floor from this? How could you have been so impulsive! WHY!"
Everyone took a step back from the grieving Uchiha. All he could do was silently cry as he looked into the eyes of his dying wife. No one knew what to do, because there were literally no options. Ino was trying to stop some of the internal bleeding and numb Sakura to reduce some of the pain and make it more comfortable, but everyone had accepted her death, except for Sasuke.
"This isn't going to happen" he growled angrily clenching his fists so hard the blood dripped from them, "I told her that she wasn't going to die. I promised I'd protect her. I won't let it end here. I wouldn't be a man if I broke my promise."
"How are you going to get her to Konoha?" Kakashi asked dazed at Sasuke's persistence.
"Fly her" Sasuke grunted as he bit his thumb, ran it down his arm and slammed his palm on the ground.
A hawk suddenly appeared out of the smoke and Sasuke immediately picked up Sakura's body holding his child and hopped onto the hawk. The hawk sped off towards Konoha at full speed and he laid Sakura across his lap and took time to really look at his child for the second time that day. He didn't want to loose either of them. With Sakura dead the baby's chance of survival on formula wasn't very good and the baby would have lots of health issues as well. Sasuke also didn't want just one kid, he wanted tons more. He wasn't going to let his world end here.
"Please just hold on a little while longer…" he pleaded with tears still draining from his eyes.
Sakura couldn't speak but she nodded in acknowledgement of what he'd said. Her face was as pale as a ghost and while she wasn't externally bleeding anymore due to Ino's handwork, she was slowly loosing control of pumping her own chakra.
"Fly faster!" Sasuke shouted after a while feeling that the bird wasn't pushing itself hard enough.
What he didn't expect was his shouting to wake the sleeping infant in Sakura's arms. It was crying and screaming and Sasuke had no idea what to do. Sakura half opened her eyes and laid a hand on Sasuke's leg. In her own unspoken language Sasuke knew that she was asking him to hold the baby. Sasuke looked at the child unknowingly and picked it up. He felt himself melt and bit his lip as the baby nestled itself into his chest. Sasuke couldn't help feeling like everything around him was faltering and he wanted more desperately than anything to fly home as soon as possible.
Another hour went by until Konoha was in sight. Sasuke didn't even realize that flying was the fastest and most efficient way of transportation and wish he's though of it earlier before he started crying.
"FASTER!" He shouted in absolute rage.
Though it was his summoning companion, the bird excused his behavior considering the circumstances. As soon as the hawk landed on the roof of the hospital Sasuke rushed Sakura and the baby inside and luckily Shizune was the first person he ran into. She didn't even ask what or why but dropped all her papers and escorted them into the nearest possible room. Shizune slammed on a red button by the door, which essentially paged Tsunade. The button was rarely used because Tsunade hated being summoned, but in this circumstance Shizune didn't have a choice. Shizune handed the baby to Sasuke with a nod and laid Sakura out on the table and pushed him out of the room and closed the door. Sasuke felt helpless standing in the hallway with a newborn and his dying wife on the other side of the thin piece of metal.
"Please allow me to help you" a nurse standing next to Tsunade gestured holding her hands out for the baby.
Tsunade was giving Sasuke a hard look before bursting into the operating room turning the 'in progress' light on which basically meant 'enter here at the risk of loosing your life.' Sasuke gave the woman a weary look and through his standstill gesture essentially refused to hand his son over to the nurse.
"Very well" she said smiling, "Just follow me and I'll show you what we can do."
Sasuke followed the woman down the hall until they reached a maternity ward. She led Sasuke to a back room full of other newborn babies and she turned on some water.
"I'd rather do this part myself to avoid any injury to the baby, please."
Sasuke was hesitant, but eventually handed Kohaku over to the woman and she put him on a form fitted foam pad and washed him very carefully, then took him out, wrapped him in a towel. Took care of a few other health procedures, but a plastic band around his ankle, fed him a bottle of formula, and put him in an atmospheric crib.
Sasuke didn't want to leave his child here, but it appeared he didn't have a choice. They needed to get medical records on him and generate a birth certificate.
Sasuke felt useless as he sat outside the operating room on the floor. It had been almost five hours that they'd been in there. He didn't know if the procedure was time consuming or they were grieving and didn't have the heart yet to come out and tell him she was gone. He was desperately hoping it was the first one. He was still wearing his bloodstained cloths and was too afraid to get up and go take a shower and put new cloths on. He just wanted to at least hear that Sakura was ok. If he could only hear those words his world would suddenly be calm again. Sasuke soon found himself completely worn out asleep against the wall.
Sasuke woke up in a cold sweat and panicked. He was laying in a hospital bed in a medical gown and his first instinct was to rip the IV out of his arm and go back to where Sakura was.
"You rip that IV out and leave and I'll give you a forced vasectomy" came a voice on the other end of the room.
It was Tsunade dressed in her usual cloths instead of the surgical scrubs she was in earlier.
"What happened to Sakura?" Sasuke asked.
Tsunade got up and sassily walked up to him and got right in his face retorting, "I should ask you the same thing."
Sasuke looked away from her ashamed but finally grunted, "Is she alive?"
"Very much so"
Sasuke felt a thousand pound weight being lifted off his stomach and the fog being lifted from his mind.
"Now what happened?" Tsunade asked sitting on the hospital bed next to him.
Sasuke took a deep breath then said, "We ran into Madara and Itachi. Madara had used Kabuto's technique of impure world resurrection to bring my brother's soul back to this plane, and we fought both of them. I told Sakura to flee with the baby and the ring I put on her finger made my request an order and she and Ino were fleeing when suddenly the ring burst and she came running for me and took the killing blow in her back in my place. Madara kicked her off and I went completely insane. I tore him to shreds, literally. Then we all though she was going to die, but I flew her here anyway."
Tsunade sighed and said, "She's going to be in recovery for several weeks, but she's alive. You were almost done in yourself. You're over concern for her almost caused you trouble. I bet you didn't know you were still bleeding out. A nurse found you and escorted you to an emergency room."
Sasuke felt tears of relief leaving his eyes. He never cried this much, and he felt ashamed for it too. Men didn't cry, especially Uchiha men that were supposed to be tough.
"It's fine" Tsunade assured him, "You're crying right now because you're happy. That's not weakness like you men think it is. Crying because you're happy shows strength and appreciation."
With that the amber eyed doctor left to go check on her other patients but stuck her head in the doorway and said, "Don't forget to take your baby home."
Sasuke grabbed his bloodstained cloths off of the chair next to the bed and put them on and went to the maternity wing. They presented the Uchiha with his son's birth certificate and other official documents and also gave Sasuke some formula to use in lieu of Sakura's breast feeding. They also gave him a baby blanket and told him where to go shopping for everything he'd need.
Sasuke got many bizarre looks as he walked down the street, but he wasn't expecting one thing to happen, a certain blond duo coming up to help him.
"Sasuke!" Naruto shouted, "We're all waiting for you back home!"
"How long was I out?" Sasuke asked disgruntled.
"Only a couple days." Ino said slapping him on the shoulder, "But we have a pleasant surprise for you!"
"I hate surprises…" Sasuke grumbled as he walked down the street with his son in his arms.
"Surprise!" They all jumped out at him with smiles on their faces, "We all pitched in and did something special for you."
"What might that be?" Sasuke asked just wanted to get this over with.
"Follow me" Ino said walking down a hallway.
When she opened the door Sasuke had mixed emotions. He was hoping him and Sakura could do it themselves, but he did appreciate the though. They had completely converted the guest bedroom into a nursery for the baby.
"We even bought you a baby intercom so you can hear it crying from the other room" Sai said holding up the childish looking radio.
"I don't know what to say…" Sasuke whispered in bewilderment, "I'm really touched."
"Here let me take care of the baby while you was up" Ino said holding out her arms.
Sasuke wasn't one to hand over his child to just anyone, but considering Ino help deliver and protect his child, he didn't have to hesitate. Sasuke washed up and when he came back only Ino and Shikamaru were in his living room cooing over the baby, or at least Ino was.
"Oh!" she gasped as she finally noticed him in the doorway, "Thanks for letting me steal him from you. He's a real sweetie. I left you some written instructions on the table in the nursery that will instruct you on everything you need to know from feeding, changing, playing, bathing, to nap time. I was just about to put the tike down, unless you'd like to."
Sasuke cringed a little. He wasn't sure he knew was he was doing but he took the blanket from Ino and took his son out of her arms and escorted them to the door.
"He likes his formula warm by the way" Ino gave one last word of advice before leaving down the walkway with Shikamaru.
"Good luck bro" Shikamaru waved leaving the Uchiha quarter.
Sasuke went into the nursery and flicked on a nightlight and sat in a rocking char holding his son who seemed completely wide-awake staring at him. As soon as Sasuke sat down and started rocking in the chair until the boy's eyes slowly fell closed and Sasuke could read that his son's chakra patterns meant he was sleeping. Sasuke set him down carefully in the crib and went to look at the guide Ino had left him. He skimmed it quickly before leaving it back on the table and leaving the room.
It was the middle of the night when Sasuke realized that the baby was screaming due to the baby monitor on his nightstand. He flicked a lamp on and walked over to the baby's room to see what was the matter when a stench nearly knocked him out flat on the floor.
"You have to be kidding me…" he grumbled as he reached into the crib to grab his son and do what had to be done.
It was the beginning of many sleep-deprived nights for Sasuke.
One week had passed and Sasuke made his way over to the hospital with Kohaku on cradled in his arm and a diaper bag slung over his shoulder. It was awkward walking around town like that at first, but eventually he was just so tired that he didn't give a damn. He walked into the hospital and it was the first day Sakura was allowed visitors. They made their way into the room with a groggy Sakura there to smile at them. She first leaned over the bed to kiss Sasuke's check and then snatched her son from his arms. He just smirked as she held him above her head smiling in silence. She could speak but her voice was still raspy. Eventually she scooted over and signaled for Sasuke to roll in with her on the bed. There was barely enough room for the both of them plus the baby, but they managed to make a Kohaku sandwich. Sakura was so happy to have them both there to visit her. She knew the second she saw Tsunade bust through the door that everything was going to be ok.
"How are you feeling?" He asked her casually.
"Much better. Tsunade said that if I promised to stay in bed I could be an outpatient at home with the two of you."
Sasuke rested his chin on her head teasingly saying, "Guess we'll have to move the baby's crib next to your side of the bed, huh?"
"There's not need to do that" she teased him right back, "You can just bring him to me."
Sasuke ruffled her hair saying, "Hn."
A few minutes later Shizune opened the door to bring in the release papers, but closed it asking, "Sorry. Was I interrupting a private moment?"
Sakura laughed and replied, "Not at all, can we go home now?"
Sasuke brushed some hair out of her face planting a soft and tender kiss on her lips then whispering, "I'm not leaving here without you."
End
AKSDFIJWEKFJ! PLEASE REVIEW! I want final comments! :)