Disclaimer: I DO NOT own Naruto.

Ninth Chance

Chapter Two: All Is Fair

"I have always dreamed of attaining limitless powers," Uchiha Madara's newly reanimated body said, his head tilted heavenward with his hand over his dangerous crimson Mangekyou Sharingan. It almost looked like a coy gesture, an attempt to shy away from the grotesque sight of the many corpses around him, if not for the fact that not a minute ago, he was the one to killed them so ruthlessly. "How disappointing," Madara sighed, and to the collective of shinobi that were still alive, they noted how sincere his disappointment sounded. "…that those powers choses to unlock itself when I am now clearly dead."

The Fourth Division stared at him in apprehension, a shiver of foreboding stealing over them all at the casual words he handed to them, like a trivial piece of information worth discarding at a moment's notice.

But these thoughts were forgotten for a moment, for they were suddenly captivated by a rush of adrenaline, curiosity and fear when Uchiha Madara started to slowly lower his hand. It was extremely difficult to turn away; that perverse feeling of wanting to know so badly, that the threat of being killed for staying a moment longer were distant from their minds.

Sabaku no Temari was shaken out of her stupor when their Proxy Commander, Nara Shikamaru, suddenly grabbed her hand and started shouting for everyone to retreat. Those within immediately vicinity heard him, but few of them reacted. Shikamaru gritted his teeth in frustration, but nothing could be done to save them. It was to either bow down and accept a full blown massacre or to attempt some sort of survival.

As they ran, darkness descended upon them, a bad omen that coloured the skies. Temari, who had long since regained ownership of her hand, couldn't resist the urge to look up. It made her stagger, the sheer size of it, a meteorite half the size of the Earth. 'Surreal,' she thought as hope was slowly swallowed by the inevitability of the situation. 'How could we ever hope to escape that?'

Glancing back, she was startled when her eyes instantly met the gleaming lilac orbs of a madman. It was difficult to pull away; she could feel those eyes ringed with black subconsciously drawing her, persistent as a magnetic pull; so terribly hard to resist.

inhale

exhale

gasp

choke

thud

Temari fell face forward to the ground; her expressive malachite eyes, once full of life, glazed over as death claimed her. Sprouting out from her chest was a long obsidian rod, that dug itself into the ground when her body fell forwards, propping her up in a ridiculous mid-action of face-planting. It would have been funny.

Nara Shikamaru did not find it funny.

An inhuman wail escaped from his throat then, but immediately he bit his lips hard enough to draw blood. He needed to be rational, he needed to be calm. Temari was dead. Shikamaru roughly wiped the tears from his eyes. It will only serve to hinder his vision. Why bother? Nothing matters anymore, she was gone. 'Focus, focus' Shikamaru chided to himself, trying to displace himself from the situation in front of him. He-they needed to survive, needed to find the others and regroup. He needed to avenged her; he needed to kill Madara, consequences be damned. 'Stop it, stop it!' The Nara clutched his head with a pained expression, forcing himself to take a back step. An another.

Soon he was sprinting as fast as he could. To get away from it all.

From Temari, the girl he...love. From him, the cold-hearted demon who killed her.

Amusedly, the monster in question watched him and the others retreat, relishing the aftermath of the massacre he had caused. Launching himself from his perch on the cliff-face, he made his made his way towards one particular casualty that had caught his interest.

"An unfortunate casualty," Madara said to no one in particular, hoisting her body over his shoulder with little effort. "You are a powerful wind user; I will grant that. It would be a waste to leave you here to rot."

Madara could distantly feel the ghost-like sensation of his chakra tingling at an idea that was beginning to manifest.

"Death does not deserve you, my dear. Not yet."

Dance and dance for me, my sweet darling,

Let your hair down as you twirl and spin about,

Smiling for me, and only for me alone.

Present time

"Sakura-chan." Uzumaki Naruto, self-proclaimed Hokage, knelt slowly next to the aforementioned girl, his expression transitioning from disbelief, denial, horrified acceptance and finally grief. "What…what happened to you," he whispered brokenly, his larger hand grasping her smaller, colder ones. "Sakura-chan…" Naruto said her name again, his head bowed as his shoulders shook as he silently cried for another dead friend.

Gaara, who was the one to find and bring her here, gritted his teeth and turned his head away when Naruto started crying to give the blonde some semblance of privacy. Though her death cut him deeply, it could not begin to compare to the pain that Naruto must feel for losing not one but two of his teammates within a single year. It was like losing an arm or an eye; irreplaceable features that helps you function.

The former Kazekage closed his eyes, trying to remember the faces of his dear older siblings. Temari. Kankuro. They had all agreed to sign up for the war, even with the knowledge that there may the possibility of them dying.

He wished for a moment he could change the hands of time, and stop all of this from happening. The bloodshed, the war, and Uchiha Madara. Gaara did not even know how they had died; who had killed them, had they died in agony, what their last thoughts, could he have saved them?

It keeps him awake at night, the constant feeling of guilt and regret. Regret for a wasted childhood he had spent making their lives an absolute terror when he could have enjoyed the company of his siblings. Guilt for not being there to save them when he should have been, and letting them die. Sometimes he feels the tiniest bit of bitterness; hating them for leaving him alone to rot here in this hellish Earth.

"Gaara-san," a quiet, indifferent voice dispelled him from his turbulent thoughts, and he turned to see an aloof Nara Shikamaru studying him with a plain, contemplative look on his face. "If you don't mind, but I would like to ask you a few questions about where and how you found Sakura. Our position might have been compromised if he had seen her body." His unaffected tone at relaying his logic belied the way his lips curled in disgust whenever Uchiha Madara was implied or mentioned, and the way his brows furrowed at her name.

Though he would rather not relive the memory, he could not dispute the logic that the Nara had brought forth. Inclining his head as an answer, Gaara followed Shikamaru to where the others were gathered around their makeshift hearth, waiting.

Gaara glanced back at Naruto, deciding that it was best to leave him alone to his mourning for now. His green eyes hardened as he pursed his lips into a firm line when his eyes landed on her still form.

And just perhaps, the tiniest bit, he hated Haruno Sakura for leaving him too.

"Women love do to pointless things, don't they?"

– Akasuna no Sasori

Ever since she could remember, Inner had always been there, a tangible presence at the back of her mind. Loud, violent and expressive in ways she knew she would never be comfortable emulating outside her own thoughts. Inner provided her a way to vent out her frustrations and pent up emotions, in a less explosive manner.

And when she met Yamanaka Ino, Inner receded to the back of her mind. Here was a person who did not judge her, and was willing to be friends with an outcast (large pink headed freak) like her. With Ino she did not need to have Inner to store away her emotions, because she knew, Ino would not push her away for expressing her feelings or having her own opinions.

However, as time passed by and they entered the Academy, their friendship turned sour when they discovered that they (as well as the rest as the female population in the Academy) had a crush on Uchiha Sasuke.

It was precisely at that moment when she had confessed about her feelings for the Uchiha, and Ino traded their friendship for rivalry, Inner, who had been quiet for a long time, re-emerged back into her life in full force.

But Inner, this time around was heavily influenced by her crush for Sasuke and further fueled by her suppressed emotions as she tried to mould herself into the type of girl she thought he liked (it did not work, obviously).

Inner, who in the past could only voice a quiet idle thought at the back of her mind, became much stronger and louder, a nearly physical presence in her every thought.

And as Sakura grew stronger after being rejected by Sasuke, during her three years of intense training with Tsunade, Inner quietly became stronger as well. She was always there; in the way she moved, the way she talked, the way she fought.

Inner was there every single time she thought about Uchiha Sasuke.

"Hello, Outer."

"Inner..."

It may have started with a crush, and gradually build up to something close to love and affection. But, Sakura believed, it was never a full-blown obsession.

The way her monochrome copy stalked towards made the fine hairs on her metaphysical body tense and alert; it was the feeling one gets when they are about to be killed. "Inner, what is this? Where are we?"

"We are in our mind, Outer. Or should I say, my mind, after I am through with you." The smile she gave was absolutely chilling. "I have been waiting for years to do this."

"Inner, stop it. I'm in-charge here, so stop this. This is MY BODY; this is MY MIND."

"It WAS your body; it WAS your mind. The moment you let Sasuke-kun die was the moment you forfeited your rights to control," Inner shimmered red for a moment before returning to normal. "Now be a good girl and let me seal you away, Outer. After all, dear Sasuke-kun needs me."

Thus, it was the reason why she could not have anticipated that her own mind would revolt against her when she allowed Sasuke to die (but of course, who would even imagine that happening to them?)

Inner was the prominent part of her that was slowly devoted to Uchiha Sasuke and only him; the part of her that would do anything and everything for him. And as she finally came to this horrifying realisation, as she began to see Inner in a newer, harsher light, it was unfortunately, too late to do anything.

"Inner, this isn't fair!" Outer protested, the panic in her voice making her voice pitch higher. "You can't do this to me!"

"Don't worry Outer, you'll be safe here in the back of MY mind, forever. Maybe you'll be forgotten," she said with not small amount of glee, as watched Outer struggle fruitlessly with the chakra vines rapidly wrapping around her. "And maybe, you will even understand a bit of my pain, too."

"INNER! INNER! INN-" Her protest eventually became silent, the seal spreading across her body like a parasite, caging her will inside.

It was an impromptu battle of the minds, and yet she, the ID, lost to her own Alter Ego.

Alone in the mindscape at last, Inner traced a nonsensical pattern on the ground where Outer had disappeared into. "Oh, Outer. For our love for Sasuke-kun, all's fair in love and war."

Because dead or alive, Inner was not done with Uchiha Sasuke just yet.

In eyes, not mine, I see the darkness of your soul,

Your hands stained with blood, and yet you smile,

Your heart blackened and charred by selfish desires,

An unquenchable thirst for your never-ending revenge,

All the while I had truly loved you,

Cherished the memories of you,

You were the light to my candle,

And with you,

I will go out.

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A/N: I would like to point out that, if there is not a 'Present Time' indicated at the beginning of a paragraph, this means that the scene had taken in the past. I am working to building Sakura towards the time of her death and converging the two past/present storytelling into the present later on. I am still experimenting on this, so please bear with me. I will probably spend another one or two chapters on the past before permanently staying in the present narrative.

Aside from that, let us all welcome NARA SHIKAMARU to the exclusive survivors-of-the-apocalypse club [clap clap clap]. Please treat him kindly everyone, he had lost someone dear to him after all.

Now, I have created a poll for the identity of the other four other survivors. Yes, four. The identity of the other two will be revealed in the next chapter, promise. Right, so back to the poll, the top four characters with the highest poll will then be include in the story. The character with the highest poll among the others, however, may get the chance to play a more actively exciting [cought cough] role in this Arc.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter.

-The Last Deathly Guardian