I promised myself that I wouldn't throw a Sasuke in there, but my hand slipped. I'm not sorry, though.
So, this is the last chapter. Enjoy! ^_^
-X-
Sakura Haruno opened her arms to the wind, breathing in its salty scent.
Her bruises felt surreal, she had gotten them before. Her mind was made of overlapping images that shattered one another. She felt Naruto tentatively stepping towards behind. She heard his shallow breath, the sand screeching. She rediscovered each sensation, knowing she should remember them all.
Her head throbbed. Her neck burnt. The scent of the sea, dark red under the setting sun, choked her. It pressed down onto her and she tumbled. Naruto caught her, effortlessly pulling her straighter against the raging movements nature. Her arms closed in around her.
She was wingless.
"I'm sorry, Sakura. I should have protected you." He shook his head, running a hand through his spiky hair. "He should have never found you."
She tasted the salt on her lips, her pink hair dripping wet. She had also heard those words before. Everything was an echo. She stared down at her open pale hands, expecting them to shake and hold on to parcels of broken dreams and damaged past.
They didn't.
Sakura stopped being part of the motion centuries ago.
"Sakura... Look at me. Please."
When she finally turned her head towards him, Naruto had black hair and her blood was on his hands.
"Am I dead?" She murmured and the sea screamed behind her, laying seaweeds at their feet.
Her vision danced, swaying among sparks of blue and blond resurfacing. It still anchored her. She forced an inhale. It burned her throat, the ground shook beneath her bare foot. Demons buzzed by her.
"Did someone kill me?" Sakura shouted agitated, yellow eyes following her.
They trapped them, broke them against one another. Creatures of the night flew above. The festival of the death ended, taking back the pieces of her.
She choked on air, breathless.
She didn't need to breathe.
Her fingers worked on her temples, his hand receding from her form. She shivered, dizzy. She stumbled back in the sand, without his hand, disgusted by the coldness of her skin. No wrinkles traced her back to another time, to another place, but she walked through three great wars. She counted cadavers that resembled her friends and parents.
She remembered it now, their names falling back into place.
Above their heads, the sky turned a dull green, quiet wild flames pushing past the barrier of their world. She smelled of death, welcomed it back within her; it had never left her. The coldness, the sensation of being lost. Naruto was her light. He was her flames that should have destroyed her.
She was ashes, trapped between two worlds.
She had wished for it. She said it aloud, the words burning her tongue. Foolish. She had called Hinata foolish and she had done the same in her own time, in her accord. They were the same.
She wished for strength when it failed her.
She wished for the dead to remain buried when she was alive and haunted. His name almost fell onto her scorched lips, but she let the wind carried it past her.
Sakura shook her head, pink locks brushing her shoulders. She pushed the demons' hands away, flames circling them. The sky turned ashen, bleeding out onto the agitated sea. She could find him in every of those things. Him.
He was unlike Naruto and her first wish was for him to remain unnamed.
"Answer me!" Sakura shouted, her voice clipped and cold.
Her voice contained the madness of the world, rotten, skewed over the images she had let him take from her because she thought it was better. Better existing than dying. Better loving than living.
Naruto rubbed the back of his neck and he avoided her stare. Her body bent, her eyes following him, pleading. Foolish. Foolish, she called herself, her hands sinking into her hair. It used to be long, sway with the movements of her lips. He liked long hair, she remembered. She fell on her knees, one hand now pressed to her mouth, silencing her screams and the other one sinking in the sand.
She felt his hand on her neck, sucking the breath out of her. He felt her for dead.
Naruto clenched his fists, the sand turning black at his feet. The flames quietened, the silence of hell closing in. Tendrils of hot air reached out of his human form.
"I'm sorry."
His eyes turned red, glowing unmistakably in the darkness thickening around their bodies. It pulled them closer. It silenced the wails.
The only attachment she felt was to the present. To Naruto. He erased every tomb that could hold her back, everyone who would reach out, rotten and embedded in her, and steal her away. Now, he offered her the choice. Sakura stared at the waves, her eyes glinting with their movements and her tears. Then, she reached for his hand. He sighed, falling heavily next to her. She let him strip her mind bare, her head falling back against his chest.
He gave the memories made of sakura flowers and neat kimono. Her first husband faded, cold and uncaring as he had always been. He rubbed the thought of her parents poor and unnamed to oblivion, until he had severed all the strings that could hurt her. He gave her more loving parents, more happiness that he thought she deserved and never had.
Naruto pressed her closer to her chest, her body falling limply against him. He wished they were real.
"Tell me you are real."
His lips fell on her hair, descended to her lips. His hands holding her glowed, green, stringing, the sand rolling beneath her fingers. It slipped through them. She let go of the flashes of her dead parents, former lovers, past times.
"Believe in me, Sakura. It's over. We will start again elsewhere."
He grinned down at her, his index tracing the curve of her cheek to the crook of her neck.
The sound of the crashing waves against the sand, the sky above; it all fell back into place, its tempo slow and engrossing. Forgetful.
"Tell me you love me." she nuzzled his chest, her cool hand resting against his bicep.
"I do. You know I do."
Drowsily, Sakura nodded, her mouth dry. She had forgotten how many times they had started over, how many lives they had forged or stolen.
It didn't matter, she reminded herself, she would follow him. She had done so for the past two centuries. She had learned by then, the price for immortality was oblivion.
-X-
Wish for Oblivion
by Clementive
-X-
Hinata Hyuuga wanted to go back to a time her innocence was justified. Before her mother died, she hid behind her father's knees and he never glared or snapped. She was her mother's daughter then. When she died, Hiashi took Hanabi's hand to the training ground and she remained behind.
She had no excuse and if her father had loved her mother, he decided he couldn't love her.
She thought of whitening leaves trembling in wintery wind, of her mother's tomb as she advanced in Konoha. Behind closed curtains, family prayed for souls to carry on to their next life.
She shivered. She couldn't decide whether she belonged with them or not.
The clouds twisted, billowing onto the grey sky. Green spikes of thunder scarred it, straining him. Gaara fell himself fading as he pushed through the empty streets, Hinata quiet by her side. He pinched his lips, watching her. He almost reached in her and whacked her soul out. He wanted to hear the chains rattled against his claws. Delectable. Falling easily into his arms.
He didn't understand. He glared at her small frame, delicate hands twisted by nervosity. Naruto didn't want her, then, how he could have her anyway? Why didn't it matter what Gaara want?
"Where are we going?"
They passed Naruto's apartment and she didn't slow.
"Home, I hope."
He frowned, stopping behind her when Hinata titled her head, hiding in the shades of the pillars of the Hyuuga compound. Her father trained her sister, as he often did. They met half-way, his height barely torturing her. Hanabi had never wanted to disappear.
She imagined them swapping place. She imagined her facing him and the strength taunting his muscles. She didn't fit. She fell flat, unable to keep up. Even on the veranda, they had filled her place with a stronger cousin from a lower branch.
"It's like in the mist," Hinata said in a whimper, troubled, "they have already carried on."
Her uncles sat, servants setting cups of tea in front of them. They nodded, watching Hanabi. Unlike her, they didn't need to hide. They were satisfied; they had the heiress they had always wanted.
Hinata wanted to laugh and cry. She wanted it all, as she had always done. It should taste bitter. She had no right to wish to be the moon when she had trained to be nothing but an eclipse. How could she fight something as volatile as herself?
Biting her lip, she expected smaller versions of herself to run by and tie her back to the past.
Gaara looked over her shoulder, her soul quivering, his muscles working to stay with her, a little longer. He couldn't believe in eternity when it came to her. He had one day left. He was as lost as her and he became her shadow. The moonlight joined the puppets dancing in the wind.
"Are you still showing me the future?"
She pleaded him with her eyes. Was there something wrong in wanting to be loved? Was there something wrong in wanting to be missed? In being seen?
"No, but that doesn't mean they don't think you are gone," Gaara answered coldly, her fear setting her soul ablaze, her sadness weighing all down.
The chains circling her waist clang softly to his ear.
His pale orbs stopped on her frozen features. She still fought. He smirked slowly, closing his eyes. His tongue weighed like iron in his mouth. His words were half-swallowed, half-forced. He tasted her nonetheless.
With or without her, Gaara would need to leave soon.
Hinata searched for her place amidst a world that she had always been afraid to take part of. She let it slide by, she let it carry her because she had always believed it would take her to Naruto. No matter what happened, no matter how much scars Hanabi and her weakness drew onto her skin, she thought she would make it to him. Always.
"He's gone, isn't he?" Her chin quivered, her eyes clouded, greyer.
If she couldn't find herself in him, she had thought she would find herself in her family. She didn't. She couldn't.
"I can take you to him if you want me to." His mouth twisted, spitting the words.
He had to force himself to remain in place, stoic despite time running out. He wanted to leave her behind and take her with him. He wanted her whole, her eyes shining in the death of others. He wanted blistered cadavers between them. If only she thought she was strong enough to stay. To fight. To love him.
"What do you want Hinata?" He asked briskly, bringing her back to the present.
She flinched, turning her head back towards him. Even in his eyes, she had ceased to be a princess, the suffix gone. The sound of Hanabi's fighting erupted, exploded between them. In the distance, she hit her. Each strike pierced through her along with Gaara's unwavering glare.
"I don't know."
'Him. Them. Everything and nothing. You.'She still didn't know the difference between what she wanted and what she deserved.
Hinata licked her lips, his eyes hungrily searching her face for a hint, a rebuttal that would quieten the flames inside him. He almost pleaded her to put him to rest, to tell him his name and let him burn in hell.
He didn't care if leaving her behind would strip him of his tail. The flames he was used to, but her humanity, her innocence, her breakable soul, he couldn't handle. He couldn't handle being human again and letting sleepless night define his mortality or them. Them together, he corrected himself, clenching his jaw.
His muscles twitching, pulling back upwards. He gritted his teeth.
"Do you have a family, Gaara?" She turned back towards her father and sister limbs and palms meeting on the ground, their strength pulsating around their eyes.
Unlike her, they never held back. She had never seen herself with those eyes.
Gaara froze, his eyes hardening and she tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear in a graceful gesture. He had to remember how much he needed to hold back whenever he touched her. He could tear her to shreds. He could burn her to crackling ashes. If she asked him to bring her to Naruto, he would. He knew, he would.
He didn't want to, but he would.
"I did," Gaara touched his forehead, hesitating. "I wished for their love." he added in a whisper and the wind briskly swallowed his answer.
They were still strings holding him back, even after all this time. Even once the time had erased his parents, Temari and Kankuro, dispersing pieces of them within him, the strings never faded. They still untangled him down to Earth in small undeniable ways.
Gaara locked his jaw, looking at the Hyuuga sliding gracefully into fighting stances. They never excused weakness, just like his family never did. His weakness had always been bloodthirstiness.
"I wish for theirs too," Hinata murmured startling him.
Gaara almost smirked at the irony of him being shunned for his roaring strength and her for her quiet one. They made their first wish hearing lullabies sung to someone else. They grew jealous and twisted, unseen and unfortunately alive.
Naruto was spinning away with them, unreachable as they had always been. Hinata was still the silent watcher, the weak wisher. She died without living. Her scent lingered around her, radiating like a crown around her head with the quiet words her soul screamed for her.
She started fading by his side.
In an impulse, he stroked her soul. It shrieked, drawing farther. She rose clouded milky eyes to him, her heart hammering and he lowered his hand. For the briefest moment, she felt the weight of her chains, the fluttering of her heart. Everything collided and slid past her. She felt it now. Now that everything was gone, now that she couldn't hold on to anyone, anything, she felt him and the flames that devoured him.
They devoured her too.
"P-please, stop doing that."
Gaara grunted in answer, crossing his arms over his chest. He pursued his lips, shaking with an impulse he hadn't felt in years. His nails pierced the palm of his hands.
He wished for her, now, he meant to tell her. Draped in the red of her blood or not, he wished for her. He wished for her to be as innocent and quietly happy as she used to even if she rest every night on delusions. Watching her was like watching himself through the window of his soul.
He wished he could shatter her and believe she was nothing but glass. Breakable.
"They asked me to kill you. They even paid me to take care of you if they failed," he muttered darkly, watching her intake, her chest expending beyond nothing.
She was made of shudders and rippling echoes.
Slowly, she nodded, not glancing at him or them. Hinata set her glance to the floor, leaning back against the wall. There was nothing else for her to find there. There was nothing left of her. Of them. They had already erased her, replaced her and pretended that she had never existed. Perhaps she had never lived outside her shadow and that was the price to pay.
She was part of their oblivion, but she still found it in herself to blame no one but herself. They trained. They pushed her away. She still thought she was everyone's weakness.
"Bring me to where your family used to be."
"They are dead, Hinata-hime," he wrinkled his nose, the hurt blatant on her face. He didn't stop. "There is nothing left of them. There is nothing left of me on this Earth."
"I need... I need to go away," her voice broke and her hand waved nervously her locks away from her face.
"Hn. You won't face them."
They didn't meddle; her family and Naruto. Yet, Gaara couldn't tell them apart and the sky was calling him back, stronger.
"I don't want to. I'm tired to," she closed her eyes, feeling his proximity warming her body. "They will never see as anything more than they want me to be."
"Then, why don't you die and give me your soul?" Gaara spat, his teeth and nails sharpening.
'Why is it still about Naruto? Why can't you exist for yourself? Why do I have to be the one who's left instead of the only one for you?'
His breath fell on her lips, her eyes fluttering open. His hands rest on each side of her head, his face emotionless. He couldn't stop her from hurting herself, but he would stop her from hurting him. Again and again. He snarled, leaning closer.
"You told me..." Hinata hesitated, pressing her palm to his chest.
He winced, his heartbeat froze in another century beneath her touch.
"You told me not to die." She gave him a small smile.
Her voice had sounded hopeful.
Howling, he gripped her and disappeared in a torrent of crispy leaves.
-X-
Hinata yelped, his grunt echoing through his chest as they tumbled onto the beach. The sand invaded her robes, scratching her skin. On one side, the dunes reflected the sun. On the other side, the sea swallowed it, angry and restless.
There was nowhere to hide, no shadow to toss herself within.
Hinata trembled, turning violently back towards him. He breathed out, his eyes focused on the torn sky. He couldn't escape the pull. She jolted, noticing his translucent skin.
"Are you alright?" She bit her lip, reaching for him.
He slapped her hand away, roaring along the demons reaching up to the portal. It opened, a whirling pool of black clouds above their heads. Her soul shimmered, shuttering. With difficulty, he stood up ignoring her widened eyes, the inquiries rounding her lips. He had meant to bring her farther away. He brought her to where Naruto was gone, testing her. Pushing her away.
He still didn't want her to die.
He wanted to leave her behind. Lost, he gasped, watching her feeble among demons she couldn't see. It would be easier if he did, if he didn't need to think about her in ways she thought of another.
"Gaara?"
"Why did you say that?" Gaara roared, growing fainter as he towered her.
He let her see the monster. He let her gulp onto her fear until it was unbearable to watch her recoil and take a step. She had touched his dead heart and she didn't track Naruto's steps onto the sand. She didn't mourn the presence of Sakura's.
He closed his eyes, forcing himself back onto a human form. The effort ripped his ribcage, burning his flesh in awkward angles.
"Why are you still here?" He asked lowly, his muscles ripping underneath his skin.
He didn't understand how her eyes made everything difficult, why her touch both drew him in and pushed him away.
"You're the one who found me!" Hinata cried out, her finger shook as it pointed at him.
The rain streamed down her neck, her kimono growing heavier. She panted, holding herself away from him. He paused. She gleamed, his tail hanging between them.
"You're the one... you're the one who showed me Naruto, myself and my family."
"No," Gaara said, his voice sounding hollow. He wouldn't cross the distance between them. "You did. You asked for all of that."
They stood in the middle of their worlds bouncing back into place.
The sky fell, each raindrop bolting, warm, against her skin. He shuddered, his tattoo glowing, his growing teeth deforming his mouth.
"You're the one holding yourself, back and forth!" He yelled, tottering. "I showed you everything you asked for! I didn't do anything else. You did the rest, Hinata. Can't you see that?"
"What?"
She bent over, the weight pressing her down. Her skin glowed green, her fingers shakily caressing the icy metal that bound her to him. He panted, watching her horrified. They were both slipping.
"You understand now, don't you?" Gaara screamed above the rising wind and ripping thunder.
Hinata opened her mouth. She tasted nothing but rain, her hair sticking to her forehead and neck. She felt too heavy, crushed. The green of his eyes reflected the foam of the sea and the portal pulled her up. She didn't stop it, the feel of screeching shadows scratching her anklets. They invited her in.
She jolted staring at the dagger's blade against her hand, her glance still focused on the darkening sky.
Gaara belonged in another world that couldn't coexist with hers more than a few days. Hinata opened her mouth again, choking. She gripped his sleeve, his body fading. She dug her heels in the sand, tumbling in the rolling grains, trying to hold him back behind just as he had.
"No! Please! Gaara!" Her voice was still too weak, too meek.
Her head spun.
She was always too late.
She couldn't breathe, her skin set ablaze by the curtain of rain.
Gaara leaned in, darkness rolling out of the cold waves licking her feet and plastering her kimono to her shaky legs. He was the only one who cared if she lived or not, if she stayed or not. She stared up at the black sky, swallowing demons back, her hair wildly whipping her neck and cheeks.
She wished she could reach higher and stop the rain, the thunder and their worlds crashing. She didn't know what it meant, but she wished for it anyway.
"Say the words, Hinata-hime," he whispered in her ear as the strongest pull of the wind. "Say the words that will make me fall."
"W-what?"
"Wish for me."
Her arms fell through his chest, the fire inside him disintegrating with him. She fell on the sand, sinking in the soaking ground. She stopped thinking about her clan and Naruto, when he disappeared. She had been able to fight in front of him, she had broken and stood up again. He had let be wrecked against his chest and beg her not to die.
"P-please, don't!"
Hinata screamed above the tumult of their worlds clashing away from one another. She screamed above hell and heavens, her voice forming only his name until the wind died down and he carried her with him.
She needed him, more than she could ever wish for him.
Her saliva spurted acidic in her throat, the icy air pressing against her body. The clouds paled. The portal whirled, demons clawing their way in.
"We are flying," Hinata stammered, looking down at the howling sea.
She felt light, his skin smelling of ashes and brutal storms. She closed her eyes, pressing her face to his chest. Below them, the rain erased the steps of Naruto and Sakura.
"No, you are."
He cupped her cheek, titling her head back. Her eyes widened, her hair dancing around them. Her eyes were on his tattoo and his were on her lips.
She wished for him in the faintest whisper.
-X-
THE END
-X-
It took a lot for me to sit down and finally end this. It's always like this... I get too attached and writing the end becomes as hard as writing the beginning.
I would like to thank everyone who reviewed or/and added my story either to their favourite or alert list. It made me smile. Thank you! I had fun and I definitely wouldn't have made it without you, guys. There won't be a sequel; I like the ending just as it is. We may run into one another in another fic in the future, though. (Especially if you like crack pairings or NejiTen. ;))
Until then! Maybe. Hopefully. :)
-Clementive