He felt his eyes drifting closed as she wrapped her arms around him and hugged him as he lay half on top of her, the last of his life pulsing through her body as he thought,
Forgive me angel. It's a thankless job. Full of pain, misery and heartbreak. But your the only one that I can trust... Please live. Be happy.
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Everything hit her at once. A rushing current of images and emotions raging through her mind. Too fast. Too many. She felt like her head was spliting apart! She could see an image of an old man with snow white hair and a matching beard leaning over a sleeping toddler and whispering.
"Happy birthday Naruto."
Tears slipped down her face as she clutched her head and screamed as more pushed it's way through her mind.
An image of a man with a scar across the bridge of his nose staring down at a blond haired boy. His eyes cold and listless as he spoke. "Don't bother with this kid. He's just a joke."
She felt her heart clench painfully in her chest and screamed again as stars exploded behind her eyes and everthing went dark for several seconds. Before everything came back she could hear a voice in her head and see an image of a little boy about six or seven years old.
"My name is Uzumaki Naruto, and I am the leaf village biijuu. And soon I will die..." Such heart breaking words from one so young. She squeezed her eyes closed and tried to breath but it felt as if something was pressing down on her chest, forcing the air from her lungs.
"I have a daughter. Created from a sliver of my soul. She is the gift of hope that I will give to this world of sorrow and pain."
Oh father.
"She is my heart. My life's greatest work. My precious one, my love. She alone stands out among my other replacements..."
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The mission was a bust.
Kakashi thought bitterly as he looked from one worried face to another. And on top of being unable to seal away the three tailed demon, Naruto was missing.
The damn brat had walked out on them in the dead of night three days ago and no amount of searching thy had done had been able to turn up any clues to his where abouts. Shizune made a dstressed sound next to him an he glanced at her.
She was hunched over, her arms wrapped around herself, looking pitiful. "Naurto..."
"This is my fault. Is't it?" Sai asked in a small voice as he looked at Sakura. Sakura gave him a sad smile and patted him on the back.
"No, Sai. This isn't your fault. Look at thing from Naruto's point of view-" Everyone in the room looked at her. Even Kakashi felt his eye go to her. "He's probably worried that someone here will hold him accountable for the Kyubbi's attack and betray him. It's understandable that he would decide to stay way from us if he isn't sure who to trust."
Everyone stared at the pinkette. Her words did make sense. Though they were loath to admit it. Even though they had all said that it was okay, that they didn't mind that he was the demon container, Naruto would always have doubts in his heart about weather they really meant it or not. Being who he was, and having the demon inside of him, doubts in others are a majority of what had kept Naruto alive.
If he doubted them, then he was'nt likely to trust them with his back and if he didn't trust them with his back then someone who wanted to inflict pain and damage on him would'nt be able to get close enough to really hurt him.
It was sad. But the truth of his existance was rarely pleasent.
"He'll come back when he's ready." Sakura said kindly and Sai nodded his head and looked away. Everyone else sighed and clung to Sakura's words. Silently hoping and praying that Naruto would come back to them.
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It had taken about an hour but she was finally able to breath again. The pain from before had slowly turned into a dull throb, indicating that she had assimulated with the man's soul and his memories well enough to begin. She pushed herself upright, slightly pushing the corpse of the man off off of her and winced at her lack of respect for the dead as she pulled the necklace around his neck off of him and dropped it down over her head and pulled her hair out of the way so that the small silver and green beads landed against her naked skin and shivered.
Now that the assimulation was over with, she was cold again and in need of clothes. She stood up and walked through the halls of the life room. Heading towards the observation room where the watcher was waiting for her.
Sauske Uchiha the fourth, sat in his cushy, cumfy chair watching the screen in front of his eyes. He was observing the human's again, and loving every minute of it. They were such akward and funny creatures. Entertaining in every thing that they did.
But there was nothing funny about the ones that he was watching right now. The group of leaf shinobi were not acting like themselves. And really he could'nt blame them after the hour it had tken him to figure out what was wrong to begin with. Naruto was missing.
Most likely dead.
He found it sort of ironic that out of all of the times that he had died-this was the one time that they had actually noticed his absence. The clear stone doors to the room opened behind him and he looked away from the screen for a second, turning his body half way around to look at he person standing in the door way and silently hoping that it was'nt Asuma again. Because contrary to popular belief, he was not keen on getting another beating for eating all of the ice cream.
That and he had'nt bothered to touch the damn stuff again since he had some bruised ribs from where the man had made his point abot eating the ice cream when he had wanted some. No-he'd steer clear of the freezer section for a while. Today he was working on a bag of potato chips.
Minato Namakaze's potato chips.
His eyes laded on the fox eared female standing in the door and his face paled. Holy shit, she had been released! He almost shrieked in terror, she was just that scary. But instead said in a cold voice.
"State your name and unit number."
She walked into the room and he blushed and had to look away. "Uzu Naru Namikaze. I'm a Zero Unit... Can I have a robe or something?" She asked as she looked aound. Sauske sighed and stood up and shrugged off his robe and tossed it to her and looked away again as she slipped it on.
"A Zero Unit huh." He muttered thughtfully as she walked over to his chair and very calmly grasped the back of it and tipped it forward so that he spilled out of it and onto the floor. He grunted and bared his teeth and growled but said nothing of what he was thinking, one simply didn't do that with the queen bee. She sat down as he picked himslf up off of the floor.
"Is there something wrong with me being a Zero Unit?"
"What? No! No! No not at all." Aside from the fact that there had only been three Zero Units made by their creator and they were all male. He seriously doubted that Naruto would have created a female Zero Unit. But there was one way to check her claim out.
"Let me see your wrist."
She looked away from the screen and locked eyes with him. Her deep red stare boring into his ebony one. "I do not have any markings on my wrists to indicate my unit."
Sauske was about to say something when she reached up and pulled her hair away from her neck and tapped the skin of her nape. He blinked and leaned down and looked at the big bold letters. ZU, and leaned back as he sucked in a breath, the truth about what their creator had done slamming into him like a ton of bricks. Goddamnit.
Naruto should'nt have, but he had. The evidence was sitting right in front of him. But this female, this Zero Unit was different from the others. Not just because of her gender but because of what she represented.
Power. Pure, strong, and boundless. It was inside of her, he could sense it. Could feel it in the air around her.
Dear god, she had so much of the shit that he was starting to wonder if the brat that had created them all had been just slightly off his rocker before he had died.