Sasuke had many moments of crushed expectations, both in the long and short term of his relatively few years of life. They had been small, a crushed hope of dinner or time spent with his beloved sibling. The shattered dreams of a real life encapsulated the long and large of these crushed expectations. It struck him quite potently that the majority of these failed and crushed dreams were directly related to his brother. It seemed quite fitting that even in these days he still could not help but continue to dash such expectations against the rocks.

This was not what Sasuke had intended to find; Itachi lounged upon a throne of solid blackened stone, as if cut from a solid piece with the pure essence of flame. Given who had wrought this fortress, it was likely this was not far from the truth. A half-rotten banner hung above him, bearing a decaying symbol of the Uchiha fan. The room was mostly bare, as if it had been long stripped of anything particularly valuable, leaving only soot-covered braziers that hadn't been lit for generations and the rotten wall tapestries long past any value.

The eldest son of Fugaku Uchiha rested his head lazily upon a fist, braced against the stone arm of the large throne. His face would seem almost contemptuous if it wasn't so uncommitted, and to anyone else the visage of the robed man might have even appeared almost comical. But to Sasuke, it was simply insulting. All the time and effort he'd spent, the humor of his very being poured into the quest for vengeance. He'd discarded his future, his humanity, and justice itself in the path of the avenger.

Sasuke felt the surge of anger growing inside of him, feeding and forming into that self-destructive loop he'd become quite used to. The three-tomoe mark on his neck, one that nearly matched the black-on-red spiral tomoe marks in his eyes, began to burn. The anger flowed through his body and into it, causing it to slowly glow with barely contained heat. Sasuke grit his teeth in silence, and stifled a frown; the pain was becoming dangerously bearable.

His hand shifted up unconsciously, wrapping around the long crystal that hung from a roughly spun string around his neck, vibrant color like pink cherry blossoms. The simple act sent another emotion through him, soothing the heat pain with a wave of relief. Sasuke had come to rely on the simplistic crystalline fetish more and more often as the mark attempted to reassert some level of control over it's growingly reluctant host.

Itachi watched in contained bemusement. He was a master of body language, but the utter lack of subtly about his younger brother made it pathetically easy. Likewise, the burst of red-hot anger and killer intent that had begun to bleed from him had been snuffed out quickly, or perhaps buried was more appropriate. Simple though they were Sasuke's actions, to Itachi, spoke untold volumes. His brother had not listened to him after all, it would seem.

"Where is that hate, Sasuke?" he asked suddenly, eyes opening wider for just the briefest of moments. "I told you to hate me with everything you have, and still you refuse it. You come to me even in this state? I told you I'm not interested in you until you're strong, and without that hate, you are nothing."

Sasuke was far more controlled this time, squinting almost imperceptivity. But the sharp Uchiha eyes missed nothing. Itachi caught it, assuming an upright stance as he did.

"I stopped listening to your poison some time ago, Itachi." Sasuke said with malice, letting himself slip on purpose. "You destroyed your life, and I destroyed mine. But at least I stopped and recovered some it. It's too late for you."

Itachi seemed profoundly amused by this, smile creeping onto his stoic features. How amusing.

"You think you've strayed from what I've done because you've deluded yourself that you're 'in love,' hmm?" the elder Uchiha said, derision seeping through his words. He felt a flare of anger rise in his brother again and marveled. It was choked back quickly, Sasuke's hand once again finding the crystal necklace right before it did.

"What would you know of love?" Sasuke said, and for the briefest of moments a pained look snuck onto Itachi's face, thankfully (or unfortunately, as it might be), it was either missed or misinterpreted by the younger of the brothers.

"So you've become so enlightened now." Itachi said, appearing behind Sasuke in a sudden moment. "But yet come after me still. Such a power, this love you've fallen into apparently has."

Sasuke wasn't fooled by the genjutsu, formidable though it was. Even as he reflexively snapped his head back to look his arm raised. A crackling lance of energy sprung from his hand, piercing the solid stone of the throne. Sasuke turned back to find Itachi had reassumed his lazy pose, Chidori Eisou scant inches from his head.

Sasuke repeated his question.

"What would you know of love?"

Otter felt a sharp pain in his chest, unlike any he'd ever experienced before. He looked down to find a fist coming out in quite the inappropriate place, and the electric storm of chirping birds he held in his claw-formed hand began to die away as his spirit vacated his body. It was sudden and brutal. His ribs were cracked and shattered, organs pulped. How he lived was the true miracle, even though it lasted only scant for seconds.

He whispered something unintelligible as he fell. He was dead before he hit the ground.

He stood atop the monument, eyes wide with triumph and happiness, red-trimmed white coat flapping in the wind and wide-brimmed hat upon his head. It was a culmination of all the trials he'd been through. All hardships, pains, fights, and lessons. He had done it, at last. He'd achieved a dream he'd had for over two decades. It was something he'd earned, that much was clear. The crowd below roared it's approval.

A single lavender-eyed girl watched with tears of joy. They were for many things; for the young man standing above in triumph, for the promise they'd made to each other not long ago, and for the evidence of that promise she held within. Her eyes let him see far sharper than most of the crowd, and they seemed to instinctively focus on the simple golden band he wore on his left ring finger. It was just like the one on hers. Her hand fell to her stomach, tears flowing freely as she felt the pulse of life beneath.

Yes, Dreams did come true.

Crystal erupted from the ground, countless spires of geometrical pink. They launched themselves three meters into the air, filling the land with smoke as dozens of kage bunshin were destroyed by their sudden rise. For the briefest of moments, the field was nothing but crystal. It lasted a scant few seconds as the clones burst into localized whirlwinds, feeding off each other and growing as more clones burst and joined the others, releasing the stored power from within. The crystals shattered easily, winds transforming the field into a desert of pink dust. Small dust devils rolled across the land, filling the air with sparkling pink.

Sakura was panting, hands still firmly planted into the ground from her previous jutsu, green-eyes wide with shock. But she recovered fast, standing upright and letting an open hand shoot from the confines of her black robe which bore the the red cloud symbols of Akatsuki, the pink trim unique to her own, and the large metal emblems that hung from each arm. Sasuke's eyes widened as he realized what she was going to do, mouth opening to protest. He was a fraction of a second too late as her hand closed into a fist.

Crystal stars burst into existence all over the field.

The village was barely recognizable as such; splintered and scattered building extended as far as the eyes could see. It was a terrible thing to behold, foundations swept bare in some places, smoldering ruins in others, and between them all a horrible mess of broken wood, tile, and stone. If not for the remarkably resilient hokage monument it would be almost impossible to imagine that this place was the ninja village of the Land of Fire, legendary Konohagakure no Sato; the Village Hidden in the Leaves.

Nearby, a massive settlement of tents and hastily constructed shacks and shanties extended throughout areas less devastated, where there had been little development; training fields and farms mostly, and some simply less prosperous sections of the village, or those who had been somehow shielded from the devastation wrought upon the rest of Konoha. The smell of packed bodies, both a remarkable amount of living and shockingly few dead, filled the air, mingling with the smoldering ruins and other smells of devastation and desperation.

Despite the oppressive atmosphere, which seemed perfect for the propagation of despair, the air was instead charged with power, electric and eager. A crowd had gathered by the ruins of the massive gates of Konoha, despite a myriad of wounds and injuries, as well as the grime and dirt they carried. A single figure walked towards them, and even from this distance they could make out the brilliant golden hair of the man who had saved the village from total annihilation.

His jacket was frayed and worn, body cut and bleeding. But his stride was strong, purposeful. He entered, eyes wide at the crowd arrayed before him. Tears began to well up in those eyes as he surveyed the group, noticing the forms of people one after the other that he had known to be dead. But it was not until his eyes fell onto a single lavender-eyed girl that the tears became a raging torrent. He was running blind now. His stride became a run. Murmurs became cheers as he neared.

Hinata was in no state to meet him; her clothes were torn and dirty, marks where her miraculously healed wounds had rapidly scarred over sometimes evident beneath his rent attire. She watched as he came closer, eyes opening as he neared. Her hand flew to cover her mouth in shock as Naruto neared the group, his beautiful deep blue eyes replaced with a series of concentric black rings over white.

Hinata jolted awake, heart pounding rapidly in her chest and rivulets of sweat rolling across her face. The veins on the side of her face were slowly receding as she woke, vision blurring into reality and escaping the fugue state of the terribly real dreams. Dream were not supposed to hurt, but her hand was still clutching her chest, one of many seemingly hallucinatory pains that marked the sites of imaginary wounds. Pain in her chest, arms, legs, and places she did not even want to imagine. Worst of all, however, was the pain that welled up deep within her heart.

She felt sticky, and realized that her body was completely drenched from head to toe. Hinata sat in her bed for an unknown amount of time, panting and wheezing, fighting for breath each passing moment. They haunted her still, visions. She pushed herself out of her bed, mindlessly going about changing her clothes. She knew that it was night, still, given the lack of light coming from the windows. It was a blessing that she had not screamed, she though absently as she stripped off the drenched articles of clothing and found replacements, still strangely dazed and haunted.

Time was still skewed to her perception, and she knew not how long it took her to change into dry clothes and strip down her bed. The lack of knowledge was painfully uncomfortable, particularly given the other knowledge she seemed to have been granted in it's place. Hinata knew not where those dreams had come from, nor why she could recall them so clearly. But she knew immediately two things about them. Firstly, they she knew that she had wished to never had them, strange tears of both sadness and joy welling into her wide Hyuuga eyes. And secondly, she knew, somehow and some way, that each and every one of them was perfectly true.