Desolation had consumed us completely. For two years, we had been fugitives in our own world, hunted mercilessly by Madara, the architect of our misfortune. We had lost the war and with it, everything we had ever loved. Friends, family, homes... all vanished in the whirlwind of destruction. Now, only we remained, a small group of survivors fighting a hopeless battle against an unstoppable enemy.

Sasuke, my friend, my teammate, had just fallen. I watched as his body hit the ground, his last look filled with determination and farewell. Kakashi and Obito were fighting valiantly, but it was as if they were fighting an ocean with one hand. And Naruto... my Naruto, my hero, lay there, sprawled on the ground, with a mortal wound in his chest that would not stop bleeding.

I ran to him, my heart pounding with desperation as I tried to stop the bleeding. But each attempt was in vain, the blood kept gushing out, like a curse that could not be cured. "Naruto, please, hold on," I pleaded, my hands trembling with the green light of medical chakra as I fought against the inevitability of his death. That light that flickered in clear signs that he was running out of chakra. It didn't matter how much progress I had made in healing wounds like this, nothing mattered if I didn't have chakra. Helplessness flooded over me, but I couldn't give up. Naruto couldn't die. I would use my last breath if necessary.

"Sakura, listen to me," he said with a weak but firm voice.

"I'm here, Naruto," I replied, my voice choked with pain and helplessness. The green light becoming dimmer and dimmer. 'Fuck, not now'

"You must... you must leave," he continued, his breath ragged from exertion. "You can't stay here. You can't... die with me."

"No, Naruto, I can't leave you," I protested, tears streaming down my cheeks. "I can't... I can't live without you, without you all."

He looked at me with sad but determined eyes. "You must, Sakura," he insisted. "You must live... in a better place than this."

"What are you talking about? There is no better place, everything is lost. My only place is with you. We've already lost Sasuke, I can't... I can't," tears clouded my vision and obstructed my throat but the essence of what I said was clear. I would not live without them.

"Sakura, look at me," he asked with a voice so weak, so far from the usual Naruto.

Accepting it, I looked at him. He looked at me with so much affection that it squeezed my heart even more.

"Please, li-live. F-for us," he pleaded with blood coming out of his mouth, his eyes slowly fading.

"Okay Naruto, okay. I will, I will live but please hold on a little longer," so desperate and focused was I on saving him that I missed the look of relief on his face.

Then I felt it, a powerful presence behind me, but it wasn't Madara's malevolent one. I could still hear him fighting against my sensei and Obito. I turned around and found myself face to face with Hagoromo, the Sage of the Six Paths. His white robe floated in the air. His purple ringed eyes reflected pain and sadness, and his gaze was fixed behind me.

Alarmed, I turned around, afraid of what I would see, but doing it anyway.

Naruto... he was there.

"NO! PLEASE NARUTO!" I screamed heartbreakingly. "NO NO NO" I was in complete agony. "Not you please, not you... NARUTO!" I tried to keep healing him even though I knew it would be in vain, but I couldn't even keep my chakra going for more than a second. "Don't leave me... I beg you Naruto. I need you, we all need you. You can't leave please..." I kept begging a body that was no longer alive.

Why? Why was I so useless? Why couldn't I save anyone? Why did this have to happen? Why did they take everything from me? I was tired, so tired.

I placed my head on his torso, not caring about getting blood on me. I gripped his shirt in fists that turned my knuckles white, and I broke into heartbreaking sobs, staining his skin with my tears. I could still feel his faint warmth.

I couldn't take it anymore. It was too much pain, what was the point of living like this?

"I'm sorry, this is all my fault," I heard a voice speak with regret behind me. I didn't dare raise my head from my friend's body, I wanted to be with him until I could no longer feel the warmth of his body, but it didn't stop me from speaking.

"Yes, it's all your fault. Without you, this wouldn't have happened, Madara wouldn't have existed, I wouldn't have lost my friends, my village, everything, it's your damn fault," I blurted out with all the resentment I had. I knew what I was saying didn't make sense and it wasn't fair, but I didn't care. I was too hurt to be empathetic.

"You're right," he replied with sadness. "I can't fix all of that anymore, but I can still do something," he added.

I couldn't help but feel a glimmer of hope inside me.

"What do you mean? Fix it? Can you bring him back?" I asked, desperate for any alternative to the one I had in front of me.

With sadness in his eyes, he replied, "No, I can't do that," he said, destroying the little hope I had and breaking my heart even more.

"I can only fulfill his last will," he added, which only confused me.

"What do you mean? What will?" I asked, not understanding what he was referring to.

Looking at her fixedly, with eyes that reflected his determination, he began to form a mass of energy that grew little by little until it turned black. It looked like a vortex of darkness that would drag everything near it.

"This is his last will. I know it's not what you want, but you promised him. It's what he asked me for. And it's the last thing I can do for a descendant of mine," he said in a solemn tone.

Remembering Naruto's last words, his plea for her to live, and her foolishly giving it to him. I opened my eyes, already realizing what he was trying to do.

"No, no, no. I don't want that, my place is here, with them, alive or dead," I said with fear and desperation, trying to make him understand that I had to die with them. Her place was with them, she couldn't survive anywhere else, she couldn't and didn't want to.

Didn't what she wanted matter?

He gave me a look that bordered on pity. "I understand. I am only fulfilling a son's last will. I'm sorry."

"NO! I can't abandon them, Kakashi and Obito are still here, they need me, they are fighting for their lives. I will not leave them, you cannot force me." I looked at him with hard eyes, but my statements only fell on deaf ears.

I saw him, enlarging the mass more and more until it reached a considerable height.

"I wish I could help them all, but it's all I can do with the chakra I have left. Once it's done, I'll disappear too," he explained softly, already knowing his fate and not caring.

"Then take me, Kakashi and Obito. Let me take the bodies of Sasuke and Naruto. Maybe I can still..." I didn't even know what I would do, I couldn't bring the dead back to life. "Just don't separate me from them, please," I begged with tears of desperation.

He gave me a look of sorrow, knowing something that I didn't. "They know, they are giving you this opportunity."

I looked at him confused, what did he mean by that? I turned to watch the battle that was unfolding not far from her. Kakashi and Obito fought in a synchronized and perfect dance. Each one knowing what the other would do and acting accordingly. It was as if they were dancing around a great furious beast.

But there was something strange 'They are..?'

I looked carefully and confirmed it. Every attempt by Madara to come here was blocked or deflected. I could see his annoyed expression as he looked at the large mass of energy that the Sage had created with the clear intention of stopping him. But my friends, they hadn't looked in my direction at any time, not even for a microsecond. Their attention was completely focused on the suicide mission they had assigned themselves. As if they already knew what was going to happen and were just trying to make it happen.

'It couldn't be, they didn't... When? When did they decide that she was the one who should live? Why didn't they tell me? We could have planned to save ourselves together... Why can't they ever think about what I want? Do they really think I can survive after everything we've lost?' My mind was a whirlwind of anger and love for my friends.

Tears clouded my vision. The pain in my chest was so great that I felt like I couldn't breathe. 'You... you idiots,' I thought with a love so deep despite having left her out of something so important.

A movement in the corner of my eye made me turn my attention back to what was happening in front of me. The large mass was no longer an unbalanced and deformed vortex, but a perfect whirlpool of curved lines, similar to Obito's Kamui but in a much more imposing form, as if the fate of crossing it was not just a sterile and lifeless dimensión

Fear surged through me in waves, the thought that they were going to take her away from her friends created a panic in her that she had never felt before despite everything that had already happened.

"W-wait…I can't-"

He didn't even let her beg before giving her one last look and then pushing the chakra vortex towards me at high speed.

With panic and desperation, I tried to get up and run, but the massive physical and emotional pain left me without strength. I was without chakra, I couldn't move, but I couldn't let them take me away from the people I loved. I couldn't let it happen.

Even if it cost her life…

With a thought, I quickly grabbed the kunai at my side, determined to do what I was thinking. I would die with them because living without them was not an option. It wouldn't be life. Wherever that mass took her, it would only be a lifeless body that arrived.

But before carrying out the madness I wanted to commit, I decided to give my foolish companions one last look. At their senseis, because Obito had become one in recent years and Kakashi, who had rectified his neglect of her in her gennin days. They had taught her what they could with the resources they had, they had made her stronger in ways she didn't think possible. It was a shame they had wasted their effort and time on someone who wasn't worth it. But I wished the deep gratitude I felt for them was reflected in my eyes.

Sasuke was not there. I could only hope that from wherever he was, he could feel the affection I felt for him, a love that had become completely fraternal and reciprocal. Despite his actions against us, he showed deep regret for everything. We forgave him, we always would. We knew what he had been through and we still wanted him with us. Our bond only grew stronger after that.

Then I looked at Naruto, the dumbest teammate anyone could have, but with the biggest heart like the star that illuminated our days, the sun he himself represented.

I turned my head to look at him, in a last goodbye to the brother I lost. But I was speechless at what I saw. I opened my eyes in surprise, unable to believe what I was seeing.

There was Naruto, leaning against a rock, the great wound still in his chest, his face completely pale and lifeless. But his expression, it was the expression on his face that left her frozen.

'He was….?'

His eyes were closed with a very slight crease at the corners. His mouth was closed but at the corners you could clearly see the slight upward curve they made.

He had a happy expression... he had died with a smile.

He died in peace.

After the promise I had made him.

A promise I had made in desperation to not lose him, just to reassure him, but which I had no real intention of keeping. That false promise made him die peacefully.

That was all he wanted, for me to live.

If before I thought my heart was broken, now I could feel it was pulverized. The burning in my throat was a clear sign of my anguish. 'You idiot, why did you...?' I looked at him with regret and pain. Why did I do this to him?

I couldn't do this to him, even if he was already dead and would never know that I didn't keep my word, that they were lies spoken in desperation. I couldn't, not to him. Not to the person who never broke his oath, who fulfilled it as his nindo, as a mission in life. I just couldn't...

I lowered the kunai but kept it in my hands, as a reminder of my resolve.

I made my decision, turning my face to watch the vortex coming towards me. With a resigned heart, I accepted my uncertain destiny. 'I will not let them down'

Then came the darkness.