Categories > Anime/Manga > Naruto > To One in Paradise
and all the flowers were mine
0 reviewsPart I, Sakura. The lights went out in all of their eyes in the end, and they died before they were even all the way gone.
1Moving
Disclaimer: The poem referred to is called To One in Paradise, by Edgar Allen Poe. It's not mine and neither are the Naruto characters, et cetera, et cetera, and so forth. This will be considered a blanket disclaimer for all chapters.
Author's Note: As of 4/13/07, I went through and edited all my fics. This took less revision than "Origins," but still quite a bit, especially the chapter titles. shudder The incontrovertible emo of this fic still bugs the crap out of me. Ah well, it's Naruto angstfic. What do you expect?
To One in Paradise
Part One: and all the flowers were mine
They say that when a person dies, you can see the lights leave her eyes, like a candle blown out. His arms fall limp around you. Her breath goes still. He is silent for the last time. All these are signs that that person that you cling to has, as they say, kicked the bucket, bit the dust, and has shuffled off the mortal coil.
But sometimes, you see the same signs in someone who is still alive, drifting aimlessly through their days like they care about nothing, and most of all, their eyes, those dead eyes.
Sakura saw Tsunade like that.
It started a few days after Tsunade returned to the village bruised and bleeding and carrying Shizune's body. All she would tell anyone was, "He's dead now." She didn't have to say who.
Ever since, she had delegated almost all her work to Sakura. She spent her days locked in her study, flipping through papers and inspecting them with those cold, lightless eyes.
Tsunade confirmed it one day, when she was approaching her sixty-third birthday. Sakura remembered it clearly.
She entered the room carrying a stack of folders full of application papers for Jounin, and found Tsunade staring listlessly at her empty desk.
Something was wrong. Something was different.
She dropped the folders where she stood and ran to her teacher. She lifted her, straightened her in her chair, and cried her name.
Tsunade's eyes were still dead. "He killed me, too," she whispered. She gritted her teeth and clutched her chest. Sakura's grip around her tightened. Tsunade shook her head. "Some pains, Sakura, you will learn you cannot heal." She slumped down further and closed her lightless eyes. "And all my days are trances," she murmured, "and all my nightly dreams are where thy grey eye glances, and where thy footstep gleams..." She laid her head back. "...in what ethereal dances...by what eternal streams."
The passing of the Fifth Hokage from the world was difficult to notice. It took Sakura a moment, before she felt that the warmth was beginning to seep from her teacher's body. She screamed for more medics, and felt at her master's absent pulse, clinging to a last hope of finding something wrong, something she could heal. There was nothing.
The certificate of death claimed natural causes. Haruno Sakura knew better.
The world moved on. A new Hokage was appointed. It was not Naruto. He had refused the offer, claiming that while his goal of bringing Sasuke back remained unfulfilled, he was not worthy. Sakura accepted a position in Neji, Sai and Naruto's ANBU squad as their resident medic-nin. She liked it, and quickly began to adjust.
Then one chilly November, their squad was sent to the Grass Country to assassinate an S-rank missing-nin. They were not told who it was, nor given any information as to his fighting style, much to the irritation of . They descended upon the deserted village they had been directed to.
They split up. Neji and Sai took the system of streets to the east, Naruto and Sakura the west. An hour of searching past, and they found nothing. They returned to the prearranged point.
Neji and Sai were laid out neatly on the ground. Sakura moved to pull them out of the rain that had begun to drench them some fifteen minutes ago. When she touched Neji, he fell apart.
It was then that their missing-nin appeared, strolling down the cobblestone sidewalk like it was a sunny Saturday afternoon. Sakura and Naruto saw him and realized why the Hokage hadn't told them who they were going after.
There were lines beneath his eyes that made him look far too much like Itachi. The Akatsuki coat he wore did the same.
He raised his hand and pointed to Naruto. "They'll have you this time."
Naruto screamed about what Sasuke had become, that he hadn't defeated his brother, he'd become him. He, Naruto, would kill him this time, because he had nothing left to live for. This wasn't Sasuke. Sasuke was dead.
And Sakura felt the lights leave her own eyes, and realized where else she'd seen them missing besides Tsunade. It was in Sasuke, whose eyes had been a little bit deader every day since one night when he was a very little boy.
Naruto told her to stay back. She knew there was nothing she could do to convince him otherwise. She did.
They fought. Naruto lost. Sakura stepped forward. She won.
Sasuke was left on the ground, bleeding, his eyes as dead as ever. Sakura watched him die, and she said something to him, or to Naruto, or to herself.
"Thou wast all to me, love, for which my soul did pine," she murmured. "A green isle in the sea, love, a fountain and a shrine, all wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers, and all the flowers were mine."
With no throat, he could not speak, so Sasuke died without a word.
Sakura returned to Konoha alone. There wasn't enough left of her teammates' bodies to bring them back, but she carried Naruto and Sasuke's forehead protectors with her just because she knew Naruto would have liked it. Sasuke would have too once.
Then she looked in a mirror and saw her eyes, and wondered just how long it would be before her death certificate read "natural causes."
Author's Note: As of 4/13/07, I went through and edited all my fics. This took less revision than "Origins," but still quite a bit, especially the chapter titles. shudder The incontrovertible emo of this fic still bugs the crap out of me. Ah well, it's Naruto angstfic. What do you expect?
To One in Paradise
Part One: and all the flowers were mine
They say that when a person dies, you can see the lights leave her eyes, like a candle blown out. His arms fall limp around you. Her breath goes still. He is silent for the last time. All these are signs that that person that you cling to has, as they say, kicked the bucket, bit the dust, and has shuffled off the mortal coil.
But sometimes, you see the same signs in someone who is still alive, drifting aimlessly through their days like they care about nothing, and most of all, their eyes, those dead eyes.
Sakura saw Tsunade like that.
It started a few days after Tsunade returned to the village bruised and bleeding and carrying Shizune's body. All she would tell anyone was, "He's dead now." She didn't have to say who.
Ever since, she had delegated almost all her work to Sakura. She spent her days locked in her study, flipping through papers and inspecting them with those cold, lightless eyes.
Tsunade confirmed it one day, when she was approaching her sixty-third birthday. Sakura remembered it clearly.
She entered the room carrying a stack of folders full of application papers for Jounin, and found Tsunade staring listlessly at her empty desk.
Something was wrong. Something was different.
She dropped the folders where she stood and ran to her teacher. She lifted her, straightened her in her chair, and cried her name.
Tsunade's eyes were still dead. "He killed me, too," she whispered. She gritted her teeth and clutched her chest. Sakura's grip around her tightened. Tsunade shook her head. "Some pains, Sakura, you will learn you cannot heal." She slumped down further and closed her lightless eyes. "And all my days are trances," she murmured, "and all my nightly dreams are where thy grey eye glances, and where thy footstep gleams..." She laid her head back. "...in what ethereal dances...by what eternal streams."
The passing of the Fifth Hokage from the world was difficult to notice. It took Sakura a moment, before she felt that the warmth was beginning to seep from her teacher's body. She screamed for more medics, and felt at her master's absent pulse, clinging to a last hope of finding something wrong, something she could heal. There was nothing.
The certificate of death claimed natural causes. Haruno Sakura knew better.
The world moved on. A new Hokage was appointed. It was not Naruto. He had refused the offer, claiming that while his goal of bringing Sasuke back remained unfulfilled, he was not worthy. Sakura accepted a position in Neji, Sai and Naruto's ANBU squad as their resident medic-nin. She liked it, and quickly began to adjust.
Then one chilly November, their squad was sent to the Grass Country to assassinate an S-rank missing-nin. They were not told who it was, nor given any information as to his fighting style, much to the irritation of . They descended upon the deserted village they had been directed to.
They split up. Neji and Sai took the system of streets to the east, Naruto and Sakura the west. An hour of searching past, and they found nothing. They returned to the prearranged point.
Neji and Sai were laid out neatly on the ground. Sakura moved to pull them out of the rain that had begun to drench them some fifteen minutes ago. When she touched Neji, he fell apart.
It was then that their missing-nin appeared, strolling down the cobblestone sidewalk like it was a sunny Saturday afternoon. Sakura and Naruto saw him and realized why the Hokage hadn't told them who they were going after.
There were lines beneath his eyes that made him look far too much like Itachi. The Akatsuki coat he wore did the same.
He raised his hand and pointed to Naruto. "They'll have you this time."
Naruto screamed about what Sasuke had become, that he hadn't defeated his brother, he'd become him. He, Naruto, would kill him this time, because he had nothing left to live for. This wasn't Sasuke. Sasuke was dead.
And Sakura felt the lights leave her own eyes, and realized where else she'd seen them missing besides Tsunade. It was in Sasuke, whose eyes had been a little bit deader every day since one night when he was a very little boy.
Naruto told her to stay back. She knew there was nothing she could do to convince him otherwise. She did.
They fought. Naruto lost. Sakura stepped forward. She won.
Sasuke was left on the ground, bleeding, his eyes as dead as ever. Sakura watched him die, and she said something to him, or to Naruto, or to herself.
"Thou wast all to me, love, for which my soul did pine," she murmured. "A green isle in the sea, love, a fountain and a shrine, all wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers, and all the flowers were mine."
With no throat, he could not speak, so Sasuke died without a word.
Sakura returned to Konoha alone. There wasn't enough left of her teammates' bodies to bring them back, but she carried Naruto and Sasuke's forehead protectors with her just because she knew Naruto would have liked it. Sasuke would have too once.
Then she looked in a mirror and saw her eyes, and wondered just how long it would be before her death certificate read "natural causes."
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