Never Forget

Destruction

Hello readers and fans! I appreciate all the heartfelt comments on the previous heartfelt chapter! As many of you may have guessed, this chapter is relatively long and uh... made me feel both awkward and very fuzzy at the same time :)

Hope you enjoy!

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Chapter 21

In the wake of destruction, there's nothing to do but sit and wait and hope that the savior will help us somehow. The ginormous casualties due to Pein's attack included many of my subordinates and direct relations of the Konoha Eleven.

In the wake of destruction, the only thing on everybody's minds is Please, God, or whoever's up there – please let them be okay. And yet they were not okay.

In the wake of destruction, in the face of death, all you can think about is the fact that they're never coming back, no matter what you do. Life is born, and life dies. And all of your memories come rushing back to you, and at some point you make the realization that your memories are all you have left.

Kakashi as a little kid, crying by himself. Our ramen runs with Minato-sensei. Missions with Obito and Rin, as the two boys fought head-to-head like they hated each other. The plans we so carefully devised. The Shinobi War. The rocks crumbling down on top of me, as Kakashi took Rin and fled. News of the Kyubi's attack, and its aftermath. Minato-sensei's death. Naruto Uzumaki's birth. All the time I'd missed while I was in Iwagakure, and then my eventual return. The way I'd tried to be mad at Kakashi – and ultimately failed.

Everything hurt.

Choji Akimichi came running up to me, tears freely flowing down his chubby cheeks, and spluttered something about Kakashi using the last of his chakra to save him. And I was glad that Kakashi had sacrificed himself for the next generation, but yet I was angry. How could he leave me like this?

I hadn't gotten a chance to truly beg for his forgiveness. He hadn't forgiven me. He was still angry at me, somewhere up in the sky.

And then came guilt, because why hadn't I just told him everything to begin with? Now he was gone. I would never get to repair our relationship.

And more than just me, what about Naruto? Sakura? Sasuke? What about their eventual reunion? It was something we'd both hoped for desperately.

And now, he would never see it.

Life is born, and life dies.

Although my mind links were absolutely shut down, Itachi's voice echoed through my head endlessly. It was all I could hear. Amaterasu offered me no solace. I wanted to be put to sleep, but nobody seemed willing to do that for me.

And so I sat there, amidst the rubble and debris, half-aware of the survivors helping each other, watching a wife and husband reunite and tearing my eyes away, gently washing the blood off of Kakashi's face as his body began to grow cold.

***

He was sitting by a fire, looking just as he had the day he'd left. He smiled when he saw his son. "Hello."

Kakashi silently nodded and, after a moment of hesitation, sat down on the log beside his father's. They watched the fire crackle for a moment. "Am I dead?"