bar·gain
/ˈbärɡən/: The attempt to minimize or postpone sadness by
imagining "what if" scenarios.
Guilt or responsibility may lead the individual to bargain.
"If only I had been stronger to protect her, she wouldn't be gone."

"Now that I remember... Kakashi-Sensei used to talk to Naruto, Sakura and I about his old team mates; Obito and Rin. He was unable to save them." Sasuke privately told you after you shared with team Taka how the masked man reacted the night before. "If the masked man really got mad at you when you mentioned Kakashi-sensei then..."

You felt sick to your stomach yet you stayed to listen to everything Sasuke had to say regarding the masked man. "So maybe if the masked man got so upset over me mentioning Kakashi....maybe he knew Obito and Rin...or maybe he's Obito. Do you think he's Obito, Sasuke?"

"I'm unsure... One thing is certain: we cannot put our trust in him."And Sasuke meant every word. He determined later that day that Team Taka would not participate in a war and to end contact with the masked man.

Respecting Sasuke's decision became hard for you after you started finding wild dandelions outside your bedroom's window and bedroom's door. You knew it was the masked man who left them there to you as a way to amend the argument you two had over mutual trust. He always did small details like that after arguments with you.

Three days passed and Sasuke took advantage of the masked man's absence to make plans to relocate someplace else; he had hopes for returning to his home village Konoha. A place hidden in the leaves where the weather was always nice and the people were friendly.

It seemed as a great idea to start again somewhere else for everyone, yet your heart ached. You had been angry that the masked man had lied to you regarding his identity, however now that the days passed you had more time to think about the situation. The reason why he hated Konoha must have been because he felt betrayed. Maybe if you had known this, you would have been more understanding and the breakup would have not occurred. You loved the masked man and you knew he loved you. Maybe if you hadn't reached to take off his mask the night of the breakup, he wouldn't have ended things with you. You felt so heartbroken now that you knew his hatred towards Konoha and the world.

A week passed and you saw him again.
As you and Suigetsu were gathering the last of your belongings to begin the relocation, the masked man teleported into the hideout. You expected him to attempt to talk to you, to isolate you and beg you to get back together, but all he gave you was a death gaze. You couldn't help but stare at him as he completely ignored you and went off to talk to Sasuke somewhere you couldn't hear.

You waited for him outside the hideout during the night, holding the new dandelions you've found outside your window to your heart. After a while, your body began to ache with the winter's cold air, however seeing the dandelions in your hands brought you hope to amend your relationship with the masked man.

When he finally appeared a few feet from you, you couldn't help but smile.  "Mada-" you stopped yourself from calling him by his fake identity, however you were not sure what to refer to him as. "Hi..." The smile did not leave your face. You truly were overjoyed to see him.

However, by the way he stood and glared down at you with his sharingan eye made you stop yourself from walking towards him. Perhaps you should have called him 'Tobi'. Perhaps you should have greeted him differently, not smile as much. Smiling might make him think you're okay with the breakup when, in reality, you wanted to get back with him.

"Why didn't you tell me?!" His gloved hands travelled to your arms and held you tightly in place, as if he were afraid that you would run away from him.

"Tell you what?" Your feet involuntarily moved away from him as a way to create distance, however his grip on your arms remained firmed.

"That Taka was leaving?? I had to hear it from Sasuke!"

You stared at him feeling mute. His anger outburst scared you as you hardly knew that side of him with the exemption of the night of the break up. Did he really just appear to just tell you that? "I thought you already knew." He had been leaving dandelions so you had assumed that he wanted to get back together before you and Taka left.

"Where are you relocating with your team?"

"Sasuke's home village; Konoha."

Your answered angered him and his grip on your arms only became tighter. "Are you serious y/n?!" His voice raised. "You are following them to go to that shit village?! What about the war you agreed to help me with??!"

"I don't want to go to war..." your response seemed to surprised him as he quickly let go of your arms. There was an awkward silence and you could almost imagine him behind the mask looking completely heartbroken and betrayed . "We don't have to go to war...you don't either." You held your dandelions in your left hand and reached for his gloved hand with your right hand. "You can come with us..."

He instantly pulled his hand away from yours as if you disgusted him. "Go with you?? I will not return to that shit village!"

"Well, we don't have to go to the leaf village..." You quickly said, wanting to amend for the apparent dumb suggestion you just made. "We could go to my home village."
The land of snow was your home village, and you still had the house you inherited from your parents. "The land of snow is really pretty...although it's always cold but I know we both prefer the winter over summer-"

"This isn't about what village we could go to!" His abrupt interruption made you shut up. "This is about living in a filthy world where we always run the risk of losing the ones we love!!"

His hurt tone brought back Sasuke's words to you regarding his sensei and two comrades he had. Hearing the masked man so hurt made you realize that perhaps his hate towards Konoha had to do with copycat Kakashi. "Did something happened in the past...?"

Your question left him speechless for a few seconds, however he quickly regained composure. "If you truly think that my beliefs and sentiments are over something that happened in the past then you are not as smart as I truly believed. You are aware that this is a horrible world we live in that is full of tragedies-"

"But by declaring a war against the villages, we won't fix anything." Despite his hurtful words, you reached for his hand again. "In fact, we will only create more tragedies and resentment among the villagers...we would cause deaths."

He stared at you too shocked at your response to pull away from your touch. A part of him wanted to believe your words. Wanted to abandoned the path he had chosen and go live with you in your home village in the land of snow. Lay next to you in a bedroom you two would share in order to find warmth, and he was sure that in that wintertime village he would find spring time in your eyes and kind words. "You've always been too kind. I'm not sure how Sasuke managed to convince you to join Team Taka." Was all the masked man managed to say.

"Team Taka is my family and so are you..." you smiled as you reached for his other hand. "Nothing bad will happen to me. I can assure you that you'll be so happy if you abandon your plan to start a war."

Your kind smile and hopeful eyes melt him in your touch, and he wanted to agree. He wanted to believe your words, but the promise he made to his first love, Rin, echoed in the back of his mind like an unending chant. "I can't." He finally pulled away from your touch watching how your smile melted into an expression of concerned and confusion. "I can't....I'm so sorry. I made a promise to save everyone from this hell."

He mumbled his words out, yet you managed to hear him. "A promise?" You hoped you heard incorrectly, however his silence proofed to you that you had in fact heard his phrases correctly. "To who?"

He gave you his back, ready to teleport away, however you grabbed his arm and turned him to face you. "What wrong?" Your hand was tender caressing the side of his mask. "What's wrong my love? You can talk to me...."

"I don't want to lose you, y/n. You're too precious for this world..." he melted into your touch once again.

"You won't lose me." You reassured him. "And declaring a war to the countries won't make this world a better place...in fact it would make it worse-"

"Y/N, I need to tell you something. I haven't been completely honest...." He quickly grabbed your shoulders as an attempt to hold you in place. Perhaps if he told you the truth regarding the Infinite Tsukuyomi plan, you would understand his actions better. "My real plan is to trap the entire world in an illusion..."

"What?" Your hand once caressing the side of his mask fell to your side. "Did Sasuke know of this?"

"It would be like a new world....where tragedies won't ever occur and everyone will be happy living in their own reality." He quickly continued his explanation and felt his stomach dropped as he saw a look of horror penetrate your face the more he explained. "There won't be sadness, no deaths, no losses. We will be reunited with our loved ones, even the ones that are no longer in this world. You said your childhood kitties passed, in this reality you would be reunited with them-"

"Hold on-" you immediately pulled away from the mad man in front of you. "Did Sasuke know of this-"

"No y/n. Sasuke did not know. I'm telling you my plan because I know you're smart and -"

"You lied to us?" It was embarrassing how shocked you were. What else did you expect from a masked man who lied to you about his identity throughout your romantic relationship with him?

"If I had told Taka my real intentions after the war, they wouldn't have cooperated." The look on your face pained him, and he reached to touch your arm as an attempt to console you. "In the Tsukuyomi Dream, you will be happy-"

"So you rather go live your perfect reality than to have a happy life with me?" You broke free from his grip as you felt incoming tears blinding your sight.

"I have lost someone before, y/n!! I will not tolerate losing you too!!" He felt frustrated and your watery eyes made him feel horrible. "I made a promise to someone I loved to save everyone from this hell and if I have to go to war with the five shinobi countries and sacrifice some lives then I will do it!"

He was too frustrated and upset that he didn't realized what he said until he saw tears escaping your eyes.

"Who was that person you loved whom you made such a promise?" Your question caused a knot in his throat to form.

"Let's go inside." He attempted to change the topic. It was never his intention to say that and to make you cry. He loved you and you were his only ray of sunshine in the dark world he created for himself. "I don't want you to catch a cold."

"Was that person Rin?" You evaded his touch and watched his composure slowly crumbled once again.

"What... did Sasuke tell you that??" His attention quickly fixated on Taka's hideout. He impulsively began to walk towards the hideout ready to confront Sasuke for tormenting you with such things.

"It's not about what Sasuke said, Masked man. You've said that name before in your sleep...you've called me by that name ..." your words made him freeze in his tracks and his attention was once again on you. However, your hair covered your face due to the strong winds and his sight was clouded due to tears threatening to spill.

"So you rather create a world where you can be happy with Rin....than to be happy with me...?" The phrases escaping your mouth were more like a statement rather than a question, and were painful to say out loud. "I thought that you wanted us to get back together...." At that point you weren't looking at the masked man in front of you anymore. Your eyes were focused on the snow embracing your ankles as tears freely escaped your eyes. "I saw the dandelions you left outside my window and bedroom door. I thought you wanted us to get back together..."

You wanted to scream. You wanted to cry, but felt unable to as his gloved hands touched your shoulders. "Dandelions???" His tone was surprised and his eye fixated on the wild dandelions you had been holding in your left hand the whole time. "I didn't-" jealousy quickly consumed him.

You ignored and tuned out his jealous questions as your eyes continued to fixate on the snow embracing your ankles. Your body naturally bend forwards to the point that your face was a couple feet away from the snow. The abnormal position felt natural to you and it was the only position where you felt at peace as you tuned out his words. You were positive that in that position you would throw up at any second, but at that point it didn't matter if you did. Everything felt like it was happening in slow motion, as if it was happening to someone else who was at a distance, and you had no interest in trying to make out what the masked man in front of you was saying to you. His touch no longer felt real...in fact you couldn't even feel his hands on your back attempting to get you to stand straight.
You felt at peace being bend forward in a position that suggested that you would throw up at any second, and you felt silly for even going out of your way to suggest for him and you to live in the land of snow in the house you inherited from your parents.

When you finally stood up straight, you were met with his hands desperately attempting to hold you in place by your arms as if he were afraid that you would faint at any second.

"I'm going to go to sleep now." You broke the silence as you took a step from him. "And then I am going to go with Taka to Konoha. I hope you are happy with Rin in your genjutsu." The words escaped your mouth perhaps you truly meant them at the moment , and in seconds you were a few feet from Taka's hideout's door.

When you entered the warm cabin, realization of what you just said hit and you wanted to run out and beg the masked man to live a life with you. However you feared that once you stepped outside he would no longer be out there waiting for you, and such thing would drive you mad. You truly thought that he loved you as much as you loved him.

"Hey! You got the dandelions!"
You quickly cleaned the tears threatening to spill once again from your eyes as you heard Suigetsu's voice.

You made eye contact with Suigetsu, who was sitting down on the living room's couch, and leaned your back against the hideout's door feeling defeated. "Suigetsu, did you leave these dandelions for me?"

"No..." he laughed picking up his hands in a surrendering motion.

"Suigetsu, I'm not playing." Your tone became frustrated and tears escaped your eyes. "Did you leave these dandelions for me??"

His smile vanished and his eyes quickly grew concerned. "No..." he refrained from asking what was wrong as he already had an idea of who had made you so upset. Only one person could dimmed your natural light and that person was the mysterious masked man.

"Do you know who?" You cleaned your tears feeling horrible. Was it some kind of prank?

"Yes, I know who....it was supposed to be a secret." Suigetsu quickly explained not wanting to make you feel upset. "Sasuke's sensei, Kakashi-San, has been coming to the hideout, while you and Karin are out, to discuss with Sasuke about the conditions we'll have to follow when we relocate to Konoha. Kakashi has seen you multiple times, especially when we go on trips to Konoha to buy food, and he thought you were beautiful. He's been leaving dandelions for you and asked for us to stay quiet about it because he wanted to be your secret admirer. It was never our intention to hurt you-"

"Did Karin know of this??"

"No. Only Sasuke, Juugo, Kakashi, and myself." Suigetsu reached to touch your arms but you quickly began to walk towards to your bedroom. "It was never our intention to hurt you..."

You closed your bedroom door and dropped to your knees feeling horrible for the misunderstanding. You truly believed that it was the masked man who left those dandelions for you, and that he wanted to get back with you. However, the idea of the relationship you two had ending for good began to sink in along with different scenarios where you could have made him choose you over her.