Quote of the Chapter:
❝Look at us. We are two of the most powerful Shinobi in the world. In the end, we are burdened with many troubles. We live in fear and doubt. This goes on for an eternity. ❞
- Obito to Sasuke

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I've never felt pain until today.

I have a tiny demon inside me, a creature worse than a Jinchūriki. A beast that comes out when I'm alone: a despicable human being.

How do you untangle yourself from your own demons?

How do you love them?

I have a secret: my boyfriend is Sasuke Uchiha. Was. And this isn't about any melodramatic, overrated love story. I've grown enough to realize that romance is for children. What do we fight for, if not for the village's future: our precious kings?

As I turn the page of Jiraiya's Icha-Icha, I've read a section that may have a connection with his former students.

We fight as we fall, 'til the angels save us all.

Something trembles within me, a dark paradise. A recollection in the past, present, the future. I accept a deal from Kabuto. My hands have been drenched in cold blood, blood that were spilt from villages. Sasuke aims his Lightning Blade to Kakashi, whose mouth now bleeds enormously I couldn't heal him. Ino jumps into the abyss. Naruto is crying and his crystal necklace shatters. The Akatsuki form in circles, terrorizing every country they've sworn revenge unto. I'm talking about the Real Ones--the zombies most Leaf people were responsible for their passing, and now they're on the move. They have come back. Someone has brought them back.

The book flies from my hand. It wrecks the circle bathroom mirror where I usually spot Sasuke behind me, the tricks a villain does to scare it's victim. I back away from it, but even so, the tiny glasses poke my arms and feet, and I wonder who threatens to curse me like this.

I am Haruno Sakura.

This is the story of how I survived.

T⃟H⃟E⃟ T⃟H⃟I⃟R⃟D⃟ U⃟C⃟H⃟I⃟H⃟A⃟
DARK SAKURA

"This world is wrong."

Before the dawn, Obito went into semblance again in order to deliver a fresh rose upon Rin's grave. Konoha was like a dead poetry; he wrote an unfinished literature that remained buried. His words were empty as his tomb that if somebody were to rub his grave, smoke and an invisible message would thunder--I am alive, and I will have my revenge.

Someone fast just teleported next to him. Obito chuckled. Who else could it be? 

Obito didn't look at Sasuke as he spoke. Meanwhile Sasuke was just staring at the same direction his uncle was referring to. When Obito looked at you directly, he was intending for a buffoon; when he wasn't, it meant he was glum. Trying to keep up with the pessimist, Sasuke just shut his mouth like he always did, and prepared himself for Obito's important dithyramb.

"Look at us. We are two of the most powerful Shinobi in the world. In the end, we are burdened with many troubles. We live in fear and doubt. This goes on for an eternity."

Sasuke bowed his head, looking at the green grass that was soft in his sandals. When he looked up, a single lantern was fired from Konoha, and it floated upwards into the sky. Sasuke wondered if Hoshigakure had lanterns too, or if the stars there burned brighter than those that belonged in Konoha. Sasuke hid his frown.

"You know sometimes I wonder what if Madara had never picked me up. The Real One. You just get the feeling of looking back, wondering how the hell had you gotten in here, or how you even started." Screams entered Sasuke's ears--they were the sound of fear when the Raven had first had his slaughter of an innocent. "Itachi is dead," Madara continued, "but he sleeps safe and sound in his grave. Nothing can ever attack him; not even torment, fear or the dark.

"Nagato died with a requiem. I killed Konan with my bare hands, but the doubtness still fills my heart in vain. Naruto's parents, Minato and Kushina, passed away with dying smiles. They're all the same." Obito took a deep breath. "Sometimes the reason behind your non-living existance is a deep question. A prayer that was never answered. We enter into a dark stage everyday, in this hellish sick TV Show, clinging onto our own beliefs that somehow--there are doors to escape reality." Passion, a love for a country, a village, or a miserable human being. Obito had seen it all. "In the end," he judgingly whispered, "We are lonely creatures."

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Date published 6.9.14.

Happy birthday, Itachi!

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