Fire: This is the epilogue, but read it! Read it! You have to read it for closure, even if you’re not going to read the book that chronologically follows this one!

Sasuke: It’s because the story ends on a kind of cliffhanger.

Fire: (nods) I already warned you all, so don’t flame me for it. I repeated myself several times.

Kisame: You talk too much. That’s the problem.

Fire: Kisame! Don’t yell at me too! (hugs Kisame)

Kisame: Don’t hug me.

Fire: I’m going to continue hugging Kisame. Meanwhile, get some closure and read the epilogue! Tobi!

Tobi: (pulls the epilogue onto the screen) …

Epilogue: The Fate of Snakes

The cold autumn air chilled her frozen muscles as Sakura walked steadily toward the hidden entrance. Flanked by trees from all sides, the sunken stone doorway drew absolutely no attention. Her eyes wouldn’t have seen these huge, half-buried stones. These steps would have easily eluded her if she didn’t already know that they were there. Orochimaru was difficult to find. But she already knew he would be difficult to find, even though she had the locations of dozens of these hidden compounds memorized.

Her legs moved smoothly over the flat terrain, her pace continuous in spite of the pounding anticipation throbbing through her limbs. But she couldn’t stop herself now that she was so close to finding him. Even though she was hungry—Dengaku’s bento couldn’t last forever—from an endless week of travel through unfamiliar terrain, her legs weren’t weary without proper rest, and even though she could only strain through her partially sealed tenketsu some control over her chakra, she still managed to walk forwards. Orochimaru was waiting. She didn’t know what to say to him yet, but he was waiting for her to kill him.

However, fate seemed to be against it as a green and grey figure appeared, blocking the way before she could walk down the steps into the hideout. ‘Grey hair...’ For a moment, she thought it was Kabuto. But as she blinked, her weary eyes cleared of its fogginess to focus on a different face.

‘Kakashi-sensei!’ Pain stabbed her chest as the face registered in her mind. She hid the urge to cough and choke on the blood pooling on her tongue, coating her lips with liquid crimson. “Step aside!” Sakura looked down, allowing her huge hood to shield her face from Kakashi. She could see him, see that he was there, but it was too late. She was already here. She was already in Oto no Sato. He couldn’t stop her anymore. The time for him to stop her had passed. “I have no business with you!” She tried very hard to believe it as her immense strength grabbed the man by the shoulders and tossed him easily aside before continuing towards the steps.

But she regretted using the strength Tsunade had taught her as soon as she heard Kakashi stutter, “S–Sakura-chan!”

At the awkward words, her body froze completely before she could take another step toward the compound’s entrance. ‘Sakura-chan?’ But Sakura’s frigid body refused to give in. She refused to allow him to drag her back.

It was too late!

“Gomen,” Sakura said with a voice saturated with sorrow, holding herself tightly so that she couldn’t run to Kakashi and return to a place she no longer belonged. She wanted to go back to Konoha. It would be so easy to go back. But her home was gone. The Konoha in her heart was gone. Sasuke was gone. The world she once knew was gone. There was no turning back.

She had changed. She had become someone else while he was away, while Kakashi was continuing to live his life. She could no longer dig a hole in Konoha to replant her roots.

And she couldn’t face him. She couldn’t face him as the ugly monster she had become. This hatred and this desire to kill Orochimaru weren’t in the person he knew a month ago. It was too late. It was really too late. His Sakura didn’t have this flat hair. His Sakura didn’t have these lifeless eyes. His Sakura didn’t scream for murder in her dreams. His Sakura didn’t have a heart that soared for Orochimaru’s painful death. His Sakura didn’t have this blood painting her face. His Sakura didn’t have this horrible voice that could only say horrible things to him.

His Sakura didn’t exist anymore.

“I don’t know any Sakura,” she said as she walked down the stairs and out of sight. Her legs refused to quicken its pace in spite of her desire to get away from Kakashi. She couldn’t make herself move faster. If she had walked any faster, she would have turned around and run back to Kakashi, and to her wretched life in Konoha.

Shino frowned at the wet mud at his feet. Beneath the grey sky, his shaded eyes stared for a long moment before pulling the tiny wiggling body from the brown muck. “S-Shino-kun?” Hinata could see the black bug between her teammate’s fingers, but her mind was only beginning to discover what it really meant.

However, Neji’s mind wasn’t quite as slow. “You lost her, didn’t you?” He voice tinged with annoyance at the outcome. He could see the shameful bug in Shino’s hand, and it filled him with rage. He knew that he should have killed her when he had the chance! That girl was nothing but trouble!

“Yes.” Shino’s calm voice rumbled beneath the rain. That was all he could say. Falling into the mud must have been unexpected, otherwise the bug would have had time to get out of the way. She would have escaped trapping herself in the mud if possible. “But she’s fine.”

“Sakura-san’s okay? How do you know?” Lee was too dejected to be enthusiastic. But he was still curious about it. He was still hopeful. Shino knew that Sakura was okay. That meant he had another way to find her, right?

“I meant the bug,” he said, unwavered by Lee’s words–and the obvious expectations he was crushing–as he walked to a rain puddle and gently washed the mud from the bug’s legs. The female insect flipped itself onto his hand before scurrying beneath his skin.

‘Chikusho! He always means the bugs!’ Kiba thought unenthusiastically.

“G-gomen...” Hinata said again, bowing her head dejectedly at their failed mission. “It’s...it’s because I...”

“No, Hinata!” Kiba shouted as he sensed her next words. “It’s the rain! If it didn’t rain, Akamaru and I could sniff her out!”

But Neji wasn’t as kind. “You should have been strong enough to defend against a girl with only elementary control of her chakra,” he said coldly. Hinata’s defeat–especially a defeat like this–was unforgivable. As the next leader of the Hyuuga clan, Hinata should be stronger! “And she threw you into a sea of chakra-eating insects!”

“That wasn’t her fault!” Kiba shouted angrily. “Hinata tried her best!” There was nothing they could do about Sakura’s actions.

“Sakura-san...” Lee sighed as he finally realized that he wasn’t going to see Sakura again. They had truly lost her.

“Stop moping, Lee!” Tenten shouted from Kurenai’s side, annoyed as much as Neji was. He was always moping over Sakura, and she was tired of dealing with his outrageous behaviour. They had more than enough chances to catch her, and Lee had ruined most of them with his overzealous actions.

“I’m not moping,” Lee insisted as he straightened, forcing a strained beat into his voice. If he didn’t cheer up, Tenten was going to hurt him again. “I’m training!” He turned and ran into the trees. “Three hundred laps around Tanzaku Gai!”

“Yosh! Lee! I’ll run with you!” Gai shouted as he ran after his student.

Tenten could only sigh defeatedly. She should have known this was coming. Lee must have made a stupid rule about this mission, like he did with every mission. Three hundred laps around Tanzaku Gai if he didn’t bring Sakura home, or something like that. ‘At least it’s not five hundred.’ Three hundred laps should only take a few hours at most. Lee was as tired as the rest of them. There was no telling how long it would take before they could go home.

“I guess I can send some of these insects home,” Shino said as he glanced at the black bugs hovering nearby. They were listening, waiting for his instructions. Sakura was gone. Did he still need them? “You can leave now.” And the swarming sea evaporated into the grass.

“Gomen nasai. Gomen nasai,” Hinata apologized to the bugs as they sank away. She knew she wasn’t light. Some of them carried broken and missing legs. Some of them had cracked bodies. And some of them still lay on the streets of Tanzaku Gai, their bodies crushed to the point of immobility. “Gomen nasai!”

“They can’t hear you,” Shino said as he turned to the town. “Hinata, they’re already gone. We should probably return to Konoha and tell Hokage-sama about our mission.”

Hinata nodded as she followed her teammates and her sensei back to Tanzaku Gai. Tenten and Neji had to wait for Lee, but Kurenai was obviously tired of Gai and Shino wanted to leave; Kiba didn’t look opposed to it either. Even as she looked apologetically back to her cousin, she had to follow them.

“She’s not going to be happy,” Kurenai said as she imagined their report’s arrival in Konoha. “How about we send a letter?” She didn’t want to hear the yelling when the Hokage found out. All of Kakashi’s team had vanished from the village. It wasn’t going to be easy to comfort him after this. The man’s life was a living tragedy.

And Tsunade was definitely going to yell.

Kabuto walked absentmindedly through the halls of the empty underground compound. No one but he was there. Orochimaru was moving to a new location again to escape Akatsuki’s spies, and he was thinking of coming to this compound next. Kabuto was only here to make sure it was safe to come to this place, that the walls weren’t crumbling and there weren’t hunter-nin staking out the infinite number of empty rooms. There was the sense of danger, knowing that someone could be hiding in ambush, but it was still a mediocre task. The maze of tunnels ran in all directions for endless distances. He would have appreciated some help.

But there was no one. He had to do it all on his own. Orochimaru didn’t trust his safety to pawns.

The grey-haired Oto-nin stopped, his tired body sighing lightly to the sound of a heavy rustling. “Who’s there?” Kabuto shouted as soon as the foreign fabric sounded in his ears, his hands rising with bright blue gloves of chakra.

“He’s not here,” the cloaked figure said, standing calmly in the middle of the hall as if Kabuto was nothing but a weak genin. “I looked.”

Kabuto’s mind numbed helplessly at the voice. ‘Haruno Sakura?’ Those words... She could only be referring to one person. And his constricted brain, still scarred by the memory of Sasuke, couldn’t imagine why she would want to see Orochimaru.

“Take me to him.” Her voice didn’t even waiver. Its determination stifled him. “I’ll find him eventually.” Determination, and hatred.

Kabuto nodded slowly, uncertainly. Her overbearing presence, her heavy hatred pressed on him as surely as Sasuke’s did when he was still around. The spectacled-nin couldn’t stop himself. “He’s not here,” was all he could say, even though she had already said it. She already knew that Orochimaru wasn’t there.

At that moment, he really wanted to leave that confined tunnel.

The candlelight revealed her only as a grim spectre, as if a ghost had risen to haunt him. “I’ll–” His voice croaked in his throat before he banished it. “This way!” He turned reluctantly, as if even by turning, she would stab him in the back and toss his useless corpse away.

But there was no kunai in her hands. She wanted to see Orochimaru. She wanted to meet Orochimaru. Finally. Because, even though she knew his name, and she knew his face, they never had a formal introduction.

Then, she would slowly kill him.

End Epilogue

End Wait for Me: Aku no Yami

Go to WAIT FOR ME: FOLLOWING, or if you’ve read Wait for Me: Following, go to WAIT FOR ME: SEARCHING to continue the series.

Fire’s babbling:

Fire: That’s it! There’s no more! If you want to know if Sakura kills Orochimaru, go to Wait for Me: Following.

Sasuke: Didn’t you advertise enough!

Kisame: What do you expect?

Naruto: (nodding) I agree.

Fire: Now send in your reviews!

Kisame: Are you ordering the readers?

Fire: It’s the last instalment of Aku no Yami! They should at least say something before they leave! Don’t they have opinions!

Kisame: No.

Fire: Don’t they have brains!

Kisame: …

Sasuke: Are you insulting the readers now?

Fire: Waah! No! I just want to know your opinions, minna-sama! Send me your opinions!

Kisame: Now, I’m taking Fire away. Read our crazy thoughts in the next story. (grabs Fire and runs away)

Sasuke: Sayonara.