Author's Note: Previously I had said I was keeping this as a one-shot, and the sentiment remains, really, even if this new installment is posing as a sequel of sorts. I'd like to think both parts can and do stand on their own, even while supporting each other. I imagine the timeline of this part as some few years after the first, no lesser than 2 or 3. Length-wise, it's a tad longer but still rather short... and possibly much more boring.

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Paths of Deaths
by Téa

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I'm always being left behind.

Even in death, they leave me here... a walking dead soul, belonging neither there nor here.

--

She senses his chakra signature before she hears his footsteps coming up behind her. She knows, though, it is only because he wasn't trying to mask it... knows that he is giving her time to compose herself if she needs to.

Does she?

Staring down at the sleek, black monument in front of her, she takes a deep breath and wonders briefly if it will release into a sigh. It doesn't, and instead, she lets the air in her lungs flow out slowly and steadily.

No, she doesn't.

He comes up beside her then, and she smiles softly, her eyes fixed on an engraved name, the only one that means something to her here. Sasuke's name isn't on it, and she doesn't expect it to be. He had died a traitor's death, took a hero with him, and left her behind to remember it. She wasn't worth taking, and she knows it better than anyone else.

"Good morning, Sakura," he greets, one hand perpetually in his pocket and another lifting in an easy wave.

She doesn't have to look at him to know that he has his head tilted to one side and his visible eye wrinkling at the edges in a smile. His tone is cheerful, as it always is when it comes to her. She prefers it this way. It makes everything just that bit more bearable, the pretense that much easier.

"Good morning, Kakashi-sensei," she returns, quietly, casually.

He doesn't comment on her presence, and for that, she is grateful. She is aware that he comes here every morning he isn't away on a mission. Unlike her. She rarely comes, doesn't ever come, really.

She looks up, one hand raised to shield the morning glare, her eyes noting the pair of birds soaring in a wide arc some distance away. Always a pair. Then she catches him looking at her from the corner of her vision, and she shifts her attention back to him. He says nothing, and it is just as well.

"You're going to keep your team waiting if you stay here too long, Kakashi-sensei," she murmurs lightly.

"Ah... well," he laughs a little and rubs the back of his neck in his usual sheepish manner, "this lot is more forgiving than you ever were."

She doesn't respond to that, only giving him a ghost of a smile, and then she slides the porcelain mask over her face. He is already turning back to the monument when she bends her back slightly, her form blurring and wavering before blinking out completely from his side. She meets her new team for the first time, moments later, and imagines this is where they would've been.

Life, Sakura knows, goes on.

And sometimes, she thinks she's living their lives... breathing in the choices they have made and out the paths their deaths gave her.

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Endnote: I think this is truly all there's going to be. The real reason I wrote this is more for the sake of experimentation and character study that may possibly lead to a separate chaptered fic, in which case, these two installments will then also serve as the backstory. I haven't decided yet, though, whether I'm really going to write it or not.

Anyhow, thank you for reading. This one-shot (that is now a two-shot) didn't seem to garner much interest here on this site, but I just wanted to say I really appreciate those who did leave me a review for the first part.

Written On: April 05th, 2007 (481 Words)