SHADOWS OF THE VILLAGE (Naruto)

Chapter 23: And with his final breath, a promise is fulfilled.

This is the final chapter for this book! Thanks for reading this and I hope you have a great day xx

"S-Stop! J-Just stop it!" Sakura cried. Her footsteps quickened to catch up with his long strides as she finally tracked him down. She could not let him do this. She would not allow him just to walk out of her life like this. He was going to step back in the Hive to be killed or brain washed and he didn't even care.

"Y-You don't want to do this, Imori. I know you," tears fell from her green eyes. Her fists clenched the blue fabric of the back of his shirt in defiance. "This isn't like you at all!"

They both ignored the three figures exiting the brush.

Imori stepped over the boundary line and paused, feeling a damp patch begin to form on his back. He felt how her body rattled like a leaf in a storm, unable to hold itself still no matter how much it tried to. He had predicted that she might follow, and had put safe guards in place accordingly. They'd been in place since he met her back at the training ground.

But still, he didn't understand why she couldn't just let him go? He never mattered to anyone. No one cared about him or Kuma. His handlers and the Hokage had made that very clear in their own ways.

Why was she making this difficult? He was just another weapon for the village to manipulate and dispose of. Imori shouldn't be feeling... anything. His training should've ensured that. Danzo-sama had promised that he would never feel any emotion. 'They are useless anyway,' Danzo-sama had said.

So why does this hurt so much? Was it because he had started slipping? Started caring about others? And it all began with Sakura Haruno, the girl who was more than happy to spend four years in his presence without sharing a word between them.

So why did the warmth that begun to blossom in his chest all those months ago, engulfing his entire being, suddenly leave him aching all over? The prickling sensation of his skin that he associated with excitement, had changed to a painful throbbing that left him begging for it to go away. He shouldn't feel anything. God, why did she make him feel such things?

Imori had disappointed Sakura and he wasn't surprised. Imori had warned Sakura that he would end up hurting her. People like him couldn't form normal bonds. And yet she still wanted to be around him.

She trusted him even though he couldn't utter a word of anything he'd ever been involved in. She stood by him even when her team mates told her to stay away from him. She helped him even when he came back bloodied and almost beaten to death, on numerous occasion.

He didn't realise Sakura Haruno wanted to be with him, even in his darkest hours. When he was tasked to burn the world around them, she didn't flinch when the inferno came too close, licking at exposed skin. He could imagine her coming out of this as a better person, standing tall and unwavering. The Sakura the world knew, would be a very different Sakura, Imori knew.

She would be brave, stronger and accepting. It was just unfortunate he would never see it happen.

"Please listen, Imori! You are real." She cried. Hitting her fists into his back with force. "You're a real person, Imori. As tangible as me and everyone else in the village. Don't let them take that away from you. Not again."

"I don't have a choice -"

"Why not?"

"Because I can't let them get to you. Not again. You're - you're all I have left." The boy felt the fists in his shirt loosen, but he didn't risk looking back at her. He knew there would be tears streaming down her flushed cheeks, it was a stressful and emotional appeal she'd given but Imori couldn't waver from his course.