A Hole in One's Heart [Kakashi Hatake]

Chapter 69: Kage

Guys, there's only ten chapters left now if you include the epilogue... I really don't want this story to end! I've grown too attached to it. You know what, I'm just going to have to come up with an idea for a sequel. When you get there, please read the A/N at the end of the chapter because I have a couple of important things that I need to talk about (I'd rather put that stuff at the end than at the beginning). Alrighty then, enjoy!

-----------------------------

The world was a dark grey crater. Everything was dark and cold, like an abyss, but I was outside. The cold wind whistled past my face, bringing with it the smell of rot and death. It clogged my nose and made each breath a laborious task. I looked around to try and find someone, anyone, in this dank wasteland. All I saw were bodies. They littered the ground around me like a sea of death and pain. They wore uniforms from all five of the great villages, but they all had matching forehead protectors with the kanji for "shinobi" written on them. I walked forward slowly, trying to avoid stepping on the dead at my feet. It was an arduous process, and I almost screamed as my foot went through someone's ribcage.

I pressed on through the darkness and death, and I had no idea why. I just needed to keep moving. There was something that I needed to do, but I had no idea what. I kept pressing forward with my sleeve brought up to my nose to try and block out some of the smell of blood and gore, but it did nothing to help.

I stopped walking as my eyes raked over the corpse at my feet. Lady Tsunade's brown eyes stared past me at nothing. A sob caught in my throat as I bent down to close them slowly. Her face was like touching a block of ice.

I continued walking despite my pain. That undeniable force continuing to push me on against my will. There was just something that I needed to walk forward to.

With each step, I passed more corpses of those I loved. Tenten, Lee, and Neji were spread around their sensei, all four of them unmoving. Guy's jumpsuit was the murky red of old blood, and someone had removed Neji's eyes. The next step brought me to Team 10. Choji, Shikamaru, and Ino all stared at me in hate that I had survived while they laid dead on the ground. I ran past them faster to escape their gaze. Gaara, Temari, and Kankuro were spread out in front of me next, and then there was Hinata, Shino, and Kiba laying next to Akamaru. Tears began to flow down my face, cutting deep tracks in the filth matted there. Everything in me wanted to run away, but I was still being drawn inescapably forward, onward to more death. I passed Iruka. I passed Izumo and Kotetsu. I passed Ibiki and Anko and Kurenai. I passed Shizune and even Tonton. My knees wobbled, and my legs shook as I passed the other three Kage: A, Onoki, and Mei. Next, I passed Sasuke. Blood was caked around a stab wound to the heart, the offending sword only a few feet away. I nearly screamed when I came across Sakura. Her body was cleaved clean in two; her torso feet from her hips and legs. I fell to the ground in tears, but that force continued to drive me forward. I crawled on my hands and knees over the blood and kunai and rocks. I came across Naruto. His blue eyes were glassy and peaceful as they looked into the sky. But the look on his mouth was nothing but pain. His signature, orange coat had a huge hole over the stomach as if something had busted out through it, and where his seal had been was a large, red hole. Shakily, I closed his eyes as well.

I was hollow, dead. I felt more dead than when Pain left me to bleed out in an alleyway.

I looked up slowly from Naruto's face to see three people standing above me. One was Madara, wearing his billowing red and black Akatsuki cloak. His orange mask was replaced by one that was bone white and had a ring with three tomoe similar to the sharingan on it. Next to him was Kabuto. His face was white, and his eyes a gold ringed in purple. His grey hair hung limply over his round glasses as he wore a blood-red cloak with eye-like markings on either side of the hood. A snaked peeked out of under the cloak and stuck up behind him like a warped tail. The final person I recognized, but I no longer knew who they were. Everything about him screamed danger and power. His spiky, black hair went far down his back, and his eyes were black like voids with the sharingan for irises. A crack cut across the bridge of his nose, and he wore red armor.