The Angel's Ambivalence [Naruto]

When You're Gone

They didn't know that it wasn't and would never be enough.

~*~

She didn't realize how bad things were until she saw Ryuu crying.

Kylie had known something was off the minute she'd woken up from the Infinite Tsukuyomi. Instead of waking up feeling relieved that she and the rest of the world had been freed from Madara's genjutsu, she felt anxious and empty, like there was a part of her missing that she couldn't quite place.

Josh and Mitchell, who had woken up right next to her, mirrored her own unsettled and disoriented expression, and when Takeshi and Dai found them, telling them that they hadn't seen Reyna since she had run after Rin before the Infinite Tsukuyomi had been launched, Kylie was only that much more sure that something bad had happened while they'd been asleep.

They caught up with Teams Kurenai, Guy, and Asuma somewhere amongst the wreckage of the battlefield, and they were disappointed to discover that none of them had heard from Rin or Reyna, either, or from Scarlett or Luna, for that matter. The Allied Shinobi Forces were also having trouble locating the members of Team 7, despite being almost completely certain that they were the ones responsible for the undoing of the Infinite Tsukuyomi. Not even Sai, who had joined them a few moments later, had any notion regarding his teammates' whereabouts.

When they crossed paths with Tsunade and the rest of the Kage, she told them that the others had headed to Final Valley in search of Team 7. At least, that was what she'd heard from Orochimaru and Team Taka. She gave them orders to go to Final Valley as well and find out what had happened. Not that she needed to. The Konoha gang was already turning to go off in search of their friends before she'd even finished speaking. She didn't bother to split them up, either, knowing that they, loyal and brave as they were, were all going together no matter what she said.

They had Takeshi lead the way as their sensor shinobi in Rin's absence, and together they raced through the rain towards Final Valley in search of their missing friends. Takeshi located the bulk of their chakras at the bottom of the waterfall, and, ignoring the absence of the statues of Hashirama and Madara and the endless rain that soaked their hair and clothing, the group slid down the cliff side into the stream of water below.

That was when Kylie first heard it: the muffled, devastating sobbing coming from a few feet away from her. Her eyes trailed to the source, and she felt her blood run cold when she found that it was Ryuu.

Ryuu, the ex-Akatsuki member. Ryuu, whose only true display of emotion was a small, almost unnoticeable smirk. Ryuu: one of the bravest and strongest people she knew, a war general, the one who led an entire battle unit, who scoffed at scary movies, who rolled his eyes at chakra monsters and shrugged off kunais to the shoulder as mere flesh wounds.

In all the time she'd known him, she had never seen him cry before. He'd never had a reason to, even with all the horrors he'd experienced, but right now, he did. And Kylie had a horrible feeling that she knew exactly what that reason was.

Her eyes seemed to be just as frozen and delayed as her mind and body felt. She processed the scene in pieces, everything occurring in slow motion. She started off staring at Ryuu, who was hunched over on the ground and sobbing brokenly, emerald eyes red with tears. Rin had her arms wrapped around him protectively, as he lay across her lap, aching and defeated, leading her to support his weight with her own. Her chin was placed at the top of his head, tears falling from her pale lilac eyes and soaking the top of his hair as she held onto him tightly. Reyna was next to them, looking like a child who had curled into herself for safety, turquoise eyes wide and filled with tears as she hugged her knees to her chest.