They didn't understand it, didn't comprehend it. By no means should Akari be alive right now. If the poison had affected her but not killed her, that could have been chalked up to a resistance to poisons. But there wasn't a single trace of it left. It had all suddenly disappeared from her system, leaving no trace or evidence of it ever being there. They ran blood tests, checked the ratio table for the components of the poison Sasori had concocted for any mistakes, anything they could think of, but nothing explained it.
Nothing could explain how and why her heart was still beating at this very moment.
Akari stared at her hand, flexing her fingers, dazed. Sasori stared at her, lost in his thoughts, dazed. How... how was she alive? No... rather...
"Why am I alive?"
"Why are you alive?" They simultaneously asked.
"Because I kept Akari alive."
Sasori and Akari were on their feet in less than a second, guards up, poised to strike. Back to back, they scanned the room for the foreign voice that had suddenly answered their questions. Who was the one that had revived Akari? Why did they revive her?
Suddenly, a figure began to materialize in front of Sasori. They both turned to face them. As their features became sharper and clearer, Akari relaxed her guard. Sasori glanced over at her questioningly. Akari started talking.
"Shisui. Never thought I'd see you again after Danzo killed you."
"Neither did I. But there are bigger issues at hand." Shisui replied, fully materialized in front of the two Akatsuki members.
"Agreed. So I'll get straight to the point. Why am I alive, and how are you connected to this?"
***
"Sit down," Shisui said, gesturing for them to do so as well, "this will take a while."
He started his tale.
"I'm supposed to be some sort of messenger for the shinigami. Specifically, I deliver messages to two people: you two. Sasori, I'm sure you're still wondering how you survived your transfer into your puppet body. Truth is, you didn't. You were brought back to life, just like Akari, both for the same purpose. The shinigami believes that your lives can make a difference in the world, for the better or worse. Whether or not you make that difference is completely up to you." Shisui summed up.
Everything was silent, until Akari asked a question both she and Sasori were wondering about.
"And... once we've made that difference?"
Shisui looked down solemnly.
And the next words Shisui said would haunt them for the rest of their days.
***
"You're... physically there, right? Alive for the time being?" Akari asked.
"Yes... why?" He cautiously replied.
"Great!" She exclaimed, dragging him out the room by the wrist. "Itachi! Where are you? I have someone I want you to meet!"
"Wait -- the fucking hell? You high?" Shisui incredulously said. "Wait -- let go!" He struggled against Akari but to no avail. She had an iron grip.
Sasori strode past him and put a hand on his shoulder.
"Better get used to it."
***
After Shisui was reunited with Itachi, Akari and Sasori went to the former's room. They collapsed onto a bed and chair respectively.
"Our lives... make a difference?" Akari asked, drowning in a sea of thoughts.
"I doubt that you could. I don't have any worries about me." Sasori drawled, a tired smirk dancing on his lips.
"Shut up, asshole."
***
She remembered it. She remembered how she died. A lone 7 year old, trudging through a climate far colder than she had lived her life in -- how could she have not realized it before? She remembered collapsing into the snow, body racked with cold, shivering. A pale hand reached out in front of her, her own, trying to grab at something that simply wasn't there. Fingertips and lips an unhealthy shade of blue. Then her hand dropped like a stone, and she stopped moving.
Eventually, her heartbeat slowed as well, until it faded into nothing.
***
Sasori knew he wasn't going to survive his transfer. Who was he trying to fool with his talk about eternity? He spent hours upon days and months carving wood and making lifelike wooden parts.
But why waste his time on this? He knew he was going to die.
And that was why he made the transfer.
Hundreds, even thousands of people he had killed with no remorse. And finally, he couldn't take it anymore. Living on after he killed someone else -- it wasn't something he wanted to keep doing. And he would atone for those sins with his own life. Why had he been brought back?
***
They decided their first course of action would be to stop the Konoha invasion. So naturally, their first target was Kabuto, Orochimaru's right hand. Akari jumped through the trees alongside Sasori. Akari was the distraction. The moment she had him rooted, Sasori would deal the finishing blow. He trusted in her ability to slip away before she was caught in the attack as well.
They saw him.
Akari and Sasori shared a look, then carried out their jobs in this assassination. Akari sent a clone to intercept Kabuto. Her real body went underground.
Bunshiin Bakuha.
The clone exploded, sending Kabuto back a bit. Two pale hands then erupted from the ground, locking onto Kabuto's ankles and holding him in place. One of the hands injected a needle filled with a paralyzing poison Sasori had made into him.
All Sasori had to do was ram a poisoned katana through his heart.
***
They stood on top of a cliff overlooking Konohagakure. The white strips of cloth hanging down from their hats fluttered in the wind. Sasori was perched on top of one of his puppets, Hiruko. His head was turned towards the map in Akari's hands. Akari was leaning against Hiruko, looking at a map depicting how Orochimaru's forces were scattered around the border and scribbling their estimated numbers. Their Akatsuki cloaks were worn and could be clearly seen. What the hell she had scribbled, Sasori didn't know. Her handwriting was messy as fuck and he wasn't a damn kindergarten teacher.
"You ready?" Sasori asked her. She nodded.
The third stage of the chunin exams were starting tomorrow.
Orochimaru's invasion would begin tomorrow.
They were going to put a stop to it.
And if they went down, they were going down fighting.
YOU ARE READING
Goodbye
Fanfiction(A Naruto Fanfic) Red. That was all she could see. Blood. So much...blood... Her hands were coated in blood. Her parents were lying in a pool of blood. The katana that belonged to the murderer of her parents was slick with blood. Blood...everywhere...
