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[Naruto] 20 Jigsaws with Missing Pieces
"I hate forced hiatuses that don't even have the decency to turn into productive fic-writing. [...]
Good news are that I have Internet at home."
So, in a way, I was asking for it. -_- But it's back now! :D ow to just find the motivation to write one of the gazillion fics I've started. Like the one I owe you,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mariagoner, it's first on my list, I promise. Can't write anything at all, and the PS2 I've bought me as an early bday present is ot helping. ;_;
Title: 20 Jigsaws with Missing Pieces
Author:runespoor7
Rating: R
Summary: Sometimes the stories don’t have a happy ending. They just have a routine.
Notes: this is just the rounding-up post of my Dysfunctional Shipping meme. I thought it might be easier to read this way.
TemaShika:
"Why don't you just marry her and be done with it, if you want kids that badly?"
The sneer on Temari's face could have sliced through bone.
Shikamaru sighed. Then, without a word, he rolled off the bed. Picked up the articles of clothing scattered around the room. Had to look around a moment before he found the pack of cigarettes.
Temari's eyes had narrowed, he noted once he'd pulled his shirt back on.
"Run away all you want, asshole!"
He didn't answer, and she made no gesture to detain him as he made for the door, only shouting louder.
"One day you're gonna have to answer that question for good!"
Temari's words echoed like a threat even after he was out.
InoSaku:
Ino is still there. Night has already fallen but Ino is still there, and her smile grows more desperate with every passing second.
Neither Shikamaru nor Chouji mentions it.
"I don't want to get back," Ino finally blurts out. "I don't--"
But she doesn't finish her sentence; only looks away, out of the window of Chouji's room. Her gaze loses itself in the cold darkness out.
"It just -- it's never going to end, now, is it?"
Neither Shikamaru nor Chouji answers. Ino isn't expecting an answer anyway.
Naruto and Sasuke are dead, Sakura is left behind, and Ino is not enough.
They've already had their ending.
NejiHina:
Yes, Hinata-sama. Thank you, Neji-niisan.
They're so wrapped in trying to break (out of) the Hyuuga that they end up breaking themselves.
IruAnko:
Anko tried. Anko tried so hard. She tried to put it all behind. She tried to believe in what she had left. She tried to love him.
He was a good man. An accepting man. He was a good ninja. Heck, he'd even be a good father, if she ever sprung it on him that he'd knocked her up.
So Anko tried.
If anyone could make her happy, it should be him.
He would even accept her for what she was - for what she had been.
She didn't.
LeeTen:
When they're alone together, Tenten always feels like there's something missing, and when they're with their team, Lee always feels like he's lying.
GaiKaka:
Gai does his best, and he thinks that maybe, if it was just him and Kakashi - the challenges, the silences and the companionship - it might work.
But they have students framing their encounters - the team Gai is guiding, and the children Kakashi isn't.
Yondaime/Tenten:
He’s dead.
ShinoTen:
She’s a normal girl. She thought she’d got used to silence, bloodline limits, and never knowing where you stood. She’d thought wrong. But he doesn’t say anything, and Tenten doesn’t want to be the bad guy. So she doesn’t leave and tries harder.
SasuHina:
At some point, they discover it’s not enough to be in love with the same person, and by that stage it’s too late; Naruto thinks they’re as happy together as he is with Sakura.
ItaHina:
Genjutsu can make her sleep fitfully when she’s having regrets. Sometimes, Hinata isn’t sure she’s ever awake.
Tsunade/Orochimaru:
He doesn't understand why he hasn't killed her yet. He isn't sure he understands why she hasn't killed him yet, either, and that is almost more unnerving; Tsunade proved years ago that she was able to plan on killing him, and he isn't sure he likes what it says that she has changed so much.
She should want to kill him, at least, for being the reason her apprentice died; for being the reason the Kyuubi vessel was caught by Akatsuki, even if she'd stopped blaming him for Jiraiya's death. In that, she had more of a responsibility than he did.
But Tsunade's habit always was to automatically blame Orochimaru for everything Jiraiya did that went out of hand.
She should want to kill him for wearing the skin of the one her apprentice and the Kyuubi vessel gave everything to try and save.
For allowing Konoha to be destroyed.
He should kill her, he thinks sometimes when he sees her spending sleepless nights working silently in the laboratories of Sound. She's nothing but a memory of things he's since long outgrown.
He should.
Neji/Itachi:
Neji can never leave the guilt behind. He can't leave Itachi, either.
If he did, it'd mean everything he sacrificed is meaningless; and that a golden cage really sometimes is better than a costly freedom.
It'd mean that some people really are happier in slavery.
But still, sometimes, he's awoken at night by Hinata's empty eyes, her dead stare boring holes through him across the corpse-littered compound.
Itachi always wakes up, too.
InoIta:
He has no way out. He doesn't remember the things he has done, or why he is hovering in this shadow village where people never look at him in the eyes - even though it's pointless now.
He has no way out, Ino knows, because Sasuke is not waking up and Sasuke is the one holding the key to Itachi's freedom.
Sakura used to have the key too, but Sakura is dead and Kakashi wasn't there to copy the world-altering jutsu she used on Itachi. Theoretically, he might be able to undo it with the power of his Sharingan, except that they are talking about Uchiha Itachi, and using one's Sharingan to do anything about him is not an option.
Ino doesn't really know how she ended up saddled with him, too. She knows why; she just isn't sure about the how.
At first Itachi was staying with Naruto, because Naruto is without a doubt the person most involved about Sasuke, but it didn't work out. Then there was Kakashi, but he declined.
So Ino does it - Ino takes care of Itachi - because Sakura was her best friend and she died sealing Itachi away, so that when Sasuke wakes up he can undo whatever it is she did and he can finally kill his brother.
And everything will be over.
Ino is taking care of Itachi, she imagines, the sort of way people take care of the animals they're breeding, when they know they're going to kill and eat them.
But Itachi is not an animal. He's too quiet to be an animal; too quiet to be any form of life, she thinks. He walks down the street without looking either left or right, only ahead, and he does no more noise now than he did when he was still himself.
Itachi has no way out until Sasuke wakes up, but Ino doesn't have much of one either.
Taking care of Itachi has cut off most of her links with other people. Her team still visits, of course; but she can't go see Kurenai and her child, now. Hinata is unfazed by Itachi's presence, but Neji hates it. Naruto - the person in the world Ino thinks she can best relate to nowadays - can barely stand glancing at him.
She can't think of Itachi as an animal, because Itachi, when he is not being quiet, can talk. Not about just anything; there are wide expanses of blankness in his mind, where Sakura swooped away what was important. But they can talk about the little things.
Itachi was so little of a person, before, Ino wouldn't have been surprised that, once the things he'd done (and why he'd done them, and who) were gone, there'd be nothing left. He was so hollow to begin with.
It's the reverse that happens.
With the things that make him Itachi gone, it's almost like he's a person; a real person.
Ino can talk about flowers with him.
She can ask him to go and buy the paper, or if he wants to have take out when the fridge is desperately empty.
She can tell him about Shikamaru's latest antics regarding Temari - the way he's completely denying he's keeping track of the days since the last letter, or the way he mysteriously disappeared for over four hours during their last mission out of the village, only to return with a bitemark glaring at everyone above the collar of his shirt.
Ino only knows this because of Chouji, of course.
Ino herself has a long-term mission in Konoha; taking care of Uchiha Itachi (though no-one calls him Uchiha anymore; he has lost that, as well) until Sasuke wakes up. Tsunade only agreed to name it a mission for Sakura, of course.
He's almost like a real person.
Except not really, because there's just so much missing. And even if there wasn't, in the end, he's still Itachi; meaning he's not.
Itachi never felt like a real person, from the tales Ino sought out.
And now, he's like the echo of a person; like a reflection through the mist.
He isn't real, and he doesn't even pretend all that well. Itachi used to be a master of genjutsu, and this transparent illusion of a person makes Ino hurt for him.
It'd be more humane to kill him now.
But she won't.
In part it's because Ino is well aware she has grown attached in a way that will break her somewhat when he's finally put down.
Mostly, it's because he's all that remains of Itachi, and Ino fully intends on standing next to Naruto when Sasuke kills Itachi.
It's their only way out, now.
Naruto/Sasuke:
Sasuke leaves every time, of course.
Of course, Naruto goes after him.
Sometimes they’re back when Sakura swings by their apartement – really Naruto’s, but for his sake she’ll say theirs. Sometimes they’re gone for months.
Sakura resents being left behind less now than she did when she was younger, but then, she has Ino. She grew up when Naruto and Sasuke didn’t, and what she fears nowadays is that one day they won’t come back at all and Konoha will hear about the obliteration of half a country, and there won’t even be the hitai-ite left to bury.
She asked Naruto, once, why he kept doing it. It was one of the rare times when there had been signs that Sasuke would be leaving soon.
(Once, it was Sakura ringing at the door that awoke Naruto – and it was then that Naruto realised Sasuke was gone. One of the times in the beginning, of course; back when Naruto didn’t wake up before the crack of dawn. Sakura remembers Naruto’s conviction that Sasuke was still there, then his bleak desperation; then the anger, blazing with the Kyuubi’s chakra.)
You’re not happy, she said as she dressed Naruto’s wound in a way that wouldn’t hinder the regrowth of his hand. Chidori; a sure sign that Sasuke was getting restless.
Neither of you is happy.
Naruto looked at her. He’d tried and mopped up most of the blood with his sleeve, but there were still encrusted traces of blood on his face, though his nose, Sakura noted, no longer seemed to be broken.
Sakura refused to think about the state Sasuke might be in. He’d been well enough to get away before she arrived in any case, and he wouldn’t let himself die from something so stupid as a friendly spar against Naruto.
“We couldn’t be happier, Sakura-chan.”
He looked like he couldn’t understand why Sakura would say that.
Naruto/Sasuke/Sakura:
Itachi always was the most important person in Sasuke’s life; his death doesn’t change that.
Sasuke/Kakashi:
Two wrongs don’t, after all, make a right, and two uncomplete people will never make a complete one, even if they don’t know what they’re missing.
Sakura/Kakashi:
“Sakura—”
He catches her wrist before the slap connects; she glares at him for a moment before yanking her hand away. He tenses slightly in instinctive anticipation.
She’s upset enough that her first reaction wasn’t punching him. Kakashi doesn’t fancy fighting Sakura when she’s rendered unpredictable and illogical by anger – his sharingan is hidden beneath his hitai-ite and subduing her without using it would be uncomfortable, expecially if he has to worry about his own safety.
“Sakura, calm down,” he nevertheless finishes. His voice betrays none of his tension.
Her eyes are narrowed to slits, and she snarls, but she makes no move to hit him again – doesn’t move at all; blocking all her muscles to prevent herself from doing so, Kakashi recognises the terseness in her shoulders.
“Maybe, on the contrary, you should stop being so calm,” she hisses.
Kakashi frowns, but Sakura continues.
“I’m the one doing all the work in this – relationship, if you can even call it that with a straight face. Oh no, I forgot, of course you could keep a straight face!”
Her fists are clenched and her teeth bared. Kakashi would rather avoid this discussion, but he can’t just turn away now Sakura started it. It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen it coming, he berates himself. She’s been increasingly snappy recently, over the slightest things.
He regards her for a few minutes, taking in the way the fingers of her right hand are trembling.
“You knew me,” he points out. His tone is mild but he doesn’t otherwise soften the blows of what he’s saying. It’s only the truth; and the sooner Sakura accepts it the sooner they can put this madness behind them. “I told you what you could and couldn’t expect. You knew what you were getting into, Sakura.”
Sakura’s jaw is clenching as well, now. Her eyes are brighter, too, but he isn’t sure if that’s because of the flame rage lit or because she’s going to cry.
“You won’t even take that mask down,” she accuses.
Her voice breaks over the last word, and she looks down.
Cold settles over Kakashi; knowing that he should, probably, take her in his arms and assure her that everything will be alright, but that she will see the empty words for what they are. She’s always been a smart girl; Kakashi wishes he could offer her the type of affection she wants. But he can’t promise it any more than Sakura would be disposed to believe a promise he wouldn’t mean.
Even for her, he won’t change who he is. Sakura knew this. He doubts she would have let him know how much his behavious hurt her if she hadn’t been at the limit of what she could take.
“Sakura...” Her gaze snaps up at him again, and Kakashi is struck speechless for a moment by the naked pain in her eyes. “You can’t heal me.”
After a moment, she nods feebly.
This time, Kakashi is the first to look away. In front of him, Sakura may be crying.
Naruto/Kakashi:
When a person has three teammates, and gets with the third because the two others are dead, there aren’t many conclusions to be drawn. That’s tragedy.
What comes afterwards is mere details.
Kiba/Hinata:
“Why don’t you find yourself a nice girl to settle down with?”
Hana’s tone is sarcastical, but her words aren’t.
Kiba looks away, and doesn’t reply, ‘one day she might need me’.
Instead he says, “we’ve already talked about that, right?”
KakaRin:
He never liked her before Obito's death. (That is the crux of the matter, isn't it? or it has to be, because he doesn't know what else could be. tell him what it could be.)
(Or if he did, it wasn't the way Obito did.)
Was it?
It still isn't the way Obito did. (does.) (He thinks.)
He doesn't know who she likes in him, either.
(She still likes him. Them, he corrects.)
(She puts her warm arms around him, and looks into the Sharingan with a perfect open smile she never wears when Kakashi's hitai-ite covers the left eye that isn't his.)
When she dies and her name is a few lines under Obito's, he never goes to the cenotaph for her.
He doesn't know which part of him misses her. (It's easier to miss her in his dreams, even if his dream self has black hair. It's the only colour that can be told in the red dream vision.)
Good news are that I have Internet at home."
So, in a way, I was asking for it. -_- But it's back now! :D ow to just find the motivation to write one of the gazillion fics I've started. Like the one I owe you,
mariagoner, it's first on my list, I promise. Can't write anything at all, and the PS2 I've bought me as an early bday present is ot helping. ;_;Title: 20 Jigsaws with Missing Pieces
Author:
runespoor7Rating: R
Summary: Sometimes the stories don’t have a happy ending. They just have a routine.
Notes: this is just the rounding-up post of my Dysfunctional Shipping meme. I thought it might be easier to read this way.
TemaShika:
"Why don't you just marry her and be done with it, if you want kids that badly?"
The sneer on Temari's face could have sliced through bone.
Shikamaru sighed. Then, without a word, he rolled off the bed. Picked up the articles of clothing scattered around the room. Had to look around a moment before he found the pack of cigarettes.
Temari's eyes had narrowed, he noted once he'd pulled his shirt back on.
"Run away all you want, asshole!"
He didn't answer, and she made no gesture to detain him as he made for the door, only shouting louder.
"One day you're gonna have to answer that question for good!"
Temari's words echoed like a threat even after he was out.
InoSaku:
Ino is still there. Night has already fallen but Ino is still there, and her smile grows more desperate with every passing second.
Neither Shikamaru nor Chouji mentions it.
"I don't want to get back," Ino finally blurts out. "I don't--"
But she doesn't finish her sentence; only looks away, out of the window of Chouji's room. Her gaze loses itself in the cold darkness out.
"It just -- it's never going to end, now, is it?"
Neither Shikamaru nor Chouji answers. Ino isn't expecting an answer anyway.
Naruto and Sasuke are dead, Sakura is left behind, and Ino is not enough.
They've already had their ending.
NejiHina:
Yes, Hinata-sama. Thank you, Neji-niisan.
They're so wrapped in trying to break (out of) the Hyuuga that they end up breaking themselves.
IruAnko:
Anko tried. Anko tried so hard. She tried to put it all behind. She tried to believe in what she had left. She tried to love him.
He was a good man. An accepting man. He was a good ninja. Heck, he'd even be a good father, if she ever sprung it on him that he'd knocked her up.
So Anko tried.
If anyone could make her happy, it should be him.
He would even accept her for what she was - for what she had been.
She didn't.
LeeTen:
When they're alone together, Tenten always feels like there's something missing, and when they're with their team, Lee always feels like he's lying.
GaiKaka:
Gai does his best, and he thinks that maybe, if it was just him and Kakashi - the challenges, the silences and the companionship - it might work.
But they have students framing their encounters - the team Gai is guiding, and the children Kakashi isn't.
Yondaime/Tenten:
He’s dead.
ShinoTen:
She’s a normal girl. She thought she’d got used to silence, bloodline limits, and never knowing where you stood. She’d thought wrong. But he doesn’t say anything, and Tenten doesn’t want to be the bad guy. So she doesn’t leave and tries harder.
SasuHina:
At some point, they discover it’s not enough to be in love with the same person, and by that stage it’s too late; Naruto thinks they’re as happy together as he is with Sakura.
ItaHina:
Genjutsu can make her sleep fitfully when she’s having regrets. Sometimes, Hinata isn’t sure she’s ever awake.
Tsunade/Orochimaru:
He doesn't understand why he hasn't killed her yet. He isn't sure he understands why she hasn't killed him yet, either, and that is almost more unnerving; Tsunade proved years ago that she was able to plan on killing him, and he isn't sure he likes what it says that she has changed so much.
She should want to kill him, at least, for being the reason her apprentice died; for being the reason the Kyuubi vessel was caught by Akatsuki, even if she'd stopped blaming him for Jiraiya's death. In that, she had more of a responsibility than he did.
But Tsunade's habit always was to automatically blame Orochimaru for everything Jiraiya did that went out of hand.
She should want to kill him for wearing the skin of the one her apprentice and the Kyuubi vessel gave everything to try and save.
For allowing Konoha to be destroyed.
He should kill her, he thinks sometimes when he sees her spending sleepless nights working silently in the laboratories of Sound. She's nothing but a memory of things he's since long outgrown.
He should.
Neji/Itachi:
Neji can never leave the guilt behind. He can't leave Itachi, either.
If he did, it'd mean everything he sacrificed is meaningless; and that a golden cage really sometimes is better than a costly freedom.
It'd mean that some people really are happier in slavery.
But still, sometimes, he's awoken at night by Hinata's empty eyes, her dead stare boring holes through him across the corpse-littered compound.
Itachi always wakes up, too.
InoIta:
He has no way out. He doesn't remember the things he has done, or why he is hovering in this shadow village where people never look at him in the eyes - even though it's pointless now.
He has no way out, Ino knows, because Sasuke is not waking up and Sasuke is the one holding the key to Itachi's freedom.
Sakura used to have the key too, but Sakura is dead and Kakashi wasn't there to copy the world-altering jutsu she used on Itachi. Theoretically, he might be able to undo it with the power of his Sharingan, except that they are talking about Uchiha Itachi, and using one's Sharingan to do anything about him is not an option.
Ino doesn't really know how she ended up saddled with him, too. She knows why; she just isn't sure about the how.
At first Itachi was staying with Naruto, because Naruto is without a doubt the person most involved about Sasuke, but it didn't work out. Then there was Kakashi, but he declined.
So Ino does it - Ino takes care of Itachi - because Sakura was her best friend and she died sealing Itachi away, so that when Sasuke wakes up he can undo whatever it is she did and he can finally kill his brother.
And everything will be over.
Ino is taking care of Itachi, she imagines, the sort of way people take care of the animals they're breeding, when they know they're going to kill and eat them.
But Itachi is not an animal. He's too quiet to be an animal; too quiet to be any form of life, she thinks. He walks down the street without looking either left or right, only ahead, and he does no more noise now than he did when he was still himself.
Itachi has no way out until Sasuke wakes up, but Ino doesn't have much of one either.
Taking care of Itachi has cut off most of her links with other people. Her team still visits, of course; but she can't go see Kurenai and her child, now. Hinata is unfazed by Itachi's presence, but Neji hates it. Naruto - the person in the world Ino thinks she can best relate to nowadays - can barely stand glancing at him.
She can't think of Itachi as an animal, because Itachi, when he is not being quiet, can talk. Not about just anything; there are wide expanses of blankness in his mind, where Sakura swooped away what was important. But they can talk about the little things.
Itachi was so little of a person, before, Ino wouldn't have been surprised that, once the things he'd done (and why he'd done them, and who) were gone, there'd be nothing left. He was so hollow to begin with.
It's the reverse that happens.
With the things that make him Itachi gone, it's almost like he's a person; a real person.
Ino can talk about flowers with him.
She can ask him to go and buy the paper, or if he wants to have take out when the fridge is desperately empty.
She can tell him about Shikamaru's latest antics regarding Temari - the way he's completely denying he's keeping track of the days since the last letter, or the way he mysteriously disappeared for over four hours during their last mission out of the village, only to return with a bitemark glaring at everyone above the collar of his shirt.
Ino only knows this because of Chouji, of course.
Ino herself has a long-term mission in Konoha; taking care of Uchiha Itachi (though no-one calls him Uchiha anymore; he has lost that, as well) until Sasuke wakes up. Tsunade only agreed to name it a mission for Sakura, of course.
He's almost like a real person.
Except not really, because there's just so much missing. And even if there wasn't, in the end, he's still Itachi; meaning he's not.
Itachi never felt like a real person, from the tales Ino sought out.
And now, he's like the echo of a person; like a reflection through the mist.
He isn't real, and he doesn't even pretend all that well. Itachi used to be a master of genjutsu, and this transparent illusion of a person makes Ino hurt for him.
It'd be more humane to kill him now.
But she won't.
In part it's because Ino is well aware she has grown attached in a way that will break her somewhat when he's finally put down.
Mostly, it's because he's all that remains of Itachi, and Ino fully intends on standing next to Naruto when Sasuke kills Itachi.
It's their only way out, now.
Naruto/Sasuke:
Sasuke leaves every time, of course.
Of course, Naruto goes after him.
Sometimes they’re back when Sakura swings by their apartement – really Naruto’s, but for his sake she’ll say theirs. Sometimes they’re gone for months.
Sakura resents being left behind less now than she did when she was younger, but then, she has Ino. She grew up when Naruto and Sasuke didn’t, and what she fears nowadays is that one day they won’t come back at all and Konoha will hear about the obliteration of half a country, and there won’t even be the hitai-ite left to bury.
She asked Naruto, once, why he kept doing it. It was one of the rare times when there had been signs that Sasuke would be leaving soon.
(Once, it was Sakura ringing at the door that awoke Naruto – and it was then that Naruto realised Sasuke was gone. One of the times in the beginning, of course; back when Naruto didn’t wake up before the crack of dawn. Sakura remembers Naruto’s conviction that Sasuke was still there, then his bleak desperation; then the anger, blazing with the Kyuubi’s chakra.)
You’re not happy, she said as she dressed Naruto’s wound in a way that wouldn’t hinder the regrowth of his hand. Chidori; a sure sign that Sasuke was getting restless.
Neither of you is happy.
Naruto looked at her. He’d tried and mopped up most of the blood with his sleeve, but there were still encrusted traces of blood on his face, though his nose, Sakura noted, no longer seemed to be broken.
Sakura refused to think about the state Sasuke might be in. He’d been well enough to get away before she arrived in any case, and he wouldn’t let himself die from something so stupid as a friendly spar against Naruto.
“We couldn’t be happier, Sakura-chan.”
He looked like he couldn’t understand why Sakura would say that.
Naruto/Sasuke/Sakura:
Itachi always was the most important person in Sasuke’s life; his death doesn’t change that.
Sasuke/Kakashi:
Two wrongs don’t, after all, make a right, and two uncomplete people will never make a complete one, even if they don’t know what they’re missing.
Sakura/Kakashi:
“Sakura—”
He catches her wrist before the slap connects; she glares at him for a moment before yanking her hand away. He tenses slightly in instinctive anticipation.
She’s upset enough that her first reaction wasn’t punching him. Kakashi doesn’t fancy fighting Sakura when she’s rendered unpredictable and illogical by anger – his sharingan is hidden beneath his hitai-ite and subduing her without using it would be uncomfortable, expecially if he has to worry about his own safety.
“Sakura, calm down,” he nevertheless finishes. His voice betrays none of his tension.
Her eyes are narrowed to slits, and she snarls, but she makes no move to hit him again – doesn’t move at all; blocking all her muscles to prevent herself from doing so, Kakashi recognises the terseness in her shoulders.
“Maybe, on the contrary, you should stop being so calm,” she hisses.
Kakashi frowns, but Sakura continues.
“I’m the one doing all the work in this – relationship, if you can even call it that with a straight face. Oh no, I forgot, of course you could keep a straight face!”
Her fists are clenched and her teeth bared. Kakashi would rather avoid this discussion, but he can’t just turn away now Sakura started it. It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen it coming, he berates himself. She’s been increasingly snappy recently, over the slightest things.
He regards her for a few minutes, taking in the way the fingers of her right hand are trembling.
“You knew me,” he points out. His tone is mild but he doesn’t otherwise soften the blows of what he’s saying. It’s only the truth; and the sooner Sakura accepts it the sooner they can put this madness behind them. “I told you what you could and couldn’t expect. You knew what you were getting into, Sakura.”
Sakura’s jaw is clenching as well, now. Her eyes are brighter, too, but he isn’t sure if that’s because of the flame rage lit or because she’s going to cry.
“You won’t even take that mask down,” she accuses.
Her voice breaks over the last word, and she looks down.
Cold settles over Kakashi; knowing that he should, probably, take her in his arms and assure her that everything will be alright, but that she will see the empty words for what they are. She’s always been a smart girl; Kakashi wishes he could offer her the type of affection she wants. But he can’t promise it any more than Sakura would be disposed to believe a promise he wouldn’t mean.
Even for her, he won’t change who he is. Sakura knew this. He doubts she would have let him know how much his behavious hurt her if she hadn’t been at the limit of what she could take.
“Sakura...” Her gaze snaps up at him again, and Kakashi is struck speechless for a moment by the naked pain in her eyes. “You can’t heal me.”
After a moment, she nods feebly.
This time, Kakashi is the first to look away. In front of him, Sakura may be crying.
Naruto/Kakashi:
When a person has three teammates, and gets with the third because the two others are dead, there aren’t many conclusions to be drawn. That’s tragedy.
What comes afterwards is mere details.
Kiba/Hinata:
“Why don’t you find yourself a nice girl to settle down with?”
Hana’s tone is sarcastical, but her words aren’t.
Kiba looks away, and doesn’t reply, ‘one day she might need me’.
Instead he says, “we’ve already talked about that, right?”
KakaRin:
He never liked her before Obito's death. (That is the crux of the matter, isn't it? or it has to be, because he doesn't know what else could be. tell him what it could be.)
(Or if he did, it wasn't the way Obito did.)
Was it?
It still isn't the way Obito did. (does.) (He thinks.)
He doesn't know who she likes in him, either.
(She still likes him. Them, he corrects.)
(She puts her warm arms around him, and looks into the Sharingan with a perfect open smile she never wears when Kakashi's hitai-ite covers the left eye that isn't his.)
When she dies and her name is a few lines under Obito's, he never goes to the cenotaph for her.
He doesn't know which part of him misses her. (It's easier to miss her in his dreams, even if his dream self has black hair. It's the only colour that can be told in the red dream vision.)
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I know just what you about being in the mood for
breaking something potentially beautiful and your own heartneeding the angst. :DThank you for your kind words!
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These are excellent, in a very painful rip-your-heart-out way! My favourites are probably those with Team 7 pairings: they're short but they pack such a punch. *____*
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My favourites are probably those with Team 7 pairings: they're short but they pack such a punch.
Those were among those I was most involved with, what with Team Seven being my OT3 (and it was so not-fun, not-easy to turn their happy ending inside out) and NaruSasu the Angsty, Break-The-World, So-Blind OTP o' Doom, so I'm glad they stood out.
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Thanks! :D I did try my best to make them not... well, not just an unhappy relationship with the characters' names thrown in, but to write the scenario according to every character's personnality and experiences - and the likelihood factor of the ship ever happening, yes, I'm looking right at you ;) so yay if it worked out!
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Aww, thank you. Glad to know I
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Really well done, two thumbs up!!
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I'm writing a sequel to the InoIta. >_> Because it's so ripe with over-the-top angst and unrequited tension abounding.
I think maybe my favourite was the SasuHina one, even though it's so short you said everything that needs saying.
That's kind of I felt about it too. Maybe it's because I have a thing for unrequited love and NaruSasu is an OTP of mine. Yay.
Thank you for your kind words, I'm really glad you liked!
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I agree about the SasuHina one, I really can't see Sasuke with anyone but Naruto unless it was a situation like that. Maybe I'm just blinded by the OTP.
I can't wait for your InoIta sequel. Is it okay if I friend you so that I don't miss it?
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I agree about the SasuHina one, I really can't see Sasuke with anyone but Naruto unless it was a situation like that. Maybe I'm just blinded by the OTP.
And even in a situation like that, I think it's hard to find someone he'd be with. Hinata is okay because she's quiet and empathic enough that when she's older she'd be likely to have inkling of what's going on inside Sasuke's mind/heart, but I wouldn't see Sasuke with Neji even if both were in love with Naruto. Then again, I really don't like SasuNeji, so maybe that's that.
Though to be frank, I also 0T3 NaruSakuSasu. And I suppose you could say I ship OroSasu and ItaSasu, somewhat; in the former's case, it's rather because I think Sasuke would definitely not be above whoring himself for power (after all, that's Orochimaru's deal was, literally), and in the latter's case I really like it better when it stays UST/unrequited on Sasuke's part. Mostly as steps toward NaruSasu. *TangledUpInLacecoughcough*
*rambling about ships wut*
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I like OT3 NaruSakuSasu as well. It's the only way I can see SasuSaku happening. I think I just miss the old team 7 days.
LOL, OroSasu is such a guilty pleasure! So angsty, and yet possibly hilarious at the same time, you know? And ItaSasu, I mean, I can see the reasons for it and everything but I just don't ship it. I think it's possibly because I feel jealous on Naruto's part. I haven't read Tangled Up In Lace, but it sounds awesome from what you said. Who is it by, or do you happen to have a link???
I could totally ramble about shipping all day!!
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Thank you so much for comparing NaruNeji to NaruGaa. I don't ship either pairing, but it annoys me to no end when I see the idea that NaruNeji is "just like NaruSasu". Um, no. With Neji, Naruto succeeded.
One difference between NaruNeji and NaruGaa, though, is that Naruto's caring for Gaara is so much more obvious. The link between them feels much less one-sided, what with both of them being jinchuuriki. Otoh, with Neji, there's... not much. In fact, Naruto even refuses to relate to Neji's childhood. Not that he'd have had a lot to relate to, anyway. The thing with Neji and Hinata is that it's impossible to tear their drama away from the fact that they have a family, and that family is very much alive. I can get behind Neji having a crush on Naruto, though.
More fodder for NejiHina.Tangled Up In Lace. Where to start? Hum, probably by mentioning first that it was very unclear in my first reply but my comment as ItaSasu and OroSasu being steps for NaruSasu only involves OroSasu here. And it's, IMO, the best NaruSasu fic the fandom ever wrote.
Here (http://crazy-toffee.livejournal.com/35893.html)'s the link to the epilogue, links to the older parts are given at the top. *read iiiiiiit*
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I think the problem I mainly have with SasuHina is that the fics I've read don't really address any of the issues. They've all been like 'Naruto, whatevs, we're totally in love and getting married and are having little babies with SUPEREYES!', and that just doesn't do it for me.
I agree with everything you said about NaruNeji. It is really nothing like NaruSasu, except that both Neji and Sasuke have Bloodline Limits. And yeah, Naruto really doesn't seem to care about Neji, I get the feeling he still thinks he's a bit of a jerk. Whereas Naruto and Gaara are much more as equals. I could totally buy Neji having an angsty crush on Naruto though, because really, why wouldn't you?
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I've read a couple of sweet oneshots, I can give you the links if you'd like.
On NaruNeji: well, Neji and Sasuke both can be rightful jerks and both are rather pretty and ninja geniuses, but their situations/personnalities are otherwise so very different it hurts to imagine. I can get more or less behind Naruto being with/attracted to Neji because of what reminds him Sasuke. *bad, bad, evil, unrequited-angst-kink person*
I could totally buy Neji having an angsty crush on Naruto though, because really, why wouldn't you?
Word.
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LOL, your description of SasuHina fics is awesome :P
The angst potential is definitely there with NaruNeji, but really I guess I'm not all that enthralled by Neji as a character, and if I'm going to read angsty fic, I'd rather it be with a character I love, like NaruSasu or GaaNaru. Unless it's an angsty side-pairing. Neji is much hotter in Shippuuden though, he looks good in the white.
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Cause for Conversation (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3079116/1/Cause_for_Conversation) by
Crush (http://community.livejournal.com/uchihahyuga/3173.html) by
Practically Speaking (http://community.livejournal.com/white_knuckle/24432.html#cutid1) by
The thing is that I read Neji as obsessed with Hinata, and that's hard to combine with NaruNeji as a couple. Unless you start going into Naruto-loves-Hinata or such and HAHAHA no. I'm mostly interested in Neji through Hinata, actually; as a character, that's the relationship that really makes him stand out to me. Plus the potential for smashing the Hyuuga traditions to smithereens. *_*
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I agree about Neji, his feelings regarding Hinata humanise him. It's an interesting pairing. I've never actually read it, either, but I probably should. :P
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>_> ...yeah, now would probably be a good time to mention that it's the pairing I write the most.
...I can give you recs, if you'd like. *iz a pimp*
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I totally agree about the characterisation of Hinata in that fic, it worked so well.
Yay, recs! Pimp all you want, I love having new stuff to read! And so far your recs have been super-awesome! :D
NejiHina recs, Part I
Cages and Kindness (http://community.livejournal.com/in_my_notebook/5539.html#cutid1) by
The Shape of the Cage (http://community.livejournal.com/paper_tale/4739.html) by
Green Tea (http://moonsheen.livejournal.com/23612.html#cutid1) by
Perfectly Justified (http://moonsheen.livejournal.com/19352.html#cutid1) by
this little fic tidbit (http://moonsheen.livejournal.com/6522.html#cutid1), again by
He Is Thirteen (http://community.livejournal.com/white_knuckle/19130.html#cutid1) by
Hummingbird (http://community.livejournal.com/white_knuckle/4986.html#cutid1) is technically-supposedly NaruSasu. I mean, it is. But there's a reason I put it on this list as well.
The Things He Knows (http://riko.livejournal.com/38080.html) by
Keep Your Heart Broken (http://sunsitenthai.livejournal.com/209826.html#cutid1) by
Learning How to Breathe (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1652170/1/Learning_How_to_Breathe) by Sunfreak. (the link doesn’t go to her writing journal, because she started it only after she’d stopped posting on ff.net) Some things can be changed, some things are destiny.
Broken Touch (http://community.livejournal.com/hyugacest/182814.html#cutid1) by
Picking Up the Pieces (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1788389/1/Picking_Up_The_Pieces) by
Stargazing (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3197182/3/NejiHina_Collection) by Kyaki. "Hiashi-sama wanted to know why you didn't come to dinner."
The Eyes I Tought Were You (http://sintari.livejournal.com/22633.html) by
NejiHina recs, Part II
Silliness (http://community.livejournal.com/hyugacest/122824.html#cutid1) by
Chilbearing Figure (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2666507/1/Childbearing_Figure) by
I’d also recommend reading
As for my own fics, well... I write a verse called Celebrationverse (http://runespoor7.livejournal.com/tag/celebrationverse) which so far mostly revolves around Neji and Hinata and the perception other characters have of them and which includes the side-pairings of TemaShika and NaruSakuSasu. I’m also writing the NejiHina Theme Set Smut (http://runespoor7.livejournal.com/tag/theme+set+smut), which varies from the omg-so-graphic to the only implied, because the truth is that writing smut bores me. Oh yeah, and I’ve also written a one-shot called Back to the Wall (http://runespoor7.livejournal.com/24297.html#cutid1), which is a complete R-rated PWP despite Neji and Hinata barely touching. I swear. And there are always the A Cage is a Curse (http://runespoor7.livejournal.com/tag/a+cage+is+a+curse) series (Things that could have happened had Hizashi been the older son), which does not technically always features NejiHina. ‘t’s a series of ficlets that all have in common ‘what if Hinata’s father had been the one in the Branch House’, and which all vary wildly. The undercurrent pairings are NejiHina, sometimes NaruHina, sometimes nothing.
There’s a classic I haven’t included in my recs, because in spite of it being superbly written, I don’t really like it for a variety of reasons that have to do only with my personal tastes and nothing at all with the fic’s quality (really, really high quality). Rosemary for Remembrance (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2215069/1/) is a multichapter written by
Aaaaaand this was way too long, but most of the recs are of the quite short variety. Sorry for the tl;dr of the fan who went crazy with recs.
Re: NejiHina recs, Part II
This is so thorough and awesome, thank you! I'll let you know what I think of them. <333