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Falling is Like This	By : WolfPilot06 Category: Naruto > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 840 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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Title: Falling
is Like This (1/?)
Author:
WolfPilot06
Category:
Major character death, angst, timeskip, slightly AU,
some language, shonen ai/yaoi
implications, aaaannnd a hell of a lot of imagery. Possible OOC, seeing as several characters
are suffering from a serious case of Intense Grief right now, and really, a
lack of plot in this chapter.
Pairing(s): SasuNaru,
maybe hints of others.
Notes: I'll have everyone know that this is my
current pet project. I've already
written chapter 2, as well, where the plot begins to get a move on, and am
beginning Chapter 3. This is not
intended to be an all-action fic of any sort; as is
the case with most any of my fics, there is a hell of
a lot of description and introspection involved. This fic centers on
Sasuke's reaction to Naruto's death and how he chooses to deal with it. There is more
to the story, of course, because, as I said before, there is a plot, but my
point is that there is a lot of Sasuke and Sasuke's thoughts in this.

Be as it may, I live on feedback. I am a self-admitted feedback whore. Feed me reviews, and I will blossom happily. Deprive me of reviews, and I wither away and
die.

Enough of
that. On to the fic!

--

The sky was mournfully gray,
dark cumulonimbus clouds scudding across the windswept expanse like harbingers
of grief and sorrow. The village of Konoha
was uncharacteristically solemn, almost as if in response to the weather,
citizens going cautiously along their ways and speaking in hushed whispers,
subdued and quiet.

It was, Uchiha Sasuke thought
darkly, a perfectly fitting day.

Turning away from his window,
the Uchiha heir glared at the small, limp pile of clothing sitting innocently
on the bed next to him. The outfit was
black, and while this was no incredible deviation from Sasuke's normal apparel,
the significance of the color served to deepen the scowl on his handsomely
aristocratic face.

The last time he had worn
this outfit had been when Sandaime died. It was too small for him now, of course, but
he had dug it out from a box in the back of his closet, dusted it off, and
persuaded a dubious tailor to make him a larger, better-fitting version.

His fist clenched
convulsively on the cloth. He should not have had to pull this outfit out again. Not so soon after the Sandaime's
death; not so soon after his ignominious return to Konoha, when he had been
carried on Naruto's back, bleeding, unconscious, and suffering from two broken
legs as well as several cracked ribs, through the gates he had never thought he
would enter again.

Naruto. Naruto.

With a snarl, Sasuke hurled
the outfit away from himself. The
clothes made a small 'pap' noise as they hit the wall before sliding down the
surface, crumpling silently at the base.
Sasuke stared at the sad, dark pile for a moment before slumping
forward, resting his elbows on his knees and twisting his fingers in his hair painfully.

"Naruto," he
whispered brokenly to the empty room.
For a long time, he sat alone, the silence punctuated only by his harsh
breathing and the sharp patter of rain against the windows.

Outside, the world mourned.

--

"It's raining."

Yamanaka Ino
looked up at her best friend, the black armband in her hand momentarily
forgotten. Sakura stood by the window, a
slender hand placed against the cool glass as she gazed solemnly at the liquid
fury sheeting from the heavens, lashing at the barrier as if trying to claw its
way inside. Ino
was suddenly struck by how pale Sakura looked, the combination of the dark
dress she was wearing and the washed-out sunlight draining the normally vibrant
colors that composed her friend. The
house was silent; Ino's parents had long ago left,
bidding their daughter to meet with them at the flower shop later. They had been reluctant to let Ino go to the funeral at all, but she had been insistent; Ino was anything if not stubborn.

"Rather symbolic, don't
you think?" she replied with a weak attempt at a smile. Sakura only sighed, resting her forehead on
the glass beside her hand. Her breath
fogged the surface faintly.

"He would have hated
it." Sakura said sadly, "He always said he wanted to be buried on top
of the Hokage monument on a sunny day."
Pale fingers tightened, pressing hard against the window. "Tsunade-sempai
put the funeral off as long as she could, but the weather just refused to let
up."

Ino stood from her perch on the bed. She approached Sakura wordlessly and tied the
dark cloth around her upper arm. Sakura
merely touched the armband briefly and looked at Ino
with dull, dry eyes.

"I helped prepare his body
for the funeral," she said as though it was of no concern. Ino noticed the
slight tremble in her otherwise steady voice, though, saw the way Sakura's hand
tightened briefly around the armband. "He- he looks good. Sharp, even." The other girl turned from
her to look out the window again, blinking rapidly. "He's got his Chuunin vest on, like he would've liked it, and we cleaned
up as best we could-" her voice hitched and she pressed trembling
fingertips to her lips, stifling a sob. "We had to put his hitae-ate over his throat. He almost looks as if he's sleeping �"

Ino enfolded Sakura in a comforting embrace as her
composure finally crumbled, tears dripping silently down her white face as sobs
wracked her shaking body. Ino rocked the other girl slowly, pressing her lips to damp
pink hair and murmuring meaningless nonsense in Sakura's ear, trying to comfort
her as best she could.

"It was too soon,"
Sakura sobbed, "I never said 'yes', not even once. I always thought � so long as I never said
'yes', he'd have to keep asking, and he'd never leave, you know?"

"I know." Ino said.

--

The gathering on top of the
Hokage monument was grave. Usually, only
high-ranking dignitaries warranted large, public funerals; for all that Naruto
had been irreplaceably dear to those close to him, Tsunade had been unable to
grant him the funeral she had wanted.
Instead, a very select few had been invited to attend the tiny
ceremony. They drifted to the site in
twos and threes, walking silently to the glass-faced closed coffin in which
their friend lay.

Naruto looked peaceful. There was no other way to describe the almost
foreign expression of contentment on his dead features, whiskered cheeks no
longer distorted and stretched in insanely energetic expressions, chapped lips
still and silent. A faint smile curved
his mouth, and the tiny quirk on the right side gave him an impish look, almost
as if he was waiting for just the right opportunity to pop out of his coffin,
alive and well, and laugh about his newest prank.

The hunter-nin had done a good job of cleaning him up with Tsunade and
Sakura's help. Only the slightest
discolorations on his arms indicated the areas where the hunter-nin had injected chakra to
destroy Naruto's chakra system from within. The seal, which had appeared at the moment of
his death, was hidden beneath his clothing, and had been artfully combined with
a few carefully chosen tattoos included to disguise the true purpose of the
spiral markings. His hitae-ate
cleverly concealed the wound that had ultimately taken Naruto's life, sparing
his friends from seeing how Naruto's head had been half-severed from his body.

The entire effect, Sasuke
thought, was grossly inappropriate.

He had hated the funeral from
the moment he had set eyes upon it. It was
completely unsuitable for his rival's death, he thought, and it was only out of
respect for the others' grief that he kept his displeasure from showing on his
face.

The huge bouquets of white
lilies that Ino had donated surrounded the bier in a
fragrant cloud, the rain dripping off the petals like tears. Naruto beamed at the assembled mourners from
atop a small altar, surrounded by scrolls and various small remembrances given
by his friends. The image had obviously
been cut out of a larger picture; Sasuke could see his own hair peeking from
the edge of the frame. It looked
contrived, a poor attempt to cover the fact that nobody had ever thought to
take a picture of Naruto himself.

Sasuke clenched his jaw and
his fists, and tried to keep from screaming.

Tsunade made a short,
heartfelt speech to Naruto's friends, speaking of his gallantry, his honesty,
his loyalty. Hinata cried nearby, her
tears mingling with the rain to drip from her face unnoticed; Kiba and Neji stood to either side of her, their stoic expressions
barely masking their own grief as they silently offered their support to the
heartbroken girl between them. Iruka was crumpled on the bier, openly sobbing and weeping
as he clawed at the glass, as if his anguish could bring Naruto back to
life. In the end, Kakashi had to lead
the younger man away, his own face so world-weary and sad that Sasuke hardly
recognized him.

'This is all wrong,' Sasuke thought, wanting to yell at them. Naruto would never have wanted them to cry
for him. He would have wanted them to
laugh, to remember his accomplishments, to remember him. This entire ceremony
was a horrible insult to Naruto's memory.
'Naruto may be dead, but he isn't
gone!'

He left shortly after Tsunade
finished her speech, and did not return.

--

To be continued.

--

Again, comments and criticism
hungrily craved.

**Wolf**
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Falling is Like This