Chapter 53 (C53)
The cliff top was empty, with only a single figure and the faint sound of a flute drifting into the valley.
The wind came from afar, carrying the damp, fishy smell of ferns in the valley, and swept past a stubbornly twisting lone pine tree, emitting a long and hollow howl.
With his chakra almost depleted, Pakkun was unable to sustain the summoning jutsu. He only managed to point out a general direction before disappearing into a puff of white smoke.
Ignoring the wounds from the fierce battle, Kakashi ran at top speed, squeezing his muscles and drawing out fresh blood. His dark clothes were soaked with the liquid, and his once-fitting clothes on his shoulders, forearms, and waist had become wet, cold, rusty shackles, pulling him downwards.
"Kana!"
The heart pounded wildly in the chest cavity, making a frighteningly loud sound, like a runaway drum, making one's eardrums buzz.
She turned around.
Behind me was a bottomless cliff.
The lingering sound of the flute, like ripples on the water, spreads gradually through the air before slowly fading into the distance.
Kakashi's throat tightened, as if gripped by an invisible hand. He tried to control his breathing, but the breath was shallow and rapid, swirling around in his throat and unable to sink into his lungs.
He slowly stepped forward, carefully closing the distance between them. "Come back with me."
According to the information brought by Tenzo, even though the Fifth Boss said that Kana was sent out to provide reinforcements on her orders, the other high-ranking officials who had received the news were not willing to let her go easily and gave her a deadline to return, otherwise she would be accused of "stealing information and defecting".
"Kana, it's not too late to go back now..."
She simply stared at him indifferently. Her headband had been cut off in the previous battle with Kakuzu, and a few stray strands of hair hung down beside her cheeks, only to be blown up and down by the wind, obscuring her vision.
She reached her hand to her forehead, clenched her fingers, and held the cold metal in her palm, as if grasping a frozen piece of the past.
A sliver of cold light flashed by.
despair…
The headband lay abandoned on the ground, a drop of blood falling onto the leaf-shaped village emblem in the center, making a very soft tapping sound.
despair……
Blood seeped out between his fingers and meandered down the edge of his palm.
Kakashi knelt on one knee, his right hand gripping the blade that was already embedded in his headband, his knuckles turning bluish-white from the force.
The dark red hue gradually spread across the cold metal, slowly and stubbornly swallowing up the patterns on the headband that symbolized identity.
Can't.
This cut leaves more than just a scar; it severs all ties with the past.
A sharp, piercing pain shot through his arm toward his central nervous system. Each heartbeat felt like a hammer blow striking a blade embedded in his flesh, bringing a new, tearing throbbing sensation. But Kakashi gripped it even tighter, as if he wanted to crush this weapon of pain between his own metacarpal bones.
The two sides were locked in a stalemate, and Kana was the first to let go.
The mortise of the pheasant knife was soaked with blood and fell to the ground, looking like a dead corpse.
Without her headband, the wind was finally able to blow across her forehead completely and without obstruction.
That was the first time Kakashi had seen the complete Caged Bird Seal. The ugly blue runes, like parasitic vines, clung to his forehead, like bruises seeping from beneath his skin and into his bones, carrying a morbid yet ferocious vitality.
Her eyes were dry.
Kakashi's fingertips touched her face, which was so close to his, and he felt a slight chill. "Why aren't you crying?"
You should scream out and vent all the pain of losing loved ones, the oppression of being imprisoned, the hatred of the injustice of fate, and the disappointment with this world.
Then, live on.
But why don't you cry?
He recalled years ago when Uchiha Shisui died. Even though she tried to control herself, she was still angry. Because she couldn't let anyone find out, she deliberately provoked him, taking advantage of a legitimate opportunity to vent her anger.
Those boiling emotions prove that people are still alive.
"They are still waiting for you to come back: Shikatori, Naruto, Choji, Tenten, Tsunade-sama... We are all waiting for you."
She turned her face slightly away, avoiding his touch.
He remained silent throughout.
He didn't want Sasuke to seek revenge, because if there was no reason to fill that heart after revenge, the charred embers that had burned for too long would suddenly go out, leaving only empty ashes.
But if love can no longer keep her, if she needs to hate someone to survive.
"Then hate me."
"As your senior, there's nothing I can do to help you."
"I take out my disgust and hatred for my own powerlessness on you."
“I demand that you consider Naruto’s feelings. I failed to teach Sasuke well. When Lady Tsunade needed someone to carry out a mission, it was I who recommended Neji to her,” a strange swelling sensation came from his throat, making swallowing difficult. “I’m the one who killed him.”
"You should hate me, Kana."
The dizziness caused by excessive blood loss was getting worse. Like an old piece of paper being quietly licked at the edges by a flame, her vision gradually dimmed, and Kana's outline began to melt, oozing a fuzzy halo, as if through a layer of swaying oil.
Kakashi knew that if he let her leave now, he would definitely regret it.
He reached out his left hand, which was unstained by blood, trying to grab her, but suddenly, like a tree whose sinews had been abruptly pulled out, he fell idly from the air.
Kana caught his body as he slumped forward, bearing his entire weight.
Kakashi's face rested against her neck, and amidst the thick stench of blood, he could discern a barely perceptible floral fragrance.
Kakashi tried to clench his fist, only to find that even such a simple action had become incredibly difficult. His five fingers could only make a weak and slow grasp, and the chakra flowing through his body seemed to be frozen.
He instantly realized—the blade was poisoned with a mind-numbing agent.
Jia, Nai...
He opened his mouth, his Adam's apple moving slowly up and down, but no sound came out.
Kana cradled his head in one hand and supported his shoulder with the other, then bent down and gently placed him on the ground.
A defensive barrier array, shimmering with a faint light, unfolded beneath him.
Jia, Nai...
His lips parted slightly, moving in vain, a faint breath escaping between his lips and teeth with a hoarse, frictional sound, unable to produce a coherent syllable.
Kakashi saw her take a beaded necklace out of her bosom.
He had never seen her wear it before, and he assumed she had thrown it away long ago, since it was something that an annoying senior had forced on her against her will.
The translucent blue crystal looked like a piece of ice that would never melt between my slender white fingers.
Kakashi gave her this crystal necklace as a way of encouraging her to move forward.
Now, she has returned it to him.
"I'm leaving."
She stood up. "I've been waiting for this day for a long time."
There was no turning back.
Her white robes fluttered in the wind one last time, and like a bird with broken wings, she made no sound before being swallowed up by the thick fog below the cliff.
His pupils contracted due to extreme palpitations, and he could almost hear the faint cracking sound of his frozen blood within his veins.
The burst of chakra, mixed with fragments of ice shards, surged through the body's meridians, amplifying the scraping sensation countless times.
Kakashi struggled to climb to the edge, where the mist below had already dissipated, as if nothing had ever happened.
The five fingers suddenly clenched in mid-air, but only grasped a handful of cold, flowing wind.
Kakashi awoke with a start, his heart pounding heavily in his chest. His outstretched arm remained frozen in mid-air, maintaining that futile grasping posture. The phantom of the touch in his dream lingered on his fingertips; the warm touch of the hem of his clothing was rapidly fading from his nerve endings, leaving behind an empty, cold emptiness.
He slowly withdrew his hand, and in the dim light filtering in from the window, looked at his empty palm.
—I was dreaming again.
Six days have passed since Kana jumped off a cliff and committed suicide.
The memory of that day was like an endless loop of Tsukuyomi, repeatedly eroding his consciousness in the dead of night.
Chiyo revived Gaara at the cost of her life. When she rushed to the scene with Naruto and Tenzo, Kana had already destroyed Kakuzu's two hearts.
Because of the information left by Neji before his death, Tsunade knew Akatsuki's plan and made preparations in advance. Amas led a small team to confront Kakuzu and Hidan head-on at the Fire Temple.
Shikamaru used the medical scroll he obtained from Shikatori to keep Asuma alive, and thanks to Kana's sudden intervention, the situation reversed, and Asuma was able to save his life. He is currently in a coma in the hospital's intensive care unit.
Kana appeared remarkably calm, perhaps even excessively so.
But he was extremely ruthless in his actions.
The pace of her battle with Kakuzu was so fast that no one else could interfere.
The pain of witnessing his mentor nearly die before his eyes actually unleashed Shikamaru's astonishing potential, pushing him to the brink of despair. Using the fragmented information he had gathered, he quickly devised a meticulous plan to target Hidan, and together they killed him.
After narrowly escaping death, their tense minds suddenly relaxed, and their bodies retaliated with exhaustion, causing Shikamaru and the others to collapse to the ground, panting heavily.
Until Naruto asked, "Where's Kana?"
Looking around in a panic, all that could be seen on the ground in the distance was Kakuzu's mangled corpse; Kana had long since vanished.
Kakashi's biggest weakness is his lack of chakra, which limits the duration of his summoning jutsu. Pakkun only left a rough location, and Kana was a master of concealing her tracks in Konoha's Anbu. As a result, he and Tenzo Naruto had to split up at the crossroads.
What happened next flashed before my eyes like a revolving lantern.
The sky was shrouded in black and red chakra, and churning dark clouds obscured the sun's brilliance. The eight-tailed demon beast, as if its heart had been ripped out, roared in despair and helplessness. The power of the Nine-Tails scorched the earth, and a sharp, pungent stench filled the air wherever it went...
Jiraiya arrived just in time and placed a sealing jutsu, Tenzo's Wood Release...
The Hokage's office was littered with overturned tables and papers flying everywhere...
Shikatori's eyes dimmed instantly, and he handed in his resignation from the Anbu...
Tian Tian and Li's tears...
Suicide was considered the most humiliating way for a ninja to die. The Fifth Hokage publicly announced that she died from exhaustion after fighting four rogue ninja from Akatsuki...
The story of the caged bird, which began to spread from an unknown corner, fueled conspiracy theories that led to the death of a person who could not endure the oppression of the main family...
Deprived of hope, the Hyuga branch family erupts into the most intense conflict in its history with the main family...
The members of the Dark Division all had white cloth strips tied to their left arms without prior arrangement...
A funeral on a rainy day...
In the end, everything was swallowed up by two empty tombs.
The hard edges of the crystal pressed against my palm, sending a real pain through me and pulling me back to reality.
Kakashi has known her for many years, ever since she was just a little kid who would hang bells on the tree at the village entrance.
But he never knew what she wanted.
He never asked her what she wanted.
So many people shed tears for her, yet they didn't know what she wanted.
Kakashi gazed at the pitch-black night sky, where the moon had disappeared and the stars were lifeless.
Oh, I see.
That's why he left without any regrets.
Therefore, he didn't even have the right to try to keep him.
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