Our Reflection in Each Other's Eyes.

Chapter 30: Why did you forget me?

Kyoko begged whomever heard her inner thoughts, that she be freed soon. She hoped for Sasuke to come to her, but it seemed that when she needed him most, he abandoned her.

She lost hope just as she lost track of time.

She wasn't being fed therefore she wasn't able to recover her energy nor her chakra. She didn't give her captor the pleasure of seeing her shed a tear nor hear a word in the interrogations he made.

"So you remain loyal to Sasuke. What is it, can you not live for yourself? Always receiving orders from someone and remaining a dog to their commands." He angrily spoke as he kicked her side.

She only grunted from the pain that spread throughout her side. His words hit her, but she didn't say anything to them.

"Speak!" He shouted angrily.

He took his anger out on her by kicking her. Blood spilled from her mouth after he had kicked the side of her jaw. Her body was sore from the kicks she was receiving but still held her tongue from uttering a word.

Sasuke was growing impatient. Itachi had questioned Kisame about Kyoko in a secret meeting the two held, to be told that she hadn't been taken to the Akatsuki base.

"Recently, not too long ago. Tobi and Zetsu left to a supposed mission. I'll try to get something out of Tobi."

It had been nearly a month since Kyoko's kidnap and nearly another since Kisame made the promise to help locate her. Sasuke couldn't sit still. He moved to nearby areas to search for her. For any sign of her, but got nothing.

"It's as if she disappeared from the face of the earth," Karin commented, "...as if she were dead."

Death is what Kyoko is not too far from now. Her body is too weak to sustain the beatings she receives when refusing to speak.

She has hallucinations and can just barely keep herself from fainting. Due to multiple hits received directly to the her head, her memories have become hazy. Something her captor has begun to use against her.

Every now and then the masked man leaves one of Kyoko's belongings where he is sure Sasuke and his team search for her, to give Sasuke a spark of hope.

To make him hopeful in finding her again.

He does this all as he shapes Kyoko into another person. As he gives her a different story to her life.

"You were nearly dead when I found you. I chained you only because I didn't know what you're capable of." He lies to her.

He sees that she believes this, therefore he feeds her more lies as he works on restoring her energy.

Kyoko believes whatever is spoken by the masked man, firmly trusting he is telling the truth. She blindly listens to him, unaware that her memories were lost because of him.

Months later

The Kyoko once known by Sasuke is a lost cause. In the blur of memories she owns, Sasuke never existed.

She still goes by the name Kyoko, being the only thing she could remember, but she is working alongside the Akatsuki to capture the remaining jinchuriki in order to remove the tailed beasts from within them. Treating it as repayment to the man that restored her memories.

She is never taken to the base directly, seeing as the masked man wants to avoid a meeting between Kyoko and the Sasuke who is now "working" with them.

Itachi had suggested Sasuke go with the plans the Akatsuki had for him after their presumption that Sasuke had killed him.

Sasuke had moved on with the plans laid out for him, while still hoping to find Kyoko. He hadn't heard from her for over three months. He was in the worst state ever seen, a state the masked man believed was due to the truth he had told Sasuke about his brother.

As Sasuke worked with the Akatsuki, Itachi relentlessly searched for Kyoko, for his brother's sanity.

He held strongly onto his faith. His faith in Kyoko.

More months passed. Kyoko exhausted herself endlessly, using the curse mark Orochimaru had placed on her. The mark that brought a dark power to her.

A power that will consume her entirely if she uses it endlessly.

Her body has several bruises she has no clue as to how she received. When she looks into a mirror, she is uncomfortable with the image she sees.

Her eyes hold sadness. As if she's stuck in a place she can't get out of.

When she had first gone out on a mission she engaged in a sword fight in which the person slashed at her face. She was unable to move away in time, earning herself a scar on her left eyelid. Every time she looks in the mirror the scar is evident in its location.

She was angry with herself, taking the scar as a form of defeat, in turn becoming ruthless in fights. She never shows mercy as she makes the enemy suffer. Strands of her hair are always moved to cover the scar that remains over her eye. The scar she hates to no end.

It reminds her of her incompetence.

The Akatsuki members continued to decrease at a rapid pace. She had been informed, when she started working with them, that there were more members than the few that already remained.

Her missions with the few were working out nicely and now they had one last remaining jinchuriki to go after.

The remaining Akatsuki members had moved to Konoha to capture the nine tails. Kyoko being among them.

The attack on Konoha was disastrous. Everyone was dying in whichever direction you looked.

Kyoko stood her ground, not killing the shinobi that confronted her but instead knocking them unconscious as she still didn't understand the purpose to every task she's been set to. As she fought alongside one of the many paths of Pain, she was back-stabbed.

She was wounded by a metal rod that embedded directly into her chest. She could feel her heartbeat slowly decreasing due to how crucial the puncture was.

As her vision hazed from the quick blood loss, she attempted to remove the rod. Her hands slipped due to all the blood that spilled onto it, as she tried her hardest to get a grip on it.

Tears streamed down Kyoko's face at the unbearable pain her death was coming with.

It is said that when you are dying, you relive your entire life.

She slipped into unconsciousness where she became aware that she had been lied to, as all her bittersweet memories with Sasuke were washing over her. Those were the only memories she had. Only memories involving him.

As her heart stopped beating she cried for him for the last time, wondering why he never came to rescue her.