Hearts and Strings (Sasori Love Story)

Chapter 19 - Last Words

Chapter 19 – Last Words

 

[Ina’s POV]

Just as those words escaped Tamaki’s mouth, he and Sasori charged at each other in full speed. I didn’t really expect Sasori to use taijutsu instead of using his puppets. He wasn’t one to fight in hand-to-hand combat after all.

I was stunned in my place. Two guys who made an impact to my life were fighting…for what? For me? I couldn’t possibly say.

I did some handsigns and shouted, “Earth Style Earth Wall!” Soon, a huge wall that came from the ground appeared in front of Sasori.

“It’s not really great to meddle with fights,” Tamaki snickered at me as he did a jutsu of his own. “Fire Style: Raining Drops of Hell!” Fireballs then started to rain on us. I did a quick handsign to extend my earth wall so it was covering Sasori from above.

Tamaki’s jutsu was soon focused on me, because he knew that he wouldn’t be able to touch Sasori with my jutsu shielding him. “You do know that I do now want to do this right, Ina?”

“Don’t kind with me,” I gritted my teeth and dodged every possible fireball. I then looked up and saw one going down on me. Before I could even have time to comprehend what was happening, I knew that it was going to hit me.

But before it did, I was dragged out of the way and pushed down until it was covering me. For a second, my heart stopped a beat because I thought it was Sasori who was covering me. I let out a sigh of relief when I saw his puppet shielding me from the fireballs. It amazed me to see that Sasori’s puppet could withstand a huge amount of heat. I didn’t really expect for his puppet to be waterproof and all. But I was never in the place to question a former Akatsuki member’s skills.

“Earth Style: Swallow Art Jutsu!”

“That won’t work on me, Ina,” Tamaki chuckled as he put an end to his own jutsu then jumped to another place when earth was going to consume him. I put Sasori’s shield away and he ran to my side.

“As I said,” I glared at Tamaki. “It’s two against one. The chance of you winning is down to zero. Why don’t you just give up an—“

“And let you live a happy life?” he continued my sentence. “No can do. I can’t let you be happy without me. I need revenge for you leaving me,”

“You lied to me first!” I screamed at him. Sasori’s hand was now on my shoulder, attempting for me to calm down. And luckily, I did.

“You think that if I told you the truth, you would want to be with me that time?” what Tamaki said caught me off guard. He was right. I would have avoided or killed him that time if I knew he murdered his own sister for power. “Let’s face it, Ina. I needed to lie for you to be with me. What I felt for you that time, it’s real. I wanted to be with you forever,”

I felt Sasori’s hand tense on my shoulder.

“You could just have told me the truth,” I reasoned out.

“Ina,” his face had suddenly become too serious. “Do you still love me?”

Not only was I the only shocked in his question, I took a glance at Sasori and he was indeed shocked too. I looked at Tamaki once again and saw the sincerity in his question. He really wanted to know about my feelings toward him.

If what he said was true, he really did love me before. He just kept his past a secret because he knew that I wouldn’t accept him.

My mind was then filled by images of Sasori. We sure had bad times together. Being with Sasori made me lost my focus on my work, but even so, I was grateful for his arrival.

“Do I need to answer you honestly?” I asked then Tamaki nodded. “I’m sorry, but I don’t love you anymore. I love Sasori,” I didn’t want to look at Sasori because like a teenage girl, there was blush creeping out of my face. “He’s someone too important for me to lose,”

“Someone who’s important than me?” Tamaki asked.

“Way too important than you,” I knew that I would be hurting Tamaki if I said this. But I knew that he would be hurt once I lied. Tamaki’s important to me…but that was before. The feelings that I had for him were long gone.

“I see,” then Tamaki smiled a faint smile. “I’m sorry for causing you two so much trouble,” I once again took a glance at Sasori and saw that he mirrored my face. We were frowning. Of course, we were caught off guard when Tamaki apologized for what he did. “The reason why I was following you around, Ina, was because I wanted to be near you. I even used the name of Hiroto to be near you. I never wanted you hurt. I just simply wanted to be with you. I thought that you would be able to love me again…even if I used another identity. But I lost. Right after Sasori left, I saw you tearing up apart. You never took a glance at me, Hiroto, you never really reciprocated my feelings. You never really had your eyes on anyone except him,”

“What is your point, Tamaki?” my voice softened. I never knew that Tamaki still loved me all this time. He just wanted to be with me…even if I already had feelings to Sasori.

“I lost already,” he sighed. “I’m not the one to lose but love is something that I cannot really defeat. But I really enjoyed seeing you again, Ina,” and then I noticed that he was vanishing in thin air.

“W-What?” Sasori asked.

Surely, a ninja could transport into places in a cloud of smoke but Tamaki was becoming more transparent to us.

“I’m not human anymore, Ina,” Tamaki smiled. “Nobody mastered the resurrection jutsu that you were very great at. The jutsu’s all yours. But as you can see, I wasn’t revived a human, I was revived as a wraith,”

“A wraith?” I asked and he nodded. I never knew wraiths existed. “But you’re in human form!”

“That was something I personally wished to the Heavens,” he closed his eyes while become more transparent. “You were something that connected me to this world,” he then looked at Sasori. “Please do not hurt her,”

“I won’t,” Sasori assured.

“I’ll be watching…” and that was his last words when he fully vanished.