Lavender Rain [TIME TRAVEL]

Prologue: When All Hope is Lost

"The heart dies a lingering death,

 shedding each hope like leaves

 until one day there are none. 

No hopes. Nothing remains."

There was a saying she heard so long go from someone whose face and scent faded away with time and utter gaping despair. 'It's terrible to lose someone we love, but it's even worse to lose ourselves while loving them.'

She runs.

She runs underneath skies that are not the ones she grew up knowing. She runs because they were no longer a peculiar blue hue to the point it was violet, much like the flowers she knows faintly in her memories were once Ino's favorites. She runs because the clouds were no longer large, wide, and snowy-white, as the mountains in the Land of Snow. She runs because the sun stopped glimmering brightly in shades of dandelions and sunflowers, with hints of amber.

She runs because everything is wrong. Broken. Fractured beyond the point of healing. She runs because Naruto is dead. Everyone she had once known was either dead, dying, or somewhere in between.

She runs.

The dry and brittle soil cracks beneath her hurried feet, and faintly behind her two other footsteps swiftly followed as they all headed towards the safety of the hidden caverns. The only place left in the world that housed and protected the last of humanity.

The first footsteps that follow behind her belong to a man who appeared in his mid-twenties and would have been considered exceedingly handsome once. Half the man's face was covered by dirty and slightly torn bandages, though it still could not cover where acid steam had fried part of the skin with mottle redness. Spiky silver hair laid limped past the neck, and with quick notice anyone would realize part of his left arm was missing. His name was Hatake Kakashi.

The man nearly hits the ground on his knees when he feels the bond between his summons and partner snap away. "Pakkun is gone." He rasps, and the tired pain is clear in his tone. Pain for losing another one, and tired of fighting and losing others.

Pakkun was the last of his pack to be killed.

No one speaks for a moment before the other pair of footsteps speak up. "Sakura, are you sure he cannot locate us here?" A young pale man with dark onyx eyes, like the ink he weaved for his jutsu's, peered up to the sky where a white drawn bird flew by, and then proceeded to explode. "I know you're skilled, but you've been running on severely low chakra for several days now."

The coral haired woman heaved a sigh as her haunted green eyes assessed the area, before putting up the final fuinjutsu barrier to keep the evil and malicious man out, as they all passed through the final arc and headed swiftly for the ritual room. "I'm certain he won't find us here, Sai. I even had Hatake-san set up the last of the barrier seals Naruto-kun gave me." She confided as she bent down on her knees and hastily opened a scroll, so she could finish the fuinjutsu seal carved and painted into the ground.

"Hai." Sai simply accepted her words without doubt.

Sakura watched the blood slowly drain out of the last Nara deer she had pulled from the scroll. From the depths of her mourning heart, she hopes Shikamaru will forgive her.

Kakashi gave a grim smile as he slapped Sai playfully on his shoulder, much to the painter's quiet displeasure. "Mou, we'll be fine." He uttered, turning his worn eyes at Sakura, who was finishing drawing the last of the seals needed into the stone floor. "Sakura-chan, are you sure you don't want any help?"