Summary: Both of them were broken. But that way, they could make each other whole again. SasuIno, slight ItaIno

A/N: Inspired by Aluto's Haribote Tsumiki, which was what I was listening to while writing – or rather, typing – this. I just began studying Japanese and I don't really know what most of the song means, but I still think it's beautiful.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Whole

Sometimes we realize our mistakes too late, Uchiha Sasuke remembers his mother telling him when he was a child.

He was too young to understand her back then so he didn't really pay a lot of attention to it. But now that he was older, he knew what she meant. He only wished he had understood it sooner. Time went only clockwise and life did not come with a control-Z. There was no going back once things were done.

But again, it was too late.

Wounds could be healed and broken bodies could be mended, though they would leave scars. But life could not be returned to those who were killed. Even if he tried to pull out the katanas that pierced his parents' flesh, or to replace all the blood that his brother coughed, it would have been useless. Their bodies would still be limp, their eyes closed and their hearts unbeating.

He knew exactly how he was going to spend the rest of his life. He would live each day regretting that things ended up this way – everyone he loved was dead, and he was alone. He would ask himself those what if's, but he would never know the answers. He would go to bed each night mourning that he wasn't there to protect his parents when the massacre happened, and that he would have been too weak to do anything anyway even if he had been there. He would wake up in the morning lamenting that he didn't know the truth that everything his brother did was really for him and for the village, and by the time he discovered it, there was nothing left to do but hate himself for revolving his world around worthless lies and chasing shadows that weren't really there in the first place.

No matter how he tried, he was never going to be able to bring back those times when he was an innocent young boy who just wanted his father to be proud of him too. When he would ask his brother to carry him on his back, and Itachi would all too happily comply. When he bickered indefatigably with that stupid blond boy in his genin team who he called 'Dobe' and who called him 'Teme'.

It was too late. He had gone too far to turn around and go back to the life he knew.

Now all he could do was continue this pathetic existence, because he thinks he's so filthy that he doesn't even deserve the peace brought by death. So he has to continue fighting, killing, destroying, pretending that he didn't feel anything and that he was fine with how things were.

Another lie. Another damn lie, just like the ones his entire life had been all about.

He tried to convince other people that he was complete the way he was. He tried to look like nothing was missing, like he didn't need anything else. He said he was contented with the red and black coat that he wore. Sated with the 'revenge' he had achieved and the immense power that he now held inside him. He must have been a pretty good actor, because many of the people around him seemed to believe him, including the man with the swirling orange mask.

But of course Sasuke knew the truth. The truth was that he didn't even know what to live for anymore, or if he even wanted to truly live.

He remembered the first thing he saw when he got home the night everything started. It was the frame at the entrance of the living room, the one that held their family picture. On the floor. The wooden edging split into two. Shards of scattered glass. The picture strewn pitifully in the middle of all the disarray.

Now he was just like that frame.

Scarred. Split. Shattered.

Broken.

"So what do we do with her now?" the girl with the raspberry-colored hair asked, contemptuously eyeing the unconscious blonde woman that he carried in his arms.

He didn't answer. He just continued walking through the stone halls of the Akatsuki lair, the spectacled girl following behind him, until the reached his room.

"Open the door." He told her.

Karin stared at him in disbelief. "You're bringing her to your room?"

He glared at her. "What makes you think that I have to explain myself to you? I said open the door."

She swallowed and turned the door knob. He went inside and laid the still unconscious blonde on his bed.

"Go." He spat at Karin.

"What are you going to do with her?"

"What I want to."

"Which is?"

"None of your business."

Karin took one last look at him and hesitantly left.

He sat on his chair and watched the woman on his bed. She was the same girl who used to throw herself at him when they were children. She was the loudmouth who always argued with Sakura. She was the kunoichi who tried to kill him the last time they saw each other in the battlefield.

Most importantly, she was the woman whose name was the real last word that came out of his brother's mouth.

He rose and went nearer to the bed, kneeling on the floor to see her closer.

She looked like nothing he remembered her to be. When they were children, he thought she looked bratty, unjustifiably arrogant and very vain. Now there wasn't the smallest trace of any of those in her face. She just looked… tired.

He wondered if she returned his brother's affections, or if she even knew about his brother's feelings at all. That was the real reason why he insisted on bringing her back to the lair with them after that encounter with the group of Leaf ANBU. He instructed Team Hawk to kill all the members of the ANBU squad, but he was the only one who could touch her. Oh, they fought hard – she fought hard. But then again, he was an Uchiha and he always got what he wanted, right?

Sometimes he got even what he didn't what.

When she woke up from the jutsu he used on her, he wanted to know what went between her and his brother.

He already had an inkling that she knew how Itachi felt for her. He just needed to hear it - to console himself. He wanted to at least hear that even for a short while, someone made Itachi happy. That someone made Itachi's life of lies worth living.

And then maybe he could finally forgive himself for everything. He just needed to know that something good came out of all of this mess, which would make everything - every single drop of blood, every piece of torn flesh and every bond of love that hatred broke - worth it. For both him and his brother.

And after he heard what he needed so desperately to hear… maybe he could finally join his family. If he wasn't stained enough yet to still go to the place where all of them went.

So he stayed where he was, quietly watching her, waiting for her to open her eyes.

Waiting for his redemption.

Yamanaka Ino did not like dreams. That was a fact, and that fact had no exceptions, regardless what meaning the word 'dream' took.

Daydreams were fantasies, and fantasies were as good as illusions. They weren't true, and they existed only in the minds of those who dreamt about them.

She should know. She was foolish enough to spend her whole childhood fantasizing about ending up with a boy who would later betray the village in his quest for power.

That day he left, she realized that daydreams did not do anyone any good. She learned from her mistake and never thought about being with him again.

But her best friend didn't – that was why until now, Sakura still dreamt of that day when he would return for her and they would be together. That was why until now, Rock Lee still waited patiently, still suffered silently, still prayed faithfully for Sakura to someday realize that fantasy and reality were two different worlds that can never exist together.

Dreams were wishes, and wishes came true only if you had a magic lamp with a genie that could grant them. And she learned a long time ago that magic wasn't real – the things that were real were kunais, shurikens and jutsus. And blood. And wounds. And death.

Her father dreamed of a world where there was peace. A world where he could raise his daughter to be a happy child who didn't have to learn what war and discord meant. Where she could be a princess who would someday fall in love with a prince who would love her and take care of her. Where he could spend each day watching his grandchildren grow, telling them how their mother was like when she herself was a child.

Ironically, the only way that world could be achieved tomorrow was through fighting today's wars. The day Yamanaka Inoichi's dead body was brought back to Konoha, Nara Shikaku told Ino that her father's last words were that he hoped she could forgive him for leaving her alone, but he had to do it for the peaceful world he dreamed of.

Dreams were mental images during sleep. Just mental images. Ino did not understand why she always woke up crying every time she had dreams.

They were just mental images. Images of her father reading fairy tales to her before kissing her good night, teaching her the shinranshin, telling her how proud he is of her when she became an ANBU. Arriving cold and motionless, eyes closed in eternal slumber. Images of Asuma-sensei treating Team 10 to an eat-all-you-can barbecue, beating the hell out of Shiranui Genma when he learned that Genma kissed her when he got drunk during an after-mission party, and breathing his last goodbye as she desperately struggled to pour chakrah into him, even though it wasn't doing anything. Images of a five year old child clutching her rag doll tightly as she begged for her life, the captain telling Ino that she had to do what she had to do, and finally, the child's blood on Ino's hands as she felt her humanity fade in the darkness of the night.

Or the images in the dream that she was having right now – images of the man who once chased the shadows away, who held her in her sleep so someone could wake her up from her nightmares. Images of his lifeless body, which she never even had the chance to see. In her dream she could still see him waiting for her at the end of the borders during nightfall, a single rose in his hands, ready to give to her with one of his rare smiles once she arrived.

And she hated it, because Uchiha Itachi was dead. He would never be able to hold her hand, kiss her hungry lips or tell her how much he loved her, like he used to. Ever again. The only way they could still be together was in dreams – which were nothing but fantasies, wishes and mental images.

Yamanaka Ino did not like dreams.

Tears flowed from her closed eyes, and she began to sob in her sleep.

"Ino… What's wrong?"

She opened her eyes and sat up, finding a man with onyx eyes kneeling on the floor at the side of the bed, watching her with worry.

"Sasuke!" she cried, burying her head into his chest, hot tears melding with her sweat, dampening his shirt.

She was a kunoichi. An ANBU, even. She was the master of shintenshin, and she could take control of minds and bodies that were not hers. She was Morino Ibiki's best interrogator, and she alone could get answers out of even the most stubborn hostages. She was supposed to be strong, resilient and ruthless, and nobody could argue that she wasn't any of that.

Yet now, just this time, she let herself show weakness. She sobbed and she wept. She clutched his shirt and showed him how scared she was, never mind that he was a traitor she was supposed to kill. And wordlessly, she asked him to slay her demons for her, because no matter how hard she trained, there were just some battles that she would never be strong enough to win alone.

Because despite all the show of strength outside, she knew exactly what she was.

Inside, she was broken.

And Sasuke knew this too, because it took one to know one.

He did not say anything. He only held her tighter, telling her without words that he understood.

And he did.

Both of them were broken. But that way, they could make each other whole again.