Title: Vivid Dream.

By: Kaara.

Disclaimer: Don't own them. Kishimoto does, but he sucks at it.

Note: A sequel to Monochromatic. I think it can stand alone, but it's better to know the background story too, I suppose. Fluff Alert!

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Vivid Dream

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The room was a large cube of white, with long rectangles cut into its four wall as windows. Sunlight streamed generously through the clear glass; highlighting the barren simplicity of the room and its lack of furniture, save for a bed pushed against one side of the wall and a low table placed at the middle of the room. A single stalk of chrysanthemum inside a small, delicate vase, swayed gently to the almost nonexistent hum of autumn breeze. A young woman was sitting on the bed, her pale golden hair and dull blue eyes were the only illusion of colours present inside the unsettlingly sterile room. Her skin was as colourless as her kimono, and she sat unmoving on the bed. Waiting for someone.

The door, painted white to match the rest of the room, creaked open softly.

Pale lips curved into a smile when a boy – young man – bounded into the room, light, jaunty footsteps bouncing off the wall and cheery summer rhythm replacing placid autumn melody. He stopped by the table to deliver a fresh bouquet of radiant roses onto the polished mahogany, sparing a glance at the wilting chrysanthemum before turning to face the sole occupant of the room. The grin of the whiskered face grew; all teeth and gleaming fangs.

"You're here again."

Naruto grinned at the hint of amusement in her voice, and sat besides her, hearing the mattress underneath them creaking in protest at the added weight. He leaned forward, pressing his lips softly against her still-pallid cheek and murmured against her cold skin, "I took the day off."

She nodded, somewhat in a mix of disapproval and relief. Her fingers (steadily becoming a bit on the bony side if you ask him) tugged at his rumpled shirt, smoothing the offending creases. "This is the… fifth times this week. How long are you planning to continue this little holiday of yours?"

"Until you're feeling better," was his prompt answer. His blue eyes roved over the braided pale golden hair, the white kimono draped around her slender form, the visible bandages peeking underneath the fabric, the healing bruises; dark against pale skin… "And we can go home. Together."

The roaming fingers stilled momentarily over the collar of his worn jacket. "Home…"

"Yeah," Naruto shifted a bit, moving closer to the young woman besides him and circled an arm around her waist. The faint scent of lilac and something herbal filled his nostrils. He always loved that about her; the way she affected all his six senses with just her scent and her fleeting touches. "The apartment looks… empty… without you. And kinda creepy too."

She laughed at that, smacking his arm playfully. "Don't call our home 'creepy', idiot. You're the one who insisted that we should buy an apartment in that side of the village."

"How was I suppose to know that it's an abandoned complex?" he mock-sulked, pouting at her laughing face with exaggerated drama. "It was cheap! And it was your fault for signing the paper without checking the place first."

"You should've came with a warning label for being 'damn unreliable'," she grumbled and tucked a stray strand of bleached golden hair to the back of an ear. Her grey-blue eyes twinkled as she stared at him. "Please tell me that you didn't leave the place to rot on its own. And that you've cleaned the fridge."

Naruto blinked, before grinning sheepishly.

The young woman besides him raised one fine blonde eyebrow.

The sheepish smile, if it was possible, turned even more sheepish.

Another eyebrow joined the first one. "Naruto, it's been one week and the vegetables…"

"I'll remember to do it when I get back!" he hastily conceded, perhaps sensing that physical violence was just a few inches away. Kami knows if he would soon develop disproportionate skull from all her pounding. "Besides, it's just vegetables; how smelly can they get?"

She smacked him again, sans playfully this time.

"OW!" yelped Naruto, jumping off the bed and away from further abuse. "That hurts!"

"I think your brain needs constant stimulation for it to continue working properly," sighed his companion in visible exasperation.

She abandoned her comfortable perch on the bed and rose to her feet, hands shooting out to press over the headboard for support. Naruto quickly came to her aid; his own arms twining around her shoulder and waist. Steadying her shaking limbs. She tried to slap his hands away, as predicted, but he continued holding her anyway. Afraid that what little strength that she had managed to recover will disappear for an action as simple as standing up. She scowled at him, and attempted to wriggle out of his protective arms.

Ino could be so damn stubborn sometimes.

"Stop squirming!" he said, soft as not to startle her but firm enough to be taken as an order. Unsurprisingly, she took no heed of his words. The squirming increased a notch or two. Annoyed, Naruto wrapped his hands tighter around her and rested his chin on her shoulder. He grinned when he felt her shudder slightly at the contact. "You're one difficult patient, you know that?"

"I try," she retorted curtly, though she had stopped moving and simply enjoyed the moment of intimacy. His grip loosened when her muscles relaxed and he sat her back onto the bed, much to Ino's apparent irritation. She folded her white-knuckled hands on her lap and stared at him defiantly. "I'm not made of glass."

"No… no, you're not," murmured Naruto, running a hand through the strands of hair that had escaped the braid in their earlier struggle. "If you are, I can simply piece you back together if you break. Over and over again if I must. But I can't. Because you're not made of glass. You bleed, you cry and you get hurt. I can't fix that no matter how much I try."

Her eyes softened at the pained bitterness lining his voice, and she reached out a hand, tracing the lines of sorrow etched deep onto his face. "I never blamed you."

"I know," he knelt down before her. "I wish you did."

"It was not your fault," she persisted soothingly, her thumb rubbing the line of his strong jaw. The sharp creases between his eyebrows smoothed from the comforting touches. Ino leaned forward, pressing a soft kiss on top of the spiky mop of hair. "You tried, and that's enough to me."

Naruto smiled bitterly and brought up a hand to rest on her chest, over the heavily-bandaged portion of the upper half of her body. "Does it still hurt?"

She shook her head. "Not really. They gave me enough sedatives to knock out a horse." Their eyes met and they shared a few precious seconds of chuckles. Her own hand eventually rested on his chest and her eyes bore into his. "You should treat the pain here too."

"Later," he said, smirking. He grasped her hand and kissed it. "When we go home."

Ino nodded and smiled. Naruto was half-convinced that she was positively glowing. His heart swelled at the sight. "When we go home."

"Is that a promise?"

Ino's smile widened. "Promise."

xxx

Sakura stole a glance at her patient from behind the observation mirror, before concentrating on the clipboard in her hands. She flipped over a few pages, frowned and chewed on her bottom lip. Her pink hair was slightly mussed, tied back into a short ponytail with random hairclips holding back some disturbing bangs from obscuring her view. The end of her white lab coat fluttered as she paced the room, completely lost in her thought. This routine was only disturbed when the door was thrown open carelessly and a busty female stalked in, sake jug in one hand and a clipboard in another.

Tsunade offered her apprentice a wave of the jug and settled on a chair right in front of the one-way mirror. "So how is he today?"

"No change from yesterday," the pink-haired young woman informed grimly, tapping her pencil onto the clipboard in annoyance. Sakura cast a baleful look at the patient occupying the room adjoined to the one the two medics were currently in. "He's still talking to himself, and refuses to let anyone near him. Or even enter the room. One of the nurses is being treated for mental breakdown; he'd placed some kind of a genjutsu on the door. I've called for someone to dispel the jutsu."

Tsunade snorted and took a long swig from the jug. "That's the first creative thing he'd come up with in the span of ten years. I'm surprised that he didn't fry anyone yet."

"Godaime-sama, this is no laughing matter!" the distress was crystal clear on Sakura's face as she confronted her tutor, fingers balled into shaking fists. Her jade green eyes were livid with fury. And anxiety. "It's been seven days since he last ate anything, and his systems are collapsing! It's time we take drastic measure to make sure that he's treated properly!"

"We can't force the patients to do something against their will," said Tsunade, regarding the younger woman patiently. "Especially Naruto. It'll end in disaster."

"But—"

The current Hokage shot Sakura a warning glare, which silenced her instantly. Tsunade switched her attention back to the figure separated by a piece of glass from them, taking in the changes of expressions on the whiskered face as he muttered to himself, occasionally making animated gestures with his hands and laughing at no one or nothing in particular. The woman sighed, tipping back her head as she emptied the sake jug in one swallow. Tsunade hated complications. Especially when it involved someone extremely dear to her.

Since that day that Yamanaka girl died in his arms… Naruto was never the same.

He had loved her so much, that was certain. Perhaps a bit too much, in Tsunade's opinion.

Love could be such a destructive force.

"I understand your apprehension, Sakura," Tsunade began once again, never once taking her eyes off Naruto. He was smiling to the wall and making some sort of a motion with his left hand. Her heart clenched at the sight. "I'm tempted to go inside there and punch some sense into that idiot's head right now myself."

"Then why aren't you?" the question blurted out of Sakura's mouth before she could even register what she had said. A shade of brick red swept across her face as she bowed apologetically at the Hokage.

Tsunade shrugged. "He needs to face his inner demon. And I'm not talking about Kyuu—" she caught herself just in time and glanced over her shoulder towards her confused student. Good, secret was still safe. She turned back to the mirror. "Never mind. What I'm saying is that Naruto has to learn to accept what had happened on his own. He has to accept the fact that he's just a human; not some kind of a deity that can control life and death. He needs to realise that on his own."

"Can't we do something to help him?" pleaded Sakura, plopping down onto a chair next to Tsunade's. Tears were starting to cloud her eyes. "Anything at all?"

"This is his battle," Tsunade resolutely said and patted Sakura's shoulder comfortingly. There was not much that she could do at that time. The old (though calling her that to her face would earn you a one-way journey to a faraway galaxy) woman rose to her feet. "I've got to go first. Official village businesses. Inform me immediately if there are any changes."

Sakura nodded, rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand. "Godaime-sama, if Naruto…"

"Trust him," the Hokage simply advised, with a wide smile and a nod of her head. She stared at the oblivious patient again, and the smile turned a tad sadder than it originally was. "I know how it feels to lose someone important. It took me years to overcome it. But Naruto's strong, stronger than me. He'll pull through sooner or later. Just don't tell him I said that." Tsunade chuckled and strode towards the door. She paused at the doorway and turned to regard Sakura with a curious expression on her face. "Did you go to the funeral?"

The pink-haired young woman unexpectedly blanched at the question. "How can I not go? It was partially my fault that Ino…"

"Cut it with the self-pity, will you?" interjected Tsunade, a mild look of irritation replacing the curiosity. She hooked both hands on her hip and glared at her startled apprentice. "Yamanaka wouldn't appreciate you moping around like this, and she would've probably slapped you to your senses if she's here. You don't see Shikamaru beating his head against the wall now, do you?"

Truth to be told, Shikamaru did, though Sakura thought that it was wiser not to mention that to the Hokage.

"If only I had arrived earlier, she would be here now!" Sakura slammed her clenched fist down onto the table in frustration, rattling the unfortunate furniture. "If I hadn't stopped to check up on the other squads, if I didn't take that break, if I had known that she needed me…"

"Too much 'if's will result in too much 'maybe's, Sakura," said Tsunade, shaking her head in reproach. She finally walked out of the room, though not without a last advice. "Go buy some flowers and say hi to the Yamanakas. They've lost a daughter; it won't do to lose another." She paused and smiled kindly. "They won't blame you, Sakura."

The clicks of high heels against the highly-polished floor signalled Tsunade's departure and Sakura sank into a boneless heap on the chair, holding the clipboard protectively over her heart. She gritted her teeth, the old pain of helplessness tugging at her conscience once again when she looked into the observation mirror. Naruto was smiling; not to her, not anymore. He was smiling to a phantom, a spirit that no one could see but him. He was distancing himself from everything and everyone that he once knew, and at that point, Sakura realized that Naruto loved Ino so much. So very much.

Her fingers curled tightly around the edge of the clipboard. Perhaps a bit too much.

Sakura straightened up after a while and fixed her hair.

She had a flower shop to visit after this.

END

Sucky ending as always. Seems like I gotta work on my ending tact, or whatever it is. Reviews are very much appreciated.

Kaara