The man stood before the dark stone, the morning mist soothing his fevered brow. He imagined soft lips doing the same, a warm, calloused hand stroking his cheek. Trembling fingers traced the new lines so recently engraved on the stone the edges were still sharp, lines as deep as the ones now marring his covered face. The stone was as cold and still as the unnaturally pale flesh he still saw before his closed eyes, etched into his mind even more firmly than anything he had ever copied with the solitary sharingan eye. This, more than any other death, he held close to himself, this one his own grievous fault even more than the others.