A/N: Yeah, yeah, I have a thing for fun words. Thesaurus . com is my best friend. Residuum (ri-zij-oo-uhm) means 'the residue, remainder, or rest of something'.

And sorry to you guys looking forward to more Sentinel. I know I'm only 2 chapters in, but I've discovered I can't write a single story for any amount of time without something to fall back on. I have a short attention span. So here we go. Based off the recent Naruto chapters, sort of, a set of 100 themes post-war drabbles.

1. Introduction

They all stand there, every single last one of them that isn't too injured to limp their way out there, and it's still a meager assembly, only a couple hundred human fighting machines, more lost than they've ever been. There are other meetings like this, of course, but they pay homage separately, it's easier this way. Every village has a way, and every village has a sense of privacy. But this is how Konoha mourns, and they do so quietly, under the bright yellow-orange sun mocking them from above the burned skeletons of trees.

Of all the people to make the opening speech it's that Hyuuga boy, the genius one, but somehow it feels fitting. War has changed them all, and it shows more than most in his face, heavy with sleep and delicately tear-streaked and melancholy in a way most shinobi would, under normal circumstances, find near criminal.

The famed jinchuuriki couldn't make it to the memorial, but they feel him there, in the air around him. A few stayed back with him in the hospital, like that one academy teacher, vigil by his comatose almost-corpse, but for the most part everyone is present. Everyone that can be.

"You all know why we're here today," Hyuuga Neji begins, in a voice that flutters like butterfly wings, and not in a good way. His two teammates stand beside him, up at the front, by the blank slate of stone three feet tall and two feet across. It would have been impractical to write everyone's name down, hundreds upon hundreds died, so instead they simply carved into the stone 'To all the warriors who gave their lives for their village' and left it at that. Somehow, it seems even sadder this way.

"I've tried to think of something inspirational to say," Neji continued. "Something to help you all through this, to make it all feel worth it. But I- I'm a shinobi. It's as simple as that." His words ring true, and they all understand. They are shinobi, not poets. They are shinobi, not optimists, or romantics, or idealists. They are shinobi. "Nothing can make this easier. To try and make it easier would only dishonor their memory. But they gave their lives for their cause willingly, as we were all prepared to do. We should try to remember this, and carry on the spirit of Konoha in their honor."

No one doubts that the words were clunky, that the prose was rough, but no one doubts that they were true.

The brunette beside him breaks into tears softly, she walks away quickly and blends into the crowd of black and neither of her teammates try and stop her, she doesn't like showing emotion, none of them do.

The two boys down in front hold hands really tight, like they're five again, back when they still called bugs 'creepy' and dogs 'dirty' and played on the swingset until the sun went away and their parents had to drag them back home. But that feels like eons ago, now.

But that feels just like yesterday.

The pink-haired medic stares at the slate with this blank sort of frown on her face, she twiddles the flowers in her fingers slowly. Her best friend had given her the flowers just an hour ago but already the stems are frayed, the petals are half missing. She can't stop playing with them, in her fingers as she waits. He loves me, he loves me not. He loves me not. He loved me never.

And in the back row the black-haired man stares carefully into the distance, trying not to think so hard. His keeper sits beside him, staring into his hands, but he's no distraction, there's this troubled look on his face even worse than that day back then, when their sensei had passed.

For once the clouds above the trees just look like clouds, and it's as simple as that.

Back in the hospital the blonde continues to sleep. Beside him his mentor and father is dozing off, so worn out he doesn't notice the jinchuuriki moaning in his sleep.

So exhausted he doesn't even notice as his blue eyes snap open, and he starts to cry.