It was cold. She could feel the wind nipping at her even through her chuunin vest. The hands tracing the names on the memorial stone had lost all feeling a long time ago. She lifted her face a bit, letting the wind play with her pink hair, trying to ignore it as it whispered to her, murmuring the names of those she had lost those, who had fallen and would never risen again. Her hand paused as it reached a terribly familiar name.
Hyuga Neji. Killed on a B-ranked mission gone horribly wrong. Hinata brought his body back, her face cold and emotionless. She herself died two years later killed in a skirmish against some missing nins.
She let her fingers trail further down past more names friends, teammates, relatives. Shirunui Genma. She never really knew him until she joined ANBU, where she got into the habit of yelling at him for always leaving the showers on. Not that he ever listened.
Inuzuka Kiba. Disappeared. Killed on a classified ANBU mission. They couldn't even find his body in the bloody carnage of the battle. All they could retrieve was his bloodied forehead protectorand a chunk of Akamaru's white fur.
Aburame Shino. Yamanka Ino. Sarutobi Asuma. Morino Ibiki. The names went on and on.
Sakura smiled a sad broken smile and blinked fiercely, willing the tears to stay back. She was tired. Oh so tired. She wanted nothing more than to lie down and allow her tears to soak the ground, to fade away like so many before her. She was no different from them really, she was just as sad and broken and exhausted as they were. She could fall here in front of this pitiful reminder of what they had done and who they had been and lie down and curl up in a ball and sleep forever. But no. That wouldn't be possible. After all, she thought as she fingered the crisp new mission scroll in her hip pouch, tsunade sama would raise hell for everyone when she found out. And so for the sake of konoha and most everyone's sanity, she sat back as the wind whistled around her, freezing the treacherous tears that leaked out anyway.
And when dawn came and the first rays of sunlight leaked over the dark horizon, she got up stretched and smirked. Because there was one difference wasn't there? Unlike all of them, she was still standing wasn't she? And her green, green eyes were very much alive.