Ino walked quietly towards her destination, a hand-selected and meticulously picked out bouquet of flowers in hand. It was Father's day, and as such, she felt like she should celebrate, I mean, she celebrated it every year before, so what was different this time? Oh, there was a difference this year, a horrible and insufferable difference, she would be celebrating it in front of a gravestone with a familiar name engraved onto it. She had already stopped at two other graves that day, one of a fallen sensei who was a second father to her and the other part of the lost two-thirds of the previous Ino-Shika-Cho formation. Both of which she had placed a bouquet she made in front of their stones.
Of course, the one she held in her hand had been the one she had worked on and thought about most. She made sure she perfected every angle of it, had the perfect amount of flowers that stood out as well as accenting flowers, the Bush Clover being the most thought about and strategically placed through out. She wanted the last words her father had said to her to be shown clearly through this bouquet, because that meant so much to her.
Everything he had once said to her meaning so much more now.
She listened to her father's words while he was alive, paid attention to them, and most of them had meant a lot to her then, give or take a few conversations pertaining to her crushes, but now, all of those conversations were what she clung to, because she couldn't hear her father's voice echoing around the house anymore. All she could hear was her mother's soft-spoken voice asking her to do certain things, here and there, chatting idly with her to keep up a somewhat pleasant atmosphere, which was barely that and mostly made off of a fake pretense that everything was okay. The blatant truth was that it wasn't okay. For on most occasions, during the late night, the sound of crying could be heard from her parents room, one of which made the blonde girl break down in tears herself, her heart shattering at the sound of every sob emitted from her mother.
Which led her to this point, her standing in front of a gravestone, "Yamanaka Inoichi - A hero, but most importantly, a father, husband, and cherished friend." written on the stone. She knelt down in front of it, placed the bouquet on it. She traced her fingers along the words, staring at it, willing it to be a dream, or rather a nightmare. She did this every time she came to this stone, wanting nothing more than to pretend it was fake, some sick joke someone horrid played, but she knew it was nothing of the sort. For it could be touched, it could be seen, it was vivid, it was tangible, and it was… real.
The blonde proceeded to sit in front of the gravestone for hours, speaking to it as if she was speaking to her father face to face. She said, "Happy Father's day" to him, while giving him the best smile she could muster at that moment. She then went on to go through every detail that she had not already explained to the gravestone during a previous visit. From the mundane, to the eventful, she explained everything to him. She sat there explaining it all until there was nothing else to say, til tears clouded her vision, and she began to weep quite audibly.
It was if on cue, two boys, with earrings identical to her own, each reached out one hand and placed it on either of her shoulders, before kneeling down and hugging the sobbing girl tightly. Both let her sob and cry into their shoulders, one boy crying for her, the other, who's father had also departed, keeping his calm for as long as he could before he too, lost his composure and let tears fall, but only a few, he didn't allow himself anymore.
For these were children of war, they had lived it, felt it, breathed it, fought it, and hated it just as much as the other generations who had experienced the tragedies of war. Who lost loved ones, and wanted to weep the moment they lost them, but had to keep fighting on because they had a war to win, and only now, could they grieve wholeheartedly over this, only now could they… feel. Of course, they were ninja, this was what they had to bear, and this is what they would live with for the rest of their lives. This was their lives.