THOSE PEOPLE THEN
'It is said that love can conquer all,
but people don't seem to know how to use this weapon.'
Zabranjeno pušenje: „Boško i Admira"
Your heart had to be a stone if you wanted things done quickly and efficiently at such times.
It had to be quick because ceasefire had always been a brittle thing. Onoki sensed it the moment he stepped into that field. He felt it in the way his jaw clenched.
'If we don't get it done in ten minutes, I'll kill somebody.'
The two Chuunin brought the stretcher and took a first glance at the battleground. The men froze. Not because of the bodies, unfortunately – they were too used to that. It was because of the other group of people emerging from the opposite side of the forest. Pale people, clad in grey and blue. 'Kiri bastards.'
"Let's get it over with", Onoki told his subordinates and walked into the gore.
There weren't many survivors, and even with the ones who managed to make it through one had to wonder if they wouldn't be better off dead. Damn, that kid's leg was a sure goner. As the Chuunin loaded the whimpering man-child onto the stretcher, Onoki moved away. His heart might have been turning a little stonier after every time, but his stomach was as sensitive as ever, and the cries made him sick.
He looked into the dead men's faces, searching for a trace of life. All victims would be taken home, but the advantage went to the living. His not-quite-stony heart hurt with every new one. 'There goes Isao, Tsuchiya, Goro...'
A mud-splattered hand rose and twitched a meter away, and Onoki passed it with contempt, his eyes grazing over the grey-blue uniform sleeve. His would pick him up soon enough, with or without Onoki's help. Onoki didn't feel merciful. Not when he had space to guess which one of the Iwa the Kiri wounded had offed.
A corner of his eye was devoted to the enemy ninja gleaning the other side of the field. They kept their distance and that was good. The tension was high. The truce stated neither side could bring weapons, but shinobi didn't need weapons to act, did they?
'Kiri bastards just might use this opportunity. Wouldn't surprise me.'
His eyebrows arched. 'What did I say?'
A Kiri soldier stood away from his group, staring at two corpses at his feet. One of them wore red.
Onoki walked over, ready to get involved in all sorts of things.
"How about keeping to your own?" his voice was sharp, and the Kiri ninja looked up. To Onoki's surprise, the man seemed bewildered.
Onoki looked down at the dead and saw that one of them was a Kiri kunoichi. He stopped, too.
It wasn't that she was pretty. It wasn't that the hole in her stomach was spilling all kinds of unsightly things, and that her eyes had taken on a spooky haze. It was where she was looking and what she was holding.
The dead Iwa shinobi and the dead Kiri kunoichi lay side by side, fingers intertwined, with frozen smiles and gazing eyes. A lock of her hair was wrapped around the man's free finger. Quietly at ease, and completely detached from the rest of the gory field.
Onoki and the Kiri ninja stood before the sight for another minute, before the stranger coughed to himself and squatted to disentangle their hands. The two wouldn't let go and Onoki bent to help. Their grip was stone cold and firm. When their fingers finally came apart, the Kiri ninja gently lay both hands in the grass and picked up the girl.
The two living shinobi didn't nod to each other but it was somewhere in the air. Onoki knelt beside the dead comrade and didn't close his eyes. Both watched after the retreating back of the Kiri ninja, and the kunoichi's bobbing head. Her long hair was rich auburn.
That was the scene that played out in the Sandaime Tsuchikage's mind as he stared into the eyes of the redheaded kid who had just stunned him to silence. "Why have you forsaken yourself?" the Kazekage had asked, and Onoki couldn't say anything because the two from back then popped to mind.
The Kazekage-boy peacefully gazed back, and his blasted granddaughter chortled into his ear, yet Onoki was robbed of words.
Because Kazekage was a naïve youngster, Mizukage lost her head in the clouds, Hokage was a screwed-up war-hawk and Raikage should have known better. An all-nation shinobi alliance was a joke, and yet he couldn't say it out loud because half a century ago an Iwa and a Kiri had made it real.
And he knew it was possible.
In honour of Boško and Admira, Sarajevo's Romeo and Juliet, who died in each other's arms trying to escape war, and in honour of all those who are surviving or standing on a brink of one at the moment, with hope that some time in the near future the humanity will pleasantly surprise itself and avoid the madness.