"This is what I like about photographs. They're proof that once, even if just for a heartbeat, everything was perfect." (Jodi Picoult)
Her's is a life defined by war stories and funerals. Even for a shinobi, her life is rather tragic. War is cruel and her luck is bad. Men decay and memories haunt. Dreams break and regrets linger. That's just the way it went for her.
There is a photograph tucked into the back of her top desk drawer. It is old and worn but in relatively good condition with only one crease, exactly down the middle, on which it is neatly folded. There was a time that it was kept framed by her bedside, proudly displayed and looked upon often with a fond smile. That was before it became too painful to see, before once fond memories started taunting her with what she lost. Before Team Sarutobi shattered and scattered like leaves in the wind. Before the hopeful children in the picture broke and forgot what it was to be home.
In that picture exists a different world. Her team was together and happy, eager to start and believing they could save the world. Sensei looked so confident; his back was straight and strong, without the weight it would later carry. Orochimaru stood timid and relaxed; his eyes were still curious and a little confused, instead of calculating and cold. Jiraiya was loud and annoying; his stupid, kind heart had not yet found his talent or motivation or fear. In that world her grandfather lead the village with kind eyes and a strong fist, but always found time to play a round of poker with her. Her grandmother was just starting to seriously teach her medical ninjutsu and Uncle Tobirama would allow her to ride on his shoulders when they were alone wandering the forests. Her parents stayed safe at home with a toddling Nawaki, who never failed to squeal with joy whenever she arrived home.
In that moment, that fleeting second in which the camera flashed and Team Sarutobi became official, everything was perfect. She hadn't lost anyone and war was still abstract and distant. Jiraiya wasn't being perverted and Orochimaru hadn't tortured anyone and Sarutobi-sensei didn't bear such heavy regrets and her whole family was alive. The world was still worth saving. No one had died on her table. Her arms didn't know the sticky, warm feel of blood. Her lover hadn't died under her hands and she didn't flinch at the sound of her brother's name and she had never really suffered.
But that perfect world died long ago. Jiraiya is a dead, perverted hermit-hero and Orochimaru is a sick, twisted traitor-scientist. Slouched with regret, Sarutobi-sensei died at the hands of his prize student, and everyone she loved died for a village she abandoned in favor of gambling debts and alcohol-induced oblivion. The best medic-nin in the world watched her lover bleed out in front of her. She has stared upon the mangled corpse of her little brother and lived to be the last of the Senju. She has spent the majority of her life bouncing between casinos and the bottom of a bottle, running from blood and time. And the nightmares that haunt her—if she hasn't drunk herself into a saké-induced coma—are so vivid and familiar because she lived them all.
There were once dreams of team dinner reunions every Saturday, of marriage and a thousand children who loved to play with their uncle, of a world-renowned hospital and a thriving village, of the look on her little brother's face when he achieved his dream, of two best friends and a gray father figure and a loving husband at birthday parties where she celebrated and looked her actual age. She had once dreamed of family that never died and friends that never left and that wasn't too much to ask for, was it?
Her past is nothing but broken dreams and lived nightmares. She is too jaded to hope for a better future. But, here, now, there are two apprentices who worry and surpass her. There is a village that loves and needs her. There is an honorable grandson that needs guidance and a hospital that needs renovating and a couple of lazy, tardy geniuses who need a kick in the ass. But most of all, there is a blond gaki with big dreams and plenty of nightmares of his own. He made her a promise and he never goes back on his word, so she'll find the strength to keep him safe, to trust him and believe, to work toward a world in which little boys with big dreams live long enough to achieve them.
Her past is rusted and decayed, and she doesn't really have it in her to dream of a future of stars and peace. But she believes in the stupid, kind boy. And today, now, she'll help him work a little bit closer to his dreams. Perhaps today they will both finally be able to outrun their nightmares. Probably not.
But her village—her home—is safe. Shizune is standing by her side, and Kakashi is hiding a smile behind his mask and book. Sakura is punching her stupid teammate-brother, and Naruto is smiling as he strikes a pose adopted from his mentor-godfather. She wishes she had a camera. Today, now, in this moment, this fleeting, beautiful second, everything is perfect.
"And the rest is rust and stardust." (Vladimir Nabokov)