Disclaimer: Don't own anything. The song is This Uncivil War by Martina McBride.
Author's Note: Found this old file while I was cleaning out my computer and decided I should finish it.
I don't know whether war is an interlude during peace, or peace an interlude during war. ~Georges Clemenceau
There's a silence on the front lines
You can cut it with a knife
A mid-afternoon in summer was not meant for this terrible, heavy silence. It was meant for laughter, water balloon fights; meant for running through sprinklers and going out for ice cream with close friends.
The laughter here was maniacal, eyes bright with madness and too many horrors. There were no water balloons, but there was the sound that was becoming too familiar. The sound of bombs shattering the air. The only thing even resembling sprinklers here was the rain of blood that would come with each enemy disposed of. And after this, no one would be able to stand to suck on cherry red popsicles or eat strawberry ice cream.
Because, when they melted and ran down your hand, your arm, it looked too much like blood.
You can stay and take your chances
Or you can run to save your life
So many deserters during those dark, terrible years. The new generations would recognize them from wanted posters and bingo books, but their teachers, their mentors would always remember those faces, terrified and heartbreakingly broken in the dying firelight of camp. They would remember how, sometimes, they'd asked for the others to come with them, to leave and seek a new, peaceful life.
To this day, all those that stayed behind cursed their sense of duty that made them say no.
And one side is retreating
And the other's runnin' scared
And the drums of war are beating
Even through its undeclared
"Do you really believe that Boulder country will declare war on us?" The Hokage's advisors would ask. "They know that we hold allies and assets that they do not."
"They won't declare it." Tired eyes looked out over the village. "They don't need to."
And both sides say they're winning
And both sides know they're losing
And neither one knows what they're fighting for
She shouldn't be crying, she shouldn't. It was just a jar, a nearly empty jar of medicine. But even as she looked at the shattered pieces, she could see the look in everyone's eyes; she could see all the faces of the too many dead friends in pieces of broken glass.
Her friend, and the term was used loosely these days because a friend was that person who held your insides where they belonged while you waited for a medic, the person who saved your ass because you froze because you saw yet another once-comrade/possible friend get stabbed in the gut.
Her friend came behind her, just barely ghosting a hand over her shoulder and she wanted to sob. She couldn't, this was a war, but dammit she wanted to. She was tired of seeing all the red, the empty, soulless eyes that stared out at the war torn land they'd left behind; tired of seeing bloody, familiar faces of people that she couldn't save anymore.
Her hand clutched at the necklace around her throat. It was an old one. Old was a loose term too now. If something was old, it was from before the war. Her necklace was a sapphire butterfly on a silver chain with three sets of initials on the back. O.U. M.N. K.H. One of the people those initials belonged to was dead, and the third was just as well, with the empty, mismatched eyes. The other one they hardly saw anymore, and when they did, they saw a man too tired and world-weary for his age.
What had they died for? It was a good question, one that no one wanted, or could, answer. A village that hadn't entirely accepted them in the first place. They were a ragtag bunch of misfits, but, in the end, they'd died for the people that hadn't really wanted them.
And in the quiet little places
You can see the little faces
Huddled right outside the bedroom door
Praying for an end to this uncivil war
Uchiha Shisui sat outside, his head in his hands as he listened to the silver-headed teenager, pale and grim even with the mask on, explain to him that their cousin had given their life for him. Shisui nodded and the Hatake boy bowed too stiffly and left.
Shisui turned as he heard his name being called quietly. There, by the door, was a small child, black hair just a shade too light and black eyes too understanding for a child of nearly four.
"You should be asleep, Itachi-kun."
"Couldn't sleep." Shisui would have considered it an excuse if not for the situation. Itachi steps out to stand right by his cousin. "What happened?"
Shisui swallowed through the lump in his throat. "Obito's dead."
And those too perceptive eyes become sad and Shisui hates that Itachi can understand how much the pain hurts.
Papa needs a new job
So he's swallowing his pride
Oh, but it don't go down easy
And it eats him up inside
"They need me out there, Kushina."
His wife, stomach rounded with pregnancy, still had quite the glare. "You think I don't understand that? But-"
"Kushina, no one can worry about the 'what if's' anymore." Minato wrapped his arms around his wife, pulling her close. He had to smell her sea spray and tree oil scent; it had always calmed him. He spoke into her hair. "It's too late for that. If I go out there, I can save more lives. And I think I know how to end all of this."
Kushina knew she couldn't stop him, wouldn't stop him. This stubborn needing to help people was one of the reasons she'd fallen in love with him. She pulled back, gave him a quiet, gentle kiss. "Just please be careful."
She doesn't ask him to come back. It's a foolish, hopeful thing to say these days.
And mama, she don't notice
Little sister's ragged dress
Lately she don't notice
Much of anything
I guess
Hana had never seen her mother like this, pacing and frustrated. Her stomach still had some of the curve from the pregnancy and the doctors had expressly forbidden her to leave the house. But her husband was out there and she was frustrated. Hana heard the baby's quiet cries and she reached through the bars of the crib to offer him her finger.
Her little brother took the finger in a surprisingly strong grip for someone who was a few weeks old. And his eyes had darkened to a pretty mahogany color that Hana wished she had sometimes, compared to her dull, darker brown.
"Are you hungry?" She asked him. She wasn't very tall, it was still difficult for her to see into the crib, but she could imagine his expression.
A gurgle from him and she gently tugged her finger free. "I'll get you some milk then."
Hana jerked open the fridge and reached for a bottle filled with milk before warming it up the way that she'd seen the doctor and her mom do sometimes. And while the milk heated up, Hana could still see her mom pacing and she took the bottle and set it on the table in Kiba's room before she had to very carefully lift him out and cradling him against her after she'd sat in the armchair.
Their mother walked in later, and she saw her two children, curled into an armchair with an empty baby bottle sitting on the bedside table.
They're just fightin' off the hunger
Tryin' to keep from goin' under
But the wolves just keep on
Gatherin' round the door
"C'mon, Genma…you hafta eat." Asuma held out his friend's measly share of their rations. Then again, would anyone really want to eat now? Asuma doubted that Genma even saw what was in front of him.
"Can't." Genma said hollowly. "Won't stay down anyway."
Hayate takes the rations from Asuma's hand and firmly pushed the can of beans into his best friend's hands. "Try anyway."
Genma manages to swallow a few bites of the beans before he's spewing it all back up in the bushes. The sauce for the beans looked too much like the blood he'd seen stain the ground.
There's no place to run for cover
So they're turning on each other
Cause there really ain't no winners anymore
Just victims of this uncivil war
"Don't try and stop me."
Jiraiya stays where he is, half-hidden in the shadows. "I wasn't going to." He replies honestly. He knows all too well what Tsunade is seeing in the faces of the broken shinobi that she heals. (they're kids, just kids. Kids as old as her brother had been)
"So why're you here?" Tsunade half-turns to look at him, her bag slung over her shoulder.
"Just thought I should remind you that you might not be accepted back after this. They don't look kindly on deserters."
Tsunade shrugs the strap of her bag a little higher on her shoulder. "I can't keep being a part of this, Jiraiya. I'll fall apart."
He bites his lip a bit before saying, "Best of luck to you then. And don't forget to send a postcard." He tries for one of his grins, but it comes out as a feeble smile. "One with a pretty girl on the front, preferably."
Tsunade is too tired to laugh, too tired to slap him. She's just tired. So she just nods and says, "Sure."
She actually does send a postcard, but only once. Right after she'd been standing under an awning in Rice Country avoiding the rain when she saw the front page of the newspaper. WAR FINISHED, it declared. Tsunade hurried across the street to a souvenir shop and borrowed the clerk's pen to scribble hastily on the back. She didn't even have to think about the address. She'd been visiting Jiraiya enough over the years that she knew it as well as her old address.
The postcard never reaches Jiraiya because he leaves Konoha as soon as the dust has settled. He doesn't want to see the broken specters that haunt Konoha's streets, specters that he used to know by name and face and family.
There's a silence on the front lines
You can cut it with a knife
You can stay and take your chances
Or you can run to save your life