A/N: Just a short one-shot for the end of the Zabuza arc. Nothing special.
Disclaimer: I am not Japanese. I am not rich. And I can't draw worth a damn, either…. Now, who thinks I own it?
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Sentimentality is not the ninja way. They all knew it, of course. Bur for that mission, sentimentality was difficult to avoid. It was the mission that had changed them all.
Sasuke kept the three senbon that had pierced his neck; the ones that had so nearly taken his life. He said it was not sentimentality, but a reminder of his first great battle. Naruto said he failed to see the difference, and was duly struck for the comment.
Sakura had kept a fragment of shattered concrete from the bridge, a tiny shard in which the charkas of all the ninjas involved could still be felt.
Kakashi had jokingly suggested she take a senbon, like Sasuke had, but the girl shuddered at the thought; they were all still crusted with blood.
Kakashi himself had taken his summoning scroll, used and worthless, and placed it carefully in his belt pouch. He had not used the Fanged Vengeance technique in some time – he would remember this battle.
Sakura, who had not seen the use of the scroll, asked him why he wanted to keep something with so much blood on it. Sasuke, who had been dead at the time, asked him what type of jutsu the scroll was for. Kakashi, being Kakashi, ignored them both.
Naruto did not ask questions, or suggest different mementos for the others. He simply tightened his hand around what he had taken – a shard of white porcelain with a rust-brown stain.
Kakashi gazed sympathetically at Naruto's back as they walked. The boy was too kind, really. Too caring to be a good ninja. He would rather have befriended the masked boy than destroyed him.
"You did well, Naruto," Kakashi said softly to him, knowing that, within his pocket, Naruto's hand tightened still further on the shard of Haku's mask.
Sentimentality was not the ninja way. But sometimes, a ninja must forge his own path.