DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN ANYTHING NARUTO-BASED EXCEPT FOR MY OWN PLOT.
—
Satsuko was her name and by the age of 13 she had nabbed the title of Genin.
Her life was uneventful. Being posted in the outskirts of the village she rarely interacted with anyone. Which was good for her because she didn't have the want to go talk with anyone let alone kill anyone for that matter.
But she regressed.
Popping a cigarette in her mouth, she lit her tenth fag for the day. Taking a casual drag, she spotted a small boy about half her age walking towards the training grounds.
She skidded down the tower and followed.
For no real reason.
By the fan adorned on his back, she concluded that the boy was of the nearly extinct Uchiha clan. By nearly extinct she meant there were only two alive.
She had followed the boy for quite some time until he stopped at a hill. The boy strolled down and sat down comfortably, apparently planning to look at the river for the rest of day.
"You can come out now."
Satsuko came out from the tree she was hiding behind and walked to the back of the boy.
"What do you want?" he asked.
He got no answer.
Satsuko laid down and embraced the boy from behind. He didn't resist.
They stayed like that for a few hours until the sun fell.
Eventually Satsuko left and so did the boy.
For the next few years, the two spent their late afternoons meeting each other just like that. Or rather Satsuko would follow the boy and sit down with him after an hour of looking from behind the tree.
They didn't talk
They never introduced each other.
They just sat down and kept each other warm until it was late.
When the boy had eventually left the village, Satsuko pondered when she would meet him again. But even then, she never stopped going to their designated spot. She kept up with the routine, perhaps hoping he'd be there again.
He never was.
—
It was a strange sort of friendship they possessed.
It was perhaps what convinced Sasuke to come back to the village after so long.
It wasn't really Naruto's constant nagging, no not at all. It wasn't even because of Itachi's last dying wishes to protect the village.
No, Sasuke came back looking for the girl who kept him company for as long as he could remember after the massacre.
He would never admit but if it weren't for her, he'd probably would've lost himself in his own anger and revenge.
He.. he wanted to see her so to speak. He didn't know what exactly it was but even after all this time, her warmth and embrace always lingered behind his head.
He wanted to know.
"What do you want boy?" Tsunade asked, not at all that happy to see the glooming man.
"I need a file."
"What kind of file?" the Hokage asked.
"Contact information."
The Hokage raised an inquiring brow.
"It's for research purposes."
That made the Hokage even more interested but she waved her hand as if losing said interest.
"Well you can go visit Shizune for that," she said, "She's probably somewhere, go look for her, I'm not doing you any errands Uchiha."
Sasuke turned, not in any sort of emotional state. He knew the lady hated him to death after all the trouble he put Naruto through.
Arriving to meet Shizune, he explained his situation and the older lady was weirdly complacent about it. She didn't quite despise the man and seeing his interest in anything made her curious.
"You have a name on the person you want to know about?"
Sasuke shook his head, "Just a description."
Shizune nodded.
"Genin at around ten, orange hair, and smelled like cigarettes."
Shizune's face turned into something mixed between quizzical and confused.
"Interesting description, alright, I should have some files by tomorrow, stop by then."
The Uchiha thanked her, earning a wide-eyed expression.
The next day Sasuke stopped by and Shizune handed him a file.
"Surprisingly enough, that description was pretty accurate, there's actually only one person who matches it."
Sasuke perked up, but didn't let it show on his face.
"Satsuko was her name, no surname."
Sasuke didn't say anything and let the nurse continue.
"Didn't have a lot of experience on the field.." Shizune paused for a bit before continuing, "She died a couple of years ago, apparently got into a scuffle with some neighboring bandits and.."
Shizune stopped.
"It's on the file, you can read it for yourself."
And with that, Sasuke left for his clan's deserted compound. He read the file on the way there and noted that the girl was buried close by.
He walked to the burial site and let it all sip in.
She was buried at the exact same spot where they used to sit.
Plopping down next to the lone cemetery, he took out a pack of cigarettes he had kept with him for a long time.
They were the same cigarettes the girl used to smoke.
He placed them on top of the mound and sat there for some time.
As the sun slowly came to its fall, he reopened the file he had taken with him and picked up the only picture in it.
It was a picture of her.
He stared into her eyes that seemed to stare right back.
It was then, for the first time in a long time.. The man who had so long struggled for all his life, shed a single tear.
But the tear wasn't for all the lives he took. It wasn't for the strain he put on his brother. It wasn't for all the times he turned his back on Naruto. It wasn't for all his clansmen.
No.
It was for a single girl whose life ended too soon.
It was for the girl who kept him warm when he was cold.
It was for the girl whose life was so fleeting he was probably the only one who remembered her.
The one tear slid down from his face and dropped onto the picture.
It looked then that Satsuko had cried a tear of her own.
Sasuke looked up into the sinking sun that reddened the skies and began to wonder.
Satsuko… Would you mind if I sat here a little longer?
—
AN: Life is a but a fleeting moment. That's what they always told me in high school. They weren't too far off.
PS: If anyone wants a story around this OC, give me some reviews so I know you do.