Prologue:

Green eyes surveyed a scene of carnage – the aftermath of a brief, bloody battle. They would be full of tears had they any left to cry.

A platinum blonde boy knelt by the first dead body. He was only fourteen – the body he held was all too familiar. His eyes held the shock of some recently imparted knowledge. He wouldn't share the dead man's last words for some time.

The dead man was Sasuke. Sakura was saved from simply disappearing by the sense of purpose being a medic gave her. She knelt opposite the young boy, searching dutifully for a pulse she knew was long gone. The boy had already closed Sasuke's eyes in respect, and she was grateful. If they had been open – staring, lifeless – she might have just gone over the edge.

She stood away to let others take care of the body, moving on to where another familiar face lay, equally dead, flanked by the boy's two teammates who had looks of disbelief on their faces. The girl had empty eyes, while the boy's were full of tears. She had to help him away as Sakura checked for another non-existent pulse, and let others take this body too.

Death count: two. Uchiha Sasuke. And Rock Lee.

And another body. Torn, bloodied and mutilated almost beyond recognition. She was able to identify him firstly by his ring and cloak – her suspicions were confirmed by the left side of his face, which was still intact. The unmistakable lines. No one had closed this eye.

Uchiha Itachi. She gently drew his eyelid down over his remaining eye, the other being lost in the ruin of his face.

Naruto stood, watching all this in mute shock, tears in his eyes and his palms bleeding from where his nails had cut them. The sun began to set as training ground three emptied, leaving just him and Sakura and the smell of death.

Three dead at training ground three.

And life would never be the same again.


Elsewhere, another pair of green eyes filled with tears. She had just heard the news from Hinata.

Keri, Shino's wife, was crying. Her husband was away on a mission, and wouldn't find out till he returned in a week. But hearing others talking about the incident ("did you see it?" "who are they!" "so much blood...") brought back memories she never knew she had, and she was struggling to cope. Her brother, Jin, had been on Lee's team. He had held the Uchiha as he died. And somehow the situation felt too close for comfort.

So she ran. She wound up in her lifelong refuge – well, for as long as she had lived in Konoha. She couldn't remember her life before she was ten and never wanted to, but it seemed that fate had other things in mind.

She took up a book, one she'd read many a time, and tried to lose herself again in that fantasy world. But try as she might the pages blurred and the words fell meaningless to her mind.

So, frustrated, she threw the book aside, and looked up to see a familiar face.

"You've heard, right, man-tart?" she asked in a pathetic voice. Sai just nodded, and sat by her as she cried.


In another training ground, Tenten was crying. Neji had told her. And for the first time in her life she had given herself over to tears. Gai was away, and she knew he'd be devastated when he returned to find his student dead. But right now she could only hear the sound of her own grief, drowning out things she normally took comfort in – the song of the birds, the rustling of the leaves, or the sound of Neji's voice. And tears obscured the violent shades of the setting sun. She couldn't even think, only mourn, and it killed her inside to feel like this. But she knew she would never be the same person she once was.


Yeah, the story needed a prologue, so this is it. Before anybody goes "wttf shino has a wife" they are eighteen/nineteen-ish here, and this is my story. Thanks for listening