He always knew. He always helped me.
She wasn't there to see the end.
With the war raging on, there was no way for her to leave the medical tents in order to fight on the front. Though her powers had increased immensely since childhood, she knew where she was needed.
As the sun broke over the edge of the earth to bid good morning, a fleeting pain ran across the front of her chest. For just that moment, the world was a canvas of black awaiting light to dull its intensity. The groans of injured ninja were drowned out by silence. Her body was that of a doll carved from wood by the hands of a child.
And then the world was whole again, vision, sound, and feeling. Too much of everything. But the pain was nowhere.
Only years later as she lay curled beneath the arm of the highest bidder did she place the source of her pain.
