Disclaimer: I do hearby disclaim any rights and responsibilities to the Naruto Universe. All of that belongs to Masahi Kishimoto.
Note: There are no villains in this story. Only humans.
IMPORTANT: The song in "Through the Window" is the translation of Madokara Mieru by Corner Stone Cues. Please listen to it (preferably while reading) so that you get the full effect of the story~ I promise you won't be disappointed with it.
Foreshadow
Uzumaki Sakura has night terrors – some bad, some horrible.
She dreams of the Fourth Great War. She dreams of the air being so thick with the copper scent of blood that it's suffocating. She dreams of how the red sky was, of the horde of scavenger birds circling over, of endless mounds of bodies. Bodies of people she couldn't save.
Could never save.
Useless.
Useless.
UselessUselessUseless.
A War-torn wasteland stretches out before her, reminding her of just how insignificant she is. Everything is red here. Everything is dead here. Please, she begs, but unsure for what. Salvation? Strength? She doesn't know, yet the need for something, for anything, pulses beneath her skin.
Bubbles of rage, hopelessness, and insanity all press against her rib cage until it's hard to breath. And soon enough she is suffocating.
Get up.
Help them.
But she can't. She never could.
Abruptly, the battlefield disappear beneath a flood of bright light.
.
.
"Wakey, wakey, forehead! Rise and shine ~"
Vaguely, Sakura registers that someone is pulling all the curtains open.
"No!" She groans, burying her head beneath her pillow. Soon enough, that too is pulled away, and Sakura groggily opens her eyes and comes face to face with her best friend (who simultaneously manages to be the biggest pain in her ass).
"Wow, you look like shit," Ino says with a low whistle. She is leaning over the bed, smiling at Sakura as though she hasn't done a damn thing wrong. It takes everything in her power not to punch Ino in her perfect little face. "Time to face the day, Lady Hokage."
Lady Hokage.
Sakura hates the title. It's a bit too pompous for her liking.
"Speaking of Hokages," Ino continues, giving Sakura a bit of space to rise from the bed like a vengeful spirit, "where's that dumbass husband of yours?"
"Don't call him that," grumbles Sakura, but nonetheless glances to his side of the bed. It is empty, and the sheets are still perfectly made. She frowns. Lately, she's been going to bed before he returns from the office, but this is the first time he hasn't been here to greet her in the morning.
Weird.
Sakura doesn't have time to contemplate it further when Ino smacks her upside the head with a pillow.
"I said get up, dammit!"
"Ugh, Ino! I'm going to kill you, you dumb pig!"
She's halfway down the stairs, chasing a cackling Ino, by the time she forgets to worry about her husband never coming home last night.
Body Issues
"Well, aren't you hungry," chides Hinata softly as her daughter suckles enthusiastically at her breast.
A content silence settles over her bedroom, occasionally punctuated by the sounds of Himawari nursing. Sunlight filters through the curtains, and warm, fresh breezes waft through the open windows. Today was meant to be a particularly lazy one. Hinata takes advantage of this rare break and spends the morning in bed with a novel in one hand and Himawari in the other.
All she wears is a loosely tied white robe, because even the former Hyuuga Heiress cannot bothered to put on real clothes sometimes. However, she finds herself regretting the decision each time she glances down at her body. Her exposed breasts are veiny and full, now so heavy with milk that it hurts her back at times. Naturally, Hinata has avoided looking in the mirror as of late.
It can't be that bad, she thinks, unable to take her eyes of the expanse of pale skin that peeks beneath the fold of her robe.
With a sigh, she sets down her novel and fully parts the robe.
It isn't a pretty sight.
Hinata has never been the thinnest girl. Genetics had ensured that she was a a bit more endowed than the rest of her peers with wide hips and well-developed breasts - traits that she had tried very hard to hide. The attention used to make her so uncomfortable that she would wrap her chest so tightly that she couldn't breathe. Now, though, pregnancy has made her breasts swell to the point that they seem to rival Tsunade-sama's in size.
She's unsure as to how to feel about it all.
"Jaa . . . Himawari . . look at the stretch marks you gave mama," says Hinata finally, tracing the lines that run down the sides of her no longer flat belly.
Himawari detaches from the teat long enough to giggle.
The tinkling laugh is enough to erase all the doubt from her mind.
"I suppose it is rather funny," replies Hinata with her own laugh, tapping her daughter's button of a nose. "I guess it is a small price to pay, ne?"
Hinata feels strangely proud of the newest additions to her body. To her, it means that she bore the hardest pain to bring the sweetest gift.
Through the Window
Nearly eleven years have passed since he left her world, but not a day goes by that she doesn't think of him. Her guardian, once her greatest enemy, and later her greatest friend.
The sun sets as Hinata meanders down a dirt path, past juniper trees, past Branch Hyuuga women taking advantage of the last hour of light by airing their laundry out in their yards. Hinata says nothing, but of course she smiles politely, bows, and a variety of other niceties. The women let her pass without much fuss, but only because they know that her head is somewhere else completely.
Today is the anniversary of the end of the Fourth Great War.
Hinata celebrates it by going to the Hyuuga cemetery, a bouquet of pale plum blossoms in hand.
By tradition, Hyuuga headstones are plain and white, decorated only with the engraving of the deceased's name. There is no distinction between Main and Branch here simply because they are all equal in death. Thin marble markers flank her at all sides, and for a moment she feels lost.
It is not secret that out of all the Hyuuga, it was the former heiress who witnessed the greatest tragedies.
Sometimes it is hard to forget.
Sometimes she still wakes up in the middle of night, gasping, crying, and imagining that his blood is still warm against her face.
Dead.
Death.
Death all around her.
Suddenly, she's back on the battlefield.
Suddenly, he's staring in her eyes as the life leaves his own.
Flashes.
The world is falling away from her.
It is all snapshots that she will never be able to make sense of, that she doesn't want to make sense of. Pain. Blood. Desperation. It all crowds in, red and dire and red once again.
A crow's cry pierces the air and Hinata is dragged back to reality.
She blinks once, twice, standing before the very grave she was searching for. Without meaning to, she has found herself directly before his tomb, her feet having moved on their own while she was entrenched within her memories.
Hyuuga Neji, it says simply in carved characters.
Seeing his name is all it takes to dispel the knot of anxiety from her.
Bright green grass springs up all around it the marker and Hinata briefly wonders if Neji would've liked being buried. Perhaps, she thinks, he would've rather be cremated, rather have his ashes blown to the wind, rather that he be free to the world than bound to a box.
Perhaps.
"Hello, Neji-niisan," Hinata bows. "It's been a long time."
She settles down before the stone, quiet and waiting, and hopes to feel something. Feel anything. Sitting like this helps her pretend that she's kneeling before Neji, and that it's like old times again. It's like they're sitting down for tea, and she is pouring him a drink, and he's trying hard not to smile over something silly she's said.
When she thinks of times like those -
"Nii-san, please stop laughing! It's embarrassing!"
"Ja, I will stop laughing when you stop being embarrassing, Hinata-sama."
- it's almost easy to forget that he's dead.
Hinata pushes it all away, the sadness, the anger, the hurt, everything. Instead, she begins to carefully arrange the flowers before his grave. It's the very least she can do, she thinks, as she sings his favorite song – a lullaby passed down from his mother – quietly.
"Through the window I see
on the plum tree
one blossom, one blossom worth
of warmth."
Neji, always stern and quiet, had surprisingly been a good singer. They had been three and four when he taught her the song, childishly playing beside the koi pond. His mother, a branch seamstress had taught him the words, and it was the only thing she left him before she passed. A song. A simple song that Hinata would always find him singing beneath his breath when he thought nobody was listening.
"Through the window I see
a view of greenery
a wild cuckoo
the first bonito."
Just like the song was the only thing his mother had left him, it was the only thing he had left Hinata. A secret that only the two of them knew.
His song.
His need to look out into the world through the window.
His need to be free.
Pearls of their memories, strung together until it was something beautiful, unbreakable.
"Through the window I see
the autumn wind
resounds in the mountain—
temple bell."
Hinata sung his song to Himawari each night, hoping each lyric would imbue a piece of Neji's spirit into her daughter.
"how much longer
is my life?
A brief night."
She remembered their last conversation:
They watched the stars.
"Hinata-sama, one day I will die. Perhaps soon."
"I may as well, Neji-niisan. I may as well," she replied, looking into his eyes. They were deep in the trenches, leaning against the high walls of dirt that kept them somewhat safe from the hell that Madara's army rained down upon their troops. It was quiet, eerily so, yet the fighting hadn't ceased. Would it ever cease? Cries sounded in the far off distance, reminding them of their mortality.
The first night of the war was the hardest.
"No, you won't," he said adamantly, as though his words would make it so.
Hinata only smiled tiredly at him. "I may."
His bright eyes glinted in the moonlight.
He smiled back, a rare smile that he only afforded to her. "Not while I am alive, Hinata-sama."
And the next day he was dead, staring her in the eyes, keeping true to his vow.
Not while I am alive.
"Through the window I see
all I can think of
is being sick in bed
and snowbound."
Is he free now? She thinks, praying and wishing that he is.
"Through the window I see
this lone iris
white
in spring twilight."
She finishes the song, her voice warbling slightly. Hinata swallows her tears knowing that Neji would've not liked her crying at his grave.
Hinata finally finishes placing the blossoms upon his grave, having taken her sweet time. The sun sets behind her, coloring the white graves in shades of orange and pink.
"I wish you were here," says Hinata quietly as she wraps her arms around herself.
Of course there is no reply. All she hears is the wind rustling the trees and the birds chirping. She glances at the grave once more with longing. Then, without further ado, she turns and leaves, wanting to get back to Himawari as quickly as possible so as to alleviate some of the heaviness in her heart.
What she doesn't hear, however, is the whisper upon the air, light and feathery at her back. What she doesn't hear is the promise that echoes from the spirit world into the physical realm:
I will always be here, Hinata-sama.