Disclaimer: I'm not Masashi Kishimoto, and thus don't own Naruto.

Warning: This chapter includes manga spoilers.

7. The Future

The Retired Hachidaime Amekage walked down the path to the small shrine, placing one foot carefully in front of the other. At the age of one hundred and two, her balance was quite shaky and she needed to lean heavily on her cane to avoid stumbling on the uneven stones.

Although she no longer held the highest office in the land, she still usually had one or two ninja bodyguards trailing nervously behind her, but she had dismissed them back at the city walls. She meant to make this trip alone.

The shrine was unique in lying outside of Amegakure proper, on a narrow peninsula that jutted out into the inland sea their village was built over. It had originally been a small shack, barely large enough to contain a table and a few bedrolls. The original builder had painted it bright red, but the relentless rain had faded the color away over time, so that it had been the dull color of dried blood when its most famous inhabitants lived there. Now, of course, the original paint color had been restored, and many flowers had been planted in the small yard out in front.

A young acolyte was tending the flowers, and he quickly covered his surprise when he saw her approaching alone. He offered her his arm and helped her step up over the threshold. Inside, the tiny building was cool and quiet. An older monk was poking at a small brazier of incense in the center of the floor. "Could you please leave me alone for a few minutes?" she asked him.

"Of course, Retired Hachidaime-sama." The monk and acolyte left, and she hobbled around the brazier to the rear wall of the shrine.

There, in the center of the wall, were the three placards. They were the same red as the outside of the shrine. Flowers, various origami creations, and other offerings were lined up below the placards where earlier visitors had left them.

After Konan's death, there had been vigorous debate among the jounin as to whether the Central Tower where she and Pain had resided should be searched for any information or weapons that might be useful in fighting Madara. Some had protested that the Tower was a sacred place that they had no right to violate, while others pointed out that they would need every advantage they could possibly get their hands on to avoid dying when they faced the enemy that even God and his Angel had been unable to defeat. In the end, they had decided that Pain probably wouldn't smite them if they searched through whatever was stored in the Tower for the express purpose of protecting his beloved home. They had indeed found a treasure trove of useful information and powerful kinjutsu, but they had also found things that were useful only as mementos of their leaders. Among them were a copy of a book called The Tale of a Gutsy Ninja and a photograph of the building that was now the shrine, with the word "home" scrawled on the back. After the war, the shinobi of Ame had realized that this humble, dilapidated shack was where Pain and Konan had once lived, and had turned it into a place to honor the memory of the man and woman who had changed their country forever.

"You'll forgive me if I don't kneel," the Retired Hachidaime said in a quiet but steady voice. "I'm afraid my knees aren't what they used to be. Nor is much of anything else, for that matter." Before retiring, she had been Ame's foremost medic-nin, and she knew a lost cause when she saw one. Her body had chugged along mostly reliably for over a century, but it was inevitable that eventually something inside it would break to a degree that couldn't be fixed.

She reached out one hand and brushed her fingers against the placard on the left. "I saw you once, you know. It was a long time ago, when I was just a little girl. I'd already decided that I wanted to be a ninja, like you and Konan-sama, but...it's really that memory that kept me going when things were really hard. When I was exhausted from training, or scared to death on a mission that I didn't know whether I'd come back from...I remembered you, and thought that I didn't want to disappoint you. I wanted to be worthy of being one of Pain-sama's shinobi."

She turned now to the placard on the right, and placed her hand on that one as well. "And you...you were such an inspiration. Not just to me, to every kunoichi in the village. We all wanted to be like you." She smiled. "When I was fifteen, I dyed my hair blue and Kaa-san had a fit. I told her I'd done it to honor your memory, and she got all quiet. I think she was worried, because of how dangerous it is to be a shinobi. She knew that better than anyone, she would have died before I was born if not for you and Pain-sama. But then she said, 'Ikeuchi, I know you're fifteen and won't listen to your parents or your sensei, because no fifteen-year-old does. But if you've chosen just one adult to follow, and that's Konan-sama, then at least I won't worry too much, because I'll know you've got a good role model.' You meant so much, Konan-sama."

She didn't touch central placard, but stared at it for a long time before saying, "I've heard Kaa-san and Tou-san talk about you. They said that you were the one who started Akatsuki, that you had the power to reach into men's hearts and change what was there. They said that even Pain-sama and Konan-sama looked up to you. And they said that you gave your life because you honestly believed in peace. You were a true leader, Yahiko-sama. I can only hope that I've been half as good a leader to the people of my country as you were."

A tremble ran through the Retired Hachidaime's muscles and she slumped to her knees. She brushed a few flowers out of the way and sat down, leaning her back against the wall below the placards. There was a window along one wall, and the shutter was propped open to give a clear view of the western side of Amegakure. "It's such a beautiful place now," she said in an even softer voice than before. "The sunlight's glittering on the water-I can count on one hand the number of times I saw that before the Last Great Shinobi War ended. There's all kinds of pennants and banners on the towers, fluttering in the wind. There are stalls set up in the market, with people selling pretty much everything you can think of. There's children running through the streets and laughing, couples going up on the rooftops to watch the sunset together, old men and women like me sitting on their porches and drinking warm sake. There are always merchants from the other nations coming and going. We've sent a few experts with a joint expedition by Mist and Stone to see what lies beyond the Great Eastern Ocean. One of my students just developed a jutsu that regenerates severed limbs. There isn't as much need for that as there was in the past, of course, since there are so few battles now, but I expect it will be a godsend for people who were injured in accidents. Oh, and the new Hokage's visiting. Uchiha Something-or-Other, I don't remember his first name. My memory for recent events isn't what it used to be, either."

A gentle breeze drifted through the window, ruffling the Retired Hachidaime's robes and carrying the perfume of the flowers outside. "I suppose I'll get a chance to tell you all about what our country's like now in a few minutes, when I see you. But I just wanted to come here and let you know..."

The Retired Hachidaime's eyes slipped closed, and the last few words went unheard, at least by any mortal ears.

...that your dream has finally come true.

A/N: The little girl who eventually grows up to be the Retired Hachidaime of this story appeared in a couple of my earlier fics, "The Pure of Heart" and "Senbazuru." She was meant to be about eight in "The Pure of Heart," which takes place right after Jiraiya's death, so this drabble is set 94 years post-series.

I've got a rough draft of the next drabble done, so hopefully it'll be up soon.