Her mind was quiet. Despite the lively chatter and the exchanges in words between the clattering clansmen, it felt as if all of this talk was circulating around her, like a closed circuit with a missing bulb.

The Leaf had been invaded. Surely, they had properly fended off the attack, and successfully minimized the damage and casualties in the village, but to Eri it was tough coming to terms with the fact that something like that could have happened. Despite the histories of the war in the Leaf -all of which took place before her time-, the idea of an attack taking place on Konoha's soil felt unthinkable.

Just after an attack on their people, just after the funeral of their hokage, her clansmen continued to gossip and banter amongst themselves as if it was just an ordinary evening.

Maybe to them it was.

They shared their grief at the hokage's passing, expressed solidarity with the pain of their fellow villagers, and yet it all rolled off of their backs like 'well, that's just life'.

They were strong. All her life she had heard of the power of her clan. She had heard of the power of her mother's diplomatic strength and societal eloquence, of her gifted arts of rationale and social conviction. She had heard of her father's strength and enviable will. She had heard stories of his battle sense and combat expertise, and the way his clan had broken down many walls for the village. Their marriage was a heralded event, and the joining of their clans was considered the perfect union. To imagine that something would be born that embodied both halves was a prospect no short of greatness.

So it was near-inconceivable to her how in this moment where the clan was celebrating their victory and expressing pride for their village and their roles in defending it… she felt like just a tiny fraction of them both.

It was hard to feel joy. It was hard to not think of the events of the exams and reignite an underlying fear and anxiety. She barely had pride at all as it was.

In this large room, filled with so many people - so many members of her family…

She felt small.

"Eri!" One of the clan members called over the noise, and in that moment, her thoughts left their soundproof container, and all of the sights, sounds, and smells were returned to her like a sudden rush against her senses.

"Huh?" She spoke up. Suddenly, somehow, the noise seemed both louder and quieter. It felt as if she could understand what was happening all of a sudden.

She turned her head to the one that had called her name, and she could see the sights of her clansmen turning to her. She clarified her clumsy reply, tilting her head in wonder, "I'm sorry, did you say something?"

"We were talking about that piss-poor attempt at an exam match!" He spoke up, a cheshire-like grin on his face and a chuckle slipping out in tow.

"Eh..?" At first her reaction was sluggish, though as the playful jab and the nature of the situation set in, her eyes grew wide and white with comic fury, "why would you say something like that?! I won, did I not?!"

"What's it matter if you won if you looked like a mess doin' it?"

Another clansman spoke up with mischief and zeal, an impish spark in her eye and a toothy grin extending across her face, "you're gonna make us look bad! Why didn't ya just give her a good jab? It would've been game over!"

"Ah-! Hey!" Eri flailed her arms aggressively in protest, "don't tease me like that..! I just didn't…!" She bit off her words as they lowered to near-nothing, quietly but not drowned by the dulling sound of the room, "...I couldn't...-" Did she even have an excuse besides 'didn't want to'?

"Couldn't? Couldn't what? You hit me all the time!"

She would want to say for the record that that was often because he was the one that hit Eri first… but even then.

"It's not the same as-" as striking to kill. As striking to hurt. It wasn't the same as not holding back and landing a blow so ruinous that its degree of success was measured by how much damage the opponent sustained. It wasn't the same as deciding that if your opponent died, you won.

"Now, now, that's enough…" Eri's mother interjected. Her voice was gentle and warm, but over the clattering still made its point like a tender, motherly scolding.

"You know Eri's sensitive," another spoke up to make light of the trouble they found themselves in, at the expense of the little heiress, of course.

"Quitcallingmesensitive!" She growled out through brattishly grit teeth, a lighthearted retort that sent the outspoken family members rolling with laughter.

At the very least, she was no longer the center of the conversation. They moved on talking of other things with just as much plainspoken banter, and that gave Eri a moment's reprieve to find her place in her thoughts again, and grow quiet in contemplation as she had just before.

She excused herself after the noisy dinner.

Many of the talkative members had sided with sticking around after to continue their conversations and milk as much fun out of the night as they possibly could. By that point, however, just as many of the other members had begun to retire to their own rooms, so it wasn't considered out of place for Eri to sneak out just as well.

She eased out through the back, shutting the door behind her and taking in the cool night air that wandered through the courtyard of the clan compound. The area was much like a garden, stone paths interrupting the length of grass and flowers. There was the sound of water trickling from the small-set fountain at the left hand side, and in all its beauty and serenity, it appeared untouched. Despite the attack on the village, this part was as it always was.

She stepped lightly. Her senses took in the light of the moon and the offerings of sweet floral scents.

It was calm.

And in this moment of tranquility, Eri let her thoughts take her away.

The members of her clan, as… frank as they were, meant no harm. She knew that they were joking, just pressing her buttons and trying to get a response. It was why she played along that way. Getting upset had no place in a cheery setting, and would do little more than sour the mood for everyone. Still, she knew that teasing or not, they meant their words, even if not so harshly.

'Because I'm not as strong as you.' She answered honestly, even if only in her head, to herself.

If she hadn't been made unconscious by that genjutsu during the invasion, what would she have done? Would it have been naive to imagine that she could have incapacitated her enemies instead of kill them? During a pivotal moment where her lack of conviction to kill was really given a spotlight to prove its inefficiency, would sticking to her intentions only do more harm than good? She wasn't sure what would have happened if she were in a situation where she would have to take a life with certainty in order to stop another life from being snuffed out.

Those uncertainties and scenarios were biting at her like small demons chewing away at her from the inside.

She approached the small shrine in the far end of the garden. It was simple. If one didn't look for it, they probably would have been so taken by the beauty of the courtyard that they would have completely overlooked it.

She looked up at it from her lower point, her brown eyes filling with a gloss of wetness.

"Is it pride to aim for that goal?" Doubt in herself was welling in her chest as she near-silently uttered the question to the nothingness that listened. "Is it a self-righteous desire to not want to kill? Am I naive to believe I can be a ninja without it? Is it just because I'm too selfish to want to have someone else's blood on my hands..? That my refusal forces someone else to sully theirs instead..?"

She collapsed her hands together in a prayer to whoever would hear it.

"I don't understand any of it…" She didn't understand why her hands froze up at the thought of hurting someone else. She didn't know if she was doing the right thing or the wrong thing. Maybe she was just as weak as she feared.

"Am I just going to disappoint more people?"

"Who have you disappointed?"

The other voice that spoke in response to her question with another sent a sudden chill up her spine. She attempted to covertly wipe her eyes, keeping her back turned until she was sure that all traces of her tears and signs of crying had been wiped from her face. In the most reluctant, careful turn, she turned her eyes over her shoulder to meet her mother.

"I didn't hear you come out," Eri softly replied, not answering the question, but at least taking this moment of eye contact to 'subtly' prove that she hadn't been emotional just seconds before. After saying that, she turned back to face the shrine, and as expected, she heard the sound of her mother's footsteps approaching her side to meet her place.

"They got their hands on the alcohol," her mother offered in response. She raised her hand to meet her own lips, chuckling ever-so-slightly, "it was only a matter of time before thanks became a bit too chaotic for me."

Eri's mother wasn't very tall. She wasn't a very outspoken woman in most ordinary situations, or very physically imposing. She was one of the more petite people within the clan, even when comparing only the women. Most of the time it was a surprise when her gentle demeanor betrayed her wit in diplomatic endeavors. She was warm, kind, and often regarded as a mother even to those that had no familial ties with the clan: a mother to all.

Most of the time it was her beauty that was regarded. Contrarily, Eri's father was often regarded for his brutish ways, broad form and antagonistic expressions. It was much more rare for him to be regarded for his looks. Quite the opposite, he was often jabbed at by his companions for not being good enough for his wife.

Eri remembered on several occasions how she was approached by them with the frequently repeated statement, 'Thank goodness you look like your mother'.

She was sure that her soft heated ways also came from her mother.

"Did they upset you?" The woman began again, tilting her head away to covertly get a peek at her daughter's face.

"Ah, no." Eri was unsure of whether or not that was a lie. "I know they're joking. They always play around like that. I even joked back with them."

"I see…" She folded her hands atop one another, returning her field of vision to the shrine in front of them.

A gentle breeze joined them, bringing a whistle to liven the silence.

"Then can I bother you to ask what you're thinking about?"

The stillness returned upon them at length. They didn't exchange any words for that time, and the courtyard was allowed to fill in the space with its own ambiance.

"I guess there is… a lot on my mind," There was a knot twisting in Eri's stomach. It was as if her nerves all beared down on her at once, forcing her mouth to dry and her eyes to lock firmly onto anything that wasn't in her mother's direction. Was it wrong that sometimes she wasn't sure how to talk to her? She felt she had to say the right thing, the thing that her mother wanted to hear - that she would be praised for.

She cleared those thoughts from her head, summoning courage and branding honesty into her tongue.

"I think… The chunin exams shook me up a little." She swallowed the anxiety in her throat, urging herself to press on. "Being a ninja never felt like a question. There wasn't a choice for me. I knew that performing well and having that skill was something that was important. But since these exams started, it was like I started questioning everything."

She thought of the worry that had begun to build at every step through the first exam. She could only sit and analyze the test top to bottom, but when it came down to it, all she could do was sit there uselessly until her team could provide relief.

"There were times I felt like the worst burden."

The thought of the mysterious grass ninja, whom she had come to find was this 'Orochimaru' flashed through her head. The feeling of sinking in her chest as she had come so close to tasting death for the first time in her life.

"I had never been so scared in my life in the forest."

Of Sasuke and that curse mark. How he just had to watch him participate and hope everything would go alright.

"I couldn't do anything at all."

Her preliminary battle. How she had flubbed it so bad by consistently retreating from a final blow when she could have ended it quickly.

"Because I was always hesitating, and afraid."

She was afraid that she would hurt someone. She was afraid that she would let people down. She was afraid that her family would be disappointed. She was afraid everyone's time in helping her prepare was wasted effort.

"Hesitating and afraid for everyone but myself."

Her lips upturned into a frown that cut through her attempts at stifling it. Her lips had begun to falter, and her eyes began to fill with the sting of frustrated tears, "I can't make a decision, because I'm so afraid of it being the wrong one. I'm afraid of being a ninja because I'll hurt someone. I'm afraid of not being a ninja, because I'll hurt someone. I'm afraid of being my team's strategist, because what if I lead them wrong and someone gets hurt on my order? But if I don't give them a strategy, I'm not contributing, and I could have done something to help."

"Everyone wants something different from me all the time. I can't make everyone happy. I can't fix everything. Every time I think I'm making progress or doing something right, there's always another way or reason that it's progressing in the wrong direction."

Her hands brushed her cheeks and her eyes in rapid patterns of consistent glides, trying in vain to keep up with the spilling of tears that were now pouring without restraint or signs of stopping.

"I just can't win. I'm trying so hard, mom, but I also feel like I'm not trying at all. It's not enough. Nothing I'm trying to do is enough. I'm so miserable, I can hardly stand it, but do I even have the right to be..?."

The sting of the once welcoming breeze turned to a cold blade on her sensitive skin. Being so open and vulnerable like that hurt. It felt like twisting a knife. She had done all that she could to not burden those around her with her tears or with the consistent swell of her recurring fears, but right now she wasn't even sure if that was the right thing to do.

As suddenly as the cold grazed her skin, it was replaced with a warmth, a soft comfort that swaddled her raw face in the touch of something friendly.

"I'm sorry, Eri."

It was with those words so close that she began to realize that this feeling was the fabric of her mother's clothing. She was pulled into a warm hug, so close that she could hear the sound of her mother's heart beating in her chest. She was pulled into her mother's arms that held her close, one across the center of her back, and atop her head. She could feel the fingers gliding comforting through the length of her hair.

"I wish I could have stopped you from feeling that way," she spoke soothingly, "but even if it's only now, so late, I want you to know that it's alright to feel this way."

Her mother nuzzled her cheek against the top of Eri's head, closing her own eyes. "It isn't wrong to have fear. It will never be wrong to feel pain. The desire to want to do right by everyone… to always wonder if you've done enough or if you've done the right thing - these are only a part of being human."

Eri's brows knit, peeking up from her refuge to steal and glance at her mother's expression, "even you..?"

"Of course, I'm no exception. Even at this very moment…"

A momentary silence claimed her voice, and as if hesitating in her own right, she spoke out in hush.

"As your mother, I've never wanted anything but for you to be happy. I wanted for all of your dreams to come true, and for you to never feel the burdens of pain or hardship. I set out with the desire to protect you from all the bad in this world." She lifted Eri's chin with her hand, her fingers brushing against her daughter's hand with the loving touch of a mother's heart, "but even I know I can't do that. Even as a mother, I can't protect you from pain. And… even as a mother much more than twice your age, I will make mistakes, and I will have failures. I'll worry at moments like this if I could have done more."

Eri's eyes grew wide as the warm feeling of a droplet hit her eye, a tear that wasn't her own dripping down her cheek.

"And maybe I could have, but it's too late for thoughts like that. All I can do is focus on what I'll do now."

The grip on her mother grew tighter, her head sinking into the comfort of her chest once again, and in response, she could feel the gesture returned in full by her mother.

'There are some things… I have to do, because it feels right to me.' Eri repeated in her head for the umpteenth time. Maybe she was trying to convince herself, but at the very least she felt her resolve grow a little stronger.

'I'm… going to make a lot of mistakes. A lot. I can't even count how many. But that's fine. I can't stop everyone from feeling pain or sadness… that's fine. Things I do won't always make everyone happy. That's fine too. If I feel like I've done the right thing, and I'm happy with the choices I've made, it'll be okay. Even when it's not.'

They continued to talk out there for hours. So many hours that she was sure it had to be nearing the wee hours of the morning at that point. The commotion in the compound had quieted down - well, mostly because the main offenders for the noise were sprawled out on the floor or strung across the tables.

It was best not to wake them. That way they wouldn't have to go too far to reach breakfast the next morning.

Eri made it up to the door of her room, stopping only for a moment before opening it to turn to her mother that had followed her up. Somewhat meekly, she raised her hand, then opened it in a partial wave, a bashful, almost shy look written across her face, "...N-night, mom."

A warm, tender-faced smile graced her mother's face, and as if mimicking her daughter's wave with a light one of her own, she uttered a much more solid and composed, "goodnight, Eri."

Both passing through their respective bedroom doors, Eri took a moment to lay her back against hers. She sucked in a breath, and released a cathartic sigh from her depths that felt like the sum of everything she had been struggling with for the past few months to even years leaving her system. It felt… good. She couldn't remember the last time her shoulders felt so light.

"What took you?"

Her head lifted from its down-facing droop, but to the tune of the familiar voice, her head rose across the length of her room -dark save for the pouring of moonlight from the open window.

"Sasuke, we really have to talk about this window thing…"

A/N: Hi Hi, everyone! Wow, it's been a long time! I feel like I'm finally getting my writing groove back. It felt so good to write this chapter, and for once I didn't feel like I was scowling at my writing the whole time.

This was a much-needed conversation that I had been thinking about writing for a long time, and I think I finally figured out how I wanted to.

The next chapter WILL be a direct continuation of this one, so don't worry. We're getting that Sasuke conversation, and I can't wait to write Eri in chapters following this one. Writing a peek into her soul was really nice, and gosh. She needed to get it out.

I hope you guys liked this chapter! I can't wait for the next one! Hopefully it'll be out a lot sooner!