Note : Here is chapter 3. Sorry if there are any mistakes, I hope it won't disturb your reading. I will try to translate chapter 4 for next week.
Chatpter size : 13500 words.
The pansies of the cherry tree
The sun's rays covered the morning dew with their blinding heat and began their slow ascent over the outside building.
Reflecting on one of the open shuttered windows on the fifth floor, the filaments of light warmed the beige sheet of the bed on which they completed their transit. A shrill sound, emanating from a small rectangular object on the nightstand next to the bed, caused the half-dozen hawks and chickadees perched on the tree branches erected around the building to fly away.
The wrapped sheet moved timidly and allowed a fine and delicate hand to emerge which, abandoning the warmth of the comforter, clumsily tapped the bedside table next to the bed. After several attempts which only concluded in failure, the small black and rectangular object, at the origin of the noise, entered in contact with the phalanges having lost their heat, but especially their patience.
Rising about twenty centimeters above the loudness, the delicate hand abruptly fell on it and pulverized the object, cracking the wooden furniture in a thud.
The silence gradually reinstalled itself, to the great happiness of the young woman under the sheets. Bringing back her hand in the bubble of heat and waking up painfully, she let fall the rests of her alarm clock on the floor of the room.
She would have to buy another one, again.
Half awake, she lifted her exhausted face from the pillow and rolled over under the comforter before staying still. Several minutes passed without her making a move, just staring at the sunny ceiling. Her eyelids tried to close again and again, but several jolts in quick succession prevented her from falling back to sleep.
It was only when the sun rays, continuing to climb on the outside wall, burned her retina, that she raised her body and stretched her arms in the heights of the room. While yawning, she made go down again her limbs in her back and, squinting the eyes, leaned on her elbows to benefit from the cordial light which was delighting her pale complexion.
Her tiredness came back and eternalized her inertia, before finally and reluctantly, she freed her legs from the thick fabric and decided to raise her numb body. Upright, deprived of clothes and with an irrepressible desire to return to her bed, she stretched a second time while yawning with all her being.
The day had not even started yet that she was already exhausted.
Picking up the t-shirt adorning the white tiles on her way, she grabbed the remote control placed on the glass table and pressed one of the many buttons it had. The television, hung on the wall that the bedroom shared with the living room, emitted a light noise and turned off, bringing back the lull. She then moved towards the blinds which blocked the outside light, immersing the room in the darkness, and pressed the switch present on the wall.
Throwing the remote control on the leather of the sofa following her gesture, she left the living room.
A continuous humming sound flooded the room. The metal curtain, just as white as the wall in which they were embedded, slowly rose, letting the sun's rays penetrate the apartment.
It had been several weeks - months - since she performed the same redundant tasks every time she woke, it had almost become a habit. She would come home in the night, exhausted, and fall asleep on the couch in front of a stupid show or a childish movie, before waking in the morning in her bed, without having any memory of how she got there. As a result, she no longer paid attention to her electricity bills, knowing full well why the number written on it had doubled.
Passing in front of an open kitchen where a granite countertop made the angle, she crossed a corridor empty of any decoration and opened a second door which revealed a sober bathroom.
The basket in the corner of the room managed to catch the clothes she had picked up earlier, while she grabbed the toothbrush lying on the sink. Applying toothpaste to the plastic stick, she jammed it between her lips before stepping forward to the shower and opening the glass door. A second later, the scalding water made contact with her skin, waking her up for good.
Not wanting to ramble in her thoughts after finishing brushing her teeth, she stayed only a minute under the heat paradise before returning to the cold reality.
A reality that almost cost her dearly.
Slipping on the wet tiles while exiting the shower, she lost her balance and caught herself in extremis at the sink.
Soaked, her heart beating wildly and both hands clutching the ceramic and her toothbrush, she observed the emerald reflection of her irises in the mirror without being able to hold back a sigh.
She needed to rest, quickly. If even water could shake her so much, what would it be like when a real compromising situation would face her?
Opening the white cabinet below the sink, she grabbed one of the many towels and hurriedly dried her pink hair that stopped at the back of her neck.
As she looked at the purple rhombus tattooed on her forehead, a thought crossed her mind: what was she going to tell the relatives of her next surgery?
"Sorry, with more sleep I might have been able to save your son."
With her rhetorical question, she left the warmth of the bathroom to go to the kitchen, cold and shyly lit by the sun through the living room windows.
Wetting the parquet floor with each of her steps, she stopped in front of the granite counter and, stopping to tousle her hair that had not finished drying, tied the towel over her chest.
"Forgive me, but fatigue made me shake slightly and I hit a femoral artery."
With the cloth firmly tied to her body, she pressed one of the many buttons on the coffee pot on the counter and made her way to her room under the roar of the machine.
Passing again in the living room, she stopped suddenly in the middle of the sunny room. Eyes wide open towards the dew outside, she suddenly turned peony red, contrasting perfectly with her hair, and observed, through the bay window giving onto her terrace, the old man who was watching her.
This one, all smiles and watering the plants decorating his terrace on the fifth floor of the neighboring building, raised his glasses and greeted her warmly. Embarrassed, she made slightly raise the sky-blue towel covering her chest and stopping at the level of her knees, before advancing with a rigid step towards the switch of the blind and pressing it frantically.
A tense smile drawn on her face and under the hammering of the button which deformed more and more at each of her knocks, she greeted the old man, as the metallic curtain was closing too slowly for her liking.
Finally, and after much thought, this side of the apartment would never see daylight again.
The living room again immersed in the half-light, she crossed the room by passing in front of the television and moved her exhausted being towards the parquet floor. As soon as her left foot engaged on the boards, a stabbing pain deformed the features of her face and, in a flood of insults, forced her to hop to the edge of the bed.
Sitting down on the mattress that buckled under her weight, she placed her injured foot on her thigh and sighed as she observed the piece of glass deeply embedded in her flesh.
Her lack of vigilance was beginning to be alarming.
A green glow lit up the room and took over the sun's rays that passed through the only window this one had. With an impassive look drawn on her face and recovered from the surprise, she brushed with her luminescent hand the glass stuck in her flesh and withdrew it without care.
Strangely and without surprising her, the blood coagulated almost immediately on the surface of the wound and, a moment later, the injury disappeared as if it had never existed.
Bringing the scarlet glass to the edge of her dilated pupils, the light source surrounding her hand faded as a puzzled eyebrow rose above her curious expression. Her attention first settled on the bedside table to her left, where the plastic remains of her defunct alarm clock lay, before stopping on the small overturned frame beside it.
A long sigh fled from her being.
While being careful not to hurt herself a second time by stepping on the ground, she grabbed the wooden frame with her fingertips and placed the photograph in front of her sanitized face. Her eyes observed at first the little girl in the center of the photo, smiling, her arms crossed in her back that her pink hair came to brush, before settling on the two young boys at her side.
The first one, a bit mysterious and half hidden behind the collar of his gray jacket and the black glasses he wore, was watching, with his hands deep in his pockets, the second one. Much more expressive and smiling, the latter was petting the white puppy on his shoulder.
She then contemplated the black-haired woman standing over them, her protective hands placed on the shoulders of the two boys and her crimson gaze, which a smile came to crinkle, on the girl with pink highlights.
She could not help but detach hers from the photograph.
Putting the frame back on the bedside table, she picked up the broken glass on the floor and threw it into the small trash can next to a massive wooden cupboard. Opening it under the creaking of the hundred-year-old wood, she examined the wardrobe stored inside, offering only the bare minimum. T-shirts as well as tank tops and sweaters in a range of colors between white, green and pink, the pants and shorts were in totality black and, apart from a few dusty dresses, there was nothing else.
The lack of variety in the wardrobe had an explanation: she couldn't even remember the last time she had bought clothes. Recent, but mostly past events, hadn't left her time for such trivia.
With a weary movement, she pulled on one of the drawers of the piece of furniture and extracted a black pantie and a red bra.
Dropping the towel on the floor, she grabbed a pair of black leggings and a white tank top to put on.
That was decided. She was going to take a day off to go shopping.
A mocking laugh echoed through the room as she closed the cabinet with a second squeak and stooped to retrieve the wet towel.
She needed to do some research to find out at what degree of fatigue the brain would begin to make jokes without even thinking about it first. She would be a good case study.
Leaving the bedroom, she walked back through the living room and headed for the kitchen where she opened the cabinet above the counter. Standing on her tiptoes, she grabbed the yellow package at the bottom of the compartment and pulled out the last cookie in the box.
She put the dry cookie in her pants pocket, not missing the chance to soil it, and left the empty package on the kitchen granite before heading down the hall. The muffled sound of her bare feet softened somewhat as she approached the half-open bathroom door, allowing her to toss the towel into the basket that was visible from the corridor.
Continuing her way, she put a knee on the tiled floor in front of the front door and put on a pair of black shoes open on their extremities. When she finished, she stood up and grabbed the key ring hanging on the wall, but just as she was about to put the key of her apartment in the lock, a hunch stopped her.
A hesitant hand at a few centimeters from the door, she finally put it on the handle and applied pressure on it.
The only protection of her apartment opened in an innocent click, tearing off her an umpteenth tired sigh.
Nothing really surprised her anymore. She would soon forget to feed herself, if it was not already the case.
Taking hold of the beige jacket on the coat rack fixed to the wall, she closed the door and slipped the keys into the visible pocket of the jacket on her right forearm.
The blue and red stained-glass window at each end of the corridor, as well as the light fixtures on the brown partitions, illuminated her walk across the beige carpet that crossed the hallway where numerous black woolen kanji were sewn. Although most of the ideograms on the textile referred to her location, namely, Hi no Kuni, the Land of Fire, and Konohagakure no Satō, the village hidden in the Leaves, one of them, larger and a bright red color, was meant to be more intrusive.
Pressing the button for the fifth-floor elevator, she brought her emerald gaze down on the scarlet type at her feet.
"Gatō company."
The metal doors opened in front of her with a sound signal as she raised her face and observed with attention the two people present inside the cabin. A woman, brunette, dressed in a loose red blouse and black pumps and a skirt of the same color, was reading a sheet of paper with her right hand and holding her son with her left. The latter, who couldn't be more than four years old, was busy spinning a plastic shuriken on his tiny finger.
The sound signal sounded again, forcing her to rush inside, in extremis.
She observed her reflection in the metal of the cage which was closing, while the sensation of having forgotten something occupied her mind for a moment. But even if she thought about it for a long time, she couldn't put her finger on what was bothering her.
Two small taps on her right leg stopped her from thinking about it further. Lowering her astonished expression, she watched the child, holding his mother's hand still immersed in her reading, beckoning her to come closer with his plastic toy. Amazed, she nonetheless lowered herself to his level.
The time seemed to stretch before the young boy took one last look at his mother and put his palm to her ear.
"Can you bring my daddy back?"
Her pink eyebrows frowned under the hopeful eyes of the child.
"Your daddy? I don't understand sweetheart." she whispered in her turn in a soft voice.
Inevitably, he moved closer to her ear to repeat his gesture.
"I saw your funny hair on pictures at school, teacher said that a lot of mommy and daddy come back home thanks to you, but my daddy didn't come back, you must have forgotten, can you make my daddy come back? That way mommy will stop crying."
"Oh."
That was all that managed to escape from her half-open lips as she watched the child, speechless.
The elevator doors opened, letting her take a quick look at the mother's brown hair already in movement.
"Here give it to my daddy tell him I will become a ninja even stronger than him."
The woman's shoes slammed on the shiny tiles of the first floor. An innocent smile appeared under the eyes of the young boy who shook his hand in front of her cheerful face, as a sign of goodbye, of hope.
Losing sight of them behind the swinging doors of the entrance, she observed, in the palm of her hand and still crouched in the metal cage, the plastic shuriken. Her face turned a few degrees, trying to understand what had just happened, but the sound of the elevator signal brought her back abruptly to reality.
She pointed her forearm free of toys and jackets forward and the metal doors suddenly stopped before opening again, letting out her disturbed self.
She had this strange feeling that this day was going to be different from the previous ones.
Crossing the lobby of the building similarly decorated as the fifth-floor hallway, she opened one of the two swinging doors and left the beige carpet for good.
A cool breeze loaded with thin films of water made her wet hair twirl and forced her, in a shiver, to put on the jacket she had taken. Sending the plastic shuriken in her pocket, she wrapped her hair in her hood before joining the paved street and beginning the long walk which awaited her.
The buildings enclosing apartments and offices, with modern architecture and rising more than ten floors, followed each other for long minutes. The stones and the green gardens that decorated the entrances of the Gatō company buildings - if one relied on the acronyms on the roofs, the advertising signs, and the numerous iron arches that rose above the alleys and streets - became less and less present. Until it disappeared completely as she left the construction area of the neighborhood.
The concrete quickly became overwhelmed by the wood on the houses and the earth on the ground. The wrought iron arches were abandoned for more traditional red stone structures, while the advertising signs simply disappeared, being replaced by multicolored signs, placed near stalls of all kinds.
Thick, mostly black, electrical conduits suddenly began to wrap themselves around the orange, yellow and blue wood of the roofs. Hanging from poles that sometimes reached six or seven feet, they crossed like vines the narrow alleys, but also the main streets, and gave the real impression of being inside an urban jungle. But the most striking change was the number of people in the streets. From a dozen people in the posh neighborhoods, the number of people in the streets increased exponentially as she moved into the center of the city.
With her hands shoved into her jacket pockets under the light rays of sunlight struggling to penetrate the gray sky, she stopped abruptly in the middle of the crowded street. Her hot breath, coming out in the form of mist in front of her stoic face, forced her to turn around and observe, with a touch of fright drawn on her face, the path she had just taken. The feeling she had felt when she entered the elevator came back, but this time she was able to put her finger on that odd thing she had forgotten: her coffee.
She hadn't drunk it... again.
Turning her gaze to the four corners of the street she was in, she dodged the many people who paid no attention to her hooded being and stopped a few moments later in front of a name that indicated very clearly what she wanted.
"Kafesachi" coffee of happiness.
Quickly reading the several menus on the sign that stood in front of the open entrance of the establishment, she ventured inside and, passing by empty tables, stopped behind customers waiting in front of a counter where a waiter was overworking.
Her bored attention settled on the tables and the wooden chairs spread around the room at a good distance from the leather seats fixed to the wall on her left. The light hum of the display case to her right, containing dozens and dozens of confections, appealed to her growing appetite as her gaze wavered between the sugar and the fat. But knowing full well that she wouldn't buy that food, since a stomachache wasn't really a good idea, she entertained herself by watching the men and women in front of her.
Dressed warmly and carrying their belongings with their only free hand, the other was too busy bringing the watch hanging on their wrist up to their impatient faces.
Almost five minutes passed without her doing anything but observing everything around her. Five minutes during which she moved slowly towards the counter, five minutes during which she did not see him.
Her gaze, searching for something to occupy her wandering mind, shifted inexorably to his person at the back of the room, in the corner, sitting on a leather seat, out of sight.
"What can I get you?... Mi... You..."
Not being able to understand any word that the waiter addressed to her, she advanced with an uncertain step towards the bottom of the room and left the counter, to the joy of the customers who followed her.
The face hooded, she laid down her surprised being on the leather seat and leaned her back against the wood which served as a separation between each table. She then examined the newspaper in front of her, opened wide by two hands slightly hiding the headlines.
"The Great-West, the first newspaper of the Land of Grass,
December 7,
Page 2.
Summit between Water and Fire, tensions are decreasing,
As the rebellion has been over for several months in the land of Water, the Hokage met, two days ago, the Mizukage during a summit between the two parties.
Page 3.
An attack against the Land of Earth ?
Two weeks after the explosions were heard in the steep mountains of Yariba, near the biggest penitentiary of the country, Tsuchi came out of his silence and said that it was a landslide. But we have received reports that troops were mov... "
The newspaper lowered in front of her, revealing a man with black hair tied with an elastic band above his head. No older than she was, about twenty years, he sported small earrings and deep dark circles under his black eyes.
With phlegm, the man rolled up the sleeves of his gray t-shirt and folded the newspaper to place it on the leather jacket of the seat on his right.
Then they observed each other without a word and waited, waited again. No one dared to speak. She opened her mouth to break the silence, but a waitress appeared and placed a plate decorated with fish and seaweed in front of the man.
"Bon appetit, sir, would you like some desert after this?" she asked, pulling her chestnut hair back behind her ear.
A pen in the clutches of her hand holding a small notebook, she met the man's ebony gaze, looking for an answer.
"No, thank you, but the lady will have coffee."
Surprised, the waitress turned her attention away from the man and placed it on hers, following the first stroke of the chopsticks on the other side of the table.
Turning her focus to the young waitress, she realized that the latter, a questioning eyebrow raised above her blue eyes, was waiting for her answer. So, she nodded, and the girl returned to the kitchen.
"The lady, eh?" she repeated in an indignant voice.
Her emerald irises went back to settle on the oddball who was enjoying his meal while she removed her hood, definitely making her far too warm. "Do I need to remind you that I am your age?"
Placing his hand that held the chopsticks in front of his mouth, the brown man chewed for a few seconds the huge amount of seaweed before swallowing it all.
"Did you cut your hair?" he asked, this time enclosing some fish behind his lips.
"Two months ago."
The eyelids of the man, moving to the liking of his jaw savoring his dish, crinkled slightly in order to exteriorize a smile towards her insinuations.
"How are you doing?"
She glanced at the small clock on the wall to her right.
Eight thirteen.
A silent sigh escaped from her being. She must not have slept more than three hours, which was a record this week, and she had not drunk her coffee.
"I'm doing great." she said, smiling at the question she knew to be rhetorical.
She then stared at the young man's hungry look. "I assume you guys came back during the night?"
"Two hours ago."
Once again, she said nothing, causing the silence to return, disturbed only by the tapping of the chopstick on the other side of the table.
"Here is your coff..."
The cup clinked on the wooden table and was followed closely by the frightened hiccup of the waitress.
With a look of incomprehension drawn under her pink hair, she watched the shocked expression of the waitress. A hand put on her mouth, the young woman seemed to have seen a ghost.
"E-Excuse me, I-I didn't recognize you, all my apologies." said the waitress as she leaned forward, both hands clasped together in front of her sorry face.
It only took her a second to understand the waitress's behavior.
She had taken off her hood... she had forgotten again not to do that.
"It's nothing, but please be quiet." she demanded as she watched the line that was now spreading out to the outside of the establishment. To her delight, the people in it seemed to not have heard.
Where it had taken her only one second to make the connection between the behavior of the young waitress and her hood, this one also needed only one second to disappear in the kitchens.
A normal behavior in her presence.
"I had almost forgotten your notoriety."
Her murderous gaze fell on the mocking air sitting in front of her as it continued to enjoy its meal.
"If it amuses you that much, I imagine eating in front of a crowd will amuse you just as well." she stated, pretending to get up from the leather seat.
A thud sounded under the umpteenth clink of the cutlery on the table.
Nearly spilling the coffee and attracting all eyes in the room, the young man's hand clutched her left forearm and stopped her movement. Luckily for the hand that was holding her with all its might, the wooden divider prevented anyone from seeing her pink presence at the back of the room.
"No, thanks. I'm sorry, that was really not funny. "
She repositioned her bottom on the leather, proud of her victory, at the exact moment that the hand on her jacket withdrew.
"Even the great Shikamaru apologizes, I wonder what other surprise awaits me today. "
This day was definitely going to be different from the previous ones.
Resuming his seat, Shikamaru blew out the fear that had just overwhelmed his heart rate.
"Is this how you thank me after inviting yourself to my table?" he frowned, a hand resting on his chest. "Women, I swear. Guess no one wants to leave me alone today."
A long silence followed almost immediately the sentence full of innuendo, only disturbed by her spoon stirring her hot coffee which was trying to warm up the atmosphere which had suddenly become cold.
'Be careful with your next words, Nara."
Stunned and bringing his attention back down to her gaze that was glaring at him from the other side of the table, the Nara's complexion suddenly turned pale.
Several cracks emanating from the edge of the table, dealing with her hysterical phalanges, forced Shikamaru to swallow… hoping by a miracle to swallow back what he had just said.
"You-I-I didn't, I wasn't talking about you," he declared under a growing panic as he raised his hands in her direction. "You know that it's always a pleasure to chat with you, hahaha..."
Laughing falsely, he turned his panicked gaze for a fraction of a second towards the entrance of the establishment, allowing him to calculate the perfect angle and the number of strides he would need to get out alive. And this, without her having the time to reach him, things that, of course, he strongly doubted.
A smile appeared under her pink hair, substituting any form of sadism. The cracks faded as her grin increased in size, even drawing a slight laugh from her.
"I'm just messing with you."
Shikamaru's back slumped against the wall as a sigh of relief escaped from his being. But this was not due to the blows he had just avoided.
Running was just the last thing he wanted to do.
Noting the empty plate, she gently put an end to her amused grin.
"Tell me."
Following her words, the Nara grabbed the glass of water and took a sip. Regaining his color, he took another sip before scratching the back of his head.
"Oh, you know, everything went as planned, the citizens of Kusa are ve..."
"You know damn well I wasn't talking about your mission." she cut him off.
In her turn she drank a sip, but of her coffee.
Much more nervous than he was a few seconds earlier and hesitating at the idea of opening his mouth again, the Nara seemed hypnotized by the scenery around them.
"No one is listening."
Not having let her out of his sight, he suddenly came to himself and stopped his search.
She had been faster than him, again.
"We didn't find anything."
With disappointment, she put her coffee back on the table.
"And where is he?"
Shikamaru's shrug gave her the answer before he even spoke.
"I have no idea. All he told me was that he had some business to attend to. You know how he is."
They looked into each other's eyes for a long time, without saying anything, until the waitress appeared again.
Then they stopped staring at each other and watched the movements of the woman who put away her small notebook in the pocket of her white blouse. Throwing a few glances at her atypical hair from the corner of her eye, the woman grabbed the empty plate.
"H-how was the-your meal?" she stuttered, smiling falsely, hardly able to hide the pressure she felt.
Under the stammering of the young waitress, they could not refrain from smiling, thus relaxing the atmosphere.
"That was very good."
"You... you want dessert?" the young woman asked without paying the slightest attention to the Nara, preferring to spy on her emerald pupils.
"No, I still don't." he replied, smiling this time at the lack of focus she was showing.
Quickly realizing the question she had asked beforehand, the young woman's face became as red as the shame she felt.
'Sorry, I'll bring you the bill right away, you also pay for the coffee of... of..."
While she was about to finish her sentence, the waitress turned her face completely in her direction. It was the movement that was too much for the poor woman's expression, who could only smile foolishly.
She looked at her in return and gave her back her smile, definitely taking away any possibility to express herself correctly.
"Yes, I'll pay for it."
Stooping down in front of them, taking care not to drop the plate, the young woman slipped away again. Shikamaru laughed slightly, before becoming silent again as he crossed her scowl.
Remembering the threat she had made a few minutes earlier, he swallowed a second time and realized, if he wanted to get out of this situation alive, that he had to change the subject.
As he had predicted even before he asked the question, she let a neutral expression take over her emotions.
"The last time I saw him, he was going on a mission to the Wind borders."
As a result of her answer, her eyelids crinkled slightly, helping her to search through her memory. "It was three weeks ago, I think."
"He hasn't given you any news?" he questioned thoughtfully as she couldn't hold back a strained laugh that distorted her disgusted grimace.
"No, thanks."
A chill ran down her spine at the simple thought that it could happen again, multiplying the disgust on her face. The last message she had received from him wasn't exactly something she liked to think about. It was six months ago and yet she was still traumatized by it. It consisted of an entire army of insects that had waited patiently on her sheets while she came home exhausted from work.
If only she had seen them before falling on her bed, maybe she could have recovered one day.
In other words, she hadn't slept in her room for over a week and had gotten to know the cold, stiff couch in the living room, which, over time, had turned out to be very comfortable.
"And Mirai, how is she?" she asked, trying to chase away the horrible memories that came to her thoughts. "I guess you went to see her when you arrived."
Shikamaru's eyebrows furrowed relentlessly, but he didn't worry about her question right away, he just answered at first.
"She is doing great and she is growing fast, it's incredible. Every time I come back, I can hardly recognize her."
Then he asked the famous question. "Tell me, outside of the hospital and today, when was the last time you actually spoke with someone?"
Without wishing it, she stared at him with a touch of animosity. A bitter tone of voice lodged itself in the corner of her lips, but biting them slightly, she refused to express it. She knew the Nara well enough to realize that he wasn't mean, on the contrary. He was just capable of not showing empathy on command.
She wanted to tell him that it had happened just this morning in the elevator, but that too she kept it quiet. After all, was a conversation with a five-year-old kid really a conversation? Knowing the way it had ended, she could tell that it was not.
When was the last time she had really talked to someone outside of work? She had no idea. A long time... maybe longer.
"You know, she asks about you every time." he admitted to her. "You should visit her sometime. It would make her happy."
Unable to overcome his gaze, she lowered it to the cup and, closing herself in her thoughts, stirred the emptiness inside.
He was certainly not mean, but he had this damn talent to bring up subjects she didn't want to discuss.
"It's... I don't have ti..."
"It's been three years. And she never held it against you." he cut her off in her lie, knowing full well that this was yet another excuse.
Her emerald pupils moved up the gray shirt to meet the black and all-seeing irises. "But I assume I'm not teaching you anything, right?
Fleeing his gaze for the second time in a few seconds, she concentrated on the nails of her left hand, still hanging on the table, with a disconcerting fascination. Making thus understand to her interlocutor that he would not have an answer to his question.
"Here's the bill, thank you." said the waitress back at the table.
Putting the piece of paper in front of Shikamaru and arming herself with courage, this young woman turned, managing, for the first time, to overcome her gaze. "Excuse me for asking you this, but can I have an autograph, please? It's for my little sister, she's about to be promoted to Chūnin and she swears only by you. This would be the greatest gift."
Forgetting the conversation she had had a moment earlier, she let appear a cordial smile which, in the eyes of the Nara, knowing her certainly more than she knew herself, seemed frighteningly false.
"No need to apologize, it's my pleasure."
But in view of the young waitress's behavior, almost jumping for joy at her words, she could affirm that he was the only one who could read through her hypocrisy. "What's her name?" she asked, grabbing the pen and small paper.
"Meogi."
She wrote down the name and a short sentence about a promotion and handed the paper and pen back to the young waitress, who took it with her fingertips and immediately put it in her shirt pocket, as if it were a message of the utmost importance that could shake the entire world.
"I thank you. You can't imagine how happy she's going to be." thanked the waitress as she bowed.
Smiling up to her ears and not without throwing a last glance in her direction, the young woman quickly disappeared behind the bar of the establishment where a multitude of customers were still waiting to be served.
"You could tell them you don't want it sometimes, I'm sure they'd understand."
She turned her attention back to the annoying questioner still sitting on the other side of the table, and couldn't help but giggle.
"You heard it as well as I did, right? They only swear by what they read at the Academy, believe me, I've tried and nothing helps." she asserted with a sigh. "They're indoctrinated with sugarcoated stories and written by people who don't know what it's like to be under a rain of steel."
It was Shikamaru's turn to sigh. He had been stupid.
Despite his young age, he was certain of two things in this world. The first was that the seaweed fish was the best thing this peninsula had created since its foundation. This was an undeniable and indisputable fact and anyone who said otherwise was either crazy or dead. The second was more... complicated and concerned a particular subject and person.
If she was in a room, the subject of the battle of Ryoukokutan should never be mentioned under any circumstances. Never. Otherwise, a fire would ignite and no one would be able to stop it.
Having only brushed the subject, Shikamaru opened his mouth in order to try to extinguish what he had just unintentionally lit, but, to his great surprise and in a strangely calm voice, she cut him off.
"They idolize me for taking lives. For murdering and slaughtering fathers as well as mothers, husbands, wives, friends, as innocent as ours were. They are d..."
"Sakura."
Having lowered her attention for the time of her monologue, she raised her troubled look.
"The admiration they have for you is only because of all the people you have saved and you know it."
She sighed for the second time. It was what she said, sugarcoated.
Not wanting to argue this early in the morning, she took a quick look at the clock on the wall before getting up from the leather seat.
"Thanks for the coffee."
Without even denying looking at the Nara, she left the table and headed for the entrance of the establishment, as fast as she could say cowardly.
"It's about time you forgave yourself."
She didn't know if it was the Nara's voice or her thoughts that she heard, but the indiscreet gaze present in the line that stared at her face and her hair made her forget all her worries. A second glance immediately fell on her incongruous presence, then another, followed by a fourth.
Making a last step in order to get out of the crowd amalgamated at the entrance of the coffee shop, the rain suddenly fell on her face and forced her to inhale deeply in order to keep her calm.
That was all she needed. If there was one thing she hated more than having to think about her problems, it was rain.
This fucking rain.
"Excuse me, but you are Sakura Haru..."
She pulled her hood down forcefully over her face and shot a murderous look at the man carrying a briefcase who literally recoiled in terror. Protests erupted as the man retreated in fear and collided with several people, just as she mingled with the umbrellas and raincoats that filled the street.
One day she was going to end her journey at the Uchiha station for accidentally breaking a jaw or two, it was becoming unavoidable.
This notoriety that surrounded her, or rather this harassment, was due to only one thing, and it followed her since her first breath: her hair color. She was recognizable from miles away. More than a million citizens lived in this village and nobody was able to have pink hair.
As if it was a divine punishment.
This color which characterized her so much and which spoiled her life came from the lineage of her father, more precisely from her great-grandmother, since the hair of her father was more towards the purple than the pink.
Her great-grandmother, bearing the same name as hers, Sakura Haruno, had lived all her youth in the small village of Kawazu, in the south of the country. A place she had never visited and that she knew only by reputation for its huge cherry tree avenue, the Sakari Road.
A path several kilometers long where thousands of wild cherry trees bloomed in March, offering a dazzling spectacle.
Her father had once told her that her great-grandmother, then nineteen years old, had fled an arranged marriage. She had heard about a newly founded village with pioneering ideas, brought to prominence by two great men, and decided to settle there, seventy years earlier.
Thirty years later, Kizashi Haruno, her father, was born, and twenty years later, her pink head had tasted its first sunlight. Although she knew her father's family well, she had never seen them, or at least she didn't remember them. Her great-grandmother had died at the age of sixty, ten years before she was born. As far as she knew, since the subject was taboo, it was that she had taken her own life after her great-grandfather had died in combat during the Second Great War. Unable to live without him, she would have decided to join him.
Her grandparents had died a few months after her birth, during the Kyūbi attack, on the night of October tenth. They had been among the first victims of the thousand-year-old demon that had made its first offensive not far from their apartments, pulverizing it without mercy. She took comfort in the fact that at least, unlike thousands of brave men and women who had fought the beast, they had not suffered that they had died in their sleep, entwined.
As the rain stopped falling on her hood, her attention was drawn to the group of men and women gathered in the street. Piqued in her curiosity, she approached the crowd and, managing to get inside, observed the poster hanging on the wooden post. The piece of paper, green and displaying a text that she could not read, being too far away, gave her a strange feeling.
Approaching it, she jostled a man who was twice her weight and tore the poster from its ties in order to bring it in front of her outraged eyes.
"Oi kid, who do you think you are?!" shouted the man she had just pushed.
Several voices followed, asking her under what pretext she had ripped the advertisement.
If your child can use his chakra and is over four years old, take him to the northern ninja academy for an exam. Who knows, maybe he'll be the next foil figure.
The man having threatened her one second earlier and measuring six feet three for more than a hundred kilos, began a movement of his arm in her direction in order to catch her shoulder. But her hand, in a reflex that she did not control, clutched the wrist of the latter and, with a simple pressure, obliged him to put a knee on the ground in a scream of pain.
The dozen or so people watching the scene immediately moved away from her now suffocating presence.
It wasn't the completely stupid and misleading message decorating the poster that made her feel like that, tipping between indignation and murderous desire, no. It was the fact that she was in the center of it. Someone had taken an old photo of her, from the end of the Fourth Great War, and put it in the middle of the propaganda. No one had told her about it or even asked her about it.
Folding the wet paper, she put it in one of the empty pockets of her jacket and, with a wavering mood, released the wrist of the man who fell to the ground in a grunt of pain.
"It's just a small sprain, put ice and bandages, in two days you'll be fine."
Her impassive expression crossed the bitter rictus of the man, one knee on the ground, whereas she raised her irritated glance on the street filled with people. It was at that precise moment she understood that they had gone too far.
Plastered all over the poles, walls, roofs, and even the electric cables that crossed the heights of the street, the green and pink poster taunted her.
Instantly, she turned towards the north of the village as a cloud of smoke appeared at her side. Frightening the group of people still gathered around her, the smoke dissipated to reveal a perfect copy of her. She then retrieved the poster from her jacket pocket and handed it to her clone who took it before vanishing. Her attention then settled on the multitude of shocked faces having seen the scene.
Realizing that she owed explanations, or else they would reverberate later, she removed her hood with a calm gesture under many exorbitant eyes, and waited.
At first it was whispers, barely perceptible, that reached her ears, then big smiles. The man, whom she had put on the ground, brown, with the nascent beard and having to have the thirty years, rose in front of her and, holding the forearm, externalized an expression even more panicked than when his wrist had cracked.
"E-excuse me, I d-didn't recognize you, my apologies, I p-promise you it won't happen again!" he stammered as he bowed, again and again, begging for forgiveness.
All the things that concerned her were surreal, grotesque.
From the looks of the man's damaged hands, he must have been a craftsman and she had, without meaning to, almost broken his wrist. He would not be able to feed his potential family for at least two days. However, it was him who was apologizing for something he hadn't done.
This world was not spinning round.
"What is your name, sir?"
The man, still leaning in her direction, rose slightly and remained for a few moments unmoved, his gaze filled with admiration, as did all the people present, not expecting her to speak to him. The crowd multiplied in no time, going from ten to forty, while her name was heard increasingly.
"My name is Mugetsu ma'am, don't call me sir, a man like me doesn't deserve such respect from a person of your stature."
She inhaled deeply to keep her calm.
What did these people feel when they were in her presence? A feeling of protection? A sense of peace? She had asked herself this question since all this had started, but she could not put her finger on the answer, and she would certainly never do so, all this was beyond her.
"Well, Mugetsu, give me your arm please."
Hesitating a short moment to move his injured limb as the pain was so strong, he finally took off his wrist from his thorax to put it on the palm of her hand. What had no other effect than to make born on the face of the civilians, observing the scene, a feeling of jealousy.
He was touching her hand... if they had known, they too would have broken their wrists.
Bringing up the black jacket as well as the sweater of the same color presents underneath, she put, as delicately as possible, her other hand on his wrist. Under the incomprehension of the crowd, a green light illuminated their stupefied irises, at the exact moment where a grimace of pain tore the features of the named Mugetsu. This one felt his veins as well as his tendons moving inside his wrist before, without warning, the pain subsided to the point where it was no longer felt.
Blinking several times while she released his arm, the man brought back his wrist in front of his stunned air before making several movements without feeling any pain. The sprain was gone.
Some applause broke out, before the entire crowd erupted in cheers.
She watched the men, women, teenagers and children around her as they continued their ovation.
She didn't understand anything anymore.
She had only made amends for the mistakes she had made, and yet here she was, in the middle of sixty people, being praised.
Couldn't they hate her... just once?
"Thank you so much, you are indeed Kiseki no Kyariā, the Miracle Maker, there's no doubt about it." thanked Mugetsu as he observed her wrist like it had been touched by Kami's hand.
"Still, put a bandage and be careful not to put too much strain on it for the next few days."
Acquiescing to his request, she didn't have time to give the man any more advice that several voices rose immediately once the cheering faded away.
"Can I have your autograph?!"
"Back off! Let me talk to her!"
"I was here first, she has to talk to me first!"
With a simple leap, she exited the oppressive crowd and ended her flight on the roof of one of the apartments overlooking the street, more than thirty meters high.
"Where did she go?"
"Did anyone see her?"
"She disappeared!"
Approaching the railing that surrounded the roof, she climbed over and dropped into an alley next to the one she had just fled.
Perhaps she should have focused on the psychological aspect of human beings rather than the physiological one, she would have had more answers concerning their sometimes incomprehensible behavior.
Making sure that no one was waiting for her at the exit of the alley, she hastily pulled back her hood and slipped between the two people walking down the street and continued her tumultuous walk for many minutes, dodging passers-by who stopped in front of stalls or talked about the bad weather in her path.
The painted wooden buildings were slowly replaced by smaller modern architecture. The electric cables and the crazy decorations disappeared completely, leaving a purified vision of a street largely surrounded by hedges and trees of all kinds. Men and women, mostly accompanied by their children, took care to close the door of their house behind them before reaching the dirt road that led to the center of the city.
Turning her face, she observed the metal sign that indicated that she had just entered the western district of the Leaf.
Walking down the path for several more minutes, her hands stuffed in her pockets and the tip of her nose flushed, she finally stopped in front of a wrought iron gate. The portal, standing more than two meters high, was attached to concrete pillars, which were connected to a low wall where huge iron gates attached to it surrounded a house and a lush garden, about fifty meters from where she was.
As another presence other than hers became scarce, she lightly shook the gate, which emitted a sound of battered iron, and waited.
She watched the pair of curious yet menacing eyes appear in the distance, behind the house and the vegetation that decorated the garden. Before the canine face even made a sound, a big, warm smile graced hers.
Crouching down in front of the bars, she shook them again, and was the instigator of the white behemoth's ride.
With a flurry of barking and jumping over the hedges of the path that led to the house, the dog rushed in the direction of the gate which vibrated under the collision.
Standing against the iron bars, with both arms inside the property, she stroked the huge dog standing on its hind legs, which tried to lick her face, under her many laughs.
"I'm glad to see you too."
Wagging its tail, the animal brought its four paws to the gravel and lowered its hindquarters slightly, preparing to jump over the iron protection.
"No! Akamaru, no! You know very well that Hana said no."
A slight squeak was heard as Akamaru stopped in his tracks. The playful look in the dog's eyes was replaced by sadness and, moving his muzzle to the ground, the latter squeaked his grief once more.
She sighed at the comedy that was being performed and dipped her hand into her pants pocket.
"Look what I brought you."
Pulling out the dry cookie, she held it out to the dog through the doorway, who oddly enough, immediately got to his paws and rushed towards her a second time. Before he could bite her hand, she threw the cookie in his direction. Without surprise, he swallowed it in one go.
"You still don't know how to appreciate good things, do you?"
For only answer, he barked twice, which did not fail to redouble the smile drawn under her pink hair. She opened her mouth but stopped short. An immense anger, no... an immense hatred struck her cheerful mood.
Eyes wide open under the sudden growl of Akamaru looking for the threat around, she twisted the iron bars in her grip and watched the academy courtyard materialize to her memories.
Jumping over the three-meter wall that surrounded the courtyard of the huge building to her right, she landed in the middle of it. Her gaze fell on the twenty or so children grouped to the north of the open space, where only a few trees and a swing dared to stretch out. She then observed the man with silver hair back to her.
Dressed in black and a green vest, he was too busy talking to the aspirant's sitting in front of him to notice her presence, even if she was not trying to hide herself.
"Remember, you must never let yourself be intimidated, otherwise you lose the idea of winning, a ninja must always..."
Several whispers among the students throwing many glances in her direction forced the man to stop in his sentence and, even from here, more than twenty meters away, she could hear the irritation that surrounded the tone of his voice.
"Daishi, Eima, may I know what's so important that you don't listen to my precious advice?!" he yelled, clenching his fist at their indignant look.
The man's anger turned in her direction and, at first giving her an evil look, he finally returned his attention to his students. Then, a few seconds later, he looked at her again, as if he had not seen her at first sight.
"Don't move, I'll be right back." he indicated, stepping back towards her increasingly impatient fingers.
"Is that her?" whispered a child to his closest friend.
"She's so beautiful..."
With each step he took in her direction, narrowing the space between them, the smile that adorned his face deteriorated, finally leaving him to swallow as he stopped at her irritated look.
"Sakura, what a lovely visit, to what do I owe this honor? Have you come to visit the new classes in the annex?"
One thing was sure, if one day this establishment closed its doors and he could not teach in the South or East academy, the man in front of her could not become an actor.
"Hi Mizuki-sensei. No, I came to see Iruka, do you know where he is?"
Her voice, contrary to what her face showed, was rather calm and did not express any anger, which immediately made the fear in the man's irises fall.
"Oh, he's not here, sorry, it's been a month since he's been helping with the teaching at the Southern Academy, didn't he tell you anything?" he asked, turning around to take a quick look around and make sure his students were still.
They were far too preoccupied with her presence in the academy courtyard to do anything other than listen to what she had to say.
"No, he didn't say anything." she lied, now remembering a conversation she had had with him a month earlier.
The Southern Academy, sorely lacking in qualified people and having just been built after the council raised funds, had asked many retired teachers for help during the coming year.
Considering that since the end of the war his former teacher had been in charge of the Northern one - Konoha's very first academy - and was no longer teaching, he had responded to help.
"Since he's not here, perhaps you can tell me who I should talk to about this?"
As she spoke, she unfolded the half-crumpled green and pink poster and moved it in front of the teacher's tense expression. As soon as his gaze fell on the piece of paper, a delighted look distorted his features.
"You can directly discuss it with me, I'm the one in charge of handling this kind of trivia while Iruka is away."
She remained unmoved, perplexed.
Was he blatantly making fun of her or did he not understand why she was there?
"So, if I understand correctly, it is you who designed these posters?" she asked to make sure she was not mistaken.
"Designed, designed, that's a big word. But yes, I was tasked to check if they were in compliance with the rules before they were posted." he replied as he took a closer look at the propaganda she was holding out in his direction. "They're great, aren't they?"
Her pink eyebrows furrowed relentlessly. Despite the two years she had spent listening to him behind his desk during her first years at the academy, she had come to forget.
This man was far beyond any form of stupidity she had ever faced.
"Can you enlighten me on one last point, I tend to forget a lot of things lately and I don't want to make amalgams." she confessed, letting appear a smile covering up the rash that threatened her emotions.
"Yes, of course, how can I help you tell me, I owe you that after all, you were the best of our students, by far."
Observing for a moment the duplicity of the man facing her, she inhaled deeply.
"Did you ask for my consent before you put my face on every wall and post in this fucking village?" she asked in a voice that was both strained and calm.
Mizuki's face suddenly turned pale, but contrary to what she thought when she saw his behavior, it wasn't only the insult at the end of his sentence that made him look that way. It was mostly because of the thousands of copies still present in the basement of the academy, just waiting to be displayed.
"You don't like it? It's too... green? I told Tsume that green doesn't go with pink, but the jerk didn't listen to me. We'll have to redo them all now."
She scrunched up her face towards the inside of her neck and wondered, examining the man's every feature, if he was serious.
She was really going to believe that he was really fucking with her.
"I don't care if it's blue-green or red and I don't want another version printed. What bothers me is the message written on it, I don't want to be mixed up with it, you can understand that, can't you?" she asked while remaining calm, hoping to make herself understood and not have to repeat herself, but the expression he exteriorized told her the opposite. "Four years old. You're recruiting four-year-olds dammit."
It was the turn of his former teacher to furrow his eyebrows, but his were more confused than offended.
"Why is that a problem? We're just implementing the new reform voted by the council." he declared, shoving his hands into his pants pockets. "Were you not in the room when it was passed? I heard you had recently joined it, though."
She closed her eyelids and breathed out the anger that lodged in the corner of her lips. She had to remember that he had been her teacher for two years. Yes, she had to keep that in mind and not give in to the voice screaming against her eardrums.
"Look how far you've come starting from nothing. The accomplishments you made when you were only seventeen."
A hatred that she could hardly contain spread through every muscle fiber in her right arm, inevitably tightening her phalanges and crumpling the poster a little more.
"And all this because you were able to learn as early as possible, admittedly because of the war, but that's not the point. The academy needs your image, you have become one of the figures of the Leaf. Think about the village you fought for and imagine. Imagine what the future generation will be able to do at ten, twelve or even fifteen years old. If even one percent of them reproduce the path you have followed. They will be able to expand the area of the Fire into every corner of the peninsula... isn't that what you want? You, the heroine of the battle of Ryouko..."
Several terrified and surprised hiccups rose from the group of aspirants as the thud of a body hitting the cold, hard floor of the courtyard was heard.
She observed the green and pink poster on Mizuki's chest, lying on the ground and accompanied by a grin of pain while holding his abdomen.
"Listen to me carefully, I won't repeat myself. I'll give you until tomorrow morning to remove all the posters and I advise you to start now. If I ever see even one, even if it is torn, unreadable and I step on it, believe me that all the ninjas in this village will not be enough to prevent me from reaching you."
Turning on her heels and taking one last look at the terrified look on the ground and the faces filled with incomprehension on the other side of the courtyard, she closed her eyelids, and never opened them again.
The incessant barking brought her back to reality. Blinking for several seconds and looking confused, she glanced at the path behind her that led to the street she had just crossed.
"It... it's nothing. Don't worry about it." she said as she turned her emerald pupils back to Akamaru who squeaked with a worried look.
On second thought, maybe she would send one of her clones to the next council meeting. They seemed more... convincing.
The behemoth in front of her, which must have been six feet tall if it lifted its muzzle slightly, barked again before sticking out its drooling tongue. Positioning his front paws on the bars of the gate, he rose to over two meters as a smile spread across his face.
"No, sorry, I only brought one, it was the last one in the package, you''ll have to wait until tomorrow my old friend."
She could not hold back a laugh as the disappointment that Akamaru showed was funny to observe. Getting back on his hind paws, he pretended to leave, his eyes and tail pointed to the gravel.
"Alright, to make it up to you tomorrow I'll take you for a walk to the forty-three-training ground, is that okay? It's still your favorite, am I right?"
As soon as he heard the word "walk", his tail immediately straightened up on his posterior and he started to make a slight jump on the spot, already excited about the day that was coming.
A movement of the air, bringing in its wake the freshness and the aromas of the surrounding vegetation, brought down Akamaru's joy at a bewildering speed, who, sniffing the fresh wind, stopped in his antics. A much deeper and more aggressive growl than the previous one came out of his fangs directed towards the street.
"Is Hana here or has she already left?"
One could have believed that the dog, aged about twenty years, was bipolar, as the speed with which he returned to a normal state was so brief. But it was not the case.
The only response from the other side of the bars was a quiet bark.
Hana was never home after seven.
She had sensed it the moment he stepped on the tile across the street, three blocks away. If she was to believe Akamaru's movements in front of her, moving in a way she knew all too well, it was a man, hiding under the tree at eleven.
She was being followed. Already.
After her behavior in the academy courtyard, there was nothing less surprising, but this was far too quick. A paranoid person could almost think that she was on a short list of people who could cause problems to the current hierarchy.
"I see, I'll join her in that case, and you, don't do anything foolish, okay? You know she needs to rest, don't give her any more work than she already has."
Once again, a squeak reached her ears under her umpteenth laugh.
Getting ready to leave, she withdrew her hand still clutching the gate and noticed the deformation of the metal caused by her sudden temper.
He was sure that she too would be scolded.
Going along the iron gates while being followed by the animal from the garden, she plunged her hands into her pockets and tried, as best she could, to forget that damn poster, in vain.
Leaving the path, she raised her gaze to the heavens and let her emerald irises sail over the scene that the grayish clouds offered to her. Her attention finally fell on the mountain which overhung the village in its north, and looked sparingly at the five faces carved in the rock, measuring for one of them more than twenty meters.
The five Kage of Konoha. Names etched in memories and evoking only one thing in his mind.
A story that repeated endlessly.
Hashirama Senju, the First, the Shodaime. The invincible and the generous. The God of shinobis. He founded Konoha fifty years before she was born, as the representative of the Senju clan and alongside Madara Uchiha, the representative of the clan of the same name. In the years that followed, he managed to master the nine tailed demons, raising even more the tensions that the Fire Nation cultivated with its neighbors. Seeking peace, he organized the first-ever Council of Kages, after which he offered eight of the nine Bijūs to the four major villages of the peninsula as a sign of peace.
His naivety was the cause of the first Great Shinobi War. Resulting in a little over six hundred thousand deaths, mostly civilians.
Tobirama Senju, the Second, the Nidaime. The intelligent and thoughtful. The Genius of the Leaf. He was named by the Fire Daimyo, thirty-four years before he was born, following the death of his brother, Hashirama Senju, who died in an ambush on the borders of the Earth and the Grass. He was in power for only one year, but it was enough for him to leave his mark on the village forever. He established the Konoha police force and appointed the Uchiha to lead it, founded the ANBU and built the ninja academy in the process, reshaping chakra training forever. He established the Konoha Council, which is still in effect today, ensuring that no other Hokage could make irrational decisions. He invented thousands of techniques, which to this day, even for the most skilled shinobi, were still difficult to master, if not impossible to decipher.
His sacrifice during a coup led by powerful enemies of Kumo, following the signing of a peace treaty between Fire and Lightning, was what led to the end of the first Great War.
Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Third, the Sandaime. The diplomat and the indulgent. The teacher. He was appointed by his sensei and Hokage, Tobirama Senju before his death. He managed to maintain a precarious peace for over twenty years. But he had to put an end to it when Iwa, facing the omnipotence of Konoha, proliferating due to the Nidaime system and the economic inequalities that the last conflict had created, tried to annex the Rain country, Ame no Kuni, then allied to Fire. This attempt failed and the Rock retreated almost instantly, being pushed back before reaching the borders of the minor nation. Fourteen years before his birth, the second Great Shinobi War was declared. A conflict that lasted for six years and left Ame on fire. It caused the death of more than eight hundred thousand people, most of them civilians.
Four years before she was born, the Land of Waterfall, following a two-year lull and the sudden disappearance of the Kazekage, the Kage of Suna, launched an offensive on the Land of Wind. They surprised everyone by unveiling an exemplary and surgical strike force which resulted in a total success. Under the noses of many countries, Taki seized the seven-tailed demon, Nanabi. While the eyes of the entire peninsula were on the Waterfall, Kumo, realizing that war could not be avoided, took the opportunity to attack Uzushio, razing the hidden village of the Whirling Tides in the land of Whirlpools, then an ally of Konoha. Hiruzen formalized the Third Great Shinobi War by declaring war on the Land of Lightning, bringing allies and enemies alike to the battlefield. For the first time since the beginning of the shinobi era, the five great nations engaged in a deadly dance for more than three years, bringing death and destruction.
His diplomacy led to the Third Great Shinobi War. More than three million people lost their lives, most of them civilians.
Minato Namikaze, the Fourth, the Yondaime. The hero and the elusive. The Yellow Lightning of Konoha. He was appointed by Hiruzen Sarutobi, who resigned from his position after his much-criticized decision not to ask for reparations at the end of the Third Great War, despite the victory of the Fire Nation. A war that Minato single-handedly ended while Konoha was in a bad position. In a face-off with more than fifty shinobi from Iwa, he destroyed a strategic point in the Land of Grass, preventing the supply of the village hidden by the Rocks and forcing the armistice of the last country still at war. He died ten months later, during the attack of Kyūbi no Yoko, the nine-tailed fox demon, who launched a night offensive on Konoha and killed twelve thousand men, women and children in less than two minutes. He sacrificed his life in order to stop the thousand-year-old demon and save the village.
His heroism was one of the reasons that led to the Fourth Great Shinobi War.
Arriving in front of a huge building made of glass and concrete, she stopped for a short time. For the second time in less than ten minutes, she raised her gaze to the fifth face that watched over the calm of the village.
Danzō Shimura, the Fifth, the Godaime. The Impartial.
He was named provisional Hokage by the Daimyo after the crisis that hit Konoha twenty years earlier. The one that led to the death of the fourth and the third. His sudden rise to power unleashed passions. Some considered his ideals as undeniable to the future greatness of the village, while others, expressing opinions totally opposed to his policies, called for his removal the day after his enthronement. Bringing in names such as Tsunade and Jiraiya, two of the three legendary Sannin of the Second War. However, the former could not be found, while the latter, for reasons still unknown today, was declared a traitor to the village and a Nukenin of rank S, only one week after the attack of the millennium demon.
The subsequent council vote to remove Danzō from office lasted more than a week. It was a narrow vote in which supporters of the acting Hokage, as well as opponents of his more than questionable beliefs, hurled insults at each other and failed to find common ground. Thus, on the last day, when all indications suggested that another Hokage would be chosen, the Uchiha clan and Hyūga, the two major clans of Konoha, voted in favor of Danzō Shimura and tipped the scales. So, it was no surprise, twenty years later, to see the two most powerful and influential clans of the Leaf, propelled to the forefront of the village's guidelines, having even earned a place on the Restricted Council.
The death of the two Hokage was not the direct trigger for the Fourth Great War, as the Kazekage's death had been for the Third Great War. And this was mainly due to the reactivity of Hi no Kuni in electing a successor, although the atrocities of the previous war, which had ended a year earlier, had played a major role.
But, like a cycle that the peninsula followed since the emergence of the elementary countries, the peace did not last forever.
She was only four years old when it happened. And despite her young age, she still remembered the panic on her parents' faces as the news spread through the streets of the village, recovering from the celebration that had taken place.
Emissaries from Kumo, who had come to sign the peace treaty between the Lightning and Fire nations, had kidnapped the heiress of the Hyūga clan.
The child has never been found.
The war that followed lasted thirteen years and the biggest actors were Konoha, Iwa and Kumo. It was not the deadliest nor the longest, but the last two battles that animated it were the most memorable.
The first one, between Kumo and Konoha, took place in the immense forest in the north of the land of frost, in the northwest of Fire and on the borders with Lightning, known today as Yamakaji, because of the gigantic fire that the confrontation had created.
Konoha, deploying more than four thousand shinobi, with the Uchiha clan dominating the battlefields and accompanied by the ninjas of Shimogakure, the eternal enemy of the Lightning, succeeded in pushing back Kumo, which tried to annex the neighboring nation, inflicting a bitter humiliation on the elemental nation, which had to retreat.
The second, nicknamed the battle of Ryoukokutan, opposed Konoha, Suna, and Oto to Iwa, in the east of the Fire, on the borders of the land of Grass and Rain.
No one, even today, knew the reasons why the hidden villages of Leaf, Sand, and Sound, once the Rices, had joined together. But the alliance of Danzō, Rasa, and the Otokage, whose identity still remained a mystery, resulted in the greatest face-off in living memory.
Five thousand men and women from Konoha, as well as five thousand from Suna and Oto, faced the ten thousand shinobi of Iwa. The opposition lasted for several days, during which time Konoha's allied forces gained the upper hand over the Earth's.
At least, that's what the books at the academy said. The truth was quite different. They had been submerged at the southern border of Tsuchi, even to the point of having to retreat to the Land of Rain. And she couldn't be surer about it, since she had been there.
The medical assistance and supply unit, of which she was a part, had gone to Doroppu, a small village northwest of Ame, to join the main division in Herupu, another village on the border of Earth. But as they were about to join them, they were targeted by an enemy unit that had bypassed the front. This encounter caused a chain reaction that brought the main division, and thus the front, directly upon them.
The first thing that came to her mind every time she thought of this village was the strange rain that gave the name to her country. A fine rain, almost invisible if one did not pay enough attention, and which almost never stopped. The one that was at the origin of her new phobia.
It had lasted the three days and nights of the battle, watching their every move. And it was the rain, after seventy-two hours of intensive fighting, that brought the confrontation to an end. Stopping suddenly, the drizzle brought silence to the battlefield. The eight thousand men and women still standing, allies and enemies alike, had watched each other idly and listened to the strange lull. The gray skies had cracked open, letting in the sunlight that had illuminated the desolation and death they had sown.
All she could remember before she collapsed was the heavy weight that had fallen on her shoulders and pinned her and all the shinobi present to the ground. The floor had opened up under their feet and returned the injustice they had done.
A pulse of several kilometers in diameter, having for epicenter the battlefield that had become Doroppu, annihilated the forces in place and killed, in a few seconds, more than two thousand men, women and children, shinobi for the most part.
Instinctively, she touched the purple diamond on her forehead and closed her eyes, remembering that tragic moment. Of the two thousand two hundred people who had ended up in the center of the epicenter, she was the only survivor. A true miracle, if, once again, the stories were to be believed.
She had been forced to regain consciousness on the floor of one of the few surviving buildings. And, one thing was certain, she would remember until her last breath the first words the main division general had spoken to her. "Don't treat the enemy or the civilians, only save our men."
The Miracle Maker.
Of the four thousand Alliance shinobi affected and not within one kilometer of the epicenter, the few survivors of her unit, as well as her prowess, saved over three thousand people. The Allied force lost two thousand souls that day, while the Iwa lost four thousand, almost all of whom died of their wounds. Rain did not disclose the losses in Doroppu, nor what had caused the cataclysm, but before the war broke out, the population of the village was just over a thousand. Today, it no longer existed.
The Miracle Maker.
Of the four thousand Alliance shinobi affected and not within one kilometer of the epicenter, the few survivors of her unit, as well as her prowess, saved over three thousand people. The Allied force lost two thousand souls that day, while Iwa force lost four thousand, almost half from injuries. The Land of the Rain did not disclose the losses in Doroppu, nor what had caused the cataclysm, but before the war broke out, the population of the village was just over a thousand. Today, it no longer existed.
Following the demonstration of power that had fallen, an armistice was declared by the entire peninsula. The Fourth Great War had come to an end, leaving only eyes to grieve.
She climbed the five steps that separated her from the entrance to the huge cubic building, where several smaller, similarly shaped annexes were connected, and took one last look at the village standing under her bewildered look. By the time she stood in front of the largest hospital in Konohagakure no Satō, far below its capacity, she realized that it would not remain so for long.
The village was now recruiting its cannon flesh at the age of four, and its highest leader, still allied with Sand and Sound, had just met with the Mizukage who had miraculously put an end to its rebellion. She didn't know what the future held for the Leaf, but there was one thing she was certain of.
The Fifth Great Shinobi War was knocking at the door, and those who held the keys had left them wide open.
A story that repeated itself endlessly.