Twenty
She never imagined that she'd be sitting here, her mind in a harsh daze under the hot sunlight. She should be married, or, better yet, on a mission. But she wasn't. She was alone.
And that was the way it should be. A true shinobi never trusted her emotions, always pushed them aside, useless. She had never been able to do that. Instead she sat here, caught in those memories that slowly destroyed her.
Once again she saw that small face, eyes wide and wanting as they begged to be fed. The small morsels that she tossed into those expectant hands shimmered in Sakura's memory as the words of a bridge builder came back to her.
"…It hasn't always been this way."
But was that true? Had he seen through the layers right down to the bottom? Somehow she thought that the lonely child had always existed, simply away from his eyes, his world.
She had seen the ache in Naruto's eyes, the hurt in Sasuke's gaze. She had known of the pain inside her mother, had felt it in herself.
The torture of being alone.
But they pushed it away. They were the strong ones. They used it; Sasuke for revenge, Naruto for recognition, her mother for her. They rebelled, never letting it catch hold of their souls.
In the end, she was the one who clung to it. She was the one who fell.
And maybe that was how it had always been.