Thirty-five
There was a storm coming. The dogs sensed it and howled, their voices rising in a mournful melody. She watches as the wind picks up, slapping the rocks. Thunder echoes through her valley, shaking the trees. Rain pelts the ground, soaking her as she stands, over looking the village.
She remembers another night like this.
The cold wind, slapping them across the rocks as they tried to run, knowing that the burden clasped in Barako's arms must be saved. Winds, tearing at their clothing as they almost reach the checkpoint. The nin behind them are lost, but they don't know that. And then it happens.
Lightening strikes; Sakura can't tell where it hit for a moment as she is knocked aside, the scroll slapping her face as it flies from her mother's arms. And then she opens her eyes and sees exactly what it hit.
Barako is standing, still illuminated by the white fire. Her back is arched in pain, her eyes wide. For a moment she balances on the brink, then collapses, her eyes still wide and blank, onto the wet rock.
She is screaming, shrieking above the storm, commanding her mother to come back as she shakes her. It is last of many family missions that they made, but Sakura doesn't believe that. She only believes that her mother is faking this sudden immobility, that she is alive, truly…
There is no pulse. Her skin is colder than the rain could ever make it, her eyes still wide.
Two trembling fingers reach out and gently close the lids before the thirteen year old collapses over her mother's corpse, her sobs and screams louder even then the thunder. One of the Jounin at the checkpoint hears the painful noises and comes to look, only to find a girl clutching the dead body of her mother, now an orphan.
She knows the story; she also knows that the scroll was mainly useless afterward, as it had fallen into the chasm at their feet. The pain is still red hot, raw as it was on that day.
She still can't believe that the bolt struck her mother; a one in a million chance. But it did, and now she lies in earth, her eyes forever blank and staring. She can still see the image of Barako bent against the sky, for all the world a fallen angel. And she only knows one thing:
Her mother had always said that any chance was lucky, even one in a million. And it turns out that she was right.