It had been three weeks since Uzumaki Naruto had been officially filed as killed in action. Three weeks of unnatural silence in the Hokage's office and, Tsunade knew, in the fallen shinobi's home. Sakura, in turn, had been silent for a better part of those three weeks. The young woman never wavered in the line of duty, efficiently giving the required medical attention to whoever happened to be on her team during a given assignment. She still fought to the fullest, perhaps with a bit more ferocity than she would have in the past.
Sakura's silence was heartbreaking in itself; and Tsunade could understand it completely.
The girl had lost a teammate to treachery, as Tsunade had. The irony of the Uchiha boy's situation had not escaped the Hokage.
Tsunade lost the man she held most dear to death; Sakura now felt that same pain.
The difference in the Hokage's case lay in the fact that she still had a teammate while Sakura was now alone in that aspect.
Tsunade sighed as she faced the paperwork before her. Everyday, reports of shinobi killed or wounded while on assignment reached her and she faced all of them with a sort of detached apathy. Some were unbearably young; there were Genin killed on low-level assignments, there were Genin killed on high-level missions. Everyday, Tsunade noticed the ages of the fallen, saw their faces in profile pictures, felt a bit of her heart ache; but she stopped losing sleep a month after accepting the Hokage title. A shinobi simply couldn't function that way, she knew this all too well.
Three weeks after the fact, however, Tsunade found herself once again reading the report made by Naruto's surviving Genin, and found herself scouring the official file that listed the young man as dead.
Three weeks later, she still wept for the child that had kept her Dan and her Nawaki alive. She wept for the boy who should have one day taken her Hokage title. She wept for the man he would never become.
Four weeks later, Tsunade would find herself nearly stunned beyond words.
Tired and filthy from blood and dirt, Uzumaki Naruto himself came stumbling into the Hokage's office. He slapped down a thin stack of papers onto Tsunade's desk with as much energy as he could muster.
"There, Baa-san, I finished my report," he said half-heartedly.
At that moment, Tsunade was certain she would cry.
End ChapitrePost-Mission Analysis I love that kid too much to let him die so soon. His other two Genin students are safe as well, by the way.
