"Even monkeys fall from trees."-Japanese Proverb

Eight months before the Nine-Tails Attack.

The night is brisk and chilly in Konoha, and it's not because it was late fall on the edge of welcoming early spring.

It is cold because there is grief.

There is grief that lingers from the calm earth-toned wooden gates to the edge of the Nara forests, that has mist curling softly in the grass.

A hint of agony could also be found in the tranquility of the koi ponds and in the flower and herbal gardens, that all dance a sorrowful tune to the wind.

The luminous full moon glimmers in the daunting sky adrift with dying stars, while casting its solemn gaze down onto the Nara compound below. The night breeze is brisk, as it brushes the dimly lit lanterns and flutters softly against the swaying hammock's. The tentative quiet is shattered and destroyed by a sound that breaks the hearts of those who dwell within the wooden gates and sleep at the edges of the shadowy forest.

It's the desolating cry of an infant.

The sound was so startling, so gut-wrenching, as it echoed throughout the sleeping quiet of the Nara compound. So much so that it shatters and breaks the lazily peaceful and warm tranquil air known to the Nara Clan. The sound is so sorrowful, so painful in an agonizing yearning way that many clutch their chest in pain while they look up to the moon with tearful gazes and pray for relief.

Relief for those who have been broken. For those left behind and those who had to leave and go to a place that the living could not wander.

An infant cries with desperate yearning as they come to terms with the fact that the warmth and comfort they knew of will never console them again.

No one knows that trapped within the tiny body is a grieving and bitterly angry soul of a young woman who has virtually lost everything and everyone she's ever known. So she rages, because if she has to suffer, so will others. If she has no peace, neither will they.

Nara Asuka's desperate wails and heartbreaking howls can be heard from inside the main Nara household, where their grieving clan leader struggles to calm his one and only niece.

There's a room in the house where the main Nara family lives.

While the outside appeared warm, welcoming, refined and tranquil, the inside was opposite. When one stepped inside, they faced grieving pain, loss of hope, and bereavement. It was in the way dusk clung to the bedsheets, scrolls, books, scattered weapons, and other knick-knacks. It was in the heedy musky smell, with the faint hint of something sweetly familiar clinging at the edges. It was once the room of Nara Kuragari before he had stepped down as the clan heir to marry the woman he loved.

And standing in the center of the room was his younger brother, Shikaku, and his wailing daughter, he will never meet.

"Hush, Asuka." Nara Shikaku softly whispers towards his wailing niece, who wiggles ferociously in his arms as she cries her tiny inconsolable heart out in what he knows is no doubt confusion and fear.

It was a desperate child howling for their parents.

While the other was a brother who wept for their sibling.

The Nara shinobi knew neither of them would receive an answer they desperately wanted.

There's so much pain. So much grief that eats at his heart, his insides. It digs itself so deeply beneath his skin, it reaches his bones and marrow. Nara Shikaku knows he looks like a complete mess, with deep shadows he hadn't created that lie heavily underneath his eyes, while his hair remained in a sloppy half-greased ponytail.

And as he hears it in her wails and with his silent tears.

Shikaku learns.

He learns that grief is a struggle. That loss is an agony, and a loved one gone is nothing but an abyss of hopeless despair. The shadow user has so much anger in his despair and grief. He had so much anger and no where for it to go, because he couldn't truly blame anyone for his death. For her death. The Nara clan head wonders if this is what others mean by being heartsick. Where his heart, his stomach, and his entire soul feel nothing but empty, hollow, and aching.

And when he hears it, the inconsolable wails of his niece, he learns.

He learns that grief is the price you pay for love.

It's in the agony, the grief, the languishing pain that crawls through his beating heart until it latches onto his lungs, and suffocates him slowly as he wishes and begs to forget. Yet how can he forget despite the pain? Despite the suffering? How could he ever forget someone that gave him so much to remember?

'Nii-san will always be here for you, Shikaku.'

'Shikaku! Come here! Come here! They kicked! Come and feel your little niece's strong feet kicking up against my fucking bladder.'

And Shikaku realizes that when one person is missing, the whole world seems empty.

This is something he contemplates among the howling agony and the desperate, desperate want for his nii-san and Honami to be here alive and breathing. Shikaku goes to the Nara ancestral shrine and burns incense after incense as he sits in an abyss of numbness, rage, grief, and denial.

Oh, so much denial.

And over time, the tears blur his vision, and he swears he'll be completely blind due to his grief. His eyes raw, red, and swollen, and he knows they'll be like that for months and possibly years to come. Sometimes Asuka's howls do not help. Her piercing shrills echo down cold hallways, and he can't quite remember when it was the last time he had truly smiled.

Sometimes…

Sometimes he wants to smother his niece or strangle her so she no longer makes another wailing sound, because sometimes with the angry despair it becomes all too much . Then he sees his niece's eyes in the same hue as his nii-san's, and he feels horrible and disgusted with himself.

Like a monster, those civilian parents told their child he was because of the shadows he wielded and controlled.

Grief had warped him into something he could no longer recognize, and he knows the only thing keeping him barely sane, whole, and breathing in this world is his niece, and his only potential child. The months blur and blur since she was brought back from the Pure Lands to live again. Shikaku witnesses as she grows each day, appearing to look more and more like a perfect blend of her parents.

The only physical gift of his loved ones that they had left for him in this world.

And oh does it hurt.


Four months before the Nine-Tails Attack.

It's hard to believe it had been nearly a year without his brother and a few months without Honami.

Time was strange, the jounin commander realizes over the following months. It was strange that time seemed to blur together, and suddenly weeks have gone on by. It was also strange in the way where sometimes it slowed itself down to the point where Shikaku finds himself unable to breathe.

Those moments were the hardest.

He also learns that time is a cruel, cruel thing as the world continues on, and he's left in a standstill of pain, grief, and madness. His grieving never seems to stop, not even on those small good days. 'Even trying to allow an ultrasound of Shikamaru in Asuka's room led to a screaming match with his wife.'

He knows in the following years he will have a small hole in his heart that's made up of nothing but bitterness, anger, and lost.

So yes, time was strange and cruel, but it was also happiness, love, warmth, laughter and peace in those smaller moments. 'And ninja's struggled to grasp each of these things selfishly for as long as they could.'

It was happiness in the way Asuka learned to crawl for the first time, or when Yoshino was in one of her rare moods, and allowed him to feel their son press his feet against his mother's belly. It was happiness when on those rare days, Asuka would not scream or cry, but settle quietly as she fell to sleep with the sound of his voice when he sang a lullaby older than the Nara Clan itself. It was love with the hugs at night to soothe nightmares he could never imagine, and he swears her soft fingers that had gripped his lone one linger with deep warmth even when it was hours since he had let go.

It was love in the way the clan grandmothers stopped by and used the kitchen to cook his favorite foods and give him a break from watching Asuka. 'They leave the topic of Yoshino unspoken.' They still reprimanded him like he was their own grandchild, instead of their clan head.

It was warm with family and clan gatherings, and the familiar laughs of his teammates that still somehow soothed his soul for a bit. It was laughter in the way the other clan children ran, with childish glee as they showed each other how they could twist their shadows. It was laughter in the way it was wet, and heavy, as he and Haruno Kizashi recall fond memories of simpler times when he came over to greet his fallen teammates' only child. Time was peaceful in the way the hammocks swayed peacefully, the fireflies danced to an unknown tune, the ping and click noises as Go was played, and the fresh baby smell from Asuka slowly fading.

And his nii-san lied to him when he said time made things easier. That dealing with the loss would get easier. 'Words spoken upon their kaa-san dying in the field.'

It's agony.

It was as if someone had wrenched his heart out of his chest and pierced it with a poisoned kunai. It was as if someone had taken a tanto and slashed open his face again. It was as if someone had continued to stab him in the chest with a tachi over and over.

It's utterly excruciating.

His knees still ache with his kneeling in front of his ancestral hall, begging that he would be better, do better.

The pain of losing his sibling and his childhood love is one he was sure would have killed him if it hadn't been for his niece and soon-to-be son to keep him tethered and away from the Pure Lands.

But death was cruel, and it changes you as a person.


One month before the Nine-Tails Attack.

Someone who did not have siblings would never understand there was no love, like the love for a brother. No other type of love like the love from a brother. And a childhood first love is always a tricky business.

So he struggles to keep himself from drowning in the shadows, and for a long time there he lived in a muted world of grays. Konoha is still a time capsule of pain and grief. Of love and joy. Of life and death despite the months of healing and rebuilding due to war. 'He knows he needs to setup Asuka in her own room, but his brother's room is the only connection she'll have of him.'

Nara Shikaku struggles to continue living his life, as he realizes he will never again, not ever, see the people he loved with his whole heart and soul. The Nara clan head struggles to wonder how he was going to continue surviving every hour, minute, and second with the devastating knowledge that he was no longer going to see his brother smile and hear Honami laugh again.

People had always talked about how grief was emptiness, and he learns it is not. It was a full and heavy thing this grief. It was an absence where you tried to fill it with things you wish you could, but knew you couldn't reach for them no matter how hard you tried too. Grief was the rusty and cruel sharp chains your skin was caught on that when you pulled away left scars of bitter hope and lost dreams. It was of mountains and ocean waves pressing down on you with all the futures you'd thought you would have.

When he leaves the Nara compound, he does so as a changed man.

Shikaku knew he had changed. He's seen it in the concerned gazes of his teammates and clan members ones. He knows he has changed, and he had not wanted it, but sorrow and loss change you as a person, the same way pain and raging grief do with the heart.

'Shikaku, I say this not as a Hokage, but as your friend, Namikaze Minato. I know it hurts, but they're not gone. Not really. In a certain way, we are all the pieces of what we remember of them. We hold in ourselves the hopes and fears of those who love us, like Asuka-chan, and as long as there is love and memory, there is no true loss. They are not forgotten, and nor truly gone.'

There's an absence in his heart that can't be filled, and now suddenly he feels as if he is standing on the edge of an abyss. And he is reminded again that grief feels so much like fear. Fear is the uncertainty of what tomorrow brings, and the steps he will have to take alone, with only his son and niece by his side now.

The pain is so hard to bear, and he's choking on grief as if it's the ocean trying to drown him. As if the roots from the trees are trying to strangle him. He wants to claw at his chest to make this terrible pain go away, and it burns this grief. This utter sorrow and misery that has clawed its way down to his bones and attached itself there. Nara Shikaku's heart and soul are broken into unfixable pieces, like a teacup being dropped and shattering beyond repair or ink that spills across a finished talisman.

It's utterly excruciating. It's utterly excruciating.

It's utterly excruciating.

It is a twisted horrible burning madness.

Shikaku had learned plenty of lessons throughout the months as he grieved, and one of them was that pain demanded to be felt. It did not care if you were hurt or healed from previous torment. It came in like a forest fire and left him with a wreckage to clean up. Pain also left imprints in places where bandages, chakra, or medicines couldn't fix or heal. Pain left scars. It left smudges like ink from a brush pressed in one place too long on paper. It left behind bruises, smears, stains, and traces that could be tracked down and unburied.

He is drowning.

The first color to go, he thinks, is yellow. Yellow is the color of hurt and heartbroken wails to Nara Shikak as he takes in the quiet forest and Yoshino's scowling and bitter looks.

He fucking hates it.

He hates it so much that he wants to rip the flesh from his skin.

Yellow is the color of sunshine and happiness he can no longer experience at the tip of his fingers when he plays the Go for someone who is nothing more than a ghost at his side. Sometimes he thinks he smells cedar wood and plum flowers when he closes his eyes underneath a tree to take a nap.

It is also no longer an experience at the tip of his toes when they dig into the dirt as he feeds the deer, with Asuka and Shikamaru strapped to his chest when he has the strength to be in their presence as the sun shines down in a mockery of warmth. Yellow is the first color to go, and he finds himself missing the warmth it gave him. Misses the hugs of comfort from his nii-san, and the bright laughter of her.

Yellow is also a twisted sense of joy when he strangles, chokes, and asphyxiates the bodies of his enemies. The sweet heat of retribution that tingles on the tip of his tongue. As it coats playfully against his teeth, and buries itself underneath nails that once gave out love and kindness. Yellow is also the color of his frayed hope barely hung together, and he knows that if he tries to climb a mountain with it, both the rope and himself will break. 'There's no honor rites with jigai. Not even when wrapped up with a pretty bow and called seppuku. He remembers his brother's sensei well.'

Yellow is the sun that greets him each morning when he wakes with his soul a little more dead on the inside than before, and of his son's soft snores, and Asuka's never-ending screaming. 'They nearly sound like the cries of someone mourning.'

The following color to go he thinks is blue. Blue, like the shade of his nii-san's eyes blended in with topaz yellow, which now glances up at him from a shrieking niece. Blue is the color of peace and tranquility he craves so long for as he begs on his knees before the ancestral shrine, 'PLEASE BRING THEM BACK!'

The succeeding color to go he thinks is red. It's the crimson hue that trails down his broken skin as his shadows carve into his arms and inner thighs. Carves deeply with his maddening grief, suffering, anguish, and torment. Slicing into taupe hue skin in the swirling reddish waters of bereavement. It burns, deliciously so, and he screams loudly in his head.

It burns with his grief-stricken rage.

Red is the color of his passion to play Go, and of the grief, sorrow, and despair that has taken away his passions to appreciate what he loved properly. 'He barely touches his Go board now or nap underneath trees, he's too consumed by his raging pain and mourning.' Red is the color of blood, and Shikaku spills it from his own skin and enemies alike. Red is also the sadness that clings around Asuka, and the confusing pain and rage on Yoshino's face.

Red is the red string of fate tied to his pinky tangled and frayed with broken promises and futures.

'Why did you even marry me if you loved her. '

Both the colors brown and green disappear together, and he's only slightly caught off guard as he smashes his teacup against the wooden walls of his office in a moment of grieving rage. He ends up waking Asuka and Shikamaru. Brown is the ground he wishes to be buried under, while green is of the leaves, which lose color to fall, and it'll be nearly a year of his nii-san and Honami being dead.

Brown is the various hues of alcoholic jars he sneaks into his office and drinks until he is courageous enough to stand on the edge of the Hokage Rock at three in the morning. Brown is the wooden coffins he dreams of, and the shadows he twists. Asuka's rare smile and his son's innocent laughter are the only thing to ground himself back to the Earth.

Brown is the color of home, and where is home? Home is not home to Shikaku anymore, as the safety, love, and comfort it once brought is snuffed out like the lantern with the wind. Brown is the color of stability, and Shikau's mind and heart haven't been stable since the day Honami's blood coated his hands as he cradled her daughter in his arms, and his brother's hitai-ate the ribbon part still stained with blood wrapped around his arm. Brown is the color of simplicity, and Shikaku wants to know when the pain will end, or does he have to suffer until he sees them in the Pure Lands? Green is the jealousy and envy he sees in the loving moments between married couples. Green is the color of Shikamaru's eyes, and he weeps as he recognizes he shares his mother's coloring, but that's all he get's from her. It is the broken dreams of playful laughter, Go games, and a voice calling out otouto to him.

Pink is the following color. Though Shikaku fought hard to keep it, as he gently placed a blanket on a sleeping Yoshino, he knows this is a punishment for all the wrongs he had committed. Pink is the color of love and tenderness Shikaku struggles to give his niece, who cries, sensing the unrest of his soul. Shikaku loves his brother's and Honami's daughter, and he holds in his tears as he sits in his office, inhaling Asuka's scent filled with innocence. Innocence Shikaku vows to somehow protect to the best of his abilities. Sometimes in the littlest part of his heart, he hates his niece, and the fact she has Honami's smile and his nii-san's topaz-blue eyes.

Pink is the flush of his son's cheeks when he giggles as he sings him a lullaby his mother had once used to sing to him. He wonders if they miss him? Their daughter? If they were waiting on the other side, liked they promised? And he thinks it is not the best idea to swirl down into those thoughts, because he knows the unanswered questions will hurt.

Purple is the succeeding color to go, and he is sitting on the porch playing Go with Minato when it happens. Purple is the color of wisdom, and he has learned dutifully how cruel the world actually was. Shikaku knows punishment awaits him when he dies, and he doesn't find death terrifying. Purple is the color of cruelty, and Shikaku has always been familiar with this concept as if he had taken it on as a mistress, as it's carves itself deep into his skin and within his bones. Cruelty in the unanswered prayers he was given, and the false sense of security he was offered when he gave his life to protect his village, and he is so weary.

Purple is the color of his niece's inherited wakizashi, and summons scroll, as he knows she'll walk and move among Konoha, Hoshi, and Suna with her own frustration, loss, and grief. Shikaku is so terribly exhausted, and he aches for the earth to reclaim him. Purple is the color of mourning, as Shikaku curls around his son and Asuka as they nap underneath the tree, and the hand sewn blanket no longer has the scent of cedar wood and plum flowers. Purple is mourning, and Shikaku has been mourning since the day he and them died with the color yellow.

The colors orange and gray blend somewhere with white, and he doesn't lift a single finger to fight it. He ignores the worried eyes and sharp frowns his teammates give him as more corpses pile up. 'Shikaku had been a man who would avoid spilling blood unless he had to.' White is the color of peace he only finds in the rare hugs his niece gives, the kisses he catches, and the oji-san that rambles out of her peach colored mouth when he could withstand her presence. 'Honami's and his death were still fresh in his mind.'

White is the color of death, and sometimes Shikaku pleads to die. He knows he's selfish with his thoughts, as it'll mean leaving his son, his niece, his wife, his clan, and his friends behind. He's so tired and weary as he struggles to take another step each day. 'Nii-san, this ototo of yours is sorry he's worthless. So far, your daughter is growing well, and she painfully reminds me of you.' White is the color of his bandages, stained red as his grief, anger, and raging pain build beyond something he can no longer see.

No longer control particularly well.

Black is the final color, and Shikaku laughs bitterly. Black is the color of unhappiness, and he knows he brings that to the wife he loves and clan he leads. It has been nearly a year since they died, but the pain is still fresh as the day it happened. Black is the color of anger, and Shikaku is so angry at the world. So angry that words can't escape his mouth, and his soul burns with passion to punch all the gods in their faces. He is angry at the situation, at the loss of his brother and childhood friend, of broken promises and futures, and at himself.

It is the color of his dead heart.

Yes, he loved his brother. He had taught him to speak, read, write, walk, and love, as their parents were too busy fighting in the first and third war. And he knows it will be both a pain and a treasure to watch his niece grow up, learn things, and love someone in her own right. He also knows that it will hurt so deeply when she grins in a certain way and laughs in a certain way. Her eyes make him so heartsick, and even now on the edge of a coin, he craves for those halcyon days of the sweet past.

Nara Shikaku's pain was like a mirage of colors unseen by the rest of the world. He perceived loss in black and white. Grief came in all shades of gray. But his love, it was his love that came in colors. He knows he's changed, he knows. Pain is bitter and miserable, like that he learns as his knees dig into a wooden floor as he bows before their memorial tablets. He's changed, and you can tell it from his eyes, feel it in his touch, and hear it in his tone as he howls at the sky when thunder sings brokenly to lightning.

Pain changes people. It has changed him bitterly, and he has tasted grief on his tongue the same day he feels the lukewarm of Honami's blood as he held Asuka in his arms, and his brother's hitai-ate was given to him by a notification officer. He no longer trusts, and pushes even his teammates out of arms length, because he is so very tired of losing the people he loves.