Children

Sometimes I'll sit at my desk in the Hokage office with my head in my hands for hours, staring at the grains in the wood, or maybe at an old mission report. A lot of the time, I'm thinking about what happened to all of us; maybe why, maybe when, maybe how... maybe what's next.

I mean, even if it makes my head hurt, and even if it makes my face wet with tears, if I think about it long enough, my stupid, dead-last brain will get it, right?

There are lots of reasons we fell apart, why we went insane, but too many to sort them all out, so I think about it person by person. Peer by peer- friend by friend.

Ghost by ghost.

All I've figured out is that everyone started falling apart when they were young. Really young.

Sasuke was four or five when he began falling apart, looking at his older brother with adoration. His older brother who never had time for him.

Sakura was six or seven when she got a little broken up there in the head, inner Sakura and such.

I don't even want to know how little Shikamaru was when his mom first yelled and slapped him and his dad did nothing for him, only slunk away to get drunk. He held himself together the longest out of everyone, though he was by far the most cracked and broken when he finally went out.

For Neji it was when he first realized what being a branch member really meant.

For Hinata it was when she first realized what being clan heir meant.

I've never been told exactly what age, but I hear the Aburame are young when they receive their kikaichu (probably as infants), and that's when they start falling apart. They tell themselves it's a blessing, but they know as well as I do that nothing living inside of you, that people can't identify with, is a blessing.

For all jinchuuriki it's the moment that monster is sealed inside them and people look at them with fear and disgust. Gaara.

Temari and Kankuro I don't know too well, but for them it was probably when they had a little brother they were terrified of, but pretended to love because of their blood.

I don't like to think about when I started falling apart. I don't even like to think that I am falling apart. But when I sit in my office at my desk, staring at an old mission report that wasn't handed to me by the person I sent, I know I've been falling apart all along. These mission reports that I keep in my drawer are proof of it.

What's more sickening than the mission reports in my drawer is that everyone I knew began falling apart when they were children, including myself. In this ruthless world, bad things happen.

Often.

Really often.

Probably too often.

And they happen to us as children, and us children fall apart.