Two Days

What do you see at the end of your life?

They say when you're dying your entire life should play before your eyes, a succession of image-sound-sensations showing what you got right or where you've gone wrong.

She remembers only two days.

The first day, covered in shimmering memory dust and translucent lights, was only a day removed from the start of summer and she'd been glaring down at him for having the gall to take what was hers.

It was presumptuous, since no one really owned the fruit tree that grew at the edge of the village seemingly just to tempt its inhabitants with its luscious colors and visions of pies in the making, but she'd been climbing it first. It didn't matter that he was faster, and was already peeling fruit before she'd even reached the third branch, the crusty bark making imprints on her palms like they didn't on his, and she'd fumed with indignation.

That was her first impression of ninjas: they were incredibly rude.

She might've seen him smile and mouth something if she wasn't squinting, for he was silhouetted against the sun and sparkly with sweat, all long limbs dangling from where he sat on the thin, thin branch that looked like it couldn't hold her weight, much less his.

Slightly (and stupidly) oblivious of their precarious positions and hankering for revenge, she'd grabbed for the slingshot she'd hastily grabbed that morning as she stumbled out in perpetual clumsiness, and a couple of riverstones her brother had tucked into the pockets of his pants.

Ready.

Aim.

Fire.

She remembers crying out when he'd so nonchalantly flipped over to dodge the stones, a move that would've sent him plunging if his feet hadn't been glued with chakra. She remembers falling herself because she'd never learned to tell the difference between dendritic limbs and solid ground and had rushed to help.

She remembers being held up by the toes.

She remembers him calling her stupid and idiot and moron, why the hell did I help you if you still fall?

She remembers how summer seemed to come early, with all its heady fragrances and hazy magic.

The second day, it had been a festival, moonlit and magical and where the river sylphs seemed to sing in exultation of life, and she'd invited him to introduce (show off) to her friends. Until then he'd been known as her outsider, her exotic highwayman, her moonlight prince and if it wasn't incredibly true, she'd laugh. She'd known about his – job sounded so flat – and it really did seem like he would vanish in and out of her life without notice into a hazy fog of covert missions and far-off places.

She'd known, and understood, and had been content. Other women had endured this endless repetition of uneasy vigils, and she would too.

He'd fast gotten bored by the festival activities, and had gallantly tried to hide it with careful words and laughter, but it was clear that some time between the fire-eating and acrobatic acts, his mind had gone off to somewhere she wouldn't comprehend.

She'd playfully sighed, and he'd taken her somewhere else, piggyback, over rooftops and forests and woodbridges and green rivers, to a huge, huge tree near his own fortified and dead-silent village.

On the tree was carved:

A messy scrawl, a bold strikethrough: H x M

A proud declaration: JIRAIYA x TSUNADE

A prominent: M x K

And others: S x I, H x Y, I x H, N x S… so many others.

He takes a kunai, and adds your existence to the chain.

She's dying and she hasn't even seen their child yet. She's dying, and the sheets are growing scarlet with her lifeblood. She's dying, and her husband feels a million miles away, off in his world. She's dying and she sees only two days.

She remembers only the slingshot, and the carved initials. And, somehow, that's all she needs.

P-please come back – at least one of us should be here.

She closes her eyes and everything falls away.

End.

Notes: Like you weren't expecting this. Every story needs a cliché.