Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
I don't think Shizune's aware of how much she truly resembles her uncle. True, she has her father's dark hair and her mother's brown eyes, but it's Dan she resembles. She has the same smile, the same cadence to her voice. Her mannerisms, the shape of her eyes and face, it's almost perfectly identical; if I didn't know better I'd say she was his daughter and not his niece. Shizune's a tall, thin girl, the same way Dan was a tall, slender man.
Aspects of their personality are mirror images of each other. Shizune is hard-working and devoted to her work, just as Dan was. Both display great loyalty to those who have earned it from them. They both tend to root for the underdog, and Shizune, like Dan, definitely suffers from a bleeding heart.
But it's more than that.
I see the shadow of his face when she smiles, laughs or frowns; in that time she is so like her uncle that it's all I can do to keep breathing, as her heartbreakingly expressive face takes on a persona not its own.
But there are times when it's so painful that I begin in earnest to question my sanity. I do something that would have elicited a response out of Dan, and it's all the same with Shizune. Same look on her face, same emotions, even similar words and rationalizations. It's not natural for two people to be so much alike. Sometimes the resemblance's so uncanny that it makes me want to laugh. But more often, it just makes me want to cry.
It's in these moments that I see him at last.
I see the ghost of Dan, trailing her steps as she walks. Sometimes, I'm happy to see him, even if it is only in this way, because I can be sure that the times we shared was more than just a happy illusion, and because it's one more moment that I can lay eyes on the man I loved, so much…
But more often than not, sight of that specter haunts me, and the horrors of battle and grief and death all come rushing back, like a plunge into dark, dense water, shocking cold and searing at my flesh like the ghastly, unholy chorus of a thousand rusty knives. I don't want to see him, and my behavior confuses, hurts, even shocks Shizune.
My strange behavior burns and alienates her; she, rational soul (at least she tries to be rational; one of us needs to be) that she is, would not understand my esoteric explanation, but rather write it off as the drunken ravings of an alcoholic (And after all that I have screamed while in the throes of the evil drink, I would not blame her for thinking so). All my behavior serves to do is turn her away from me, as she attempts to walk alone.
I don't want to drive her away. Shizune is the closest I have ever come to having a daughter; she's Dan's only living kin, and she's never left my side. She's fiercely devoted to me, though only God knows why, and she is truly the only constant in my life anymore. I don't want her to turn away and try to go it alone. When you walk that lonely road, if you fall no one will come and help you up; I should know.
And sight of him scares me too. It's not the sight of a "ghost" that frightens me, but the implications of it. Shizune is very much like Dan; to those who knew him, it is only a fool who doesn't recognize it. Being someone I care about just makes her one more person I fear to lose, and her more than most, because of her painful resemblance to others whom I have loved.
Sometimes, I even resent the fleshless specter for casting a pall over her, for straining our relationship without ever saying a word.
And sometimes, he turns, and his ghost lips quirk in the pale shadow of that beautiful smile.
I don't know why I see him.
Maybe the alcohol constantly in my system is making me hallucinate.
Maybe I'm just insane.
Or maybe, Dan is just trying to do what he can to look out for the niece he loved so much.
