a/n Hi friends! And welcome back.

Thanks so much for all your wonderful reviews and PM's; they are what keep me updating every week:)

Special thanks to Uchiha.S, my beta and muse; thanks for everything:)

Chapter 20

Another Man's Tears

I shook and cried, "It could have been I

Who killed your mother and dad,

Who set fire to your house and fields

And destroyed all you ever had."

~The First Book of Akash, Verse VII

Shikamaru took the stack of scrolls from Tsunade's desk and made his way to the Hokage monument. Naruto was right exactly where Shikamaru thought he would be—directly on top of the Fourth Hokage's sculpted head. Forcing chakra into the soles of his feet, Shikamaru became a dark blur as he sped up the mountainside.

Naruto didn't acknowledge the Nara as he approached. Instead, the Hokage lay on his back, gazing upwards at the clouds. Shikamaru fully appreciated the irony of the situation: while he himself was running around like a chicken without a head, here Naruto was enjoying the slow dance of the clouds moving across the dome of the sky—not that he could blame the man. Shikamaru sighed and sat down heavily next to the Hokage, waiting for the him to speak first.

After a few full moments of silence, Naruto finally drawled, "You know, Shikamaru, I think I see what you see in these clouds."

Shikamaru smirked in spite of himself. Carefully weighing down his stack of papers with a large rock, he sprawled out on his back to join Naruto in gazing at the clouds. "So..."

Naruto closed his eyes. "I feel like a fraud."

Shikamaru raised one eyebrow and turned his head towards the Hokage.

"Naruto—"

"How can people expect me to protect this village? I can't even protect my own son—I'm an utter failure." His voice wasn't bitter, or angry, but was mind-numbingly sad; Shikamaru winced as if he had been punched in the gut.

His so-called genius brain whirled, attempting to find the right thing to say, but couldn't think of a single thing. The two lay in silence, looking up at the carefree forms of the clouds, each lost in their own thoughts. Finally, Shikamaru managed, "Naruto. You can't blame yourself—"

Naruto chuckled darkly at this. "Just let me be, Shikamaru. Today let me say self-deprecating things; tomorrow is the funeral. The day afterwards I'll suck it up and go back to being the Hokage. Speaking of which—you brought me some bullshit to sign?"

Shikamaru winced. "Tsunade is lowering the graduation age at the academy. If there's a war, we'll need every hand we can get. Of course, they'll still have to pass the test…"

Naruto scowled and ran a hand through his disheveled hair. "She's right," he muttered, "but I hate it. I feel like I'm sending other people's kids to their deaths." Exhaling sharply, he muttered, "That's all I do as the bloody Hokage; send children to their untimely deaths."

Shikamaru felt something akin to lead settle in his stomach. He took out a pack of cigarettes and began methodically tapping them on his wrist. Damn it. I can think of brilliant, innovating tactical strategies from dusk till dawn; I can outwit any opponent, aside from Temari, on the Shogi board; but I can't think of one fucking thing to say right now. Talk about frauds. He lit his cigarette with a grimace and offered one to the Hokage, who moved as if to decline, but in the end took the proffered tobacco. Naruto coughed on his first inhalation, but afterwards got the hang of it.

Naruto exhaled smoke slowly. "Is your son going to graduate here?" he asked.

Shikamaru was startled at the change in topics. Nevertheless, he mastered his surprise before replying. "Gaara will probably be disappointed, but he knows that I'm needed here. Though it looks like Temari will be heading back to the Sand to deliver some messages—and I'm not sure if she will return." Shikamaru took another inhalation of smoke; having dual citizenship could be such a drag. He wasn't looking forward to remaining in the Leaf without her expert advice, but politics were politics; things being what they were, her brother would probably want her to stay and advise the Sand.

"But your son, Hayato?" Naruto ventured.

"Like I said, he'll stay by me. I think the Leaf could use him more than the Sand if shit hits the fan. More kids his age here, anyway." Shikamaru winced after he said that last thoughtless statement; it was inconsiderate to mention other children at the moment. Desperately looking for a way to change the topic, Shikamaru took a drag of his cigarette, brows furrowed in thought. "If it means anything to you, I think you're the best Hokage this village has ever had," he offered at last.

Naruto snorted and turned away. "Allow me to explain," Shikamaru pressed on. "All the previous Hokages were preoccupied with war and enhancing our military strength. You're the first leader who has focused on creating and maintaining peacetime, putting our ninja and our technology towards non-violent applications. It's a huge achievement."

"Thanks for the confidence boost, but I don't think I'm in the mood."

Shikamaru took another long, languid breath of smoke. "I'm merely offering you my objective opinion. My point is this: to show you your weakness. You've gotten too accustomed to peacetime, and anyway, you are a leader more suited to peacetime. You have brilliant ideas when it comes to textile production and expansion of trade routes, but when it comes to war–to having your friends and family threatened–that's when you are apt to loose your ability to stay rational."

Naruto exhaled sharply. "What are you getting at?"

"I'll come straight to it then. First of all, trust your staff and your people. We'll support you all we can through this phase."

"And second?" Naruto muttered, as he stubbed out his half-finished cigarette.

Shikamaru mouth twitched upwards in a half-smile; Naruto was used to how he numbered his thought processes in an orderly, predictable fashion. After all, they had been working together for over a decade. "Second of all, the fault in this instance lies with all of us. As your top strategical adviser, I didn't do enough background checks. The ANBU should have been more suspicious of newcomers to the village. And on and on it goes. We've all gotten soft from peacetime, but I think if we can keep it together, no one else will have to die. Have faith in your personnel, Hokage-sama."

Naruto took a deep breath, his lungs aching from smoke. "The rational part of me—the Hokage part of me—knows that you're right, that we just have to keep trying harder. But the other part of me is just an ordinary man who has lost his son." Naruto paused and blinked up blankly at the sky. "So. Please let me sign these papers, so I can go back to being an ordinary man again."

Wordlessly, Shikamaru handed the papers to Naruto. Naruto perused the documents quickly, signing one after the other in rapid succession: however, when he reached the last one, he paused. He handed them all back to Shikamaru abruptly, with the unsigned document on top. "As for alerting the other Kages and our secret operatives in other countries about the current developments, as well as for the accelerated graduations from the academy, I agree. But tell Baachan that there is no need to send the ANBU out to the Akash mountains. I will undertake that mission myself—after the funeral."

Shikamaru blinked at the Hokage stupidly, his cigarette singeing his unmoving fingers as it burned down: he stifled the urge to swear. "I don't think that is wise, Hokage-sama," he stated evenly.

"I don't care. I want to be the one who finds out what, exactly, happened to my son."

Shikamaru let out a long, steady stream of smoke. He could sense that there was no use arguing with Naruto in his current state. He bit back another curse and mumbled, "Yes sir, Hokage-sama."

"Shikamaru?"

"Yes?"

"Please. Just Naruto, right now. And...thank you."

Shikamaru smiled ruefully. "No problem." The Nara snubbed out his stub of a cigarette in a pile of ash and rose, leaving Naruto to contemplate the clouds from atop his father's stone head.

Sasuke swore he spent an eternity entombed in the freezer of drugged slumber, but at long last, the darkness lifted. He found himself in the usual grassy clearing, where the sun seemed to shine from all sides. A flock of crows appeared, the familiar convergence of black feathers metamorphosing into his brother.

Itachi regarded him coolly, sharingan spinning like a windmill in a breeze. "He's coming—be careful."

Sasuke blinked, and Itachi was gone, his exit not even marked by a single feather or bird call.

Sasuke's mind was whirling—Who was coming? How should he be careful?—but then he felt himself lifted up, a feeling like floating up from the bottom on the sea into the bright, airy surface. Someone was whispering his name—

"Sasuke?"

He groaned, fragments of fevered dreams tumbling around in his head.

Sakura placed a cool towel on his head. When he sat up in the hospital bed, she murmured, "You can open your eyes now..."

He did so, one eye at a time. Sakura had turned off all the cruel florescent lights in the operating room, but the thin oranges of twilight came stealing in from the westward window, pale cadmium illumination offset with cobalt shadows. He blinked. So this is what it is like to see again. Everything looks so—alive. So alive... And at that thought, he choked on the irony—it was only through another's death that new life had come into his eyes. But at that moment, the mental lecture on his own unworthiness faded; every mundane detail in the room took on heightened, electrified beauty. Any thinking on his part was superfluous and dull compared to the animate light.

He turned his face towards Sakura—

She's gotten old, was his first thought, and he smiled. If Sakura could have read his thoughts, he would have been in trouble.

"So! What do you think?" Sakura couldn't keep the excitement out of her voice.

Sasuke smiled and cupped her cheek in his hand. Despite the fine lines around her eyes, Sasuke remembered how beautiful his wife was—how beautiful she had always been. He couldn't believe he'd ever forgotten. In the dim light, half of her face reflected the orange glowing sunset, faint yellows and pinks playing over her pale skin; the other half was bathed in ultramarine and phthalo blues, thin turquoise washes and violet shadows. Her hair picked up all the fiery crimson hues of the western window as well, highlighting the pinks with jewel tones, garnet and carnelian, while shadows from the east painted her with purples and crepuscular cerulean.

"Beautiful."

"Not me, idiot, I mean your—"

He pulled her in for a kiss with a shaky hand.

Sakura finally drew back, whispering, "Okay. I guess I did a good job." She smiled. Sasuke drank in how the motion made her viridian eyes crinkle ever so slightly, how the light danced in her eyes like a pale green fire, all spreading out from the simple gesture of her lips. Sakura gazed into his eyes, but then her smile faded and the light leached from her irises.

"It's weird. Huh. Looking into someone else's eyes on my face..." He looked away from her and down at the swirling blue shadows on the floor.

Sakura shook her head, her hair falling in her eyes. "Sorry."

"Don't be. I'm going to have to wear sunglasses like Shino or something, before I weird everyone out in the village," he muttered, trying to make light of the situation while dread twisted his guts.

Sakura snorted. "I totally ruined the moment. I'm such an ass," she replied, forcing herself to laugh.

"It's okay," he muttered, pulling himself out of bed with slow, deliberate motions; he found when he moved too fast, the room started to spin, and his vision blurred.

Finally he stood and held her, placing his chin on top of her head; marveling at how her hair reflected all the colors of the sunset where the light touched it from the window. He wanted to run out into the twilight and drink in all the shades of the sky and sun, and for dessert devour the moonlight filtered by the opaque, purpled night. He wanted to light a candle and study the flame, the progressions of blue to crimson to gold to black— the way the colors and the light abutted the darkness in gentle gradations, like a song with lolling crescendos and shades of silence, made real, tangible, something to be held with the eyes and eyes alone—

He closed his eyes, dizzy against the beautiful light and the guilt curdling his stomach. These eyes aren't mine...

As if sensing his thoughts, Sakura pulled away; she tipped his chin down towards her, the motion startling his eyes open. She forced herself to look into his eyes again. "Ryuu would have wanted you to enjoy it... Don't you think?"

He closed his eyes again. "This feels morbid and weird and wrong." The room seemed to lurch, and Sasuke had to steady himself on his wife's arm.

"I'm serious. Don't let that little boy have died in vain. Open your eyes," she commanded.

But Sasuke sighed and kept his eyes closed. "That's like saying you should finish everything on your plate because people are starving in the Water Country." It sounded stupid, even to him, but he didn't know what else to say.

"People are starving in the Water Country!"

"But hearing you say that makes me lose my appetite," Sasuke maintained, squeezing his eyes shut against the harsh truth: Sasuke was twice a grave-robber with another's eyes in his head, showing him light he did not deserve. The forced banter with his wife did little to comfort him.

"Idiot. Fine, keep your eyes closed, but only after I show you something." She took his hands and guided him towards the western window. "Okay, open them."

He did so hesitatingly, but when he did so, he was overwhelmed with joy— there was a fine line of tangerine light on the horizon, gently fading into amber and ocher and pale naples yellow, expanding outward in peacock green and ultramarine and lavender and deep, deep violet studded with lemon stars. He exhaled slowly, regarding the sliver of moon hanging like a lopsided grin in the sky, pale white breathing light, its nimbus electrified. Sakura curled her hand around the small of his back and leaned onto his shoulder.

"Here," Sakura whispered. "Look at this." She handed him a picture frame, face down; when he flipped it over, he smiled despite himself, a genuine face-splitting grin. It was a picture of Sora and Takeo giggling wildly from the middle of a pile of wriggling puppies. Sasuke recalled with a pang how Hinata had offered to take a photograph of the children that day for Sakura, how he had carried home the polaroid picture in one hand and a sleeping Takeo in the other, wishing for just a moment of his long-lost sight. Sasuke looked up from the photograph to Sakura's face, the warring emotions of guilt and joy etched clearly in his red-rimmed eyes.

"It's a gift—Ryuu-kun's very last gift. Enjoy it and use it well," Sakura whispered, smiling softly.

He turned towards her and kissed the top of her head. "Thank you, Sakura-chan." They stood like that for a few moments, until Sasuke ventured, "Do you think we could stop by Ino's flower shop on the way home? I—I want to see the flowers." He smiled wryly. "I'm always getting you flowers based on smell; I want to see what they look like, for a change."

Sakura grinned. "Idiot, we're both staying at the hospital tonight. But tomorrow—yes." She didn't let her grin falter when she realized that they would be going to the flower shop by necessity tomorrow—before the funeral. Instead, she choose to revel in the joy of the moment; before the joy merged, like the oranges of the sunset, into the somber blues and violet hues of tomorrow's mourning.

"Naruto?" She said his name tentatively, as if he might fall off of the Hokage monument if she spoke in anything more audible than a whisper.

Naruto answered silently by beckoning her over with a wave of his hand. His wide blue eyes were fixed on the sky, irises reflecting the far off flickering stars, emerging in pale yellows and golds across the expanse of night. Hinata sighed softly and glided, like a shadow, until she stood above her husband. Then, in a motion more like melting, she came to lay next to him, her opal eyes looking for something resembling an answer in the celestial bodies above her.

"Naruto-kun?" she murmured, so quiet she wasn't sure he heard her.

"Hinata-chan?" His voice was hoarse, as if his lips hadn't touched water in days.

She rolled onto her stomach and regarded him with quiet, cool eyes. "Shikamaru told me you've been up here all day. Come home. Please?"

Naruto winced, the quiet desperation tinging her voice startling him out of his frozen thoughts. "I'm sorry, I didn't realize how late it had gotten—I didn't mean to worry you..."

"It's okay..." Hinata's gaze softened with concern as she met Naruto's dark eyes; she felt as if the darkness contained therein might swallow her whole and subsume her if she lingered, and so she looked down at the ground again. She coughed. "Sora is asleep and Hoshiko is watching over her. I brought them back from Ino's after...I arranged everything. You should come home and sleep before...tomorrow."

Hinata's omissions did not serve to soften her sentence, but that had not been her intention; in reality, she could not bring herself to say the dreadful words: Burial. Funeral. They sounded so final and cold, hardly the kind of events that could befall their only son.

Naruto shook his head and sighed. "Stay with me—for just a few moments. Just until all the stars come out."

Hinata nodded and lay back down on the cool ground, observing new stars winking into sight as the last rays of sunlight receded further past the horizon. She could just make out the edges of the milky way, while the big dipper twinkled prominently in the center of the sky. She recalled the day's events, how she had been acting on auto-pilot all day: arranging the funeral, notifying her clan, finding the priest.

Her father and Neji had been by her side, but she had insisted on taking care of all the details herself. She was strong, and damn it, she could arrange this herself. It was befitting of her, as the head of her clan and as the Hokage's wife, to retain her equanimity in the face of chaos and sorrow. She told herself she was setting an example to the rest of the village, helping others to retain their hope and sense of security by maintaining a tranquil mask.

But in this quiet moment, laying alongside her husband and yet feeling utterly alone and exhausted, she wondered if she should have just let her family take care of the day's details for her. She let out a weary sigh and gazed back up at the cold heavens. The dance of the stars did little to alleviate the feelings of dread that welled up: her sense of overwhelming sorrow, and disbelief, and so many other emotions that felt trite to name but twisted in her gut like a knife all the same.

Naruto, finally taking notice of Hinata, blinked owlishly and registered the fact that silent tears were falling from her face to pool on the rock beneath her. He reached an arm out and pulled her close. As if he could read her mind, he whispered, "I'm sorry. I've been wrapped up in my own thoughts today. I've left you to take care of everything, even though you are suffering just as much as me."

Hinata sniffled and realized that she had been weeping, as if her eyes could cry without her knowledge or consent; hadn't she believed that she had run out of tears? Apparently it was not so.

Wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, she murmured, "It's okay. I had my family help me today. But you..."

She let that thought trail off, but it hung in the air between them all the same: But you have no family—I understand, wanting to be alone, perched on top of the last remnant of your father...

Naruto smiled, but it failed to lift the darkness in his eyes. "Thank you. But still, I could have—"

"Hush. It's all right." She ran her fingers through his tangled hair, and he tucked his head into the crook of her arm.

"I'm so sorry, Hinata-chan." He held her gaze with his cold, lightless eyes.

Hinata shook her head. "It's not your fault..."
"If I had been a better Hokage—a better father... If I had only gotten there sooner..."

Hinata smiled and her lips parted, tasting salt. She couldn't think of anything to say, so she put her arms around him and held him close as he wept on her shoulder, her tears falling on his face and mingling with his.

Finally, Naruto drew back and sat up. "We should head back. Hoshiko..."

Hinata placed a hand on his shoulder. "Naruto?"

He turned to look at her, his eyes still full of water, refracting the moonlight and starlight like crystals streaked with cerulean.

She took his chin in her clammy palm and whispered, "You did the best you could. I know you did. There are some things...we cannot control." Her long lashes fluttered, raining tears like moonstones to fall and shatter in liquid silence on the ground. She steadied her gaze and looked him straight in the eye, as if she could look into the center of his soul and communicate the entirety of her message, so much more than mere words could ever hope to encompass. "I love you, Naruto."

She wasn't sure if she imagined it, but it seemed as though the darkness lifted and whirled in his eyes all at once, blue shifting with charcoal and shimmering with the pale orange of the street lamps below them. He wiped his eyes with his sleeve before kissing her on the cheek, and as his lips were brushed with salt, he whispered, "I love you too, Hinata-chan. Let's go home."

Sasuke wore a pair of dark tinted sunglasses with a reflective coating on the outside, so that his eyes remained concealed.

Sakura tapped him on the elbow. "Let's go get the girls."

Sasuke mumbled his assent. Silently, they ghosted through the hallways until they came to Yuki's room. The door opened with a low moan, and Sasuke couldn't suppress a grin. Yuki was sleeping peacefully under the white sheets, her face dusted with early morning light. Her spiky hair was all disheveled, pointing every which way and curling under towards the back. Next to her, Saki rested in a fold-out cot, snoring and drooling into her pillow, her pink hair unbound and flowing like a curtain all around her. Sakura made ready to go wake them, but Sasuke held onto her arm.

"Wait."

Sakura looked back at him, bemused. He removed his sunglasses and took in the forms of his sleeping daughters, one pale and dark, the other ruddy and tan, both glowing in the window's light like angelic figures in a religious painting. He bit his lower lip in reverence.

Sakura kissed him on the cheek. As Yuki began stirring, he guided his sunglasses back to their place on the bridge of his nose. Just in time; Yuki, pushing back the sheets, cracked open one bleary eye. "'Morning." She rose stiffly before grunting, "Did you bring me something to wear, okaasan?"

Sakura deposited two sets of dark clothing on an empty table, then walked over to Saki's sleeping form to give her a gentle shake. Saki's eyes fluttered open and she bolted upright.

"Relax, Saki-chan, it's just me," Sakura muttered.

"Oh. Mom. Sorry, I was having a weird dream. Creepy spiders and red clouds at night—gah." She shook her head and smiled up at her parents. "Hey! How did the surgery go! How many fingers am I holding up, dad?"

Yuki snorted and attempted to kick her younger sister in the side from her perch on the bed, but the younger Uchiha managed to catch Yuki's foot mid-air before impact. Sakura leveled a glare at Yuki, who retracted the offending appendage and rose, giving her own angry glare to her father. Sasuke sighed. They're so cute when they're sleeping, but then they wake up...

Before either of them could ask to see his new eyes, Sasuke excused himself while the girls got dressed, ostensibly to wait for them by the front doors of the hospital and to pick up Takeo. He checked the clock over the receptionist's desk and looked for Ino, but it seemed like she was late. He found a bench and looked at a nearby flower box with marigolds and chrysanthemums, marveling over the contours of the petals and the orange and cream hues.

"Oi, I didn't know you liked flowers so much, Sasuke-kun."

Sasuke spun around and regarded Ino, her husband in tow and carrying Sasuke's youngest son. Sasuke blinked, and was thankful she couldn't see his alarm through his mirrored glasses. "Ah, Ino-san, Choji-san. Thank you so much for watching over the Takeo."

Choji snorted and handed over the bright-eyed babe. "He was no trouble at all."

Sasuke nodded, not sure what he should say. It was always extremely awkward talking to Choji, and the awkwardness was only exacerbated by the approaching funeral.

"In any event, I'm truly grateful," Sasuke managed at last. He bounced his son on his hip; the curious toddler reached for Sasuke's new glasses, which Sasuke affixed to his ears with extra chakra.

Ino took her husband's arm. She murmured, "Well, we've got flowers to haul. We'll see you...later."

Sasuke nodded. "Later," he mumbled, feeling dread settling in the pit of his stomach like a lead brick. He breathed out a sigh of relief as they left, then sat with his son on a bench. "Good morning, Takeo-chan."

"Goo moooooooo nin!" Takeo babbled, clapping his hands as Sasuke bounced the boy on his knee. Sasuke grinned. Well, at least Takeo still loves me... He resisted the urge to make a wish to whatever gods were listening to keep Takeo young and adorable forever, untainted by the duties of a ninja or the impending hormones of prepubescence.

"Otousan."

Sasuke rose with a start. I must really be distracted by this whole I-can-see business. That's the second time someone has snuck up on me today. Sasuke replied smoothly, "Yuki-san."

His oldest daughter eyed him suspiciously. "Let me see your eyes."

Sasuke blanched. "I'd prefer not. They're awfully sensitive to light..."

Thankfully, he was rescued by his wife at that moment. "Yuki, pester your father later. We're already running late." Yuki glowered at her. Sakura took the girl aside and whispered a furious reproach and then gentle words of comfort, which seemed to mollify the girl. Saki walked alongside her father in silence, twirling the end of one pink braid and looking up at him curiously. Then, without further ado she took his hand in hers and leaned her head against his arm as they walked. Well, it seems like Saki loves me, too. Two out of three ain't bad...

They sat down at a loud cafe and had breakfast in silence. By the time Sasuke finished his meal, he had already forgotten what he had eaten, and the roads and paths in the village—usually somewhat deserted at this hour—were flowing with rivers of people dressed in black. And soon Sasuke and his family left their crumbs and loose change on the table to join a tributary of the crowd, rushing with severity through the center of town, then trickling towards the cemetery with dread etched in the soles of their Sunday shoes. The crush of people in their monochromatic finery overwhelmed his eyes, so much movement, so much black and white and lace and shuffling of feet and sighing, dour faces, misty eyes and muffled wails.

He wasn't cognizant of exactly when they arrived, or when they found a place next to the Uzumakis. Saki sidled up to Hoshiko and held her hand, and Yuki turned to stand with Cho behind Konohamaru's wheelchair. The priest began his intonations and incantations to which no one listened; everyone began to weep. Everyone, that is, except for Yuki, whose eyes were dry and whose face was stoic. Sasuke found himself staring at his eldest daughter. My god, she looks so much like I did, she acts so much like I once did...

The truth hit home. He had never truly noticed before, not like this. Eyes and ears were entirely different organs—seeing was believing. He saw all his glorious imperfection made into flesh, staring into the nothing over the unlit funeral pyre and not shedding a tear. While Sasuke felt his own eyes misting—except they weren't his eyes—and he was overwhelmed at his own failures, at the evidence of grave robbery in his head, at the death of a son he could not save. The irony overtook him then—Ryuu's eyes were crying tears over his own death, and Sasuke stood, like a bystander in his own body, watching the tears fall and not knowing from whence they truly came.

Then someone shoved a guitar in his hand—he idly noted that it was made of white pine and inlaid with abalone—and Naruto asked him to play a song. Suddenly he was standing in front of all those people: hundreds upon hundreds of people dressed in black, with white handkerchiefs pressed to their faces and white chrysanthemums clutched to their breasts. Naruto nodded to him, his eyes flowing like an ocean, and beside him Hinata, tears trickling down the side of her face but otherwise stoic and strong, and they were both looking at him plaintively, waiting for him to play a song. Sasuke closed his eyes—except that they weren't his eyes—and attempted to play, to strum a simple chord, oh gods he hadn't prepared anything—

The only sound that left his guitar was strained silence, and the only thing he saw were the tears obscuring his vision, tears that belonged to another man, while Sasuke stood, a prisoner and an onlooker trapped in bones and flesh—

Sasuke raised his masked eyes to Naruto, as if to mutely say, I can't play, there is no sound, please—

Yuki put a hand on his shoulder—he did not know when she had come to stand next to him—and with a flawless marble mask for a face, she lifted her flute to her lips and began to play, beautiful and lilting, a fiddle tune that Sasuke dimly recognized but couldn't quite place. He watched his daughter with morbid fascination, listening to the cold notes metallically ringing like the hammers of the hot forges, like the high pitched wail of a falcon spotting prey. A rush of images: the opening of the dark earth, snowflakes falling in blinding white spirals, water dripping on the gutter forming icicles, the full moon's eerie glow on freshly fallen snow. Then children running, a hand on a bell, a red ribbon falling from hand to river, flowing like a red snake until rushing out of sight over the next bend.

The notes fell like cascades, loops of sound climbing higher and higher, a bird of prey circling the sky to kiss the sun—

And then a long, sustained high note, a wail, a wail, feathers falling from the silhouette of the sun—

Silence.

The priest lit the pyre and Yuki took her father's hand, leading him like a dumb mule back to the bosom of the crowd.

a/n thanks so much for reading! I worked really hard on this chapter,

so your feedback would be so appreciated via your review:)