She is truly my daughter.
When there is information to be sought, nothing will stop her from finding what she seeks.
Staring at her, unconscious, her leg in a lift constraining her to the hospital bed; when I look at her, I see Sasuke when he was young; dark eyes closed, at peace, but brows furrowed. Something troubles them both, underneath…but I also see such strength, such courage, and such beauty at what our union had produced (despite her current condition).
Although I am frustrated with her, I smile. She's sure to surpass us both.
Sarada stirs in her sleep, and I grasp her hand to comfort her. Her stirring stops with a light sigh.
I think back on the day Sarada was born. Though we were married, and our child was to be born any time now, Sasuke had yet to settle down in the ways the rest of our friends had after marriage.
When I mentioned to Karin that I planned to leave with Sasuke on his mission, she slammed her fist down in protest and declared that she would not let me leave, unless she were to travel with me. So, she did, to the displeasure of both herself and Sasuke.
"It would have been best for you to stay home," Sasuke croons to me, but I hold his hand tight as we step through the woods. Karin is behind us, her arms folded and her grimace unwavering.
"We are one, united together now. Where you go, I go."
I heard an audible groan hidden when Karin cleared her throat.
It is not long into the day when I felt the surge – our child had decided that today, they would transcend downward from my body into this world. Karin was adamant we returned to the village. Sasuke agreed, and demanded that Karin take me back at once.
I remember the fire in my heart, and the strength that drove me to fight to stay. I know Karin saw it in my eyes, too, as she took my firm 'no' quite seriously. We made it to one of Orochimaru's hideouts when I could feel the child coming, coming closer…
Although I begged, Sasuke didn't stay with us. He returned, however, to check in just after her arrival. I gazed upon him with clouded, teary eyes as he entered the room, bringing in an overwhelming amount of love with him. He knelt down and approached us; me, and his newborn daughter, wrapped in fabric scraps, clung tight to my bare chest.
For the first time, I saw a light in his eyes I hadn't seen before. A smile drew across his pale face as he examined her carefully, noting every single detail. Sasuke drew his index finger to her forehead lovingly, and she reached for his finger, her hand so tiny it hardly was able to wrap entirely around. She held his finger tight and sighed, satisfied. I couldn't help but bury my head into his shoulder and sob.
I cried both happy and sad tears. I knew that very moment, Sasuke had fallen in love. She would be his one and only, his world, his backbone, his reason to continue on… but in order to continue on, I also knew, by that poke on her forehead, that he would not be present.
I hoped, in the days and weeks and months that followed, that he would stay. He was home, and he was with us, but I could see in his eyes that he was truly elsewhere. Before she had her first birthday, he was gone.
"Where could be more important than home, with his wife and child?" Karin was bitter, and involved herself into our daughter's life almost immediately. I remember the time she took me by the hand and tried to convince me to end our marriage and go elsewhere. I was 'too strong' for someone who left, without a timeline of when he would return. She said that some of the others in the village talked about how it was pathetic of me to wait for him, when Sasuke clearly didn't hold us high in the importance of his heart.
I had nothing to say to her and to the others, though. They don't know Sasuke like I do.
They don't know the change in his heart that happened the day Sarada was born. He had named her, and he loved her; truly, more than anything else, even himself - that was why he felt he needed to stay away. I had not lived through what he lived through, or had to experience the things he experienced.
I was not going to be the one to tell him how to love his daughter the way he felt he needed to.
I knew that she had become his world that day; his entire existence; that he would carry her with him wherever he went, as Itachi did him when he was younger. He looked into her dark Uchiha eyes and saw him, felt him. He poked her head at minutes old in silent promise, as he did me the day he confessed his love, amongst other times. He would go, but I would feel him with me even in his absence.
I was fortunate enough to live in a close-knit family. It was just my parents and I. My mother was also a strong woman and easily modeled the job and what needed to be done. I was confident enough to rear her on my own, and to always remind her of her father's presence in her heart. I could tell over time, as she grew, that she was beginning to reject that testimony.
I knew when she gave up on him. I knew when she began searching for answers. She doesn't give me enough credit. I went along with her lies, and the thing she's meticulously hidden, but I've always known.
Why would I have been so careless to leave her father's room of prized possessions unlocked?