Farewell, Papa . . .

Disclaimer: Naruto and all its characters are Masashi Kishimoto's legal property. I'm not making any money off this story; however, all the Original Characters, Original Plot-lines, and Original Themes are my own.

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Whilst she sloshed through the muddy ground at a half-jog, morning heralded a day of gloom. Drizzling . . . rain cooled the puffy cheeks; mist fogged the glasses, precariously perched on her pink nose, but she wiped a hasty hand across them. She could see a bit better now.

This forest was only beginning to come alive from sleep: crickets made noise in the bushes when wind disturbed their sanctuary; birds sat singing in the dense trees; wind gained speed, sighs filling her ears. She knew she had to run faster. Putting chakra underneath the sandals, she gained a little height; and she ran and she ran fast, sped past the trees that flickered as green flashes in the corners of her vision.

Red came on and she did not know—a throb from breast. Overcoming naiveté, unabated, it poured out from the eyes. She turned the sob into a sigh. She was an Uchiha and Uchiha men preserved their Honour. She had read it on a Sacred Stone outside the dilapidated village of her father's people—her people. All that remained in that forlorn place, encrusted with spectral farewells, were bits of shadows wavering, smells of moss, pieces of old stones. Everyone was gone. Her father was the last Uchiha. She, too, was one . . . she supposed; and a sudden elation rose in her, an Uchiha flame that burnt brighter. Yes, she was an Uchiha: her father's daughter—the only heir to his legacy.

She knew little about the word, but she knew it meant something—it was about bond and blood. She shared it with him and he, with her—an inevitable blessing from Kami, an alliance made before birth. She was soldered to him, spirit and soul.

She had more of him in her than she did her mother . . . little of her in the veins, so little; and her eyes were a different colour. The right colour. The red colour. They gleamed, almost predatory on the little face which bore the blush of childhood carelessness. Like all things, this would fade . . . with a woman's haze, blood from the groove Nature had crafted into her form . . . a blessing and curse. She did not understand a man's, her father's, Honour; she should have been a boy . . . sometimes, she thought.

Still, she was an Uchiha—her father's daughter, his only daughter, an heir meant to carry the burdens from his clan's long history. It was forged into her, mind and blood, body that had yet to live through youth's true-er journey. Her feet did not falter, and a smile lingered on the lips as though a wandering man in search of something . . . something . . .

A feeling clasped hold of her and the blinking lights between the branches did not matter. Spring was heavy upon her senses, fragrant, fleeting, a season of parting; but she kept running, feeling the wind collide with her face, skin rippling. Coils of muscles in her legs tensed. She could see the chakra roil like a storm in his body, just beyond the trees—just there!

And she knew she could not resist the temptation of looking upon his magnificent mien, his impeccable, yet cold, countenance. Her legs did not stop, and she ran beyond the ominous barrier of shadows whilst he stood as a dark silhouette, the searing, vicious light of sun behind him.

Everything changed into his chakra before her eyes. It bled and became one with the world and penetrated its wriggling fibres and throbbing veins; and it went into her heart, a kind of overpowering and conquering animal that laid waste to its prey. It did not matter to her then; she had surrendered her heart to him long ago. It was always meant to submit before the one that granted her blood, soul.

Hidden in the memories were days of longing. Father, her beautiful father, gone—a wayfaring man lost behind the boughs and lovely trees, a dusty-picture on the table that mattered little, a cloak that hung heavy and still from the nail in the wall; but he was here now, and now was all that mattered. She ran into him, crashing into his body, making that chakra ripple upon contact. It rushed through her, an easy melody.

Her eyes closed; and, wrapping her arms tightly about his waist, she burrowed her face into his stomach, breathing in the scent that issued forth from his shirt. The world turned silent, for it was her turn to speak and its turn to listen; and she was transported to a tranquil and quiet place full of wonders, of which girls wished. He stayed unmoving for a moment. Then she felt a hesitant hand on her head.

She tilted her head back and looked up into his eyes that resonated with the mark they both shared. His bearing was kingly to her, sublime, and a thing of such beauty. His face was calm, framed between dark hair they both shared, too. He did not seem angry or kind; he just looked at her, features unrelenting in the face of her love. At last, her resolve crumbled, and her lips began to tremble with grief, and she whispered out softly: "papa . . . "

His fingers threaded into her wind-blown, unwinking night-black hair; and, bringing her cheek against his stomach, he held her there. She stood like that, trembling against him, weeping into the corners of the shirt she held in her fists.

He did not say a thing—she did not say a thing. It was silence between them now and music of forest and wind . . . and the distant echoes of a woman's voice, who had held her in the womb, who wanted that which she craved again. It was distance, distance, more distance between them, a never-ending chasm of promises she clung to . . . religiously.

But she was not just any girl: she was a part of him like she would never be. It was a right for her and a wish for the other one. It was different between them. Blood made it different. Then the hand behind her head became soft, and she strained her little face to look up at him again; and this time, the faintest smile, like the briefest touch of breeze against the dews on leaves, graced his lips.

Her lips, too, trembled into a warm smile. His fingers traced the uneven paths made by the tears on her round and rosy cheeks, drying them. She unwrapped her arms from him, and he patted her head once before he backed away wordlessly. Then he turned around and began walking silently towards the forest; and she kept watching till he went into the shadows between the trees, his black cloak billowing behind him, another shadow.

So he tore himself away from the woman and her pleas, who kept her heart hopelessly vacant for his seed; but this was different. This was innocent. This was pure. Love . . . he would come for her again. It was just the wait that was painful; and before she knew it, her heart and mind were made to whisper to him, whisper to the father: "farewell, papa . . . "

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The End