Lightning In The Hidden Leaf

17 - The choice to be a Hero

"The sounds of lightning. So familiar. Am I home?" says Calista.

"You are home."

She opens her eyes. She is sitting on the veranda of the home she grew up in. She is sitting under the ledge to protect her from the drizzle that falls often from these skies. She watches the lightning, it's blue sparks lighting up her surrounds. The sounds. The smells. I makes her skin prickle and stomach flutter. A feeling that can only be described as nostalgia.

 "I can't be home. I haven't been home in ages," she says.

"Well, sister. I can confidently say that this is home. The place we were born and raised."

She looks over at the young man sitting beside her. He doesn't look familiar but she knows who he is. It's her kid brother. The same boy she fought with, cared for, and searched for all these years. He isn't a kid anymore though. Calista isn't sure what happened during the time in between and she doesn't want to know. The only thing that matters is right here and now.

"You came back after all these years, Ethan. What made you come back."

His face grows serious but his eyes are still soft and child like. "I never really left, Calista."

"But all those times I went back to the village and you weren't there. Our clan told me that you disappeared after our parents' death."

"You find it strange, don't you?"

She stops for a moment as she processes the intensity of his words. "What do you mean?"

"Our place in the village. Mine. Yours. Mother and father's. We never really belonged here, hey?"

She watches as a bolt of lightning hits close. When the skies quiet again she returns her attention to her brother.

"It's not the matter of belonging, Ethan. The land of the lightning is a difficult place and things tend too-"

"Don't be fooled by coincidences, Calista."

She gives him a quizzical look. "You're saying our parent's death and your absence isn't coincidence?"

"Sometimes we can blind ourselves, by the things we choose not to see." He says those words so easily, so effortlessly, as if he has been waiting years to say it.

Calista laughs. "When did you become Confucius?"

He doesn't laugh. Instead, he stares intently into the distance as if the lightning holds the secrets of their life. Whatever he hears or sees, it must be interesting.

"Ethan?" says Calista after a couple of moments. 

A rumble of thunder prompts Ethan to get up.

"I have to go," he says.

"But why?" she scoffs, tormenting him in a sisterly way.

Without looking at her he says, "because this is all I can do. You, however, have to keep going."

She watches him as he stops in the middle of their backyard. A bolt of lightning swiftly comes down hitting the ground Ethan's feet stands on. Calista jumps up but Ethan is gone, as if the lightning consumed him whole.

She wants to cover her eyes to protect herself from what she just witnessed but instead, she finds her eyes open. This time, they are really opened, her surroundings less familiar but more realistic.

"It was all a dream," she says placing her hand to her racing heart. "The most realistic dream." She cradles her arms around her legs and sobs into her knees.

"Ethan. I want to protect you. I want to help you but where the hell are you? Are you even... alive?" She whispers that last words as if it's cursed and she's to be doomed for saying it.

"I guess Ethan is your brother," says Kakashi.

She looks up not realizing Kakashi was beside her. She never even noticed.

"Sorry," she says whipping her face.

"You don't have to apologize."

"I don't like people seeing me cry."

"So the apology is more for you?"

She lets out a shaky breath as she suppresses the urge to bawl. "I guess so."

Kakashi puts his book away but keeps quiet to allow Calista to get her bearings. 

Calista leans back on the wall behind her. She knows there are questions she ought to be asking. Things she has to figure out. But right now, she has to silently grieve her family. 

"It's like..." she begins to speak but isn't sure exactly what she is trying to articulate.

"It's like what?"

She shakes her head. "I have to figure out what is going on but my past keeps getting in the way. It either holds me back or takes priority. The way I feel right now, I hardly care about what's happening to me or the Leaf Village."

Kakashi looks away.

"Sorry," she says.

"I guess that apology isn't for me, either."

Tears form in her eyes again. "I didn't mean it like that. I don't know what happened to my family and it haunts me at the most inconvenient times."

Kakashi walks closer to her than crouches down beside her as she lays on the floor. "I guess no matter what direction you take, the past will always catch up."

"I never said I was running from my past, Kakashi."

He lets out a small laugh under his breath. "Interesting you say that... because neither did I."

Silence again.

"What are you thinking?" says Kakashi.

"Is it possible that the events surrounding my family and what's going on now is somehow... connected?"

"Is that a question for me?"

She scoffs. "Anyone," she says with vacant eyes. "And maybe... I have more responsibility in this than what I think I do."

"What do you mean?"

She looks Kakashi in the eyes for the first time since they began this conversation.

"Meaning that maybe I'm not the victim."

"I doubt that very much," he says defensively to even his own surprise. 

She smiles a genuine smile in what feels like ages. "I don't know why but you have been on my side since the moment I met you. But there is so much that I don't know... don't be so quick to root for me. You might regret it."

"Calista, I --" Kakashi stops and clears his throat as his thoughts take him in another direction. "Well, if you're not the victim, then what are you?" 

Calista has a strong suspicion that that's not what Kakashi wanted to say. She's curious, but she won't pry.

"I don't know. Pawn. Perpetrator."

"Alright. Now ask yourself this. What do you choose to become?"

She smiles. "That one is easy. I choose to become the hero."