After the storm comes the rainbow (and with it the snake)

Tears of the sunflower

Sometimes, when she had nothing else to do and it was only her and the silence Senshi started thinking about why exactly she did things the way she did them.

For example, there was this whole Himawari case.

How come that she started to care about it at all? Why on Earth did she move closer to the village she despises so much, only to start playing stepmother over a girl she barely knew? Why did she act so kind to her, cared about her needs and feelings almost day by day? Why was she concerned about the future of the world? Hell, she didn't even belong here in the first place!

Although she was stuck here so, maybe that last one was somewhat explainable. But the others...

She leaned back in her chair looking up at the ceiling. As if she was expecting answers from the bright lamps and greyish paint of the basement.

***

It all started about two months after the Hokage's - assumed - death.

Senshi was lucky to be able and pass the moment of her noticing the Splitting - as she named it latter - as one of her surprise migraines. And tried not to think about the events since but the visible changes in Mitsuki's behaviour and letters didn't let her ignore the problem.

These so called 'visible changes' of course were only visible to her as she was the only one - as much as she knew at the time - who knew how the was supposed to act.

She noticed for example how Mitsuki turned strangely cold. Not like he was the peak of being emotional before, but not so long ago, despite being a bit clumsy when it came to feelings he at least tried. Now it looked as if he didn't care...

The boy also seemed like he lost a great amount of his independence and was relying purely on the decisions of his Sun again.

Expect this Sun was not the one Senshi used to know.

In the end, out of concern for the boy she almost started to see as a younger brother by now - and out of interest to know what truly happened - she decided on going to Konoha to see if the Hokage was really as dead as he was said to be.

Before she left Suigetsu was joking about how she was "surprisingly slow with the visit this time" which then she only rewarded with a sharp look.

But she had to admit that it was true.

She indeed had a tendency to show up much faster after an interesting case of death, often before the new could possibly reach her - at least that's what the people who didn't know enough about the flow of important information thought.

Oh, how much the officers hated her for it... and how much she enjoyed that hate!

She knew some may have found this behaviour inappropriate, disrespectful, or even disgusting but she couldn't have care less.

Senshi listed her occasional 'corpse tourism' among the most harmless things she had done to satisfy her morbid curiosity.

When she reached the village in the early afternoon the first thing, she noticed was the silence.

Usually, the place was much busier at that time of the day, most of shops open, people walking and talking and children running around cheerfully after school.

Now, the main square was almost empty, with only a few people around, who looked strangely... empty. Even the colours seemed to have gotten a bit dull.

Some houses had a black flag hanging from them.

Well... I was not long after the worst tragedy of the last fifteen years after all.

'The Seventh Hokage and his wife brutally murdered by an outsider boy they gave shelter to.'