The Wolf Within| The Possesions of the Wild series| Volume 2

9 | Tonkawa Asura

The next morning, the Leaf and Sand shinboi who witnessed Gaara's rescue and Chiyo's sacrifice visited the old woman's grave. The group stood silently as they all bid their respects to her. The grave was modest, Kaiya thought, but the amount of flowers and decoration made it so much more beautiful than any other grave that Kaiya had ever seen. It even surpassed her brother's, a grave she had long since visited. Her mind shifted towards Jun, and the way that ever since he passed, she failed to see his ghost. She couldn't help but wonder why he never made an appearance, or any type of way to show his spirit being with her? Did he not manage to get over his death, or did he hate her for not joining him that day to the point where he avoided the only one who could ever help him?

Then, Kaiya's mind shifted to Chiyo's brother. He probably didn't have any other family left, other than his sister. Kaiya couldn't help but wonder if he didn't feel lonely now, or scared knowing that the only family he had left was now, too, gone. Did life not become grey, knowing the only person who could've brought him a genuine sense of comfort left him behind through a sacrifice too big and complex for words to describe? Kaiya could only hope that he, too, found his peace somehow and could get surrounded by people who cared from him through the village.

As the group left, Kaiya remained rather silent amongst her teammates who were thrilled of their success. Although she, too, was relieved of it all, there was one thing that remained clear in her mind. It replayed over, and over, and over, along with everything she had senses in the moment.

"Kaiya? Kaiya!" Kaiya snapped out of her trance, and noticed Sakura walking next to her, a concerned expression on her face. "What's wrong?"

Kaiya gulped. At first, she hesitated and looked around the group. Everyone was talking and didn't seem to pay much attention to her. Then she turned her eyes back to Sakura. "Promise not to tell anyone?"

"Of course. Pinky promise."

"Uh... When I was young, I think I was eight or nine, one of my younger brothers died. That's kinda why I ran away and all that, you know? But, he was murdered, my brother. He didn't just die of natural causes. I-I... I saw his dead body, and I could just... see everything and... smell it. You're a healer, no? Maybe you've seen it before but it was just this... heavy odour of blood and I don't know, corpse, I think. I can't even remember what he looked like so well, but I think he was just pale, bruised and full of blood. But the smell really stuck with me, and when the cave opened yesterday and we saw Gaara in it, I smelled it again. I tried to distract myself from it and stuff, but I just can't get my mind off of it. It keeps replaying in my mind."

Sakura sighed heavily, as she felt her heart drop to her stomach. She went on various missions as a healer and she had grown rather accustomed to the smell of blood and the sight of injuries on shinobi, and it was never pleasant. Still, she was not accustomed to corpses just yet. She had seen corpses sometimes at the hospital, but they weren't the same as the ones of people who were murdered and found by somebody. She dealt with that only once, on a mission a solid while ago; she and her team took a break in the forest and as she walked off for a bit to pee, she found the corpse of a shinobi on a log. She presumed the body had been there for a little while as its decay stage was anything but fresh, perhaps a few days old already, and the smell was something different. It filled her nose and almost made her want to throw up. Sakura had never told anybody what she had seen then, and her team wondered why her appetite had suddenly gone down.

"I'm really sorry to hear that, and I really appreciate that you told me all that. Even though I can't imagine your pain right now, do take this from me: you're extremely strong and brave for dealing with it for so long."

"Thank you."

***

"How was the mission?" Tsunade asked, her gaze a mix of coldness and worry, as she tapped her desk with her pen in a nervous pattern. Kaiya worried that if she had heard of the Kazekage's temporary death, she would get mad at them for not being fast enough.