"The person you love. Is it Neji?"
"Why do you say that?"
---
The day you met Neji Hyuga, you knew you wanted to be his friend. The day Neji Hyuga met you, he knew he should stay as far away from you as possible. Especially because you only had sev...
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14. My Enemy, My Friend
'Mom, why do ninjas exist in this world?'
'We exist to protect our village, honey.'
'From what?'
'From other ninjas from other villages.'
'But why can't all the villages come together and just live as one whole happy village?'
'Because people have different beliefs and sometimes our differences divides us. We fear what is different from us and our fear breeds hatred and our hatred breeds misery.'
'That's silly!'
'Is it?' your mother giggled. You were only six years old and you couldn't comprehend the entirety of what she was saying.
'Because we also have love and love is the only thing that can drive out hatred.'
Death, you saw it as you hopped from pole to pole in Konoha. People dying in the streets, shinobis fighting on rooftops, murdering one another in buildings. It was grotesque, reulsive, it made your stomach churn uncomfortably. But it was also your reality for this was the true meaning of living in the world of shinobis.
You had never seen so many deaths in a day. So this is a glimpse of war, you thought, scanning the area and stopping to aid fellow comrades on your way in search of Akira's mother.
Pastel green hair to her shoulders and a scarlet rose tattooed on the nape of her neck, that was the description Iruka had relayed to you before you departed from the safe haven. You would pause at every fallen body, hoping you would find her soon and hoping she would be okay when you did.
That's when your eyes caught green locks of hair swaying in the breeze. A leaf shinobi fighting against a sand shinobi. Your eyes traced the flower tattoo etched into her neck. It was her.
She moved magnificently with every attack as she fought off the sand ninja shouting," there's no way I'm going to die! I have someone I need to go home to!"
Her words struck you hard, the words of a mother that was fighting to go home to her daughter. You had always wondered, were those the very words Mom screamed before she died?
The pair continued to tussle and you watched in awe. They moved as if they were dancing; dancing together to the death and shouting out attack moves until the sand ninja met his end. You quickly made your presence known," are you Akira's mom?"
"Yes, I'm Yuki," she said suspiciously," how do you know my daughter?"
"She was escorted to the shelter with the other kids," you explained with a timid smile," she's safe. You can rest assure."
