Samsara

Epilogue

AN: Due to popular demand (and because I haven't been able to finish the upcoming chapter of An Inch of Gold), here is the epilogue to Samsara. I hope it resolves a lot of the questions you guys have been asking me.

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結語

Indra comes back to himself too late.

The flames have marred his wife's body beyond recognition, and even though he stops before the black tongues can reduce her to ashes, the damage is done.

It's not the first time he has killed one who professed to love him – one who, against all odds, he found his heart reaching for in return – but this death shakes him. As he turns away, his stomach rebels and he finds himself on his knees, vomiting in reaction to the violence of it all.

This is the first death that he has instantly regretted.

And yet even she was a traitor in the end, the voice in the shadows reminds him; speaking the same horrible truths he has been plagued with his entire life. It's a change from previous entreaties to wait, soothing and cajoling.

Indra glances back at the skeletal husk of the woman who stood by his side for so many years, bore his children and professed her love for him until her final moments. Blackened arms still wrap protectively around her middle, and Indra's eyes narrow.

The child that was the cause of all of this, and for all her protestations, proof of her betrayal.

He pushes himself to his feet, prepared to walk away and leave all evidence of his only weakness to desiccate in ignominy. He has to return to his children – their children – and tell them what has happened. Not his own hand in it – her last request is one he will honour if only out of respect for the years they had together – but they will need to know.

He knows they will grieve all over again, having believed her dead for so long, but perhaps it will make them stronger. Perhaps it will cause one of them to awaken the Sharingan, and then they can all pay Asura back for the damage he has done to them –

Behind him, there is a flare of chakra. Indra freezes.

It's not possible. She can't...

He turns around, half-expecting to watch her pull herself to her feet despite all odds. A ridiculous fantasy of her stumbling forward to him, her eyes sad but determined, reaching out to him –

Instead, her charred form remains utterly still, reproaching him by its lack of movement.

His gut heaves again, and he clenches his fist. Sentiment is causing him to imagine things.

Until the chakra flares again.

Fleeting and flickering, like a candle fighting a downpour, and coming from her body.

No, not her body.

The child!

She told him, didn't she? She promised him –

He crosses the distance within a blink, wasting no time in kneeling by the swollen stomach of the corpse. He can't think of it as her anymore, because if he does he might hesitate in what he is about to do.

Kunai in hand, he makes careful incisions, the way he has seen the healer woman use for breech births. He can't breathe – the scent of charred flesh and the dreadful anticipation constricts his lungs – as he moves skin and muscle out of the way, ignoring the blood on his hands as the chakra signature continues to flicker recedingly.