The Angel's Ambivalence [Naruto]

When You're Gone

"You die at seventeen in your first love's arms and find it cruel that in this world, Shakespeare takes Juliet first."

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Third Person's POV

The day of her funeral, it rained.

They buried her in Konoha under a crying gray sky, along with the hundreds of other Leaf Village shinobi who had lost their lives in the war. They kept her gravestone simple, the way she would've wanted it: a piece of polished marble with her name engraved onto it. Below that was a plaque with an inscription that was supposed to describe who she had been and all she had done. It called her a beloved sister, a selfless hero, a true friend.

It wasn't enough.

A sea of people watched in sorrowful and somber silence as she was laid to rest. They were friends, teachers, leaders, both shinobi and civilians alike; people whose minds she'd changed, whose hearts she'd touched, whose lives she'd saved. Even those who had never even met her were there, ready to pay their respects to the girl who had helped end the war and save the world.

Ryuu couldn't remember much of it, but Rin told him it was a beautiful service. People made speeches, offered their sincerest condolences, whispered heartfelt prayers; but he was too numb for any of it to actually register. He could barely even feel the rain that soaked his hair and seeped into his clothing, as his sister's casket was lowered into the ground.

The Five Great Nations named their new treaty after her. Gaara was the first to suggest the idea. The rest of the Kage didn't even have to think about it; the decision was approved unanimously, the treaty settled upon just a short while after the end of the war. They called it the Takeda Accords: a series of documents that made their temporary wartime alliance an official and everlasting one. It was the first of its kind; the first step towards a new era of true world peace, one that they were all more than willing to take in honor of the girl who had helped make it all possible.

They asked Ryuu, as her only living family member and the last Takeda, to attend the signing in her honor, but it was too much, too soon after the funeral. He had Kakashi, who was named the Sixth Hokage shortly after the ending of the war, go in his place. Kakashi had been her sensei, after all, and loved her like she was his own. He was as much a part of her family as Ryuu was. At the signing in the Land of Iron, the former jonin was joined by his students and fellow Kage, and as pen touched parchment, the Takeda Accords were brought to life once and for all.

It still wasn't enough, not for Ryuu. Not when his sister was still gone.

But in the shinobi world at large, things were getting better. The undoing of the Infinite Tsukuyomi had marked the end of the Fourth Great Shinobi War, and the signing of the Takeda Accords made it so that no such conflict would ever happen again. The war had turned several places into battlegrounds, leaving entire towns destroyed and structures in shambles, but for the first time in history, the Five Great Nations were working together even after the conclusion of a war, sharing their resources to rebuild and to help the world to heal.

All around the world, Naruto and his friends were hailed as heroes. People traveled far and wide just to get a glimpse of them or a chance to shake their hands. It was surreal, how important and revered they were all of a sudden. People thanked them almost a hundred times a day, offering gifts and celebrating them in any way that they could.

They didn't know that celebrating was the last thing on their minds. They didn't know that there could be no celebration, no peace, for any of them. Not when they could still feel the loss of the girl they'd all loved weighing on their hearts every single second of every single day, until it felt like they were suffocating.