There is a voice screaming in her head that won't let her give up. For once, she can't hear the numbing reiterations of shinobi mandate - there is only fire, blood, and a desperate, desperate will for vengeance.
...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
_____
"Isane-san, do you like being a healer?"
She coils what chakra she has left and releases it in a dark haze that settles in the air between them, waiting, like a snake poised to attack. The memory of red eyes and a careful hand on her shoulder guides her through the process of laying a simple illusion to bar curious ears from their conversation.
Isane visibly starts. Shaking hands latch onto the cloth above her heart, eyes darting wildly about her. She noticed. As an Uchiha should. "Of... of course, Yuzuha-sama. It's... it's very... rewarding."
Her smile widens into something hideous. "Even though you're terrible at it?"
"I'm... sorry?"
Bumbling feet send the bucket beside her crashing to the ground once more, her lips parted in a silent gasp and her eyes transfixed to the gaping wound in her wrist closing in on itself. Yuzuha flexes her fingers, gazing dispassionately at the black lines that stretch across her arm for a few moments before disappearing into pale skin.
"Isane-san," she says, "how well can you lie?"
_____
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
_____
THROUGH THE LILAC HAZE
Kaede has the blood of innocents on her hands, of those she failed to save and those she never tried to. Her greatest nightmare is buried six feet under and that is more than enough for her. Yet, at the end of it all, she wonders if she could have done more.
Yuzuha is lost to history, her identity decayed alongside her mother's corpse. A shinobi she may not have been, but the fire of her clan burned just as brightly within her, only to be snuffed out by a wayward breeze. She died for nothing.
And, yet, here she is.
_____
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
