empathy (rewritten 2019)

風影の一族

カンクロウ

Kankuro thought nothing much of Sakura Haruno when his team came to Konoha for the Chunin Exams. He, like all the others, brushed her off as a pesky, whiny nuscience; leaving her to his peripheral in loud yells and pink hair.

When he left after the attack, she was only a blur in a painful, failed memory.

And two years past, he hardly paid a thought to her, until Akasuna no Sasori poisoned him and he awoke with a terrible pain in his gut. He tugged on the nurse's sleeve and asked, "What happened?"

And Naruto, who'd been stationed by his bedside, awoke with a snore and exclaimed, "Hey! You're awake!"

Kankuro peeled his bedsheet off and looked at the bandages wrapped around his aching torso. "Did you get the poison out? Who did it?"

Naruto beamed and smiled wider, saying, "Sakura-chan and this old lady--she cured the poison that didn't even have an antidote in the first place! Man, if she hadn't been there, you would've died!"

Two weeks and Kankuro finished his stay at the hospital. And she, the medic nin, was another forgotten memory. He could hardly pay his respects to the woman who saved his life if he couldn't see her.

And he never did.

砂の我愛羅

Green and fading; that's what he remembered about her eyes. In the four encounters he had with her, her appearance over the years remained unchanged--except for those eyes.

Green and glimmering were her eyes during the first. Glimmering with tears, he remembered, as he wrapped his sands in a tight embrace around her figure. The sand tightened with each whisper of that damned Ichibi within him.

Out of all the prey Shukaku picked, she was the most boring; she neither fought nor thrashed, just cried on and on for help. In the midst of his satisfaction, he nearly pitied her. She was frozen and no match, that was clear.

Staring down at her, he laughed and with his sand, he said, feel my pain.

Proud and bright were her eyes on the second. He caught a glimpse of her as she left the hospital building just as he awoke within his hospital bed. Naruto made his way inside and said, "Hey, how you feeling?"

Gaara nodded. "What happened? Did Lady Chiyo save me?"

And Naruto nodded along, ecstatic. "Yeah! She and Sakura fought that puppet guy! And that Chiyo grandma resurrected you, two!"

Doubtful and afraid were her eyes during the third. Standing amongst the Shinobi Rengogun, he stared down at the allied forces. And amongst those worried, yet proud faces, he found hers, staring up at her own Hokage.

And then she looked down at her scarred hands, clenching them in a weak fist.

The fourth and the very last, her eyes had lost their shine, now a deep green with a shadow as deep as the ocean. It was two years after the Fourth War, and a party was held to congratulate Naruto for his nomination.

The paperwork had been wearing him down, Gaara could tell, and he watched as Naruto, tired and irked, laughed and spoke. And the pinkette frowned, set her plate down, and ask him what do you mean.

The party proceeded. Nobody, through the foul wind and the laughs of the night, could hear them as she shouted at him and he shouted back. The wind cracked and pulled, tugging her hair and brushing them from her eyes--darker than before, hurt and brimming with tears.

And days later, the Hokage had assigned her to escort the Sand Siblings back to Suna. The mission ended and she vanished. Gaara never saw her again; not soon after he was informed of her death. She was killed by the brinks of Suna. Stabbed and bled to death, the letter said, but he knew better.

Tremendous piles of paperwork left him unable to attend the funeral, so he sent his regards, and worked deep into the night--until he found one file surrounding the forgotten village of Otogakure.

It was a village planted on dry, desolate land. Orochimaru dug that land out for his bases, cutting off the supplies on food and water. He starved the people dead. A pity case, one that would make her eyes shine with purpose.

She would have made the perfect Otokage.