empathy (rewritten 2019)

chapter thirty-two

She set down the yellow buds with a gentle sigh before settling on the new grass beside her backpack. The grave, a once familiar site, sat weathered into the grass, much older than the one she once knew.

"I'm sorry I was gone for so long," she began, a new smile on her face. "I requested the Hokage for a long-term mission. He just gave me something to drop off in one of those far-off villages and, I guess, I thought I'd take the scenic route this time. You know, some time by the shore, a few more days camping out in the woods. Turns out, I was gone for three months, and you wouldn't believe how many clothes I had to buy." She chuckled and leaned to the side.

"And I, uh, I didn't wanna be gone for too long, but the more I was out there, past those gates," she looked back over to the horizon. "I just wanted to take the time to think, you know? About you, everything, and everything else. And, I don't know, I spent so much time hating everything and everyone back here, because they didn't know what you went through. And before I asked for a leave, Naruto helped me realize, that, I guess, you really can't be mad for what they don't know."

She paused. "And, ah, I spent so much time figuring out what to say, but, I can't really bring up the words," she trailed off. "But, I don't know, I guess I got so tired of hating what went so wrong in the past. You died and nobody had a clue why and, kami, it just was so messed up. They didn't know what you needed and what you didn't need and how you felt and--it just felt so wrong to be the only one left to know. I mean, you did so much and it hurts to just watch everyone forget that with your death.

"You healed so many people. You kept them alive and on that battlefield, you were one of the three doing what was right. You trained so much and became so strong and different from the girl you used to be. And I know you doubted yourself but I could see you the way you couldn't and I knew the part of you that was strong and enough. And seeing none of that on your tombstone, none of that in your own teammates' speeches, it's like, did it ever matter?" She cleared her throat. "And I wanted to scream those things back in their faces, over and over again, to get them to realize what a woman they lost," Keiko continued. "But I realized screaming never did the trick."

"The only thing you can really do about death," she leaned back. "is just learn from it for the future. I only ever wanted people to know the truth about you so they could learn to be better. But the way I tried to do it, pushing Naruto off, you know, wasn't really the way to do it. The ones who wanna listen and wanna know, they deserve the simple truth. And you deserve truth too."

She reached in her backpack. "I know you had that image of yours about the Shinobi world. You wanted to be a kunoichi so bad when you were young, but living through the war and facing enemies like them, you told me--asked me how the world could be so cruel, you know?" She pulled out a bundle of photos. "How could Naruto be born so alone and how could Sasuke have to lose everyone in front of his eyes and how could the nicest of people become the worst of them? I guess that's why you became a medic, right? You wanted a purpose to fix what this place had become. And it just sucks that you died after the war, seeing so much chaos and death and loss, and that you died in such a way."

She untethered the band and sifted through the photos, smiling down at each one, before banding them together and laying them on the grass. "I took some photos during the trip of some stuff I thought you'd want to see. You know, life as a Shinobi, you see some beautiful things but you never really get the time to stop and actually see it, you know? And I took these for you so, I guess, up there you could see the beauties of the world and remember that amongst everything else. And, looking at these, they're almost as beautiful as you."

She zipped her backpack up and stood with another new smile. "I'm gonna come back tomorrow, make up for those three months we lost," she chuckled. "But I just wanna remind you, I love you. And I know you're doing great things up there."

And standing in that cemetery in the late afternoon, Keiko could feel the wind against her tanned skin and weaving through her red hair. And there was a warmness to it, a touch to it as if Sakura, from above, sent an i love you back through wind after wind and encased Keiko, hands, feet, fingertips and smiles, in a goodbye from far beyond. As if Sakura had been there those three months, watching her run amongst the trees and climb the highest and fall in the wind like another crane rising to its height, and had been there to see such wonders with her.

i love you keiko.

"Oh, sorry, I wasn't watching myself, I--"

"Oh, no need. I haven't seen you around, I'm Keiko, you?"

"Sayaka."