(aka: first post in this journal! w00t!)

Title: The life of a shinobi...
Series: Naruto
Characters: Mikoto, with references to her family.
Genre: Perspective
Rating: PG (for mentions of brutal things)

This was spawned by a rather serious and vaguely morbid conversation I had with xkesshoux/wibbles_wobbles. The inspiring quote is below.



Hands stuffed in his pockets, the nine year old boy stared at a weed growing in the grass at the funeral grounds, where the Memorial stone stood. The breeze blew his bangs and his nearly shoulder-length black hair around his face. The brand-new black funeral suit was a little big for him, and she bit her lip as she watched him, wondering how soon he would have to wear it again.

Tatsu had been one of his few friends. He was a skinny mop-headed kid, from a civilian family, tall for his eleven years and with a crooked grin. The two boys were on the same team, but Itachi had been sick with strep throat, and another genin boy had filled in for him for the mission. Mikoto played with the hem of her left sleeve, aware of Fugaku's silent disapproval of her fidgeting. She didn't feel as though she could help it, though she made an effort to still her fingers. Tatsu. Think of Tatsu, his ashes in that funerary urn on the table before them, his name already engraved on the stone. Tatsu, who loved coming over to devour riceballs and train with Itachi. Tatsu, who was eleven years old when a ninja from a faction left over from the Shinobi wars put a sword through his heart and lung.

Itachi was watching a dandelion waving in the wind, his expression unreadable. He'd already achieved the impeccable Uchiha stoicness, and Mikoto wondered what he was thinking, under it all. Did he blame himself for being sick? Was he angry that his team was sent out without him? Was he depressed for losing a friend? She knew he'd looked up to Shisui for years, but ever since Shisui became a chuunin, he'd been too busy to help Itachi train.

Nine years old. Two years younger than poor, dead Tatsu. What would she do, she wondered, when they sent a messenger to her door, with the same news? When would that be? She squeezed her littlest's hand. How long until both her sons were out there, their lives in danger every moment they were outside the village walls?

"All things are beautiful in their transiency, and it is because nothing is forever that we must treasure it, as we treasured this brave young man."

Eleven year old boys were not men. Nine year old boys were not men. It felt hypocritical to believe this, when she had followed tradition and let her sons go to learn to kill, when she herself had been out fighting for her life at the tender age of eleven.

"The life of a shinobi is never very long. We must accept this fate, as we accept all things in life."

Never taking her eyes from Itachi, never taking her hand from Sasuke's tiny grasp, she rested her head on her husband's shoulder and wept.

Tags: fugaku, itachi, mikoto, perspective, sasuke
Current Location: 88007
Current Mood: awake