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chapter fifteen.

please do not seek me out after death,
i will have finally found my place of rest.

- - -

Aoi could still feel her lungs burning when she woke up and her head was pounding with things she didn't want to remember. 

Memories were difficult things, easily twisted around by the brain. She understood to some extent that she had just relived her first death, that the girl with who she had been previously sharing this soul had shown her the life she had before; shared the death and betrayal she had suffered.

It hurt Aoi more than anything to relive that, but it hurt even more to understand that she was no longer the girl she used to be. Dully she remembered the conversation she had had with the 'other,' the sneered voice telling her she couldn't be the hero that saved everyone and she grimaced. 

"This isn't epic," Her voice echoed through the empty room and she sighed and sat up slowly, her body protesting every movement as she glanced at the bandages that were still wrapped around her body, reminding her even more of the time zone she was in. She thought back to Orochimaru, to what he would become, and felt her insides twist with displeasure. Maybe the other was right in criticizing her but that didn't mean Aoi was simply going to go and kill the other boy, he'd just lost his parents and they had died for her no less, she couldn't do that to him; not after everything. 

She breathed out, her ribs protesting and she warily took in the hospital room she must've been moved to at some point during her unconsciousness. Moving slowly, Aoi opened the window of the hospital room and leaned her body out of the window and into the rain—trying to see how high she was—before giving an exhausted grimace upon realizing she was on the fifth floor. It wouldn't be a problem normally, but right now she was facing major chakra exhaustion and wanted nothing more than to hop back into bed or even get some decent food (ramen sounded exceptional right about now).

She felt helpless, stuck in a hospital room while Konohagakure prepared itself for the war Iwagakure had just started by trespassing into their borders. She sighed, laying her head on the cool windowsill letting the rain soak her head, and wondered what her friends were doing. 

She lifted her head in time to see lightning snake across the sky in a dangerously alluring way, thunder quickly following; Aoi wondered how Orochimaru was doing.

- - -

Every time he shut his eyes, it was like he was reliving that moment in the forest. 

He could see and hear Aoi, screaming and pleading for his parents to turn back as if she knew something bad was going to happen, and he could see his father. His father who was stoic in public but had the widest smile at home, his father who taught him how to bake shortbread cookies that they could share with his mother when she arrived home from a particularly difficult mission. His father who had loved him and his mother unconditionally, his father whose throat was slit. His father whose blood had splattered onto Aoi and himself, his father, who was dead.

His mother was still in intensive care, the Hokage himself had found her and told no one but Orochimaru of her status. She was alive but wounded so badly that even if she survived she would never be able to work as a kunoichi again. To Orochimaru that didn't matter at all, there was a possibility of his mother surviving. A possibility that his last memories of his mother won't be a look of pure terror on her face as her child was taken farther and farther away from her.

He thinks of Aoi who was six, who was six and had killed people. Who was six and had been splattered in his father's blood, who was six and, according to Tobirama Senju, blamed herself for the death of both of his parents. It wasn't lost on him, the importance Aoi placed on other people's childhoods, the amount of effort she put into making sure Sakumo, Tsunade and himself had fun, so it stung to know that her own childhood had been bloodied. He supposed his was too, the death of his father a wound Orochimaru knew would never fully close.

He shook his head and looked outside his bedroom window to the shinobi dressed for war walked through the streets.

"Congratulations class," Orochimaru murmured sarcastically as he shut his windows and pulled the blinds over them, "You've graduated a year early; enjoy the war." 

The storm clouds rolling in overhead rumbled ominously following Orochimaru's bitter words, it was fitting.

- - -

War was something Hashirama had been trying to avoid ever since the founding of Konoha.

He knew that it would one day war would come, swift and unforgiving as was the nature of most wars. He had delayed it for as long as possible, offering peace to every other Elemental Nation but Iwagakure had refused and the Valley of Stone was shut away from the Valley of Fire, trading and conspiring only with Kumogakure.

Hashirama grimaced down at the formal letter he had addressed to the Tsuchikage of Iwagakure, informing him that the shinobi caught within his borders unannounced and after children of the Valley of Fire had been executed. This letter was a way out, a way for the Tsuchikage to realize that the Valley of stone was ill-equipped in the face of war; this was a way to surrender before the fighting ever started.

Hashirama sealed the letter carefully, grimacing as lightning flashed from outside the window, thunder booming threateningly as water began to pour forebodingly. 

He'd never wanted war.

- - -

AN: Hmm.

This story and my re-write have entirely different plots... and I may or may not have gotten stuck in writing for the other plot and re-read this story... and I may have read a few comments talking about how they liked this story better than the re-write... and I may have missed writing semi-serious crack. 

Anyways... now you guys get two stories; one that's angst and serious and one that's crack and sort-of-serious. Also, be aware that if I start working on and editing this story fully there's gonna be a lot of Marvel references because I've somehow devolved into that phase again. 

Speaking of, if you're interested in a Marvel fic check out my account aetherbliss on ao3, I've got a Marvel fic in the works as well as some anime fics. Anyways, hope this makes people happy lol.

You didn't see that coming?