AFTER DARK | naruto

71 | gratitude [END]

'Hey, brat!' A blurry voice managed to reach you in the strange world you were in. 'Brat! It's time to wake up! It's over!' They informed. In a matter of a few seconds, your dream of celebrating your birthday with family and friends warped into a hazy reality as you sat in some water.

"Diaval," There was some sort of relief in your voice as you said his name, glancing around the familiar place. Though, there was a noticeable lack of a few different dragons.

He seemed to notice your unspoken question before you had the chance to say it. "The others are gone."

You needed a second to process his words as you stood up. "Like... Dead, gone?" You asked stupidly. Your mind already began to think up the possible scenarios, could you see the ghost of a dragon? Now that you thought about it, you'd never see an animals ghost before. But surely, if you tried hard enough, you could unlock some sort of hidden ability behind your eyes and—

You weren't able to finish your thought process, Diaval flicking the stupid out of you with a single claw. "Ow!" You rubbed your chin. "Since when were you freed out of those bars?" You wondered.

"A while," he responded curtly. "You just barely realized. Didn't you?"

"Guess so..." You replied in a murmur. The blaringly obvious elephant in the room making it hard for you to say much else.

Before you could brood longer, he hit you again. "Stop doing that! You're not exactly small, Diaval!" You yelled.

Diaval chuckled in your face before he stopped. "Are you calling me fat?"

"What? No," You grumbled. "You were bigger than the others, though... Speaking of—" The dragon already picked up on your change of topic before you could successfully execute it.

"Before I tell you, you better not get all up in your feelings about this like you always do." He warned.

"I won't..." you murmured, glancing elsewhere.

"Well, they're dead. Kind of." He explained. "That punk tried to extract them from you, but failed miserably. Their powers, their mind and even their souls are in those lacrimas... But their spirits still in you," You weren't quite understanding what he was getting at. "Basically... They're in that lacrima, but without their spirit it might as well be like they're dead. Or maybe... Braindead is more like it."

Braindead... Nothing about your powers could do anything about someone being Braindead—maybe if you tried hard enough to do so—

"Hey brat, what'd I tell you?" Diaval cut you out of your thoughts.

"Right, right," you stood up straight, trying to look firm. You didn't have those dragons your entire life like you did Diaval, but they had still been part of you for a long time. "Not to get all in my head about it..." You repeated what they told you.

You sucked in a deep breath, composing yourself. "Are they suffering like that?"

"I bet they are." Diaval put it bluntly. You kind of appreciated it right now.

"What should I do?" You asked for some sort of advice.

"Let them go."

It was ironic, that was the same piece of advice you had given to the sand villages guards way back when they begged you to stay. People die everyday, people learn to move on everyday... That's what the Sand needs to do. Maybe you were talking to yourself back then, too. You were a part of the sand village after all, weren't you?