Stumble [Rewrite]

Omake III: The Flower That Wasn't Pink

"Ko-Konoha?! Baa-chan, who's going to... to help you with the inn? Or the laundry, or to cook, or to help you cl-clean the house—"

"Hush, Sachiko-chan. I'll be alright."

"But Konoha—!"

"Is your mother's home, and naturally, yours as well," Yuka said. "I'm old, but not an old fool, dear. You've read your mother's letter to you a million times now and likely to do so a million times more. You want to know who she was, don't you?"

Sachiko grasped the hem of her shirt and looked at her feet. She did want to know more about her mother. The mountains of paper she read over and over again told of a beautiful village where the sun never ceased to shine and the trees gleamed a spring green. She also remembered the people, both of those who perished in the war and those who probably still lived on to this day.

Did she want to know more?

Yes. That's all she ever wanted.

"Am... I going with Yamato-san and Hatake-san?" Sachiko asked. Yuka patted the girl's hair and planted a kiss on her forehead.

"I promise that they'll take good care of you. Your mother's sensei and team leader, you said? They won't be anything but good to you."

The fourteen year old nodded mutely as she leaned on her grandmother's shoulder. Tomorrow, she would leave with those two strangers that her mother had written so fondly of, especially the silver haired one. Sachiko could still recall how sad and guilt-ridden he looked when he apologized to her.

"I couldn't stop her."

What had her mother done?

::

They left at first light, heading East instead of South. Sachiko knew her geography well enough to know that they weren't headed towards Konoha. She kept her mouth shut, though, and listened to the quiet words spoken between the two adults.

"Nanadaime-sama will have our heads when we get back."

"Naruto'll understand. What we really have to worry about is when he and Sasuke find out about Sakura. You know how they get."

She flinched at the mention of those names. There was rarely a passage either of them weren't at least alluded to. They were the people whom her mother believed in time and time again. She wrote about them like they were heroes—Naruto more so than others.

Heroes.

Then why didn't they save her mother if she loved them so much?

Sachiko noticed Kakashi's and Yamato's slowed steps as they came to a riverside. Two enormous statues stood at either edge of a connecting waterfall, a state of disrepair evident in their cracks and crumbling foundations.

"This is the Valley of the End, Sachiko-san," Yamato informed, his voice the barest of murmurs. "The... last place Sakura was seen. Alive."

Kakashi had ghosted away from the group at some point and walked to the center of the lake. Both his eyes were visible and downcast as he imbibed his surroundings with regret laced in his empty stare. At Sachiko's questioning glance, Yamato sighed and motioned her to sit on a rock beside him.

"You've heard of the Fourth Shinobi World War, right?"

She nodded. She read about it in the few shinobi history books in the town library.

"Well, this incident happened a little bit after when everyone was celebrating, so we'll never know what truly happened save for the four who were actually there. Naruto, Sasuke, Kakashi-senpai, and Sakura. It..." He took a deep breath. "No one knows all the details except them, but I can give you a brief overview," he said. "Naruto and Sasuke fought for hours with years of pent up emotion. Kakashi-senpai watched from the sidelines. Thirty-four hours in, Sakura came. I heard she was different from what senpai saw of her because neither of us had seen her three years prior. She stood next to him and spectated her old teammates' battle to the death. But with Sakura being Sakura, she wouldn't let that pass."