Farewell, Papa . . .

Disclaimer: Naruto is Kishimoto's property. I'm not making any money from this story.

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She sloshed through the muddy ground at a half-jog. Morning heralded a gloomy day. It was drizzling, and rain was cool upon her plump cheeks. A misty cold fogged the glasses, precariously perched on her pink nose, but she wiped a hasty hand across them. She could see a bit better now.

The forest was just beginning to rise from its slumber: crickets created noise in the bushes when the wind disturbed their morning song; birds sat singing in the dense trees. Wind gained speed, and a sighing filled her ears. She knew she had to run fast. Putting chakra underneath her sandals, she gained a little height; and she ran and she ran fast, speeding past the trees flickering like green flashes in the corners of her vision.

Red came on and she did not even know—a feeling came from her breast. It overcame the innocence in her and poured out of her eyes unabated. She turned the sob into a loud sigh. She was an Uchiha and Uchiha men preserved their Honour. She had read it on a sacred stone outside the dilapidated village of her father's people—her people. All that remained in that forlorn place, encrusted with gloom, were bits of shadows wavering, smells of moss, and pieces of old stones. Everyone was gone. Her father was the last Uchiha. She, too, was one . . . she supposed; and a sudden elation rose in her heart like a burning Uchiha flame. Yes, she was an Uchiha: her father's daughter—the only heir to his legacy.

She knew little about the word, but she knew it meant something—it was about bonds of blood. She shared it with him and he, with her. It was an inevitable blessing from the Kami, an alliance made before birth. She was soldered to him through blood and soul.

She had more of him in her than she did her mother. There was so little of her in her veins, so little; and her eyes were a different colour. The right colour. The red colour. They gleamed, almost predatory on her sweet young face which bore a blush of innocence. This innocence would fade when she would attain that womanly shape, bleed from the groove Nature had crafted in her form as a blessing and a curse. She did not understand a man's, her father's, Honour; she should have been a boy . . .

Still, she was an Uchiha—her father's daughter, his only daughter, an heir meant to carry the burdens from his clan's long legacy. It was forged into her mind and her young blood that had yet to taste the true heat of youth. Her feet did not falter, and a smile lingered on the lips as though a wandering man in search of something . . . something . . .

A feeling clasped hold of her soul and the blinking lights between the branches did not matter. Spring was heavy upon her senses, sweet and fleeting, a season of parting; but she kept running, feeling the wind collide with her face, skin rippling. Coils of muscles in her legs tensed. She could see the chakra roil like a storm in his body, just beyond the trees—just beyond there!

And she knew she could not resist the temptation of looking upon his magnificent mien, his impeccable, yet cold, countenance. Her legs did not stop, and she ran beyond the ominous barrier of shadows whilst he stood like a dark silhouette with the searing, vicious light of sun behind him.

Everything changed into his chakra before her eyes. It bled and became one with the world and penetrated its wriggling fibres and throbbing veins; and it went into her heart like a kind of overpowering and conquering animal that laid waste to its prey. It did not matter to her then; she had surrendered her heart to him long ago. It was always meant to submit before the one that granted her her blood, her soul.

Hidden in the memories were dark days of longing. Father, her beautiful father, gone—a wayfaring man lost behind the boughs of lovely trees, a dusty-picture on the table that mattered little, a cloak that hung heavy and still from the nail in the wall; but he was here now, and now was all that mattered. She ran into him, crashing into his form, making that chakra ripple upon contact. It rushed through her like a beautiful music of abandonment.

Her eyes closed, and wrapping her arms tightly about his waist, she burrowed her face into his stomach, breathing in the musk that issued forth from his shirt. The world turned silent, for it was her turn to speak and its turn to listen; and she was transported to a tranquil and quiet place full of wonders, of which girls wished. He stayed un-moving for a moment. Then she felt a hesitant hand on her head.

She tilted her head back and looked up into his eyes that resonated with the mark they both shared. His bearing was kingly to her, sublime, and a thing of such beauty. His face was calm, framed between dark hair they both shared, too. He did not seem angry or kind, he just looked at her, his features unrelenting in the face of her love. At last, her resolve crumbled, and her lips began to tremble with grief, and she whispered out softly: "papa . . . "

His fingers threaded deep into her wind-blown, tar-black hair; and, bringing her cheek against his stomach, he held her there. She stood like that, trembling against him, weeping into the corners of the shirt she held in her fists.

He did not say a thing—she did not say a thing. It was silence between them now and mellow sound of the wind and the forest . . . and the distant echoes of a woman's voice, who had held her in her womb, who would never taste the intimacy she so craved again. It was distance, distance, and more distance between them, a never-ending chasm of false-faces she clung to so religiously.

But she was not just a girl with a womb for his form. No, she was a part of him like she would never be. It was a right for her and a wish for the other one. It was different for them. The blood made it different. Then the hand behind her head became soft, and she strained her pretty little face to look up at him again; and this time, the faintest smile, like the briefest touch of breeze against the dews upon the leaves, graced his lips.

Her lips, too, trembled into a warm smile. His fingers traced the uneven paths made by the tears on her soft and rosy cheeks, drying them. She unwrapped her arms from him, and he patted her head once before he backed away wordlessly. Then he turned around and began walking silently towards the forest; and she kept watching till he went into the shadows between the trees, his black cloak billowing behind him like another shadow.

So he tore himself away from the woman's pleas, who kept her womb hopelessly vacant for his seed; but this was different. This was sublime. This was pure. This was love . . . he would come for her again. It was just the wait that was painful; and before she knew it, her heart and mind were made to whisper to him, whisper to the wind: "farewell, papa . . . "

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The End