AN: And now for the end. Man, I did a crap job with this story. Sorry again. :D

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10

The rain slashed angrily against the windows of the Hokage's office, its wet slap and drum echoing against the glass panes. Tsunade's hands shake as she fills out the memorial certificates before her.

"Three more names…" Her voice is an angry whisper.

She presses the pen to paper and scribbles her authority, her guilt, across the page in the appropriate place. Her signature is an inky worm's trail across the parchment, black and thick and smeared into nearly illegible scrawl. A frown creases her face as she stares down at the nearly ruined certificate. For long moments, she is lost in thought, her mind twisting and turning and dancing backward. It had been her voice that had sent those children to their deaths.

"Tsunade…" Shizune's voice is soft as she speaks the name. On any other day, she would use an honorific, a title, but at times like this - there is more peace in a personal space. Tsunade knows that it's Shizune's way of telling her that it's ok to be emotional, to be angry. Her fingers loosen on the pen and it falls to the desk with a sharp thud, the tip springing away to fall on the floor some distance away. Tsunade glares at the broken pen, fights the urge to crumple the freshly signed papers and shatter her desk.

"Shinobi are expendable, they are tools…" The words, Tsunade thinks, are a cruel mantra. Her fingers tighten on the edges of the papers and she lifts them from the desk, shoves them at Shizune. "Take them." She doesn't have to tell Shizune what to do with the papers; death is a common enough occurrence that they both know exactly what to do. Tsunade's eyes unfocus as she holds the papers aloft, her vision inward and distant; the blur of Shizune's hand enters her field of vision and removes the ecru smear of parchment.

The quiet click of a door brings Tsunade from her internal reflection. It was, she knew, her fault. All of it. If she had not been so demanding, so inflexible with the measure of the treaties - perhaps then those Grass Nin would not have rebelled; those… children would not have been sacrificed to political unrest. Those expendable children, those tools. What a joke. The trivialization of their lives burns into Tsunade's mind – she's reminded why she left, why she didn't want to be Hokage in the first place.

Politics dictate, she knows, that soldiers serve their patriotic function. That soldiers defend and preserve, and give their life on command; for their country, for their leaders, for duty and honor. Tsunade's fists press into the desk, and she feels the heavy wood give beneath her hands, just a little.

Children shouldn't be soldiers.

Tsunade shoves herself away from the desk, lifts her tense body from her chair. The wind whips the rain against the glass, forces itself through cracks like cool, moist breath; blows wet spatters past the frame to pool on the sill inside the office. She stares at the small misshapen puddle collecting on the sill; the blue-grey light of stormy sky reflects in the water – the shapes are distorted and small and faint. They weren't children, they were Shinobi. She tells herself this, in her head, but she's not convinced.

A soft roll of thunder crawls across the heavens, chases the tail of lightning, and she glances up at the rapidly darkening sky. In two days, the guests would arrive. There would be a funeral, a memorial. But those children are already gone. Her hands fist against her side as she stares out the window. Soldiers, Shinobi, not children.

They were never children.