FicWad

It wasn't much of a headstone, if you could call it that - it was a pile of stones marking where a body laid six feet under ground. It was a wonder that no one had come by yet to destroy the body, or plunder it of anything worth stealing. In fact, it was a wonder that there was still a body to bury, considering the magnitude of the last battle it was involved in.

After all, he was an important man during his life. The operative word being was, of course.

Sakura was the only one currently bearing witness to this sad attempt at a proper burial. She would be more on guard, more attuned to her surroundings as a proper chuunin should be, if not for the fact that tears were obstructing her view and a familiar numbness had settled over her body. Earlier, there had been some people, but no family members, and especially no people that Sakura wanted to see at a moment like this. Not if they saw the state she was in, open to every emotion imaginable like a newborn child.

She wanted, more than anything, to open her mouth and scream to the heavens: It's not fair! It's just not fair! But her mouth seemed to betray her in its unwillingness to work. Sakura suddenly felt extremely fatigued, as if it had been her who had wielded the heavy shuriken that killed the man now lying ill-fittingly in his grave. She wrapped her arms around her body in an attempt to feel some warmth. Even such a simple movement made her feel as though her blood has turned to the consistency of soft lead.

Sakura began to turn away and return to her apartment, where Tsunade was no doubt waiting for her, knowing full well where her top student had gone. She stopped in mid-turn, then faced the grave once more, the piddly structure a great contrast to the legacy of the body underneath it. Her look was hard but wavering.

"I should have been there," she managed to say, choking on the words, "to see you die, you /bastard/."

In the bitter silence of a Konoha fall, the pink-haired ninja left Itachi Uchiha's grave for the first and last time, letting the tears on her face dry on their own.