Chapter 31
“Be safe,” she whispered, pressing her lips against his temple. “Fight hard.”
“Hinata,” he breathed, the only word his lungs could find, her name a solace and a servitude, both. He drew her in closer, felt the heat of her, pressed his lips against her hair.
“Let’s go,” someone shouted, voice deep and ragged, a veteran in charge. There was a chorus of them, Naruto realized, an echo of destitution along the gates. They sounded so weary, so tired. “Let’s go.”
Naruto drew away from Hinata, his eyes moving across her features, drinking her in. He wanted to remember her like this, in this moment, the light of dawn cresting over her cheekbones, the breeze toying with the ends of her mussed hair. Sunlight spilled over her, turned the ragged rust of his frayed shirt a brighter and more familiar shade of orange. Like the sunrise, she’d said, then laughed, or the sunset.
That had been so long ago—how old had they been, the first time he’d woken up to the sound of her moving things around in his kitchen, wearing nothing but that ugly orange shirt? He couldn’t remember—but he could picture the exact moment he saw her, hair piled atop her head, the hem of his shirt grazing over her supple thighs. The smell of green tea, a hint of honey. The sound of her voice as she turned to him, morning light pooling over her, magnetic and mesmerizing.
Did you sleep well?
“I’ll come back,” Naruto promised, uncaring of the shouts growing faint with distance, (let’s go, let’s go), proof that he was already falling behind. He heard only his own words and found the tremble in them, the pitfall, the possibilities of what could follow I’ll come back—
He wouldn’t say alive. He said, “I’ll come back soon.”
Hinata was stronger than he was. She didn’t tremble, didn’t shake. A single tear slipped over the elegance of her cheekbone, to the softened line of her jaw. She reached out to him, ran her thumb along the corner of his lips, a familiar and comforting gesture. She smiled, and he knew it was for him in just the same way that one recognizes their own home; with warmth and comfort and love.
Hinata moved towards him, onto the tips of her toes. She pulled at his nape until their foreheads touched, and flinched when another shout coursed over them. The fading time left for them to be together became more and more noticeable, until it was a palpable thing between them. People were already returning to the village, to their lives, having already sent off their loved ones. There were only a few people left lingering, pressed close, whispering quietly to one another. Hinata closed her eyes.
“Make it a promise,” she whispered, and Naruto’s heart lurched, ached, pounded. Never before had his ribs felt more like a cage. Naruto moved closer, pressed their lips together, tasted the salt of her skin, a single tear track over her lips. He brushed it away with his thumb, watched the way her eyes came open to stare up into his. Sunrise, sunset, that disheveled shirt of his that she so loved to wear lit the perimeter of his vision bright, bright orange.
“It was, it is,” He whispered at last, pressing the words against her lips. “I stand by what I say.”
Time snapped between them, a broken thing, and they parted until the air between them was sodden and heavy with it.
Naruto was an optimistic person; always had been, always would be. But even someone as bright and full of hope as he was could still feel doubt, and uncertainty. It was in that moment that that uncertainty struck out at him, made him think, if this is the last time that I see her—
There, in his ugly shirt, with pillow lines still creased on her cheek from his bedsheets and the heart she so freely gave to him pushing heat into her cheeks, he thought—
“Stay safe, Hinata,” he said, instead. He forced himself to sound certain. “Work hard.”
Hinata lifted her chin even as tears began to fall evenly, her fingers gripping the hem of his shirt against her thigh. She nodded once, definitively, and Naruto turned away from her.
He did not allow himself to look back. He caught up to the other young people being sent to the front lines of a war they had a hand in starting, and he did not look back.
He looked ahead, and yet all he could see was—
Sunrise. Sunset.
✧
“There has to be another way.”
“I’m trying to tell you,” Nara Shikamaru sighed, pushing at a line of tension along his forehead. His hologram body shimmered in the space of Naruto’s war tent, the fizz of static a comforting distraction from the hush of war outside his poorly constructed walls. “This plan has the least amount of casualties.”
Naruto gritted his teeth. Not for the first time, he repeated himself.
“Even one casualty is too many.”
Shikamaru’s sigh came even before the sentence fully left Naruto’s lips. He shook his head, mixed parts exasperated and wearisome.
“You’re so troublesome. It’s a wonder you’ve done so well there, truly,” Shikamaru lamented, “With a mindset more naïve than a Genin.”
Naruto didn’t stiffen at the jab, didn’t back down. He pushed harder, no punches held.
“It’s this naïve mindset that we’re fighting for, day in and day out. Even one life is too great a loss for us to be okay with, Shikamaru.”
His head consultant’s face pinched in just the way that it did when his mother scolded him. Naruto didn’t take the time to draw the line from point A to point B and realize he’d just mentally compared himself to Shikamaru’s mother.
“Fine,” Shikamaru groused, “Say we go along with your plan. What are we going to do about the civilians? You can’t just burst through the front door with Rasen-Shuriken in hand, Naruto. You’d level their village.”
“Nah,” Naruto agreed, “No bursting in, no Rasen-Shuriken. Just me, a couple hundred more of me, one of my generals, and her battalion.”
“Just walking right in the front door.”
“Yes.”
“Where everyone in the village, civilian, spy, and stationed battalion can see you coming. From at least a mile away.”
“This way,” Naruto hedged, “It’s fair. They’ll come to fight us before we reach the village gates. When we get there, we can offer aid to the civilians there, if they need it. If they want it.”
Naruto’s expression darkened, became storm clouds roiling over an open plain, freckled and jaded with scars.
“We will not do what was done to Rain country.” His voice was an unsheathed sword, the first glimmer of steel out of the scabbard, an unabashed warning. His posture was a reckoning. He met Shikamaru’s hologram eyes without blinking, jaw tight, and said, “If the people of this country don’t want us here and don’t want our aid or supplies, we will leave. We will not force them. We might be helping, but they have the power here. I won’t stand for anyone trying to take that from them.”
“Sheesh,” Shikamaru sighed, shifting his weight. Somewhere behind him Naruto heard the distinct sound of pages turning, the rustling of many actively doing research. “I know that. We’re on the same page, Naruto. All of us are. It was these people who wrote to us for aid, so that they wouldn’t be wiped off the map, remember?”
The weight of Naruto’s heavy shoulders lightened, allowed him to bow where before he had stood sharp and tall. “Yeah,” he laughed, with some humor to it. “Yeah I remember. Just wanted to make sure.”
Shikamaru’s eyes softened, sympathetic. “I know this situation reminds you of—ah, hell.”
Shikamaru scuffed his foot on the floor, threading his hands together behind his head in a gesture that was somehow an expression of comfort and discomfort both. He wasn’t fond of this, intimate discussions outside of duty and strategy, and this was more troublesome than most. Still, because he could see the way Naruto swayed, could see twin groaning shadows under his eyes, the way that war had move through him with barbed edges, catching and stealing, he persisted. “She would be proud of the way you’re handling this. This village is only slightly smaller than Whirlpool had been, after all.”
Naruto was silent for a long time, his eyes heavy. His fingers twisted unconsciously into the fabric of his pants, right at his thighs. “Yeah,” he finally said, lower than usual. He thought of a frame, cracked and dusty, squared away inside of four walls under the sun he called home. A family. A woman. Red hair, his eyes. “I guess this place feels a bit more personal. Because of that.”
He hadn’t even really realized it until Shikamaru said it outright—too focused on strategy and keeping his friends and those innocent people caught between the fight alive. But Shikamaru had a mind that saw everything, everything, and this, too, factored into his planning. Naruto might never have put the pieces together so precisely, and realized that this little village under siege reminded him of Whirlpool.
Of his mother, and the little that he did know about her.
Shikamaru allowed him a moment of consideration, a rare pensive mood for their young Commander. He cleared his throat, and Naruto’s gaze caught his once more. His body wrapped itself back into cords of strength, armor of muscle and bone and human will.
“Your plan will work,” Shikamaru admitted slowly, bringing them back to the issue at hand. “You just thought about keeping the civilians safe and furthest from the actual fighting, but I know the way our enemy thinks. They’re arrogant enough to meet us there. They will meet us there. The only question is if you have enough forces to meet them.”
“We sure do,” Naruto said, tone lilting slightly, just enough to catch Shikamaru’s attention and hold it. Naruto’s smile was a tired thing, but humor still had the power to lift it. “I have a surprise for them.”
“More surprising than three hundred of you?”
Naruto laughed lowly, crossing his arms over his chest. “Yeah, that trick’s old hand, by now.”
At that, Shikamaru seemed to somehow grow even more disgruntled than before. Naruto grinned, though.
“I have Rock Lee.”
Shikamaru’s eyes brightened, his lips quirking questioningly, as if asking for more information without ever having to say the words.
Naruto explained it all.
✧
Even as a young boy, Naruto had known he’d rise through the ranks. He’d planned on it. No one became the Hokage by being complacent in their position in life. They jumped at challenges, they changed the world.
He just never expected to have to rise so quickly. He didn’t have a mind for complex strategy, but he had a will of pure, living fire that managed to burn its way through impossible odds and straight to victory. His unit triumphed under his bravery and encouragement, and when his battalion’s decade-long general fell, it was Naruto they appointed in his place.
They tried to rise him up; offered him new dwellings, better accommodations, more rations. Naruto insisted his tent remain with the war party, no larger or more lavish than any other. He got used to receiving report from people older than himself, and tried his best to utilize those around him so as to prevent as many losses as possible. Victory was always there in his mind, but it was protectiveness that stole the forefront. These were his people. Good people. He would not fail them.
But damned if it wasn’t exhausting.
“Sir?”
Naruto stirred, refocusing on the shinobi before him. He was younger even than Naruto, with a new scar forming through his chin, bright and angry. His report had been perfectly organized, more so than Naruto could ever dream to replicate. Naruto’s eyes dropped to the boy’s hands, saw the tremors in his fingers. Exhaustion, not fear.
“Sorry,” Naruto laughed, a forced effort. He rubbed passively at his nape, his fingernails still caked with dirt, dried skin. Blood. “Thanks for the info. I’ll try to put it to good use, believe it.”
“Oh, I’m sure you will,” the young man offered. He sounded reassuring, as though he thought Naruto had thought he’d been looking down on Naruto for not paying attention earlier. Tension pooled in Naruto’s temples. He was overthinking things. He tried to offer up a smile, knew it looked forced, but the young man returned one as true as rain anyways. It stretched the skin of his chin, accentuated the budding scar there.
“Hey, don’t forget we have a medic’s tent,” Naruto reminded him, softening his tone so it didn’t sound like an order. His smile was a little more heartfelt when it lifted and he added, “You should stop by and ask Hinata to check on you. It’s important to keep yourself healthy out here, seriously, and even if you wanna keep the scar, you might wanna let her give you a full check-up. Nothing wrong with making sure you’re healthy before you head out with lives depending on you.”
The young man hesitated, eyes searching Naruto’s. Something Naruto said made his shoulders bow, and the soft curl of the young man’s lips was full of pity. He said, “Sir,” ever politely, “Did you mean Hana? Our chief medic?”
Naruto blinked at the boy. His mind was already racing over new plans and orders again and the tension in his temples had turned into a full-blown looming migraine. He couldn’t remember what he’d had to eat let alone if he’d said something that didn’t make sense.
The boy’s smile grew in shades, growing less in pity and more of amusement, as though he was in on some joke Naruto didn’t understand or was just too tired to get.
The young man saved him the effort of asking him what the hell was going on by nodding his head with a single bubble of muted laughter. “Yes, yes,” he said, “I’ll go see the medic. And sir, not to step out of line, but you should try to get some sleep.”
Naruto smiled, eyes growing heavy. “Will do,” he agreed, though sleep seemed so far away he wasn’t even sure if he could properly spell it at the moment. The young man bobbed his head and made his way, presumably off to the medic tent as Naruto had encouraged. Naruto watched him go with curiosity still pooling within him, wondering at his blunder. The young man lifted the flap of Naruto’s tent and the morning light caught his hair, turned it to flame.
Auburn. Orange.
Naruto took one last look at the map laid out in front of him and pushed away from the table, over to his makeshift futon. He collapsed on top of it with a gust of a sigh, praying for a moment of peace, of respite. He sat up straight a moment later when he heard a far off crash, and then the echo of someone apologizing. He relaxed minutely, shaking his head and reaching up to rub at his temples. He let his head fall, dangling between his forearms, fingers pushing through his hair. It was longer now. He closed his eyes and imagined smaller fingers pushing through the strands, gently massaging his scalp.
His eyes opened heavily, the ache within him growing. He reached under his futon and pulled the envelope he kept solely for her into his lap. He thumbed through several letters, re-reading and re-reading letters he’d re-read countless times before, her cute looping scrawl, his jagged scratches beneath.
He flipped through pictures she’d sent, of herself in their home, their bed, his shirt. Theirs, too, he thought with amusement.
The most recent correspondence with Hinata had not come from Hinata herself, but Iruka. It was a photograph of Hinata, candid and real, blurred in one edge. Her hair was up and pulled back, her eyebrows pinched as she gently introduced healing chakra into an injured child’s system. The green light of it reflected off of her skin, caught mistily in her eyes. Her clothes were ragged, her hair messy. He knew without Iruka’s letter of explanation that Hinata was working tirelessly at a village hospital near Konoha, where refugees were funneled to be treated. Her time would be split, if the war continued on. She was too valuable a healer to send to the front lines when so many refugees required aid so close to home.
The front lines were already covered well enough, though, with Sakura there.
Should the war continue, Hinata would undeniably be sent to the front lines somewhere. This was not conjecture; she had been briefed before he’d left, and explained it to him simply. She would go to war, too. Just not with him.
Naruto touched the still image of her face, poised in concentration. The edges of the photo were already worn from touch, from overuse. He found comfort in knowing she was working hard near home, that she was safe. Those had been his only demands of her. Stay safe. Work hard. She was keeping her promises.
And he loved her.
He loved her and he’d made her a promise, too.
And he intended on keeping it.
(Sunrise. Sunset.)