Pakura's tears spilled from her eyes as she continued.
"It's all my fault. I was too weak, and that's why you, Captain..."
"Cough, cough... Pakura... listen... this isn't your fault... I was too reckless... and fell into... Amegakure's... ambush... cough, cough... You must... get the intelligence back..."
The captain's breathing grew weaker and weaker, yet he still instructed Pakura to bring the intelligence home.
After those words, the captain's pupils began to lose focus. It was as though his life were flashing before his eyes, with scenes from the past switching rapidly like slides.
Until one image stopped. At the center of it was a little girl with a bright, happy smile, who looked seventy or eighty percent like Pakura.
With what little consciousness he had left, the captain recalled who the girl was. She was his younger sister, who had died young at the hands of an enemy spy whose identity had been exposed.
Knowing he had been discovered, the spy had taken his sister hostage when she happened to pass by. But upon realizing that the hostage was useless, he had simply killed the little girl before the Sunagakure ninja could make their move.
Her older brother had stood right beside her. The helplessness and guilt had tormented his body and mind every moment of every day, until he met Pakura, who became a member of his squad.
Her similar appearance had left him stunned. If his little sister had not died, she would have been about Pakura's age now, wouldn't she?
In a world plagued by war year after year, where great nations occasionally broke into minor conflicts, conviction alone was not enough for a ninja to survive. They also needed something to hold on to. For the captain, that meant treating Pakura as his sister who