The scorched earth reeked of death, mingled with the acrid smell of overburned chakra and a faint trace of emptiness where the warmth of life had gone utterly cold.
The night wind wailed past the edge of the training ground, which had been forcibly flattened into nothing but a vitrified crater. It swept up fine dust, yet could not disperse the suffocating despair and grief congealed in the air.
Shinji Uchiha stood there as though rooted to the ground, one with this newborn wasteland of death.
His head hung low, black hair falling over his eyes, leaving only his taut jawline and tightly clenched fists visible,
his knuckles bone-white from the force of his grip.
The tiny scroll, bearing his comrade's final message delivered at the cost of her life, pressed coldly into his palm. Yet that chill was nothing beside the frozen sea of fire within him.
Miwako-
The comrade who had always quietly healed their wounds with Medical Ninjutsu, who had prepared food for everyone after tense missions, who had swallowed her grief after their teacher Sakumo's "departure" and striven to grow stronger, to protect them all-
Just moments ago, right here, to avoid becoming a burden to them, to destroy Danzo's further schemes, she had chosen the most resolute,
most devastating way to turn herself into a white light of destruction, leaving not even her bones behind.
He had not even been able to see her one last time.
When he arrived, there had been only this all-consuming emptiness.
The dam of reason was hopelessly fragile before such a cruel reality.
Every shred of reason in his mind vanished in an instant, like ice dropped into molten lava, vaporized without a trace.
In its place surged a torrent of images-Miwako's smiling face, her profile as she concentrated