For Nobara

Chapter 14: Death is Kinder

There was a distant caw of a crow.

And then Koori burning into flames.

"Murderer!"

She staggered as her vision blurred and her temples ached with emptiness. There was a sudden ringing inside her ears before everything went dead silent. When she looked down at her hand, the snow was white again like nothing happened.

"Nobara?"

She looked up, and there, Yori was standing behind her. He looked worried again, but the voice inside her head told her otherwise. So she just stared as he dusted off the clouds of snow on her hair before draping his haori around her shoulders. To keep warm, he said.

She could never feel warm.

"Let's go inside." His eyes were soft as he took her hand in his. His hands were just as soft, but somehow... there was only this overwhelming feeling dwelling in her chest.

"Yori?" she spoke, but her voice was nothing above a whisper.

"Yes?"

"What... What was mother like?"

He paused, but it was inevitable not to smile. He smiled in a way that seemed like he was remembering a distant memory, a memory she knew nothing of. "She resembled you quite a bit, if I'd say so myself... She was full of love to give, and you were a product of that love, little cousin."

"Love...?"

Yori hummed at her words. "Her love... was when she had you. It's when she used to sing lullabies to you even when you were yet to be born. And she gave you that love even until her last breath."

"Did father also give mother love?"

And almost too suddenly, he stopped walking. She looked up at him and she was filled with hope. Even if she was incomplete now, knowing that she wasn't born from resentment filled her with so much of it.

"He brought her flowers every day because he knew she loved them..."

"Did he give them to give her love?"

"Perhaps..." Yori smiled almost wistfully as something in his eyes dimmed. "Perhaps in the language of flowers, he did. And he gave her you... 'Nobara, my little wildflower,' your mother used to say. That's what your name means, little cousin."

·

Baki seemed reluctant to leave that morning after what happened, but his duties forced him to. He left quite unwillingly after he told her not to stay in the sun for long, but the child seems to ignore his existence altogether.

She only preoccupies herself in the sand outside his house. She waits for Temari because she had promised they would make onigiri today. And even though the grocery bag had been soiled with sand from yesterday's incident, Nobara had done as she was told.

Temari has become the source of her distraction, but today she is late.

It's the first time the child has ever been left alone for long, where it wouldn't have been difficult to disappear unlike the times when the older girl would pop up out of nowhere with random ideas to pass the time. And yet still, Nobara finds herself waiting like she is good at.

Her finger grazes against the sands where she draws a clumsy-looking stick figure of a tall cloaked man. She draws his eyes angry. Kakuzu is always angry, isn't he? Because she always messes things up.