#greenchair

Above the line of green bamboo, the colourful clouds drifted across the red sky. Madara strolled home, patches of saltiness slowly drying from a sparring session with Hashirama.

He refused the invitation to have dinner with the Senju and chose to come back to his quiet home. For the house of a clan head, Madara's home was humble, unornamented and unmanned. He didn't have any children, and probably would never have one. Why would he need that much space to remind him of who he had lost?

"I'm home." Madara whispered to no one as he lined his sandals neatly by the step.

Madara stood alone in the middle of a gentle stream, poling a canoe downstream. The fog was so thick that he couldn't see where he was travelling.

Madara was dreaming.

He was sure not just because the moon above was red, but also his reflection in the water had white hair and purple eyes. Three eyes, even.

“Look, Ojii!”

The little girl tilted forwards, reaching out with her hands as if she wanted to capture the wandering kyuu of flame that warmed and lightened the night. Hikaku quickly grabbed her waist and sat her straight on his lap to stop her from rolling onto the ground. Kids in those days were much more fragile than in his time. She would have cried to attract her parent’s attention even though she would be fine. He did not need to suffer an outburst of wailing this close to his ear, even though his hearing had been slowly waning for the last decade.

Hikaku was an old man. He had buried most of his generation.

And here he was, enjoying a rare moment of cosiness with some of his descendants. His granddaughter controlled the long kyuu of flame like it was a kite tied to an invisible string in her hands. She sat on a rock by the koi pond, as her spine wouldn’t allow her to stand still for long. One of her legs was an inch shorter than the other from the war (so many wars, all blurred together as one), but at least she was alive and whole. Her husband wasn’t lucky enough to come home.

Hikaku also buried many people younger than him.

He remembered all of them. Especially that one whom he wasn’t allowed to bury and mourn for.