Ayumi stared at the casket. It was still hard to grasp, that he was really gone. Sarutobi, the Third Hokage, was gone, forever. Her mind went blank as the procession slowly began, rain continuing to fall.
She was curled up, hiding in the brush on the roadside. Tears had soaked the collar of her shirt and made her hair slick. She laid there, sobbing, for a while, unnoticed and uncared for...
Then a shadow passed over her, lingered. She gasped as she looked up; it was a ninja, an older man. He knelt down beside her, smiling softly.
"What are you doing there?" he has asked, voice gentle.
She sniffled. "T-They k-killed my family... T-They tried to k-kill me..."
"Who?"
She shook her head. She was too frightened to remember just then.
"Do you have anyone else? A grandparent? An aunt or uncle? A cousin?"
Again, she shook her head.
The man sighed, looking away for a moment. "Would you like a home? You can stay with me and my family, if you like."
She drew a shuddering breath, watching him warily. Who was this man, to be so kind to her? Where would he take her, if she said yes? She had been taught the ways of the streets, a lesson too hard to forget. What would happen to her if she agreed? If she refused...?
She nodded, and took his proferred hand.
That was ten years ago. Ayumi had been a helpless child, only nine, and Sarutobi had offered her a new life, a good future. He had treated her as if she were his own daughter. And she had loved and respected him, as if he had really been her father, instead of the psychotic drug head she had been born to. The Leaf hitai around her neck was all she needed to know that this place, the Konohagakure, was her true home.
And the man in the coffin, dead by foul, snake-infested hands, was her father at heart.
"Damn, this sucks," she whispered.
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