Left behind again. You almost can’t believe it, can’t stomach the insult of some cruel cosmic joke that you could have put so much hard work in, accomplished so much, and shishou is right there, just beyond reach, unafflicted by the self-consciousness that seems to have settled in your gut like a disease. Hadn’t she taught you to expel all that? Disease and doubt in one? Then why is it still so strong? Why is the sight of another’s back still the most familiar thing?
The world around you shimmers. You aren’t sure when that began, the delicate way the air misted, staticky and flickering with every step down the mountain path and through the woods to return to the village whence you had come. Are you tired? The day has been long, longer than you could count, because deep down you aren’t sure if it has been a day, or longer, a week, weeks, exactly how many hours that you had lost in that lonely wilderness, in the dark and empty halls of the academy, in the presence of something beyond this world’s ken.
You yawn, stifled or exaggerated, and it’s in that moment that you find yourself distracted from the stuttering glass crack in the forest at your flank. But then it happens again, a flicker of light reflected out of the corner of your eye.
Where is the light coming from?
The sun still has not risen.
You turn, and the darkness warps, fractures, splits the treeline and the very air, a clean line that scatters the landscape into an abstract of millions of shapes. After a moment, the space straightens, corrects itself.
You have one final choice to make.
>>Select one:
>The watchful’s job is never complete. Investigate the anomaly in the woods…
or
>Your mind is playing tricks on you. Return to the village, and get some much needed rest.
It is tempting to turn back, isn't it? What use had she been? All she had done is hinder, and watch as others do what she could not.
That isn't wholly true. She thinks of the stone that had saved her and Shikamaru - it hadn't been him that suggested it. Certainly, it had been a desperate ploy on her part.
Caught between two worlds, Sakura stands there, fist over her heart. Something is playing a trick on her, certainly, but it's not her mind. If it's nothing, she can feel embarrassed later, but if she doesn't try, she wouldn't forgive herself if things went wrong. She takes one step into the forest, then the other.
The watchful’s job is never complete. Investigate the anomaly in the woods…