“—oi, Sensei. Just got back from Grass this time.”
It was the voice that stirred his consciousness. Familiar as breathing had been when he was alive. It took effort to bring himself to full wakefulness every time, but for her…
Kakashi rambled on about her journey back, a familiar call and response that no longer had a response.
Over the years Minato had resigned himself to the fact that she could neither see nor hear him. Every time Kakashi came to the Memorial Stone in self-punishment. Every time she bared to a dead man what little of her heart she allowed. He felt it was repayment for all the times he’d sat vigil by her own hospital bed. But Minato wasn’t sick or injured. He was dead.
There she was, kneeling in the grass, like always. She looked older, more weathered. Tired.
With a muffled pang, Minato realized she was now older than he had been at his own death.
He reached out and gripped her shoulder, touched her masked cheek, but her single eye gazed unseeing through him. Like every time before.
