I still can't believe it, that shock hasn't passed yet.

When I heard, I nearly choked on my own breath. I didn't want to believe it, I just kept saying, "no..." over and over in my head...

Old man Hokage only died just a month ago, and now you're gone too...

My frown is set and my gaze cast down at the casket holding one of the only people who I matter to... I get a creeping sense of a dreadful dejavu as I place a single white flower to a pile of similar ones.

I glance and notice the funeral ceremony guy gives a small bittersweet smile to a girl who graduated a couple years before me, "that was a beautiful story, would anyone else like to say a word?"

The hot sun bores down on the hair, such a nice day is disrespectful to the circumstance for being outside and that thought is the last straw; I feel my shoulders shake and look down at my feet with my arm over my face.

The orange sleeve accepts my tears too easily, and I suck back my nose from running when I notice nobody else's stepped forward, it's over after this.

I turn around facing everyone who cared enough to come to this funeral, my eyes for sure red but not from my demon, and I speak out to the fifty or so people gathered around the plot, "Iruka Sensei was my sensei for half of my life, he taught me how to use shurikens and kunai, and I'm not sure but I don't think I learned anything else!" I get a couple laughs from old classmates, "but that wasn't his fault, and I just wanna say that he always expected something from me, always believed even I would do better tomorrow. He seen the best in the kids he taught, and never wrote anyone off. When I tried to skip he'd literally tie me up and drag me back me to school! I'm gonna miss the guy, I can honestly say he was my friend. We would go out for ramen!" I pause as my mind wanders off.

I take off my headband to look at it, "he... he gave me this. My headband. His headband. Eriler in the day that day, he save my life... Umino Iruka meant a lot to me, is all I wanna say even though I could talk forever..."

I don't know really what happens next, it's all a blur as the time passes. I'm really out of it, I'm not sure how I ended up halfway home with my headband still gripped in my hand.

From the road back stairway path I'm walking, I notice I can see one of the faces from the hokage statue, his hair's spiked and expression worn down... but maybe that's just erosion.

In this moment, I get a sudden kick to the heart of wanting to remember what sensei said about him but I can't.

I stop climbing and hold more of my weight onto the railing, though gritted teeth and bleary eyes I berate myself, "why can't I remember?"

My breathing fuckes up, and I start to gasp for breaths through my cries, "why," I take a gasp and cough, "didn't," again, "I pay attention!"

Sobbing noises come from me and I can't do any better than to lower to the ground, my back presses against the metal rails that span the ghastly empty stairway.

For a while, I let it all come; every wish, every regret, every feeling, every thought comes and goes as it washes through me with my endless streams of tears. I mutter everything out in my jumbled cracked voice and end in the silence of putting my head to my knees.

I sit like this, in quiet forever pretty much.

At least, that's what it felt like I guess. No thought entered and no thought left, just my even breathing caught my attention.

It was peaceful or calm in a sad kind of way.