Seeing Kanon's name again filled Naruto with a frantic, surging joy. He looked up at Hiruzen Sarutobi with wide, hopeful eyes.
"Jii-chan, can we go in?"
"We can, but you must remain quiet," Hiruzen cautioned him, fearing the boy might disturb the peace.
"I will!"
Hiruzen gently pushed open the ward door, and Naruto's small head peeked in from behind him. Sasuke's bed was currently empty, but what Naruto saw next caused his pupils to shrink.
Sunlight filtered through the half-drawn curtains, casting a soft glow over Kanon's pale yet delicate face. Her forehead was wrapped in white gauze, with dark spots of blood seeping through the edges. Her long hair lay scattered across the pillow, contrasting sharply with the faint scars on her cheeks. Her small body was heavily bandaged, with mottled bloodstains visible here and there.
She looked like a wounded flower; though battered by a violent storm, her innate beauty and grace still bloomed quietly with every shallow breath she took.
Naruto felt a heavy ache in his chest as he walked to the bedside with Hiruzen.
"I imagine you've heard about the Uchiha at school," Hiruzen whispered.
"Yeah..." Naruto nodded, his lips trembling as a sense of injustice for Kanon welled up inside him.
"Sasuke was thought to be the only survivor. Or rather, he was never part of the purge to begin with," Hiruzen said solemnly. "But his sister, Kanon... she must have endured a horrific ordeal. She fought with her very life to narrowly escape death. Her wounds were so numerous that had she been found even a few days later, she would not have made it."
Naruto stepped closer to the bed. Her face was as lovely as he remembered, though the bandages covering her frame felt like a cruel blemish on that perfection.
"Jii-chan, how long has she been asleep?"
"Nearly two days now..." Hiruzen wasn't entirely sure of the exact hour, but it had been at least a full day. "Come, let's go. Let her rest in peace."
As Naruto and Hiruzen quietly exited, neither of them noticed something strange: the fabric of the blanket had momentarily phased through Kanon's left hand, as if she were a ghost. Yet, she showed no signs of waking.
Inside her mind, Kanon was trapped in a raging tempest.
The truth was a jagged blade she couldn't pull out: her own brother had murdered their parents. She couldn't accept it. Her subconscious replayed thousands of moments from her life, but every dream ended the same way—with her parents collapsing into a river of blood.
"Papa... Mama... why did you leave me here all alone?" Kanon ran forward in her mind, trying to throw herself into their familiar embrace.
"Kanon, we're sorry. We can't stay with you any longer." Mikoto and Fugaku drifted further into the distance. No matter how fast she ran, she could not close the gap.
"Papa! Mama! Don't leave me!"
"DON'T LEAVE ME!!!"
With a desperate cry, Kanon's eyes snapped open.
Agony flared through her body, pinning her to the bed. In the dark room, her Sharingan, now matured into three tomoe, glowed with an eerie, radiant crimson. She stared at the black ceiling, listening to the steady rhythm of breathing from the neighboring bed. Tears traced hot paths down her cheeks from the corners of her blood-red eyes.
She knew they were gone. Her parents were no longer of this world. She had lost everything; the flower field in her heart was now a desolate wasteland. A suffocating weight pressed on her chest, a mix of crushing grief and a rising tide of hatred. She hated Itachi. Why? Why did her brother do this?
She slowly turned her head toward the other bed and froze.
After leaving her home that night, she had been in a dissociative state, unaware of her own actions. She had hidden in the secret room of the shrine with hollow eyes, unable to distinguish between a nightmare and reality. She had thought she was the only one left. Even when Sasuke found her, she had felt as though she were in a dream, weeping into his chest.
But now, her brother, Sasuke, was lying right there in the next bed, his breathing even and deep. He was alive.
Fresh tears fell uncontrollably. The feeling of finding hope in the midst of total despair was beyond words; only those hot tears could express the relief of "finding rain during a drought." Her brother was alive. She wasn't the last Uchiha.
She watched him in silence, a small, fragile warmth finally flickering in her heart.
…
In the early morning, the first rays of sunlight pierced through the window. Sasuke rubbed his groggy eyes. As a new day began, he rubbed them again, this time to make sure he wasn't hallucinating.
His first instinct every morning was to check the bed next to him.
Kanon was propped up against her pillows, looking like a fragile water lily. Her deep eyes reflected the rising sun, and her features appeared exceptionally ethereal in the morning light. Her long black hair was draped over the pillow, a silent confirmation that she was finally awake.
Sensing movement, Kanon turned her gaze from the sun to meet Sasuke's eyes. Despite the agonizing pain in her heart, she forced her lips into a small, weak smile.
"Niichan..."
Sasuke sat frozen for a moment. Tears began to overflow from his eyes. In this entire world, they only had each other now.
He walked softly to her side and whispered, "It's all my fault. I'm sorry you had to suffer so much..."
Seeing her brother, only a year older, with tears in his eyes, Kanon reached out to hug him. The movement triggered a spike of excruciating pain that made her grit her teeth in a silent hiss. Sasuke immediately moved to help her lie back down.
"Kanon, stay still. I'm going to get the doctor."
Minutes later, several nurses and a doctor rushed in to change her dressings. The process was agonizing, and though Kanon winced and recoiled, she never uttered a single cry of pain. Perhaps, compared to the agony in her soul, the sensation of her flesh being tended to was trivial.
Once the bandages were set, the Third Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi, entered the room. He looked at the conscious girl, wanting to ask how she had survived, but the words died in his throat. She was only six years old. To force her to recount such a bloody, horrific night felt like a fresh cruelty.
In the end, he simply offered his condolences.
"If you ever need anything, come to your Ojii-san..."
Leaving behind only those words, Hiruzen exited the room.
————
Want to read ahead of schedule? Head over to my p-atre-on: p-atre-on.c-om/Overgod [Just remove the hyphen to access normally]