[b]Kyoko Akiyama[/b]

Kyoko didn’t sleep that night. The entire night, she just laid out in the center of her bed, her hair covering her eyes and her past covering the night. She did try not to have flashbacks to when she fought that Uchiha woman in the cave, with her team, but she couldn’t help it. The doctors had told her that it would be unhealthy for her to think about and could seriously impact her mental health, but there wasn’t much she could do to just turn off her thoughts. Instead, she only drew more and more parallels of her comrades, past and present. 

She had been lying in her bed since sunset the night before and it must’ve been midnight by the time she decided to go for a walk. This didn’t end any better as she just aimlessly wandered the roads until the sun rose up from the horizon. This was her signal to take herself back home and make herself look presentable. She tied her hair back, but left her right bangs so that it covered her Sharingan nicely, she didn’t want it poking out down a funeral, that wouldn’t be decent at all. She put on her only black dress that she wore on the worst occasions and got ready to go for what was probably going to be the worst day of the year, if not this decade. 

Along with the other members of the Granite Guard, Kyoko carried the casket. She just stared at Hiruzen’s back following him while carrying the casket. She dared not look out towards the people of the village, because she loved them too much to let them know how much this hurt. Like a parent going through a rough time, Kyoko refused to let the village in to the Granite Guard’s suffering, it was a time of war, not pity. If she wanted pity she’d talk to her mother. 

But instead, after taking her seat and sitting beside some of the other Granite Guard members she watched intently as Hiruzen made his speech, each sentence more empowering than the last. He had a way of inspiring people by reminding them that they were a people, not a person. They were not a single autonomous unit, they were a village of people all willing to help one another. That would be even more important in the next few months of war.