It's not raining.

It's not raining, no on the contrary it's sunny, grossly so. It's sunny and hot, not a cloud in sight and that's the way Sakura likes it. She's sitting down swinging her legs up and down as she looks up at the sky.

Or well that's what she imagines. She imagines herself sitting on top of the grey stone, legs swinging as she listens to her family and friends as they talk about her and only her.

Maybe they're mourning or maybe they're happy for her, and honestly she couldn't care less. It's not her problem. Er...well not her problem anymore and for that she's glad. It's for the best, she's had a good run.

She can just imagine herself, perched upon some random grey gravestone as she swings her legs up and down as she listens to the murmurs and cries and gossip of the people she once called her friends and family as they arefully lower her coffin into the dirt.

She imagines reaching her hand toward the sky as if to grasp it and then nothing.

She wakes up.

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It's not a matter of being alive or being dead. They're one in the same, two of a kind, they could both feel like hell or paradise and that's okay, that's just the way she sees it.  Two of a kind, one in the same.

Sakura wakes to nothing.

She wakes to the same dead barren land that she has known for the past week, it's nothing new, nothing different.

The ground is a dead shade of grey and the trees look as if they were made of ash. It's home. It's a destroyed barren chaotic lost home. And that's the way she likes it, because it's the only way she knows it.

Karin's a few meters away from where she's currently laying on the ground. Her head's raised high as she looks up to the white sky filled with black stars.

"Hey, Sak?"

She doesn't look towards Karin. Doesn't give any indication of her being there except for the small soft "yeah" that she lets out.

""When'd you get here?"

"Halloween," she answers, "last week"

"Halloween," Karin repeats. "Never heard about it. Guess you don't know about this stuff either if you've only been here for a week."

"I guess." it's said absentmindedly as if she didn't really care. But she does. Oh she does so much.

They hear them before they seen them. It's the same thing over and over and over again. Find somewhere empty and leave at the first sign of life.

It's the same thing.

Over.

And over.

And over.

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"Did you know," Karin says the next morning. "That you're currently in heaven?"

"I call BS."

"It's not bull," Karin says. "It's the truth."

"Its BS." It's not BS. Sakura knows that, she's not an idiot. She knows that Karin isn''t the type to lie about these kind of things. She sighs before finally looking at Karin. "Whatever you say."

They continue walking for what feels like hours, but in reality it's nothing, for their is no such thing as time in a place like this (one of the first things that Sakura has learned since coming here). 

It's not quiet.

It's never quiet and that's another one of the firsts things that Sakura had learned since coming here. Its never quiet because you've got wandering lost souls trying to find their place. It's never quiet because you've got souls fighting souls fighting souls in this time of chaos.

Sakura doesn't get it. She's only been here for a week, but in that week she's seen a war with so many deaths, but at the same time no deaths at all. It's just one big chaotic soul wasteland.

"Did you know," Karin says, "that the ruler is gone?"

"The ruler?"

"Mhm," Karin hums, "our ruler, our king, the big man on the throne."

"I didn't know heaven worked that way."

"Well now you do." Karin smiles and throws up her hands. "He's been gone for thousands of years and that's how all of this started."

"This?"

"You really haven't figure it out?" She says, hands on her hips, "right now there's no line separating us. It's just one big blob."

There's no line.

There's no line.

There's no li—

Heaven and hell are no more.

Heaven and hell are no more. There the same, one in the same, two of a kind.

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"A sound soul dwells within a sound mind and sound body"
- Atsushi Okubo (author of Soul Eater)

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.

They're still walking.

The ash trees are changing and the ground is becoming more gray and cracked and gross. It's still the same. Everything's still the same.

The trees seem more like vines going this way and that, moving with them as they move.

Its quiet for once.

There are no souls looking for a fight. There are no souls trying to bash heads into the ground. There are no lost wandering souls looking for a way out. It's just the two of them. Sakura and Karin. Karin and Sakura.

It's weird.

It's different.

It's gross.

And then there's the sound of something rustling. As if someone's running through the black ashy trees. There's nothing to see, but there's plenty to hear and that in itself is a warning. A warning coming towards them.

"Hello," a voice calls from behind.

It's not from forward. It's from the behind.

The turn around and they're faced with a small little girl. She couldn't possibly more than five (er...well she could be older, depending on how long she's been here, after all time doesn't work here).

"A sound soul," she hears Karin mutter.

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Sakura says a polite "hello" back. It's strange. She hasn't really talked to anyone other than Karin since she's been here, but then again she's only been here for about a week and a half.

The little girl smiles. "What's your name?"

It's then that Sakura notices something about the girl. She's different. She doesn't have that lost pleading look in her eyes like the other. She doesn't look as if the world around her is shattered into billions of little pieces. She smiles like this is her home. She smiles like nothing wrong.

"Sakura."

Her smile just turns wider, "I'm Sarada."

And once again Karin mutter the word, "A sound soul."

Sakura points to Karin. "And that's Karin."

"Hello, princess," Karin says.

The little girl tilts her head in innocence. It's like she's unfamiliar with the term. Unfamiliar with the word and who it's being addressed to. In her mind it's a word with no meaning.

"Princess," she repeats as if tasting it. And then a beat.

"I miss papa, will you take me to him?" She asks.

And Sakura answers her with an "of course."

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Finding her papa is rather easy. Especially since it seems as though Sarada's the one leading them, instead of them helping her.

She knows the way. And for some reason it just feels a little wrong, but at the same time it feels right, as if this is the one thing that they were supposed to do since they've came here.

It's seems as though they've only taken a few steps when they arrive.

Her papa is sitting down leaning against on of the ashy looking trees, eyes closed and hair long enough to cover up most of his face and it does, one of his eyes are completely hidden by his hair.

Sarada runs towards him and jumps into his lap. And from where she's standing she can see the little straight line of the kid's father turn up into a little smile.

She can't help but smile and for some reason everything about this feels familiar in some sort of strange way. She doesn't know why. And she hopes it isn't true, maybe it's something from her past or maybe she's just imagining this (she'd remember this if it happened before, right?) but this feels so familiar, it looks so familiar.

To her left Karin's bowing down, "My king."

The girls papa doesn't react.

"I'm not the king," he says.

"She doesn't know what compels her to say it, but she does and it feels oh so right like it's meant to be said. "You are."

Besides her she hears Karin mutter the words "a sound soul."

"You are," Sakura says. "You are the king and the throne is yours. It's chaos all around us and you need to lead us."

Sarada's papa doesn't react. He's holding his daughter in his lap and says "You can't just tell someone to rule people. It doesn't work that way. If you keep telling me to do it, I'll just sit down on the throne and do nothing and everything will remain the same. So even if I go back nothing'll change."

"Why?" Sakura demands. And from the way that she sees Karin looking at her with dead eyes, she knows that she's said something wrong.

"You seriously don't remember?" He questions. And from what Sakura can see, the man in front of her looks torn between laughing like a maniac and screaming about his problems like.

"I've only been here for maybe a week. What am I supposed to remember?"

"A sound soul dwells within a sound mind and a sound body," he says as if it explains everything. "You're body is here but your mind is not. You are a lost soul, you haven't been dead for a week. You've been alive for the twenty years you were there. You're a lost soul and you were never supposed to be there. Your place is here not there and so because you can't remember your previous time here, you are lost."

Sakura doesn't know. She doesn't understand. And that scares her so much. Her eyebrows are furrowed and she's biting her lip.

A lost soul. What exactly does that mean?

~~~
Happy Halloween everyone!!! I tried to make this a lot more Halloween-ie and what I had originally planned out was, but then I started writing it and this was the end product. But... I hoped you liked it and I hope that it wasn't too confusing (I feel like the last part is). Once again Happy Halloween! I hope you all get lots of candy!
Written by arahabaki