Ambivalence. Double polarity. Paradox. Contradiction. Duality. And, perhaps, the spiral was merely a line who felt lonely. —By being opposite, they could still be the same. Keeping each other balanced, keeping each other sane, keeping Uzumaki Naruto who he really was.
AN: The paradox that is Naruto. The paradox that is Dark Naruto. He's the one closer to darkness, but that doesn't necessarily make him bad or evil. They are, after all, Uzumaki Naruto.
(Sidenote, there's a Kakashi-cameo somewhere in there. :3)
Part one.
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Ambivalence
Double polarity. Paradox. Contradiction. Duality.
Spiral.
A spiral cannot exist on its own. For every spiral drawn in black, a similar spiral runs alongside it, in the white space which is left 'empty'.
A spiral would not be a spiral without its double, for if the white space were to be filled in, it would become a circle.
Thus every 'spiral' is actually made up of two spirals, which are opposites of each other, yet still the same in essence.
The world can deny the other spiral's existence, and call it empty, meaningless space, but they would never deny each other.
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Perhaps the spiral was merely a line who felt lonely.
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He was a paradox.
A paradox of himself.
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The woman reached out a hand to pinch his smooth, chubby cheek.
Then she pressed harder, much harder, long painted fingernails digging into the whisker-lined flesh.
Big blue eyes snapped open, bright with anger but tearless.
"Hate you," the tiny almost-toddler uttered in his high, childish voice, small mouth carefully forming the unfamiliar words before stretching into a wide smile. It would have been such an adorable, innocent smile, if only without the hint of fang and the inhuman glint in those too-blue eyes.
And the child went back to sleep, the smile never leaving his face as the red nail-marks faded from his skin.
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The old man who smelt of tobacco was kind, which was nice, the child decided. And niceness was definitely hard to come by.
Don't need it, the other child tried to say, but he knew it was only a show of bravado. Don't need this thing called 'nice', the other insisted. You've got me, don't you?
And you have me, too, he replied. Perhaps he hugged his arms around himself then, and perhaps he smiled, a little.
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He was young, younger than what almost everyone could remember. There had been sharp, stinging pain, someone's harsh words, someone's irrational fury.
He remembered the way his skin stung from the pain even though there were no wounds, no scratches and no bruises.
—Slaps and smacks did not leave lingering marks, after all. Especially not on him.
But the remembered pain lingered in his skin cells and his brain.
It was infuriating.
Pain... he could bear with. Pain didn't matter as long as he fought and refused to be defeated by it. But the strange kind of leftover pain which twinged when he least expected it, but somehow... itched and hurt at the same time was something he could not stand. It taunted him, being half-pain and half-not-pain, dancing out of his reach and darting back to sting him viciously when he tried to ignore it.
He remembered raking his teeth-trimmed nails – short, a little rough and almost neat – along his arm, leaving long, red and surprisingly straight lines behind.
There. He felt much better.
There were still a million tiny pinpricks and parallel burning lines running along his skin, but he felt fine. He scratched his arm again, lightly, for it still itched just a little bit.
He remembered that strange sense of triumphant, bittersweet rebellion. It had been brought on by his stubbornness, and somehow he liked being stubborn. Sort of like the dried-up peel of a crushed orange, which insisted on retaining its own colour and scent despite how the surroundings tried to erode all of it away.
It didn't itch anymore.
He rubbed his hand against his arm, mildly irritated at how it felt too hot against his palm, and at the faint red tinge slowly fading from the tanned skin.
I won, he insisted. I'm not going to lose to her. It's not worth being angry over someone like that stupid matron.
Part of him shrugged and seemed to say, Yeah well, whatever. She hates you anyway. You hate her anyway.
We hate her anyway, he shrugged too, agreeing.
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He was becoming really sick of getting yelled at.
The next time she did that, he yelled back. What he shouted felt wordless because they were nothing but sound and his exploding rage rage rage. She shrieked at him, he screamed louder. She paused for breath, he went on and on. He was winning.
He ducked and blocked and struggled as she struck at him, lashing out like a furious cat and wrestling out of her reach in a mad scramble of skinny limbs. To hell with the consequences, his mind yelled at him. I won't lose! I won't surrender! I won't let her do as she likes!
He made a mad grab for the arm as it swung at his face, and bared his teeth in a furious snarl.
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BEWARE OF THIS VERY BAD BOY. HE BITES!
Part of him scoffed at the sign.
He grinned, and tossed it into the fire crackling merrily under the stove.
She shouted at him for that, but he only smiled with almost a snarl, and ran away laughing with almost a growl.
He was caught. A new sign was tied to his back. He broke it and threw it away. She yelled at him again.
BEWARE OF THIS VERY BAD LITTLE MONSTER WHO BITES!
He pushed his anger down, down, down, deep into the hidden corners of his mind. Part of him took over that anger, silently yelling back at the matron in his defence. He continued to smile without a snarl and laugh without a growl, letting his stubbornness guide him and letting his frustration crash around in his head.
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Using his teeth to keep his nails short was actually fairly effective.
It also gave him something to bite on when he was really hungry and really bored, even if it was weird and tasteless.
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He half-scrambled up the tree and sat down on a fat, sturdy branch, leaning his small frame against the trunk. No one noticed. No one bothered to.
Good.
He looked around absent-mindedly, sometimes looking up at the sky through the leaves and sometimes staring at their shadows lower down, where sunlight dappled through the trees and formed strangely familiar patterns on the ground.
It's all the same in the end, he realised.
The pattern was the same, in light and in shadow.
He let himself relax, as though he was snoozing with his eyes open, and enjoyed the peaceful in-between.
Hmm.
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He started running off, running around, running away-away-away from the orphanage whenever he felt like it. Part of him absolutely delighted in rebellion.
There were glares, whispers, someone's irrational hate. He ignored it as he continued to grin and laugh, while part of him reeled off a long, on-going string of insults and indignant exclamations, and it kept him calm.
Perhaps even kept him sane.
They're all idiots anyway. You won't like them anyway. You don't care what they say anyway. It doesn't matter. You don't need people. You don't need to trust people. You don't need—
He half-tripped when he suddenly saw the Matron who almost seemed to appear out of nowhere, even though she was just buying meat from a butcher. He ended up skidding past the Matron, who screamed, and then crashing into the butcher, who yelled in anger and surprise and reflexively raised his knife –
There was a blur of silver-white-red-silver-white-silver-white-silver-white-dark blue?
Whuhuh?
The two adults were knocked flat on the ground, knife easily batted out of the butcher's grip and flicked, almost casually, into a pillar.
He was torn between awe (Whoaaaaaa, freaking fast!) and glee (Hah, in your FACE! Let's see you people try to hit me again!) and, of course, confusion.
Why did he...?
"Thanks," he found himself blurting out before he could stop himself.
He received a small nod from the white-masked figure, who then disappeared with the two civilians.
Part of him was absolutely delighted that some people had finally gotten a small bit of what they deserved.
But were they going to actually attack me...? He frowned. What if...
WHO CARES! part of him yelled in his mind. They hate you anyway you hate them anyway they treat you like crap anyway one day people like them are going to really try to kill you so why do you care what happens to them?
He sighed in frustration. Why're you always so angry and... so cynical?
Keeps us alive. Keeps us who we are.
Who I am, he corrected.
You, I, us. Doesn't actually matter.
There was a brief silence between them.
...They hate us anyway, part of him muttered mutinously.
You can't be sure of that.
As if! And you hate them all anyway, the cynic insisted.
He thought of the old man who smiled and was nice to him, of the masked person who might have saved him and might have smiled, of people who still smiled at one another, even if they only glared at him.
...No. I don't really want to hate them.
You're an idiot.
He smiled wryly.
I suppose I am.
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If you're an idiot, I suppose that balances us out.
Hah! Like you're so wise, he snorted.
So, what to does that make us? An idiot and a not-idiot...
He grinned at nothing, and drawled, Hmm... A normal person, perhaps?
There was a (non-existent) snort of laughter.
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
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Neither of them would ever leave the other alone. They existed to be opposites, and by being opposite they could still be the same. Keeping each other balanced, keeping each other sane, keeping Uzumaki Naruto who he really was.
And they found contentment, somehow, in the place in-between.
That was how they existed and lived, in ambivalence.
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Perhaps the spiral really was nothing more than a line who felt terribly lonely, after all.
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To be continued.
The Kakashi-cameo was kind of obvious, wasn't it? ;D
What do you think of this concept of Dark Naruto? (: I really think there's a lot more behind this character/personality/alternate self, because really, we shouldn't dismiss him as 'evil', He did keep Naruto – both of them – sane and safe and strong after all, in a strange Naruto-like way.
I loved the hug in the canon, it was just so bittersweet and... accepting, y'know. So calm and at peace with himself, full of hope and determination and argh. It's like – he accepted who he was, who his darker side was, and overcame himself despite everything, so he could continue moving forward. ;_;
I hope you liked the spiral concept, it's something I came up with and I think... it really fits who Naruto is. Are. Is. XD
~rakku^^