Purple Marks
'And in this way a shinobi has delivered in duty, honor, and grace.'
He turns the page.
White stares back at him.
His eyes scan from corner to edge and back, but find no trace of black print.
That couldn't have been the last page.
It was.
'...in duty, honor, and grace.'
His fingers smooth over the ink, his eyebrows furrow.
I finished the book.
He shuts it and turns it over. The kunai on its cover seems to glint silver under the moonlight, and the blood on its edge seems to drip off into the blue of the background, tainting it with red. It all blurs, and then purple is all that can be seen.
He bites at his lip.
I finished the book, but I don't remember anything I read.
He opens it to the first page and begins again.
'A shinobi's death must mark their duty, honor, and grace.'
He learned that the death is the proof that Rin was a shinobi.
She protected the village. Duty.
She thought of the village before herself. Honor.
She sacrificed. Grace.
She was a shinobi who was killed while protecting, and the hands of her killer are forever stained red with duty, honor, and grace. No amount of washing would clean them.
He puts on his gloves and heads out.
(has her killer even earned the right to die?)
Slide into the Dark (smiling)
He slides the book into the trash can that waits by the entrance and walks inside.
In the darkness he finds the counter and is given his new uniform.
He slides his gloves off.
In the darkness he sheds his clothing and trades it for black and white.
He slides his sword into its sheath at his back.
It is darkness as he slides the porcelain mask onto his black one.
In the mirror a white hound stares back, marked in red. A scarlet red mouth curls beneath the nose. A blood red eye gleams through its left hole.
He lifts a newly-gloved hand and clawed fingers smooth over the paint. His brows furrow.
Why does is it look like it's smiling?
In the briefing, he lets go of his focus for the slightest second and allows both eyes to roam. He learns that all the masks are painted with smiles, but each one curls a different way.
The next sunrise, he dons the costume to be used in action for the first time. By nightfall, he and his team have closed in on their target. He must prove his skill, so he rushes in.
Blue lightning streaks across a red, whitened mask and the last thing the man sees is a purple smile.
He is a killer, so he kills
(hoping he is killed).
Friend-killer
Minato-sensei worries about him. Eventually, he begins to doubt that he is a killer. (But doesn't he hear what they call him? He still doubts?)
So, he's sent on a private mission. Protect Kushina.
Why, who's after her?!
Minato smiles brightly.
She's pregnant.
He's relieved of his mission almost 10 (not 9, she's a jinchuriki) months later, when the birth looms near.
They are killed while protecting the baby, and he and Guy and everyone are not allowed to do anything but stand aside and watch chaos unfold.
Tenzo is ordered to kill him; Danzo is after his sharingan.
The blood-red eye has weighed down on him for so long. Rin's death awakened this persistent heaviness, and he was often left with a phantom throbbing ache in the area surrounding his scar.
It would be a relief to get rid of the burden.
Yet
I'm too scared to.
And
I have no right to.
Finally
I will never let go of this eye.
Really, the truth is this: I will never let go of this eye, I have no right to even contemplate the idea, I'm too scared to lose it, but it would be a relief to forget it all, to get rid of the burden, to wipe clean my failures.
So, he fights for Obito's gift.
"Tenzo, we're friends! Are you really going to listen to Lord Danzo? Are you really willing to kill a friend?!"
HA! And so the friend-killer speaks!
As the years pass
Tenzo's pure-hearted. He doesn't kill him. He slips away from Danzo, and a feline mask joins his team (his collection).
A few years later, another feline is signed up. A gifted Uchiha, who asks about his own Uchiha gift with a gentle curiosity, who answers him prejudice-free.
A few years later, Itachi massacres the entire clan, save one small boy.
His younger brother is abandoned to a haunting burden.
He realizes:
I knew nothing about him
A few years go by.
Forced? change
Guy believes he's not a killer. Eventually, Lord Third gives in to his pleads.
He disagrees with them both-he's not a teacher. The countless 'newly-graduated' he's failed should prove so.
Well, he's not a teacher, but he gets to teach one lesson.
Every group they send lacks it. So he sends them back grumbling, whining, weeping, kicking-he's seen it all (he thinks).
'It's not the end of the world', he tells them.
They look up with the most heart-broken faces, and teary eyes stare dejectedly into his dark one. As it creases into a smiling curve, hope shimmers and their lips lift helplessly.
'You're just not fit to be shinobi.'
Their universe crumbles apart, and he frowns. What were they expecting?
And in a last attempt, 'Well… you can come back once you're a team.'
Confusing glares are all he gets. Does he need to elaborate? Fine.
'Once you act as a team...only then do you have a chance out there.'
He's starting to get use to this, really.
Sure, it's still a waste of time and energy, but these slight break periods between missions can be blessings in disguise?
I guess, he settles.
He's realized:
Sometimes it's nice to have nothing to do.
For as long as he can remember, there's always been something waiting, some kind of task to throw himself into, to get lost in.
Now, whenever he's assigned a new group,free time is forced into his schedule.
And then, yes-he finds himself restless.
But then, soon after...at ease?
He's unsure of the word.
With no particular thoughts in mind, with no particular destination to find, he wanders…
Then he's finished re-reading, reclined into the branch, and gazing at a roof of be speckled green/leaves… with no clue how he got there.
And yes-he is alarmed with how easily he has accepted this newfound aloofness.
But soon after… he's at 'ease'.
Huh.
A Jinchuriki, an Uchiha, a Kunoichi, and the copycat
This group is different. He should not treat them differently, but he cannot not treat them differently.
He's stuck with an inevitable:
He will be a teacher.
Perched on the railing, three sets of eyes study his drooped posture with elated anticipation, cool inquisition, and sweet judgement. Their curiosity is, interestingly enough, cute.
Is this how Minato-sensei felt? I wonder.
And with the next slow blink of his eye colors mix and match and in a whirl orange, blue and blonde become orange, blue, and black and blue, white and black become brown, white and black and pink, red and green become pink, black and purple-
And with the next quick blink of his eye three sets of eyes frown at his impatiently, all blue, black and green.
It is Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura NOT Obito, him and Rin and he is NOT Minato-sensei.
The area around his scar prickles and the covered eye seems to sink into his skull, heavy with an ancient fatigue.
"Alright then. Let's have you introduce yourselves."
"What do you mean?"
Does he really need to elaborate? Fine.
"Well...