The Hidden Leaf
I know stars pause here.
(mundane moments and milestones revolving around the Naruto stronghold)
One.
This is the place for his roseate dreams, Senju Hashirama thinks, gazing wide-eyed at the vast patch of forest that provides a superb view for a mountain which, he does not know, will one day bear his face at its most benevolent.
He feels the earth, solid and moist and rich, beneath his shinobi sandals and just knows this is the land where his people could come, could settle, could become prosperous.
A painfully loud rustle of the leaves snaps him out of his dreamy trance, and he turns just in time to see his brother snapping the head off a potentially deadly critter he hadn't quite had the heart to smash into oblivion.
"You know you have a nasty tendency to leave them alive?" Tobirama says.
And Hashirama, who nods in affirmative, laughs.
Two.
The land is good, and it laughs of legends to come.
"I like it," Madara says when his Senju counterpart asks,
and smiles like he doesn't know how to, because it comes out brittle and obscene,
and knows, subconsciously, that he will live to destroy this baby nebula one day when time had vaulted its mortal bones.
Three.
On the first sunny day in Konoha after three rain-drenched weeks, Shimura Danzo asks Uchiha Kagami's younger sister to genjutsu practice because, word is, she's infinitely better than her brother at spinning illusions and Danzo rather likes discovering how potent the Sharingan can be.
What an asset for Konoha,
He does not pay attention to how much it sounds like a date invitation, and Kagami doesn't really care shit about it, but she looks at the solemn, serious and honestly-quite-creepy village ward and, proving that not all good-looking Uchihas are bitches, shrugs a yes.
Danzo, who will one day plan out the murder of her entire family, including that of his own teammate, smiles like anyone's rarely seen before. And she, who will die two years earlier than the massacre on a jutsu-stealing mission in the Hidden Stone by two consecutive explosives to the face, smiles back.
Four.
Inaugurations shouldn't be done on the run, nor should they be done by still-seated Hokages who were two minutes from dying by altruistic suicide.
He stands, half of him is scared for everyone and half is…
(helluva angry.)
He does not want to be Hokage, does not know if he could be, does not know if his will could stand the strain of sending out their comrades to kill, to die, without breaking.
But the would-be Sandaime's heart, despite being bled out by two wars and hating so much sometimes it hurts, is still in the right place. If need be, he would be the first to break. He swallows his selfishness along with the bile in his throat and acknowledges the inevitable appointment.
For Konoha.
Five.
The day is peaceful, and Jiraiya is young and sixteen and hormonal in a way that augurs a grand pervert in the days to come. He is nearing the end of a losing streak that is already miles long, as Orochimaru kindly reminded him following a whupping by the irate police force for stalking civilian bathhouses.
He is sprawled atop the lump of rock on which his student will one day be carved, waiting for grace, and contemplates leaving for the greener pastures of whatever-is-out-there. Just like that.
After all, he wasn't the village princess, bound by duty.
But he stays.
Suna may have their glorious desert flowers and Kiri, their magnificent nymphs, but Konoha has Tsunade and those gigantic assets of hers.
They are two of the three reasons he stays.
(The third reason is his team. Orochimaru might cry.)
Six.
Orochimaru wants to see Konoha in greatness, even if it means sloughing out the weak and leaving moralities behind. They were shinobi, after all, and any moral code among hired killers was essentially a guideline, rather than a rule. He pushes and pushes, uninhibited, methodically eliminating the dregs of Konoha and experiments to make the strong stronger.
And when he knows he has crossed the border into sick, it feels like Konoha itself is holding a kunai to his throat. How magnificent.
But he's not so young anymore, and he's short on time, and it's better to walk away.
He leaves to build his own kingdom, but Konoha clings to him – in memories, in regrets, in mutual disappointment and in little girls who were so grateful he could make them perfect.
Seven.
Minato times a C-class wind ninjutsu and flickers across space like his life – well, not really his life today, but definitely his marriage proposal – depended on it. He slows just enough to watch Kushina's eyes light in wonder at the premature swirl of fluttering petals (or in laughter at his uncharacteristic idiocy).
"You used Shunshin so we can have a cherry blossom moment?" She asks incredulously and for a instant, Minato is struck by how nicely Whirlpool girl is framed against the interlacing trees and earth and sky of Konoha. It was so beautiful he knew he was in love with it, with life, with everything.
"Took me every ounce of the genius I'm famous for," He fails to sound relaxed and unaffected.
Kushina looks as though she can't quite decide to hug him or slug him.
(Coincidentally, the night they die, the trees are razed to the ground. They never got to marry.)
Eight.
Everything smells of ash and incense.
He ponders on what it takes to be a human sacrifice, and on what his sensei must think now that he was being laid to rest amidst eloquent eulogies and a tide of heartbreak, and on the village that may or may not be the sacrifice of an entire family.
Mostly, for all his hours of thinking alongside memorials, he doesn't find any answers.
"It's hard to outlive you," Kakashi simply murmurs, and not for the first nor last time.
Nine.
The light spills into the library like water, washing over the shimmering polished wood floor that was still vintage Shodaime, and bathing young Uchiha Itachi in a golden glow in an image that will burn itself into the assistant librarian's retinas for years to come, surviving deception, surviving a massacre.
He is standing straight, and his newly-issued Chuunin vest is still a wee bit too large. The scroll he holds – the title reads "How to out-swim a shark" – is surely not one he needs and he is steadily ignoring the rambunctious whispers of someone hanging – not by but from – the window.
This moment, the terribly brilliant boy who will grow up to murder his entire clan is only a boy between missions, and he is enjoying the village he is sworn to protect at all costs.
Ten.
When he rests eyes on the formidable gate a kilometer away, Gaara's heart twists in a facsimile of envy and heaviness.
This is what he wants for his own feudal kingdom and has no idea how to bring it about.
Eleven.
It seems like all great ninjas come from one place, an expanse of space that spits out careening stars to change to face of the universe.
Nagato wonders how Konoha does it.
End.
Notes: More pointless fic.
Review? (I don't know about you but it's the Kakashi part that kills me, since the last line was my mantra for about a few weeks of zombiehood after a friend, like, died.)