Let Me Live

Ah, Fate. The single thing in this world more torturous than physical anguish. You don't like me all that much, do you, Fate? I can't say I blame you. I did some downright stupid things. I hurt some people I shouldn't have. I suppose I deserve your punishments, after all that.

Even admitting it doesn't help. I'll be blunt. I hate you, Fate. I hate you with every little fiber of my dark, dark soul. No, I didn't even hate him this much. He might have slapped me in the face with my losses day in and day out, but not the way you do it.

No, the way you do it, you like to tease. You like to dangle things in front of your victims, whispering to them to jump for it like trained animals. I couldn't ever chase a way to bring back those who gave me life. They were gone for good.

But her. No, she's alive and well, and every single day you tormented me with those thoughts.

It could have been me.

It could have been us.

It didn't have to be like this.

It's all my fault.

I know she waited. The very sentence is branded into my consciousness, SHE WAITED FOR YOU. She waited through days and months and years and countless sunrises and sunsets. Every single day thinking of me, wasting her health and nearly killing herself over ways to get me back.

I know I practically spat in her face. I know I was ripping her little heart to miniscule shreds. Do you think by now I don't know? Do you think I didn't lie awake, wishing against reality that it could have been different? That she didn't end up believing me?

But you, Fate. You went and let her believe me. You got her telling herself there's no way I'd ever come back to her. That those idyllic days of childish crushes and friendship were gone forever, replaced by a never-ending void of darkness.

Did you do it to torment me, Fate? Of course you did. She didn't deserve the treatment I gave her, so you went and made her beautiful. You created an angel here in this desolate world, a goddess whose broken heart would forever symbolize the pain I had caused her. Hers was a sad beauty, just the kind you knew I would've changed into sunshine and joy if I'd just turned and taken a good look at everything I had going for me.

But you couldn't let all that work go unfinished. You do have some pity, I suppose. You gave her someone new, but just for my sake you left a piece of her heart forever engraved with my name. Once everything was fine and dandy, you brought me to come see how I'd been conveniently erased from their lives. How they were getting along just fine without me, what with my ex-best friend married and Hokage of that happy, peaceful place while the girl who pledged her heart to me had supposedly moved on.

You held her in front of me, Fate. You let me see what I'd left behind, what could have been. You dangled her before me, knowing your chain holding me back would snap taut as I tried to reach her. Then you smiled smugly and showed me how someone else took her hand, someone else led her away into the crowd of people not-quite believing that I'd actually dragged myself back there.

And you completed your spectacle with her glancing back over her shoulder, giving me the world's saddest gaze where you laughed sadistically and flaunted the fact that she was beyond my reach now.

But you weren't done yet. You gave me those dreams, now that I'd seen her that way. You gave me those warm, taunting dreams filled with kisses and fingers tangled in hair and passionate embraces that could never be broken. But then you kept me from going insane from them, as that might've given me some relief from your influence. You kept me teetering on the edge, but never pushed me over.

And you continued to torture me with her, having her assigned as my mental health overseer. You had her visit me every single day, asking how I was and if there might be anything she could do to help me soothe my troubled mind. You let me sit alone with her, sometimes mere inches away while knowing full well I was forbidden from her. You gave her those big, sad eyes that always seemed misted with tears whenever she was in my presence. You gave her those slender hands I wanted so desperately to hold in mine, and those lips I wanted to whisper my name the way she used to when I still might've had a chance with her.

But you made her his, letting him touch her any way he wanted. I might've killed him then and there and taken her as mine by force, but you planted those doubts. You made me wonder if she saw me as a monster, and if doing what I pleased would push her away. You made me hesitate, Fate. You overlooked years of assertion and had me submissive when I should have been forceful. And then you reminded me of that last, wavering chance to redeem myself, which of course you threw down and squashed like an insect when I wouldn't take it.

Well, guess what, Fate? I've won now. I'm not playing by your rules anymore. Do with me what you want when I'm dead and gone, but now I can spit in your face after all the trash you've put me through. I don't really care what happens to me if they catch me. I don't even care if they execute me, I'll go to the gallows with a smile and a whistle. Maybe I broke a little of your control and went insane after all. Wouldn't that make sense? I can push myself over the edge without any help of yours just fine.

Oh, well. It doesn't even matter now. I can die happy, because finally I can see past your blindfold. I can see now that she'll never hate me, no matter how many people I kill or how many lives I ruin, as long as I'm by her side. Maybe she's a bit insane as well, if only to deny everything you set her up to believe. Maybe it's all better that way.

You tried to get rid of it, but there's that single, defining moment of ecstasy when a shinobi finishes his work. I suppose it evolves on its own, but I certainly felt it as I watched the blood pool around his corpse, thinking smugly how he'd never touch what was mine again. You had no power over me after that, and I know how much you hate to lose, dear Fate.

I'll have you know she came with me of her own free will, no longer held back by some law of yours. That lovely smile on her face as we darted out the gates together proved you had no sway over her any more. Even now I don't know where we'll end up. Maybe we'll find accommodations at the ends of the earth, where no soul has even heard of shinobi or hidden villages, who knows? All I know is, we've left your little cesspit behind, your kingdom and everything in it. I cheated at your game, but I won after all.

I don't challenge you any more, Fate, so accept your defeat just this once. You can have all the fun you want with my soul once I die, but leave me alone in the land of the living. I have what is mine, and for once in this miserable existence of mine, I am happy. Let me exist however I feel I should, as everything she deserves me to be. Let the two of us waste away our lives any way we want. Let me keep this little spark of light in my years of starless shadows.

Let me live.

Whee, ANGSTAY.

Needed to prod you all back into consciousness with something bittersweet.

Probably inspired by Cartoon Network's godawful decision to cancel Toonami or something life-wrecking like that.

Meh.