Minato Gaiden: Behind Blue Eyes

N. Dreams Not as Empty as My Conscience

Song: "Alumina" — Nightmare

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Fathomless blue eyes bore into the horizon, drinking in the sky and the sea that matched them. Their owner, an adolescent fox of gold with nine tails, padded swiftly on the surface of the water, at peace like never before.

He had always felt at home in the wind and waves of his surname, more at home than he'd ever felt among the kin sharing that same surname. All they ever did was spout empty praise to his face while behind his back, hissing poison.

What's his problem?

Just 'cause he's our leader's son…!

Thinks he's too good for us, the little…

Of course, he ultimately was too good for them, wasn't he? He would look out into the wildest and bluest of yonder, contemplating a world of possibilities. And they… they would rather huddle in their petty little circles, pilgrims never broadening their horizons beyond the Śrāvaka* Path.

And now they never would. Should've watched their backs while gossiping behind his. He could now pilgrimage in his own right, with nothing and no one to hold him back, free like the wind and waves.

And they?

Sea and sky crinkled in the folds of a smirk.

Their pilgrimage had ended…

…as compost for molding mushrooms†.

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*Śrāvaka Path: in my pilotverse, there are four "higher" paths in addition to Hagoromo's Six Paths, referencing the ten spiritual realms of Mahayana Buddhism, my take being that those who wield these four paths are descended from Hagoromo's brother.

Śrāvaka is one of these paths, manifested by the Namikaze's Rasengan, the others being: Pratyeka, Bodhisattva, and Buddha.

†Yes, the same mushrooms from the filler episode "Eat or Die! Mushrooms from Hell". Props if you can guess where I went with this…

Minato Namikaze, Moulding Mushrooms © Masashi Kishimoto
this story, the Śrāvaka Path © me