Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of Naruto, because if I did, I would not only be filthy rich, but I would be getting my stuff published instead of having it on (Makes sense, right? ; )
Summary: Zabuza has one last chance to be honest with himself and evaluate the way he has spent his life, and who he spent it with. One-shot, Zabuza's POV.
Complementary
By: Stealiana
You and I, we are so complementary. Do you remember when everything used to be simple, unmistakably untainted? The days before everything began to run like oil paint on a canvas left in the rain, the colors bleeding and melding into one another, crafting a portrait of chaos and uncertainty?
Of course you would remember. I don't think those days ever ended for you – even as you scrounged through trash heaps looking for scraps, even as you hugged your knees in the cold to keep from freezing, even as your dignity was stolen from you and trampled to death by those ignorant sonsabitches in our village. You were the snow that blanketed the flaws of the Earth, and coated it with a shimmering layer of immaculate perfection, paying homage to all that was and could be beautiful. To a degree, I envied you, and the ease with which you embodied all that was pure and virtuous in a human being. How effortlessly you connected with the hearts and minds of others, how readily you turned mere enemies into accessible people.
I am so different from you; perhaps that is what possessed me to stop and talk to you when I walked by on the bridge that day. There is no question in my mind that at that moment, you had already grasped what I was, how I functioned – that I was a man of extremes, damned for eternity. From childhood, I was raised to be a ninja, a devastating force of destruction, unstoppable and unbreakable. But you… you were everything I could not be, was not allowed to be.
Once encompassing a spectrum of feelings vast and complex, I was whittled down to a man with no more than a fraction of what could be referred to as emotion. My spirit and soul were subdued, suppressed in order for my physical existence and capabilities to have priority. You had the ability to retain your inner self as time progressed, and you developed… and that was something I envied. In order to achieve a level of proficiency I deemed adequate, I had to abandon all thoughts of compassion. Being in your presence, knowing how you surpassed me so greatly in that regard increased my bitterness towards what I had become – yet the admiration you held for me was a greater prize than anything I could have imagined, one I did not deserve.
Isn't it strange, how the most pure and most evil were rejected by the village? You, for unknowingly freeing the potential that lay within you, your Bloodline Limit capabilities – I, for doing what I was trained to do only too well. Despite all our differences, we are the same in that respect – exiled, unwanted products of a society that had created us. You were too young to understand the grossly undeserved torment, but I could see the injustice in discarding people who had done no more than followed their instinct.
And then I question if you truly understood why I had asked you to be a tool as I stood on that bridge, watching you. Maybe it did not matter to you what I asked of you, but I regret never taking a moment to make you fully comprehend. Because I do care what you think of me, and I want you to realize that I was limited, unfairly so. As a ninja, I could not ask you to be a friend, a brother, or a lover – that would be vulnerability. I asked of you the only thing a true ninja could ever ask for – a tool. As an object myself, I had no right to demand anything more from you; yet you exceeded my wildest expectations, and flourished tremendously.
Did you understand what I was doing by teaching you everything I knew? I was doing more than simply constructing you to become a valuable asset – I transcribed all the remaining noble traits I possessed into your rapid achievements, constructing you to be everything I had failed to become. So many times, I have complained you were too soft, too empathetic, too forgiving. But that was how I wanted you; not like me, cold, brutal, and feral. Inside of you, I wanted to cultivate feelings and emotions I had discarded, dreams I had forsaken, and thoughts I had ignored. You were to be the greatest work of my life, the one good thing to spring up from the charred ground of destruction and ruin that lay in my wake. I would burn down the forest so you could rise up from the ashes like a phoenix, sacred and flawless. Standing in your shadow would be enough to satiate me.
You and I, we are so complementary. The good and the bad, juxtaposed on another's bridge of dreams, growing cold in the mist and snow. My life has been useless, my dreams, the ones you fought and died for, stiffen along with my limbs, only to shatter like the glass mirrors you created. I was unworthy to be your guardian, unworthy to be your teacher, unworthy of loving you. For years, I have hidden how I worship the ground your innocent feet have touched, how proud I am of the man you have grown into – despite your insistent protests that you were still a child. My dreams were those of revenge, undeserving of your absolute loyalty and faith. So, as I lay here by your corpse, breathing my last, I cannot help but touch your face, growing cold as the snowflakes drift upon us. I have never had a comrade, teammate, or companion before. You were never daunted by the task of being everything to me, and were content to live merely as the only thing I knew to ask of you. My dreams, the ones you valued purely on the merit that they were mine – I think I should tell you before I die that they have changed drastically. As the world grows black and my pain begins to ebb into an abyss of nothingness, I need you to know, that my only dream now is to be by your side. If, after all I have and haven't done for you, Haku, you still wish to protect my dreams… then perhaps I will be fortunate enough to be reunited with you, the most important person to me, in the afterlife.