hills ablaze, a naruto fanfic

title: hills ablaze

notes: Wrote this years ago, and completely forgot about it until now! An exercise in the abstract by shifting through first, second and third person narrative, and how they're used to show distance (or some BS like that). I would apologize for the run-ons, but they're intentional.

—

Let's say you're a boy and you've got two hands and two feet. You have nice hair and a pretty good set of teeth, but your parents' friends always say that your eyes are beautiful. You are given a name because mother wants you to be strong, and you, too, think it's a splendid name. You're good at what you do because you know what you're doing, and your parents are smart, so you must be as well. You should be satisfied since you are well-fed, but you're not, you're not, because your older brother is talented and tall and handsome and you're nothing like him. He's better.

Still, you love him.

It's the third day of oshōgatsu. Your parents are talking with and man and a woman with long hair, and you're in the snow garden with their daughter whose hair is the color of midnight and not long at all. You don't know why you're with her because she looks fragile and weak—so, so weak—but you were taught to be polite, so you ask her name. 'Place in the Sun' she says gently, like a soft lullaby, but she carefully holds your gaze without looking away.

Snow finally starts to fall, your mother calls everyone in. Your mother—she is wearing the same eyes she gives to father when he leaves for a long mission, looking at you but not really at you. You peak behind and see the girl following. There is: thick parka, too-large earmuffs, soft scarf, and eyes to match the grace of winter. And when you see her, you don't really find the snow or the cold moon because you were born in summer.

Instead, you see something else: something sundrenched, something bright, something blinding.

Mother taught you to share your toys and to share your food. Itachi is on the tatami floor and you're with him, too, reading. In his hands are the old stories of Shinatsuhiko, which you think are pretty boring compared to the comics you've got. He glances over to you and is genuinely surprised at the amount of complicated kanji you're already able to read. Instead of praising how smart you are, he asks if you know about the baby found by the bamboo-cutter and his wife. You tell him you don't, so he pulls a different book from the shelf and reads this one to you. You don't really believe in fairytales, but, nevertheless, you listen carefully to the soft tenor of his voice. You listen because you love him.

Mother never told you to share your love, and you don't want to, anyway.

You see that girl again on your way home from the academy and she looks different from the way you remember her, her eyes now tired hollow nothings. You hear whispers of words like, 'family', 'sacrifice' and 'shame', but you refuse to believe any of that would break her. Curiosity gets the better of you and you wonder if you can make her snap—snap like pulling at the string of a pearl necklace.

So, at the playground, for your own reassurance, you tell her how much you hate her short hair and everybody hears. You didn't mean to be so loud, so mean, and maybe you feel sorry, but the 'ichi' in ichizoku means pride and the 'Uchiha' in Uchiha ichizoku means never, ever showing any sign of weakness. He doesn't remember if she cried.

You don't say anything after that, and you wonder how your mother would be angry watching pearls fall to the ground.

You find yourself crying while eating cold soba noodles in the months after you've buried your family. Your polished bamboo chopsticks have fallen to the floor and your tea is lukewarm. The ghosts in your house don't come around anymore; although, sometimes, you see a shadow of them in your sleep, when you're ten thousand miles under the sea. And at the fork in the road, you see two paths paved ahead and decide to yield at the signs: one says it leads to absolution; the other does not.

You consider your options and stay impartial, for now.

The next time you see her, you're not even sure if you see her—or anyone else—at all. Right now, Resolve is your visitor who scared Reason away, but you don't mind.

It's like that for a long time.

There is something small stuck between your teeth, and you can't get it out. You could check the mirror, but you haven't seen yourself in it for a while now anyway. Still, you know what that something looks like: a boy in a breeze of barley-gold fields to match his hair, and the sky just before (or after) twilight in his eyes. He's got friends, and he says they're your friends too, so for a while you leave it as it is and you don't ask questions. It's going to take a lot to get whatever's stuck out, but when you dream long enough, it doesn't feel so imposing anymore. You're not sure what to say about, but you keep this to yourself: Perhaps there is a third path.

A fox dashes out, and you can't help but eagerly chase it.

Sasuke does not see Hinata before he runs from his home, but he thinks about her a year later, at the end of fall. Orochimaru has sent him out to fetch medicinal herbs to help his aging body as nothing worthy can grow within the confines of the Village Hidden by Sound. He sets out for the open plains north of Yugakure, where he wanders around for half a day, searching for signs of life among dirt and jagged rocks.

For a small moment, the malice seeping in and out of his bones comes to a still when he spots a pair of resilient Easter lilies in second bloom.

Let's say there's a boy. He's not quite a man, but he's not a child, either. He's got two hands and two feet, and his eyes—they are wild, but still beautiful. He's realized that all of the signs on the paths were misleading him, but when he thinks about it, how could have chosen otherwise? His eyes bleed, but his heart doesn't. In his hands, he holds the coldness of a smoldering fire. He might use it to set the world ablaze when no one is looking.

But then he doesn't because his brother loved him enough.

10.

When the boy find his home again, he's wandering the streets, trying to figure out how the village has gotten impossibly smaller. In his mind, he thinks of all the gifts he's inherited from his mother, his father, his brother—but nothing surfaces. Then, there is a stillness when a piece of an old, forgotten memory reappears: He is seven again and Itachi is telling him about how to present a report after completing a mission, and how there are different angles of the same situation, the different ways to tell the same story. It was perhaps the only truth that Itachi had ever told him.

He wonders exactly how long Itachi had been lying to himself in order to construct the fairytale they all blindly lived in.

11.

Sasuke meets Hinata again, mid-way between the summer and winter equinox, in front of a shrine dedicated to those who lost their lives in war. He is standing alone, reading the name of his brother over and over, making sure it's still there, that he is the hero they promised he would be marked as. She speaks up first when she offers him incense for his brother's memory. As they walk down the steps, their conversation is short, but honest. They end talking about all the important things: love and family and pain.

Not once does she ask how to understand because she already does.

12.

Every time he sees this girl of now fractured sunlight, he feels as if he's fallen face-forward with the weight of his whole body and he isn't sure why. He's confused because it's not like watching Sakura and Naruto. For those two, they are clearly distinguishable when in conversation—like telling the difference between high noon and midnight. But when Sasuke and Hinata meet, it's either dusk or dawn, and—like the blind leading the blind—neither of the two can ever tell what time of day it is.

All he knows is that the knot in his stomach goes tight and he often can't find the courage to look her in the eyes.

And then one day, he does.

13.

You learn to cook your mother's favorite dish, to walk with your head held high again, to watch your fingers intertwine with hers. There is a song on the inside of your chest that is never out of tune when it plays for her. And as petite as her frame is, her presence looms over you, like being swallowed whole by the ocean. You learn that the love you have lost will never come back, but the one you have now is just as important. Your eyes wick the stars, and for the first time in a long time, you imagine your future. You imagine life without pain, without heartbreak, without fear. You imagine that there is an after and never just a now.

But it doesn't last because peace is a fickle thing, and when the treaty with the Water Country begins to fall apart from internal conflict, you begin to understand that there also will never be a forever.

14.

You wake with a jolt, as if your soul has just come back from leaving your body. And in that moment, you're terrified of something: You realize that she'll leave you like mother and father, she'll leave you like Kaguya-hime saying goodbye to the bamboo cutter and returning to the moon, she'll leave you like Death departing your side when it's not time to go because even he wouldn't take you. She'll leave you like your brother did, but it makes sense because this time your hands are stained. Maybe you only think you love her, but you don't really know because you've never had anything good enough to compare.

But when she puts her hand on your chest, you remember that she is still here and she is real,

Then your heart takes hold,

And you're not so afraid anymore.