20 times the Yellow Flash didn't break
1.) It is his first mission and a man is walking down the road toward him. Arashi is covered in blood from head to foot and all he can think is that his parents will be so disappointed when this man tells on him. For a single burning moment the future Yondaime forgets his parents are dead.
2.) He has already doused himself and the body beside him with a gallon of sake when they find him still smelling of the smoke from his parent's house. There is blood under his nails and a wild light in his eyes. It is from the investigator's point of view a relief as he couldn't for the life of him figure out how and why there were three adult bodies in the house and no child.
3.) The sheer amount of blood isn't what does it. The little hands futile trying to shovel it back in isn't what nearly those it. The absolute lack of sound isn't the damn feather that almost breaks his back. It's realizing the dreary little house is a cookie cutter copy of his parent's. He vomits on his own shoes.
4.) There is something no one knows about the Yondaime – he dreams of the Endless and their plans. Sadly those plans bleed into his waking life. And so the first time he meets his sensei he spaces for approximately two minutes and then began to scream frantically swiping at himself. The moment Mikoto Uchiha slaps him is the moment he falls for her.
5.) And one rain sheeted afternoon she leaves. He back is straight and her head is held high because even with her heart breaking she is an Uchiha, soon to be Mrs. Fuguka Uchiha. Seated on the floor back against the wall he cradles the hand he has just broken against the door jam and laughs himself to tears. The ring in his shirt pocket will soon find it's self in the stream beneath his favorite little red bridge.
6.) There is a mission in Wave when he is but a genin. He can't or won't remember how the fox came to be in his lap. Maybe it leapt there or he lured it. Maybe something somewhere hates him… He does remember very well how quickly his kunai went in it's chest and how the sound of his own breathing was so very loud. His team returns with superficial injuries leaving a morgue behind them instead of a moderately bustling town. The official report speaks of Arashi's dazzling speed and skill. It says nothing of his psychotic break; nothing of the bezerker rage that had him attacking friend and foe alike. Mikoto requests a transfer that same week.
7.) No one knows just how dammed you have to be to become a true seal-master. Not even Sandaime knows, being only on the second tier and too enamored of his sanity to move further. Even Jiraiya possessed enough self-preservation to stop at the third tier. So when his brilliant idiot of a student wanted to go all the way he found the man, creature, thing to teach him. It arrived in august so bundled up in sackcloth and fur it appeared a kind of beast. It spent a year and a day in Kohona tutoring the boy and during that time Arashi experienced more of heaven and hell and madness then most will ever comprehend. Still two moments stand out as the worse: the first is the moment when it first touched him. The second and worse is the moment it undressed… It did not owe its best-like appearance to its clothes.
8.) In a moment of brief lucidity the council comes to the realization that perhaps they ought to be keeping a closer eye on their "geniuses". Of course this epiphany comes only after losing their medical genius Tsuande, finding their maverick Orochimaru to be a traitorous lunatic, and seeing Sand lose it's Sandaime to an attack by it's young genius Sasori. Of course following this moment of actual intelligence they decide it would be a grand idea to test one genius with another in the worse way possible. This is how Minato finds himself pretending to be an anonymous Anbu agent as he all but kills Kakashi "training" him for an "important" assignment. For his mission Kakashi needs to be trained as a professional masochist while retaining a natural feel. Arashi needs to hurt him, so he does and - he likes it. Striking the stubborn little boy he can't help but pity. Breaking the pretty limbs and that too pretty face wishing he could allow his patience to do the same sometimes. And of course, using the boy's mouth and body without the guilt or the fear he has had with ever woman he ever slept with, because little boys can't get pregnant with blue-eyed little orphans. That final afternoon he pronounces the boy more then adequately trained voice tight with disgust even as he wished the interlude never needed to end.
9.) Seeing the strange little Hatake boy scratching futilely at the rocks and for a moment overlaid is the picture of a child whose hands and arms positively drip with red as they shove blood back into a gaping wound. A smell of shit and ripe – "What happened?" And in his head he can understand that his voice sounds strange, but why is Rin cringing? Clenching her blood-stained hands and Kakashi's looks back with his mismatched eyes… Oh… oh god oh god and Mikoto's favorite cousin is crushed beneath a ton of stone.
10.) The little boy whose hand Mikoto holds makes him shiver, the lack of anything but hate in its eyes makes him vomit. This time he does it in the bushes. No one says anything and he likes to think it isn't because he's Hokage. He likes to think it's because no one is cruel enough to taunt him.
11.) Orochimaru's lab. Shodaime wasn't the only Hokage who had his D.N.A. used; he was only one who had copies capable of begging for their lives.
12.) There is blood oozing from between Rin's legs. And she is begging for someone to save her baby, but babies can't fight and he can only whisper nonsense because he can't lose another one. Her eyes are wide and terrified and suddenly he knows that the final part of Obito is dying. The sharingan was the never the best part of an Uchiha.
13.) It is painful learning what it means to be selfish. Her name is Anaberi, she is short and clumsy and her nails are bitten to the quick. She has a smile like an opportunity missed. And she will die in childbirth. He loves her, he'll kill her, and he can't let her go.
14.) In ten months she's pregnant and he dreams of holding a child's hand. He sees statues and a blind man with a book. He's drawing strange symbols on the mirror's cool glass with the thought – 'He'll look like me.' He keeps telling himself, "The bed isn'tsoaked though with blood." Still closing his eyes he sees a limp hand dangling from beneath the sheet. He has another eight months but it feels like days. She has a craving for ramen and he's thinking of foxes.
15.) Death is not a gothic little girl with a dysfunctional ass family. More importantly she is not sitting her pretty little ass on his desk while eating dango. Smiling she offers him a bite, which he politely refuses. Somehow he doesn't feel too good.
16.) Asuma-kun and Hayate-chan are playing. Their wounds bleed freely but they don't seem to mind. Her hand is cool and feverish, like her smile, her eyes. Delirium reaches across to sweep his hair out of his eyes and then tilts her face back toward the blanket his work lies on. The seal has to be finished.
17.) Rin's body sways from the tree toes nearly touching the wooden posts. Blood seeps, weeps from the heavily abused corpse. Etched neatly into the flesh are the words: 'A present for the Hokage – Congratulations on a boy!'
18.) He hands the child it's hitate. This one is younger even then Kashi-kun was. "Congratulations Itachi-chan."
19.) He wakes up in a white room. Apparently he passed out in his office with a blood-curtailing scream. They are told he doesn't know why, but then he considers that a kindness. The future at times is a cruel place and ignorance is sometimes the only hope one has.
20.) Death stands beside him as in what he knows are his final moments. A t the moment his wife is dying and Jiraiya is two many days too late away and Tsunade is a selfish bitch and a man named Pein is slowly going insane. His son will be named Naruto after a fictional character. His son will never know him. There is the sound of wings and over the horizon a bright and dire light approaches. Death is beautiful as she smiles and for once he doesn't feel like it'll all end badly. He laughs, "My son will achieve his dreams, believe it!"