Unmei no Me
運命の目


prologue
An Apotheosis's Exegesis

Is hate the inescapable law that binds us all into civilisation, or merely the product of human avarice? I cannot claim that I understand this myself. If hatred and loathing truly is the product of greed, then is it even possible for a mere mortal, even one gifted with the Catalyst, a tool supposedly powerful enough to uproot the world from its comfortable path of violence of war, to truly end all hate? No objurgating from even one such as I would ever be able to make stray the terrible nightmarish path that humanity is taking tantalising steps to explore. There must be a reason why the Catalyst I was entrusted with was not loquacious grandeur, but a tool, a changer with the power to bring countries to its knees. Whatever higher being that looks after this world must know that diplomacy, sweet-talking, and negotiations will never be adequate to ameliorate the tensions between the antediluvian nations that span this world.

And yet, I cannot simply kill those who would stand as an obstacle in the path of peace. I would be traduced and my reputation and cause would be forever tarnished in the world's eyes. There is no easy way to succeed in my goal, which must be why peace is the difficult path. The road of chaos, war, and death that humanity now treads is a weak and comfortable path that humankind has fallen into in its complacency. And because of this, I have realised that the idealistic vision of peace that dominates the minds of lesser men is but a farce, an impossible dream that can never be realised. It is simply the nature of humankind itself to always give into petty hatred.

My quest is sacrosanct and my mind refulgent; it is in this knowledge that I take my confidence that peace can be realised through my struggles. Although there will always be those who call me conceited, I know I am better. I am the one being that can lead the hoi polloi into a better age, where a world still divided by nations and plagued by dislike, can feel true and lasting peace. I will be irenic and I will become the Sacrifice. I shall be the Sacrifice that will protect this world.

Already, there is an evil that threatens to uproot the very world. An evil far greater than any man could ever be responsible for, an evil that terrifies even me. This presage bodes unhealthy for the world, but I will defeat it. That is why I am Sacrifice, and why I shall be followed. I know that I must bring down that which threatens the delicate balance that I seek and when I do, I already know what shall happen. I will be deified. I will become an arcanum to the world, the one who was able to bring down that which could not be brought down, and I shall attempt to use this to my advantage. I will become the more than human, treading the path between that of divinity and mortals. And only when I tread this path will I be able to achieve my dream. I will be the harbinger of a new era.

But even so, is what I dream just that? A lofty dream that cannot be achieved by anyone? Will I be enough? Will I be able to defeat the menace that looms on the horizon? I am no god. I cannot fathom that which is not meant to be comprehended by mortals. For that is what I am. I am but a mortal who has been given a tool that has the power to achieve peace, and no mortal, not even the most prodigiously brilliant mortals can fathom the deepest mysteries of this world. I can only hope that I can do what I have devoted my life to. In the end, hope is one of the few things that all of humankind has in common. It is my own hope that with the Catalyst I have been given that I can make humanity understand this fact and upon this fact lay the foundations of a lasting quiet. But doubt fills my heart. I know I am alone. How can I lead the entire world to peace and understanding when I myself have human desires that plague me?

And so I pour my heart into this recording. My dreams and my doubts. My thinking and logic. My views of the world that, if discovered by an authority, would be disregarded as blasphemy. If I cannot pour my heart into a living human companion, then my paper is my only companion. Perhaps eventually, I shall find love and a human companion to give myself to; but at a time when the world needs someone such as me to guide it, it cannot be so.

As I wallow in my own despair, let this one companion of ink and parchment be my sole comforter. Let it be the one that shares my burden. None but this single scroll shall ever know that the Rikudo Sennin, the one being who had the power to bring both peace or chaos and death to the world, was but an ordinary man with an extraordinary dream and naught but a single gift from true gods of supreme power to accomplish his extraordinary dream.

The manuscript, begun so long ago, was finally finished. The man whose burden was the entire world set down his ink and quill, ending his calligraphy in an elegant slanted finish. The Rikudo Sennin, not yet the immortalised man of legend, sighed. He wondered why he had ever begun recording his intimate rendering of pain and in a stabbing of anger, nearly committed the paper to the flames. He didn't know why he took pity on the scroll. Maybe he hoped that one day, a person would stumble across the writing and discover that the Rikudo Sennin had not been merely a shell of a person, a juggernaut that was devoid of humanity and whose only aim was the eternal ceasing of war.

The same had been with all his previous writings. His attempts at recording a history of the harsh world that now revelled in war too often meandered into an analysis of himself and his opinions on what the world was before turning into a history of himself. From a treatise on the usage of chakra and the basic techniques that could be used to increase control over chakra his quill would wander to his own techniques and how he used them. Perhaps, my writings have always been nothing more than my pathetic conceited efforts to explain myself to me. I keep telling myself that next time, I will do better. How am I to teach the world if I cannot even record my teachings?

Curiously, it felt like this scroll was different. Even though it was personal like all his other attempts at writing had been, he had actually written this one with the intent to do so. It felt like a confirmation to him, a confirmation that he could write whatever he focused himself to write. And it was with that that he realised that all along, his past writing efforts had been unfocused attempts at trying to unravel himself to himself. Now that he had finally gotten over his premature stage in his writings and had finally explained to himself what he was, he could begin the long chapter in his life where he would spend his time committing his teachings to scrolls. He hoped that long after he was gone, people would continue to adhere to what he believed in and his writings, the centrepiece of that devotion. Eventually, what he preached would be immortalised through word of the mouth, not just written recordings that could be erased from existence at a whim.

Looking back on his latest work, the man slowly realised that he had chosen isolation.

It is unavoidable, he told himself. The very writing on the manuscript justified his decision. He knew that his human core quested for companionship, someone to share his burdens. Yet that questing was but a reflex of his human nature, the indomitable power of his human spirit. No one could ever fill the gaping maw that his writing had never been able to fill.

Now, winter was announcing its approach with a dark and cold evening. The moonlight was sparse and even with his eyes, the man could barely see anything. There were no lights, no flaming torches that signified civilisation. His hut, deep in the wilderness, was what he had built a long time ago when he realised the necessity for the life of a hermit. His own hut was illuminated by a small fire, fuelled by wood he had been groping for in the dark naught but an hour ago before he had resumed and finished his latest work.

Sacrifice, as he had dubbed himself in his writing, got up and walked to the sole window that adorned his hut. He had been approached before, well-wishers that had sat down on the humbling earth beside him. Almost always, they would make an offer to end his isolation, to ease the pain and loneliness. Only once had someone actually been bold enough to reach to him and touch him on the shoulder, offering him nothing but the comforting silence of physical intimacy. That one touch he had been offered far too long ago as a young man had been more intimate and fulfilling than any act of sensual fulfilment he sensed could ever be.

In the end, all the well-wishing had been useless. They eventually seemed to feel that, for after a while, they gave up. Perhaps, if he had indulged in their sympathy, he could have led a normal life, staying out of danger. But he knew that if he had done so, the gift he had been given would have been wasted, doomed to rot away as he expired in his old age. It was unfortunate. Still, he remembered the touch he had been offered so long ago. It seemed to reproach him for wallowing in the past. The moment I received the Rinnegan, I was destined to abandon companionship, at least until my quest was completed. I reject offers of camaraderie not out of a wish to be alone, but of the necessity to be alone. I cannot be Sacrifice if I cannot even give away the pleasures of friendship until necessity no longer requires my isolation. At least, I have become accustomed to being alone. There is no pain, only emptiness in the part of my human desire for comradeship, for the bonds of friendship.

He gave a small, wry grin at his thinking and surrendered himself to the truth. Still, I cannot wait for the time I can embrace friendship again. It felt good to admit to himself what he wanted. He had denied himself the hope for so long, believing that it would burden him with more sadness. Now by merely admitting his hope to himself, he had filled the emptiness that had previously filled his heart. Fuelled by a new determination to defeat the menace that threatened the world, he walked to his small table. He grabbed his staff and blade before walking to the door and opening it. All this time, the only thing I had ever needed to assure myself of my duty had been self admittance. With one last grin, except now a true one, he walked out into the chilly and dark night.

There was little sound except the rustling of the wind blowing through the trees. Animals did not venture in light forests anymore. Not since the Juubi had revealed itself and let known to the world the extent of its foul and repugnant chakra. Sacrifice vowed that he would fix the cataclysmic terror that had been dealt to nature. Animals would walk again, people would laugh again, and when all that finally happened, he would complete the last step of his mission and the world would be at peace.

The Juubi would rue the day it had decided to put the world in worse disarray than it had already been. It had no idea that its reign of terror would be so short-lived and that its most hated enemy would be the one to defeat it. Sacrifice smiled at the cold world that greeted him and with a flourish of his staff, bid it farewell as he set off to defeat the Juubi.

To recognise that he was the source of his own loneliness was not a cure for it. But it was a step toward seeing that it was not inevitable, and that such a choice was not irrevocable.


Post-Prologue; Preface
There will not be any authorial notes or analyses in following chapters so any who desire some background or information on the story and basic explanations, read it here before you go on with the story, because you will not get any other ones.

* Unmei no Me (運命の瞳) – advanced native translation (not dictionary word-by-word translation) from English to Japanese; definition: Eyes of Fate.

* Basic inspiration for the starting structure of this prologue for the beginning "manuscript" and personal retrospect analysis was inspired by the prologue of Golden Fool, second book of "The Tawny Man" trilogy, written by Robin Hobb.

* "To recognise that he was the source of his own loneliness was not a cure for it. But it was a step toward seeing that it was not inevitable, and that such a choice was not irrevocable." - Adapted quote from Golden Fool.

The Rikudo Sennin (Sage of the Six Paths) regards himself as the world's sacrifice, an obvious tribute to his character. His own nickname is Sacrifice, forced as I was to fashion a name for him. I couldn't just keep calling him Rikudo Sennin; it got redundant. Through this prologue, you can see that he was very much human with very human desires. The fact that he was willing to sacrifice his humanity to bring about peace is a faint reminder of canon-Nagato. The main difference between the two is that the Rikudo Sennin sees himself as Sacrifice and someone forced to become more than human for the sake of the world; he is also still compassionate and wants to avoid killing in his vision of peace. Nagato, on the other hand, sees himself as Pain and a deity, a would-be harbinger of widespread pain that would force an uneasy and fear-fuelled peace.

None of the following chapters will be as short as this one was. This is only the prologue. The story will not actually be about the Rikudo Sennin; this was merely an introduction to the nature of the first messiah in Naruto's world that will be more fully understood in the following chapters. I don't think anyone has actually written a story focusing on the Rikudo Sennin before, or if it has then I haven't seen it, so I may eventually take this prologue and write a story for it, set in the era that this prologue is set in. Anyway, this prologue is just a highlight of the Rikudo Sennin's humanity, setting the story up for the events that will occur in Naruto's era in later chapters.

Following chapters set in Naruto's era will be set in an alternate universe (AU) where events will, occasionally, not coincide with canon. Often times, there will be hidden or slight references made to events in our history and whenever any of my readers discover those, I encourage them to investigate. The things you will find will likely astound you. Of course, to detect any of these references, you must read closely and carefully; be an active reader. I don't mean annotate, no. I mean actively think about the words and phrases you read. It doesn't require much effort to do so.

And a last note about language in Unmei no Me: this story is written in British English (BrE). Major differences that are associated with this include dialogue. Dialogue will be surrounded with apostrophes instead of quotation marks, and instead of apostrophes surrounding citations in dialogue, quotation marks will. An example would be: 'But she really did express her desire to "raise the child by" herself, milord!' the servant exclaimed. Also, Japanese will only be used in this story where it is more artistic than English - no sentences will ever be completed in Japanese, only words or small phrases. And when Japanese is used, they are not dictionary word-by-word translations; I have a Japanese friend who uses his rather impressive native knowledge of his tongue to give me real, native translations. The kinds that people normally have to pay a professional translator for; so, credit to the correct usage of Japanese in this story goes to him - he wishes his name anonymous so that will not be given out. Just know that without him, any Japanese used in this story would be terribly messy.

With that, I wish you all an enjoyable experience as you read my story!


- K.E., R.
Great Britain; July 14th, 2010