Pierce
It never fails.
I say this only because it's the sordid truth. Every single time I even begin to consider someone close…They turn around and stab me in the back.
I should've learned the first time. It should've been branded into me like a horrible, seething tattoo that people are all untrustworthy scum. The very person I held in highest revere murdered everyone I ever cared about. He whom my young eyes saw as more powerful and perfect than a god only shattered my rosy, innocent world.
I don't blame myself for not catching on then. I was young, and couldn't have possibly foreseen the darkness which from that day would taint my psyche forever. I am not angry with myself for allowing him to take hold of me.
I am, however, disgusted with how I let it happen again.
-
The human heart should not be a soft, warm thing. Even all the walls I secured around it could be worn away. I wished my heart could be stone, as maybe then the wounds dealt to it would stop pinpricking with remorse, guilt, and despair.
It would have been for the better had those two not eroded my walls into nothingness.
Naruto. The only boy unafraid to challenge me, to talk trash about me without fear of repercussions. The others all lived in fear of me, like cowardly little worms that scattered where I appeared. But not him. He lived in the spotlight, whether I was there or not. He wasn't afraid to let me know he would surpass me eventually, and rub it in my face with all his might.
It was with this constant display of camaraderie that my defenses began to melt. But the only one that crumbled them like mere dust…was her.
Sakura. At first, just another swooning girl, hanging onto my every word and fainting with every glance. But she…changed. The longer we were in our team, the more she grew accustomed to me. The endless invitations ceased, and I could feel her focus tremble, beginning the shift from me to her career as a shinobi.
For some reason, I regarded this with the utmost dread.
The night I left, she broke through my walls as if they were eggshells. She cried and begged and displayed every little emotion before me, beseeching me to stay. Even as my face remained stoic, my heart bled for her, remembering when I'd pleaded just like her, begging for my life from my family's killer.
When Naruto and I fought over that waterfall, my protection equaled ashes. My locked-away feelings were displayed openly, manifesting themselves in bursts of rage and destruction. Only once I'd beaten him did I realize I was afraid of what I'd hidden for so long, and needed to lock away once more if I were to survive what lay ahead.
The longer I was away from the village, the easier it was to resurrect my defenses. But even then, they weren't nearly as strong as before. The cracks and holes from my time with those two left them vulnerable. The day I saw them again after those long years, those walls almost crumbled again on the spot. I fled, like a coward, but at least I hadn't broken in front of them.
They might have convinced me to go with them if I had.
-
In a way, their weakening of my protection betrayed me before they ever did. During that final battle with the one I'd sworn I'd kill, he bypassed those weakened walls as if they were nothing. The scarred gashes he'd left so long ago reopened at a touch, and I experienced the full brunt of that pain that only exists when one's universe collapses around them in a heap of teetering madness, when everything you thought you set in the stone tablets of memory turned out to be nothing but hypocritical lies.
But even then, those two surfaced in the background of my turbulent mind, reminding me I could always go back to them, that they always loved me and would forever wait with open arms to welcome me home.
"Forever" seems to be a relative term these days.
-
There was no ignoring the guilt that settled into the pit of my stomach. I'd finished what I'd left the village to do; what point was there in remaining a wanted fugitive? The life I'd had so long ago seemed like a paradise to me. I found myself longing for those days of chasing lost cats and picking up litter and escorting old fogeys all over the country.
But most of all, I missed those two. My comrades. My friends.
It was a spur-of-the-moment decision, made after I'd temporarily escaped my admittedly pathetic excuse for a replacement team. If they would take me back now, I would go with them. I'd leave everything I worked for behind, if only to regain those innocent, sunshine-filled days with the people I cared for most.
I'd hang my head, and admit I was wrong. The very thought terrified me, but I would be strong. For them.
Finding their group was easy enough. With every step I took towards them, I felt the dark shroud above me lift. I was going home. I'd take my punishment for leaving, but it'd be a mere trifle compared to everything I'd regain. The village was heaven to me now, and I'd have to think of something to do in return for my friends waiting so long for me.
I hid myself as I approached them, wanting to wait for them to be alone. For the first time in years, I almost smiled. My heart was pounding, but in a good way, an excited way, that even the cold of the falling snow couldn't dampen.
"I love you, Naruto!"
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
I don't know how long I stood there. Everything had frozen over, as if the falling snow had affected time as well. I felt no heartbeat as I clutched at my chest, suddenly unable to inhale.
-
-
-
-
"You can stop chasing Sasuke now. He's nothing but a criminal."
-
-
-
-
My throat was blocked up. I felt tears in my eyes as an icicle-like dagger struck my heart that only seconds ago had been cheerfully pulsing.
"It's you I want, Naruto…I'm not a child anymore."
My body moved on its own. With some small part of me screaming for some proof that it was all untrue…I peeked out from my hiding place.
Just in time to watch the girl I loved embrace my supposed best friend.
"Sasuke's too far away now," she told him, smiling sweetly. "But you're always here for me…you've become such a hero, Naruto…while Sasuke's so far away. You're the one I want now…"
I couldn't breathe. I couldn't move. My hands gripped at my chest, and I felt the terribly familiar wrenching feeling of my heart snapping in two.
-
My vision blurred with tears I barely noticed, I left them. I left those filthy, backstabbing traitors far behind as I raced through the snow, scarcely feeling the sting of my tears freezing to my cheeks. I only stopped once my aching legs could run no more, where I fell to my knees in the solitude of a frozen forest, and I hugged myself, shaking, unbelieving.
Once I'd calmed myself, I stood back up, rubbing the feeling back into my frozen fingers as my breath formed a cloudy fog issuing from my mouth.
They would pay for this treachery.
With new purpose, I turned, and strode back in the direction of Taka's camp.
There were new plans to be made.
-
Holy FRACK that latest chapter gave me a fricken' heart attack, amirite?