Fanning the Flames
If you observe the flow… it continues flowing, without ever stopping. To mark that battle… - Hatake Kakashi, chapter 234 of Naruto, about the Valley of the End.
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. Otherwise, a lot of things would have happened Very Differently. This is only my take on a fandom favorite.
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It had been raining for three days at the Valley of the End.
People would look into the distance and mutter amongst themselves, about how it had to be an omen – and a bad one, at that. The Valley of the End had ever been a place of endings, of severed ties, of deaths. Many wondered whose blood it was washing down its river this time, and how much had been spilt to need three whole days to clean from the stone statues and surrounding area.
In truth, there was no blood. In fact, there was only one person there… one person and no opponent. Unless you counted that very person as his own opponent, and even so it would have been a purely mental battle – there were no marks on the terrain at all.
In the slew of rain, the figure was barely visible, even to the most trained of ninja. Dressed in blue and black, and with black hair that was made slick by the downpour, he was camouflaged better than most could have hoped for, and he had not even had to try.
He had hardly moved in hours, sat on the soggy ground with his knees almost parallel to his chin, hair dripping onto shorts and soaking to the skin. Contrary to the rest of him, the area surrounding his eyes was mostly dry, only wet where the rain had slid down his forehead or from his hair. The black eyes had a hard quality to them, barely moving and only blinking every once in a while, such as when water logged up on his eyelids. Other than that, it was as though he was caught staring at some sort of middle distance that only he could see, a place and time far away from the deluge.
As time went on, a little of the light and self came back to his eyes, causing him to focus on what was in front of him instead of what had been behind him. A spark of resolve slowly came into existence in them, almost unnaturally focused on the thoughts in his head and the ideas coming into fruition there.
A hand went slowly to one of his pockets, from which he drew out a length of dark blue material with a shaped piece of metal attached to the middle. In the centre was a symbol. Swirl with point on the bottom. Leaf.
A Konoha hitae-ate. The sign of a Leaf shinobi. Which. . . he was not. Not any more.
His fist tightened around the cloth and metal, causing ignored pain in his slick hand that could not easily grip from sweat, water and old blood from his memories. His eyes narrowed and his hand gripped tighter just once more, but then suddenly loosened, letting it fall free and then catching it again by the dark blue cloth. For a while he stared at it as though the simple item held all of the answers to life's mysteries. Finally though he sighed and rubbed it clean of pocket lint and absorbed mud so that it once again shone. Then, as though performing a deciding action that could mean his own death, he tied it around one of his arms, so that it caught the light only just coming through the treetops and creeping out from behind the clouds.
The rain, however, did not stop.
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AN: First Naruto fic, at least first to be posted on the net at all. I definitely did not expect to have Sasuke (yes, that is him) to be the main character, but he's the one it's about, and he's the only one who's in every or almost every chapter.
Next one should have other characters, and possibly some other members of Team Seven, but no Naruto as yet (which is why there's no Main Character Two slot filled up there).