Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, and I make no profit in writing this one-shot.
Written for Qoheleth's Malachy O'More Challenge.
"For it was that rape was the starting point of all Roman conquest, the memory of which acts as a reminder that the Empire began under the sign of a crime."
Uzumaki Kushina remembers the last sight of Uzushiogakure, the beautiful spires and bridges of the land she had loved sinking down. Down into the abyss. Down into the sea. Down to be crushed and scattered by the very whirlpools that country had been named for.
The first and most effective victim of Kirigakure's vicious entrance into the Third Shinobi World War, Uzushio burned and screamed and died before Konoha had even known that her oldest and greatest ally had been struck.
Kushina remembers trembling under the floorboards of an old shed, attempting to hide away from the invading Kiri-nin. Shaking in fear as the boards are pried up and she is seized, writhing and screaming. Spinning into stars when one of the aggressive jounin backhand her to shut her up.
The taste of old leather shoved into her mouth manages to muffle her further as Kushina is bundled in with other captives – old men, women, and children – to watch as the proud young warriors of the small country are lined up and put down like dogs.
Kushina remembers the dizziness that comes when days pass by, furtive and quick and without food as the victorious ninja rush East with their ill-gotten cargo. Weeping in relief when a warm waterskin is passed back to the captives to quench their thirst.
Mist rolls in as they move on, bringing with it the shiver of damp and the eerie white ghost light of Mizu no Kuni. The old grow sick, the young grow cold, the men grow desperate, and the women grow afraid.
Kushina remembers the gates of Kirigakure, swinging in over mud and vines beat down in a grim land. The hollow eyes of hollow villagers as they watch a procession of conquest with all the solemnity of the grave. Perhaps a Triumph would have preceded before a more joyous and proud people. But all things grow old in Kiri before their time.
Blazing metal traces new shapes in screeching faces when the prisoners meet their new master – a short man with dispassionate purple eyes and a long scar under a Mizukage's hat. Kiri-branded on both cheeks, they are removed to guarded cells until they have become successfully re-educated.
Kushina remembers the leer of men in the dark, hitae-ate blazing blood red in the torchlight over cold eyes and hot hands. The painful grabs and twists of cruel hands tearing through her linen-
Kushina remembers nothing.
Namikaze Minato remembers the first sight of Uzumaki Kushina. Red scars of slave brands under dead eyes. Eyes that remained dead and obedient until the light hit them just right and revealed a roiling life of fury and hate under it all.
The blood on his hands never really left him, wearing down on his soul with the sheer number of lives taken. Sometimes he fancies that he can feel the warm, sticky sensation of fresh viscera under his fingernails.
Minato remembers the cold fury on Yagura's face as the defeated Kage signs his name and his village's promise to a treaty with the one great nation no one ever expected to survive the war. Beset on all sides by enemies, Konoha had become the sinking ship.
No one ever expected Namikaze to become Konohagakure's port in the storm, raising the battered monolith from the depths with a sinner's two hands. Minato fancies he can still recall the way
Kirigakure's gates shattered under Gamabunta's strike.
Minato remembers the fierce sense of victory as the Yondaime Mizukage hands him a ratified treaty with very generous terms in favour of Konoha. The guilt is drowned out by Triumph, rising from the primeval urge to conquer all enemies.
Kirigakure's men and women flee before him, scurrying out of a living legend's path as he returns to the rooms that had been won by him and his men – The proud flag of the Leaf still waving strong in the wind. It seems as if the ghost light of that miserable country had burnt gold for a moment.
Minato remembers stepping into his rooms in the night to be greeted by blood-red hair and red-hot lips, attacking and devouring one who brought suffering to those she had hated. The blonde had taken vengeance for his people, and she was determined to take vengeance for her's.
The night passes with desperate questions and desperate touches, for fate hangs by the blade. Kushina departs in the dawn, and Minato in the dusk.
Minato remembers casting a long searching look back, wondering and waiting for a tell-tale flash of red in the mist. If she had come as he'd asked, none would have denied him in that moment – a younger and newer Hashirama flush with strength and vitality.
She never came, and the ghost lights remains until all fades to dark. Minato never returns to Mizu no Kuni.
Minato remembers the whisper of a future lost.
Terumi Mei remembers the first time she met Uzumaki Naruto. Icy blue eyes in a face long and lean from the kind of hunger only the truly poor know. Only a genin, the boy sent a thrill down her spine when she beheld every calculated movement. Every cold measured action.
Despite being born in an old land of mist and rain, there'd always been a fire burning under her skin. She knows she can attribute her victory over her foes in the civil war to that searing drive. Where every other warlord bent to their too human weakness, she'd burnt bright and unyielding.
Mei remembers a courtship with Triumph, crushing foe after foe beneath zeal and steel. The men and women that had struggled for the Mizukage's hat after the fail of Kirigakure and the death of Yagura proved to be too human. Weak for drink or sex or riches. The hat for them had never been truly a goal, but a means to an end. Never like her, who strived for the sheer heady power of it all.
Wondering after a hidden strike of premonition if she's finally met someone who might have had the necessary inhumanity to strive against her. A goddess of fire, forever burning. Outlasted only by a man with winter in his very veins and a wasteland inside. Terumi flees to leave after her ceremonial speech, unable to bear the watching blue gaze.
Mei remembers picking the Yondaime Mizukage's ceremonial hat from the mud, finally ending war after years of strife. Blood mixed with the naturally occurring rain and mist of Mizu no Kuni to form a sickening stench of rot and mud. But the urge to retch was irrelevant weighed against the cool turquoise peace and burning azure success she alone had accomplished.
Later inquiries reveal much to set her mind at ease. A boy, scraping by the bottom of his class and barely passing the final exam. More than that, the son of a slave woman taken in the beginning of the Third Shinobi War. She pushes aside her instinct with a swig of sake, because a slave's son could never amount to anything, and no mere genin could match her spirit.
Mei remembers purpose. Growing up as a girl in a suppressed country, afraid of secret police that could disappear anyone she ever knew at a moment's notice. Quiet tears and a promise to change the world ignited embers in her stomach, and a girl became a woman that become a warlord that became Mizukage.
The blonde boy with cold eyes she'd met becomes increasingly deadly through long years, and Mei wonders if it's purpose that stays her hand. Weary of the tedious grind of routine, the highlight of her life becomes crushing revolt and rolling over opposition to her reformations of society. And shining like a light amid the chaos is ice, frozen over with intent.
Mei remembers the long crawl of generativity, a creaking tiredness in her bones that can no longer be chased away with a night of sleep and a warm shower. The fire in her begins to burn lower and lower, passion turning from conquest to preservation. The search for a successor begins, and the embers in her heart finally go out.
Mei remembers the first burst of light under shadow.
Uzumaki Naruto remembers that last sight of the world as a mere shinobi. A dead land, stretched over with a taste of despair and opportunity. But within him was a garden, frozen and cold and beautiful. Stretching out over a thousand miles in a thousand shapes, swimming in the heart of the Uzumaki boy survives memory.
He was never quite sure who was more surprised when Terumi Mei yielded the seat of Mizukage to him without force. Naruto fancied it might have been him, since he remembered long considering looks through years and memories past. The look of surprise tinged with fear written in the face of his comrades and superiors is a familiar ones. For too long Naruto had simply been more than them. Too quick and too determined and too cold for mere mortals to shadow his steps.
Naruto remembers the feel of the hat in his hands, ceremonial and easily constructed as it was. Triumph hovered at the edge of his vision, with satisfaction and vengeance only just behind. Smooth curves under his fingertips with smooth memories. Memories written in a tome of blood and winter, inked out in lives lost and victory won.
The path to the culmination of his ambition remained a gradual slope, collapsing under his determined steps with every heartbeat. Marveling at the sudden short smoothness of the road before him, Naruto can only look back into a rough beginning. A rougher path carved in strife and loneliness, winter seeping into every movement and every thought until little was left but room for carved dreams and frosted ambition.
Naruto remembers when he decided to become Lord over all Kirinin. Bleeding with the salt of something like tears, his mother had cradled him close and told him a tale of cruelty and history. Ghosts of kin buried but never forgotten for even a breath, and a hundred ancestors hanging on his every word was reality. The boy could not help but take the scarred and worn hands of his mother, staring into empty cerulean and promise a crown of glory.
Often Naruto questioned if he'd been loved, or born for something more defined reason. Kushina slipped into desperation as the years weighed on, melting muscle and strength from her frame as her son watched on. Naruto wasn't ignorant as to exactly whom he resembled so greatly among the nations – the victorious Hokage was a notorious figure after all. Also within his knowledge were the Kiri-nin that vanished in the night, their only record of departure being a sweet tang of blood from his mother's kunai in the morning.
Naruto remembers crimson, and the first man he killed. Who was also the first man he destroyed utterly and brought to kneel. Only a young boy high off his mother's attention and the heady spear of prodigious skill, Naruto became something more cruel and vicious than even nature might have intended. And when the man who would become his greatest memory caved, Naruto could never be sure if it was joy or despair that led him to slice open the man's throat and let him choke on his own blood.
Guilt haunted him, only sometimes. Regret mingled with wonder under a current of frozen conviction. Murdered souls and betrayed teammates became a foundation under the blonde, rising him into higher and colder atmospheres. Destruction could only become more common under a razor blade of intent. Everything became sacrificial to the cause.
Naruto remembers the dry tongue he had when he strode out into the sunlight for the first time as Mizukage, gazing down on tired crowds wrapped in mist and aged heart. His palms could only sweat under the attention, ice sharpening in his every word and gesture. Crackling into something that was beyond his ugliness and self-centered pity and selfish vengeance.
Naruto remembers a broken kingdom of broken souls, and the first time he chose it for his own.
Naruto remembers the sun.
(AN): Eugh, so after months and months of silence, I finally am able to crap this out. Not exactly what most of you are looking for I know, but better than nothing and at least it's off my plate for now. For the confused, the topic here is "Leo sabinus". I broke the theme into two parts.
Leo – the lion. Which represents the King.
Sabinus – the Sabines, or Sabine women who were raped by the Romans and integrated into their kingdom.
The idea here "The Sabine Lion" was originally as war portrayed – the son of conquered and enslaved women rising to become the leader/king. I touched the end with a bit of forgiveness kick, so hopefully it's a bit better than my original pure revenge ideal. Now hopefully I can read my stories and actually work on them.