Dragonchips

The Curse of Lost Eyes

Ch. 1: Naruto's Plea

'It had been ten years.' The man thought deeply as he sat in a meditative state.

'Yes, ten long years now. It had been ten years since that fateful day when the heavens crashed to earth and the land of fire was ignited anew.'

Indeed it had been almost exactly ten years since the decided battle that cleansed the land of Konoha. There in the grandest seat of them all, a young man sat. He had azure eyes which spoke of the ocean, bright golden hair like the rays of the sun, and a stark white silk overcoat with a black outline of flames surrounding every edge, and a black symbol of a nine tailed fox emblazoned on the back. Underneath, he had his traditional burnt orange upper body suit with the white outline of an empty circle on his front and clashing with a deep black pair of training pants in the form of his favorite style of training clothes. To finish the look he had his trademark whirlpool symbol as his belt buckle that gleamed platinum. He was indeed truly a bewildering sight in his battle gear. But on his head, his greatest accomplishment, rested. He pulled off the sacred symbol of those who had come before him, a large red flowing headpiece adorned with ceremonial white tassels that flowed off of it and stood up.

He went out into the dark chamber off of his office that he had rebuilt with his bare hands. The room was really nothing much, a desk and a few chairs with a wooden wall, except for the man who was sitting there doing paperwork in a most unusual way.

"IF I CANNOT FINISH THIS PAPERWORK WITH MY FEET BY FIVE O' CLOCK TONIGHT THAN IT IS ONE HUNDRED LAPS AROUND KONOHA THIS EVENING BEFORE I GO HOME! THAT WAS THE DEAL! YOSH!" The man clad in an awful forest green spandex jumpsuit proclaimed. "NARUTO! I DID NOT SEE YOU THERE! SHALL WE GO OUT IN THE SPRINGTIME TO DECLARE OUR YOUTH TO THE WORLD?"

The young Hokage looked back at the man and with a small grin said,

"Sure Lee, Tomorrow. And don't forget to invite your wife like last time. You know how worried she gets when we're on our little escapades."

"YOSH! THAT IS MOST AGREEABLE NARUTO-SAMA!!"

"I told you not to call me -sama, Lee. Just Naruto," He said, "Oh and by the way Lee, did you lose track of the time?"

"WHY WHATEVER DO YOU M--… OH NO, I CANNOT BELIEVE THE TIME! WHERE HAS OUR YOUTH GONE? EXCUSE ME HOKAGE-SAMA I HAVE LAPS TO RUN!"

And with that, an energetic Rock Lee, stamped the last paper on his desk and burst out into the long streets of Konoha on his daily run.

"Damn fuzzy-brows! Why does he insist on the honorifics?" Naruto lowly grumbled with slight indignation at his eternal rival. He knew what to expect when he gave Lee the job of his protector, but it seemed that if not for his loveable oafish charm, he might have just as soon have tossed him out the window.

He closed up his office for the evening, and he went to the long and winding stairs. But instead of going down, he traveled upwards onto the roof of the colossal tower that over looked the small mountain village of Konoha. The cold spring rain poured down on him, drenching him to the marrow.

There he stood on top of the world. And wept.

Here he had the whole world wrapped around his finger. He had defeated nearly the entire Akatsuki, save a few already killed by his once comrades, rid the world of the despicable Uchiha clan, and was able to do so on nothing but his own given power and skill. Hell, the council had practically begged him to take the job of Hokage. They had even voted him in unanimously as a show of respect and gratitude toward the last of the Namikaze. There in the distance, his face immortalized in a bed of stone, his distinct whiskers cut into the side of the mountain with all of the other greats, including his mentor, his father, and his surrogate grandmother.

Yes, they were both there, and yet, he could not hold them in his arms, nor ever feel their embrace again. Yes. The years had not been kind to him. Sure, he had destroyed all of his enemies, but what was the price?

The love of his life was gone.

The man he had admired and treated like a brother was gone.

His first, second, third, and final sensei were gone.

In fact, everyone he had ever held truly dear was now one with the ground he walked on. Sure he had friends, but they were no condolence. And most of them had married off anyways and had children. Even Gaara, who had once been as lonely and desolate as him, had found somebody who could love him for being truly beautiful. Their responsibilities were so much greater than his as the Hokage could ever be.

God how he missed Tsunade and Jiraiya. Jiraiya had of course died fighting his former student and the dreaded leader of the Akatsuki, Fuuma Pein. And Tsunade's death rang clear through the dead night. He could still remember holding her wrinkled hands as she finally succumbed to the effects of the years and years of life she had used up with her miracle healing ninjutsu. Too many lives had ended in his rough hands. She had been nearly sixty when she died. And yet, who knows how much longer she could have lived if not for that which was stolen from her.

God how he missed Iruka. The first person who had ever shown him kindness and the last man on the face of the earth who he had trusted completely had been taken captive by his enemies the village of the sound and had not been seen since. That had been over five years ago now. He could do no more than presume him dead and pray for his soul at the monument dedicated to the lost shinobi every once in a while.

God, he hated the world. Loathed it with every pour, and loved it just the same.

'Why?' was all that would come to his mind as he continued reminiscing about the past and his lost ones. Sakura, the pink haired bombshell, who had been trained by Tsunade herself had died from a bolt of blue lightning through the heart. The chidori aimed by Sasuke, his former brother, had finally awakened the beast within him, but all too late. He killed his brother in cold blood, revenge for the misery he had brought all who came along his path, especially Sakura. And he slumped over the dying girl as she cried her way into the afterlife, with no way to heal her, cursing himself all the more for not being able to protect his most precious friend.

He had nearly killed himself there. And now that Tsunade was gone, he had no reason to live other than his job as the protector of Konoha. His heart had died that final day, and nothing could bring him back to life.

And so, he wandered through each new day, a perfect storm of blood and paperwork. He truly knew what a shinobi's life was now. Misery, and hardship, and death.

'Oh god, I am truly pathetic.' Naruto whispered to the wind. 'Why…

why?' he silently plead to the cold hard ground.

This was the way of all shinobi, truly. Like an island, those who held themselves higher were pelted by the constant waves of fate. And those who sunk to the cold hard rocks below were beaten down and eventually drowned, dying with nothing to live for and holes that bled through their entire existence. And as for those on top, they grew terribly lonely and willingly threw themselves back into oblivion for one shot of happiness in a dreary world.

Yes, that was the truth. Terrible and ugly as life was short.

And so it was for another.

Strange, how power and misfortune were married together.

Across the sprawling town, another person stood out in the pouring rain and let her soft lilac eyes empty into the chilling spring rain. In fact, her entire soul seemed to be spilling out onto the cold damp grass that day. Her knees wobbling she tried to stand, only to fall back down in a heap of tears.

She too, had proven all of her detractors wrong. She had risen from a pathetic girl mired in self-doubt and trepidation to the strong leader of the most renowned ninja clan in all of the land. In fact, her power was only slightly less than the reigning Hokage. She had indeed learned the ways of the world, and for it she was grateful. But in the process, she too had lost greatly. The last Great War between the Village of the Sound and Konoha seemed to take all those she held dear. Her cousin, who she had grown up with and loved like a brother, had died valiantly in battle against the dreaded rogue ninja of the Hidden Mist Village, Kisame Hoshigaki. The remainder of her once ninja squad, Shino and Kiba, had died protecting her in the final battle between Sasuke and Naruto when Orochimaru, the snake lord, had invaded Sasuke's mind for the final time, and proceeded to destroy all of the innocents in the area. She had only survived through her use of the perfect defense of the eight trigrams sixty four palms technique, and even that, she thought, had been but a mere fluke.

And so it was. She kneeled to the harshness of it all. And wept.

Seeing her sister outside Hanabi rushed to her to bring her out of the cold storm. She really couldn't stand to see her like this. For a soul as weak as hers to have to bear the hopes and dreams of so many, was so unfair. So she did all she could to warm her. No matter what her sister had to endure.

Those eyes were a curse.

The eyes of the Hyuga, which allowed them to see so much, inevitably caused them to take in all of the hardships of life. And for people like Hinata, whose will and spirit were already so meager, the repeated crashes of fate unraveled their very soul. It was not fair to be so timid and yet take in the world at a moment's glance. The world was cruel and strange and unwieldy to all it encountered. And to see it with eyes unable to shut was just too much for those pure of heart.

'God knows I would feel the same,' Hanabi thought to her self, 'if everyone I had loved had been stripped away like pawns to the fodder.'

"It's alright, sister," Hinata implored to her sister, "You can just leave me here…

I'm ok."

And with those words Hanabi could not hold back any longer. They sat and cried in the barren cold of the falling Konoha rain.

And they cried and cried and it seemed the sun would never shine again.

Yes, they cried, they cried for their loss, they cried for the inhumanity of it all, but mostly they cried for the sweet release that as shinobi they so rarely were allowed to show, compassion.

With regrets in his heart, and his stomach in his sandals, the Hokage trudged in to escape, if only for a while, the cold hard rain.

Hello, everyone, this is your author dragonchips.

I don't really like to break up the fourth wall during a story, but I will this once to encourage you to review my story and visit my user page if you like what you read.

Oh, And I'm not a cruel bastard, things will not remain this depressing. I promise!