"Why . . . ?"
"Why do they treat me like this . . . ?"
"What did I do . . . ?"
These were my thoughts as I trudged through the streets of konoha with glares and whispers cutting at my soul. They knew I was aware of their deplorable behavior and yet they continued. They told their children to stay away from me for reasons I didn't know. I was four years old and already alone in the world. If it wasn't for the visits of old man 3rd I didn't know what I would have done.
I was scared to go to where I slept. I didn't call it a home because homes are supposed to be places where you felt comfortable and safe. I've never felt safe with the deafening silence that crushed me every night. You had to be careful with silence. It could eat right into the darkness of night. Eat it all. And not leave a single bone.
One time I cut myself. I was walking down the street when I tripped. I fell over and cut my leg. It hurt so much but no one came to calm me down and tell me i would be alright. Though they did stop what they were doing and watched me. They acknowledged my existence and for that I was grateful, even if was only to watch me suffer I knew that for one moment I was the center of attention and would be remembered.
I began to injure myself on purpose to get the attention I craved like a drug. Anything not to be forgotten . . . to be left alone. But when old man 3rd found out what I was doing he stopped me. Telling me not to do it any more. He was worried about me . . . he cared for me.
But if he cared for me then why did he leave? Why did he leave me alone? I ignored our previous talk and began to hurt myself in public again. It had been so long since they looked at me without indifference in their eyes. I want them to look at me. I'm sick of being ignored and cast aside.
So I did something that would gain everyone's attention. I jumped off a two story building on the main street. They were staring at me with shocked looks on their faces as though they didn't expect me to do something like this. But I did.
The last thing I remember before everything going dark was the recognition they gave me.
"Naruto's jumping off that building" they said.
They said my name. No one beside old man 3rd has done that before. No one . . . no one at all. I'm so happy that they know my name. That they know I exist.
I was in the hospital for days as they tried to heal my face. They didn't want to, I could tell but they did it any way because of old man 3rd. When I got out and walked down the street people stared at me and whispered again. But this time there was no malice. I don't know what it was but it wasn't malice . . . maybe be it was . . . concern?
I looked at a store window to see my pitiful reflection and what I saw intrigued me. My right eye was missing. The skin was pulled over and was covering its socket. It made me different in a way that they acknowledged. My existence was confirmed. At the cost of my right eye.
At the age of six I was allowed to join the leaf ninja academy. The place where ninjas learn the basics of their trade. I've wanted to be a ninja ever since I saw a ninja walk through the streets with a smile on his face. He looked happy. And every one paid attention to him. Even with my right eye missing I was being ignored again. I was being forgotten. I don't want to be forgotten. I want to exist, to be happy, to be acknowledged, to be . . . loved.
So I entered the academy. To learn and become ninja. Then I will be acknowledged again and not sink into nothingness, to cease to exist. I need to confirm my existence. With their approval I can confirm my existence. I believe that each person has two tools with which to affirm their own existence.
The first is self, but that alone doesn't establish a thing. We need a sequence of events that we have already advanced through. In other words, the self is formed by advancing along the vertical axis of time.
The second tool is others. By affirming one's existence as reflected by others.
Only then does one find their own worth.
I had a self, the missing eye I sported was proof of that. How could I loose my eye if I didn't have a self?
I had traveled across the vertical axis of time alone as I always did.
But the thing that I didn't have was others. Not all the time anyway. So does that mean I only exist when I have others?
Maybe if I become a talented ninja I'll have others. Maybe then I wont cease to exist. Maybe I will be worth something to them. Just maybe.
But worth is a difficult thing to realise. Things like worth are decreed by the subjective opinion of others. The value fluctuates with the feelings of the one doing the judging. Something precious this moment could dropped to unwanted in an instant. The reverse is also true.
So in theory I could be worth something one day. I wonder if that day will come.
Four cruel years later I was the plaything of the children I once envied and wished to play with. My existence was confirmed long ago but my worth. My worth was that of something that was repulsive to the levels that I could not understand. Why do they pick on me? Just because I have my right eye missing doesn't mean I'm worth any less than they are . . . does it?
No. No! No I refuse to give in. I'll become more than they'll ever be worth! I'll show them all what they missed out on and then they'll be sorry.
During one of my daily tauntings I voiced my opinion. Their parents were nearby, heard me and quickly took their children home leaving me to tend to my wounds.
Later that night when I was trying to block out the world that I didn't fit in, four drunken men entered my room and held me down. Apparently they had heard from their kids what I had said and had decided that I needed to be taught a lesson.
They pummeled my body with their unforgiving fists for hours until they were tired. While I was recovering from my beating they explored my dwelling, pulling everything apart or into unrecognizable shapes. They found some lighter fluid and some matches and decided to see how I would react to being set alit.
It burned. Everything burned. My clothes, my hair, my skin, my soul . . . everything went up in flames. They burnt the skin off of my body and tortured me, cutting open my empty eye socket and filling it with oil before dropping a lit match in.
It was mind numbingly painful to the degree that I wished I was unconscious. But even that kind embrace veered away from me as I experienced it all.
When they finally decided to leave they robbed me of any money I had and spat on me as they left me broken and crying in the darkness.
Why? Why did they treat me so? I've never been treated like this before. I preferred it when I was left alone but at least I know that I still exist and have some worth. Otherwise they never would have come here in the first place.
I woke up in the hospital a week later to the dismay of the thugs who had beaten me. What freaked me out was that when I rubbed my face I felt my right eye in its socket. I was told the doctors that they healed my missing eye.
I knew that was a lie, the part where they said that they healed my right eye at least. I knew something else did.
Because I've gotten the feeling ever since I was six that someone was watching me. But I could never find out who. Maybe they healed my eye?
Does that mean that someone was looking after me?
It took me a week to learn how to open my right eye again. It had been so long that I had forgotten how to do it. But when I did my vision wasn't what it was before I lost my right eye. Something's had a blue mist like stuff flowing through them. I wondered if I had the blue mist in me so I looked in the mirror. I didn't have blue mist but a dark purple that flowed sluggishly.
But my vision in my right eye wasn't the only thing that had changed. The actual look of the eye was different, it was less friendly . . . unapproachable almost.
It looked like the eye of the devil with its three black commas that slowly rotated around the soulless empty pupil in a iris that was drowned with the colour of blood.
A headache began to form as my right eye seemed to slow things down. It slowed them down to the degree that I could count the number of times a fly flapped its wings in a second and the water that normally fell from the tap as a rushing torrent froze in mid air.
The headache got worse as I watched the world through the two windows that were my eyes. One was normal speed, normal detail, no enhancements. But the other slowed things down and noticed the tiniest details of everything it saw. The two were going at the same time. It was too much for me so I closed my right eye and wrapped a rag around my head, over my right eye in the hopes that the headache would retreat and leaving me alone. It worked so I wore the rag over my right eye. No one cared. They never did.
They did this to me. They tore open my empty eye socket and burned it. They burned it until I was given a new eye. A new eye that had abilities that as far as I knew alone possessed. I'll train myself to use my right eye, the gift that they unknowingly gave me. They gave me this eye. And I plan to use it.
I'm second from the top of the class for everything. Even the stuff where I have to aim and throw kunai at targets I can do with one eye. I wonder how I will do now that I have my right eye back? Maybe I'll be at the top of the class?
Though a guy named sasuke is number one. He's ok, he leaves me alone. Sometimes he walks away from me and everyone follows him. He saves me from their harsh words and their cruel eyes. I should repay him one day. I'll find out what he wants most and give it to him as repayment. Then maybe we could be friends.
Until then I'll just have to train harder and get better. I'll also have to get used to my right eye if I ever want to use it. I better keep it a secret from everyone, even old man 3rd. They might try to take it away if they found out. I guess I better get a more suitable thing to cover it with. I mean I can't be number one if I wear a rag around my head every day.
I'm gonna become number one and show them all what I'm capable of.
I'll make them wish the never alienated me.
Make them wish they never hurt me.
Make them wish that they never gave me this right eye if its the last thing i do.