atelophobia · ˈəteləˈfōbēə · (noun) · extreme or irrational fear of being imperfect or substandard.
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|The Only Thing We Fear|
[...is fear itself]
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Chapter One-
atelophobia
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Their voices converge upon him in a sea of darkness, attacking relentlessly with uncensored words of raw intensity; until he is nothing more than an empty shell, condemning, self-depraving, hollow.
(-why were you born you filthy murderer- demon-)
He wakes up with lukewarm tears pooling down his cheeks, curled in a tight ball under his sheets. The sunlight falls directly onto him through a small gap in his curtains, illuminating his face and the garish dark bags blooming underneath his eyes. He stays on the bed for a little while more after his awakening, unwilling to arise to reality, but eventually his restless body can take it no more and he rises, fumbling in the cold morning air with the grace of a wounded grizzly bear.
One of the two chairs that surround the only dining table in the vicinity is occupied when he comes in, feeling rather queasy even after a short shower. His quiet footsteps expose his presence, and the other person whips around at the sound.
"Wow. You look like shit." Tenten is as blunt as ever with her words, glancing at his dishevelled form with a loud sigh. "What happened to you?"
"Bad night," he responds, mumbling a quiet 'itadakimasu' as he slowly drinks the miso soup set in front of him by an equally sickly-looking bushin. "I had a few nightmares... of my past."
"Ah..." his flatmate says in understanding, but does not press matters. Both of them know that his past is something to be left alone, the grotesque remnants of something that has long been gone.
The rest of the meal is spent in a relatively awkward silence, interrupted only by the occasional clacking sounds of his chopsticks hitting the rim of the bowl and the low scraping sounds as her foot nervously drags itself across the worn wooden floorboards. Finally, when he can take the strained tension no longer, he excuses himself from the table, handing the empty bowl to a clone that immediately shunshins itself to the kitchen to wash, and jumps out the window and onto the rooftops of some of the lower apartment buildings.
He jumps from rooftop to rooftop, unrooting loose shingles along the way, and then falls gracefully onto the ground as a few wild birds call out loudly in the distance. As he walks amongst the busy-body villagers- so foolish, so ignorant; he feels a strange sense of disconnection, of people unconsciously avoiding him even long after they had forgotten who he was.
He sees himself reflected in the glass of the store-front display windows: a boy with vibrant golden locks, startling sapphire eyes, and features that many would consider handsome. He is Naruto Uzumaki Namikaze, almost twelve years old, who can kill a person thirty-six ways with the items in his pockets without batting an eye; but at the same time he is also Naruto-kun, a civilian boy that somewhat helps out with travelling merchants and the local villagers for little payment, who condones all forms of violence and couldn't hurt a fly.
Sometimes, he doesn't even know who he is, anymore.
"Ah, Naruto-kun! Thank goodness you're here! Would you mind helping me lift these rice flour bags to the cellar?"
As he plasters a fake smile on his face, straining his voice to become a light, genial tone that sounds hollow even in his own ears, there is a flash of movement on the rooftops and he can tell that some ANBU has just been recalled to the Hokage's Tower. It must be one of the senior shinobi, though, as they give him a quick, almost unnoticeable nod of acknowledgement as they pass by.
Two juxtapositioning worlds tearing him apart.
When he finally arrives back into the apartment in the early evening, Tenten has already beat him to the punch, sprawled in a lazy heap of skin and bones on the couch. She turns her head to acknowledge his existence, giving a low groan of pain while doing so.
"I... hate Gai-sensei... and his freaking... see-through green spandex of... Youth... ow... Power of Youth my ass..."
Naruto blinks, processes the information that she is very obviously delirious, takes into account the obsession that Gai has with green spandex and the 'Power of Youth', and ultimately decides that he is better off not knowing.
One of his clones, looking rather peaky after sustaining itself for a few hours with limited chakra usage in already weakened form, beckons him feebly to the dining room before it finally dispels, leaving behind the faintest swirls of silver smoke. He sighs, and creates three more, whom immediately hurry to the kitchen to help out the rest of their counterparts. The sound of clanking pots echo in the background.
There are two bowls of ramen on the table- one miso, one pork. He settles on the pork one after a moment of hesitation, and eats slowly for a change, his stomach turning in circles queasily with inexplicable uneasiness.
Tenten joins him halfway through the meal, with mussed up hair that falls down in curls after being held so long in tight oxhorn buns, and although she shoots him an odd glance after noting the bland gusto he eats the food with, does not say anything about it. Instead, she twirls the chopsticks around her fingers, and, taking a small breath, asks him: "NarutowhataffliationdoyouhavewiththeninjasofKonoha?"
He tilts his head slightly to the right. "What do you mean?" His fingers tighten around the wooden utensils in his hands, and he notes the stark whiteness as blood flow is cut off.
"Naruto, please, don't play around with me," the older girl begs, looking thoroughly exasperated. "Both you and I know that you're really powerful- I mean, you make ten Kage Bushin every day to help around the apartment but I can barely make one in a week; plus, this entire apartment building's practically falling apart to the ground but somehow our room's the only one that actually looks decent. Really- this isn't about your past, I just want to know what affiliation you have with Konoha and its shinobi system...?"
He wants to cry loudly to fate at the unfairness of it all, because he knew this day was coming... but instead, he resolves to sigh loudly and glances once more at Tenten's pleading expression. "You never asked about this before... why do you want to know now?"
His flatmate chokes on a ramen noodle. She coughs, gulping down a glass of water conveniently provided by one of his clones, and nearly knocks over the bowl. "It's just... the Chunin exams are coming up in a couple of weeks, and Gai-sensei says he signed us up, but there's this little rookie team led by Kakashi-san that only has two people and apparently Gai-sensei's 'eternal rival' is really disappointed because the exam rule states that there must be three people... and then I just thought of you but you're not involved with the Konohan shinobi much, right?, so I was just curious and decided to pry into the matter."
Naruto thinks of Kakashi, that shameless pervert, and tries to imagine him as a Team sensei. "Wait, the Third Hokage actually made Kakashi of all people a sensei? When did that happen?"
"A while ago," Tenten dismisses, "and don't try to change the subject. But Naruto, you're really powerful and stuff, and I'm sure that you'll pass the Genin test really easily... but the question is, will you become a substitute for Team Seven? I feel really sorry for them..."
He blinks rapidly. "Ano... where the hell did you get that idea?"
"But look at them!" the older girl says, making such a sympathetic expression that he feels bad for even trying to argue against her iron judgement. "I mean, please, Naruto? I'll even fucking owe you one."
The uneasy churning of his stomach rocks more violently, and he feels like puking. However, before he can do anything, a foreign presence takes over his mouth and he says, "Alright.
"Ah, Naruto-kun," the Hokage smiles pleasantly, raising his hands in what seems to be a grandfatherly action, "what brings you here today? I thought that you wouldn't request an audience with me until you turned-"
"Make me a Genin on Team Seven," Naruto states bluntly, feeling a little better after emptying the contents of his stomach and swallowing an smaller ration bar instead. "It has Hatake Kakashi, a civilian girl, and the last Uchiha on it, is that not right? I want to become their fourth member."
The old man draws back, as if startled. "Pardon?" he asks, but there is an undertone of shocked incredulousness. "Why ask for such a thing...?"
"Tenten made me do it," he says, as if it is the most obvious thing in the world. "She says that she feels sorry for them. And then she said that she would owe me. It's generally always the other way around, so..."
"I see..." Clearly, the Sandaime is at a loss of words. "Well, you have retired from the shinobi profession, but... are you sure it is wise to place you as a Genin? You were ANBU when you quit, and even the greatest of demotions would place you as special Jounin... And surely, none of the other Hidden Villages will readily accept you as a Genin contestant in the Chunnin exams, especially since your past history..."
He is ready for this question. "I was registered as S-Ranked Naruto Uzumaki Namikaze on the the Bingo Books five years ago. From now on, I am the orphaned Genin Asura, named after the Sage of Six Path's younger son. And my skills are rusty now- they should not suspect anything. I will help them in the teamwork area of the tests , but when it comes down to individual ability, I will drop out.
The Hokage sighs loudly, clearly pondering on the pros and cons of this rather unique plan, before finally taking out a single sheet of paper from the cluttered cabinet underneath his desk.
"Sign this," he says wearily, and Naruto smiles grimly in victory.
He arrives at Training Ground Five at seven o'clock sharp, dropping noiselessly from the branches of a nearby tree as his new teammates grumble obscenities about 'Kakashi-sensei and his stupid excuses'. They do not notice him. He clears his throat awkwardly.
"Ah!" shrieks the pink-haired girl (Haruno Sakura, thirteen years and two months, best forte Intelligence but too busy drooling over her 'Sasuke-kun' to be a good ninja) loudly. "Who are you?"
The Uchiha (Uchiha Sasuke, twelve years twelve months, who can do a few decent jutsus but is too corrupted with thoughts of gaining power for revenge against his brother) is clearly startled too, but does not say anything to express it. Naruto studies the older boy, taking a few silent steps forward as he emerges from the shadow of the tree and into the dim sunlight of dawn.
"...you may call me Asura," he finally says, his voice carefully devoid of all emotion. "I am your new teammate for Team Seven."
Memories flash by, one frozen picture after another, and he remembers a darker time in the past dispassionately staring at a patch of crimson talking in that same blank tone as the smell of iron lingers-
(-I hate you- hate you you fucking monster- you killed them, you killed them all-)
Pricks of warmth jab his eyes, and he blinks them away before they can fall out. His new teammates are staring at him oddly, as if unsure of what to make of him, and he perches on a nearby rock and immerses himself in the Iwagakure Bingo Book if only to ignore the awkwardness in the air.
When he finishes studying the last page (Chōseki, Affiliation: Missing-Nin, C-Ranked), the sun has already rose in the sky, and there is no Kakashi in sight. He raises his eyebrows at the dawdling duo on the other side of the training grounds, looking quite irritated but not raging furious (regular occurrence, then), and sighs at how quickly time has passed.
He senses the man a few seconds later, walking at a leisurely pace to the Training Ground and not even bothering to hide his chakra signature. The tip of his mouth turns upwards in a malicious smile as he plans on how badly he will surprise the poor man. I'll get my revenge from the time you tricked me into reading Icha Icha Paradise... Kakashi. (Insert *MUAHAHAHAHA!*)
Naruto henges his hair into a burnt black, with accompanying burnt umber eyes. If any of his teammates are confused of his actions, they make no note on it, and he settles himself in a position facing away from where the man will arive as not to reveal his face.
"What a nice morning we have today, my cute little Genin~"
"You're late!"
"Hn."
Ah, Kakashi has arrived. He does not bother acknowledge the other man's presence, remaining still and silent. He can feel the piercing stare on his back, but the Jounin does not call him out on it. "Hm, there was a black cat in my way so I had to take the long way around town instead but then I met an old lady struggling with her shopping bags, and me, being the kind gentleman I am, offered to help her. And then I got lost on the Road of Life as-"
"Lies!"
"You wound me, Sakura-chan. Anyways, it seems today we have a new teammate: Asura, I believe his name was. Asura-kun, would you mind telling a few things about yourself~?" Naruto grunts, and turns to face the older man in his disguised form. Kakashi's eyes widen astonishedly, and the Jounin staggers behind a few steps. "H-how- w-what- Naru-"
"...my name is Asura," he says, before his monotonous expression fractures in a million pieces and he starts to laugh sardonically. Both his new teammates edge away from him. "How are you, Kakashi-sensei~?"
"That's impossible!" Kakashi whispers, staring at him and blinking rapidly. "Why are you here? I thought you-"
"What do you mean, Kakashi-sensei," Sakura interrupts brusquely, slightly agitated at being ignored. Sasuke's piercing eyes watch the scene in the background "How do you know our teammate? Who is he?"
The older man forces a smile on his face. "This is- well, uh, the son of an... acquaintance, of mine. He's not supposed to be here, though..."
Naruto nods sagely. "Ah, I'm not," he agrees, his antisocial facade dropped for a more genial tone. "But I'm here anyways, if only for a small period of time, so won't you be my sensei, Kakashi?"
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