Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto. However the OCs do belong to me.

Culpable homicide is murder

(b) where a person, meaning to cause death to a human being or meaning to cause him bodily harm that he knows is likely to cause his death, and being reckless whether death ensues or not, by accident or mistake causes death to another human being, notwithstanding that he does not mean to cause death or bodily harm to that human being;

Criminal Code, s 229

Fear could bring out the worst out of people. Fear could make them cruel, terrifyingly cruel, no matter how much they tried to justify their reasons or pretend otherwise. It was evident with what they were doing right now,

Ostracizing and hating an innocent child.

I was in a park, at the center of the village. It was green, and lush, and relaxing. Today was a perfectly ordinary day, everyone was still alive and I was not covered in my own bloods.

So far the day was good.

And yet, Fugaku for some reason had suggested (read: ordered) Sasuke to take me with him to the park. One might wonder why I seemed to be perplexed by this fact, as taking ones sibling to a park was an absolutely unexceptional situation.

But not for me.

I never went out of the Uchiha district, or the house for that matter. The only occasion in which I ever went to the center of the village was when I go to the hospital for my check-up, and even then it was always a direct travel. Either Fugaku would dash with me through the rooftop, or flickered to the hospital, whichever suited his fancy. I was not allowed to go out of the house and I never tried to. If I used my sharingan, I could see a strange barrier that surrounded the house. I did not know if it was for my protection or to prevent me from leaving the premise, but I would not push my already nonexistent luck.

However, now I was suddenly released from my confinement without even knowing whether this was truly a freedom or a simple test, a test which would determine whether I would be allowed to roam free or be locked in a solitary confinement. I did not know what Fugaku was thinking, I did not know what his motive was, and I could not read him. I felt alarmed and anxious about what the man was doing in the meantime despite Sasuke's constant nagging for me to play something or socialize with other children. Not for the lack of trying, I simply could not shake the thought that the worst case scenario was about to happen.

What if the massacre happened earlier than expected? What if by the time that I returned I was greeted by death bodies? Would I be the next one to die? Would I suffer? Would Obito pluck my eyes out of their sockets too?

It was when I was pondering (panicking) about these thoughts that I found myself wandering from the sandbox that Sasuke was playing at, to the quieter and uncrowded part of the park.

At first, I thought it was because of the haggard-looking man who was curling like a fetus at the base of one of the trees. He smelt heavily of alcohol, and he did not seem to be in his right mind, thus it would be understandable if parents chose to keep their children away from the potentially dangerous man. However, it was only once I ventured further into the park that I realized that the quietness was not due to the man, it was because people were avoiding him.

Uzumaki Naruto, the Nine-Tails' Jinchūriki in all of his glory, was sitting in a swing with his forehead being pressed against one of its supporting rope, hugging it for some semblance of comfort whilst staring dejectedly at the hordes of children that had refused to play with him. Their parents forbade them to, and the ones that did not simply follow their peers behavior.

I could understand those people's contempt. They felt fear and anger towards the horrific and mammoth entity that was being sealed inside the boy. They had lost so much when the Nine-Tails wreaked havoc several years ago, costing the lives of many villagers, be it parents, siblings, sons, daughters or grandfathers and grandmothers. They did not want to lose their children too in the event that Naruto lost his control over his tenant.

However, what I could not understand was how they could hate an innocent child just because said child had the Nine-Tails sealed inside him. He did not choose it, he did not even know that he was a human sacrifice for the good part of his life. The child did absolutely nothing to deserve such hate. He had no say whatsoever in being a human sacrifice, but he was still hated by his fellow citizens even though hating him gained them nothing but hurting a possibly, and by all evidence, an innocent child.

It was why I approached him. Naruto was only a child, but all he ever known was loneliness and the fact that people shunned him away for a reason he did not even know of. The least that I could do for him was giving him a company before others started to reach out to him. That was a humane thing to do.

I walked closer to him and waved my hand in greeting. "Hello."

"Hi…" Naruto hesitantly smiled and waved back. "Um… are you lost?" His eyes darted to his left and right, looking for parent(s) who probably lost their child. Perhaps he was disturbed by my sickly appearance, I thought, what with my pale skin, sunken eyes, and my lack of weight that did not match my long limbs.

Whatever.

"Not really. I'm just…" Good God, when did talking to another human being became so hard? I really needed to socialize more. I honestly could not remember talking to anyone that was not Sasuke or Mikoto – occasionally Itachi and Fugaku. "You know, walking."

Naruto averted his eyes to me again. "You're going somewhere?"

I shook my head. "Not really."

The blond boy pursed his lips, as if wanting to say something but was not sure how. I patiently waited for him to gather his courage.

Naruto fidgeted under my blank stare. "Then... do you–" he cleared his throat, "do you wanna play with me?"

I nodded. "Sure."

Naruto stared at me in disbelieve – as if he did not believe that what he had heard was real, that it could be that simple – before his expression contorted into pure delight. "Yes!" He pumped his fist up.

I repressed a rueful smile, Naruto deserved something more than a pity.

"Wanna play the swing?" he asked excitedly.

My lips contorted into a grin, genuinely affected by the boy's positive energy. "Yeah."

He clapped his hands together. "Awesome!"

I climbed into the swing's seat with Naruto's help. It was quite an odd sensation not to feel the ground beneath my feet. Even after fourteen months I was still not used with the fact that I now had such short limbs.

"I'm going to push you, okay?"

I clenched my fists around the ropes and nodded my head in affirmative.

Naruto pushed the swing then. The force was relatively slow and gentle, to make sure that I did not fall from the wooden seat.

"Um, my name's Uzumaki Naruto, dattebayo! What's yours?"

I stiffened, considering the fact that Fugaku pretty much kept my existence as low profile as possible – for a reason that I still did not aware of – it was probably would be for the best if I did not tell anyone my name.

I was just about to sprout some made-up name when the blond boy started to chatter uncontrollably about every topic that had crossed his mind. He talked about how happy he was to have a friend, commenting that I looked funny in my glasses and that ramen was his favorite food. He started to babble about his day after that and I avidly listened to him, nodding and chuckling here and there at his ridiculous story.

But then my mind started to drifted off.

I could see why the boy liked to sit in this swing. It had a really nice view. The ground it was located was slightly higher than the rest of the park, it was a good place to observe the people who visited this place.

I could see everyone's countdowns from here. They were pitch black, akin to a black hole, they stood out like a sore thumb. I did not even know what their name were, the only thing that differentiate them from each other were their numbers.

I vividly remembered the day when I first watched a person's countdown stopped. I was in the hospital for my monthly check-up. There was a woman, she looked gravely ill. That day she was sitting in a wheelchair, under an apple tree, blankly staring into spaces. I was in my stroller, watching her from the other side of the hospital's garden. I did not know how long I watched her, but I remembered that I had almost dozed off when she just closed her eyes – her countdown was no longer ticking, it was stuck in what seemed to be this random number – she had died.

It should have been something more memorable, not necessarily magnificent, but I was expecting something… more.

Perhaps a metaphysical occurrence or something mystical, even a flash of light or some kind of fireworks will do. But there was absolutely nothing, she simply died and that was it. So did with everyone else, no one was special. They were just another numbers, and one day they would eventually die too. Once they die, some cannon fodders would pop another cannon fodders to live their meaningless lives, then they too would die and the cycle would go on and on until their extinction.

So what was the point?

All of these people, they faced happiness and hardship throughout their finite life while I sat here, silently watching them as their life slowly burnt away into nothingness.

Thousands of years from now, nothing would remain of them. Thousands of days that they had lived, everything that they had accomplished and strived for, everything that they had learned and mastered, every joys and tears, every fears and insecurities would be nothing.

It was as if they never existed at all.

Billions of people, nameless, storyless, meaningless.

They struggled and worried and cried for nothing. They stressed and depressed and killed for nothing. Their lives had no meaning. Not a purpose, not a plan. Not a reason, not a cause.

And one day I would be one of them too. Again.

I was too caught up in my musing to remember that I was in a moving swing or notice the fact that the swing had gone faster. Unfortunately for me, I was not in a bucket shaped baby swing or a swing with a safety belt, thus one could guess just exactly what would happen when my already loose grip on the rope went lose, precisely at the same time when the kinetic energy of the swing was on full force.

I flew.

I knew I looked like a misplaced overgrown bird, but still, for that one split-second I was floating. I felt weightless, like a feather.

But then the sweet and friendly neighbor that went by the name gravity just had to rear its ugly head and pull me down from my majestic state like a lump of dirt.

The result?

I awkwardly landed on the ground like a drunken hobo.

My knee was slightly bleeding and my palms were grazed from the impact. Oh, well... at least I did not suffer from other unsavory injuries.

Naruto was next to me in an instant, checking whether I was okay whilst apologizing profusely and helping me to stand up. Thankfully no one played in this part of the park, thus we did not attract any unwanted attention.

Well… except for the earlier haggard looking man who was staggering towards us with his hatred and contempt laid bare in his face for the world to see.

Uh oh…

My social life might only exist inside the Uchiha household, however even I knew that there was an unwritten law that Konoha's jinchūriki shall not be harmed. However, the sight of my fall from the swing might be misinterpreted as an aggression against an innocent civilian and might be used as a justification against attacking the resident Tailed-Beast' vessel.

I better made Naruto go before he received a tongue-lashing – or worse, a physical attack – from the man.

"–so sorry. I don't mean it. Don't be mad 'kay? I–"

I tugged the blond boy's shirt and intoned, "Go."

"What? Go where? Do you want to go home? I can walk you–"

"Bad man is coming," I warned.

"What?!"

"Run!"

"But–"

"Go home!" I hissed.

I watched as his eyes turned blank for a moment before he turned his back on me and ran to the opposite direction.

I deactivated my sharingan and rubbed my forehead to alleviate my budding headache. What I did not know at the time was that my headache was only the start of everything that went wrong that day.

I only felt a light sensation against my shoulder before I was being shoved to the ground.

What the–

"You stupid boy, why did you play with that monster?!"

I groaned, feeling a bit disorientated after the impact, but I still glared at the rude man that towered over me. "He's not a monster."

The man's eyes went wild at my words.

I stilled when the man grabbed me by my hair and glared at me like I was the lowest scum on Earth.

"What'd you know, huh?! What'd you know?!" he growled. "It kills my wife! It kills my son!" His hands shook and his eyes become unfocused. "My little boy..." he whispered.

I understood that the man was grieving, but what the hell did that had anything to do with attacking me? The Uchiha would be pissed if they knew that one of their members was attacked by a Konoha citizen. I did not need anyone to fuel more fire between the clan and the village, thank you very much.

"Don't touch me, please," I asked nicely.

He did not listen, his big palms shifted into my cheeks instead, grounding my head to the ground.

"How many times have I told you not to play outside, huh?! Why'd you never listen! What should I do to make you listen?!"

Excuse me?

"If you hadn't gone outside, your mother wouldn't have followed you. She's missing, I don't know where. I've searched everywhere, but I never find her. I even waited under her favorite tree for days, so why doesn't she come?! Where is she?!" he rambled.

"I don't know," I answered calmly whilst assessing my situation to look for a way to escape from the delusional man.

I was very ill-equipped to deal with a patient right now, especially the one that looked like he was having a potentially-violent psychotic episode. Suffice to say I was understandably worried when I did not find any.

I watched as the man's expression quickly turned from angry into horrified in a second as he whispered rapidly, obviously frightened. "There's a terrible monster coming! You have to run! But don't return home, our house is destroyed! Run to the mountain, run from the monster, you'll be safe there. I will wait for your mother." His pupils dilated and he grinned. "I knew she's coming, she must be on her way here, she's–"

"She's dead," I stated calmly.

There was no point in feeding his hallucination. I had been gone for quite some time and Sasuke was bound to realize my disappearance at any second. I did not want to cause trouble for anyone, it was better if I quickly got out of this situation.

"No she's–"

"She is dead."

"No," he vehemently denied. "I've been waiting for her all of this time. Why would I wait for her if she's dead?!" he spat out.

"Because you're grieving," I answered, still maintaining my calm tone.

"Liar!" he screamed. "Liar, liar, liar! Why are you lying?!" His uncut nails painfully dug into my cheekbones, making crescent shaped marks on the pale skin.

I repressed a wince from the pain in my cheeks and gritted out. "It's the truth."

"No, no, no, no, no, no... I waited for days, days!" He shook his head. "I waited for both of you in the mountain, why didn't you come?!"

Goddamnit, we returned to square one.

I attentively grasped his wrists and pressed my fingers against them.

"Look at me," I asked gently, but firmly.

He did not.

"Look at me," I repeated in a stronger tone, he finally did. "I am not your son. Your son is dead and so is your wife. I'm sorry but that's the reality."

The man stared at me with an expression of disbelieve. His hands clenched and unclenched sporadically, as if he was having a seizure.

When the man continued to be quiet, I thought my words finally went through him. I was ready to bolt out at any moment if the man did not just suddenly wring his hands around my neck.

My sharingan activated instinctually at the danger, their color only proceed to delve the man even further into his delusion.

"Who do you think you are demon?!" he spat out. "I have no home because of you! I buried empty caskets because of you! I'm nothing because of you!" He took a shuddering breath. "Why do you get to live while my family not?!" He giggled deliriously. "You must be laughing at us now! Stupid! Weak! Human!"

I futilely trashed around and clawed his hands with my blunt nails. Black spots were already dancing around my vision. I knew I would not last long if I did not free myself from his grip.

I lifted my pelvis and kicked him in the face. It did not do much damage.

The man gritted his teeth and slammed me against the ground before he punched my face.

Son of a bit–

He tightened his grip.

God, I can't breathe.

It was in this moment that I hoped that I had not awakened my sharingan, because what was the point of having a precognition and seeing everything in slow-motion if I could not even run and save my goddamn life?!

"Do you know how many people you have killed?! Do you know?! Of course you don't! You don't care! You just kill," squeezed, "and kill," squeezed, "and kill until there's nothing left!"

Depleted of oxygen, I weakly pushed him away.

"Why can't you just die, you bastard?! Die!"

My vision was starting to waver, I was starting to lose consciousness.

Intense feelings coursed through me. Anger, hopelessness, and fear filled every fiber of my being. However, the most prominent of them all was hatred, a burning and intoxicating hatred.

I was only trying to be a decent human being. What did I get in return?

I croaked out a bitter laugh. Sometimes I wondered why I even bother.

The cannon fodder shook me. "What the hell are you laughing at?!"

Honestly?

"Your…" I wheezed, "worthless ass…"

I grunted when he punched me again.

My eyes felt burning.

If I was free right now, I could just imagine hanging the man with a rope. Strangling him and making him suffer from the lack of air before breaking his neck.

All I ever wanted was to live. Was that really wrong of me?

I felt like I was being dragged into the abyss again. I felt sleepy and nauseous, but at the same time my head felt like it was about to explode.

I glared at the space above vermin's head, at his steadily ticking countdown, injecting as much venom as I could into the infuriating sight – why does he get to live while I'm not?! – and whispered for one last time.

"I hope..."

I hope with every fiber of my being, that

"You…"

You miserable piece of shit,

"Die…" I choked out.

Then everything was black.

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