A/N : Do leave a review by, be it criticism or encouragement :)
I. Faded Gold
The abyss pulled. It consumed, a slow, painful descent into nothingness. It ate sound, it ate light, being, it ate existence; And that which was spat back was mangled beyond recognition, the very core of that entity's origin reversed.
"You are nothing."
He felt himself rising, yet he was dying at the same time, drowning in something.
"You are no one."
He was no one. He remembered not who he was, who he had been. He simply existed at that moment and at that moment alone, a forlorn, deserted remnant from an age that wasn't his own.
"Yet that is why you will succeed, where even the great Uzumaki Naruto failed."
He opened his eyes, and a deep, rich blue invaded his vision, tearing away at him like knives. It felt detestable, vision. Vision was a sign of life, and somehow life felt cursed, like it should not have existed in the first place.
"Uzumaki was a great man, and you are a faded, accursed existence."
The name meant naught to him. He did not know who Uzumaki Naruto was, what he had done, why he was renowned and what he had failed at.
"Rise, my beloved son. You come from nowhere, are the son of no one, and come with nothing. And in my heart of hearts, I know that is why you shall succeed."
The blue was turning lighter, and the woman's soft, mellow voice slowly faded into his senses. First vision, now hearing. His inexplicable revulsion at being able to see and hear and feel was fading too. He was inching closer and closer to the surface. Reams of light streamed in, refracting amidst the rich blue of the water he was drowning in.
"Rise, my beloved son, for you must destroy the abyss and right my wrongs."
His hands twitched of their own accord, and then he was able to move them. He stretched, inching that much closer to that elusive surface, and suddenly he rose faster than ever.
"Rise, Faded One."
He opened his mouth, and the invasive liquid filled it, burning and eliciting a deep, primal scream. He flailed, legs and arms thrashing about. The light was near, it was so, so near...
And then, silence.
He sat up, panting painfully. There was no light, just a dark, empty cell, lit dimly by a torch flickering outside. A long corridor stretched out beyond the rusted gate of his cell, illumined by more torches spaced sparsely. Silence reigned, save for water dripping from the dank cieling onto a small puddle on the stone floor.
And as the torpor was ripped apart by the sound of the bell ringing somewhere high above the rocky roof of his prison, the boy looked into the shallow puddle next to where was sitting up. In the faint orange of the sparse fires, he saw a young, gaunt face with straggled blonde hair look back at him, the last semblances of lifelessness fading away from within those blue eyes.
Elsewhere, in an age long past, the worn and broken man named Uzumaki Naruto had smiled wryly, straightening his back and readying his stance one final time. Uchiha Sasuke had stood in front of him, malformed and irreparably consumed by the same abyss that the Uchiha had merged with when he had started the Revolution.
The battle between the two forgotten men had long since begun.
Estranged cadences,
Devoid, pulses of
naught emanate,
Engulfing You, standing
Insensate, alone.
...
Watching glances of
Light advance, recede,
A last cry for hope.
Faint residues with dark
elope, you smile.
...
The umbra whispers soft.
Amber glimmers
descend unto palms
held aloft, the source.
Calm, it flickers.
...
One day Gold shall dance,
Again, a chance shall
embrace this world.
Yet now I witness it
unfurled, I end.
...
The bleeding light, a
Divine sight.
It screams, agony
Long after it all.
A dream, never awoken.
...
Quietus
Reigns again.
End.
An idea that I've been toying with for a while, until the inspiration was actually overwhelming. Inspired by Dark Souls, especially the atmosphere and the references to the 'abyss', and one of my own musings on my short-fic collection 'Of Tales To Be Told'. Details are intentionally sparse. Hopefully I've enough fuel to see this fic through!
