Disclaimer: the characters of 'Naruto' belong to Kishimoto Masashi
Our Greatest Fear
"It's okay, child. It's okay…" The Sandaime had crouched down a short distance away (three feet) from the curled up child in the shadowed corner of the apartment. He reached forward but hesitated, his hand stopping a few inches shy from the child's soft hair.
The child rocked back and forth, unheeding the broken pieces of glass littered around him. The sharp edges tore through the child's skin, staining the pieces with a vivid splash of red before the colour bled from the smooth surface and disappeared into the carpet.
With a sinking sensation, Sandaime reluctantly took notice of the missing item previously hung on the wall and the reflective qualities of the red-tinted opaque shards and he brushed them away with care.
Sandaime smiled gently, careful to keep all traces of his heavy heart from the perceptive eyes of the child who had learned to cry without tears or sound. "Naruto-kun," he whispered quietly. "Come away from there, okay?" He shuffled forward soundlessly.
Although he longed to make the 'crunch crunch' noise of stepping on glass, he was afraid the child would withdraw further at the sharp intrusion in resounding stillness. "You'll be alright." But the unnatural silence set his teeth on edge.
His hand finally brushed the soft hair (deep ochre overlapping with russet in the darkness) of the child. "Why don't we get your wounds treated, Naruto-kun?"
The child stilled. And his heart ached when the child looked up with clear eyes.
"Th-" the child's voice cracked and he licked his lips before trying again. "There is no need. They are already healed."
"It doesn't matter," Sandaime replied kindly, "We should still get it checked out, it case there's an infection."
The child stared with hard eyes at him.
Sandaime spread his hands out slightly, as if to welcome him to a warm embrace, "Will you let me?"
When the child did not react, Sandaime inched forward and uncurled him from the ball-like position the child had wound himself in.
Sandaime made low comforting sounds as he inspected the child's hands, arms and legs. He ran his calloused fingertips across the child's unblemished (unscarred) pale skin.
Sandaime swallowed painfully and didn't even want to think about the countless wounds that had riddled the child's body before they slipped off to be replaced by unmarked, perfect skin.
If the child wanted to be a shinobi when he grew older, it would hurt him a lot. Because the tiny soft hands of the child would never form scar tissue to toughen his skin. No matter how hard and how long the child trained.
He would have to remind himself to get the child gloves when he decided to be a ninja.
He murmured sympathetic condolences when he saw the numerous shards of mirrored glass embedded in the child's hand and legs. While there were still traces of blood, all the wounds had disappeared as if they had never existed, just like the child had said.
But, to see the effects of the child's flawless healing chilled Sandaime's blood. It was as if the pieces of the mirror belonged there (pierced through the skin) because the flesh had healed so seamlessly against the cold surface of the glass.
Sandaime kept on speaking softly, always murmuring comforting words, desperate to ward off the profound silence entrenched deeply around the child. "I'm sorry, Naruto-kun. I'm sorry. I'm sorry..."
His fingertips ghosted over the reflecting shards jutting out of the blood crusted hand. He brushed a few cracked flakes away before staring into the child's eye. But he couldn't bear looking too long into those clear blank eyes and dropped his gaze to the shattered parts of the only mirror in the child's room as he talked. "I'm sorry, Naruto-kun. This will hurt a bit."
Sandaime gathered his chakra and he carefully plucked the first of many shards out.
The corner of the child's lips twitched at the sound of jagged glass edges tearing flesh. "Itaku nai yo," the child said softly, his gaze riveted at the broken skin that was welling with blood and the droplets that slid down his hand, disappearing in the carpet.
And before Sandaime could heal the wound that the child was so fascinated by, a hazy red glow smoldered along the jagged line of the wound and stitched back the skin until there was no sign of the wound of ever having been there before. Sandaime swallowed his rising bile bitterly and resumed working. He didn't want to think about how many scars (or maybe none at all) if the Kyuubi wasn't there to erase all evidence of damage. He just wondered if the demon was able to sooth the inside hurt the child suffered.
"What is your deepest fear?" the child asked suddenly, his voice cutting through Sandaime's constant chatter instantly.
It seemed that the child didn't miss the hesitance he felt when looking at him. But the reasons he felt so were different.
"My deepest fear?" repeated Sandaime with a sad smile. "I have many things that I fear." He moved onto the child's legs. And didn't look back at the hand he knew was stained in blood yet with no wounds nor scars to show. "How about you, Naruto-kun? Is your greatest fear your mirror? Is that why you shattered it?"
"I-" the child faltered, deep seated pain finally flickering in their depths. "I am afraid to see what the others find so frightening in me. I am afraid to see what that thing is so fearful to them if I see my reflection. To find something so terribly wrong within me. To find and see something in me that makes them recoil away in disgust and hate. And to know that that thing is me."
Sandaime forced the urge to avert his gaze from the dark pensive eyes that was boring into him, "There is a darkness inside me. I know it, I feel it and I fear it as well."
"Am I that repulsive? You fear me as well, right? So do you think I should just-"
"No!" interrupted Sandaime, forceful, and he gathered the small child to his chest and held him. The child shuddered at the sudden overwhelming human contact. Sandaime didn't ever want to think that this was the most contact the child had in the short precious fives years of the child's life "Never think that. Never!"
Small hands clutched at his robes tighter in response.
"Let me tell you something, Naruto-kun," he whispered harshly, cradling the child, mindful of the sharp pieces of darkened dripping glass. "And remember it well."
"Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate,
but that we are powerful beyond measure.
"It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant,
gorgeous, handsome, talented and fabulous?
"Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
"Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won't feel insecure around you."
And he cradled the sobbing child, who cried without really crying, throughout the night.
Neji stared, slightly dazed, into the blinding sky from where he was lying on the dusty grounds of chuunin third round finals.
"When I become Hokage," panted Naruto above him, his dirty grinning face filling his vision before he moved away so that they could both gaze at the bird perched on one of trees present in the arena. "I promise I'll change the Hyuuga ways. Zettai ni!"
Neji's lips curved gently as the bird took flight into the endless sky.
Naruto held out a gloved hand to Neji, "And I'll set you free."
And from the shade of the grandstands, Sandaime smiled as he watched the sun's rays slant sharply off the soaring bird's wings in an undulation of glory. His own weariness lifted at the scene below as he breathed his own sigh of relief that all was well.
"Shine, Naruto-kun. Shine."
We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us.
It is not just in some; it is in everyone.
And, as we let our own light shine, we consciously give
other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.
"Our Greatest Fear" by Marianne Williamson from her book A Return to Love