Chapter 6

They were seated at Ichiraku's ramen. They'd done their first D rank. Never had Satsuki seen someone so eager to clean drains, or so eager to never ever graduate from that task.

After their conversation yesterday, however, she understood his reasons better. Her heart wasn't made of stone. She sympathized over his lack of choice; sympathized, indeed, with what had been done to him, and what he was.

But then again, when half asleep last night, a thought had suggested itself to her: Sai did not have much choice either. And, as a matter of fact, neither did she. Yet they'd fought as asked to, respectively died and lived for village, as was asked of them; and there had been pride in life taken and life forsaken, an acceptance of all that fate weighed them down with. There wasn't this detachment, this...this indifference. And as she thought about it she came fully awake, and found herself outraged on behalf of her dead friend; indeed, on behalf of everyone that'd foregone something precious to them; who'd had their choice taken away from them, but embraced their lot and pushed on mute.

And it was this pressure which made her voice her thoughts.

"You said yesterday that the lives of those who died at that exam had no meaning."

Naruto looked up from the food he was gorging on, strands of ramen sticking to the edges of his lips.

"Yeah, I did. What of it?"

"If I recall correctly, then you called them mindless. If by mindless, you mean they gave up a large part of who they were, so that someone else may prosper, then that's what they were, yes. But only in that event.

"You referenced the little joys in life, Naruto. Your bird song and your snowfall—add more to that list, if you will."

She thought of a brother whom she once venerated. How he had behaved at a happier time, how for a while been loyal, truly loyal, both to country and family; how soft, how just, how full of compassion; and how over time he lost all that— became distant and secretive, adopted a sternness in visage and a stoniness of word and deed; how his embraces brought only tumult, not comfort; how the grooves under his eyes were as graves freshly dug; and a part of her wondered if his monstrous act had sprung from a similar pressure, a similarly contemptible self pity, a similar, sinister faith in a false ideal. She wondered, as she'd wondered before, if her clan's tragedy was secreted from a once brilliant mind drowned in its own murk, not merely insane, but overwrought.

"Yes," she said. "Go ahead and multiply those tenfold; the little joys you described do not nearly encompass everything foregone. The first little steps taken by your sister. Her first words. Her pouts, her pinings, the things she would otherwise confide in you, all taken away because you were never home. You, after all, are a stranger she sees once a year.

"Postings to far off frontiers. The joys sacrificed. Love foregone. Childbirth missed. Your grief for the comrades you were friends with, who fell before you. And an ever readiness to share their fate. The uncertainty with which you step out of your village— you know each mission could be your last. You carry life and death in the pockets of your vest, and know that if one day you are slower on the draw, or just half a step off your very best, then that is it for you. You know—and pretend not to know— that on occasion, even your best may not suffice.

"You are right; the entirety of our existence does indeed boil down to that pressure. And in suggesting that those at the exam who lay there dying did not understand these basic facts, you do them great disservice."

Satsuki closed her eyes, and saw herself in the faces of these forgotten strangers. Not just herself, but all the life she had taken. Everyone lost to time, and similarly obscured by the stroke of someone else's knife, flashed across the underside of her shut eyelids in a scarlet sequence of unmarked graves, indeterminate in number; all those who still lived, but were poised under a similar scaffold, seemed to tremble at the fringes of her eyelashes. And she felt a rush of sympathy for her countrymen, who were her kin; they, like these dead genin, lived in uncertainty, and struggled day after day under a familiar pressure.

"Theirs," she continued, opening her eyes, "was a higher calling. They put themselves through the everyday grind you described, because if not them, then whom? Someone has to serve. Someone has to forego everything they have and everything they are, so that others may partake in the pleasures you described. Fruits and flowers have their beauty, a grand tree has its majesty, but someone has to be the soil. Someone has to be dirt. That's what we are. Dirt. A country without Shinobi as the soil from which it blooms is a country doomed, one enslaved. And a country enslaved is a country stripped not just of itself, but of all pleasure; drowned in dolour. Its people live and die without meaning. Their sufferance is for their oppressors; they answer to their oppressors, and all their life is on a leash, to be snuffed out as someone else wills, at someone else's whims or megrims.

"Then all beauty is drowned out by a sea of misery. No one looks at the sun, but to curse it for how it beats down on those already bent; no one notes anything but its cruel fury against a people who lug about loads for their conquerors, captive not just in body but in spirit. No one feels snowfall, but through rags— and then only its chill, which is no worse than the chill of knowing that the people around you, who live in misery and die unburied, are dying due to your cowardice: you, after all, could not serve or sacrifice when necessary.

"No, those genin were not mindless. They understood better than you possibly could, that they were responsible for the happiness of their people. They understood that some jobs, though inconvenient, need doing— they understood that they were the only ones who could do it. That on their shoulders rested the weight of the world, or at least of every joy that ought to be preserved. To themselves forego certain joys and pleasures, to invite death day on day; that— that for them was just a small price to pay for family.

"And that's what the village and the nation is to a Shinobi. Their family. The only place they can call home. It is at the centre of all action, its preservation is worth all suffering; it will outlast us all; even when we are gone, we will live through it— in the hearts of the people left behind, in their thanks. It is not for the ideal that we live or die, but the people. And I— I believe that in their last moments, those shinobi, even if terrified, were comforted by the worthiness of the enterprise they died for."

Naruto was looking at her with mirth in his eyes. His lips curved into a smile.

"And these creatures of myth who come to enslave and oppress— are they or are they not Shinobi themselves?" He asked. "And doesn't protecting joy for you just mean taking away someone else's? What of those you orphan, huh? What of the civilian villages you raze? What of the crops you ruin? You stanch the fields with blood. You sabotage, pillage and turn the world upside down to preserve this freedom of yours. Freedom for your kind is enslaving the world. Your people's joy is bought with everyone else's blood."

"You and I can sit here and go back and forth all day," Satsuki said testily, "but the world is what it is. Words do not change it, as they do not change the terms of your service. Kill or be killed, protect or perish. If you have an issue with the dog eat dog world we live in, then change it. Change it, or glue your lips together and get in line. But to denigrate those who place above all else the preservation of what to them is their world— that is unbecoming of you."

"What's unbecoming," he said, shaking his head, casually drawing figure eights with his chopsticks, "is that a vaguely drawn boundary's your difference between family and enemy. 'Worlds' this side of a border," he drew an imaginary line, "are worth saving, while those on the other side you'll happily end. It's my problem with ya all— always has been. But either way, all I've said is that I want no part in it. Do as ya must. Suffer as ya must. But leave me out of it."

She peered at him.

"Both you and I know that that cannot be done. Not with who you are, or what you hold. You must fight, because reality demands it. You cannot run, because reality denies it. Is this rejection of reality your coping mechanism?"

"Oh, no." He laughed. "I bow to reality. I let it force me into service. I'll just not allow it into my heart. It won't govern what I do with the little time I have to spare."

"Pursue greatness," she urged, "and you will have more than 'a little time'. Greatness is the difference between life and death— not small things, not a freedom of spirit. Forget service, if you must; forget your father, if you can: be your own destiny maker. Forge it out of strength, not weakness. Be to yourself your own north star: guide your beset vessel through the tempest. You have the talent to live, so why welcome death? This world is not run by dreamers— dreamers, if not all conquering, are the first to fall. The only freedom they find is in the shallow grave where they are trenched."

"And with all the things I've said, what makes ya think I'm afraid of that?"

"You are afraid," she said levelly, "of a life wasted. A life thrown away is one wasted. You said you wish to be Uzumaki Naruto— if so, then fight to preserve everything that makes Uzumaki Naruto who he is. Freedom is not a private pleasure garden in the recesses of the mind; it is a real thing that strength sustains. Your inaction flies in the face of your freedom; an indifferent acceptance of fate flies in the face of liberty. So do not cower. Do not cravenly run from destiny. Face it head on, and bring it to heel. If not, then be crushed against its grindstone. I have said all that I can on this matter."

He grinned.

"If the choice is between my happiness, and taking away everything from everyone else— doing to them what was done to me, enslaving them as I was enslaved — then I choose the grindstone. I'm fucked up in many ways. But I'll never have to carry the guilt of somebody else's ruined dreams. Because if I do that, then I'm no different from the father who sacrificed what wasn't his to give."

"If you say so." She went back to her bowl. This was going nowhere. Talking to her student was like talking to a brick wall. She'd have to find a way to prove her point to him. If not through words, then through a demonstration. And as they sat there, eating, the first semblances of a plan suggested themselves.

She resisted the urge to smile. Yes, that would do. That would do very nicely, indeed.

A/N: You will notice that Satsuki is superimposing her own ideals on the dead genin and using their final moments as a symbol to justify her ideology. Naruto did the same last chapter. Neither could possibly know what the dead genin were thinking, and whether or not their lives and deaths amounted to anything in these people's minds. They didn't personally know these people, and couldn't speak for each individual amongst them. More likely than not, their views would have verged between the two extremes here offered.

The point is, at the end of the day, when there exists an action, and when we aren't furnished with reasons for it— when, in other words, we do not have a hard step by step set of rationalizations for it right from the horse's mouth (and even this can be unreliable)— we approximate, project, apply our own rationalizations, and often interpret it in the way that best fits our existent set of beliefs. The resultant interpretation may or may not be close to reality. This returns to the point made in chapter 2: the world is viewed through the prism of our biases. We are at times guilty of making facts fit our predetermined perception of events.

Either way, these contradictory rants were only meant to reveal facets of character and set them in opposition; it wasn't my intention to verge on any serious discussion on hyper nationalism and its positives/ ill effects. I'm just a random dude writing a story. A serious discussion is way above my (non existent) pay grade.

The next chapter will kickstart this fic's second arc (this one ends the introductory arc). It will incidentally also be the only canonically recognizable arc in this fic, albeit with a twist.

Thanks a ton for every review from last time. Most of em were beautiful! Further reviews are much appreciated.