Memoirs of a Shinobi
+Blood-red Memory+
Shino
And for a moment when you lean closer to me
Lips parted a breath hovering on my cheek I see
Blood-red eyes in your place and I wonder
Silently do your eyes bleed, as mine do? But no
They are as clear as the sky brightest azure I smile
And you ask why, no, your eyes don't bleed, not... yet.
Aburame's did not cry. They bled inside, they cried rivers inside, but only behind that frozen, emotionless façade, a mask that was not made of cloth or wood or even of personality, and therefore could not break. Their eyes were always covered by the thin tinted panes, the panes that never lifted, and the sun could never see through. When I was young, I first put on those glasses, the glasses that my father wore, and I finally became an Aburame, truly.
It was at my mother's death; me, a small, stoic boy of five, trailing behind my father because I could not think of anything else to do, my body not allowing itself to do anything but follow after his footsteps in the dark. If there was any amount of life in his eyes, no one could see it through the black glasses. He ignored me following him, almost as if I didn't exist.
We reached her memorial stone—as there was no gravestone, they had to burn her body so her techniques couldn't be stolen by other ninjas—and knelt before the marble slab. While praying for her eternal peace and for her to blessed, I looked at my father. He appeared older somehow, more hunched and inverted. Lines were evident on his face, and while his glasses shielded his eyes from view, I could tell from his body language that he hurt inside, and he wished he could cry.
Even though I was only five at the time, I was freakishly adept at reading body language, almost as well as the Hyuuga's with the Byakugan. It was because I always silent and observing, and since no one knew what I was thinking, I had to learn what they were thinking. I stared at my father as he prayed, his hands clasped together so tightly the knuckles were white. Why was he praying so hard for something that wouldn't return? For even I, a small boy of five, knew that my mother had died and was never coming back.
I remembered how I found her, blood-soaked and lying prone on the ground. Her eyes were empty and emotionless as her life was slipping away with the liquid that poured from the fatal wound across her chest. I rushed over to her and threw myself across her torso, feeling the warm liquid seeping into my clothes, through my pale, fragmented skin, into my heart, my soul, my blood. Until I was her; all I could ever be, and that's what my father remembered me for. That's why he despised me.
I was her remembrance, her never-ending memory, her ever-appearing ghost that wasn't her and was me and was her and me all in the same instant. Something that encompassed the fear and childish tears that ran down my face that my father couldn't cry and couldn't feel; the words that came from my lips that were his and mine and hers and a thousand dying, broken souls that were crying for the same thing. I was everything; eternity, intangible, untouchable in my downward spiral that started so far apart; it was a wonder the slowly rolling circle could ever be called a spiral. I was everything and nothing at the same time, because as long as I was him I couldn't be me and as long as I was her I couldn't be him and as long as I was myself I couldn't be anything else so all the time I was empty.
I always am.
I remember looking into her eyes and how her lips formed words that couldn't be spoken anymore because her lips were cracked and bloody. She was falling apart like a rag doll whose seams haven't been sewn properly, and the stuffing is hanging out of. Except rag dolls don't have blood, do they? They don't cry and bleed and smile at me even though they're dying; already their bodies are dead and hers wasn't, it was alive, alive, alive. And slowly, as she was alive, I was dying for her. Maybe, just maybe, if I died she could live and she'd smile and the world would be bright again. But maybes aren't yes' and they aren't no's, they're maybe's, they're in-between and everywhere all at once. They were me, a maybe in life and a maybe in death, nothing and everything all at once. They were empty and lifeless in promises; they promised nothing and gave nothing in return.
I was not so versatile after that. I was drained as I pulled away from her body, forced away, maybe, but who knew? All I remember was her eyes, her blood-swirling, empty eyes that promised the world and never delivered. And the blood that swam around her, almost like a pool that I could swim in, with the fish and the beavers and life could be alright again, right? But no Aburame was so stupid; especially not me. Not even at five, shorter than your average pinprick, and younger than every other Aburame that had ever worn the glasses.
But I wore them, took them from my father's hands, because when I looked into the mirror I remembered. I didn't remember the blood that pooled around her body, I didn't remember the maybes, the silent thoughts; the bittersweet goodbye and no, it's not goodbye, its goodnight, because I'll see you there in your dreams. Because I'm not really gone and you're not really imagining me, it's just a smile like the stars and a touch like the moonlight. No, I didn't remember that. I remembered her eyes, and when I looked into the mirror and saw my eyes, red and black and swirling the vortex of my heart that was almost non-existent.; they reminded me of her. Grabbed me by the wrist and forced me to remember. My face grew and twisted in the mirror's surface until I couldn't recognize it, and then it twisted some more until I recognized it and wished I hadn't.
All the mirrors in the Aburame compound were broken after that; and I put the glasses onto my eyes, to live forever in the darkness that inhabited my mind as well as my vision. And when my father disappeared for weeks, months, even occasionally, years at a time on missions, with only hours to rest between, I didn't question him. He never talked to me after that time at the shrine, so many years ago. And I didn't talk to him, but to acknowledge him. As long as I knew he still hated me, I could accept the fact and move on.
But I never truly did, never truly forgot my mother's eyes and blood-soaked jacket. She followed me into the darkness of my dreams, where lies were truths and life was death and she was my mother, my lover, my greatest enemy, and my weakest link. She haunted me, in my eyes in the light, and during the night, where my defenses were useless. Where the darkness that I craved in the daytime was nonexistent in my dreams; where my glasses didn't exist and neither did I. I was her torment and her pleasure. Pleasure-pain.
It was no different, years later, when I went with Kiba into the woods, searching for someone, something. My bugs were everywhere, a constant stream of their information flowing through my mind as I directed us forward. Akamaru was smelling for whoever we might be looking for in the distance while I watched out for hidden terrors lurking deep within the forest-green foliage that hid so well.
I could feel my bugs all around me, could feel them moving about within me, feeding on my chakra while, during this rhythm that I knew so well, I was hearing things that they heard, seeing things they saw, feeling things they felt. I could feel the wet dew drops as I landed, crouching and looking almost quizzically at the giant globes of water in front of me while one stuck to my leg. It was cold and unexpected, but not unpleasant.
Farther ahead I could see the diagonal slash marks in several of the trees, and when I landed upon one it sizzled with a faint yet powerful chakra that wasn't my own. That used to confuse me, when I was a bug and myself at the same time, I was thinking of myself as a different person, from a different perspective, while still trying to keep in mind that I was a person just synonymous with a bug looking at me with a million pairs of eyes. And with these millions of pairs of eyes I saw the scene long before Kiba did, before Akamaru even smelled the faint chakra that I had felt under my skin as one of my bugs felt it too.
I saw the blood and I saw the fight taking place almost as if there was a battle now but there wasn't; I saw the ground rumble and rise up in front of me although I had not slipped. It was just my bug, flying towards the battle epicenter, where it had all begun. Then I swooped upwards and landed on something's foot that was still alive, still had a little slip of chakra left. Not enough to fight and not enough to speak, but enough to stay awake and alive for maybe—maybe, here we go again—another minute or so. Kiba and I wouldn't make it in time. So I watched as the bug's perspective moved upwards, and with its billion lenses, which in my mind, I was able to perceive what it would look like to everyone else.
And immediately wished I hadn't. I wished I was the bug for that moment, and I infused so much chakra into the bug that its heart beat faster, faster, and then it died. The image immediately faded in my eyes, but not in my mind. Akamaru barked and I was brought back to reality. Obviously we made it faster than I had anticipated. You were still alive when we got there.
I knew it was you, but didn't say anything as Kiba tensed, pulling out a kunai while Akamaru barked in warning. You were standing, the dregs of your power slowly fading, but enflamed enough to grab attention.
"Who's there?" Kiba yelled at you, not like you would answer.
Naruto, I could have answered. It's Naruto here, and I'm about to die. I could be you, like I was my mother, like I was my father, like I was everyone else but me.
Hey Kiba, I'm not about to die. Please tell everyone that I'll miss them in the afterlife, though. Tell Hinata that I adored her, but she should move on. Don't tell her anything, actually. Well, tell her that I died defending everyone, the village, the country, the world. Tell the village that and maybe they'll love me, maybe they'll make me the hero that I never was to them, since I could only be a monster. Tell them that even though they hated me, they made me stronger. They made it so that I could live through any hardship, survive anything they threw at me. Tell them that even though I died, I died defending the people that I loved to hate, and they hated me back.
But I didn't say anything, just stood there and stared as Kiba started crying. You collapsed into his arms and said something, but it was clearly left unfinished. I just stood there, being cold, calculating and empty like I was, but being slowly torn apart like the wings of an airplane that lost control.
Because I did lose control, I lost everything. Then I regained it, forcing my limbs to move to clasp Kiba on the shoulder. If he hugged your body anymore he would have crushed it beyond recognition. You needed it to be recognized, you wanted everyone to realize their mistake of hating you, even if it was too late. Even if it was in death.
"Kiba. It's time to go." He seemed reluctant, so I tried again; even though every word I said hurt like poison and burned my throat. "There's no one else here. We'll bring him with us. If we leave now we can get there before nightfall." How could I be so nonchalant? But how could I not be?
For if I allowed even a moment of uncontrolled desire, it would escape and my façade would be wrecked. Every moment of every day I had to be calculating, cold, stoic, and empty. We reached home, Kiba carrying the body in silent reverence through the streets of Konoha. Everyone stopped to stare at him and me, walking silently through the bustling lanes that had frozen at the familiar person in his arms.
Why are you staring? Why are you crying? I raged silently at the villagers as we passed towards the city center. You hated him, you despised him! You made him this way, made him suicidal, made him empty and cold and alone. You are to blame, not the one who threw the kunai, not the one who he was trying to save, but you!
The central bazaar fell silent as everyone stared in silent wonder at the dead boy who could be nothing but alive to them, because he was always so alive, and if he was dead, who was left to hate? Go away. Go, go away. You killed him, from the beginning. Even if he didn't recognize it himself that you were killing him. He wanted to be seen by you. He wanted you to love him, to need him, to care for him in ways no one ever did. You destroyed him, you stupid bastards!
I said nothing as Kiba handed the body to the Godaime, said nothing as I passed through the quiet corridors that held nothing but fake feelings, even if everyone convinced themselves that what they were feeling was right, they did love him in the end. No, they only loved him in death, when they couldn't hate him anymore. Because hating someone in death looked bad, only loving someone in death looked good. That's what everyone cared about, looking good and feeling good. Because hating made you feel bad in the end, and loving someone made you feel good, even if you really hated them. Because then you could whisper to your friends, 'Oh the Kyuubi boy died yesterday, such a tragedy. I was crying the moment I heard the news. Always knew he was such a good boy, set up to be Rokudaime. Knew he was going to be great one day, such a tragedy.'
Such a fucking tragedy. Shut up. I traveled home, ignoring the looks and stares that everyone gave me; what did it matter anyways? They cared what they looked like and what they felt like; I could care less what I looked like and what did I feel? Nothing but contempt for those who hated you, Naruto; I felt nothing. And then, almost immediately after admitting that to myself, I felt guilty. I'm doing the same thing as they are. I barely knew you and yet here I am, defending you against their love, when that's all you ever wanted.
Well, fine, Naruto. If you want fake love, fine. If you want praise and tears and sadness, go ahead, take it. There's plenty of it to go around. Don't ever look to me, because no one ever does. Wait, what the heck? When did this turn into a pity party? I stormed off into the woods, unnerved by my sudden feeling of something, anything. I sat in a tree and looked down into a pool of water so seemingly thick, I couldn't see myself and that was just fine.
If I slept that night, I don't remember. I never remember sleep anymore, there's no difference between sleeping and waking for me. It's all just continuous, never ending. No break in the pattern, no break in the seamless bag I had contained myself in. I had trapped the devil, tricked the devil into a paper bag, but in exchange, I locked myself in as well. There were, on occasion, memories of you, Naruto. But they fade away just as fast as they come.
Then I started to see you, wandering the paths of the wood. It was only a few days after your death, and you were fresh. You saw me, waved, and beckoned for me to follow you into the forest. At first I was confused, but then you came out again and motioned again. I followed you for a while, then you disappeared around a corner, and I didn't see you again. I saw you again later, and you lead me again on a fruitless goose-chase. Whatever you were looking for wasn't there, and it frustrated you. You disappeared, and I lay down to sleep.
I saw the darkness at first and was afraid; then I heard voices, and realized I was just in the woods. Was I awake? But then I saw my mother, fighting so many enemy ninja's she was almost unrecognizable as she dodged between the figures cloaked in black, crying out in a animalistic roar that I hated to hear. And I saw myself, deflecting her attacks with ease, almost as if she had not hit me, and she was no trouble at all. As though I didn't see the fear she had transformed into anger to fight me, and I was not her son. For I was not her son as I ducked while she swiped above me, I was a stranger and she was my enemy. I saw myself through someone else's eyes, and I almost cried out in pain since she didn't recognize me.
She was, she was the enemy as I pulled a kunai effortlessly out of my back pouch and stabbed it into her rib, the opening in her attack. But then she crumpled to the floor as I pulled the knife out of her body, and then she was just my mother.
The other ninjas faded away and I walked up to her, knelt before her. But she was dead, her eyes closed, and her soul gone. No weeping, no smiling, no half-alive, half-dead, everything anymore. A cry in the distance, a baby's cry for its mother that was no longer alive. I killed her, she's dead. And there am I. Will I kill myself in the past too? I stood up and walked over to myself, which was almost as confusing as when my bug thought of me in the third-tense. I bent over and picked the baby up, the baby that had never seen any of this.
I could show it his dead mother, but it wouldn't understand. I was just old enough to understand death, and then it was forced upon me. I wasn't ready to know, I wasn't ready to deal with it. But then why had they chosen me to see it? Why with me, eyes just like those pools of blood, eyes just like his mothers. I touched the baby's brow, traced its fine hairs that were beginning to form eyebrows above endless, pitiless red-black orbs. Eyes that were my own, and face that would soon resemble the one I now had. But the eyes were unshielded and unfettered by the darkness. I wondered if I could save it from the horrors that I was made to see. I could protect it, I could be more than a killer; a heartless killer that murdered his own mother and was despised by his father. I could be more, a protector, an angel in a human's body.
And I could kill the baby now, save it from ever seeing anything like that in the future. I could save it from becoming the psycho that was slowly becoming me, or maybe I was already the psycho and was just becoming aware of it. I could kill the baby and save myself, or I could protect it and it would eventually see the horrors of this life, and never be whole again.
Forever you will live in darkness, but it will be a happy darkness, wont it, Shino-kun? The darkness that I live in, home to me and you now, it will be a warm darkness. My mother's voice and my mother's child.
You will be safe, I softly said to the child, though it could not understand me and never would. You will be safe because I will be there and you will survive because that's what humans have evolved to do. Survive and live and accept, reject, live, and die as you will. Just survive and I will be there in the end, because I am you, little one. I am not my mother and I am not my father, and I am not anyone else, because I am you. And you are me. We are one.
I pressed my lips to its brow, my lips pressing a thousand hopes and a thousand blessings into one untouchable kiss. You will live and I will find you one day, I promise. And this is no maybe promise, this is an eternal promise.
Its skin felt impossibly warm and impossibly all too real for a dream that was just a dream in the end, and then it was gone, like a dream. Its eyes opened and they were a bright, deep blue, like the oceans and like the skies. Not scarred, and not empty. The hair was like the sun and I smiled against its light. No more darkness. Mother, you brought me here, and Naruto, you took me away.
Then I opened my eyes, and was met once again with blue eyes. Except now I was waking, and could feel it. Could feel everything, the hardness of the dirt beneath my back, and the soft breeze that kissed my cheek I could feel.
"You are ready, and you are healed. Come with me, Shino, and we will see your future."
You stood up and offered me a hand. At first I didn't want to take it; they put people away who saw dead people and talked to them, even if they didn't want to. They pumped them full of drugs, the people who whispered in their sleep to rid themselves of the poison that was always there. Because drugs couldn't stop the images from coming, they just killed the person enough to make them vulnerable, until the person finally lost themselves among the thousands of identities they heard, for they were all the people they saw.
I didn't want to lose the raw, soft part of myself that I had just recovered, not yet. But then I believed, because I had to, because everyone had something to be crazy about. Everyone had their own personal pleasures. Like Kiba's drinking, and my contemplation and hate. My rediscovering of myself. My thousand different perspectives that always interchanged, always were interconnected in ways no one knew, not even me. I grabbed your hand and you took me into the forest. It was night, the stars were heavy, but the sky was heavier. The oppressing feeling grew as I followed you deeper and deeper into the waxen foliage, and I tried to ignore it.
Then I saw her lying on the ground, back to me and you. She looked broken and defeated, something that she shouldn't.
You motioned to her and whispered, "Go to her Shino, and show her the way. I tried, but I cannot. She sees all but me, for she doesn't want to see me anymore. She just wants to see the truth, but the truth is me, and she refuses herself the liberation she needs. Bring it to her. And remember, the one who took you away was not me, but yourself. You accepted yourself. Let her accept herself, and she will accept me." I stared at you for the longest time, and then realized what had happened. "Thank you Shino." Your hand brushed my face, but then faded away.
Then I wondered, will you listen to me, Hinata? Do you care what I think, what I believe? Will you allow yourself to be liberated? I walked closer to her, and said her name in a whisper I didn't think she could hear. But she always heard. Always.
"Hinata." I walked closer, let my fingers brush along the sides of the customary white jacket for females of the Hyuuga clan, let my fingers do a feather-light dance across her shoulder before I took it in my hand and shook her lightly. I saw how she rolled away from me; saw her tears reflected into a million different directions in the moonlight. The moonlight that I feared, but not anymore.
"Hinata. Hinata! I know you aren't asleep." I hated this, why was I so mean? She was still hurt, raw and broken inside, and I'm just as callous and stoic as ever. She rolled farther, if even possible, away from me, until her face was pressed into the dirt, and I wondered if she was able to breathe.
"Hin—" I started, almost exasperated, but not quite. She turned suddenly towards me, chakra-infused palm directed towards my stomach, but I caught her wrist quite easily. As easily as you caught your mother's punches as she advanced upon you—I frowned, not anymore. Not again. The images faded and dissolved. "Hinata. Stop." Stop evoking these memories, stop making me feel this again. I thought it went away forever. Please, just make it stop.
But she did not. Her feet went under mine, or attempted to, but I used the moment she was off-balance to pull her up against me. Easy, or, well, almost. I wrapped my arms around her so she could do minimal damage, and she tried to hit me. Her fists were useless and she was too emotional to use her chakra well.
"Let me GO!" she cried as she beat her fists against my chest, but I ignored her, only pulling her tighter to me.
I can't let her go, because then she'll be like my mother. She'll be broken and haunting like mother never was because she's new and raw and everything powerful that you, mother, were not, and I can't let her do that. I can't let her break like you did.
"It's okay Hinata… get it all out… its okay…" When she was close to becoming a haunting ghost on one side, and living to become stronger on the other, I could not be this calm, could I? When I was the catalyst, the person who would push her off of one edge, because she couldn't stand there forever, tottering between decisions that she couldn't make.
I looked over her shoulder and saw you waving at me, Naruto. I smiled against my collar; you were providing me with strength and calm enough to survive like I'm providing for her. Thank you, Naruto. For everything, for life, for calm, for making me realize everything. For helping me against a monster I couldn't beat myself, thank you. And even if you're gone, I'll be here. I won't be you, but I'll try to help people in the quiet way I do.
I'll push her the right way, like I pushed myself. And I'll be there to catch her when she reaches the bottom. I won't be you, Naruto, but I'll try my best. I waved to you, not one more goodnight but this is not goodbye, a real goodbye wave and smile. A smile I hadn't smiled since I was five, and unbroken. Because now I was healing. And you disappeared in a column of light so bright it hurt my eyes, even behind the lenses that didn't seem so dark to me anymore, and you were gone.
But I was so sure you weren't gone, because when we, me and Hinata, went visit Kiba in the hospital, he was okay. I was sure you had worked this magic, this strange turn-around that could be nothing else. And as Hinata and I left that day, the sky bright blue like your eyes that would never fade like memories, I smiled. My first true smile in so many years. Thank you Naruto, for showing me the way. Thank you, for helping me find the strength inside. Thank you, for everything and nothing, for eternity and for emptiness, thank you for anything. Because there were no more maybes, no more broken eyes, there was you and I, and acceptance.
You looked at me in my dreams and smiled, a smile that said, No, I didn't do anything, but thank you for the compliment. I'll see you when you finally succumb to the darkness again, I'll be there, and so will you. And we'll travel into the darkness together.
Alright then, I replied, until then, goodnight, but not goodbye.
No, this time it is goodbye, it's time to say goodbye finally.
Goodbye. And this time I meant it.
nyaahh tell me if it sucks. please. i will be happy to hear it. because i wrote it at what... two am? yay two am rocks! no wait damn im hungry. tell me if there are places that my grammar is screwed up or theres other words where better words should go. or bad spelling or wrong tense, or something, okay? i want to know my mistakes. and if theres anything good, go ahead and tell me too. cuz thats cool, and you know it.
Lee- People take things too seriously, and what if Lee loses all of his faith in friendship?
and ah about the poem. didnt write it for this passage, no, i wrote it for. im not entirely sure. i'm sorry if it sucks (the entire thing) i was reading enders game again and was inspired (as would you be on a four or five hour car-trip back home listening to music for hours on end and unimpressed by the lanscape. given that its flat and all the same. (im sorry people who live there, whever you think that might be)) okay gonna shut up now. thank you reviewers! (is it true i cant name them in here anymore? T.T that sucks)
