May 3032, 2 years after the beginning of the 4th Great Ninja War
the horrifying truth of the human nature
What is the nature of a person? Human nature is a bundle of characteristics, including the way of thinking, feeling, acting, since birth. It refers mostly to the everyday habits that don't change untill we want to.
The dark side of our nature is our mysterious and fragile underbelly — our negative, but all too human, side. It may be easier to simply avoid looking into the darker aspects of ourselves and our world — the suffering we see everywhere around us, from real world events to the entertainment we consume.
WHEN THE WAR KEEPS roaring do you dare to live or do you content on surviving?
When it all began, it was a fight for justice and peace. By now, is there anything that is remotely taken as justice? We fight believing in our own justice. But if the enemy is doing the same, who's right? Who's wrong?
Are there any sides left for us to take, to be grounded, to place our feet upon? Because only the dead have seen the end of war. They're ready to die since the day they swore over it when they tied themselves to serving their village, so that's no surprise. But we're all mislead to believe in our own pain, our only and pure pain and sorrow.
But aren't we all human?
What are we fighting for?
"I don't know, Naruto. I guess none of us ever knew." Minato said, leaning in the big rock they were sitting, Kakashi at his right side, sending smoke to the sky. "But if we're to die, we're to die kicking and screaming, bathed in blood and tears, just as we came to the world."
Naruto tried to smile as his father messed his hair, that was longer now, tied in a low ponytail at the back of his neck. It wasn't per choice to let it grow. Where they went he didn't had the benefit of scissors and it was dark to try it with a kunai without putting your neck at line, so he gave up. He liked it now.
Even with the dark circles beneath, his eyes were as blue as the sky above, just like his father's — before it was filled with smoke. From that far they couldn't hear any screams, but the smoke was so dense they recognized whom was probably behind it.
Birds flew in their direction, coming from West.
"They arrived earlier than we expected." Kakashi said, looking at the sky, probably measuring the time by the position of the sun in it. "Fuckers."
They rose to their feet, ready to fight. Naruto cracked his knuckles.
Kakashi stepped on his cigarette. It left a black trait.
"Just like the old times." he smiled beneath his mask and vanished as fast as lightning, only a swirl of leaves behind.
Minato shot a smile at his direction that made Naruto want to ask, for the thousandth time, what memory was that it evoked. Kakashi and Minato always had their own jokes — they had it with Obito before he died, too. Naruto didn't feel out of place or jealous, he just wanted to be part of the family before he lost them.
Earlier that day, when Kakashi was taking a piss, talking to his summons, catching a apple, jerking off, whatever; when his father decided he was far enough not to hear them, he told Naruto that it was in that very rock he told Obito about Sakumo Hatake, Kakashi's father and why he was so restrict and snob.
(Naruto couldn't picture Kakashi being that way. Rude, arrogant, cold and not even twitching his eyes in another's direction, not caring if someone fell lump at his side. His eyes focused on the blood he was about to gather is his screaming loudly hand, counting the enemies one by one, as a prisoner counts the day that passes. That just proved that Naruto knew nothing at all. Minato would never tell him otherwise)
It was in that rock they were sitting the whole afternoon, setting traps in a 10 km range, positioning mesh, noose, decoy, genjutsu, illusions, snares, pitfalls, scuttle, watchman, trackers, alarms, signals, everything, that Obito learnt that Kakashi was nothing but the product of a disgrace.
"Naruto?" a sweet voice called from a branch over his head and when he turned around, he saw Hinata, a deep cut in her cheek. She smiled at him, her arm covered in bandages, leaves in her hair and some parts of it were plastered with blood. Nothing new for none of them. "Sakura told you to come North and Lord Forth," she bowed in homage "please, if you may, head East."
"You can call me just Minato, Lady Hinata."
She gave him a shy smile, but didn't blush like she would've two years ago. "I can try to work on that."
Minato shot them both his big, warm smile and was gone in a flash of yellow.
"What about you, Hinata? Coming with me?" she shook her head, simply basking for something at her belt.
"This." she put a scroll in his hand. "Lady Tsunade sent this. And a knuckle in your head, but I am tired."
He beamed and scratched the back of his neck, the way he did when was nervous about something — a quirk he inherited from both Kakashi and his father.
"Well, won't lie and say I'm not happy about it, but I really hope you're not chakra depleted tired." he said, eyes wild, always afraid of saying something wrong. "Just, you know, tired."
Hinata laughed a bit. "You really don't change, do you, Naruto?"
He couldn't help but think how wrong she was.
He thought about Sakura. About how people used to think about her, how people saw her — the giggles and Sasuke, like she had nothing better to think or to do. How Sakura had her knees, thighs, forearms, hands and face splattered with blood and the shake of her hands. How she tried to whip her forehead with her arm and how the blood just spread instead of cleaning. Even Sasuke looked at her that day — saw her that day.
He thought about the bridge and how much the bridge changed everything. How much Tazuna, Zabuza, Haku and Gato changed everything. The team of cute genin, blind to the hatred and bloodthirsty of the world they were and how one day flipped their world.
Sasuke and Naruto were too busy fighting Haku and Kakashi was too busy fighting Zabuza, but they all saw when Sakura ripped the throat of that man. And the other man. They saw the tears streaming down her face, but the gleam of her green eyes looked more like a warning than an inviting.
(Naruto always saw Sakura smile like a small star collision, impossible to tear your eyes away and beautiful in all its charm, the strongest weapon of her arsenal, until that day when he saw that her will to live screamed like a child ripped from its mother's arms — he knew the sound way too well, 'cause he had to do it more often than he liked to admit.)
All the blood they shed after the bridge was their downfall.
Everyone still saw them from what they tried to be: children. Sakura tried, Naruto tried, hell, even Sasuke tried. They laughed and fighted and bickered and Kakashi rolled his eyes and they painted fences and rescued cats and assassinated. There were days they felt worse than ANBU and days they felt like what they were: fucking children.
With the burden of blood in their shoulders, they finally understood how Itachi and Obito did what they did at such young age — they were doing the same.
And Hinata, like that, crouched in a branch, ignorant of their past, her clothes torn, her hair fucked up, some scars now for play, she looked much more like the Princess of the Byakugan then she looked when she was calm and collected.
Naruto wished he could say that to her, but he couldn't find the words.
So he just smiled at her the best of his smiled, the one that always screamed Naruto and could brighten the day.
The ground shake beneath their feet and, with a last smile, Hinata sunshined away in a swirl of lilac.
Naruto, too, looked different (his exterior). The War was wavering its tool on him. He didn't use orange clothes most of the time now. Orange clothes were too much Naruto and Naruto was too much of a target — even though, they all were too much of a target lately.
He learnt to control his temper and to turn Kurama's mode into something that didn't resemble neon, because neon doesn't serve well in battlefields.
His eyes were brighter now because his skin was darker from standing so much in the sun and not always in the Leaf — they spend a shockingly amount of time at the Sand and the weather there was a bitch.
The curtain of smoke was growing thinner, so he jumped from the rock. He liked that rock. Too bad it would be nothing but crumbs in the matter of minutes.
When Naruto read the scroll he couldn't help but smile.
With one last look he took the view in. It all looked peaceful. It was a shame the last thing he thought before disappearing in the same lighting speed as his father, was that a beautiful moment happened there.
He could hear the screams them. And see the gigantic blue and purple figures rise to fight each other — Susanoo'os (Sasuke's and Madara's). It was about time, already.
Naruto felt Kurama moving inside him and a smile formed in his lips — a smile only war can forge, rough around the edges where it can strike and rip your skin in the places that hurt the most.
"Naruto?" Kurama asked inside his mind "Do you miss him?"
The smile flattered, but not entirely. He was no longer that boy and for a long time now.
"You can miss something and not want it back, Kurama."
So it all fell in muteness - destroy what destroys you.
(Bukowski was wrong. Don't just find what you love and let it destroy you. When you least expect, your thoughts are killing you and there's no escape from within, you cannot run from yourself.
Hilda Haist was right.
"Where do the trains go, father?"
"For Mahal, Tamí, for Camirí, spaces on the map, and then the father laughed: also nowhere, my son, thou can go and even if the train moves, thou doesn't move from thyself".
You're trapped and this is both beautiful and terrifying. We're only layers of skin hiding bones and those are too fragile.
Kakashi sat with him by the fire three nights ago; his father was running the perimeter along Shikamaru and he was with Sakura and a bottle of something strong.
"I wish I could tell you time heals all wounds," he began, taking a last sip before passing it to him "but we both know the more time you have, the long the list grows."
It was about time to put an end to it, whatever it means.)
No more beautiful moments to happen there.