And So, I Wait
Chapter 6: Coda
oOo
Time seemed to crawl by in the months upon months after I fled from Konoha. Another two years of spending my time in some trusting village, another two years of gathering fragments of information from a multitude of sources just to fill in the gaps. But... this time... I knew I wasn't doing it in service to my Lord. Hell, when I learned that the Uchiha had actually killed my master, I scarcely blinked.
It hadn't mattered to me. Not anymore.
Despite his promises, despite his airs, my master was just another petty fool killing innocent people for his own pride. For all his talk about how much the world needed to be changed, deserved to be changed, I knew now that it all hadn't mattered to him. One ruler would have replaced another. In the end, it would have been far worse for those under him. Certainly the Hidden Leaf's Hokage didn't need an endless supply of bodies and victims to perfect their Kinjutsu.
For all his talk about a better tomorrow, he'd only wanted a more comfortable today. He'd wanted to snag some place in history for himself, wanted to prove those who'd dared defy him wrong.
It really bothered me that that bastard Naruto had proven himself right once again: He'd sworn once that he'd beat my master. He managed it, but perhaps not in the way he once thought he would: He'd shown me what a selfless devotion to the innocent people in this world truly was. He made my master's petty grudge with the Hidden Leaf and how shallow it was, truly apparant. He forced me to betray my sworn oath because he had convinced me how utterly wrong it was for me to follow it.
Fucking jerk. Nobody else could possibly be so weak, yet so strong at the same time.
I still have a letter. One I've been meaning to mail for two long years. It has nothing to do with Orochimaru, or Konoha, or anything else. It's just an apology to the blond bastard. An explanation, a confession. Whatever. It held all my feelings about the jerk on paper so I wouldn't have to bury them in my heart.
Yeah, I'd gotten pretty good at the whole self-honesty thing. I still called myself Saiyuna, for nostalgia I guess, but I could admit how conflicted living in the Hidden Leaf had made me over those years. I could pretend all I wanted to back then about how it was just cover, but these days I knew: I'd inherited the Will of Fire from a certain blond bastard as strongly as anyone could and had the village been attacked during my stay, I would have leapt to it's defence as readily as any of the sworn ninja.
Then had to deal with the shitstorm that followed when an undocumented ninja appears in Konoha, but whatever... I knew I would have thrown that body off the bridge when I had it in my arms.
So, it was a shock to see a flash of orange and blond in my small village. I ducked into an alleyway before piercing blue eyes found me, and I knew I couldn't face him. Not yet. I focused my chakra, fine tuning my control to change my appearance. Red hair became brown, my eyes tilted, changed color. My skin took on a dusky hue as my tunic and pants changed into a tight-wrapped yakuta.
I also held a letter, which I slipped up my sleeve.
My heart plunged when I heard him ask for a red-haired girl with ninja training, but thankfully my friends in the village had been warned. They knew someone chased me, and they were willing to deflect strangers. A blank look met my target's quiery, and it surpised me just how much it hurt to see that blond boy's face fall.
I bumped into him, slipping the letter into his pocket.
He aplogized, and I briefly flashed him a smile as I moved past. The stupid shit hadn't even realized, of course. He probably wouldn't notice the letter until the next time he reached into his pocket. He really didn't belong in the world of ninjas, in a world where deception and betrayal are a fact of life. Yet he embodied a new path, a marked deviation which his village was slowly spreading with each new generation. A world-wide change Konoha had slowly been enforcing with an indomitable will ever since it's inception just five short generations ago.
Ninja who fought not for the highest bidder, but for the downtrodden and the oppressed. Ninja who would hurl themselves against impossible foes to save innocent lives. Ninja who would meet steel with steel and ninjutsu with ninjustu, backed by nothing more than something as intangible as the Will of Fire. Ninja who would defy the odds because the way the world worked seemed wrong to them, and they couldn't help but demand a change.
It was why I knew I couldn't let Naruto find me. Not yet. My mind reeled with all the good he'd already done in the world, and my imagination soared as I wondered just how much more good he could do. He shook the ground upon which he walked and I would prove to be the distraction which might be the difference between life and death for those he protected. I could be patient until the world adjusted to the blond tsunami, until the thousands of ninja finally acknowledged that the world would change to his vision whether they fucking liked it or not.
He had a destiny to change the world. I had no place in his life, not yet. Not until he found a measure of calm. Not until he's achieved his dream, until he can pass on the incredible burden he's shouldered to the next generation. I could accept that happily, dwelling in my small village as news slowly drifted in, slowly brought hope for better days to everyone.
And so, I wait.
oOo
Author's Notes:
A coda is a passage in music which brings a piece to the end. I feel it's a fitting title for this chapter. I've got an epilogue planned, but that's the extent of what's left. And yes, I had the final words of this story planned when I picked the title. I can think ahead, whatever Lady Shinimegami says.
I feel the need to defend my decision about the length of the chapters here, since I normally don't keep things this short. However, this was intentional. Each chapter represents a lot of emotion and action, and this story would have been very, very dense if each sequence weren't broken into digestible pieces.
Cheers,
Gaming Ikari