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False Freedom, love in will's dye
How it could gladden thine eye?
Through the night, storm raged on, undeterred, unfettered, undisturbed. Sasuke had let her go, but she chose not to return to her father's domain. Into the forest, she ran, running, running, running; rain kept coming, coming, coming. Light, white and bright, fell and splattered silver onto the waters that existed on the soil, whose thirst was not yet quenched.
Sasuke's village, indistinct dots without a soul in the distance, was left behind in her haste. She did not look back, for she knew he would not give chase to her: his heart for her was as empty as his house. A place of noise, Leaf's forest called out to the storm to show it mercy, but its heart was made; trees prostrated and swayed as impassioned dervishes, their limbs weary from violent contortions; and out came lightning that whipped it raw: its punishment had only begun!
She ran, but she grew tired of running. Her legs sank up to her calves, mud squelching out from between her toes; soil was softer here. At the base of an old tree was a natural cave, so she went to it and compressed her body into a tighter ball, eyes on the storm that sat upon the firmament, its throne: blue was far; black, King. Wrapping her arms round her body, she rested her brow on her knees, shivering. Water had soaked through to her skin, and cold struck her bones; summer's rains were never cold, but her nails had turned blue like Fall's blooms.
Storm went on for hours, never stopping, never resting, never ceasing. Singing in violent melodies, wind crashed into Leaf, and it cried out in anguish. What was this storm that knew not an end to its wrath? She feared for herself, for her beloved, for their blue.
She fell asleep in that position, and her eyes opened to the shriek that set the earth beneath her to trembling. Thundering, Hinata's heart shook her from slumber, and she looked at the sky through rain that still fell in waves unending. Alas, hours had trickled away, but the sky still remained dark; black diluted to grey by sun that had risen less mighty and more timid behind storm's curtains.
Untangling herself from the cave, she rose up, breasting rain that beat into her bosom's flesh like pebbles, pinking it. Silver and white droplets fell, light-coated pearls that brought punishment in their benign structures. An aura stirred in the air, and, at storm's far end, clouds went into a crevice that tore open in the sky, releasing a light that was not natural.
She turned to her vision, yet the very air rang out—piece by piece—about her, vibrated in agony, enraptured by divinity. Black and white sluiced down to her world and hues hid away, and, like words that stained his scrolls, landscape rose before her in shivering shades. She could see her beloved—only in glimpses, for storm could allow her to see no more. He was hurting!
And before she could decipher fear's ache that went like kunai into her breast, she was running from the forest's heart into the storm's eye that was blinking above her—God's eye, lightning its lashes, greys its curve, red its bloods that had but drained into its iris in fury. Black and white tightened into droplets and fell away faster than wind, and hues came back, filtered by rain.
Roaring, wind blew mighty from the Valley of the End. River came crashing down from between tall statues that stood, not speaking; they broke away from the whiplash they could no longer endure. A fracture as deep as men were tall appeared in the Senju's countenance and half his face fell away and revealed more stone that possessed no features. Dust to dust—ashes to ashes—stone to stone.
Yellows escaped in long strands, twisting round greys, whence the river began; she felt her beloved's spirit in them. She had to reach him: she had to save him! With this resolve, she balanced the soles of her feet, battered and mud-coated, over the edge and ran down across the sharp-ended rocks that injured her flesh. Wind rushed at her from behind, but she kept her chakra steady and firm.
At last, her feet met the rain-lashed rocky shore, but she did not stop her run. River crashed against the shaking pebbles and flew up in tall foamy waves. Rain came at her in solid veils that fell on each other one after the other, a flurry of ink-carrying scrolls. There was no end to this madness, this noise!
The Senju's statue had crumbled away—only its feet remained. She went ahead and ran into the cliff's shadow and then up the cliff and hit the yellow that penetrated her heart deeply. Upon reaching the top, her heart sank and she cried out the man's name whom she had loved since her girlhood days: Sasuke's hand was attached to her beloved's breast, and Purple of Kings had blossomed in his left eye; yellow bubbles clustered about his arm that fed upon Naruto's life-force, bled him dry; Naruto's magnificent cloak, tipped by far-reaching golds that formed an arch overhead, burnt away in ashes; the more he drew, the more her darling lost.
Rooted in place like an old tree, she watched: angry—storm blacker than his house's shadow towered over Sasuke's head like God's limb with a mountain-hard fist that was clenched tight to fall upon Leaf and level it into the ground, turn it into a grave, burn it down to soot.
Hinata could bear it no longer; she made to run, yet so hurried that she stumbled over her own legs and fell face-first to the ground. Upon impact, her teeth occluded and a flesh in the cheek ripped away and blood filled her mouth. Craning her head, bleeding from rouged lips, she watched her love's sun vanish in wisps.
Sasuke stepped back, and Naruto sank down on his knees, put his face right up close to the earth that had accepted his love, yet returned him little. Finding her lost vigour, she scrambled to her feet again, rushing to Naruto's side, greys parting at his silhouette. Then she sank down by his side and helped him sit up; upon looking through her better vision, she noticed that his companion was gone. She whimpered—he was dying . . .
Naruto wrinkled his nose the way men of old age did, the wrinkle travelling across his entire upper body like a deep tremble. An apology was on her darling's lips; and tears, in his eyes, though she could not see them, hidden as they were in droplets, without her vision which she had sent away in distress.
Now, she looked ahead, mesmerised by the Uchiha, the last of them, all of him: Man, created once from clod, had become new; light most pure illumed his soul, and wherever purple at his command fell, it vitrified soil; earth burnt, reflected light, bloomed where his feet touched the soil; it kissed his feet, joyous!
She gazed back at Naruto, looking at every protuberance, purple and blue and pink, on his face that was still there; and, without his companion's aid, it would take weeks for him to heal. Sasuke had beaten him senseless, yet it not did not seem as though he was angry with Sasuke, for love was entombed in his beaten blue. Purple had over-taken the oceans in Naruto's eyes, from which he could not flee. Genjutsu!
Unsure of what to do, she clasped Naruto to her breast, but he was still looking to the young Uchiha he loved—had loved through aeons, without end—the man who sought God that was to be sought in the highest regions; or had he become one, pumped full of his brother's will, himself?
A Godly hue from him came and slid up over her eyes till all she could see was him—only him. He smiled—a smile that made his blood-thrilling beauty out-blossom—in triumph that set him quivering. From him, a force unseen issued forth and shook the sky, from which broke free purples that bedecked his body in a dragon's frame. His garment, heavenly!
She looked down and noticed that the young Uchiha was barefooted; a pink bruise glared against his skin: his sandal had galled the topside of his white feet during the days he toiled away in other realms; but it vanished after a blink, healed before she could think. What had he become? Naruto wheezed, shoulders bent, countenance burdened by agony.
She hated Sasuke—hated him more and more, and, in that hate, she heaved herself up into a squatting position, filled her muscles up with chakra, rushed to him, a Will of Wars in her heart. By now, the Uchiha was wrapped up in purple pristine—Godly! She screamed, yet he turned from her, uncaring the way he was in his house.
When she drew near, hands clenched and over-coated in lions' heads, he gave out a blast of his power: black rods came flying past her; one missed, but another pierced the belly and ran her through; she crashed deep into the rocks, hair whipping, black rod sticking out from her belly, gushing blood from the mouth in breaking streamlets.
Everything blurred, but his hue. Blue was gone; earth, sky, heaven sang his song. Forest that trembled to the wind shivered in love, his purple falling from intertwisted trees; and he flew up towards the sky without wings, and she stared, overwhelmed, at his metamorphosis, wet black hair hitting her cheeks.
She looked down at the astonished press of men. They would all die and bring grief to Naruto. Her family would die, too. Sasuke returned, yet Leaf had angered him; and, now, it was his turn to release his anger over her beloved's demesne. Blood pinked her teeth and dribbled in long strings from her chin; Naruto clamped his jaws around more words of love, apology, promise . . . to the brother; but Sasuke was not moved—no, he was flying!
Blasphemy—he was blasphemy from Nature's hands. No, he was God now, and she was most frightened by his wrath. Purple crooked, like a necklace, draped round his long throat and bestrode the town in stone-slicing, vertical lashes. Then he raised his arms, and then he let them fall; and the whole mountain trembled. Leaf caved into itself: rocks shattered; dirt scattered; not a stain remained behind to speak of Men who lived in its bosom (Leaf's earth had eaten them, hidden them away in mockery). Rod of punishment they all bore without a whimper—vanished. In a moment so small that could scarcely be felt by men, they had all . . . vanished.
Sasuke, enveloped by light, floated down and looked upon Naruto who wept for him. He turned around and tore open the fabric; and at this, Naruto wailed, called out to him, but Sasuke did not stop. He went through it, his colour vanishing from her sight; and a glimpse of King's Purple was the last she saw of him from the tear that was closing up, his back turned to Naruto—and, perhaps, her; and blue stumbled across the sky, his storm vanishing . . .
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