on the turning away

if you can’t stand on the earth i will see you on the other side



Konoha has always needed its heroes. Every child in this village grows up with their dreams of fighting epic battles, struggling against an impossibly powerful foe to save the village, as heroes ineffably do.



The real problem with being a hero, though, is that it is a title often awarded posthumously. Heroism, above tactical blunders, suicide, and mission casualties, is the leading cause of death in Konoha.

He knew that. He knew and He said that He'd never let it happen. He said that He had too much here, and then He smiled like He meant it.

And I believed him, because I too had a childhood dream.

When she came, no one saw the mark of sacrifice and sealing but me. When she died, shortly after bearing His child, no one saw the emptiness that drained the life from His eyes with the haunting clarity that I did. (Not because they didn't care, because He was the love of the village, but because they hadn't spent their whole lives watching Him as I had. I knew the hidden wisdom beneath His casual conversation and the deep loneliness that hovered just below the surface of His jokes. And even if I never knew the magic of His hands against me, I knew, better than anyone, the beauty of His soul.)

His suffering didn't last long. When the vessel broke, the kyuubi had been freed from its human prison, and Konoha called for its heroes once again.

And He answered, with the rest of the shinobi who died that night, as a part of me always feared He would. He fought the battle and He won and He gave His life to seal the demon into His own flesh. They might have said it was for revenge, that He secretly hated the child that took His love away from Him, but I know it wasn't so. He would never have done something so cruel. He loved these people deeply, and trusted them enough to care for the child He left behind.

Naive, but then again He always was. I loved that.

. . . Ironic, how He wanted them to think of the child as a hero. But it is easy to love someone when they walk amongst you, and easy to forget and hate what has taken that love away.

So Naruto walks alone. They won't even give him his birthright, the name of He who loved the people and His son so much that He'd give his life and child to protect them.

I watch, and I wait.

I, too, am one of them, as much as it hurts me to say it, and I can't stop this pain. Every time I see the boy, I remember too much and its Him all over again, golden and blue and everything that ever meant anything in my life.

But I am sorry.

- fin
7february 2004



Notes: Honestly, I have no idea whose PoV this is. I think it's more fun to let the reader decide, but I have this haunting thought (perhaps due to something once said by Rin, or perhaps not) that it just might be Hiashi.