Behind Blue Eyes

Chapter 1: The Beginning or the end?

Lightening ripped the grey sky, thunder screamed in the darkness and the rain began to fall.

He stumbled and fell to his knees, his breath coming in short, agonised gasps. The blood ran freely from his wounds, gathering in a pool in the muddy earth. He wrenched the blood stained sword from his chest and watched silently as it fell to the ground, the blood turning black as it mixed with the blades bitter poison.

The world began to feel hazy and the edges of his vision darkened. He pitched forwards and coughed up blood, wiping his mouth he felt his skin begin to burn, looking down he noticed his blood was slowly turning black.

‘Poison’ he thought bitterly, suddenly his eyes began to burn and his skin felt like it was on fire. But it was somehow different than the burn of the swords poison, this time it felt like something was changing. Slowly he dragged himself towards a nearby river. He lay there panting for a second, waiting for the pain to stop, finally he moved over to the edge and gazed down at his reflection. His breath caught in his throat.

‘No! This isn’t happening, not now. Please. Not now.’

He stared in silence at his new reflection, not the reflection that had greeted him so many times before, no, he had a feeling he’d never get to see that reflection again. And it saddened him to his core. Gazing down, he noted the many changes he so desperately wished were not real. But sadly he knew they were.

The Azure blue eyes that he had always been recognised for, were now gone, replaced instead with twin crimson orbs that were silted down the middle in an all too fox-like manner. His once short golden hair now hung over his face, longer and wilder than before, littered with streaks of crimson and white. The golden colour now darkened to an unrecognisable muddy blonde. He opened his mouth and noticed immediately the elongated canines, shutting his mouth again he realised they even poked out of his mouth when it was shut. ‘Wow, just what I always wanted, fangs’ he snorted. The fine whisker marks he had bore all his life were now thicker and more realistic. And his ears now twisted into points and sat higher on his head.

‘At least they not furry’ he thought bitterly. ‘Apparently I cant even die in peace without the stupid furball messing with me’.

He lay back down and sighed deeply, sobs wracking his damaged body. This was what he got for using too much of the fox’s power, he hadn’t even meant to, but he had been cut off from the others and the battle had become harder than expected. Any other time he would have laughed at his own stupidity, how he had expected a fight with the most powerful of the sannin to be anything other than impossible to win? And now, he was not only mortally wounded, but he had used so much of the foxes chakra that he had ended up having it start to poison him instead of healing him.

He was beginning to worry though, the fox was being far too quiet, he would have expected it to try and break free whilst he was weakened. He knew it did not want to die, and yet here he was, dying and the fox is silent. Something was defiantly wrong. But somehow he couldn’t bring himself to care. Perhaps it was the poison, perhaps it was the exhaustion or perhaps he was just tired of constantly fighting onwards with that stupid smile and way too loud attitude. He was just sick of pretending to be happy, his optimistic attitude was now as dead as the snake sannin that lay across the clearing.

‘I should be happy that I finally killed the stupid hebi teme, but I think its too late now, I’m dying and thanks to the fox they probably wont even recognise me.’ he sighed. ‘Well at least I’m dying protecting the village, even if they’ll probably have a parade to celebrate the ‘Demons’ death if they do recognise me. Stupid villagers always did hate me, and now I even look like the demon they all believed I was.’

He supposed the only thing left to do was wait; his world was quickly becoming black, his senses becoming dull and the steady burn of the poison becoming no more than a cold numbness. He would finally admit that it was over, he’d never given up before, he had always beaten the odds. Yet, as he lay in the cold wet grass, the rain falling and mixing with his blood, turning the world black and crimson, he couldn’t help but feel, defeated. He never became Hokage, he never earned the respect of the villages, he never returned Sasuke and he never achieved his goals, he never would. But he was tired, tired of fighting, tired of smiling and cheering everyone up, here he was, desperate for some small word of comfort, for something, anything like what he had given others to be returned. But he was alone, he had no comfort and no hope. He would suffer the greatest pain imaginable, he would die alone. So maybe, just maybe, in death he could find the peace he so desperately sought, maybe it would finally allow him to stop pretending, to be safe and to find the comfort he longed for, maybe in death he could, finally feel alive. And with that last hopeful thought, the darkness descended on him.