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Note: A Naruto One-Shot Idea
All he saw was pink.
- let go.
…let go?
I want to let go.
And flowers.
Where am I…? It feels…
Why can’t I just release him?
…warm.
Why does it hurt?
Who’s there?
He never cared anyhow, so why do I?
Who never cared…?
And painful green eyes.
“Uchiha Sasuke-san.”
Black eyes struggled to open. This place - wherever he was - was very bright. It was shaded with a tender yellow: an identical hue to a sunflower field. He wasn‘t sure if there was a light source or not, but if there was one, the young man figured it was coming from all around this place, it was so overly-lit. But he pushed his observations to the side when he managed to open his tired eyes.
He felt tired: so tired. His body felt heavy, and his eyes, though they were fully opened now, were swollen from lack of sleep. He didn’t really have time to figure out why when the same voice that woke him repeated his name. The twenty-one year old Uchiha male stood from his lowed position, and gruffly asked, “Who are you?”
His eyes squinted slightly to stare at the bright figure hovering next to him. She apparently was in a sitting position midair with both hands on her lap. Her hair was a solid gold color and those locks of gold were moving on their own accord. The strand glimmered every so often, and they flashed when matching honey eyes flashed. And they did flash as she answered, “No one of importance,” the girl hummed a bit, “but I’m often called Choice. Do you know where you are?”
He grunted.
The woman sighed. “You‘re not making my job any simpler, Uchiha-san.”
“Aa,” Sasuke grunted once more. Sasuke averted his eyes from the glowing woman.
“Uchiha-san,” the hovering person, Choice, said more firmly, “Do you know why you are here?”
His eyes slide back onto her figure. “I’m dead.”
“To a certain extent. It’s good that you know what‘s partially going on. At least I won’t have to explain it to you until the very end,” Choice smiled warmly. She twirled a shiny length of hair with one of her slender fingers. It was a habit of hers to do so. She had tried getting rid of it over the past few millenniums, but it never seemed to go away. She’s only done the gesture when she was around a person who needed scolding somehow. Her eyes looked from her most recent - and also most notorious as of the late - guest, to her other hand on her lap. Her fingers played with the cloth of her dress when she continued, “You have made many choices in your lifetime, Uchiha-san.”
The Uchiha stood motionless. Probably thinking, she mused. She simply hoped he was ready for what things he was about to show him. She shook her head, and thought, He’ll probably never be ready for it. She went on.
“And some of the choices you made were very good choices.” She waved a shining arm in front of her, and the yellow abyss opened wide. White lights blared in, but died when an image came into view. A very familiar image to the young man before her. She watched wordlessly as he stared into the eyes of two older Uchiha: his mother and father. The picture suddenly came alive when Mikoto, the beautiful black-eyed woman, smiled sadly. The man beside her simply stared.
“Like when you decided to pursue a ninja career instead of fighting your roots.”
Sasuke, shocked, whispered, “Okaa-san…? Otou-san…?” When the twosome didn’t respond at all, his head immediately snapped towards the girl who had opened this rift in the first place. She shook her head.
“They can’t hear you, Uchiha-san”
“Why not?” He bit out. He quickly looked back, as if he was making sure they were still there.
She hated this part. “Because they don’t want to.”
Sasuke gave her a look (the look of rejection, and pure, pure shock) and he turned to face the two in the opening. Mikoto buried her face in Fugaku’s chest, and tears begun to cascade her pretty face. Fugaku’s eyes softened, and stroked her hair lovingly. Sasuke slowly read her lips:
“Oh, Fugaku… where did we go wrong?”
-
Uchiha Sasuke is dead. After only twenty-one years of being alive, after nine years of being on the run, and after six of knowing if he was found, he was going to die, he had finally kicked the bucket.
But before he was sent to hell - because he knew he wasn't going anywhere near heaven - Sasuke was placed before the woman who named herself Choice. And Choice was a lovely, and very merciful woman. She was the first line of judgement before a person was to be sent to heaven or hell... or sent back to earth for another try. So there Sasuke was: in the sea of yellow that Choice called her home.
Now Choice always did this to the ones who deserved to see both sides of their life’s story. Whenever one took the wrong turn in life, she would always show them what they could have done. The life they could have had. And she did this with Sasuke. Sasuke watched, as he relived his life, and saw what he had done. She showed him what he had done to his victim’s lives, beginning with the most recent kills, to the ones he hurt first: Team Seven. He was also shown his own family, and how ashamed they were.
“Why Sasuke? We told you not to chase Itachi! Why couldn’t you be happy with the life you had?”
He saw Naruto too. He was happy, but he had a lingering thought that always had Sasuke’s name on it. He was Hokage, and he had finally gotten married to that Hyuuga girl. Kakashi never settled down, but he was proud of his pupils (exclude one he was deeply disappointed with) and with the new genin team he had taken on. Sasuke was also shown Sakura. He saw how much she had grown, and how she became a woman. But he felt the pain radiating from these three people. From Naruto, it was betrayal. From Kakashi, deep regret. From Sakura… something that left scars on her love life.
He saw all of their expressions when his death was announce. Naruto began screaming, and punched a human-sized hole in the wall of the room he was in. Kakashi had only lowered his head, and spoke berating words. Sakura only let a tear fall from her eyes and she had let a pain-stricken face rise, before asking to be alone.
Sasuke had watched, but only with the words, “Why show me this? I’m dead, it’s over!”
Choice replied, “Just watch this.”
And then she showed him what he could have done. She began with after he had gotten the curse seal. And slowly, Sasuke realized what choice he had made different… he wasn’t blaming Itachi all the time. He was absorbing himself more I nthe life he was given, than the one Itachi had spared.
Choice said, “Uchiha-san. Look at the life you could have had:
You stayed where your family would have wanted you to.
You stayed with the people who loved you because you were you.
You became stronger than Orochimaru in Konoha, and killed him at the same age you did when you trained with him.
You found out what the council had done to your family without killing an innocent man.
You received the justice that you had wanted for so long.
You finally let go of the massacre.
You defended something that meant somehing to you, and not revenge.
You began to smile and began to laugh.
You were beginning to have fun with life instead of dreading every day.
You were given people to work with, and though you wanted to kill them, you made bonds that you would have trusted your life with.
You made friends who loved you very much.
You fell in love with a woman who proved herself worthy ten times over.
You had a family, Uchiha-san.
A daughter and three sons.
And they loved you very much. They honored you like a deity because you were willing to protect the ones you loved.
But most of all, Uchiha-san, you lived a full life in the place you belonged. You never had to run from something a day in your life unless it was from the enemy.
This could have been the life you lived, Uchiha-san. You could have died happy: with an obnoxious but reliable best friend, an annoying but stunning wife, four kids who drove you crazy but you loved every moment of it, with several runty but beautiful grandkids, and with that feeling of satisfaction I can tell you never got with the road you chose. You affected so many lives, Uchiha-san. So now, I‘m giving you one last choice because of that.
“Will you chose to go to hell, and pay for the deeds you have commited… or… you can choose to start over from the beginning. The latter will be hard work, Uchiha-san. You will have to find the will to give up revenge for almost ten years. You’re going to have to suffer through a lot because of the curse seal. But trust me, Uchiha-san, I think it would be worth the pain.
“Especially since you have them,” a smile, “your teammates.”
Now, with both roads given to him, he has a choice to make: end all this pain, all his misery, or start over, and though it will be painful, it will be worth it in the end.
 Ukeire · Fri Jul 31, 2009 @ 05:24am · 0 Comments |
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