Kakashi’s POV
“What happened while I was gone?” I ask Eri, I had to know and get there quickly but because she was pregnant it was going slower than I expected.
“We were at one of the mask stands, she was laughing at one of the ludicrous mask, and next thing she’s cupping her stomach and blood is seeping through her fingers. She told me to take her to Lady Tsunade. You go ahead of me. I’ll be there soon.”
I go ahead of her, using my speed to my advantage. I had to get there quickly. It must be the training that she did that finally got to her. I told her to not push herself, these are the consequences. If she would only listen for once. I open the door to Lady Tsunade's office to find it empty, where would they go?
“If you are looking for Lady Tsunade and Kiyoko, they went to a cave outside the village for precautionary measures.” I turn to see Shizune pointing to the west mountains. There was only a few places there I could think Lady Tsunade would take her. I jump from roof to roof, getting closer. The sun has set already, and the sky is dark. It reminded me of the time when the nine tails attacked the village, but Kiyoko won’t let it out. She’s strong, she won’t let the beast out.
I go to a cave, its the place Kushina gave birth to Naruto. It was confidential, but I was given that information because I guarded Kushina while she was pregnant. The fourth hokage wanted me to be his right hand man, but I failed him. I won’t fail Kiyoko. I see ANBU black ops standing at the mouth of the cave, they let me pass, I was one of them long ago. I hear heavy breathing when I get closer to the back of the cave. I see Kiyoko resting on a table, chains keep her in place. The way she struggles and muffles her screams makes it painful to watch. She was in pain, though her eyes were squeezed shut, tears leaked through her lashes. Sweat dampened her forehead.
“It looks the internal bleeding has stopped, but I don’t know why she is going through this. “ Lady Tsunade stands at Kiyoko’s side. I don’t have a clue either. I hate feeling helpless as she screams in pain in front of me. Kiyoko gasps and her eyes open, they are wide, and empty. Is like she can’t see anything. Her chakra shifts, and black symbols begin to overtake her body. The marks that the Moon Village left her with. We thought they disappeared, but it looked like they are still effective. Kiyoko lets out a bloodcurdling scream. Her body desperately tries to break the chains that confined her. The markings became thicker and soon covered every inch in her body.
“We have to do something. We don’t know how those symbols will affect her.” I tell Lady Tsunade.
“We don’t know how to stop it.”
Kiyoko stops moving and closes her eyes. It looks like she has fallen into a deep slumber. The rising and falling of her chest tells us she is still alive.
“Has she been using excessive amount of chakra?” Lady Tsunade continues, “There are sealing jutsus that react to chakra.”
“Yes, she trained on her own all night long last night.” I move closer to across from Kiyoko. Her tears still spilled, they ran down the side of her face, pooling in her ear.
“I believe the jutsu they used on her would be like that. If Kiyoko would try to use the beast’s chakra against them, this jutsu would prevent her from doing so.” Lady Tsunade explains. They really planned this out. Kiyoko began to cough again, the blood spurted out of her mouth, it stained her yellow qipao.
“It explains why the markings have overtaken her body, but why is she coughing blood?” I asked her in defense.
“I don’t know. I’m trying to figure that out.”
“Could it be possible that the beast inside her is trying to escape, and is physically hurting her from the inside.”
Kiyoko’s POV
It was dark, and all I felt was coldness of the empty space. I don’t know where I am, one minute I’m standing in front of the monkey mask, that looked more like a demented dog, and then I’m here. Am I in a genjutsu? I try to release, but it sends painful shock waves to my head. I see a few figures not too far from me. I run towards them and they soon come into view. I see my seven year old body laying on the ground, and little kids surround me, Eri is one of them in the crowd. I try to stop them from hurting me, I know they will, I lived through this experience before. It’s a memory. I watch helplessly as the girls pull my hair, and the boys spit at my face. I feel everything I felt that day, every hair pull, every slap, and every kick.
How can I get out of here?
The memory disappears,and is replaced with another one. I see my father, crying over someone’s dead body. It moves and I feel my body go cold. It’s mother. This is one of the first memories I have, but I don’t remember it at all. My father’s tears soak her bloody clothes.
“Get it away from me.” My father screams, and the next thing I hear is a baby cry. I see myself minutes old. I watch as my baby hands extend to the sky, my fingers gripping the air. My newborn hands full of blood. I feel my heart stop, the first life I took was my mother’s.
“That monster! I don’t want to see it!” My father flairs his arm at the person who was holding me at the time. The tears on my infant face don’t stop. Minutes old and I already knew what it meant to be hated, to be alone, and the feeling of not being love. I felt a pain in my chest, it wasn’t because they were hurting me in the memory, it was because I saw this. I felt my chest get heavy and it felt like it was going to collapse. I watched the death of my mother.
That memory disappears like the other one. I’m afraid of what recollection I have hidden somewhere in my brain. Images of blood, and dead people start flashing into my mind, I remember all of their faces, they are the ones I killed. The children at the orphanage, the Moon ninjas, my mother.
“I hate you. I hate what you did to me. I was supposed to live a long life. A happy one, but you cut it short!” The images stop and in front of me is my mom. She looks like she stepped out of the photograph I have of her. She wasn’t smiling now, and her eyes were full of hatred, and anger. Her eyes were exactly like the villagers back in the Mon Village. So she does hate me, my father was right.
“I’m sorry,” I try to step away from her, but she only got closer. The closer she got the painfuller it got. She was causing this horrible headache.
“Sorry, won’t bring me back to life! I’m dead!” My mother laughs, but I don’t find it funny. This was getting worse every second. I see blood drip from her eyes, she was crying, and her tears were crimson.
“I see everything you do, everything you feel. I’ve seen that you’ve tried to change the way your life is going. You will always be the beast, nothing will change that. No matter how many good deeds you do, you can’t change your destiny. You want to protect, but you couldn’t protect the one friend you had.” My mother’s black eyes stare with bad intentions. I’ve never seen her like this. In the rare occasion, I would dream of her. I dreamed that she would do all the things other mothers would do. Pack my lunch, make dinner, help me with my hair, and love me, but looking at her now she was nothing like this.
“You remember the friend you promised to protect.”
Everything I tried to forget came rushing back into my mind.
“No,no,no, don’t say it. I don’t want to remember her name, I don’t want to remember anything that happened.” I put my hands over my ears, trying to block her voice from reaching my mind. If I don’t hear her name then I won’t feel the guilt I have managed to put on the back burner. The name of my only friend reaches me, and I feel all of the memories of that day come flooding back.
“Suzu Kagome,” She whispers. The memory of that day materializes in front of me. I try to turn away and close my eyes, but my body no longer belonged to me. I was forced to see the most painful experience I’ve been through once again.
Kiyoko- twelve years old
I don’t know how long I’ve been in this cave. The war keeps me restricted here, I am in need for supplies, food and water. I sit in the darkness, it reminds me of time I was stuck in the well, but this time the ground above me shook. Paper bombs loosened the earth and rained on me. I stayed as far away from the entrance that I hid with large leaves. I couldn’t leave and find another shelter, it was too risky. The fighting was not too far from here, I could smell the blood from here.
Why are they fighting? what caused this war, that took so many lives. I’m clueless to the reason why, but I’m not part of it. I don’t want to be part of killing people, even if I already have a few deaths on my hand. It get colder everyday, and I don’t have anything to warm my young bones.
I hear the leaves at the entrance rustle and footsteps echo, approaching slowly. I grab the makeshift kunai I have made from a sharp rock and a thick stick. The shadow comes closer, holding a weapon in her hand. She hold a lit fire in her other hand. She notices me and relaxes just a bit, but I don’t trust anyone. She looks the same age as me, and she has short brown hair, her eyes are black, and her clothing is stained with blood. She wears a forehead protector with the insignia of the Stone Village. Her dark complexion glowed as she examines me.
“Are you an enemy or a war orphan?”
I shrug, I’m not an enemy or a war orphan. I don’t know how to answer her question.
“Neither. Its just too dangerous to go anywhere else. Who are you?” I interrogate the intruder.
“I’m a ninja tired of the useless fighting. Especially when they force children to go to the front lines of the war. I mean look at the position I am in. The Kage’s are too stubborn to make peace,” She extends her arms, and sits before me, making herself at home.
“So why is there a war?”
She laughs, “I’m sent to war to fight, but I do not know the reason we fight. I am too young to understand, they told me, but I’m old enough to fight!”
“What is your name?” She asks me, and smiles at me. At times like these I don’t know how she manages to smile and befriend me. She’s something else.
“Kiyoko.”
“My name is Suzu.”
“How can you be so easygoing?” I scoot just a little farther away from her. The way she nonchalantly talks, made me suspicious. She smiles at the small fire she had brought.
“In war you never know when you’ll be killed. For all I know I may die tomorrow, why must I live what may be the last hours of my life in fear.” Suzu lays down on her back staring at the dark ceiling. There was something strange about her, I couldn’t put my finger on it.
“There is a lot about you that you’re not telling me, isn’t there. I have a knack for reading people.”
“Your not to open yourself.”
She turns to face me, she begins to tell me her life story. She whispers her favorite books to me, and tells me all about her family. Suzu tells me about the pets she has back home, and about what she felt about the war. She even told me about her love life, which was nonexistent like mine. She wasn’t afraid of anything, it seemed like she had everything under control. I keep my life story to myself I just couldn’t find the courage in me to tell her the truth. I don’t know how much time we spent in the dark cave, but Suzu managed to make me laugh at some point, it felt nice to feel my chest rumble. She told me a story about her older brother and how he ran half naked all over the village chasing a dog for taking his clothes. Turned out the dog needed something to keep her pups warm. Her brother let the dog keep his clothes.
“What is your dream?” Suzu asks me.
“I want to protect people someday, become important to someone, and have a reason to exist. For as long as I remember all I wanted to be was a skilled ninja, but I don’t have a sensei to teach me things so I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do that,” I tell her, she hums in thought. Her white teeth shine in the darkness.
“How about this, after the war I’ll help you become a skilled ninja, all you have to do is protect me from harm. Then we can complete your dream, you’ll be protecting me and I’ll make you into a skilled ninja.”
We shake hands in agreement.
“Its a promise,” I smile. With this in mind all I wanted was the war to be over soon. There has to be a stop to this war or I’m going to go insane inside this pitch black cavern. We stay in the cave for two days before we completely run out of water. The dangerous task of going outside and getting water from the river was a daunting task, but I managed to do it alone before, Suzu will make it easier. The river flowed about two hundred yards to our left. During our run a lot of things can go wrong, but I’ll be there to protect Suzu just like I promised. I tell her the plan, we stick together, and watch each other’s back, it was that straight forward. We move the foliage that covered the entrance and adjust to the sunlight. I take in my surroundings and notice there are a lot more bodies littering the ground than the last time I came out. Suzu gives me the signal to follow her lead. She runs in front of me and takes the easiest route to the river, I carry the water jug.
We make it there without confrontation. I bend to fill the water jug, when I hear the clinking of metal striking. I jump to see three men standing in front of us, Suzu blocked with her kunai. They all had the Mist insignia on their forehead protector. They looked beat up from a previous battle. No one moves, but I get closer to Suzu, I promised I would protect her.
“Stay back, they look worn down, I think I can take them,” Suzu whispers into my ears. How could she take them on? They must be skilled ninja, while we are just kids.
“I was going to be promoted to Jounin before the war, so have some faith,” Suzu says like she read my hesitation. I gulp and stand back, I hated this. I was supposed to be protecting her, not the other way. I held the kunai Suzu gave me before we left the cave, she moves her hands to seal a jutsu, the rock shifts underneath us and the three men jump to dodge her attack. It looks like her chakra nature is earth, I never learned what mine is. She was skilled for her age, she dodged all the shurikens and kunai they threw at her. I stared in awe as I see her land a blow on one of the foes.
Everything looked like it was going to work out, but one of the enemy had done a substitution jutsu, Suzu was taken back, I thought she had the guy too. One of the men use water chakra nature and washes her away. I start leaning to getting involved, it looked like she needs it. Suzu sits in the water, I hear is before I see it. I see the lightening stream running up the water, and then I hear Suzu scream. The third man sends a kunai flying her way, I run to get to her, but it was too late, the kunai hits her chest and Suzu’s body goes limp. I run to her, she promised to help me get stronger, she couldn't be dead. I look for a pulse but her body was beginning to get cold. I failed.
"Weren't you supposed to protect her little Kiyoko?" The beast in me says. "You are a failure! You will never protect people dear to you, they will all die anyways,” He laughs at me. I close her eyes, and I pull the kunai out of her chest. Rage blinds me and the beast in me runs wild, I blank out.
Kiyoko-present
I watch my the kid me running wild and killing the three men savagely. I never see myself kill the people that I have murdered but this memory shows me all. I watch myself gain incredible speed, and I hear myself myself snarl. After I kill the first man, my tears begin to block the view of the memory screen, I’m grateful. It ends with the my childish self screaming when I get my mind and body back. It vanishes, and my mother is sitting happily on the other side. Her brown hair spills hazardly behind her.
“Do you realize now that you will never be able to protect people you care for? You will kill them yourself.” Her voice is softer, but there is no love in it. I gain control of my body and let myself fall to my knees.
“Why are you doing this?”
“You deserve it, don’t you? You live, and yet you took the lives of countless innocent people. They had their lives planned ahead of them, but you snatched it from their reach. This is your punishment.” I look up to see that my mother is gone and is replaced with the current me. I stand, and look into the reflection that stood in front of me. Was this my guilty conscious?
“Admit it, you deserve this, at the very least.” My clone reaches to stroke my hair. I stare at the the emptiness in my clone’s eyes. I see nothing in them. I swallow my tears, and nod. I deserve this, I killed humans, and I expected to live on with no worries. Their ghosts still haunt me. This is why I am sent here, to think about them, to accept my punishment for ending their lives. My clone gives me a desolate smile. She fades away, and the darkness of the empty space I was trapped in ripples into color. Its still dark, and shadows dance on the ceiling. I try to sit up, but the chains keep me down. Why am I chained down? I see Lady Tsunade not far to my right and Kakashi to my right, both of them on guard. In front of me the light shines through an opening. It looks like I’m in a cave. I was in a cave once before, with Suzu, but she is dead. I saw it happen twice.
“Get me out of here.” I plead, I can’t stand being here, it reminds me of the painful day, I broke a promise to the only friend I ever had.
“Take your time, we need to make sure you are okay,” Kakashi says besides me, he doesn’t understand. Lady Tsunade takes the liberty to check if the seal inside me is still intact, it is, I know it for a fact. I need to get out of here. It feels like the ceiling is getting closer and the walls are closing in on me.
“Take a deep breath. We need to check some things before we let you go,” Lady Tsunade says something but I don’t listen. I feel the sweat stick my clothes to my skin, and I taste blood in my mouth.
“I feel fine, I have to get out of here, now. I can’t stand to be in small and closed areas.” I explain, she finally understands, and tells a few men to let me loose. The chains fall to the ground with a thud, and I carefully sit up. Eri stands at the entrance, holding my forehead protector. The sight of it makes me feel ashamed. I wasn’t going to become a jounin, I couldn’t even protect one friend.
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