A/N: Some adhere to
cannon, some divert away. I'm getting back into the groove of things.
Cause and Effect
It's a
simple formula. The greater the tragedy, the greater the emotional effect
1. The year following his clan’s massacre, Sasuke finds that he has an
innate ability to draw, and does so to rid himself of the disconcerting
pressure that's been growing in his chest. The picture that appears before him
is of a young boy -- black-haired and solemn-eyed -- sitting in the snow, and
when asked where he got the inspiration for such a masterful piece, Sasuke will
just shrug, look at the painting as if formulating a way to understand even that,
and say “I just looked at the canvas and it came to me.”
The reality, however, is
that Sasuke stole his talent and simply cannot remember the day that he walked
up to Itachi and watched his brother paint their family portrait.
2. From the cradle, they
teach him that food is his salvation. That ingesting calories and keeping his
body “fit” will enable Chouji to be the best shinobi he can be. His clan; his
jutsu; his nindo is built on the sole belief of mind over matter, and
despite the misgivings he has over this theory, Chouji believes the lie and
takes himself at face-value. Throughout his life, he continues to eat, and to
grow, and to push himself -- both forgetting that his bloodline almost
got him killed during the Sound-Sasuke debacle and that Shikamaru -- a shinobi
who always saw the front line -- never even once came close to death.
When his father dies of a
heart-attack, however, Chouji fasts for a month and asks Lee to train him to be
the shinobi he wanted to be, instead of the shinobi others wanted him to be. And
though his teammates are upset when he tells them this at first, when he tells
them he was sick of doing all the real work when they went into battle the both
of them go absolutely quiet and let the brunette go.
Shikamaru always thought
Chouji had it easy. Chouji always thought Shikamaru had it harder than most.
3. When she learns that
Naruto did not bring Sasuke back from the Sound, Sakura refuses to talk to the
blond, locks herself in her room, and cries for days. When there is nothing wet
left within her, when he eyes are ringed by dark circles and her throat is so
dry she cannot speak, she leaves, walks into her bathroom and takes a good look
at herself in the mirror.
Who am I, she asks herself;
her eyes running down her thin, naked frame; cutting into her; dissecting her;
judging her body and finding it replete with everything she hated about
herself.
What am I doing, she asks
herself; her mind analyzing every time she's failed the people who counted on
her and finding the number far, far too high .
...What am I going to do
about it, she asks herself before smiling; before she forces her entire arm through
the wall in front of her and screams "This is not who I am going to
be."
Metamorphosis happens
when you either accept a change or are forcibly made to change, and though this
new Sakura is far stronger than the old Sakura, Sakura is still a sentimentalist
at heart.
4. After Chiyo gives her
life to save Gaara, Kankuro disappears into the desert for four months. He does
not attend Chiyo’s funeral, he does not return to the Village to eat, to drink,
or to socialize.
He simply disappears, and
rejects the company of man.
To anyone else, this is a
cry for attention; a sign that nothing is right with Kankuro, and though his
sibling’s worry about the first more than the last, they are satisfied by the
messenger-bird he sends them every other week and leave well enough alone. When
he finally does reappear, however, instead of explaining where he went and what
he did, Kankuro gives each of his siblings a tight, brotherly hug and tells
them “Even if Dad couldn’t do it, it’s my turn to take care of you guys now.”
Though they each
inherited something from their parents, Kankuro followed his cousin's footsteps
and built the Salamander from his father’s bones.
5. When Naruto leaves
Konoha to train with Jiraiya, Kakashi just up and vanishes from Konoha. He
leaves behind no letter nor reason his actions, and despite a small warrant for
his arrest he manages to stay away from the Hunter-nin that follow him. After
evading them and officially becoming a Missing-nin, Kakashi heads to the north,
and in the following months the top ten list of the Bingo Book’s most wanted
Missing-nin must be dramatically revised.
Everyone pays little
attention to this at first, but when Kakashi returns to Konoha at the end of
the following year, he’s bleeding from his good eye, smiling like a maniac, and
clutching a headband and a sword that have Orochimaru’s name written all over
them.
Kakashi never cried for
anyone as much as he cried for failing his students. Sasuke never even hinted
at crying when Kakashi put a Chidori through his back and saved Naruto the
trouble of having another nightmare he didn’t deserve.
6. After Hanabi is declared
the heir apparent to the Hyuuga Clan, Hinata locks herself in her bathroom and
lets her shower run for hours on end. Then, she marches into Tsunade’s office and
demands to be emancipated. The Hokage, of course, denies her request, but
allows the child to train beneath her alongside Sakura.
Hinata works harder than
Tsunade expects her to, throwing herself headlong into her training with
tenacity that many of her peers are sorely lacking. She climbs the ranks
quickly, passing Sakura and Shizune despite losing her eyesight after an
unfortunate accident, and, to date, even though Tsunade told her to quit so
long ago, Hinata is the only one of the three students she has had to show
signs of surpassing even her through sheer force of will.
Hinata and Naruto have
more in common than they care to admit.
7. When Baki tells Temari
she needs to become stronger should she ever really want to keep her
brothers in check, Temari wanders out into the desert and watches the sands for
the tell-tale signs of a sandstorm. Part of her remembers a myth in the Sand
about a Monk who gained ultimate power by doing this, while another tells her
that facing death will only make her stronger.
Either way, when she finds
a storm, or when one finds her, she stares into the oncoming maelstrom, raises
her fan, and screams as loud as she can. She discovered how to summon
the Dai Itachi the third time she did this, and has never revealed how she survived
her first two encounters with this terrible force of nature.
Gaara has yet to ever do
something to cross his sister.
8. Naruto doesn’t like
speaking to the Kyuubi because it hurts him when they have a
conversation. The sounds of its voice, the way it speaks and enunciates its
words burns his skin and knifes into his mind like a lightning bolt or an
arrowhead, and even when they are civilized with each other, Naruto -- always
trusting, always naïve and simplistic, always stupid, Naruto -- feels as
if the demon is talking around him instead of to him.
Realizing this hurts more
than it should, he thinks, because knowing that such a large, defining part of
his life treats him as little more than a nuisance seems less ironic and
more depressing.
...So naturally, when
Jiraiya tells him one day that he can give the brat a shortcut around all the
crap the Fox puts him through, Naruto accepts, and tells the Fox in the most
polite, sarcastic voice that he can manage that it could go fuck itself because
he didn't need to ask for its help anymore.
Now he could just simply
take what he wanted..
The Fox says nothing,
and thinks that its container reminded it far too much of itself when it was
young.
9. In their final battle,
when he looks at the blood on his hands and on his sword, Itachi thinks back on
all the enemies he's killed throughout his life and thinks that, had his
younger brother been smart enough to stay away from the roads Itachi traveled
down, the eldest Uchiha wouldn't have had to watch his brother's best friend
kill the monster Sasuke had given everything to become.
Itachi loved Sasuke
enough to spare his life. Sasuke hated Itachi enough to throw the gift away.
10. The Kyuubi remembers
that, once upon a time, it came to this land of men and shadows to find a
suitable mate. Its reasons for doing so were simple, undocumented, and
unimportant, but its methods – changing into a female form and actually
seducing one of the furless rats – are remembered and reviled by the one thing
it came to hate the most.
The Yondaime chose his
own son to be the bearer of the Kyuubi’s Seal, and no one ever once questioned
his motive for doing so.
----
Finis.