A/N: For some odd reason,
this fic was deleted. Sorry for the inbox spam.
Of Patriarchs
By: Pridefall
"My father taught
me that one of the most important abilities in life is to be able to take the
pain and persevere, and for years this lesson had served me well."
- Anon
Uzumaki Naruto never knew
his father.
“So…”
He knew of a man who
shared his last name; of a mythical warrior, whose eye’s were as pure as blue
steel and whose hair shone brighter than the sun, of a man who could travel
miles in an instant and could gather the force of the very tempest in his hand
and let them lose upon the world.
“…That’s him?” he asks, his
eyes squinting in the bright sunlight to read the name.
They’re standing in a field
a sunflowers a little over a mile outside of Konoha. Jiraiya is smoking, which
is a change of pace, and Naruto is kneeling down near a worn, unremarkable
headstone that juts out from the earth like a single, rain-worn tooth made out
of grey stone.
“Yep. Uzumaki Arashi. Your
father and the Yondaime Hokage.” Jiraiya smirks when Naruto looks back at him,
his face somehow both proud and cocky; as if he were daring Naruto to so much
as doubt him. “Ain’tcha proud, brat?”
Naruto leans forward, his
eyes running across the length and width of the grave. “…Hm. Uzumaki Arashi…”
Yes, he knew of that
man. He’s heard stories of him; heard that he could do everything under the sun
and then, but Naruto never really had father – he’s only had
myths of a legendary shinobi who stood up to a legendary demon calling for his
death and boldly, defiantly said to it: “I will not.”
“Something wrong?” Jiraiya
asks as the blonde keeps on scrutinizing the grave marker in front of him, his
hands now running across the surface of the stone as if he were a blind man
trying to imprint it on his memory.
“Hm.”
Naruto is so intent on the
grave that he doesn’t see the vein in Jiraiya’s forehead begin to pulse.
“Hm.”
Or Jiraiya close the
distance between them.
“Hm…”
Or his fist smack into the
back of his head.
“OW!” Naruto vocalizes,
jumping to his feet and pointing an indignant finger right in Jiraiya’s face. “What
the hell was that for old man?!”
Jiraiya gave him a stern,
even look. “What’s with all of those ‘hm’ sounds’? You sound like a goddamn
broken vibrator.”
Naruto’s face turned stark
red. Obviously the brat had read past page twenty of the Icha Icha Paradise
volume. “What the hell, Jiraiya?!”
The old man would’ve been
proud if he wasn’t almost ready to throttle the blond. “You sounded like a
broken vibrator, explain.”
Naruto crossed his arms and
threw his nose up into the air. “I do so not sound like whatever the
hell you called me is!”
“Then why were you
making those noises?”
“Because I was thinking,
you damn pervert!” Naruto screamed, throwing up both of his hands for effect
and waving them about like a lunatic.
Jiraiya took a step back at
the outburst. Naruto put his hand down and slowly turned his back on Jiraiya. The
Sannin raised an eyebrow. “The hell is wrong with you?”
Naruto’s shoulder rose; slumped.
“His name was…Arashi, right?”
Jiraiya put his hand on the
blonde’s shoulder and squeezed it tight, more prideful than reassuring. “Yep,
Konoha’s Yellow Flash, Uzumaki Arash-”
“He’s not my father.”
Naruto cut him off, his tone surprisingly pained for a child who just found out
who his father was. Jiraiya’s mind didn’t quite know what words to put together
to answers that, so all that came out when he realized what Naruto said – but
not what he said, as most women would tell him – was: “What in the flying
fuck did you just say?”
Naruto looked to the
ground, shrugging off Jiraiya’s hand as the man tried to make him face him. “Forget
it.”
Jiraiya stepped in front of
Naruto and put both of his hands on the blonde’s shoulders. “No. Uh-uh. What
the hell did you mean by that?”
Naruto bit his bottom lip
and looked to the horizon, his face a mixture of confusion and apprehension. “I-it’s
nothing. Forget it.”
The way he looked didn’t
stop Jiraiya from shaking the ever-living crap out of him. “Don’t gimme
that bullshit, Kid!”
Naruto broke away from
Jiraiya faster then the old man counted on him to move. Jiraiya was about to
wallop him when he regained his footing, but stopped mid-blow when he noticed
how straight Naruto’s back was and how hard his hands were bunched at his
sides.
“…You okay, kid?”
Naruto exploded. “That
man is NOT my father! He’s…He’s a coward! He’s a stupid idiot who left
me to fucking die!”
For a moment, Jiraiya was
speechless.
“That man died for you, you
ungrateful little piece of shit!”
But only for a moment.
“So?! Why did it have to be
me!? Why couldn’t he let someone else be the Fox’s prison!”
When Naruto screamed; like,
really, really screamed, it was a sound so loud as to be deafening. “Who
was HE to chose MY fate, goddamit!? Didn’t he know that the entire village
would hate me! That I’d be cursed for the rest of my life! If he was so
smart, then why the fuck couldn’t he find another way!”
Naruto whirled to face
Jiraiya, his hands throw out at his sides and his eyes closed in such absolute
concentration that Jiraiya was a little afraid of what the blonde might do to
him if he so much as spoke a word.
“WHY ME?”
Of course, like his
speechlessness, this only lasted for a moment.
“What in the fuck
was he supposed to do, Naruto?” Jiraiya began, his hands trembling at his
sides. “Give the Kyuubi to someone else? Let the village be destroyed?!” his
anger welled, fast and tempestuous. “So what if you had a shitty life? So
what. Arashi did what he had to do and you…You…” He searched for the right
words to say, part of him wanting sincerely to just beat the crap out of the
blonde to make him see his point.
“You should be grateful
that Arashi had the balls to do what he did when no one else did.”
Naruto looked reproachful
for a moment, and Jiraiya thought he’d finally gotten through to the blonde
until…
“Like Hell! If he was the
fucking legend that everyone made him out to be he would still be afuckinground
to make sure none of this shit happened to me!”
…And before Jiraiya knew
it, he had smacked his protégée in the face.
“GODDAMN BRAT!”
Naruto, flat out on the
ground, his lower lip bleeding and his cheek already beginning to swell up,
still managed to look defiant. “A father…” he began, spitting out blood as he
rose to his feet. “Doesn’t leave his mess for his child to clean up!”
Jiraiya hit him again.
Maybe physical violence would get his point through. “Arashi is your father!
Stop…Just fucking stop!”
Naruto got up yet again. “That
man is not my father! He never will be!”
“Then who the fuck is
your father, Naruto?!”
The blonde grabbed Jiraiya
by his vest and yanked him forward, his fist crashing into his chest as he
screamed:
“YOU ARE!”
The sheer hurt in Naruto’s voice
was like a slap in the face.
“You are!”
The way the boy melts into
Jiraiya’s arms as he feebly beats his fist into his chest is like a kick in the
ribs.
“You…a-are…”
They slowly fall to the
ground, the tears Naruto’s been holding back for what seem like years mingling
with the blood on his lips and mucus running down his nose.
Jiraiya doesn’t know what
to say.
He looks down to Naruto;
broken and crying for something that actually meant something to him,
and slowly put his hand on the blonde’s head, ruffling his hair.
“…Naruto?”
The blonde looks up.
“Y-yeah?”
Jiraiya smiles.
“I’d be proud to call you
my son.”
--
Finis