Byakusharinnegan
Active member
“They treat you as a god.”
Heh. God.
The grand title causes the slightest of twists to draw up the corner of your dry lips into a rugged half-smirk, though the word seems unfamiliar as you roll it around in your mouth; the closest to an ironic smile Deva’s dilapidated body can manage is a mechanical simper.
Plenty time spent unused has not treated your chakra medium well, even worse than a month of fasting, insomnia, and constant pain has treated you.
If you are a god, then this is your land. Your kingdom. And it is as beautiful as any the world has ever seen.
Amegakure’s skyline is significantly distinguished by the particularly dark storm clouds that circled overhead and the piercing heights of your village’s signature skyscrapers. Many feet below, a large mob of civilians gaze up at the back
of Deva’s head, trying to get as good a glimpse as they can at their god.
Even from here, you can tell the emotion that skitters across their faces. You can smell it from a mile away…
Fear…
For the first time, you are not pitied as you were as a child; you are feared. You are feared, and you embrace it, you deserve it, you love it.
And you realize just as suddenly, God is not the title you want.
The sheer height of your outlook onto Amegakure does not prevent the heavy drops of rain from pelting your face in a relentless barrage, traveling down the sharp ridge of your cheekbones and dripping off the bottom of your chin like salty tears. Now is not the time for tears, however. You’ve cried enough. Now is the time for celebration.
Yet how easy is it to celebrate a man’s death, even if it was for the advancement of your idealisms?
“They treat me as a god,” you spit the last word out with disgust, though it still left a bad taste on your that not even the cold rain can erase, “Though that does not make me one. Does it, Konan?”
It’s a question you do not expect an answer to, and as such, you do not receive one. Your eyes are closed, yet you can see through Deva that Konan’s calm expression doesn’t waver. She is by now used to your philosophical post-mortems, and knows better than to answer directly.
Instead, she dances around the flames in a cautious tenor. “You are what you make of yourself, Pain-sama.”
Konan’s equally cryptic response does nothing to satisfy you, and you press on with more a forceful tone, “He is gone, Konan. Jiraiya is gone, and he is not coming back. ”
There. You do not know why, but somehow the pained expression that strikes Konan’s eye gives you a rush of adrenaline, something you have not felt since the battle, and you deliberately look down upon her as she bows her head. Her expression breaks, softens like Deidara’s clay, and you see not the taciturn woman that she was forced to grow into so quickly, but the young girl that you loved in your youth. Yet now, you hate it.
Of all three of you, Konan was easily the closest to your former sensei and you knew it. You could see the muddled protest in her grey eyes when you announced your plans for the gray-haired Sannin the day you detected his presence in your village.
Yet Jiraiya was gone now, and there was nothing she could do about it.
Gone, like Orochimaru.
Gone, like Tsunade.
Gone, like Hanzo.
Gone.
Like Yahiko.
Yet no.
Yahiko is alive, and he stands directly next to you, clad in the red and black cloak that he designed in his youth. And once again, you realize that the Akatsuki was his idea, and once again you realize just how much you owe him.
Are you satisfied, Yahiko? Satisfied with how I’ve progressed your dream?
This does not satisfy you, however, and in the back of your mind you wonder just how soft you have gotten in your slumber of sorts. Even beyond the fact that this Yahiko does not have the ear-to-ear smile that young Yahiko always had.
This Yahiko’s eyes are dull, and his face adorned with metals, and his mouth in a hard line. This Yahiko does not have the flesh or blood that made humans; this Yahiko is kept animated by only your chakra.
But that was still fine...Wasn’t it?
Yahiko is still here, is he?
And that still counts, doesn’t it?
Doesn’t it?
“Doesn’t it, Konan? Does the flesh and blood that determines humans really matter?”
Konan’s lips part slightly in compressed surprise at your sudden speech, though her eyes remain emotionless. You notice her right hand forming seals out of reflex on her lap, and you watch through Deva’s eyes for a slight moment. Snake, horse, snake, horse, snake, horse.
And then you frown.
Konan is left-handed.
She notices you staring, and quickly ceases her activity, before she mutters in a tone just louder than the roaring wind, “Kakuzu is dead.”
A slight chuckle escapes your lips, though it is carried away by the tempest before it reaches her ears.
And probably much past his time.
You are no fool; you know that you do not fully possess the Akatsuki’s loyalties, not all of them. They personify the Shinobi’s purpose as tools; In fact, you believe that Kisame – and perhaps Itachi – is the only one who wouldn’t act less than kindly if given the opportunity to meet your true self, the primary reason you refused to allow them personal vantage over you.
And like Jiraiya, most of them were gone now.
Sasori had been settled by his grandmother and the Kyuubi vessel’s partner.
Deidara had foolishly overestimated his ‘ultimate’ technique, resulting in his unhelpful suicide that didn’t even succeed in taking out his target.
Kakuzu had died trying to infiltrate Konoha; Hidan was dead, if not still dying.
Though Itachi’s death puzzled you the most. The Uchiha was easily the most skilled of the Akatsuki, with the exception of you, and you honestly don’t believe his death to his brother was anything less than suspicious at the least.
Zetsu and Kisame were still alive, though presumably not for long if events were to continue along their current scale.
And finally, Tobi. The true leader...yet he is not God. The people do not bow to him.
I am god...Or at least, presumed to be...
“The boy will be coming for you, Pain-sama.”
Ah, yes.
Naruto Uzumaki…Jiraiya’s final student. If your brief encounter and Zetsu’s descriptions of the boy were anything to stand by, you doubted it would be long before he charged into your kingdom, armed to kill.
“Not if I strike first. My body may have certain restrictions, Konan, but my mind does not. Konoha is weak, and I plan to take full advantage of that.”
For the first time in a while, you rise onto predictably unsteady feet, though you are not the one that walks down the many steps to Amegakure; Yahiko - no, Deva - is.
If you must play the role of God, then so be it.
“Let us go, my angel. It is time for us to descend from heaven.”
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Thank you for reading the first chapter of my first story. Please leave below your criticisms and praises!
Heh. God.
The grand title causes the slightest of twists to draw up the corner of your dry lips into a rugged half-smirk, though the word seems unfamiliar as you roll it around in your mouth; the closest to an ironic smile Deva’s dilapidated body can manage is a mechanical simper.
Plenty time spent unused has not treated your chakra medium well, even worse than a month of fasting, insomnia, and constant pain has treated you.
If you are a god, then this is your land. Your kingdom. And it is as beautiful as any the world has ever seen.
Amegakure’s skyline is significantly distinguished by the particularly dark storm clouds that circled overhead and the piercing heights of your village’s signature skyscrapers. Many feet below, a large mob of civilians gaze up at the back
of Deva’s head, trying to get as good a glimpse as they can at their god.
Even from here, you can tell the emotion that skitters across their faces. You can smell it from a mile away…
Fear…
For the first time, you are not pitied as you were as a child; you are feared. You are feared, and you embrace it, you deserve it, you love it.
And you realize just as suddenly, God is not the title you want.
The sheer height of your outlook onto Amegakure does not prevent the heavy drops of rain from pelting your face in a relentless barrage, traveling down the sharp ridge of your cheekbones and dripping off the bottom of your chin like salty tears. Now is not the time for tears, however. You’ve cried enough. Now is the time for celebration.
Yet how easy is it to celebrate a man’s death, even if it was for the advancement of your idealisms?
“They treat me as a god,” you spit the last word out with disgust, though it still left a bad taste on your that not even the cold rain can erase, “Though that does not make me one. Does it, Konan?”
It’s a question you do not expect an answer to, and as such, you do not receive one. Your eyes are closed, yet you can see through Deva that Konan’s calm expression doesn’t waver. She is by now used to your philosophical post-mortems, and knows better than to answer directly.
Instead, she dances around the flames in a cautious tenor. “You are what you make of yourself, Pain-sama.”
Konan’s equally cryptic response does nothing to satisfy you, and you press on with more a forceful tone, “He is gone, Konan. Jiraiya is gone, and he is not coming back. ”
There. You do not know why, but somehow the pained expression that strikes Konan’s eye gives you a rush of adrenaline, something you have not felt since the battle, and you deliberately look down upon her as she bows her head. Her expression breaks, softens like Deidara’s clay, and you see not the taciturn woman that she was forced to grow into so quickly, but the young girl that you loved in your youth. Yet now, you hate it.
Of all three of you, Konan was easily the closest to your former sensei and you knew it. You could see the muddled protest in her grey eyes when you announced your plans for the gray-haired Sannin the day you detected his presence in your village.
Yet Jiraiya was gone now, and there was nothing she could do about it.
Gone, like Orochimaru.
Gone, like Tsunade.
Gone, like Hanzo.
Gone.
Like Yahiko.
Yet no.
Yahiko is alive, and he stands directly next to you, clad in the red and black cloak that he designed in his youth. And once again, you realize that the Akatsuki was his idea, and once again you realize just how much you owe him.
Are you satisfied, Yahiko? Satisfied with how I’ve progressed your dream?
This does not satisfy you, however, and in the back of your mind you wonder just how soft you have gotten in your slumber of sorts. Even beyond the fact that this Yahiko does not have the ear-to-ear smile that young Yahiko always had.
This Yahiko’s eyes are dull, and his face adorned with metals, and his mouth in a hard line. This Yahiko does not have the flesh or blood that made humans; this Yahiko is kept animated by only your chakra.
But that was still fine...Wasn’t it?
Yahiko is still here, is he?
And that still counts, doesn’t it?
Doesn’t it?
“Doesn’t it, Konan? Does the flesh and blood that determines humans really matter?”
Konan’s lips part slightly in compressed surprise at your sudden speech, though her eyes remain emotionless. You notice her right hand forming seals out of reflex on her lap, and you watch through Deva’s eyes for a slight moment. Snake, horse, snake, horse, snake, horse.
And then you frown.
Konan is left-handed.
She notices you staring, and quickly ceases her activity, before she mutters in a tone just louder than the roaring wind, “Kakuzu is dead.”
A slight chuckle escapes your lips, though it is carried away by the tempest before it reaches her ears.
And probably much past his time.
You are no fool; you know that you do not fully possess the Akatsuki’s loyalties, not all of them. They personify the Shinobi’s purpose as tools; In fact, you believe that Kisame – and perhaps Itachi – is the only one who wouldn’t act less than kindly if given the opportunity to meet your true self, the primary reason you refused to allow them personal vantage over you.
And like Jiraiya, most of them were gone now.
Sasori had been settled by his grandmother and the Kyuubi vessel’s partner.
Deidara had foolishly overestimated his ‘ultimate’ technique, resulting in his unhelpful suicide that didn’t even succeed in taking out his target.
Kakuzu had died trying to infiltrate Konoha; Hidan was dead, if not still dying.
Though Itachi’s death puzzled you the most. The Uchiha was easily the most skilled of the Akatsuki, with the exception of you, and you honestly don’t believe his death to his brother was anything less than suspicious at the least.
Zetsu and Kisame were still alive, though presumably not for long if events were to continue along their current scale.
And finally, Tobi. The true leader...yet he is not God. The people do not bow to him.
I am god...Or at least, presumed to be...
“The boy will be coming for you, Pain-sama.”
Ah, yes.
Naruto Uzumaki…Jiraiya’s final student. If your brief encounter and Zetsu’s descriptions of the boy were anything to stand by, you doubted it would be long before he charged into your kingdom, armed to kill.
“Not if I strike first. My body may have certain restrictions, Konan, but my mind does not. Konoha is weak, and I plan to take full advantage of that.”
For the first time in a while, you rise onto predictably unsteady feet, though you are not the one that walks down the many steps to Amegakure; Yahiko - no, Deva - is.
If you must play the role of God, then so be it.
“Let us go, my angel. It is time for us to descend from heaven.”
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
Thank you for reading the first chapter of my first story. Please leave below your criticisms and praises!