Kruka Umino woke up covered in sweat, gasping for air. It was that dream again.
To say that it was a nightmare would be misleading. No, it was beyond something as plebeian as a nightmare.
It was twisted.
It was terrible.
It was terrifying.
And yet, over the course of years, it had become a part of him.
No, to call it a nightmare would be putting it lightly, there was no word in the language of men that could explain the amount of horror his dream exuded.
Iruka held his head in his hands, trying to calm his nerves.
He had been getting by for the past few years, acting normally, trying to fit in, and miraculously despite all the odds he had managed to drown himself in routine. Not that it was enough, perhaps nothing will ever be, but he was making progress. Months had passed since he had that horrible dream, and then he was forced to see the face of that boy again.
Forced to see him laugh after losing everything because of him.
He looked at the watch, resting beside his futon.
It was still early. He laid back and closed his eyes, taking in deep breaths in an effort to centre himself.
The dreams always started the same.
He was sitting with his family about to start dinner.
His mother, his kind mother with wrinkles around her eyes, was laughing at something his father had just said.
In front of him sat his father, his harsh father who had always given him his silent support, the man who had always been there by his side. His father was someone who carefully guarded his emotions, he was blunt and often rude, he had a thousand and one faults, and yet he was always there for him.
And lastly, to his right sat the reason he smiled, his life, his princess, his sweet little sister.
It was the last time Iruka remembered himself being truly happy.
And then the calamity struck. It was as if the very forces of nature had turned against the village hidden in the leaf.
A fear so terrible encased his very being that his muscles refused to cooperate. In his mind, Iruka knew that he should move, that he must move if he wanted to live another day, but it was as if his body refused to listen.
He had faced many shinobi on his missions, but the killing intent he had felt at that moment was beyond anything a human can ever hope to match.
It was as if they had lost the favour of Kami, and the lord of gods had decided to show them his wrath.
His father, a jōnin who had lived through the shinobi world war, someone who had first hand witnessed the brutality of humans, someone who had fought in countless battles and lived to return home, died of heart failure.
His lovely mother, who had yet to move, was suddenly covered in debris as a sudden tremor shook the foundations of the great tree and broke their little nest.
Iruka felt a wave of raw energy throw him against a half-broken wall, and fortunately, his daze broke.
In one moment, it was all over. His whole life was destroyed.
He ran.
Like a coward, he ran. With tears streaming down his face, he ran, praying it all to be an illusion, some twisted genjutsu. But it wasn't.
The alarm rang.
With a sigh, Iruka got up once again.
His morning absolution was a routine as was his breakfast. To him, it was all a chore now.
"CATCH HIM!" A loud shout came through the window, the one facing the street.
With a mug of tea in his hand, Iruka went to the balcony.
His hands clenched, and suddenly the mug broke in his grip. Anger shot through his veins as he saw a blonde-haired kid being chased by a couple of Uchiha.
How could he not hate that boy? The boy was the very embodiment of hate, the impersonation of evil, the container of the nine-tails.
Oh! Sure, he had heard Sandaime trying to pass off the wrath of nature as nothing more than a little problem. How foolish did he think the villagers to try and relate to it with a sealed weapon?
A kunai, when sealed, doesn't change the paper. It neither turns the paper metallic, nor does it provide the paper with any unnatural immunity against other weapons.
For Kami's sake, it was a bloody kunai. A weapon. An object. Something WITHOUT a free will of its own.
Whereas a tailed-beast was a demon, a force of nature. A concentrated being of chakra with an indomitable will.
Yes, the creation of a jinchūriki uses sealing just like a kunai when sealed into a paper, but the similarities end there.
Saying that those two are equal will be like saying that a paper bag containing kunai is no different from a paper bag containing radioactive fusion rods. It wasn't even funny.
To think that a human could ever use such a primordial power without any repercussion is a laughable thought.
Contrary to what most ninja like to believe, the villagers were not illiterate bumblers. They knew of past jinchūriki, of Yagura, the mad Kage and Kingin Kyōdai of Kumo, they knew of Han's prowess and Roshi's ruthlessness.
They even knew of the only other jinchūriki as old as the container of nine-tails.
Gara's rage had done nothing to assure the villagers that the hyperactive boy wouldn't simply go ballistic one day and kill them all for looking at him wrong.
No, the history of jinchūriki had done nothing to garner the boy any favours.
Even if they looked past all his misgivings and the fact that the killer of their family could one day pop out and kill them, it was hard to remain calm after his usual deeds.
Iruka looked up at the Hokage monument, and once again, he found himself staring at the founders of their village covered in graffiti.
His teeth clenched.
Hundreds of shinobi died every year to protect their legacy, thousands of their brethren died in the shinobi world wars to protect, to safeguard their traditions.
In a world where the sole reason for one's existence could be summed up in two words: honour and duty, for someone to disgrace their history, to deface their ancestors, to look down on the greatest of men to have ever walked on these lands was beyond sinful.
It was blasphemy.
If they had to sum up the action of the jinchūriki in one word, it would be "Disgraceful".
Were the villagers truly at fault here?
Were they at fault for hating someone who made fun of their ideals, their ancestors, their Hokage after taking the life of the Yondaime?
Kage is not just the leader of the village, he is the father, the sibling, the son the villagers lost in wars; a Kage is as much the part of the family as he is the head of one. A Kage is more than a person; he is the symbol of the village, of its traditions and its ideals, of its history and its culture.
For the jinchūriki to deface them after being responsible for the death of their beloved Yondaime, was it indeed any wonder that the ancient clans despised him?
Was it so wrong of them to hate a being manifested of malice and malevolence?
How was one supposed to act towards the embodiment of the killer that slaughtered thousands? The kyūbi killed and ravaged the village. Few were left untouched.
Were the villagers really in the wrong for hating the killer of their family?
Would you forgive a man with multiple personality disorder if one of his personalities murdered your parents... your siblings... your children?
Of course, one could argue that the man in question might not be responsible for his actions, that one of his "tenants" did the damage. But then again, it's exactly that... an argument — an excuse.
It doesn't give the perpetrator in question the right to disrupt the life of the victim's family, just because they avoid him.
It doesn't give the man in question the right to force his victim's family into "acknowledging" him.
How full of self-grandeur one has to be, to want everyone around him to respect him.
And well, if they don't respect him, then the holder of the kyūbi forces them to recognize him.
His once juvenile pranks turned to public menace just because people refused to respect him for his daily destruction of public property.
The villagers were drowned in ink, bombs exploded in their shops, and their products were stolen. On top of the pain given to them by the jinchūriki, they had to sit back and watch silently as the demon laughed and disrupted their everyday lives.
They suffered every day, and yet the villagers rested their hand because the Sandaime asked them so.
Oh! Sure they rested their hands, but was it fair to ask them to change their very thoughts because of some twisted notion of the greater good?
Changing into his usual attire and checking to see if all the windows were appropriately latched, Iruka exited his apartment.
Going through the usual routes, he came across a fountain, one which now seemed to be struggling to force, what appeared to be sludge of some kind.
Another mission for the newly minted genins.
Since these were public properties, they were more prone to getting damaged by the resident jinchūriki, and the cost that went into fixing them came from the pockets of the residents.
The taxation that could have been used to repair roads or buy new equipment for the hospitals went into repairing the damage the self-proclaimed "prankster" caused.
In the beginning, the villagers took their complaints to the Kage, but when the boy got off the hook with barely a slap on his wrist for detonating a colour bomb in the middle of the public square, they knew that it was futile. Their Kage had practically given the jailer free rein to wreak havoc.
Were they wrong to be angry at someone who was barely more than a public menace?
Iruka stood in front of the academy.
Children as small as five years were going through the gates.
They were, but kids.
Oh! How the mighty have fallen. The village, once the greatest of the great five after the kyūbi attack was reduced to a husk of its former self.
Its shinobi population was reduced to a bare skeleton; kids were armed and forced to become killers.
They were forced to follow the lead of the jinchūriki and join the academy at five.
But where the demon took its time and kept on failing, other children passed out.
When other children were out killing the enemies and defending the village, the demon was pranking the villagers.
When the said enemies killed other children, their parents forced to witness the graves of their young ones, the kyūbi was forcing the villagers to "acknowledge" him.
Was it indeed so hard to comprehend why the villagers didn't acknowledge him?
He was a failure, and not just a failure but an obnoxious one at that.
For a dead-last like him, to announce to a parent that he is going to be their leader when the children of the said parents are out fighting for their life.
Was it indeed so hard to understand why the villagers held him in such disdain?
Strolling through the halls of the academy, Iruka entered the class.
In front of him sat the children, many of whose parents died on that dreadful night.
Was it genuinely fair to ask a child to play with someone who was the reason; they had no father to teach them, to be proud of them? The reason they had no mother to sing to them every night? Or siblings, to play with them?
Just as he was about to start the lesson, about to teach his students one of the finer skills that would probably save their lives out in the field, the door opened with a loud bang.
"Hai! Iruka sensei, Good Morning!"
The loud voice grated through his very being.
The visage of the speaker made his blood boil.
Iruka remembered the tears flowing down the face of his little sister as she choked on her blood... and he smiled.
"Go to your seat Naruto, and please try to be on time from tomorrow onwards."
He smiled because there was nothing else he could have done.
He was, after all, a shinobi, and he would endure...
Muse:
Like it? Hate it? Review and share your opinions…
After reading hundreds of Naruto fanfics, I decided to do something different. And thus, here I am, playing the devil's advocate.
I bet half the fics that you guys have read on this site must have depicted at least one instance where our favourite MC was abused, neglected, beaten-up, left alone... you get the drift... right? It makes everyone so riled up about how the village is filled with idiots and bullies, and how it's so unfair that they gang-up on our defenceless hero.
So there I was, one day, sitting around, thinking up a hypothetical case, about what I would do should I find that someone in my society killed my family (once again, hypothetically...). The killer is a general nuisance, someone who disturbs and gets in the way of everyone... and no-one is allowed to go against him because the society's president likes and favours the perpetrator.
How would I treat him? Would I ever be able to forgive him? Would I see him as a poor defenceless man and invite him to eat with me?
And I found out that NO. I'm not that good of a man.
I would probably smile if I saw someone trying to kill him. The fact that he might not even be directly responsible for the murders won't assuage me in the least.
If a man is directly or indirectly involved in the death of my family, then he could choke on his blood, and I won't bat an eye.
As for the cliche of sealed kunai, lemme ask you this... Would you mind keeping an air-tight container of polonium in your home? Is the danger posed by a sealed box of the most radioactive element equal to the threat posed by a sealed box full of needles and penknives?
Anyway, enough of my mindless ramblings.
Do tell me what you guys think about it. Do you agree with my point of view?
Many of you might disagree and point out the fact that it is "illogical" of the villagers to hate a kid. I get you... I do. But understand that when it comes to emotions, logic doesn't stand much of a chance. I wrote this oneshot as an attempt to understand how the victims might feel from an emotional point of view.
Stay tuned.
Cheers,
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