Legacy [ Naruto Reader-Insert ]

You drop off the fish into the freezer by the kitchen and rush off to your room, feeling a sick churning in the stomach and very, very confused. What was he doing here? Is Danzo involved in this whole thing? Is this entire mission a charade to get rid of you because you're not loyal enough? Not good enough to wield the sword?

Thoughts like those swirl and thrash inside your brain, a thunderstorm in the middle of a calm ocean.

Then everything falls into place like fragmented pieces of color in a stained-glass window. In his every interaction with you, he gave you a choice, to go under his shadow in the roots of the Game or not. Sure, it isn't a good choice and like anything else, every action has a consequence.

But he's giving you a choice. And it still stands.

He's offering to train you, he's offering to take care of you, he's offering you a place of respite from the Game. Danzo's offering you everything you ever wanted in life, a goddamn fucking choice. Yeah, sure he sent someone to beat you up when you declined him the first time but, it wasn't death. Just a pummeling. You can handle getting your ass handed to you.

Like you've never gotten an ass-handing before. The aftermath of every taijutsu class you've ever taken at the hands of Uchiha Sasuke, boy prodigy. Number one student in your year. You're used to that, getting beaten down. But the thing is, you can get back up. Always.

But you're not used to being shackled so tightly to the Game's trunk and you want so, so badly to escape, to walk freely around the village without fear. Fear and paranoia, that's what you feel. Never a time without a barrage of thoughts rushing into your head by the thousands, like a murder of ravens, swirling, scathing, clouding.

A choice, all you wanted was just a goddamn choice in your life.

Your left eye throbs, feeling like someone's driving a long, sharp spike through your socket, past your flesh, past your brain, past your skull. A shriek pushes past your lips but there is no sound. Your knees hit the wooden floor and your body crumples like a puppet without strings.

____

Obey.

Obey.

Obey.

____

Most dirt squelches underneath your arms and the dewy scent of a light afternoon shower wafts into your nose. That familiar earthy smell, the way the rays of the sun caresses your cheek. The gentle stream of running water. Your eyes are wide open and your hands clench into fists, the dirt oozing into the gaps in between your fingers. The cool feeling of moisture of mud on your face.

You know this place. You know where you are a hundred percent. You've spent plenty of afternoons here. Somehow, you also can't get over how real everything seems. Like everything comes straight out of your memory.

But something's not quite right, it's quiet here. Eerily quiet. There's no sound of insects. Or birds. Or any animal in fact. It feels stagnant, like everything is being stopped in time.