Evil Striving Toward Love

Chapter Two: Blue Light




“There I was, five years old and growing just as cold hearted as my Uncle Azamari.” Nika wrote down this in her leather blue journal. She had her favorite ink pen in her hand as she revealed to her journal the events that occurred eighteen years ago.


“When my parents disappeared, I took it very hard. And I had never even met my Uncle before. So that only made things worse. After awhile of sulking about my parents leaving me with a complete stranger- my Uncle came up to talk to me, “Nika, you mustn’t cry about this nonsense anymore.”


“I can’t help it!” I cried into my hands. I was sitting outside on the snow. My Uncle pulled me up by my ear. I tried to tug away but he was too strong.


“Listen, you cry about your stupid parents one more time and I’ll rip this ear off! You annoy me so much!” He let go of my ear and I instantly walked away a good ten feet out of terror.


“What are you doing?!” I cried now that my ear hurt. “I love my parents!”


“You are only five years old and you have no idea what love is! Love is not what your parents have for you. And so you shouldn’t love them either.” He reasoned.


I couldn’t believe him, “No! They do love me!”





“If they loved you, they wouldn’t have left you here..” He smiled.



A tear slipped down my face, “…what? What.. am I going to do without my mommy and daddy?!” I cried again and fell into the snow.



My uncle picked me up, this time with more care, “You’ve got me. I’ll teach you many things! And you can forget about your parents. Who cares about them anyways?”

I was confused and wanted my parents but they never showed. So, I decided to obey my Uncle completely and act like he was my parent. To this day, I have no idea where my parents went- or why they left me. But I really don’t mind anymore. I’m an adult and am independent. So I don’t need them nor do I care to look for them. Never have and never will.

But, I’m navigating from the story- aren’t I? So there I was at five years old and my Uncle and I trained every day with almost no rest. But he had a big house with a cozy bed, so I didn’t mind all that much.




One day about two years later, my Uncle saw something in my eyes. A ‘purple spot’ he said it was. Being a child I was frightened by what this dot could have been.


“Hold still!” He yelled again and brought his finger closer to my eye.


I whimpered not wanting him to touch my eye again but held as still as possible again. He poked my eyes again. I blinked and sat back away from him. We were in his kitchen on his soft couch that happened to be pitch black. He sighed.


“Either you have a tumor or that blotch is connected to your eye.”


“What’s a tumor?” I asked rubbing my eye.


He huffed. “Nothing, now tell me- can you see anything out of that eye at all?”


I opened the eye that had been poked three times in a row. It watered a bit so I rubbed it and again tried opening it. Things looked different in that eye. It was… weird. There were little blue lines inside of my uncle and also in my body! But the lines were not in objects. I studied around more. When I focused really hard- I could see far away. Like binoculars!


“I see blue lines.” I told him, “And I can focus easier.”


He rubbed his chin. “What’s inside the blue lines?”


I strained to see inside the blue lines, “I can’t tell. Looks like light or something?”


He smiled ever so slowly. “Here, tell me if the blue lines appear in my hand. It may look something like circles around my hand.” Azamari put the blue stuff into his hand.

“
Yes! Yes I see it!” I said.


He started laughing, “No way, you must have some sort of eye jutsu!” He then took a closer look at my eye, “We’ll have to wait and see.”


I rubbed my itching and now burning eye again.


He smacked my hand away, “Don’t do that! You might mess something up.”


I blinked my other eye, “Sorry..”


He picked me up and placed me into the other room. “Go to sleep- we’ll continue training tomorrow.”

I looked at him with my good eye and watched as he exited my room. He shut the door behind him, leaving pure darkness in the room. I closed my eye and then opened it again- there was no difference between my eye being closed or open- it was still as dark either way. But when I opened my other purple spot eye- I could see things in a weird gray tone.

It was very foggy but I could defiantly see shapes. Though soon I decided to go to sleep because I was tired and would need the energy tomorrow. I slept easily that night.


I awoke with both of my eyes burning a little. And when I tried to open them, they were blurry. I got out of bed, tumbling a bit and went to my Uncle who was outside in the snow doing nothing. I walked up to him and fell down on the snow, “Everything’s blurry.” I said into the white fluffy snow so my voice was muffled.

He didn’t answer but instead just sat there: staring into nothingness. Then after a minute he asked, “Are you ready to train?”


“How am I supposed to train, without being able to see anything?!” I demanded.

He didn’t seem to hear or maybe he just didn’t care. He stood up and picked me up to my feet. “Well then, it will be good practice to fight without sight.”


“But..” I murmured and instantly closed my mouth. I didn’t want to say anymore.


“Now, try to hit me!” He commanded.


I did my best and flung my fists around.


He caught both of my hands and then pushed me down into the snow. “Don’t guess! The enemy will never take it easy on you in the battle field!”


I stood up. I put my arms up. Everything was so blurry! I tried to hit what I thought was him. He dodged and then tripped me. Making me fall again. I frowned and was frustrated.


I stood up. And this time I focused on my hearing but I couldn’t hear him so much as move. I was thrown into the ground but this time it hurt. I coughed as the wind was knocked out of me. I gripped the snow around me. I tried to breathe but my lungs wouldn’t work.


“Get up!” He called.


I was determined and the instant air came back into my lungs, I jumped to my feet. Ready for him to hit me again I clenched my fists. I frowned deeply. But again and again he knocked me down. Over and over without rest: Every time he took me down, it was worse than the one before.


Thirty minutes later I was heaving on the ground just trying to catch my breath.


“Get up!” He yelled.

“GET UP now!” He yelled louder. Then I felt his hand slap my face. I flinched.

“Fine!” I screamed standing up. I dug my nails into my sides. And bit my teeth together. And closed my eyes for a moment- but when I opened them, I saw my uncle clearly. There was no fogginess but no special vision either. I ran at him and he knocked me down on my back.




He looked at my eyes, “Where’d it go?... The spot?”
Neither I nor my Uncle knew what the purple was in my eyes. But when it disappeared, we were both curious as to what it might have been. Nothing special happened until I was eight years old and I had been training hard.

Well he trained me up for a few years. He taught me to use kunai very well and to work on my accuracy. But that’s all that I could do. When we tried to learn mental jutsu- I wasn’t fit for it. I couldn’t focus correctly and my Uncle would get furious at me for not getting things right. One day while training in the ice village my Uncle said to pack up my stuff and that we were going to travel.

Why did he decide to travel? I never really knew but if I were to guess- I’d say he was running away from the ice village because he hadn’t paid his taxes in forever. And the government was going to take me away because he was unfit to take care of a child. So we left. We traveled to warm places with leaves. But while we were there he told me some things.

"You're not who you think you are." He said to me. "You're not Nika. You’re 'Fear'." I was confused by what he said. Who had named me that? And why didn't he tell me before this day? He continued, "We need to unlock those powers of yours! I know you must have some since you have those certain genetics in you.." I didn’t know what he was talking about but later he would explain it to me with more detail. (Don't worry I'll tell you in more detail what my abilities were also.)

I gained the courage to ask him, "Does this have something to do with my Mom and Dad?"

He swung his hand at me and struck me across the face. I fell to the ground. "I told you not to mention them! You don't know them or love them! You will not say another word about them! Understand?" He yelled at me and I was frightened.

But deep down inside- I did love my parents, even though they had left me. But at that moment, while I was on the ground with blood fresh on my cheek, I found out what hate was. I hated my Uncle.
I stood up moments later and looked at him, "Teach me. Teach me how to use those powers." I said it intending to someday gain enough power to kill him myself.

"Good... I see hatred in you." He said as he smiled crookedly. How he knew this, at the moment, I did not know. He then started the first training lesson. He pointed at my most valuable possession, my necklace.


"That's the key to everything. Only our clan has these necklaces. They are very important. One of their less important qualities is that it can tell you emotions. If your necklace is black- it means that you know hatred but if it is blue, it means you know love." I looked at his necklace and saw it was black. But, when I looked at mine, it was shining blue... He continued talking, "I think it may control your Fear mode."
"And fear mode is...?" I asked.
"Fear mode is when you mentally turn into a monster. You lose all your logic. You also may become stronger though. And you might have a special mind jutsu that comes automatically with this mode. This mind jutsu allows your opponent to see you as the thing they most fear."
"I don't get it." I said.
He sighed, "If your opponent was most scared of a spider than, to them, you would look like a spider. It messes with their minds. You don't actually end up looking like a spider- they just think you do. Get it?"
"How do you know all this?! How do you even know what Fear mode is? What is Fear?!" I asked demanded.
He rubbed the bottom of his chin, “Your father. He... was different than most people. He had weird powers. And if I’m right- some of those powers were passed down to you genetically.” He paused, “Fear.. that was his job. He was Fear and scared people for a living.”

At first I doubted what he said was true. But I could see that he was serious and looked confident. And I began to wonder what all this meant for me- If Fear was a job, then would I take the job as well?
"Back to the whole fear mode thing,” He said back on topic. “Fear mode only works on those who have a fear. It won't work against skilled shinobi. This jutsu doesn't work on those who love you or show kindness to you." He explained. "You may have another ability that your father may have had.. but I’m not sure about that.”
"Why are you wanting to teach me this stuff anyway?" I asked.
"Because there are certain shinobi villages and clans that I need help to destroy." He said coldly.
"..." I paused. “You want me to what?!”
He grabbed my face and steadied it on his, “Not want you to destroy clans, you WILL help me destroy those clans whether you agree with it or not.”
I ignored his rude tone. "How do I get into this 'fear mode'?"
He smiled, "You have to get really, really angry."
"How am I supposed to do that?"
"I'll show you..." He said then instantly vanished. I was so stunned that I didn't have enough time to react. I suddenly felt a very hard object hit me in the back! It hit me so hard that I flew through the air! In mid air I finally felt the pain of the kick come rushing to my brain nerves. When i hit the ground, it hurt so bad that i crunched over and coughed up blood. I saw where I was originally standing and there was my unlce with his foot still lingering in the air. He had kicked me! Then he vanished again. My eyes searched frantically around to see him. Then i felt something dig hard into my back. It was cold and hard and went through my body. Still crunched over, I looked at my stomach and saw there was a knife poking through. The knife had entered my back and then cut through to the front. My eyes nearly popped out of my eye socket as I saw the blood gush from my stomach. There was so much blood that I felt like throwing up at the sight of it. And then, I felt the bitter pain shock through my whole body.
The pain came in waves, each wave was worse than the one before. Each one hurt very badly. "Why are you doing this?" I screamed as long and as hard as my lungs would allow. As I screamed blood dripped off of my lips and tears fell down my face. All of this was simply horrifying to me, especially since I was only a child. He vanished and appeared in front of me. I tilted my head upward to watch him. His fist went back and I could tell he was about to punch me in the face.
This puzzled me. Why was he trying to hurt me all of the sudden? He had always been quite rude and sometimes would hit me but never like this. This time he was serious. My stomach was bleeding and my body hurt from him kicking me. And he was about to punch me in the face! I couldn't believe how cruel he was being to me. I felt like crying and yelling at the same time. Yelling because I was angry and crying because of the pain! I wasn't about to stand by and watch him beat the snot out of me so I decided to do something.
That's when time went by slower than usual. I felt anger consume me. My eye brows furrowed deep and my teeth clenched together. My muscles ached and my eyes burned. The anger increased by every millisecond. (Many of you may be thinking by now that there was a demon inside of me. And that's where you'd be wrong. No this curse of mine wasn't a demon inside of me rather, it turned me into an evil being myself. I lost all logic when I was in this mode and became much stronger. But no, there was no demon inside me- even though the symptoms are quite similar.) Time started moving normally now.
My uncle's fist was about to hit me and I felt my arm move so quickly in front of me. It was like an unconscious reaction. My hand caught his fist only two inches away from my face. He smiled widely but I was furious. My hand squeezed his fist. I did it with much hate and great power. My uncle's face suddenly turned serious. I stood up slowly, even though there was a knife in the middle of my back. I continued squeezing his fist harder and harder. I angrily growled with how much hate I felt. I felt his bone snap in half as I squeezed and the blood that came out of his hand gushed down my own arm. His face was in pain and this only made me want to hurt him more. I raised my leg and kicked him as hard as I could- simultaneously releasing his fist. His body flew back. I saw his body flip while he was in mid air. And he had been thrown into the air at least fifty feet upwards.
Once he landed, his body rolled a good twenty feet before stopping. His body didn't move after that. I smiled widely. For some strange and evil reason I was happy. Hurting him gave me pleasure. As I smiled I felt fangs hiding underneath my lips. I felt claws beneath my fingers and feet, and spikes on my legs. I walked over to my Uncle. He was coughing a few drips of blood and his hand had been completely crushed. It was bleeding and you could see the muscle tissue in his hand showing in places where his own bones had pierced through his skin. His bones were somewhat visible- when they poked through his skin, and they were bent in every which way.
"…don't look at yourself…" He coughed up more blood. "Don't look at yourself…" He repeated again and then when I got closer to him I noticed something. He had a needle in his other hand that wasn't crushed, his left hand. He quickly stabbed me with it and I felt suddenly light headed. Then I felt suddenly…. strangely happy. No not the same kind of happy that I had felt before. That was an evil happy but this was different. It was a giddy happy, like when a child receives candy. I started laughing. I laughed uncontrollably! "What in the world did he inject me with?" I wondered.
He got up slowly and then started to address his wound and then he healed mine. It was just in time too, because I was losing too much blood. After a few minutes, I had calmed down. "What's going on?" I asked him calmly. This was mainly because I was too tired to yell at him. He began to explain, "That mind jutsu… takes the form of whatever the opponent is most scared of. Its like a living nightmare. To most people, you will look like a complete monster, that's why I said not to look at yourself. You could turn yourself into what you are most afraid of, if you had looked at yourself you could have given yourself a heart attack. But there is something you need to know about this ‘fear mode’… It doesn't last long. It can only last a few minutes and that's not all. As you grow older you will notice it affecting less and less people. This is because as you grow older, you will notice that there are more skilled shinobi out there. Skilled shinobi have no fear, therefore your mind jutsu will not work on them."
"So about how many years do you think, till the shinobi are skilled enough to have no fear?" I asked him.
"I would say that when you're fifteen or so, you will not be able to use that power anymore." He answered.
"So, what you're saying is that I won't be getting really, really, mad and out of control by the time I'm fifteen?" I presumed.
"No. You will still be able to get really anger and increase your strength and eyesight until the day you die. You just won't be able to use that certain mind jutsu." He answered.
“By the way, what did you inject me with?!”
He gave a smirk, "You ask too many questions As for what I injected you with, it's one of your weaknesses, or better said, one of your 'fear' weaknesses."
He continued "Because you are from the hidden ice village- you’re body hates heat so, your natural weakness it fire and heat. You can't go anywhere too hot or your chakra will run out just trying to keep you cool. Your fear weakness is.." He paused and then smiled, "Love."
"Love?" I questioned. "So, you injected me with love?" It wasn't making any sense.
He chuckled, "In a matter of speaking, yes, I did. See, there are these chemicals in your body called endorphins. It's the 'good feeling' inside your brain. It can be in the form of laughter, attractiveness, or love."
I was ok with these weaknesses because they didn't seem that important or lethal at the time. But they are extremely vulnerable weaknesses.. I just didn’t know it back then.
My Uncle then proceeded to teach me better kunai skills because that was the only thing I was good at besides the fear mode which I could not do more than once a week. This took several months. That's when my uncle informed me that we would be going on a raid to the Hidden Mist Village. I wanted to work on my speed before we left for that raid though.
We trained in the same place everyday. It was in a heavily wooded forest next to the Hidden Leaf Village. This was a perfect spot to camp out and hide because this was the last place the Ice ninja would try to look for us. They were looking for us, because as I said earlier, we were rouge ninja. Anyway, the forest was well hidden and hard for even me to find.
"The Hidden Mist ninja are very sneaky. They are very quiet and strikes with have to learn to be more precise and even more silent. We are going up against one of your weaknesses- that weakness is stealth. You need to be just as good- no, better than them! You have to be able to beat them at their own game! You have to be one of the best, just to stay alive. Now,…" He said bringing out a blind fold, "Put this blindfold on." I did as commanded. Then he said, "You have to learn to use your other senses. Listen and smell."
"What am I a dog?" I asked sarcastically. My vision was completely gone and I listened carefully. I only listened because there was no way on earth I would be able to smell him. I heard the sounds of jack rabbits jumping around in the brush. I heard leaves crunching in the forest because of the animals. Ugg…. not a sound that would be distinguished as a human's. But then I heard something. The wind?... No, I heard breathing.
My heart started pounding but the adrenaline in my veins kept me focused. And because of the adrenaline, my hearing became even more clear. Yes, I was sure of it now, I heard breathing. I focused on that sound alone and guessed it was about fifteen feet away but getting farther. Then I heard my Uncle's voice, "You're focusing on the wrong guy!" I took off my blindfold and noticed the breathing sound I heard was coming from a black bear cub.
"You were holding your breath weren't you?" I knew the answer was yes when he nodded his head. "There's no way I'm going to be able to hear you Azamari." I said out loud as I sighed.
But he wasn't about to let me quit. If I did quit, he'd kill me. Then he said, "Every ninja can hold their breath but not many ninja can get around without touching the ground. Listen to the footfalls. Then you must decide whether it's a human walking or a human."
Then we began again. I put back on my blind fold. I heard things moving around in the forest, small and large. But deciding which one was the human was going to be hard… "Wait." I thought. "Most of these animals have four feet. So if I can hear two pairs of feet moving in conjunction with each other than, it would be surely an animal walking because humans only have two feet that work with each other." I focused hard and listened carefully. Then I smiled. I heard human footfalls. I made a kunai from ice and then threw it about ten feet to my left. I took off my blindfold to see that my Uncle had caught the kunai between his fingers. He smiled. "Not bad. Now you have to work on sneaking around with out making a sound."
"How? Didn't you just teach me that it's nearly impossible for a ninja not to make a little sound while they are touching the ground?" I said.
He nodded, “You have to learn to balance with ease and go against gravity. Learn to be more silent than a mouse in the night.
Two months later, I'd learned to be stealthy. That's when my Uncle ensured me that we were ready for the raid. In the raid, he simply wanted to kill some people that he had a grudge against. The clan that we were supposed to find and kill, was the Lybia clan.
We got to the village at night He said that I should transform into 'fear mode'. But even though I had trained for almost a year, I could not transform into fear mode on command. So instead he gave me a vile.
"What's this?" I asked.
"It's a vile that contains negative endorphins. It will make you angry for no apparent reason." He said, "Now, drink it."
I brought the vile up to my lips and drank the bitter fluid. Then I got the weirdest sensation that I had experienced only months before, it came in a giant wave. I felt anger all the sudden, and I was incredibly mad at my Uncle and his dumb revenge plans. But my logic was all messed up and all I wanted to do was take out my anger on this village. I started to sneak up to the front gate and Azamari was whispering for me to get back over in the bushes. That way we could go on with his plans to sneak in, but like I said, I had no logic. As I got closer and closer I turned into Fear. I could feel the claws as I saw the guards.
"Hey, you! Who are you and what are your intentions?" One of them yelled out. It was night so they didn't see me at first. But then I got closer into visual range. Once I got close enough to them, I brought my head upward to look at them in the eyes. They trembled, "Is that.." He gasped. I tilted my head and smiled devilishly. Their eyes widened and I laughed.
"Do you see me now? I have turned into the thing you fear the most." I laughed and got within striking range. They were too terrified to move. "I am Fear…" I whispered. and then lunged at them. I grabbed the one on the right and threw him into the guard on the left. I got out some kunai from my back pocket. They pierced them easily- going straight through their bodies. They were too scared to even fight back and then died.
I jumped over the tall steel walls that were around the village. I heard several alarms go off as I landed on the other side. Three guards ran up to me but when they saw me they stopped a few feet away. They yelled and ran away in terror, for some reason I wanted to kill them. And that's what I did. I let my legs ran as fast as they could carry me and then I dove into the three of them all at once. I dug my claws into the two on the left and right but the one in the middle, I bit him. As I sunk my teeth into him, he screamed in agony. I jerked my head hard taking the flesh off his back along with me. I laughed… it felt good. As I tasted his blood and his tendons and muscles hung from my fangs. His veins and tissue tasted good to me. I licked the blood of his off my chin. He was dead of course, and then more guards came. They were easy to take out with my kunai.
But then some serious ninja came out. I had to dodge furiously to avoid their deadly attacks in their hidden mist jutsu. And because I found a few tall buildings to sneak on the top of, I was able to jump down and attacked them with my claws and then I would run away when they were about to attack me. I did this several times relying on my hearing because the hidden mist jutsu had gotten very thick. They noticed this fact and became very quiet. That's when they started throwing water bombs onto the buildings at me. I barely dodged them and then came down and attacked one of them. I bit into his stomach and I ripped out his stomach and he died instantly, I flung him into the ground and his body fell lifelessly to the ground and made a thud. They kept throwing water bombs and I decided to stay on the ground, it was getting too dangerous on the buildings and they were catching onto my plans. I took them out eventually but not without getting hurt severly.
The mist was letting up a bit. I saw a child about six or seven, running away from me screaming. She was heading to a few houses nearby. I grabbed the little girl and yelled at her as I dangled her in the air, "Where is the Lybia clan?" She was crying heavily and screaming as loud as she could. "Tell me!" I yelled louder than her scream. The air from my breath moved back her hair. I grabbed her throat.
A heard a woman villager behind me scream, "Please don't hurt my daughter! Please!" She had a little boy toddler shivering behind her. Then I looked at her and asked, "Where is the Lybia clan?" She sobbed and sobbed as she said, "I don't know! I don't know! Please just leave my daughter alone!" She ran toward me. "Stop!"
I used one claw to rip open the little girl's neck wide open. The blood ran down my arm. The blood was warm and smelled very fresh. I threw the lifeless girl into the ground. Then I chuckled. The mother screamed a bloody murder scream and I kicked her hard into a brick house nearby. Her body went straight through it and she died because of the impact. The little boy who was with her was gone. I saw my Uncle running toward me, "Mission accomplished!" He yelled.
I hissed at him but grabbed his arm and began to jump over to the edge of the village to get away, "Let's go." I said leading him with me out of the Hidden Mist Village. I wiped the tendons and muscle fragments off of my chin and out of my fangs. The blood though, that I kept to lick. For some reason it tasted good. That little girl's blood tasted… the sweetest… the best. And then I smiled as I thought about the violence that had just occurred.
Of coarse this kind of power comes at a price. For the next week I couldn't so much as move a single finger. It would take a long, long time to heal from that raid. My body was sore and ached from everywhere. And something that bothered me… no, something that bothers me now, is how I did not feel any guilt. I wanted to do it again. It was fun, exhilarating even. And that's what bothers me now… Knowing that I didn't feel guilty for the people's lives that I had taken. I should have felt something... Something like guilt but I didn't.
A few mornings later, while I was still quite weak, my Uncle came back from a personal raid of his own carrying an object with him. It was a book. He tossed it at me and I slowly picked it up off of my lap. I read the title of the book out loud, "Rinnengan" I paused, "What is this for?" I asked.
"Its for a job well done! I got to wipe out the whole Lybia clan!" My uncle said proudly. “That book is about a visual jutsu that your father had and I’m sure if you work on it- you may have that visual jutsu too.”
"But I didn't even do anything to the Lybia clan. I didn't even follow your plan." I argued. “And, well maybe I have that visual jutsu- I’m not sure..”
"You're right. You didn't follow my plan but you did distract the guards- that gave me the time to find and kill the Lybia clan! So, your plan was even better than mine!" He said. Then He chuckled, "Have fun and try out some techniques in that book- maybe you’ll actually get the rinnengan to appear!" He then vanished.
There was a small problem that my Uncle had not considered. I didn't know how to read. He left me with a book that I did not know how to read. So I went out on a mission of my own while he was away. I was searching for someone who knew how to read.
I wandered into the Hidden Leaf Village. It was quite pretty there. I snuck in and then I saw a Boy about my age, maybe a two or three years older. I was hanging upside down on a tree and he walked down the path without noticing me at first. He had in hands, a book. I smiled at this opportunity. Then I shuffled around a bit on the tree for him to notice me. He looked up and jumped back.
I twisted my head with curiosity. He stared at me. I jumped down from the tree. He stared blankly.
"Hello! What's your name?" He asked excitingly. I looked at him a moment. He was smiling very broadly.
I did my best to smile, "Hello…. My name is…" I thought it would be rather unwise to tell him my full name so I just told him my nick name, "Nika, that's my name."
"Oh. That's a nice name! My name's Iruka!" He said. He had dark brown hair tied in a bun.
"Iruka, eh?" I said. "So what's that book you're reading?"
"It's a history of the hidden leaf. It's interesting." He said trying to use big words.
"So… you know how to read?" I asked.
"Ya. Don't you?" He asked.
"Um…. no. Could you teach me, Iruka?" I asked him nicely and I made sure to plead with a nice and warming smile.
"Well sure!" He smiled. "Let me take you to my favorite reading spot!" He grabbed my hand and walked me over to a tree nearby. I twitched when he touched me but I didn't pull away. He sat down and pulled me down with him. "Alright, let's start!" He said smiling. He opened his book to the first page. He pointed to the first word, "What does this say?"
"I don't know. That's why you're going to teach me." I said rather rudely.
"Well try to sound it out.. What does this letter sound like?" He asked. He pointed at the letter 't'.
"What's a letter?" I asked him tilting my head.
"You don't even know the alphabet?" He yelled. I shook my head. He closed his book, "Well then we'll just have to start with the basics." He got out a blank paper and then a pen. He wrote down a letter. "This letter is called A."
"A?" I repeated.
"Yes, now you try to write it." He gave me the pen and paper. I tried to copy his letter A. It didn't look quite like his but it was ok. "Good. Now we will go on to the next letter."
"How many letters are there?" I asked interrupting.
"Twenty six."
"Twenty six?" I was outraged. "This is going to take forever!"
"No it won't, not if you try really hard." He smiled. "The next letter is B." He wrote it down, "Your turn!"
Everyday, when my uncle would go out for a personal raid, I would sneak into the Hidden Leaf and See Iruka at the tree waiting for me. He taught me all the letters of the alphabet and how to pronounce them. It took a week to learn this by heart though.
"Now what?" I asked him.
"Well, today, I planned something a little different for us to do." Iruka said. He smiled and grabbed my hand, "Lets go get some Ramen today!"
"What's Ramen?" I asked him.
"Ramen is the one of the best foods in the whole world!" Iruka shouted. Then he brought me to the public area. I was uncomfortable being in front of this many people. What if they caught me? But I followed Iruka closely as he held my hand.
"Hello, Iruka." Said the man in the Ramen Restaurant.
"Hello! Two bowls of Ramen please!" He commanded nicely.
"Right up! But who is this little friend of yours?" The Man pointed at me.
"Her name is Nika!" Iruka said. I shyly hid behind the boy's shoulder. I didn't want the man to look at me much, in case he recognized me as 'Fear (code name I used on raids). And he was really, really tall too!
"Is she your girl friend?" The man asked politely.
Iruka blushed, "No, she's just my friend!" He agrued.
"Whats a friend…" I wondered but didn't say it out loud. "And what is a girl friend?"
"Oh. I see. Well your Ramen is done!" He called out and we sat down on the tall benches. I stared at my Ramen. I tipped the bowl over and ate face first. My Uncle had neglected to teach me manners.
Iruka looked at me, he smiled politely, "Umm… ok then. If you like eating that way…"
We finished our Ramen, and Iruka paid for the bill. He and I went back to sit under the tree. He held my hand the whole time, at the moment I didn't really know that holding hands for little kids- is a way of showing friendship. But now that I do know that, I think it was very cute of him to hold my hand and parade me around the village.
"Now we can start learning how to put the different sounds together." Iruka said.
"Great…. even more to learn." I said sarcastically.
Weeks passed and Iruka and I talked quite a bit. He talked a little bit about his parents who died in a war not too long ago. He said that he loved them very much and that he missed them. I didn't know the emotions he was talking about. I thought that maybe I loved my parents but the way Iruka spoke told me that I didn't know what love was. I wanted to ask him what love was but I knew that I shouldn't get too attached to this boy. So I didn't ask any questions just, listened. And I learned how to read within a three month period.
After I had learned how to read pretty well, I went up to Iruka one day. It was the usual time and he had a book open for us to read. For some reason I wanted to say goodbye to him before I left. He thought that it was just going to be a normal day of reading.
"Iruka sensei." I said after a moment.
"Yes, student?" He said superiorly. We thought it would be a good thing to call each other sensei and student, even though we were only three years apart in age.
"I wanted to say goodbye today." I told him.
"What do you mean Goodbye?"
"I'm leaving now." I explained, "And I won't be coming back to see you anymore." I didn't try to say it rudely.
"Why?" He asked frantically.
"You have taught me to read. Now I need to leave." I said plainly.
"But… you are my friend… I don't want you to leave." He blinked twice.
"I'm sorry." I said emotionless as I stood up.
"No wait! Don't go! "He pleaded.
"Good bye Iruka sensei." I said and began to walk away, I ignored the rest of his pleading and headed to the camping spot of my uncles. When I got there- I sat down and got out the Rinnengan book. I opened to the first page. I didn't give a second though about Iruka until several years later, but I'll talk about that later.
"There are six paths to the Rinnengan. The first path is the animal path and enables the user to summon any animal. The second path is the Asura path, it enables the user to shape shift his or her body. The third path is the human path, it enables its user to have incredible physical strength and to read minds. The fourth is the Deva path, it enables the user to manipulate gravity. The fifth path is Naraka, it is used to summon the outer path, which is used to discern truth. The last path is the Preta path, it enables its user to absorb chakra and mainly used only for offense." I put the book in the grass next to me and I laid down to rest. I closed my eyes and took a nap.
Six years after that, I had been on many raids. And I was getting a brand new eye jutsu to pop up every couple months or so, yes that’s right- the Rinnengan. My uncle and I showed no mercy. And I became more and more brutal with my attacks. I was pretty much heartless… until the day I met Zoi. I didn't know much about him but I met him while I was on a raid to the rice patty village (later known as the hidden sound village because it would be taken over by Orochimaru.)
I was fourteen and I was getting ready to burn the target's house down, leaving the victims to be burned alive. I tied them up, a father mother and a little boy. Well I say little, but actually he was about my age. I left their mouths untapped, that way I could hear their blood curling screams as they burned to death. (And so everybody knows, burning to death is a very painful death. I know this because I heard all of my victim's scream, awful and terrible screams when they were burning.) As I poured a can of gasoline on the floor a little boy asked me a question. He had tears streaming down his face, "Why… why are you doing this?" The mother and father were trying to comfort their son.
They said, "Its ok Zoi. We're here with you ok." Even though they too, had tears in their eyes. I lit a match and threw it inside of the house as I ran out quickly. The red flames of blood ignited instantly and consumed the people inside. I felt the heat on my back as I walked away from the burning house. I felt the tingle of joy, that I always got when I killed someone. But that boys face remained in my memory. He made me ask myself this important question, "Why am I doing this? I don't even like my uncle…"
Over the years I was in several Bingo books but managed not to get killed. Anyway, One day, I went to the Hidden leaf authorities, they didn't recognize me as 'fear' so they didn't suspect anything. I told them I knew where Azamari was, and that he was my uncle. Why did I do this? I don't know… it was just something that I wanted to do. I thought maybe it was the right thing to do… but what did I know about the right thing to do? Hadn't I killed hundreds of people? Was that right? I went back to the campsite with the hidden leaf shinobi following only a few seconds behind me. When I got in eye sight range of my uncle, he immediately knew what was going on.
I got within striking range of him and he picked me up by the neck. He couldn't believe what I did, "You didn't!" He yelled at me. My breath became short as he choked me but the leaf shinobi wouldn't be here for another minute!
"It doesn't matter if you kill me…" I coughed, "The leaf… nin…ninja are almost here. They… will..k..kill you!" It was hard to breathe and therefore hard to talk. He let me go and I hit the grassy ground. At the moment I didn't care if I died or not. The one lesson my uncle had taught me well was not to fear death. So, I didn't.
I could feel his kunai against my sweating skin, I looked into his evil eyes. He gripped the kunai tighter but didn't do anything. "What are you waiting for? Kill me already!" I yelled at him angrily. He dropped to his knees and threw the kunai into a tree next to him.
"I… I cant." Those were the last words I ever heard from my uncle. Seconds later, the leaf shinobi arrived and took my uncle away. But the last time I saw him… he was different. As those shinobi carried him away, I looked at his necklace. Instead of a deadly black… his necklace was…. shining blue. A bright blue."