Fate Wheel | Naruto

𝟏𝟏𝟐| "Futility of existence"

CHAPTER 112 — FUTILITY OF EXISTENCE
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FLASHBACK- MILLENNIA AGO

It was everything inhumane and vile.

It couldn't even be described as death, for death held some semblance of humanity and antecedent liveliness- something that told the story of a person who once lived, breathed, laughed and cried.

What laid before his eyes, was the antithesis.

A cold battle unheard in the stark darkness of the night. A platoon of soldiers, donned in bright attire- a sharp contrast if given the malicious smirk on their faces- raided a small Village in the northern hemisphere by the great border of the devil's plains where tall, still trees and wisps of shadows intertwining with the long grass added to its danger. However, nature was no adversary; only the creatures that roamed the tainted lands that hadn't seen twilight unadulterated by spoils of war.

A long-lasting, bloody war. They said. Animosity from both sides. It'd lasted for two days and casualties were countless.

In this never-ending void, he'd come to realise that all beings were liars. The Hinode addressed their people publicly, feigned sadness, fake frowns, apologising for the events that had occurred. For troops that had raided a Village of agricultural farmers and families cultivating crops to sell to their very own provinces. Men killed before they could even wield their weapons, houses burned to the ground after their supplies have been looted, women and children defiled of dignity and self until they were no longer anything- their identities had been stolen from them. These soldiers laughed, feasting happily on stolen property, roasting their food on the fire that scorched the grass.

An internment camp sat on the very bulk of the hill, military soldiers guarding every post- they didn't want people to know the truth despite how unimaginably loud they'd been, they didn't want insubordination and through imposed control, came fear, came an inability to act, to feel, to be a person.

The pattern was visible, he noted. When something upset them, they destroyed it, reshaped it, built it anew, if they were dissatisfied, they'd start over again, and again, and again, until they were satisfied. A cyclical structure in an authoritarian regime where those oppressed would eventually rise up in rebellion, desperate to taste freedom, and the oppressors would underestimate the will of a being who'd once tasted freedom only for it to be wrongfully stolen from them.

The Hinode were a prestige and powerful race and the Ankoku were one of the same- but diplomacy and politics were messy, and only one knew how to survive a world built upon enforced dominion. The Hinode had condemned an entire race for a death of their own. The Hinode decided that biology held an aptitude for pending destruction, that sooner or later, the darkness within them would exacerbate and before that could happen- they'd play God and create law and order. Except there was no order, only death and chaos. The Hinode decided that those who attempted to pursue a dream beyond the boundaries of their restriction were deserving of punishment, they'd banish a race to a place where the devil lurked, where creatures scuttled in the darkness and night never turned day.

In a pentagonal tent held by wooden logs at each corner with burning bright ember illuminating the golden embroidery on the white awning, a meeting commenced. Their appearances heavily veiled by animal masks and white mantles. Disguises were customary, unless they'd desired to be discovered.

"Mass genocide, wartime rape, torture and interrogation, arson, looting." A voice seethed mournfully, filled with pain and anguish. "Men, women and children all killed in two days. We're not safe here anymore, the armistice isn't enough to keep those animals controlled." The bottom half of their mask elucidated by the wavering torch light.