Fate Wheel | Naruto

𝟏𝟏𝟔| "Armageddon"

CHAPTER 116 — ARMAGEDDON
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She'd been sleeping more.

And each and every time, her dreams were filled with images of people she had failed to save. Kei was inches away from her grasp and yet, she'd managed to slip away into the darkness; alone, cold, with no one by her side but a malevolent voice that guided her to a painful death. Her body torn to shreds and her mind filled with thoughts of her family, of the one who'd left her behind despite how hard she tried to hold on.

The Fugishima bakery no longer existed. A hollow room filled with cobwebs in the corners and untouched tables smothered by a layer of dust and grime. The pictures hung on the wall the only remnants of a lively past filled with sweet smells and rich laughter. Nana would be waving her wooden spoon around and Hitomi would be arguing with Sasuke, these memories were endearing yet fruitless. A reminder that her mere existence had ruined everything beautiful and created a tragic, inevitable ending. If she had left sooner, if she'd ventured her endless pursuit of vengeance- the only one who would've suffered in the end would be her. Only her. And her existence would age with the ruins of time; long forgotten, a mere relic of a tragic past.

She had known Jiro long before she met him and perhaps, there was no way she could defy the workings of fate in order to ensure their paths were not intertwined. The moment she was born, his soul was promised to her. He'd search the earth like a lonely traveller in pursuit of a hopeless dream and when they meet, he'd realise that maybe his search wasn't futile after all. That there was meaning in living a life with a fragment of his soul missing if it meant they'd be reunited in the end. Only for her to realise that when he left, he'd take her entire heart with him as well, leaving nothing but an empty shell incapable of feeling. The irony was humorous, she'd spent her life plagued by a curse, but that was never the case. She was the curse, she was the entity that ruined the lives of others, destroying them from within and inescapably destroying herself as well.

Dawn was aware of what was occurring outside, the tune of war was loud, but the darkness that tainted the Fire Lands were nothing new. They always existed, it was only now that its inhabitants were no longer ignorant to the lies said and told and it was only now; they paid the price of damnation, of an archaic revenge rooted into the soils cultivated by blood.

Dawn had seen this image one too many times, she'd seen the injustices of child soldiers being sent to their deaths as they watched their comrades slaughtered right before their eyes. She'd seen the very shadows that had haunted her from childhood manifest into material beings of darkness, eager to rampage and wreak chaos upon earth. She'd seen Naruto lose every ounce of control he had, pushed to his very limited and unable to retain a shred of humanity as he lost himself while losing the very spark that she had once admired so dearly. She'd watched Ino naively venture into the darkness as a new soul was tainted by the curse of Tenebris. She'd seen the events unfold on the front lines, the struggle to protect the civilians in the Leaf, the many lives lost, Itachi's honourable sacrifice and the rampage of the nine-tails. She'd seen it at all five years ago and now, the time had finally arrived.

"Ichiki was a selfless woman, the kindest there had ever been." Sora stood idly in the field, a red hyacinth resting between her fingertips.

Though, her figure slipped through reality and fantasy. Dawn was unsure whether her body had given up and she was stuck in a world her mind had created with no chance of return or if she was still within the prison cell and counting the indents on the wall.