𝐑𝐄𝐌𝐄𝐃𝐘 | Kawaki Uzumaki ✓

007

Just before Sarada and I could step through the door, it suddenly slid open, revealing Dad with his hand on the frame. I saw him let out a small sigh of relief—barely noticeable—but it was there. He was glad to see us home safely.

"{Y/N}, come walk with me. I want to show you something," Dad says, already walking out the door without waiting for a response.

"Can I come too, or not?" Sarada asks, a hint of disappointment in her voice. Dad stops in his tracks and turns around to look at her. He bends down and lightly taps her forehead with his first and second fingers.

"Next time, Sarada," he says, gently but firmly. She pouts a bit, but then heads inside, leaving Dad and me alone.

Dad turns back to me and nods, indicating I should follow him out the door. There's a comfortable silence as we walk through the village streets. The evening is calm, with only a faint breeze rustling the leaves. I often find solace in these moments with Dad, even if we don't say much.

Mum once said that I'm more like Dads brother than like her or Dad, while Sarada is a perfect mix of both Mum and Dad. Sometimes, I wonder why I always end up being different. Why can't I just fit in like everyone else? Why do I always have to be the outlier, the one who doesn't quite blend in?

I hate being called that. I hate it when people refer to me as "the Uchiha prodigy." I hate the expectation it carries, the pressure to live up to something I never asked for. I hate being in the middle of a mission and hearing people whisper my name, "Y/n Uchiha." The name that comes with expectations I can't always meet. I just want to be seen as me, not some title or label. Maybe if I were to disappear, to just—

"{Y/n} we're here," Dad says, snapping me out of my dark thoughts.

"Hn," I reply, still not completely out of my head, the echoes of doubt and self-loathing lingering.

I look around, trying to reorient myself. We're in a secluded part of the forest. I've been here before. This is the place where I come to let out my anger, to train until my body aches, to push myself to the limit. The broken trees and fallen branches bear witness to my frustrations. The ground is covered in brown leaves, a sign of how much time I've spent here. Twigs are scattered along the grass, remnants of my restless energy.

If you walk a little further from the fallen trees, you'll come across a cliff, a steep drop of over six hundred meters. It's the same cliff I jumped off exactly one year after that day. I was four when it happened, and I was five when I tried to kill myself.

I try to push the memory to the back of my head, but it always finds its way to the forefront. Like an unwanted ghost, it lingers in the shadows, waiting for the moment to reemerge. The day I was five—when I decided that life was too much, that I couldn't bear the weight of my own existence—I'd rather revisit that than the day I was four. Because that other memory, the one from when I was four, is too dark, too raw.

The twigs snap with every step I take, each crackling sound echoing in my ears. "There's no meaning to life," that's what he told me that day. Ever since then, I've been different, like a piece of me shattered and never got put back together. I can't act the same, can't feel the same—everything is just... off. It's like I'm not human anymore, just a hollow shell walking through life without a soul.

The only thing I truly feel is the lingering pain and the betrayal of that day. It never leaves me, always there, a shadow in the back of my mind. I continue walking toward the edge of the cliff, the place where it all began. I stop when my toes touch the crumbling stone at the edge, the ground slightly shifting beneath my weight.

I look down and see the river far below, cutting through the valley. It's beautiful, in a way, the water flowing with a serene calm. But it's also deadly, the sharp rocks jutting from the sides like hidden teeth. How many people feel what I feel? How many carry the same burden?