Uzumaki

37: Home is Irrelevant

I wake up to something wet hitting my cheek. I get up and look at the window it was raining. I let the sound of the rain slowly hitting the roof comfort me as I turn and stare at the ceiling and listen in on the water falling from the hole above me.

It's so quiet now, it's just me here. I look out the window and watch the water splash against the ruins of the house across from mine. This is my home, this is where I grew up, where I watched my brother summon the Adamantine Chains for the first time and accidentally broke the back window. This is where I lost my first tooth playing tag with Mika. Where I would watch my mom cook and do my homework on the floor. This house was so full of life.

And now it's full of glass and water puddles as rain leaks from the broken roof. It's broken and I wasn't able to do anything about it. I wasn't able to do anything about Kushina and Minato either. I couldn't save Koga and I let Ryko and Eiji die. I'm completely useless. Am I stuck doing nothing for the people I love? Am I going to fail everyone I care about?

Is that my fate? Lose those I love? All for peoples greed? Is my life made of misfortunes and wrong timing? I roll onto my side and stare out the window.

Maybe I'm better off here. Away from anyone. Maybe this way I won't get hurt anymore. This way I won't lose anyone else.

"Ritsku!" I look at the corner of the window as I hear someone call my name again.

"Ritsku!" It's my dad.

I want to cry, he's a little to late. Why couldn't he called out my name that day. Why couldn't he and Mom come home after the bombings happened. Then maybe I wouldn't have gone into town looking for them.

I wouldn't have been chased down and Yuki wouldn't have run away to the Leaf village with me on his back. Why didn't he and Mom come straight home and fled with us? Maybe if they'd had been a little selfish and thought of themselves first I'd still have a family.

Mika is dead. Yuki is dead. Mom is dead and dad and I are left. And I feel like it's to late. I don't need him anymore. He's a dream I thought I'd never get, but now that I have it it feels wrong and so so off. Like it's still missing something.

I get up and hide in the vent by the bookshelf and conceal myself, hoping he'll go away. "Ritsku! I know you have to be somewhere here! Ritsku! Come out sweetheart!" He calls out.

In a broken hearted voice he pleads, "please Ritsku! I know it's hard and I know it hurts but you learned to live with the pain once you can do it again." He stops walking and continues to call out for me.

"It's okay Ritsku. It's okay to hurt! It's okay to be in pain and it's okay to want to change things. It's called grieving, but locking yourself away in an abandoned town isn't the way to do it." He pauses before he continues to plead for me to come out.

"I didn't know this Kushina and Minato but I was told they loved you very much. Do you honestly thing they'd want you to hide in a place like this? Do you honestly think this is the future they wanted for you? They sacrificed their lives for their Village full of strangers, what do you think they would say if they saw you like this? You're apart of their village. They wouldn't want this Ritsku! So please come out!" I hold onto my knees as I keep myself conceal.

I wipe the tears as his words get to me, "I know it hurts, Ritsku and maybe we should have talked about that day more. Your friend Shisui told me about the Mist Ninja's and how you saw them destroy the Uzushiogakure Village and kill the Uzumaki clan. He told me how much you suffered and how it was Minato and Kushina who brought you back to life. And now their gone so you feel the need to revert back to shell you created. But you don't, you don't have to because they would want you to keep living. They'd want you to keep moving forward because that's what they wanted for the people of the Leaf. That's what they wanted for every single person they died for."

He stays outside for an a few more minutes before he continues down the house begging for me to come out. I stay in my hiding spot and cry my eyes out. "Dad?" I call out, "I feel so alone dad." He fishes me out and holds me as I cry my soul out in his arms.