[HOLD] Plain Sight

Chapter 2: Extent

Darkness, pain, and fear. They felt like the dominant feelings, fears, and emotions circulating in the confines of Naruto's mind. The nightmares were the cause of these emotions dominating the others. The darkness of not being able to open his eyes. The pain of watching the recent events play out over and over again. And the fear of that masked man coming after him once again like he said he would.

His dreams were almost like the effects of the Tsukuyomi, except the memory and dreams weren't inflicted through the Sharingan. It was almost as traumatizing as the Tsukuyomi too. The only difference was that Naruto could wake up, which was happening on and off throughout the night, each time, he couldn't open his eyes. After about an hour of trying to open them, he gave up on it.

∞ 1:27 am ∞

There was just more and more darkness. It was like it was never-ending. Naruto had stopped trying to sleep, he just kept waking up from the continuous nightmares he had. He had hardly moved from his position on the bed he'd been placed on, which he had figured out was his apartment.

He found out he was in his apartment due to the scent. It smelt like ramen, plus the one time he tried to get out of bed he stepped on an empty ramen cup.

Naruto was dead tired. He still hadn't recovered from his torture session last night. He could still feel the blood that had cascaded down his face, it was still partially moist, as it had only happened about three to four hours ago and there had been so much blood it was a wonder he was still alive. There was also the fact that the blood had started caking around the edges and had made it hard to make a facial expression, every time he'd tried, it would feel like the dry blood was peeling his skin off or reopening some of the scratches on his cheeks and his lower eye.

He knew he had the graduation exams in a few hours and that he should probably wash all of the blood from his wounds, though he questioned whether or not he should even go to the academy for the exams. The wounds on his legs and arms were completely healed and gone like nothing had ever happened, but the dirt and dried up blood was still very much there. He could feel it and smell it.

Very slowly, Naruto got into a sitting position on the edge of his bed, feeling around with his feet to make sure there was nothing too close he would trip over. The ramen cup he'd stepped on the first time had rolled away someplace, so that wouldn't be around to trip him anytime soon. He sluggishly stood from his spot on the bed and began to walk forward, step by step.

His heart was beating a mile a minute as he aimlessly made his way to where he believed the direction of his bathroom was. He did know his own apartment like the back of his hand and, whenever he'd be too tired to actually fully wake up from his slumber, would keep his eyes closed while he made his way around the apartment with ease. But then, he'd known he could have opened his eyes to see. Now, he couldn't, he was just stuck in a giant room of endless darkness.

After what seemed like forever, he had reached a door. He grasped the knob helplessly and turned it. The door was pushed open and he carefully stepped inside, using his toes as a trial and error to see if the floor was that of his bathroom, luckily, it was.

He gave a sigh of slight relief, previously afraid that he wouldn't have found it.

His hand wandered to the wall on his right, where the light switch was located. He did this out of habit whenever he would walk into his bathroom, but as his fingers made contact with the switch, he remembered his eyes. He couldn't see anything. There would be no light to guide him anywhere, no colors to define things, no shapes to remember. The only things he would remember of the light, the shapes, and the colors would be the ones he saw in the past, including the ones from the horrid experience that occurred a few hours ago.

Dropping his hand to the side and away from the light switch, he maneuvered himself over to the shower. Despite being directionally impaired, he reached for the water faucet with little problems. He turned on the shower getting it to a temperature he was satisfied with.

He decided that his clothing would probably be in similar condition as his face: torn, bloody, and dirty.

Naruto then turned and stumbled over to the cupboard that held his towels and grabbed one, hoping it wasn't a white one he had grabbed, he grabbed a washcloth too. He set them on the top of the toilet, which was right next to the shower, making it easier to find.

After, he glided over to the side of his bathtub and began to strip, only then remembering that he would have to go back into his room and get a new change of clothes. He disregarded that fact and continued anyway, wanting to get the blood and dirt off of his face as soon as possible.

He stepped into the shower, making sure to step over the edge of the tub and not trip. He felt the water on his skin where the wounds had previously been, it stung still due to the fresh skin that had grown over. It was still sensitive. His neck was drawn back, avoiding the water from hitting his face just yet.

He knew it would be unbelievably painful, but he would have to endure it if he wanted to get the caked on blood and dirt off of his face.

'Come on... I can do this... Just get it over with, it'll be okay after that...' Naruto thought, his face partially contorting with his thoughts.

Intaking a deep gulp of air, he let his face be sprayed with the warm water. The cuts on his face felt like they were on fire, and the water that got into his eye sockets felt like it was incinerating whatever was left of his eyes. His immediate response was to cry out and retaliate, but he held it in, forcing himself to keep his face under that water.

Sobs racked through him, but the tears were impossible to come. The searing feeling in his eyes and face were agonizing. He wanted nothing more than to pull away but he knew that he had to get rid of the dried blood.

He knew that water wasn't going to just wash the caked blood away, he would need to use soap and a washcloth to scrub it away. Reaching out of the shower, he grabbed the washcloth that was on top of his towel.

The now soaked washcloth was then coated by the bar of soap in Naruto's hand. His shaky hands placed down the soap and began to bring the washcloth to his face. He stopped a couple inches from the cuts and continued to sob quietly, knowing that this wasn't something he wanted.

Forcing his hand to go further, he placed the washcloth on his eyes. He let out pitiful whimpers as the soap agitated his wounds further. He hadn't even started to scrub and it already felt as if he were ripping his own face off.

'I-I have to do it... I-If I don't, it won't ever get done...' he thought.

He started to work away the blood on his face. Pure agony made itself apparent on his face. Finally, not being able to hold it back any longer, he let out his screams of pain. No one would hear, well, they wouldn't care that is.

The scabs around and in his eyes began to rip open, pouring more blood down his face, but it went unnoticed due to the water cascading down with it.

Naruto, not being able to hold himself up, dropped to his knees. He held his face in his hands and sobbed uncontrollably, but, instead of normal tears, blood replaced them.

He stayed like that for hours. Sobbing, screaming, and pleading to whoever or whatever could hear him. He prayed that this was just some horrid nightmare. But no matter how much he pleaded and prayed, he knew, this was no nightmare, this was the horrid reality he lived in.

A/N: Welp, the next chapter is where the story starts going places. This chapter is pretty much just his realisation of the extent of his blindness... So ya. Be Grammar Nazis, etc, etc. Ja! (I always sound so happy even after what I did to poor Naruto...)