The Demon They Once Feared. {BOOK 2}

|14|Here We Go Again.

Watching him was one thing that I enjoyed.

It was strange, he was my brother, but for some odd reason, he felt like a completely different being. It wasn't that we didn't look alike. We were twins, with noticeable similarities that anyone would instantly recognise as us being siblings. Even when we were younger, when I had full red hair, we still looked alike.

The three birthmarks on each cheek that looked strangely like whiskers, blue eyes, eye shape. Well, my eye colour wasn't entirely blue. Naruto had told me that my eye colour changed even now and then, sometimes it looked bluer, others it looked more violet. Though now, I was sure that my eyes would stay violet.

His eyes were blue. But saying his eyes were blue was like saying the sun was yellow, or that grass was green, and -if you want to take it that far- that ramen was the tastiest food out there. His eyes were blue, but not a blue that could be described easily. Like an ocean, crystal and clear. But it wasn't the dark blue, like the blue just before the sun sets -dark indigo with lighter specks-, it was more of a coral blue. A bright blue, with darker specks, the clearest sea, with the sparkling sky blue that can only be seen by chance on that summers day, reflecting into the water, when the yellow sun shines through the water, making it even more blue for some odd reason. Kinda like when his hair caught the suns rays and deflected it into his eyes, which somehow made the grin on his face brighter.

But at this moment in time, his hair wasn't as bright. His eyes, extremely concentrated with the task at hand. Scratches on his whiskered face, along with dirt from the ground.

How can he be so determined to get stronger?

There was an answer to that question. Sasuke, his best friend. To bring him back, he had to get stronger. The Akatsuki was after him, too, and Naruto being Naruto, he wanted to defeat them. They had already extracted the nine-tails chakra that was withing me, and I didn't have someone to save from darkness, so why was I training?

To protect people who are important to me.

Naruto.

"What am I doing...?" My voice came out as a mere mutter, questioning out loud a question that was on my mind for a while now. To protect the people who are important to me, I needed to recover properly, not using a petty transformation. If only it was something that could be easily dealt with.

A sudden feeling in my stomach made me cringe, it was a common feeling. Like that feeling you get before you puke, that's what it was. In barely any time, I was hunched over, holding the nearby tree for support, barfing out the ramen that I recently had. It left a terrible taste in my mouth, and it was funny for some reason, how can something taste so good going down, but when coming back up, it tastes horrible? Don't even get me started on the acidic taste or the carrots that always show up in the vomit even though I haven't eaten them in ages.

Something was wrong with me. Physically. This shouldn't really be happening. Whenever I eat, it just doesn't go down like it used to. Whatever the reason, I just want it to stop. Why can't I be like a normal person? Why do I have to go through what I did? Why me? There are billions of people in the world, was I just lucky to be tortured by Orochimaru? Honestly, I don't think anyone wanted to be with him. I wasn't the only one, I know, but for some reason, I felt like I was the one who received the worst. Mainly because I survived.

I survived.

But at the cost of what?

My physical health? My mental health? My chakra? My...- Kurama?

"At least you're in the outside world and not sealed in this bloody blade for the rest of eternity!"

"...What?"