Legacy [ Naruto Reader-Insert ]

反射 - Hansha - Reflection

The chilly autumn wind cuts through your thin robe as easy as paper cuts through skin (at a very precise depth and angle). A flurry of dark blobs and splotches morph and weave into each other at the corners of your vision before your legs drop you in a very familiar place.

The large mossy rock that you've sat on for hours and hours. The soft, slightly muddy dirt by the bank that sinks a little when you step on it. The humidity of the place driving deeper cuts of chill into you. A gentle dewy scent that lingers for a little too long.

Your eyebrows narrow and you click your tongue in mild annoyance eclipsed by the growing, gnawing sense of fear in your stomach. Was this because your body remembers or was it because of Shisui's Mangekyo? A side effect or something. It's so tangled up inside you, all knots, twists and turns. Loop de loops made of spider silk and steel threads, coiling, twining around each other. Thick and hefty ropes, endlessly tripping you over.

And over.

And over.

You don't know where his influence ends and where you begin.

And you know Not-Shisui is not gonna answer you. Knowing him, he'll just answer your questions with even more questions and then you'd just be stuck where you originally were.

Not knowing anything. Left woefully ignorant to everything else that's going on.

Shikamaru said that you're too scared to reflect people in the mirror of your heart. You hate to admit it but he's right. Disgustingly right. It's hard to accept his words as cold, hard truth when your ego is bruised and battered beyond all recognition. You've never really tried to think too deeply into why you did this or that other than the fact that you did it because it benefits you.

But he's right.

You don't reflect, you only mimic every gesture they do. A surface imitation of mannerisms and gestures that takes your shape and your voice. Whomever they saw when you were interacting with them wasn't you. The real you. The you that's afraid to make any meaningful connections with anyone in fear that they'd just be used against you. Any other relationships that you have has a clear, defined boundary that you'd never overstep. The orders. The food bribes (they'd been bribes all along, to buy their favor).

Everything you've done for people, you've done them mostly for your own benefit, your own selfishness.

The various bento you've given them, the people you did interact with. The kind smiles, the open gestures. It was all to make them like you. It was all to maneuver them into place, into thick walls around you. So you could pretend that they held some sway in your position in the Game.

Great hubris ruined you into thinking that you were ever a participant the Game. Playing. Planning. How did you ever delude yourself that you could outsmart the wily, older men and women that have been part of it longer than you have? Honing their skills of the trade and sharpening their silver tongues. You are but a babe in the woods compared to them. Your pride and ego. They make you so blind.