𝐃𝐢𝐞 𝐀𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐃𝐚𝐲||𝐁𝐘 𝐓𝐑𝐔𝐄𝐕𝐎𝐃||

Chapter 18:Peace Is A Lie

"Sometimes...I forget what I used to be...

...and you know...knowing once I was not...not this thing...

...this...fucking thing! This monster! I used to be better than this! I used to be...

To be the man who regrets?

Or the monster that forgets?"

~?!

Peace is a Lie (Interlude)

Isn't it though, journal?

I'm ashamed to admit I've actually started to question the concept of peace.

You just can't have it; somewhere, someway, SOMEHOW, there will be some form of conflict. There will always be provocateurs, those who would rather see the world burn than suffer the mantle of peace upon their shoulders. You can't stop them all, and you CERTAINLY can't control everything else; to think otherwise would be naive. A perfect world? A peaceful world? Impossible. We all have misunderstandings; we all suffer through hardship in one way or another. The best you can do is maintain the balance while you're alive. Dance on that razor-thin line between sanity and oblivion. After that? Who knows.

Needless to say my actions in Iwa had...repercussions.

I lost track of time after that.

Consigning oneself to house arrest sounds easy enough on the label; actually enacting it, well now...that's another matter entirely. You don't really appreciate freedom until you've lost it. To lose something you've never been without, to find your entire world suddenly compressed to a mere four walls and a roof; its stifling to say the least. Family and friends dull the pain, can even help you pull through at the best of times, but in the end its up to you. Granted, locking yourself up in your own home is FAR better than someone locking you in a cell and throwing away the key...but I digress.

It feels like weeks; in reality, its been all of two days trapped beneath my own roof before I went stark raving mad.

Still, can you blame me?

Think on this for a moment; you made a mistake, a terrible, horrible mistake, one you have no idea to correct. Said mistake results in your indefinite imprisonment. All the while you're forced to live with the knowledge that your arch-nemesis is still out there besmirching your name, still stirring up trouble, still trying to tear the world down around your ears. Knowing that, it threatened to drive me over the edge. In truth, I was ready to be done with it. I'd long since lost track of time and with it, any semblance of hope. I was ready to make an end of things, to find that damnable prick, rip him out of whatever hole he was hiding in and lop off his head.

But now I can't, and I only have myself to blame!

Its like KNOWING you have a roach infestation, yet you can't find their bloody nest! Instead of being allowed to take the fight to the enemy...

...oh what fresh hell is this?!"

(XxXxX)

Naruto frowned at the vision of resplendent beauty looming over him.

Strands of ashen hair wafted across his face to tickle his nose, bringing with them a faint scent he couldn't quite recognize. Milky white eyes gazed down into his own with quiet curiosity. In that moment he became keenly aware of a gentle weight pressing against his hips alongside a pair of pale hands resting gently against his collarbone. That didn't bother him. What concerned him was the owner of said eyes. On a certain level he knew he should be alarmed, startled even, but when faced with that placid expression he simply couldn't muster up the energy. All that emerged was a soft sigh into the blank, empty white expanse of the horizon.