Shooting Straight

Chapter 8

Arrow sat on the roof of his house, glaring deeply into the twist of dark clouds above him- he let his mind wander in a desperate attempt to ignore the seething anger beneath the surface that threatened daily to consume him in it's firey pit if he didn't hold it at bay within the confines of his mortal body. He thought back to his life in Suna- how simply easy and natural things had been; he'd never been ostracized or leered at like a piece of meat, he just had a few friends that stood by him, who he'd always wanted to love and protect.

Living in Konoha had, beyond a shadow of a doubt, changed Arrow from the boy he'd once been, to whatever walking amalgamation of teenage angst he'd become. He was beginning to resent the Hokage for even offering his brother the job in their mother's birth village- because had that not happened, Arrow and Ash would both still be serving the Kazekage as Sunagakure shinobi. It was the life Arrow had always envisioned for himself- just barely out of reach as a tantalizing wisp in the distance. Somewhere along the stars lay the dying ember of a future he couldn't have. 

He had very quickly come to despise the dysfunctional collection of teenagers that had been called his 'team'; Sakura had made a consistent habit of getting on his nerves at every possible moment, resulting in him lashing out at her incompetence; Naruto always had some quick remark hidden away in the hollow space where his brain should've been; Kakashi paraded around, acting like he had some semblance of seniority when he had clearly never taught a day in his life- and then there was Sasuke. He was just irrelevant Sasuke, in Arrow's mind.

For all Arrow knew, Sasuke's entire personality was obsessively staring at things- namely Arrow himself- as if it were his only personality trait, outside of the occasional snide remark generally aimed at Naruto. It was slightly unnerving, Sasuke's stare, but he overall didn't cause much of a fuss and so Arrow never really payed him much mind. He was just grateful that there was at least one person who didn't make him want to jab out his own eye with plastic fork, dip it in ketchup, and eat it. 

All of that was added to the dense, unwavering weight that had found it comfortable on Arrow's shoulders as he watched Ash's health rapidly decline, while being entirely helpless to do anything about it. Ash was refusing to eat, not sleeping- and Arrow was constantly warring with the clawed beast born from the pit of worry that had become him. He would be naive to not realize there was more bubbling beneath the surface than what first glance would tell when it came to Ash, and that only fuelled the sense of impending doom. 

He'd come to trust nobody to help him bear the weight that rained heavy upon him- he had become one with the anger and stress, while longing for a life much simpler than the one he'd been given. He pushed it all down, suppressing and ignoring it all as he felt it rage from within his confines- it tried endlessly to break the surface, but he only steeled himself more. Arrow drifted away- only his willpower remaining as a tie to humanity itself, and even that was wavering.

~~~

Sasuke sat, feeling the chill from the dirt creep up into his shoulders- his fingers drifted across the deep carvings that spelled out names of those lost. He read them in his head repeatedly, so as to never forget- his dark eyes glistened, as if they wanted to cry but had simply forgotten how.

Grey twilight fell around him as the sun descended behind a distant mountain- like a bubble, a solemn aura encapsulated the youngest Uchiha, seemingly protecting him from all those who would eventually hurt him. As a child following the brutal massacre of his family, he'd made it a subconscious motto to shove anyone who dare come close- he was rude, standoffish, and borderline hostile; he made a point to become the embodiment of every quality nobody could love, a child cowering behind the facade as he shielded the raw body that lay beneath. He'd locked away the carefree innocent- buried him deep inside the hollow abyss of his chest.