Alchemy

9,4) TROUBLED PASTS

[A/N: Warning dark themes. Also I used 2 canon quotes in this chapter. I don't own those. I'll leave it to you guys to guess which. Read the full A/N in the announcement chapter.]

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Naruto:

For the first time in a short while my nightmares returned. No—not a nightmare but a memory...

Dream:

I squinted as moonlight flooded into my, now, open eyes.

I got up and out of bed. I looked around frantically after my eyes landed on my small hands

This time was different, I thought. I was forced to watch the from the body of child.

No—not just any child but me when I was younger. I was held hostage and forced to watch that night all over again. Only now my mind—my heart wasn't that of a child anymore.

I could see things clearer now, the deeper meaning behind things I hadn't taken note of or understood back then. On the flip side I experienced things exponentially more vividly now than in my normal nightmares; because this time I was not just reimagining the memory. I was reliving it.

I could feel everything.

I could feel every brush of wind. I could taste the dying embers of ash. I could hear the rattling of windows. I could feel my eyes water from the smoke.

It was almost ironic that my mind—my heart—my soul all of which were so tainted, so corrupted, so impure...Someone whose hands whose hands were filthy; were drenched in innocent blood...Someone like me was trapped in the innocent body of a child. Was ensnared into this body which was an embodiment of purity and halcyon ignorance.

If I only I could be him again.

But I was him. At least for this moment as I opened my eyes in a different world...a world that was long gone.

...The world of the past...

An ominous feeling washed over me like the waves that crashed against the foundation of the grand palace of the Land of Whirlpools. The place where I currently was.

I realised just what night this was a moment the screaming sounded from outside.

A deep and profound fear stung at my skin. As I ran through the winding hallways the screams of women and children echoed like a banshee in the cold, dark night.

"Don't go," I tried to say. I tried desperately to stop myself from going because I knew what horrors awaited. But I was powerless. I was only to observe not mend.

I stepped out into the garden tripping in the darkness. My knees stung on the gravel as my mother's rose garden scarred my skin, but onwards I went.

Desperate to find someobe familiar...

'Mom...Dad...Dad! Mom! What's happening here?' my child self's thoughts rushed into me each one slamming into me like a brick.

A group of servants rushed past me. One of them grabbing my hand and pulling me forward. Away from the burning building.

There was no time for questions no matter how much I yearned to ask them back then.

The scent of charred wood reached me as we scrambled to the front of the castle following the screams.

Half the palace was alight I had remarked silently.