[ naruto ] keep breathing.
keep breathing
kurenai-centric, implied asuma/kurenai.
war!au. illusions have become her enemy. who is to decide what is real or not, anymore?
The enemy lingers on the horizon. The sun is setting, and the Fourth Ninja World War is teetering on the edge of a blade. The sky is a beautiful blend of blue and red and orange; it is an apocalypse in the making. No one has moved, breathed, and even the birds do not dare sing on a night of promised bloodshed.
She aches to be on the front lines. The battle instincts in her bristle and protest with disuse, craving to be on the battlefield. Her team is out there, fighting, and they are just children; she is unable to protect them and that realisation hurts. For what is she, without her genjutsu abilities, when she cannot serve her country as a kunoichi when it needs her the most?
Kurenai knows the exact moment the war starts. A ripple of unease sweeps through the city, and the remaining civilians begin to panic. Immediately, she stands and makes her way outside her house, looking at the street. There are too many people that have not been evacuated, too many people that are bound to get hurt. Killed. Slaughtered.
Despite her unborn child, she begins to run, barking orders. "Get all of them out now!" she shouts.
There is no time.
The hourglass tips. A scream rips through the air, and it is near, very near, and how could the enemy have gotten to them so quickly? Her breath comes in quick, short breaths; the baby in her stomach seeps all of her energy away from her. She knows, now, how foolish her decision had been, to give into her fighting instincts; her baby, Asuma's baby, is more important than anything.
And then she sees him. Skin pale and ashen, eyes as lifeless as the flowers she laid on his grave, red blood smearing colour onto a canvas of darkness. Something raw and inhuman crawls its way from her lungs and tears its way to her throat, bursting from her mouth in a devastated cry. No, she thinks, no, no no no. The dull ache in her chest comes back tenfold, thousands of little pricks carving anguish into her very being.
The man who is slashing his way through innocent people cannot be the man she loved. It cannot be Asuma.
Kurenai finds herself looking for the strings attached to his limbs, looking for the puppeteer behind this nightmare. She finds herself putting her trembling fingers together in a hand sign she knows so well, to break herself out of the illusion. "Kai," she whispers, "Kai, release," a prayer tumbling from her lips over and over again, for it cannot be real. Such terrible injustice cannot possibly be real.
She closes her eyes as his kunai rests on her throat.
"Kai."
kurenai-centric, implied asuma/kurenai.
war!au. illusions have become her enemy. who is to decide what is real or not, anymore?
The enemy lingers on the horizon. The sun is setting, and the Fourth Ninja World War is teetering on the edge of a blade. The sky is a beautiful blend of blue and red and orange; it is an apocalypse in the making. No one has moved, breathed, and even the birds do not dare sing on a night of promised bloodshed.
She aches to be on the front lines. The battle instincts in her bristle and protest with disuse, craving to be on the battlefield. Her team is out there, fighting, and they are just children; she is unable to protect them and that realisation hurts. For what is she, without her genjutsu abilities, when she cannot serve her country as a kunoichi when it needs her the most?
Kurenai knows the exact moment the war starts. A ripple of unease sweeps through the city, and the remaining civilians begin to panic. Immediately, she stands and makes her way outside her house, looking at the street. There are too many people that have not been evacuated, too many people that are bound to get hurt. Killed. Slaughtered.
Despite her unborn child, she begins to run, barking orders. "Get all of them out now!" she shouts.
There is no time.
The hourglass tips. A scream rips through the air, and it is near, very near, and how could the enemy have gotten to them so quickly? Her breath comes in quick, short breaths; the baby in her stomach seeps all of her energy away from her. She knows, now, how foolish her decision had been, to give into her fighting instincts; her baby, Asuma's baby, is more important than anything.
And then she sees him. Skin pale and ashen, eyes as lifeless as the flowers she laid on his grave, red blood smearing colour onto a canvas of darkness. Something raw and inhuman crawls its way from her lungs and tears its way to her throat, bursting from her mouth in a devastated cry. No, she thinks, no, no no no. The dull ache in her chest comes back tenfold, thousands of little pricks carving anguish into her very being.
The man who is slashing his way through innocent people cannot be the man she loved. It cannot be Asuma.
Kurenai finds herself looking for the strings attached to his limbs, looking for the puppeteer behind this nightmare. She finds herself putting her trembling fingers together in a hand sign she knows so well, to break herself out of the illusion. "Kai," she whispers, "Kai, release," a prayer tumbling from her lips over and over again, for it cannot be real. Such terrible injustice cannot possibly be real.
She closes her eyes as his kunai rests on her throat.
"Kai."