[log] invasion phase iv: the beginning of the end
Who: Pain, Naruto, Sasuke, Madara, Itachi (to be joined by Cloud, Minato, Kakashi, and Yukari)
Where/When: Outskirts of Konohagakure; August 5th
Status: Closed, ongoing
Style: Action
Warnings: WAR - also, angst due to death. Possibly in editing stage, like the last log?
Other information: Continued from here.
Note: For the music attached, if it's 30 seconds long to you, I would suggest using "Play Full Song" for the best dramatic effect. ♥
Onigashima in the Fairyland ~ Missing Power.mp3 -
If I were not here, blowing up your village, you would not be trying to stop me.
You would be having nothing to do with me.
When I was very small, and very helpless, I wished someone would protect me, but no one ever did.
Do not regale me with stories of how you found someone who believed in you, because I did not. Your hopeful experiences are not universally true. The victories over life you have prized are not victories that just anyone could prize. Your accidental triumphs are not triumphs that just anyone could share.
You began with the power of a nine-tailed fox demon instilled in you from birth.
How many children died in war with no guardian fox demon to watch over them?
How many have not been fortunate enough to experience your luck?
In war, we sacrifice our consciences to achieve an end. That's just a fact. You don't win a war with pacifism or pretty words. Only a foolish and idealistic child believes that.
I told you I hoped you held onto your ideals because it is a fine sight to witness a person with ideals; yet ideals are what we fight and we die for -- moreover, what we kill for.
I fight for my ideals. I fight for those who matter to me, as do you. And when you protect something, including a belief, you will use deadly force.
Do not act as if you would not. You are a shinobi, as I am. Shinobi kill. A shinobi who cannot kill is worthless.
I have killed. Men, women.
Children, as well. Infants from their cribs.
Infants who would have grown up to seek vengeance for the blood of their parents.
Because the alternative was worse. Because tolerance of life ends at the need to protect yourself and your people -- for a shinobi, that is, and Konoha itself taught me that.
Because Konoha needed money, and thus Konoha was not tolerant of life. The shinobi system is predicated upon violence for profit. Murder.
For profit.
For monetary gain.
For leaders.
For honour.
For ideals, and for love.
I grew up in that hell which your village forced upon me.
I learned quickly that killing was the only method of survival.
You say a person always has a choice, but that is not true.
Did I choose for my parents to die?
Did I choose for Konoha to destroy my country?
Did I choose for Yahiko to die?
Do you presume to insult me by saying I chose those things?
In life, you do not always have a choice, Kyuubi. Sometimes, you just die.
Because life is not fair. If your own life has been fair to you, that does not mean you can judge all lives by that standard. This war has destroyed lives. Once, those lives could have been me. Do I regret any life that I have taken?
I do not.
I regret nothing, and I never will be given to regrets.
Because knowing someone's pain does not mean you will feel for them.
So why should I waste time worrying for every child in this world? Every civilian? No one worried for me. And that is the lesson I learned about how the world works.
You argue against my philosophy, but your own village imparted that philosophy to me, and taught me how this world operates.
You speak of me becoming a tyrant myself in my fear of tyrants, but you are missing the point, so let me educate you:
I am only the student to the master, Uzumaki Naruto.
I am not interested in becoming morally superior to anyone else. You, laughably, are arguing with me as if I am. You do not understand me at all.
Am I the person who killed my parents?
No.
I am much worse.
Because to beat the system, you must own the system.
Because those in positions of power and privilege will not relinquish their power and privilege; therefore, you must forcibly remove it from them.
Because your ancestors began the bloody path in which daimyo fattened themselves on the blood of human beings, so rather than turn that path aside, I have learned I must take it into my own hands.
I can either become a victim of this system, or I can take its reins for myself.
For every man you kill, I must kill ten.
For every village you destroy, I must destroy one-hundred.
Otherwise, I am still garbage. To be killed in the street. Predator or prey. There is nothing else.
This is not about conscience.
That, I sacrificed long ago.
And that is the only reason why I now live.
And why Konan does.
Yahiko believed in something different.
He believed as you do.
He is dead.
Konan and I live with the wounds of idealism.
My body bleeds from where idealism struck its blows against me.
Idealism like yours.
Idealism crushing my spine like so many metal rods, on the day when I found out where idealism would lead me.
And now, where will it lead you?
For all your words, do you believe you can talk me out of this?
No. You will see it is worthless. Your own beliefs will be shown to be demonstrably wrong -- here, when you kill me, or die.
You say you always have a choice, but you will now see that you are wrong.
Even if you fight me, and kill me, I will die being proven correct.
[ His tone darkens, because the time for talking is drawing to a close. ]
I, on my own, have destroyed countless armies to protect my village.
I am an army unto myself.
These are the eyes of a god.
These eyes created the celestial body that you see in orbit every night.
These eyes which stand for death and rebirth, for endless cycles, like the cycle of hatred which gave birth to Pain, and which will see to it that whether or not these bodies die, my philosophies will live on. Endless, like these eyes.
Here with me are the eyes of another founder, who will control the demon inside you, and our companion, whose eyes have seen thousands of years of experience.
So it is a demon versus the eyes of gods, and a boy versus the ancients.
So it begins.
Where/When: Outskirts of Konohagakure; August 5th
Status: Closed, ongoing
Style: Action
Warnings: WAR - also, angst due to death. Possibly in editing stage, like the last log?
Other information: Continued from here.
Note: For the music attached, if it's 30 seconds long to you, I would suggest using "Play Full Song" for the best dramatic effect. ♥
Onigashima in the Fairyland ~ Missing Power.mp3 -
If I were not here, blowing up your village, you would not be trying to stop me.
You would be having nothing to do with me.
When I was very small, and very helpless, I wished someone would protect me, but no one ever did.
Do not regale me with stories of how you found someone who believed in you, because I did not. Your hopeful experiences are not universally true. The victories over life you have prized are not victories that just anyone could prize. Your accidental triumphs are not triumphs that just anyone could share.
You began with the power of a nine-tailed fox demon instilled in you from birth.
How many children died in war with no guardian fox demon to watch over them?
How many have not been fortunate enough to experience your luck?
In war, we sacrifice our consciences to achieve an end. That's just a fact. You don't win a war with pacifism or pretty words. Only a foolish and idealistic child believes that.
I told you I hoped you held onto your ideals because it is a fine sight to witness a person with ideals; yet ideals are what we fight and we die for -- moreover, what we kill for.
I fight for my ideals. I fight for those who matter to me, as do you. And when you protect something, including a belief, you will use deadly force.
Do not act as if you would not. You are a shinobi, as I am. Shinobi kill. A shinobi who cannot kill is worthless.
I have killed. Men, women.
Children, as well. Infants from their cribs.
Infants who would have grown up to seek vengeance for the blood of their parents.
Because the alternative was worse. Because tolerance of life ends at the need to protect yourself and your people -- for a shinobi, that is, and Konoha itself taught me that.
Because Konoha needed money, and thus Konoha was not tolerant of life. The shinobi system is predicated upon violence for profit. Murder.
For profit.
For monetary gain.
For leaders.
For honour.
For ideals, and for love.
I grew up in that hell which your village forced upon me.
I learned quickly that killing was the only method of survival.
You say a person always has a choice, but that is not true.
Did I choose for my parents to die?
Did I choose for Konoha to destroy my country?
Did I choose for Yahiko to die?
Do you presume to insult me by saying I chose those things?
In life, you do not always have a choice, Kyuubi. Sometimes, you just die.
Because life is not fair. If your own life has been fair to you, that does not mean you can judge all lives by that standard. This war has destroyed lives. Once, those lives could have been me. Do I regret any life that I have taken?
I do not.
I regret nothing, and I never will be given to regrets.
Because knowing someone's pain does not mean you will feel for them.
So why should I waste time worrying for every child in this world? Every civilian? No one worried for me. And that is the lesson I learned about how the world works.
You argue against my philosophy, but your own village imparted that philosophy to me, and taught me how this world operates.
You speak of me becoming a tyrant myself in my fear of tyrants, but you are missing the point, so let me educate you:
I am only the student to the master, Uzumaki Naruto.
I am not interested in becoming morally superior to anyone else. You, laughably, are arguing with me as if I am. You do not understand me at all.
Am I the person who killed my parents?
No.
I am much worse.
Because to beat the system, you must own the system.
Because those in positions of power and privilege will not relinquish their power and privilege; therefore, you must forcibly remove it from them.
Because your ancestors began the bloody path in which daimyo fattened themselves on the blood of human beings, so rather than turn that path aside, I have learned I must take it into my own hands.
I can either become a victim of this system, or I can take its reins for myself.
For every man you kill, I must kill ten.
For every village you destroy, I must destroy one-hundred.
Otherwise, I am still garbage. To be killed in the street. Predator or prey. There is nothing else.
This is not about conscience.
That, I sacrificed long ago.
And that is the only reason why I now live.
And why Konan does.
Yahiko believed in something different.
He believed as you do.
He is dead.
Konan and I live with the wounds of idealism.
My body bleeds from where idealism struck its blows against me.
Idealism like yours.
Idealism crushing my spine like so many metal rods, on the day when I found out where idealism would lead me.
And now, where will it lead you?
For all your words, do you believe you can talk me out of this?
No. You will see it is worthless. Your own beliefs will be shown to be demonstrably wrong -- here, when you kill me, or die.
You say you always have a choice, but you will now see that you are wrong.
Even if you fight me, and kill me, I will die being proven correct.
[ His tone darkens, because the time for talking is drawing to a close. ]
I, on my own, have destroyed countless armies to protect my village.
I am an army unto myself.
These are the eyes of a god.
These eyes created the celestial body that you see in orbit every night.
These eyes which stand for death and rebirth, for endless cycles, like the cycle of hatred which gave birth to Pain, and which will see to it that whether or not these bodies die, my philosophies will live on. Endless, like these eyes.
Here with me are the eyes of another founder, who will control the demon inside you, and our companion, whose eyes have seen thousands of years of experience.
So it is a demon versus the eyes of gods, and a boy versus the ancients.
So it begins.