[log] after the walls fall
Who: Pain, Konan
Where/When: Konohagakure; on the morning when the marriage event has ended (September 3rd).
Status: Closed / Active
Style: Paragraph, switches between first/third/second person. May have many annoying stylistic flourishes, alas.
Warnings: Nagato misconstruing the world in his usual style. Angst. ABUNDANT :FFFF, and yes, the :FFFF deserves a warning.
It rains like home this morning.
You. You are inside, dreaming. You woke up dreaming, your eyes wide open. The wires unseen of connective chakra tissue are silver cords, holding yourselves together, but when this much of you is so far apart -- because much more of you is more apart than is the case for most people, most bleeding and living things -- then you have these moments where your mind that is alighting behind the skin of other eyelids, and looking out: yes, there are moments when the world fragments like the sky rains like home. And the sun at midnight through the stem of your wine glass, holding all the shards; drips its liquid into your veins, as you look over Amegakure. Alive for you. And; ah, it is midnight, and the sun is shining brightly inside of your
eyes.
It is a delusion that you would ever conspire to
engage in these
emotions of a
nature that is not in your body.
Of humours that do not accord with you.
An awful dream, where you are watching yourself slipstream in the emotions of another life, and other words inside of your mouth, and other feelings inside of your head. Everyone must have these dreams. Phantasms, wherein the circuits linking you to you begin to dissever you from you. Until you wake up. Cold in the machine. Freezing. Or you wake up with your eyes in the dark. With the dome of glass above you, and the whir inside the room that you hear in the deepest regions of sleep, wherein it becomes a voice, or voices, and sometimes you hear the voices of all those who are you. This must have been one of those dreams, you think, when. Your eyes open, and the emotions there are. Different. And like the liquid inside of the glass, it is mixed. Measured in a way that is not, cannot be. You. Those thoughts and ideas must be of the external world that flows into you during the night sometimes, as it flows into. Anyone. The history of yourself begins to drip with memories that are yours, into memories that are yours, and you do not remember making those memories, and this is why this must be a dream, and the connections of your many eyes: ah, yes. Your mind must be. Shaped. Very differently now.
Like that of a god.
And then you (I) stumble from the bed, and you (I) open a door, which is evidenced by the feel of a knob and the sound of the creak.
(Someone was in your bed.)
It is still a dream.
Until you.
Until I feel the rain.
"I failed."
I never intended to fail. Failure was not an option. But the war is over. I did not win. And one who does not win does -- by definition -- lose.
I volunteered to go with them to the depths of hell.
But I could not protect them.
Their minds and hearts were twisted.
And made sinister.
And I did nothing.
And could do nothing.
(And you remember the other friendships you failed, and the rain falls on the body that wears the burden of proof.)
I did not accept "give up". The world insisted I should die, and I did not accept this. I said no. I spoke the truth to power. And I bled for the right to do so. I was prepared to bleed again. And I do not fear this. I do not fear torture, or death. My death would have been as nothing if it meant bringing an end to the tyrannies of that nation. And I could do so. I knew. I believed. I thought this faith was important. I thought it would mean something, if I refused to be --
-- what I saw in. Others. So many others. Throughout the war in Amegakure. They came and went. Systematically murdered. Raped. Tortured. We would take short-lived shelters in villages, and there we might see a child one year with a glint of curiosity in her eyes. The next year, they were dimmed. This is the nature of war, and of oppression. This is true pain. This is what it means to live in pain, and to be deprived of the sight of opportunity, because you are low, and dirty, and you live among oppression and suffering. You live without class, like an animal. You live and die like garbage. And I knew by the looks in the changing eyes. I knew what those looks meant.
They meant these people had reached points where they could not lift their heads above the weight of the despairs of war.
They could never conceive of themselves as anything beyond trash. To lose everything, to be killed, to starve, or to endure rape.
Because in our land, there were many who owned nothing; not even their bodies.
(This body understands that irony. It feels how the world has scorned your choices; made a hypocrite of you, perhaps. Made a joke of you.)
I knew I would do anything . . .
Become anything --
If it meant that I would have will over my body.
And if it meant Konan would have will over hers.
And all of Akatsuki: we meant to continue to resist.
I suffered to make myself strong enough to lead them.
I bled to live where he died.
Because success costs pain.
So, how did this come to pass?
The oppressors survived.
Every one of them.
And we.
Forced to share their beds.
Forced even deeper than bodily invasions -- because the mind is more sacred, still.
And again Konoha has tortured me.
And again I have let my comrades down.
Because I saw them each day, and I did not save them from this rape. And that is unacceptable.
I led Konan into this rape, myself. We went.
I destroyed our life together.
I destroyed the well-being of my comrades.
The oppressors run free, and laugh at us for their ability to bed us -- and have us delirious, and willing.
And we were Konoha's spaniels.
So the Kyuubi will laugh at me, I suppose. It is of no consequence now. That insult is insignificant compared to --
(This should not happen.
When you try so hard.
When you want something this much.
When you try not to let your eyes be dimmed.
It is not fair that it should -- )
But I am someone.
Who has been beaten down by life.
And no matter how powerful I become, the world attempts to deprive me of my rights, my humanity, and my autonomy.
If I cannot stand against this, even now.
Even now.
(Although you do not intend to give yourself over to resignation. Not yet. It is only that it feels hopeless. As if your veins course with hopelessness, and despair sits heavy on your shoulders, and Konan deserved better, and Itachi deserved better -- what will become of them now -- and you made promises to Sasori, and Kisame, and they were your people, and you were not strong enough to see to it that they were not ravaged, but the lot of you have been dragged through the streets, and paraded about, and does this not feel familiar? Is this not what fate has always put you through? You suppose by now, you should expect that life will not respect you. That you will be taunted and tormented by your foes. But this war had made you certain that a new era was coming. And you had known hope again. And now the cynicism returns, in all its chill. There will be nothing to do except pick up the pieces.)
Pick them up, Nagato.
They are waiting for you.
(The rain feels cool.
You must go retrieve your body. It is coughing, as you hear in the ear of the other.)
--
He says only: "I failed."
The words which say all the rest.
Where/When: Konohagakure; on the morning when the marriage event has ended (September 3rd).
Status: Closed / Active
Style: Paragraph, switches between first/third/second person. May have many annoying stylistic flourishes, alas.
Warnings: Nagato misconstruing the world in his usual style. Angst. ABUNDANT :FFFF, and yes, the :FFFF deserves a warning.
It rains like home this morning.
You. You are inside, dreaming. You woke up dreaming, your eyes wide open. The wires unseen of connective chakra tissue are silver cords, holding yourselves together, but when this much of you is so far apart -- because much more of you is more apart than is the case for most people, most bleeding and living things -- then you have these moments where your mind that is alighting behind the skin of other eyelids, and looking out: yes, there are moments when the world fragments like the sky rains like home. And the sun at midnight through the stem of your wine glass, holding all the shards; drips its liquid into your veins, as you look over Amegakure. Alive for you. And; ah, it is midnight, and the sun is shining brightly inside of your
eyes.
It is a delusion that you would ever conspire to
engage in these
emotions of a
nature that is not in your body.
Of humours that do not accord with you.
An awful dream, where you are watching yourself slipstream in the emotions of another life, and other words inside of your mouth, and other feelings inside of your head. Everyone must have these dreams. Phantasms, wherein the circuits linking you to you begin to dissever you from you. Until you wake up. Cold in the machine. Freezing. Or you wake up with your eyes in the dark. With the dome of glass above you, and the whir inside the room that you hear in the deepest regions of sleep, wherein it becomes a voice, or voices, and sometimes you hear the voices of all those who are you. This must have been one of those dreams, you think, when. Your eyes open, and the emotions there are. Different. And like the liquid inside of the glass, it is mixed. Measured in a way that is not, cannot be. You. Those thoughts and ideas must be of the external world that flows into you during the night sometimes, as it flows into. Anyone. The history of yourself begins to drip with memories that are yours, into memories that are yours, and you do not remember making those memories, and this is why this must be a dream, and the connections of your many eyes: ah, yes. Your mind must be. Shaped. Very differently now.
Like that of a god.
And then you (I) stumble from the bed, and you (I) open a door, which is evidenced by the feel of a knob and the sound of the creak.
(Someone was in your bed.)
It is still a dream.
Until you.
Until I feel the rain.
"I failed."
I never intended to fail. Failure was not an option. But the war is over. I did not win. And one who does not win does -- by definition -- lose.
I volunteered to go with them to the depths of hell.
But I could not protect them.
Their minds and hearts were twisted.
And made sinister.
And I did nothing.
And could do nothing.
(And you remember the other friendships you failed, and the rain falls on the body that wears the burden of proof.)
I did not accept "give up". The world insisted I should die, and I did not accept this. I said no. I spoke the truth to power. And I bled for the right to do so. I was prepared to bleed again. And I do not fear this. I do not fear torture, or death. My death would have been as nothing if it meant bringing an end to the tyrannies of that nation. And I could do so. I knew. I believed. I thought this faith was important. I thought it would mean something, if I refused to be --
-- what I saw in. Others. So many others. Throughout the war in Amegakure. They came and went. Systematically murdered. Raped. Tortured. We would take short-lived shelters in villages, and there we might see a child one year with a glint of curiosity in her eyes. The next year, they were dimmed. This is the nature of war, and of oppression. This is true pain. This is what it means to live in pain, and to be deprived of the sight of opportunity, because you are low, and dirty, and you live among oppression and suffering. You live without class, like an animal. You live and die like garbage. And I knew by the looks in the changing eyes. I knew what those looks meant.
They meant these people had reached points where they could not lift their heads above the weight of the despairs of war.
They could never conceive of themselves as anything beyond trash. To lose everything, to be killed, to starve, or to endure rape.
Because in our land, there were many who owned nothing; not even their bodies.
(This body understands that irony. It feels how the world has scorned your choices; made a hypocrite of you, perhaps. Made a joke of you.)
I knew I would do anything . . .
Become anything --
If it meant that I would have will over my body.
And if it meant Konan would have will over hers.
And all of Akatsuki: we meant to continue to resist.
I suffered to make myself strong enough to lead them.
I bled to live where he died.
Because success costs pain.
So, how did this come to pass?
The oppressors survived.
Every one of them.
And we.
Forced to share their beds.
Forced even deeper than bodily invasions -- because the mind is more sacred, still.
And again Konoha has tortured me.
And again I have let my comrades down.
Because I saw them each day, and I did not save them from this rape. And that is unacceptable.
I led Konan into this rape, myself. We went.
I destroyed our life together.
I destroyed the well-being of my comrades.
The oppressors run free, and laugh at us for their ability to bed us -- and have us delirious, and willing.
And we were Konoha's spaniels.
So the Kyuubi will laugh at me, I suppose. It is of no consequence now. That insult is insignificant compared to --
(This should not happen.
When you try so hard.
When you want something this much.
When you try not to let your eyes be dimmed.
It is not fair that it should -- )
But I am someone.
Who has been beaten down by life.
And no matter how powerful I become, the world attempts to deprive me of my rights, my humanity, and my autonomy.
If I cannot stand against this, even now.
Even now.
(Although you do not intend to give yourself over to resignation. Not yet. It is only that it feels hopeless. As if your veins course with hopelessness, and despair sits heavy on your shoulders, and Konan deserved better, and Itachi deserved better -- what will become of them now -- and you made promises to Sasori, and Kisame, and they were your people, and you were not strong enough to see to it that they were not ravaged, but the lot of you have been dragged through the streets, and paraded about, and does this not feel familiar? Is this not what fate has always put you through? You suppose by now, you should expect that life will not respect you. That you will be taunted and tormented by your foes. But this war had made you certain that a new era was coming. And you had known hope again. And now the cynicism returns, in all its chill. There will be nothing to do except pick up the pieces.)
Pick them up, Nagato.
They are waiting for you.
(The rain feels cool.
You must go retrieve your body. It is coughing, as you hear in the ear of the other.)
--
He says only: "I failed."
The words which say all the rest.