Chapter 2: The New Me
Everything was dark and cold. I couldn't see anything; it was so dark that I thought my eyes were still closed, or maybe I was blind. I could even be dead. Everything was just darkness until I saw a spark of light coming from my left side. I tried moving my body towards it because I was scared.
The dark doesn't scare me, but the unknown does. I'm scared because I don't know where this is; I don't even know if I'm still alive because the more I ran to the light, the further it became. The harder I yelled, the lower my voice became. The harder I breathed, the more breathless I became. Knowing you're dead, even if you died twice, would you be scared?
The more I chased, the more tired I got. I was getting so tired and so lost, until I heard that voice, a voice that sounded familiar. Just that single voice saved me from despair; my gloomy face was now covered in hope.
"Do you need help, child?" said the voice.
"Yes!" I said as I turned around.
When I turned around, the shock on my face couldn't be hidden. The person in front of me was a man who seemed to be out of his middle ages. He wore all dark clothing with an old warring state armor plate that covered all of his torso. He was wearing a Konoha headband and had an X mark on his chin. The man had his eyes closed and no right arm.
Firstly, I thought that he was Danzo, from Naruto, which I used to watch before I died. But thinking again, I thought that it was impossible because it was just fiction. However, after I saw the X mark on his chin, with the missing eye and arm, I knew it was Danzo.
"D-Danzo?" I asked.
The man in front of me gave me a warm smile, a smile that elderly people give to young kids. I don't know why, but when I saw that smile, I thought it was genuine. However, after remembering how he was in the show, I forgot all about my previous thoughts and made a frown on my face.
"Just as I thought, you despise me, don't you?" he asked.
"No. I don't know you, not enough to despise you on a personal level," I answered.
When I said that, everything went blurry, like those scenes in movies when the main character is moving fast through space. When the blur was finished, I saw myself in front of Danzo, who was sitting on a log in front of a lit campfire. He was staring at the fire with a gloomy face, the face that gave me a small smile a few minutes ago was already gone.
"That's good," he said with the warm smile coming back.
After a few seconds of silence, he suddenly spoke again, still looking at the campfire.
"Tell me, boy, what do you think about this world of ours? Not yours, but mine."
"You-"
I tried to answer him, but I stuttered. I was too shocked; he was implying that he knew where I came from. I don't know how he knows, but I'm guessing that he somehow saw my memories. Thinking about it more, it does somewhat make sense because I did take over his body.
"Yes, I know you aren't from this world, and I know this world is not but a fiction in your world."
When Danzo said those words, he finally looked directly into my eyes, and the warm smile was again gone; it was replaced with a face full of sorrow.
"Why are you looking at me like that? You saw what I saw; you know how wrong you were. You can't keep playing this game, Danzo; you are delusional, just admit it."
After I got out of my shock, I spoke the truth to him when I responded. Everything he did was wrong; his contribution to the Hidden Leaf is just his own delusion.
"Hmp," he scoffed.
I frowned a bit, thinking that he might say something like, "Everything I did was for Konoha." If he actually says that, I might die again from laughter.
"If I tell you right now that your world was just fiction, would you be happy?" he asked.
"It wouldn't matter to me either way," I answered.
"You're wrong; you would fall into despair, like any other," he said with a mocking tone.
"I don't care-"
Before I could even finish, he cut me off and proceeded to talk.
"Those who say they wouldn't care simply have not yet experienced love, despair, failure, happiness, sadness, and war. They simply have not yet experienced life.
If you tell a man who has a loving wife and children that his whole life with them was just fiction created to entertain others, he would not survive such unimaginable despair.
Tell a man who has gone to war, tell him that all he experienced, all the companions he made, and all the sweat he shed to fight for his people, tell him that all of that was mere fiction. Tell him that those he saved, those he died for, are just fictions.
Tell a man who has lost it all and moved on. A man who lost his family, his money, his way of earning money, and his friends, tell him his grief was just a fiction that everyone read for entertainment.
No man can survive; you merely haven't experienced life."
"I-"
I tried to say something, but I couldn't think of anything. All I could think of was the life I had. He was right; I haven't experienced life; maybe that was the reason why I was unfazed when I first died.
"Haha, even I couldn't survive it," he said with a fake laugh.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
I was a little shaken when he said those words. Did he mean that he died because he learned that all his life was just fiction?
"Learning that my dreams and ambition were just a story that someone created made me tired. I could have survived that time I fought with Chiyo and her team, but then you came. I was sucked into this void, where I learned about my future and my past. At first, it enraged me, but then I didn't see a point anymore. I don't want to live and have the ambition of a fictional world."
I was speechless when he said that to me. This wasn't the Danzo I knew from the show; he was completely different.
After a few seconds, I finally gave Danzo an answer.
"I don't think a story can determine whether you are fiction or not."
"Is that so?" he said with the same smile back on his face.
"I was always prideful when it came to the village, even more than my own clan. The village was where I grew up; it represented not just me but my clan as well. After the death of the First Hokage, the great ninja war began. I was enraged at the other villages for thinking that we were so weak without the First Hokage. I wanted to become the Hokage, not because of my own personal reasons, but because I wanted to prove the other villages wrong, that we didn't need the First Hokage to make them our dogs. But noticing my ambitions, the Second Hokage, my teacher, chose Hiruzen as his successor. I will admit that I was jealous, but I also thought that Hiruzen was incompetent to rule and make Konoha great.
What I did in your memories might be wrong in your eyes, but for me, it was the process of making the village the greatest. To make the village so strong that no war can proceed without our permission.
The hero will make the righteous decision, but the villain will sacrifice his morality for the future," Danzo told me.
I looked at Danzo, who was still looking at the campfire with indifference. I don't know if he is speaking the truth, but if he is, he truly did only do those things for the village. I might have said before that I would laugh at him if he ever said, "I did it for the village," but now, I'm having second thoughts about laughing.
"Why are you telling me this?" I asked.
Though I might have second thoughts about him, I still don't know why he is telling me this. Is it because he wants to change the way I think of him? Or is it because he really just wants to die and rest in peace?
"I don't want to live in this world anymore; I want to start anew. Maybe I can also reincarnate like you; who knows? Hahaha. I will give this body to you; all I ask of you is to not let this village get destroyed. Even if it's fiction in my eyes, I still grew up in this village, I killed for this village, and I went to war for this village.
When Danzo was saying the first sentence, he started glowing with bright lights, and his feet and hands were starting to fade away.
"I will definitely make this new life more fulfilling."
When Danzo heard these words, he simply gave me a smile, then disappeared into thin air.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone