Chapter Text
Yamanaka Inori sits on the edge of the cliff, overlooking Konohagakure.
It feels surreal - a sight that he never expected he would one day see with his own eyes. According to everything he knows, this is all fiction . Konohagakure. Land of Fire. Naruto .
He has no one to blame but the stars and the horrible way they misalign for his second life.
He stares down the cliff, eyes fixed on the three faces carved into the mountain side. He remembers the first time he laid eyes on the Hokage rock, the way he wailed in the arms of his parents. He remembers the frantic expressions on his parents’ faces, their panic as they tried to calm down his sudden outburst, to console him. Comfort him.
But they did not know that Inori could not be consoled nor comforted.
They could never guess at the knowledge swirling behind the watery green eyes. Never fathom the amount of despair hidden behind his unstoppable howls.
Till this day Inori mourns his misfortunate second life, the ill-fated future that is written in the stars, on the pages of the story he used to know so well, a lifetime ago. Born into a war-torn world, robbed of a childhood and thrown into a cacophony of death and blades; Yamanaka Inori’s short life is destined to be filled with nothing but blood, war and chaos.
He’s bitter, because he has every right. After all the shit he’s gone through, he doesn’t deserve any of this.
He’s pissed .
(But a more apt word for it is exhausted.)
How easy it would be, to jump off the cliff right now, close his eyes and end it all. End his involvement in a story that he doesn’t belong in. A story with a happy ending that doesn’t include him.
As he stares down the cliff, he doesn’t jump.
Partially because he doesn’t have the guts to do it. But a bigger part because, despite everything, Yamanaka Inori doesn’t want to die.
You’re fine the way you are, now, let me see you smile.