~Soutarou POV~
[Pure Mangekyo Sharingan Fully Awakened.]
Soutarou's gaze tightened and he sighed, not bothering to look any longer. While his anxiety and the voice pestering his mind calmed, his heart didn't. His emotional turmoil was greater than ever before, he knew what he had just done was wrong, but why… Why did it feel right? Why did it feel… So good?
Killing wasn't meant to feel good and perhaps that wasn't what felt good… But the sense that his… His loved ones might be safe?
'No… This is wrong…'
A voice whispered in his mind, "No it's right… You're protecting them… You have to be selfish… You have to be strong for them."
'Did Kiyome do something? I'm not normally this irritable or… Demented… Am I?'
Soutarou looked at Tsunade who was still awake and turned away from him reading some document dazedly, and Naori who was genuinely asleep, resting her head on his chest with furrowed brows seemingly having a nightmare, Soutarou stared up at the ceiling in confusion and restlessness.
'No… What I did was right… If I didn't do it, then Mito would have. I won't allow her to go into harm's way. Yes… I was right.'
As Soutarou's delusions of justice and morality solidified, the voice in the back of his mind softly echoed, "Finish Iwagakure… Finish the war."
Still Soutarou's mind finally felt a moment of peace and he closed his eyes, falling asleep and off into dream land…
He found himself once again in his mindscape, with his eyes narrowing. Unfortunately he didn't have much time before the darkness swallowed him. This world wasn't sleep, it wasn't rest, it was agony, bloodied scenes flashed before Soutarou's eyes, yet for some reason he wasn't bothered, he just stared with hardened eyes.
He looked forwards, expecting Kiyome's presence any moment, his sharingan flashed in all directions before the black sea, the darkness lit up with a disturbing red hue. An endless, suffocating crimson sea stretched beneath a black sky. The ground or rather the water felt like glass beneath his feet, both reflective and smooth yet faint ripples spread with each step he took.
Soutarou stood alone. No. He wasn't alone. There. In an unnoticeable corner of his eyes a figure stood behind him. Tall. Same Straight Tomoe Pattern. Scared. Battered. Same face, more matured, but also somehow not him. Something twisted.
The silence was glaring loud, the ringing of his ears. And yet it kept watching. Aimlessly watching. As he began to question it he finally realized.
He turned around to see and knew he didn't have to really turn around again to know what it was. Two scarlet eyes opened in the sky above. Crimson eyes all around him. His eyes.
A rasped, demented and broken whisper cried in agony, and hatred "You hesitated."
Soutarou turned his head slightly and acknowledged and watched the being that was himself… from some twisted timeline. The voice became clearer now. Not a whisper this time.
Soutarou exhaled slowly. "I didn't."
The voice rasped hoarsely, yet angrily back to him, "You questioned it."
Soutarou denied, "I weighed it."
A faint chuckle echoed across the endless red, "They would have killed them."
Dozens of eyes, Soutarou's sharingans began bleeding, the swirl of his mangekyo began turning while the straight tomoe stayed still, as if frozen in time.
Images flooded the sky above… Tsunade impaled by stone spikes. Naori crushed beneath falling debris. Mito standing alone, chakra blazing as blood poured from her side.
Soutarou's breathing quickened unconsciously, his fists tightening. Soutarou unknowingly muttered, "I won't allow that. They're mine. MINE!"
The figure smiled in understanding before glaring at him in hatred, "Then finish it."
The red sea darkened further, beyond simply the coloration of hot red blood, but the sticky crimson, the dried crimson that forms from thousands of dead, thousands of bodies, thousands of kills.
The figure walked around Soutarou holding its hands up in proclamation and dissatisfaction, "Iwagakure still stands."
Stone walls. Hidden shinobi. Plans forming. Retaliation brewing. Uncertainty. Imbalance. Insecurity. and…. Death.
"You struck a limb, well I suppose you could say its bleeding out too, but…," the voice continued calmly as it locked eyes deeply with Soutaoru, "You must remove the head."
Soutarou clenched his fists and he grit his teeth in confusion, "That would mean slaughter."
"You're hesitating again. Just remember, it would mean safety."
The word safety traveled across the crimson sea, like an everlasting echo murmuring louder, yet softer in Soutarou's ears. Images flashed across his vision…
A peaceful and harmonious Konoha. Mito smiling softly, while lazing about and softly stroking his head and playfully scolding him. Naori laughing and messing around with him, taking him out to eat and sneaking him snacks against Mito's wishes. Tsunade being Tsunade arguing loudly over something trivial, all while begging Soutarou for a few thousand ryo to go gamble with. Kushina tripping over something and making her signature klutz face before telling him not to laugh, because she'll become the first female Hokage, "Dattebane!" Or Mikoto's soft wife-like gaze while she politely waited for him or her fixing his Kimono for being slightly off all while reminding him to take lunch.
No war. No threats. Just peace. Just his loved ones safe. No sacrifices that caused everyone to go crazy. No hidden worries. No need to be wary all the time. Just happiness.
"You crave that," the voice murmured. "You tasted that sweet release. You tasted control. It felt right because it was right."
The red sky pulsed and clouds began forming.
The figure began to distort in dozen's of versions of him as the voice shifted from old to young and back, "You are no longer a child playing at being strong."
The glass beneath his feet began to crack, light spilling upward through the fractures.
"You awakened. You must awaken. Hero doesn't suit us. No… A villain, a selfish villain who cares for himself is the best for us. You know it. You mustn't follow our example."
The figure distorted further, turning into a cloud of red mist that passed into Soutarou. A pressure began pressing against his chest. Possessive. Hungry. Protective.
The voice jarred in his mind, "You are their shield."
Soutarou muttered, "But shields can break."
The voice broke the counter apart viciously, "Not if they become blades."
Silence fell. The images faded. Only red remained.
"Remember… Only the death of the threats can earn the safety that you desire."
A figure stepped out his shadow, pale sheet white, with golden pupils, black irises, white hair, and a vicious appearance. It rasped, "You're probably thinking is this Kiyome's fault…? Are you becoming something else because of outside influence…? Impossible casualty protects us… It protects you… I am you, the side you haven't admitted since the beginning. That dark side is ruthlessness, greed, jealousy, villainy, and corruption you refuse to admit. I am also the power you seek to become a perfect being, a happy being… Not this husk of so-called morality."
The figure put its hand out with a deep smile… Before saying in a distorted voice as if talking through water, "Until next time..."
Soutarou's eyes snapped open as cold sweat covered his back. He heaved and panted causing Naori to stir. But Soutarou's attention was on his blurring gaze… and how for half a second… Everything was still red.
The dim canvas ceiling of the infirmary tent slowly bled back into view. The faint scent of antiseptic herbs mixed with iron hung in the air. Outside, distant murmurs of shinobi and the crackle of low campfires filled the early dawn quiet of the Land of Grass.
His eyes flickered with his sharingan, his Mangekyō spun once more and then stilled.
Naori shifted slightly against him, her breathing uneven but steady. Even in sleep her fingers gripped his clothes, as if afraid he might disappear. The faint crease between her brows hadn't fully relaxed.
Tsunade was still awake.
She wasn't reading anymore.
She was watching him.
"…Your chakra spiked," she said quietly. Not accusing, not fearful, just observing.
Soutarou blinked, then slowly exhaled, forcing his pulse down, softly said with a smile,"It's nothing."
Tsunade's brown eyes narrowed slightly, but she didn't press. She feigned the same as Soutarou… That everything was still alright… Still normal.
Outside the tent, a wounded shinobi groaned. Someone moved quickly past. The war had not paused just because night fell.
Soutarou stared at the white ceiling again. But the echo lingered. Finish Iwagakure. Kill them… All the unstable factors.
Soutarou clenched his jaw, 'It's nothing… I won't be controlled by something else… Yes this is just a part of the process… This is just the Mangekyō stabilizing… It's new… Emotional feedback? Yes, that's all.'
He shifted slightly so as not to wake Naori. His chest still felt tight. His heart felt heavy, but not from guilt. Instead it was from the sheer anticipation. The bloodthirsty cry, that was what disturbed him.
'No I can't think like this… I've already-'
"Lady Tsunade!"
A heaving Jonin rushed into the room and paused seeing the scene of Tsunade cozying up against Soutarou, along with Naori too, that scene was just too much of, 'Damn bastard' core for this poor love starved Jonin. And so he faltered even more, before he finally shook himself free and coughed into his fist and said, "Lady Tsunade a terrible situation has happened! All of the captured Iwakagure shinobi have been poisoned! And the Tsuchikage was found…. Found…"
Tsunade's patience thinned and she got up and turned herself away from the man and readjusted her clothes before saying, "Well? Out with it, found what?"
The man gulped and fearfully said, "He was found dead."
Tsunade's brows furrowed and she snapped her head back and glanced at Soutarou who was dazedly staring off into space, before dismissing the Jonin after telling him to reinforce the defensive lines and prepare for retaliation from Iwagakure.
Tsunade's questioning voice rang out, "Soutarou. What did you do? Why Grandma didn't she say that you aren't supposed to lose your morals?"
Soutarou glanced over and he said, "Why did you assume it was me right away?"
Tsunade said, "Your sharingan's yin chakra has been intensifying. Soutarou don't fall into the cycle of obsession. Granduncle warned clearly what could happen, you know it too. Just look at Madara-."
Soutarou cut her off, "You're wrong. Yes my yin chakra has been intensifying, but my yang chakra is just strong, I won't lose myself. It's something else. That 'being' is messing with my mind. You're right I did it, but I did so for a good reason. Iwagakure and Kumogakure can't and won't let us go this war, so it's better to crush them to dust. Because as it stands now Konoha stands too tall, the tree is casting too great a shadow on the growth of the others…"
"So there is only one path forward… We win or they do. So losing the initiative is worthless. Trust me Tsunade… This is the best way to do things."
Tsunade's gaze tightened as Soutarou rationalized something that he would've previously vehemently refused to do, or preferred not to be part of. She glanced at the now awake Naori who was also listening with a grim look and the pair both agreed, Soutarou was changing… Whether it was for the better or worse… They couldn't tell.
Tsunade sighed and thought,
***Author's Note: All's good on my end now, normal upload schedule going forwards... Hopefully.***