Fate Wheel | Naruto

𝟏𝟏𝟐| "Futility of existence"

"The autarch claimed it was a military mishap, but he ordered it to happen. He doesn't like the fact we're doubling in numbers, he's trying to send as many of us as he can to the devil's plains just like all those years ago."

The devil's plains. Where monsters and creatures lurked among humankind, bound to a forsaken, dead land uninhabitable to those who sought to see the sun set in the sky and the moon rise up another day.

Beings with large fangs hanging from their gums like overarching icicles. And eyes, cynical, red and engendering. With claws sharper than the weapons they brandish and mercy a treacherous foe. The moment you step foot into the plains, you were prey, you were nothing but worms that floundered in wet soil, unable to dictate your own will to live as it was decided the moment the Hinode had solidified your fate. The high oracle was unforgiving, her word law, her powers an unforeseen adversary fought in an invisible war.

Fate Wheel. They called her. Second-hand to Shizen. Or perhaps, on the same level.

Though, he knew it to be a magnification. No being was on par with the very deity they worshipped, but they sought to surpass the balance of nature- boundaries implemented to prevent catastrophe.

"Have faith." A stern, feminine voice thrummed warningly with deep-root conviction.

Hanae Oogami was a middle-aged woman, her life intertwined with political affairs from the moment she was born. She had only known what it meant to be a devil's advocate and nothing more. She was a rhadamanthine woman, difficult to unravel. Yet, strangely pragmatic when needed to be. At least, that was how he saw it.

"Surely, it is not now we give into the clutches of despair and harrowing defeat? Not when our brothers and sisters have suffered and died by the hands of such cruel oppressors whose only goal is to seek the demise of our race? We are one and the same, but our similarities is what differentiates us." Her voice echoed down the flailing walls of the awning. "Our men killed. Our women defiled and damaged in many ways unimaginable. Our children forced into slavery. Insurgence was an inevitable outcome and this time we will succeed. We will be victorious."

The winds vigorous howls evanesced into the sound of blood and violence.

Of unjust slaughter, of burning villages to the ground, of killing one another and feeding to an endless cycle of bloodshed- could peace truly pacify years of vile torture and death?

Peace. An interesting term. For if death sewn death, surely peace sewn peace? In order to have peace, to relinquish feeling of injustice and scourge and forget the bloody past that plagued liberated lands. Once a person has inhaled air untainted by the fumes of smoke, they'd desire for a greater purpose- a way of ensuring this peace was maintained. But how could that be guaranteed when violence bred more violence and grief couldn't simply be satiated by unsteady documents?

Victorious. She'd said and yet, he stood in front of the body of a child, no older than a year's old and his body sliced in half- the putrid stench of futile death and rotting flesh suffocating his lungs.

'The Naka Insurgence.' They'd called it. A battle that ended in the bloodiest way, its brutality a framework for future battles yet to come. That was what war was. War was a power struggle between two domineering figures who acted upon the needs of their people, selfish needs, but needs nonetheless. War meant death manifested itself into an inescapable plague that no one was safe from. It destroyed families, friends, bonds and identity itself.

War acted as the bridge between the Hinode and Ankoku, a bridge bound to crumble at the expense of pending vengeance. A fury to be felt in centuries to come.