Playground

"Culpable homicide is murder

(b) where a person, meaning to cause death to a human being or meaning to cause him bodily harm that he knows is likely to cause his death, and being reckless whether death ensues or not, by accident or mistake causes death to another human being, notwithstanding that he does not mean to cause death or bodily harm to that human being;"

(Criminal Code, s 229)

xxx

-October 10th-

Fear could bring out the worst out of people. Fear could make them cruel, terrifyingly cruel, no matter how much they tried to justify their reasons or pretend otherwise. It was evident with what they were doing right now,

Ostracizing and hating an innocent child.

I was in a park, at the center of the village. It was green, lush, and relaxing. Today was a perfectly ordinary day, everyone was still alive and I was not covered in my own blood.

So far the day was good.

And yet, Fugaku for some reason had suggested (read: ordered) Sasuke to take me with him to the park. One might wonder why I seemed to be perplexed by this fact, as taking one's sibling to a park was an absolutely unexceptional situation.

But not for me.

I never went out of the Uchiha district, or the house for that matter. The only occasion in which I ever went to the center of the village was when I went to the hospital for my check-up, and even then it was always a direct travel. Either Fugaku would dash with me through the rooftop, or flickered to the hospital, whichever suited his fancy.

I was not allowed to go out of the house and I never tried to. If I used my sharingan, I could see a strange barrier that surrounded the house. I did not know if it was for my protection or to prevent me from leaving the premise, but I would not push my already nonexistent luck.

However, now I was suddenly released from my confinement without even knowing whether this was truly a freedom or a simple test, a test which would determine whether I would be allowed to roam free or be locked in a solitary confinement. I did not know what Fugaku was thinking, I did not know what his motive was, and I could not read him.

I felt alarmed and anxious about what the man was doing in the meantime despite Sasuke's constant nagging for me to play something or socialize with other children. Not for the lack of trying, I simply could not shake the thought that the worst case scenario was about to happen.

What if the massacre happened earlier than expected? What if by the time that I returned I was greeted by death bodies? Would I be the next one to die? Would I suffer? Would Obito pluck my eyes out of their sockets too?

It was when I was pondering (panicking) about these thoughts that I found myself wandering from the sandbox that Sasuke was playing at, to the quieter and uncrowded part of the park.

At first, I thought it was because of the haggard-looking man who was curling like a fetus at the base of one of the trees. He smelled heavily of alcohol, and he did not seem to be in his right mind, thus it would be understandable if parents chose to keep their children away from the potentially dangerous man. However, it was only once I ventured further into the park that I realized that the quietness was not due to the man, it was because people were avoiding a certain someone.

Uzumaki Naruto, the Nine-Tails' Jinchūriki in all of his glory, was sitting in a swing with his forehead being pressed against one of its supporting rope, hugging it for some semblance of comfort whilst staring dejectedly at the hordes of children that had refused to play with him. Their parents forbade them to, and the ones that did not simply follow their peers behavior.

I could understand those people's contempt. They felt fear and anger towards the horrific and mammoth entity that was being sealed inside the boy. They had lost so much when the Nine-Tails wreaked havoc several years ago, costing the lives of many villagers, be it parents, siblings, sons, daughters or grandfathers and grandmothers. They did not want to lose their children too in the event that Naruto lost his control over his tenant.

However, what I could not understand was how they could hate an innocent child just because said child had the Nine-Tails sealed inside him. He did not choose it, he did not even know that he was a human sacrifice for the good part of his life. The child did absolutely nothing to deserve such hate. He had no say whatsoever in being a human sacrifice, but he was still hated by his fellow citizens even though hating him gained them nothing but hurting a possibly, and by all evidence, an innocent child.

It was why I approached him. Naruto was only a child, but all he ever knew was loneliness and the fact that people shunned him away for a reason he did not even know of. The least that I could do for him was giving him a company before others started to reach out to him. That was a humane thing to do.

I walked closer to him and waved my hand in greeting. "Hello."