Good Game
Just as every child needs affection and attention of some sort to be able to live, every child needs games and activities to be able to grow and shape their personality. Most children fulfill this by spending time with their family and friends, learning from their actions and creating their own, but when a child has no one to turn to what do they do? There is the choice to become a social outcast or to observe, interpret, and come up with one’s own activities.

I chose the second option. That is how I have survived.

For the first part of my life I was in an orphanage and was at least able to learn some basic games and grow with some of the kinder children, but after I was thrown out by the caretakers I had no one. So I learned to improvise.
On my sixth birthday, as I sat deep within the forest surrounding Konoha, I came up with a game that I could play by myself. I didn’t realize then how much it would shape my life – it’s odd how looking back you can truly see how the little things affect our lives.

The game was a simple one; all I had to do was smile. No matter what would happen I had to keep smiling until someone called my bluff and they would win. I didn’t bother to set up a way that I could win thinking that because the villagers always told me they were better than me I would never be able to win no matter how I set it up. Skewed I know, but at that time that is what I believed.

So I’ve been playing my game for the last 12 years and I guess you could say that I am winning. I have had this smile on my face through beatings, failing the genin tests, failing the chunin exam, being stabbed through the lung by my ‘best friend’, Gaara’s kidnapping, and being blamed for every single problem my teammate had with her life. Through Jiriaya’s, Grandmother Chiyo’s, Haku’s, Hinata’s, and Kakashi’s death I kept that stupid little grin on my face. No one expected anything else even though it is inhuman to be able to smile through all of that.

But worse than that I have to admit I’ve been cheating over the years to help everyone else out. Like any other game, it gets boring playing the same thing every day and when it became clear that they would need help to be able to win I would stop smiling. There were times when I would let the tears or anger out and then when someone would come I would hastily smile and say it was all fine, lying through my teeth and trying to get them to understand. No one picked up the discrepancies. I even went so far sometimes as to show skills that according to other’s knowledge I had no right of knowing. When I would beat Sasuke at practice and Sakura would only hit me for hurting him or when I defeated Atkatsuki the win was attributed to others that only helped on the sidelines who were more popular heroes than the demon container.

It was infuriating. No matter how high the odds were stacked against me in my game I would always win. No one could see the real me, the animal I really am on the inside no matter that I stopped just short of ripping out their throats at times.

I’ve said before that the little things that happen are what really shape and change our lives and because of those ‘little things’ here I am on my 18th birthday standing atop my father’s head carved into the cliffside of Konoha. Little things add up over time and become a mountain that I am facing this day, the official end of my game. For twelve years exactly I have played this game and no one has seen what was right in their faces because it was not what they wanted to believe. Today I am going to take my prize for winning at long last.

One last time I closed my eyes and took a deep breath reviewing the current state of things. Sasuke is the current Hokage after Tsunade was killed by Danzou who was in turn was killed by Sasuke. Sakura is ‘happily’ married to Sasuke as he sleeps with whoever he wanted to. The original Rookie 9 is down to only five – team 7, Ino, and Kiba. Team 11 was broken forever by the death of Lee and Gai leaving Neji to become the caged bird he used to compare himself to while Tenten had deserted the village after Tsunade’s death. I myself was supposed to be under house arrest for a trial that was supposed to take place today. I was to be charged on accounts of killing the previous Hokage and leader of the special ANBU force, Root, with only torture and death to come after.

Slowly I let my breath out, letting all of my worries flow out at the same time. I formed a Rasengan in my hand with that breath and once it was gone from my body I shoved the ball of chakra deep into the head of the Yondaime, crumbling the once solid stone. I plummeted down to the ground with the debris, landing on both feet with five tails swirling behind me and a sixth forming steadily.

As I fell to all fours and gave into the Kyuubi’s chakra all I could think was good game.