video || second chances

[fervidity]

[The recent post made by WTF (or WoTF) has finally prompted Kushina to make an entry again, addressing this world at large and the people in it. Or at least those that can see this.

First, a deep breath.]

I don't know if anybody has been thanked for all the effort, for putting their lives on the line to save this world by those of us who don't remember how bad it was. There were people who made this place better for everyone and went back in time. It still sounds ridiculous to me and kind of impossible but this world is good at making impossible things possible, isn't it? [Like bringing people back to life.

Minato was good at it too. Space-time and doing impossible things.]

So... thank you. [At the end, her voice nearly cracks and she bows her head before lifting it again.

Now. Her smile is sad.]

It seems like we can go home soon, huh? That's good. We should go home because that's where we belong. Even if we have a choice to stay, we should go home in the end. So many people have fought for us to do just that. They're still fighting. If we don't go home, isn't it just like scorning those people and all their efforts? Isn't it forgetting who we are?

Don't be so selfish about wanting to stay here. There's a million other people in different timelines and worlds that don't. You should all work hard too to overcome your weaknesses so you're not stuck here anyway. There's people who do want to go home but they're going back to a place worse than this. Because it's home! Even if it's going back to their own death or being alone!

Even if it means losing everything here that is precious...

[A long, pregnant pause and Kushina finishes with a question after shaking her head a little.]

How many of you were given a second chance by being here?

[She closes the journal immediately after.]

Comments

[fervidity]

[Kushina is all about fate and red threads and sentimental, romantic things. This isn't fate, however. The fact that a goddess chalks it up to that isn't surprising and Kushina sometimes forgot Saori was one.

She already knows Saori's opinion on this and it's something they decidedly don't agree on. She's not sure if she was actually making this post for others or a reminder to herself. Both, possibly.]

If I wanted to belong back in Konoha, if I wanted that to be home so I could be alive and with Naruto, does that mean I belong there? Because fate decided that it wasn't the case for me. The difference is people can choose here but that doesn't make it right when weren't not supposed to be in this world in the first place.

[windandrain]

[Saori's teeth flash in the video, her eyes shining bright with annoyance and near boiling over anger.]

If you wanted to do that, then you have the opportunity. Sometimes fate extends beyond one death. That's what happened to me when I was only a child. Fate decided I would become more, when I should have died. Fate has brought back many champions from the land of the dead. Why are you different? Deny it or not, fate brought you here. Fate made you belong here, as much as anywhere else.

[Another deep breath, and then another.]

Fate gave you, and those other people, that choice. Why should they not be free to make it? Why do they not belong here? They're here, they've been here, and they've fought to make this world a better place! Why should they not have that right? And who are you to say that's wrong?

[fervidity]

Dammit! I'm not saying it's wrong! I can't say that the way someone feels is wrong! I can only say how I feel about it! I'm not saying that fighting for peace and winning it in this place shouldn't be something celebrated!

I've wanted to live in that peace all my life! And I got to for as long as I was here because of everyone!

[A loud thud of a noise because Kushina has just slammed a fist on a table -- starting a crack that will probably only get bigger.]

And you can hate me all you want for saying it, Saori. I'm not changing my mind. Fate didn't give me any sort of choice before and it's not even giving me a choice now if this is what it is. It's a farce of a choice. What's to say that this world won't send everyone back no matter what we choose? It's done it in the past, no matter how badly we want to stay.

I don't belong here and you agreed with me that we're not supposed to be here.

If fate is what's at hand right now, it's playing a pretty cruel joke on everyone in pretending that we can decide. The only choice I have now is deciding how I feel about it, just like everyone else feels right now. I had the choice to say it out loud. For once, I could have the chance to leave when I want to. When that time comes I can go back instead of live and dread it being decided for me as long as I'm here.

This place is as fickle as autumn skies but at least people are free to decide what they want, and I'm free to decide what I want. I think it's stupid to believe that staying here isn't choosing a bigger risk than leaving. I want people to be happy too, I want them to live, I want them to enjoy the peace we have now. I want them to be with their friends and family until they grow old.

But not here. Not when it can be taken away just as quickly as it's given to us. Being told that this place hasn't always been so peaceful and people had to fight so much and so much was sacrificed... can it ever feel like a real victory? I don't remember it but if things could be changed that way it could happen again. It could happen over and over. That's not the sort of world someone should live in, bending to the whims of a force they can't control.

[windandrain]

If I hated you, Kushina, I would not be talking to you.

[Her voice goes calm, that particular choice of words taking a bit of heat out of her anger. She may believe she doesn't belong here, and Kushina may feel the same way, but that doesn't change the fact that other people may make that choice. To make this place belong to them, to make it their home. It also doesn't change the fact that Kushina is a friend. Someone who she cares for.]

What I don't understand is how you can call them selfish.

[A beat, and Saori steps away from the camera a moment, scooping up something off camera and holding it to her chest.]

So what if they make the choice to stay? To accept fate, and throw themselves to the wind? Who am I to say that they should not make that choice? Who am I to say that's selfish? Because I know at least one man who's chosen to stay here to be with his family. Because he believes he belongs here, with them. I may not feel that way, and you may not, but that's his belief and his choice to make. What's more, would friends not be happy to know that someone they'd thought dead was alive and finding their own way, even if it was in another reality?

[Another pause and she turns back, eyes focused on Kushina, her fingers busy fiddling with a locket.]

And yes, you're right. This could very well be a more dangerous place to be in than other people's home realities, but to the people who're dead? Is the chance to live in a potentially dangerous place, any worse than a final end? I would say that it isn't, but then perhaps I'm of a different mindset. I know what lies beyond and I've rejected it. But in their position? To return to nothingness or to stay here? I cannot say I'd feel any differently.

[Perhaps because her greatest fear is that of death. A true, final demise. But then Kushina knows that well enough.]

hrrng sorry these tags drain me haha

[fervidity]

[Kushina, silent again, mulls over her words.

First, Saori did not hate her. While it's a relief she can't help but think that people did hate her for fighting back. Granted, it was a time when she was young and her foes and the people she quarreled with were young boys who call her tomato the mindset is still there. She knows she's not easy to get along with and she starts fights. There is no denying that.

But she didn't mean to start anything by calling someone selfish. That's just her opinion and merely that. She says selfish because when she thinks of herself, wanting to stay here for happiness or for only the opportunity to live it feels selfish. She feels guilty. Maybe she was just talking to herself since she struggles for an answer so much and is too stubborn to ask someone else what she should do with her own life.

With a second chance.

If they make the choice to stay, who's to say the friends won't choose that too. Everyone will want to stay because she's isn't blind to how this place is actually good even if it wasn't always so. Kushina isn't saying that everyone else's decision is wrong, just that her choice seems like...

The less painful one, ironically.

After that, Kushina looks up and watches her fiddle with a locket, her eyes on it instead.]

It is worse. Not because it's dangerous. Not because nothingness is better than surviving. It's worse because...

[Saori doesn't need to tell her she's of different mindset. Or remind her of the fear of death.]

If I stay here, I'm going against everything Minato and I sacrificed when we died. If someone focuses on their own happiness, that's selfish. To me, anyway.

I can understand that, no worries.

[windandrain]

[The goddess looks down at her locket, a gift from a friend so, so long ago. A token from one who'd seen something more in her, a reason to offer the second chance.]

Kushina. I'm afraid I cannot relate to that particular sentiment. Sometimes you simply must think of yourself. That's simple pragmatism, in some cases. Thinking of what they might accomplish, what positive things they might do with their second chance.

[After all, living was inherently better than dying. If you were dead, without some means of returning or functioning, then any possible good you might do was mitigated. Fate, perhaps, might have a hand in keeping you down, and Saori was not generally one who felt that everyone just not dying was good but Luceti was such a strange twist on things. The idea of it, well...it was strange, seeing so many given a second chance against their will.]

But saying that it's selfish for them? I don't think that's right. And it's wrong of you to say that when so many people here are so conflicted. Things are changing.

[A pause.]

And I know, I know that you and your husband died to save your village. You've told me as much. But that chapter of your existence is closed. That duty is done. I won't presume to tell you what to do, dear, but should you wish it and should it be possible, you are more than welcome to come with me. As is Minato. It would make me happy, and you would be a gift to my world...but I will not press. As that would be selfish of me, to push you to be unhappy for my own sake.

[Because Choice is something paramount to life, to sentience. She could very easily drag others into her schemes and plots...the webwork of a deity...but that is a sin beyond any other. Her kind have few real unbreakable rules, but removing the freedom of choice from a mortal is truly an ironclad offense. They can nudge and cajole, but removing will? No. Never.]