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

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.]