#divine hatred

You couldn't realize they didn't want you anywhere near them in the first place. How they feared the potential of the deity taking hold of you when you were so young.

"You're our hero," your caretaker told you softly, fixing the wrinkles in your formal attire, "-and heroes never stop doing what is right."

---

You were young. Naive. The deity knew that, mocked you for it. Every mishap, every tantrum, every ignorant choice you made because it's jailer was a "Deficient weasel! Why couldn't you see that!"

It wasn't nice hearing it, but you had no choice other than to thicken your skin. That is what the people wanted because imperfection left cracks and if there were cracks… "We can't let (f.name) out of our sights. What if the Devil comes out?"

Left people fearful. If your voice wasn't the right pitch, if you didn't intentional let yourself be small, if you were too small, if you were too loud, too careless, if you had low marks in your exams, if you got too high... Every detail about yourself was judged down to your breathing.

You couldn't be too big, but you couldn't be too small either. You were an ace in their hometown. You were their biggest weapon if war ever broke out.

Slip ups weren't affordable, perfection was obsolete.

---

Or it was more like when war broke out.

It happened with no coordination. Your home was attacked, houses were burning, people massacred. You woke up, sweating as the creature laughed at your terror. It always did, "Why do you continue to do this?" you asked, strained.

That earned you an entire body ache as its anger seeped into your blood and into your immune system, ringing alarm bells into the nerves woven neatly in your skin, "Your arrogant race took everything from us. Your blight is my curse for being born in the first place."

What was there to expect? Your hands curled into the blanket, no retorts or curses to the creature inside you. No telling it to suck it up, instead you slowly went back to bed. Laying down despite the ache running up and down your body.

A quiet groaned escaped your lips, eyes teary, but no one came to comfort you. That's fine. You were used to it, "I'm sorry." However, the deity didn't expect that. "Sweet honey only traps the flies around it, pest."

A shaky sigh, "I know… but I'm still sorry, you didn't deserve it. Not any of you," A heart that felt pain for others was dangerous, "I'm sorry I can't do much… I wish I could." Maybe then your childhood would've been a little more different.

Your eyes closed by themselves, the aches a phantom pain in the morning, the voice just as persistent as last night. Your ears couldn't differentiate a difference until much later.

---

You couldn't react, but the people around you did when war reached your area. You didn't want to go. The idea of hurting another person for the sake of this village, your village. One life for the betterment of thousands. Killing another person for peace? No, no!

You wanted peace, but in the cost for another life?!

Your place was settled.

You had no choice to go, you were their ace, the one to turn the tables around.

This wasn't one of those options where you could choose. Could you choose in the first place? There was no say in what you wanted to do in this scenario. Then again when did you?

You were in their front lines, you had no choice but to withstand the grueling conditions, the loud noises, the gruesome looks of the dead. No one died the same, no body parts were spared, and no mind or heart could handle the violence lest they swallowed everything they knew and threw it away.

War passed and it came, but you weren't the same. Your hands shook when alone, hands bloody and terrified to hold anything pristine. Sometimes you still think the faces you killed were haunting you again. Following your steps, shadows, and breathes.

Asking you why couldn't they go back home. The face of the young men… the drawing of his little girl in his pocket.

Whispering in your ear why a weapon like you could go back into the shelf while they get discarded, unable to return into the shed. The woman's body was torn into shreds thanks to the Deity's power inside you. You didn't realize how much you needed to restrain yourself… She didn't leave this world swiftly.

Humming threats that were hard to differentiate from the Beast inside. Its voice hasn't reach your ears since you came back because the fire inside of you was an inferno they didn't start.

You weren't the same. The village didn't care because they were safe. The people were fine. Some families were not. You were not. You couldn't stand looking at yourself for too long.

---

It was dark in your head, it wasn't always the case. Back then it was lighter, filled with a little bit more life. A soft pocket of fantasy between yourself and the Deity, moss and grass. Small sprouts of fauna. Only for the eyes of two.

A peace treaty even when one party didn't agree.

The small pocket was barely there. Now.

The moss was withering and the little light left was collapsing. The structures were decaying. It was irony in it's finest, "I'm sorry." You said softly to the immortal. An action you've been repeating more after all was said and done. Its eyes narrowed, you wouldn't realize the change, you hardly recognize anything anymore, "I'm sure the others would've handled this better than I am…"

The cage rattles, you looked up, but instead of bright eyes. Novice and apologetic were spartan and dead. The eyes of a person who saw the worst and has never been the same since, like a part of them dead along the trail back home.

It was something it was used to seeing, but not in it's jailer. It could still see the same phantom of their first interaction, how you reached into the caged, and despite the fear you felt afterwards… The wound on your hand forming a scar. One of many. Still came back.

Further away yet still in sight.

How you used to always try to break the rules in order to do something for yourself, how you laughed, and told it your escapees. You still kept that sheen, but when you came across the meaning of war… When you, you, came across what actually happens when pride over one's nation comes first before the people.

The numbers of life snuffed or taken, the way necessary evil colours your world, your eyes began to loose something. It didn't do anything about it. It wishes it had so… because out of all their jailers, you were willing to interact with them.

A child. A lonely, oppressed child wanted company from a being made out wrath and duty to those it crosses and protects in due diligence.

"Shut it, will you primitive scatterbrain." It sounded angry, probably ashamed on how its cage could barely stand after taking so many lives. Or maybe it was disgusted at the idea it couldn't do it itself… "Pay attention when I'm speaking to you, dunce!" It growled, body pressed harshly on the bars as it tried to swipe your body.

Not to kill, not to torture you like it promises you so many times. It took a bit before it did grab you, before you just left it happen, dragging you close. So, so close. You could taste how saturated the air was with its anger alone.

From records, you read it wasn't always a cage the Deity resided in. It depended on the vessel. Yours just happened to be a cage, compared to how other vessels used to trap it, yours was far too lenient. But it didn't grab you to enact vengeance. Nor to instill its promises.

"You're soft," it growled, long claws going up your face, making sure to not cut through skin yet leaving the silent command clear. While you are the jailer, it didn't mean it couldn't hurt you. Far from it. "-and you're decaying!" It grabbed your skull tightly, you hardly flinched, it hardly felt anything to you.

---

"The moment you cannot care for your life no longer, give it all to me. Understood, Karunā?"

---

You didn't remember the interaction, it was almost like their was a blockage to it. The little tiny bits you did remember, gave a bad image of the deity. It felt unfair to judge it for a single bad action so, you didn't bother to get the full picture.

---

You wished you did now because the fire was growing. The wood was burning and smoke was growing. It was an accident, you didn't mean to harm anyone! You were just spaced out, someone put a hand on you, teeth were bared, and your body acted on offense.

A snap in your caricature.

The village didn't take it kindly, didn't ask why you were so off since the war, why you hardly felt proud of your village. It a slap to your face, getting dragged by your arms like a disobedient child, finally hearing the unfiltered words of a village you gave your life too. A village that broke you for a war you didn't want in.

Seeing disgust, fear, apathy. Seeing their hate for your existence.

It made sense now… how little this world cared for you. 'Do the others feel this way? Are their villages… this cruel as well?' Your eyes watered unintentionally, the chief kneel down to your level, whispering that they'll need to retest your loyalty again.

They'll need to fix you again. Cruel kindness because the Deity you possessed, the spirit inside you, was the strongest. Each and every jailer were handpicked. You were one of the last.

You were special enough to be able to within its volatile strength. You didn't want to be special. You didn't want to relearn. "Can't I get another chance?" your voice broke. Your heartbeat racking up as the chief caressed your face, a mockery of reassurance.

That is how it felt to you, "We can't do that, and for that I'm sorry, (l.name). Your attitude needs to be remade, we must ensure you never do that again,"

You can't be human. Cannot make mistakes that make you like the malevolent spirit inside you.

The audience was looking, traitors were killed yet you couldn't be because there wasn't another jailer. There wouldn't be another one unless it came from your own blood.

Tears fell, the hands wiped them away, you didn't want it. Didn't want to learn. Didn't want to-…!

---

"Do you wish to give it all up?"

Eyes that no longer had a sheen, that wanted to turn into themselves, hold and squeeze till only black dots appeared. Till there wasn't a voice anymore. Where a body couldn't feel the pain anymore. It wasn't like you found life meaningless, you just hated the pain your actions have caused.

How lives were over your head and every time you go to bed, another person cries because someone didn't make it back home.

"Please… it-it hurts! Make it stop. Just make it stop!" You yelled inside your head, your physical head turned to the ground, tears falling, your throat hurting for holding back a scream. Every stare, every shame, every eye, every fear, every limb, every disregard, and every heart… "It hurts… please just-"

---

"What is that, (l.name)?"

---

The cage was in front of you, a palm outreaches to you, grabbing your body whole. Only a head peaking out a fist, the being brought you inside the bars, there was a burning sensation around you, and a cry was choked out of you.

Your body involuntarily responded before the head of the Chief was sliced clean off their head. People reacted, but the energy, the atmosphere, changed in response to the control voluntarily given.

Your eyes shifted, milky white with an overlay of a soft light lime green replaced your usual eye color. A posture that didn't change, but the meaning wasn't all the same. Screams erupted and people, guards, did what they could. Some tried to save themselves, others fell, you hardly recognized the village anymore after control was forcefully given to you.

The tears you spilled earlier came back full force, but not for yourself, for the people you murdered. It wasn't you, however, that caused this. It still felt like it did.

"You, I," you felt it, right next to you even though their was no tangibility, "I didn't ask for this to happen. I-"

---

"Didn't mean for this to happen," a low rumble ran through your chest, to your horror you felt yourself laugh. A mix of confusion and satisfaction, "You never specified, Karunā." A grin spread, it wasn't your voice, your actions, you were being shoved before you could fight.

The space from before your decaying, the space inside your head was back to normal, but not because of you. It was, "We made a vow, Karunā. You gave it all up, now no one will hurt you." The deity.

It rebuilt it; the moss, the grass, the soft light that wasn't overpowering, the bit of water, and fireflies. A fantasy place you read about, one you wished were real sometimes, "Ever again, I can promise you that, Amar." The deity promised, watching it fall down as your conscious was recessed inside your mind.

---

No human or sound could reach you, only the faint rustle of wind that wasn't there, only you… and the deity. A cage between the two, the most lenient prison created for it, was now for you.

---

Only a burning, warm, sensation wrapped around you. The deity carefully wipes your tears, murmuring quietly about the deaths of people, about the challengers that come to it, and how soon you'll meet the rest of its siblings.

"And if they are as special as you, Amar, then you'll finally get siblings to acknowledge as your own blood." It grinned, soft touches mark your skin through the bars. You were small inside the cage, minute for its place yet you lean to the only touch available.

You didn't mean for it to happen. For all of this to happen. "I'm sorry," you whisper softly, it laughed at you, raising your chin, sharp claws that should end you, "Apologetic as always, not too worry, Karunā. We will have all the time in word for you to accept a new change inside that head of yours."

The claws poke a bit, a grounding mechanism that wasn't yours yet helped no matter how much you wished it didn't.

"You'll see to it, no matter how long this decree will grind you, (f.name)." It promised, a vow that you unwillingly accepted because it hurt. This cage hurts, "Rest now, Amar, and wait for me."

Again, and again. Alone in your mind. Inside a cage meant for a being bigger than you. Bigger than anything you could imagine. You laid by the bars, a pin in a box, eyes with a wet sheen, but a sheen nonetheless.

You don't know how much you can last.

Don't know when you'll finally break in this long-suffering.

You didn't have much time.

You feared when the burns would start to feel like hugs. When the touches would become comforting, not a warning. When its voice will become your anchor.

You're breaking, and all you wanted was peace.

hello! hello! again, thank you for reading this far, especially the heavier topics mentioned here. try to read some sort of fluff after this? or drink a warm hot chocolate that helps me a lot!

if you think this is somewhat or similar to Naruto, I unintentionally made similarities. the differences between reader and Naruto are very stark. reader's village backstabs them while Naruto were open to their disdain. both are cruel, but at least one was more open than the other.

doesn't make it okay! also, I never read or watch Naruto, I plan to, but most of my information is through clips and fanfiction so, please don't judge too harshly! I try to steer away from it. so, it can stand on its own.

please take care of yourself, and I'm sorry for a simplified version of PTSD and war. I hope I could convey the pain or tension decently? if not, that is also okay. again, take care and until next time! (I'm trying to make my master lists, it's very different geez Louise.)