Open A night out in the town

"My bandmates were already out doing their own thing before dear old dad threw me into a time out." He said to correct her and to also ease the tension of his history. "They wouldn't have known."

Then she asked him about his grand plan about what he plans to do about his father. In all honesty... He's trying to figure that out himself. "I want to fight him. Beat him into the dirt and stand above him. Make him feel as powerless as I felt trapped in time stasis. After that.... I don't know. I'm usually an, 'in the moment' type of guy. I don't really plan all that type of stuff out that far. But as for my ideals. I mean every word of it. I've experienced, heard, and seen injustices to people who are supposedly comrades in arms to the Village that they serve." He shrugged, "Maybe times have changed here since I was once a resident here. Maybe not. I just know that there will always be people like me who don't fit in anywhere."

He would match Kohana's pace as they walked. Her talk of her wanting to be in control of her own actions speaks to him on a deep level. It is probably why he is the way he is. For the most part, he is nice and whatnot. Though he does tend to do some crazy things every now and then. He would give her a genuine smile as she would then say that Sand doesn't have a great track record of letting people in. But then she would tell him that if anyone can pull it off, it was him.

Then she would go on and talk about how he should come back to Sand and become a Sand ninja once more. She made some good points, but.... Kureji slowed to a stop. This feeling he has in his stomach. The way that she worded what she was telling him. He never really felt this type of sensation before. Despite her unknowingly bringing up his father, the rockstar couldn't help but marvel at her. He bit the inside of his bottom lip as he thought about his response.

"I'm grateful that you care like that to try and convince me to rejoin Sand. But this is something I have to do. I won't let fear for my own life dictate my choices. Plus, you'd be surprised about how much trouble I have gotten out of with just my charming personality. The Leaf's Hokage and now your Kazekage knows who I am. I guess the Hokage liked me enough since I had helped them get rid of some people that were responsible for putting their entire Village into a new type of Virus or disease. Typa stuff that effected both ninja and civs."

He let out a sigh, "I ain't got people working under my thumb, and I ain't gonna force anyone to. That typa shit's gotta be mutual. I ain't no Akkuma who has both power and influence to have operatives of all types everywhere. But I am a stubborn person when I want to be."

Kureji would pause before going on. "There is... One other thing... You say that you are, in a sense, someone's wrath given form. But the truth is... That I am way worse than you, even if I chose to throw away my ideals for a safer life. I have these... Psychotic episodes. And when I get like that, I don't grant a quick and painless death to my enemies. Luckily, for everyone, I've been directed at the type of people that would deserve to see my scary side." He rubbed the back of his neck, "So yeah... With that said, if I'm not willing to die for my own ideals, then obviously my ideals aren't worth fighting for. So despite how sick and twisted my own mind is at times, I know what is right. At least for me."

I stopped walking.

Then I laughed.

Not the polite kind. Not even the wild, unhinged kind from earlier tonight. This was different... darker, sharper, like broken glass scraping against stone. The kind of laugh that made people take a step back.

"Way worse than me?"

I turned to face him fully, and something in my expression must have shifted because the air between us felt heavier.

"Kureji, you sweet, stupid bastard. You have no fucking idea what you're talking about."

I set the guitars down carefully—more carefully than I'd touched anything all night—because my hands were starting to shake. Not from fear—never from fear—but from nostalgia and unbridled glee.

"You think having psychotic episodes makes you scary? You think being twisted sometimes makes you worse than me?"

I took a step closer, and another, until I was right in his space.

"I was `born` as a Shadow. Not a person who developed one. Not someone who had to confront the dark parts of themselves. I was the dark part. The only dark part. A fucking poltergeist made from one-seventh of a soul—nothing but pure, concentrated wrath and fury that Shin kept locked away because if he didn't, I would have killed everyone he ever cared about just to watch him suffer."

My voice dropped lower, each word deliberate.

"I pinned children down and beat their faces until they stopped moving. I stabbed strangers for the crime of looking at me wrong. I spent decades trying to make Shin kill himself so I could take his body. I gutted people in the Red Lights just to see what their insides looked like, just to feel something other than rage for five fucking seconds."

I could feel that old familiar fury rising up, the kind that used to make Shin's hands shake when I was screaming in his head. That fury which required seals of protection to be crafter on Shin's neck crafted by Byakko Kyuji...

"You talk about your psychotic episodes like they're something that happens to you. Like you lose control sometimes. I was the loss of control.. I was the boogeyman that instilled fear in a young boys dreams that prevented him from sleeping for more than ten minutes at a time, less I took over. For decades. I was never human, Kureji. I was a literal nightmare given form, the living embodiment of every violent impulse Shin ever had, even ones he didn't realize crossed his unconscious mind, concentrated and amplified until all I wanted was blood and chaos and his complete destruction."

I jabbed a finger at my own chest.

"The fact that I can stand here and have a conversation without ripping your throat out with my teeth? The fact that I only smashed one guy's head in tonight instead of painting the entire bar red? That's not because I'm naturally this civil. That's because I spent decades learning how to be even this much of a person."

I stepped back, breathing hard, my hands curling into fists.

"So don't you dare tell me you're worse than me. You chose your ideals, you chose to fight for something, you chose to have a code. I had to learn what it meant to be anything other than pure destruction. I had to figure out how to exist without trying to murder the one person whose soul I was made from."

The laugh that came out of me now was bitter, sharp.

"You're not worse than me, rockstar. You're just fucked up. There's a difference."

I picked the guitars back up, my grip tight enough to make the cases creak.

"So yeah. You want to talk about being twisted? About having darkness inside you? Fine. But don't pretend you understand what it's like to be the epitome darkness that can dwell within a soul given flesh. and form To have that be your entire existence for decades until someone decided to give you your own body and a chance to figure out what the fuck else you could be."

I started walking again, not looking back to see if he was following.

"You're still human, Kureji. You always were. Me? I'm still figuring out how to fake it."

Kureji couldn't help but smile a little bit. As Kohana would walk away, the rock star would mutter under his breath, out of earshot, "I've really fallen pretty hard for her huh..." He put his hands in his pockets. Any sane guy would see Kohana and think of all the red flags that she has. Kureji? He sees perfect flaws.

It probably is a fact, if what she told him is true, that she has done some questionable things. But he himself isn't one to judge. Heck, he stuffed someone inside of his guitar and then proceeded to blow up the entire Crater City black market with him at ground zero just because he wasn't going to be one upped by someone who was talking in cringe bad guy lines. He very well could bring that up, along with some of the other times that he has went off the deep end. But he felt like that would just end in a screaming match and probably more broken guitars. He didn't feel like buying anymore just because of a heated argument.

He caught up to her and gave her a genuine smile as he teasingly bumped shoulders with her in a playful manner. "Well considering that I believe you. You also did call me weird, insane, and crazy. So I'll just chalk it up as a victory for me then, haha."

She had said that he is still a human, that she is trying to still fake it. He never really put much thought into it, but was he even a human at this point? Normal people don't continually put their soul into a new body as they see fit. However, he feels if he brought that up, Kohana would just tell him to shut up or that his experience is different from hers, as this is her first actual body that is hers. Which, yeah it totally is.

He figured that maybe there was a part of Kohana that was pushing him away, to not see that side of her. But he didn't want to be like all the other people that she has described and ghost her.

"I'm a fucked up, weird, insane, and crazy human. You got that right." He would smile at her. "And if you want me to. I want to help you understand what it means to be a human. So you don't have to fake it." They finally found themselves in a quiet place that had an overlook and a bench.

"This seems like a good place to test out one of your guitars."

Well, this was not how she had planned to spend one of her days in Suna.

Reika almost never dressed like this. The kimono draped loosely from her shoulders, its fabric light and finely made, slipping just enough to reveal a generous hint of cleavage she was painfully aware of. She adjusted it once out of habit, not from embarrassment so much as unfamiliarity—this wasn’t armor, wasn’t practical, and certainly wasn’t subtle. The one constant was the pristine bandages wrapped around her hands, stark white against her skin, a quiet contradiction to the silk and exposed collarbone.

Her black hair had been gathered into a neat bun, stray strands carefully tucked away, and she carried a parasol more for affect than necessity, twirling it slightly as she walked. Incense and perfume clung thickly to the air, mixing with dust and heat in a way that made her sigh softly through her nose. Looking like this was practically inviting trouble—but it wasn’t as if she couldn’t handle herself if it came to that.

She moved through the red-light district at an unhurried pace, lanternlight catching on the folds of her kimono as eyes followed her more openly than she liked. Laughter and music spilled from open doorways below, echoing off sandstone walls, rising and falling in distorted waves. None of it impressed her much. If anything, the sights left her faintly disappointed. Eventually, the noise softened as the path sloped upward, lanterns spaced farther apart until the district’s pulse became a distant murmur. Reika found herself approaching an overlook, the village stretching out beneath it—lights scattered like embers across the sand, the desert beyond swallowed by night.

She hadn’t expected company. Two figures stood there already—a man and a woman. Reika slowed, her red eyes scanning the space instinctively before she meant to. Her gaze lingered briefly on the man, assessing posture and presence out of old habit, before shifting to the woman just as quickly. She felt warmth creep into her cheeks, a faint tightening in her chest she couldn’t immediately place. Whether it was embarrassment, intrusion, or something else entirely, she didn’t linger on it.

She stopped a few meters away, tilting the parasol slightly, not defensively, but politely, and inclined her head. “Sorry,” Reika said evenly, her voice calm and respectful. “I didn’t mean to intrude.” Her gaze moved between the two without settling. “I can leave, if this is a moment of importance.”

She waited for their answer, posture relaxed, the overlook still offering a beautiful view from where she stood—quiet, suspended, and open to whatever came next.

I watched him catch up, that teasing shoulder bump knocked something loose in my chest. The smile he gave me was genuine, warm, and it made me want to both lean into it and run the fuck away. My eyes drifted distantly as I felt heat forming in my cheeks. Was I getting sick? Aw man, that fucking sucks.

"Victory? Sure, rockstar. You win the 'Most Aggressively Okay With My Bullshit' award. Congratulations on being mid."

But there wasn't any bite to it. If anything, my voice came out softer than I meant it to.

When he said he wanted to help me understand what it means to be human, so I wouldn't have to fake it, I stopped walking entirely. Just stood there like an idiot, guitars in hand, staring at him while something in my chest did this weird twisting thing that I didn't have a name for. I felt like puking. God dammit I didn't realize artificial bodies could get the stomach flu, but thats what this started to feel like. My body was getting uncomfortable, I wanted to puke, I wanted to not be looked at... I swear I have a fever or something.

But then again... nobody had ever... I mean, Shin tried to... Because like he gave me this body, gave me a chance to exist outside his head. But even he couldn't teach me how to be something I'd never been. And here was this fucked up, weird, insane, crazy human offering to help me figure it out.

"You're serious."

It wasn't a question. I could see it in his face.

I followed him to the overlook, the bench waiting there like it had been placed specifically for this moment. The view stretched out before us, Sunagakure lit up against the darkness thanks to the cystalline infusions that lined the glass dome.

"Alright," I said, setting the guitars down carefully before sitting on the bench. "Let's test this thing out."

I pulled out one of the new guitars, running my fingers over the strings experimentally. The sound resonated in the quiet, clear and bright.

Then I noticed her.

A woman in a kimono that screamed "I'm trying too hard" hell she parasol and all. What a fucking attention whore. I rolled my eyes as she was standing there like she'd wandered out of some upscale brothel's wet dream. Bandaged hands, red eyes, apologetic expression... the whole package designed to look demure and dangerous at the same time.

My expression went cold. Fast.

"The fuck do you want tramp?"

I didn't bother with pleasantries. Whatever moment Kureji and I were having? This bitch just walked right into it and killed it dead.

"'Sorry, didn't mean to intrude?'" I repeated her words with open mockery. "Then maybe don't fucking intrude. This is clearly a private conversation, and unless you're blind as well as stupid, you can see we're not looking for company."

I clinched my fist on the neck of the guitar, my mind went to smashing this across her pretty... beautiful... wonderful face. Fucking bitch. But instead I set the guitar down with deliberate care, because throwing it would be a waste, and stood up, placing myself between her and Kureji.

"So yeah, you can leave. That would be the smart move. Your 'services' aren't required. Especially because I just got done explaining to my friend here how I used to gut street walkers like you in the Red Lights for fun, and I'm feeling nostalgic as fuck right now."

My smile was all teeth, nothing friendly about it.

"Unless you've got business here that's worth interrupting? And 'enjoying the view' doesn't count."

Kureji expected to be smacked upside the head with one of the guitars he had bought her just for that brief physical contact that he risked. But instead of doing that, he swears that he seen her smile and blush! He gave her another smile, genuinely happy to be here with her as she told him that he has the award for dealing with her.

"Guess I'm in first place. You got a prize in mind for me or was it all just a participation trophy?" The answer would have to wait as she said that he was serious about helping her no longer faking being a human. "Yeah. I wanna do that for you. If you don't mind."

They finally sat down and Kureji looked out into the view, he unconsciously had sat close enough to Kohana that their knees were touching despite there being more than enough room on the bench for a respectable amount of distance. "The view looks really good here." He would say, looking at Kohana. He didn't mean the outlook but rather her. Would she understand what he meant? His fingers would slowly start to slide over to her, perhaps seeking comfort in the closeness with her.

But as he looked in her eyes, he could tell that she was distracted. He rubbed the back of his neck to play it cool as Kohana was now standing in between him and... His eyes widened and he looked away. There was something in him that wanted to look again, but in his mind he was forcing himself to think about Kohana. His own face had turned a slight shade of red. He took out one of the guitars to play to help cool his thoughts. Music just had that effect on him. Gradually, the color in his face would turn back to normal as he concentrated on just the music. If not for that, he doesn't know what he would really do in this situation.

In truth, he has never dealt with a situation like this before. Heck, he hasn't even held hands with any women and the closest he has done was pick Kohana up which was kind of an in the moment type of thing. He'll just let her deal with this as he absentmindedly strikes some chords on the guitar.

Reika didn’t flinch when the word was thrown at her.

Her reaction was quieter than anger, a measured breath, a brief tightening at the corner of her eyes as if she’d weighed the insult and found it lacking. She didn’t look away. “Street walker.” she repeated once, evenly. Not mockery. Not offense. Just acknowledgment.

“If that’s what you see when you look at me,” she continued, “then I won’t cheapen the lives of people who actually survive that world by letting you use them as an insult.” Her bandaged hands remained visible at her sides, one empty and still. The parasol in the other rested lightly against her shoulder as the wind tugged at the edge of her kimono.

“And if you really used to gut street walkers,” Reika added flatly, red eyes lifting to meet the woman’s without heat or fear, “then you already know threats only work on people who haven’t lived through them.” The words weren’t sharp. They didn’t need to be. “I said I’d leave if you wanted this moment to yourselves,” she went on after a beat. “That wasn’t a lie.” A pause, deliberate. “But I won’t leave because someone tried to scare me into it. And I won’t be chased off by someone mistaking noise for authority.”

She glanced briefly at the overlook behind them. Open, public, indifferent to the tension, before returning her attention forward. As she did, the loose kimono slipped slightly, revealing a few large scars across her upper back and shoulders, pale against her skin, remnants of battles past. Nothing recent, just reminders of what she had endured, quietly present for anyone perceptive enough to notice.

“I stopped because I thought I was interrupting something important. I apologized because courtesy still matters to me.” Her tone stayed level. “What you’ve said since then doesn’t make this place private, and it doesn’t give you the right to decide who belongs here.” Reika remained where she was. “So I’ll stay,” she finished quietly. “Not to provoke you. Not to take anything from you.”

A small turn of her head followed, eyes drifting briefly to another point along the overlook. The movement was casual, effortless, but it allowed more of the scars along her back to catch the dim lantern light, subtle testimony to her resilience. Just a breath of stillness. “But because I choose where I stand.”

She didn’t move closer. Didn’t step away. She simply held her ground; calm, unyielding, and entirely done being intimidated.

I felt my eye twitch.

This uppity bitch. This fucking bitch with her calm voice and her measured responses and her "I won't cheapen the lives of people" bullshit. She was standing there like some kind of philosophical warrior poet, all dignity and scars and quiet strength, and it made me want to break something.

Preferably her face.

"Oh, how noble of you," I said, my voice dripping with venom. "Standing up for street walkers everywhere. Really taking the moral high ground there. I'm sure they'll write songs about your bravery."

I could feel the heat in my cheeks intensifying, that weird sick feeling in my stomach twisting into something sharper, more volatile. Was it still the flu? Or was it rage? Both? I couldn't tell anymore and I didn't fucking care.

"And you know what? You're right. This is a public space. You can stand wherever the fuck you want."

I took a step closer, closing the distance between us until I could see every detail of those red eyes, every subtle shift in her expression.

"But here's the thing about public spaces, sweetheart. They're also places where accidents happen. Where people trip. Where guitars accidentally swing in the wrong direction. Where former rage demons who are still figuring out how to be human sometimes lose their shit and forget that murder is frowned upon in polite society."

My smile was all teeth, nothing warm about it.

"So yeah, you can stay. You can stand wherever you choose. You can be all calm and measured and dignified with your battle scars and your parasol and your 'I'm not intimidated' energy."

I leaned in just slightly, my voice dropping lower.

"But understand this—I was having a moment. A genuinely good fucking moment for the first fucking time in my miserable existence. And you walked right into it with your slutty ass kimono and your apologies and your whole 'I choose where I stand' speech."

I straightened back up, rolling my shoulders like I was preparing for a fight.

"So if you're staying, then stay. But don't expect me to be civil about it. Don't expect me to pretend this is fine. And definitely don't expect me to give a single fuck about your philosophical stance on authority and belonging."

I turned my head slightly, not quite looking at Kureji but aware of him playing guitar behind me, that music filling the space between all this tension.

"You want to stand here and enjoy the view? Great. Fantastic. But I'm not moving from this spot, and I'm not letting you ruin what I was trying to have here."

My fists clenched at my sides, that familiar rage bubbling up—the kind that used to make Shin's hands shake, the kind that got people killed in back alleys. I could my hand shifting towards Caliburnus.

"So what's it gonna be, Red Eyes? You gonna keep standing there being all dignified and unshakeable? Or are you gonna recognize that maybe, just maybe, you picked the wrong fucking moment to make a statement about public spaces and personal choice?"

I could feel my heart pounding, that sick feeling mixing with fury mixing with something else I couldn't name. My body felt too hot, too tight, like I was wearing someone else's skin again.

"Because I'm about two seconds away from testing whether this new guitar is as durable as the last one. And I'm really hoping you give me a reason not to."