Age: 12
Gender: Male
Birthday: October 10
Appearance:
Mamoto is tall and lean for his age. A solid 5' and 130lbs, he's nearly a giant among his classmates.
History:
Gender: Male
Birthday: October 10
Appearance:
Mamoto is tall and lean for his age. A solid 5' and 130lbs, he's nearly a giant among his classmates.
History:
Mamoru's back burned. It always did. A five year-old shouldn't have to endure the kind of pain that greeted Mamoru every morning and never said farewell until he closed his eyes a retreated to sweet, painless land of dreams. It was an existence he was already used to, but not one he understood. His father, standing in the doorway to Mamoru's bedroom understood. His back burned as well, as it always had. It was a kind of pain he couldn't describe, nor could he ignore. It was just always there, and always had been, and at the current rate, always would be. He looked down at his watch and sighed. It was time to return to his shift at the hospital.
"Mamoru, I'm going back to work. Be good, Son."
"Ok, Papa. I will."
Mamoru returned to his toys after giving his father a quick wave farewell. He was such a cheerful boy for the conditions he was growing up in, his father would often muse. It was true, Mamoru was cheerful despite everything, though most five year olds are.
Two years later Mamoru was not so cheerful. The children he often played with, running and screaming through the Suna caves, had taken to calling him a name. "List", they called him after one boy had playfully pulled the back of Mamoru's collar away to dump sand down his shirt and glimpsed a name written in what appeared to be black ink on the skin of Mamoru's back. Before Mamoru could stop him, the boy reached down and lifted the whole of Mamoru's shirt up and saw a list of 25 names, all written in black.
"Whoah! What's this?" , the boy yelled at Mamoru who quickly turned around and yanked the back of shirt back down to where it was supposed to be. His face was burning almost as hot as his back.
"None of your business, Ako!" Mamoru was mortified, fighting tears as his friend asked again and again,
"What is it, Mamoru? Huh, what is it? Why are there names on your back? Are you some kind of human list or something?"
Mamoru didn't say another word, he only turned his burning back to Ako and silently walked home, tears running down his face. His family's shame had been out there for the world to see. It was the first time in three generations any Matsumoto had shown his bare back in public, and Mamoru knew all too well why. His father had explained it months ago, when he'd decided it was time for Mamoru to know the secret, the reason his back burned, the reason his father's back had burned, and the reason his grandfather's back had felt like a million white-hot needles were being run into his skin a all day and all night.
"Mamoru, let me tell you a story, Son. This happened not very long ago, when my grandfather was alive, actually. It's going to explain a lot of things to you."
Mamoru, perched on his father's lap looked the tall, gaunt man in the eyes. It was something Mamoru rarely did, but each time he could see entire worlds in his father's eyes, a kind of understanding that far surpasses what the average forty-year-old mednin should posses. His father had the eyes Mamoru imagined the Kazekage would have. The kind that made a man seem like more than just a man.
"Mamoru, I'm going to tell you the story that has shaped the Matsumoto clan since the time of my father. My grandfather, your great-grandfather, actually didn't have to feel the full weight of what happened... but I'm getting ahead of myself. You see, it all started with my grandfather, Matsumoto Kira. I'm told he was an enormous man, probably as tall as I am and twice as wide. Think about that, Mamoru, he must have been huge!"
Mamoru's father was tall, but not large by any stretch of the imagination, more like a person of regular height had been taken and stretched to twice his normal height. Mamoru had heard his father's friends call him "Bamboo" more than once. It wasn't a name Mamoru liked very much.
"He was absolutely enormous, Mamoru, and he was stronger than a bull, is what I've been told, and an excellent fighter. He was promoted to the Suna Anbu division only a year out of the Ninja Academy. Think about that, Mamoru. He was thirteen when he was allowed into the Anbu, mostly because he was already about the size of an average grown man at the time. It was a huge honor to the Matsumoto family, Mamoru, but it wasn't good for him. That's something the Ninjas tend to forget we might be capable of things other people aren't, but we're still human, Mamoru. We're all just like everyone else up here." He gestured to his temple. "Anyway, being an Anbu that young was rough on Kira, Mamoru. It changed him in ways that a thirteen-year old shouldn't be changed, and as the story goes, it wasn't long before he started to like killing. He was incredibly successful, and held a lot of records among the Anbu for criminals caught, missing-nin killed, that kind of thing. He was very highly respected even by the time he was sixteen, and it kind of went to his head."
Mamoru's father shook his head as he paused to take a sip from the glass of water he'd poured before sitting down to tell Mamoru his family's history. Mamoru wasn't sure if the sweat on his father's brow was from the heat of the Suna caverns or the burden of telling a tale he would clearly like to forget.
"One day, Mamoru, your great grandfather was a assigned a mission. Nobody really knows the specifics except that it was in Lightning Country and involved finding and capturing a murderer. It sounds simple, but the criminal, you see, was hiding among a group of nomads from a very small clan in Lightning Country, so small that we think the few hundred in that group were probably the only ones left. Your grandfather was supposed to be secretive and capture the criminal without disturbing the nomads, but he seemed to have different ideas. Your great grandfather was chosen because of his record, but he wasn't suitable for an undercover mission like that. He had heard rumors that the nomads were all thieves of a one kind or another, as is fairly common with nomads, and your great grandfather thought it would be a better idea to kill a few hundred birds with one stone. That's right, Mamoru, he killed three hundred fifty-two people with a single jutsu. That's how incredibly talented and incredibly twisted Matsumot Kira was. He killed all of those people over suspicions of theft, and when he went down to the campsite to check for survivors, he met the three hundred fifty-third nomad. From what I'm told, she was very old with long white hair, and was pinned under cart that had overturned from the blast of Kira's jutsu. She was calling for help, but when she saw Kira, she changed. She said, and this is just what I've been told, but she said,
'You killed them all, didn't you?'
'Yes', Kira replied
'I see.'
They say she closed her eyes and looked to be dead. When Kira leaned down to slit her throat, she grabbed his wrist and yelled,
'Then you and your children will bear the burden of the lives you've taken today! Each and every name will be burned on your back until you've atoned for this crime!'
Your great grandfather passed out right as she yelled those words, and when he woke up hours later, the woman was dead. She'd lost too much blood, apparently, but she'd left Kira with a cursed seal, Mamoru. His back burned worse that mine does and worse that yours does, and when he returned to Suna, he discovered that on his back were listed the the names of three hundred fifty-three people. Even the name of the criminal was there, It was a list of the names of every single person who he killed that day, and the burning pain of it haunted him for the rest of his life. He was stripped of his rank and sent to live in exile in the desert. Eventually he made his way to the leaf village where he kept his secret hidden until he met and married a woman from the countryside and told her about his curse. Their son was my grandfather, and when he was born, one of the names' on Kira's back faded away and the pain faded a little as well. That's how we relieve the pain, Mamoru, we save or create a life. For ever life saved or created, a name fades and the pain fades a little too. That's what the old woman meant when she said, 'Until you've atoned for this crime!'. It means that Kira had to save three hundred fifty-three lives, but the only life he ever saved or created was my grandfather's. That's why my grandfather became a med-nin, my father was a med-nin, and I'm a med-nin. Between the three of us we've saved and created over two hundred fifty lives, and that's why there are only a hundred names on my back and your back, Mamoru."
Mamoru was stunned. His seven year-old brain could scarcely wrap itself around the gravity of what he was hearing. It was all starting to make sense now, but it was also filling him with a sense of shame. He thought of the names he'd always wondered about, asked his father about numerous times without receiving an answer. It was all starting to make sense now that his father never took off his shirt even when the weather was sweltering, why he would never let Mamoru take his off no matter how much he begged. Only in the privacy of their home was he allowed to go bare-chested, and his mother always cringed a little when he did.
"How many lives have you saved, Dad?"
"fifty-two"
Mamoru thought about how hard his father worked every single day, and was amazed that all that work had amounted to only fifty-two lives.
"What counts as saving a life?"
"If your actions are the only thing standing between a man and his doom, then you're saving a life, Mamoru. But you can only save a person once. Your grandfather was a body guard for a few years, and no matter how many times he saved his client, only one name was erased. You have to save a different person each time."
"How much pain goes away when a name goes away?"
"Only a little at first, but the fewer names there are left, the more each life matters."
The conversation with his father ran through Mamoru's head as he sulked away from his from, Ako. It was then that the seed of an idea that had been growing in his heart since the day his father told him of Matsumot Kira finally bloomed.
"I'm going to be a better ninja than Kira was and get these stupid names off my back. I'm going to save everyone I can and undo this curse!", he said aloud. He wiped the tears from his eyes and straightened up a little as he walked through the door to his home. He looked his father in eyes and said,
"Dad. I want to be a ninja. When can I go tot he Academy?"
"In a few years, son. But let's start a little now. Do you want to learn about chakra"
Matsumoto Mamoru nodded vigorously as his father stood and fished an old textbook out of the bookcase by his chair.
"Let's start with the basics, then."
"Mamoru, I'm going back to work. Be good, Son."
"Ok, Papa. I will."
Mamoru returned to his toys after giving his father a quick wave farewell. He was such a cheerful boy for the conditions he was growing up in, his father would often muse. It was true, Mamoru was cheerful despite everything, though most five year olds are.
Two years later Mamoru was not so cheerful. The children he often played with, running and screaming through the Suna caves, had taken to calling him a name. "List", they called him after one boy had playfully pulled the back of Mamoru's collar away to dump sand down his shirt and glimpsed a name written in what appeared to be black ink on the skin of Mamoru's back. Before Mamoru could stop him, the boy reached down and lifted the whole of Mamoru's shirt up and saw a list of 25 names, all written in black.
"Whoah! What's this?" , the boy yelled at Mamoru who quickly turned around and yanked the back of shirt back down to where it was supposed to be. His face was burning almost as hot as his back.
"None of your business, Ako!" Mamoru was mortified, fighting tears as his friend asked again and again,
"What is it, Mamoru? Huh, what is it? Why are there names on your back? Are you some kind of human list or something?"
Mamoru didn't say another word, he only turned his burning back to Ako and silently walked home, tears running down his face. His family's shame had been out there for the world to see. It was the first time in three generations any Matsumoto had shown his bare back in public, and Mamoru knew all too well why. His father had explained it months ago, when he'd decided it was time for Mamoru to know the secret, the reason his back burned, the reason his father's back had burned, and the reason his grandfather's back had felt like a million white-hot needles were being run into his skin a all day and all night.
"Mamoru, let me tell you a story, Son. This happened not very long ago, when my grandfather was alive, actually. It's going to explain a lot of things to you."
Mamoru, perched on his father's lap looked the tall, gaunt man in the eyes. It was something Mamoru rarely did, but each time he could see entire worlds in his father's eyes, a kind of understanding that far surpasses what the average forty-year-old mednin should posses. His father had the eyes Mamoru imagined the Kazekage would have. The kind that made a man seem like more than just a man.
"Mamoru, I'm going to tell you the story that has shaped the Matsumoto clan since the time of my father. My grandfather, your great-grandfather, actually didn't have to feel the full weight of what happened... but I'm getting ahead of myself. You see, it all started with my grandfather, Matsumoto Kira. I'm told he was an enormous man, probably as tall as I am and twice as wide. Think about that, Mamoru, he must have been huge!"
Mamoru's father was tall, but not large by any stretch of the imagination, more like a person of regular height had been taken and stretched to twice his normal height. Mamoru had heard his father's friends call him "Bamboo" more than once. It wasn't a name Mamoru liked very much.
"He was absolutely enormous, Mamoru, and he was stronger than a bull, is what I've been told, and an excellent fighter. He was promoted to the Suna Anbu division only a year out of the Ninja Academy. Think about that, Mamoru. He was thirteen when he was allowed into the Anbu, mostly because he was already about the size of an average grown man at the time. It was a huge honor to the Matsumoto family, Mamoru, but it wasn't good for him. That's something the Ninjas tend to forget we might be capable of things other people aren't, but we're still human, Mamoru. We're all just like everyone else up here." He gestured to his temple. "Anyway, being an Anbu that young was rough on Kira, Mamoru. It changed him in ways that a thirteen-year old shouldn't be changed, and as the story goes, it wasn't long before he started to like killing. He was incredibly successful, and held a lot of records among the Anbu for criminals caught, missing-nin killed, that kind of thing. He was very highly respected even by the time he was sixteen, and it kind of went to his head."
Mamoru's father shook his head as he paused to take a sip from the glass of water he'd poured before sitting down to tell Mamoru his family's history. Mamoru wasn't sure if the sweat on his father's brow was from the heat of the Suna caverns or the burden of telling a tale he would clearly like to forget.
"One day, Mamoru, your great grandfather was a assigned a mission. Nobody really knows the specifics except that it was in Lightning Country and involved finding and capturing a murderer. It sounds simple, but the criminal, you see, was hiding among a group of nomads from a very small clan in Lightning Country, so small that we think the few hundred in that group were probably the only ones left. Your grandfather was supposed to be secretive and capture the criminal without disturbing the nomads, but he seemed to have different ideas. Your great grandfather was chosen because of his record, but he wasn't suitable for an undercover mission like that. He had heard rumors that the nomads were all thieves of a one kind or another, as is fairly common with nomads, and your great grandfather thought it would be a better idea to kill a few hundred birds with one stone. That's right, Mamoru, he killed three hundred fifty-two people with a single jutsu. That's how incredibly talented and incredibly twisted Matsumot Kira was. He killed all of those people over suspicions of theft, and when he went down to the campsite to check for survivors, he met the three hundred fifty-third nomad. From what I'm told, she was very old with long white hair, and was pinned under cart that had overturned from the blast of Kira's jutsu. She was calling for help, but when she saw Kira, she changed. She said, and this is just what I've been told, but she said,
'You killed them all, didn't you?'
'Yes', Kira replied
'I see.'
They say she closed her eyes and looked to be dead. When Kira leaned down to slit her throat, she grabbed his wrist and yelled,
'Then you and your children will bear the burden of the lives you've taken today! Each and every name will be burned on your back until you've atoned for this crime!'
Your great grandfather passed out right as she yelled those words, and when he woke up hours later, the woman was dead. She'd lost too much blood, apparently, but she'd left Kira with a cursed seal, Mamoru. His back burned worse that mine does and worse that yours does, and when he returned to Suna, he discovered that on his back were listed the the names of three hundred fifty-three people. Even the name of the criminal was there, It was a list of the names of every single person who he killed that day, and the burning pain of it haunted him for the rest of his life. He was stripped of his rank and sent to live in exile in the desert. Eventually he made his way to the leaf village where he kept his secret hidden until he met and married a woman from the countryside and told her about his curse. Their son was my grandfather, and when he was born, one of the names' on Kira's back faded away and the pain faded a little as well. That's how we relieve the pain, Mamoru, we save or create a life. For ever life saved or created, a name fades and the pain fades a little too. That's what the old woman meant when she said, 'Until you've atoned for this crime!'. It means that Kira had to save three hundred fifty-three lives, but the only life he ever saved or created was my grandfather's. That's why my grandfather became a med-nin, my father was a med-nin, and I'm a med-nin. Between the three of us we've saved and created over two hundred fifty lives, and that's why there are only a hundred names on my back and your back, Mamoru."
Mamoru was stunned. His seven year-old brain could scarcely wrap itself around the gravity of what he was hearing. It was all starting to make sense now, but it was also filling him with a sense of shame. He thought of the names he'd always wondered about, asked his father about numerous times without receiving an answer. It was all starting to make sense now that his father never took off his shirt even when the weather was sweltering, why he would never let Mamoru take his off no matter how much he begged. Only in the privacy of their home was he allowed to go bare-chested, and his mother always cringed a little when he did.
"How many lives have you saved, Dad?"
"fifty-two"
Mamoru thought about how hard his father worked every single day, and was amazed that all that work had amounted to only fifty-two lives.
"What counts as saving a life?"
"If your actions are the only thing standing between a man and his doom, then you're saving a life, Mamoru. But you can only save a person once. Your grandfather was a body guard for a few years, and no matter how many times he saved his client, only one name was erased. You have to save a different person each time."
"How much pain goes away when a name goes away?"
"Only a little at first, but the fewer names there are left, the more each life matters."
The conversation with his father ran through Mamoru's head as he sulked away from his from, Ako. It was then that the seed of an idea that had been growing in his heart since the day his father told him of Matsumot Kira finally bloomed.
"I'm going to be a better ninja than Kira was and get these stupid names off my back. I'm going to save everyone I can and undo this curse!", he said aloud. He wiped the tears from his eyes and straightened up a little as he walked through the door to his home. He looked his father in eyes and said,
"Dad. I want to be a ninja. When can I go tot he Academy?"
"In a few years, son. But let's start a little now. Do you want to learn about chakra"
Matsumoto Mamoru nodded vigorously as his father stood and fished an old textbook out of the bookcase by his chair.
"Let's start with the basics, then."
