“All that is gold does not glitter;
not all those who wander are lost;
the old that is strong does not wither;
deep roots are not reached by the frost.”
-- J. R. R. Tolkien
Just as the sun surely rises each day and we call it dawn, there is an understanding that each life must eventually end just like the sun crosses its threshold into dusk. Life is a series of circles: cycles of beginnings and ends with great purpose and experience for the individual and yet, you and I are like stars dotting an endless universe when we meet our end. It is the lives we lead that determine the brightness of our stars. It is our legacies that splash color onto a nebula and broadcasts our existence. Yes, the time you spend on this rock matters, my child. You must divine your purpose, be that to shine brightly or to go quietly and enjoy the peace in the darkness of a microcosm. There is no wrong answer, except to not have one at all.
Life’s aspirations are a pressure we are taught to have from an early age. Many children are asked what they aspire to be in the fully actualized versions of themselves. The very first time I was asked, I said a firefighter. How unfortunate was it for the likes of Jintou though, who was never asked that question? Actually, how often do children who end up enrolled in the prestigious ninja academy of the hidden sand ask for such a scholarship? It was a matter of need— the need to make their family proud, or perhaps the need for a warm bed. Some students sought guidance from mostly stable guardians, or to have some purpose in their life. See, just like that, we’ve circled back to purpose. To Jintou, the academy was a mixture of each of those needs I mentioned, well, everything but the purpose, and here’s where today’s conundrum begins.
Even ninja have to write essays. Why else would the ninja academy have actual classrooms in place of extra dojo space if not to include the hell that was a core curriculum? After all, there is a lot of math and science involved in being a ninja, and knowing how to read and write is essential for encoding secret correspondence and whatnot. All of that was fine for Jintou, but today he was hit with a complex writing prompt meant to be easy for most of his peers. “Why do you want to be a ninja?” It was offensively presumptive, even manipulative, to coerce students into speaking the truth to something they did not believe. At first, Jintou thought to lie but the academy professors were proud of their power to suss out deception— they even encouraged students to lie, but were brutal in their punishments when the ruses failed. And so the story goes that Jintou went to his instructor after class with his plight, and explained that he did not, in fact, want to be a ninja. Easily enough, the instructor gave him an alternative assignment instead. They said, “find a figure from our history who embodies your idea of what a ninja should be.” How do you go from a hard topic to an even harder one because you couldn’t handle it? Talk about utter bullshit.
The entire class was given the weekend to write their essays, and now Jintou had to research someone to write about. A classmate suggested he just write about one of the Kazekages and make it a patriotic ode, but their instructor would have seen right through it. Jintou couldn’t dattebayo his way out of this, that wasn’t his style. And so, while researching through the endless entries in the oracles’ halls, Jintou was aptly exhausted from reading. There were too many ninja to sort out; hundreds if not thousands of years of men and women, human and otherwise, to consider. Rather immaturely but macabrely, Jintou thought— where did all of these people go when they died? He found a wrinkled magazine article jammed into a shelf that suggested that dead villagers were being fed to sandworms to create carmot. It was quite a conspiracy theory, but Jintou neglected it once he found several issues of the same magazine crammed into random spaces around the library. He truly did become enamored by that question though; what happens to the dead in Sunagakure?
It was already Sunday morning when Jintou found his way to The Craemotaris, a subtle temple located on a street said to serve as the divide between the Gold and Silver Crystal Districts. Neon lights from the surroundings illuminated the weathered stone pillars that surrounded the building. The grounds were barricaded, insinuating that this place had existed since an era where it would have been unsafe to make the journey to it. Feeling a sense of reverence, Jintou discovered that he was reflexively dipping low to collect a stray empty chip bag tangled on the gate. As you may have gleaned from the name, The Craemotaris was in fact a cemetery of sorts, though Jintou was confused by what he found as he entered. Beyond the stone gate was a luscious garden, one quite out of character for his village. The grounds themselves were not excessively green, actually, they were stone walkways spread across a groomed gravel lawn. There were countless plant sculptures though, many potted, and with larger, incredible specimens planted in especially fertile ground. Nearly every specimen Jintou found featured an engraved granite placard that listed a villager’s name and memorial.
“Hello?” Jintou called out, sending his voice ranging out across the garden. It was instinctual to seek company here, or so he felt. After all, he had come to this place seeking answers to a morbid curiosity he didn’t want lingering in his mind as an unhealthy obsession. He padded his yellow boots from stone to stone, naturally respecting the well-kept gravel as he moved towards a shrine at the center of the property. He was slightly disturbed when he noticed a trampled bouquet of fresh white lilies lying in the dirt next to nothing in particular. Jintou collected them gently but petals dropped from them at a mere touch. They looked as if they had been used for swatting at something. The boy wasn’t much of an investigator, but he also noticed a break in the lucid pattern of the gravel, which was the product of raking. Was there a scuffle?
He beat the blunt side of his wooden bident against the stones in an uneven staccato as he hurried along the grounds in a light jog. His crimson cloak billowed behind him, and his sandy blond curls were like a dust storm raging atop his crown.
“Who’s here?” Jintou called aloud, making his small voice grow to courageous size as he approached the mouth of the shrine. The unique design of the shrine was the work of some artisan mason: it resembled stacks of square stone rings interlocked in some impossible arrangement. There were no doors at the entrance to the main hall, only an arching wide berth with drapes to keep out foul weather, but those were blown aside. The atmosphere within the temple felt material, like entering a sauna with hot air so humid it pummeled the lungs. His eyes widened with fright as he spotted two villagers floating within the chamber amidst crucifixion-style, menacing “T” poses. The first was a middle-aged woman in a black, simple kimono. Her features were gaunt and her skin pale, with black eyeshadow dried in streaks rolling down to her v-shaped jawline. The second was a younger man with a rotund physique in round spectacles, a floral print dress shirt with short sleeves that bunched up around the bicep. His feet dangled in the air, unsupported in dingy white socks and sandals. Both denizens had looks of anguish splayed on their faces but were silent as Jintou entered. Indeed, despite all the horror in this chamber, it was utterly silent. A moment of staring allowed Jintou to better feel the pull within the room— a bright mauve aura became visible around them, and this energy flowed down like two tendrils to the center of the previously empty chamber.
Jintou let out a resistant scream as he felt a force pulling at him, and his arms were stretched out at his sides. “No… I’m T posing!” Tried as he might, he lacked the power to resist entirely and felt gravity slipping beneath him. His very lifeforce, chakra or power, whatever you want to call it, was gradually slipping. The greys and blues of his eyes were lightening as his energy began to slip, but he focused his sight on a subhuman form; something blackened and barbed with flesh like a beetle’s armor was clutching a massive pearl and grinning wickedly. Without a sound coming forth the creature was forming words, speaking an inaudible curse through a mouth with several rows of yellow teeth chattering within.
-- Jintou has entered the thread.
-- wc1503
not all those who wander are lost;
the old that is strong does not wither;
deep roots are not reached by the frost.”
-- J. R. R. Tolkien
Just as the sun surely rises each day and we call it dawn, there is an understanding that each life must eventually end just like the sun crosses its threshold into dusk. Life is a series of circles: cycles of beginnings and ends with great purpose and experience for the individual and yet, you and I are like stars dotting an endless universe when we meet our end. It is the lives we lead that determine the brightness of our stars. It is our legacies that splash color onto a nebula and broadcasts our existence. Yes, the time you spend on this rock matters, my child. You must divine your purpose, be that to shine brightly or to go quietly and enjoy the peace in the darkness of a microcosm. There is no wrong answer, except to not have one at all.
Life’s aspirations are a pressure we are taught to have from an early age. Many children are asked what they aspire to be in the fully actualized versions of themselves. The very first time I was asked, I said a firefighter. How unfortunate was it for the likes of Jintou though, who was never asked that question? Actually, how often do children who end up enrolled in the prestigious ninja academy of the hidden sand ask for such a scholarship? It was a matter of need— the need to make their family proud, or perhaps the need for a warm bed. Some students sought guidance from mostly stable guardians, or to have some purpose in their life. See, just like that, we’ve circled back to purpose. To Jintou, the academy was a mixture of each of those needs I mentioned, well, everything but the purpose, and here’s where today’s conundrum begins.
Even ninja have to write essays. Why else would the ninja academy have actual classrooms in place of extra dojo space if not to include the hell that was a core curriculum? After all, there is a lot of math and science involved in being a ninja, and knowing how to read and write is essential for encoding secret correspondence and whatnot. All of that was fine for Jintou, but today he was hit with a complex writing prompt meant to be easy for most of his peers. “Why do you want to be a ninja?” It was offensively presumptive, even manipulative, to coerce students into speaking the truth to something they did not believe. At first, Jintou thought to lie but the academy professors were proud of their power to suss out deception— they even encouraged students to lie, but were brutal in their punishments when the ruses failed. And so the story goes that Jintou went to his instructor after class with his plight, and explained that he did not, in fact, want to be a ninja. Easily enough, the instructor gave him an alternative assignment instead. They said, “find a figure from our history who embodies your idea of what a ninja should be.” How do you go from a hard topic to an even harder one because you couldn’t handle it? Talk about utter bullshit.
The entire class was given the weekend to write their essays, and now Jintou had to research someone to write about. A classmate suggested he just write about one of the Kazekages and make it a patriotic ode, but their instructor would have seen right through it. Jintou couldn’t dattebayo his way out of this, that wasn’t his style. And so, while researching through the endless entries in the oracles’ halls, Jintou was aptly exhausted from reading. There were too many ninja to sort out; hundreds if not thousands of years of men and women, human and otherwise, to consider. Rather immaturely but macabrely, Jintou thought— where did all of these people go when they died? He found a wrinkled magazine article jammed into a shelf that suggested that dead villagers were being fed to sandworms to create carmot. It was quite a conspiracy theory, but Jintou neglected it once he found several issues of the same magazine crammed into random spaces around the library. He truly did become enamored by that question though; what happens to the dead in Sunagakure?
It was already Sunday morning when Jintou found his way to The Craemotaris, a subtle temple located on a street said to serve as the divide between the Gold and Silver Crystal Districts. Neon lights from the surroundings illuminated the weathered stone pillars that surrounded the building. The grounds were barricaded, insinuating that this place had existed since an era where it would have been unsafe to make the journey to it. Feeling a sense of reverence, Jintou discovered that he was reflexively dipping low to collect a stray empty chip bag tangled on the gate. As you may have gleaned from the name, The Craemotaris was in fact a cemetery of sorts, though Jintou was confused by what he found as he entered. Beyond the stone gate was a luscious garden, one quite out of character for his village. The grounds themselves were not excessively green, actually, they were stone walkways spread across a groomed gravel lawn. There were countless plant sculptures though, many potted, and with larger, incredible specimens planted in especially fertile ground. Nearly every specimen Jintou found featured an engraved granite placard that listed a villager’s name and memorial.
“Hello?” Jintou called out, sending his voice ranging out across the garden. It was instinctual to seek company here, or so he felt. After all, he had come to this place seeking answers to a morbid curiosity he didn’t want lingering in his mind as an unhealthy obsession. He padded his yellow boots from stone to stone, naturally respecting the well-kept gravel as he moved towards a shrine at the center of the property. He was slightly disturbed when he noticed a trampled bouquet of fresh white lilies lying in the dirt next to nothing in particular. Jintou collected them gently but petals dropped from them at a mere touch. They looked as if they had been used for swatting at something. The boy wasn’t much of an investigator, but he also noticed a break in the lucid pattern of the gravel, which was the product of raking. Was there a scuffle?
He beat the blunt side of his wooden bident against the stones in an uneven staccato as he hurried along the grounds in a light jog. His crimson cloak billowed behind him, and his sandy blond curls were like a dust storm raging atop his crown.
“Who’s here?” Jintou called aloud, making his small voice grow to courageous size as he approached the mouth of the shrine. The unique design of the shrine was the work of some artisan mason: it resembled stacks of square stone rings interlocked in some impossible arrangement. There were no doors at the entrance to the main hall, only an arching wide berth with drapes to keep out foul weather, but those were blown aside. The atmosphere within the temple felt material, like entering a sauna with hot air so humid it pummeled the lungs. His eyes widened with fright as he spotted two villagers floating within the chamber amidst crucifixion-style, menacing “T” poses. The first was a middle-aged woman in a black, simple kimono. Her features were gaunt and her skin pale, with black eyeshadow dried in streaks rolling down to her v-shaped jawline. The second was a younger man with a rotund physique in round spectacles, a floral print dress shirt with short sleeves that bunched up around the bicep. His feet dangled in the air, unsupported in dingy white socks and sandals. Both denizens had looks of anguish splayed on their faces but were silent as Jintou entered. Indeed, despite all the horror in this chamber, it was utterly silent. A moment of staring allowed Jintou to better feel the pull within the room— a bright mauve aura became visible around them, and this energy flowed down like two tendrils to the center of the previously empty chamber.
Jintou let out a resistant scream as he felt a force pulling at him, and his arms were stretched out at his sides. “No… I’m T posing!” Tried as he might, he lacked the power to resist entirely and felt gravity slipping beneath him. His very lifeforce, chakra or power, whatever you want to call it, was gradually slipping. The greys and blues of his eyes were lightening as his energy began to slip, but he focused his sight on a subhuman form; something blackened and barbed with flesh like a beetle’s armor was clutching a massive pearl and grinning wickedly. Without a sound coming forth the creature was forming words, speaking an inaudible curse through a mouth with several rows of yellow teeth chattering within.
-- Jintou has entered the thread.
-- wc1503
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