Reflections, Souls, and Promises [Tutor]

[Uchiha Izura]

This time, Izura had decided to train Ayame in the art of illusion techniques. For this purpose, he had chosen Soon’s Harbor- a far cry from the dry, endless deserts of most of the wind country, or the subterranean passageways and caverns of Sunagakure. They stood at a rather secluded dock, and as usual, Izura had Soraka flying overhead for surveillance and security. It never hurt to be too careful. Especially after that incident in the Chaumerus Caverns, Izura took special care to hide multiple water clones throughout the perimeter to observe any potential enemies. Unless they teleported out of nowhere, it’d be hard for them to sneak past Izura. His sharingan, coupled with his uncanny sixth sense made that damn near impossible for most people to pull off.

Izura felt bad for Ayame- it was a strange twist of fate that they had come to similar situations. She had found the very same person that he considered to be a father, and adopted him as her own father just as easily as Izura himself had done all those years ago. A repeat of the past, but under different names. The gods had a strange way of arranging things.

But now she was facing the same situation that he was- a father who denied any familial ties.



“Ayame, today we’re going to go over genjutsu. If you can’t withstand Nataku’s genjutsu, it’s all over….but if you can, we may just have a chance together, to bring him back…”



He knelt down and hugged her.



It’ll be alright, okay? Just rely on me, get stronger…and we’ll bring him back together. Just promise you won't sell your soul to the devil in the process, okay?”

Standing back up again, he walked to the edge of the pier, looking into the crystal clear waters. Their reflections were almost mirror-like today. No doubt a side effect of having chosen to start training early in the day. The sun was barely rising, marking the beginning of a new day. It was somewhat cold even, a light, barely visible fog rolling over the surface of the water.

Izura stepped onto the water’s surface, taking a few steps forward before turning around to Ayame.

“As an Uchiha, you have access to the sharingan and have a lot of potential for powerful genjutsu. I will show you how to dispel genjutsu with your sharingan.”

WC 399

 

[Ayame]

A day that Ayame impatiently waited to come. Meeting her brother and training with him was the only thing that made her feel happy and calm, and these days were rare, so she decided to make the most of it.
The girl lifted her head to see Soraka flying in the air, observing the territory. She smiled. Her brother was always taking an extra precautions and she thought this was sweet.
Unlike her, in his lifetime Izura lost so much people, so she couldn't judge him for being overly protective. Right now he was everything she had and maybe she was everything he had. Funny, but kinda sad too.

Despite everything that happened lately, Ayame didn't seem to be sad. She tried not to show her grief and worry Izura more. She, of course, had some kind of a plan, but this plan didn't include him. Until now. It wasn't like her to ask for help and despite the fact her brother showed affection towards her, she wasn't entirely comfortable to ask him for stuff.

He was talking. She listened to every word like a little child listened to it's teacher.
He knelt down and hugged her. She hugged him back tightly. This is how peace felt like. She was starting to forget it.
It’ll be alright, okay? Just rely on me, get stronger…and we’ll bring him back together. Just promise you won't sell your soul to the devil in the process, okay?”
Ayame hugged him even tighter. Her bandaged wrists, her bandaged neck and the scars beneath the bandages were there to remind her that this promise could not be fulfilled, but she didn't want to lie to him.
- Don't worry. - Was all she could say.

When he stood up back again, she followed him to the edge of the pier and looked at their reflections – he was there, standing right next to her. A moment she would seal for eternity in her consciousness.

They day was about to start, but for now everything was quiet. And beautiful. Izura picked a really good place for their training and for a moment Ayame wanted to just sit here and talk with him.
When he stepped onto the water’s surface, Ayame made a seal. A crystal eye appeared and she send it to observe the area. There was a reason behind her action and she wanted to be able to protect her brother too. When he finished talking she looked at him from the pier, the girl was unsure of her ability to walk on water just like him.
- Nii-san - she started - before we start I want to warn you. There is a woman that is looking for you. Really beautiful one, calls herself Fang. It seemed that she really wants to find you and I think it's not for something good. Don't ask me how I got this information, but please be careful. I might be able to fool her for some time, but I'm not sure that I can make her leave.

Ayame explained to him how the woman looks like and waited for his response.​

WC: 522

 

[Uchiha Izura]

“Don’t worry”



Naturally, a comment like that made Izura worry. When she came over and hugged him, he felt at peace, but something was off….she gave him the feeling that there was more than meets the eye. Izura couldn’t place it on any one cause…it was more of a gut feeling. The kind of feeling that you got used to feeling when you’ve encountered loss repeatedly in your life. The kind of feeling that kept you and your friends, or perhaps even your loved ones alive. It was not infallible, but gut instinct had saved Izura on more than one occasion.

He looked at Ayame, his eyes clearly filled with a great deal of concern. And then she told him about a woman searching for him…a woman with the callsign Fang. Ayame described the woman to him.

The one who had chased after him on the dark shores along the coast of the Stone Country and the one he saw when defending Sunagakure against the sandworm. An uneasy feeling washed over Izura. She had tracked him all this distance? Clearly she was a skilled shinobi- Izura only narrowly escaped the first time. She was quick on her feet, and apparently good at tracking too.

It’s no wonder that she was appointed as the Anbu Sennin of Stone. , Izura thought.

“If it’s who I think it is…she’s dangerous. But at the same time, like everyone else, she’s looking for answers. She wants information, but she won’t hesitate to use violence as a means of coercion…she’s the anbu sennin of the Stone village.”

Izura sighed. His concerns were rising.

"Things aren’t so simple, Ayame…the sand worm attack, the Cabal, Jashinist activity in Stone and Sand…the attack in the Chaumerus caverns…did you think I wouldn’t notice?”



He activated his sharingan, stepping back onto the pier in front of her and kneeling down, gently moving aside her collar to indicate that he had seen the bandages. A tear rolled down his cheek as he verified his concerns…her chakra nature was altered, and he could see the dark chakra within her with his sharingan. A malevolent spirit threatening to overtake her if she wasn’t careful.

Izura channeled a technique through his hand, creating a seal with a mark in the shape of a teardrop on her neck. It was an evil sealing technique: one that would suppress the demon if it tried to take over Ayame’s body. Izura wasn’t skilled enough in fuuinjutsu to remove the demon himself, but at the very least he’d do his best to make sure it never gained the chance to overtake her. A guardian angel, of sorts.

He also took this opportunity to seal away the Tsukiyomi technique into her sharingan eyes, set to activate if she ever felt cornered by someone intending to harm her. Paranoid safety measures for the average person, but Izura had lived for too long seeing everyone he cared about fade to the winds of fate. He couldn’t bear to lose her.

“You know it hurts me when you take things this far…I already know you hang around dangerous people…and it’s because there’s something holding you back…something keeping you there…and also because you want to save Nataku…”



He hugged her again, this time shaking a bit.



“But you NEVER forget that you’re not alone anymore, alright? I’m here…..I’m here….”

WC 569

 

[Ayame]

Ayame noticed that her brother was concerned a lot. She looked at his eyes and waited to see what he'd do. But this time she felt like she was hurting him and he didn't deserved it.
What was the right thing to say? To promise him something she wouldn't be able to keep? To lie to him? No, of course not.
But she was more concerned about the woman following Izura, than herself.
- I know she is dangerous, onii-san. I've met her. But I think you have time to... - the girl paused, cause she didn't want to say that - to leave Suna. She is busy right now with a job - getting information about some former priestess for the Aikayume clan. I can give you more time to go as far away as possible. My plan is to interfere in her investigation and make it as hard as possible, so she'd lose more time. Also, I'll give her false leads.
Even if the girl didn't want Izura to leave, because she felt good having him around her, she knew that this was maybe the best option for him. Leaving her for some time was bearable, rather than face this danger and end up leaving her all alone in this world.
She knew he was powerful, but even the slightest risk was scaring her to death.
Until now, she never heard of these Jashinists. That was something she'd try to learn about, but not from him. Izura was already too concerned.

When he activated her sharingan Ayame took a step backwards. Even that this was her brother and she knew he'd not hurt her, he sure looked scary turning on his sharingan and coming to her.
He knelt down and moved her collar. Ayame froze, watching him directly at his eyes. Her eyes watered, but the girl didn't move. She noticed the tear that rolled down his cheek and this pierced her through the heart.
“Don't... I'm sorry..." she thought, while her brother did something to her. She let him if this was the way he'd feel better.

He was talking. Things that were true. She could not fool him, he already knew everything without her telling him.
“But you NEVER forget that you’re not alone anymore, alright? I’m here…..I’m here….”
He hugged her once again, but this time he was shaking.
The girl felt guilty for putting him through this. She saw his memories, he suffered enough. It was normal for him to be this concerned - he lost too much people he cared about in his life and meeting Nataku must have brought him a lot of pain.

Ayame wiped his tear with her hand and hugged him.
- Hey, onii-san... calm down. Don't stress yourself that much.
The girl looked him in the eyes, held his hands and smiled.
- I'm not alone, that's true, I have you. But you're not alone too. I'm here. I... I love you. That's why I wan't you to be safe and a bit calmer. I might be little but I'm not stupid. I survived this long, because I know what I am doing. Have a little faith in me.
She paused for a moment to see his reaction and continued.
- Before I kick your ass in this training... would you like to come with me and meet certain person after the training? In order to survive we need powerful allies. And I think I found them. They're pretty much everywhere, paying good money for uhm.... missions. Please come with me and hear him what he has to say, onii-san. Please.

WC: 603​

 

[Uchiha Izura]

Izura sighed as he listened to Ayame’s pleading. It was true- she had survived on her own all this time, and his sudden arrival, if anything, just made her life more dangerous than it was before. Every fiber of his being wanted to keep her away from the harshness of reality, but he knew deep down in his heart that it wouldn’t make a difference. In fact, keeping her away from reality would do more harm than good- it was inevitable that she’d be sucked into the harsh cruelty of the shinobi underworld. He could do little more than make sure she was prepared, even at the cost of his own life.

“I wont leave Suna. Come on, you know I wouldn’t leave you alone here…I’ll meet with this contact of yours, but I’ll also meet with ‘Fang’. There’s little point in hiding anymore.”

He smiled at her as she mentioned that she’d kick his ass at this training. That was hardly the intention- for them to spar each other here. Instead, he decided to slight alter the structure of the lesson. The power of the sharingan allowed one to enter another’s inner world- to be able to visit and see any demons hidden within the psyche. And here, that’d be Izura’s intention.

His sharingan pattern swirled as he entered Ayame’s mind.

“Come out demon. I want to talk.”



Izura stated simply, with Ayame at his side. He held a seal, a prison made of a dark metal rising out of the floor in front of them. The metal manifestation of the evil seal that Izura had placed on Ayame earlier.

Izura looked at Ayame, giving her a look as if she shouldn’t worry about what happens next.



“I’m going to show you how to better control this demon…else risk losing you to it…..I’m…”



He hesitated for a brief moment.



“I’m sure you know how dangerous it is already….This thing wants nothing more than blood on it’s hands…”

WC 332

 

[Ayame]

That's when Ayame disappeared. She was standing right next to her brother, facing the tall metal bars that served to be the demon's prison. But the next moment she merged with the shadows around the Uchihas, leaving her brother all alone.

Izura entered a private place. Place that no one knew, except her. Place that kept many secrets, many memories, emotions, feelings, dreams...
This place was dark, but from somewhere a soft warm light was shining right at Izura, so he'd be able to see part of this place and the prison he made. The light inside disappeared a few steps from the metal bars.

"Come out demon. I want to talk." - he said and his voice echoed around the place, giving the feeling of an endless space.
At first nothing happened. But after a few seconds a noise could be heard. Someone small was running.
Ayame appeared inside with ragged clothes, stained with blood. She looked scared, frightened to death and tried to reach the bars with all of her strength. When she was there, she placed her hands on two of them and screamed.
- Onii-san, help me! Release me, onii-san! He is coming!
A clatter could be heard behind her from inside the cage, but nothing appeared.
The girl starter crying without holding back her feelings. She was terrified and could not hide it.
- Nii-san, please, let me out! Break them, onii-san!
Her tears fall on her cheeks, the girl could not catch her breath from the crying. Her body was shaking and her eyes often looked at the direction behind her, like she was waiting for something to appear and catch her.
- Izura...
This voice was a voice he haven't heard for a long time. A woman's voice. Their mother's voice.
- Izura, save your sister. She is your family.

WC: 307
[MFT]

 

[Uchiha Izura]

Izura’s sharingan swirled into that of the mangekyou as he moved forward, launching what appeared to be a raven that quickly embedded itself into the “Ayame” behind the bars. Imbued with an evil sealing ward, it’d quickly prove whether or not the little sister he saw behind the bars was really just the demon trying to trick him or not.

He kept focused on Ayame, ready at a moment’s notice to release her if he thought she was really the one in the cage, however impossible that might have been. There was no way Ayame was in the cage with that demon. The way the seal worked was to prevent it from accessing the rest of her psyche unless it had express permission from her to seep into her mind and directly influence it.

WC 134

 

[Ayame]

As expected, Izura tried to make sure that the person behind the bars was Ayame. The moment his raven embed itself into Ayame she let go of the bars and smiled calmly at him. He could sense that this was his sister. And she really was. But something was strange. He would be able to feel his sister, but there was another presence inside of her. Evil, foul, vicious and hungry...
Ayame made a few steps towards the bars and stopped, still smiling at him. The distance between the bars was just enough so she could pass through. And she did it.
Her eyes changed, they were like a heated ember - the same as Satou's eyes.
- Izura... - she said calmly - you really can't put a seal on me.
The bars exploded.
- I'm me. I'm her. I'm not sealed inside of her. I am part of her. I run in her veins, I breather the air she breathes, I see what she sees, smell what she smells. I'm like an important organ for her, and you don't want to mess with her heart, right?
Ayame crossed her hands.
- She begged me for this. She accepted me and we made a deal. Either accept me or don't, but don't try to limit me, because I'm helping her. There are things that you cannot handle. I'm her and she is me. You are in our domain now and it's time to leave, I don't like intruders. I don't mess with your relationship so you don't mess with ours.

Everything would change for Izura. The demon pushed him out of Ayame's and his consciousness.
The girl would look at him with a serious look on her eyes.
- I'm sorry, onii-san, but it is what it is. I can make my own choices and suffer the consequences, but so far everything is going well. I need him even more than he needs me.
The girl looked at the distance. A smile appeared on her face.
- I think it's time for us to leave.

WC: 346​

 

[Uchiha Izura]

Why was it that Izura and his sister were always at an impasse? It reminded him of his time growing up under Yasha Sojobo. Being the rebellious child was almost a natural reaction, no matter the disposition it seemed. Children had a natural tendency to rebel against the wishes of the adults looking over them, it seemed.

It truly pained Izura to see his sister sacrificing a portion of her humanity in an attempt to become stronger and protect him better….all the while working to save Nataku. But he couldn’t help but wonder why she didn’t believe in his ability to do it for her? He was a veteran shinobi- not the most powerful in the world by any means, but still quite the formidable force.

A strong look of worry played across Izura’s face and he couldn’t help but feel as if he was the one being taught here. Taught that the darkness had already corrupted Ayame’s soul. That the little bright light that Izura held so dear…his imouto…had already given in to the temptations to become a monster for the sake of power.

He withdrew from his sister’s mind and then fell to his knees, feeling….empty. Like he was losing someone he loved again.

“….Why?…” , he muttered under his breath.

WC 216

[Topic Left as soon as Ayame leaves]

 

[Ayame]

Izura's face changed. He looked hurt, worried. Like everything he hoped for didn't turned out how he wanted it to be. Maybe he imagined different things when he first saw her and never imagined that something else could possibly happen.
Ayame felt like she was disappointing the only person that loved her. The only person she had in her life had doubts about her, just like Nataku. He had his doubts and at the end accepted them as the ultimate truth. So was it Izura's turn now?
At this moment she thought that they shouldn't have met at all. He was too broken, she was too wild - they were too different, so maybe it wasn't possible for them to be in unison. Maybe it was too late for them to be brother and sister.

Her brother fell on his knees, asking himself why - a painful sight for the young girl. This was the first time someone was so worried about her. She had to think more before doing or saying anything, because even the strongest people had their weaknesses, but still she questioned herself if they should stay together as a family or go on separate ways. She was hurting him, even if she didn't want it. This way she hurt herself.

- Exactly, why, onii-san? - she said quietly - This... demon... he can't harm me. I think you're mistaking me for some really weak girl.

She got close to him and placed her hand on his shoulder.
- After all, I'm your sister and this will never change. I'm not going insane, I won't be consumed by madness, I won't allow this. Believe me and stop troubling yourself, onii-san.

She hugged him, he's been through enough. She had to support him, to lift him up in his worst moments, not to make him feel like this.

- I promise you, I'll be always here with you, as long as you are with me.

[WC: 327]
[Topic left]​

 

[Uchiha Izura]

And at that moment, for the first time ever, Izura believed in her. He returned the hug, feeling calmer now that he could see that she wasn’t being controlled. Or at least she seemed to be in control.

He sat there, smiling with a bit of relief.

“You silly girl….you know I care too much about you…that’s why I can’t help but want to protect you…”

He wiped his tears on her scarf, holding her close for a while…

At least as siblings, they still had each other’s backs. No matter what.

[Topic left for good xD]