Arcadia. Life in the old village was a stark contrast to the world of ‘miracles’ that the newer Iwagakure offered its residents. Living within the confines of so little seemed like a mere caricature of the way the less fortunate lived within the village. They lived with so little yet the joy of living with what they had still trumped the pain of what they didn’t. One could say that they couldn’t have missed what they didn’t have, but Akechi knew differently. These people resembled the people that he lived with, the ones that he considered family. They were forced to live this way, yet they gritted their teeth and shook the envy from their psyche. They were happy. It was peaceful. Life seemed as if it couldn’t have gotten any better though they had so little.
Walking through the small, peaceful countryside he noticed children playing on the side of the beaten path. They tossed around expensive looking rocks as if they were toys and laughing as if they held no other worries in the world. Akechi knew the feeling. Their lives were simple. It had been uninhibited by the dangers of vices such as ambition, greed and overwhelming fear. They were free and content with what they had instead of with what they wished for in their wildest dreams. Grinning, the dark haired man traveled through the small town with a look on his face that resembled a man at peace.
He looked upon these people as if he were looking upon his own. After all, they held the same tanned skin and unnatural hair colors that people born in the sun possessed. It was different from what he had become accustomed to within Iwagakure, and it differed greatly from the normal fodder that visited the “resort” areas like the hotsprings. In fact, they were a different kind of beauty. One that resembled the strawberry haired girl that he had met at the hotsprings, the one that had ran from Akechi’s little dysfunctional group of misfit partygoers. Not that they resembled the way she looked, but they resembled her in uniqueness… distinctiveness… in irregular beauty for a land such as this one. Casually, the Uchiha had found himself walking toward a makeshift altar at the edge of the Isle. The altar resembled one of the “guardians” that seemed to overlook the gates of Iwagakure, but in a much miniaturized version. Perhaps the indigenous people of this land all believed in the same “gods,” but worshipped them in different ways or something like that. It was the only thing that made sense to him, especially given how different their two worlds really were.
Two blackened slippers touched the very edge of the cliff, a man overlooking the sea before him with a look of calm pasted across his face. He wore a traditional Uchihan robe, a dark red linen gi with a large version of the Uchiha’s crest emblazoned across the middle of his back. The man was silently mediating, closing his eyes as he envisioned himself back home…
A home that he had lost…
A home that he sought to recreate, not rebuild…
[Topic Entered]
Walking through the small, peaceful countryside he noticed children playing on the side of the beaten path. They tossed around expensive looking rocks as if they were toys and laughing as if they held no other worries in the world. Akechi knew the feeling. Their lives were simple. It had been uninhibited by the dangers of vices such as ambition, greed and overwhelming fear. They were free and content with what they had instead of with what they wished for in their wildest dreams. Grinning, the dark haired man traveled through the small town with a look on his face that resembled a man at peace.
He looked upon these people as if he were looking upon his own. After all, they held the same tanned skin and unnatural hair colors that people born in the sun possessed. It was different from what he had become accustomed to within Iwagakure, and it differed greatly from the normal fodder that visited the “resort” areas like the hotsprings. In fact, they were a different kind of beauty. One that resembled the strawberry haired girl that he had met at the hotsprings, the one that had ran from Akechi’s little dysfunctional group of misfit partygoers. Not that they resembled the way she looked, but they resembled her in uniqueness… distinctiveness… in irregular beauty for a land such as this one. Casually, the Uchiha had found himself walking toward a makeshift altar at the edge of the Isle. The altar resembled one of the “guardians” that seemed to overlook the gates of Iwagakure, but in a much miniaturized version. Perhaps the indigenous people of this land all believed in the same “gods,” but worshipped them in different ways or something like that. It was the only thing that made sense to him, especially given how different their two worlds really were.
Two blackened slippers touched the very edge of the cliff, a man overlooking the sea before him with a look of calm pasted across his face. He wore a traditional Uchihan robe, a dark red linen gi with a large version of the Uchiha’s crest emblazoned across the middle of his back. The man was silently mediating, closing his eyes as he envisioned himself back home…
A home that he had lost…
A home that he sought to recreate, not rebuild…
[Topic Entered]
The sun was high in the sky—not that half of the village hidden in the stone could see that—but nonetheless, the sun spilled through the window, and peeked through the cracks of the brown curtain pulled haphazardly in the bedroom. On the spring-mattress bed, the crimson woman from the bar laid sprawled on old sheets in her underwear and a white tee, a single blue sheet crumpled over the bed, and not really over her anymore. Her hair sprawled all over the sheets, and her breathing slow and steady. Sunshine creeping up over her legs and back, and glistening in her hair before her eyes would flutter open, the color matching the light.
Breathe. In, and out. In, and out. The fresh air was such a relief in comparison to the muggy atmosphere of Iwagakure where the people's stench of hate and the streets putrid smell of blood ruined her senses. How she hated the feeling that city gave her. It was riddled with betrayal and abuse, from all sorts of kinds of people and things. Mother had been completely pushed out and her children killed, all in the name of a military village. Isn't that quite the story? Humans were so... peculiar like that. They were always taking, and never giving. Always thinking only of themselves, and maybe, if they had a heart, their loved ones too. Kurai, herself, was guilty of these things, as she was a human too. That was what being human was about, after all, thinking of yourself. You only get one life-- don't screw it up.