Stories of Frost Fallen [Closed]

[Sanada]

"I was born in..."

"The North," the man replied. "To a couple -- twice failed in producing a child; you, their final attempt, and you, their sole success. This couple was from..."

"Kirigakure," Sanada replied. "Is that place not frozen over, now?" he asked.

"Yes," the man whispered. "But don't ask. Know. Even with me -- even as you create this identity around you -- be confident in it. Never express uncertainty -- or you will in the thick of it, when eyes around you grow suspicious. Remember..." he withheld his breath, ready to further speak.

But Sanada spoke for him.

"Suspicion is a shinobi's eternal state of mind; trust is ephemeral, bonds are forged and broken. No one remains cordial for long -- such is the world we dwell in."

The other man -- who was truly no longer even one of their kind -- nodded. "You can trust your beginning squadron - the one assigned to you upon becoming a Gennin. But you... have lost them already, haven't you? Why is that?" he questioned.

"I -- I never had any real motivation to... be a part of them. I was young, only ten, and I observed the world around me as nothing but an indistinct thread among many. I was poorly motivated, and I cursed my own weakness. In truth, I must go back to the beginning. I have lost what I once knew."

Sad. It was difficult being the great, grade A talent... of the past. He had lost his prestige, cast off into the dark, much like the cold and decrepit grip of Kirigakure, a village he was building his false identity upon. A place with no meaning, and no allies nor enemies, just like him.

Seto had passed. It was now only Sanada. Only him.

 

[Sanada]

. . .

I remember.

For me, and all my strange and dissident talents, it's almost as if I'm observing the past through my insecure lens. Watching the threads... weaving them together and seeing them collide. Remembering those days, I can almost lie to myself, and pretend that I'm watching the memory through the lens of a time now passed. As if I were ever able to see the past or the future.

All I've ever been able to do as a Strider has been to... use the dangling threads of time to hurt, to kill, to redirect and deride.

But still, I remember, whether falsely or truly through a lens of time presided over by me. I don't know.

I remember her dying. Crawling on the streets, in the decrepit dusty quarters of sand and dirt, shifting bloodily on the floor with long and singular movements... one after another. Perhaps I remember because I was there, in her arms, observing sorrowfully and confusedly both as the world around me twisted into such... melancholy. I don't know. But the longer she crawled on, the longer she struggled, the closer she came to dying. And eventually, she really did die -- my mother, Kasawa Yukiko.

Thinking back on it now, I feel little sorrow. She was... a deeply troubled woman, incapable of any true rationality, or genuine solace beyond the false and temporal platitudes gifted to her by her many 'bachelors' and 'rescuers' from the reviled pit she imagined the world to be. I think, perhaps, she knew the journey - and where it led. She decided to follow it regardless, as we all do, walking upon our singular existences as well as we can before our fleeting individual lives fade from view.

Today, I spoke with Hasamu, a shinobi no longer, but still a mentor and friend. He was one of my teachers, when I studied at the Academy. Today, he taught me about... building a secondary, false identity for the purpose of spying; creating several profiles and always having them on hand. Manipulating information, manipulating minds. Next time, he'll teach me about body language, tone, eye language and other such important sections of the dynamic dance that is speech. I hope to emulate his knowledge.

But I acknowledge full-well that, in the case that I fail anyway and am discovered, I will die much as my mother did . . . struggling, desperate, crawling on the ground like an animal in need. The life of a shinobi is brutal. I've always known that.

The life of a man, from anywhere, is equally the same. At least I have the ability to press beyond that weakness . . . into something, better.