The dome pulsed with a quiet light, as if even the sun was uncertain whether it should bless this moment with warmth. Inside the Chikamatsu Arboretum, glass-paneled curvature arched high above a garden of stillness. Dew clung to vine and leaf like tears too proud to fall. The mingled scent of foreign soil, sea moss, and azurine flame orchids wafted through the air comforting and accusing all at once.
Shin sat cross-legged at the heart of the arboretum beneath the Gweilan Tree, its bark shimmering faintly with a blue sheen that only appeared under Suna’s twilight. The leaves above him bore no rustle, though the ventilation hissed in quiet rhythms across the high ceiling. The illusion of peace pressed in around him like a whisper caught in a cathedral.
He had removed his mask. Again. It lay beside him, face-up, a hollow thing with too many meanings. His bare fingers ran slowly across the earth. Not chakra-infused, not medicinal, just his skin, his touch. Still soft. Still warm. But the warmth made him sick.
“My hands held the scalpel. My voice gave the order. But the soul that stirred those strings was not my own.” He spoke aloud, but only the blue-streaked lilies from the Land of Water dared to listen. The pollen danced just slightly around him, as if drawn to his breath.
He inhaled the quiet. It was the kind of stillness that followed funerals and betrayals. A silence weighted not by the absence of noise, but by the presence of memory. A single curl of steam coiled upward from the teacup nestled in his lap, brewed from leaves he had grown in this very place years ago. Moonleaf, from the Land of Iron it was rare, sweet, calming, but today it was useless. He did not drink it.
“Was it truly not me?” The question hung above the steaming rim, heavier than the scent.
Because even now, Wei was gone, unseated from the throne of his mind, and yet the echo remained. His voice had not simply overridden Shin’s thoughts, it had woven into them. Made them indistinguishable. How many screams had come from his own people? How many children now whispered about the monster in the medical ward, the butcher in bloom, the Overseer turned reaper? He looked up at the dome. The glass was clean, pristine, polished like the ideals he had once clung to. And yet, through its lens, the sky seemed bruised.
“I was the protector. The shepherd. They entrusted me with their lives. Their hope. Their healing.”
And he had reduced them to numbers in a ledger of death. He raised a hand and stared at it, at the fine bones of his fingers, the nail beds, the faint tremble that came when memory stirred too quickly. A medic’s hand. A shinobi’s hand. A killer’s hand.
Was there a difference?
A hummingbird passed overhead, its wings slicing silence with metallic frequency. It hovered for a moment by the northern quadrant where mistflowers bloomed. It hesitated. Then flew away. Even the smallest things could sense it. A presence. A taint on Shin's soul.
“It was Wei’s will,” he murmured. “He nested within me, wrapped his commands in my voice, made my instincts his own. I shouldn't feel guilty, but yet...”
His voice cracked, just slightly, against the glass dome. The vines to his left, normally content to remain in their trellised confines, began to stir. Not in menace. Not in warning. But in sympathy. As if they too mourned the part of Shin that had not returned with him. The Sage's Natural Energy always pulsing out and affecting the plant life in which he was so integrated with. In the far corner, the Lament Orchids had bloomed early. A bad omen. They only flowered when the chakra in the air was laced with sorrow. Shin turned his gaze to the shrine at the edge of the greenhouse, a simple wooden frame adorned with six glass beads, each the hue of a different soul. The Inner Circle. The others who once lived inside him, who now were gone.
Kohana. His sister. His shadow. His chain.
Gone.
Wei. His puppeteer. His captor. His shame.
Gone.
And now there was only him, no hivemind to counsel his guilt, no foreign soul to carry the burden, no weight to share the grief that festered beneath his ribs like a cancer without name.
“I am truly alone.”
He had once begged for this. He had once feared this. Now it was his only truth. A hand touched the nape of his neck. The skin was unmarred. No trace of the Yurei Orchid Seal remained. No symbol. No tether.
He was free.
“Should I seek forgiveness?” he asked the orchids. They offered no answer.
“Should I disappear into the desert night?” he asked the vines. They merely curled inward, protectively.
“Should I just die?” The silence recoiled.
A tear slipped down his cheek. No ichor of control, no genjutsu forcing him against his will, just water, salt, and regret.
Still his fingers found the teacup and brought it to his lips. He took a small sip before setting the cup back down and letting out a long held breath.
Shin sat cross-legged at the heart of the arboretum beneath the Gweilan Tree, its bark shimmering faintly with a blue sheen that only appeared under Suna’s twilight. The leaves above him bore no rustle, though the ventilation hissed in quiet rhythms across the high ceiling. The illusion of peace pressed in around him like a whisper caught in a cathedral.
He had removed his mask. Again. It lay beside him, face-up, a hollow thing with too many meanings. His bare fingers ran slowly across the earth. Not chakra-infused, not medicinal, just his skin, his touch. Still soft. Still warm. But the warmth made him sick.
“My hands held the scalpel. My voice gave the order. But the soul that stirred those strings was not my own.” He spoke aloud, but only the blue-streaked lilies from the Land of Water dared to listen. The pollen danced just slightly around him, as if drawn to his breath.
He inhaled the quiet. It was the kind of stillness that followed funerals and betrayals. A silence weighted not by the absence of noise, but by the presence of memory. A single curl of steam coiled upward from the teacup nestled in his lap, brewed from leaves he had grown in this very place years ago. Moonleaf, from the Land of Iron it was rare, sweet, calming, but today it was useless. He did not drink it.
“Was it truly not me?” The question hung above the steaming rim, heavier than the scent.
Because even now, Wei was gone, unseated from the throne of his mind, and yet the echo remained. His voice had not simply overridden Shin’s thoughts, it had woven into them. Made them indistinguishable. How many screams had come from his own people? How many children now whispered about the monster in the medical ward, the butcher in bloom, the Overseer turned reaper? He looked up at the dome. The glass was clean, pristine, polished like the ideals he had once clung to. And yet, through its lens, the sky seemed bruised.
“I was the protector. The shepherd. They entrusted me with their lives. Their hope. Their healing.”
And he had reduced them to numbers in a ledger of death. He raised a hand and stared at it, at the fine bones of his fingers, the nail beds, the faint tremble that came when memory stirred too quickly. A medic’s hand. A shinobi’s hand. A killer’s hand.
Was there a difference?
A hummingbird passed overhead, its wings slicing silence with metallic frequency. It hovered for a moment by the northern quadrant where mistflowers bloomed. It hesitated. Then flew away. Even the smallest things could sense it. A presence. A taint on Shin's soul.
“It was Wei’s will,” he murmured. “He nested within me, wrapped his commands in my voice, made my instincts his own. I shouldn't feel guilty, but yet...”
His voice cracked, just slightly, against the glass dome. The vines to his left, normally content to remain in their trellised confines, began to stir. Not in menace. Not in warning. But in sympathy. As if they too mourned the part of Shin that had not returned with him. The Sage's Natural Energy always pulsing out and affecting the plant life in which he was so integrated with. In the far corner, the Lament Orchids had bloomed early. A bad omen. They only flowered when the chakra in the air was laced with sorrow. Shin turned his gaze to the shrine at the edge of the greenhouse, a simple wooden frame adorned with six glass beads, each the hue of a different soul. The Inner Circle. The others who once lived inside him, who now were gone.
Kohana. His sister. His shadow. His chain.
Gone.
Wei. His puppeteer. His captor. His shame.
Gone.
And now there was only him, no hivemind to counsel his guilt, no foreign soul to carry the burden, no weight to share the grief that festered beneath his ribs like a cancer without name.
“I am truly alone.”
He had once begged for this. He had once feared this. Now it was his only truth. A hand touched the nape of his neck. The skin was unmarred. No trace of the Yurei Orchid Seal remained. No symbol. No tether.
He was free.
“Should I seek forgiveness?” he asked the orchids. They offered no answer.
“Should I disappear into the desert night?” he asked the vines. They merely curled inward, protectively.
“Should I just die?” The silence recoiled.
A tear slipped down his cheek. No ichor of control, no genjutsu forcing him against his will, just water, salt, and regret.
Still his fingers found the teacup and brought it to his lips. He took a small sip before setting the cup back down and letting out a long held breath.