There was always room to escape.
The Yuki-onna was always eager to make this clear for Kiseki Akane; that no matter where he found himself, no matter his setting of mind or form, there existed always the option of running away. With her, ideally! She would half-form in a spiritual shape to tug at the back of his sleeves, playfully, floating behind him and goading with giggles into the air that tickled his ears. Today seems like it's going to be really hard, Ki ~ se ~ ki. We should just leave. And every time, every day, while the sun rises against the horizon of the farm, he'd consider it. He'd watch the light spill in and dither until the first ray hit his foot or an outstretched arm, and his eyes would glitter back at the radiance - a sight otherwise reserved only for Ichika Kazanari - and he'd sigh. No, Yuki-onna. His voice, even his thoughts, would always be so gentle in response. He was never going to be responsible for breaking a snowflake on his hand. Today's another day I choose to keep trying.
So he would. He'd strap on snowboots or sandles, depending on the classes or extracurriculars ahead, and he'd venture out of his house with an agitated chill at his back. She never got that mad, anymore. He held up every end of his bargain. He was always the conversational companion she demanded, found the time to chase her through the snowlit forests, and even supplied her off his chakra: he treated her like a friend in need, and she still looked back at him like a pet she was hoping would bite off its leash. He didn't mind the slow burn. Some ice took longer to melt. This was another day without Ichika, after all. He couldn't run off his only other friend - no matter how dark the miasma that seeped off of them. He had grown accustomed to the company now that it wasn't killing him.
Truth was, he probably wouldn't stop her there, anyway.
There had been so many challenges lately that he felt this urge at his very being to not stop challenging himself - that every painful ache in his chest, every burn in his limbs, every prick at his eyes was a neccesity to become the person he was supposed to be: the person he needed to be, if he was going to be that person for anyone else. He wasn't going to let himself down again - he wasn't going to let his peers down, or Ichika down, or even the Yuki-onna down, even if their goals misaligned. He was going to get stronger. He was going to get better. What if you get hurt? asked the spectre in white, inhuman curiosity in every word as if the answer was meant for him and not her. He pulled at the mission slip posted on the Main Branch's Office board, and looked it over only the skip of a beat longer. Then I'll be hurt. What was one more scar among all the lines lining his frail skin already? He could talk a big game, but that biting, throbbing feeling of something piercing through his skin again gave his heart a horrible squeeze. One that he, again, suppressed. The swing of a light in a room only now ready to be occupied again. Welcome home, shadows.
He took the notice, got it stamped for approval, and moved himself off for an artifact rescue - his very first solo mission, and at a higher level than anybody likely expected him to go on himself. This wasn't the time for practicality. This was the time for action. Escapism en reality. If there was one thing his previous graveyard mission had spelled out for him - it was that it wasn't that hard to be beat people who weren't as scared to die as you were. It wasn't that hard at all. ... He didn't like that feeling, either, but he needed the credentials if he was ever going to keep up with Ichika. He knew the other boy trusted him to manage himself, but managing himself was nothing compared to protecting the both of them. He had to make sure Ichika never got that hurt again. He had to make sure he was strong enough to not hurt him like that again.
It wasn't a long journey to the outskirts of Kumogakure and the toppled, decrepit building where the bandits stationed themselves. The actual aggravated theft from the relic peddler had only happened in the previous day, and sources likened the bandits to still be out at their base before a higher-level Shinobi could be sent to chase them off and re-procure the goods. Kiseki assumed it wouldn't be that easy. He was the first, and the readiest available, to take on this mission and fish back the artifacts to be verified - from the very depths of society, where only darkness dwelled and hence only darkness could breach. He was still just a student. His fine level of chakra control couldn't be enough to pose a real threat against organized crime alone. Just get the items and leave, he told himself. If you want, I could cut down everyone in your way, he was told. Then we could get back to playing ~
It wasn't really that hard to slip in, slight as he was, but the difficulty was not in the rabbit arriving from the snow: what did it do in the wolf's den?
There was a single man stationed in the fore of the cabin, with two more outside he had slipped by under cover of stealth and the slip of feet currently radiating sparks of light. He was agitated before he even arrived - hopped up, a bit, on the idea of those silvery cutlass' and windmill shuriken finding purchase in pale. He was planning to make this as quick an operation as possible. All he needed were the relics. "I'm just here to get back a trader's goods," he spoke to the man sounding the alarm and the shuffling both outside and inside the doors on either side. "You can go if you let me take them back." How did he talk to faces so blurred by greed and panic, evil and desperation? He knew very well what could drive a person to acts of cruelty. That very same drive made him a Shinobi in the first place. The weak had to be stronger - for themselves, and for the weak around them.
The languid licks of static bolted from the bottom of his heel as it tapped sheepishly on the dirtied floor, hugging one arm at his chest and curling in his fist at the other. They were an enraged group. He had caught them in the midst of moving their operation - a surprisingly quick turnaround time for vagabonds, but he supposed they knew they didn't have long before someone was sent after their ruckus. He really didn't want to get hurt. He really wanted to be less scared. He really wanted to be bigger - like Ichika. Ichika. What would Ichika do? Hhhaa. He breathed out low, lightning building in the tinged frost of his exhalation. It tingled at the tip of his tongue, sparked at the ends of his fingers. Yuki-onna could handle this for him. He could feel how eager she was, but that wasn't the only thing she was feeling - excitement? He felt eyes as pale as his blue on him, floating aimlessly in the space between madness and truth. She was excited to see how he could handle this himself, if he could. It wasn't a challenge. It wasn't even a hope. It was just a possibility.
Kiseki had been wrong. It was very easy. He learned something very important today: no matter how weak you were, there was always something weaker. Bugs ate plants. Birds ate bugs. Beasts ate birds. People ate beasts - and shinobi? Shinobi ate the people.
He drew no blood, nor did he leave any corpses - he was not going to be a creature of habit in killing. These were nothing like the zombies or the Horror. They were screaming, pained, hopeless men, whose lives meant something to them. He couldn't take that from them. So with a word at a time, he took instead their agency and werewithal, leaving them bound inside of their own hearts & minds on the floors of a cabin he pedaled back through with an arm full of items. "Break." "Fall." "Stop." "Crash." "Blank." Somebody stronger, with the space of mind to do it right and do it clean, would take this off his hands when he got word back - he was doing his job. He took one additional thing with him, however - one of the callous' weapons of choice. A giant shuriken, bigger than his torso. A testament to a new promise.
When he returned to the trader in question, he was offered a single prize, and the thought of it bubbled under the quiet contemplation of a being that saw ninja beneath its food chain: and she smiled. So he smiled, too. He offered soft gratitude and condolences for anything lost by the bandit's hands, and he graciously accepted a gift he was going to learn how to apply. He was going to grow. He was going to get stronger. He was going to get better.
Until he was a person that could protect the bugs, the birds, the beasts and the people all.
[ 1594 ]
The Yuki-onna was always eager to make this clear for Kiseki Akane; that no matter where he found himself, no matter his setting of mind or form, there existed always the option of running away. With her, ideally! She would half-form in a spiritual shape to tug at the back of his sleeves, playfully, floating behind him and goading with giggles into the air that tickled his ears. Today seems like it's going to be really hard, Ki ~ se ~ ki. We should just leave. And every time, every day, while the sun rises against the horizon of the farm, he'd consider it. He'd watch the light spill in and dither until the first ray hit his foot or an outstretched arm, and his eyes would glitter back at the radiance - a sight otherwise reserved only for Ichika Kazanari - and he'd sigh. No, Yuki-onna. His voice, even his thoughts, would always be so gentle in response. He was never going to be responsible for breaking a snowflake on his hand. Today's another day I choose to keep trying.
So he would. He'd strap on snowboots or sandles, depending on the classes or extracurriculars ahead, and he'd venture out of his house with an agitated chill at his back. She never got that mad, anymore. He held up every end of his bargain. He was always the conversational companion she demanded, found the time to chase her through the snowlit forests, and even supplied her off his chakra: he treated her like a friend in need, and she still looked back at him like a pet she was hoping would bite off its leash. He didn't mind the slow burn. Some ice took longer to melt. This was another day without Ichika, after all. He couldn't run off his only other friend - no matter how dark the miasma that seeped off of them. He had grown accustomed to the company now that it wasn't killing him.
Truth was, he probably wouldn't stop her there, anyway.
There had been so many challenges lately that he felt this urge at his very being to not stop challenging himself - that every painful ache in his chest, every burn in his limbs, every prick at his eyes was a neccesity to become the person he was supposed to be: the person he needed to be, if he was going to be that person for anyone else. He wasn't going to let himself down again - he wasn't going to let his peers down, or Ichika down, or even the Yuki-onna down, even if their goals misaligned. He was going to get stronger. He was going to get better. What if you get hurt? asked the spectre in white, inhuman curiosity in every word as if the answer was meant for him and not her. He pulled at the mission slip posted on the Main Branch's Office board, and looked it over only the skip of a beat longer. Then I'll be hurt. What was one more scar among all the lines lining his frail skin already? He could talk a big game, but that biting, throbbing feeling of something piercing through his skin again gave his heart a horrible squeeze. One that he, again, suppressed. The swing of a light in a room only now ready to be occupied again. Welcome home, shadows.
He took the notice, got it stamped for approval, and moved himself off for an artifact rescue - his very first solo mission, and at a higher level than anybody likely expected him to go on himself. This wasn't the time for practicality. This was the time for action. Escapism en reality. If there was one thing his previous graveyard mission had spelled out for him - it was that it wasn't that hard to be beat people who weren't as scared to die as you were. It wasn't that hard at all. ... He didn't like that feeling, either, but he needed the credentials if he was ever going to keep up with Ichika. He knew the other boy trusted him to manage himself, but managing himself was nothing compared to protecting the both of them. He had to make sure Ichika never got that hurt again. He had to make sure he was strong enough to not hurt him like that again.
It wasn't a long journey to the outskirts of Kumogakure and the toppled, decrepit building where the bandits stationed themselves. The actual aggravated theft from the relic peddler had only happened in the previous day, and sources likened the bandits to still be out at their base before a higher-level Shinobi could be sent to chase them off and re-procure the goods. Kiseki assumed it wouldn't be that easy. He was the first, and the readiest available, to take on this mission and fish back the artifacts to be verified - from the very depths of society, where only darkness dwelled and hence only darkness could breach. He was still just a student. His fine level of chakra control couldn't be enough to pose a real threat against organized crime alone. Just get the items and leave, he told himself. If you want, I could cut down everyone in your way, he was told. Then we could get back to playing ~
It wasn't really that hard to slip in, slight as he was, but the difficulty was not in the rabbit arriving from the snow: what did it do in the wolf's den?
There was a single man stationed in the fore of the cabin, with two more outside he had slipped by under cover of stealth and the slip of feet currently radiating sparks of light. He was agitated before he even arrived - hopped up, a bit, on the idea of those silvery cutlass' and windmill shuriken finding purchase in pale. He was planning to make this as quick an operation as possible. All he needed were the relics. "I'm just here to get back a trader's goods," he spoke to the man sounding the alarm and the shuffling both outside and inside the doors on either side. "You can go if you let me take them back." How did he talk to faces so blurred by greed and panic, evil and desperation? He knew very well what could drive a person to acts of cruelty. That very same drive made him a Shinobi in the first place. The weak had to be stronger - for themselves, and for the weak around them.
The languid licks of static bolted from the bottom of his heel as it tapped sheepishly on the dirtied floor, hugging one arm at his chest and curling in his fist at the other. They were an enraged group. He had caught them in the midst of moving their operation - a surprisingly quick turnaround time for vagabonds, but he supposed they knew they didn't have long before someone was sent after their ruckus. He really didn't want to get hurt. He really wanted to be less scared. He really wanted to be bigger - like Ichika. Ichika. What would Ichika do? Hhhaa. He breathed out low, lightning building in the tinged frost of his exhalation. It tingled at the tip of his tongue, sparked at the ends of his fingers. Yuki-onna could handle this for him. He could feel how eager she was, but that wasn't the only thing she was feeling - excitement? He felt eyes as pale as his blue on him, floating aimlessly in the space between madness and truth. She was excited to see how he could handle this himself, if he could. It wasn't a challenge. It wasn't even a hope. It was just a possibility.
Kiseki had been wrong. It was very easy. He learned something very important today: no matter how weak you were, there was always something weaker. Bugs ate plants. Birds ate bugs. Beasts ate birds. People ate beasts - and shinobi? Shinobi ate the people.
He drew no blood, nor did he leave any corpses - he was not going to be a creature of habit in killing. These were nothing like the zombies or the Horror. They were screaming, pained, hopeless men, whose lives meant something to them. He couldn't take that from them. So with a word at a time, he took instead their agency and werewithal, leaving them bound inside of their own hearts & minds on the floors of a cabin he pedaled back through with an arm full of items. "Break." "Fall." "Stop." "Crash." "Blank." Somebody stronger, with the space of mind to do it right and do it clean, would take this off his hands when he got word back - he was doing his job. He took one additional thing with him, however - one of the callous' weapons of choice. A giant shuriken, bigger than his torso. A testament to a new promise.
When he returned to the trader in question, he was offered a single prize, and the thought of it bubbled under the quiet contemplation of a being that saw ninja beneath its food chain: and she smiled. So he smiled, too. He offered soft gratitude and condolences for anything lost by the bandit's hands, and he graciously accepted a gift he was going to learn how to apply. He was going to grow. He was going to get stronger. He was going to get better.
Until he was a person that could protect the bugs, the birds, the beasts and the people all.
[ 1594 ]