Blue Roses

[MedeaMoirae]

((OOC: For best effect, listen to 'Roses on my Grave' by Papa Roach))

Over head the clouds swirled in an angry torrent, a storm brewing that sought her out personally and yet rain never came. There were no thunder-claps, there was no tornado, just the swirling of the angry sky. Or at least that’s what she saw in her mind’s eye as she stared at the two caskets. Neither casket was ornate, nor carved, they were as simple as life and death could be. On one red roses were strewn across its surface, periodically one would slide off and fall into the hole beneath as the ninja prepared to lower them into the ground. On the other the roses were white and likewise some rushed to seek a place in the earth before the casket could be properly lowered.

Her bright blue eyes were fixed on the caskets. Their friends had told her that she should make them coffins of crystal, of their own stone. She hadn’t the heart, nor the drive for such a thing. Perhaps some found it insulting to the memory of her parents, but instead she had opted to carve a single gem for each, and place it in the wooden surface of the top of the coffin. Her father’s coffin was a pale wood, with a single red ruby, as he would’ve liked, in the top. Her mother’s was a dark wood coffin, with a single clear crystal embedded in its surface. They had preferred the simple things after all, and never cared for the extravagant.

’Who cares what they think? I think I know my parents better than they.’ she thought to herself. It was the first time in two years that Kouseki Emi was dressed ‘normally’. She wore a long black skirt her mother had bought her before, one she’d constantly begged Emi to wear. Emi partially hated that the first time she wore it was to this funeral. With it she wore a brightly colored blue silk shirt. Her father had always encouraged her unique appearance and attitude, and she knew he would’ve loved to see her in such festive color, even if it was earning glares from some of the older clan members. Her blue hair was in her eyes and a mess as always, if only to earn a smile from her parents’ spirits at her own stubbornness and refusal to do anything neat and orderly with it. But her makeup was gone. There was no eyeliner or eye shadow, no darkened lipstick, it was just her natural shades of blue.

Words were spoken by the clan elder. But Emi did not hear them. She didn’t care to. These people knew nothing of her parents. They would embellish and speak highly of two ninja who did great things. Yet behind their backs these same people had always spoken of how these two were so self absorbed they left their daughter home alone to fend for herself, to learn from other clan members, and even her right of passage was performed by another clan member. Emi herself had heard these things spoken of and even she had been guilty from time to time of saying these same things. Yet these people would speak lies over the dead, the dead they knew nothing of. When the Elder stepped down, it would be time to lower the caskets, and that was when Emi did something unexpected and against tradition.

As she had stood there she held a black scarf in her hand. As the Elder stepped down she put it on over her head, only her blue bangs sticking out as she stepped forward and stood in front of the caskets, turning to face those who had come to pay respects. She couldn’t help the smirk that crossed her lips as they stared at her. They started to whisper, and even the Elder turned to look at her strangely. While family often spoke of the deceased at a funeral, so few had expected her to even have a desire to speak. These people knew her even less than they knew her parents. Yet when Emi moved to speak she had to pause, the familiar face in the back of the crowd, and the tears rolling down his cheeks so freely. Absently for a moment she wondered if he would even recognize her for who she was. Yet that anger with him needed to be pushed aside for now. This anger was reserved solely for these people here.

She turned her cold blue eyes on them as she took a few steps back, standing in between the caskets now. She reached out with both hands, each touching cold wood, and the cold gem that was fixed dead center of each casket under the roses. She ignored the fact that her movement resulted in a cascade of roses falling beneath the caskets and the supports that kept them above ground for now. ”You’re all liars.” she stated loud enough for them to hear, but without yelling the cold-hearted words. The words were like daggers of ice, and she couldn’t help but open scoff as the angry mutterings began. But she wasn’t done.

”You stand there and you call them great ninja, wonderful parents. Sure, now that they’re dead you say that. You think we never heard the whispers at the back of your hands? Telling each other how they were too self absorbed in their own lives to see their own daughter, that they cared so much for one another that the child was merely an inconvenience. You’re all liars. On both accounts. They weren’t great ninja, and they were great parents, all at the same time. What these two did right was by one another. Loyal to an absolute fault to the love of their life. They starved for one another’s company and love to the point where they wouldn’t separate, even on mission.”

She had their attention now. Their whispers had ceased, angry or otherwise. She could see she had even his eyes fixed on her, and still she silently wondered if he realized who this little girl was who spoke against the clan members who came to pay respects out of obligation, not love nor want nor even need.

”You, deep in your hearts, think this is what got them killed, this is the horrible example they set. Yet I’m telling you this. I can only hope one day to find the love they shared and to share it with another in kind. It is out of this love that I am here today. You came here out of a misguided sense of obligation and duty. They were Kouseki, therefore you came to pay your respects because you were obligated to. You came not of need, not of love, and not even of want.” Tears streamed down her face now as the angry child made an appearance and suddenly she turned to her father’s casket, pushing the red roses off completely onto the ground and into the dug hole. She did the same to her mother’s casket before turning to the crowd once more.

She took up her stance once more, one hand on either casket, over the gems she had personally carved for her parents as her final gift to them. ”Come and put a rose on their grave if you are here out of love, not obligation. The rest of you selfish bastards can go.” her final words came out as a snarl and she stared at them all, eyes narrowed as she dared them to come.

One by one they each began to leave.

Only one remained. He walked forward slowly, glancing at Emi but her eyes did not waver from staring straight forward, and nor would they. In silence he picked up a white rose from the ground and laid it on her mother’s grave before he turned and picked up a red rose, laying it on the grave of her father. In that same silence he turned to leave, hands in his pockets and periodically glancing back at the young Genin.

When all had walked away, the tears flowed freely and Emi fell to her knees, sobbing. The only ones who remained where the ninja who were assigned to lower her parents into the earth. They watched her fall to pieces in silence, not a single one of them had a dry eye themselves.

One of them, a Jounin by the look of him, walked over and knelt in front of her. ”We need to put them to rest now.” he whispered.

Emi nodded weakly, her voice cracking as she spoke. ”Just one more thing needs doing…” she said quietly. She tried to stand and stumbled, helped to her feet by the kindness of this single Jounin. He helped her to her mother’s casket first, where she laid a white rose on the lid and kissed the gem. He helped her to her father’s casket second, and she laid a red rose on the lid and kissed the gem. ”Okay.”

The nameless Jounin nodded and motioned to his companions, staying with her as she cried into his shoulder and her parents were lowered into the ground.

"I'll see you on the other side..."