[Closed] Dark meets Light

[Willoria]

Honestly, Arata wasn't sure what to make of it. He rose early to a harsh knock at the door where he accepted a letter in the nude (seriously, they woke him up, what was he gonna do? Get dressed?). He didn't even bother shutting the door at first as he read it over, at least not until he heard a shriek from a neighbor trying to walk down the hall. He kicked the door shut and walked back into his apartment, reading over the letter with a look of complete confusion. Quickly the man got dressed, of course tucking a small tin into his kimono containing half a dozen rolled joints, as was his custom. It didn't even occur to him that most would think this was the exact time to not carry such a thing on him.

He was so preoccupied wondering why the Kazekage wanted to see him, that it didn't occur to him not to bring his smokes with him. He remained in a bit of a fog over it, and of course the fact that he normally wasn't up much before noon, until he got to Hito's office. He had never been there before, and so was completely caught off guard as he was ushered into the office by some secretary. Yet the man himself wasn't there.

For several moments he paced, he tried sitting, but it was several minutes before he got curious enough to look around the room. On the desk he found a unique item, and of course reached out to touch it....

[CDF]

As soon as contact was made, Arata would find Jikukan coursing through his body and before he knew it, everything changed. They were now somewhere beautiful. Tall water-fed trees grew in a perfect ring around them, the very center of this paradise open to a circle of just barely leaf-blocked sun that shined on a large, open pool of water. The hole in the earth was deep and it was wide, and if one looked closely, it was a massive, though winder as you went further, tunnel into the ground.

There was a green grass all around that looked like moss but felt like grass, and there was even some small animal life scurrying around in the vegetation. The heat was as scorching as it always was in this country, but the scene itself was so beautiful it was ok.

The kazekage was laying on a chair near the pool, and per usual, he just cut right to it. Standing up slowly while channeling, he began. "Ah, young Arata, you certainly are predictable and my information is certainly impeccable. I guessed you'd arrive at this time, and I guessed you would forget to hide them." Giving a quick sniff and then smile into the air, hito flicked his finger and released a coiling string of chakra. The string shot under arata's shirt and grabbed the case, pulling it back to Hito and moving on to grab and throw back the matches as well.

Seamlessly, Hito caught the box, opened it and pulled out one of its insides and gave it a good smell. "Good taste, smells great." His smile was a little playful now as his tone began to match. "I've read and heard all about you, Arata-kun, and I think the best course of action is for you to smoke with your kazekage." He held the matches in one hand and the joint between his lips. Had kiyori been here, it would have been the ultimate shock.

But she wasn't. Somebody with a much more interesting view of religion and authority was. He wouldn't smoke just yet though, he knew this was a lot to unload, but intel made it seem like Arata would handle it well.

[Willoria]

As the technique was activated by Arata's touch, the man couldn't help but to swear under his breath as he dropped to a knee and everything around him shifted and changed. When all seemed to settle he finally stood, staring at the trees around him, and wincing at the sun. Yet as the Kazekage spoke, Arata spun to face him. He wasn't sure if he should be insulted by the man's statements honestly, but as he tried to figure it out it seemed Hito had stolen away the tin in his kimono and for a moment Arata froze. All the times he had been tagged for extra details around the village, all the times he'd gotten in trouble, he couldn't imagine what the consequence was going to be for bringing that around the Kazekage himself, even if it had been an accident.

But then as Hito took a whiff of the carefully, hand-rolled, item, Arata was more than surprised by the way the Kazekage spoke. He just watched him as he put the joint in his lips and prepared to light it, and only one thing came to Arata's mind in immediate reaction to the situation. "I'm going to take a guess and say I can't tell Kiyori about this." he remarked after several moments of quiet before walking over and taking a smoke for himself from the tin. "Pretty sure she checks on me just to see if she can catch me doing it and try to throw it away." he added, not sure if this was a situation where he should address Hito by name or honorific.

Calling him by name seemed rude even to the notoriously faithless samurai. And the honorific seemed so very out of place given what the pair were about to smoke.

[CDF]

With a loud chuckle, Hito struck his match and lit the joint before handing the tin back to its owner. He took a long, hard inhale of an experienced smoker and smiled as he exhaled, responding in the same breath. "I'm going to go ahead and say no. That wouldn't go well at all." This was an odd situation. He had never smoked with anybody his whole life, much less a suna shinobi. Nor had he ever opened himself up so quickly to somebody he had barely met before other than in passing.

But things were moving along quickly. Kiyori had two new abilities that possibly qualified her as the strongest potential in the village, other than Inka, who Hito was not a fan of. While Kiyori's potential and current skill was great, she was still young and required guidance, guidance that Hito alone could not give. She needed a partner to grow with her, either as friends or something else.

Tabling the thought for now as he began to feel the effects of the drug beginning, he took another dense puff before continuing. "Please, have a seat. I made this world just for us to enjoy and talk a little. Before any of that, " He turned and looked at Arata carefully, concern was clear and genuine in his voice. "How are you doing? Have you grown accustomed to being the host to a spirit?"

[Willoria]

Arata was lighting his own smoke as Hito admitted telling Kiyori would be a bad idea, and the man couldn't help a laugh at that, even if it did end in a cough that took several moments to quell. The man was of course much better at this usually, but the statement had caught him well off guard, much of this situation had caught him well off guard actually. He had always imagined the Kazekage to be a more stuffy and stern sort, especially after hearing the way Kiyori spoke of him. Like many in the village she seemed to see the man as a god, and revered him as such. Arata didn't himself, but he was an oddity in that way.

He moved to sit as he was instructed, but as that question came from Hito, Arata couldn't help a pause. He sat there on the edge of his seat for a moment before leaning back and trying to get comfortable, and taking a fairly long drag from the join in his fingers. He let the smoke out slow, almost symbolic of how much he was thinking through his answer to the questions. "Not exactly." he finally admitted with a sigh, the last of the smoke wafting from his nostrils as he spoke in a tone that sounded semi-strained.

"Don't get me wrong, there are benefits." he stated, staring off at nothing for a moment before closing his eyes. He had once spoken so rarely of Akemi, and yet it seemed since encountering Kogashi, she seemed to come up all the time. "I don't have as many nightmares now. I dream of that damn shrine instead... I see the beauty of it in its prime every time I close my eyes. I should see that as a relief compared to waking up in a cold sweat thinking I see Akemi's blood on my hands." He chuckled quietly, his words almost a whisper as he spoke of his fallen twin, but the man shook his head as if refusing to let his mind linger on it. A fact that wasn't entirely false.

"But Kogasha is not fond of shutting up." he added in a louder tone with a bit of a chuckle. "He's made sure I can't feel the effects of alcohol anymore, no matter how much I drink. If I even think about a woman these days, he screams at me." He shook his head and laughed. "In a lot of ways, I feel like I got thrust right back into Yuumagure, but somehow without a choice." He turned and looked at Hito a moment, an odd expression on his face as he tried to find a way to say what was on his mind. "I mean... I've avoided the religion of Suna for years and yet somehow I'm supposed to protect it now... not sure I'll ever get accustomed to that."

[CDF]

As he spoke, Hito smiled both at the authenticity of Arata's words, but also at the sensations coming from the high. It was always such a fun experiencing, carefully observing the effect had on him. Both in his body and mind. With his intellect, Hito was perhaps one of the people most capable in the world of enjoying a drug. He could feel just how much more imaginative he was, he could account for how much his dexterity had dropped but intuition had increased. It was a fun game for him, but one he could do without committing full attention to.

Still smiling as Arata spoke on, he turned back to face towards the pond and then leaned back into his chair. It would be fairly clear that Arata would be welcome to do the same thing instead of have to look at the Kazekage the whole time.

Smoking all the while and blowing the smoke forwards, Hito finally spoke, a warm and casual tone to his voice. "Yes, I imagine that's a bit of an improvement nonetheless." The shinobi was still clearly very-much haunted, obvious by his need to steer away from further talking about the issue and the slightly careless way in which he brought it up in the first place. It didn't seem like something that was an immediate issue, but if his goal was to guide these two, it was something he'd have to tackle at some point. For now, it was about bringing him into the fold.

With a slight chuckle, he began again, "Believe it or not, I too have been put into a bit of an existentially awkward position. Ever since I ascended to Kazekageship, I have struggled with my faith. And by struggled with my faith," He took a long, deep drag that brought the joint to its very end, flicking it into the pool before blowing out the smoke and turning to look at Arata with a smile, "I lost it completely. I thought that Yuumagure was a collection of ancient stories passed down by those that had heat-exhaustion derived visions. Yet now, I've been forced to change everything about how I view the world. And if I've been wrong this time and Yuumagure has essentially been proven true, I as Kazekage have the greatest duty of all to make up for lost time."

Turning back, he looked out to the water and watched the roach float for a bit before speaking again. "Humans adapt, Arata-kun. Our worlds get rocked through loss or revelation and at first, it seems impossible to imagine ever being comfortable or ok with it, but inevitably, we eventually are. Your situation doesn't mean you have to become a monk, you will find a way to adapt and make sense of the religion in your own way.

I suspect it'll be an answer a little more like mine than Kiyori's. This situation has brought me just as much doubt in the old teachings of Yuumagure as it has confirmations. It's made me wonder just how real all the other religions are as well, and if perhaps our village's faith isn't just one of the many potential possibilities of the one answer to how the world works, but maybe it's only one of the actually correct ones. I'm very much interested in the possibility of our religion being one of the several instances of infinitely powerful beings from other realms influencing this one.

You now have one of these other-realmly beings within you, how likely does my theory seem to you?"

[Willoria]

As Arata smoked, he couldn't help a sigh of relief as it became clear Hito wasn't going to pursue his mention of his deceased twin. It was a sensitive subject and despite the fact that Arata was slowly learning to mention it more often... he really still didn't want to talk about it. Though as Hito spoke as being in some kind of awkward position, Arata gave him an odd look. He had never really imagined the Kazekage would feel such a way about his own position, and the man coughed in surprise as he was attempting a drag as Hito admitted to having lost his own faith. It was something Arata had never considered. How did a man feel about being placed in such a position within the village's religion?

'How DARE he?! Such sacrilege from such a-!'

Arata hissed between his teeth at the sound of the spirit starting to rant in his head, but his only response was to take the final drag off his roach and flick it into the pool as well... not to mention allowing himself to picture what Kiyori might look like naked briefly and sending the spirit into another tirade entirely which only served to make Arata have to cover his mouth to keep from laughing.

"I'm sorry." he said suddenly, looking at the Kazekage. "Sometimes I have to find things to picture to distract Kogasha... or he could rant all day on what you've said already. Apparently he doesn't like it." Arata couldn't help but chuckle again, as agitating the spirit seemed to quickly be becoming one of his favorite pastimes. But as Hito posed his question, he simply sighed and leaned back in the chair again, thinking.

"I think humans worship power... spirits and the like seem to be the source of more power than we can weild... it'd be no surprise if such things were the basis for such worship." He said, shrugging. "But I just can't bring myself to worship some unseen force... it would almost make more sense to me to worship Kogasha than the Light... despite what's happened to Kiyori." The man stared off briefly, a somber look crossing his eyes as he thought about the woman. "I worry about her." he admitted. "We don't know what all side effects it will all have... and she acts like its some great blessing rather than looking into it." It was clear he worried about Kiyori, and not just as a friend either. The man cared deeply about her.