Toya sat on his porch watching the desert sand swirl along with the wind that was the namesake of his country. It was always funny to him how little attachment he felt towards any of it. The sand, the people, and even his parents. His life was a constant blank slate, much like a freshly cut piece of paper. Many times, he’d wonder what the point of it all was. Studying the political structure of his culture made the boy irritable. Not for any virtuous purpose, of course. The boy had no desire to bring positive change into the world because he viewed its inhabitants as inherently flawed. Obviously, he did not exclude himself from this misanthropic worldview. Toya himself saw himself as flawed. Toya dedicated almost every waking hour of his life to obsessing over these faults and how to overcome them. Yet his age and social standing bore their own weight in complicating this process. Toya became a genin and the liberty he thought he’d feel still eluded him, for there was something missing. Deep down, he knew his own ugly truth, yet the implications were dire. The boy wanted another ‘incident’, but how would he go about it? He couldn’t bear another embarrassing encounter with his parents seeing him in the real. The blood and the violence surrounding their son was so much of a shock that they never talked about it. Bringing it up was the same as bringing up a bad dream. There was no place for a murderous son in their perfect world. Toya respected this cognitive dissonance. Being complacent with their fantasy was the least he could do, of course, since they birthed him and cared for him. The young genin viewed it as a professional courtesy in a way. They got to live their lives thinking they were the parents of a perfect little boy and Toya would just have to get creative to be his true self. He needed the blood. He’d dream about it. Sand blew into his eyes, breaking his moment of reflection.
Sunagakure was an old village with history dating back to the very ruins that sank in the timeless sand. Deep in its walls were those that abused the leaks and cracks that plagued any civilization. Criminals that attempted to make a living against the shinobi forces that suppressed them. Toya had made several considerations on potential victims such as vagabonds, but that seemed easy and pathetic, a waste of everyone’s time. Lurking on helpless women also felt beneath him because of the actions of the perverted. The elderly also sparked the same feeling of indifference that vagabonds mustered inside of him. Without mentioning further variables that tired him, this left Toya with one morally sound in his view, option. The criminals of sunagakure. Yet several questions came about. How would he go about it? Where would he find these individuals and would it hurt his position within the military? The missions they gave genin were pathetic and while he would fulfill them, he needed something other than menial labor. Regardless, the boy would need to plan.
Somewhere within his pile of books was an old autobiography of a forgotten war general. If Toya understood correctly, his first step into ‘war’ would be to comprehend his enemy. Sounded simple enough. Stage one of his little clandestine operation would be to survey the lands from a perspective once foreign to him. Taking a step outside of his home, Toya observed those passing by with his ghastly gaze. Pale skin and hair made him stand out in the hottest village in the shinobi world. Some looked back briefly, as if to make sure what they saw was real or if they were seeing a ghost. The boy enjoyed his effect on people before getting to know ‘him’. ‘Him’ meaning whatever version of himself made those around him comfortable. Toya the bold, Toya the clown, Toya the genius, Toya the wicked. None of it mattered to him in the end. The titles were a representation of the abstraction people conjured up of himself. One individual caught his attention. A shady looking individual keeping his eyes to the ground, unkept demeanor and a certain ‘je ne sais quoi’ that Toya could only attribute as his intuition speaking. He would follow the man. This would prove difficult for Toya was as said before, the child was pale as a ghost. With this in mind, he performed a transformation jutsu, which altered his appearance to someone of his choosing. Now, who would he choose? His father, a well built, white-haired male with typical sunagakure complexion and a constant chuunin attire or a random unassuming homeless man that never seemed to die in the extreme heat? Toya could not imagine how deep of an impact his decision would have on his future life within his village walls.
Disguised as the suna hobo, Toya would make his way through the nooks and crannies of the bustling sunagakure streets. An infinite amount of people are all trying to either sell something or go somewhere. At one moment, the boy found a man entertaining a crowd with some neat flute trick that would make a snake dance. At another moment, puppet masters displaying their craft for the civilians that one day would have their lives defended by it. It was also under this guise that Toya discovered something interesting about society. They cared not for the homeless. It seemed obvious when considering it from an outside perspective, but an entirely different affair when within. Never in his life had he felt so invisible as he did now. People who approached him either looked away or feigned his presence, and he wasn’t even begging! This would become his go to inner village disguise surely, yet it made him wonder how anyone could live in such a limbo state. Both within and without. It was worth note that children, however, made note of Toya, which vexed him greatly. His existence continued otherwise mute. This was the beginning of his descent into the world of the roofless. Hiding in plain sight at first, but their value would become much greater once they showed their true potential.
His chase led him to a flat wall at the end of an alleyway. The man he had been pursuing vanished. His slender fingers caressed the dry sandstone walls for any crevice. There was no sign of a sudden shift in dust either. Everything was as still and idle.“Of course. Of course.” Toya whined alone in the shadows of the desert alley. He considered himself silly for believing it would all be so simple. “Always a child.” He muttered to himself before turning back into his normal appearance. Unbeknownst to himself eyes were watching in the dark and they’d make a note to remember the ghost snooping around their business.
At night, alone in his room, Toya rolled a small origami shuriken within his knuckles while lying on his bed. A window with a dull second story view of the village let in the cool suna night air. The room, plain and filled with an array of books, neatly organized stacks of paper and long forgotten children’s toys, was lit by a single candle. It’s organic light pulsing like a beating heart. His mind worked better in the dim lighting and his lamp was almost decoration at that point. Toya rarely kept his origami work around, so ironically enough, the room was void of them, excluding the trash bin. Seeing old work made him feel stagnated which was the mood he found himself swept up in. Stagnation and hunger. Morbid thoughts raced through his mind while his exterior seemed calm and collected, but for how long? When would it all come tumbling down in a display of blood and chaos? Toya needed the taste of sweet liberation, yet he knew it would not come soon. Finding the right targets would be cumbersome and his own skill was lacking. A simple thief shouldn’t have been able to disappear from a trained shinobi. What was the point of all that training if he would allow himself to be bested by a perverse civilian? These thoughts were weakness, and he’d cull them immediately.
He’d have about enough of the futile thoughts. Throwing the paper shuriken directly into the trash bin, Toya grinned and muttered a proud, “nice”. He was still a child, after all. Jumping off his bed and entering a meditative position on the floor, Toya would prepare. His condition was not novel, and he made well to research into it. Kokoro, his mother, assumed the books on psychiatry and biographies of the psychotic were for his own curiosity and philosophy. She would be terrified if she discovered the books were self serving in nature. They were manuals on how to compose himself in times similar to the one he found himself in. The solutions they proposed were never specific and multilateral. Self-mutilation, abstinence from wordly pleasures, psychedelics, mediation were but a few of the methods Toya found for easing his mind. He preferred mediation, personally, as it seemed to fortify his mind with each long dive into his own psyche. He discovered that the stronger his own mind became, the stronger his genjutsu became in direct parallel. To become a master of the mental domain of others, he would have to master his own. This wouldn’t be so obvious to him then, but merely a hunch, seeing as his skills were still very rudimentary.
With his mediation position set, Toya closed his eyes and forced his mind to become quiet. At night, the only sound to interrupt him were the street dogs barking and the wind blowing. In the first 5 minutes, Toya focused on his breathing, where his thoughts might attempt to dissuade him. This would become more difficult as time went on and the thoughts became more pronounced. He’d have to acknowledge them and let them go, yet when there is nothing but darkness to entertain, visions from the mind are difficult to let go. At that point, Toya was no longer a novice at the exercise, however, and could let go with relative ease. His difficulty lied at around an hour and a half when the immersion into his conscious was almost completely underway. He would see himself in a field as white as snow, although the boy had only ever read about snow. It was as if the colors of the world had bleached away. Toya sat in the field alone, observing his hands. In this world, things were difficult to describe, and it interested him a great deal. Looking at his fingers never felt natural, and counting them was impossible. Thoughts were loud and abrasive, causing the world to shake. This was but another layer in his meditation that needed to be passed and proved to be much more challenging. In this layer, all of his desires seemed to be nullified and the desire to kill, torture and cover himself in it all vanished. Everything became so clear to him at that moment.
Toya had devised a method of knowing when to leave this state which revolved around his candle going out. The field would turn to night and he’d realize the room had gone completely dark. Yet just as night arrived, a cold sensation crawled up Toya's spine. This was the first time the boy ever felt such a thing while in a trance. What is this? His thoughts permeated through the field like a powerful gust of wind. Toya would not receive an answer and instead his world would come to life with humanoid origami beings emerging from the fields. Their posture was primitive and their gazes unfocused. What in the world? This thought would have a much different effect on the world. For now, the beings would all twitch their faceless heads towards him in unison. He raised his brow at this sudden change in mood before the whispers began. They spoke of things that shook him to his core, dark secrets that even his own warped mind was not prepared to handle. Toya wanted it to stop, but he couldn’t leave. Something was terribly wrong. After what seemed like an eternity exposed to the secrets of his mind, the whispers stopped. Everything stopped. Toya could only watch as something approached from the far distance of his psyche in what could only surmount to never-ending and still it was as if it had always been there. A colossal monstrosity so profound that it made Toya weep in awe. At that moment of pure terror, Toya awoke. He was on the floor of his room, surrounded by drawings of dark spirals and faceless beings. When had he done any of it? He hadn’t fallen asleep in a trance since his first attempts at meditation. The details of the end were hazy and he couldn’t quite make out most of it. A knock at his door startled the boy, who quickly gathered the drawings and hid them in his desk drawer. His mother was calling him for breakfast.
Home was a concept that Toya observed with rigor. The variability within household dynamics intrigued him to no end. Sometimes he saw firsthand the different dynamics, and all showed him the intrinsic chaos of nature. The rough household mold was there to serve only as a reference point. Regarding his own home, Toya viewed it as his starting point in life. It was lower middle class, in a relatively stable neighbourhood and with little internal feud. His parents would bicker over mundane things such as food or maybe a mission that they considered too dangerous for one another. They were, in every regard, disappointing to have for parents, but they gave him something which he learned to appreciate. Stability. There were no clan feuds for him to worry about, no kidnapping attempts to keep him up at night, nor the envy, greed and desire which come from owning a rare bloodline. He was a simple boy living a simple life surrounded by simple parents and with his own simple desires. His father was cutting into a pair of fried eggs before asking, “so how’s the genin life treating ya, kid?” He asked just before stuffing his mouth with eggs he considered far too oily and well done, but saying so to Kokoro would only start a fight. Toya pondered on the question for a brief second, which was a habit of his. Answering too quickly gave way for mistakes, although it made his father think the boy might be slow. “I’m having trouble with my taijutsu. I just don’t seem cut out for it.” The boy innocently responded while twirling his eggs around on his plate. “Well, you gotta start eating like a real shinobi, otherwise you’re gonna be skinny forever! Gotta eat to get big and strong like your old man. I’ll teach you a thing or two later, ok?” His father teased in his blissful innocence. Kokoro looked worried suddenly at her small little boy. It was true, Toya was much smaller and frailer when compared to his peers, but what he lacked in bone structure he made up for in other ways. “I’m sure you’ll hit a growth spurt soon, honey. Now eat up.” His mother added with all the warmth and love a mother could muster. This entire conversation made the boy sick in reality. Violent images of himself assaulting both of them over breakfast flashed in his mind and he made a note to control these lapses in rationale. It would seem the meditation session from last night hadn’t gone the way he planned, but he still gave them both a nice, buffoonish little smile. “Of course pop I wanna grow up and be a shinobi just like you!” And he ate every bite.
Back on the streets os sunagakure, Toya wandered in his homeless disguise watching society from outside its veil. The boy would wonder about the fate of the man whose appearance he’d hijacked. Was there a story behind the rags? Just who was the pathetic mess that he’d claimed as his own? In his wandering, the young genin came about a community of homeless. They gathered around an area where the sun wasn’t as harsh and shade was available for all. A small oasis of sandstone for the damned in the ruins of an old pagan temple. Only the structure remained. It lost anything else that might have given it a holy significance from the constant wind battering. Some of the homeless spoke incoherently or stared out into nothing. A few could hold, or at least wanted to hold, conversation. Talking to these unique few, Toya realized how many there were within sunagakure and how far some of them had traveled. An invisible network of eyes and ears right under the village’s nose. He found it curious how some were homeless of their own volition and lived by their laws and rules. One curious individual who went by the name of ‘dirty harry’ told Toya of wondrous lands only he had seen. A kirigakure native who got lost at sea and washed up on the shores of what he called the land of the gods. The wildest bit of the story was the fact that no one there seemed to possess chakra or understand it as a concept. They lived without jutsu or ninja. Dirty Harry didn’t seem to care much about this and insisted on talking about the women who walked around nude. When asked why he left, the man simply smiled. Toya didn’t pry them too much when certain questions didn’t get answered. Some were too unstable and were prone to irrational behavior when irritated. Even with this chaotic element, the boy thoroughly enjoyed the company of these mad men and women. Not mad in his sense, but mad for daring to live their lives the way they wanted. Obviously, some didn’t choose this lifestyle and Toya felt no pity for them. Feeling pity for someone was, in his view, worse than striking them in the face. It was seeing oneself as superior because of circumstances that were transient. Soon enough, the night chill ushered in the night. This enjoyment would not distract the boy from his true purpose. His personal questions would soon evolve into the more sinister topics. Comings and goings on certain individuals. The night life that Toya could not partake in because of his age and bedtime schedule. And finally, who supplied the weaker of the homeless with the vices that kept them on the streets in a vegetable like state? It had been a somewhat successful evening for the young Toya.
On his way home, the boy found himself in a conundrum. Pursuing these individuals would be impossible during the day. They hid from the sunlight and stalked the nights like cockroaches. The solution seemed simple: leave his room at night and go on a hunt, but the price of being discovered was potentially steep. The ‘incident’ surely would come up once again. Maintaining a clone in bed for extended periods of time and at a distance wouldn’t work out in his favor. “One step forward, two steps back.” He mumbled to himself just before finding himself surrounded by a group of men. One of them included the stranger from the day before. Toya lifted his arms up and exclaimed, “stranger danger!” This made one man chuckle and the one from earlier scowl. “This is the assassin that you were talkin’ about, eh?” the jolly man asked his scowling friend. “M-momma!” Toya shouted, keeping his arms up in a panicked manner. “I swear I seen em use one o’ them jutsu followin’ me,” the angrier man defended. Putting his hands down, Toya watched the men bicker in silence. At any moment, he could either elude them with a smoke bomb or trick them with genjutsu. This moment was of vital importance to him. Instead of only having 1 lead, he had 4 to keep an eye out for. “Well, I’m not beating up some little twerp.” The jolly man replied, trying to make sense of the situation. “Although if he can turn into a hobo, he can turn into a kid, right? I dunno anything about this ninja crap!” The men bickered until finally agreeing to put the scare on the kid. Grabbing hold of Toya, the men took him by force to their hideout.
The hideout was pathetic. They covered his eyes with rags in order to prevent him from knowing how to return, but the boy was a trained shinobi. Toya could count footsteps, take mental notes of the sounds leading up to the hideout, mark scents, memorize terrain, etc. For the moment, that did not matter. Toya was sizing up the illegal enterprise and was profoundly let down by his first target. The four men were in a dusty, abandoned distillery. Lying about were small quantities of what Toya assumed to be narcotics. He was not well versed in the matter and could only guess what their purpose was. Part of Toya wanted to believe this was a fake hideout meant to fool him, but their demeanor wasn’t doing them any favor. They set him up in a chair and tied his arms to the back of it with the poorest knot he’d ever witnessed. These men truly did not know what they were doing. On the inside, Toya was as still as the abandoned distillery, crumbling beneath the sand and dust. On the outside, Toya shook with trembled lips and watery eyes. “I-I swear. I was just lost, that’s all! Just let me go home!” His wrists and legs tensed against the poorly tied knots. Jeff, the jolly bandit that sympathized with Toya, tied them. Den, the bandit Toya, followed, seemed to be a plain leader. The other two seemed practically mute and Toya could only assume their only use was muscle. Jeff looked down at Toya with something that resembled pity or even compassion. It was clear this entire ordeal wasn’t massaging any sadistic tendencies the man might have. Den, on the other hand, saw Toya performing jutsu and wanted blood. Nothing would convince him otherwise that Toya was spying on them for either the kazekage or rival gangs. “Shut your mouth!” Den spat before backhanding Toya in the face. The slap quickly left a glowing red mark on the boy’s pale complexion. Toya could feel the metallic twang of blood. Something suddenly overwhelmed his calm interior with adrenaline. This was the rush he was looking for! Surely a pathetic play mostly, but it excited him no less. “Hey, hey take it easy, big guy. It’s just a kid. C’mon, you never act so tough in front of Django and his boys.” Jeff reprimanded with his arms crossed. This caused the ire in Den to swell, and Toya expected to be struck again. “I saw him using jutsu. He did the hand things those freaks do. He probably works for Django, that ninja cuck! You know he works with ninja rejects. We need to make an example out of this brat!” Den made his case before kicking Toya’s chair over. His head hit the dry sandstone ground and his conscious faded.
Toya’s eyes opened, but they were no longer in the real. He’d awaken in a field like the one from his trance states, bleached of all life and color. “Did I die?” Toya asked himself, looking at his hands. Unlike before, he could see them clearly without the confusion. It was as if his mind was completely immersed in that world without his foothold in the real. He could also speak in this realm, which he found curious. The thought of dying at the hands of those fools put him in a foul mood, but there was no use crying over spilled milk, so he would walk. In his stroll, Toya would come across manifestations of structures, people and miscellaneous things he’d seen in his life. All bleached from their natural colors as well. The world seemed endless, and the visions were without purpose. That was, until he spotted something out in the distance. Toya quickly ran to it as the curios in question was bright red in complete contrast to the world in its entirety. The closer he got, the harder his heart pounded. The initial calm of death had waned and panic was slowly but surely setting in at the thought of spending eternity in his own personal limbo. A red rose sat alone in a glass case, practically waiting for him. Sitting down with his legs crossed against the bleached grass, Toya picked up the glass case and observed the rose. There was nothing particularly special about it other than the context he found it in. Another curious note was the fact that he could not open it or break the glass. Midway through his attempts to uncover the secrets of the rose, time stopped. Toya could not move much like before. The land turned red, matching the rose, and the humanoid origami beings would emerge from the void once more. It was coming again. Toya could not bear the sight of that atrocious monster once more. A thought came to mind. Performing kai had the intended effect of removing the effects of genjutsu on the mind and essentially ‘resetting’ the performer’s chakra flow. Perhaps it could release Toya from his own hell before meeting with the thing that lurked in his psyche. The moment Toya began focusing, the whispers began. The strain to keep them out of his head was tremendous and made kai 10 times more difficult than it normally should be. If the whispers stopped and he was still there, Toya knew he’d been too late. Suddenly, the glass case broke, and the world dissolved around him. Far away in its slow approach, Toya could see it. Toya had won his first test of will against the shikigami that inhabited his mind.
Toya awoke on his feet. His vision was blurry for a moment as his brain tried putting together the information it was receiving. In his right hand was a bloody kunai and at his feet was the slumped, lifeless body of Jeff. Someone had torn apart his throat and his intestines slid from within the heat of his body. “Wh-What?” Toya blinked in confusion, taking a step back from the slaughter. He tripped on the body of one of the silent men and fell into a pool of blood, further smearing himself in the red. Toya quickly got back up with the kunai still in hand, expecting something or someone to attack him. A muffled cry made his head twist. Someone also tied the bandit Den to a chair with the same rag used to blind Toya stuffed in his mouth. Stuck to his forehead was an explosive tag. Toya walked over to him cautiously, wondering about the other bandit, which was absent from the bloodbath. “Hey, Den.” Toya spoke gently with his childish prose. “Looks like I kinda lost it there, didn’t I? This was me, right? I can’t seem to remember.” He continued before realizing that the man could not answer with his mouth full. Toya would pull the rag and expect a reply. “Get away from me, you freak!” And with that, the rag went back in. The distillery was abandoned, but shouting would surely attract the nosey. “Den, buddy, you’re killing me. I need you to calm down, OK? Be an adult right now. There’s a powerful explosive strapped to you head and I would love to make it go ‘boom’ for that slap earlier, but I’m a ‘turn the other cheek’ kind of kid. Now I need you to shake your head up for yes and down for no, ok? Otherwise...” Toya aimed his bloody kunai over to the dead bandits. “Ok?” He asked with a warm smile. The bandit Den nodded frantically. “Did I do this?” Den would nod up. “Is the other guy alive?” Den would nod up. “Do you know where he is?” Den would nod down with hesitation. “Tsk, tsk, tsk. Den, buddy. What are we doing here? If you want to die, just tell me already!” Den did not nod in any direction and this irritated Toya, whose gentile demeanor quickly changed to fit his dark circles and bloody exterior. “I’m going to take the rag out of your mouth and if you scream, I will make you fall so deeply within your own mind that you’ll live the rest of your life observing the world as a drooling vegetable. Do you understand, pig?” Toya asked, sticking his kunai beneath Den’s chin. The bandit would nod up and Toya’s smile came back.
A child kicked a small, worn out ball around with his dog. Everything was normal until an explosion caused the sand from the buildings to shift. The child ran towards the source through a complex network of allies memorized from so many chases through them with friends. On his way to what he assumed to be the source, a homeless man would place a hand on his chest and keep him from going forward. This homeless man would keep going in the opposite direction regardless of if the body took his warning to heart. For at the source of the commotion would be the bodies of 3 small times bandits. Toya would use his homeless guise until he reached his home. His clothes would have to burn to avoid questions from his parents. He’d have to lie low for a while as well from that specific area of suna. One man had escaped, which might develop into a much more serious problem. Killing them also granted no release or satisfaction. The whole thing was a complete disaster in his mind. The only good that came out of it was the information he got out of Den, but the problems that might arise from the episode were already giving him migraines.
Word count: 5,017
Shikigami's Ascension [CLOSED]
Stat training and lonely development for Toya Takahashi
Shikigami's Ascension [CLOSED]
Last edited by TheVibe on Thu Jun 02, 2022 12:50 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Shikigami's Acension [CLOSED]
“What is this?” Toya asked, looking down at a bowl of suspicious goop. He had sat together with his new homeless friends in his disguise within the ancient temple walls. Their company was warmer than most. Ever since his new incident at the distillery, he’d kept to himself and the vagrants that lived within the temple. On that particular day, he would eat with them for the first time. The fact that he didn’t need the food didn’t gnaw at him. Denying the food would blow his cover, but good lord, what a test it was turning out to be. Dirty Harry had been chef that evening, “Scarab soup. It’s my secret recipe.” He explained with pride. “Did the islanders teach it to you?” Toya asked, while watching the goop drip from his spoon. Bits and pieces of what he assumed to be the scarabs made it even less appealing. “Oh no, lad. Got this one from me, noggin.” Harry replied, pointing at his head. Toya internally sighed and dug in. To his surprise, it wasn’t half bad. Another pleasant wonder from his roofless friends. “Compliments to the chef.” Toya commended before his eyes caught some new vagrants joining the temple. Most days, the faces were the same, but now and then new characters arrived from the harsh desert. There were no formal rules to explain to newcomers. Respect was a given and people mingled if they wanted to. The newcomers, a woman and a child, set their belongings up in a corner and talked to each other in hushed tones. The girl in question had an eerie aura about her. Toya couldn’t quite explain it. Maybe the fact that she was so young and had nothing made her jaded. Her eyes also reminded him of his own. It was as if the girl was both within and without like himself. “Quit starin’, Joe. You’re gonna scare ‘em off.” Harry reprimanded. Dirty Harry and the others knew Toya as ‘Joe’. No one knew the actual homeless man he was impersonating. One day, the man would walk in and Toya would have to think quickly. His Plan B at that moment revolved around being a long-lost twin. Regardless, he quit his staring and went back to his scarab soup.
At night, alone in his room, Toya found himself lost in thought as usual, but the thoughts that plagued him this time were different. For the first time in his life, Toya was thinking about a girl. A generic boyish pastime that he’d never experienced prior. His allure with women had gone mute, mostly. Boys his age were already in love or fawning over girls that hated them. Girls from the academy would also fawn over Toya, but he never found a reason to care. Toya had only seen her face. Robes, like the guardian, concealed her body and head. Almost like they were hiding from something. “Goodnight, sweety.” His mom called from behind the door. “Night, mom.” He replied before making a conscious effort to change his thought pattern. Homeless girl notwithstanding, he had a serious situation at hand. Some thug was going around the village talking about some crazy ninja kid killing his thug compatriots. Maybe he would keep his mouth shut from then on and the rumor ended there. That maybe kept the boy awake. It would have to be dealt with in haste before someone with more firepower targeted him on the streets. Since he killed 3 men, there was no way he could use authorities to help him. That sense of life being forfeited was exhilarating. “What to do, what to do?” Toya asked himself while staring out his window. A beautiful moon lit up the desert sky. It reminded him of the girl.
Toya was becoming irritated at his lack of focus, which meant it was meditation time. Last time things had ended up poorly and the drawings he’d produced in trance were still in his drawer awaiting inspection. It was pathetic, but the boy feared the thought of them. Not only did they expose something horrifying inside of himself, but they were proof that Toya was not in full control of his actions. He never planned to kill those men that way. It was sloppy and savage. Toya wanted things done neatly without leaving evidence behind. Getting into position, he closed his eyes and quieted his mind, allowing the ethereal stream of consciousness to take him away to what he would call, “Elysium”. Once there, he realized his newly gained mobility and voice hadn’t gone away. There was no incentive in doing so, however. It was another layer he needed to break to reach the depths of his mind. While Toya kept them shut, he heard steps crunching the bleached grass. His eyes immediately shot open, expecting the humanoid origami beings again. To his amazement, it was the child from earlier beneath a white dress. In Elysium, her hair was long, white like his own and blew in the wind that had seemingly no source. Her dead eyes watched Toya and swallowed the young boy up in feelings he couldn’t grasp. Toya couldn’t make out the color of her eyes and any attempt to focus on them bore the same results as when he tried focusing on his hands. “It’s coming.” The girl whispered. Her voice sent chills down Toya’s spine, but it was a distinct chill. Before, when the origami demons would whisper to him, Toya felt fear. The girl’s voice made him feel confused and nervous. “Who?” He asked, causing a massive burst of wind to blow in her direction. The child’s hair turned into an absolute mess. “You should control your emotions. It watches you.” She stated before looking up as if remembering something. Toya was getting upset. The girl was ruining his meditation and was ignoring his question. “Could you leave?” He asked, closing his eyes to return to his meditation. “I’m quite busy, as you can see. You’re not real. Just a silly manifestation of some boyish impulse of mine.” His words were harsh and in a rare moment of guilt, the boy worried about what he had said regarding someone’s feelings. Biting his lip in frustration, he opened his right eyelid to see if the girl was still there and she was, in fact, gone. A new feeling made itself apparent to Toya. Being alone never bothered him and now there he was, stuck in his own Elysium, with that sinking feeling of solace in his chest. After about 3 hours, the young genin opened his eyes back in the real and sighed. Sleep would not come quickly.
During breakfast, Toya observed his parents as usual. His father eating buttered toast while his mom read the daily news. Kokoro cleaned off some butter off of her husband’s cheek and his father would look at Kokoro longingly when she wasn’t paying attention. Instead of obsessing over their social dynamic, the boy wondered what glued them together. Toya didn’t accept the theory that he was the de facto ‘glue’ in their relationship. He knew children of divorce, which meant his parents truly felt a strong connection with each other. Toya desperately wanted to know what the glue was, and he was going to get answers. “Dad, why do you love, mom?” Toya asked bluntly, without coating his question with an ounce of social levity. In the morning, he could be his true self under the guise of being sleepy. His father froze in place at the question. Toast hung from his lips while his brain tried to understand what was happening. Kokoro looked surprised and was eager to know the answer rather than understanding why her son asked for something so personal out of the blue. “Uh. Well. I guess if I think about it... I love mom, because...” Toya was already regretting the question. His father was taking too long and he could see the beginnings of a potential argument bubbling within his mother, who apparently expected a quicker answer. “Think of it like this. We live in this thing, this spinning rock in the middle of nothing moving through infinity at speeds we can’t even comprehend. Our size is miniscule and our time within that infinity is basically a blip. Basically Meaningless and void of reason. Life on its own is nothing, Toya.” Toya’s father left the kid with his mouth open in shock. Kokoro was on the verge of tears, assuming that was it, but the man wasn’t done. “Knowing all this, Toya, the statistical irrelevance of human existence, I was lucky enough to be born at the same time as your mother. In the infinite stream of time I was born during the same millisecond of existence as someone that I cannot fathom existing without. I love her because she gives my life meaning. She gave me you. Without her, I’d be alone on this spinning rock hurling through space, but by some crazy chance I get to spend this ‘blip’ with her.” Toya’s dad went back to eating his toast like nothing happened, but found himself being strangled by Kokoro in a tight hug. Her crying was annoying Toya. The answer was confusing, but the boy grasped the basic concept. Reality is inherently meaningless, which means he found someone that gives meaning to the absurdity. Instead of feeling existential dread over his brief existence, they got to share the brief moment in time like a nice apple pie. “Ok, thanks dad.” Toya said before getting up from the table. It was time for him to go about his day.
--
At the temple, Toya enjoyed conversations with the vagrants as usual. On that particular day, a woman explained how she wound up that way by offending a Daimyo. On this inside, this inflamed Toya, but the woman didn’t seem to mind anymore. It just seemed absurd to him how the elite could just dismantle someone’s life. What was the point of it all? “Don’t you wish you could get revenge somehow?” Toya asked, looking into the woman’s eyes. She scribbled something in the sand with a stick while contemplating a response. “I just wish people would see me again. Y’know? In my old life, people saw me. I’m not unhappy now, but I just wish… I just wish they saw us.” Her answer put everyone in the circle in a solemn mood. That was, of course, until Dirty Harry showed up with a bag full of goodies like a homeless santa. From the bag, he pulled out items that were in seemingly perfect condition and handed them around for everyone. “You didn’t steal all of this, did you, Harry?” One vagrant asked, observing her present with doubt. The man grinned. “I’m no thief. They were in a dump near a high end residential area. I swear!” His answer persuaded the group while Toya looked at his present. A necklace with a nameless dog tag on it.
Toya’s mind wandered back to what his father said earlier and his head instinctively turned to the woman and the child she kept close at all times. Dirty Harry noticed and nudged Toya. “They haven’t talked to anyone yet. Think they’re runnin’ from someone. Happens all the time. You hate to see it. Kids need a home.” Dirty Harry spoke with a sadness in his eyes uncommon to him. “I’ll go talk to them.” Toya suggested and left without waiting for Harry’s opinion. Befriending those people was easy when you had a home with food available at all times. In his pockets were lollipops he brought along in an attempt to make the two open up. “Hey there. My name’s Joe, uh. Here.” He rustled his pockets for a moment and offered the two his candy. The guardian looked at them with distrust and the girl had no readable reaction to the offer. “Uh... Sorry.” He mumbled, before turning around and walking away in embarrassment. Dirty Harry was grinning, missing teeth and all, at the boy’s failed attempt at welcoming. “Don’t worry. When their food runs out, they’ll get friendlier. Trust me.” He spoke before turning his attention back to the circle of conversation going on about recent events within sunagakure. Apparently, a restaurant was giving out free food if you beat some big man in a hand wrestle. Toya was there, so the conversion didn’t interest him in the least. Another news grape on the invisible vagrant vine was the death of some no name thugs in an abandoned distillery. The theory in the air was a gang feud, but they left the drugs in the hideout with the dead bodies. Why would thugs go through the trouble of doing something like that and leaving products behind? “Maybe it was a shitty product.” Toya conjectured soberly, making those in the circle pause for reflection. On his way out, Toya noticed the girl watching him. Dirty Harry wondered why ‘Joe’ never slept at the temple. His excuse for not sleeping there was that he didn’t feel comfortable sleeping surrounded by people. Dirty Harry laughed at that notion. “Homeless man enjoys his privacy, eh? See ya tomorrow, mate.” As he left the temple, he couldn’t help but feel like he had failed at something.
From his conversations at the temple, Toya could piece together bits and pieces of information from the circulating rumors. The surviving thug was holed up in a drug den, getting high off of his mind to forget about the events. Toya knew the exact location of the drug den, but simply walking in there seemed like a recipe for disaster. The genin, however, was in a sour mood. Failing a social interaction was infuriating. He could attribute failing to his homeless persona, but it still irked him. Upon reaching his house’s doorstep, the boy reflected. The day could end and his potential lead on the thug could disappear forever or he could get it over with. “Tsk.” Toya turned around to finish his business. Taking on his vagrant persona once more. The genin headed towards the part of suna, invisible in the fading light of day, that housed drug addicts and the thug he looked for. That place, in particular, was underground. An abandoned war bunker refitted at one point to look interesting and alternative, but the decay of vice turned it all into a faded idea of interior design. A slightly higher functioning junkie that was lucid enough to bounce people coming in and out guarded the entrance. Upon seeing Toya as a vagabond, the junkie bouncer tilted his head towards the inside as if to signal he could enter. Once inside, Toya witnessed with the slumped bodies of several men and women. They weren’t on anything too heavy and could acknowledge Toya’s entrance. Things would get darker the deeper he went into the bunker. Vestiges of the past ripped, stained and faded littered the floors and walls. Ages ago, the bunker was a means of protection against an enemy, later it became a source of entertainment and now it was a hole of depravity consuming everything that it used to be. The darkness was not only onset by the poor lighting, but the gradual change in drugs being consumed. Tied arms pulsed, attached to an ascending body. Needles, cigarette buds, pipes and ash were the main decoration at one point. Someone grabbed his leg. Looking down, Toya peered into the dimly lit eyes of a young woman probably 6-7 years older than him. Their actions were foreign to him and how they would end up in such a place was a temporary mystery to the young boy. All these doubts would become clear to him one day as life opened itself up to him. Finally, in one of the many rooms of the last level of the bunker, Toya found the man. When he met the thug, the man looked different, disciplined, silent, and ready to do whatever Den or Jeff ordered. Now he resembled a shell. Toya approached him slowly and kneeled down to lift his right hand. There was a slight pulse present. Slowly, the man’s eyes would come to life and he’d let out a deep groan. “The shikigami is coming. Can’t let it find me.” The thug spoke with slurred words and winced in pain, symptom of a peaked high. Toya could kill him right there and then silently and no one would know or care until the body started to rot. There was no rush at all. Satisfaction once again elduded him. Killing that man would mean nothing to Toya. “Shikigami?” Toya mumbled to himself as he thought about that name and its significance. Suddenly a violent flash of horrific imagery flashed in his mind. The entity from his Elysium plane gnawed at his mind like a parasite feeding on nutrients. Toya’s transformation technique became undone and the boy was in his normal form once more surrounded by depravity. As he squirmed on the ground in agony, grasping his head, the man he was searching for began to regain awareness. The panic set in immediately as he remembered who Toya was. The moment he began screaming Toya was out.
Toya was back in Elysium. “Oh, boy.” Toya knew he was in trouble if the last incident was any sign of what might happen next. None of his studies mentioned these lapses in conscious. It made him feel completely helpless to be held hostage to these episodes. “You’re going to kill them.” A voice echoed throughout the bleached world. It was the girl from before, but she was nowhere to be seen. “Why do you hide? This homeless man disguise only works if you know how to act the part.” She continued. The comment inflamed the boy, who was trying to comprehend an ounce of what was happening. “Show yourself! This is my mind and you have no place here! I do as I please!” He rebuked as the world trembled violently. A giggle pierced through the violence. “you’re taking too long. You’ve killed the entire lower level of the bunker, Toya”, she explained with a certainty that sent fear down the boy’s spine. How could she possibly know what he was doing while he was stuck in Elysium? “Focus, Toya. Come meet me tomorrow. As yourself.” And with that said, the voice was no longer there. Toya was alone in his limbo while his real self slaughtered a drug den. Looking down at his hands, Toya found them covered in blood with a kunai in each palm. The blur effect phased those factors in and out. “Focus, focus.” He told himself while attempting kai. Nothing was happening. Last time he’d gotten stuck in Elysium, there was a rose in a glass case. Its significance wasn’t completely clear to the boy and finding it last time took a long time. If he set out to search for it again, then the people of the den were doomed. “Focus, focus, focus.” His words were desperate and found no answer. Opening his eyes once more, Toya looked around his Elysium. A construct of his psyche. It was his and his alone to control, yet he was a prisoner to it. The facts didn’t add up. Feeling a sudden rage, the world around him shook. The ground split, revealing a white void beneath. “Not enough.” Toya said, observing the change. “NOT NEARLY ENOUGH!” Now he shouted, standing on his feet. His arms swayed in every direction, blowing a powerful stream of destruction in whichever direction they aimed at. “I AM RULER OF MY DOMAIN!” The world around him erupted until he finally slammed his fists into the ground, causing it all to burst. It suspended his body in the air, motionless as the world evaporated around him.
Suddenly, the air was musty again, and the smell of despair overwhelmed Toya. He stood over a dead body and his hands stained once again by the blood of the ‘innocent’. Toya immediately ran back to the room he was in before making sure the thug was dead. His body and the body of all those within the room had had their limbs decapitated. He had organized the limbs in some arbitrary fashion that bore no significance to Toya. His legs were shaking at the sight and he held in the desire to vomit. This wasn’t his will, so why had he done it? Toya turned himself back into the homeless man and made his way towards the exit. On his way out, Toya stopped at the door. His heart was racing. Everyone that wasn’t knocked out in that den had seen him. They would come to in a couple of hours and realize the disaster that had taken place. The junkie at the entrance was eyeing him up in confusion. Toya had a decision to make. Kill all the witnesses and go further down the rabbit hole of murder or risk allowing witnesses who saw him live and tell the tale. “You got a problem ma- “The junkie had begone to speak only to halt with a kunai in his throat. Toya stepped back inside the den snd sighed before shutting the door behind himself. He lifted his arms with the bloody kunais and announced, “I apologize for my sloppiness. Unfortunately, you will all pay for it.” And with that said, he executed all those within the den.
After killing all the junkies, Toya adjusted the scene to appear to have been a gang slaughter. He knew the name and symbols of a few gangs within sunagakure at that point. With blood, he marked the walls with some local gang symbols. He also peeled the face off of the thug he’d gone to execute to keep the body anonymous. The boy planned on using the appearance to leave the den. Those who saw the man leaving would pin it on him. Rumors were based on glances and things seen at a distance. Having finished everything up, Toya looked back one last time at the den and the dead junkies that were scattered lifelessly along the floor, together with the pipes and needles. Things could not go on like that. He left and didn’t look back. On his way home, Toya wondered what he’d tell his mom about being so late. That and the fact that he’d have to burn more clothes. If he kept it up, he’d be without a wardrobe in a week. Sneaking into his room, Toya got rid of his bloody clothes and washed himself clean of all the blood. While in the shower, Toya thought about the human limb artifice he had made in the underground bunker. What did it mean? What was the thug reciting madly when Toya arrived? Thinking about it made him quiver. The word “shikigami” brought back that same feeling of madness that overwhelmed and took away his free will. His next session with his therapist would be very interesting indeed.
Toya was getting ready for bed when a rock hitting his window startled him. Pulling out a kunai, Toya approached it slowly from the side and peaked out below. His eyes widened in shock. It was the girl from the temple. She’d followed him home. How much did she know? Did she follow him to the den as well? Would he kill her to keep her from speaking? What about her guardian? Toya controlled his panic and grit his teeth in determination. Opening his window, she greeted the boy with a pebble to the forehead. “Ow!” He couldn’t yell, so the groan came out hushed. “What’s the matter with you street, peasant? Go bother someone else!” He spat before getting hit in the head with another pebble. His pale skin was now glowing red in anger. “Stop it!” His anger was amusing to the girl who giggled at the boy from below. “You’re a terrible liar, Toya Takahashi.” She teased, getting ready to toss another pebble. Toya shut his window before she had the chance to do so and stealthily left his home. It was the middle of the night and his parents were sleeping like rocks. Toya shut the door behind him and quickly advanced on the girl with a kunai. The streets were empty seldom stray dogs, cats and some odd characters going about their night. The blade was dirty from the slaughter and stained the girl’s skin with the caked blood of junkies. When he looked into her eyes, it was almost like the girl welcomed the sweet release. She smiled, caressing Toya’s face. The boy became flustered and backed away. “Don’t do that.” He ordered, keeping his kunai aimed at her. His threatening posture did not dissuade, and she approached him again. The kunai slowly sank into the cloth of her cloak. “I dream of you. The real you. You’re much shorter than I expected.” Her words disarmed Toya and he could feel his grip on the kunai slipping. “You’re crazy!” His words were hushed in fear of his parents waking up. “I know you. There are certain gifts I have. I see things, Toya.” She walked around Toya slowly, sizing him up. “Joe. Toya. Shikigami. Your head is full of names for yourself, isn’t it?” She asked, putting her lips to his right ear, “I know you think of me when you’re alone.” Toya literally jumped at that. His face was as red as it could get. “You know nothing. Now leave!” He tried to maintain his posture, but his hands trembled and he was double gripping a kunai. “You want me to go? I don’t think you do, but that’s fine. Tomorrow, when you come to the temple and lie to those innocent people, bring me something. I don’t like lollipops. Goodbyeeee.” She bid her farewell and disappeared into the sunagakure night, leaving Toya behind in utter shock. A voice coming from his home woke him up. “You sly dog.” Toya’s father was leaning at the door with his arms crossed grinning. “Y’know for a moment there I thought you liked boys and, not that’s there’s anything wrong with that, I love you all the same, it’s just pretty cool seeing you with a little girlfriend.” Toya’s first thought was to kill his father, but the man was a chuunin arguably faster and more able than him. It was an impossibility at that present moment. Entering the girlfriend narrative was the safest bet. He would look over to his father and grin, “hehe.” Upon entering their home Toya would frown and asked, “you really thought I was gay, dad?” He asked looking up at his father. “Yeah I even bought some books on the whole thing. Let’s go to bed c’mon. Oh and don’t ever let your mother know about this. She would kill you and me both.” After saying goodnight, Toya was alone once again in his room. The conversation with the girl had left him sweating out of fear. His mind played back all the mistakes he made and how the girl would know any of it. She was just a homeless girl yet she knew some of the most intimate details about Toya. That night the boy did not sleep and instead immersed himself in meditation.
Corrupted data loading. Files restored to 85% integrity.
//The thug’s name was Bjorn. He’d known Den, Jeff, and Luke for most of his life. They were lowly bandits, sure, but they were making moves to make a name for themselves. The day they kidnapped the kid, everything was supposed to go smoothly. Beat up a kid, tell him to stop snooping around and deliver some drugs. Everything went terribly wrong, however. They knocked the boy out and thought they killed him. “Oh, shit.” Jeff exclaimed, grabbing a hold of his head with his hands in shock. “He’s fine, stop it.” Den said as he checked the boy’s pulse and breath. “See, he’s fine. I think we scared him enough. Let’s get rid of him. Throw him somewhere that’ll spook ‘em and let’s get this show on the road.” Den ordered, and Bjorn followed. That’s how things were. Thinking was hard, but acting was simple. He knelt down to untie the boy and, to his surprise, the knots were all undone. He didn’t think too much about it and untied the boy’s feet. The moment he did this, a strong flash of light lit up the room, blinding all 4 men. He could hear the men screaming in agony. Then something hit his head with so much force that it knocked him out cold. When his vision came back, the boy was tying up Den with a tag on his forehead. Luke was bleeding to death on the ground and someone had opened Jeff up like a pig. “Well, well, well.” Toya spoke in a pitch almost entirely foreign to his normal voice. “What am I going to do with you?” Bjorn felt fear. He feared a little boy, and that made him even more afraid. “Tell you what. You can go. Tell others what happened here. But use the right name. Shikigami did this. Now go before I change my mind.” Toya didn’t have to speak twice. Bjorn ran and didn’t look back. Later, he’d learn of the fate of his friends. Living after that was hard. He had saved up money for a home, but he spent it all on drugs and simply forget. He thought he was safe. Then the Shikigami came knocking once again. The boy was convulsing on the floor and he tried to escape. “Hello again.” That all too familiar voice greeted him just as he was about to leave the room. “You did well. For that you get to be sacrificed.” Toya removed limbs of all those within the room and piled them up in sacrifice. But it wasn’t enough he needed more. He’d rush to the other rooms and slaughter more for the sacrifice. What he was sacrificing for meant nothing. He just needed more bodies. Bjorn died crying and calling for his friends.// End of data.
Word count: 5,022
At night, alone in his room, Toya found himself lost in thought as usual, but the thoughts that plagued him this time were different. For the first time in his life, Toya was thinking about a girl. A generic boyish pastime that he’d never experienced prior. His allure with women had gone mute, mostly. Boys his age were already in love or fawning over girls that hated them. Girls from the academy would also fawn over Toya, but he never found a reason to care. Toya had only seen her face. Robes, like the guardian, concealed her body and head. Almost like they were hiding from something. “Goodnight, sweety.” His mom called from behind the door. “Night, mom.” He replied before making a conscious effort to change his thought pattern. Homeless girl notwithstanding, he had a serious situation at hand. Some thug was going around the village talking about some crazy ninja kid killing his thug compatriots. Maybe he would keep his mouth shut from then on and the rumor ended there. That maybe kept the boy awake. It would have to be dealt with in haste before someone with more firepower targeted him on the streets. Since he killed 3 men, there was no way he could use authorities to help him. That sense of life being forfeited was exhilarating. “What to do, what to do?” Toya asked himself while staring out his window. A beautiful moon lit up the desert sky. It reminded him of the girl.
Toya was becoming irritated at his lack of focus, which meant it was meditation time. Last time things had ended up poorly and the drawings he’d produced in trance were still in his drawer awaiting inspection. It was pathetic, but the boy feared the thought of them. Not only did they expose something horrifying inside of himself, but they were proof that Toya was not in full control of his actions. He never planned to kill those men that way. It was sloppy and savage. Toya wanted things done neatly without leaving evidence behind. Getting into position, he closed his eyes and quieted his mind, allowing the ethereal stream of consciousness to take him away to what he would call, “Elysium”. Once there, he realized his newly gained mobility and voice hadn’t gone away. There was no incentive in doing so, however. It was another layer he needed to break to reach the depths of his mind. While Toya kept them shut, he heard steps crunching the bleached grass. His eyes immediately shot open, expecting the humanoid origami beings again. To his amazement, it was the child from earlier beneath a white dress. In Elysium, her hair was long, white like his own and blew in the wind that had seemingly no source. Her dead eyes watched Toya and swallowed the young boy up in feelings he couldn’t grasp. Toya couldn’t make out the color of her eyes and any attempt to focus on them bore the same results as when he tried focusing on his hands. “It’s coming.” The girl whispered. Her voice sent chills down Toya’s spine, but it was a distinct chill. Before, when the origami demons would whisper to him, Toya felt fear. The girl’s voice made him feel confused and nervous. “Who?” He asked, causing a massive burst of wind to blow in her direction. The child’s hair turned into an absolute mess. “You should control your emotions. It watches you.” She stated before looking up as if remembering something. Toya was getting upset. The girl was ruining his meditation and was ignoring his question. “Could you leave?” He asked, closing his eyes to return to his meditation. “I’m quite busy, as you can see. You’re not real. Just a silly manifestation of some boyish impulse of mine.” His words were harsh and in a rare moment of guilt, the boy worried about what he had said regarding someone’s feelings. Biting his lip in frustration, he opened his right eyelid to see if the girl was still there and she was, in fact, gone. A new feeling made itself apparent to Toya. Being alone never bothered him and now there he was, stuck in his own Elysium, with that sinking feeling of solace in his chest. After about 3 hours, the young genin opened his eyes back in the real and sighed. Sleep would not come quickly.
During breakfast, Toya observed his parents as usual. His father eating buttered toast while his mom read the daily news. Kokoro cleaned off some butter off of her husband’s cheek and his father would look at Kokoro longingly when she wasn’t paying attention. Instead of obsessing over their social dynamic, the boy wondered what glued them together. Toya didn’t accept the theory that he was the de facto ‘glue’ in their relationship. He knew children of divorce, which meant his parents truly felt a strong connection with each other. Toya desperately wanted to know what the glue was, and he was going to get answers. “Dad, why do you love, mom?” Toya asked bluntly, without coating his question with an ounce of social levity. In the morning, he could be his true self under the guise of being sleepy. His father froze in place at the question. Toast hung from his lips while his brain tried to understand what was happening. Kokoro looked surprised and was eager to know the answer rather than understanding why her son asked for something so personal out of the blue. “Uh. Well. I guess if I think about it... I love mom, because...” Toya was already regretting the question. His father was taking too long and he could see the beginnings of a potential argument bubbling within his mother, who apparently expected a quicker answer. “Think of it like this. We live in this thing, this spinning rock in the middle of nothing moving through infinity at speeds we can’t even comprehend. Our size is miniscule and our time within that infinity is basically a blip. Basically Meaningless and void of reason. Life on its own is nothing, Toya.” Toya’s father left the kid with his mouth open in shock. Kokoro was on the verge of tears, assuming that was it, but the man wasn’t done. “Knowing all this, Toya, the statistical irrelevance of human existence, I was lucky enough to be born at the same time as your mother. In the infinite stream of time I was born during the same millisecond of existence as someone that I cannot fathom existing without. I love her because she gives my life meaning. She gave me you. Without her, I’d be alone on this spinning rock hurling through space, but by some crazy chance I get to spend this ‘blip’ with her.” Toya’s dad went back to eating his toast like nothing happened, but found himself being strangled by Kokoro in a tight hug. Her crying was annoying Toya. The answer was confusing, but the boy grasped the basic concept. Reality is inherently meaningless, which means he found someone that gives meaning to the absurdity. Instead of feeling existential dread over his brief existence, they got to share the brief moment in time like a nice apple pie. “Ok, thanks dad.” Toya said before getting up from the table. It was time for him to go about his day.
--
At the temple, Toya enjoyed conversations with the vagrants as usual. On that particular day, a woman explained how she wound up that way by offending a Daimyo. On this inside, this inflamed Toya, but the woman didn’t seem to mind anymore. It just seemed absurd to him how the elite could just dismantle someone’s life. What was the point of it all? “Don’t you wish you could get revenge somehow?” Toya asked, looking into the woman’s eyes. She scribbled something in the sand with a stick while contemplating a response. “I just wish people would see me again. Y’know? In my old life, people saw me. I’m not unhappy now, but I just wish… I just wish they saw us.” Her answer put everyone in the circle in a solemn mood. That was, of course, until Dirty Harry showed up with a bag full of goodies like a homeless santa. From the bag, he pulled out items that were in seemingly perfect condition and handed them around for everyone. “You didn’t steal all of this, did you, Harry?” One vagrant asked, observing her present with doubt. The man grinned. “I’m no thief. They were in a dump near a high end residential area. I swear!” His answer persuaded the group while Toya looked at his present. A necklace with a nameless dog tag on it.
Toya’s mind wandered back to what his father said earlier and his head instinctively turned to the woman and the child she kept close at all times. Dirty Harry noticed and nudged Toya. “They haven’t talked to anyone yet. Think they’re runnin’ from someone. Happens all the time. You hate to see it. Kids need a home.” Dirty Harry spoke with a sadness in his eyes uncommon to him. “I’ll go talk to them.” Toya suggested and left without waiting for Harry’s opinion. Befriending those people was easy when you had a home with food available at all times. In his pockets were lollipops he brought along in an attempt to make the two open up. “Hey there. My name’s Joe, uh. Here.” He rustled his pockets for a moment and offered the two his candy. The guardian looked at them with distrust and the girl had no readable reaction to the offer. “Uh... Sorry.” He mumbled, before turning around and walking away in embarrassment. Dirty Harry was grinning, missing teeth and all, at the boy’s failed attempt at welcoming. “Don’t worry. When their food runs out, they’ll get friendlier. Trust me.” He spoke before turning his attention back to the circle of conversation going on about recent events within sunagakure. Apparently, a restaurant was giving out free food if you beat some big man in a hand wrestle. Toya was there, so the conversion didn’t interest him in the least. Another news grape on the invisible vagrant vine was the death of some no name thugs in an abandoned distillery. The theory in the air was a gang feud, but they left the drugs in the hideout with the dead bodies. Why would thugs go through the trouble of doing something like that and leaving products behind? “Maybe it was a shitty product.” Toya conjectured soberly, making those in the circle pause for reflection. On his way out, Toya noticed the girl watching him. Dirty Harry wondered why ‘Joe’ never slept at the temple. His excuse for not sleeping there was that he didn’t feel comfortable sleeping surrounded by people. Dirty Harry laughed at that notion. “Homeless man enjoys his privacy, eh? See ya tomorrow, mate.” As he left the temple, he couldn’t help but feel like he had failed at something.
From his conversations at the temple, Toya could piece together bits and pieces of information from the circulating rumors. The surviving thug was holed up in a drug den, getting high off of his mind to forget about the events. Toya knew the exact location of the drug den, but simply walking in there seemed like a recipe for disaster. The genin, however, was in a sour mood. Failing a social interaction was infuriating. He could attribute failing to his homeless persona, but it still irked him. Upon reaching his house’s doorstep, the boy reflected. The day could end and his potential lead on the thug could disappear forever or he could get it over with. “Tsk.” Toya turned around to finish his business. Taking on his vagrant persona once more. The genin headed towards the part of suna, invisible in the fading light of day, that housed drug addicts and the thug he looked for. That place, in particular, was underground. An abandoned war bunker refitted at one point to look interesting and alternative, but the decay of vice turned it all into a faded idea of interior design. A slightly higher functioning junkie that was lucid enough to bounce people coming in and out guarded the entrance. Upon seeing Toya as a vagabond, the junkie bouncer tilted his head towards the inside as if to signal he could enter. Once inside, Toya witnessed with the slumped bodies of several men and women. They weren’t on anything too heavy and could acknowledge Toya’s entrance. Things would get darker the deeper he went into the bunker. Vestiges of the past ripped, stained and faded littered the floors and walls. Ages ago, the bunker was a means of protection against an enemy, later it became a source of entertainment and now it was a hole of depravity consuming everything that it used to be. The darkness was not only onset by the poor lighting, but the gradual change in drugs being consumed. Tied arms pulsed, attached to an ascending body. Needles, cigarette buds, pipes and ash were the main decoration at one point. Someone grabbed his leg. Looking down, Toya peered into the dimly lit eyes of a young woman probably 6-7 years older than him. Their actions were foreign to him and how they would end up in such a place was a temporary mystery to the young boy. All these doubts would become clear to him one day as life opened itself up to him. Finally, in one of the many rooms of the last level of the bunker, Toya found the man. When he met the thug, the man looked different, disciplined, silent, and ready to do whatever Den or Jeff ordered. Now he resembled a shell. Toya approached him slowly and kneeled down to lift his right hand. There was a slight pulse present. Slowly, the man’s eyes would come to life and he’d let out a deep groan. “The shikigami is coming. Can’t let it find me.” The thug spoke with slurred words and winced in pain, symptom of a peaked high. Toya could kill him right there and then silently and no one would know or care until the body started to rot. There was no rush at all. Satisfaction once again elduded him. Killing that man would mean nothing to Toya. “Shikigami?” Toya mumbled to himself as he thought about that name and its significance. Suddenly a violent flash of horrific imagery flashed in his mind. The entity from his Elysium plane gnawed at his mind like a parasite feeding on nutrients. Toya’s transformation technique became undone and the boy was in his normal form once more surrounded by depravity. As he squirmed on the ground in agony, grasping his head, the man he was searching for began to regain awareness. The panic set in immediately as he remembered who Toya was. The moment he began screaming Toya was out.
Toya was back in Elysium. “Oh, boy.” Toya knew he was in trouble if the last incident was any sign of what might happen next. None of his studies mentioned these lapses in conscious. It made him feel completely helpless to be held hostage to these episodes. “You’re going to kill them.” A voice echoed throughout the bleached world. It was the girl from before, but she was nowhere to be seen. “Why do you hide? This homeless man disguise only works if you know how to act the part.” She continued. The comment inflamed the boy, who was trying to comprehend an ounce of what was happening. “Show yourself! This is my mind and you have no place here! I do as I please!” He rebuked as the world trembled violently. A giggle pierced through the violence. “you’re taking too long. You’ve killed the entire lower level of the bunker, Toya”, she explained with a certainty that sent fear down the boy’s spine. How could she possibly know what he was doing while he was stuck in Elysium? “Focus, Toya. Come meet me tomorrow. As yourself.” And with that said, the voice was no longer there. Toya was alone in his limbo while his real self slaughtered a drug den. Looking down at his hands, Toya found them covered in blood with a kunai in each palm. The blur effect phased those factors in and out. “Focus, focus.” He told himself while attempting kai. Nothing was happening. Last time he’d gotten stuck in Elysium, there was a rose in a glass case. Its significance wasn’t completely clear to the boy and finding it last time took a long time. If he set out to search for it again, then the people of the den were doomed. “Focus, focus, focus.” His words were desperate and found no answer. Opening his eyes once more, Toya looked around his Elysium. A construct of his psyche. It was his and his alone to control, yet he was a prisoner to it. The facts didn’t add up. Feeling a sudden rage, the world around him shook. The ground split, revealing a white void beneath. “Not enough.” Toya said, observing the change. “NOT NEARLY ENOUGH!” Now he shouted, standing on his feet. His arms swayed in every direction, blowing a powerful stream of destruction in whichever direction they aimed at. “I AM RULER OF MY DOMAIN!” The world around him erupted until he finally slammed his fists into the ground, causing it all to burst. It suspended his body in the air, motionless as the world evaporated around him.
Suddenly, the air was musty again, and the smell of despair overwhelmed Toya. He stood over a dead body and his hands stained once again by the blood of the ‘innocent’. Toya immediately ran back to the room he was in before making sure the thug was dead. His body and the body of all those within the room had had their limbs decapitated. He had organized the limbs in some arbitrary fashion that bore no significance to Toya. His legs were shaking at the sight and he held in the desire to vomit. This wasn’t his will, so why had he done it? Toya turned himself back into the homeless man and made his way towards the exit. On his way out, Toya stopped at the door. His heart was racing. Everyone that wasn’t knocked out in that den had seen him. They would come to in a couple of hours and realize the disaster that had taken place. The junkie at the entrance was eyeing him up in confusion. Toya had a decision to make. Kill all the witnesses and go further down the rabbit hole of murder or risk allowing witnesses who saw him live and tell the tale. “You got a problem ma- “The junkie had begone to speak only to halt with a kunai in his throat. Toya stepped back inside the den snd sighed before shutting the door behind himself. He lifted his arms with the bloody kunais and announced, “I apologize for my sloppiness. Unfortunately, you will all pay for it.” And with that said, he executed all those within the den.
After killing all the junkies, Toya adjusted the scene to appear to have been a gang slaughter. He knew the name and symbols of a few gangs within sunagakure at that point. With blood, he marked the walls with some local gang symbols. He also peeled the face off of the thug he’d gone to execute to keep the body anonymous. The boy planned on using the appearance to leave the den. Those who saw the man leaving would pin it on him. Rumors were based on glances and things seen at a distance. Having finished everything up, Toya looked back one last time at the den and the dead junkies that were scattered lifelessly along the floor, together with the pipes and needles. Things could not go on like that. He left and didn’t look back. On his way home, Toya wondered what he’d tell his mom about being so late. That and the fact that he’d have to burn more clothes. If he kept it up, he’d be without a wardrobe in a week. Sneaking into his room, Toya got rid of his bloody clothes and washed himself clean of all the blood. While in the shower, Toya thought about the human limb artifice he had made in the underground bunker. What did it mean? What was the thug reciting madly when Toya arrived? Thinking about it made him quiver. The word “shikigami” brought back that same feeling of madness that overwhelmed and took away his free will. His next session with his therapist would be very interesting indeed.
Toya was getting ready for bed when a rock hitting his window startled him. Pulling out a kunai, Toya approached it slowly from the side and peaked out below. His eyes widened in shock. It was the girl from the temple. She’d followed him home. How much did she know? Did she follow him to the den as well? Would he kill her to keep her from speaking? What about her guardian? Toya controlled his panic and grit his teeth in determination. Opening his window, she greeted the boy with a pebble to the forehead. “Ow!” He couldn’t yell, so the groan came out hushed. “What’s the matter with you street, peasant? Go bother someone else!” He spat before getting hit in the head with another pebble. His pale skin was now glowing red in anger. “Stop it!” His anger was amusing to the girl who giggled at the boy from below. “You’re a terrible liar, Toya Takahashi.” She teased, getting ready to toss another pebble. Toya shut his window before she had the chance to do so and stealthily left his home. It was the middle of the night and his parents were sleeping like rocks. Toya shut the door behind him and quickly advanced on the girl with a kunai. The streets were empty seldom stray dogs, cats and some odd characters going about their night. The blade was dirty from the slaughter and stained the girl’s skin with the caked blood of junkies. When he looked into her eyes, it was almost like the girl welcomed the sweet release. She smiled, caressing Toya’s face. The boy became flustered and backed away. “Don’t do that.” He ordered, keeping his kunai aimed at her. His threatening posture did not dissuade, and she approached him again. The kunai slowly sank into the cloth of her cloak. “I dream of you. The real you. You’re much shorter than I expected.” Her words disarmed Toya and he could feel his grip on the kunai slipping. “You’re crazy!” His words were hushed in fear of his parents waking up. “I know you. There are certain gifts I have. I see things, Toya.” She walked around Toya slowly, sizing him up. “Joe. Toya. Shikigami. Your head is full of names for yourself, isn’t it?” She asked, putting her lips to his right ear, “I know you think of me when you’re alone.” Toya literally jumped at that. His face was as red as it could get. “You know nothing. Now leave!” He tried to maintain his posture, but his hands trembled and he was double gripping a kunai. “You want me to go? I don’t think you do, but that’s fine. Tomorrow, when you come to the temple and lie to those innocent people, bring me something. I don’t like lollipops. Goodbyeeee.” She bid her farewell and disappeared into the sunagakure night, leaving Toya behind in utter shock. A voice coming from his home woke him up. “You sly dog.” Toya’s father was leaning at the door with his arms crossed grinning. “Y’know for a moment there I thought you liked boys and, not that’s there’s anything wrong with that, I love you all the same, it’s just pretty cool seeing you with a little girlfriend.” Toya’s first thought was to kill his father, but the man was a chuunin arguably faster and more able than him. It was an impossibility at that present moment. Entering the girlfriend narrative was the safest bet. He would look over to his father and grin, “hehe.” Upon entering their home Toya would frown and asked, “you really thought I was gay, dad?” He asked looking up at his father. “Yeah I even bought some books on the whole thing. Let’s go to bed c’mon. Oh and don’t ever let your mother know about this. She would kill you and me both.” After saying goodnight, Toya was alone once again in his room. The conversation with the girl had left him sweating out of fear. His mind played back all the mistakes he made and how the girl would know any of it. She was just a homeless girl yet she knew some of the most intimate details about Toya. That night the boy did not sleep and instead immersed himself in meditation.
Corrupted data loading. Files restored to 85% integrity.
//The thug’s name was Bjorn. He’d known Den, Jeff, and Luke for most of his life. They were lowly bandits, sure, but they were making moves to make a name for themselves. The day they kidnapped the kid, everything was supposed to go smoothly. Beat up a kid, tell him to stop snooping around and deliver some drugs. Everything went terribly wrong, however. They knocked the boy out and thought they killed him. “Oh, shit.” Jeff exclaimed, grabbing a hold of his head with his hands in shock. “He’s fine, stop it.” Den said as he checked the boy’s pulse and breath. “See, he’s fine. I think we scared him enough. Let’s get rid of him. Throw him somewhere that’ll spook ‘em and let’s get this show on the road.” Den ordered, and Bjorn followed. That’s how things were. Thinking was hard, but acting was simple. He knelt down to untie the boy and, to his surprise, the knots were all undone. He didn’t think too much about it and untied the boy’s feet. The moment he did this, a strong flash of light lit up the room, blinding all 4 men. He could hear the men screaming in agony. Then something hit his head with so much force that it knocked him out cold. When his vision came back, the boy was tying up Den with a tag on his forehead. Luke was bleeding to death on the ground and someone had opened Jeff up like a pig. “Well, well, well.” Toya spoke in a pitch almost entirely foreign to his normal voice. “What am I going to do with you?” Bjorn felt fear. He feared a little boy, and that made him even more afraid. “Tell you what. You can go. Tell others what happened here. But use the right name. Shikigami did this. Now go before I change my mind.” Toya didn’t have to speak twice. Bjorn ran and didn’t look back. Later, he’d learn of the fate of his friends. Living after that was hard. He had saved up money for a home, but he spent it all on drugs and simply forget. He thought he was safe. Then the Shikigami came knocking once again. The boy was convulsing on the floor and he tried to escape. “Hello again.” That all too familiar voice greeted him just as he was about to leave the room. “You did well. For that you get to be sacrificed.” Toya removed limbs of all those within the room and piled them up in sacrifice. But it wasn’t enough he needed more. He’d rush to the other rooms and slaughter more for the sacrifice. What he was sacrificing for meant nothing. He just needed more bodies. Bjorn died crying and calling for his friends.// End of data.
Word count: 5,022
Last edited by TheVibe on Thu Jun 02, 2022 12:47 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Shikigami's Acension [CLOSED]
Toyas life was comprised of more than socializing with the homeless, training and murdering junkies in psychotic states. His shinobi life was a bore. The missions were like a hammer, beating down the aspirations of gennin beneath the harsh sun. During a post mission social, Toya observed his temporary squad members talking and being cheerful about the ramen. They were hopeful about the future and wanted to keep in touch after for assigned missions. They'd later die, one from some ilness and the other murdered in an escort. Toya wouldn't allow this to be his life so he did a little digging.
The Takahashi residence was interesting. For two shinobi that, in Toya's mind, aspired for so little they had a decent space, food never lacked, Toya had anything he wanted or needed. His parents weren't the type to deny within a certain limit and he took advantage. Now that he was actively involved with the system his parents were a part of for years, the boy added the numbers up and something was wrong. He deduced that his father was involved in some form of corruption and perhaps his mother as well. It wasn't in his mothers profile to do such a thing, but that might've been his own bias speaking and a handy manipulation tool for social engineering on her part. Looking like obvious corrupt ninja was dumb and they played their part. Toya wanted to be a part of it on his own. Being born into a 'traditional' narrative of becoming shinobi for noble causes seemed like a tremendous waste of time and he would not be subjugated by it.
“I know you’re both doing something illegal and I respect you both. Knowing this, I want to be a part of it, it’s clearly better than living in the mundane. I will create my own connections and networks to generate my income and be cautious.” A gust of wind caught the boy off-guard, and he was on his feet before his eyes could blink. Pain erupted from his back and skull as his father slammed him against a wall. “What do you know?!” the man shouted while applying enough pressure to his son’s neck to make answering impossible. Things were spinning, and the boy felt disoriented. He could hear his mother screaming and his heart pulsing in the same beat. Things weren’t going well for Toya. The reaction was unprecedented. That feeling of the unknown was exhilarating.
Things calmed down, and the family sat in tense silence. Toya’s pale white skin stood out marked in red from his father’s elbow. “Toya, sweety. Why did you say those things?” Kokoro’s voice trembled, making the boy feel a temporary stutter in his euphoria. His mother pulled the boys farther away from him like she was pulling a dog from its bone. Toya straightened his clothes and hair out like he’d bump into something. His skin returned to its pale white so quickly it sent a chill down his dad’s spine. Toya just wasn’t there emotionally like the two of them. The pressure mark on his neck and some sweat were the only proof someone had ruffled the boy up at all. Inside, Toya was thinking about the lasagna waiting for him in the fridge after he convinced his parents he wasn’t a liability.
The family sat together at the dinner table in an awkward silence. Toya’s father held a kunai in his right grip so tightly his veins were popping out. Kokoro had her hands on the table, seemingly ready to blow Toya away with a ninjutsu. “How’d you figure it out?” His father asked while looking at the bright table center. It was as if the only light in the house was above them and a dark void surrounded them. “Well, I had a hunch which I followed up by doing some accounting of our income. I have most of your information lying around. I can and have impersonated you for more information in specific circumstances.” His mother’s eyes widened while the scowl from his father clawed deeper into his face. The two suddenly put the pieces together in their heads. Specific days where their loved one felt 1% off and too hyper focused on gaining information on x’s and y’s. “You little- “His father began, but his mother stopped him with a gentle touch. “Sweety, how much do you know?” Her voice felt deceptively sweet. “Everything.” Her son replied flatly. This caused his father to let out a long sigh and throw his kunai on the table. His mother simply cried. It seemed like Toya had calculated everything correctly. The two would not, in fact, kill him after revealing his knowledge. He was 70% positive it would work. Luckily for him, it appeared that his parents actually loved him.
It’s just Toya and his father now. His father’s raging aura completely nullified by his son’s apathy. Toya took out a notepad to write interesting aspects of his father’s illegal conception. “We’re a part of a little group. We call it a militia.” Toya started writing until his father took the notepad away in a small fit of rage. “This has to be secret, kid. If any of this leaves the house, me, you and your mother are done. Do you understand? I wanted to keep your stupid ass out of this, but now you know. So sit the fuck down and listen.” Toya nodded, waiting for further explanation. “As you know, Sunagakure has a unique political and religious outlook. Y’know, things are good here compared to most. Me and a couple of other ninja run rackets. We break up union strikes, deal with prosthetics, start shit for some of the clan fucks that pay us to take the heat. We don’t. Stir. The. Pot. You get that, Toya? Everything we do is planned and nobody talks.” He looked at his son’s face. The boy looked like him and his mother, but there was something foreign about the boy. Something just wasn’t there. It was a gnawing feeling that spawned nightmares of beings kidnapping his actual son and taking his place at night. “Yes, father.” They enthralled the boy in the narrative and potential plays for the future. “So this is how we’re gonna do this, kid. Your missions are gonna be handed down from an associate of mine. They’re missions for runts like you that want more in life. You’re my kid, but I can’t show favoritism. Anyway, I got big plans for you. While I can’t show favoritism, I can get you set up with the people who run suna down the line. If you ever reach such a position, you’d become of equal rank within the militia as me. You’d be our eyes and ears inside.” Toya’s eyes widened in excitement.
Mother felt lost in her room complating with the silence as they inducted her son into a world of crime. It all felt like a nightmare and she couldn’t wake up, but Toya wanted it just as much as his father demanded it. The man couldn’t risk a potential liability growing in his house and Toya saw opportunity. His father handed him a red scroll with gold lacing. If that document ever left the house, father would know and he emphasized how important it was to remember them. The rule book contained the procedure all members of the militia were expected to follow. Skimming through it, Toya found some rules he’d previously broken. His murders could eventually blow everything up. For now, he’d found a way out of the mundane, or so it seemed.
Toya was told to meet up with his ‘router’. The term applied to captains that were on dice roll to watch over a potential ‘minuteman’. On missions that required official leaders, they would enact that role. It was the captain’s duty to make sure they weren’t raising a potential rat, coward, idiot, etc. They kept the exact amount of captains a secret. All captains remained anonymous and interacted through various means which were at their rarest personal. The ‘router’ meeting up with Toya represented the captain, but it most definitely wasn’t them. The router would then hand out a mission with specific ‘rules’ handed alongside them. Coded rules hidden in red scrolls, much like the official rules of the militia. The top minutemen designed these rules and were to be followed to a T. They varied from creating fake scenarios to losing supplies during trade runs to picking up ryo at specific locations during a trade run. Most of the missions were in the escort business. A few exceptions, but they wanted Toya for one main purpose. He was a mule with a knack for genjutsu. The router arranged an unassuming tea store. He’d appear in the guise of someone Toya’s age. The idea made sense, but now Toya felt annoyed by the lack of thought in location. He couldn’t shake the thought. Why would two boys meet up for tea? The router slipped him the mission and rules in the guise of trading cards. Everything was shaking on the inside while he stared at the cards. His stomach contracted as he exerted an internal focus on not throwing up. The entire mission was being presented to him in the dumbest possible way, and he couldn’t cope with it. He’d take the cards and rush to the bathroom to vomit. Had he simply moved from one mundane world to another?
Toya fell into a unique generation of shinobi. The administration was unsatisfied with the bonding happening within teams, so they were assigning team mates on a rank/utility/idle basis. Reporting in for a mission would put in a request for idles of fitting profile. On the first mission for his father, they assigned Toya to what the rulebook called a ‘good samaritan’. Shinobi that were not aligned with militia goals and would be the major source of 80% of his headaches. Many of them were highly patriotic and saw themselves as the ‘squad cop’ and would turn what could be a peaceful mission into a real headache. The good samaritan at hand was called Junichiro Ueno and a kunoichi by the name of Senei Arai who questioned internally why she had gotten up that day. One crack in sunagakure’s passive stance on who they allowed to join the military. Crime wasn’t the only thing infiltrating its system, but mediocrity as well.
The ‘good samaritan’ was Junichiro Ueno, a 13-year-old gennin with a pma mindset. His unique trait? His kekkei genkai allowed him to use the wind in a niche way much like most of the people in the village. Some turned their wind into bullets, some swords, some even made armor. Junichiro’s wind was green! It wasn’t necessarily stronger or faster, but it was green! Upon introduction he announced, “What is up fellow sand peeps! I’m Junichiro Ueno and the surviving heir of the wind country’s heavenly green breeze and my goal is to become Kazekage one day!” Toya reacted enthusiastically, clapping at the speech. Key to social interaction is to make yourself find something interesting in what the other person is saying or what they look like. Toya was clapping not for the story, but the level of sheer lack of self had him in awe. The kunoichi looked even more disgusted than before. The kunoichi was Seina Arai, a 12-year-old gennin that was being obligated by her parents to enlist. She didn’t possess any unique abilities and did not want to give an introduction. “I just wanna get the fuck out of here. Like these missions are easy, ryo. Try not to fuck it up morons.” With that said, she left the introduction to meet up. A local coffee place. Toya introduced himself shortly after. It creeped Junichiro out with how scripted it sounded.
They assigned Toya and company to escort a Financial Assistant of Sentouki Manza and oversee a meeting between him and a konoha convoy. The official mission scroll classified the mission as routine swap, but there were certain characters that weren’t on the list on board. These were ‘players’, detailed in the rules, civilians that wanted more out of life. People that were born with an evil desire to want without need. Sunagakure gave ample opportunity to all, yet some lived on the streets and others strive to more than the rest. Characters of note on his first corrupt mission were Tetsuo and Kirin. Details about who they were were limited to Toya, and he was the only one on the mission who had a clue. It was Toya’s job to convince them it was probably just a mixup with the players aiding in the deception. Those people acted discreetly and were treated as ghosts. It became Toya’s job to make sure everyone forgot. Using genjutsu wasn’t as simple in those scenarios. Making someone forget another needed genjutsu as a catalyst, and in a casual conversation induction, Toya would make sure his teammates forget all about the players. The memory, however, would still be there if anyone started fussing about or even by asking for information about the mission. A wall would block the idea of the players and that wall was ‘indifference’.
The mission was supposed to be simple. Toya and co. would escort Paul Fib, financial assistant to councilman Sentouki Manza. His ‘player’ listing in the rulebook gave little detail. The man was detached from the military scene, yet there he was going out into the desert. Neither members of his team seemed to think too much about the whole thing. This set Toya off into another mini panic attack at night while everyone was around a fire. The ninja were completely oblivious to the illegal aspects of the mission. Both were so self absorbed that Toya didn’t need to manipulate anyone. Junichiro went into some rant about being the last to possess his kekkei genkai and the immense weight he carried around. He cried, saying he felt at home on missions since it gave him a chance to connect with people after the death of his clan. “When I become Kazekage, I’ll remember everyone that I teamed up with.” He whispered, looking deep into the fire.”
On the day of the exchange, the two parties met at a small oasis hidden among the endless desert. Paul, along with Tetsuo and Kirin, motioned to meet with someone who wasn’t listed in the rulebook. That set the boy off, but he wouldn’t panic. He’d simply assume they were dealing with something meant to be a variable. While he watched the exchange from afar, he looked over at his peers. Three gennin on the sidelines. At that moment, the brilliance of his dad’s group hit him. They hid their deals in mundane gennin missions to avoid suspicion and abuse the fact that most gennin are incompetent. Toya had swapped one lousy hierarchy for another. The real back up were Tetsuo and Kirin.
The gennin were having an enthralling time until things went sour. It all happened too quickly for Toya to make sense of anything. Someone said the wrong thing. Weapons were drawn. Hand seals activated. Up to that point in his career, Toya had never seen actual speed. He’d seen his father and shinobi at the academy. Yet now, as he observed the brutal ocean of difference between him and the ‘real players’, a rush pulsed through his body. Piercing through the chaos, a random kunai struck Junichiro deep into his forehead. Time appeared to slow down. Junichiro’s body became lifeless and dropped for what seemed to be an eternity. Toya found beauty in watching the last wielder of the heavenly green breeze die in front of him. Seina panicked at the sight of her dead comrade while Toya attempted to calm her down. “It’s quite alright! Just stay put. Moving while high-ranking ninja are fighting is very dangerous!” He shouted above the loud clanging of swords and jutsu in the background. “WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE A NORMAL MISSION!” The kunoichi, at that point, was on the floor trembling in fear at the fight while Toya stood slack jawed in awe.
At some point, the fight condensed into a flash of antimatter. An orb enveloped those who were fighting and a celestial air surrounded all watching. It felt like Toya was witnessing a superposition of time in a single moment of silence. Someone broke it. “They do be fightin’ like that from time to time. Breakin’ reality and whatnot. They’re probably in one of them high rankin genjutsu I’ll tell you what.” It was the driver. The driver was still there. Day turned to night in a flash of darkness that lasted for a blink, and the three men were back. The oasis and the men with their caravan vanished as well. “Oh, shit.” Toya looked around in confusion. Tetsuo and Kirin had their normal civilian clothes eviscerated. Paul was with them and surprisingly well. Not a single scratch on the man. “That’s why I pay you the big bucks!” Paul cheered with his arms up while making his way back vehicle that carried the supplies. “Oh, shit!” He cursed at the sight of the dead gennin. “Who the fuck let him die?” Paul demanded, looking visibly angry. “I don’t use kunai.” Tetsuo announced. Kirin looked over at him with contempt. “That’s definitely yours, you stupid moron. You and that stupid fuckin’ “rain of death” move. When you are you gonna quit bein’ an asshole and stop with that shit? You throw kunai fuckin’ everywhere like a dumb ass. Got this loser killed. You deal with it now." With that said, Kirin walked past the dead body and got back into the vehicle. Paul looked over at the gennin and Tetsuo. “Soooo. This is kind of a big deal and I’m gonna need you to handle it like right now, ok?” Paul requested before following Kirin. Toya looked down at his living comrade, who was essentially catatonic. He looked up at Tetsuo and got a glare that made him doubt the adults would be helping. Carrying the body to a pit was rather simple. The large insects rarely move around if people are nearby. This wasn’t a general rule, but Toya had no choice to consider finding the perfect hole to dump the body in. Watching it lifelessly slowly sinking into the sand was peaceful.
Toya had a problem. Paul, driver and the duo were handling the narrative for the death in their own corner. The news that Toya couldn’t wipe memories didn’t sit well with the crew. It would officially look like a bandit raid and they would laud the boy for valor. The problem in specific was the girl. She’d seen too much to be manipulated by Toya. Nothing would make her permanently forget what she’d seen and done. She helped throw the body into a bug pit to get rid of evidence. While the adults talked, Toya watched Seina while she looked at nothing, still in shock. His time was running out, he had to think. “You-“ He was about to start something when a kunai hit her on the side of the head. “Wait. I dunno, I’m not sure now. I’m pretty sure she’s not in.” Toya could hear Paul while he stared, glue eyed, on the lifeless head of his comrade. “Kid. You’re ‘in’ right?” Paul asked while adjusting his shades blocking out the harsh desert sun. “Yeah.” Toya replied, unable to look away. It creeped Paul out, but he didn’t care too much. “Ok, get rid of it. Yeah, terrible day here guys. Let’s try harder next time. Losing two gennin is a no no c’mon.” Toya couldn’t tell if Paul cared for the dead gennin or if their deaths only irked him out of inconvenience.
The official report stated: At 19:00, the squad suffered casualties, becoming overtaken by a group of illegals and dragged to a location that did not coincide with the mission parameters. Two gennin were kidnapped, one survived. The official swap was unsuccessful. Tetsuo and Kirin cleaned the fighting zone and the only people who knew what happened had skin in the game. On their way home, in the transport vehicle, Tetsuo looked at the young Toya and said, “I swore it’d get you.” His words made Toya tilt his head in curious confusion. Then the reality of the man’s words hit him. He grinned at Toya and the boy felt fear surround him like a fog. The players had no reason to keep Toya alive other than his affiliation, but they could write his death off just like the other two. A casualty of something they couldn’t even understand. His ears caught a whisper between the two. Toya swore he heard, “Looks like the ugly fuck.” Toya didn’t know what to make out of it. Perhaps he was stuck in his own version of shock. Seeing someone die wasn’t new, but that felt different. People have died near Toya in a sort of karmic sense. They were either bad or degenerate. It felt like the natural of flow of things. Seeing two innocent gennin die in a context that would never be revealed to them felt alien. No karmic build up. No dues being paid. Toya revelled in the possibility of life continuing such a volatile behavior.
Arriving home, a weeping mother greeted Toya. The news of gennin death had made its way to Kokoro, and she expected the worse. Her source, however, was not village gossip. “The kid, dead?” The boy’s father shouted from the kitchen. Something was cooking. His words enraged mother, but seeing her son alive shooed away anything other than joy. In the kitchen, the three would talk about Toya’s first mission with ‘them’. It had gone horribly in shinobi terms, but for a meeting of that magnitude, the cleanup was excellent. His father’s advice was to lie low for a while and work on getting stronger. “You’re gonna need to stay put for a while. The desert consumes everything, so don’t worry about the kids. When people ask you about the whole thing, act like it makes you dead inside. Shit, make it your origin story. This is the event that made you want to be yada yada yada. Kokoro you get what I’m sayin’ right?” Toya’s father poked his wife childishly. “Sweety are you sure you’re ok about what you saw?” she asked in that same motherly tone from earlier. “I’m fine. I’m pretty hungry, though.” He replied, receiving a clap from his father, who had just finished making dinner. “You see, the kid’s great! That’s what the shrink is for, right? Kid’s brain is impenetrable, hehe.” Toya’s father teased while he and his mother prepared the dinner table.
Alone in his room, Toya looked up at the ceiling in the dark. Senais dead face was as constant as the black of a blink. Yet through it all. The boy still felt overwhelmed with that all too familiar feeling. He’d witnessed what was probably the peak of the system he was joining. Everything else was downhill. “Shit.” He grumbled to himself before turning over in bed.
The Takahashi residence was interesting. For two shinobi that, in Toya's mind, aspired for so little they had a decent space, food never lacked, Toya had anything he wanted or needed. His parents weren't the type to deny within a certain limit and he took advantage. Now that he was actively involved with the system his parents were a part of for years, the boy added the numbers up and something was wrong. He deduced that his father was involved in some form of corruption and perhaps his mother as well. It wasn't in his mothers profile to do such a thing, but that might've been his own bias speaking and a handy manipulation tool for social engineering on her part. Looking like obvious corrupt ninja was dumb and they played their part. Toya wanted to be a part of it on his own. Being born into a 'traditional' narrative of becoming shinobi for noble causes seemed like a tremendous waste of time and he would not be subjugated by it.
“I know you’re both doing something illegal and I respect you both. Knowing this, I want to be a part of it, it’s clearly better than living in the mundane. I will create my own connections and networks to generate my income and be cautious.” A gust of wind caught the boy off-guard, and he was on his feet before his eyes could blink. Pain erupted from his back and skull as his father slammed him against a wall. “What do you know?!” the man shouted while applying enough pressure to his son’s neck to make answering impossible. Things were spinning, and the boy felt disoriented. He could hear his mother screaming and his heart pulsing in the same beat. Things weren’t going well for Toya. The reaction was unprecedented. That feeling of the unknown was exhilarating.
Things calmed down, and the family sat in tense silence. Toya’s pale white skin stood out marked in red from his father’s elbow. “Toya, sweety. Why did you say those things?” Kokoro’s voice trembled, making the boy feel a temporary stutter in his euphoria. His mother pulled the boys farther away from him like she was pulling a dog from its bone. Toya straightened his clothes and hair out like he’d bump into something. His skin returned to its pale white so quickly it sent a chill down his dad’s spine. Toya just wasn’t there emotionally like the two of them. The pressure mark on his neck and some sweat were the only proof someone had ruffled the boy up at all. Inside, Toya was thinking about the lasagna waiting for him in the fridge after he convinced his parents he wasn’t a liability.
The family sat together at the dinner table in an awkward silence. Toya’s father held a kunai in his right grip so tightly his veins were popping out. Kokoro had her hands on the table, seemingly ready to blow Toya away with a ninjutsu. “How’d you figure it out?” His father asked while looking at the bright table center. It was as if the only light in the house was above them and a dark void surrounded them. “Well, I had a hunch which I followed up by doing some accounting of our income. I have most of your information lying around. I can and have impersonated you for more information in specific circumstances.” His mother’s eyes widened while the scowl from his father clawed deeper into his face. The two suddenly put the pieces together in their heads. Specific days where their loved one felt 1% off and too hyper focused on gaining information on x’s and y’s. “You little- “His father began, but his mother stopped him with a gentle touch. “Sweety, how much do you know?” Her voice felt deceptively sweet. “Everything.” Her son replied flatly. This caused his father to let out a long sigh and throw his kunai on the table. His mother simply cried. It seemed like Toya had calculated everything correctly. The two would not, in fact, kill him after revealing his knowledge. He was 70% positive it would work. Luckily for him, it appeared that his parents actually loved him.
It’s just Toya and his father now. His father’s raging aura completely nullified by his son’s apathy. Toya took out a notepad to write interesting aspects of his father’s illegal conception. “We’re a part of a little group. We call it a militia.” Toya started writing until his father took the notepad away in a small fit of rage. “This has to be secret, kid. If any of this leaves the house, me, you and your mother are done. Do you understand? I wanted to keep your stupid ass out of this, but now you know. So sit the fuck down and listen.” Toya nodded, waiting for further explanation. “As you know, Sunagakure has a unique political and religious outlook. Y’know, things are good here compared to most. Me and a couple of other ninja run rackets. We break up union strikes, deal with prosthetics, start shit for some of the clan fucks that pay us to take the heat. We don’t. Stir. The. Pot. You get that, Toya? Everything we do is planned and nobody talks.” He looked at his son’s face. The boy looked like him and his mother, but there was something foreign about the boy. Something just wasn’t there. It was a gnawing feeling that spawned nightmares of beings kidnapping his actual son and taking his place at night. “Yes, father.” They enthralled the boy in the narrative and potential plays for the future. “So this is how we’re gonna do this, kid. Your missions are gonna be handed down from an associate of mine. They’re missions for runts like you that want more in life. You’re my kid, but I can’t show favoritism. Anyway, I got big plans for you. While I can’t show favoritism, I can get you set up with the people who run suna down the line. If you ever reach such a position, you’d become of equal rank within the militia as me. You’d be our eyes and ears inside.” Toya’s eyes widened in excitement.
Mother felt lost in her room complating with the silence as they inducted her son into a world of crime. It all felt like a nightmare and she couldn’t wake up, but Toya wanted it just as much as his father demanded it. The man couldn’t risk a potential liability growing in his house and Toya saw opportunity. His father handed him a red scroll with gold lacing. If that document ever left the house, father would know and he emphasized how important it was to remember them. The rule book contained the procedure all members of the militia were expected to follow. Skimming through it, Toya found some rules he’d previously broken. His murders could eventually blow everything up. For now, he’d found a way out of the mundane, or so it seemed.
Toya was told to meet up with his ‘router’. The term applied to captains that were on dice roll to watch over a potential ‘minuteman’. On missions that required official leaders, they would enact that role. It was the captain’s duty to make sure they weren’t raising a potential rat, coward, idiot, etc. They kept the exact amount of captains a secret. All captains remained anonymous and interacted through various means which were at their rarest personal. The ‘router’ meeting up with Toya represented the captain, but it most definitely wasn’t them. The router would then hand out a mission with specific ‘rules’ handed alongside them. Coded rules hidden in red scrolls, much like the official rules of the militia. The top minutemen designed these rules and were to be followed to a T. They varied from creating fake scenarios to losing supplies during trade runs to picking up ryo at specific locations during a trade run. Most of the missions were in the escort business. A few exceptions, but they wanted Toya for one main purpose. He was a mule with a knack for genjutsu. The router arranged an unassuming tea store. He’d appear in the guise of someone Toya’s age. The idea made sense, but now Toya felt annoyed by the lack of thought in location. He couldn’t shake the thought. Why would two boys meet up for tea? The router slipped him the mission and rules in the guise of trading cards. Everything was shaking on the inside while he stared at the cards. His stomach contracted as he exerted an internal focus on not throwing up. The entire mission was being presented to him in the dumbest possible way, and he couldn’t cope with it. He’d take the cards and rush to the bathroom to vomit. Had he simply moved from one mundane world to another?
Toya fell into a unique generation of shinobi. The administration was unsatisfied with the bonding happening within teams, so they were assigning team mates on a rank/utility/idle basis. Reporting in for a mission would put in a request for idles of fitting profile. On the first mission for his father, they assigned Toya to what the rulebook called a ‘good samaritan’. Shinobi that were not aligned with militia goals and would be the major source of 80% of his headaches. Many of them were highly patriotic and saw themselves as the ‘squad cop’ and would turn what could be a peaceful mission into a real headache. The good samaritan at hand was called Junichiro Ueno and a kunoichi by the name of Senei Arai who questioned internally why she had gotten up that day. One crack in sunagakure’s passive stance on who they allowed to join the military. Crime wasn’t the only thing infiltrating its system, but mediocrity as well.
The ‘good samaritan’ was Junichiro Ueno, a 13-year-old gennin with a pma mindset. His unique trait? His kekkei genkai allowed him to use the wind in a niche way much like most of the people in the village. Some turned their wind into bullets, some swords, some even made armor. Junichiro’s wind was green! It wasn’t necessarily stronger or faster, but it was green! Upon introduction he announced, “What is up fellow sand peeps! I’m Junichiro Ueno and the surviving heir of the wind country’s heavenly green breeze and my goal is to become Kazekage one day!” Toya reacted enthusiastically, clapping at the speech. Key to social interaction is to make yourself find something interesting in what the other person is saying or what they look like. Toya was clapping not for the story, but the level of sheer lack of self had him in awe. The kunoichi looked even more disgusted than before. The kunoichi was Seina Arai, a 12-year-old gennin that was being obligated by her parents to enlist. She didn’t possess any unique abilities and did not want to give an introduction. “I just wanna get the fuck out of here. Like these missions are easy, ryo. Try not to fuck it up morons.” With that said, she left the introduction to meet up. A local coffee place. Toya introduced himself shortly after. It creeped Junichiro out with how scripted it sounded.
They assigned Toya and company to escort a Financial Assistant of Sentouki Manza and oversee a meeting between him and a konoha convoy. The official mission scroll classified the mission as routine swap, but there were certain characters that weren’t on the list on board. These were ‘players’, detailed in the rules, civilians that wanted more out of life. People that were born with an evil desire to want without need. Sunagakure gave ample opportunity to all, yet some lived on the streets and others strive to more than the rest. Characters of note on his first corrupt mission were Tetsuo and Kirin. Details about who they were were limited to Toya, and he was the only one on the mission who had a clue. It was Toya’s job to convince them it was probably just a mixup with the players aiding in the deception. Those people acted discreetly and were treated as ghosts. It became Toya’s job to make sure everyone forgot. Using genjutsu wasn’t as simple in those scenarios. Making someone forget another needed genjutsu as a catalyst, and in a casual conversation induction, Toya would make sure his teammates forget all about the players. The memory, however, would still be there if anyone started fussing about or even by asking for information about the mission. A wall would block the idea of the players and that wall was ‘indifference’.
The mission was supposed to be simple. Toya and co. would escort Paul Fib, financial assistant to councilman Sentouki Manza. His ‘player’ listing in the rulebook gave little detail. The man was detached from the military scene, yet there he was going out into the desert. Neither members of his team seemed to think too much about the whole thing. This set Toya off into another mini panic attack at night while everyone was around a fire. The ninja were completely oblivious to the illegal aspects of the mission. Both were so self absorbed that Toya didn’t need to manipulate anyone. Junichiro went into some rant about being the last to possess his kekkei genkai and the immense weight he carried around. He cried, saying he felt at home on missions since it gave him a chance to connect with people after the death of his clan. “When I become Kazekage, I’ll remember everyone that I teamed up with.” He whispered, looking deep into the fire.”
On the day of the exchange, the two parties met at a small oasis hidden among the endless desert. Paul, along with Tetsuo and Kirin, motioned to meet with someone who wasn’t listed in the rulebook. That set the boy off, but he wouldn’t panic. He’d simply assume they were dealing with something meant to be a variable. While he watched the exchange from afar, he looked over at his peers. Three gennin on the sidelines. At that moment, the brilliance of his dad’s group hit him. They hid their deals in mundane gennin missions to avoid suspicion and abuse the fact that most gennin are incompetent. Toya had swapped one lousy hierarchy for another. The real back up were Tetsuo and Kirin.
The gennin were having an enthralling time until things went sour. It all happened too quickly for Toya to make sense of anything. Someone said the wrong thing. Weapons were drawn. Hand seals activated. Up to that point in his career, Toya had never seen actual speed. He’d seen his father and shinobi at the academy. Yet now, as he observed the brutal ocean of difference between him and the ‘real players’, a rush pulsed through his body. Piercing through the chaos, a random kunai struck Junichiro deep into his forehead. Time appeared to slow down. Junichiro’s body became lifeless and dropped for what seemed to be an eternity. Toya found beauty in watching the last wielder of the heavenly green breeze die in front of him. Seina panicked at the sight of her dead comrade while Toya attempted to calm her down. “It’s quite alright! Just stay put. Moving while high-ranking ninja are fighting is very dangerous!” He shouted above the loud clanging of swords and jutsu in the background. “WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE A NORMAL MISSION!” The kunoichi, at that point, was on the floor trembling in fear at the fight while Toya stood slack jawed in awe.
At some point, the fight condensed into a flash of antimatter. An orb enveloped those who were fighting and a celestial air surrounded all watching. It felt like Toya was witnessing a superposition of time in a single moment of silence. Someone broke it. “They do be fightin’ like that from time to time. Breakin’ reality and whatnot. They’re probably in one of them high rankin genjutsu I’ll tell you what.” It was the driver. The driver was still there. Day turned to night in a flash of darkness that lasted for a blink, and the three men were back. The oasis and the men with their caravan vanished as well. “Oh, shit.” Toya looked around in confusion. Tetsuo and Kirin had their normal civilian clothes eviscerated. Paul was with them and surprisingly well. Not a single scratch on the man. “That’s why I pay you the big bucks!” Paul cheered with his arms up while making his way back vehicle that carried the supplies. “Oh, shit!” He cursed at the sight of the dead gennin. “Who the fuck let him die?” Paul demanded, looking visibly angry. “I don’t use kunai.” Tetsuo announced. Kirin looked over at him with contempt. “That’s definitely yours, you stupid moron. You and that stupid fuckin’ “rain of death” move. When you are you gonna quit bein’ an asshole and stop with that shit? You throw kunai fuckin’ everywhere like a dumb ass. Got this loser killed. You deal with it now." With that said, Kirin walked past the dead body and got back into the vehicle. Paul looked over at the gennin and Tetsuo. “Soooo. This is kind of a big deal and I’m gonna need you to handle it like right now, ok?” Paul requested before following Kirin. Toya looked down at his living comrade, who was essentially catatonic. He looked up at Tetsuo and got a glare that made him doubt the adults would be helping. Carrying the body to a pit was rather simple. The large insects rarely move around if people are nearby. This wasn’t a general rule, but Toya had no choice to consider finding the perfect hole to dump the body in. Watching it lifelessly slowly sinking into the sand was peaceful.
Toya had a problem. Paul, driver and the duo were handling the narrative for the death in their own corner. The news that Toya couldn’t wipe memories didn’t sit well with the crew. It would officially look like a bandit raid and they would laud the boy for valor. The problem in specific was the girl. She’d seen too much to be manipulated by Toya. Nothing would make her permanently forget what she’d seen and done. She helped throw the body into a bug pit to get rid of evidence. While the adults talked, Toya watched Seina while she looked at nothing, still in shock. His time was running out, he had to think. “You-“ He was about to start something when a kunai hit her on the side of the head. “Wait. I dunno, I’m not sure now. I’m pretty sure she’s not in.” Toya could hear Paul while he stared, glue eyed, on the lifeless head of his comrade. “Kid. You’re ‘in’ right?” Paul asked while adjusting his shades blocking out the harsh desert sun. “Yeah.” Toya replied, unable to look away. It creeped Paul out, but he didn’t care too much. “Ok, get rid of it. Yeah, terrible day here guys. Let’s try harder next time. Losing two gennin is a no no c’mon.” Toya couldn’t tell if Paul cared for the dead gennin or if their deaths only irked him out of inconvenience.
The official report stated: At 19:00, the squad suffered casualties, becoming overtaken by a group of illegals and dragged to a location that did not coincide with the mission parameters. Two gennin were kidnapped, one survived. The official swap was unsuccessful. Tetsuo and Kirin cleaned the fighting zone and the only people who knew what happened had skin in the game. On their way home, in the transport vehicle, Tetsuo looked at the young Toya and said, “I swore it’d get you.” His words made Toya tilt his head in curious confusion. Then the reality of the man’s words hit him. He grinned at Toya and the boy felt fear surround him like a fog. The players had no reason to keep Toya alive other than his affiliation, but they could write his death off just like the other two. A casualty of something they couldn’t even understand. His ears caught a whisper between the two. Toya swore he heard, “Looks like the ugly fuck.” Toya didn’t know what to make out of it. Perhaps he was stuck in his own version of shock. Seeing someone die wasn’t new, but that felt different. People have died near Toya in a sort of karmic sense. They were either bad or degenerate. It felt like the natural of flow of things. Seeing two innocent gennin die in a context that would never be revealed to them felt alien. No karmic build up. No dues being paid. Toya revelled in the possibility of life continuing such a volatile behavior.
Arriving home, a weeping mother greeted Toya. The news of gennin death had made its way to Kokoro, and she expected the worse. Her source, however, was not village gossip. “The kid, dead?” The boy’s father shouted from the kitchen. Something was cooking. His words enraged mother, but seeing her son alive shooed away anything other than joy. In the kitchen, the three would talk about Toya’s first mission with ‘them’. It had gone horribly in shinobi terms, but for a meeting of that magnitude, the cleanup was excellent. His father’s advice was to lie low for a while and work on getting stronger. “You’re gonna need to stay put for a while. The desert consumes everything, so don’t worry about the kids. When people ask you about the whole thing, act like it makes you dead inside. Shit, make it your origin story. This is the event that made you want to be yada yada yada. Kokoro you get what I’m sayin’ right?” Toya’s father poked his wife childishly. “Sweety are you sure you’re ok about what you saw?” she asked in that same motherly tone from earlier. “I’m fine. I’m pretty hungry, though.” He replied, receiving a clap from his father, who had just finished making dinner. “You see, the kid’s great! That’s what the shrink is for, right? Kid’s brain is impenetrable, hehe.” Toya’s father teased while he and his mother prepared the dinner table.
Alone in his room, Toya looked up at the ceiling in the dark. Senais dead face was as constant as the black of a blink. Yet through it all. The boy still felt overwhelmed with that all too familiar feeling. He’d witnessed what was probably the peak of the system he was joining. Everything else was downhill. “Shit.” He grumbled to himself before turning over in bed.