Post
by Jinan B » Thu Jun 09, 2016 12:06 am
The House of Terumī
First Posted 27/05/2016
Events take place while Kinsue is 14
Kinsue's mind was filled with confusion as he made his way back to the 1st tier of Kirigakure, and the Karagata District of the tier. He was already quite exhausted, after a no-holds barred sparring session between his team and another trio of Genin, he doubted that anyone would blame him for heading back to his bed and spending the remainder of the day resting. As fate seemed to have had it, however, that was not to be, as Kinsue was oh-so rudely interrupted by the Awakening of some unknown Doujutsu. He was a Karagata for hell's sake, how many Karagata carried Bloodline abilities? He supposed it was a blessing, a Doujutsu would invariably be helpful in battle one way or another; if it wasn't, then what kind of Doujutsu was it after all, but at the time, after the boy had spent the day training, and then been stuck trying to explain his problem to several Medical Ninja in the hospital, it definitely didn't feel like a good Revelation.
The young Genin cast his mind back to his ancestry; was it possible that his mother had been misinformed when she told him of Terumī Kazuken, his great Grandfather, and his abilities. Or was it that she was simply withholding the truth from him? But why would she not tell me of an Ability of our family? Whatever the truth was, Kinsue knew for sure that he would have to speak to his mother.
Himari was not there once he had arrived at his family home, so he took the opportunity to sleep off the wear and tear that he had been accumulating thus far over the course of the day. He dragged his feet through the empty house, barely pausing to remove his weapons belt and clothing before he collapsed onto his bed. Hardly a moment later the boy was dead to the world.
He woke in a world of shadows, finding himself in the center of a field saturated with mist. Not more than 5 meters in front of him the world became a gray wall that he could not see through. He began wondering through the haze, trying to make sense of the strange world around him when a voice pierced the veil. "The contenders are both ready to battle. Begin!" A moment later, a kunai came flying through the mist, flying straight at the young boy. Shit! Kinsue's reflexes took over, and he flung himself sideways in order to avoid the deadly projectile. What the hell is going on?
A light laugh echoed through the field as Kinsue picked himself off from the ground once more. He couldn't place it, but he was sure that he recognized the voice of the boy who was laughing at him. The sounds made it through the veil of gray once more, this time accompanied by another kunai, but Kinsue was prepared for the assault this time. He drew a kunai from his belt, and blocked the projectile with it. "Stop hiding! Just come and face me already!" He yelled at his opponent, turning slow circles with his blade in hand.
He was answered only by yet more laughter, and another kunai.
Kinsue knew that he can't have been fighting his unknown adversary for too long, but it felt like an age. He ducked and dodged and deflected the kunai that were thrown at him, all the while screaming at the foe to show himself to the young Genin. However long it had taken, however, eventually he faltered, and a kunai buried itself in the boy's chest. When the laughter inevitably came, it was louder and more mocking than ever.
Oddly enough, there was no pain that came with being stabbed by the kunai. All Kinsue felt was a sense of weakness, as if the strength were being drained through his wound and replaced with a chilling numbness. He fell slowly to his knees, lacking the strength, or even the will, to stand any longer. "The contestant is unable to battle..." Wait, I can still fight... But even though the boy tried to find his feet again, all he could do was stumble, and remain on the ground.
"You aren't done yet son." A warm soothing voice drifted over Kinsue, washing away the chill that the kunai had brought to him, and he looked up to see a ghostly figure. The man seemed almost completely ethereal, almost as if he was more a part of the mist than he was a part of reality, but one feature about him was definitely real. His eyes practically shone, with the iris a blue so bright it was almost like electricity. The sclera on the other hand burned a vibrant orange. "You have what you need to accomplish your goals, so get up boy! Finish what you started." The fire in the man's voice intensified to the point where Kinsue could've sworn that he had been set alight, and the warmth continued to spread through his body, moving through his legs and chest before reaching his head. Kinsue screwed his eyes shut, trying to get his mind away from the sensation.
but the feeling faded almost as quickly as he had begun, and when Kinsue opened his eyes once more, it was as if he was in a different world. The veil of mist had disappeared completely, along with the man with the vibrant eyes. Instead, the world was orange. Kinsue could see to each end of the arena that he was in, he spotted a man standing off to the side of the arena, watching him intently, while the field itself was surrounded by stands filled with people. When he looked down, he realized that the kunai that had pierced him was no longer there.
The source of the laughter remained, however, a single spot of blue in a sea of red. Kinsue took out a kunai and threw it at the figure, and the battle began. The being seemed surprised that Kinsue knew where it was, and was caught off guard by the kunai, he managed to dodge it, but the attempt gave Kinsue the opportunity to form a set of hand seals and throw a massive ball of water at the boy. The ball enveloped him just as he turned to look back at Kinsue, and before long he lay still within it, trapped.
The young Genin began to walk to where his foe lay trapped, but with each step the world started to come apart; what was previously clear became gray and ghostly once more until it reached a point where Kinsue couldn't make anything out once more. "Go then. Finish what you started, Karagata...
...Kinsue?" Kinsue opened his eyes, and found himself back on his bed with Karagata Himari by his side. "This isn't the time for you to be sleeping Kinsue." She said sternly when she realized the young Genin was awake. "You should be training. Besides... You were yelling in your sleep." Figures.. Kinsue thought, of course Himori would try and disguise concern with sternness.
"Okasan!" Kinsue called as Himori turned to exit the room, "I need to speak to you."
"No." Himori said flatly to the young Genin once he had finished telling her of his story and his suspicions. "Kazuken was a sensor. Believe me Kinsue, when I was young I was told the same stories as you were, but there were... Other stories that were told about our ancestors; that he had an ability greater than that of Sensory Jutsu, that his eyes shone whenever he was inside his mist, but they weren't true. I believed that they were, I even tried to find some kind of proof, but Kazuken was already dead by the time I started asking questions, and all the answers pointed to the rumor being nothing more than a falsehood." By the time he had finished, Kinsue could tell that Himari had done more than simply ask questions in her youth. She must have been personally invested in the potential truth of the myth. Did she hope that she might have had that same power?
"I understand Okasan, but please. Could you tell my the story of our ancestor, I have some kind of Ability, that must is without a doubt, and if there is a chance that the myth will help me understand the source of it then I cannot take no for an answer."
"... OK, if you insist Kinsue. I will explain the story of Kazuken, and his supposed powers as well as I can. It might be best if you got comfortable." The women sounded... resigned, as if she had just submitted herself to take part in a fruitless exercise. Perhaps it will be, but the chance still exists that I'll be able to learn something from this. For the young Genin in that moment, even the slightest of chances was enough, and so he settled down and began to listen to his mother.
"In the days of the Sandaime Mizukage, one of the first Karagata to gain true influence within the village was close friends with one of the first Terumī Jounin. It was said that the brutal efficiency of both Ninja in the war of the time caused them to rely on each other. The Karagata was, as might have been expected considering his family's legacy, a skilled assassin, while the Terumī was proficient in the mist Style of the Village. The two made for a good match in combat in combat as a result, and it was not a surprise when the Karagata took the Terumī family under them in the years after their rise to prominence. There were always whispers, however, that the Terumī had developed a mutation in those years, the Ability to see through an entirely different spectrum. Terumī ninja with the power were common, but the Jounin was the first to realize the potential of the power when used alongside Mist Jutsu, and so his power reached incredible heights. In the successive generation, there were always said to be 2 or 3 Terumī with the power, always male, and always using the Mist Style to their advantage with the Doujutsu."
"Eventually the number of people born with the ability lessened, however. Where there used to be 4 Shinobi with the power per generation, there were 2, or even only 1. Some people thought that it was because of the Family's bloodline being muddied through marriage with others houses and family's, some thought that it was nothing more than the changing times. What remained, however, was the fact that those born with the Power were growing smaller in number, and there came a time where there were no Terumī that could use the Doujutsu. Our family became nothing more than any other Shinobi family serving the Karagata, and before long we grew into obscurity."
"About 2 or 3 generations after the last user of the family's Doujutsu, Kazuken was born, the second son of the current head of the family and our direct ancestor. He never told anyone, not even his family, that he had gained the Ability, but the rumors were always there. He used the Mist Style in the same style as the great Shinobi of old did, he mastered the same techniques, and used them in the same ways, but he surpassed all of them. There were those who wondered, myself included, how a Sensor would be able to achieve such skill when those with the bloodline of our family could not. In the end though, nothing could be proven. The man was a lone wolf of the most extreme degree, none of his friends ever fought beside him, and none of his foes who saw his powers lived to tell the tale." The women sighed, while Kinsue looked on, fascinated. "We can only assume that the Ability died generations ago, if it even existed in the first place." Himari finished finally, allowing Kinsue to speak up with glee.
"Okasan, you're wrong. I swear, our family's Ability is the same one that I am awakening, I'm sure of it!" The boy said, trying to keep his cool, but failing in light of all that he had just been told. "You said you asked question when you were a child, that you found some kind of answers even if they weren't the ones that you were hoping for. How did you find them?" There had to be some kind of link to Kazuken, something that Kinsue might be able to discover to aid him in understanding his new power. "... Everything I had on Kazuken... I kept it in his old house."
The house itself was ordinary enough, considering the man who had once lived there. A well decorated, if still somewhat bare by the standards of what Kinsue was used to, building in the 2nd tier of the village. "After my father died, I inherited the house, but of course I moved out after I married your father. No one has lived here in years." Himari commented as she brought out the key to the front door. Once they were in Kinsue could see what she meant. The house, while it had looked well-kept from the outside, was entirely covered in what amounted to an incredibly thick layer of dust. It was still definitely livable, the location of the home seemed to have kept any criminals away, but Kinsue would be damned if it wouldn't need some Spring cleaning first.
"All my notes on Kazuken are here." Himari said, pointing out a pile of books in the bottom corner of a shelf. "It might take a while to go through them, however, and I have business to take care of." The women handed Kinsue the key to the house, and turned to leave. "Just make sure that you're home by dinner."
Kinsue wasted no time in dusting off the old books, and got to reading. Over the next couple of hours the young Genin devoured every word that his mother had written all those years ago, every now and then finding another tome that she had referred to in her writings and reading relevant sections in those as well. In the few breaks that he allowed himself he explored the old home. In most aspects it was nothing more than an entirely standard house, but it had it's flaws from being unused for so long. There were several spots of mold in some of the colder rooms, and in the master bedroom Kinsue found several cracks in the wall, through which he could feel the warmth seeping out of the room. Oddly enough, however, during a break in the later part of the day Kinsue happened upon a spot that seemed to exude heat, almost directly opposite from the cracks that released it. He had seen several other houses joined to the one that he was in, and so dismissed it as a connecting wall to a fireplace of some sort, eager to get back to his research.
The young genin had been hoping to find some sort of connection that had eluded Himari's eye, perhaps as a result of his own experiences with the Doujutsu, but as he scanned page after page of information related to the legend of the Terumī Doujutsu he began to realize that such a connection would not be nearly as easy to find as he might have thought. As the day neared it's end he was no closer to success than he had been when he had started, though he still had a massive amount of information to look through. One last break, then the next time I stop, I'll go home.
The boy went back to the master bedroom of the house, and found himself drawn once again to the spot that seemed to radiate heat. He put his hand over the area, and began to realize that it was not a broad area that was hotter than the rest of the wall, as it would have been if the souse of the heat was an adjacent fire. Instead the heat seemed to be incredibly localized, almost as if it were a specific shape in the wall itself. What is this...
Suddenly a thought popped into Kinsue's head, whenever he had somehow managed to use his eye, the world had shown up in various degrees of blue and orange. When he thought back on the times where it had happened, however, he began to realize that it might have been more than that. Is it possible that the Doujutsu let's me see heat itself? If it could, than Kinsue would be able to see the precise source of the heat in the wall. It's worth a try... Besides, I'll have to learn how to use this power sooner or later.
He thought back to how the Ability had activated before, first when he had lost control of his chakra during the sparring session that morning, and then when he had been aided by the Chakra conductive paper. Both times it had been caused by a rush of Chakra to his head, but would he be able to replicate the same results without any help? He tried to manipulate his Chakra, channeling it towards his eyes in the hopes of achieving something...
...And jumped back as his efforts suddenly paid off. His head began to pound as a result of the chakra usage, but he had achieved what he had needed to achieve; voluntary use of his Ability. He looked down at his hands, and realized that he seemed to be right. While the room was painted in various shades of blue, his own body was a rich and vibrant orange. So red is hot, blue is cold then... The boy raised his head, looked at the spot where the heat had been coming from, and gasped.
Imprinted into the blue wall of the house, was a clear red hand-print.
This.... Is incredible. Kinsue thought as he stared at the hand embedded in the wall. He reached towards the source of the heat, placing his palm over it until the two hands matched perfectly. Then he pushed, and the section of the wall gave way beneath his palm.
"Ah shit!" the boy suddenly exclaimed as his vision returned to it's normal state. His forehead was pounding like a drum, and he needed to rest for a bit in order to try and curb off his migraine, but before long he felt well enough to allow his interest to guide his movement once more, and he looked at what he had just found.
Inside the wall itself, someone had buried a small box, it must have originally been made of dark wood, but the years had slowly begun to rid it of it's color to the point where it ranged in hue from a medium brown to almost pure white. The inside of the box, as Kinsue found when he opened it, was entirely unspoiled however, with the wood it's proper dark color, bordering on black. Contained within it, Kinsue found two small books, bound in plain red leather, and almost entirely unspoiled by the passing of time. Between the books was a single white sheet of parchment. Incredible... How long has this been here for? The young Genin took the sheet of parchment in his hand, and began to read.
I cannot say with certainty how long it will before before this message is found once more, or even if it will survive long enough to be found at all, but if this is being read, then perhaps I will be able to rest easy in the knowledge that my legacy has been secured.
Since the dawn of our family, the rumors of our Doujutsu, the Toramugan, have run rampant through Kirigakure. By now you no doubt now that such an ability exists, seeing as you have had to use it to find this message at all. Our gift is a potent one, and something that cannot be mastered without years of expertise and training, a daunting task perhaps, but it as with any other art of the Shinobi.
For you, however, I present two gifts that may yet ease the Journey ahead of you. The first is the complete truth about myself, a useless present perhaps, but I have tired of lying to all those that I know on a daily basis. It will be good to know that one day, someone will know what really occurred over my lifetime.
The second gift you may prize more. It is a guide on how to use the gift given to our family to it's full potential. I trust that you will use it well, for it has been too long since another Shinobi has been blessed with our gift, and it deserves a ninja capable of wielding it as proficiently as the Terumī of old.
I have worked long to secure the legacy of our family, hopefully you will be able to continue my work, and finish what I started.
Terumī, Kazuken.
Kinsue grinned as he put down the message, and gazed at the books once more. He knew that it would be far from an easy journey, but he had all that he needed right there, in his hands. One day, he promised himself.
One day I'll be more powerful than Kazuken ever was.
Last edited by
Jinan B on Thu Jul 06, 2023 3:49 am, edited 2 times in total.
