As far as Shizuo was concerned, he needed to be a paid for his services that day. He went above and beyond the duties of typical volunteers and had performed more procedures than he had planned. He had learned a lot about himself and his abilities as a medical shinobi, and though he had lied his way through the job, he was pleased with himself and his new skills.
After a long day, the special jounin made his way back home. A long shiver shot down his spine when his face, still clammy from sweat, met the bitter cold that hung over Iwagakure. He hugged his jacket tighter to his body and began making the trek home. Before he could make it, however, he was stopped by a familiar voice.
“Oh. Kanagawa-san, good evening.”
Kanagawa Takuro was an old man of around seventy, bowed over with age and seemingly weighted down by the long, thick grey beard dangling from his face. He had kind and narrow eyes and large ears like tiny wings on the side of his head. He was a family friend and had helped raise Shizuo, and had treated him like his own grandson.
“Shizuo-kun. Shizuo-kun! I’ve been waiting all day for you. I have a small request.”
Shizuo stifled a sigh but maintained a smile. He just wanted to go home, but there was no way he could stiff the old man and walk away. “I heard you’re a young tamer of spirits.”
Shizuo laughed sheepishly and ran his fingers lazily through his hair. It was an odd thing to say so suddenly, but he rolled with it.
“I’m not sure I would call myself a ‘tamer.’ But I know a thing or two about them.”
“Good, good. Follow me.”
The old man’s home seemed modest on the outside, but within were dozens and dozens of artifacts and old relics. They reminded him of the items within the cabinet of his parents’ home - the ones he wasn’t supposed to know about at all.
“I’ve come across a rare item, but I’ve had a bit of a…problem with it. I thought to formally call upon a shinobi for assistance, but then you crossed my mind, and it may be more beneficial to all if you handled it.”
Takuro seemed to be beating around the bush, which wasn’t like him. In all the years they’d known one another, the old man had always been very concise and direct. At that moment he was explaining himself too much, which made the shinobi uneasy. But he kept his blossoming suspicions under wraps and maintained his demeanor as the bubbly, eager child that Takuro had always known.
“Beneficial to all? How so?”
The old man hummed and tapped his cane a a few times on the floor. “I would prefer to keep knowledge of this situation from reaching too many ears.” With that, he gestured for Shizuo to follow him to the back of the house into a small, dark room. When he flipped the light, it revealed that the room was completely empty except for a large mirror that hung on the wall opposite of the door.
“It’s fascinating. Truly fascinating. It arrived today, and I had my daughter and a couple others bring it in. But something went wrong. See for yourself, but I warn you to be careful and to not look at your reflection in the eyes.”
Shizuo paused.
“What happens if I look at myself in the eyes?”
After a bit of hesitation, Takuro replied, “Well, I imagine you’ll be gravely injured. My daughter and her friends had their faces mutilated. Among other terrible consequences.”
Shizuo’s throat dried. The implication of what the man said horrified him; he had, of course, treated a woman only hours earlier whose nose and lips were grotesquely ripped to the point where he had to perform an emergency tracheostomy just so she could breathe. With the condition of her face, he hadn’t recognized her at all.
“That…was your daughter?”
“Very unfortunate. She was -”
“Unfortunate?! Her face was ripped beyond recognition! I-I had to put a hole in her neck just so she could breathe and you just…did you even go check on her?!” He had completely lost control over his tone and had dropped all formalities in his speech. Shizuo simply could not believe that Takuro could see his daughter be reduced to that condition and still be at home, idly waiting.
“She nearly died, do you know that? We almost lost her and you just sat here as she nearly bled out, as she suffocated on her own blood!”
“You must understand, Shizuo,” the old man barked, speaking over the young shinobi, “that I could not leave this relic unattended.”
A disgusted grimace.
“So you chose a joruri over the wellbeing of your own daughter. A spirit over your flesh and blood.”
The elderly man began to tremble as he tried to quell his anger and frustration. “Do not pretend that you know how difficult it was to make that decision, Shizuo!”
“SHE’S YOUR DAUGHTER AND YOU ABANDONED HER!”
Shizuo’s rage hung thickly in the air, and with every heave of his chest the atmosphere worsened. This man was someone he had respected, and he took the fact that he could be so cruel to his own child personally. It was both infurating and disheartening that someone who seemed so kind was capable of such heartlessness.
Takuro’s next words were calmer, soothing. “Shizuo-kun. I understand where your outburst is coming from. But these kinds of decisions are never easy.”
“Just shut up.”
Shizuo found out he was adopted when he was eleven. His academy days were difficult, to say the least, and his classmates didn’t make it any easier. He remembered he had been struggling, as always, with elemental ninjutsu but was coming to terms with the fact that he would probably never be able to use it. Not only that, but he was struggling with taijutsu and with using the simple weapons that genin were typically issued. His classmates had taunted him relentlessly.
“Useless albino freak! You might as well be an outsider! Outsider!” one boy had sang as he kicked Shizuo’s legs from under him.
Another boy had chimed in, “A fucking barbarian! My dad says those savages have ugly white skin like yours!”
At the time, Shizuo had shrugged it off; the insult was nothing new. But as he ruminated on it, he found it bothered him. Both of his parents had tan, naturally sun-kissed skin, and when he had asked them about his own fair complexion and hair color as a child, his mother had kissed his forehead and held his cheeks in her hands. “My dear son, you were born at the end of a harsh Winter, and to atone for her malice she kissed you when you came into this world. That is why your hair and skin are as white as the snow.”
That explanation was fascinating to a small child, but to a young preteen whose eyes were beginning to open to cruel reality, it wasn’t enough. That day he told his parents what the bullies had said and tearfully asked them if it was true.
They didn’t deny it. His legs trembled, and they sat him down and carefully told him the truth. His birth parents were nameless Jidokami, members of one of the many barbarian tribes to the north. They had travelled to Iwagakure at the end of winter to welcome the rainy season, but he was born feeble and they left him behind, convinced he would never survive infancy.
“But my son,” his mother said as his tears fell into her lap, “you became ours the moment I first held you in my arms, and you smiled.”
Takuro balked. Shizuo was never one to address his elders so rudely, and the young shinobi was shaking in fury.
“You’re on your own, old man,” he spat, and turned to leave.
“If you do not banish the spirit residing in this mirror, it could spell disaster for my household, for this neighborhood!”
“Not my problem.”
“This is not like you, Komiya Shizuo! Are you not the same child who vowed to protect those around him, to support his village at all costs?! The seal that keeps the spirit in that mirror is weakening by the second. It was all I could do to remain here and keep it in check! I need you to banish it, and to keep quiet about it!”
The shinobi clenched his fists so hard that his fingernails threatened to break the skin of his palms. He wanted nothing more than to walk away from the man who had essentially left his daughter to die. That kind of person was unworthy of help, and anything that resulted from Takuro’s recklessness and disregard for his daughter’s life was
his problem, not Shizuo's.
But at the same time, if the spirit could cause that much damage while sealed, there was no telling what it was capable of if it was released from its prison. He felt obligated to ensure that no one else was hurt. Shizuo was torn between his personal code and his personal demons.
After heavy contemplation, he turned on the old man and glared as he unconsciously flexed his arms.
“Once I do this, you will go to the hospital and check on your daughter.”
“Shizuo -”
“You will check on her, and you will beg for her forgiveness. And you won’t leave her side until she recovers. Those are my conditions.”
Takuro lowered his eyes briefly, then meekly asked, “And you won’t notify anyone? I…no one must know about this, Shizuo-kun. You must understand.”
The man said nothing, but turned away and approached the ominous mirror.
"Get out so I can work."
Shizuo lowered his hand and doubled over, breathing heavily from the exhausting ordeal. Takuro peeked his head back into the room and cautiously approached. “Is it done? Is it gone?”
The man was disgusting, and Shizuo found that he couldn’t look at him. Just being in the same room made him feel hollow, and the sensation drained him almost as much as fighting the spirit did. He thought he knew Takuro as a kind man who cared about his family, about his neighbors who he had always treated as family. He had been an extension of his adopted family, and Shizuo had fond memories of the man that he was desperate to hold onto and cherish. But it was clear to him that anyone was capable of the cruelty necessary to abandon one’s own child. Trust had been tainted by revulsion.
He wiped the sweat from his forehead and turned to the door, pointedly avoiding looking in Takuro’s direction.
“Thank you, Kanagawa-san, for all that you have done. For always treating me like family and making me feel like I belong even after I found out where I came from.”
The old man smiled and began his amiable and grateful reply, but he was cut off and physically recoiled when Shizuo finally turned his gaze toward him. His eyes were blackened by hatred.
“Expect a full investigation into your household within the hour.”