One Man's Memory is Another's Memorial

[Punslinger]

Ishiro was having a decidedly bad day. He’d been drinking, and thoughts of his father had, as usual, brought him round after round of nerve-wracking guilt. The old man knew just how pathetic a figure he struck in these situations, but that didn’t stop him from drinking himself into a drooling stupor. On this particular occasion, however, he’d been alert enough to decide that his life was forfeit to the moral obligation to make right his father‘s death, even if the man was a terrible person and deserved it. Stumbling out to his shed, he’d flung the cloth off of Yasha’s chassis, clumsily touching a hand to his right shoulder, which activated the horse puppet. Scrambling lopsidedly into the saddle, the ancient ninja struck a course for the Fire Country and Konoha, intent on turning himself in.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hours later, the horse stopped, which consequently threw the dozing Ishiro to the ground. Patting his creation on the head, he muttered the command for standby mode, but to his surprise, the horse moved to stand in his path.

“Pfffshph…I must be really drunk for you to go into injury recovery mode. Oh well, I can get into a village halfway to plastered with my eyes closed. Override code Tsuki.”

As the horse stepped aside and went back into standby mode behind a group of trees. Ishiro realized with a pang of fear that he was less than a mile from Konoha’s walls. Incidentally, the pang of fear reminded him that his buzz was wearing off, which meant that more alcohol was in order. Several minutes later, the old man was downing sake on a stool at the Konoholic, proving that he really could get into the village half plastered, even if his eyes were open and focused on the bottle in front of him.

[Toshi]

Tousha didn't even bother to go home after he left the Hokage Tower. He knew that after what he had been through, he was going to need a lot of R and R. And what better place to rest and relax than the Konoholic? The Jounin asked himself this very question as he exited the tower and looked up at the setting sun. He came to the decision that there wasn't a better place, so he made a bee line for his favorite bar in all of Konoha.

The Jounin had built up something of a reputation at this bar, so it wasn't surprising to understand why the doorman acted the way he did.

"Ah, crap. Not you again." the large man said with a scowl. "It seems like every time I let you in you go and trash the place in one way or another. But somehow you always manage to slip away at the last moment, and then guess who gets blamed. Me. The guy who let you in."

Tousha scratched the stubble on his jaw and replied casually, "It's good to see you too, buddy. And like I've said before, I was the victim in all of those... mishaps. So you see, we're in the same boat."

The bouncer sighed deeply and said, "You aren't just going to leave, are you?"

Tousha slapped the man on the shoulder and said with a grin, "Of course not. What fun would that be?"

With that the jounin handed over his katana and jitte, thanked the man, and stepped into the bar.

The bar was surprisingly vacant that night, but Tousha didn't really care either way. He wasn't here for the company. So he wasn't discouraged when he took a seat beside an old-ish looking man who appeared to be as hammered as Tousha wanted to be.

"This seat taken?" Tousha asked rhetorically as he sat down with a sigh. He called the bartender over and ordered a jug of sake.

[Punslinger]

Somewhere in the blur of dim lights off of the glaze on his sake cup, Ishiro saw the figure sit next to him and say something incoherent. It all suddenly made sense, however, as the old man saw the jug of sake hit the counter. “Yes. You’re sitting on the memory of my dead father…you gonna finish all that hooch by yourself?”

The old weathered face looked almost sober, excepting the obvious slur in his speech. There was a reason Ishiro usually drank alone; he was a bit of an asshole when inebriated.

[Toshi]

Tousha poured himself a glass of sake and tipped it into the direction of the old man sitting next to him. "That's the idea isn't it?" he said before draining the glass and setting it back on the bar.

"Dead dad, huh?" the jounin muttered, shifting in his seat and looking down at the same time. "Well I hope he doesn't mind a little company."

Then Tousha slid the jug over to the man and said, "I wouldn't mind a little help though. Afterall, it isn't a celebration of you're drinking alone now is it?"

[Punslinger]

“Obliged.” Drunk or not, Ishiro was fast. Taking Tousha’s invitation at face value, the leathered arm shot out, snagged the jug, and had his cup filled with a practiced ease, gulping down the sake within and refilling his cup again before raising it to toast Tousha and placing the jug back on the counter.

“To celebration, then. The only way to remind ourselves that for every tragedy, there is a fall from something good. Celebrate the good, and rectify that which has become…fallen? No, no, that’s not right. Oh, fuck it. Kanpai.”

[Toshi]

"And to the Konoholic, one of my dearest friends and my liver's worst enemy." Tousha added as he tipped his head back and drained the sake from the cup in his hands. He placed the glass back onto the bar with a sigh and began filling it once more.

"So... old timer." the jounin muttered, realizing he didn't know the man's name, "What brings you to this fine establishment? No offense, but by the looks of it you aren't here cruising for bar tail."

[Punslinger]

Ishiro laughed mirthlessly, looking sideways at what he was sure was a shinobi. Depending on how incompetent he was, he might have been a jounin from the looks of him.

“No, no, I lost whatever bitter mote of a soul I was born with years ago, kid. Not a lot of women go for the hardened killer type. At least none that I can stand to be around.” The old man sighed and took another sip. As he set the cup back down, he looked over at Tousha and he seemed to relax as he resigned himself to something. After all, if this guy was a village shinobi, then he could turn himself in over a round of drinks. Definitely the way to end things, if at all possible. He sighed and looked the other man right in the eyes, his dead eye and scar giving the serious look he intended a fierce quality.

“And speaking of killing people…I’m here to turn myself in to the Hokage. It’s probably been about a half century or so since I did it, but once upon a time, I killed a member of your Ruisan clan. And I’m sick of living life looking over my damn shoulder, so I figure now that I’m getting’ on in years, I might as well accept the inevitable fact that someone’s bound to hunt me down. I’d probably take a couple with me, but I’m an old man, and I’m tired of killing; killing for survival, for money, for moral qualms or the lack thereof, just plain tired.”

He coughed a little and put the cup back to his lips before taking a deep breath, letting it out slowly. When he looked back at Tousha, the slightest smile played around the edges of his mouth.

“Not that I’d expect a kid like you to know what that’s like. Figure I could get you to walk me to the tower when we’re done here?”

[Toshi]

Tousha couldn't hide the shock on his face at first, just after the old timer explained his reason for being here. But after a moment or two a small smirk appeared on Tousha's lips. He silently drained his sake glass and placed it back on the table.

"Well, believe it or not I am the Hokage."

He let that comment sit for a moment, knowing that the man sitting next to him would be just as shocked as he had been after learning his life story. Tousha spent this moment or two filling his sake glass once more.

"So I guess another celebration is in order. To my first task as Hokage, dealing with you." He knocked back the drink and sighed deeply.

"As much as I hate missing nin, I actually feel sorry for them." Tousha would never know what brought these words out of him. Maybe it was his guilt for past experiences, or maybe the several pints of sake in his stomach, or maybe even a combination of both. "Once you're a missing nin there are really only three options. Run, hide, or fight." He looked directly into the old man's eyes and muttered, "I couldn't imagine a life like that, and I certainly wouldn't want to live it."

"The chances of returning to your village a free man are so slim, it's nearly impossible. If only people didn't judge others by their mistakes, you know? Don't get me wrong, several of the missing nin out there deserve to die. But there are those who didn't exactly choose that kind of life life, the life of a wild animal that's constantly being hunted. Those are the ones I feel sorry for."

Tousha diverted his eyes towards his sake cup. He slowly stirred the glass in the air before saying, "I know what it's like to be trapped in a corner. To be all alone. To be so scared you want to curl up and die. No one deserves to feel like that."

[Punslinger]

Ishiro wasn’t fazed. He’d been right about being desensitized a long time ago, and it showed…or rather, didn’t. But he was too drunk to really force the issue, and chose the passive aggressive way around it as he raised the cup to toast.

“Sure kid. You’re the Hokage, and I’m a sou chef. Kanpai.”

Taking another drink, his brow furrowed while he listened to the man talk. Shaking his head, he spoke again.

“I’ll say this, because it’s one of the few things I know for sure anymore. You’re wrong on two counts; for starters, we don’t want your pity. If pity could get any of us back to the way things were when they were going right for us, that’d be another story, but the fact is that most of us never had it right to begin with. That’s how we got where we are. Or aren’t, as the case may be. Secondly…” he paused to take another sip, “We don’t want to die. People who desire to die have something they want to die for; we left because we valued our lives. We left because we were scared of our actions, scared of the corollaries to what we’d done. Hell son, if we felt like dying, don’t you think we’d go ahead and do it? Heaven knows it’s easy enough to give up. S’why I’m here, after all. Too scared of death to face down the small army of ANBU it’d take to kill me, and too damn proud to admit that I’ve spent my entire life looking for something worth dying for in complete futility.”

Realizing that he’d probably just told the kid young enough to be his son more than just about anyone else he’d ever known, the old man coughed to relieve the awkward silence, putting a hand to his bad eye to quell the nervous twitch. An old habit for an old wound. “And in my humble opinion, we all deserve it.”

The old shoulders slouched on the stool, and the calloused hands cupped the drink like a precious gem. It had been a long day, and Ishihiro Ruisan was still tired. To change the subject, the old man glanced at the door, where Tousha had left the tools of his trade with the bouncer, the same man who hadn't been quite bright enough to either notice the guns at Ishiro's sides or realized they were weapons. “Lemme ask you two questions; why do you drink, and why do you carry a weapon?”

[Toshi]

Tousha had to admit that he was taken off guard by the old man's question, or rather, his two questions. He actually had to think of his answer for a few moments, but after a few more drinks he turned to the man and said, "I drink because I like the taste." he said simply, a small crooked grin on his face, "And I carry a weapon because my father did."

He set his glass down on the bar and sighed, remembering the long days and nights he had spent with his father, training for this, practicing that. They were the happiest times of Tousha's life.

"He taught me almost everything I know. He was a great man, a good husband, a loving father, and a skilled shinobi. I remember how excited I used to get when I saw him walking down our street, smiling just as wide as I was. That's how I like to remember my father, and every time I tie that katana to my belt, or stuff my jitte under it, I remember him and what it means to be a shinobi. To be a man, even"

Tousha had never been one for talking about his past experiences, let alone his purpose for carrying a sword. But for some reason, and this time he was sure it wasn't the booze, it was easy to speak with this old timer. It was hard to believe that he was a missing nin. A criminal.

"My father died around seventeen years ago. The day I became a jounin in fact. Some exotic disease he caught off in another country, the doctors said." He took the last sip from his sake glass and turned back to the man sitting next to him.

"So why do you drink, and why do you carry a weapon?"

[Punslinger]

Ishiro chuckled. The kid was just as naïve as he’d expected. It would be almost endearing if it weren’t likely to get him killed eventually.

“So you fight to be like your father. S’admirable maybe, but it’s a great example of the problem with shinobi villages. Sitting in the walls of your village, you’re afforded the luxury of crafting your own ideals, and that puts you under the illusion that the world outside runs in a similar fashion, which it doesn’t. Outside this would-be utopia, we carry weapons to protect our ideals rather than enforce them. We carry the weapons we stole from our dead fathers because we’d be dead fools not to.”

He pulled the gun from his left hip casually, twirling it skillfully on one finger while looking at it thoughtfully.

“After a while, you forget whether you’re killing to survive or promote an ideal, or just turn a profit. It doesn’t help to try killing the right people, either. After all, even the wisest man is no adequate judge of who deserves life. In a world where the innocent were never murdered, they’d have to die of something else, but they would still die. ” the gravelly voice paused for the umpteenth time that night to take a drink, and to compose his thoughts. “And drinking? Well, when I was a much younger man, I drank to forget, to escape my guilt. As I grew older, I realized that it just made me remember and regret, so now I drink for penance and shame. After all, I have the sneaking suspicion that if I didn’t drink, I might be almost human, and that just wouldn’t suit a wanted man. Or at least, I assume I’m wanted anyway. Lord knows how many years it’s been since I even spoke to someone from Fire Country, much less a Konoha shinobi who’d know enough about my cl.. me to realize I belong in the bingo book.”

Ishiro stopped talking. Not that it really mattered whether or not this man found out he was a Ruisan himself, he’d simply gotten used to hiding the fact over the years, and old habits die hard, when they die at all.

[Toshi]

Tousha looked at the man's strange weapon as it twirled on his finger. It seemed so familiar somehow, like he had seen one before just like it. He had seen something just like it... but from where? And why hadn't he turned it in at the front door?

"He's a missing nin you moron." he thought to himself, "He isn't just going to waltz in here unarmed."

Tousha shook his head and pushed the thought out of his mind for the time being.

"I don't fight to be like my father." Tousha said in self defence, staring down at the clear liquid that he filled into his glass. "I fight because I want to remember him. This is just the best way I know how..." he trailed off, taking another swig from the cup in his hands.

He sat there for several long, silent minutes, trying to compose his thoughts. So much had happened to him today, it was like everyone wanted a piece of him. He had passed the third kage exam, had stood in front of nearly all of Konoha's population and had been presented with the title of Hokage, and now he was sharing his life story with a missing nin over a few drinks.

Say one thing about life, say it's screwy sometimes.

"I guess it doen't really matter why we drink though. Or for that matter why we choose to carry our weapons and keep fighting on. Either way we get just as drunk as someone who drinks for entirely different reasons. And people still kill and are killed, regardless of the reason behind the sword's edge. If there even is a reason that is." Tousha sighed deeply and shifted in his chair, placing his elbow on the bar and leaning his chin against his open palm. "It all seems so pointless. No matter what I do I can't be there to protect everyone I care for, or for even those I don't. A man can go crazy trying to think about what he could have done differently in life. How they could have done this better or how they could have chosen a different path. And trust me, I've spent more than my share of time re-thinking my choices. It still doesn't help a damn thing."

[Punslinger]

“Wrong again, kid.” Ishiro shook his head. “Motives are everything. If you do the right thing for the wrong reason, you’re a bad person, obviously. Ironically, if you do the wrong thing for the right reason, your morals are questionable at best, corrupted at the worst. That’s why genuinely good people are so hard to find in this world; most of us have either compromised so many times that we’ve forgotten which way was the right one, or we’re just born with blood on our hands.”

He looked over at his bar mate, eying the man up and down before he snorted; something was nagging the back of his mind. “Come on kid, I’m sure you’re a good ninja and all, but do you really expect me to believe they made a naïve youngster like you Hokage? You’d be lucky to break 30 years old, if that.”

If this man really was the Kage, the old man suddenly became very worried about the future of a country that he'd never been a part of. Surely other countries would see this appointment as weakness in the Fire Country.

[Toshi]

Tousha thought hard about the old man's words, even if they were negative and depressing he knew that they were also full of wisdom and truth. If this guy kept it up Tousha could very well begin to question his own logic. Or, more accurately, what little logic he had.

Tousha just stared at the old timer as he scoffed, ridiculed his appearance, and even called him naive. Ok, he could understand the shot at his age, even he had to admit that he was incredibly young to gain the title and responsibility of Hokage. Even though the old man was much more wise and had loads more experience under his belt, that didn't give him the right to call Tousha naive.

"I guess that I'm not very lucky then, considering I'm only twenty-eight." Tousha said, scratching at the stubble on his chin, "But I am the Hokage, believe it or not. Unfortunately I left my rather stylish hat at home. I didn't want to end up using it as a wastebasket if I got a little too crazy with the booze."

[Punslinger]

Ishiro’s fears were justified. Even through a drunken haze that had been hours in the making, the old man was vividly aware of an impending disaster waiting to befall the fledgling leader. Grunting, he shook his head again, a gesture he got the feeling he’d be using a lot tonight.

“That ‘stylish hat’ of yours is a sugegasa, and it’s a symbol of your authority as a leader. You do not walk among your people without it.” Sensing that his tone was a little harsh considering that he barely knew this man, he paused, pushing away his cup and sobering up for a moment as he looked at Tousha.

“Listen son, I’m no expert on the matter, but what you’re in for is Hell. You’ll lose sleep, you’ll question everything you’ve ever learned, and you’re going to be crushed by everything from guilt to indecision and I guarantee you you’re not going to keep happily drinking your way through this. I’ve lead small armies, and I cannot even imagine the pressures that come from running a village. But I do know that you’re gonna need to do some serious growing up, and quick.”

The old man picked his cup back up, looking at it thoughtfully. It really did bear a resemblance to the one he’d used the first time he’d been assigned to lead a team, one rife with dissenters, rivals, and loners. He almost shuddered to think about how terrible it would have to be to resolve the quibbles, complaints, and outright riots of an entire community.

[Toshi]

After the old timer was finished Tousha felt like he had just been hit over the head with a rather heavy, blunt object wielded by someone that was roughly the size of a one bathroom house.

Yet again the old man had managed to make Tousha doubt himself. And then it it hit him. He was the Hokage. The leader of the entire leaf village. The leader. What had he been thinking? What had Inritsu been thinking?! Did he have what it took to run an entire village? Sure he was an excellent shinobi, but he knew now that this fact wouldn't b e enough.

"Holy crap." Tousha muttered to himself, staring at the glass of sake on the bar. Suddenly he wasn't in the mood for another drink. "You're right. What am I doing here anyway? Drinking the night away as if it was any other night. I don't think I've ever said this, nor ever imagined me saying it, but I have to get serious don't I?"

Tousha quietly slid the glass across the bar towards Ishiro with the back of his hand. "I think I'd better get out of here. I don't even want to look at another drink for quite a while, let alone sit here and drink one."

The Hokage reached into his pocket and produced several coins, he placed them on the bar next to his half empty sake jug. The barkeeper looked completely dumbfounded, Tousha knew that the man had expected him to drink late into the night. But Tousha needed to get out of here and figure a few things out, to clear his mind.

"Thanks for the company, old timer." Tousha muttered as he turned to leave. But something stopped him. Something that had been nagging at the back of his mind for quite some time. And then it all came back to him, the man was a missing nin who was here to turn himself in.

It was still hard to believe, that the old drunk was such a high ranking criminal. It was his duty to deal with all of those who broke his country's laws, but Tousha found himself torn between two decisions. After a few moments of consideration, Tousha made his choice.

"You know, I still think I'm right." Tousha said, turning his head and staring at Ishiro with his back still turned to the bar. "Everyone deserves a second chance. Call it naive if you want, I don't give a damn. Maybe it is but it's better than thinking of people in such a negative way all of the time. Believe it or not, good people exist all around us, even if they don't know it yet."

Tousha completely turned around and faced the old man, a stern expression on his face. "Now that I think of it this responsibility I've been given could be a blessing in disguise. Sure I'll have an ass ton of work ahead of me, and I'll probably gain a gray hair or two along the way, but now I actually have the power to make a difference."

The Hokage pointed at the jug of sake and said, "You speak of what it means to be a good person, of what it means to be a good leader. Maybe you do know a hell of a lot more than me, but at least I haven't given up in what I believe in."

With that Tousha turned and left the bar. He was so flustered that he nearly forgot to grab his weapons from the bouncer at the door.

[Punslinger]

"Well good luck, kid."

Watching the younger man leave to do whatever it is he felt he had to do, the old man smirked, not really considering the implications of the situation nor thinking too deeply about the conversation. He was, after all, drunk. But he had just had a conversation with one of the leaders of the Five Great Nations. Even as he finished off Tousha’s jug and walked gingerly out the door, down the street and casually out the front gates of the village, the old man made a mental note to give the whole experience a serious review when next he was sober.