Chapter 1: The Dream (3)

[Rain21199]

Soseki stared blankly at Indra, the silence between them thick and oppressive. The warmth had long since left the food on the table, and a slow, burning sensation began to unfurl in Soseki’s chest. He took a deep breath, swallowing hard, but the discomfort lingered, gnawing at him from the inside.

So the Soul Jinchuuriki was still alive. Indra was the host of the legendary Shishire no Shigenma. Soseki struggled to keep his expression neutral, fighting back the urge to let a smile creep across his lips. This was a revelation that could change everything, a power that could shift the balance in ways he had only dreamed of.

Soseki exhaled slowly, composing himself before he spoke. “It makes perfect sense. If I were in your position, I’d do the same.”

He looked away briefly, gathering his thoughts before meeting Indra’s ethereal eyes again. “Even if I ran back to Suna right now and shouted from the rooftops that I was planning to bring down Iwa, you’d still be the one with the larger target on your back. That’s exactly why I should keep my status as a shinobi. Right now, it’s just the two of us, and while you can’t return, I can still gather intel.”

Soseki scratched his chin thoughtfully, weighing his next words carefully. “Suna is sending shinobi to Iwa for missions. Think about the intel I could gather just by being there, by working alongside them. Indra, I know this is a massive risk, for both of us, but some risks are worth taking. Besides…”

With deliberate slowness, Soseki reached up and removed his headband, revealing two small, golden spikes protruding from his scalp, each no longer than a thumbtack.

“We might not be so different.”

[Ace Trainer]

The silence that hung between them felt like an eternity. Indra had dropped what felt like a bomb between them, and anything could happen from here. Would the camaraderie Soseki and Indra had been building implode? Would it be something to bond them further? Would he be afraid, as many were of the soul genma? Indra couldn’t help but feel he’d just put himself at an enormous risk by owning up to this. But, he also couldn’t help but feel he had been given no other options.

And then something strange happened. Despite the neutral look on Soseki’s face, his soul hummed. It was happiness, it wasn’t joy, it was….glee. Indra reserved his response to this, the nervousness and shame on his face overriding the confusion that was developing. Soseki responded in a way Indra couldn’t properly conceptualize. What was this response? But then, he would forget all about it as the Hizashi in front of him responded, and Indra felt a sudden and overwhelming amount of relief as the tension melted away. In comparison to Soseki’s slow exhalation, Indra let out several sudden, quick breaths as if he’d been holding his, not realizing that’s what he’d been doing.

Soseki still seemed set on leaving, though, which marred the relief Indra was feeling with a degree of insecurity. His mind went back to the glee, maybe Soseki saw this as an opportunity for riches? Surely Iwagakure would reward the shinobi that turned in the soul genma a great degree. But he sense no foul intentions, leaving Indra unsure of what to do. I have a solution the genma would echo inside Indra’s head. He’d ignore it for now, simultaneously frustrated that the soul genma’s activity had reared back up so easily, but intrigued on what he was offering. His brow came together as he processed this, and then he let out a heavy sigh, looking at Soseki’s horns.

”Well, I know who the Heaven host is…so, what are those from?”, he asked, actually a bit happy that the conversation would diverge from the soul genma so easily. Perhaps learning more about Soseki would make this process easier for him.

[Rain21199]

Had Indra heard what happened to Heaven’s host? Soseki wondered if it was a conversation worth having now. Maybe later...

“Him and I… we’re not exactly on speaking terms, so to be honest, I don’t really know. My dad, he… he…”

Soseki’s voice faltered, the words catching in his throat as memories he had tried to bury surged to the surface. His father’s last words echoed in his mind, mingling with images of dead men and the walking corpses that had haunted his nightmares. His heart began to race, the pounding so fierce he could feel it reverberate in his ears. The room spun, and suddenly, the ground seemed to tilt beneath him.

Without warning, Soseki shot to his feet, the force knocking his chair to the ground. He collapsed to his knees, gasping for breath, his vision narrowing as darkness clawed at the edges. His mind was overwhelmed by the horrific scenes replaying with cruel clarity, each one more vivid and unrelenting than the last. He tried to push them away, but they held him captive, refusing to let go. A sinister laugh rang out, a deafening sound that drowned out everything else, and in his mind's eye, his father’s corpse reached out, grabbing his shoulder.

“NOOO!” Soseki screamed, tearing away from the hand, shoving the figure to the ground. The laugh continued to echo in his mind, relentless and cruel. He curled into a ball on the cold stone floor, the world around him forgotten as he sobbed uncontrollably.

Soseki screamed. The suffocation of silence sounded so sweet to Soseki as symphonies of sound and souvenirs of the spirit's sealing shocked Soseki's system. Stygian snickers still sang, surrounding Soseki's spirit.

Gradually, the horrifying images and sounds began to fade, leaving only the sensation of the cool stone against his skin. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed, and for a moment, Indra was a distant memory. He remained on the floor, breathing heavily, until the panic finally subsided, leaving him drained and trembling.

[Ace Trainer]

Indra listened, a sadness coming over his face as Soseki seemed to struggle. He related to that all too well, the Soul Genma had messed with Indra quite a bit, and he had been fortunate to have Ikinari to guide him and bring about peace in a tumultuous time for him. Ikinari’s guidance had taught him a fair amount, and he wondered if he could provide that same guidance for Soseki. He softened his eyes as he tried to meet Soseki’s gaze, but instead Soseki seemed to only get more intense about things. Suddenly, Soseki seemed to be in another world, clearly dealing with something Indra could not see.

But his soul was erratic, panic, fear, sadness, all echoed from his soul in such an obvious way that it left Indra feeling a deep sadness for his new ally. Quick to his feet, Indra would walk over to Soseki as he collapsed to the ground, kneeling next to him. A bit of urgency in him, he would simply place a hand on Soseki’s back at the boys went through whatever he was. The sobbing and heavy breathing a stark contrast from the glee Indra had just been detecting. He would focus, acutely trying to sense Soseki’s soul, and focusing energy into Soseki’s soul. He would do his best to try and bring a calming energy to it as he continued to breathe heavily as he laid there, manipulating Soseki’s very essence to bring him so relief.

”Be calm.”, he said patiently. ”Her Light shines on us, even here. We bask in her Light and it guides us to peace.”, he attempted to coax Soseki into a calmness. With a quick flick of his wrist chakra strings would launch across the room and attach to a cup of water that would carefully hover back over to them and he’d hold it for Soseki as he came back to. ”You’re safe here.”

Hi hi hi hi hi hi

[Rain21199]

Soseki slowly lifted his head, meeting Indra’s gaze. Despite having just met, something about Indra’s calm presence seemed to anchor him. As the reality of his outburst set in, a wave of embarrassment crashed over him, and his cheeks flushed a deep crimson. He quickly averted his eyes, unable to face the other boy any longer.

I can’t even keep it together, he thought bitterly, a harsh self-reproach twisting in his gut. How am I supposed to lead a revolution?

His voice was hollow as he spoke, the weight of his own inadequacy pressing down on him. “You probably think I’m crazy…”

The words hung in the air, thick with the defeat he felt. Maybe he was crazy. Ever since that day, something inside him had fractured, leaving him unsure of who he was or what he was becoming.

With a deep breath, Soseki forced himself to stand, trying to shake off the lingering tremors. “I’m not ready to talk about it,” he admitted, his voice steadier now but tinged with lingering shame. “But I’d rather keep busy than sit around and sulk. Can you show me around the ruins? Keep my mind occupied?”

He looked to Indra, hoping that a distraction might help him regain some semblance of control.

[Ace Trainer]

Indra watched him carefully, a soften gaze tracking every moment on Soseki’s face as he finally seemed to come back around and find some calm in him. In truth, Indra had only done direct manipulation of a person’s soul like that a handful of times, and every time before on Ikinari as practice. Being able to do it in real time in that way had been...relieving to an extent. "I’ve seen crazier.", Indra said with a small smirk, the tone of his voice suggesting he hadn’t really. A small joke. Placing the cup down on the table next to them, Soseki seemingly not interested in it, Indra would rise to his feet once Soseki did.

The next question from the red haired companion would be met with a wide grin, "Yeah!", the excitement palpable, Indra would once again launch a chakra string across the room. This time it would attach to a rolled up piece of parchment the Indra would quickly unfurl, holding it out for Soseki to see. The drawing on the scroll was...rudimentary. In the same way a drawing by a toddler was rudimentary. It seemed Indra did not have much skill in the realm of artistry. However, even without it being too skillful, it seemed Indra had drawn some sort of map. A big arrow at the top pointed to a tower that said One way in, and then there was what looked more like a tornado but was like the spiral staircase leading down from the tower. Then, a bunch of squares, each with mindless silly things drawn into each of them that were quite difficult to parse out.

”Here I’ll show you around!”, Indra said gleefully, turning without actually looking at Soseki this time and instead marching into the hallway, not looking where he was going as he made noises to himself seemingly trying to interpret the very map he himself had drawn. ”Well alright! So here are some bathrooms, there was also one in the room you slept in. The bathrooms here are weird. Not very private. And we’re underground, so I don’t know where they lead to…”, his voice trailed off, the thought floating in the air between them as he turned his nose back to the parchment.

And! If we head down this hallway!!”, he would exclaim, picking up his pace to a practical jog before rounding a corner, ”There is a library!!”, he’d shout, pushing open to large ornate doors to reveal the library he’d mentioned. The walls were lined from top to bottom with books, the room they’d just entered easily two stories tall. The windows spaced between the enormous bookshelves reminding them how deep underground they were when they showed no light and instead were caked in sand. ”Isn’t this…something??”, Indra said, the awe in his voice palpable.

[Rain21199]

Soseki's eyes swept across the towering shelves that stretched into the room, filled with crumbling tomes and ancient scrolls. The faint light from flickering torches outside the door barely penetrated the room, casting long shadows that made it seem as though the shelves extended endlessly into the darkness.

“Woah…” he breathed.

Drawn by curiosity, Soseki reached for one of the dust-covered volumes. He blew on its surface, sending a cloud of particles swirling through the air. As he opened the brittle pages, he realized the text was worn and faded, the ink almost impossible to make out. Even if the book had been in better condition, half the words seemed foreign to him, written in some ancient form of their language.

“What is this place?" he murmured, eyes still fixed on the weathered script. He looked up at Indra. "Do you have any idea what these chambers were meant for?”

[Ace Trainer]

Soseki's response was exactly what Indra was hoping for, a distraction from whatever had just happened and an opportunity to finally talk to someone about what he was discovering in this place. While the solitude had been appreciated, he also recognized the enormity of what was here and being able to actually talk about it with someone, to finally appreciate it with someone, was something Indra was deeply appreciative of in this moment. As Soseki took it in and absorbed one of the books in front of him, Indra would take another, flipping open the tome and riffling through it's pages, his eyes more on Soseki than on the book in his hands.

"In ancient times, long before well...us, Yuumegure wasn't just the dominant religion in Suna. It was everywhere in the west, but especially in Wind Country's predecessors. You know how there are temples all over Sunagakure? Imagine that for Wind Country. Everywhere. Every Oasis had someone to teach her word, and dotted between the oases throughout Wind Country there were temples like this. Just like this", he emphasized. This single room was as large as the entire temple Indra had worked with Ikinari in. And while that temple was on the 'smaller' side within Suna, even the largest in Suna were nothing compared to this.

"This room was one of their libraries. Just one. This is the biggest one I've found so far but I've found others.", he nodded excitedly, "Yuumegure was responsible for literature, for documenting and recording history, arts, innovation. Ninjutsu! All of it. In these books.", he gestured around the room, "This is the history of us."

[Rain21199]

Soseki mulled over Indra’s words, his mind racing with possibilities. If Indra was right, then the hidden knowledge buried in these texts could be invaluable. And if there were more temples like this, scattered across the land…

“Can you read these?” Soseki asked, his fingers tracing the faded lines on the brittle page. “I can make out a few words, and some of them look like they’re just spelled strangely. But there are plenty I’ve never even seen before.”

He turned his gaze back to Indra. Maybe those starry eyes of his could see things he couldn’t.

[Ace Trainer]

Indra put the book in his hands down, he could feel the vibration of Soseki's soul, excitement, resonating from around him. Like a butterfly coming across a field of recently bloomed flowers, Soseki seemed to be coming to some realization. Taking a few steps over, Indra would peer at the book Soseki was holding, watching where his fingers were tracing over. He'd smile, and sort of wobble his head in each direction before shrugging, "Sort of?", he said, hope in his voice but also giving a semi-apology in the tone.

"I've studied a little, in the old texts.", as a Prism, Indra had been taught how to read the "original" version of Yuumegure's holy book, but it was still modernized to an extent, it was closer to 500 years old, so recent enough that it's language could be carried forward by generations but long enough ago that the common tongue had deviated quite a bit. But the language in many of these books was much older. At least a millennia, if not more. Old enough that while some of the words he could parse from the language he knew from his study of Yuumegure, the entire structure was different enough that he couldn't translate literally. Much of his time reading since coming had been absorbing as much information from younger texts, so that he could start to bridge the gap.

"There's a lot to read. I've been skipping the ones that are incomprehensible. That one is bad, but there have been some that have been much worse.", he gestured to a shelf that had clearly been emptied by Indra, and then books placed back on it. "These ones look really important, but I can't make heads from tails in them. So, I'm holding them separately in the hopes I can come back to them at some point.", he explained. "Theres a lot in here.", he looked back at Soseki with a grin, Soseki couldn't sense souls, but if he could he'd sense the same thing from Indra that Indra had sensed from him.

[Rain21199]

Soseki smiled. "Well, it sounds like that's a good place to start. If we can figure out how to translate these texts, maybe we can uncover whatever secrets this place holds. I just hope it's enough to help the village." His voice trailed off as he spoke.

His excitement quickly faded. The weight of responsibility crept back into his thoughts. This discovery felt exciting, but it was hard to ignore the gnawing worry. Every moment spent in this forgotten temple was time his village remained under Iwagakure’s control, time his family suffered. This place had to hold something useful… it had to.

[Ace Trainer]

The shift in Soseki’s mood was tangible even if Indra wasn’t able to hear the excited hum of his soul transition into a more anxious tenor. It was clear the young shinobi felt a great weight on his shoulders, one that Indra was coming to realize he had been resisting the pressure of to little success. The temple had been an escape from the realities of what he was dealing with. The excitement of ancient knowledge, the reprieve from the desert and heat, the solace in knowing the Sun was still watching him, all things that worked as a form of escapism for him. Soseki’s arrival, while welcomed, was a sober reminder that the escapism was only temporary, and perhaps damaging. That there was a world out there, and a village that needed him. This was, after all, why Indra had created Teishi.

”Yeah…”, he said quietly.

Standing up, he’d stride across the room and shuffle through a few stacks of books, seemingly looking for something until he pulled out a book and flipped through some pages. Making a sort of victory sound, he’d hurriedly move across the room handing the book to Soseki. ”So, this one is a little hard to parse out. I can understand like…sixty percent of it? Enough to understand, not enough to fully get the picture. It’s on my list to translate.”, he’d flip through the pages in Soseki’s hands. The book was thin, maybe less than one hundred pages long. Every couple of pages there would be a large picture, depicting some sort of beast in a desert, and various activities happening around it. The text was dense, but along the margins there were scribbles and arrows that looked fresh, clearly from Indra. Sure, Indra had spoken about how he was studying but this would be the first time Soseki would see the depth that Indra was actually studying. He truly was a scholar.

”So here’s the thing. This is a story about an ancient desert. I think it’s another Yuumegure lesson, something about faith in the Sun. I can’t fully figure that out, but the story is really interesting. Basically, an ancient beast ruled over the desert. It uh..I think ‘ate’ people? The terms it uses aren’t clear. But the people in the desert worshipped it, or were it’s subjects? Or? But that doesn’t matter.”, Indra’s voice picked up pace, ”Basically, ruling over the desert, the people thought it was blessed by the Sun. But then this little group of people came out, and they defied the orders of the beast. And to punish the people, the beast used it’s power to make a giant storm over the desert. They say the stormed raged for 100 years. It covered the entire desert in darkness and the people prayed and prayed to The Sun to bring back Her Light.”

He flipped through the pages again, to the final picture in it, aggressively pointing at the picture, ”After 100 years of praying, the people who prayed to the Sun were given a blessing. They were given an ancient ninjutsu, and they took control of the storm and they brought it down around the beast. They covered the beast in Dust. And soon, Light returned to the entire desert except the beast that was covered in Dust. And with them back in the Light, they were able to escape the control of the Beast.”

He looked up at Soseki, his eyes bright, but also seemingly pleading with Soseki to understand what he was saying, until finally he blurted it out, ”These stories are always metaphors and allegories. We can’t wait 100 years, but Iwagakure is the storm. And we have been Blessed. Thats why we’re here, Soseki..!”, he explained.

[Rain21199]

Before Indra even voiced the connection, Soseki had already seen it: the storm as Iwagakure, and the beast as Tatsuo, the Tsuchikage. Tatsuo's reputation for cruelty, for devouring enemies without mercy, fit the tale almost too perfectly.

Soseki’s hands curled into fists, a small spark of hope igniting in his eyes.

“Then we must end this storm,” he said, voice steady with newfound resolve, “and bury this devouring beast in the dust, just as our ancestors would have. I've seen how they worm their way into our village, slaughtering us, then calling themselves saviors, offering aid for problems they created. We cannot let them make our people forget the Sun that has guided us all along. If there’s a power here that can help us defeat them, then let’s find it. But I don’t think we can win alone. Do you think we could rally others to our cause?”

[Ace Trainer]

At first, Soseki didn’t really seem to respond to what Indra was telling him, Indra slowly taking the book out of Soseki’s hands and closing it up, folding it under his arms. Soseki’s soul seemed to vibrate rhythmically, and Indra’s black and gold eyes would fall to Soseki’s hands, seeing the balled up fists and then he locked into Soseki’s gaze - matching the intense stare. ”We must.”, he agreed, nodding affirmatively in response to Soseki’s assertion. Indeed, they did need to end the storm, they needed to bury the beast that was Iwagakure and occlude it from the sun, bring their people back into the Light.

”There is power, its within us.”, he pushed back, seemingly rejecting the notion that they needed to find it somewhere, ”She has gifted us this place, Soseki. The power we need is here, and we are here. We are what the Sun is blessing Sunagakure with.”, Indra was confident in this. Granted, perhaps it was easier to be this confident when Indra had seemingly already been blessed with a power, although his blessing seemed to be for the purpose of counteracting the darkness within him. If Soseki hadn’t received such a thing, it was likely harder for him to feel more confident.

”I think so, yeah. I don’t think the people of Sunagakure will bend to Iwagakure too easily. And there will be people throughout Wind Country, and probably beyond. We just need to make sure we bring in the right people.”, he said, another affirmative nod to Soseki, ”If you’re going back to Sunagakure then, you’ll be our eyes. Watching Iwagakure, finding allies from within. And I’ll be our ears, listening to the world around us for allies and information. Together, we’ll bring Light back to our village.”

Indra sighed, knowing that his friend would be leaving soon. "I believe in what we can do. So. Here's what I'll promise you. When you return from the village, I'll have found us more support. I'll show you what we can bring to our cause. And you'll have no reason to doubt us, okay.", he'd take a few steps, putting the book away and turning his back to Soseki, "For now, I'm going to get some rest. I'll see you in the morning before you go. But I think I have a way to keep our secrets safe.", with that, he'd pat Soseki on the shoulder, and then head out of the room.