Scars of the Past

Yurei watched silently, his breathing inaudible over the gaining winds. His gaze drifted from each building to the palace before them, looming in the distance. He glanced at Damon briefly with the suggestion, then returned his watchful eyes to the palace as he spoke, securing Komon in the cloth. “If I could, we would be there instead.” The strain was not on his eyes but on his body. Such significant use of his chakra while on the run with so little food, and with a smaller appetite could have been deadly. Were it not for the pure adrenaline coursing through Yurei’s veins, the prison break might not have gone as smoothly as it had. He nodded, affirming Damon’s suggestion. Yurei glanced at Komon in turn, narrowing his eyes. Komon’s lips moved, and the words fell upon the Uchiha’s ears. For a moment, his focus solely laid on Komon. The soft snow ceased middair, and the billowing gusts of wind silenced, imparting fixed hair in the breeze’s direction. It was still. He knew about this place - this village - and something other than Komon’s present condition was at work on his face. Yurei pondered what that might be - what the Hyuuga was feeling in this moment. 

He said nothing, keeping his eyes on the ground as the two Uchiha helped him forward. It was quiet, and the freezing air sang its song of ambience. The chimes danced upon their balconies, ringing a shrill song amidst the drone of winds. Yurei broke the silence. His eyes briefly turned to Damon instead. “Good idea. Let’s move.” Yurei ushered the others forward, keeping his pace steady and making up for Komon’s strength with his own. 

The delicate snowfall had ceased. It gathered now, pelting them. As they continued, the soft crunch of snow met with a harsher sound. Petrified skin prodded from the icy ground, bones encased in ice before they could decay. Yurei stopped the pair but for a brief moment, considering the body. As he turned to look outward, he noticed more - all covered and sparsely laid out across the village. Swords, axes, carriages laid bare and splintered. Further beyond, cradled beneath a house laid to rubble, was a couple - perhaps a mother and daughter, embracing one another before the cold had taken them. It was death.

Yurei pressed, glancing at Komon as he continued to stare down at his feet. A village so close to Lightning Country laid to waste. How curious. The Uchiha glanced up from his companion, peering at the entrance to the palace. He turned, looking back to where they had first entered. The distance had become obscured under the dense blizzard. Even with Sharingan, it was difficult to see. 

The Uchiha carried Komon up the entry way’s steps, coming at last to a grand wooden door accented by iron bars. The palace was massive relative to the rest of the village. The stone, iron, and thick wooden foundations made it more akin to a fortress in this weather, but the emphasis on crude avarice and ego was etched into the very door. Once golden trim had been etched away by time. Yurei looked back at the pair, pressing his palm against the door. With considerable effort, he pushed. The winds tore about them, pulling their cloaks inside the dark chamber. The Uchiha broke off from the two others, allowing them entry as he held the door open. Scattered snow rushed inside with them, collecting onto the wooden floors rapidly into a heap. Yurei quickly entered, raising his thin fingers and pressing each of his hands against the door. With a thunderous boom, it came to a close, and the collected dust in the rafters above them fell.

Small, dense windows lined the palace, affording it minimal light. As the storm grew crueler, the light grew dimmer. Yurei surveyed the room, peering out into the darkness. Sconces lined the walls. With a brief collection of chakra and fewer handseals, Yurei expelled flame from his breath. It billowed outward from his mask, launching as several projectiles that lit every touch they came into contact with before stopping at the last two. The chamber was massive. Such an imposing structure stood tall against dwindling houses and shops left outside in the cold. Yurei peered down the grand hall, noting the burn marks across the pillars, the maroon carpet now blackened by fire. He moved onward from the two others, tracing his thin fingers along the burn marks. Dust collected on their dips as pieces of stone flecked from the pillar.  “Chakra,” he whispered to himself. He knelt, his hair draping over his shoulders as his looming finger descended to the floor. Yurei took his two forefingers, touching the singed carpet. Then, something met his gaze.

He rose. A throne lay before him. He silently turned towards the pair, examining Komon’s reaction especially. Then, without saying a word, he proceeded, drifting almost dream-like towards the stairs. He ascended, meticulously climbing each step as his cloak fell over his hands and feet. At the very top of the throne, Yurei examined the chair. The golden etching. The chipped paint and scratched surface. His eyes fell. Laid at his feet, blood had stained the red carpet a dark brown. Yurei turned silently, tracking the bloodstains with his eyes. It reached the very base of the stairs.

And then, he lifted his head, staring at Komon. His voice was calm. It did not betray their companionship, but it had grown darker. More sinister, but not accusatory. “Komon,” he said, grasping the Hyuuga’s attention. His voice was imperative, but not booming. Completely relaxed. “When we arrived here, you whispered something. Something that indicated, to me, that you had seen this place.” Yurei eyed him closely, tilting his head to the side and down. “What happened here, Komon?”

WC: 971
TCW: 3221

There was, for a moment, a pause. A place in time where all year could hear was the soft crackle of the sconces lining the walls, lit for the first time in years, and the distant howls of snow screaming at the door, beckoning for it to open. Beneath that grotesque mask, Yurei watched Komon. Its eyes were his, drawing his own breath through that ghoulish face’s gaping mouth. He was quiet. He stood in anticipation.

Yurei did not scoff at the first remark. He’d grown deathly serious, despite the events here being far from his norm. He scanned Komon’s body as the Hyuuga forced himself upward. Not once did his countenance nor his eyes shift to Damon. The flames crackling behind him thinly silhouetted him in shadow, casting it upon the stairs before him, to their very base as he stood before the throne. His glowing sharingan brimmed amidst the darkness of his face, and the starkly white mask kept its cool color even amidst the warm light of the fires.

The frustration in Komon’s voice was palpable. It dripped with a corrosive disgust, one Yurei had anticipated and understood - empathized with. What he imparted onto Yurei was something the Uchiha had always suspected, but never known. Perhaps by reputation alone. It was, of course, encouraged - no - required of all or most Hoshigakure shinobi, of most ninja regardless of nation for that matter, to know of the neighboring villages. Their allies. Their enemies. Of their history, weaknesses. Culture. Leaders.

When Komon finished, Yurei said nothing. He simply stared at him, the scowl attached to his face indiscernible. Slowly, he drifted down the steps, coming to rest at their base. Komon stood just before him, struggling to stand. The Uchiha peered into Komon’s eyes, watching him replay the events in his mind. He raised his lengthy arm and clawed hand towards the Hyuuga. And then, he clasped it onto his comrade’s shoulder, rousing him. He stood silent for a moment longer, recognizing the eyes dancing before him. He had worn those eyes. And so had Damon. He had seen through those same eyes, witnessed his village commit the same acts, whisper the same atrocities. He knelt his head, demanding Komon’s focus. 

“I understand,” he said, finally. The tension in the room eased, and Yurei gripped Komon’s shoulders firmly, raising him straight and holding onto the Hyuuga until he was able to support himself. Yurei glanced at Damon, nodding once and firmly. When he returned his gaze to Komon, his chakra flickered, and the memory flashed before Komon as if he were there. As if his eyes were Yurei’s.

Komon saw Damon, the warm sunlight reflecting in his eyes as they sat atop a familiar location. In the distance, the rot festered and grew, swirling around the neighboring forest in a black mass - an ocean that did not reflect the sky. He heard the sound of his own voice, but not his own. It was Yurei’s. “Komon and Saya are good people. The Rot’s the Raikage’s doing. Not theirs.”

Yurei loosened his grip, turning. Whatever vision Komon granted him in turn through their brief connection of Ninshū, he hoped the one he shared was more pleasant.

WC: 535
TCW: 3756

Yurei stared into Komon’s eyes, but they, in turn, did not see him. They looked through him, past him. Yurei turned staring up at the staircase behind him - the throne, illuminated in a warm shower of light, and the blonde man standing before him with another knelt at his feet. The Uchiha narrowed his eyes beneath his mask, taking in the scene. He turned once more to face Komon, then, lowered his gaze. The man had grown younger. Wrinkles lining his eyes had faded, and the dark circles beneath them had brightened a shade. The eyes themselves, however, were the same.

Yurei looked behind the Hyuuga. The faces of those around him were obscured, blurred. An army of blank automata - or so it seemed, though Yurei himself knew this to be the limitations of the technique. The man atop the staircase spoke, and the Uchiha turned. He drifted up the staircase like a ghost, watching every movement of the man, listening to his voice. Relatively thin, though not entirely different from Yurei, and vaguely muscular, the Uchiha did not recognize the man, but presumed he had been, at this time at least, the Raikage - leader of Kumogakure. The singularly most definable trait, however, were the crimson eyes - the Sharingan. Yurei’s eyes thinned further. Shrouded in the darkness provided by his mask, they looked like white slits. The heritage of the man made little difference to Yurei. Whether acquired by other means or an Uchiha himself, the Raikage had been bestowed considerable power. 

When Yurei had ascended the staircase, he stood beside the man, turned to face the onlookers. The army laid out before him, and, for a moment, Yurei felt the power the Raikage must have felt surge through him. The forces he commanded, the daimyo of this country laid at his feet, all staring in awe.

He said nothing, turning to watch the man lift his blade. The scene fell into place in slow motion, and the steel caught the candlelight as it ascended to full height. And then the daimyo fell. Yurei did not avert his eyes. He watched the body slip, the man collect its head, and, lastly, the look of a young genin watching these same events unfold. A child witnessing war.

Yurei blinked and found himself beside the Hyuuga once again. He glanced at Damon as he spoke, ascending the steps once again. The trail of blood seemed more vivid now, and the empty throne atop more cold. He touched his fingers to it, rubbing the dust from the armrest. “None,” Yurei echoed. “Your Raikage,” he started, pressing further, “he abandoned your village, didn’t he? As he did this one. Left them to starve, by his choice or circumstance.” These were not the remains of people who were killed. Yurei’s head tilted, looking at Komon. “An instrument of Kumogakure - of war. That’s what you were. These are the fruits.” He gestured to the corpses, the blood, the empty halls. “I do not care what atrocities you committed, Komon. Murder is a reality of our world and of the shinobi system. All it takes is one man with the title of Kage and people willing to listen. That’s how fragile it truly is.” He tapped the armrest twice with two fingers, looking up at the cushion stretched across its back. It was the case with him and Damon as well. “...Whether or not you seek atonement for your actions or the actions of your village lies with you. I see the guilt you carry with you. I see it in your walk.” 

“I’m not interested in petty acts of vengeance,” Yurei said. “This is bigger than you, Damon, or myself.” He parted his mane of hair, looking up to the roof. The distant howls of the winds had grown louder. “We’ll rest here until the storm passes. I’ll investigate what’s left of Yukigakure’s archives.” He turned to look at Komon one last time. “I only want to know one more thing, Komon. The man who killed the daimyo, your Raikage-”

“-what was his name?”

WC: 678
TCW: 4434