1 – A Conscious Effort
The silver-haired teen walks
self-consciously through shelves and stands full of colorful objects that
appear so foreign he can’t help but let his gaze linger in fascination.
Pausing, he reaches out for a tiny,
round ball, and gives it a small shake, watching some glittery substance swirl
around inside of the plastic shell. He allows his eyes to follow the dizzying
movement for a moment, then places it back on the shelf and continues through
the store.
The last time I shopped like this… I was six,
wasn’t I? I can’t even remember the name of the shop anymore. I bought a top…
The image flashes in his mind, as
clear as though he’d bought it only yesterday.
I’d seen some older kids playing with the ones on display. The way they laughed… it reminded me of him, so…
It was painted yellow—on the
wide end. The tip was red, and the in-between was striped: first blue, then
green.
I was nervous about it all day.
I’d thought it was a good idea, at first, but after we started training I
realized I should have gotten something more practical. Still…
even though I was against the idea, he still managed to figure out what I was
hiding, and I eventually handed it over.
A smile tugs at his masked lips.
It was just a stupid little top, but sensei acted
like it was the greatest gift he’d ever received. He made a big deal about it
all day, showing it off to everyone we met. I didn’t think I’d ever be more
embarrassed… Then, seven years later, I saw it on his desk.
The smile vanishes without even
fully forming, and a weight seems to settle over him as he tears his mind away
from the past, the raw and painful memories that haunt him. It takes him a
second longer to realize he’s stopped walking, and to register the plastic tops
on the shelf in front of him.
The wooden top no longer sits on
that desk, and it hasn’t for a year now… because that desk no longer belongs to
his teacher.
He tears his eyes away from the
shelf and quickly shoulders forward again.
It’s too soon, he tells
himself silently, eyes searching the content of the shelves around him without
really seeing them. Despite himself, the memory
lingers, clawing at the back of his mind with vicious tenacity.
That was the only gift I ever bought. The next
year… I forgot about his birthday completely… I’d been too wrapped up in
everything going on at home—with o-tousan and
everything. It was constantly on my mind back then. And after o-tousan was gone…
He pulls his thoughts away from
that line with a sudden, violent desperation.
It’s too soon, he tells
himself again. Because even though it’s been almost eight years, the pain has
never dulled.
He forces his eyes to focus on the
shelf he finds himself next to, and examines a brightly colored mobile. The
orbs hanging from the frame are obviously meant to represent planets and stars,
but each one is painted with the grotesquely stylized face of some grinning
deity.
The teen cringes and quickly sets
the object back in its place. Turning away from the shelf, he looks around the
store again and lets out a soft sigh.
What am I doing here?
His thoughts automatically turn to
the memorial where he’s spent so much of the last year. He visits every time he
returns to the village, and makes sure to stop briefly every time he leaves. He
spends hours of his free time in front of that place, as much as he can spare
on his days off.
It isn’t enough.
He should be there now.
Sensei gave his life for this village. He deserves
more respect than this.
But just thinking about the
blond-haired man, he knows he can’t go now, because this is where he would want
him to be. This is what he—the sentimental fool—would want him to do.
The teen snorts to himself and his gaze passes over a shelf of stuffed animals
without really seeing them.
This isn’t what he’d want. This
is nothing like what he’d want. He would want me to do so much
more… But I can’t.
Because he’s weak and he can’t
bring himself to do any more.
It’s for the best,
he defends silently, hoping that if he thinks it enough he’ll start to believe
it. His eyes linger on a yellow-furred parrot.
He would understand.
He gathers himself again and pushes
past a few more isles quickly, shouldering past a woman as she tugs on the hand
of a crying three-year-old.
“But, haha,
I want it!” The little girl whines imploringly, tears in her eyes and a
crack in her voice.
Ducking around a final corner
reveals several shelves full of baby supplies. Large, colorful rings, tiny knit
stockings, and cute, decorated sweaters stare down at him invitingly.
The teen’s cheeks go red under his
mask and he quickly snatches up a toy. He locates the bright sticker in the
corner reading 6-18 mo. and tucks it self-consciously against his side.
He only catches a glimpse of the object inside, but the shape is one he knows
intrinsically—whatever it is, it’s shaped like a kunai.
He hurries to the cashier and
stares pointedly at a brightly colored sign advertising a sale that will be
taking place the weekend after next—All
items 20-50 percent off for one day only! He listens distractedly as the
woman rings up his purchase, and pulls a handful of coins from his pocket,
dropping them on the counter after she tells him the final price.
He snatches up his bag and leaves
without waiting for his change to be returned.
He walks swiftly down the street
towards the foster home, feeling his cheeks still burning red under his mask.
The plastic kunai is wrapped safely in a paper bag with the store’s name
printed across it in large, bubbly characters.
After only a few minutes the foster
home appears on his right. His gaze lingers on the building for a moment, but
his legs don’t stop moving—he can’t quite bring himself to enter.
This is stupid,
he chastises himself, shame and embarrassment at odds with each other inside of
him. It’s not like anyone will care. I’m just being stupid, I should go in
there and get it over with.
He walks for a full three minutes, chastising
himself for his cowardly retreat, before his wounded pride manages to force his
legs to turn around and carry him back towards the house.
Again, he doesn’t stop.
He passes by it twice more before
stuffing the paper bag in a pocket of his vest and reasoning that it’s getting
late and he needs a little lunch before he stops by, anyway.
The food will bolster my
courage, he muses, slipping into a nearby restaurant.
After eating enough for three
people leaves him feeling uncomfortably bloated, he heads out to the training
grounds at the edge of town and works himself hard. He’s sweaty, and dirt coats
his face and arms before he stops.
Can’t visit the foster home like
this, he muses, glancing down at his soiled uniform as he heads back to his
apartment, the matron would kick me out.
The water, which he pours at a
balmy 35 Celsius, goes cold before he drags himself out of the bath, feeling
ridiculous.
“Just get it over with,” he mutters
to himself as he towels his hair dry.
Reaching for his
vest on the way to the door, determined to actually go through with it this
time, the boy pauses when a scroll slips out of one of the pockets. He
stoops to pick it up and turns it over in his hands once.
That’s right… It’s been almost a week since I
summoned them. Chiro is probably getting fat again.
He slices his thumb and forms
familiar seals quickly, thoughts of presents pushed obstinately from his mind.
An instant later a pack of ornery ninken—who had been
in the middle of a poker game before he so rudely interrupted
them!—surrounds him. And an instant after that the eight of them are
racing across rooftops and through back-alleys towards training grounds
forty-eight.
-------
As the sun sinks low in the sky, he
wraps up for the night. He opens his mouth for one last exercise command when
the smallest of his dogs, coat damp with sweat, turns on him abruptly and
clamps small teeth into his shin.
The teen lets out his breath in a
hiss, wincing, and tilts his face to glare down at the dog.
“Pakkun…”
he growls warningly, giving his leg a small shake.
The dog glares back up at him with
beady black eyes. “Just give it to him already!” He demands, scratchy voice
muffled oddly as he refuses to release his master’s leg—his whole body shakes
with every movement of the teen’s appendage—“Stop taking your inability to
express emotion out on us!”
For a second, the
teen stands still, bewildered into silence. Then he gives his leg
another quick kick, this time with enough force to dislodge the small pug. He
glares.
“I’m not taking anything out
on you—this is just training.” He crouches, still glowering, and takes a look
at his leg. The small blotches of blood beginning to color his wrappings make
him wince. He looks back at the dog, expression sharp, “Look what you did!”
The dog shifts sullenly, expression
long, “Boss… we’ve trained enough today. We’re going home.”
The other dogs are gathered behind
him. Tongues loll, fur glistens with sweat, and tails droop forlornly behind
the animals. They’re exhausted, and the teen chaffs at knowing that he should
have recognized it himself—he shouldn’t have needed it pointed out to him.
Scowling, he straightens. “Fine,”
he spits out irritably.
The pug isn’t put off by his tone
at all—the boy has the unnerving feeling that it knows exactly what he’s
thinking. With a nod from the small dog, the pack around him disappears in a
cloud of smoke. The boy’s a little surprised when the little dog doesn’t
immediately follow.
Brown eyes stare
up at him, hard, for a long moment, and then the pug barks, “Get it over with,
already!” and follows the others, abandoning the teen to his own
devices.
Shrugging his shoulders, the teen
looks down at his leg wound one more time. His nose crinkles; not because of
the red staining his leg, but because of the smell the movement of his head
made him aware of. The scent of his dogs clings to him—sweat, drool, and
something foul that Jinko would love. There’s no way
he can go to visit while he smells like this.
He pats his vest pocket, to confirm
that the package is still in place, then heads to his
apartment again, stroll relaxed to ease off the stress of training.
-------
By the time he finally reaches the
house, an hour and a half later, the sky is a deep, dark blue and the street
lights have come on in the absence of a moon. The village is dark and thick
with shadows. The teen feels more at ease because of it.
The shadows are familiar—he has
spent the majority of his life hiding in them.
He pauses in front of the door,
staring up at the dark house for a moment. None of the windows are lit.
Of course… it’s a home for children, so everyone’s
probably asleep by now.
He dawdles on the doorstep, debating between
forgetting the whole thing and possibly returning the next day. But it just
won’t mean the same thing if he waits.
And sensei is counting on me.
At 11:32 he buckles down and breaks
into the house. He is silent and no sign is left of his presence—not so much as a scratch on the handle. He’s an expert at this
sort of thing.
He’s never been inside this house
before, but he knows exactly where to go. Silently, he ascends the stairs to an
upstairs bedroom. The door isn’t locked, and he slips inside unnoticed.
It is dark, only a small amount of
light reaching into the room from a streetlamp at the corner twenty meters
away. The darkness doesn’t hinder him from finding the baby’s crib. He walks
surely and stops short of touching the wooden bars, staring down to find the
still form inside.
Silence settles heavily over the
room and he shifts awkwardly from foot to foot, unsure of what to do next.
He hasn’t seen the infant for an
entire year. Not since—an image of hellish red eyes and glistening fanged teeth
make him break off from that line of thought. He forces his attention down on
the infant again, and propels his memory forward.
The baby looks much larger now. Its
face is smooth and pale in the darkness—he remembers the blotchy red it had
been then, features scrunched up painfully as the infant bawled.
He was crying so hard… I thought he was going to
die. I’d thought everything sensei did for him would mean nothing.
With a shuddering breath he looks
back at the sleeping baby in front of him. A light fuzz of pale yellow hair
rests haphazardly above a relaxed face. The baby’s curled up on its side, tiny
fingers forming tight fists.
Emotions clench inside the teen as
memories of that night flash before him again.
Screaming filled the air and blood sprayed
everywhere as the Kyuubi tore through our ranks.
His disjointed thoughts flash
forward to the face of his teacher.
Pale from the loss of blood and shaking like I’d never seen him before…
He almost loses his nerve. He takes
a half step back, sensei’s pale face overlaid with the infant’s. Catching
himself in the middle of the movement, he forces himself to stop and stand
still.
I can’t run from this forever.
He takes a deep breath and screws
up his resolve before approaching the crib again.
I’ll only feel like more of an idiot if I can’t
even face a one-year-old boy.
He lets out a quiet, dry laugh
that’s barely more than a breath at the thought. Some shinobi I turned out
to be.
Letting out a tired sigh, he glances at the child’s
face again, but quickly glances away once more. Choosing a
dark corner on the other side of the room, he stares pointedly at it as he
reaches into his pocket and pulls out the package.
The plastic is hard beneath his
fingers, and with a sudden thought he looks back at the infant, lone eye
widening. His eye fixes on the tiny, pudgy hands lying on the bed.
He’ll never be able to get it
out of the package, he realizes, chagrined that he hadn’t thought of it
earlier.
Face burning, he looks down at the
package again, and it takes him a moment to work out the tricky method of
opening the toy. It breaks apart with a creative application of chakra, and he
pulls out the soft toy.
His eye fixes on his target again,
waiting for some reaction to the noise.
The baby doesn’t seem to have
heard, and he relaxes again to face the next problem.
He looks between the infant and the
toy uncertainly, contemplating whether he should wake the baby. A cringe forms
under his mask as he remembers again the squalling and squirming he’d endured
the last time he’d seen the baby.
Definitely let him sleep, he
decides, he’ll find it when he wakes up, anyway.
Leaning forward awkwardly, he fumbles with the
plastic toy for a moment before gently tucking it into one of the infant’s
hands. The baby stirs and the teen holds his breath, but with a sigh, the
infant returns to its deep sleep, the tiny fist holding the kunai moving closer
in to its body.
A smile sneaks over the teen’s
mouth and he brushes back the light, blond fringe from the baby’s forehead.
He’s not entirely sure why he’s smiling or why he doesn’t seem to want to stop.
He isn’t sure what he’s feeling, but after a moment of staring he decides it
might be affection—like he feels for his dogs now and again, when they aren’t
biting him in the shin.
The baby stirs again at his touch
and he draws back quickly, the smile sliding from his face as quickly as it
came.
He watches the baby sleep a few
minutes longer, then, silently, he slips back out of
the room. His feet barely make a sound as he moves lightly
down the stairs again and lets himself out the front door, locking it after.
He looks up at the dark sky
overhead and struggles for a moment to estimate the time. It must be after
midnight, already…
The teen strolls back to the road casually and his
feet turn the corner to the right while his gaze lingers in the other
direction. He frowns—it’s late and he should really head home to bed.
Instead, his body leads him all the
way out to the edges of the village. Out into the forest where the monument for
the Yondaime stands along a barely beaten path.
A rush of something like the
affection he felt earlier fills him along with the pain he’s used to feeling
and the teen relaxes slightly, tension melting out of his lean frame. For the
first time in years he feels as though his teacher might really be proud of
him.
The feeling is foreign and familiar
at the same time, taking his mind away to days long past—back when it was just
the two of them, before there was war and fighting and killing. Without
realizing it, the teen slumps down on the cool grass at the foot of the
monument, his consciousness drifting off as his body slips into an exhausted
sleep.