She had always dreamed of flying.
Not by mechanical means, but by her own will power and (tragically nonexistent) ability. Every day since she could stand and walk for herself, regardless of the time or weather, she would longingly press her hand to her window, and picture herself soaring up to join the clouds and the birds in that marvelous expanse of air.
She imagined herself greeting the sun with a kiss at dawn.
She imagined herself napping on fluffy white clouds at noon.
She imagined herself painting the skies with stars at night.
When spring came around, she hovered over fields of blooming flowers.
When summer began, she swept through forests of verdant leaves.
When autumn arose, she danced in the scarlet rain of trees.
When winter arrived, she gently teased the flakes of silver crystals adrift in the breeze.
Everything to do with the winds and the skies she absolutely adored.
Her home was set on a small hill in the village, where the currents of air could curl and snake through the multiple chimes she kept outside her windows. When others questioned her sense of placement and quantity of her beloved chimes, she always responded with an airy "I can only feel connected with the powers of the winds through the music of their chimes. There isn't much else I can do to interact with it."
But as much as she loved the excitement and fantasies of the heavens, she could not immediately throw herself into her dreams. She did, after all, live the life and routine of a powerful and respected shinobi. With her rigorous and dangerous profession, she had little time to dwell upon her childish visions. The more she moved up the ranks, the less time she had to think about her wishes to fly in the open skies. Soon, she had to lock up those unrealistic desires in a small box and shove it into the deeper, less conscious parts of her mind to prevent any possible distractions on the field.
Her avid dreaming then became limited to the confines of a mind riddled with sleep.
It was a slightly murkier world, clouded with the anxieties of life and obstructed by the takeover of reality. But here, at least, her inner child could fly freely in the skies of her dreams.
He was born the bastard child of a wealthy man and a peasant woman. Not only was he born out of wedlock, but he was also the result of careless affairs between his married father and unmarried mother. His birth was an unhappy and unwelcome occasion as it had caused much trouble for his parents and their families. And because of his parents' tactless and inconsiderate actions, he was known throughout his village as the Child of Dishonor and Sin.
His childhood was fairly unpleasant, even by Akatsuki standards.
His dysfunctional household was never stable or kind in regards to his life. His mother blamed him for the defiling of her reputation, for the rumors spread about her questionable morals. Every time she heard new gossip concerning her character, she would beat him until her own hurt was nursed. His father never acknowledged him as his son and, for the most part, denied any connection between him and the boy, more to salvage his own pride than that of his mistress and her child. He would occasionally visit in secret to bring gifts, but his father forever gazed at him with thinly veiled disgust and shame.
He had a family, but not one that loved him as he had craved.
The only solace he found during this difficult stage of his life was in the caress of the Wind Dancer.
Now, many readers may be confused by this. What is the Wind Dancer?
Allow me to elaborate.
The Wind Dancer was his only friend at the time. She kept him company on the lonely days and abandoned nights of his youth. He knew right from the start that she could not exist outside of his imagination, that she was merely an illusion created by his love-starved mind to help placate his thirst for affection.
She never spoke, but her cheerful dances in the winds would instantly brighten up his life. The simplicity of her presence was capable of calming the worst of his fears. The intricacy of the emotions behind her performances was enough to soothe the most painful of his wounds. Her joyous acts of fluidity and grace could alleviate the most bitter of his sorrow. He would spend hours thinking about the girl who danced in the currents of heaven's flow.
Her hair was the brilliant pink of dramatic sunsets.
Her eyes were the vivid emerald of drifting leaves.
Her skin was the pale peach of morning clouds.
Her lips were the delicate petals of cherry blossoms.
Her limbs were the fragile and slender branches of a young tree.
Her body was the petite stem of a wildflower.
Everything about her dances and appearance he adored. She was the only thing that kept him sane.
Because of the spontaneity of her dances and the painful brevity of her presence, he had become fascinated by the impermanent. He learned to love the artfulness behind the shortness of life and everything that time eroded. His favorite kind of fleetingness was introduced to him in the form of explosives, fireworks to be exact. He was enamored by the excitement and the thrill that the small, colorful explosions instilled in him.
One night, after being thoroughly beaten by his mother and locked in a small metal shed outside the house, he heard noise. Shouts of celebratory anticipation roared loudly from the center of the village. It was the New Year's festival.
He was curious of course. He had never been permitted to leave the house, much less mingle with the other villagers at a festival. But he knew well enough not to attempt escape. That would only result in more fear, pain and darkness. His interest had been caught, but he could only helplessly peak out of a small hole in the aged and rusted metal walls of his icy prison. Heart wrenching tears stung at his eyes. He could hear the laughter emanating from the village, as if to mock him. The daily torment and endless suffering caused by the cruelty of his family had always been a mystery to him. He was always a good child: obedient, respectful and submissive to his parents' wishes. So why was he to be punished for a crime he didn't commit? What had he done in the past life to deserve so much anguish?
And then, he saw it, a brilliant flash in the darkened skies. A thunderous crack echoed in the frigid winter air.
Fireworks
His inner distress subsided as the next vibrant explosive bloomed in the air, sending thousands of red and gold sparks into the heavens. And to make it even better for the growing giddiness of the small child, in between the flashes of light and fire, the Wind Dancer leapt, graceful and blissful. She snaked through the clouds of smoke that trailed behind the fireworks. She caught the sparkling remnants of fiery, dying blossoms and playfully tossed them back up into the sky, resembling a child fooling around with crispy autumn leaves.
He sat there in the shed and watched, elated by the lightshow, but longing to join his friend in the fun.
As if to comfort him, she flew to town and snatched a small sparkler stick and a match from a busy partygoer. She reappeared beside him and dropped the items at his feet with a secret smile before gliding back into the show of fire.
He stared blankly at the match and sparkler. What was he to do with this? The match was to be lit, he knew that much, but the stick? Curiously, he wondered if the stick was to be lit on fire with the match. Cautiously, he struck the match, instantly loving its fragile warmth. His tiny hands cupped around it for a moment to appreciate the temporary comfort before apprehensively igniting the stick. The stick burned steadily for an instant, when it suddenly burst into beautiful, bright sparks. Delight soon replaced fear as he realized the purpose of the stick. The glee that arose within him caused his eyes to sparkle as he admired his first real toy.
The Wind Dancer simply smiled.
As a child, she often noticed that in her day dreaming that she was always in the company of a small boy. He appeared to be slightly older than she was as he was about three inches taller. He had long blonde hair and sad crystal blue eyes and was almost always bone thin with starvation. She knew him to be a figment of her over active imagination, but often pitied the lonely blue eyed child. From what she had observed (or thought up), he was constantly abused and neglected by his heartless parents, and often locked up as punishment for a nonexistent reason.
The little boy with the sad blues eyes had a strong talent for sculpture. On more than one occasion, he had impressed her with the skill and details put into his little dirt creations. Even at her age, she was surprised that someone with such tiny hands could manage to create as delicately as he did. She loved to watch him work. She adored the little crease that formed on his brow as he focused. She loved the way he would unknowingly poke his little pink tongue out to the side as he thought of new ideas. She was enamored by the intensity of his eyes when he was concentrated on his art.
But his small statues and creations did not help ease the hurt of living in an unforgiving household.
In her musings, she frequently flew to him and attempted to console him by showing him that someone was out there, caring for him in whatever distant way she had managed. She would bring him small gifts like clay or treats and dance in the skies for him to offer solace in his dark world.
But for whatever reason, she could not speak to him.
As she watched him get beaten down time and time again, she had wished for nothing more than for him to escape his terrible cage. She tried and struggled to communicate the idea of breaking free from his family in her dances, to leave his village and search for a better life elsewhere. Unbeknownst to her, the little boy with the sad blue eyes was about to finally find freedom, but not in the way she had hoped and prayed it he would.
She never would have guessed he was desperate enough to…
When he was four years old, he noticed that his palms had started to ache. He didn't pay much attention to the soreness of his hands then. He was used to pain.
When he was five years old, He noticed that thin grooves had started to form on his palm. These grooves blended in almost perfectly with the natural lines and creases of skin on his palm, so he didn't mind.
When he was six years old, he noticed that those thin grooves had deepened dramatically. A slight worry had rooted itself in his mind. He was oblivious to the fact that teeth could be seen through the now slightly transparent skin.
When he was seven years old, those grooves finally gave away to reveal two small mouths on his hands complete with teeth and tongues.
Initially, he was terrified of the new oddities on his palms. What if his mother found out? Would she beat him for being a freak?
His answer? Yes.
She was horrified by the strange formations on his tiny hands and accused him of dealing with the demons and the devils to rid himself of her. In her hysterical fear, she struck him with her rolling pin until he lay bleeding on the ground on the verge of unconsciousness. She then locked him away in the empty barn behind their home, determined to forget about his new demonic traits.
After waking up in the hot, damp barn, he found himself unable to do anything. He did not know how long he would be in there and (just in case) began to wonder how to survive in there without food or water. It was during his confinement here that he started to understand the purpose behind the extra mouths.
The barn had provided him with a large amount of damp mud and dirt to sculpt with. He soon discovered that when he picked up a lump of soil or mud, the mouth on his hand would eat it, then spit the lump back out as a sculpture. He was fascinated by this and experimented in different ways with his new ability. After a while of practicing, he noticed that some of the more recent sculptures felt more dangerous and explosive in his hands. It was a feeling he couldn't understand until finally, he made one explode between his fingers.
The explosion was small, but it had terrified and thrilled him to no end. He could make those explosions that he had fallen in love with during the New Year's festival last year! Excited and extremely giddy by this new discovery, he set out to make more of his little bombs.
By then, his mother had heard the little booms and cracks that came from the little barn he was locked in and was fearful yet angered that he would dare to cause such a commotion. She burst into the small building in a flurry of confusion, irritation and trepidation. When she found him building little things from the mud on the ground, she demanded to know what he was doing to cause such a ruckus. Ignorantly joyful of his new discovery, he happily showed her the explosions he could create with his palms. Horrified and furious, she beat him down for daring to participate in demon magic. His confusion as to why she was hurting him again compelled him to finally ask her why she hated him so much.
Her response was instantaneous and violent. She blamed him for her alienation from the rest of her village, the abandonment of her family, the desertion of her lover. She blamed him for her everyday ailments, her suffering, and her waning health. Everything she had to possibly complain about her life was piled on top of his little shoulders. In her anger, she flew around the barn, destroying his precious sculptures, yelled out his incompetence, shouted his utter uselessness, screamed how she could not get enough to feed herself because she had to share her food rations with him, how he was a complete waste of space in her house and her desire for him to just die to ease her burdens.
Somewhere during her insane ranting, something in him snapped. He had thought all these years, that maybe, just maybe, she at least cared about him. Instead, his mother only kept him around because killing him would land her in jail. The devastation of finally concluding that his only family had not even wished for him to be alive had struck him hard.
And at last, his anger emerged. Explosively.
She drifted over to his house on the wind one day only to find it demolished. The entire lot had been devastated by flames and left little to be salvaged. Tears sprung from her eyes as she hopelessly searched the property for any sign that the little boy with the sad blue eyes had survived the fire. She turned over burnt wood panels, charred furniture, scorched metal parts and found nothing but a scalded adult sized skeleton lying limply by where his barn used to stand. The burnt remains of female clothing identified her as the boy's dreadful mother.
She didn't like the idea of someone deserving death, but that woman had certainly earned it in her eyes. She didn't feel much at the loss of the mother's life, her main priority was to find hints of (or the remains of) the little boy with the sad blue eyes.
When she didn't uncover anything to suggest that he survived or died in the fires, she was at a loss. How was she supposed to react? If he died, she would have been devastated by the death of her friend. If he lived, she certainly wished him good fortune and a happier home.
If only she could find him and put her heart at ease.
He missed the Wind Dancer. He knew that with his sudden disappearance, she would not be able to travel to him and comfort him as she had before. He also knew that she wouldn't know whether to mourn his death or search for his living person. But he was on the run, and there was no going back. That terrible place would soon be a dark, distant memory of a horrid past.
The only good thing that had come out of living with his hateful mother was that he was often left to his own devices and expected to fend for himself. His mother had claimed to have starved because she had to share her food with him, but he scoffed at her accusation. She usually ignored him until someone spread another rumor about her, forcing her into a flurry of blind rage that would vent itself upon his little body. She did not feed him or even provide a suitable place for resting. He had to find his own food and bed in the backyard of the house. He honestly believed that that pathetic woman had the worst motherly instincts that could have ever been possessed by a human. What sort of person could do that to her own flesh and blood, even if the child wasn't expected?
Not once since his escape did he worry about the consequences of his mother's death. He felt nothing. No regret, no grief, no uneasiness…
Nothing.
The old fear and anger were forgotten and replaced with a sick satisfaction and elation. The only thing that kept him from being completely at peace with his actions was the fact that he had failed to recall the cruelty of the village that had judged him for his parents' sins. They had rejected him for something out of his control. They had known of his inhumane living conditions, yet none had stepped forward to offer him solace from his dark world. The only one that had tried was not of their village, or even real for that matter.
His anger resurfaced with a vengeance. What kind of humans were they? How dare they preach kindness and virtue when they refused to see more than they wanted to believe? His adorable boyish face contorted with an insane smirk as he thought of a punishment befitting the years of purposeful ignorance and outrageous scorn. His tiny fists clenched with an almost nauseating anticipation for the imminent extermination of his fellow villagers.
They were quick to decide his fate, so it would only be polite to return the favor, no?
TBC
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Constructive criticism is encouraged
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