The ninja woke up early in the morning. Opening his eyes, he mentally readied himself for a new day of torture. He planted a soft kiss on the cheek of the dark-haired woman still asleep beside him, making her fidget.
Getting dressed was the hard part of his day. He might've been the most powerful ninja in his village, but he hadn't been whole ever since he lost his left arm from just below the elbow several years before. His outfit was entirely black, save for the white cloak dragging behind him.
He never forgot to eat at his favourite location, tipping generously while absorbing all the latest gossip the man and daughter had to offer. He estimated he'd eaten a week's worth of the two's supplies, but only half-seriously.
Going back to his old school on a visit, he met nostalgia. The exterior was, miraculously, a fresh orange, probably applied within the previous week. A shiver of naïve fear crawled up his spine and chest as he pushed the front door open and greeted the overly-enthusiastic clerk he didn't quite know.
His first teacher, a sort of an older brother to the ninja, had since his last visit acquired a few new scars. That didn't in the least wash away the now-murderous nostalgia and joy he felt when he saw him.
The ninja saw fit to interrupt the man whilst he was teaching his newest class - the children all ran to him the moment they saw him. He didn't mind it; being a role model and legend gave him immense responsibility of guiding the children to heights.
This time, he was his teacher's teacher, so to say. The man wasn't used to being talked to with such subordination and respect from someone so higher up in the hierarchy, and the nervousness he expressed surely had something to do with it.
The ninja sighed as he heard of a certain student the teacher had gotten last week: a certain blond-haired trickster with smarts appeared oddly equivalent to the ninja, the teacher said, but also very different. The child might graduate as the youngest ninja the village had, the teacher mused.
He needed to make a habit of visiting the children, the ninja noted to himself; he was missing out on much and more.
He next went to the small grove inside a former training field, making certain to bring flowers he bought from the mother of that boy his teacher told him about. Three white roses and a lavandula - he offered the four flowers to the engraved stone. Nobody could see his eyes tear up here. He knew it had been six years since the event, but that just seemed to twist the knife in his heart further.
He wiped his cheeks, but he knew his eyes would be red for the rest of the day. He might've been a ninja, but unlike many ninja, he was human first - hiding his emotions would just be disrespectful to his fallen.
On his way back to town, he waved to a cloaked and masked man hiding in the shadows below the bronzed trees. The man shot him a thumbs-up; the ninja saw the cloaked man too hold his white rose.
The ninja was glad to see his old friend thrive in the new hierarchy that sprouted from the chaos, but it was easy to lose love, not in the least in that way. The ninja's first wife perished then, too; he shared the loss with his second.
He conjured the image of the two women he loved in his mind, not in the least surprised how the younger looked much alike the older. Blood had a tendency to do that, he knew.
The village's cloak and dagger division was another of his most frequented places. The blind man was the one whom he wanted to visit; he might've lost his eyesight, but the ninja was one of the few people who knew of this. The man's family all appeared as such, so few could tell between blindness and vision in the family. He noted his desk, too, housed a flower - another lavandula. It was nice to see the man still remembered.
A hour and three cups of a very fine and undiluted liquor - neither man could feel the alcohol's effects seeing as they'd drunk half a decade prior.
The ninja found the iron woman attending her store just a stone's throw away from the school. She might've three from fourty but her eyes had half a century on top of that. The strength mightn't have left her but the bright confidence she radiated had all but left her soul, the ninja saw.
The desk in her workplace had an image of her late husband and one of her daughter, now five and a half.
He last checked in with the tactician. The man had shaved bald sometime between their last meeting and the current one. The ninja figured it smart, as it gave him a certain rough look he likely couldn't have gotten otherwise. The tactician worked as the arm of justice of the ninja's entire administration, puns aside. He told the tactician of the teacher's thoughts to surprise him - his friend didn't even flinch. The child might've been born out of wedlock, but he still was the son of the smartest man in the village.
At last, he called it a day. He saw he needed do much more, but could anyone blame him? He removed his flashy cloak and donned a black one.
"I have been waiting for you, young one," the oracle said. Her voice was many voices, yet his was always in her presence none that he could hear. Her hair had gone almost fully white now, the occasional wisp of blonde still poking through.
"I have been waiting all day, for many days now, yet you find it now to come and visit us."
The ninja nodded and bowed before seating himself. She took a cup and passed it to him. He sipped it, finding it to be a pleasant brew made from eggs. He bowed once more.
"Has it really been so long since I last saw your fate? I figured it less time has passed," she half-whispered. The ninja bowed once more and took another sip. He mentioned what the oracle told him once.
"Yes, you are unique - far too unique, so much that I cannot see what lies in store for you," she said. "And yet you return." He bowed once more and took a third sip.
She closed her eyes and began humming his father's death poem. When she reopened them, they glowed a bright and vibrant green in the dark and unlit room.
"I know what you want, child," she said. He bowed once more. "There was a time when she lived, and you lived then as well. You lived then, unlike claiming to live now but craving the sweet kiss of death."
Her eyes shifted hue to an icy blue and her wrinkled face distorted into a frown. "You hadn't loved your wife before marrying her, had you? She was just a replacement for the one you lost, but now she grew on you. And yet she could be undone as well."
He bowed twice now and she began chanting his father-in-law's death poem, eyes open.
"You have come... with hope?" she asked, surprised. "You... you actually believe, that I could help you?"
He bowed. The oracle ran her bony fingers across her forehead, across a small shape tattooed on it. Her eyes shifted hue to a soft, pinkish purple.
"Hope is the bane of almost all men, but you are not of them."
She raised her arm from her lap unsteadily and offered it to him.
"Take my hand and undo all what you have erred."
He bowed and took his last sip from the cup. He uncloaked himself and cast the cloak across the old woman's back before taking her hand.
The last the ninja remembered was a scent he thought he'd never sense again.
A/N: First fanfiction - I hope someone likes it. I'd also like to hear your opinions, if you're kind enough to tell me ;)