Beautiful Day
It is a flawless summer day—the sky is robin's egg blue and as far as the eye can see there are no clouds. A gentle breeze stirs the deep jade leaves into a melody of gentle rustling whispers. Tall grasses bend and fill the air with a dry scent that tickles the nose. But the scene is far from perfect. Patches of lengthy grass have been shorn choppily and various tree limbs have splintered away from the trunks of their trees, trunks that bear deep gashes that have just begun to glaze over with sap and deep imprints of sandaled feet. A sapling near the edge of the clearing has been bent double and will continue to grow horizontally.
A body lies on the ground a few feet away—a man, tall, superficially handsome with symmetrical features and well-formed body. His black and grey clothes are torn and ripped, threadbare in a few places, and stained a deep copper, a few shades lighter than the glassy pool that surrounds him. His aristocratic features are drawn, and his face is pale; the only colors that mar it are a rusty red trailing from the corner of his mouth to his chin, and wide, staring blue eyes. Raven hair like silk is tossed over his forehead and falls from his head in a thick mane that was once a source of great pride.
A knife protrudes from his chest, darkening a patch of grey to almost black and shining wetly in the midday sun. The tool is old and worn, jutting almost perfectly vertically from the cadaver's chest. Cloth that is now a faded off-white splashed with spatters of crimson covers part of the dully glinting ebony metal, and the ring that tops the hilt seems to absorb the sunlight that pours down onto it. Part of the cloth near the knife is frayed and stray pieces of thread trail into the incision, making a startling contrast: dry white and wet black.
The tall grasses shadow over his prone form and hide him from sight.
Near the other side of the grove, an old and knurled tree props up a teenaged boy just out of puberty—his slightly gaunt face is still blemished by a few pimples and shines with trace amounts of oil. A navy blue shirt has been ripped from collar to hem in the front, and a thin red line on his chest marks the path the weapon took. The shirt hangs loosely, lopsidedly draped over scrawny shoulders. His bony features are slack and his face is tinted brown—the last remnants of what had been a healthy tan. A headband the same color as his clothes wraps around his forehead, pushing back scraggly reddish-gold hair tied back in a limp, sparse ponytail. A stray clump from unruly bangs falls over vacant brown eyes.
He is bereft of injuries save a single long needle glinting sinisterly at the center of the nape of his neck; a single drop has fallen onto his sagging collar, dark brown and miniscule. The silver tip juts through the mass of ill-kempt hair and digs gently into the craggy bark of the old oak. A single groundbreaking root rests gently under his lifeless hand.
The scent of blood hangs heavily in the copse and the metallic scent permeates the slowly healing trees. The corpses are barely beginning to cool, and the blood pooling around the black-clad man begins to blacken and congeal. The soil darkens as the pool seeps into it, painting the surrounding area with hues of rust.
The sun shines down from the azure, cloudless sky, an apathetic and all-seeing eye. A bird trills nearby, its throaty song wafting into the clearing on a gentle gust of wind that erases the scent of heated metal from the clearing. A hedgehog trundles quietly into a hollowed rotten log as a doe snuffles delicately at the trunk of a sycamore for tender shoots. Gentle breezes dart between the trees and tease a whispering chorus from their branches to complement the harmony of birdsongs.
Miles away in the same forest, a class of children enjoy the warmth and compete near the outer wall of Konohagakure and a teacher remarks, "What a beautiful day."
Far away, a vulture descends into a clearing.