A child's scream reaches the villagers ears as all turn towards the source of it.
At the barely identified entrance of Yamagakure, a child stands facing the narrow rocky path between tall mountains of rock that is blockaded by largely toned men with perspiration dripping of their tan skin and arms tensed with their weaponry in hand. Evil intentions are openly seen through their black eyes and large smirks across their stubble faces. The front man raises his head looking down upon the young boy standing alongside the lifeless ball at his feet. His small mouth slowly opens wider as the long sword raises over the mans head. The other children in the background silently watch with terror filled eyes at the unknown intruders and their companion.
With one swing down across the boy's chest, the large man temporarily removes the object from his path ignoring the gasping breaths at his and the children's shrieks.
Villagers in the street scream at the rising terror that has entered their once solitary grounds and few of them show what little courage they have to grab their panicked children back safe in their protective arms.
The groups of men all pour in from the mountains narrow mouth with shouts to quicken the people's blood and weapons held high over their heads to cut through any piece of flesh that dares to halt their stampeding towards their target at the end of Yamagakure.
One by one in very small numbers men and women with hitai-ate's over their foreheads that bears the small village's symbol come out from the rocky crevices of the surrounding wall that serves as Yamagakure's barrier and coat of secrecy. Red boiling eyes ablaze with hatred at the intruders smiling black ones. Each one steadily takes their stances pulling kunais and shurikens from their hip pouches. They all take defensive positions prepared for the enemy's first blow.
The wooden door swings open alarming the residents inside the household of the Hashimota clan. They look up into red hysterical eyes of their own clan member and Kiyoe's older cousin. His front black bangs are matted with sweat and his right arm is dripping with blood from the already closing wound on his shoulder blade.
"Daichi-sama."
The name of Kiyoe's father causes her mother knelt beside her to sharply look upon the smooth pale features of her husbands strict face.
"Kaemon! What's going on out there?"
"A group of men of about 35 appeared upon our main entrance and they're cutting across whoever gets in their way. Our shinobis are trying their best to slow them down, but Daichi," he takes a breath from his hurried explanation; "They're headed over here."
An unsettling aura drifts into the room and Kiyoe can feel it through her mother's intake of breath and her father's hardened eyes. He turns to his wife and Kiyoe, but closes his mouth shut when another unfamiliar flow of chakra nears the house. A large hand takes a hold of Kaemon's neck before he had a chance to react and collides his head against the door frame.
Kiyoe tightens grip on her mother's long sleeve and gasps her cousin's name as he limply falls to the ground unconscious. Daichi swiftly moves in front of her and her mother and with his own fingernails deeply inserts them into his left arm, drawing large amounts of blood.
"Hayaka, take Kiyoe out of here." He commands as he withdraws his hand from his arm where now a trickled of blood escaped from the self-inflicted wound.
With a blank and confused mind of what is suddenly happening, Kiyoes feels stiff in her legs unable to move, but her mother does as her husband commanded and takes a hold of Kiyoe's wrist running away from the danger. Over her shoulder the last glimpse she sees of her father is stabbing the man through the neck with his crystallized blood spear.
Hayaka pulls Kiyoe down the dimly lit hall from the small flames held by silver candle holders on the smoothed bulky wall on their left side that is part of the mountain that their home is built into. Kiyoe, still in a daze from the sudden events, refocuses somewhat when realization slowly dawns on her in the direction her mother is quickly leading her to.
Why are we…? She thinks to herself. The pieces gradually fit together in her mind from Kaemon's terror filled eyes to her father's strict hard eyes.
They're after the jewel.
Hayaka turns a corner down the hall until they reached an empty dead end. She makes a hand sign for the traps that are set around the area to be disarmed then removes four of the wooden floor boards below their feet. She motions her hand for Kiyoe to go down the dark stairway before her. With careful steps among the blanket of darkness around her she descends down to a narrow tunnel and hears her mother behind her replacing the boards back to their rightful places.
Feeling the stone wall with her hands she unclouds the memories of the last time she was down here 50 years ago when the village thought, yet again, that the curse can finally be lifted from them. Another member of her clan died, something that never happens in this village.
She treads on down feeling the pebbles and rocks roll under her black ninja sandals, heading to the growing two red lights as her sign of her destination.
Now between the flickering flames with its heat barely licking her ears she faces the circular room that holds only a single tall, grey cylinder shaped stone in the very heart of it. Remembering what her father has taught her she raises her hand to do a hand sign, but a slender white hand gently places itself on her shoulder and she looks up at her mother's tall slender body.
Hayaka continues what Kiyoe was about to do and disarms the traps set around along the edges of the room. She walks into the barely lit room, with Kiyoe at her heel, to the lonely object. She performs a brief series of hand signs to reveal the hidden black and intricately designed markings of the seal then removes her thin silver weapon from the side of her left thigh. Even with the little light the sharp point of her sai gives soft dancing glimmers to the beholders and Kiyoe's eyes. She then makes a fast clean cut across the palm of her hand, which does not even make Kiyoe flinch at the drawn blood, and places it on the side of the cylinder where the seal is shown. With the other hand holding the sai she swiftly moves her fingers into another series of signs and once completed her slender eyes and Kiyoe's own child-like ones look at the top of the flat surface which opens up a square entrance in the center of it.
Hayaka sheaths her sai back to the side of her thigh and reaches into the small square entrance with her fingers and draws out a silver chain until it finally reaches its end where the intruders target is hanging.
Between two silver prongs the small jewel in the deep color of blood is held in its place. The prongs forms the circular shape along its edges then becomes thicker as it nears the bottom of it becoming one and from there it grows thick down to a thin point of about 1 ½ inches in length. A pair of small points is formed below where the jewel is held and another pair near the pint of the pendant. Kiyoe stares at the jewel as its mere presence sends shivers down her spine. After being held prison inside its dark confinements of the stone it has revealed itself once again after these 50 years.
"Akai Houseki." She whispers the name and as if it heard its name being called it captures what little light it can from its surroundings reflecting off a single gleam into Kiyoe's own red eyes. This single and small yet very powerful object is the cause of all this trouble in Yamagakure. Although who wouldn't want to come after the Akai Houseki which can grant any man immortality, but can take away the curse that the village has been damned with for over 300 years.
"Kiyoe." Her mother's firm voice but holding her well-known gentleness in it pulls her from her daze and to her mother. Her long locks of ebony hair softly caress her oval face draping limply over her shoulder. Among her mothers beauty of slender eyes and rosy lips, which Kiyoe herself has acquired, her gentle features can turn very intimidating where her true shinobi blood raises in her veins.
"You must listen to me carefully," she briefly glances at the Akai Houseki, "By now you should know those men Kaemon spoke of are after this," she looks at her sharply, "I did not want this future for you, Kiyoe. I should have been the one to fulfill this, but Yamagakure needs every possible shinobi to protect the villagers for we are small in numbers."
Her wild red eyes soften to reveal motherly love and worry. Her full lips presses together firmly in a line as if suppressing something.
Kiyoe watches as her mother's eyes glitters with tears, but stares blankly back knowing what her dear mother is asking her to do and holding back her true feelings from exposing.
The very thought of the idea sends her heart pounding against her chest at an unimaginable rate, pumping the loud noise of fear in her ears. For 55 years she has trained in the most gruesome techniques of her clan and going through different levels of torturous pain to master them all. But one thing she was not trained to prepare for and is not capable of doing is what scares her. Death.
How can a shinobi of a village filled with people who suffer the same curse as she, be trained to face death? And her mother is asking her to do exactly that although it isn't completely certain that this time a Hogosha will die because it seems the seal is sure to be fully completed this time after 200 years. But she's willing to come face to face with death if it means to finally lift the curse of her beloved Yamagakure. The only thing that is holding her back is that she can die in vain just like the others. Die and not lift the curse.
Kiyoe forces her expression to be unreadable to her mother's eyes which has now released thin drops of water rolling down her cheeks. She releases a shaky breath then with slight hesitation warps Kiyoe's thin fingers around the Akai Houseki. The mother's eyes meets the daughters and with silenced words spoke everything they needed to say. Hayaka knows Kiyoe has full knowledge of what she must do and Kiyoe accepts it.
Hayaka kneels to Kiyoe's level and wraps her arms tightly around her. Kiyoe replies back with the same gesture, but maybe even tighter. Her mother then places a kiss on her forehead sending warmth and encouragement into her cold skin.
"I love you, Kiyoe." She whispers while placing a hand on her round cheek and searching her eyes for a response back.
"And I love you, Okaa-san."
Stomping footsteps breaks the tender moment above their heads along with crashing sounds of furniture and other objects in the room. Hayaka raises to her feet holding her head high in the air.
"Smoke?"
Kiyoe blinks and takes a whiff of the air herself. It isn't strong, but the scent is certainly hanging in the air growing stronger.
"They're burning the house." Kiyoe states with disbelief.
"You must go now."
Running to the back wall of the room she pulls an exploding tag from inside the sleeve of her kimono top and places it on the cracks of the bottom of the rock wall. With a single hand sign the bottom edge of the paper sparks with fire and eats away the lettering's for "explosion" on it. Once the fire reached the other end of the paper it explodes followed by dust and debris scattering around their feet. Sunlight creeps in from the dust touching Kiyoe's feet along with the soft breeze from outside.
"Hurry, before they realize where the explosion came from."
Kiyoe grips onto the jewel then places the chain over her head and around her neck. She gives one last glance at her mother unsure if this will be the last time she'll see her again.
"Tell Odou-san I will do my best for the village and tell-"
She chokes on the name of the small boy whom she has treated as if he were her own younger brother and guilt rises through her throat. He will be severely devastated once he finds her gone.
"And tell Yuutaro that I will miss him and I'm sorry."
"We will take care of him." She smiles with sadness marked on the corner of her lips.
Kiyoe nods and gets down to her knees in level with the hole in the wall.
"Kiyoe, do not go straight to Takigakure. They'll know that is where you are to be headed. You have to go through Kaze no Kuni so they won't follow you."
Kiyoe nods at her mother's instructions, but thinks wearily of the long journey she now has to take. She continues on through the hole that her body fit perfectly through and is greeted by the full morning breeze against her face. The lush green grass crunches under her feat as she steps into the small field surrounded by a forest of trees lightly glowing from the sunlight's rays striking the green leaves. She looks back with a frown set upon her face as she watches smoke puffing into a cloud above her house and the tips of flames seen more at the front part of it.
She wants to stay and fight alongside her villagers and protect her home, but she knows her mission is very important and her family is putting their trust in her. A gap opens inside her knowing she is alone on this mission with no one to be help her or be there on the day she dies, probably. She will die alone, but she prays that if she dies it will not be in vain.
She forces her back towards her burning home and walks forward into the darkness between the tree's trunks letting it unfold before her, drawing her inside with a heavy weight around her neck.
I hope you enjoy this story and give me plenty of reviews to tell me what you think.
As for my other stories... My account on this computer has some sort of virus or something so I can't get on and complete writing the chapters I have saved onto there. I'm using my brothers account now which seems unaffected by whatever is in my computer. Really sorry for that :(