the heat of water is pulling me up (towards my ghosts)
The milky full moon reflected into the pool of tainted blood.
It was time. They only needed to be three for this. Three men sat in a circle, eyes closed, mouth open. The night had fallen for a few hours already, calm, pure, but now also tainted, by the blood poured by these men. They were praying. Ranting words, spitting gruffy sounds, hands on the ground and drawing odd patterns on the mud with the crimson liquid.
There was a whimper and the last man, the one in the center of the circle started shaking. In no time, his breathing stopped all together and a dark smoke rose from his corpse. The ranting became louder, the shadows, darker.
There was something moving, between the trees and the bushes surrounding the clearing where the ritual took place. Shapes waiting, holding their breath, agitated and thrilled of what they were witnessing. Some had their eyes shut, relying entirely on their ears, others had their hands crossed tightly onto their blades. They all knew what would come next. Shapes aware of the men and men aware of the shapes, they held their ground, waiting for the divine sign to manifest itself. The shapes were internally praying in unison to keep the ritual undisturbed. They prayed for their God to accept the human sacrifice they were offering. The man serving this purpose was already dead either way. If their God accepted it, at least, he'd live as his server forever and would stay by its side to see the world bend its knees and buckles under the weight of its own pain. And then, blood would be spilt again. Again and again and again.
Lucky man, the shapes were thinking. It didn't matter if this man hadn't chosen this fate. At the end, everyone would know the power and the wrath of Jashin. For he represents pain and pain would always be part of humans' lives.
It happened on the far east of the borders between the Land of Fire and the Land of Grass. The ambush was well planned and they had chosen their target smartly. Not a too important person, but a hardworking one, one who deserved to feel pain and be rewarded for his sacrifice. When they had lunged on him, it was the end. No escape, neither for the merchant nor for the guard hired to protect him nor for the wounded girl they found running on the way several hours afterwards. Her body was lying nearby, curled up, tied with thick ropes that were cutting onto her pink skin. Her hair was a strange shade of aqua and she already had several bruises that blossomed on her skin. She was barely conscious of her surroundings.
She couldn't be more than twelve.
Suddenly, the three men stopped babbling and interlocked their hands tightly together, eyes still closed and concentration showing on their faces. When they reopened them, their body were covered in blackness with strange white forms in various places on their bodies. Each man had a different design. Then, the shapes started hissing and the corpse caught fire, lightening the clearing and revealing their faces.
They watched with a bit of fascination how the flames were licking the body of the merchant.
Slowly, a hiss still on their tongues, they moved closer to the circle, blades, knife, kunai and other sharp tools in hands. One by one, they took place in the circle, hands held out in direction of the inferno, tasting the iron scent filling the air.
A few hours passed like that, but the moon was now hiding behind dark clouds. The fire was slowly consuming the remains of the man and, soon, there was only ashes. The smell was disgustingly close to rotten burned meat, and the little one had passed out because of it some time ago. When the last flame burned out, the hissing stopped.
"Bring her here," one of them, the larger one, said.
Two of them grabbed the girl and brought her closer before throwing her in the middle of the circle, were the ashes of the man were still laying. When she touched the ground, she woke up with a painful gasp.
.
several days ago
Once more, he was running away. They found him when he was taking a nap after three days of chasing across the Land of Rivers. It'd been about three weeks since the last time he stopped running, and after so long the aches he was feeling were common occurrence. Even the chakra of the demon inside him was no longer enough to heal him at a high rate at this point.
He gritted his teeth. If it carried on any longer, he was going to have real trees were becoming leaner and fewer, meaning he was approaching the Land of Rain. If he could just pass the border, he might have time to settle down and take care of the wound they had inflicted at his sides. His chakra level was decreasing quickly, and maybe… that was really poison he saw on that blade after all. That was not good news. If he could take a break, he could perhaps find some medicine to slow down the poison. He knew little about cures, and he was no medic-nin, but Harusame had taught him a few tricks, just not enough to heal rapidly and properly such a deep injury. Normally, poisoning had no effect on him, but normally, he wasn't so low on chakra and running for so long he couldn't even remember the last time he slept in an actual bed… Just several more miles and he would be able to take care of it. It could work... if he didn't faint before that, either from chakra exhaustion or from lethal liquid flowing into his veins.
Those hunter-nin were quite serious about this, but he might admit it was his fault. Maybe a little. After all, he made them run in circles since they first tracked him down deep in the Land of Waves. But he couldn't let them catch him. Kirigakure no Sato wasn't his home anymore. The Bloody Mist they called it, maybe they weren't so wrong. Either way, that didn't matter anymore, all he cared about now was his freedom and to keep it, he had to lose these annoying leeches. It was an understatement, and he knew a lot about slimy crawling animals.
He looked at the sky and saw that the night was about to fall. That was his last chance to lose them. His last attempt, before he had to face them for real this time, and he was currently in no condition to do so. He instilled a bit of chakra into the bandage he was wearing on his upper arm underneath the loose sleeve of his kimono, just were he knew the kanji had been drawn. He wasn't the student of a fuuinjutsu master for nothing after all, even if he'd deny it to his last dying breath, he acknowledged the advantages of such knowledge. There was a flickering, and then, in his hand sat his last pack of explosive tags. He smiled. Time to retaliate. On top of making a good diversion, with that, he was certain the patrols of the Rain would come to investigate. And sooner than later if he wasn't mistaken in assuming that what was in his line of sight was the border he was hoping for. He took out his pipe and filled it with soap solution before starting creating bubbles infused with chakra that came enfold the tags. He added his own blinding bubbles technique and let them take down the enemy.
He passed the border without any difficulties and reached the first dwellings quickly, but he was near enough the position of his trackers to feel the huge detonation just a mile behind him. A gust of wind sent him flying towards one of the few buildings in sight and he hit his head rather violently against a wall.
If that didn't attract the attention of Rain's shinobi, then, he didn't know what to do anymore, he thought, feeling thick fluids running against his temple and then darkness swallowed him whole.
.
at the same time, Land of Grass – secret lab
That was not the first time he'd woken up. For a time he couldn't even try to work out, he hadn't stopped slipping in and out of consciousness. At this point, he wasn't sure why or how that came to be, nor did he know how much time had passed since that day. All he was aware of was that he certainly wasn't dead like he should be. He had integrated and accepted that fact during one of his last times waking up. And that was for the better, because, the first time he had been aware of being conscious again, he'd practically gone crazy, wondering why dammit he was even opening his eyes again.
He remembered with an odd acuteness the pain when his body collided with the river's flow and how it let him breathless for seconds before he lost himself to the darkness. The fall should have killed him, and that was exactly why he had jumped over the cliff in the first place! It didn't matter what he would have done at this time, he could do nothing to help Itachi with the coup anymore. Plus, Danzo wanted his head – and his last remaining eye too by the way, because, y'know, two is better than one, right? – and by doing so, he let his best friend with the power to do something to right the wrongs of their kinsmen. That was all that mattered at that time.
The pain, he could handle, his own death, if it was for the better, but war... war was different. He had already took part in one during the Third Shinobi World War when he wasn't even twelve and he'd found nothing to like in the worthless massacre of men, women and children. If his clan had executed its little plan, there would have been nothing to hope beyond that. That would have been unavoidable if the Uchiha had commit treason against the village they helped to create and turned their back against their own comrades. Treason was not something Konoha's people suffered well from. No matter their number, the Uchiha would have been killed en masse.
He couldn't bear the mere thought of something like that happening. When his parents were killed just before the first attempt of Iwa to crush down Kusa, he was left on his own. Being an orphan in this time was tough. His clan was the last thing that kept him alive, when so many other orphans were left without resources and had no other option than to take mission after mission in order to survive. There was no fund to be spent on something like that anymore, every bit of money was swallowed up by the war effort. Those unfortunate ones were the first to die in the early stages of the war. That was one reason why he kept his clan close to his heart.
However, he quickly learnt that clan values and peace were no match.
When he discovered the plans of his clan council, he nearly felt on the verge of heartbreak. It was exactly why with his best friend – nearly brother – Itachi, they had worked so hard to keep the status quo enough time to find a way out of this situation with the least loss possible. Being on two sides at the same time, knowing that both of them were trying to use them for their own gain had been wearing.
Though, one of the of the most painful things hadn't even been that in reality. No, that had been watching Itachi shut down almost completely to the point he couldn't even reach out to him anymore. That had been tearing.
The first time his mind had been clear enough to put two thoughts together, he remembered the dreadful and ringing shout yelling his name; when he dreamed, he never heard it, that was only when his mind woke him up that it decided to torment him…
He had no marker of the time that was passing, but he knew it did. His guts were telling him that he had been lying here for too much damn time. The darkness that was keeping his mind shut down cleared up more and more each time he woke up. For some reason, he didn't think those that were doing that to him wanted him to wake up, but... well, he'd never quite been the type to hold up to others' expectations.
Though, this time, it was different. The drugs they were injecting him were wearing off, and his mind started connecting with his body once again.
There were no excruciating pain backlashing on his every nerves. That was disturbing. He breathed slowly, knowing by the lack of feeling on the back of his mind that there was nobody in the room at the moment. (Yeah, you really couldn't apply for ANBU without being able to spot on threats either half asleep or even half dead.)
And then, he opened his eyes.
.
Land of Rain – not too far from the border
When he returned to consciousness, it was dark. The night had fallen for a long time and the moon was high in the sky. He cursed, growling against the pain that was practically eating his head. That wall had been hard, no joke here. Slowly, he sat down, his hand rubbing his skull and coughing a little, and gathered his thoughts.
He was alone. Great. That was good news and meant that either the hunter-nin had been unable to pursue him past the border (because he had blown up the field they were passing through, or because patrols had found them and held them up), or they had been able to duck his little trap and by chance hadn't found him yet. Personally, after having been avoiding them for so long, he put a bet on the former. Clearly, during his life, he hadn't been the luckiest man. (And no! he wasn't purposefully forgetting how it was before he became a missing-nin, not at all!)
He leaned onto the wall of the building to stand up and cringed at his wobbly legs. He hadn't yet recovered from his chase and the wound to his sides was not yet healed, but he was working on it. Slowly but surely. He glanced at his yukata and frowned. It had long cut on one side and was a bit burned on the hem. He gathered his chakra and put a genjutsu on. It would do the job for now, at least until he could get time to rent a room in an inn. A bath would be his first stop, if he could make it.
At a slow pace, he emerged from the dark corner where he had been hidden and stared at the surroundings. There were not a lot of people in the street, but, well, it was maybe 3am, so… no surprise there. There were also huge gaps between the different buildings for some reason. He decided not to think too hard about it and focus to walk to the closest inn he could find.
The first few buildings he checked were absolutely deserted and, from what he could see, were not in a good condition at all. He carried on walking, coughing slightly from time to time, one hand pressed against his ribs. The weather wasn't too bad, although, he wouldn't turn down a blanket if he had the opportunity having one. That was exactly why he tried to avoid chilly places.
Randomly, he turned right, passed through a creepy alleyway without meeting anybody and moved on the next area. Thankfully, this one seemed more populated than the previous one. Through the windows of one of the last building, he saw the light of a flickering candle. That was an easy way to spot an inn and it to be spotted by nightly clients.
Hopefully, the genjutsu would hold on and he would be able to take a room without too many problems. He moved closer and quietly pushed open the door.
The room was strangely more freezing than the outdoors. The hall wasn't very furnished, and a smell of wet wood was filling the inside. The silence was shrilling. A shiver went up his back. Behind the counter, there was an middle-age man who was reading a book under the soft glow of the candlelight. He looked up with a sharp gaze when the door opened.
The man stared at him from top to bottom with a raised eyebrow. A hint of wariness flashed in his brown eyes. There was something strange, nearly eerie in the man, he could tell, but Utakata kept this observation for himself and moved closer. He searched inside his kimono for the last bit of money he earned three weeks ago when he stumbled upon a merchants' caravan about to be attacked by some bandits. Usually, he didn't take part in that kind of conflict, but there was a two years old boy in the lot, and...well, that doesn't quite fit with him to watch the slaughter of an innocent child. Perhaps, he should have walked without stopping like he was told to when he was a mere child living at the border of Kirigakure, but he learned to rely on other values now that he was on the loose.
The man give him a key in exchange. No words were traded. The room's number was carved onto the key, so he made his way towards the stairs, deeply aware of the eyes following him from behind. The first steps made him cringe, and a shallow breath escaped his pursed mouth. He forced himself from making a single movement toward his wound and endured the pain as well as he could. A drop of sweat ran across his forehead and he gritted his teeth when struggling to go upstairs, his muscles burning through each movement. Fortunately, the inn had only one floor.
When he finally succeeded in making it to his room, he fell into the bed and quickly let himself be taken by Morpheus, not even wondering if he should have put the seal he normally drew in that kind of places, or at least let his bubbles do the job to wake him up if someone crossed his door. The thought hadn't even the time to pass through his mind that he'd already passed out.