Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto Shippuden or any of it's characters, nor do I make any money off of my writing.
Deidara
Chapter 2: Ashes
I was born on an early Spring morning in the Hidden Stone Village, to Daisuke and Kokoro Yukimura. It was always a gray and dusty place, not much colour, not much excitement hm. My parents fit into it very well, but I could never understand why everyone seemed so satisfied with a village as cold as the stone for which it is named. Only one person ever agreed with me: Hanako. My precious little sister.
She was born five years later than me, with golden, wispy hair, and eyes that were as blue as the sky. Soon after she learned to speak, she began to question why our village never grows flowers like the ones I had shown her in my books. Flowers of red, yellow, violet, any color imaginable, but none, not even weeds, managed to grow through the Earth in Iwagakure. To humor my little sister, I carved small sculptures of flowers, and gave them to her. With every sculpture, her eyes would light up, and she would hold it in her hands gently, as though she thought the slightest movement may shatter it. I enjoyed making the sculptures, but something about them never seemed quite complete to me. I wouldn't come to understand what, until the day I saw fireworks light up the sky of a foreign village while on one of my first missions as a genin.
Colours that I had before only seen in pictures lit up the sky, then disappeared as though they were never there. Each one left me awestruck, and it was then that I understood the true meaning of art. That art is within the moment, a blast of colour that would be eternally preserved in the memory of those who saw it. Soon after they began, the fireworks ceased, leaving memories of colour splotched across my vision. When I looked to the ground, I saw a flower growing at my feet. I lily that seemed to glow with the intensity of flames.
When I gave the lily to Hanako, her eyes shone with tears.
"I've never seen anything so beautiful." At the time, she was 9, and I, 14. And so, I began to bring her true flowers, and myself, enlisted in the explosion corps hm. To my dismay, when I expressed my thoughts of explosions and art, the corps only mocked me.
"Explosions are no art. Explosions are meant to destroy." And that was as far as the topic went. Naturally, any artistic bombs I created were ridiculed and looked down upon. I was known throughout the village as the idiot who wasted time making beautiful bombs that would be destroyed anyway. Consequently, I had no friends, and dedicated myself to excelling in combat. Oddly enough, though my bombs were ridiculed, their explosive power did not go unnoticed by Onoki-san, and he praised my abilities. He supported me, but he also made it clear that he thought that my artistic bombs are a waste of time.
I suppose I would have continued to live that way, depressed and looked down upon, if it wasn't for Hanako. Each time I would return home, she would welcome me with her radiant smile, and show me one of her own pieces of art. At some point, she had discovered how to make her own paint, and began to paint the sculptures I gave her many years ago. Plain white sculptures of flowers became so intricately painted that they seemed to be fresh flowers, picked moments before. Hanako was the only one in Iwagakure who ever understood, and enhanced my art. Her delicacy with the brush, the intense look she got in her eyes when she painted, they inspired me to continue sculpting, to continue believing in my own art. One day, when I was 17, Hanako told me:
"I have... a secret I want to show you. Can you come with me, big bro?"
"Of course hm." She wasted no time, and immediately grabbed my hand, and dragged me outside. Eventually, we came to a fairly abandoned section of the village, and Hanako released my hand.
"Close your eyes, big bro." She said with a smile. I obliged, and heard a door opening, Hanako proceeded to guide me through the door, and then closed it behind her.
"Open your eyes." When I did so, I swear what I saw caused my heart to stop for a moment. Inside of an empty, roofless old building, there grew a sea of crimson lilies. They grew through the dirt floor of the hut and up the crackled walls, stopping just shy of the exposed roof.
"Did you... do this yourself?" I managed to say.
"Yes. They're just like the first flower you gave me. Do you remember?"
"Of course... This is amazing, little sis!"
"You really think so?" I nod enthusiastically, walking around the building with a smile plastered onto my face. "I'm afraid the other villagers would hate this place. I don't know anyone else who loves art and color like you do, big bro..." Hanako said.
"Well no one except for you seems to like my sculptures, but I don't let that stop me, hm. Keep this up Hanako-chan! Maybe some day, the others will understand, and Iwagakure will blossom with color, yeah!"
"I will, big bro! But hey... um... can you dance with me?"
"Sure!" I take Hanako's hand, and we waltz among the pulsating lilies, beneath the silver moonlight shining through the gaping roof. I feel happier than I have in my life.
The next morning, as I headed off to a mission beyond the city walls, Hanako stopped me for a moment. She pressed a red lily into my hand.
"For luck, big bro." She said smiling.
"Thank you, hm." I say, grinning back. Later, as I tuck the lily into my pouch, I frown. Today, the lily seems to be the color of crimson blood, and I could swear that it carries the scent of smoke. I dismiss the thoughts, and proceed with the mission, though a sense of dread still lingers throughout the day. When I return home, Hanako doesn't seem to be there, so I ask my parents where she is.
"She ran off when she heard that there's a huge fire in some abandoned house on the outskirts of the village." My mother, Kokoro, says with a shrug. My eyes widen, and I run out of the house, as fast as I can, to Hanako's garden. The closer I get, the more it smells of smoke, and I become increasingly aware of the black column rising from the northern end of town, with flames licking up at the bottom.
Hanako's garden is on fire, an armada of bystanders surrounding it, making no attempt to put it out.
"Where is she?" I scream into their faces. "Where is my sister?"
"Do you mean the blond girl who ran in soon after the fire started, saying something about flowers?" My heartbeat quickens.
"Yes! Where is she?"
"She... never came out." The world stops. All I see is the flames, rising into the sky, radiating death. Only then does a crew arrive to put the fire out. Their arrival snaps me out of my trance, and I run into the building, the heat blistering my skin, the flames licking up my clothes.
"HANAKO!" I scream. The flames surround me, and I realize the flowers are all gone. One of the wooden beams stretching over the gaping hole of the roof collapses, landing on top of me, and as my vision blackens, I realize that through all my training in the explosion corps, I've learned that stone buildings and green plants don't randomly catch on fire. Someone did this on purpose.
At some point, I wake up, and find myself in a hospital, covered in bandages. I'm told that I was very badly burned, that I'm lucky to have survived. When I inquire about my sister, they tell me she is gone. I proceed to run away from the hospital, jumping through a window when the hospital staff attempts to stop me. I end up at the charred remains of my sister's garden. The only things left are the blackened stones of the building's walls, lying discordantly among piles of ash. That, and the distinct smells of gunpowder and oil.
They did this on purpose. They destroyed her garden. They killed her... killed Hanako. I walk into the center of the rubble, and place a single red lily, which I had salvaged from my pouch in the hospital, onto the ash. I stare at the flower, which mysteriously still looks freshly picked, and I realize that they have also killed me. Among these ashes, I will be reborn. Tears of anguish, fury, hatred run down my face, soaking into the bandages covering it. I lower myself to my knees, ignoring the pull of the bandages.
"Good bye, little sis. I promise you, they will pay. They will ALL pay."
End Chapter
So, what do you guys think? Is there anything I need to edit, or add? Any ideas for what I should do in further chapters? Oh, by the way, I'm taking requests for any stories you would like me to write. Anyway, Thanks for reading!