Shikamaya's POV
The tense atmosphere had been blown away by the chilly winter breeze as Calliope turned to leave, when she froze where she stood. Her gaze drifted off over the Village and a peculiar look crossed her face, the wind picked up once more and our eyes watered in result but I am not so sure it was just the wind that caused Calliope to shed a tear. Something seemed to bother her greatly, almost like a phantom of the past had arisen from the rooftops. "I can see why he once wanted to be Hokage… This place is beautiful in its own manner," A faint smile crossed her weathered face as she gently shut her eyes and inhaled the frosty air. Her eyes opened to reveal sorrow hidden deep within her onyx eyes before she continued for the door once more.
"What in the world was that about?" Tsume exclaimed the instant the Goddesses had disappeared down the stairs. Every one of us looked at each other slowly in turn before we shrugged in a loss for words when Hinata spoke up in her usual timid approach.
"I… I know at one time Orochimaru desired to be Hokage but… Somehow I don't think she was referring to him but… Someone else…" The actions were repeated only curiosity and wonder replaced confusion.
"I… Don't believe it…" Tsume growled feraly, her hands clenched and teeth bared. Kuromaru, whom I just realized had been there the whole time, mimicked her actions with the exception of the hair on the back of his neck rose. "She isn't even heading for the gates…" We all jolted in shock. Was this all just one huge distraction?
"Byakugan!" Hinata said strongly, no hand seal formed. Her eyes darted in several different directions before they locked briefly, continued once more then finally settled before she mentally returned to our location. "They split up. Thalia is already waiting at the gate, most likely via Shunshin but Calliope…" Hinata paused as if she did not believe what she had seen herself. "Calliope is at the Memorial Stone… She looked like she was trying to talk to someone but was unsure of what to say…"
I sighed before I spoke, "It's a drag but I'll check out what Calliope is up to," I needed to go there anyway… I nodded to the Clan Heads and the Hyuga Heiress before my body began to peel off slowly into sheets of paper before it collapsed and blew away into the wind. I felt free.
I thought I would never be this free again. When I was over a hundred sheets of paper I felt like all of my troubles were far away, a part of me here and a part of me there. The feeling was almost indescribable. Lost amongst the wind, free to let it control me or guide myself. The breeze caressed each individual sheet with a gentleness that calmed me so. Could this be how Nozomi felt when she merged with trees, traveled amongst their branches and roots?
One of the many leaflets 'saw', I suppose one could say, Calliope before the Memorial Stone. Together the sheets of paper swirled towards the small clearing and slowly unified from the feet up. I walked towards her even was my abdomen was still being formed, I did not bother to waste my chakra to walk atop of the snow to avoid the delicate crunch. "Do you know someone here?" I asked quietly, in respect for the fallen I knelt in the cold snow as it soaked the knees of my pants.
"Quite a few…" Calliope murmured. I barely heard the crack in her voice as I heard the soft clink as she placed her tiara on the concrete that surrounded the primarily glossy stone forever scared dark and dull with scorch marks. A shaky sigh escaped her chest as I heard her sit beside me in the snow. "I am sure you heard of the sixty infants who Orochimaru experimented on, correct?"
It felt as though time lurched back to the brief moment of when Grandma Tsunade whispered 'Those poor babies… Sixty of them… Why…?' I had never understood what she had meant until now, but to avoid looking the fool I simply nodded.
"I knew at least thirty-nine Konoha Shinobi on this Stone. Thirty nine of those infants were injected with the DNA of those thirty-nine I knew. The other twenty-one were given DNA samples of the twenty-one who would have become Oto Shinobi had they lived," Her sigh was heavy and shaky as she struggled to keep herself composed but a single tear leaked from her eye. In result her purple face stain became slightly smeared. "It was during the Second War… Orochimaru came home with twelve other Jonin and their squads, and he brought his own students. They were ordered to protect the farmers' fields that were located not too far from our home; the farmers were supplying Konoha with food for their military forces. Orochimaru and his fellow Konoha Shinobi needed somewhere to stay, naturally our mansion was the prime location for this and we orphans willingly and eagerly welcomed them."
"How did a bunch of orphans afford a mansion?" The inquiry just blurted from my mouth before I had a chance to think twice about it. I slapped my hand over my mouth in regret and chanced a glance up at the Goddess. She actually held a small smile on her face.
"Very observant, it was abandoned when we found it and when someone from the Land of Rice Field's government came to investigate, years prior to the war, the rumors they saw what was going on and let us be. No taxes, heh, it was nice… Anyway, we all became close; all of us were Shinobi fighting the same battle. We had a lot of fun when nothing was going on… Every time we did have to defend the fields it went without a hitch. We grew arrogant. One day we all were just so full of ourselves we raced back to the mansion, not even thinking about the fact that a trap could have been laid for us…" Another tear leaked from her eye before she gave up and let them fall. Tiny holes appeared in the snow, one for each tear.
"All thirty-nine Konoha Genin and twenty-two of our children… They decided to race back to the mansion…" Her whole body shook now; her long, sharp nails clenched and tore five holes into her left pant leg. "I was the only one of them who survived… Nawaki Senju died shielding me from the explosion… The love of my life… I should have been the one protecting him! I was older! I NEVER SAID A THING AND NOW IT'S TOO LATE! I…!" Her right hand flew to her mouth and bit hit to muffle her scream of agony. She trembled harder than Nozomi had when she was dying. It made me sick to see a woman who had the strength to challenge the entire Council reduced to this state. How can anyone endure this level of pain without killing themselves first? "It should have been me… It should have been me…! Or-Orochimaru took tissue samples from e-each body when no one was l-looking, or he th-thought at least… All together there were sixty dead children… Anyone wh-who had been t-too young to fight was taken to the Library of Truth a week before the Konohagakure Shinobi came. The Library was far enough a-way from the line of battle… If they hadn't of been the death toll w-would have exceeded a hundred…"
Sixty dead children. Sixty tissue samples. Sixty infants… "According to what I heard the babies were injected with the Shodai's DNA… But… I can now understand how that error could have been made with Nawaki being his grandson…" I murmured quietly as I traced the lines I had created in the snow. "But why? Was there a point to injecting the DNA of those kids into babies?" God I must sound so insensitive… Here this woman is crying her eyes out over the only one she ever loved and fifty-nine other close friends while all I am doing is pushing the matter more… But this could be the only chance I'll ever get to know the truth about those babes…
The silence between us grew longer. I had already pieced Orochimaru's possible reason for doing this but I needed a confirmation. I cannot afford assumptions that could be wrong. Calliope's crying had reduced itself to a few occasional sobs as she began to gather her wits once more. "He felt it was his fault. He thought by taking sixty already dying infants and giving them each one DNA sample of one of sixty strong and would have been aspiring Shinobi… The infants lives would have been spared and a part of those children would live on… In a sense it would have been like he was resurrecting them. A way to put his own conscience at ease, but it failed miserably and drove him deeper into insanity."
"No offense but I find it hard to believe that man ever had or has a conscience," I had not meant to sound so bitter but no matter how I look at things he was the real murderer of my cousin. If she had never had to go with him the she would still be alive!
"With all that was placed on it, it's no wonder he locked it away," Calliope muttered. "He was once a very good man, Lady Shikamaya. You may find this hard to believe but at one time he would died a thousand times over for this Village, your grandparents, your mother, your aunts and uncles. He was very loyal and in his own ways very caring and affectionate," When I shot her a questioning look about those last two characteristics she answered it with a slight edge to her voice. "In his own ways… But the pain of everything became too much. With everyone he cared that died a part of him went with them. Could you handle the blood of sixty children on your hands, Lady Shikamaya? And what if one of those children was the beloved little brother of one of your closest friends? And that same little boy was your own student? How many other people do you think he's lost since then? How many of them do you think he blames himself for? Orochimaru was a strong man, physically and mentally, but even the strongest of us has their limits. And he reached his a long time ago."
A weight crushed my chest as I attempted in vain to fathom the pain… I bit my lip as I gazed at the names on the Stone. Could I handle being the one who put thirty-nine people's names on this stone, no doubt more, without winding up like Orochimaru? Could anyone? How many dozens more did he feel responsible for before he just gave up his sanity to escape the pain? Could this be another reason why he left? Having to look Grandma Tsunade in the face nearly every day knowing the reason she wept at night was because he failed to protect her brother? Then decades later having her look-a-like grandchild around you every day? It would be no different than looking Grandma Tsunade in the eye once more. What about the parents and siblings and cousins of his other two students, he must have had to look them in the eye and tell them…? Orochimaru, a cruel man, but not without his reasons for being so, but how can causing others pain relieve the pain he felt? Perhaps when he made others feel pain it let him know he was not alone in the never ending nightmare of pain but that would only add more to his pain in the long run. Could that be why he keeps on sinking further into insanity? Is it even possible for me to make sense of what I hope to never feel? A never ending circle of self-hatred?
"I see I gave you some food for thought…" Calliope's mutter jerked me from my thoughts. No one would have guessed by the sound of her voice she had just wept uncontrollably over the loss of so many. I looked up to see her standing tall and in control, her tiara placed once more upon her head. "Like I told you before, Lady Shikamaya… It is only okay to let it all out when the Hitai-ate is off. When it is off you are off duty and it is fine to act like a scared child, but when it is on you must be a master of yourself. I just wish I would have known this a long time ago, so I pass that bit of knowledge on to you. Use it well," She turned and walked away across the frozen field with that, the poof noise signified she had left via shunshin though not a moment later another poof told me she had returned. "Oh and one more thing, Milady. Only take it off around someone you would trust with your life," She raised her hand to Shunshin away again but paused. "You hold a lot of power for one so young. Be careful or you could walk the very path he walks, but there may not be someone to pull you back…" With yet another poof she left and did not return this time.
Alone. I was alone. Again. I turned my head slowly back to the stone. "N-Nozomi… If… You can hear me… We need to talk… Whatever you say I will be more than willing to listen! Please! I need someone to talk to right now and I know you are the only one who could… Possibly understand… Please!" Nothing… Nothing happened. "Please, don't abandon me…" I sat there for I don't know how long before I heard a giggle of laughter but it was not high and soprano like Nozomi's would be, it was Xia.
I turned to look into the forest where it had sounded from. Xia leapt into a tree a teasing look on her face as she scanned the forest below. I wondered ever so briefly what she could be doing up there when Lee jogged up, stopped and looked around confused. He starched his head just as Xia jumped from her perch and glomped Lee from behind. They both laughed gleefully as Xia buried her face into Lee's green sweater that she had given him for Christmas. Lee fell backwards, landed on Xia and swiftly rolled off of her as she tackled him. The two rolled in the snow laughing like there was no turmoil in the Village. To them there was no one here but them, even if fifty people stood beside me shouting their heads off. It was just them, innocent love that blocked the rest of the world out. Just them and love. Love?
Could that have been…? Love… Is that what kept Nozomi tied to Oto? Love? Love like Lee and Xia felt of each other? Or a kind of love that one can only experience once in their life, like Grandma Tsunade and Grandpa Jiraiya? Or was it an unspoken love but the other knew it was always there, like Koharu and Homura? Or- Or was it a love unspoken and now it was too late, like Calliope and Nawaki?
Author's Notes
Okays people i need some help here! nothing much! but next chapter i am going back to the Jinchuriki! WHAT? who are the Jinchuriki? Okays i know it has been AGES since i last showed them but come on! Really? Anyways, the next chap is going to feature NiiBi (Yugito and Kirabi) and I need some ways that the other Jinchuriki are going to scheme to get them together. now catch twenty-two here. they all. have. to fail. miserably. pm me, post it as a review i don't care i just need some help here! I cannot think of all but two things! and of course if your idea gets used (most likely will) i'll of course credit at the end who came up with what
wal
fw
