Some Years Ago
My teammates and I waited idly while Shikaku finished his mission report to the Hokage. Raichou, one of my teammates, had sustained a minor injury, but otherwise there'd been no casualties, and the mission parameters had been fulfilled. A successful mission.
It was still early afternoon when we were released for the remainder of the day. Our mission had taken six days, so we'd be given a free day tomorrow and resume regular training the day after. I wanted to work alone on my Ice Release Technique: Ground Spire, so I figured that tomorrow would be a fitting day for that.
Tonight, I would return home and take care of my gear. Perhaps do some research at the library if I had spare time afterwards. It didn't sound exciting, but there was an airy feeling inside of me. I felt very light, without the usual weight of a mission, or injured teammates, or the depression I often suffered from. Today was cast in a strangely optimistic light, a rare occurrence since my brother died.
The sun overheard was bright and the sky unhindered by a single cloud, instead given free reign over Konoha. The people on the streets themselves seemed at ease, the cheerful weather affecting everyone. Street side chatter followed me on my entire trek home, and I passed multiple children's games in alleyways and alcoves. The academy and elementary school had already released for the day, and it was obvious in the influx of children whose presence would have been vacant only an hour ago.
I lived very far from the Hokage tower, in truth, so trek really was the right word to describe my journey home. I'd usually roof jump and speed up the trip, but I wasn't in any rush. The walk reminded me of my sparse few academy days before I'd graduated, at six years old. I was now a chuunin and ten years old, and had been since three years ago.
I'd been assigned to a genin team under a jounin sensei, just like the Hatake kid who was more or less in the same boat as I was. My team had two kunoichi: myself and Aiko. Aiko was on her way to being a medic-nin, though she excelled at genjutsu as well. Raichou, the third member of our team, was an Akimichi. He practiced his clan jutsu as well as taijutsu, primarily. Our sensei, Shikaku Nara, was apart of the Ina-Shika-Cho trio that included Raichou's uncle from the main Akimichi family.
It wasn't a bad team, though our missions were mostly C-ranks and D-ranks, with a sparse few B-ranks. If I'd been an average genin, we likely wouldn't have any B-ranks. Regardless, compared to before my assignment to the genin team, when I'd been going on majority A-rank's in Jounin led Chuunin teams, it was a dull affair. Aiko and Raichou's combined kill count could be counted on a single hand, whereas I'd passed that point years ago. I was already battle-hardened, and the gap between my teammates and I was too large. Protecting wasn't my style, but I'd found myself in that position multiple times in the last year.
I sighed, lacing my hands behind my back. I hoped to make jounin soon, within the next year or two. I still had to improve though, I knew that well enough.
The walk passed pleasantly as I was immersed in thought, and soon enough I found myself near the South wall, where my apartment was nestled. It wasn't a particularly well off area, but if was all I could afford on a single chuunin's mission pay. Years ago, my father had been the head of household, but he'd died and my older brother and I had taken over. His genin pay and my chuunin pay hadn't been enough to sustain the home we'd had, and our mother and us had moved here.
Now, my single pay barely got us through anything. Before I'd joined a genin team, perhaps we'd have been more comfortable. Higher rank missions were higher pay after all. For now, my mother and I currently lived on a mix of my income and our savings. It wouldn't last though. I needed to become a jounin sooner than later.
My mother used to be a mission desks genin. She didn't have the aptitude for leadership, and was only average at fighting, but she was neat, smart, and orderly and she'd been able to get a job as a desk-nin. She quit when Miyuki, my older brother, had been born.
After and ever since my brother died, she'd lost herself. Most days she moves around the house like a ghost. Her beloved husband's death had definitely left her grasping at straws, but her favorite child's subsequent death left her broken. She remembered to eat most days, and would ask me how I was doing when I was around. It was sad being around her, but I admired her for the depths of her feelings. She loved completely and with her whole being. If she hadn't, then she would be like me.
I had loved my father, and my brother even more. But I was less emotional, and the pain was repressible. I let it eat me up at night when I was at home, and left it behind me the rest of the time. I was cold in a way most people weren't, which helped me be the shinobi I was.
The sudden onslaught of thoughts had me distracted as I climbed the concrete stairs to the second floor apartments, but I was drawn back down to reality when I reached the top. However faint it was, the scent of death pervaded the air. It was barely enough to call it a hint, and if it wasn't a familiar scent I doubt I'd have thought on it at all.
It could be a dead animal, and it likely was, but I couldn't relax now that I'd caught the scent. I hesitantly unlocked my apartment door, deciding I'd investigate it after I'd set my things down. I wasn't an Inuzaka, so my nose wasn't an actual tracking tool, but combined with my other senses I would be able to track it down.
Nevermind. I was hit with a rush of the death-laden air as my apartment door swung open. I didn't even have to go inside to see the source.
I stepped in, closing the door behind me. It was dark in the apartment, but not dark enough that I was unable to make out the scene before me. My mother's corpse, encircled by blood. Kami, no.
My step falls were loud in the piercing silence. I stopped at the edge of the blood, peering downwards. My mother was face down, and already visibly dead a few days. The murder weapon was a kunai that lay a couple inches from her hand.
She wore ceremonial funeral garb, likely the same she'd worn to the last two funerals for her family. A laugh startled out of me at the realization, she plans to wear it to her own as well, and I couldn't control it from there.
Giggles bubbled up from my tight throat, and I laughed. My lips were stretched into an uncomfortable smile as I filled the room with my laughter. I couldn't control the reaction, and didn't want to entirely. Why should I?
At some point, tears began to join the laughter. I collapsed on to the ground, pressing my hands into my eyes. Laughter shifted into heaving sobs, slowly at first and then all at once.
Why does this keep happening?
--
I sealed my mother into a body storage seal when I calmed down. I did the customary black band around it to signal it was being used, and then began to clean. The blood was dry, which led me to believe she'd waited until I'd left to do the deed. It made cleaning easier, though.
I felt dull as I scrubbed at the floor, erasing signs of the suicide. Like an empty crevice was inside my chest instead of a heart. I knew that if I looked into that crevice too long that I'd feel the pain again, so I decidedly avoided that. Not right now... save it for another time.
It didn't take long. It was only blood. The problem was that the dusty floor contrasted too much with the now clean portion where the blood had been. I began to clean the entire floor. I went over it with a mop, pressing the tool into the wooden floor again and again until I was satisfied. Meanwhile, my mother's corpse laid on the kitchen table, inside of the innocuous scroll. I opened the window shutters to let in the last rays the sun had to offer.
When I finally ventured into our shared bedroom, I found a note on my mothers nightstand. It wasn't anything long winded, also not a confession or anything of the sort.
I love you, Kenta-chan. Your strength, your solidity, your willpower will get you through this like it has the rest. I'm sorry.
I studied the stilted handwriting for a few minutes, not really reading the words. My heart clenched before I stowed away the paper.
Now... I just had one thing left. I stowed the scroll into a pocket before leaving my apartment.
The sun had since dipped below the horizon, leaving Konoha in dusk. The streetlights lights illuminated the street, as well as those from homes and street side vendors and stores. The good energy I'd noticed before was still present in the people milling about. People ate dinner, kids were playing around, laughing, talking, shouting, giggling.
Konoha was alive and well, but for me I felt like a glass screen now separated me and these scenes. I heard the sounds and noise created by everyone else, but loudest I heard each of my breaths. My body felt more like a prison than ever.
The scroll almost felt as if it were burning a hole in my pocket, I felt it so heavily against my leg. My mother's corpse passing by all these people, and they would never know.
I reached the Nara estate soon, and I knocked at the door. Three solid raps. And I wait.
A woman, Yoshino if I remember correctly, opens the door. She looks only mildly surprised, and calls for Shikaku before inviting me in. We find my sensei on the inner porch, kneeling at the board of shogi, and Yoshino closes the door to the porch after me.
"Kenta-kun." He greets me, bowing his head. He looks up from the board when I don't return a greeting. My jaw is tight as I wordlessly hand over the scroll, but I work it loose enough to speak.
"I don't know what to do." With my mothers dead body. No one ever told me. My voice is tight and without my usual force, and my sensei inspects the scroll. He fingers the black ribbon, one any shinobi would recognize on this type of sealing scroll as referring to a corpse.
"What is in this, Kenta-kun?" He's quiet.
"My mother." A beat of silence, "I don't know what to do with the body."
Shikaku's eyes flicker wider in surprise for a split second, then he gestures for me to sit across from him at the shogi board. I almost decide not to.
"Tell me what happened." It hadn't crossed my mind that he might think I'd killed her, but the wording was ambiguous and left it open ended for me.
"I found her in our home, death by suicide. Blood was dry, stiff corpse, likely dead four to six days."
Shikaku is quiet for a moment, his fingers forming a steeple in his lap. He doesn't look at me, instead down at the pieces on the board. The evening is pleasant, the glow from a lamp upon the wall providing us light.
Such a pleasant day. Such a pleasant day...
"Did she leave anything in writing?"
I hand him the note, being careful of the pieces. He reads it over in a second, but doesn't return it to me like I expected.
"Since Kurosawa-san was a shinobi, I'll have to give the body and evidence of a suicide to medic-nin so they can put together an autopsy report and rule out foul play. I'll handle it from here, Kenta-Kun." He pockets both of the items before looking up at me finally, "Your mother was your last remaining family in Konoha, correct?"
I nodded. I'm truly alone now.
"Will you need help organizing the burial services?"
"No, I did it for my brother a few years ago, and accompanied my mother before that for my father." I feel somber and tired. I don't want another funeral. I want to be happy, and more than that, I don't want to be alone, "Thank you, Shikaku-san."
It was either a credit to his skills of observation or of my lack thereof that I found myself embraced without noticing any movement beforehand.
One of Shikaku's hands cupped the back of my head, and I found myself deflating. I breathed into his shoulder, clutching the material of his robes.
"I'm tired, Sensei." I murmured into his shoulder, struggling to control a wave of emotion, my throat tightening, "I'm so tired."
A/N:
This is everything I have written out for this story so far. I hope you enjoyed it, if you got so far!
Please leave reviews, I love hearing what people think!