He was a failure.
The first son of a prestigious family of potters, he was expected to take up the business once his father passed away. Until then he lived as his apprentice.
Endlessly he practiced, from dusk to dawn under the watchful gaze of his father, hoping to one day be worthy of his heritage.
He wasn't.
No matter what he did, how long he trained, how much improvement he made since the previous day, it wasn't enough. With time, even the worst waste of skin could have skill, but never talent.
Despite all of the effort that went into his pieces, there still lacked a spark.
Eventually his brothers caught up with him, their pieces perhaps less impressive in skill, but far more brilliant than his own. He knew that was the case. His father would soon decide his brothers were more worthy. It was only right.
And yet his father still stood with him, mentoring him above all others.
He appreciated it, but he knew that it was out of pity, he was wasting the precious time of his father. He was a good man, truly, he admired him, but the son knew that he wasn't deserving of this attention, it was better spent on his siblings, he was dragging them down.
And with this belief, mere disappointment became guilt.
This guilt started showing itself in his work. He started to regress. His father didn't see the cause, only the results. Even he, in his deep love and patience, started to show frustration as his efforts to see his son grow stopped bearing fruit.
The son knew that his family hated him, they had to. Despite all the efforts they delivered for him, he couldn't manage to pay them back. Frustration, disgust, disappointment that was all he deserved.
Eventually his father decided to make his brother the heir of the workshop. It was only right. He knew he hadn't been deserving of it. So why did it hurt so much? Some leftover piece of misplaced pride? It didn't matter, it too became a reason to feel guilt.
He couldn't trust himself anymore. His own judgment was as worthless as he was, the only thing he could trust was what others were thinking of him. And he knew that they had to despise him. He could hear it in their voice when the shame was weak enough to bear that he could come down from his room: sadness. He was making them suffer. They had to hate him, so he hated himself. Or was it the other way around?
It did not matter.
Guilt turned to hate.
Still he continued living. He continued practicing more out of habit than any real drive. He didn't have any passion left.
What was the point of all of this? The world was so gray and dull, he felt no attachment to it. Perhaps he could spare his family the shame of his existence, but he still loved them, he knew that this would hurt them. He could not bear the thought of inflicting upon them more misery than he already had.
Or were these excuses? Was he really just a coward? Did he really feel all of this misery, or were those merely ploys to get more attention? He did not even know.
He didn't know what he felt.
He didn't know who he was.
He didn't know what he was doing.
He didn't know what he knew.
He was a failure.
That was the only answer he could find.
Until another one found his room.
He woke up to flames licking his skin.
The rumbling sound of fire consuming wood was everywhere. How did he not wake up earlier to this horrific racket? In other circumstances he would have chastised himself for such a mistake and started panicking, unsure of what he should do. But not this time.
This time he didn't think.
Fear flooded his veins. The imminent danger sharpening his senses, bu the fire and smoke clouded them, carbon monoxide making him dizzy and nauseous.
He didn't know where was the window, he didn't know where was the door.
He didn't know what to do.
But he did he did it anyway.
He didn't know, but his body did. Muscle memory took charge and he passed through the burned opening.
He was at the top of the stairs when he heard it.
A cough.
It had come from his sister's room. She was still there.
He backtracked into the corridor and went into her room. The ten year old girl was sprawled on the floor, arms weakly trying to push her up.
Without hesitation he grabbed her and went to the stairs.
The descent was difficult. The noxious fumes, the searing flames eating at his bare feet, the additional weight he carried. There were 15 steps, and each one felt like a terrible ordeal.
When he reached the end he buckled but endured.
He continued walking.
He hoped the rest of his family had made it out.
The entrance came into view. There it was, safety, security. Life.
There was only 10 meters. It wouldn't have been much had he woken up earlier, but the building had been burning for far too long now and its flimsy wood was giving in, pieces of the upper floor falling down at random intervals.
It didn't matter.
The idea to give up didn't even start to form in his mind. In fact it was entirely empty. There was just one goal, with nothing else that possibly make him question it: get her out.
He walked forward, as everything came crashing down around him. One searing yet painless step at a time. Until he heard a deafening crack, this time directly above him.
He didn't have time to move out of the way as he was. So, in a hundredth of a second, he made up his mind.
The human body almost never operates at full strength. There is a plethora of measures designed to prevent it from harming itself. Fear, hesitation, caution, discomfort. They are used by the brain to make you stop in your tracks and think of a course of action that wouldn't leave you injured and defenseless.
But there are times where those safeties are bypassed, where the situation is far too urgent and desperate to worry about what will happen ten seconds from now. That is how a mother is able to lift absurd weights to free her trapped child. That is how he threw his sister several meters, through the door and into safety.
Torn muscles, a broken bone, fractured cartilage, a dislocated shoulder. The sum total of these self-inflicted injuries would be enough to leave him for months without the use of his arms, and even then, they would never be as efficient as before. He would never have to know.
The burning furniture landed on him.
He burned as the adrenaline wore off. It would have been an excruciating way to die, but his mind and body were far too exhausted to even register the pain. In the end he faded away peacefully in the flames of his home.
He died.
He knew it as he watched the ruins of the house. People had been digging through the rubble and found his corpse.
It had been terrifying, to see himself in such a horrifying state. The worst was the face. Facial features stripped away to reveal the charred muscles underneath. The skin of his lips burnt away, leaving bare the teeth, seemingly arranged in a disturbing rictus. And then there were the eyes. They said eyes were the mirrors of the soul, but the only things left were two dark holes. The ensemble felt to him as no more than a mockery of the human body. And that was what was left of him. He couldn't bear to look at it.
Thankfully he had been the only victim of this fire. He and his sister were the only ones inside as the rest of the family had went to dine at an old friend's home. They had returned to a destroyed home and a weakly breathing daughter. She recovered in time but her memories of the events were hazy. Although she may not have remembered his action, they could still deduce who had saved her.
His funerals took place soon after. He didn't come, he didn't have the courage for it. So he stayed there, at the place of his death.
Time passed. He had quite literally nothing to, so he turned to the only thing he had: his thoughts.
The first few days he was happy despite his circumstances. He saved his sister like some kind of hero, so was it not all worth it? His life for her life. It was a good trade. This failure did something of worth after all. He would have been content to pass to his next life then.
But it didn't come. For some reason he was stuck here, and he saw no way out. At first he thought the chain protruding from his chest was some kind of mystic thing that attached him to this world, but when mouth appeared on its end and started to eat it away, inflicting on him excruciating pain, it didn't seem to be correct.
So what was he missing? Why was he still a ghost? Did he have lingering regrets strong enough to keep him here. Some other obsession? Perhaps he was missing some other thing, he couldn't be sure, he never had been all that interested in religion despite his pious upbringing.
A week passed. He was still there. His thoughts had become darker with time. He started to go back to his old habits, falling once more into a downwards spiral of negative thoughts. He deserved it. They were better off without him anyway. He wasn't even worthy enough to pass on properly.
The chain ate itself faster.
After two weeks, it was only a few feet long. The frequency of the spurts of pain increased, which did not improve his state of mind. Two weeks without anyone able to see or even touch him.
He just felt so lonely.
And someone came.
He didn't notice him at first. So many people came and went, why should he pay attention to them after they proved unable to interact with him?
"Damn. You ok buddy?"
He looked up from his curled up position. A man in black robes and a sword at their hip was looking directly at him. Did-Did someone just talk to him?
"Don't worry, kid. It's over now." The man bopped him on the head with the hilt of his sword.
Everything went white and he passed on.
But even in death there is seldom peace to be found.
He was sent to a place far worse. He didn't know where he was, he should have reincarnated and yet here he was, still aware of his past life. Perhaps his parents had been wrong. Perhaps there was no reincarnation cycle and the truth lied elsewhere. After a single day there, there was only a single possibility left in his mind: he was in the realm of the Ashura. The legends about them having three faces and six arms had to be exaggerations, but how else could you explain the horrors those human-like figures committed. Murder, rape, torture. He knew these were all actions humans could commit, but how could they occur so often in broad daylight? How could these atrocities be so readily accepted that the victims were simply mocked by onlookers instead of saved?
The answer was obvious. They weren't human. He couldn't bear to accept anything else.
So he hid. For days he stayed in the dark corner of a derelict shack, hoping nobody would come.
It was a fool's hope. Eventually somebody would seek shelter too. And she did. When she entered she had been covered in blood, clearly not her own. In a fit of courage he struck, but the woman easily brought him down, her eyes filled with the intent to kill. And yet she spared his life.
Maybe she was someone he could trust. He knew it was naive of him, that he was just desperately reaching, but maybe she was a human like him trapped in a hellish realm where she didn't belong.
He was wrong.
The next day a few people attacked them. She killed them all. Without mercy. There was no other choice of course, she was well within her rights to defend herself, but the look in her eyes told another story. It was rage. Not the fire lashing out at everything in range that was so common around here, but a cold calculated one, without flame yet able to reduce to cinders any who dared to test its patience without remorse. One of the men had his face seared off, the bloody result reminding him of his own corpse, screaming at the horrifying pain. He puked, she blinked.
She was like them. She belonged here.
But was that such a bad thing? For all her anger, it was not directed at him. She trained him, cared for him, even though he offered next to nothing. He was dead weight and yet she bothered with him.
He was scared of her, but he was full of gratitude. So he did his best to repay her or make sure that he would be able to soon. His dedication to his training earned him her praise, and he was quickly improving. He had a long way to go but in a few weeks he would be able to stand for himself. It was not fast enough. He yearned for that day he could repay his debt. Until then he would have to be content with watching out for intruders at night.
That was one of those nights that he heard a girl scream. Those were depressingly far from rare around here, but this time it was so close. It was just behind the corner. He debated in his mind whether he should go or not. Was it worth the risk? He then remembered his sister, down on the floor, barely breathing.
He stopped thinking.
The fight had been a mess. In the end he received far more hits than he managed to give, but the girl had been given the opening she needed to fight as well.
His benefactor- no, his master had been surprisingly welcoming. He saw a hint of wariness, but nothing more. She cared. The little dressing down he had received could only come from genuine worry. He would do better next time.
As for the newcomer he saved, she was strange. She was from here, and yet he saw in her none of the anger that permeated this place. Instead he saw fear. She almost did all the work when he went to save her, and yet she allegedly chose to scurry around hidden from the view of potential aggressors. Not that she had been wrong in the end, but still. If only she wasn't so keen to tease him he would perhaps consider her a friend. Or perhaps he already did. He really didn't know what to think.
Either way now that they were three he felt far more confident when they went out. Fights went more easily in their favor, and in general they happened far less often. There was strength in numbers as his master said.
It did not last long.
They ended up attracting the wrong kind of attention, he was pretty sure he pissed himself, he almost died, one thing led to another and now…
"Alright. That's it for this side of the house. Kosaku, Li, I need you to get some more rope. The rest of us will prepare the wood for the next one." Now he was bossing people around and building houses.
That had not been how he thought the afterlife would play out, but he wasn't going to complain. Of course his responsibilities did not just extend to building lodgings. He worked on whatever project his master saw as important. He appreciated the show of trust, but he had to admit he wasn't all that comfortable in such a position of command. Still, he got used to it.
It helped that the people under him were desperate. He had worried in the beginning that they wouldn't be able to find enough people willing to join them before someone powerful got fed up and crushed them. It already happened once after all. But in the end Naoko had proven incredibly useful. She knew where to find the hidden, those that did not dare to step into the light where the predators thrived, she had been one of them. With the reputation they had started to build and his master's promises of protection, they were easily swayed.
After a week they had been ten, fifteen after a month, and forty after two months. Getting them onboard had been easy, but keeping them in harder. They had to prove they weren't like the other warlords, with big promises and nothing but suffering in the end. So they built. They needed people to be happy, and to do that they needed better living standards. No more sleeping fearfully in ruined structures where rain would simply pass through the roof.
"Isamu!" He turned around. Naoko was running towards him at full speed. He braced for impact. Sure enough the tackle she performed easily took him off the ground. Since their master had taught her how to subdue opponents without hurting them she had been relentlessly practicing on him at each chance she had. But why? Sure, he could take it, he had grown used to it, but it was still a bit annoying. He was pretty sure that last point was one of the main reasons she was doing it.
She had grabbed his thighs, preventing him from simply kicking her away. So, before they landed, he thrust his hand into the ground and contorted himself, flipping around with himself with his arm as the axis. It was a superhuman feat, only rendered possible by the otherworldly strength they slowly gained and Naoko's momentum.
She was slammed into the ground.
Naoko quickly got up, ready to continue her assault. Isamu did too, hoping for the opposite.
"Stop that! I got stuff to do." Which was true, he had a few more consruction sites to check out. He would leave out the fact that he probably would only be absolutely necessary in an hour at the earliest.
"Fine." She huffed. "I was pretty sure I would have gotten you this time around. How do you manage these stunts anyway? I'm pretty sure what you just did was completely impossible."
"If I did it, it wasn't impossible." Obviously. Her continued attempts simply made him really good at countering them.
"Riiiiiiight." She narrowed her eyes. "Did Taylor teach you some kind of super secret technique? Because if that's the case I want in." The use of the first name and the lack of honorifics had been grating at first. He had done it too before, but he had the excuse of simply not knowing Hebert was her actual last name. But like the rest he got used to it. He simply accepted that she had absolutely no notion of decorum and that there was nothing to do about it. Also his master didn't seem to mind, so he did his best to bear with it.
"There's no such thing and you know it." It was entirely true. He didn't want to admit it, but he had been disappointed when he discovered the fantasies about martial arts that he heard from people his age weren't actually true. Still, he hoped that one day he would be skilled enough to beat anyone with a single punch.
"I know, I know. Still, that would be pretty neat wouldn't it? I never saw an actual martial artist before, and Taylor keeps protesting that what she does is just 'practical fighting'. I'd love to see what all the fuss is about this stuff." According to his master it was actually pretty underwhelming, but she had to be wrong. Martial arts are cool.
"Right, right. I'd love to continue chatting but as I said I'm quite busy." Her raised eyebrow indicated that perhaps next time he'd have to find another excuse.
"We need to talk, one on one. It's important." This time it was spoken with a serious tone. He'd be an idiot to ignore it. He sighed.
He turned to his small construction crew. "Guys, I'll be gone for a while, I trust you to not slack off." After a subdued chorus of 'Yes Boss' he turned back to Naoko. "Follow me."
They walked to a small path between two buildings that had yet to be renovated. The territory they had claimed was a small one, but he trusted that everyone was busy enough that no one would bother coming here.
"So? What's so urgent?"
"I-Nothing really. But I needed to talk to you in private." She grabbed him by the shoulder as he moved to leave. "We barely talk anymore. We both know they won't miss you for a while there. Please." Something in her eyes told him it was in his best interest to indulge her.
"Fine." He sighed."What's the problem?"
"Does there need to be a problem for us to talk?" He rolled his eyes. "For the last month both of you baarely make the time to talk anymore. Always making excuses, always 'too busy'. If I didn't trick you it would have happened again there. What's the matter? Why are you avoiding me?"
He opened his mouth to protest, but he closed it back down quickly. It was true wasn't it? He had the time, so why would he rather spend it by staying around places he wasn't actually needed? He knew the answer.
"I'm not avoiding you. I just feel like there is always more important. Instead of wasting time here I should spend it where people might need me." As soon as he finished his sentence he regretted it.
"Wasting time? You think you're wasting time by talking to me?! Who the hell do you think you are?" Her fists clenched hard enough for them to wighten. He could almost feel the anger building up inside her.
"I'm sorry, I apologize, that came out wrong ." He blurted out. "I-It's just that I think of it as time for myself and I-uh-I-"
She looked at him as if he grew a third head, the anger still there, but with a strongly rising feeling of confusion. She let out an exasperated sigh and clenched her hand on her face.
"You really are a fucking idiot. How do you manage to be so selfish and selfless at the same time?"
"I-I don't know. I guess…I just want to be useful." He looked down.
She groaned. "I think Taylor rubbed of a bit too much on you. You shouldn't try to emulate her, the girl really doesn't know how to take a break." That wasn't something he would deny.
"Yeah. I wish master would open herself up a bit more."
"Heh. Hearing you call her 'master' is never gonna be not weird." She snorted. "You could call her 'boss' or something, but I don't mind. It's part of your charm." He blushed. " But you're right. I'm used to people pretending to be friendly, not friendly people acting like they're not."
A pause installed itself.
"It's been a while since then, but do you remember when it was just the three of us?" he asked.
She rolled her eyes. "It's been a month, wouldn't exactly call it a while. But yeah, of course I remember. What of it?"
"When we would come back home after a day of walking and fighting, when it was just us and nobody else, she completely let down her guard. I could tell you know? She always put up this front of an imperturbable fighter, but when were alone she looked so...tired." He said.
She narrowed her eyes. "Yeah, you're right. I've seen a lot of stuff around here, but I've never seen someone look so exhausted before. And my guess is that wasn't because of the fights, at least not as much."She noted sadly.
"At least then she had downtime. She does try to get us together and just talk, but there's always that feeling that she's forcing herself, that she always has something else more important to do she can't bear to delay." He bemoaned.
Both paused, caught in their own thoughts. Naoko broke the silence.
"You really do care about her a lot don't you?" This was a fact, but Isamu understood what the implied question was.
"Of course." he answered. "I owe her a lot, and I don't think I could ever repay it in full." He looked at her in the eyes. "And you? It's obvious you're not at ease with this whole warlord plan, even after all this time. You could have high-tailed it at anytime, not one of us would have stopped you."
"Yeah." She said quietly. "There's hardly a day that goes without me thinking at least once of bailing out. But…" She pause as she blushes. "I-I think I'm more scared of… not having you both."
Isamu refrained from speaking, afraid that if he were to even move slightly wrong she would hide that 'weakness' with all her might once more.
"Naoko isn't my given name you know…" she admitted. "But I wasn't all that creative either. My parents used Anoko to address me. It took me a while to understand that no one would be retarded enough to address someone directly with 'that girl'. Judging by the look on your face I guess you know I mean." Isamu's face was pale. Inside of him disgust, anger, and compassion rolled inside of him. His father had brought him to the brothel once or twice to get him out of his funk. He knew how the owners addressed their employees. To think someone would think of their own child as nothing but a…
"Bah. Don't worry about it." she said, interrupting his thoughts. "They were pretty horrible, yeah, you have to be to manage to squick out the bosses of the 79th district, but they're long dead anyway. "She looked up, smiling in fond remembrance. "Ah yeah. That was a good time." She shook her head. "But that's beside the point. What I meant was that, you were both...uh… I didn't- I- Fuck. I can't chicken out now." Isamu observed mesmerized as an internal struggle the likes of which he never even heard of in myth was going through her. If she were to suddenly explode in a burst of flames he wouldn't be surprised one bit.
"You-you-urh-You were the first-uh-to-" She paused, took a long breath and put her head in her hands, seemingly giving up. "I-I don't care if I die, everything around sucks and it's fucking horrible. I wouldn't miss anything. But now it-it terrifies me. I don't care if this whole warlord thing kills me, but if you both die I…"
"...I just don't want to be alone again…"
Silence came back, none of them knowing what to say. After a few dozen seconds Isamu was the one to break it. He couldn't stay silent after all that.
"I promise." He said. "I won't leave you alone. I swear."
She answered with a bitter smile. "Please. That's not the kind of promise you can keep."
He looked down thinking. He then looked at her in the eyes. "True. But I can swear I'll do my best to stay with you. I will never leave you alone. "
He watched her face nervously, it was as neutral as it could be. For about 5 seconds that is. It started as a light chuckle, slowly growing, after a while turning into uncontrollable laughter. It only abated once it became painful. "HAHAHAHAHAHA-urgh-hahe Holly-heh-shit what the fuck?! How do you manage to be so sappy? Hehe." He frowned, was she insulting him? He truly meant everything he said. "Oh come on don't be like that. I mean, how can you manage to keep a straight face while spouting out lines like that? I might as well have been coughing up blood during my own speech. And I practiced it!"
He really didn't know what to respond to that. "I-uh…"
"Bah, don't worry about it. I like that about you. Here." She handed him a necklace. It was a crude thing. Some of the stings of the thread were lose and ended up jutting out. On it hanged what looked like a miniature boar. He only knew it was supposed to be one because of the distinctive tusks. And because he knew she found them adorable.
"Thank you." He said, still gobsmacked.
"I wanted to give it to you regardless, but now we can say it's some kind of lucky charm for you, to help you keep yourself alive. And shut your mouth, I'm pretty sure I could fit my whole hand in there." she said playfully
He obeyed promptly. He looked back at the necklace. Sure, it was shoddy craftsmanship, but he could tell the time and effort that went into it. It was beautiful, especially coming from her. "Thanks." he said again while tying the necklace around his neck. "I'll treasure it."
"You better." She paused, visibly thinking about something. "You know, now that I think about I believe I heard about stuff like that before. Isn't that what they'd call courtship?"
If this was courtship, this was a pretty simple interpretation of it. But then again, what did he know about it? He had never been popular with the ladies and the little he knew about romance came from stories about the nobility. "Uh, maybe?" he shrugged.
"Sweet! Does that mean you wanna fuck later?"
Isamu's brain short-circuited. It hadn't been the first time she made the offer, she wasn't the kind of girl to be embarrassed by things like that, but he hadn't been comfortable enough with her at the time to do anything but sputter indignantly. Now though? Wouldn't it be...appropriate?
"S-Sure." That single word took more out of him than any of the work he had been doing today.
Naoko laughed. "Hahaha Look at yourself. I wonder if I can get you even more red."
"Please don't."
"Don't worry I'm just pulling your leg." She said "Not about the fuck though, I'll hold you to that." Fantastic. "Come on let's get Tay." she stated as she turned on her heels and started walking. He followed of course.
The house they were heading towards had been the starting point of the village, it hadn't been the one they holed up in during their beginnings in Zaraki, this one had been a bit too close to Dai, but it grew on them nonetheless. More importantly all of the other housings had been built around it, and with no one wanting to be the one living the furthest from their protectors, they ended up forming a slowly growing circle with what his master called their headquarters at the center.
As they were slowly walking, he could see the lodgings getting less and less well made. This was not due to age as some of them were not even two months old, but it was rather a testament to how far they came in such a short time. In the beginning they barely knew what to do. His master had some experience in renovation and construction of housings, but it was summary and only concerned working with ready materials. Here they had to almost start from scratch, some of the houses being far too derelict for their wood to be reused. At least the forest wasn't that far.
Still, with experience he was starting to see those early works as embarrassing. He already asked to upgrade them to their current standards, but his master had refused, telling him that building more was for now far more important. He fully agreed on this, but he couldn't prevent himself from cringing each time he saw a mistake in a building that could have been easily avoided.
After a few minutes they finally arrived at their destination. This house was twice far larger than the others and included a second floor. His master was of the opinion that a symbol of their status as leaders was necessary to separate themselves from subordinates and incite respect. He felt some shame at that, unsure that he deserved better than the others, but he relented.
Being a leader sure was difficult, and he wasn't even at the top. His master had to bear that responsibility.
Naoko opened the door and he followed suit. The place was a bit austere and lacked in the way of decoration, but it was starting to grow on him. He would try to make it feel a bit more like home when he'd get more free time.
His master was in the living room, hunched over the table where a makeshift map of the town and its surroundings had been placed. She was without a doubt planning how best to handle their closest neighbors. As expected, these hadn't been very cordial and were starting to get more and more aggressive with time.
But his master had it handled. There was nothing to truly worry about.
She turned her head towards them, raising an eyebrow quizzically as she straightened up.
"Isamu, Naoko." she said in a curious tone. "What are you doing here?" She picked up the waterskin at her hip and brought it to her lips.
"Hey Tay." Naoko answered in a peppy tone. "Isamu and I are gonna fuck. You wanna join?"
He hoped the sunny weather would be enough to dry his now drenched top.
