5: Half dead shaman
Summary: Where ghosts go after the apocalypse- or –A character who is literally dead inside.
In the days preceding the end of the world the sun was overcome with dark. Like an eclipse that wouldn't give up, the moon-sized asteroid cast it's deadly shadow, an everlasting reminder of the end yet to come.
Each dealt differently with the inevitable. Some watched in morbid fascination while others stubbornly ignored the signs of planetary destruction and went about their lives in denial. The ghosts reacted to the approaching end of the world with neither panic nor fear, but rather grim determination. They were already dead after all. To them the impending apocalypse was nothing but a reminder to rush and get their unfinished affairs in order before it was too late. The streets of ghost town were filled with bustling apparitions rushing to finish their business and pass on. Many were in high spirits content in the fact that they would be reunited with their loved ones- living or dead, soon.
The Lost One wasn't so lucky. She watched as the city emptied of ghosts, the dead she had known for so many years finally passing on. Few souls were determined enough to stick around if they died so near the end. Those that did had short-term goals easily attainable like confessing to a loved one in a dream. The newly dead did their due and passed quickly, doing little to refill the rapidly waning population of ghosts. The Lost One, the child, the eldest ghost in all of ghost town soon became the last ghost as well. She walked the darkened streets in resignation and despair, searching, always searching for the item she had forgotten years ago, a century after she had forgotten her living name. Such was the price of staying too long, the danger of not completing your task.
Spirits are not meant to wander the living realm and as such are prone to decay. Just as a body cannot heal without a soul, neither can a soul heal without a body. The identity is first to go, then the personality until all that's left is the purpose for staying on. The final task. Even her reason for being was all but forgotten, nothing left but a lingering urge to find it. The Lost One looked up into the sky as what had been dark for days began to glow with heat. Utter despair ripped through her. Time had run out.
Buildings shook around her and the air shimmered with waves of intense heat. Everything flowed white hot and the asphalt beneath her translucent feet began to boil. She couldn't feel a thing. Not even when the asteroid struck head on. Impact sent her hurtling. Earth became a burning mass, and then a shining dot and then a spec in the distance. The Lost One flew through space and dimensions like a shooting star, disintegrating as she went until at last she landed in the middle of a massacre.
The Lost One barely existed. She had thought she would be resigned after decades of fruitless search but it was panic she felt instead. This couldn't be the end. Not before she found it. The lost one looked around at the souls of the recently departed. "Help me!" She cried to the murdered Uchiha. She gripped at her translucent chest as if her grip could keep the cracks from spreading. "Please." Tears left melted tracks down the ghost child's face. At last a woman with motherly eyes took the shattered child by the hand and floated her to the cooling corpse of a girl. "Kuroyuri has already passed on. Take her body. Give it life and make it your own. In exchange you will look after my Sasuke."
Pain. Not the first sensation Kuroyuri would have picked to have after being dead so long, but the ghost guessed she shouldn't be choosy. Physical pain couldn't even compare to the spiritual pain of disintegration. Still, this was an awful lot of pain. She had a deep abdominal wound, had died from slowly bleeding out. She could tell it was a sloppy kill, not immediate and therefore she could have been saved. This body knew that even though her soul did not. Fighting and killing was ingrained into Kuroyuri's muscle memory. She lay still on the ground, applying pressure to the wound and clutched to consciousness with the same determination she held her gaping wound.
Ghosts cannot sleep. Therefore if the body did it would eject the restless soul within and both would find their end. A body without a soul cannot heal, is a good as dead. And the Lost One's soul was so broken it had no chance to survive without a body. So Kuroyuri was fully cognizant when the strange Anbu came around, checking the corpses around her for sharingan. A masked soldier pried open her lids, and seeing her eyes a plain glassy black moved on. Something told her to wait. It was only once regular Anbu flooded the blood-splattered streets did Kuroyuri allow herself to show any signs of life.
Her eyes roamed around her, took in the lack of other ghosts visible to her now mortal sight. It would be a shame to no longer be able to see the dead who had so generously given her a second chance by lending the body of their kin. Kuroyuri suspected that if she were to leave this body the ability would be regained but decided not to chance it. As strange as it was, she was alive now and had to accept all the quirks that came with it.
Whispers about the second Uchia survivor circulated the hospital like a bad case of influenza. Even the most hardened of shinobi medics could not help but be a little unnerved by the girl. It was not her haunted look, the blankness in her eyes or even her stony expression. No, those were all things that could be expected from a child having gone through such a traumatic experience. What was truly abnormal about Uchiha Kuroyuri was that the girl did not sleep! Not once since Anbu brought her in did Kuroyuri close her eyes for longer than a blink. When asked, pleaded, ordered to take it easy, you're safe here, give your body a rest, Kuroyuri always gave the same chilling response.
"Only in death can I rest. Until I find it I will know no peace."
Kuroyuri's strange behavior was in direct contrast to the only other survivor Sasuke who remained comatose for weeks no matter what the medics tried. They could not get Kyroyuri to sleep and could not get Sasuke to wake. Some suspected a linking jutsu had been applied to the children and when no other explanation could be found, the kindest nurse was sent to convince the Uchiha girl to please, please, give sleeping a try, for the sake of your only living relative, have a heart. Only then did Kuroyuri meet the nurse's gaze with fathomless black eyes, old, old eyes, nodded once, closed her eyes… and died.
A scream of shock had backup rushing into the room at once. For fifteen long minutes, the hospital's best medics worked frantically to resuscitate her. All to no avail. Then, as the head doctor opened his mouth to announce time of death, she awoke. Blandly looking around the shocked faces as if she did not just return from the dead, Kuroyuri asked, "Where is that nurse from earlier? Her first lost patient would like to inform her that his death was not her fault and that he cannot move on until she forgives herself." It was at that moment the nurse in question came back into the stunned room. The ageless, deathless Uchiha girl caught her gaze with hers and monotonously intoned, "Hyuuga Mabuki apologizes for telling you he trusted you with his life before the surgery that ended it. He realizes that was an unfair burden to place upon you and asks that you release your unfounded guilt so that he may move on."
The nurse blinked, and promptly fainted.
At no point during this chaos did Uchiha Sasuka awake. That would occur much later.