So. I have no idea why I reacted so dramatically to Kinoko and Hizashi-san's ongoing argument about fate and freewill. Nor do I entirely understand why Shikamaru-chibi wants to hear me sing right now. Nor do I understand why Shikaku-sama has slumped onto Chouza-sama.
Where- okay, Sasuke-chibi is here because he wants to hear me sing too, and Naruto-chibi has followed him because he wants to hear me sing- there is an Ino-chibi, and a Choji-chibi, and that's Shino-chibi and Kirara and why is Shibi-sama… there is a crowd of dinner party-goers around me now. Shikamaru-chibi is glimmering at me hopefully.
Fine. I'll sing.
"Fine. I'll sing. What do you want?"
"Sing the ballad."
"Which ballad, Kirara?"
"The one about the Western Lands and why our clan left them."
"The Halls of the Mountain King?"
"Yeah."
I wriggle Shikamaru-chibi off of me, sit up- straighten my back. Take a deep breath. And sing the ballad "The Halls of the Mountain King".
When it's over, Hana-chan is crying. Most of them are crying actually. Why are so many people crying? Shikamaru-chibi is hugging me.
Why am I crying?
Shikaku-sama is hugging me too. I don't get it. That ballad… I know it's an oral history of the Iga clan, and what happened to us before the Sage came. It's about the forested highlands of the Land of Demons, and the mountain the Iga had in their keeping; the forest that the wolves the Inuzuka used to be guardians of, the deer-god that died, screaming in fear. The blue butterflies that flew from the deer god's corpse. The boar tribes that lived in the mountains. The madness of the moongoddess and my ancestor, who slew her; her dying curse, a meteor that burned the forest and shattered the mountains, drove all the clans away.
Fire and calamity and a great and terrible longing to have a home again.
We wandered for many years after that, following our guides, the Tengu. Then the Sage of Six paths came, and chakra, too, and we died out slowly at first, then all at once- driven mad by what we could now see through chakra stained minds. Till only my grandmother, then my mother, then my sisters and me are left.
It's about what it means to see what's coming and being unable to change a single, stupid thing.
I don't know why I can't stop crying.
Shikaku-sama gives nice hugs.