chapter 3: Split

One day Lophin was wandering aimlessly, when he came upon a city in Snow Country. He had been walking for three weeks straight, feeling drawn to something here...and now he was going to find out what. He walked through the gates, marveling at the icy world around him. It was very similar to cities in Fire Country, he thought, same building design, same types of people, same emptiness. And yet it was not, this place had a peculiar feeling to it, a feeling of hopelessness: everyone here seemed like they would drop dead from the pressure of feeling useless.

As he was wandering the icy streets he came upon a fountain. An old man, who by the looks of his appearance, was either very powerful or very wealthy, was heating the water here. This man smiled at Lophin, greeting him as the stranger came near. Lophin sat down by the man and they started talking. It turns out that he was the Snow king's grandson, a very powerful figure indeed. As he was boasting about one of his heroic exploits, Lophin began to wonder about his wounds.

"Do you need me to fix up your arm for you, sir?" Lophin asked.
"No, it'll be all right; all it needs is a little time," came the reply. However, Lophin put the man's arm in a cast anyway. The young man, awed by his skill asked Lophin how he had managed to do that in all of thirteen minutes. Lophin then explained that he was an iijutsu expert from Leaf, occasionally telling fibs about his prowess. Somewhere along the line the prince, Yen, began to think that Lophin was an all-curist. He proceeded to lead Lophin all the way into the Snow Palace, eighteen miles away.

Yen being an expert ninja only needed to stop once on his way, dragging Lophin along the ground. When they came to the palace, a fifty-foot obelisk of stone and iron with many towers and terraces, Yen finally stopped. But even this was only to procure permission for Lophin to enter. They walked into the king's chamber, where Lophin saw one of the most horrible sights he had ever seen. The king was lying there, bathed in bloody phlegm that he had continuously coughed up. One of his arms was missing and it seemed that his left lung was on the verge of caving. Lophin walked up, gawking at the scrawny creature.

"Well aren't you going to fix Grandpa?" Yen asked, with a tinge of annoyance in his tone.

"You don't understand, I can't do this sort of thing yet..." Lophin started to say. However, Yen kept persisting getting ever more angry with Lophin by the minute. Lophin decided that he would try. After one hour had passed, Lophin had actually worsened the king's condition, he had tried to fix stimuli in his brain and patch up the holes in his lungs with flesh from his remaining arm. However, this put so much stress on Yen's grandfather that he died mid-"surgery."

Angry, Yen poured out insult after insult on Lophin. "You bastard, what the fuck did you think you were doing; if this is the best you can do, you must be the worst damn doctor in history! You're only good for murdering, you fucking demon!"

At the last remark, Lophin struck Yen, his hand firmly around Yen's skull. Then the sound of cracking bone was heard and Yen's eyes went dim. His now eternal expression of rage and surprise delved into the reaches of Lophin's soul, confusing him; splitting him. He stood there, the old feeling beginning to come back, rushing into his left arm, making it immobile. Yet, this was only in his left arm, at the sight of trickling blood something in his mind seemed to click into place. He finally knew that this is what he had come here for, he had been drawn to the stench of the now-dead king. He had come here to kill...

The act was so shameful, however, that he could not possibly finish his job. So, he took his free hand and cut a gash from each eye straight down to the base of his neck. The blood felt warm on his cold, lifeless body. He began to make another rut into his face, this time from ear to ear, straight across his nose. He proceeded to create apostrophe-like marks in each of his face's new hemispheres, finishing his job with a partial leaf swirl in the middle. He took out a scroll and spilled some of his blood onto it, activating the jutsu that gave him some chakra. This chakra he charged into his cuts, clotting the bleeding and turning them blue. With his mask complete, he was now able to free himself and do what he wished. For this was no longer Lophin on the outside but a completely opposite stranger.

Lophin crushed Yen's head, kicked him back into the air, and thrust his hand through the hole in his neck; ripping out Yen's spine. He sharpened his new weapon on a nearby stone bookshelf, grinning as he heard the sound of crunching bone. He ran out of the room scouring the palace for its attendants, impaling them all through the gut. When he was done, he expertly removed their eyes and crushed them on the front of the palace, inscribing his name.

Now that the excitement was over, and his adrenaline rush fading, he used the rest of his chakra to repair his wounds, including his mask, and started on the journey back to Konoha...