Hashirama
"This is so dumb." Madara complained as we hacked our way through the trees.
We began trekking north. My village lay east and his west. We both knew without telling each other that we didn't want to cross paths with either of our villages so north and south were the only directions available to us. We decided on a random kunai toss, him picking the dull point for south, and me picking the sharp side for north. The kunai landed on the sharp side and we pursued north. Unfortunately, north lay a vast jungle of rainforests that extended as far as the eye could see.
"The trees are so dense, it's almost impossible to get through." He went on.
And Madara was making sport of complaining since he lost the kunai toss and was still rather sore about it.
I paused momentarily and put my hands together, trying to see if I could use my newest jutsu to assist us.
"You can't move an entire forest." Madara said, cocking his head.
"Just watch me!"
The ground began rumbling, birds flew up into the sky, branches above began crashing down onto our heads.
Madara's mouth was completely ajar. I shook my head.
"That...wasn't me."
We looked up at the hill we had been descending to see a wave of rocks and mud burying the trees and blasting toward us.
It's because of these consistent thunderstorms... They've created a-
"Mud slide!" Madara yelled.
We began running. We were running faster than we'd ever run together in our lives, heels kicking up, arms swinging, red in the face. I could feel the mud beginning to reach my sandals. Suddenly, Madara hands swung awkwardly in my line of sight. I turned to see that he'd tripped over a mole hole and was busy trying to get his sandal out of the dirt while a rush of mud came for him quicker than lightning. I turned on my heel and jumped up grabbing a branch above my head with my left hand and his hand with my right.
The mud overcame us, going up to Madara's chest. He hung onto my hand with both of his hands, kicking hard to try and get out. The mudslide was too powerful and in a very unlucky moment, the branch I was holding onto snapped, dropping me about a foot. I hung on by tethers and the mud was rushing by up to Madara's neck.
"Don't let go!" he managed to exclaim.
Our fingers were red and our knuckles were white from the pressure of trying to hold onto each other. The mud began to roll to a stop and just before it ceased moving all together, the branch I was holding onto snapped, and I retaliated by grabbing onto the tree with both hands, accidently letting go of Madara. But because the mud had stopped rushing downhill at such a fast pace, he wasn't instantly overcome.
"This is lucky." I proclaimed.
"Not yet." He warned. "I'm sinking."
Which was true, his chin was falling down into the mud quickly. He craned his neck upwards trying to keep his face out of it. At the time, I was baffled by the occurrence. How could mud suck you in like water? I wondered. However, much later, I became familiar with the term "quicksand".
"Okay..." I said, trying to think quickly. "Wait here. I'll be right back."
His face expressed shock and a little more than that, perhaps fear? But he nodded slowly.
"Hurry."
I jumped away from him, from tree to tree, searching far and wide for the one thing I needed to help him.
Finally! A giant tree!
I landed at the bottom of the tree and pressed my hand to the dirt. I closed my eyes, sensing out the life. Miniature creatures, ants and even small microorganisms bloomed down there, running up and down the tiny, tiny roots. I could sense the droplets of water moving through the stems of the flowers, or running all the way up the trunk of a tree and out to the farthest leaf petal.
All of you... Help me... Help me find it.
And as I peeked at each and every one of the life forms in my minds eye, as though understand me, they all moved out of the way giving me a clear line of sight to...
Yes! An extremely large tree root. I followed it down. All the way down the bank and felt when the root was pressured, pressured by a large amount of mud. Tendrils of the tree root extended upward into the mud and even though it was taking a lot of chakra out of me to go to that extent, I searched hard until I found one that touched him, touched his hand. Through the root, I could feel his inner body as well. He was breathing heavily, most likely panicking. I felt the terror ricocheting through his veins and I knew that he'd gone under. I manipulated the tree root to wrap around his leg from my position and as hard as I could with my chakra, I began the slow process of pulling him up and out of it.
Come on, Madara. Just hang on...
But he was struggling against it. Perhaps, because it was an entity he wasn't familiar with and it probably felt like the root was pulling him under instead of out.
At this rate, he won't be able to hold his breath.
I dug both hands deep into the dirt and grabbed onto the actual root that extended all the way to him. And, using a force of chakra I didn't even know I had, I was able to pull him out. I could feel his legs, torso and then head being drug out. I could feel the breath crashing into his lungs as he surfaced, writhing around in the dirt.
I jumped up from my spot and ran the quarter of a mile over to where I'd left him. Just like I'd seen in my head and felt with my chakra, he was lying there, wiping the mud out of his eyes, coughing up dirt. I dove onto him, hugging him to my chest.
"You're okay!" I cheered.
He coughed as I held him and weakly pushed me off him.
"Was that your jutsu?" he asked.
I nodded.
"Pretty awesome, right?" I asked, flashing him a sly smile.
He shoved me hard.
"You could've told me that's what it was." He complained. "You had me thinking something was trying to kill me."
"I know!" I said, poking him. "I could read your heart rate with my trees. You were about to piss your pants!"
"Shut-up!" he exclaimed, getting to his feet. "I hate you..."
He trudged along through the vines and I jumped onto his back, wrapping my arms around his neck.
"Because that's how you treat someone who just saved your life." I said smirking and hopping off of him. "You ungrateful moron."
"Idiot." He retorted.
"Jerk." I countered, jumping over a couple branches.
"Clown!" he yelled, jumping over the mud rush.
"Egotistical bastard." I declared.
Then before he could counter, I pointed.
"Check it out!" I exclaimed. "It's a town."
We, at the edge of the gigantic rainforest we'd been trekking through all afternoon and evening, stood on a hill that rose over a town.
"I've never been this far north before." I said with raised eyes.
"Hey, look!" he exclaimed, pointing to the horizon beyond.
There was another, smaller, hill past the town and then a vast land of nothing but sand and desert.
"That'll be difficult to travel through." He observed. "We'll need to stock up."
"You think we're going to travel through that tonight?" I asked.
"Of course." He replied, flicking a couple dried mud balls off of his shirt. "I want to go as far as there is."
I looked at him, for the first time noticing the ambition in his eyes and the courageous grin on his face. It was like this trip was a new challenge, a new obstacle he wanted to hurdle over. I looked onto the horizon with him, eyes layering over the little town districts sprinkled about and soaking in the sky which was in the process of getting very dark because it was so cloudy.
"Wouldn't it be cool if we could travel the entire world?" he asked, holding his arms out horizontal as far as they could go.
I smiled at the childish gesture and fist pumped.
"Yeah!"
We jumped down the hill, swinging off of lone branches to propel us and skidding down the mud slide, sometimes slipping or falling or rolling, but never stopping, never pausing.
The world can be our playground... Can't it?
Madara
It took a long time. It was a full two days longer than we expected before we figured out how we were going to get the supplies we needed to move on past the desert. Hashirama, ever mischievous, was all for just stealing it and leaving them a 'sorry, we'll pay for it later' note.
"Do you really think that's smart?"
"Who's going to catch us? We're ninja!" he exclaimed.
I jumped on him, looking around fervently.
"Don't talk so loud. We're not ninja. Remember?" I whispered.
He rolled his eyes.
"Loosen up, Mada. I know. We're just normal kids, here."
And we certainly looked like normal town boys. We came across a kind woman in our first hour of wandering around the town who offered us "normal" town clothes, dinner and a place to sleep that night if we ran her Inn shoppe for two days, which was the real reason we were held back. I felt like it truly would be a waste of time, thinking that we could fend for ourselves with no problem, but I didn't want to resort to stealing so the option looked attractive at the time.
"You just don't want to walk around in your poop robes all week." He joked when I agreed.
So, we ran the Shoppe, which sold shoes and clothes that the townspeople and tourists from all over often came to buy. It was there, while I was sweeping out the back room, that Hashirama working the cash register heard about a deal.
"You want money, kid? Come join us." I heard the man telling us. "It's a square, square deal. You won't leave empty handed."
I peeked around the corner to see Hashirama, eyes shinning, nodding at the man.
"And all I have to do is win the game?"
"Hell, you don't even have to win the whole game. Most of it is just lucky fun, you know?"
"Heck yeah, I'll be there." He said in that cheerful way of his.
The man and his two conspirators behind him smiled.
"Great... That's gonna be in the basement under the brothel in the next town over, ya hear me?"
"Got it."
I walked up to him, eager to figure out what was happening but the woman we were working for met him first.
"Be careful with those ones, young man." She warned. "They may seem like they live exciting lives but they only prey on young boys like yourself to turn them into criminals."
"Ah, they won't do anything to me." he said, raising his sleeves. "Check it out, I'm strong!"
She allowed him a small smile and then sighed.
"Just be careful."
When she left, he came up to me, grinning ear to ear.
"I know how to get money!" he exclaimed.
"Well, go on. Let me hear it."
"Those guys said if I win a simple card game, I'll win all the money everyone bets."
"We don't even have any money to bet." I pointed out.
"Yeah, I know." He said, pulling the apron that the woman had given him off. "That's why I'm betting my life."
"Your what?!"
He grinned.
"Relax! What's life without risks?"
"You're really a lot dumber than I thought." I said.
He dug his hand into my hair and lowered his voice.
"You really think I'm going in without a game plan?" he asked, eyes twinkling. "There's a reason why I didn't tell them there are two of us."
It took me a second, but then I caught on.
"Why am I even surprised?" I asked him.
At night, we left the woman's Inn for good, thanking her for the accommodations and the clothes. She smiled at us fondly.
"You know... In these times, you both could've murdered an old woman like me and taken all that you'd have liked."
Hashirama made a face, probably bent on saying that we weren't those kind of people but she continued speaking of you.
"But instead, you worked." She mused, shaking her head.
"Perhaps, it's for that very reason that you remind me of my grandsons." She said quietly.
"If you had grandsons, why did you need us to help you?" I questioned.
She moved around us and picked up the broom leaning against the table.
"They were such beautiful boys..." She whispered.
We watched as she began her sweeping.
"Their father was a ninja, trained them in the arts... They both perished before they even reached the age of eight."
She began humming a sorrowful tune. One that stuck in my head, keeping the hairs on my arms and neck erect until we were far, far out of that town. The mood was hampered until we got to the next town over which was frankly like nothing I'd ever seen before in my life.
There were candles everywhere, huge ones, small ones, lightning up the entire three mile long strip which was filled with people, to the max. People, people, people. All walking, talking, selling, buying, running, hiding. So many of them. I'd never seen so many people altogether in my life.
"This must be a Tourist Town." I said, looking around.
Hashirama jumped up onto a bench and then on the roof of the nearest house. I followed him and we continued hoping up until we were high above all of them.
"This is amazing." Hashirama breathed. "I never knew Tourist Towns existed."
"My Father says they're all naturally sinful places where evil people lurk." I recounted. "It looks more like a waste of time to me."
Men hit their cups of drink together, liquid sloshing over the sides before they cocked their heads backward and downed them. Women sauntered about, dancing and luring the drinking men. Others sat in semi-circles playing intricate instruments to lighten the mood. And still others ran, laughed and hopped about, on some kind of life high I couldn't understand.
"Everyone seems so happy here." Hashirama said, eyes reflecting all the bright lights. "I wonder if..."
But then he cut himself off.
"Hey, look, that's it!" he said pointing to one of the shorter huts smashed between two very tall structures.
"It says brothel outside." Then he turned to me. "We're going to have to play this real safe."
"How?"
"You're going to go in first, figure out where they're going to have the game, and then hide in the room, then when the game starts, you'll tell me all the right moves to make so that I win."
I was already hopping along with him in logic as he spoke.
"Wait... You're not going to use..."
He shrugged.
"I have to, Mada. It's the only way."
I smashed my hand to my face.
"We're gonna get caught..."
"Just hide like I told you and we won't. I'll keep it real quiet."
"How are you going to keep a random tree root slithering across a floor quiet?"
He winked at me and said nothing else. Like we planned, we got to the brothel where he hung back and I walked up the steps, planning to enter but the moment I tried, a man popped out of nowhere.
"Where the hell do you think you're going, kid?" He asked me. "You do realize this is a brothel, right? Go find your Momma's tit before I smack you senseless."
I'm getting really tired of people not addressing me with authority... I'm the son of the head of a clan that could murder your entire family at the blink of an eye.
"I...really need to use the bathroom." I said, purposely widening my eyes and looking fretful. "Please?"
I could hear Hashirama snickering around the corner and made a mental note to insult him later.
"Can't you just go out there?" he asked pointing at the road.
"I can't go when people are watching me." I said truthfully, with my cheeks involuntarily flushing.
He sighed.
"Hurry up... And let yourself out through the backdoor, I don't need any bad business."
I walked along the dim lit hall searching for the place that could be the door to the basement when an unnatural sound stopped me in my footsteps. I turned to see a woman advancing toward me.
"Looking for a date, boy?" she asked.
A...date?
I surveyed her appearance, she was wearing a robe that draped very low off of her shoulders and barely covered her thighs.
"My room's right over here if you want to take a peek inside." She said, nudging the door.
"I'm looking for the basement." I said. "I'm just here for a card game."
Her entire façade collapsed immediately.
"Oh, you're one of those boys?" she asked, rolling her eyes.
She turned and went back into her room.
"Last door on the right." She called over her shoulder before the door slammed.
I headed where she advised, for the first time noticing grunts and moans coming from the rooms surrounding me. I walked a bit quicker, assuming there was some kind of torture ritual going on, and pulled the door to the basement open. Echoes of laughter wafted up.
"Hey, look who I found sneaking around the side." Someone said.
I edged toward the basement room and peeked around the corner. A man with shoulder length bluish white hair with a bandana tied over it had Hashirama by the collar. Three other men, one with dark brown spiky hair with a bandana tied on his forehead like a headband, another with a shaved head and a bandana tied around his neck, and a last one with pink hair that stopped at his ears and a bandana tied around his arm. All of their bandanas were different colors, but the presence of them bothered me.
"Sit down, kid." The pink haired one said. "I was wondered when you were gonna show up."
They all emptied their pockets and put the money they were betting on a stool next to the table. Before Hashirama sat down, he glanced up. Just by chance, he noticed me and with only his eyes, I could tell he was about to begin. He sat down and the others sat down and the game began.
"Ahhh, when I win this, I'm definitely gonna have enough money to buy that sweet charmer up there." The white haired one said, resting his head in his palm.
"Charmer?" asked the brown haired one, scratching his head. "Whacha' mean, Nanamba?"
"You know the girl, Kakeru." The pink haired man said to him as he cut the card deck in half. "Always standing in the hall trying to lure people into her room."
My ears perked up.
Are they talking about the lady I just met?
Nanamba nodded eagerly, swishing his white hair around.
"Yeah, I've been saving up all month for her, man."
Kakeru rolled his eyes and nudged the pink haired man.
"Sounds desperate, right, Masato?"
They both leaned back in their chairs and roared with laughter that shook the whole table. Masato slapped his right hand against the wooden table repeatedly.
"Oi, Oi, Nanmba!" he said. "How much is she worth?"
"She's offering for around 2,000." Nanamba said, glancing at the money on the table. "That's only half of what's lying there."
They both continued laughing again and even the man with shaved hair who had been silent the entire time cracked a smile.
"She's scheming you, man." Kakeru told him, setting out his first hand. "That bitch ain't got nothing half of us ain't already seen some way or another."
"Nothing special." Masato agreed, also taking his turn.
"It's not like you guys have tried with her." Nanamba accused.
Masato and Kakeru exchanged glances and then snickered. Nanamba's face burst into disbelief.
"Really, guys?! Her, too? I thought I said to leave her for me!"
"She was offering, wasn't she?" Kakeru asked, sneering at him. "Besides, like we say, she just an old loose bitch anyway."
Nanamba said nothing, slowly spinning a coin around on the edge of the table.
He's clearly the weak link... If Hashirama's plan fails, I could probably get him to help us escape.
"Loose, you say?" the bald headed one asked. "But I thought you told me it was good."
Masato laughed.
"It was! But not in the conventional way, you have to take it 'round back to get any pleasure with her."
"Face down, too." Kakeru added. "Shuts her damn mouth up."
"Then when you're finished with that, you can work on getting her to-"
"Oi, lay off it!" Nanamba suddenly exclaimed.
Everyone turned to him. Kakeru's eyes narrowed and he gripped his cards.
"Lay off...what?" he asked tersely.
And that one seems to have a flaring temper.
Nanamba began stuttering.
"L-Lay... I mean... S-Stop..." he looked to Hashirama who had been watching them all with open, eager eyes the entire time and put his palms on his ears. "I-It's just that... T-T-This one's young!"
Everyone except him laughed, even Hashirama.
"Hey, boy." The shaved headed one said. "You like girls, right?"
Hashirama didn't hesitate to nod.
"And one day you'd like to do the nitty-gritty with them, yeah?"
Hashirama grinned from ear to ear.
"Definitely."
"Then he's a man in my book!" the guy said, raising his glass and tapping it against Kakeru's.
Everyone cheered in agreement.
"But... What are you, like, nine years old?" Nanamba persisted. "You can't really want to go that far."
He shrugged, seeming to contemplate it.
"Yeah, I guess not..." he said, then a look crossed his face, a look I'd recognized since the day I met him, and I involuntarily sighed. "...Not if she's loose."
The table immediately burst into an uproar.
"Genius!" the shaven man said.
"I love this kid!" Masato exclaimed, giving Hashirama a one armed hug.
"He's a natural!" Kakeru agreed, ruffling his hair.
He laughed hard along with them and took their compliments and gestures of affection.
That guy... He's getting way too comfortable with them.
"I'm done with this shit." Nanamba said, rising to his feet.
He pulled his cloak off the chair and pushed past them all, letting himself out through the backdoor.
"Aw, you always ruin the fun with your childish crap." Masato called after him.
"Don't bother coming back." Kakeru heckled. "We're inaugurating the kid instead."
"Then let's have a toast!" Hashirama said, sitting up and grabbing the jug off the table. "To us!"
The men nodded and chuckled.
"To us!" they cheered.
Drinks were poured, jokes were shared, there were hours worth of laughter...and then silence.
My legs cramped as I got up from the position I was sitting at. Hashirama grabbed one of the satchels the men were carrying off the floor and dumped all the money on the table into it.
"Keep a look out for the door." He said to me.
My eyes surveyed the room. Kakeru was lying back in his chair with his mouth wide open, snoring. Masato curled up on both his chair and the chair that Nanamba had left, with his head in Kakeru's lap, and the man with shaven hair who I had yet to discover his name slept with his arms folded on the table.
"You...planned all this, didn't you?" I asked. "Right from the start?"
He shrugged.
"Initially, I was going to go with what we'd planned but I decided, what's the point of wasting chakra if I can just use their own vices against them?"
I stared at the table full of money and drinks and cards as he continued collecting valuables.
"Alcohol, women and money." Hashirama continued, shaking his head at them. "Hisa-san always told me, those are a man's worst enemy."
"And clearly, a Tourist Town is where they all come together." I said, bending down to help him scoop up the coins on the floor.
"Before I forget." I spoke up. "What did you mean about 'loose'?"
"Huh?" he asked, picking up a couple other things off the nearby dressers and stuffing them into the bag.
Such a thief...
"Remember, the joke that made them all like you?" I asked.
"Ohhhh" he said, shrugging. "I was just going off of what they were saying. I don't know what it actually meant."
I rolled my eyes and shook my head.
Of course he wouldn't know. It all goes back to his personality, being such a likeable guy, he can easily play into people's hands.
But as I watched him get the last bits of money into the bag, I couldn't help but admire him slightly.
Even though he's a mess of immaturity, he's incredibly intelligent and cunning. But... A bit too cunning, if you ask me.
I looked around, hearing footsteps sound on the steps that I had descended from.
"Come on, let's leave."
We ran out of the back door and into the dark alley, sandals slapping and sliding against the muddy path. Hashirama tightened the satchel and hoisted it higher onto his arm. I could see the people walking back and forth beyond.
If we just get there, even if the men wake up, they won't find us in all these people.
But then...
Right as we got to the end of the alley, a person stepped in our path. We both skidded to a stop and looked up at him. He was wiping his face which was wet with tears and blushed vibrantly as his eyes set upon us.
"W-Where are you going?" he asked him.
Hashirama, so quick on the uptake, flashed him a reassuring sign.
"They sent me to go buy them some more drinks but... I think they fell asleep in there. I'll wake them up when I get back, okay?"
Nanamba nodded and hung his head, slowly making his way past us and back down the path without even acknowledging me.
That guy's an idiot. He didn't even notice our bag.
We bolted from the town as fast as we could, through the many people and then bounding up on top of the houses. We didn't stop running until the bright candle lit district was far, far on the horizon. Only then, as we entered a very, very long empty field right before we got to the deserts, did we relax.
I fell straight onto my back, letting out a sigh I didn't realize I'd been holding in and Hashirama began laughing half hysterically. He threw his arms up and behind his head and lay next to me.
"It's official, Mada." He said. "We're wanted criminals now."
Strangely, a part of my brain reached back to the time, just a couple days before, when I was a ninja boy in charge of my own platoon faced with the fear of death every minute of every second. But this...though dangerous, was not deadly. It wasn't frightening or scarring or painful. I found that, oddly, it was fun.
"What a rush!" He went on. "Amazing..."
Suddenly, something occurred to me.
"You've...never done anything bad before, have you?" I asked him.
He turned to me. The clouds, which had been hanging over us for days and days, parted and the moon and stars broke through. A bit of dim light washed over us and I felt the cool breeze that moved the clouds coming through.
"Not really..." he admitted. "I never really made trouble at home. I mean, I'm the oldest, so I have to be responsible for my brothers."
I stared at him.
So, in some sick twisted way, doing this is your way of fulfilling some suppressed childhood urge to be... To be what?
"I know what you're getting at." He went on. "I guess doing this is fun because... I've never really gotten to be reckless."
That's right. Reckless, childish, thoughtless...irresponsible.
"We're men already...so... I guess seeing all these people treat me like a little boy... It kind of felt-"
Good?
He frowned, cutting himself off, and looked back up toward the sky.
"Maybe this is bad for us." He said. "And we should go back."
The word 'back' made me think of my mother, father and brother. The depressingly heavy sadness hanging over everyone. Something everyone avoided and did not mention for fear it would break the family in two.
"I think my Mother hates me." I spoke up randomly.
He looked back at me, eyebrows rising.
"How could you say-"
"Because I know I hate her." I cut him off.
I rose my hand to the sky and blocked the moon with my hands, looking at it between the space between each of my fingers.
"I hate it when she looks at me because I know what she's thinking." I said. "I know deep inside she blames me for the death of my younger brother."
He was looking up at the sky, too.
"And she tries to pretend she doesn't by keeping me trapped in the house and saying she does it for my safety but it's really because she wants someone to rot in that dammed house with her."
I turned to him, feeling angry.
"She can just go drown in her own tears for all I care." I told him. "I wish she'd disappear."
We were silent for a while and then he rolled over, facing me.
"You know, I always thought it was weird how many similarities we have." He said.
He paused, flicking a bug from the grass off of his shirt and then scratched his stringy dark brown hair.
"The mother of my three younger brothers lives with us." He said. "And I always believed that she hated me for not saving my youngest brother..."
My eyes had been locked on the moon but then I turned my head to him, we locked eyes.
"I always thought she hated me and...sometimes... I even hated her back for it. I just wanted everyone to understand that...that..."
"We're not perfect." I finished.
We're kids. We can make mistakes... But we can't. We have so much pressure. So much...
"Well, I talked to her about it seriously the other day and I discovered that... She actually doesn't hate me." he said, then a small smile broke out. "She loves me. She told me that... Even if she isn't my true mother, she'll always love me like her son."
And this is where we're different...
I closed my eyes, searching my brain for any time in my life my mother had even told me she was proud of me or that I made her happy or even that she enjoyed my company and found none. Not even one memory... So how then, could I expect her to love me?
Hashirama's slow breathing sounded next to me and I looked back up at the sky.
Maybe your clan tells each other they love each other all the time, Hashi, but I don't even know if we are capable of love.
Hashirama
"Brother..."
I stirred blinking but seeing nothing but darkness.
"Brother, I need help..."
I tried to get to my feet but it was impossible. There were no feet... Or hands... Or anything. I felt like I was sinking but I could feel no body with which could sink.
"Help me... Hashirama!"
I wanted to cover my ears but there were no ears. I kept blinking, trying to see any other color but blackness, straining to see but there were no eyes either.
What is this? Why can't I get out? Where I am?
"Hashirama!"
And that voice, why does it sound so much like his voice? Is it him? Could it really be him?
There wasn't a mouth or throat for me to speak with. There was nothing. But I forced the name out of me, forced it to come out.
"ITAMA?!"
"HASHIRAMA, HELP!"
I sucked in a frighteningly cold breath of fresh air. The face in front of me startled me and I retaliated by swinging my arms around, flailing and grasping at the person. Shocked, he pressed down on my arms, holding me down.
"Calm down! It's just a dream."
Upon hearing the voice, I abruptly stopped moving.
Madara...
The more still time passed, the more I realized that his words were true. After seeing I was truly awake, he let go of my arms, allowing me to pull myself up into a sitting position.
A cold sweat ran down my body, perpetuated from a chilly air of wind that blew through the empty plains. I tried to steady my breathing but it was taking a long time. The only warmth I could feel on my body came from my eyelids where tears were desperately trying to escape the hold I had on them. I failed. The rush of wetness and salty warmth came anyway, running down my cheeks. Already understanding my feelings, Madara averted his eyes from me, suddenly very interested in the satchel I had stolen the previous night.
I looked out onto the horizon. It was early morning. The plains were calmly silent. The sky was still dark blue with some stars but, far, far out onto the horizon there was a hint of white. The longer I stared, the more the white grew until other colors splashed into view with it, indigo, royal blue...
I found my mouth moving.
"Living around so many trees, I just realized, I've never seen a sunrise..."
Madara turned away from the satchel and crawled up next to me. The wind blew, ruffling his shirt. My eyes zeroed in on it, recalling our bargain for them.
The clothes the woman had given us to wear were experimental, things she was trying to see if she could make popular. We wore different variations of the same outfit. Madara wore a long sleeved white, cotton textured shirt that was divided in the middle using a thing she called "buttons". He always kept it buttoned down, exposing his chest, the collar on the shirt was always extended and his sleeves were always rolled up to right above his elbows. His pants were also different, something she called "shorts" which were a dark, charcoal gray color and stopped just above his knees. My shirt was a brand-new creation that I'd never seen previously. It was a see-through, mesh material, pressing firmly to my chest and back, sleeveless and black in color. To go over it, she gave me what she called a "jacket" which was light green colored and held together with something else she called a "zipper". Unlike buttons, the zipper jacket creation resurfaced after I died, becoming a popular thing for boys to wear in the newer generations. The jacket was thin material, light in weight and slightly big on me, extending past my waist. The sleeves of my jacket were also too long but unlike Madara, I didn't roll them up. Because of this, my hands were mostly hidden from view. My shorts were dark blue. We both wore black sandals which were high enough to cover our ankles.
Our sandals crunched on the hard, dry land before us.
Looks like the rain didn't get this far...
My eyes traveled back to the sun which had inserted itself far above the horizon into the sky by that point.
"What are you thinking about?"
I smiled sheepishly at him.
"Just our clothes."
He smirked.
"Realizing I still look more stylish than you do?"
I frowned, tugging on the collar of my jacket which I kept down.
"I like my clothes!"
He laughed at me.
"I think maybe, in our village, the ninja should wear jackets like these."
His laughing rang out louder.
"No way, they'll be wearing cloaks!" He said. "And they'll be black and have-"
He cut himself off.
Black cloaks? That's a lot like...
"I mean..." he trailed off. "Cloaks are cooler."
"They'll easily get caught in things. It looks cool but it's not smart."
"What?! Only stupid people get their cloaks caught!"
I stuck my bottom lip out and stared at the ground as we walked. A couple of silent moments and then he broke down and sighed, just like I knew he would.
"Fine... What's your idea then?"
I grinned, happy that I succeeded in guilt tripping him.
"Our ninja will need really easily accessible clothing. Nothing iron or metal which are expensive and difficult to get." I prophesized. "I'm thinking long pants, a long shirt, and a jacket like this one. It's super cool looking, too."
He tilted his head, most likely imagining it.
"I guess that's okay...but no armor?"
"Even now when we use armor, it gets in the way more than it protects us. It's too heavy."
"But wearing a long sleeved shirt and a jacket is also heavy." Then he lifted his arm up, showing me. "It's restrictive on the elbow joint."
He crossed his arms and we both thought hard about it for a moment, then he snapped his fingers.
"We'll need vests!" he said. "Perfect for arm movements and also fitted with the extra layer."
I smirked at him and interlocked my hands behind my head as we walked.
"You're just saying that because vests look more stylish."
"No, they'll have extra padding in them." He explained. "Fortified so that kunai and shuriken can't pierce easily. See? It's effective and stylish. Something you wouldn't understand."
I slapped him on the back and quickly dodged as he tried to hit me back. I ran, with him quickly on my heels, twisting and turning around brisk, rotted brown trees and jumping over sand mounds.
The rest of the day went on like that, filled with a very prolonged chasing game.
"Hashi, stop hitting me!"
"You sound like a girl!"
But all good things come to an end, often very abruptly. We hit a strand of abandoned, burned down villages right outside of the sand-filled area. We walked through, calling for people, searching under fallen homes and finding nothing except corpses upon corpses.
"We can't leave them like this." Madara said. "If we bury them, they'll be alright."
I didn't want to. Unbeknownst to Madara, I had been deathly frightened of dead bodies since my younger brother had died. But my dream from that morning was still fresh in my mind and I wanted to be of assistance to the dead in any way I could.
"O-Okay..." I stammered.
And so, we buried a village full of people, men, women, children, in some circumstances when the body wasn't full, we placed the parts carefully next to each other in joined holes. When we were finished with one, we moved onto the next. We worked diligently, covering the holes fully.
After the third village, when the rotted, putrid stench of dead bodies began to get to us, we were lucky to cross paths with another town, one that was neutral to all the wars and much like the Tourist Town we had gone to.
There, we feasted. It could've been a way to get our minds off of the depressing deeds we had just done, or perhaps we'd never had the opportunity to eat so much until then, but either way, we ordered up tables of food.
"Hey, can I get another round of apple slices over here?" I asked.
"Don't forget the caramel!" Madara added.
Then he nudged me.
"Hey... You see those kids out there?" he asked.
Just outside of the restaurant doors, there was a horde of children. They were all dirty and poor looking, like they'd been abandoned.
"Looks like they're hungry." I said.
The store manager, who had over-heard us, nodded.
"A really terrible thing happened to those ones a couple days ago." He recounted. "Some warring clans passed through and terrorized their villages. They murdered everyone they could find. Those children are all that's left..."
He shook his head sadly.
"More than 500 people collectively and now a couple of kids are all that's left... Such a shame. I fear that...one day, these damned ninja wars will destroy these lands once and for all."
He turned, going back to counting his earnings.
We stared down at the food on the table and then looked at each other. Without another wasted second, Madara raised his arm and beckoned to them in a single fluid motion. They were hesitant at first, as though they couldn't understand Madara's intent, and then one of them, the hungriest looking one, pointed at himself. Madara nodded and beckoned them again. Without another wasted second, they all rushed in, about ten of them, and hurriedly took seats at our table.
The restaurant owner turned back around, looking at us questioningly.
"You'll feed them all?" he asked.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever they want, it's on us." I said grinning.
The kids fist pumped and cheered.
The man tipped his hat to us.
"We need more kind young men like you boys." Then he turned to the kitchen. "Bring out ten more bowls!"
They looked to be a lot younger than we were. They bounced in their chairs, rubbing their palms together and tapping their fingers on the table as we waited. When the food came, it was clear that they had been starving. Their hands, dirty or not, plunged into the dishes.
"Thank you so much!" one of the girls managed to say.
"It's no problem." I said.
Something about this... This feeling I have inside... It's warm. It's comfortable.
We had gotten so much money from those guys at that brothel, we still had some to spare even after all of that. After leaving the restaurant and making our way out of the town, we realized the children were still following us.
"Go ho-" Madara was about to say, but I elbowed him hard enough that he stopped short.
You never think before you talk...What home could they possibly go to?
"What's up, guys?" I said, offering them a smile.
"You guys are homeless, too, aren't you?" one asked.
"Did you come from one of the ravaged villages?" the smallest one questioned.
"If you're like us, how did you get all that money?!" the girl who apologized said.
I raised my hands.
"Uh... Guys... I..."
Madara pulled the satchel from around my shoulder and tossed it to them. The oldest one caught it, looked inside, and then clutched it to his chest, looking like he'd seen a piece of heaven.
"We can't answer your questions." He said. "But we can give you that. Take it."
They're eyes were wide. The one who held the satchel was shaking.
"You can't be serious..." he whispered.
"I am." He said, then he nodded to me. "Let's go."
"Wait!" the boy holding the bag exclaimed. "What are your names?"
"Hashirama." I said, saluting them.
"Madara." He told them, without turning.
They watched us all leaving and, like we were some kinds of gods, they got onto their knees and bowed to us until we were out of sight.
It's the least we can do... Ninja, people like us, are the reason for all their pain and suffering. How dishonorable. During all our fighting and warring, we can't even take the time to notice the destruction we're leaving in our wake...
Madara
Since we got rid of our money, we had no option except to go back to stealing, or as Hashirama called it, gambling.
"I'll bet 4,000." Hashirama exclaimed, slamming his hand down.
I hung my head as I hid under the table he was sitting at.
We don't have 4,000... We don't even have 100!
"Whoa, kid. You sure are confident, let's see what you got!"
Of course he's confident. He has me.
Underneath the table, unbeknownst to all the players, I looked at the cards they held in their laps and gave Hashirama signals what cards to play. When Hashirama pointed to a player he wanted to bet against, I tapped his leg to let him know if it was alright to do so or not. Most of the time, I sat down in another part of the room, in a place that I could see all the players cards and then Hashirama used his roots to discover what I was thinking based on my heart rate but we almost got killed doing that one of the last times when one of the players got suspicious of me sitting so closely. Since then, I began hiding under the tables.
"Why can't I play the game and you hide next time?" I'd asked him after the game that day.
He counted the money, grinning at his spoils.
"Because you hate gambling."
"It's cheating." I told him. "You're always cheating."
"Whatever it is, you don't like it, right?" he said, then he hit me on the head with the money bag. "We got the money, cheer up!"
"You're a gambling addict, Hashi..."
"I thought you said it was cheating." He joked.
He gave me a look, one of his playful ones. I darted ahead of him, running around the last bar in the party district and onto a dirt road. It was late at night, the only thing to be heard was the sound of owls and our footsteps crunching along the dirt. There was a long narrow strip of tall trees at the end of the district. I ran inside, keeping my feet along the path until I heard sloshing sound. I stopped in my footsteps. Hahsirama rammed into my back, slipping on his own two feet and we fell into the bushes.
"Ow!" he moaned.
"You're so clumsy." I said.
"You're the one that stopped suddenly." He replied.
The sloshing sounded again. We crawled along under the bushes until we discovered a large hotspring. No one was there save for a young girl who stood next to the side whipping her arm back and forth testing the water.
"It's a girl." He said.
She was wearing a white shirt which covered her chest and arms but exposed her stomach and a long, flowing white skirt on her waist.
She looks kind of like an angel...
Her hair was pulled up into a ponytail that was braided down her back but as we watched, she unbraided it and swished her hair out, letting it spill over her shoulder.
Her hair is red. I've never seen that before...
Hashirama put his hand on my shoulder, pulling himself closer.
"Wait... I think she's going to..." he stopped himself, eyes widening.
She reached for her waist, preparing to pull her skirt down. I immediately got onto my knees and began backing out.
"Let's go." I said.
"...Huh?" he said, eyes locked on her.
"Hashi, I'm serious."
"This is like a once in a lifetime chance..."
"That doesn't make it okay!" I protested.
"It kind of does..."
I sighed.
"So, you're a gambler and a pervert now?"
He finally turned to me, sneering. I could sense the joke coming from a mile away.
"You're one to talk! At least I wasn't caught digging through a garbage bin for an adult book yesterday!"
I grabbed for him, succeeding in pinning him to the dirt.
"I thought it was a map!" I protested.
"Liar." He said, still sneering. "How the hell could that look like a map?"
I really did think it was a map... But even after I did find out, curiosity got the better of me...
We rolled around, ramming each other's faces into the grass and kicking up dirt.
Loud splashing sounded from the water, alerting us that she'd finally stripped down and jumped in. Hashirama, who was on top then, looked up.
"Mada, she's completely-"
I grinned, using his distracted moment as an opportunity and flicked dirt up. His hands flew to his face, rubbing hard.
"Ow!" he exclaimed, covering his eyes.
I sat up, laughing.
"That's what you get, you moron!"
He began backing his way out of the brush and then abruptly shoved me, causing me to lose balance.
"You're the moron!" he retorted, grinning at his success in getting back at me even without sight.
But I didn't return the smile, I had pressed my hands backward, trying to stabilize myself but felt nothing, instead, I continued falling backwards. Hashirama's face reflected my shock as I rolled back, bursting out of the bush and rolling down the hill. My head, arms and torso plunged into the hot spring and, to avoid drowning, I gripped the side of bank and pulled my head up.
I knelt there staring at her. She had gotten back out of the water and was standing on the stone mount next to it, brushing her hair out. When she saw me standing there, she froze, watching me with wide eyes and a dropped jaw. I couldn't stop my eyes from going over her pinkish skin, which was completely bare, the drops of water making their way down her stomach, and down to her...
Oh, shit...
I blushed, shaking my head, and quickly pressed my hands to my face, covering my eyes.
"It's not what you think!" I yelled.
I heard a couple quick movements and curiously removed my hands. To my utter surprise, she was gone.
After a few silent seconds, Hashirama slid down next to me.
"Sorry, I didn't know you were going to fall."
"I really hate you..." I muttered, but my eyes were glued to the spot that she had been standing, something shimmered in the waves.
"You jerk! You're the one that threw dirt in my eyes! I could've really gone blind!" he exclaimed, then he whistled. "But that was intense... You're lucky she didn't, like, scream or something."
That's right... She didn't scream, did she?
I walked around the bank and knelt down next to the shimmering thing. It was a silver ring, rather inexpensive looking, with a heart shaped hole in it. I picked it up, and as I did, a rush of warm spread through the tips of my fingers. I examined it for a moment longer and slipped it into my pocket.
"Come on." I said. "If that girl was bathing here, there must be another town over. We might be able to pay for an Inn there."
He ran and fell into step with me.
"Yeah... And then we can see that red haired girl again..." he said, practically drooling. "I've never seen a girl prettier than her in my life."
"Whatever..."
"So, was she gone before you could pull yourself out of the water?" he asked as we slashed our way out of the thin forest.
"What?" I asked, craning my neck to see if I could spot any towns on the horizon.
"The girl." He said. "Did you actually see her?"
I knew what he was getting at. My mind flashed back to the startled expression on her face when I rolled into the spring.
The way she looked at me... That was more interesting to me than anything else.
"No." I replied.
He jumped in front of me. He only had to observe my face, with my slightly red cheeks and my eyes refusing to meet with his, to know I was lying.
"You lucky bastard." He said, giving me an incredulous expression. "I can't believe you'd go and blind me and then go look at her yourself."
I slipped my hands back into my pockets, fiddling with the ring.
"You're the one that pushed me." I said, then I smirked. "It's karma."
He grinned.
"Fine, fine, whatever... But you're gonna have to tell me all about it."
"Never."
We continued walking farther in silence as we both pondered our own things. Just like we had predicted, it wasn't long until another town came into view. Though, the town was very, very large, a lot larger than the others that we'd been to, it was much quieter and there were less lights on the paths. As we entered, a couple of men walked around, trading with others but it was dark so I couldn't get a good look at anyone's face.
Randomly, Hashirama's last sentence swam back into the front of my mind. I grinned, realizing what he'd said.
"You're such a loser, you know that?" I said. "You really want to see a naked girl that badly?"
He directed his eyes away from me.
"Shut up..."
I laughed.
"You're even more pathetic than you look!"
"At least I didn't cover my eyes like a baby." He replied.
His eyes flashed in the moonlight.
"Scaredy Cat." He remarked.
"I wasn't even scared!" I shouted. "How could I be scared of a stupid naked girl!?"
"You were acting like it!" he retorted. "Do you even like girls!?"
I blushed deeply.
"Of course I do!" I crossed my arms angrily. "Go away! I hate looking at your stupid face..."
He frowned.
"Fine, I'm going."
"Good."
He walked a couple of steps away and then turned.
"Aren't you going to call me back?"
I turned away from him, clearly indicating I was too pissed to call him back that quickly. He sighed and I could hear his feet shuffling away. I slipped my hands back into my pockets and was shocked to not feel the ring I had just placed there.
Where...
I retraced my footsteps back to the front most part of the town and noticed something glinting in the dirt right under a bench. I knelt down and picked it up, realizing there was a hole in the pocket I put it into. I sat down on the bench under the lamp post and turned it over in my fingers.
"Good thing I found it again..." I muttered.
But I wasn't even sure why I was glad I found it. It wasn't very likely that I'd ever see it again to give it to her. However, something about the heart carved into it resounded with me. I had a strange feeling that it was a very sentimental object.
I should just put it on my own finger so I don't lose it again...
Suddenly, that warm feeling came back and it almost looked like it was glowing.
That's strange...
"Yo!"
I looked up. Someone stood over in the shadows. He pointed at me.
"Kid... Come here." He called.
Again, because of curiosity more than anything, I got up off the bench and walked over to him. He shifted anxiously on his feet, brushing the light brown hair, that hung over his forehead and ears like a helmet, out of his large, bright blue eyes.
As I neared him, he bent down to my level and offered me a kind smile. Immediately, I gave him a once-over, deciding that he was no older than twenty five.
"Hey, little guy... Are you lost?"
He lifted his hand to my cheek, softly brushing against my skin with the back of his fingers.
"I have a cottage...up over there..." he said, pointing somewhere in the mass of trees behind us. "I can take care of you."
His hand dropped, sliding down my neck, and then caressing my bare chest.
"Come with me."
Before I could respond, his hand closed around mine and he yanked me toward him. It was the kind of motion that made you take five steps before your brain even registered that you were walking.
Strangely, my eyes zeroed in on the clothes he was wearing. They were unusually brightly colored. Like they were made specifically for catching the eyes of children...
But before I could comment on them, another man, much taller and burlier than the first, stepped into my view delivering a very vicious blow to the side of the guy's head.
"Why don't you get a damn job!?" he roared furiously.
He shook his fist out and retracted his leg, kicking the man firmly in the side.
"You lunatic!"
The guy quickly got to his feet and ran off into the trees, stumbling and tripping and never looking back. The other man watched him the entire way he ran out of the town and massaged his fist. I stared up at the guy as he pushed his large, rounded, black hair back into place.
He's dark skinned...
I recalled my father mentioning a visit to the land of the lightning during one of his mission preps.
"Most of the people there are darker in skin tone than we are and specialize in lightning attacks, the same way we specialize in fire." He had told my brothers and I. "Even the ones who aren't ninja are really strong physically and mentally. Avoid them at all costs or I can't guarantee you your life."
But what is someone from the land of the lightning doing here?
"Hey, kid." He said, bending down to my height. "Watch yourself. Never go anywhere with a person you don't recognize. That man was going to do something very, very terrible to you, got me?"
Then he stood up.
"These are dangerous times. You can't be wandering around on your own at night, boy."
I raised my eyebrows, finally realizing that he thought I was in some kind of danger.
Please... Even if that man did find a way to drag me back to his cottage, I'd have the entire place up in flames in less than a millisecond.
Without looking at me, he sighed and scratched his head.
"Are you alright?"
I'm Uchiha Madara. The strongest Uchiha of my age and even stronger than men twice my size... I don't need to be saved by some lowly peasant man.
I nodded.
"Good." He muttered. "I know this is going to go against my previous rule but... My Mother and I run a refuge over around the corner for kids just passing through. My name is Tsuyoi. You...need a place to stay tonight?"
I'm not a little boy or a child. I'm capable of bringing this entire town to ruins by myself and I haven't even come of age! I'm...I'm...I'm...
"Yes, please." I told him.
He nodded and motioned to me.
"Well, come on then."
Something suddenly occurred to me.
"But I have a friend. He travels with me."
He turned to me.
"Brown haired kid? Kind of excited and jumpy?"
Yeah, that's him...
I nodded.
"He was the one who sent me this way, telling me his friend wandered off. You should thank him or... I don't know what would've happened to you."
And like he said, Hashirama was standing there in front of a stone, castle like structure all the way at the back of the town but what I didn't expect was the girl standing next to him. Fully clothed, her eyes widened just like they had before as she set eyes on me. And Hashirama was struggling not to fall to the ground laughing.
You damned one-track minded jerk, of course, the first thing you'd do is go look for her...
The ring that lay so delicately in my pocket felt like it grown to a hundred pounds.
Up Next: While dealing with problems big and small, ranging from ninjas tearing up civilian lands, how to help people without exposing their identity as ninja, and the complex issue of war itself and how to stop it for good, Hashirama and Madara begin to tackle a completely confounding species named...girls.