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天逆毎

Ama no Zako

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Learning Phase: Realm of Hell

地獄道

Jigokudou

"War is peace.

Freedom is slavery.

Ignorance is strength."

― George Orwell, 1984

Five: Death is Inevitable

The air is still with the natural calmness before a storm. Beneath the gathering clouds, a girl stands in the middle of the deserted training ground.

With her eyes closed, Azami opens her mind. She concentrates on the constant thrumming of her heartbeat, the slow flow of her chakra and her steady breathing. She tries to think of anything but the reality around her.

Time doesn't stop for anyone.

But for Jinrou, time has stopped forever.

Strange, prickling sensations break her tranquillity. It feels like sparks are dancing on her skin. They are, bright flickering sparks dancing on her hands.

It is a success. A breakthrough.

Azami opens her eyes. "A thunderstorm is coming."

(His movements are infused with lightning, the electric shocks are numbing. It is a life or death battle, where the strengths of their wills to live are pitted against each other—brutally, and without question.)

That boy's time will not flow anymore. He was just a boy. Children are fighting a war started by adults.

There's something wrong with this world, with this cycle of killing and hatred and taking and taking and taking.

There's too much death.

And as the first drops of rainfall, harder and harder until it falls in torrents and she cannot see anything in the distance anymore…she falls to her knees. Looking skyward at the flashes of lightning, every thought seems to add to the burden on her shoulders, that weight of regret as heavy as the all the troubles of the world.

She cannot remember what she is weeping over. She just lets the rain wash her emotions away. Constant. Flowing.

Her time is still moving.

I. Weakness

"Anything cracked will shatter at a touch."― Ovid

Wounded and numb, Azami somehow managed to keep it all together on the way back. The silence started when they burned the corpses in respect for the dead, a sort of solemn and heavy aura like the smoke rising towards a red dawn. It was a stain on the otherwise brilliant sunrise.

Madara carried Jinrou back in his arms. It broke protocol, but none of that mattered anymore. She asked if he wanted to rest, with his injuries and the poison in his body. He refused; chin held up stubbornly and with glistening eyes, soldiered on slowly. He had to bring Jinrou home.

There were no words she could have said to ease his pain. The only thing she could do was to suffer along with him, both bound by a sense of loss.

It was time to go home.

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"Azami?" She is broken out of her reverie by Kozue's mellow voice as the door to her room slides open softly. Her movements are silent and graceful, the gentle smile always tinged with the shadow of a hidden sadness. She, too, must carry the burden of death.

A black kimono sleeve flutters in the corner of her vision. "You didn't answer, so I came in," – a brief pause, and a light touch on her shoulder –"I brought one of my old kimonos—I'll help you change."

The young girl is lying on her futon—unmoving, staring blankly ahead and mind whirling in a tempest. Her voice is hoarse when she finally speaks. "I don't want to go to the funeral."

Kozue kneels beside her, a hand caressing her forehead. "Why?"

"Because…because I-I don't, because…" She struggles to express herself, reality being far to crushing to face. It's better to retreat into an imagined world to nurse sore mental wounds. To deny the truth as an escape.

A coward, Madara would have taunted her once upon a time—when Jinrou was alive and everything was fine.

(Nothing was fine. Stop deluding yourself.)

Her voice sounds so small and weak when she finally puts together a coherent sentence as Kozue watches on patiently. "I don't want to say…goodbye forever."

Just one sentence is the turning point.

"…Jinrou liked strawberries. And red-bean manju. And sakura-mochi. He told me he wanted to fix people so that they wouldn't hurt anymore."

Words pour out like a raging waterfall. Flowing and flowing continuously. "I mean, I know I wasn't as close with Jinrou as Madara was—they were brothers and there was that bond. I know that I didn't really know him that well, but I knew that he was kind and cheerful…a really nice kid whose life was just starting out but I—but…it ended. He's gone. Just like that."

"…Just like that," Kozue repeats mournfully. "Gone away forever," – her eyes turn a little glassy, as if she thought of something suddenly –"It happens so suddenly…in the blink of an eye…and he's gone. They're all gone. And you're the only one left and it feels like you're short of breath, like the days are dimmer and that you're dying slowly yourself."

Azami eventually sat up—with great difficulty, some colour rushing to her pale cheeks. Eyes brighter, she sees Kozue as if for the first time.

"Jinrou had sloppy handwriting," she murmurs dazedly. "Messy, but earnest."

Kozue pats her uninjured shoulder reassuringly. "Let's get you changed. I can carry you there—"

"I'll walk."

The woman raises a delicate eyebrow. "Even with all those injuries?"

She nods firmly.

Kozue sighs. "Are you sure you can stand by yourself out there for the whole time?"

"Yes."

As expected, under all the differences and clashing beliefs, Azami's core still possessed the typical Uchiha dignity passed down from generations to generations.

That would probably never change.

There's no official ceremony, no monks chanting the way into the afterlife, nothing lavish or religious in these times of war. The open casket lies on a funeral pyre. The whole process is terse and emotionally removed. The fact that it isn't a mass funeral shows the importance of Uchiha Tajima as a senior member of the Council.

Azami's family didn't even get a grave.

All bitterness aside, she still limps towards the small congregation of black mourning clothes. Her legs ache, her arm still tingles and her heart is numb.

Her good hand holds a white chrysanthemum in full bloom. It's these flowers of death that she hates most.

She stands tall bravely amongst the stares. It seems worse this time, but Kozue's hand on her shoulder reminds her that she is not alone, not this time.

"The black looks are meant for me, so don't worry, Azami," she says to her quietly. It confuses her, because someone nice and gentle as the kind Kozue could never have done anything that would warrant the intensity of the glares the clan members shot at her.

The woman smiles at her befuddled look. "I'll tell you about it another time."

"Okay."

It's just another example proving that judging by appearance is erroneous, and can get you killed someday.

Casting her eyes to the front, she spots Shinsei sobbing quietly in his father's arms. Izuna and Madara stand next to him, hand-in-hand and seemingly frozen to the spot. From their backs, Azami couldn't tell much.

In that moment, Uchiha Tajima—the man both respected and feared within the clan and amongst others (in that order, or it could be both) was just a father who lost his son. Nothing more, nothing less.

And glimpsing his tired face as she lay the wretched white flower down in the casket just proved her theory. She gives Jinrou's peaceful face one last glance, one last look to burn his visage into her memory in order not to forget. She couldn't forget the one who she couldn't save, after all.

Is it my fault? She can't help herself from dark thoughts. If I came just a few minutes earlier, a few moments…he wouldn't have to have died.

There was no end to the darkness. So she stepped away from the ledge and put off falling into the abyss of self-blame and misery for another day.

Backing away from the pyre, she sees them. There they stand, in the front row. Sudden anxiety grips her heart, and it takes all of what is left of her crumbling self to look them in the eyes.

Madara, covered in bandages, is staring right back at her. His strong gaze doesn't leave her form. As if deeply tuned into his brother's actions, Izuna also swivels around to watch her as Shinsei continues to cry in his father's embrace.

She grimly nods at them as she passes by. The air is full of tension and loss and something inexplicable crushing.

This is why I hate funerals.

Azami hates it even more when the wooden casket is nailed shut. She hates the way the flames engulf the pyre when they light it with no ounce of hesitation. She hates how everyone just watches them do it.

Just like this damned war. People killing and people who watch them do it and no-one is doing anything about it.

No one can do anything about it.

"Time to leave. The rest is up to the direct family," Kozue whispers. She wraps an arm around Azami to support her as they walk away with most of the funeral goers.

(Not enough strength. Not enough power.)

She leans into Kozue, tired at last. Her voice is weary and raspy when she finally speaks. "Did you know? It takes about fifteen minutes to cremate a stillborn baby, one and half hours for an adult…and forty-five minutes for a child."

The woman tightens her arm around her in response. "You're very knowledgeable."

Azami stares at her feet. "But it wasn't enough to save them both. I had to choose, or both of them would be dead."

"It's not your fault," Kozue states firmly.

I know. She knows all too well, but she can't help but think about everything she did wrong. All these thoughts join together and become a burden as heavy as if she has the world on her shoulders.

It is the world she has on her shoulders. She might break if the weight is too much for her.

I just want to sleep, and never wake up.

She finds no solace in her dreams. There is no light in the dream world. She is running through the forest—she knows it's the forest because of the smells, of fresh rain on dried leaves.

A red dawn finally casts light onto the world she wishes she'd never see.

She trips. She can't look down at the bodies. It's the battlefield, and corpse upon corpse lies in piles. She has to get up, to keep running but thousands of hands are pulling her back, the moans of the restless dead resounding and chilling.

Someone screams in the distance as she struggles, forever struggling.

Onee-chan! Help me!

She tears herself free from the death grips, and she can hear the wild beating of her heart. Still beating, still alive.

She sees Honami in the distance, and she is so close, she can reach her—

The enemy is everywhere. Suddenly, it is Jinrou screaming, and they're all there: Jinrou, Madara, Izuna, Shinsei, all about to die together. Kunai impale them, ever so slowly and there is so much blood, so much red—why is the sky so red?

She stops running, darting left and right, left and right, Honami – Jinrou, which one? Where is everyone? Which one?

Which. One.

Hands grab her from behind, whirling her around to stare into the eyes of her mother. Pale, dainty and delicate—frail and weak. Her eyes are clear and calm, like the woman she was before she fell into depression after her second child, the mother she loved and she was back.

Mother, mother, mother!

A hand caresses her cheek, and she smiles at her. Her voice is gentle and warm and stable. She is back. "You have to choose, Azami. Choose to save which one."

Jinrou falls, dead.

What? What do you mean? Can't I save both?

Shinsei falls, dead.

Her mother's eyes are still boring into her, dark like all the Uchiha. Still clear. "You can't save both. You have to choose."

No. You can't mean that. I don't want to lose anyone.

Izuna falls, dead.

There are only two left, now. Madara – Honami? Honami, Madara? Which one? Which one? How? Why do I have to choose?

And then the hands turn bony and her mother's gentle face twists in agony—her skin sags and she is shrieking for her to choose, choose, choose! Choose now! Make your choice!

The past, or the future?

Choose!

No. Please. Don't make me choose.

Both Honami and Madara fall, dead. Dead. Dead. Dead.

Dead! Gone!

She falls to her knees, and her hands are covered in blood. There is so much blood. Red. Red. The Red Sharingan stares back at her.

The corpse of her mother lies at his feet.

"Too bad," Uchiha Tsuze says, holding a bloodied sword to her throat. "Your indecision has killed them all."

No. No-no-no, please. I can't be alone, I can't have let them die.

Why. Why-why-why? WHY!

The tomoe of the dreadful Sharingan spins, the metal of the sword is cold, and the clan head looks at her like she is far more pathetic than the scum under his feet.

"You are weak. Only the strong have choices."

The sword glints, and she is gasping, trying to speak, trying to say something—

.

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"Azami!"

She opens her eyes, to see Kozue crouching beside her. She realises she is panting, and sweat beads roll down her temple. Her clothes stick to her damp skin, and her head hurts.

Calm down. It was just a nightmare.

"Breathe in slowly, take deep breaths. Don't worry, I'm here," Kozue soothes her, patting her shoulder. Azami raises her trembling hands to her face, the moonlight streaming in and lighting up the room slightly, letting her make out the shapes.

She lets herself sag in Kozue's embrace, inhaling the soothing scents of lavender imbued in her dark kimono.

"I'm here for you," the woman whispers. "I'll protect you, Azami."

The tired girl finally closes her eyes, listening to Kozue's steady heartbeat. Underneath the deceiving lavender fragrance lays traces of blood.

There's no choice. Azami lets herself relax despite the tempest of thoughts within. Here, the only adult she can trust is Kozue. Only Kozue.

Let sleeping dogs lie.

Things cannot go on like this forever.

Azami sets out to find Madara for the first time in weeks. And she does find him—after hours of wondering about dense forest, she finally sees him sitting beside a bubbling brook, alone.

For a moment, the silence between them is almost tranquil.

"Don't stand behind me," Madara muttered, breaking his calm façade.

She wordlessly moves in front of him, observing. His hair is a little longer, his body slightly skinnier than before and he sits in the lotus position with that typical dissatisfied, slightly irate frown on his haggard face.

"You look terrible, Madara," she forces out of her mouth after many moments of staring.

He cracks one eye open, the sharpness in his eyes still present in his gaze. "You're not much better."

"Hm." They lapse back into silence.

Azami stands there, listening to the rustling of tree branches, of the wind blowing on the grass and the sound of the trickling stream. Dappled sunlight caresses her face. She takes in a deep breath of the fresh air, her heart beating in time with the twittering of forest birds.

Nature brims with life.

"This place is nice," she remarks thoughtfully.

Madara agreed, his voice uncharacteristically soft. "Yes. Like an oasis."

"Escaping from reality, are we now?"

He sighs loudly, flopping ungracefully onto his back. "Right. We both are."

She treads gently towards him, just like how she tries to go around the harsh truths of life. Sitting down near his splayed form, she makes herself comfortable against the trunk of a cedar tree.

She licks her lips, feeling thirsty all of a sudden. "How…are you coping?" With Jinrou, with death, with life, with this crappy rivalry going on with us and the Senju…with everything…

Madara opens both eyes, blinking rapidly to adjust to the light of day. He curves his lips pensively. "I'm not."

"Pardon?"

He turns to his left side, facing her. "I'm not coping. I'm not accepting this. I'm never to just let it be like this. This world can't stay this way."

And just like that, the emptiness inside her wells with hope. It's completely irrational, stupidly idealistic, hopelessly optimistic.

I might even believe your words.

Her smile is tinged with the shadow of sorrow. "You're going to change this world?" She hugs her knees closer to herself. "Or maybe create a new one?"

"I don't know yet," – he sits up abruptly – "But I hate it this way. I don't want Jinrou to have died for nothing. I'll protect…us," his voice breaks suddenly, choked with emotion.

There. He said it. The taboo name. A weight lifts off her shoulders. Azami lifts a hand off her knees, and lays it on Madara's forehead. "That's very noble of you."

She can't see his expression. It's covered as he crosses both arms over his eyes. He is clenching his jaw as he trembles.

"Peace will come," she whispers as she pats his head comfortingly. She ignores the tears streaming down his face. She pretends to be deaf to his stifled sobs.

You can cry, now. No one will judge you. No one will belittle you. No one will see this as unnecessary weakness.

"…Believe, Madara. One day, you will wake up and all of this would just be a bad dream."

He does not answer. All he can do is silently weep over the loss of a loved one. All he can do is break in order to be put back together again.

Believe.

Azami didn't know just whom she is trying to convince.

つづく

End notes

Things to remember and watch out for:

- Just what was Uchiha Tsuze doing that night that Azami and Jinrou (RIP) stumbled upon?

- Kozue is not what she seems? I've been dropping hints everywhere.

- Birthmark.

- Things are happening! Politics and war and fighting and everything is happening! Do not forget about anybody!

Next chapter will be the last one for Arc One: Living Hell, and the part two to this one. More major canon characters will be introduced. A fateful meeting, perhaps?

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What I wanted to demonstrate in this chapter is the struggles that each character experiences, the conflicts within their mind. In Azami's case, the more she knows, the more truths she realises—the weaker she feels, and the hope just seeps away. It's ironic, because Madara's inner conflict is much more emotional and less rational than Azami's, but the conclusions they reach are very similar.

However, their perspectives are from different directions. Here, I can say that right now Madara is naïve whilst Azami understands the vices of human nature much more thoroughly. His ignorance is his strength, and her knowledge makes her weaker.

Lastly, Madara is the eldest. That's how he and Hashirama bond, both as the eldest brother who lost their younger brothers. And people who have told me that Uchiha Tajima was clan head: well, all I have to say is that he wasn't the first, so he would have predecessors, you know. I am a picky researcher, so I know that I have my facts right.

I also follow the manga—that is canon.

Anyway, I have the basic gist of this story planned out—and I just want to say that the scope of it is quite far-reaching, which might surprise you.

Tollpatsch.