Title: Praxis
Summary: The sensation of having a hole bored into his forehead subsides after a moment, though, when Konan finally clears her throat, and pairs of eyes slowly turn to fall upon Jeishi in turn until all are settled upon him, the cacophony of the room having long subsided in favor of heavy silence. He's lucky that Konan is here; he's not sure he'd be able to handle all of these people on his own, considering that none of these people were made for bureaucracy and polite meetings.
That's why they're all here, with Akatsuki, in the end.
"Comrades. There is much work to be done," Jeishi states with a thin, wan smile on his face, "And little time to do it."
In the face of pain, there are no heroes; only gods and men.
(Male SI as a member of Akatsuki.)
Prologue: On The Eve Of The Storm
"By sealing our work with our blood, we may see at least the bright dawn of universal happiness. That is our ambition, that is our goal."
-Maximilien Robespierre
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap-Tap.
The rhythmic staccato of cool rain pattering against equally cool steel is as calming and familiar to Jeishi's ears as it ever is, and it provides a decorous, civilized undertone sonance that partners well with the clatter of his hard-heeled boots against the concrete floors of The Pashupatinath. In all honesty, the ambience of the temple's interior often reminds him more of a overture in a gagaku arrangement being performed in one of the Daimyo's luxurious courts than the natural atmosphere of Amegakure's nerve center, but in all honesty, that is probably the point.
Tap-tap. Tap-Tap. Tap-Tap. Tap.
After all, their people did not choose to build their grandest temple in this location without precise reason. It's not as if any of them had any need to hire exotic artisans, even if they had the money or goods to afford them, anyway; all the Atharvan priests needed anyway was good acoustics for their chanting and a little bit of wild medium to set the mood for the ceremony, much like their successors do now.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap-Tap.
As if they were really the Atharvan's successor, though; Jeishi imagines that if any of them could see what the Pashupatinath's current inhabitants were using it for, they'd have them all executed for blasphemy. But they were long since turned to mere dust in the wind, easily blown away in the wind by the Land of Monsoon's* nigh-omnipresent tempest, much like every other clergy that attempted to withstand the onslaught of Ninshū and it's missionaries, so their ancient opinions did not really matter in the slightest in the current moment.
Tap-tap. Tap-Tap. Tap-Tap. Tap.
But it was still worth considering, though, seeing as there was always public relations to keep up. The people, at least in Monsoon, were more suspicious than most. The strange phenomena could have been caused by any number of factors, the most likely being that there was no other figurehead to turn to, so Kage and Daimyo were neatly rebranded and repackaged as Pein-sama and Tenshi-sama, at least in the common tongue. The old and the reactionary of Monsoon most likely had their own reverent titles for them, but as is the case with the clergy, what they called their rulers was of no consequence so long as they answered to them through the Headman.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap-Tap.
That being Jeishi himself, of course.
Tap-tap. Tap-Tap. Tap-Tap. Tap.
It is an... honorable position. A necessary one. They are Amegakure, but Amegakure is not them. Most of the time, at least. In all honestly, a part of Jeishi still wishes that he was out on the barren battlefield with them, fighting the righteous struggle, but that is merely the voice of a more youthful and naive man. For the moment, for the sake of appearances, someone must sit in the chair and guide the village.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap-Tap.
To even think like that leaves a disgusting taste in Jeishi's mouth, and before he even knows it, both of his fists have tightened slightly beneath the long, heavy sleeves of his voluminous robes. But playing by the rules of a shinobi is the only way forward, and so it shall remain, until the time comes for the righteous struggle to transition from secret to open. Jeishi's fists unclench.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap-Tap.
But it's been so long, and the killing continues, and the piles of bodies grow larger and larger. The children continue to starve in the streets, and the farmer continues to toil in the field until they are a skeleton, and the worker continues to be crushed to a bloody pulp with the wheels of industry. Jeishi's fists clench.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap-Tap.
But the day grows nearer and nearer, with each passing moment, with each firearm and blade and bomb and cannon that comes off of Amegakure's production lines and out of her furnaces and with each person whose eyes are opened to their cause. Jeishi's fists unclench.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap-Tap.
But it will not be easy; it never is. They are monsters in human flesh, the enemy is, slathering themselves in the slaughter of innocents like pigs rolling in the muck of their pen and laughing while doing it. They will throw away anything and everything in the pursuit of their greed and bloodlust and stupidity, and the cost will grow higher, higher, too high for the righteous cause to continue, because the heart will break if the body simply doesn't first. Jeishi's fists clench, clench, clench, and-
Tap-Tap. Tap-Tap. Tap-Tap. Tap-Tap. Tap-Tap.
The rain stops. Jeishi looks over to his right, across the metal guard rail that circles around the entirety of the upper platform, and down into the center chamber that once served as Amegakure's public forum, where streams of water flowing down the looming, steel walls that make up the outward interior of The Pashupatinath. They continue to gurgle as they flow down the vast expanses of the are parallel facade, down into into the vents built into the ground around the perimeter of the square room, down into the massive, coiling segments of drainage pipes built underground, deeper down until they finally reach the silent chamber that holds the massive form of the Gedō Mazō and drain into the pool of holy water that it's lower body bathes in. It's not until the breadth of a long moment between a minute and an eternity passes and the flow of liquid from above trickles to a halt. A small smile etches itself into Jeishi's face, one not unlike the kind that comes whenever he allowed himself a moment of peace from the constantly-spinning hurricane of thoughts inside of Jeishi's head. Of course, those moments are few and far between now, but there weren't when there was someone still around to tell Jeishi to get his head out of his ass and back into reality.
"Is that what you're telling me?" Jeishi mumbles to no one in particular, beyond the copper-eyed shadow who breathes his cold, dead breath onto the back of Jeishi's neck at every moment, both waking and dreaming, but turns on his heel and continues towards his intended destination without a second thought, "I suppose you're right, then. I do spend an inordinate amount of time thinking instead of acting; you always were right about that."
Jeishi's feet only need to take him a few more long journey's through the winding hallways of The Pashupatinath's upper floors, away from the core that the Gedō Mazō calls it's home; when one moves away from the interior, the temple of steel and machines becomes less of a temple and more of what one could call an administrative section, if one could really call it that, not unlike the squat, modern warehouses of angular steel and stark glass that the port cities of the Land of Steam are made up of. It is not totally out of place, either; The Pashupatinath could not really be called Amegakure's nerve center without having it's necessary functions.
At this point, it's less of a temple to the people of Monsoon and more of their governmental headquarters, even if it does harbor a dark secret in the depths of it's belly. To them, it's just the place where their shinobi, the few* that remain, at least, gather for debriefings and assignments, and The Pashupatinath serves that purpose well.
However... to the righteous strugglers, it is the headquarters of their revolution, although a meeting such as todays hasn't been called for since their Leader's flesh was still vibrant with the message of peace.
Jeishi can't imagine a more fitting fate for the den of Monsoon's personal demon; if it is blasphemy to the long-dead Atharvan priests to turn their temple into anything else than a place of worship, then he can only imagine how how Hanzō must be screaming in conniptions as watches his personal palace be transformed from the center of oppression into the first house of the people.
The vast expanse of the administrative section of the tower, once the den of Monsoon's personal demon and his minions, lies barren, with nary a soul to fill it's spartan field of cubicles and desks that are illuminated in harsh, sodium-white tones by the rows of rectangular fluorescent lights strung up across the ceiling by metal cables. The scarce shinobi who do man it during normal hours have long since returned home, having been let off by Jeishi himself earlier in the evening so that they could indulge in some rightfully-earned rest and spend time with their families. It's not as if they were in the middle of doing anything of import, either; Ame-nin had not been hired for a mission outside of Monsoon's borders for over a decade, and even ones inside of her confines were scarce, so there wasn't even a small amount of paperwork to be tasked with filling out and ordering. With the way things were, one could hardly say that Amegakure even warranted the title of hidden village at all anymore...
Which served them just fine, of course, because that was precisely the point; it wasn't a hidden village, at least not under the skin, but... something else.
A lone light flickers above the door that leads to the room that was once Amegakure's council chambers, and Jeishi crosses the floor with practiced ease, avoiding the small droplets of water that drip from cracks in the the rows of steam and exhaust pipes that line the ceilings before coming to the pair of heavy, steel double doors that serve as the entrance to what is essentially a bunker.
Their locks thunk open automatically in a flash of bright, blue light, however, once Jeishi sends a jolt of chakra down through his feet and into the seals painted invisibly in front of the doors before pulling on the handle and entering the room.
The last time Jeishi was here in a serious capacity, Hanzō the Salamander was splayed out across the mahogany conference table in small, pulpy pieces under the intense white light of the circular ceiling lamp of glass and metal, along with his few remaining allies, but has long since been cleaned up in the time period between his first visit and now. It is in a pristine state, not only in the material sense with it's brightly polished conference table and working lights, but also in the sense that it's serving it's intended purpose for the first time in years.
Along the length of the conference table sits every junior member of the Akatsuki, draped in the colors of a red cloud on a black field as all of them engage in some sort of sniping and conversation with each other; Kakuzu and Hidan, Sasori and Pakura, Kisame and Mangetsu... Obito and Konan, though Konan hardly counts, considering she's been here as long as Jeishi has, but she was never one to play paper pusher. Konan's burnt-gold eyes settle upon him from the very end of the conference table as he enters the room, her gaze as heavy upon him as Jeishi's is upon her. Obito's singular, charcoal-black one does as well, but it conveys a message of reverence and deference instead of all the things that lingered between Jeishi and Konan a moment previously. The sensation of having a hole bored into his forehead subsides after a moment, though, when Konan finally clears her throat, and pairs of eyes slowly turn to fall upon Jeishi in turn until all are settled upon him, the cacophony of the room having long subsided in favor of heavy silence. He's lucky that Konan is here; he's not sure he'd be able to handle all of these people on his own, considering that none of these people were made for bureaucracy and polite meetings.
That's why they're all here, with Akatsuki, in the end.
"Comrades. There is much work to be done," Jeishi states with a thin, wan smile on his face, "And little time to do it."
1*. The country Amegakure is located in is never given an official name, so for the purposes of the story, it is named the Land of Monsoons.
2*. Amegakure, and the Land of Monsoons as a whole, is utterly wrecked as a result of the Shinobi World Wars, so their native shinobi population is really small, leading them to have a (when compared to the Great Five and some of the smaller villages) tiny force of highly trained ninja whose purpose is to act as an auxiliary for the Akatsuki.
Edit 1/13/24: Just fixed some grammatical errors and added some more detail to the prologue