Ruminations on lost love and souls

Minato looked at Takai, and responded.

"The audacity to tell me that. Do you think I haven't figured out when you leave facts out, when you skip over events when it is convenient for you? The placations and love you offer to distract me from the story you tell me?"

The Fourth Hokage of the Village hidden in the Leaves, father of Naruto Uzumaki, husband of Kushina Uzumaki, and the legendary Yellow Flash, leaned forward. His face told of anger and hidden violence only a thread away.

"Now, tell me the truth."

Takai laughed sad, his eyes looked mournful.

"Sure. I am sorry for lying to you, but it was really only to myself. I wanted to pretend this whole fucking mess didn't happen. Well then, let me tell you of the worse thing to happen to me in two whole lives.

About how I killed her."

I once told her, "Your smile is mine, and mine only. Everyone that you pass gets to see that alluring cold look, and beautifully dark black hair, but only I get to see you laugh, smile in love or lust or pleasure or anything else. Only me, and I wish that your smile remains mine forever."

Anything, I promised, I would do for her. She liked pain, inflicting it, receiving it. I was familiar with that of course, but doing it for pleasure was foreign, yet she convinced me to forgo that, follow her into the bedroom and hurt her. It felt wrong, but she smiled so bright and perfectly I could only obey her, I told myself.

I loved her so much I would destroy the world. Then, I don't know what I would have done if she ordered me to destroy the Leaf. Would I have followed her to doom, to die by your hand, or kill her myself for you?

We did more and more, it started with marks, then bruises, then blood and such.

Then we joined a group. She introduced me to it, a cult if you were a sceptic, but presented as a club of like-minded sadomasochists.

I won't ask you to understand what we were doing, why we were doing it. I regret it. I regret everything with her, except loving her. Maybe if I refused, she would be here with me now?

Well, that is naïve, but regrets usually are. But I know you would understand doing anything for love. You had a child with your wife, despite the risks, and even now you think of doing it again.

The group did a lot of fringe shit I wasn't comfortable with, but I pushed on. I told myself, you have given away so much of yourself in service to being a ninja, what is so bad about giving myself away for love? And I wanted to vomit, but I kept doing it.

I hurt myself on habit sometimes. Or on accident. Or on purpose.

One day, the 'club' became more animated. It accepted both of us into a higher sect, gave us ornamental weapons to hurt ourselves with, a god to pray to. I told her I was uncomfortable with this unnamed god. She rose in the ranks, I didn't.

She spent more time there. Sometimes I would get reports of people getting sacrificed or kidnapped, black robes and masks. I didn't connect the dots. I didn't want to.

I was invited with her to a ceremony. I thought something like being invited to a higher order yet again, with my partner by my side as a sponsor. I was a fool, I'm sure you realise. A willing one. Maybe I wanted to die.

I was surrounded in a dark, sunless crypt, covered in a black robe with many my mirror around, a red light from a crystal the only source of light in an otherwise black room.

The middle had an altar, covered in blood and other bodily fluids. It didn't frighten me, but it felt ominous.

I turned to her, looked where her eyes should be, opened my mouth to speak, and she hugged me. I rubbed her back.

She said she was sorry, and she stabbed me.

When she ran her blade into my heart it sank with it. Yes, because she had betrayed me, but for more than a vapid rage at a two-faced bitch a less loving man would exhibit. It was because I didn't know why, how, what she was thinking, and I always wanted to drink from her thoughts. Every word she said was breath-taking and made me anticipate the next, every ending to them making me disappointed with the death of the magic that was her monologue and dialogue both.

Then, she wasn't speaking, I couldn't even see her eyes under her robe, and even now I do not know why she did it. You love a person, yes, like they are a part of you, but that means they live under a shared scrutiny, paranoia at being unattractive, at bad etiquette, at being inferior rears its ugly head yet has a focusing point. When they do something big, like leave without a word or attempt to kill you, your mind races with possibilities of why, where, when, what and how. You blame yourself, and then them, and everything in the fucking world.

Did she try to kill me because she hated me? Was it all a ruse, and she simply wanted my blood this entire time?

Did she love me not enough? Wanting to move on and not having the guts to reject me?

Did she hate herself? Want me to kill her, to stop her?

Did she love me too much, wanted my last though forever to wonder about her, why she did what she did and never getting an answer, her love so much and desire to be remembered and to be a part of me that she hammered herself into my psyche, an undeniable focus point for the rest of my life?

Because I think of her so much, and I won't stop any time soon. Every hint of black or red brings back her beauty, even running with her own blood, demure laughs her perfect voice cracked into a gurgle. What if she wanted me to remember her for all eternity?

I can't hate her. I hate what she did, God I do. I hate it so much the rage threatens to make me break down, destroy myself and the world and all love itself for what it has done to me, yet I want to remember her, to never move on. I want to write letters to her even if she won't read them, speak to her even if she can't hear. I want her to be brought back more than anything, so she can tell me why. Not to love me again, not to re-experience those incredible times, just so she can tell me she [-]

But I can't. And I hate it so fucking much.

Kushina, your wife. It is unfathomable she would hurt you so, but I feel like if you could ask her, you would get some closure, mourn your relationship, grieve, move on. But the question is so deep in my mind, so drilled into my consciousness all I can ask is why? Shout to the fucking heavens because why!? Every day, I will have to wake up to why? Every meal will be marked with why?

Why?

Why?

Why?

Why?

And it is hell, more than anything else. It is hell because I will never move on. I will turn insane, break into billions of pieces before I ever get an answer to that question.

And that is the worst thing that could have ever happened to me.

I will never move on. Another girl will make the question spring in my mind again, solace only a comforting bed for those deadly thoughts. And that is my burden, my price.

After she stabbed me I looked at the knife in my chest, grabbed a blade from a nearby cultist and cut her Achilles tendon, grabbing her by the back with a sword to her neck, backing away weakly to the alter.

Since I have experienced this, I shall tell you that having your heart die feels like fading away bit by bit. It isn't the pain as much as your soul being drained, so my escape to the middle of the room was pathetic and marred with the weakness of a dead man.

Yet I still had strength enough to slit her throat as I fell back into the altar, the sickening liquid spilling forth like a river.

Her body spun and fell on me, and I saw her face.

And her blood red lips were smiling, and dead.

And then I died too.

We killed each other and bled on that altar.

I woke up in a desert of black sand and red skies. I thought I was in hell.

Hell isn't an apt term. Hell in my world was suffering as a punishment. This one was suffering as a reward.

I was dead though.

I trudged my way through the sand, feeling weak and powerless as I ventured for, well, anything. The landscaped stretched on forever and was made entirely out of black sand dunes, dark ridges bleeding onto a blood crimson clear sky.

So I walked.

And walked.

And walked.

And walked.

And walked.

And walked.

And walked.

And walked.

And days passed. The sun was white and burned me with pale blisters that sent shocks up my spine, the heat and light so intense the hottest days my skin peeled off, revealing muscle and bone underneath. Despite all that, it was never permanent. The pain was so very real though. If I was not a ninja and almost soulless from the death of my love, I would have broken from the pain alone, but I was, so I didn't. The skin healed back as the sun set and the moon (which was white as bone and shone with a nostalgic glimmer of the vicious sun that preceded it) contrasted with the dark red, the colour of congealed flesh. Mine own mirrored it and came back to full as morning rose and came with a new beat of harried pain, thundering and thundering with each of my sluggish steps.

Though impossible, I walked for years. Even the soft sand caused blisters on my feet, and my eyes were bloodshot from the horrendous colour of the sky. One never truly gets used to it.

The place's atmosphere (though I don't believe it had a unique physical one, the air clear yet flushed with dry air, claiming all moisture from my throat) was ominous, the feeling of being watched and played with, the pain and hate each object inflicted telling everything in this world was built for suffering alone.

And a man would have gone insane if not for love, the thought of a someone back home.

But mine was dead. I had killed them.

And it was ironic, because they were the reason I was so lost, but I wanted them to charge though reality, hug me, kiss me, tell me everything is going to be alright. That they loved me and they forgive me and it was all a mistake and she was a fool and she is sorry. But nothing. Just silence.

I couldn't even fucking cry for her.

And I wanted her so much. I needed her, but she was gone forever. And she would never see me again. And me her.

I would have preferred to be cucked, ruined, destroyed, because at least if she left at the altar (wedding, not sacrifice) or told me I was bad at sex and got railed by some hunk or something I'd have something to hate, fuck her right? She was wrong, and I still love her but she is out there somewhere and she chose to hurt me.

But no, I can't move on. My motion was only forward yet my mind only thought on that one moment.

LOVE/HATE/PAIN/NOTHING/EVERYTHING

And I was suffering. And I was lost. And I was mad.

The sand was filled with razor blades, I realised eventually, and so I cut my arms. I knew I wouldn't die, but it was something to do. I cut and cut and cut and the blades never got blunt and my arms never marked for long. Yet I kept cutting. The pain didn't matter, I had gotten used to the bullshit, to the everything. To my death. It was a break from the monotony, and so I carved and carved and carved and carved.

Then I saw. Nothing. But something. The space in front wasn't real, none of this was truly real. The pain wasn't, the damage wasn't. Dehydration never killed and my body never starved. So I took the blades, and cut the air in front of me, and the air bled.

I cut and cut and cut and my arms were sore and flush with pain from the slicing but I eventually carved my way through the space, a tunnel of flesh pointing out of thin air.

I crawled through, and came out the other end.

I was in an old style samurai styled home, the type a daimyo or a rich family would own, perfectly cut walls of paper and wood varnished to perfection. The air was moist, the sun wasn't burning, the floor wasn't sand, and I realised that I was clean, not specks of sand nor roughed up clothing, perfect and prim dress as if I hadn't spent years trudging around eternity.

I looked behind and saw what looked like an egg, though sized large enough to fit a man and made from flesh, the bottom connected to the ground with vines of blood red tendrils that pulsated with a rhythm.

I moved on, ending up in a living room, where a small child with white hair was seated. He sat with his legs crossed, and a garb that was clearly expensive, silks fashioned with perfect adornment and tailored perfectly, a stark white that complemented his hair well, and brown adornments across his torso, beads and leather and red circles and sigils I had no understanding of yet looked majestic and planned.

But the most striking this, was his wide excited smile, and his pupilless pink eyes.

"Hey! Do you want to sit down?" his tone was excited and eager, yet there was a force on my mind that told me to sit more than his voice did, and so I sat. His smile somehow grew larger as I lowered myself to the seat.

He leaned forward and opened his mouth to speak, exposing baby teeth in an eager formation. "I saw you in that desert, and out there. Honestly, I'm surprised you're still sane after all that."

"I'm not."

"Yeah, but you're like, super functional and stuff. You aren't seeing things or eating the floor, so that's good in my books. You're pretty resilient either way!"

He had a smile that was a halfway cross between sadism and pure glee. It felt unreal, somehow more unreal than the rest of this place, or the world I had ended up in.

"What is your name?" I asked, out of some nearly lost epithet of manners more than anything.

"Oh me? My name is Jashiniki, though people call me Jashin for short. Funny you didn't even know that, you expect the people to get here to be hardcore cultists, ha."

His smile was still there, a look of curiosity. He began speaking again.

"I know what just happened, killing your wife? And being killed by her? Stone cold man, makes me happy. I don't really know who you are though, you weren't like a mega-wacko or whatever so I couldn't read your thoughts."

I ignored the implication that he was reading my thoughts just then, and answered.

"My name is Takai. I'm a ninja."

I was also at this God's mercy

"You bet! I am actually a pretty weird god, I think? You have your Shinigami or whatever, but he is like, contracted to collect the souls of the dead. He is really, really strong, but he is like a zombie. He took the concept of death and tried to control it, and it controlled him back, kinda. Funny! He has to walk around for the rest of eternity doing a job he made himself do for no reason!"

Jashin's stomach rumbled (audibly) so he got up from his seat on the floor to cut some meat. He continued from the kitchen.

"So when I had a bunch of people get turned into sacrifices for me to eat or whatever, I chose like, the most least powerful thing to become a god of. My family was pretty proud of me. Unfortunate that I had to kill them."

He chopped a slab of red meat with a butcher's knife. It didn't make a scream you could hear, but it seemed to be in pain. For a second, I thought the entire house was breathing, then I discarded it.

"You see, I am the god of pleasure through suffering."

He sat down with a plate of raw meat, sliced into thin pieces. He bit into it and blood leaked out, staining his white teeth.

"Want some?"

I wasn't one to decline such company, so I ate too. It was sinewy, chewy flesh, and by the time I had swallowed my jaw ached.

"Thank you."

"Please, I know it was foul."

"Yes, but it is the first meal I have had in years."

He laughed out loud here.

Despite it all I smiled too, then laughed. Laughed the hardest I had ever laughed. I cried too.

We both calmed down and I felt more comfortable somehow.

"Why do you look like a child?"

"Uh, because I am. Duh."

Confusing.

"Well then how old are you."

"Like 20,000 years, I think?"

A moment passed, I blinked, looked at him.

"Children aren't 20,000 years old."

"Neither are adults. Gods are like, frozen in time. They don't grow unless they decide to, and I like being a kid, it's more fun."

"How do you know if you haven't ever been an adult?"

"I have, wasn't that fun, hormones or whatever were fucked up."

"Language."

He laughed at me again.

"You're pretty funny mister."

"Ah, I'm a mister now?"

"Yeah, you're like 30 or something."

"19."

"21 with the added years."

Smarter than he lets on, I thought.

"You bet your ass!" he responded.

We sat in silence, both enjoying this peculiar meeting for what it was.

Then I broke that silence with a question.

"Why am I here?"

"Oh! You did a trial thing."

I looked at him perplexed, he continued.

"Ok, you were in the middle of a ritual thing, they did a prayer, then what was meant to happen was you die and your spouse comes up here, walks the desert, and meets me. Honestly, no offence, but that lady would have been boring as fuck. I've seen those cultist types come up here, either their souls wither away after hundreds of years, or they come up here and try to worship me face to face. Creepy. You were a welcome change."

"So am I your messiah or something?"

"I guess so, nothing here says you have to be, unless I tell you. But I don't get anything from your worship really. It doesn't make me any more powerful since I'm dead."

Wait what?

"Who killed a God?"

"The Shinigami. I was walking around, killing entire villages when an ōtsutsuki or whatever came an' summoned his grandfather to take me to the grave. Even gods have to kneel to that bastard. Hence why you have to kill yourself to get to me. Pretty lucky that happened to you by the way."

"Can you bring me back?"

"Um, I think? Time is different here, so you aren't actually fully dead. Your soul was teleported to the desert, where it allowed you to travel to me, but your body is still alive. I can form a permanent link with your soul to allow your body mystical chakra powers, and so I can see you kill people."

"And I'm assuming those powers include immortality?"

"Yup!"

"And they take away my humanity?"

"Not really, they make you enjoy huge amounts of pain more but I prefer to make you interesting. Taking away your free will and making you a husk would be pretty boring."

I realised I had been making a deal with a God. Or devil, if you are aware of the meaning of that. Either way, I needed to come back to life. The Leaf still needed me.

"Deal."

The child-God smiled at me, all teeth, so wide I could see gums.

"Deal."

"You made a deal with a god?"

Minato's eyes weren't wide with shock but rather scepticism. From what he knew about the Shinigami, the being acted more like a wild beast, hunting to take souls than a real concrete person. He allowed that the lack of power this Jashin had was an explanation for his excess of freedom, but it remained that there was little evidence for this, at least until he can prove Takai is immortal.

"Yes. He grants me immortality, he gets to see me kill people."

"Can you prove it?"

"Sure, I just need a sharp tool."

Sighing, Minato took out one of his iconic kunai, swung it around his ring finger, then threw it over to Takai. Taking the weapon, Takai placed it against his chest, where his heart would be, and stabbed in.

Takai didn't die though, the blade went through, and the man simply removed his grip and opened his hands to the air like some great magician.

"Impressive. Unbelievable, but impressive. What is its extent?" Minato expressed, wonder evident in his tone.

"Haven't found it yet. Lost limbs maybe but they might grow back in time. In all ways, I cannot be killed. The wounds still matter though, breaking my arm breaks it still, and it still hurts like hell. I just have a better tolerance than anyone else."

The two stayed in silence for moments, the blood dripping of the kunai pattering onto the floor, before Takai slid it out slowly, being handed a bandage by Minato and holding it against the wound.

"Your wife then. You killed her, in self-defence."

"Yes."

"I am sorry."

"Why? You didn't know her; you couldn't have done anything if you tried. Hell, I technically got too attached, it was my fault fully, you could have never predicted this would happen."

"Maybe that is true, but I would hope you extend the same courtesy if Kushina died. And most of all, you need comfort."

"I don't. I spent years thinking about that situation, about that death. Mopey shit like saying it 'isn't my fault, I had no choice' won't make it hurt less."

Minato looked down. He gave a sad smile.

"I understand. I apologise."

"Hm. Accepted."

Minato stretched his arms and legs, and then gave a command.

"Well let's continue then!"

I awoke with blood covering me, my own and my fiancée's soaking the black robes I had been gifted. 360 degrees in an instance, I scanned the room, seeing the scene hadn't changed from when I had left it beyond a few lost seconds. Years in seconds. The head priest was charging to the altar, and I still had my blade in my hand, so I moved to stab him. My body jumped, and then fell, my heart still dead and only just pumping again, so I fell to the floor in front of him instead. He stabbed his own blade into my back then vaulted onto the table himself, attempting to walk in my shoes I realized.

He wanted to be in my place, to use my sacrifice to meet an unwilling and uninterested God. Because he was a power-hungry fool. I would never blame him for Aka's actions, she is herself, and she always will be, but this man, I can hate.

My heart had yet to regenerate but was starting to pump as the man lowered himself on the table and proclaimed in an insane growl, "Witness me Jashin!"

Of course, the only thing he got was a knife through his neck, thrown like a dart and piercing through the other side cleanly. He looked to the source of the attack, and saw my bloodied body risen and hunched. He sputtered on his own life juices, and dropped dead.

The rest of the cultists looked at me, scared and confused and angry. They charged, mania convincing them I was a test from their God, when their God was one that only wanted their suffering.

Seven blades struck through me at the same time, but I didn't care. The pain was nothing, and the threat less than nothing. The blonde woman in front tried to remove her blade, but I held on and stopped it with the force of a dead man's rigour mortis grip. Blood ran through my fingers but I didn't care. I looked into her frightened eyes, grabbed her neck with my right hand, and squeezed.

Her neck was crushed in an instant, her eyes going blank in an instant as the life drained from her and her head fell.

6 blades came out of me with fear, and a seventh came out with fervour as I removed it from my own ribcage, swiping it into a foe quicker than they could respond.

Then another, bisected.

And another's head sliced off.

And it was so pathetically easy.

I deflected a sloppy blow and cut the perpetrator's burly leg of as a punishment, crushing his head against the ground with a stomp with a finality.

And I realised they had nothing. They were nothing. They thought they knew what God they prayed to, why they would sacrifice me, what they would get from it, and I was simply there, covered in so much blood it soaked my hair with red, inhumane strength and inhumane endurance, and the blessing of a God they thought they could control.

I decided it didn't matter, as I carved apart the final 2 with a single blow.

And it was so very soulless.

So very nothing.

My heart had cracked so much it had ceased to exist, my soul rend to the point of non-existence.

But I realised I had at least something to live for.

To kill Iwa and return to the Leaf. And so I prepared.

A week passed. Seidou hadn't seen me, and I assumed he was on edge. Maybe he thought I was grieving, or trying to run away, but I was done. The time limit was nearly up, my rope nearly burned through. I needed to jump, to fly. Fly off the winds of flames.

Missives were given. Ken was told to transport as many civilians as he could out the city, Megane was told to offer transport and medicine, and I killed the rest. They weren't of any more use living and breathing than coughing up their own poisoned blood anyway. The rats were both harder and easier. They didn't stand a chance.

None of them did.

I walked in the bright sun, noon passing just above. I would strike at 6pm, and the city would go ablaze at nine. The scum of the city would be burnt away, the shadows protecting iwa would destroyed, and I would strangle them with my flames. They would be burnt to nothing, each well of corruption and lies and deceit these walls were built upon would crumble away alongside them, ash and rubble and nothing but black.

I stepped into an antique shop, where I had spotted a weapon. A scythe, with an incredibly sharp blade, and a seal on the hilt.

"That thing? It is cursed. Ever since I bought it from some battlefield scavenger my business has been failing! Every time I throw it away, it keeps coming back!"

"I could take it."

He scoffed. "If you can pall, then you can have it for free."

I thanked him, picked the blade off the wall, and travelled to the Gareki estate.

A large redwood gate blocked off passage to the mansion. Two guards, ninja both, stood in front.

"Halt! Do you have permission to-"

He didn't finish, as I had sliced through his upraised hand and neck, the appendage falling and blood shooting out his artery with an impressive force as the man stumbled back.

The ninja next to me attempted an attack but I thrust the scythe head into his stomach, lifting his body into the air, then slammed it down into the earth bisecting him.

A duo, and I was already covered in blood. I continued, unaffected, determined, and slick with life juice.

I put the weapon down and my hand ran through signs, a blast from my hands blowing apart the door and vaporising two men who had discovered my attack. The remaining two survived with burns, running through their own jutsus in a pointless attempt to kill me. I body-flickered to one, grabbing both of his arms and dislocating them, then flipped him by his shoulder to his partner, his body slamming into a mud bullet and crumbling on impact. I launched the blade on my back through the dust, eliciting a scream from a pierced opponent.

Suddenly, 3 men burst out of the ground, one tackling me and the others using my limited mobility to sink their twin katana into my ribs. I smirked, the pain nothing, as I put the first foe in a headlock and squeezed, snapping his neck with a satisfying crunch. I launched the limp body in my arms at one shinobi, and rushed to the other one, kicking him in the stomach and causing him to keel over. I flipped over them, picking him up on my shoulders and power bombing him into the ground before flipping over and pulling a blade from my body, launching it right into his skull, killing him instantly.

Then I dashed at the now un-stunned opponent, slamming a fist into his head, a jab to the nose, a couple more face blows, then swiped his legs, ended by making a crescent with my leg and slamming him into the floor so hard his ribs broke. Rolling to my feet, I unsheathed my blood blade, and pieced his neck in one blow.

Just in time to get engulfed by a fiery explosion.

Then slammed into by an avalanche of dirt.

8 casters unleashed their full force against me. Overkill, maybe, if I was normal.

My hand burst from the ground, pulling my burning body from the sludge. Flesh peeled from my body, and my skull dripped with burning skin. I trudged, bit by bit, forward, one step at a time, as my skin began to heal.

One man panicked, launching a shard of rock like a missile aiming for my decayed body.

I vanished.

And reappeared with my hand through his chest, bone arm slick with blood. He looked at me, his eyes wide and aghast, as my mouth repaired itself enough for my jaw muscles to smile as his pain.

Another took the initiative and flung a kunai with an explosive note at us both. No empathy for his partner, as expected. I leant back, letting the kunai hit flesh not my own, then flipped over the resulting explosion. I clasped my nearly full hands together, channelling the fireball into my own using fire chakra, splitting it into lances and launching like rockets. One man was hit square in the heart, whilst the others erected rock walls to shield themselves.

I, my body fully recovered, flipped through more handsigns, until the clouds above, signalling the start of winter, rumbled, exploding with a cascade of hundreds of lightning bolts. The rock was demolished, all 6 remaining either zapped beyond recognition, or destroyed by the explosion caused by mixing lightning and earth chakra in unequal amounts.

Knifes and kunai were scavenged from the graveyard, as I sprinted towards the manor, risk and care and caution thrown to the wind I was cutting through, howls passing against my skin as I stepped closer and closer to my goal.

Just as I reached the stairs to the entrance, one of the shinobi that accosted me at the party a year previous exited in a jump. I didn't stop, I continued to charge at him, edging nearer to him with each moment. He waited until the moment I was in range, and lashed out with a swipe of his large hand. I slid underneath, rising with an uppercut smashing into his guard. He kept his defence up as I smashed into his guard over and over, ineffectual attacks being thrown at me, and dodges coming out with instinct. I pushed him into the manor, the large ballroom echoing the sounds of punch against arms, my battering creating bruise and blood to run down his body. Eventually the pain was too much for him to bare, and his defence broke, where I finally flicked a blade from my belt, and jammed it into the bottom of his mouth, through his head. I left it in its resting place, and rushed up the stairs to my side, reaching the second floor.

There, the remaining men rushed me with weapons, maces and daggers and katanas and spears. The first man jabbed forth with a pole, which I disarmed and twirled around to smash his skull to bits. I ran the pole towards an overhead katana strike, the blade slicing through the wood but not hitting me before the wood slammed into the man's eye, rupturing it and causing him to fall. I picked the blade up with a deft grip, and twisted it around as I cut a horizontal arc through his body.

I thrust forwards into a spear wielder, the blade ramming into my torso but me running through it to ram my own blade into his heart. I cut off his arm, still holding the pole, and span around to deflect a sickle and chain into another shinobi's skull. A dagger found my back, and I turned to point the spear still in my body at the knife wielder, and pushed it into them.

I moved forward, letting the stick run out of my chest through the back, and stepped slowly, and the remaining opponents looked cautious, frightened even. It didn't take much to figure out. My body was repairing itself by the second, and conventional attacks wouldn't work.

One of them started going through hand signs, and I sprung to action, ripping the dagger from my back and shooting it into their heart, right through their arm. A man, stunned by their teammate dying found his neck cut in an instant, and another found their liver pierced by a blade, all the way to the hilt. I left it inside as I dashed quicker than they eye can see, tackling a woman to the ground and crushing her skull with a single blow. Seeing an opening, the final 3 all charged at me with blades drawn, trying to slice my limbs off instead of target vitals, but I jumped up, not high enough to not get pierced, but high enough to smash one in the head with a lethal spinning kick, and enough time bought for my shadow clone to spawn and wrestle away the others weapon and cut open their stomach, almost a mirror of my own actions.

I decided to pick up the pace, as I charged through yet another door, not even counting the number of ninja waiting behind.

Duck, punch punch, kick, another kick, down.

Let one run their blade through another by dodging, step behind and snap his neck.

Billow out a flame from my mouth, peeling the flesh of the 10 in front of me.

Dash through the skin searing heat to dropkick a foe, smashing them into the rest of the crowd.

Cut the stunned foes with a single wind blade.

The only survivor from that corridor was a man with his legs sliced off, crawling towards the exit. I walked over, grabbed his head, and crushed it bit by bit with my hands, pushing closer and closer together until it exploded like a watermelon.

There was one last door, I realised. I could sense many men behind it, and I was soaked with so much blood I wondered if Seidou would even recognize me. None of them could kill me though. Not a single one.

I smashed down the door with a spartan kick, the entire room drawing weapons on me. Then silence and stillness. For moments, nothing at all happened. It was as still as an undisturbed lake, yet at any moment the surface tension could break.

"Takai. Interesting entrance."

Not a single man dared turn away from me, but I could tell they wanted to look at him in confusion for his blasé response to this situation.

"Only the best."

That did tell me something though. They had no sensors.

"You never were for yourself then. It would be less interesting if you were actually in contact with Konoha this entire time, so I assume you really are just that insane. Your bastard of a Hokage betrays you, gives you a dead end mission, and doesn't even give you a contact! And you still want to work for him?"

I am not really that good of a sensor, the Yamanaka had people so talented they could see kilometers across, I was only a few decade meters.

"I assume that means you aren't loyal to Onoki, right? You never had good words to say about him, and you haven't seen him for so long. You could have attacked last war, so you want him to die before you attack, don't you? You hate your tsuchikage."

He laughed, and the sound echoed against empty walls.

"I have been here for 30 years, and not a single one I didn't want that old bastard to die. When I kill you, I will wish more than anything that he chokes on his own fucking spit like he deserves!"

I had sneaked around 10 shadow clones into the empty walls, inch by inch, bit by bit. There were 30 people in this room.

"There is a problem with that though. I can't die."

All 10 of my clones burst into the room, 10 opponents gone in an instant. The next 10 were easy too, yet the remaining 9 were saved by a copper whip slicing through each clone in a precise arc. Seidou prepared to lash his whip down at me, to carve me in two, but I flickered into the guard of one of his men, thinking he would have some empathy for his ally. I was proven wrong when the thread carved through my midsection with his subordinate too.

My body fell apart, my back falling so I could see a follow up from Seidou, arcing down to finish me. A gust of wind bellowed from my sliced lungs, and the cutting edge killed 3 others instead. The threads of my body repaired themselves near instantly, and I stood up and somersaulted over another horizontal arc. I jumped off the whip, body flickering into an axe kick, killing yet another foe. By then, the remaining four were too afraid to interfere, the two mad gods in the middle of this unfolding death storm clashing in a fatal whirlwind too dangerous to meddle with.

Seidou slinged pattern after pattern of razor-sharp blow at me, yet I dodged each and every one of them, my body twisting and turning in a macabre dance, a tango with a touch deadly weapon. Inch by inch, move by move I was gaining ground, myself letting cuts and gashes to be made to disrupt the rapidly swirling death spiral. He dodged around with a ludicrous fervour, avoiding my suicide dives and flung projectiles with a trained speed enforced with years and years of practice, his eyes red with strain as he kept them open, unblinking, scanning around, looking to cut off any route of escape yet never managing to get one, each of the remaining 4 cut in half as Seidou became more furious with his failings.

And eventually I was in reach, close enough to touch, and I reached my fist out, just as it got sliced off by a swipe. He smirked, seeming to thing he had won, but realising too late that my arm kept its momentum, and it could mend together with my shoulder, allowing my attack to continue, and smash into his face, taking it all the way to the ground, cracking both it and the floor. Then, I pulled my fist back, and slammed it back down, again, and again, and again and again and again. I punched so hard and so fast his head turned into a red paste.

Then a brought my head back, and looked towards to ceiling, and saw the corpses around me. It wasn't as silent as before, the dropping of blood, the pitter patter creating a rhythmic pattern. Red pooled everywhere, and the smell of sweet death infected the air like a heavy sugar musk.

I rose up, and walked over calmly to Seidou's desk. Under it was the boy, frightened not for them but for him. A psychopath more than anything.

"Ah, shinobi, I promise you-"

I grabbed his mouth with my palm, and burnt his skull with my fire chakra.

A fittingly painful end to such an insignificant brat. My age, but nothing more than a failure.

Not at a single point in time was I in any danger, I realised. I was tired, but not because I was fatigued, my body felt better than ever. Because I was away from home. I was as tired as that first week.

My fingers went through hundreds of signs at a medium pace. No speed was needed, I could be slow. I stepped past the multitudinous dead, corpses, dropped weapons and puddles of red, finally exiting the gate, and there I cast the jutsu. All across the city, I had put candles next to barrels of gunpowder. This jutsu would cast several bursts of flame into the air, and then home in on the small flickering flames, which would explode and send up more spurts of fire into the air. The hundreds of barrels would explode over and over again, and just like that the city would burn.

"And I walked through the burning embers, loud cracks of fire happening everywhere, which is when your ANBU showed up. You know what happened from there."

Minato took a few moments to think on what he had been told. Wherever he could trust Takai. Because part of him said it was insane to think he could. He didn't trust him in the first place, sent him away for 2 years to test him. But he succeeded, didn't he? He managed to live, managed to survive, became a stronger and more powerful person, better shinobi in each and every way.

But he was uncontrollable. He could tell. His strength, his decisions. He had to protect himself, by himself for years. He couldn't go back to the ways of being a typical soldier, needed freedom, and expression, and everything. He needed to be a commander.

And what would happen if Minato tried to kill him? He had no seal for a living person and even if he wasn't a threat, that immortality made him difficult to kill. If he escaped, he wouldn't stop trying to destroy the leaf until the end of days.

So, he decided to take the ergonomic option.

"Well. I believe you. And given your story, what you gave up for the leaf, it is only just I give you a promotion.

Yoro Takai. I, Minato Namikaze, the 4th Hokage, hereby awards you the position of a full jonin based on your combat experience, strength, decision making abilities, and sacrifices for your village."

Bright blue eyes looked serious as its owner continued.

"I also promote you to the position of spymaster, based on your expertise in this area."

And here Takai was in part shocked.

"Thank you. If I am being honest, I expected the jonin position, but to give me so much power?"

"It is a good fit. You have shown your capabilities for spywork, and I needed to replace jiraiya anyway. He was the 3rd's, and my own master, but the next generation has to replace the old one day."

"And you want to keep an eye on me. It is a good idea to keep me close, means you can monitor me and make sure I don't plot against you."

Minato gave that classic smile, but it was sardonic.

"I love my subordinates, but I can trust them so little. How many are traitors, how quickly would you have been killed if I sent you there officially? But you? I can predict you at the very least, and for some reason I feel like you are my friend."

Takai leant back on his chair.

"I feel that way too."

Day broke, a reminder of the black night contrasted with red hot flame of takigami, and Minato thought back to everything.

"Why do you think we fight, Takai?"

"Hard to say. To survive maybe, but we fight for more than that. For your village? But that can't sustain a man forever. I think we fight for ourselves, but not in a selfish way, but to prove ourselves. To show to the world we can survive, we can win."

"So we kill for the sake of it then? We kill because we were born that way, we were meant to kill innocents and smash children's heads across stones?"

Minato looked lost, and angry. He calmed and dipped his head in shame, and started again.

"That man you talked to, Kumori Dokusei. He was what many would call a ghost, he died and came back and wandered like a revenant, his only purpose to kill. Yet I met him twice. Once when he was at his lowest, and the next when he was starting to love again. And he must have had something. The legends don't tell of his crimes anymore, the death and destruction and violence, but his wisdom and forgiveness and strength."

"You think he realised something?"

"I think we have fooled ourselves into security. He lost his land, his rulership. Everything. Yet even in that nothing, he found something.

He became a legend whilst we stayed soldiers."

Takai breathed in, long and heavy, the wind whistled with it.

"I never could have done the things I have done before. Not before I died, not before I became a shinobi, not before I was sent there, not before Aka. I have been changed. I think we all have. We changed ourselves, and now we need to kill and steal and murder and destroy peace."

"No. We are bloodthirsty killers, yes, but we can create peace."

Takai gave a sad frown, and looked far away.

"Not forever."

A firestorm went up, and rain fell.

A/N: Hiatus over, story finished. This AN is going to be long btw.

So: this story is about how a normal person becomes a shinobi, or a soldier. Rainfall is about how a soldier becomes a legend, and really how they deal with a loss of purpose after losing their country. Takai and Kumori are mirrors of each other. Kumori lost the one thing he cared about, his country, whilst Takai lost everything he cared about except his country. In keeping with that metaphor, Takai loses his mortality and becomes a revenant or sorts.

I liked the idea of making a main character immortal from Jashin, and I had a lot of interesting ideas about the gods of Naruto. Having read some of Boruto, they fucking butchered it so all of the lore here is my own shit. The idea of mantling an idea and becoming insane yet powerful from doing it is in part inspired by Elder Scrolls lore. I thought the idea of jashin being weaker yet more free because he chose to be god of a weaker concept to be very interesting, and so I decided to use it.

If any of you power wankers want to know how strong Takai is, he is as strong as minato in terms of straight up killing potential. In a 1v1 with both parties knowing each other though, he would lose. Minato is just that good.

Aka was an interesting character. I made her because I wanted Takai to feel realistic, and him finding a relationship as a young and attractive man made sense, and served to show his unhealthy approach to being a spy. He put his all into it, to the point where it is impossible for us or him even, to know wherever he does something because he wants to or because others want him to. The BDSM thing was put in mainly as a link to Jashiniki, but also served as a very masculine way of fooling yourself, or using emotions to compromise yourself.

Her betrayal is also based on a personal experience. The idea of not knowing what your partner wanted, and never being able to ask is a terrifying one. Imagining that person never telling you why they left, if they hated you, themselves, if they just needed to leave because they didn't like you anymore. It is dramatized with a sort of metaphor about her literally stabbing him in the heart, but the relation to real life is there.

He becomes the spymaster because Minato considers him both his friend, and one of his best shinobi. If he fucks up of course, by being weak or a fool, he can always just imprison him.

This project was my most ambitious one to date, and my second fanfiction ever. I would like to thank the few who left reviews and follows on both of my stories, You guys were not the reason I continued but it made me happy to see there were those who enjoyed my writing.

Ok. Goodbye. Next story could be anything, I have no idea.