Sayuri had spent a long time in Konohagakure no sato, mostly exploring as she didn’t actually live within the safety of its formidable walls. Even though by all right she may as well have said that she did live here by this time, it was certainly the longest she’d lived anywhere in well over a decade and it was beginning to feel like home to her. That morning she rose early as usual, rolling out of bed quite literally and playfully jumping to her feet just before hitting the floor, a favourite game as having a bed even after close to a year was still a novelty. She ran quickly to the bathroom and hopped into the shower, singing while she cleaned herself and taking time to draw amusing shapes with the suds from the sweet smelling soaps she was using. After drying off she dressed carefully, pulling on her azure blue fitted coat over her white blouse, stopping for a moment and grumbling having to disentangle one of the many brass buttons, yet again, from the lace along the sleeves. It was warm out so she opted for her short black skirt and then sat to lace up her white leather boots. Returning to the mirror she braided her long white hair so it hung over her left shoulder and with a casual shrug at her reflection and a quirky smile she made to dash out the door, screeching to a halt as she spied her weapons sitting on the table. “Silly duck, you really would lose your head if it wasn’t attached you know.” She turned around put on her belt, securing her tanto to her waist and attached another belt and pouch to her right thigh, which held her kunai and her shurikens. With a smile and shake of her head she did a spin on her heel, checking for anything else she was forgetting and then exited the cabin, locking the door behind her.

The day was quite warm, and the sun was already quite high as she walked cheerfully up to the village. She was finding the walk quite easy now even though it was long, and she waved to the groundskeeper as she passed he was always quite surly but she figured if she kept smiling maybe one day he would smile back. Her mood undeterred she would pick a few wildflowers as she walked and made it to the Konoha market in record time, just before the breakfast rush. While she still couldn’t tell time she was getting quite good at noting the timing of things, which was near enough to the same thing. She found a food stand and purchased some steamed rice and vegetables thanking the food stall owner and wandered away enjoying the delightful aroma that the food gave off. As she walked she nibbled on her food, it tasting every bit as good as it smelled, and found herself headed deeper into the Village proper, directly away from the large gate. She noticed as she strolled along that there were a lot more guards around this area, so naturally she had to go investigate, and she turned a corner to be met with a large bleak looking building that was heavily guarded. She stopped in her tracks, this was not anything like the rest of Konohagakure, it was so dismal and frightening looking compared to everything else here. She saw a young man passing by near her on the road who looked friendly enough so she called out to him, “Excuse me, I’m sorry to bother you, but what is this place?”

“That’s the prison, you’re not from around here are you?”

“I uh… no. Prison?”

“Yeah, where they lock up criminals. Y’know bad people? Probably kill ‘em in there too!”

The youth laughed and walked off with a shake of his head, leaving Sayuri somewhat horrified at his statement. Lock up bad people and kill them? In Konoha? There’s no way that’s true. She hoped it wasn’t true, but she had to find out for sure so she walked up to the front gate of the building, a slight tremble in her lip and approached the two guards who were standing at attention and eyeing her now that she was in view.

“What’s your business Miss?”

“I was just told that this is a prison, where you lock up criminals. . .” she paused to swallow her emotions before continuing her sentence, “. . . and kill them. And I really want to believe that is not true. But I had to know, I didn’t think that happened here in Konoha. Do you really just put people in here and kill them?”

The two guards looked askance at each other and then the older looking of the two spoke again, “Miss, I don’t know who told that, but it’s not true. We do take good care of our prisoners here. That’s just someone trying to cause trouble, I can assure you, there’s nothing to worry about.” Sayuri could tell he was trying to be comforting, but when someone tells you not to worry, it always has the opposite effect. And so she simply worried more, as was the reasonable reaction.

“But I have no way of knowing that! I’m sorry, it’s not that I don’t trust you specifically, it’s just that. . . can I go inside?” She had been told by the three people closest to her Mitsuo, Tsuyo and Shiro that they were criminals. She couldn’t stand the thought that if they ended up in a place like this they would just be killed. She had to know.

“Inside? Well, I suppose. We do allow visitors from time to time. However, we’ll need you to sign in here,” he pointed at a book lying on a table while reaching for a pen “and I’ll need to confiscate all your weapons. You’ll get them all back when you leave of course, but we can’t have you wandering around a prison with weapons.”

Sayuri looked down at the book with a sigh, she was hopeless she knew, still she accepted the pen and shakily wrote “Sayuri” on the page where he indicated. It was one of the only things she knew how to write. She was not happy about having to leave her weapons, and frankly didn’t even understand why fully, the only ‘criminals’ she’d met so far had been terribly nice people and unlikely to cause any harm. But she complied regardless taking off her belt and pouch and leaving her weapons with the guards. Another guard approached her, and began patting her down which caused her to flinch away once and yelp. “I’m sorry Miss Sayuri, we need to make sure you don’t have any other weapons.” She was altogether unhappy with this turn of events, but the thought of her dearest friends allowed her to steel herself and she stood still while the guard finished, trying hard not to cry before finally following him through the large locked doors.

1197

The sound of water droplets falling from the ceiling kept her awake, making it hard to get some rest and to forget the pain she was enduring. With her tenketsu shattered, there was no way for her to use her chakra to soothe herself and unlike before, she was now completely alone. It frightened her; to not know how her beloved pet Uraeus was doing, yet she was confident in him and his survival instincts. These bars, this cell, this prison... she would find a way to regain all she had lost, there was nothing that could hold her against her will anymore. She had already been shackled and bound before, she had already endured captivity, but no more.

Risu sighed, as her fingers slid over the makeshift eyepatch which covered up her right eyesocket. It still felt as if her eye was still there, as if someone was stabbing it with a scalpel or sticking sharp senbon in it, yet she knew it was gone and that all she felt was a phantom pain, an illusion, a trick played on her by her mind. However, even if her eye was gone, ripped out and destroyed by that brute with his unnaturally tense chakra, the pain she felt could not be any more real than the very fingers scratching at the emptiness behind the patch.

"I'm stuck and he's free, in the end it seems I did win in a way," The young woman sighed and stood up, placing her hands against her cell's door and calmly trying to breathe, fearful of what could be beyond the bars of the door, still vividly remembering the moment He spoke to her from beyond them, still strongly remembering his immense, uncharted chakra. He didn't lie, He truly had become the closest thing to what could be called a God of the Shinobi. He had truly become as powerful as the shinobi of old and His dream of surpassing them didn't seem so farfetch'd now. "But even so, I should be free. I should not be bound, I should be the one to kill him in the end and take all that he is into myself... who am I kidding, as I am now, he'd blow me away like a leaf in the wind..."

"Silence, you're ought to reflect on your misdeeds, you slithering monster. You've killed some of our finest men, shut your trap and get back into the solitude of your cell, you murdering bitch!!"

The voice of the guard ripped Risu out of her thoughts and placed her square back into reality, a reality where she had lost and her uncle had won the bet. Letting go of the bars of the celldoor, the former Anbu captain started walking around in her cell, wondering who those two were, those two that had cornered her and humiliated her, those two that had destroyed her abilities and shattered her dreams.

The name Hyuga Tsuyo did ring a bell though and she knew herself well enough, if anything did ring a bell to her, it had to have some meaning, a reason to do so. He was a hyuga, yet she knew the Hyuga clan quite well and did not remember meeting one with his name during the festivities of her own clan during the ceremony of her ascension. It was odd that someone who was obviously of such a high caliber, would not be part of the Hyuga clan's most high profile members. Perhaps he wasn't part of the clan, perhaps not anymore. It made sense, that he'd be some sort of missing nin, a wanderer perhaps... she did not know nor could she put her finger on it, but she still believed to have heard his name before or at least having seen it before somewhere...but where?

"Allright you pathetic lot, we've got a visitor, behave yourselves and perhaps you may expect a better meal this evening!!"

"Oh goody, would we get some rice?" Risu chuckled as she grabbed the bars of her celldoor again, smirking at the guard who yelled at her earlier. "The food truly is terrible in this place."

705

As she and the guard walked inside Sayuri started to feel truly nervous. She didn’t like being inside buildings much in the first place, especially not ones filled with adults, especially adults she didn’t know and most especially without her weapons. Perhaps the guard sensed her anxiety though for as they walked down a flight of stairs he turned to her and spoke softly, “You don’t have anything to worry about, There’ll be someone right there with you. We don’t let visitors go in unsupervised, and anyway they prisoners are all locked up in their cells. They can’t hurt you.” She would smile up at the guard as they reached the bottom of the stairs and squeak out a quiet “Thank you” as she straightened her clothing just so she had something to take her mind off the rising panic she was experiencing from feeling trapped in this tiny space. “Is there anything I should know?” she would ask just before he went to unlock the door separating the hallway to the prison floor, reaching her hand out in a vain effort to stop him. He raised an eyebrow at her moving hand before answering, “Just don’t put your hands in the cells. You’ll be fine.”

He moved into the room and motioned for her to follow after him, and taking a deep breath to calm her nerves she would. She was surprised at how stark and damp it was, she wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, but with how warm of a day outside it was, it was shocking that it was so terribly cold down here. She would stand just past the doorway awkwardly looking around as her escort spoke to the guard already in the room in hushed tones. There were several rooms on either side of a long hallway, that were more like cages, with bars instead of walls and doors. It made her sad to see, she’d heard of prisons, but never seen one and now she regretted it deeply. They seemed horribly inhumane.

"Alright you pathetic lot, we've got a visitor, behave yourselves and perhaps you may expect a better meal this evening!!"

Sayuri would raise an eyebrow at the guards command, A better meal? What on earth does that mean? She didn’t have time to think on it too hard though as her escort came to her again, “You have one hour and then I’ll come retrieve you.” With a quick nod he left her side and vanished back up the stairs.

She heard a woman’s voice call from one of the barred off rooms about the food being terrible. Curious now more than frightened, she would walk over towards the woman stopping just shy of the bars themselves.

She noted that the woman had a piece of cloth tied to cover her right eye, which Sayuri found puzzling, and she would open her mouth to ask about it then promptly shut it again as she thought better of it. Silly duck, you can’t always just say the first thing that jumps into your head you know. So instead she would open her mouth again and say the second thing, which was only slightly less socially awkward than the first thing she was going to say.

“Uh, hi. I’m Sayuri, and uh. . . I overheard you saying the food was bad. I was just here to see if, well I heard that they treat people badly in here. And anyway, I thought that couldn’t be right so I came to see. You look, um. . . how to say this. Disheveled? Did they treat you badly?” She would pause for a moment to let the woman answer as she leaned her palms against the bars, she was told not to put her hands into the cells so this was probably fine by her reasoning. Finally though curiosity got the better of her, as it always did, and she blurted out her initial question. “Why do you have cloth tied to your head?”


684/1881

"You have one hour and then I’ll come retrieve you.”

Risu was quite intrigued when she heard the guard say those words, which meant that the so-called visitor was actually visiting the third level of the prison, which without a doubt had to mean this visiter wanted to talk to someone rather noteworthy. After all, the third level held not only the former Anbu captain, but also a host of other notorious criminals with page long records and misdeeds.

"Guess we'll be having someone prominent visiting us," The woman slumped a bit before suddenly leaning closer to the rails of her celldoor, just to sate her own curiosity when she tried to see if she'd know who had come to visit, after all if the person was prominent enough, she might've been able to find out how the village was doing. Not to mention that if she was Lucky she might find her ticket out of there, yet when she noticed someone she did not recognize nor knew, Risu's shoulders slumped and she let out a long sigh of disappointment and disbelief. "Ugh...just my luck to have someone come around that I truly don't know at all."

“Uh, hi. I’m Sayuri, and uh. . . I overheard you saying the food was bad. I was just here to see if, well I heard that they treat people badly in here. And anyway, I thought that couldn’t be right so I came to see. You look, um. . . how to say this. Disheveled? Did they treat you badly?”

The former Anbu captain was shocked when she heard the voice so close to her door, noticing that a pair of eyes was watching her, looking at her with something she had hardly seen in her life: true concern for another's wellbeing. Yet rather than to respond at first, Risu gave the young woman at the other end of the cell's door a smirk, looking intently at the guest with her remaining golden, snakelike eye. "Treat people badly... eh, I think it depends on what your crime is. Some are just simple petty thieves and thugs, others have committed fraude or cover ups and some have murdered people, it all depends on what you're in here for."

The former Anbu captain's smirk quickly vanished, the concern of the girl at the other end truly amused her in a sense. It seemed that the world was still full of people who had yet to see the true nature of the world around them and the darkness and shadows that lurked within every mind and heart. "Sayuri... I'm part of the last mentioned category, the worst kind if you will, since my victims were shinobi and in regards to the cloth in front of my eye...let's just say I had a run in with two rather strong fellows and lost the confrontation, which made me end up in a cell, in this prison... ironically."

503/1208

Sayuri looked in fascination at the woman’s golden eye. It was very pretty, and reminded her very much of a snake’s eye. She liked snakes quite a bit, when she was surviving on her own she often ran into snakes in the woods or under houses or in barns, they didn’t give her any trouble as long as she didn’t behave aggressively or startle them. The smirk threw her a bit, it had been some time since anyone had looked at her like that. A very long time, and it brought up memories that she didn’t want at the forefront of her mind, so she would shake her head once to try to clear the thoughts as she listened to the woman explain about how there were different types of criminals. The idea had never crossed her mind before truly, and when she mentioned petty thieves she felt a stab of guilt at her own crimes. Like it or not the fact of the matter was that Sayuri was as criminal by that definition. Justified or not she had stolen food when she had been growing up, on many an occasion. Does that mean that I should be in a place like this then? Locked up in a cell, behind bars. Maybe I should be. The thought caused her all sorts of inner turmoil as she looked at the woman with the smirk and the pretty gold eye.

She wondered what sort of criminal the woman was, but not for long as she explained that she was someone who had murdered people. She didn’t quite understand the significant difference between murdering a Shinobi versus murdering anyone else though. Wasn’t it the same thing? Weren’t all lives inherently valued at the same worth? She pushed the question aside to ask later as she listened to her explain the cloth covering and was horrified at what she learned.

“You lost your eye? Oh, I’m so, so sorry. That must feel horrible.” Her hand would instinctively go up to cover her right, green eye, leaving only her blue one staring back at the woman in anguish. There was nothing wrong with it of course, never had been, it was just simple human nature to empathize with pain. Phantom pain her grandfather had called it. She could not imagine what it must be like to have something like that happen. The worst thing that had ever happened to her so far was when she had attacked Mitsuo and he and his chain whip and quickly taught her leg why that was a very foolish idea. She had thought she was going to die, no wished she was going to die and then she’d been only a few hours walk away from Tsuyo who had healed it straight away. It hadn’t been such a terrible experience all things considered, she hadn’t lost any body parts and no one had locked her in a cell afterwards.

She would lower her hand again, realizing that it was probably not appropriate as there was nothing actually wrong with her own eyes, and she didn’t want to appear to be mocking the woman. “I guess, I don’t really understand. Why is it ironic? And why do you have a cloth tied on your head, instead of. . . I don’t know, why didn’t someone heal you? I’ve been to the hospital here. There’s very talented Shinobi that could heal you, so why hasn’t anyone done it?” She could feel herself getting upset as she spoke, her voice rising in pitch to match the frustration she felt with the unfairness of the situation. Clenching her jaw closed she would breathe quietly for a few seconds to try to stop the tears that were threatening to spill from her eyes. “Why did you say that you’re kind, I don’t, I mean. Uh, killing people is all the same isn’t it? Killing Shinobi is the same as killing anyone else, why is it any worse? That doesn’t seem right to me. That’s like saying they’re more valuable somehow and I don’t think that’s right, is it?”

709/2590

The former Anbu captain looked at Sayuri, tilting her head a bit when the girl made probably the most obvious of comments possible. of course did losing her eye hurt, what else would it do? sting a bit?

Lamya luckily didn't voice these words out loud, simply sighing as she took a step back from the cell's door and leaned against the wall, the concrete feeling cold and moist to the touch. It was a soothing and even comforting feeling, which was odd given the fact that Lamya desired nothing more than absolute freedom, yet was trapped in such a small and confined space, living on the so-called mercy of the prison's guards and its warden. It was a cruel joke of life towards her, but than again, as she said: she was a murderer of the worst kind.

"It's ironic because only recently I was a free woman and I tried to stage a prison break out, only to end up in it...that's what's so ironic," Again she sighed, her free hand reaching for the cloth in front of her empty eyesocket, as she was forced to remember that moment in which she had lost her eye again. The prison breakout had turned into a failure of sorts, though the one she wanted, no, needed to free had managed to get out on his own...but that was not according to her plan. She needed to have control over Enaka, shackle only his body, but not his mind, now she had neither.

"I'm a traitor, someone who had nearly let out all of konoha's prisoners...though its worst monster did escape in the end...I guess," The former anbu captain let out a chuckle or two before having a moment of about five seconds in which she started laughing out loud, ending with a soft snicker and a deep sigh, turning her gaze back to Sayuri as she wiped away her tears of joy. "You really think they'd give me anything but the basic medical attention...or any for that matter? I represent this village's darkness, the true reality of the shadow beneath its buildings and beneath its feet. A great example of how a village loses its way through the passages of time, that's what I am."

Again she laughed, and as she stopped, Lamya's lips curled into a crual and almost vicious grin. In an instant she had reached the door, her face only millimeters away from the bars and her single eye looking at Sayuri without emotion, without compassion, only the void that had grown within Lamya's heart over the years was visible in that single golden orb. "When someone is killed quickly, it is mercy...I do not like torture, torture is beneath me, yet it is not beneath konoha, it is not beneath those trodding into the light to torture those they deem unworthy or dangerous elements... I am such an element, a flawed monster. I killed their shinobi because they stood in my way, I killed their so-called protectors. Is it not worse in the common eye to kill a hero of a village rather than some nameless person?"

542/1750

Sayuri was taken aback at the one eyed woman’s answer to her question about irony. Why would she try to break someone out of here? Although, if any of my friends were trapped in here I suppose I would try to break them out, so maybe that’s not such a strange thing. But as she continued and laughingly stated that she’d been trying to let all of the prisoners out, and that Konoha’s worst monster had escaped, Sayuri lost her capability to empathize. It made sense to her to want to help your loved ones, their reasons for the things they had done and the choices they had made could be justified in your mind. At least they were in her mind. But to simply release everyone, without knowing whether it was right or good to do so? She would pull away from the cell door slightly, hugging her arms around herself, a sudden chill in her bones as she thought about what that meant. It’s possible that this woman had a deeper understanding of all these people than she did, highly possible as she had only just seen the prison today, and yet the sudden laughter and even tears were incongruent with a person who had lost out on the chance to help her friends or loved ones to freedom. She would have expected more sadness or heartache, or anything really other than the mirth she saw that made her supremely uncomfortable.

Sayuri thought back to her first encounter with Mitsuo when after her very foolish attempt on his life he had given her what she had then believed to be a cryptic piece of advice.

"Silly girl...the world is not so simple. There is no such thing as Black and White, only shades of gray."

Now however, that puzzling phrase that had been gnawing at her started to become more clear as she watched the joyful laughter fade in an instant and abruptly the woman was there in front of her face. Sayuri’s eyes would go wide with fear but she did not move back from where she stood. She had not seen her move at all, which was frightening to say the least, she knew few people with that sort of speed and she was certain that her fear was blatantly apparent on her face. As she listened to the woman talk of torture and monsters she would grow pale and raise her voice, trying hard to be brave as she felt her anger rise at the woman’s words.

“No I don’t think it’s worse. Heroes are there so that so-called ‘nameless people’ don’t have to die. Why on earth would you think it’s funny to let a monster out? And why would call yourself a monster? A hero once told me ‘...there is no such thing as good or evil people, only people who commit both good and evil deeds...’ If that’s true then no one can be a monster, not unless they choose to be one, and I don’t understand why anyone would choose that. I know I don’t understand, so you’re probably going to tell me. So everyone keeps telling me, but it doesn’t make sense to me. Why is it so hard to just not hurt people?”  

Her fists were clenched in tiny fists at her sides as she spoke, her voice softening as she spoke, the futility of her words echoing hollowly not just against the walls of the cell in front of her but in her heart as well. She would sigh sadly run her hand through her hair, being cautious of her distance from the cold eyed woman and deceptively quick woman. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to yell at you, I don’t even know you.” She would turn to go, she didn’t know if it had been an hour or not, but she was scared and full of heartache. She was hoping that what the boy outside had said was wrong, but it turned out that it wasn’t. Whoever this woman was, she was clearly being mistreated down here and she didn’t know what to do about it, or if there was even anything she could do about it. “I’m sorry that they hurt you, it’s not right, doesn’t matter what you did. I uh… should go though.” She walked to the guard who gave her an amused raised eyebrow and held his finger to his ear and spoke quietly, a few minutes later the door unlocked and her escort walked through. “Ready to go? That was fast.” Sayuri would just nod quietly and look back at the golden eyed woman sadly before following the guard up the stairs and back into the safety of the brightly lit and well ordered Konoha.

{Exit Thread}

820/3410

The woman let out a sigh as she listened to sayuri whimper, the fear was written all over her face, while Lamya's face simply showed a certain degree of delight. It was true, it was right, even now she was still at the top of the pecking order, even with one eye gone and with her jutsu impossible to use, she still had that one thing which would not falter: her body, her presence, her being itself. Years of darkness had molded her body, months of light had sharpened her mind and days of dull gray had made her look at herself, at her flaws and her mistakes, her transgressions and shortcomings.

"Heroes are misguided fools, thinking that those they save would be grateful, but all those nameless folk do is depend on them and when their so-called, precious heroes fail to live up to the image they created for them, they discard them, such is the reality of this world," The former ANBU captain sighed and showed Sayuri a smirk. She had once been naive as well, twice even. She had thought of her parents as heroes and yet they died miserably, betrayed by the person and the people they sought to protect. She thought of her uncle as a hero, only to end up in his web of lies and deception. Yes, she had believed in the ideals that were so dogmatic and glorified, but she had seen reality, she had seen how the village treated her after her first failure, how other shinobi looked at her with contempt and disgust. The world is harsh and cruel to those who were deemed a failure or a monster.

So she had chosen her path, deciding to embrace that which they called her: a snake, a devil, a monster, but she would not accept one single word: failure. There was no failure, there was simply a change of plans, room for adaption and restoration, but never failure. "You know what made mankind the dominant species on this planet? Not it's love or its emotions...It was cruelty, the endless potential to evolve and the endless potential for unbound cruelty that came with said evolution."

Lamya noticed that Sayuri was pulling back, that she was leaving, making haste to avoid another word coming from the kunoichi's lips, yet even so...Lamya had not spoken her last word yet and as she heard the guard say: “Ready to go? That was fast.” She raised her voice, laughing loudly so the entire floor could hear it.

"Silly...silly girl, there are only absolutes in this world, there is no in between... All kindness is met with equal cruelty. There are monsters, yes REAL monsters in this world...and monsters are ABSOLUTE!!"

462/2212

training:

[EXIT THREAD]