1 Waking Up [Plot/Hayato/Private/No Kill] Sat Apr 19, 2014 8:19 pm
Naoko
D-rank
Previously, during Seven Bells...
I felt rushing cold water envelop me, swallowing me, sucking me under, and twisting me in circles, then propelling me up to the surface--only to gasp a single breath of air. A gasp and I was under again.
And there was heat, a strange moist heat at his temple that seared through the freezing water that kept swallowing me, a fire where no fire should burn. There was ice, too; an icelike throbbing in my stomach and my legs and my chest, oddly warmed by the cold water around me. I felt these things, acknowledging my own panic as I felt them. I could see my own body turning and twisting, arms and feet working frantically against the pressures of the whirlpool. I could feel, think, see, perceive panic and struggle--yet strangely there was peace. It was the calm of the observer, the uninvolved observer, separated from the events, knowing of them but not essentially involved.
Then another form of panic spread through me, surging through the heat and the ice and the uninvolved recognition. I could not submit to peace! Not yet! It would happen any second now; I was not sure what it was, but it would happen. I had to be there!
I kicked furiously, clawing at the heavy walls of water above, my chest burning. I broke the surface, thrashing to stay on top of the water. Climb up! Climb up!
It happened. The explosion was massive; I could hear it through the clashing waters and the wind, the sight and the sound somehow my doorway to peace. The sky lit up like a fiery diadem and within that crown of fire, objects of all shapes and sizes were blown through the light into the outer shadows.
We had won. Whatever it was, we had won.
Suddenly I was plummeting downward again, into an abyss again. I could feel the rushing waters crash over my shoulders, cooling the white-hot heat at my temple, warming the ice-cold incisions in my stomach and legs and…
My chest. My chest was in agony! I had been struck--the blow crushing, the impact sudden and intolerable. It happened again! Let me alone. Give me peace.
And again!
And I clawed again, and kicked again … until I felt it. A thick, oily object that moved only with the movements of the sea. I could not tell what it was, but it was there and I could feel it, hold it.
Hold it! It will ride you to peace. To the silence of darkness … and peace.
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Presently, in the Hospital...
Light slowly appeared before me. Faint and small at first. And so far away. So far. I reached out with my hand, or at least, I thought it was my hand. Everything around me was so dark that I couldn't tell what anything else was. Except for the light.
I must reach it. Reach it!
My whole body burst into a hot pain that spread throughout my body as I felt myself be opened up into the light. The heat burned under my skin, under my eyelids. It was a fever I couldn't sweat out, yet as intense as swallowing the sun. Tears stung my face as I opened them. Everything about my body hurt and the more I opened up my eyes, the more aware I became of my body's state. I could feel the bruises, the swelling, the stitched cuts. It took me a few hours to get over the pain and reposition myself to be more comfortable in the bed.
What happened to me?
I laid on my hospital bed, holding up the one piece of paper that had brought me to this village. The only thing still left on me. A brief letter from a dead woman, a ninja of this village, that told of why she had chose her life and died for her village. It was this parchment that I had left my samurai village, my home, and sought out this place in hopes of discovering the amazing village that this woman had written so fondly of. Sadly, what was written and what I personally discovered were two different things. One would have thought I had come to the wrong village. Had it not been for its name being specifically stated on the letter, I would have believed that thought myself, yet it was not so.
What had she seen that had made her be so dedicated? Certainly not the order that ruled this village. The Mizukage, though nice in person, had been the root cause of the Seven Bells. I knew this because it was on everyone’s lips, everyone’s tongues. The whispers of it filled the air, clung to the wet molecules of mist that clung at people’s shirts and scarves. Why had she written this letter at all? I had found it on her dead person anyhow which meant that she had known her time was coming to an end. Did she feel that someone would come across it and be as inspired as I was? The letter posed more questions than answers as to why its words were so misleading.
Whatever had this woman seen in such a moldy, soggy pit of a village. It seemed all of the world’s filth had flowed down the great waters and drifted onto this island. Kiri had at least brought the worst upon itself just a few months ago when Seven Bells and his army of devoted miscreants decided to turn upon their creators. The war that had sucked me into it back when I was still blinded by this dead woman’s letter. This letter had tainted my eyes so much that I had fought alongside the ninja of this village.
Ninja!
My family would have spat upon my feet and cursed the ground that I stood on if they had seen the folly of my ways. It seemed that fate had decided it was time to step in and struck me down in battle, placing me under it’s spell for months until finally I was awakened from my coma. Awake and untainted, my eyes were able to see Kirigakure no Sato for the disgusting filth that it was. The times that I had spent with the ninja of this village were nothing. They had given me odd looks, studied me as if I was a rare animal that they had captive. Even during the reconstructing process of the damaged areas of the town, not all of the villagers would lift a finger. Instead most demanded the ninjas and guards to do the work, blaming them for the destruction and although I had to agree that it was the system that these ninja had created that had brought about the destruction of the village. Their own sins revisited upon them and I had suffered the consequences of trying to protect them from their own sinful repercussions.
I kicked my legs out from under the bed sheets and hopped off. The cold, sterile tile chilled me to the bone as I moved around, searching for my clothes to change from the hospital gown they had dressed me in. Finding the locker in the corner bathroom, I took the moment's privacy I had to quickly get dressed in my clothes before a nurse might come in to stop me. I needed to get out of here, gather my things and plan my departure.