He could feel the boys push him into the cage, hearing the laughter and cheering coming from them while they walked away. Just one of them remained next to the cage. The boy smiled and looked at something at the back of the cage. "This is what you get for annoying a member of the royal family."

Kegare woke up in his bed, the sheets drenched by his sweat and his entire body screaming in pain and agony. It was the same old dream, the same old problem that haunted him for over forty-five years now.

Despite the fact that he had grown, perhaps even gotten stronger, he could still feel the pain, the gnawing and crippling agony seering in his flesh and bones. Every morning his skin felt like it would be ripped apart like paper, his muscles felt like someone had just put an entire pack of razor blades in every single piece of flesh that he had and had forced him to walk a thousand miles with those in it.

He couldn't help himself but cry in silence, for he no longer screamed. No, he had learned to refrain from doing so, but the tears never stopped flowing, the pain was too much to bear.

The man was gritting his teeth, his breathing rushed and shallow, while every vein in his eyes seemed about ready to pop... the agony alone would've killed him if he didn't resist it. God knew how many times he had aimed to end his life.

He had almost hung himself, had considered slitting his wrists or in true fashion, dropped himself from a cliff near the village. Yet even so, he always managed to regain his sense of self, regain his pride and sheer determination not to give in to these wounds, these marks, this curse that had been so graceously placed upon him by that brat long ago.

That same brat had died a few years ago, though it comforted him at first, Kegare soon learned that he died by poison in a peaceful way, not in agony as Kegare had hoped for him.

Life was unfair and now age was being that way as well, Kegare had lost his chance to become more than just a simple low level member of his clan, just another run of the mill shinobi. His wounds had robbed him of his health, his own indecisiveness had robbed him of his past chances and that kid, that royal brat had robbed him from his life.

The man stood up from his bed, feeling something crackle under his feet.

When he looked down, he noticed the ground was covered by a fine layer of black and silver colored crystal. It seemed his nightmare had yet again triggered the power of his blood, forcing it to seep out in such an unsightly manner.

He didn't complain though, just walking towards his bathroom, trying to use a towel to wipe off his sweat. Yet when he flipped the switch of the lights, the flickering of the tubes made his appearance look ghostly and freakishly frightning in his mirror's reflection.

For a moment, Kegare looked shocked, his fingers tracing the ragged lines, the edges of his skin, the deep red, almost black flesh exposed by the gaping wounds that had never healed.

He stopped gritting his teeth, yet his tears did not end, in a heartbeat he flipped the switch of the lights off again, looking at the reflection in the mirror, with only the moon's light revealing the horror which was constantly hidden behind the smiling mask... Kegare started to chuckle and went back to bed.

wc:615

The teeth gnawed at his flesh, their eyes red and filled with rage. With each bite, they tore through his skin and flesh, turning him from a regular, promising boy into the face of shame and disgust. The pain ripped through his body, igniting each and every nerve with an endless barrage of signals.

His blood turned cold and when he let out a scream, the biting stopped and the growling of the rabid beasts did not continue. The silence was immensely overpowering and almost as terrifying as the sound of the hounds earlier, yet with his body growing cold, submerged in warm liquid, the kid lost consciousness and decided to refrain from keeping on clinging to life and just let go, knowing that it had finally ended.

The truth was contrary though, as nothing had ended and in fact, the true horror had just begun...

Kegare woke up again, the sun shining through his windows and alarming him that it had already turned to another day. With his teeth gritting from the constant pain he was enduring, the man walked towards the bathroom, opened the medicin cabinet and started with his morning ritual:

First came the ingestion of half a dozen of painkilling foodpills with so-called restorative power, next up he had to carefully apply a chakra-herb based ointment to his skin and wounds, to prevent it from infecting and stimulate the cells to regrow, yet due to the severity of his age old wounds and scars, the ointment worked so pointlessly slow that it wasn't surprising that Kegare only used it just because he liked the feel of his skin relaxing thanks to the herbs in the ointment.

After that, he had to hold still for a while, so the ointment could soak into his skin, before rinsing himself and cleaning himself with soap with various useful and strengthening minerals.

When he had finally washed himself, the man would put on his clothes, wear his mask to cover his face and look at the mirror in his bathroom when he was finally fully clothed and not a single part of his wounds and scars had remained visible.

A chuckle left his throat when he looked at his reflection in the mirror, the mask covering his hideous face bore a creepy and frankly annoyingly eerie smile, yet it also conveyed that which Kegare felt: so much rage, anger, bitterness and sadness that it wouldn't even surprise himself that he had long gone man enough to actually make the mask his new face: a mad smile, a smile without concern for oneself or others, yet nonetheless a smile.

wc: 442
twc: 1057

While walking to the edges of the village, Kegare could feel it yet again; that itching and gnawing feeling at the back of his mind. It felt like a bug crawling around in his brain, a thought in his subconscious that was just aching to surface into his conscious self. In a sense he knew what it was, yet he decided to ignore it just like he had done for the past forty-something years.

It was the fear, the madness which had been burried deep within himself which was trying to get out, trying to surface and possibly make his day to day life even worse than it already was. The masked man sighed and gritted his teeth, the pain was already bad enough, there was no need to expand upon it with a loss of sanity and clarity of mind and thought.

Yet even if that was what he thought and decided, it was not entirely what he truly desired, for he knew that sometimes a dash of madness, a release of hatred and fear could do wonders to one's mental and physical health. However, he kne himself better than anyone else and risking the loss of sanity and possibly the loss of freedom because of it would be quite a steep price to pay for one moment of relief.

Letting out a sigh, scratching his head for a moment, the man continued to walk to a special training spot he had found just outside the village walls, a place of stone and rock like any other, but still a place he could call his own little secret, neatly hidden within the multitude of mountains and rockformations that surrounded Iwagakure no Sato.

It was time for him to train, to get rid of his stress, to let out his anger and hatred without falling into insanity and madness. Just some exercise was all he needed, exercise and a pain he'd create himself: a superficial one, yet strong enough to slightly take off the edge from his usual pain.

Upon his arrival, he was glad to see that his little secret training spot was just as he remembered it: untouched by foreign hands and filled with memories and sweat from his own body and brow. He knew and recognized every crack in every rock, every pebble and stone he had moved, kicked and punched at and every footprint in the gravel below his feet.

This was his place, his secret, his sanctuary from the burden of the past.

He started by removing his jacket, taking the knot out of his tie and neatly folding both and placing them on a rock nearby.

Kegare pulled his gloves straight, took off his hat and chuckled a bit. "Even old people like me can still train and learn new things each and every single day that passes."

wc: 477
twc: 1537

Skipping up and down, the older gentleman decided to start with his warm ups, throwing a few sets of ten punches into the air, followed by a dozen sets of ten high kicks with each leg. Flexing and turning his muscles, using them to the best of their ability, yet without straining or overexerting them just yet, for it would be pointless to do so during a simple warm up.

When his muscles had finally managed to get warmed up sufficiently, the masked man started with the second part: intensive chakra training. This was something he had not done in many years and as he was closing his eyes and calming his mind to feel the chakra flow within himself, he could instantly see that he had gotten rather rusty, as his control was severely lacklustre and limited even for a genin.

Opening his eyes again and letting out a sigh, Kegare clacked his tongue and scratched the back of his head. It seemed that if he wanted to push himself beyond his limits and become stronger, he'd have to seriously reform his basics again and form himself a strong foundation from which to work upwards.

Alas, he had long past his prime and truly pushing himself would most likely not yield the expected results, far from it even, training himself at his age might've had an even opposite effect and damage his already tattered body even more.

It was a problem worth thinking about, yet he did remember his medical ninjutsu and so far had always managed to get through a pinch by simply thinking straight, assessing the situation and if necessary use his medical knowledge, but Kegare knew that with the medical ninjutsu he should've been capable at some point to do so much more: restore his health and chakra, perhaps even strengthen himself or if the gods would be graceous, even restore himself to a more suitable point of his physical past.

It was a dream, an idea worth thinking about and worth training for, yet he'd need time and given his age he doubted he'd have much time or at least not as much as he'd wanted, so the final idea would've been his best bet: trying to find a way to restore himself to his prime or even maybe before that. If anything, removing the blight upon him that had crippled his future would possibly already be half of the work.

"No warrior starts with a bad body and a bad health or they'd be foolish," Kegare sighed again, his long breath turning into a chuckle as he realized there was possibly one clan that could provide records and possible information on this particular subject: The Gyanjin. "Well, hopefully their tomes are not too dusty or I'd get a dust lung."

wc: 475
twc: 2012

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