Gaining a Brother and Meeting an Old Friend (IO)

Salzem wandered Sunagakure with a purpose this afternoon. After that incident with Ashie yesterday, the white wolf felt the compulsion to hang out with his student, Dachi. Despite how they first met and how they were assigned to one another, Salzem felt a sort of connection grow between him and the younger boy. He was like the little brother he never had, and perhaps always wanted. Growing up a single child, Salzem never had a sibling to consult with or to look after. He never had someone who's safety and happiness trumped his own in priority, or who's success in certain accomplishments filled him with pride the way only a brother could. Teachers feel pride in their teachings. Salzem felt pride in the boy. He wanted to do something spontaneous, something nice for the kid to whom he's bound.

And so Salzem wandered that afternoon, looking around for the little white-haired prepubescent, checking for his trademark robe and hair. Not many in Sunagakure had hair the shade of fresh snow nor the robes he normally wore. The one thing that defined the kiddey from the others is that blissfully hopeful smile that always seemed to be on his face. No matter what Salzem tried, he couldn't stop the grin from infecting him as well. His hope was contagious...

"Salzem!" Dachi cried out happily as he spotted his teacher as he walked about.

The child ran towards the older shinobi, waving and grinning, his white robes blowing gently in the wind as he went, though in the moment the wind was not actually blowing. 

It had been some time since the boy had seen his teacher, and he was glad to see him here again. However, it seemed as if he had been expecting, or hoping to see Dachi. Or, perhaps he was just looking for something; Dachi was unsure. 

"Whatcha doin?" The child asked, walking up to his teacher, still smiling widely.

(sorry for the shawty post.)

Salzem's eyes widened in surprise as the person he was looking for came running up to him, his trademark smile on his face. He was as energetic as ever, Dachi was. Salzem couldn't help but grin when he saw the little kid, reaching out with a hand to ruffle his white hair as he stopped in front of him. For most of his life, fate had just been cruel and iron-handed, but sometimes, it had the decency to brighten his day with something like this.

"Hey there, buddy." Salzem said lightly, smiling down on his little-brother figure from beneath his mask. Immediately the little guy asked what he was doing and Salzem simply shrugged loosely. "I was looking for you actually. What'd you say we grab a bite to eat? I saw this nice little grill a ways back." If Dachi agreed, Salzem would nod and gesture back into the market place from which he came. Surprisingly, the market was pretty empty. Aside from those that ran the stalls and the odd passerby, there was no one around. It was almost like the roads embodied that which a desert was: dead. A ghost town. Of course, it was probably because people had other things to do that day, but that didn't make it any less unusual. Perhaps there was a black-friday sale or something the day before and no one needed to shop.

In any case, they would reach the grill and walk inside. A waiter would greet them and sit them down at one of those table-grill hybrids where you cook the meat and such yourself in the center of the table. While their waiter went to get there food, Salzem would look at his student and smile, a thought occurring to him.

"You know, you kinda remind me of my old teacher." Salzem would say, eyes gentle, but inquisitive, as if scanning the boy's soul in a noninvasive manner.  "Kasai, was his name. Nice guy. Has a lot of things to say. Most of which he said to me I try to live by." The look in Sal's sanguine eyes seemed to grow a tad wistful. "He's a smart guy. Wonder what he thinks of me now..." The last sentence he said quietly, mostly to himself rather than his friend.

"Sure!" Dachi said, full of excitement when his teacher suggested food. Being the small and ever growing boy that he was, Dachi was always hungry, and gladly accepted free food whenever it was offered. He was very glad to be able to spend time with Salzem again, for he missed and liked the older ninja very much. 

He gladly took the food that was offered to him, and was about to dig in while Salzem was talking, until he said something. 

A word. Was it a name? The young man had said something about his old teacher, but Dachi being the child that he was, was not listening very closely. In fact, he hadn't even actively heard the word that Salzem had said. Yet, it had been spoken, and passed through Dachi's ears, even if he had not processed it.

The boy was very aware suddenly, but paralyzed as the glass of water which he had been taking a sip from dropped, and shattered on the floor. 

His eyes were wide open, the pupils almost as white as the area around them, and his heart was pounding like a drum in his chest. Something was very wrong. 

Was it a name? Was it a an idea? 

Dachi slowly looked at Salzem, his breathing becoming harder. 

"W-what," the boy tried to say. However, even as the first words escaped his lips, the color of his eyes began to change, with tinges of a pink-ish red slowly appearing. 

"Who?" The child managed, struggling to stand, but then falling back into his chair. 

Something was very wrong. He was beginning to lose control of his body, just as he had when Fire Man had taken over to save his life once before. Dachi began to panic, his breathing accelerating greatly, but all of his muscles refusing to allow him movement. Slowly, the child's vision began to fade.

The moment Dachi's glass feel too the floor and shattered, the lycan stood up quickly, the sudden noise painful to his ears. The little boy tried to stand himself, but he fell back in his chair, his movements stiff and robotic. In an instant, he was by his student's side, one hand holding his, the other with its fingers to his throat, checking his pulse. It was quick, spastic, as if he was nearing dangerous levels of adrenaline.

"Dachi...? Buddy? Are you okay?" Salzem asked quickly, scared. His sanguine eyes were drawn wide with worry, using his lycan senses to detect the presence of some poison or pathogen or ANYTHING that wasn't supposed to be there... Nothing. It was then that the boy turned to face him, his neck making the same jerking motions as the rest of him.

"W-what..." He said. It was then that the Lycanthrope noticed something strange about his eyes. Around the edge of the iris, they glowed a burning red, as if fire was being stoked behind them. This gave Salzem pause for but a moment, but only a moment. He was back to tending to his student, weaving various handsigns for medical ninjutsu. It was a long time since he had to use this, but he forced himself to remember. For Dachi. His hands glowed with a flaming blue chakra and he pressed them to various parts of the kid's body in an attempt to heal some damage he couldn't see. First the heart, then the spine, then the head. Nothing. DAMN! What was happening to him? Slowly, the sanguine-eyed ninja lowered Dachi on his back in the booth chair in which he sat in some attempt to reduce any symptoms he had.

"No... no... nononononono...." Salzem muttered quietly, tears of frustration and fear forming at the edge of his eyes. Not Dachi... He couldn't lose him too...  He screamed for help, but, of course, no one was around. Were they ever...? They weren't when Isshin died. They weren't to talk him down from leaving. No one was EVER around when he needed them. And now Dachi was going to...

Dachi watched as Salzem rushed towards him, but as the young man began to dart around the small body, the child could no longer see. Shortly after, the young boy could no longer hear either, or feel, or smell. Inside of his body, Dachi had gone to sleep, though the physical body remained conscious and alive.

A few seconds later, the body stopped moving completely. There was no breath, no pulse, and no sign of life at all. His skin slowly became the same shade of his hair, and eyes gazed off into a void, fading back to their usual color.

That was, however, until a whisper came out of the child's mouth. 

"Kasai?" The child whispered, clearly asking a question, as if confused about the word. The word was spoken as if Dachi was unsure if it was even a part of their language at all, or simply just a noise.

Then, the world seemed to stand still for the body, remaining frozen for a second, with nothing but Salzem moving about.


"That is a name I have not heard in a very long time."

The voice that spoke was very clearly not the child's. It belonged to a man, decades older than the young boy, and with years upon years of experience. It spoke firmly, and with a tone that could command an army, but with a calm that one only felt when standing on the ocean alone. 

The body moved then, color returning to the veins, breath coming from the mouth and the nose, the chest rising and falling regularly. Though as it moved, it forced itself upright, as if controlled by a puppeteer, as it moved into a rigid and formal sitting form; one which did not look right for a boy who was so relaxed all of his life.

And then, the eyes ignited. From the center of each pupil erupted a vortex of swirling flame, and though they were contained to only the eyes of the boy, the turned and swirled like twin suns that were in the process of dying. 

A small smile danced around the lips of the child's strange body.

"One that I did not think I would hear ever again."

Salzem's eyes widened in horror, feeling Dachi's pulse slow dramatically all of a sudden. Everything about him faded away almost immediately. There was no more movement, no more breathing, no nothing. His skin faded to the color of his hair and his eyes... so blank... Tears flowed freely down Salzem's face as he gripped Dachi's shoulders. No.... no... He can't be dead.... He can't be.... no.... All the strength in Salzem's body seemed to fade, slumping over the lifeless body of his friend not unlike how how he did when Isshin was killed. He felt paralyzed by the sheer grief coursing through his body. He felt....

Were it not for his lycan hearing, he wouldn't have caught onto the quiet, windy name that escaped Dachi's lips.

"Kasai..." Immediately, Salzem jerked up, immediately at Dachi's side again, one hand on his neck, the other on his heart, searching desperately for a pulse. And then... Something odd happened. Another voice forced itself through Dachi's lips, one that shouldn't be playing out of that boy's mouth. When it spoke, Salzem jerked back in surprise, falling out of the chair and onto his butt on the ground, the shattered glass from Dachi's glass digging into his palms. He didn't even register the pain. The boy sat up, but in a jerky, loose fashion as if he were a marionette. It was incredibly unnerving how he sat up, and how his eyes glowed like two suns. Dachi had always spoken of spirits, ghosts and things... Could they be real....?

The voice spoke again and this time, he couldn't deny that it belonged to someone he knew. Salzem stared up at the twin balls of flame that rested in Dachi's eye-sockets, his own eyes wide in both terror and disbelief. Tears still flowed from Salzem's eyes, but he wasn't paying them any attention. He was more filled with disbelief and fear than he was with sorrow.

"Kasai.....?" He muttered. It was impossible and yet.... it was his voice...

At the mention of his name, Kasai turned the boy's head in Salzem's direction, smiled, and with a grace that Dachi never knew, stood slowly before extending his hand down to Salzem, offering to pull him up. 


"Your's is a face and a voice that I missed since I have left, my dear old friend," Kasai said, the deeper and mature voice seeming incredibly out of place for the mouth which it came from. 

If Salzem took the hand, Kasai would help to pull him back up with more strength than Dachi would have used, or perhaps even been capable of. 

"And yet, here we are, you and I," the man continued. "In a land I have never visited, together by a body that is not even my own, though yet separated by worlds impassable. Life, is a strange thing, is it not?"

Kasai sighed as his eyes flicked around the room before returning to his friend. He knew that he would likely not remain there for long before returning to the strange state which he had been in before; the void of blank nothingness, where he felt as if he was asleep for eternity. However, someone had spoken his name, and because of that, Kasai used the strength he had been gathering to emerge from the slumber. If someone remembered his name, and that it was good, he wanted to see them, and seeing now who it was, he was glad that he had came out.

It was without a doubt, the voice coming out of the boy's mouth was, in fact his old teacher's. The smile on Dachi's face was so smooth, so filled with warmth, It could only be his. And those eyes... Why were they like that...? Regardless, when he reached down his hand to pull Salzem up, he pushed the hand away and, instead, he got up himself and embraced the kid he recognized as Kasai. keeping his hands off the boy's back, instead using his wrists to embrace him. He still had glass dug into his hands, but he didn't care. The pain didn't matter. He was back with one of his oldest friends. Fresh tears ran down Salzem's cheeks, but they were ones of relief, joy. By this point, the ninja's face was red and dried, but he didn't care. After a year of isolation in a land he never knew and with people he was still learning to trust, finding an old friend in Kasai again was the greatest gift anyone could give him. Salzem found no embarrassment in expressing himself this way to his friend...

"I missed you too... So much..." Salzem whispered with more sincerity than anything he'd said before. After a moment, the bigger ninja pulled away, peering into those flaming orbs. Knowing that Kasai was there behind them, they seemed far less off-putting than before. Through Dachi's body, Kasai began to speak of how he was in a land he never visited, how they were brought together by a body that wasn't his own, separated by worlds... All this was very confusing for the lycanthrope. He knew not what he meant by this... It sounded almost as if Kasai was saying he was... dead? But that was obviously impossible. He was just using some jutsu to talk to him through Dachi. 

"Is Dachi okay? The boy you're speaking through." Salzem asked, his face growing serious. After that display, he worried for his friend's safety. If Kasai could confirm Dachi's health, Salzem would sigh, relieved, ready to move onto his second question.

"What do you mean, 'separated by worlds impassable?' I don't understand..."

Kasai smiled at the clear joy of his friend. He was glad to see him again, and glad that Dachi had found him. He would be good for the boy, and the boy would be good for him. The child had such potential that could be brought out.. no, that needed to be brought out, and Salzem was a good person to help him with that journey. He had always been Kasai's prized student, due to both his skill, morals, and mind set. 


"The child is fine," Kasai reassured Salzem, himself at first being concerned for the boy's health when he awoke. However, within a fraction of a second in the boy's mind, he had confirmed that all vitals were undamaged, and ever nerve and ending performed just as it should. "It was a strange awakening, but nothing about Dachi was damaged in the slightest. There is no need to worry, though I greatly appreciate your watching over this child."

Then, however, Salzem asked what Kasai had meant, and the man in the child's body stopped, and looked at his friend with a mournful look. He could tell both by the way he had asked, and the way in which he asked, the sad truth. Salzem had never heard of Kasai's death, and to this moment, must have believed that his old mentor was still alive in the world. 

Kasai took a slow breath, and looked to the wall before gazing back into Salzem's eyes.

"I mean what I have said," the man started slowly. "For while I may be here, speaking to you, our bodies, and our very souls rest in different worlds, that can only be passed through by the passing of life. The child has not lied to you when he has claimed that he is protected by the spirit whom he refers to as "Fire Man", for I am that spirit. I am thankful that is he is incorrect in calling you a spirit as well, for you still walk this world in your full conscious and life."

"In my passing, I found this child, and through some power that I did not know existed, latched on, and because of that, a fragment of my spirit has come to rest in this world."

Kasai paused, looking at Salzem one more time before summarizing all that he had said in a simple sentence.

"I am dead, Salzem," Kasai said, knowing that this knowledge was likely to hit the young man hard. "I have been dead for the better part of a year now."