I Just Wanted Some Steak [IO]

“I appreciate the offer, Yurei, but I think… I think this is something I need to do on my own this time.”
Yurei nodded in understanding. He would want the same. Some things just have to be done on their own. The Uchiha planned to do the same with his father after their makeshift ceremony for Akio. Things needed to be said – but the difficult part was knowing they couldn’t reply.
“I’m not running. I’m going to make my peace today. No more avoiding, no more grief,” Damon said as the pair continued walking. Yurei nodded, but he could not help but feel Damon was wrong. The black flames, Akio, this aversion to fire… Despite this, Yurei chose to believe in his brother. That growth was needed, and it was time to move on. Not completely, however. The past shapes a person, and to forget it was to abandon its lessons. The Uchiha knew that as truth, now, and he’d never forget the lessons he was taught and the future they would bring about. The white-haired Uchiha gazed at Damon’s hands, noticing that he had balled them into fists. This was no doubt difficult for him.
The chuunin gave an affirmative nod, asserting himself as confident in Damon’s ability, at least on the surface. As the pair arrived at the cemetery, Yurei spotted a family up ahead, dressed in the typical black known to accompany funerals. As such, the Uchiha meld his mind into a void, if only for now. This place brought back too many memories, and they were not something Yurei wanted to confront just yet. Akio came first.
As Yurei neared the back of the cemetery, Esu came into view. The dog had waited patiently at an memorial – one Yurei had created earlier. The dog’s head was low to the ground, as were his ears. “I told him to wait here until I found you. It’s nothing special, really, but I know how to work with tools, and it was the best I could come up with. When I was little, I used to make suits of armor with my dad. He showed me my way around a workbench.”

Esu stood, slowly walking to Yurei as the pair came to the memorial. The craft itself was light grey in a spire-esque design. In front of the memorial was a glass panel, housing a print of Esu’s paw, engraved into the stone.

WC: 2799 

“It’s beautiful, Yurei,” Damon remarked, noting the memorial’s craftmanship. Yurei, on the other hand, was unsatisfied. There were imperfections all around the structure, and they stuck out to the boy like a sore thumb. Akio deserved better. He deserved more than a makeshift altar hastily crafted by someone who hadn’t practiced with tools in years. He deserved a burial, a gravestone, a funeral.

Right now, his family was experiencing what Yurei and Damon would have been. They felt that loss without a shred of the closure that Yurei and Damon had. To them, Akio was still out there. Wandering, alone, cold, and without Esu. I hate this village. I hate the Hogokage. I hate this shinobi world.

Yurei glanced at Damon. Hate was not within the pale young man’s gaze. Instead, it was only a cold somberness – that loneliness he could never hope to get used to. When Akio died, he took a piece of Yurei with him, as Yurei’s father had before. Pieces of the alabaster chuunin were being swept away one by one. It ate away at him.
“I wish his family could know. They must… they must be losing their sanity by now. I couldn’t imagine having a child who just vanished like that…” Damon said. He was right.

Yurei clenched his fists and grit his teeth. He gave a cold stare, cutting through the monolith. Esu whined, pawing the structure and then laying in the grass with his head down. Yurei emptied his thoughts, for within them was nothing but malice. Nothing but icy contempt.

“I will miss you, Akio,” he said, speaking up. Yurei’s voice broke a bit of silence. “I’ll make a world where no one will have to run away from their own home. I promise you, Akio.”

Damn this village. Damn Hoshigakure. Damn the Hogokage to hell for those orders. Damn this world.

Yurei tucked his his head, breaking off from the monument. He sat silent for a moment, in thought. Tears trickled down his cheeks, and the popping of his knuckles echoed throughout the cemetery. It was quiet for Yurei. Quieter than it had ever been. Should Damon speak, he would not hear his words. There was nothing but that deafening sound of nothingness, that damnable silence that tortured him every second. It swelled within the pale Uchiha for what seemed like an eternity, but, when it became too great, Yurei inhaled, shifting his silvery eyes to Damon. He made eye contact with Damon, staring at him for the briefest of moments. There was nothing but cold hatred within his flooding eyes.

Light from the dim sun reflected off of them, unveiling just how glossy they were. Yurei released the air from his lungs, exhaling. He broke off, passing Damon. “I need to speak with my father. Stay here as long as you want…” Yurei swallowed, relaxing his hands if only slightly. The white Uchiha marched up the sandy hills, headed to his father’s grave, to the place where this all began.


WC: 3300

Approved

Yurei maneuvered through the cemetery, weaving through the tombstones. Despite the sobbing of families, the Porcelain Chuunin could hear nothing. The world around him was dead. He focused only on himself and on the grave before them. Roshi Uchiha.

The young man stood in silence, staring at his father’s burial site. It had been so long since it happened, but the pain was still there. The guilt was still there. But something bubbled within Yurei, slowly rising. Something dark.

“Father,” Yurei muttered, looking upon the tombstone with distant eyes. “I’ve come back.” The Uchiha paused. He did not mutter a sound. He did not stir. He simply stood before the man who raised him, guided him. The man who struck him.

“You taught me many things, Father. More than anyone ever has other than my own experiences. I’ve learned a lot since we’ve last spoke…” Yurei tightened his hands. “I’ve come back to remind you that I set out to prove you wrong. To prove to you that shinobi were not evil, but guardians. Protectors. That they were good.”

Yurei chuckled, cracking a thin smile. “I was wrong.”

His faded eyes looked upon the risen dirt in its sporting of new grass. “I was naïve.” Tears began to emanate from his eyes, falling just past his eyelids. “This village betrayed me. It showed me just how wrong I was. That, despite all I sought to achieve and do, it would withhold information from me that bring me peace of mind. Others peace of mind. Shinobi are cruel. The Kage is cruel.”

Yurei pursed his lips. “But you were wrong, too,” he said. Ice was in his voice. “Shinobi were the target of your hatred, but I see now that it should have been something else. Something else entirely. Shinobi are cruel because this world is cruel. We live in it, every single day, and, despite all of our work, there is always hardship. And, more often than not, it is other people who cause so much pain. Not just shinobi. Shinobi killed your family. You hated them. And I became what you hate. But shinobi are not so different from other people. I’ve seen hate in them, too. In you, Father.”

The alabaster Uchiha shifted his eyes, gazing at the other graves. “You didn’t hate shinobi. You hated humanity – this evil world we all marinate in.”

“You became what you hated when you struck me. I have my regrets, and I thank you for my gift and the lessons taught… but you were the monster. I was a child – a child who wanted to change the world for you, for mother. And you only saw what you hated. Goodbye, Roshi Uchiha.”

[EXIT]

WC: 3751

Claiming: Uchiha Flame Formation 3000/3000, 37 AP, and 751 to this