Plans [P]

Darkness took his surroundings, showering Yurei in a colorless abyss. His heartbeat resonated within his chest, echoing outward and throughout his body. It was a heavy vibration, a tearing that sent his eardrums recoiling in a splintering pain. The Uchiha looked out with his pale, silvery eyes. In the midst of all the darkness there was some light. A taste of comfort, as if illuminated by a single candle in an ocean of oblivion. Yurei knelt, looking to the floor around him. His feet found rest upon tiled stone that stretched outward, abruptly fading into darkness. Crimson liquid flowed within the spaces and cracks between each cold rock, dampening the grey stone in red.

“I know this place,” Yurei said, narrowing his eyes. He had been here before - ages ago. It was the site of his vengeance, a  seething rage he had come to know all too well. He stepped forward, his movements sluggish. He pressed forward, gritting his teeth and working his legs, but the Uchiha found himself working against a strong tide. He found himself trying to sprint under the pressure of thousands of gallons of water. This was it, the bottom of the ocean. The only sound in the dark quiet place was his own heart beating against his ribcage.

Th-Ump.

Th-Ump.

Th-Ump.

The Shinobi blinked, finding bodies in the return to the light. The darkness receded revealing more. Dozens of people, pale and sunken, littered the area. Blood drained from their wounds, others gave quiet moans that echoed within Yurei’s ears as murmurs. It was a quiet thing to hear, but each whisper was if a stake being hammered into the Uchiha’s head. Yurei winced but persevered, clenching his teeth as pain enveloped his body. These were the bodies of those he had fought against, the zealots who had invaded his home. He had ravaged them without a trace of mercy. It was an unseenly, violent rage that had propagated it, and the advancement of his visual prowess that saw it to fruition. None of these men could have challenged Yurei. He possessed a power they could never have, a strength innate to his blood and the blood of most ninja. He was born to surpass them, as were all gifted with this power - chakra. The life essence of those who ruled the shinobi world, or, rather, their corners of it.

To think, no, to know those in positions of power did so through the misuse of such a gift sickened Yurei. Those who would sit idly by and participate in a cruel world such as this rather than changing it. To have the tools and to do nothing, that boiled Yurei’s blood. Few deserved power such as this, and amongst those who did, there would be need of a guiding hand. And the others? The selfish, the cruel, the immoral and twisted? They would meet the same fate as the bodies strewn here, for the good of the world. The removal of a tumor from a dying patient was not controversial. Why would something such as this be? It was a necessary act, but it was not mercy.

It was then Yurei understood the hatred of those who had surrounded him - these zealots. Shinobi were seldom good people. They were monsters, like Kenshin Uzumaki, and, in another way, Yurei himself. But their violence could not be tolerated, and their hatred had the inverse of the desired effect on shinobi. They deserved the fate given to them, not for revenge, but for order.

Mangekyou Sharingan.

Yurei’s eyes cut through the darkness, searing it flash of light.

Darkness crept back up to the young man, stretching out as it had before, leaving him with a single candlelight amongst the darkness. Again, it was the figure he had seen before. The one his father had seen in his fleeting moments of life. It was a creature of complete darkness. It was a mirror of himself at his worst, the culmination of his hatred, fear, rage. It was a void unlike even the darkness that had encapsulated this nightmare.

It stretched forward with its long arms, crushing the floor around Yurei. Wood splintered around its shadowed talons. Its crouched shaped surged with a dark energy, a chakra so malevolent that it chilled the air like a silent yet harsh blizzard. It was the cold and emptiness of space.

Despite this, Yurei remained calm. His heart quieted, and his pain subsided. Where he had been fearful, Yurei now felt peace. Helplessness, resolve. Conflict, clarity. The pale Uchiha walked forward, reaching out the touch what had killed his father - the monstrous persona he had lived in fear of. He knew it as part of him, now. Something he could never be rid of and a tool to use against those he hated.

His hand stretched out, his long, thin fingers grasping at what he had long fled from. When they found their target, the void subsided, melting away as if a thick black water. It dripped from the monster as if skin from bone, leaving behind white more pale than the albino’s skin. Yurei closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, before him lay a pool of black water and a face resting atop it.

Yurei reached for the countenance, touching it with his rough hands. It was chill to the touch, a steel bathed in dry ice. When at last he could raise it from the pool, he knew what it was. It was the face of the face of an oni, a hannya mask - the Countenance of Death. He stared at its construction and found its eyes a void, yet staring back.

The Uchiha rose from his bed quietly, the vision of the mask imprinted onto his brain. A book slid from his face, one he had checked out from the library. I must have fallen asleep reading. He let out a quiet breath and shifted his feet from under the covers, grasping the book and slipping it into his kimono. The creaking of the bed prompted Esu to raise his head, staring off at the pale boy. The large dog moaned, stepping off of the bed and slowly trailing behind the young man. Yurei turned to face Esu, who stopped in his tracks, sitting. The dog’s expression was somehow worrisome, like he knew what the Uchiha was feeling. Yurei gave a thin smile, patting his thigh. “Come on, boy,” the Uchiha said, pulling his head toward the door. The dog stood back up and continued to follow the young man with his head hanging low between his two legs.

It was well past midnight, and the sky was at its darkest. The moon was nearly absent from the sky, waning into the darkness of space. The light of the stars cut through the windows, bringing illumination to the otherwise dark living room. Yurei maneuvered to the table in the center of the room, withdrawing numerous scrolls from underneath it, as well as a pen and ink to dip it in. The parchment was thick, what was used for scrolls. With the image still clear in his mind, Yurei sat on his knees, Esu beside him, and began to sketch - dipping his pen and beginning his replica.

Pen stroke melded with pen stroke across the rugged paper, blending into a ghastly drawing. It had been years since Yurei drew out a blueprint. The last was his bamboo samurai armor, one he had designed alongside his father back in the days when he dreamt of becoming a shinobi. The naivete of it all made him chuckle cynically . He still had it, though now it captured dust somewhere dark and cold - where light seldom reached. There it would stay.

When at last the blueprint was finished, each stroke intertwining, Yurei held it against the moonlight, its white glow bleeding through the tanned parchment. The mask represented his nightmare well, and, for a moment, Yurei forgot where he was. It was as if he had entered his dream once more. This hannya mask, this face of death, its glance cut through him as if staring into his very soul. Esu recoiled at the sight of such an illustration, backing up. Even the moon’s light, the light of all the stars from which the village was named after, could not penetrate the black gaze of this face.

Yurei knew then that it was to be his face in the future.

The Uchiha stood, placing the sketch in his kimono without wrinkling it. He walked to window, staring out into the night. The village had lost its color, and this was not a product of the blanketed shadow of the time. No, even in the day, Yurei saw black and white. As if seeing through the mask.

Esu’s cold nose rubbed against Yurei’s adjacent hand, beckoning a stroke. The Uchiha rubbed his hands across Esu’s head, glancing down at the dog for a brief moment. “Don’t worry, Esu,” Yurei said, pursing his lips and swallowing. “We’ll fix this place.”

The dog whimpered, pawing at Yurei with tired eyes. The boy smiled, pointing to dog and expelling his chakra into him. A thin smile spread across the Uchiha’s face as the Ephemeral technique initiated.

“Hey, buddy,” a familiar voice rang.

Esu would perk up at the sound, standing straight up with his ears pointed and alert.
“It’s me.”

Esu whined, running to Akio and rubbing against him in frantic ecstacy. Howls and whines escaped his mouth, and the Inuzuka rang with a childlike laughter, petting Esu and scratching behind the dog’s ears. Esu licked and pawed the young man’s face, wagging his tail in a fit of excitement. If only he could speak.

“Calm down, calm down!” Akio laughed, smiling as Esu ran his tongue across the man’s entire face. “Settle down, Esu!”

To hear his owner speak his name again no doubt ran the dog mad with joy.

But to Yurei, the dog was frantic over nothing. A blank spot where Akio should have been. Should be. The boy’s smile contorted into something misshapen, quivering. He pursed his lips, bowing his head to the side, and water ran down his cheeks.

That night, Esu slept peacefully alongside his owner, and would go on to remember it as nothing more than a pleasant dream.

--------

“Yurei, dear,” Takia said, her voice reverberating as if inside an echo chamber. “Yurei, you fell asleep in the living room.”

Darkness faded, and the light of consciousness came to be once more. “Hrm?” Yurei moaned, pinching the bridge of his nose and blinking. His eyes ached with the morning dryness and stung with the light of day.

“You stay up late again?” this mother’s voice rang among the sounds of clattering pots and hissing tea. She was busy at work, preparing what looked to be breakfast. Rice and been laid out, as well as a pot of boiling water next to tea.

“No,” Yurei started, swallowing. He looked down at his feet, seeing Esu sound asleep. He patted his kimono, feeling for the drawing. It crinkled under the pressure of his thin fingers. “No. It was a Nightmare.”

His mother bobbed her head, pursing her lips and arching her eyebrows with an expression of sadness. “Oh, I’m sorry, Little Ghost,” Takia replied, offering empathy in her smooth, honey-like voice. “Was it scary?”

What a question to ask. Was it scary? That was typically implied in the word. Nightmare, night terror, it was all the same. But was that what it had been? Initially, maybe, but looking back? What was there to be afraid of? His actions? Himself? That was part of him - something he aimed to correct. There was no reason to fear it, to flee from it. The Uchiha clasped his side once more, feeling the drawing. Yurei pursed his lips, narrowing his eyes with his brows. Well? Was it? He paused for a moment, thinking. He smacked his lips lightly and rose his head, shaking it slightly. “No.”

“It wasn’t.”

WC: 2004


[Exit]

Claiming +20 AP, 2004/4000 Space Time Barrier

Approved