Celebration [IO]

Yurei bobbed with each step, walking slowly across the sidewalks of Hoshigakure. The sun had began to set, filling the sky with a amalgamation of orange, pink, and purple cotton. The array of colors reflected off of the white Uchiha’s blank eyes as he stared up at it in thought. I wonder how Damon’s feeling about making Jounin… He didn’t seem all that excited. Granted, was I? The circumstances were different, I didn’t want to fight him. I can’t really understand how he’s feeling. At least not yet.

There was an excitement to the rank-up for Yurei. Though he had long been marred by nightmares since achieving it, the rank itself was a needed segway into the future, one he had desperately longed for. It was a symbol of advancement more than anything else, and the Uchiha took pride in his plans for the future. It felt good to have hope again. It had long been lost to him. Despite possessing it, however, it was still hazy. He hadn’t discovered just what to do, not yet. But change was coming, that much Yurei knew. The albino found truth in such a conviction as that. Changing the world… and now I have a partner to do it with. Someone to stand beside me, now, as an equal.

Yurei rejected the notion of using Damon as a tool. The thought was there, but, ultimately, the dark-haired Uchiha was much more than that. He was a brother. They’d been through thick and thin together, and the Jounin wasn’t about to allow that to change.

The bitterness was an intense battle, however. Yurei found himself often falling victim to it. Cynicism was potent in his life, in his ideology. However, in spite of the misgivings Yurei had for the world and its people, he found the will to strive and make it better. A world forged by his own world view. To deny its will as Kenshin had failed to do - to bend the world as he saw fit and to final exert his own will over it, rather than the other way around.

It wasn’t long until Yurei came to Damon, just exiting the shinobi reception center. He carried with him a flak jacket and some papers, something Yurei himself had earned when he won the tournament. Damon, here, had passed the exam instead. Against a powerful ninja Yurei hadn’t seen before. Well, he certainly wasn’t powerful enough, was he?

“Damon!” Yurei shouted, walking to his brother. He raised his hand in a greeting, giving a faint smile to couple it. The Uchiha stopped next to Damon, raising an eyebrow at what the ninja possessed within his hands. “Congratulations on making Jounin, Damon. I was surprised with how brief your fight was. I would have given you the rank of Jounin after our display.” Yurei smiled, offering an expression that hid the fear, doubt, regret, and sadness trapped within him. Now was not the time for such things. This was the beginning of their correction.

“What do you say we celebrate, hmm? I’ll buy,” Yurei offered, taking a bit of ryo from his kimono pocket and twirling it between his fingers like a woven basket.

WC: 532

Yurei read Damon like an open book. It didn’t require a Sharingan to notice the pain hidden by his masking expression. He nodded, agreeing with Damon. “Yeah, I don’t guess it was all that exhilarating. But hey, you’ve gotten the rank-up now. We’re on equal footing, again.” There was genuine excitement in Yurei’s voice, though the hint of sadness also carried with it like a soft scent in a breeze. “I’m glad to have you as a partner, a brother. Don’t forget, we’re in this together!” The white Uchiha smiled, noticing something in Damon’s eyes he hadn’t seen before. The fight had left him drained, but was it just the dissatisfaction or something more?

However, the Uchiha didn’t want to talk about it, and he figured Damon felt the same way. Distractions were needed for now - celebration. And Yurei knew just the place.

“I’ve left Esu home. He’s been sleeping a lot, lately,” the Jounin remarked, shifting his lips to the corner of his mouth. “Anyway, I figured we’d go someplace special. The Dango Shop, where we met Akio. If that’s ok with you, at least. Your choice,” the Uchiha suggested, pursing his lips together. His voice held a lucid quality, far from being set in stone. That shop carried a lot of memories, and, with the circumstances, it would perhaps be better not to go there at all. Still, Damon loved dango, and if that’s what he wanted, Yurei would gladly pay. It wasn’t often he even got the opportunity to pay for a meal. If his mother wasn’t cooking, the two were often separated by different training schedules. Night had been an excellent time to train jutsu for Yurei, not that he had much choice. The nightmares left him sleepless and restless, and he didn’t want to deprive Damon of the same thing, especially with the tournament.

That was behind them, now, though, and Yurei’s quality of sleep had improved since the last nightmare. There was some form of closure in it, but it also sparked new ideas. The Uchiha felt in his kimono pockets for the blueprints of his Hannya mask, the one from his night terrors. It was still there, untouched and secured. It’d have to be crafted later. Even with all his tools, crafting such a mask was not possible, not here. He needed a forge.

Yurei turned to look at Damon with his silvery eyes. “Either way, I hope you’re hungry. Not that you really exerted yourself back there,” Yurei laughed.

He sighed, looking down momentarily. Both Uchiha were in something of a rut, but that was too light of a term to describe what they were really feeling. Yurei held onto the faith that he’d make it better for the both of them, but it was like gripping a wet bar of soap. Too often did that faith slip through his fingers.

Damon was too kind to be in a world such as this. Too talented. It was unfair, really. A tragedy.

WC: 1031

Damon left Yurei to his own thoughts, though it scarcely felt like it. The walk was brief, as if there one moment and gone the next. Yurei jumped from one idea in his head to the next, finally settling on silence. It felt like he could breathe again, like there was some shred of hope in this hapless sea of misery and despair - and he was walking right beside it.

Yurei couldn’t help but smile, finally approaching the dango shop where they had met Akio. The image of the wolf-like canine biting into Damon’s rear-end to get a taste of the savory dumpling was still vivid in the Uchiha’s memory. He hadn’t laughed that hard in a long time and not in an eternity since.

The Uchiha sifted through the crowd of villagers winding about the marketplace. It was particularly busy, like a sea of currents flowing around and ramming into one another. The aromas of savory-sweet dango, spicy ramen, and freshly cut fish permeated throughout the air in a blend of intoxication. Yurei took a deep breath, leading the charge to the dango shop. The line was relatively short, presenting little wait. A surge of urgency ran through the Uchiha, sending him in a reserved, yet rapid, search for anything that would identify him as a shinobi. The realization hit him soon after that he hadn’t worn anything of the sort, and, if he had, few would do anything about it.

There were the idle glares, but nothing to physically harm Yurei, not since the incident at his house and the search for the attackers after. Fear kept them in line, afraid to make any sort of move. The same had happened to Yurei just after he had been given the rank of jounin. What felt like years ago, Yurei had been assigned a mission along with Damon, Hikari, and some others to guard a wedding between villager and shinobi. The very man that had came to the chapel, the one he had terrorized with genjutsu, and returned to his old ways of tormenting others. Genjutsu didn’t change the man into something positive, at least not permanently, but the fear of a shinobi, of Yurei, shut his body down in a fit of paralyzing panic.

These people preyed on the young and weak. Academy students, genin, shinobi who hadn’t fully mastered their potential. But a chuunin? A jounin? That was another animal, something no ordinary man could contend with, at least not zealots of this kind.

So now Yurei walked about the marketplace without a shred of fear, for the consequence of his own safety or of the village.

He was untouchable.

When it was at last his turn, the Uchiha ordered swiftly. “Two sticks of dango, please. Spring colors if you have them.” The color of the dumpling had little effect on the taste, but the presentation was worth the extra ryo. After all, festivities should be vibrant, even when such a meal was to be covered in a caramelized, brown sauce.

“Step to the side and I’ll have yours out,” the woman at the counter said, nodding with a thin smile, then shouting, “Next!”

Yurei gave over the ryo and maneuvered to the side, smiling at Damon. The dango came out swiftly, dripping with a delightful syrup that coated each dumpling.

Assuming Damon had continued to follow him, Yurei would begin to leave the marketplace, headed for home as he ate the dango. He bit into the pastel green dumpling, pulling the treat off of the stick that housed it. When he had finally swallowed, he’d turned to his clansman. “Damon, I want to ask you something,” Yurei said, taking another small bite and chewing it. “A long time ago, back when we were still genin, or at least I was, you said that you wanted to become a legend. I talked about it in our match, that I wouldn’t let your dream get in the way of mine. I think I was being selfish, so I wanted to apologize. I’ve just been so caught up in my plans and dreams that I haven’t really been focused on the now. You know me, I’m not competitive. I normally wouldn’t care, but, in our match, I just had to win, you know? I don’t know what that was, but I’ve never had that much drive, and I hate that it was against you.”

WC: 1766

Yurei nodded, giving a thin smile to the Uchiha. “I see,” he said. There was a hint of sadness in his voice. He’d hoped that Damon had latched onto his dream, that he would never give up and continue on the path of becoming a legend. But, like everything else, that had been taken from him as well. Seeing such ambition fade away into almost apathy hurt. But it was the way of things for dreams to change. Yurei’s had, and now Damon’s was shifting too. The white-haired Uchiha only hoped that something would keep Damon driven. Maybe he had to be that for his brother, if only for a little while.

“My dream’s changed too, Damon. I don’t know how, really, but I know fear has something to do with it. The zealots in the village aren’t attacking me because they’re afraid of me, not because I changed their hearts with my genjutsu. I’d hoped it would have changed them, make everyone understand one another with that subtle manipulation of the mind, but if it didn’t work on people like these villagers, how could I ever change someone like Kenshin this way?”

Yurei chuckled, thinking. “But I’m glad to move on from that. For better or for worse. It was childish.” The Uchiha retrieved a book from his bag, one he had checked out from the library and had been learning from. “I feel like I’m growing up too quick, sometimes. Not just physically, but mentally, too. I miss goofing around with you and Akio, but I also miss what I used to think about shinobi. I used to romanticize them. I thought they were heroes and defenders, but now…”

The Uchiha stopped, finishing the rest of his dango and tossing the stick into the trash bin. “Now I think that’s what needs to change the most.”

“Anyway,” the Uchiha said, calling himself back from a thick somberness. “Let’s turn in this book and then head home, yeah?”

WC: 2,095

Claiming: +20 AP, Space Time Barrier [4000/4000]

[EXIT]

Approved