Open Wounds [P]

Death frothed in the air. The stench snared any trace of Kumogakure’s beautiful pasqueflowers, masking it in a syrup-like rush of wind. Decay permeated the forest, festering amongst the many groans and gargled murmurs of the rot. Yurei found himself in this place, overlooking the vastness of Youka’s creation - an gaping wound in the Hidden Cloud. It was revolting. Stomach acid bubbled up the Uchiha’s esophagus like magma in a volcano. It pained his chest, like a wildfire burning away at a dwindling forest. Their moans were almost intolerable. Almost. Yurei’s silvery eyes opened, looking upon the rot as if they were the shifting earth. The undead cloaked the ground in number and poisoned the air in presence.

It was a new village, filled with new people, places, new possibilities.

And yet Yurei was here, witnessing what he had read about first hand. That fire that seethed within the Uchiha was both disgust and anger. This place sickened him, physically as well as mentally - emotionally. Neither emotion poured out of him, save for his eyes. Each of his pale Sharingan reflected sickness and hate while the rest of his face was quiet, expressionless. He felt distant, like an observer. Powerless, even. But maybe that’s what he needed to be.

Yurei winced, the sickening feeling in his stomach turning to a boil. He clenched his teeth, regulating each breath of the thick air he took. His mouth curved downward, his lips straining from the smell. Raising his skeleton like fingers to his nose, Yurei took a deep breath. It was almost worse. He could feel the closing of his throat, and choking from the air. The mountain breeze was no longer present. What he took in now had been marinating, suppurating among the dead like a moist broth. His ribcage tightened, squeezing his lungs as if constricted by a binding serpent.

He continued to stare, however, to bear witness to the travesty before him. To think someone like Komon, Saya, had hailed from this place… it was nothing short of a shock. Nothing he read compared to seeing it this way. Alone. Without the presence of seasoned eyes belittling what was so obviously wrong. Yurei’s alabaster fingers stretched onto the wall he sat upon, twisting his torso to look the the village and back. The village seemed so tranquil. Even the Rot, marred by the blood-ridden, gargled moans of the dead, were particularly calm. It was a perfect defense from the outside world, but also the inside.

Fear. That’s what kept things in line here. To scour the village borders endlessly as a maggot-ridden corpse was a hell few would be willing to risk. Yurei’s silver eyes shook slightly in their sockets as he studied what lie below him, dozens of meters from his perch - the blood seeping from their absent jaws, the buzzards picking away at their scalps, the fungus growing on their exposed bones. Was this the fate that awaited those who defied authority? Or was this an example of Youka’s mercy. The latter was far more frightening, as always is with the unknown and the imagination.

Despite the horror of the scene, there was something to be learned - a mechanism of leadership Youka had commanded with and iron fist. The only question was if that fear was necessary for a leader. Perhaps simple respect was enough. Yurei’s eyes, closed slightly, cutting his iris in half as he shifted his legs over the wall, sliding down to the village below.

-    -    -

The sun took dominance in the sky, partially obscured by the peak of mountain. Shadows took the village, showering it in darkness. The village was much more tranquil than Yurei had anticipated. Where he stood now, it was peaceful, and the mountain gusts carried with them the aromas of foods and flowers, a soft sweetness contrasting the repulsion of what surrounded the village’s walls.

People lined the streets, moving about like water in a stream. It was an odd thing, to walk amongst civilians and to be free of narrowed eyes, glares merely for an adorned headband. Where he had felt asphyxiation in the Rot Forest, now he could breathe. He’d been freed of the tyranny of the very air, a pressure that felt like the ocean floor where light had been forgotten. A deep breath filled the Uchiha’s lungs. That pressure left his chest, and his shackles were lessened, but not gone. He felt the fog in his mind begin to seep away, and things became more clear.

WC: 750

Claiming: Solar Flare 6000/6000 cont. from this and [305/2250] Death's Countenance v1

Approved