The Day After

Approved.

The crimson haired Genin would smirk in happiness, as he saw the blonde practicing her jutsu, she seemed very educated in what Yin and Yang were, it would take only a book about jutsu to understand what the concept was, so kudos to her. She did, struggle a few times, but she did mostly a good job for a beginner, far better than what the young Namikaze performed, he would reconcile on his previous attempts, fire turning into foggy smoke... Her prowess in Lightning Release was amazing, to say the least, splitting rock with simply one hand seals is not something to shrug at. The last time he saw a lightning jutsu as powerful was that was from Higuto, and he was an experienced Genin. Suddenly, Mara would turn to a bustling group of foreigners closer to the village, as she would excuse herself to meet up with the Genin, running towards the group. 

"Bye Mara, I hope we see each other again!" Tadashi would cheerfully say, unbeknownst to what the blonde would reply by. The crimson haired Genin would take her speech fully, part of it was out of remorse. It served him right to be called out on his rude behavior, laughing at what would seem to be simply an innocent plead for help. Yet, her goal was hypocrisy, and addictive idealism at its best. It was a dangerous and stupid goal, and Tadashi couldn't stand for that. The young Namikaze had seen the darkness of the world, sullied his hands with blood, and saw the dead body of his mother, and confronted the murderer. There will always be bad people, and no matter how hard you try, it's futile. Yin and Yang... He was an idealist at heart, but also a realist. Before she sped off, he would try his absolute stop her with his counter-argument, most likely holding her in place.

"Your hypocritical idealism will lead you down to the path of despair and pain... People as humans will never accept change. That is one of the key qualities of humans, stubborn as hell, and will never accept something that isn't known to them. If you become Kage and assuming that you can ally all Kages together which is completely absurd in its own right, you may have a unified country, only with the Kages. There will be people who will resist and revolt, that is what human nature is, and you cannot change that. Attempting to do change that is simple ignorance. The people who revolt will do dangerous things, and you will have no choice but to kill them if you don't want those people that you forced to cooperate with your selfish ideals to die. More people will revolt out of fear and spitefulness from your seemingly cold-blooded actions. The body count will increase, increase, and increase, until you killed more people than you tried to unify, making you the villain. A manchild who held on to her selfish ideals. You will finally be captured and killed by your actions, causing more harm than what you attempted to achieve. A better world is dystopia by its definition, forcing people to cooperate and be better people. There will always be good people who cooperate, and there will always be bad people who don't, forcing all people to cooperate is simply an infringement on human nature and free will, and you mock humans by thinking that you can reverse all of the things people fought for to achieve now. Yin and Yang, futility and fate. If you can't accept reality, then wallow in the selfish and foolish pit of your so-called goal. Goodbye." 

Yes, he knew it was one of the worst things he could say, and that would simply shatter her. But, it was the truth, and she needed to face it to accept reality and accept the way of shinobi. Regardless of what she did, Tadashi would remain in the Training Grounds, practicing techniques to better himself.


 
WC: 772
TWC: 1569

(Being timelined on my exit is new.)

Mara's exit was halted fully at the boy's reply. His words came out sharp and intentional, looking to uproot a set of ideals that he saw is childish and absurd. However, if his words were an ax seeking vulnerable wood, it would meet steel instead.

If Tracer's intention had been to break her, he'd somehow done the opposite. The frequently lonely, occasionally timid Mara Asano stood straight and turned to face him. A slight breeze billowed her cloak in a satisfyingly dramatic fashion. He'd already cackled laughter at her and now he presumed to tell her she didn't know how dark the world could be.

"Is that so, Tadashi Namikaze?" Her voice felt surprisingly stern, approaching harsh. "By your stoicism and outlook, I'm going to assume you've lost someone close to you. A friend? Instructor? Parent? I'm sure it was a traumatic experience. One that darkened your skies and set you on a singular path for vengeance. Its not an uncommon story in our world. But once you attain this vengeance, assuming you even survive that long, what will you do? The answer is you'll have become the villain in someone else's story. Along that path, or maybe at its end, you'll have committed the same act that set you on your quest. And you'll have consumed what soul you had to achieve a meaningless end."

She stepped a step closer. "You lost something and it ate you up inside. But some of us didn't get the privilege of losing something we love, because we were never given that in the first place. It's easy to see the darkness when you lose something. But when you start at rock bottom, when that is what you've known, darkness is nothing. You learn to see the light instead. I was raised, abused, and rejected by a small, bitter man who quite possibly murdered my real father and kept me as some sort of legacy trophy. I'm only alive because one poor village family took me in out of their own kindness. There was no great revenge. No grand quest to reclaim my thrown. Even if I'm right about my 'father', I'm not going to murder him and avenge my family. What's done is done."

"Your version of my worldview is limited by your own aggression. You talk about uniting the villages through force and keeping power that way. But who said this is the structure it needs to be? Who said we need kages or great villages or clans. You speak as if any attempt at true peace will come down from the top like some legal decree. The Kages all decide to stop fighting. But that's not how it's going to happen. It's going to be the little people who are tired of all the personal vendettas and massive conflicts. Tired of the self righteous cycles of violence that wrack this world and leave people broken. Tired of people like you who use something bad that happened to you to justify your own dark tendencies. My goal isn't to be Kage. I'd like to be an instructor someday. Train up a new generation to be kinder and stronger than ours. It's not a sweeping coup. It's making the people themselves better."

"You speak of pain and despair as if you know its full depths. Yet here we stand in your prosperous home village, the strongest and richest among those that remain. And you lecture me about pain and hardship. Don't come at me with your Konoha superiority and act as if you understand my pain. I grew up in Kumo, kid."

[WC: 602]

To be honest, the young Namikaze never once expected to be met with the same force, an updraft of wind billowed lightly, but as the philosophical debate grew tense and longer as if it dared to hold him hostage. It was inevitable, someone would question his ideals. Tadashi truly wanted peace in the world, yet it is unachievable, there will always be light in this world, and there will always be darkness, that is just how the world is, breaking the cycle will result in casuality. No matter how hard you try, the cycle of light and darkness will always remain. You just have to make the best out of that light. Mara seemed... fairly triggered by his speech, incorporating logos, as seemed to lose her cool, saying that Kumo is somehow darker than Konoha and that the village is just a bunch of stuck-up softies. Truly, he felt bad for her, and her past, but that was no reason to insult his village that she clearly knew nothing about. He never insulted her village, so why she? The crimson haired Genin would be patient with her after she finished her speech. Normally, his amber-golden eyes would be filled with vibrant and exuberant light, but now, it was cold, calculative, the gauntlet would be dropped. If she wanted to fight with steel, he'll fight back with titanium, he was holding back, but now, Mara insulted his village and misinterpreted his ideals. His face was serious, eyes piercing towards her, the titanium ax vs the steel sword... The crimson haired Genin would sigh.

"For a future instructor, you're sure to jump to conclusions. I don't want vengeance, nor do I have 'dark tendencies' , I already caught the culprit for the murdering of my Mom. There are better things than that. Instead of having a naive ideal of 'helping the next generation', I want to become a Hero." The crimson haired Genin would look off to the distance, towards the shallow, flowing river that cuts the Training Grounds into two parts,

"In my opinion, a Hero is someone who protects those close to them, cherish them, and fights for them valiantly. He holds the people closes to them at a higher form of preciousness than he does. He is altruistic, but not only does he fight for those close to him, but he also fights for himself. After the death of my Mom and finding the culprit, my family drifted apart, my Father started drinking and working overtime, to the point of being life-threatening, and my brother goes on dangerous missions all the time. Then, I realized, how precious my Mom was to us, there will always be bad things in this world, and there will always be good things in this world. That's why I want to be a Hero, to protect Konoha, until my last breath. Do you really think those are the dark tendencies you say they are?"

He would turn to Mara, his eyes and face not easing up, "My ideal and goal are not perfect, I know that, but I beg to differ with yours. You say that you want to make a generation that is stronger and kinder than ours, there will always be people who don't want to better themselves, and making a world that everyone will help each other out, and people will be better, is a noble goal, yet it is pure hypocrisy. The world, as cruel and as bad as it may seem, you just have to make the best out of it. Wanting to make a world that light outweighs the darkness cannot exist, because the biggest light, has the biggest shadow. I'm sorry about your past and what you had to go through, but if you can't accept that the world is never going to have the light outweigh the darkness, then you're better off living in a fairy tale."

The crimson haired Genin's last sentence would have a tint of sorrow and remorse in it, nevertheless, he would continue,

"Now, you say that I don't have a right to speak about something because I haven't seen the bottom of the barrel. I'm simply stating logic and facts, from my readings, from my life experience, and from my understanding of logos. You say I'm using Konoha superiority against 'oh big bad Kumo that I have to live through, so your pain doesn't matter to mine', you don't know anything that happens in Konoha, the anger that we have to stay chained up by a psycho of a tyrant. You're acting as if Konoha is the twinkle toes of the villages. Newsflash, we live in a dictatorship, masqueraded as a prosperous village. If you don't know about something, please don't talk about it. We already have enough ignorance in the world."

The look would remain on Tadashi's face, he would be ready for everything, counter-arguments, attacks, etc.

WC: 939
TWC: 2508

She’d been about to back off a little. She'd been right about his loss, but perhaps she’d misjudged his motivations. He’d already caught his mother’s killer. Caught implied a non-lethal approach which she had to applaud. It was better than the rivers of blood this tended to lead to. And while she’d been brave with her words about loss, actually hearing of someone’s pain did make her reconsider her approach.

But the boy pushed on, leveling fresh accusations of naïveté and foolishness at her feet. His words were as callous and biting as when he'd begun. The final sentence was the last straw. We already have enough ignorance in the world.

'Oh, don't we ever,'she thought to herself.

She took a deep breathe before replying. The boy had seen this as a challenge, likely not realizing he'd been instigating it for some time. Then she leveled her gaze directly at him. Her words came out cool as ice. Her eyes seemed to darken, adding intensity to her already piercing blue irises. There was no hint of malice in her voice, but there wasn't an inch of concession either.

“A word of advice? I’d avoid leveling such heavy accusations at people so flippantly. It’s not likely to win you friends. But I’ll engage with your argument. First, I don’t think it’s “naive” to try and train up a future generation to be better. I feel that’s a form of heroism. Of course there will always be those who don’t want to be better, but that is no excuse to give up on those who do. Just because progress is difficult, even perhaps impossible, doesn’t mean it should be rejected.”

“Second, you hold up your own idea of heroism as superior. I don’t doubt it’s virtue. But to claim that protecting only yourself and those you love is more altruistic than helping those you don’t know or even those you despise? That’s just foolishness. A hero needs to stand for more than himself, Tadashi. Otherwise, he’s just a warlord or a showman, guarding his own turf and seeking his own fame. It doesn’t make you wrong, but it sure as hell doesn’t make you superior to those looking to help more than that.”

"If you came across a group of villagers being oppressed, would you reject their pleas because its impossible to make the world a better place? Or would you stop and help them, making at least that corner a little brighter? If you see a beggar on the streets, giving him a coin might not solve poverty or even his own situation, but you will have helped in that moment, fed him that night. That is heroism. Being willing to care about things beyond what directly affects you. Being willing to push back against the darkness, even if its only temporary. Will I be able to change the world for the better? Maybe not. But you don't get to call yourself a hero if you aren't even willing to try."

“Also don’t go flipping the script. I never said your pain was irrelevant. You were the one telling me how childish and fairytale-esque my world view is without having a clue as to my motivations or background. Maybe your superiority doesn’t come from Konoha, but you still have it in spades. You’re judgmental and aggressively insulting to any view that doesn’t ascribe to your own defeatist attitude toward the world. You tell me I don’t know anything about the world because your fancy books say good and evil must be equal, so I’m not allowed to have an opinion. You don’t want to improve the world? Fine. But for all your talk of people who won’t want to go along with making the world better, you do an awful lot of claiming who is wrong and who is right. You have far too narrow a worldview to be calling other people ignorant. And you are awfully defensive for someone who threw the first...and second stone. You’ve laughed at me, repeatedly insulted my views, and then claimed I’m the one being ignorant and reductionist when I bother to argue with you.”

"You might not have 'dark tendencies', Tadashi, but you certainly have mean-spirited ones."

With a sigh, her posture relaxed a bit. “I’m not trying to fight with you, Tadashi. It sounds like your life hasn’t been great either. And that’s just my point. If you had listened to me, you'd know that I oppose a despot in Konoha as much as I oppose a gang of thieves in Kumo. That's why people like us need to be the ones to change things. Today, two ninja from different villages met each other, trained together, and learned a bit about each other’s lives. I personally view that as a step in the right direction. But all you've done is denigrate the mere idea of hope and mocked me for simply asking for assistance."

"I hope you get to become a hero some day, Tadashi. I really do. Because I think you could make a difference, here in Konoha and out in the world. But you have a lot of personal growth to do before you get there, as I'm sure I do too. You need to realize that people other than yourself and your loved ones matter. And you need to learn that other people's opinions matter too. Until then, you'll just be a sanctimonious bully, mocking a girl for the very idea of cooperation and professing your own sainthood."

She stopped there, her tone as cold but steady as it had been when she began. She doubted she'd gotten through to him. He hadn't spoken like someone who would hear reason. But his goals were still noble and he was still young. There was still time to not lose him to the jaded masses. She at least had to try. She braced herself for whatever his response would be, expecting the same string of insults and arguments. She'd hear him out a little longer, hoping he'd heard her.

[WC: 1009 | TWC: 1611]

Mara chuckled softly, as the ice thawed around her. Her experiences had made her too good at that. Putting up a sharp and frigid barrier. She’d need to get used to letting that guard down, just a little bit. Tadashi was younger than her after all. His words, while harsh, had come with that youth attached. And she should have tempered her response accordingly. “I’m sorry. I have a tendency to fly off the handle. I get caught up in my own mind and my words can get...a bit biting. I don’t think you’re a bully, though I think you should watch how you speak sometimes. I need to do it myself. Mouthing off like that at a stronger ninja in foreign territory? Not my smartest move. I need to her a better handle on that instinct or I’m going to get myself killed.”

She took a few steps closer, and her posture became much more friendly again. She tried to make sure her words were gentle, avoiding the barbs she’d thrown so casually a moment ago. “I agree with you for the most part. I’m not ready to fully concede to your idea of balance. I’m not claiming darkness can go away, but I still think there’s a way to have more good than bad. But our ideals aren’t that different.”

“And that’s what I’m getting at. It may not happen in our lifetimes but I want to see a day when people from the villages can act cooperatively, even if the leadership hasn’t caught up.”

She walked a little closer, her words softening as she did. She’d been too hard on him. Yes, his words had hurt. And he might even have deserved a bit of it. But her whole ‘ice queen’ approach could be a bit too savage. She had the unfortunate ability to be both very calculating with her words and impulsive in her replies. She could cut to the bone before she fully realized she was being a bit harsh, let alone before she calmed down. “I’m sorry if my words hurt you. I don’t doubt that you’ll make a difference. I just want you to know that tearing down others looking to do the same is counter productive to your goals. My dream of a better world might be ridiculous and I likely won’t see it in my lifetime. But I plan to run headlong into that darkness trying to burn it away. And I plan to make it fight for every inch it takes.”

“I don’t know if our futures will cross. We may never see each other again. We might die before we can make a difference. And there’s a chance we’ll end up slitting each other’s throats like you said.” She reaches out a hand toward him. “But until then, it’s good to know there’s someone else willing to fight the darkness with me. What do you say we take turfs? You take Konoha, I’ll take Kumo?”

[WC: 497 | TWC since last claim: 2108]

The crimson haired Genin would push his bangs away from his hair, his eyebrow twitching for a quick moment at her idea of concedement. To be quite frank, he didn't care about her reaction, he just hated the fact of "making a utopian ideal world", when she knew it wasn't valid. Tadashi's figure would loosen up, cautiously, yet not afraid; they understood each other better, despite their vastly different ideologies. The ginger would furrow his brow, as she commented on the way he spoke towards her, rather, he should watch what he speaks.

"I'm not going to watch what I say, because what I say are facts and reality. I don't care about your feelings in the face of facts, because facts are absolute, and feelings are temporary. What else do you want me to do? Stay silent, or worse, lie? Call me a bully or whatever, but you cannot say that this isn't the truth." He replied, obstinately, there was no need for a filter.  Tadashi would remain respectful, not wanting to become bloodlust with rage; however, a statement arose that truly bewildered him. The way he went along with his goals were counter-productive? No. This wasn't correct. Not in the slightest would he stoop low to start becoming a liar. A man must live through his life vicariously, never to look back, merely since, someone didn't like the tone of their speech. Bullshit.

A grin would surface upon his expression. She was brilliant.

"You are truly brave, Mara. To run to the darkness, in the preservation of your ideas. The world needs more people with a heart like you."

He would pause, biting his lip. He could never understand her, someone so brave, could be so fragile? The smirk cast on his face would disappear, replaced with a blank stare. 

"Yet, I don't...Particularly, comprehend your train of thought. Truth and facts are unquestionable, you cannot question whatever something is a rock or not. If they tear down someone's life temporarily, so be it, because I can't wait till that day they realize that if they haven't learned the truth, where would they be? A fairy tail in a myriad of lies. That is helping them, it may not seem like that at the moment you tell, but it would be a far more effective method, than to consistently, lie, or chose the less tough method. That is true heroism, helping people, no matter the cause, to see that someone will have a smiling face in the end. Heroes take risks and hard decisions, for the better of people."

Tadashi would momentarily cease to see if Mara is not completely confused, before continuing on,


"How about this? You have gotten news that your friend's lover has died, and your friend is waiting for their return patiently. What would you do? Tell them that their lover died? They will be sad for an interlude of time, but it will be for the better of them...So they can progress, and become better people in life. Or? Would you do the nicer option, which lies to them that their lover is on their way, to realize by an outside variable, that the lover is dead? The friend will most likely be in an eternal depression, realizing that they spent so long waiting for their lover, to see that they were dead a long time ago. They would kill themselves out of their grief. Congratulations, you killed your friend, because you didn't have enough balls to tell them the truth. You were afraid of yourself." The crimson haired Genin harshly said.

"Mara, you are a brave person, and I can see you do great things in life; just don't be afraid of your words, more specifically, yourself. Never watch what you say, if what you truly believe it is the truth." The last sentence, he tried his best to have a small smile.

Regarding the agreement between the two, Tadashi would politely decline, as he wanted to help everyone, not just his village. The crimson haired Genin would sheepishly scratch the back of his hair before walking towards her, putting a hand on her shoulder, softly, not forcefully.

"Mara, I have to decline, why should I just have to help Konoha? I want to be a hero that helps all villages, and to do the best I can, to preserve the balance, and to keep the darkness at bay. We need to be as accommodating as possible. You know?" He said in a charismatic tone of voice, before walking past her, it was about 6:00 pm, and he needed to get back home.

"It was nice talking to you, let's both help the Ninja World! I'm sorry about the things I've said beforehand. See you next Chunnin Exams, Mara Asano."

With that, he left the Training Grounds. There was no more to be said.

WC: 931
TWC: 4298

(EXIT)

Will make claims later

TWC: 4298

Claims:
21 Stats
930 WC Towards: This, Previous Training is Here
3000 WC Towards: This
398 WC Towards: This

Approved