Learning About the Abyss [Ayato]

While many of the others had been moving toward dealing with the Chuunin Exams, Ishimaru had abandoned any thoughts of joining it,  not when a developement like this had fallen into his lap. He had wondered for so long if there were others like him, people who shared this connection with the Yuumei and Meiton...and his eyes. Everything about this excited the young Genin to the point where he didn't even care about participating in the exams. As he was finally within the confines of the Village Hidden in the Stars, he began to question any and everyone he could stop about the man known as Seto- Where to find him. Where he lived. Hell even his favorite spots to be. Unfortunately most didn't receive a random person, a random shinobi at that asking about one of their ninja so they politely told him to fuck off. While normally that would have hurt the younger Shinkou, this only mad him chuckle and flash a small grin. The Yuumei in him...that was him was beginning to get riled up, but after a deep breath he stuck his hands into his pockets and walked off. To find someone like him would take immense skill or maybe... a different approach. Instead of asking about him, Ishimaru would ask one of the patrolling Shinobi to give Seto a message. Since he didn't know Hoshi at all he would request for the other Shinkou to meet him at the Water Gardens, the only real place that Ishi could get to at this moment. Once the message was passed on he would begin to head toward there and wait.

273 wc

In the cold of the night, the lone watchman snorted from a nostril as a patrolman brought him the request. “Have you seen Seto?” 
The watchman considered that for a moment, scratching his bearded chin. 
“That red-eyed wackjob? No, I have not. Why?”

“Some kid from Konoha was asking for him. I warned him he’d be disappointed. Everybody preferred the Yomiyama when he was a drunken lout.” 

“I no longer seek comfort in the bottom of a winecup.” The figure of the Shinkou emerged underneath the torchlight as his voice thundered in the darkness. The two guards looked anxiously at one other. Only a weakling would seek vengeance over earthly insults. Seto almost felt pity for them.

“God’s caress to feed my thirst and hunger.” His feet made not a sound as they scrapped on the white cobbled floor of the parapets.

“What happened to your shoes?” One of the men asked, shoulders tensing up underneath chainmail and boiled leather as the Yuumei host got closer.
“Nothing,” said Seto, who in his past life was born into Haven’s upper class and wore the finest clothing that money had the right to buy. 
“I gave them to someone who needed them more than I did.” All men were equal under the gods’ eyes, and such acts only served to remind them so. And to remind Seto so. “Now, where is the boy from Konoha that you mentioned?”

Seto walked to the designated location. He was bare-chested, his dark skin looking almost red underneath the torchlight of the walls. His high collared black cloak billowed in the wind—the claw necklace around clacking inharmoniously.

“The eternal fire of the Yuumei finally willed for us to meet brother,” He would say when he was no more than a few feet away from Ishimaru Shinkou. 

“In the realm of the living at least. I’ve dreamed of this moment, as I did of your arrival at the gates. One thousand times and one.”

Ishimaru sat in silence at the water gardens for some time, his amber eyes staring deep into the darkness of the area, not looking at one thing or the other. No, his mind had been somewhere else. Within the confines of his mind sat an endless library with a single table. On both sides sat a single-seat, fit for one person on each side. There had been nothing special about these chairs nor the table...but the books glowed with a certain hue. Wisps of black and blue peered from them as far as the eye can see but in front of him sat a single entity. As Ishimaru walked toward the chair, the figure's features began to mold into a person. Amber eyes. Black hair that slowly turned into a dark brown the closer they got to the tips. A rounded chin and a smile that could break the hardest of hearts. In his hands were a book being held with the left and a cup in the right as he slowly sat the cup down and chuckled" Bored. Hence, you came into the inner sanctum to pass the time, my boy? Or maybe you have some questions as to why there are more of you around? Sit, let us talk before our guest comes," of course the entity still had no name, but Ishimaru felt like he knew it. Placing his right hand onto the chair, he would begin to sit down slowly, eyes taking in the second cup, and he moved to grab it. He could feel those amber eyes staring at him from behind the book as he brought the cup up to his lips, liquid filling the cup and then his mouth as he took a few gulps of the substance and then sat the cup down.

"Why didn't you tell me there were more like me...More people with this power and this...life?" it was the first thing he said as he waited for the book to come down. A small sigh escaped the entity's lips as the book slowly came to a close and sat on the table," You were not ready for the knowledge of their being more of your kind...More of the Shinkou perusing the world. What would you have done if I told you that your real family laid scattered among the world? Left your darling sister? All alone? That isn't the Ishimaru I know now, is it?" He wanted to retort back, but he had a point. Even if he found out about it, could he really leave his sister behind? His hands went around the cup as he began to pull it up to his mouth when he only said a few words before drinking," Even then...you could have told me that there were others," to which the entity would hold his finger up to stop him in his thoughts," There are many like you...but not like you. You were born with this gift. Some are given it. Though it won't seem like a difference to you they are still family," to which the landscape would begin to shift.

"Looks like you have company. Until next time Ishimaru," to which he would find himself looking at the one he was looking for. As Seto began to speak, Ishimaru would finally grasp his hold on reality and speak," So if you knew I was coming, why is it so hard to track you down? I haven't met another of my blood...or kin. For the longest, I didn't even know more of us...Shinkou? Had lived among the world. When did you find your power?" for Ishimaru, he slowly tapped into it, the sound of the voice coming in slowly and slowly until he had finally heard the voice fully and tapped into the power.

640 wc

“Praise the Night, for if it had not been for Yummei’s guidance, I would not have shown up at all.” Shinkou was never a name meant to be worn with pride. It essentially meant amber, after the color of the eyes for those who were the hosts of the blessing. “Commonfolk heard our names and saw the color in our eyes; they deem us guilty of all the ninja world’s crimes. The Elder Monk in the Abyss Island told me once.”

The Yomiyama said before sitting crossed leg on the marbled floor of the water gardens. A gust of wind roared, and the trees rustled; an owl hooted. 

Pale pink marble paved the gardens and courtyard. The moon’s reflection was on the pools and fountains of the Water Gardens, shaded by blood orange trees. The place had a pleasant draw to it: warm days, cold nights, the salt breeze blowing in from the northern coast, and fountains and pools to admire and for kids to play in during the day.

Ishimaru Shinkou was not one such kid. 

Spurred on by a mix of boredom, curiosity, and the seek of answers for his heritage, the Konoha native boy currently found himself amidst the Desert Gardens, talking to the most feared man in all of Haven.

“I have counted twenty-and-nine name days... which makes me more than twice your age, I think. Would it surprise you to learn that I was once a knight?”  Perhaps not, Seto was reasonably fit, tall and robust in his past life, and remained one after he swore his vows and became a host of the Yuumei and a man of religion. So how long ago did he join the brotherhood, was the young man’s question. He was about to find out.

“My father was a knight, and his before him. I trained with sword and shield the day deemed old enough to do so. There was a girl I wished to marry, but she was a Princess of Haven, and I was the son of a landed knight. I had women too, but there I disgraced myself because some I took by force. When I was not fighting, I was drunk. All in all, I was a sad man. My life was written by me in red, in blood and wine. That changed when I died.”

Ishimaru crossed his own legs up on the fountain's edge as the older male sat down and started talking. Was it different here than it was back in Konoha? When most people saw his eyes they thought they were cool or something, but to hear that it was a stigma among others? It wasn't very shocking to him now. Many of the people that he passed here in this village looked at him with a small amount of disdain or disapproval, not that he cared to begin with anyway. He wasn't bothered by the ill looks of people more so now. Even then it was a bit of a let down to hear that people categorize him and his family as evil.

"Almost twice my age. I am sixteen. Which puts you thirteen years my senior..And you a knight?," the amber eyes looked the male up and down for a moment, before continuing," Maybe in another life perhaps...well this another life you I guess. Which do you enjoy more...this life or your old one?," it was more a question of preference than anything else. He didn't know what it felt like to have one life before and now a new one after the introduction of the Yuumei. While it was dormant inside of him, he had always had it. Hearing it from an outside perspective certainly helped understand his own....self in a sense.

233 wc

The moonlit sky of Hoshi had many wonders of its own. Despite the city lights they meshed well with the vibrant stars above. How such a village surrounded by vice and religion in both a corrupt and non-corrupt form existed was beyond him, but he was not one to judge. He could feel the stares of the people as he walked past with his horse and carriage. Some speaking on his looks and odd eyes, some about the neatly wrapped bodies in the back of the carriage. Some just about the unsettling feeling he gave off. None of which honestly bothered him in the slightest. His eyes were set in the direction of the Water Gardens and what he found when he arrived would make or shape his night....for better or worse. He walked in silence for the most part not entertaining any of whom might have had questions about why he was here or even who he was. Those questions were not something he felt...needed an answer.

After a few moments he found himself at the entrance of the gardens, looking around to see a few more guards and people fettering around. He looked up to the sky for a moment, taking in the air as he tied his traveling partner up and patted their head," I shall not be long...hopefully," he didn't know what he was going to see going forward, but the meeting of another Shinkou intrigued him. What would he find when he laid eyes on the boy? A future or a present that would need to be extinguished. Walking forward, his hands would disappear under the garbs of his cloak, his right hand gently sitting in the palm of his left.As he walked through he allowed some of his Yuumei to leak out of himself. He knew only the chosen would be able to see it and sense it. So as he got closer he could hear the conversation between the two. Showing his form behind Seto he would give a small smile as he continued his sentence," Upon the precipice of death he was brought to me. Death was never the end for this knight...only the beginning. And you must be the student of his I have been hearing about."

The scarf was slowly pulled down from his mouth as he stood no more than a few meters behind Seto, but enough where the darkness did not impede or hinder the ability to be seen. It would have to a surprise that he was here, but Seto knew very well what the role of Rokuro was. For the moment however he would remain still and allow his presence to be taken in.

448 wc

“My past life ended fighting against the Grimma outlaws. The land is full of such scavengers; I won’t call them wolves; wolves are nobler than that, I think. The battles against them were bloody things. Singers will have you believe that it was Dusk Tachibana and Ayato Hyuuga with their fabled shinobi powers that fought bravely against them. But I assure you other men fought too, and I was one of them.”

He called himself a man at six-and-ten in his old life, but in truth, he had been a ribald drunk, who would sing, dance, play pipes, juggle, and ride horses. He drank much and claimed no man could piss longer or farther than him. And that Seto Yomiyama died as he had lived by the sword. He remembered his grave, near the border. He remembered little of this man now and his deeds both good and ill. This man was a bitter, tormented soul, a sinner who mocked both gods and men. 

“Outlaws ambushed the party I was escorting, near the ghostly water.” Seto hadn’t donned his armor correctly, for he was in bed with a camp follower when the brigands emerged from the woods while many of them hid in treetops where they rained arrows down on them.

“I took an arrow through the thigh and a spear on my shoulder, yet I fought on. I never saw the fireball that hit me and flung me into the river, and whereby all rights I should have drowned, I floated downstream and woke in the Abyss Isle. A monk there told me I had washed up on the tide, naked as my name day. “

Perhaps someone had found Seto by the shallows, took him for dead, stripped him off his clothes and boots, and pushed his body back into the River, and the current did the rest. 

“We all come bare to this world, so I now see it was only appropriate to start my second life as such. The monk loaded me into his cart to bury me before realizing I still drew breath. I begged for him to end it, and instead, he gave me wine and napalm for my burns. But his efforts were too little too late. I would have died there in his arms if he hadn’t fused the Yuumei into me.”

To save him, the monk took him to The Temple of the Deep. He performed an ancient ritual using his body as a vessel for the Yuumei. The ancient Shinkou bloodline.  If you make it through the night, you will live. It was a long night, and he lived to see through the next one. 

However, they crushed by life, discouraged by failure losing everything. A man returned from the rubble, a changed man. No longer vain, no longer a drunk.  Now awakened, the Shinkou gained the battle experience from those before him via the Yuumeinet. A forest with a thousand trees.

"I spend the next three years in silence and practicing the blessing that the Elder Monk been bestowed on me. I had dreams, too, visions of what happened in the past, this moment, and even the future. And I dreamed of you. You looked older and taller somehow. You were looking down from a mountain at a village with a thousand fallen leaves.”

Before Seto could go on, he felt another presence approaching. One that he had been so familiar with. 

"My Meigan had not foretold me of your coming brother Rokuro. " He said when the scarfed figure was within earshot. "Or perhaps it might have, and it was my reading of it was not correct. "

WC - 610
TWC - 1,327

He sat there in silence for a moment and listened to the tale of the male in earnest. Never had he heard of such a tale before. It was honestly a little sad to hear how life has treated the male in front of him, but even he knew that life was not kind to those that simply wanted to live it. Ishimaru knew that too well when his home had been taken by Kiri...his friends laid dead in the streets of the somber forests. So much loss he had endured before but now...he wondered if it was as bad as he remembered it. When the male spoke of seeing him standing on a mountain with a thousand fallen leaves, his head snapped up before he spoke," Konoha...but why there? And those leaves..," maybe it had been a premonition that his home would finally be reclaimed...and he would lead the assault on it. He simply flashed back to his sister, whom to his knowledge had still been in Konoha...had he forsaken her by going to Suna and not bringing him with her? This was not time for that thought however.

His eyes were about to go back to Seto, he then saw one standing behind him. When the male had gotten to that position not even Ishi had a clue, but something about this man stirred the Yuumei inside of him...almost as if his entity had be weary, even...cross about the man being there," Brother? You mean he is apart of our clan as well?" He wasn't aware of so many being in the same spot at once and yet...something about this one, this man in particular perturbed Ishimaru. From within his own mindscape he could hear the Yuumei speaking," Be weary of this one...for he hunts those that stray too far from the darkness...His entire being disturbs me." What was it his Yuumei counterpart had been witholding that made him leery of the man in front of him?

329 wc

The smallest of chuckles escaped his lips as he shook his head and stepped to the right side of Seto," Now you know better than anyone that I slip in and out of one's own foretelling of my arrival. There would be many a defector to escape my judgement if they were all as clairvoyant as you...alas you may have made a mistake in your sight. My coming here was of pure chance as I was in the area and wanted to check on your new life while...dealing with some unhinged problems. I see in the process you have taken on someone to tell about our ways...yet this one here has already bonded with his Yuumei...," there was a pause in his wording as he shifted a single foot forward, but his aqua blue eyes shimmered for a moment before chuckling," This one isn't like you and I Seto. We were blessed with our Yuumei...but this one? Born with it. Hmm..Never have I met one with a strong connection and yet he is still naive in the ways of his own people. Good to see that you are educating him in our ways," stepping to the side once more he would take a seat onto the ground and smile.

"Make no mind of me however. I am merely here to observe and observe only. I have seen something interesting so i'd like to see what you will bestow upon this new generation...and what will come from its teaching," he didn't want to disturb such a moment to see what would breath from this moment. He had taught many a youngling in his time, but none of them had been born with this gift. They had been given it. He was honestly curious as to how one born with such a gift worked...almost like an experiment. As an icebreaker he would give the two something about himself, Seto might have knew it but not the young Shinkou," just to give you a little background about me. I am Rokuro Masamune. Previously I belonged to the Jashinist Cult but due to... certain reasons I lost my way. I was found by one of the elder monks and they bestowed my broken will and body to the man you see now. Many of our kind know me as one of the Elder Monks, but to those that stray from our path I am known as the Demon Hunter," a coy smile appeared on his face as he looked up at the moon," Though you have no need to worry."

426 wc

Even though Seto could not have said for sure what was said, it appeared boy’s Yuumei went haywire at the appearance of The Demon Hunter, Rokuro Masamune. All Yuumei hosts were fruits that had fallen into this world from the same Tree, and back to the same tree would return as nourishment. 

Unfortunately, some of the seeds fall too far from the tree and stray away from the Night’s Path. They are using their powers for their benefit and forgetting what a vessel of Yuumei being stands for to save others without compensation.

“A deserter of Yuumei knows his end is near, and he will rape and pillage and worse. Before the faithful will hunt him and purge the sinner for the world. Death is a blessing that he does not deserve, but he shall be given it regardless.”

Seto’s own Yuumei warned him differently, in the realm of dreams. And dreams brought more questions, and they left to him to find the answers. Why characters separated by nations would be lead by night at the same place if the singers of the past Yuumei had not given them their favorite visions.

“We tremble on the cusp of half-remembered prophecies of wonders and terrors from Uzumaki Naruto’s era that no man living could hope to comprehend. All shinobi in the land want to become great heroes and win tournaments like Chuunin Exams. Yet, it is the false light that is far more dangerous than the night because it will lead the world to even greater darkness.”

The host of the Yuumei was a different tale of chopped-up heads and necromancy; lords they were, knights, shinobi, and others. There was some very strange foreshadowing as well that the disaster was to come back to life. And if all places it would start here in Haven. He had seen a wolf and terrifying idea, but only one stood out.

“Knowledge is a weapon, young Ishimaru. Arm yourself well before you right forth to a battle."

wc: 333