Offerings - [Yurei, Damon]

“B-Boss! It’s them!” one of the gang members called out. 

Yurei did not acknowledge him, even with his eyes. Instead they bore into Irobuchi himself. The three tomoe swirled around his thinning pupils, as he raised his head to look down on the man. He was built, strong, but old. His face wore strained wrinkles, and flecks of his black hair grew white with age. 

“I do not believe in ghosts nor demons,” Hasashi spat. The old man’s wrist tightened, finding its grip on the handle of his katana. He drew into his stance, ready to unsheath the blade at any moment.

Yurei squinted, eyeing the man from top to bottom. His chakra signature was the strongest of any in the room save for himself and Damon. Still, it was enough to be considered a threat. The rabble around him, too, was stronger than those outside. The old man had surrounded himself with the strongest of his entourage. 

“Who are you, really, shinobi?” He asked, raising his head mirror-like. He pursed his lips, clenching his teeth. Yurei could see the muscles in his cheeks toiling. It was no mistake he could identify the Uchiha as a ninja. He and his group were essentially playing the role, if but merely playing. With no ties to a village directly, the Uchiha secretly wondered if their circumstances had been similar. What drove this man with such potential to mounting petty robbery and harassment between the notable villages of the ninja world.

Yurei found himself beginning to care less. If this is what he had chosen, then the Uchiha would be the one to etch his fate. A waste.

“No answer?” he swallowed, sighing. “Very well! Kill the bastard!” 

His sword clicked, and, suddenly, he was on Yurei. Unsheathed, the blade locked with Yurei’s kunai. 

Yurei’s eyelids fell, bisecting his Sharingan as the Uchiha fell into the flows of combat. Unlike Damon in his youth, Yurei’s role in combat was always a means to an end before anything else. He found no passion in the role itself nor in many things he once had. Even less so now than ever. The dance as it were, he took seriously, but there was no fire, no rage, no burning drive other than a cold desire to prove a point - to win. An exercise.

Metal clashed on metal, and the old man pressed his advantage. Where Yurei found himself a cold wind, this man raged like a torrent of blaze and cinders. Fire was his blood, and combat was his language. He was a swordsman through and through, and Yurei recognized the style and precision immediately.

A Kirigakure Ninja.

He’d read of them. The experience was only second hand, from textbooks and the like, but this was the first time Yurei had encountered one from the Hidden Mist. His bladework denoted nothing less than a venomous intent to kill. The barrage of slashes echoed about the room, but Yurei forged a handseal between each blow. The old man’s chakra surged, and, locking blades, he pushed Yurei backwards. The Kuroi Taiyo members flooded in, pressing into him to close the then-made gap. The Uchiha’s Kunai launched from his grasp, flying into the nearest’s face. He wrenched the weapon from its target, spinning it around himself. The gang stopped mere inches from the blade, pausing. 

Yurei blinked, and the kunai had lodged itself into the stone wall to his right. Hasashi was on him once more, the wire connecting Yurei to his kunai, falling silently on either side of the old man’s blade. He launched, thrusting his katana between Yurei’s eyes. It stopped mere inches from the mask.

Hashashi stared at Yurei through clenched teeth. Sweat burrowed between the creases in his aged skin. “You…” He turned his head, looking behind him with bated breath. Air swirled between them, and screams fill the basement’s static air. 

The void behind them expanded, pulling those within its proximity into its emptiness. An imitation black hole.

Hasashi’s blade lurched through the air as he regained control. His foot planted into the ground, and in an overhead strike he met a pair of kunai, glancing off of them as the duel continued.

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WC: 699
TCW: 2968

Metal screamed, and Yurei felt the pressure of Hasashi’s strength pushing him back, even against the void. He narrowed his eyes, only just putting up resistance with kunai crossed. Then, he felt it. 

Damon.

Screams bellowed even against the void. The howling winds thrusting from the room gathered, and black fire raged alongside the rip in time and space. Chakra filled the air, jutsu fired haphazardly. The smells of ozone permeated every breath. 

Hashashi’s eyes flashed, first to Damon then back to Yurei in mangled fear and anger. Yurei lifted his head, white, soulless eyes, staring back at the old man. The Uchiha imagined that amidst the roaring fires Irobuchi could see his aged reflection. The many years now catching up to him - this moment.

The blade slide downward, and sparks mirrored in Yurei’s eyes before they faded into the hannya mask’s darkness. Hashashi swung, meeting Yurei’s kunai as the Uchiha counterattacked, thrusting his kunai in a stab. Hasashi’s body moved like water, flowing with Yurei in step and effortlessly meeting the other blade with the length of his own. He was agile, perhaps one of the best Yurei had ever faced. Had the Uchiha not summoned the imitation black hole, he would not have lasted in close quarters - save for one technique.

Between clashes, men flew into the void, now at its peak. Their screams, their jutsu, their fervent need to live collided with the battle between these two shinobi in a symphony of bloodshed. And now, it was clear Hasashi age had caught up with him. 

He was panting. Every strike, every blow, carried the same weight as before, the same enraged bloodlust that burned so brightly, but he was panting. Tiring. Yurei could see his chakra not dwindling but shaking, vibrating. It was unstable. 

“Demon or not, I will not allow you to ruin everything I’ve built!” He spat with sheer venom.

Yurei thrust himself backwards, clasping his hands together. Just as the shinobi was on him once more, fire erupted from his mask’s mouth. An orange blaze filled Yurei’s vision, and, for a moment he thought he’d kill him.

The blaze roared, swirling in a sphere before him. But out of it, a silhouette grew and erupted from the fires. Wind surged from Hasashi blade as he charged, slashing across Yurei’s midsection with one swoop of his blade. The fire subsided. The void was an echo, leaving nothing in its wake but the stillness of the air. 

He felt something, something cold, then hot in his throat - boiling. The old man rose, his fingers rising to his strained neck. A kunai, wedged in its side, filled his hand’s grasp. Then, a pale hand. 

Yurei stood before him, unharmed. Irobuchi’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion. He knew he had hit his mark, killed the demon where he stood, but, now as he gripped his killer’s hand, he felt cold. His eyes glanced upward, and what stood before him was no demon. It was not even his chamber, but a home not his own. A blood-stained moon, and a man at his feet, dead.

The Uchiha’s father.

And before him, Yurei himself.

This was the first time Yurei spoke. His voice was calm, raspy. It felt not as if it were coming from the thing standing before him, but from somewhere else. Somewhere distant. “What you just experienced was ninshu. A link between us when you touched my hand.” Hashashi fell, sliding off of the kunai. His sword clattered to the floor, and his hand grasped at his neck as rivers of red rushed from it. He moved to open his mouth, to speak, but blood gurgled forth, trickling down his chin. 

Yurei moved towards him. His kimono slid across the stone floor, but Yurei himself made no sound, giving the impression that he was floating just over it. “What you saw was my father. The night I killed him.” The Uchiha bent down, grasping the katana in his spindly grip. He stood over the man, looking down at the crumpled mess before him struggling for breath. 

“Y-” he stared, blood bubbling in his mouth. “You’re a dem-”

“A man.” Yurei flicked his wrist, and Hasasahi’s head rolled from his shoulders.

The still burning black fire came into view, and for the first time Yurei could hear its characteristic roar. He turned to Damon amidst the bodies, dropping the blade next to its wielder's corpse. “We’re finished, here.”
-------------

WC: 739
TCW: 3707

Yurei stared at the horrible expression etched into Irobuchi’s face as Damon spoke. He stood motionless, waiting for Damon to finish.  Hasashi was a footnote, not even a chapter, in their tale. He was right, but it seemed the point had gone over Damon’s head. But still, Yurei could feel a wash of cold anger creeping behind him, like a sprinkle of freezing rain. All that power, and this is what Hasashi chose to do with it. He gave a nod, then turned to Damon to acknowledge him.

“When I put on this mask, and you yours, the goal was not to become Gods to these people, these villagers. It was to hide ourselves, to become what we wore to terrorize these men and those like them. It was never my intention to obtain reverence.” Yurei’s long hands wove around him, unwinding the straps securing the mask to his face. It detached with a wooden clack, and Yurei turned to face Damon directly. Blood streamed from both eyes, now a pale white free of tomoe. “We are the Oni and the Tengu because we are myth made real. I know now that adoration, even out of fear, comes alongside that, but you misunderstood me, or maybe I did not make myself clear enough.”

Yurei stood straight, gesturing to the corpses laid about the chamber with thin, long arms. “What killed these men was very much real. And their bodies will remain here to be eaten away, by beast or by time, and those who see them, hear of them, will know that we killed them. Not that they vanished. Not that they packed their things and disappeared. Not that someone convinced them to leave. They will know that those who abused their powers were laid waste, murdered in return without chance for remorse.” Yurei’s eyes fixed on his brother. “I’m not interested in creating ghost stories, Damon. What I want is to make them real.”

The Uchiha’s arms stretched, and his black sleeve moved to wipe the blood from his porcelain eyes. Yurei attached the mask to his face, tying it firmly. The grooves and contours fit snugly, almost as if it were part of him. “But it’s because of that we can’t stay. Once words spread, those hunting us will come looking. But one day, even they’ll believe these stories for what they are. The truth.”

WC: 400
TCW: 4392