Days of Spring (Collection)

Fri Apr 01, 2022 10:57 am

Yurei sat upon his knees to feel the wintry wind around him. All but his eyes were covered in cloth or ceramic, and the chill air echoed around his mask and in his ears like an instrument - nature’s harmonic - its breath. It was strangely dead. The cold air did not feel alive, nor did anything in this place. It was not like Forest Country, where the snow hid the creatures who dwelled below in slumber. If he had dug, burrowed his way into the Earth, he’d find only bones here.

He opened his eyes. The tree looked more a sculpture than something that had once been alive. Its bark was rough, as if the wind had been sand eroding away at the trunk. It was spindly, dark, with thin branches stretching outward like taloned fingers.

It had been days, now, since the prison break. He hadn’t spoken much, focusing on his recovery. His eyes ached, but nothing like that had, and the tang of blood had washed itself from his mouth. He thought for a moment that he was sick - dying, but on consideration he remembered how fragile a state he was in. Yurei had adapted well to the change in lifestyle - mentally. But physically, the already thin man had grown thinner. Stronger in some ways, weaker in others. His body was a vessel of great power, but it was failing him - or perhaps he, it.

But the sensation of hunger never came, and so he never felt the need to sate it.

Yurei held up his hand. The gust resisted him, tugging at his palm, and a flurry of snow swirled around him. He snatched at the air, caging his fingers into a loose grip. He moved his hand to his lap, opening his palm. It was not a snowflake, but a blossom - from a cherry tree.

The Uchiha’s eyes glanced upward, the tree before him unwavering from the wind that tore at them - a sakura - and, in his palm, its first and only blossom.

He glanced down at his hand again. The wind called to the flower, lulling its petals from Yurei’s hand. And so it flew, dancing in the snow as it fluttered away from the Uchiha.

WC: 370

Sat Apr 02, 2022 11:41 pm

Paper and pen rest upon his lap, the wind tugging away at the scroll. The Uchiha stared at the blank parchment fluttering in the breeze, like a tarp pulled by a raging storm. It did not feel like a storm, however. Despite the winds and snow, Yurei had never felt the world around him at such peace.

It was not dead as it had been. Merely sleeping, or detached in some way, though not in the same as kamui. The realm locked behind his sharingan was still, lifeless. Here, with the winds tearing about him, Yurei could feel the energy in the air - in the frozen water around and beneath him. He could hear the shrill chorus and the churning water beneath layers of ice.

Esu’s cold nose brushed against him, penetrating the layers that covered Yurei’s alabaster skin, not far from the white around him. His mask holding the scroll in place, the Uchiha’s delicate face curved into a smile that contrasted with his sharp features. His thin chin, his pale eyes, his purpling complexion. His hands left the pen and the ink on the verge of freeze, and found Esu’s black fur, sprinkled with the flecks of snow gathering, too, in Yurei’s hair. “It’s quiet out here, isn’t it, boy?” he said, almost in a sing-song tone. His voice had always been deep, but so too was it soft until otherwise intended. With Esu, however, it was the only voice he used - would ever use. Anything else would be less than.

WC: 253
TCW: 623

Sun Apr 03, 2022 9:08 pm

The pen dipped into the ink, soaking up the black liquid. The moment it touched the metal, it began to freeze, clinging to the pen like a child to their mother. When the Uchiha moved to write, he only scratched the parchment.

Yurei smiled, closing his eyes. Typical. Chakra points throughout his body opened up, spanning outward from the pit of his stomach. Energy swirled around the pen, and, coursing through it, the ink melted, Yurei’s chakra flowing through the liquid. He started again, pressing the pen into the paper once more.

Frigid earth and wintry blasts

Beckon the blossom

The flower becomes the snow

He clasped the bottle of ink shut, nestling the pen in the snow beside him. Lifting the scroll, Yurei spread it before him, reading the lines over and over, then, out loud, so as to hear it as it was meant to be heard. He struggled against the wind, but managed it nonetheless. After all, who else was to hear it?

Content, Yurei nodded, pursing his lips and rolling the scroll closed, a new haiku amongst many he’d written since starting his journey. He found them calming, and the creativity needed often helped his mind work in other ways, particularly with planning, even in the moment. Even more so, it was important for him to maintain the arts in his lifestyle. They were life’s expression, humanity’s expression. What separated them from the beasts.

Or so was often said. Perhaps they had more in common than most realized.

WC: 251
TCW: 874

Mon Apr 04, 2022 11:45 am

Silk draped over the snow, drifting. Feet burrowed into the ice with each step, crunching the powder with wooden heels. It was still, quiet, and the storms that had plagued the country now stirred motionlessly, like a quiet breath. The very air was frozen, too. It was like moving through a moment in time rather than amidst the real world, and the long-spanning white felt like something out of a dream.

Yurei’s grip clasped his mask in his hand. The cool air on his skin had numbed it, chapping his lips, but years, now, beneath the ceramic hadn’t allowed him to feel as much. It served as a reminder that he was alive, in spite of his corpse-like appearance. Or perhaps he looked preserved, petrified. A glass figurine behind a wall of the same make. He brought the mask to his gaze, staring at its eyes with his own. His eyes, not its. They were one now - myth. Legend. Oni, hannya, Yurei Uchiha - presumed dead. Perhaps neither existed in the first place.

But that air on his face proved otherwise. He did not burn with fiery passion. He was not set ablaze. He was cold. Hollowed out for all but ideas and drives pathed in ice and snow. A flame that did not burn.

His fingers fell from the horns to the fangs, brushing the dried blood from the mask’s lips - his blood. It was then he remembered.

From his kimono, he plucked a rice ball. It was unappetizing, but Damon had insisted, and a repeat of the events at the prison were less than exciting.

WC: 266
TCW: 1140

Tue Apr 05, 2022 9:04 pm

He swallowed what remained, raising his mask to his face. It hugged his features, fitting against his cheekbones, his nose, his eyes. Silk stretched behind his ears, his mane, and tied. It was secure, braced - one with him. And he it.

When he wore the mask, he saw the world in a different way. It did not obscure his vision, nor his hearing, but he felt the darkness that encased him, was him. The shadow that followed him with every step into the light fell upon him, and the very birds hushed in his approach.

The wind was hollow, distant, and beckoning - mourning. The mask turned the brightest of days into the gloomiest of skies, and the fog that took hold of Snow Country now had dipped into shade. The cries in the heavens made elegies, and the overwhelming sense of death was profuse here. Rancid, even amidst the purity of the white snow.

No, it could not fester. It was long dead. The air here was moving now, howling, but stagnant. Ancient. He called it forth into his nose. It smelled of something buried and long untouched - forgotten and left into the cold.

“Sick,” he thought. This country was ill, and it wrought something like death. A disease that could neither fester nor grow - merely spread. And how could it be so? What could be housed in such a place as this?

Yurei looked up to the wood around him. Trunks laden with the same snow-white color that became a fog. More ash than snow, a blank canvas painted white.

WC: 261
TCW: 1401

Thu Apr 07, 2022 10:03 pm

Yurei stood still, the winds tearing about him. He’d reach a nearby peak, one of many mountains lining snow country, though small in comparison to others he had seen. It was, however, considerably colder. The air was thin, suffocating, despite the winds. Each breath was sharp, short, and they stung with icy air like diamonds shining around him. Yurei took each breath methodically, filling his lungs as if solving a puzzle.

He opened his eyes, viewing the site before him. Twilight had taken the sky, dimly illuminating the snow in a paler yellow. Gloom had set around him, the blizzard appearing as a dense, violent fog. But here, it was clear. Crisp, like the air. He shifted his eyes to the north, stone and ruin laden before him in between the cusps of wintry storms - a village. It was not far from where they were currently camped. Narrowing his eyes, Yurei observed what seemed to be a collection of huts, each of stone, spanning a wide area. Some were taller than others, but it was namely the diameter of the village that caught the Uchiha by surprise. He’d no knowledge of a village of this size existing here in Snow Country, even when he had studied the other nations in his youth.

Yurei knelt, peering out with his sharingan. Amidst the gloom of sunrise in this deadened earth, he could see the entrances, shut and frozen. Whatever this place was, it had not seen residents for a long time, at least in this section of the village. Powerful though his eyes were, they were not suited for this sort of task. Fortunately, he’d just acquired someone in such possession.

WC: 279
TCW: 1680

Fri Apr 08, 2022 8:10 pm

Yurei sat at the top of the mountain - breathing. He purposefully drew in each breath with a careful patience, filling his lungs with the thin air - as if breathing through a straw. The air in his chest struggled to fill, and his body struggled more to use what it had been given. Amidst the cold, his chest burned and writhed, begging for air - screaming for it.

But he did not relinquish. He was steady, like a rhythmic tune accompanying the blizzard churning below. It was an old art, one that had been drilled into him from a young age at the academy, mostly for poisons. It also effectively allowed one to adjust their heartbeat. It wasn’t an essential skill, nor even all too effective. Yurei instead preferred it as a means of discipline - exerting his will upon his body and bending it as to his mind’s specifications. Above all else, he was its master, not the other way around. And, in due course, he had learned much about control, of himself and others. It was a means of understanding the body - not on the level of a medical shinobi, but in terms of limitations or symbolic meaning.

When at last Yurei allowed his body to take in what it needed, he kept it leashed. He did not gasp for air, nor, no matter how strong the impulse, did he interrupt one breath another. It was like rising from water only to breathe as if you had not been drowning for minutes - hours.

Amidst the winds below, you could scarcely hear Yurei breathe at all.

WC: 264
TCW: 1944

Sat Apr 09, 2022 9:19 pm

Amidst the howling winds, colder steel hissed, sliding from its curved sheath. Pale white eyes and a ghoulish mask reflected in the blade, thinning suddenly with the thrust of a wrist, the thickness of the katana facing the Uchiha wielding it. Yurei extended his arm, his sleeve draped over his thin hands. He pressed his bandaged skin against the steel, feeling the cold metal even through the cloth. The Uchiha slid his hand toward the tip of the blade, pulling it down with his other. Severed cloth dangled from his wrist, and Yurei grasped the katana with both hands. Pouring it into the air, his feet slid across the eyes, stopping firm - planted within its slip. He brought the sword to his shoulder and breathed.

Breathed.

His grip tightened, and he bore the sword through the air, slicing diagonally, through snowflake and flurry. His speed was incomprehensible - precise. Most importantly, it was clinical. The Uchiha stood straight, inhaling the air around him for which his lungs begged. Despite their pleas, his breath was quiet, calm. As if he hadn’t even exerted himself. His sword returned to its position, and, tightening his muscles, the blade soared through the currents about him.

Again, his blade cut through the winds, a gust of his own toiling through the air. It was like single flute amidst a cacophony of instruments.

Again.

Again.

Yurei stood still, running the blade across the top of his sleeve. Ice and snow gathered onto the white cloth like powder.

WC: 250
TCW: 2244

Sun Apr 10, 2022 6:21 pm

Snow fell, layered upon the frozen lake like fine powder. Nearly a mile across, it was only made distinct by the lack of trees, a blanket of white where no plants could grow amidst a forest of dark green. Trees surrounded the lake, walls of layers - foliage and snow like dusted stripes peppered with asymmetry.

Yurei took his first step, planting his feet through the snow and upon the ice. His leg jolted with strength, but the ice did not budge. It was thick enough to support him and, likely, much more. Snow Country, so aptly named, rarely saw days without its namesake. Temperatures even on the warmest of summer days stayed below freezing. This lake hadn’t seen the sky’s reflection or the sun in decades, well before Yurei was even porn. Every layer of ice preceded another, like bark on a tree. It was curious, really, how nature showed its age in this way - as if keeping such a record was the law of the world, not just man. It was one of the few things that still bound the two, even amidst the destruction humanity often wrought that far surpassed any natural phenomenon.

When he had at last reached the center of the lake, still suspended by years of permanent ice, the Uchiha withdrew his sword, the very same one he had used in his exercises. The gray clouds reflected in its pristine metal, and, placing his palm on the katana’s pommel, he drove it into the ice - to its handguard.

Yurei sat for a moment, the fleck of snow gathering onto his back as if he were a statue. He tightened his grip, rising and unsheathing the blade from the lake. When he drew it to his eyes, there were no traces of water. The blade had not even broken the lake’s surface.

WC: 306
TCW: 2550

Mon Apr 11, 2022 9:54 pm

Yurei stood at the lake’s center, raising his clenched fist whilst folding his arm upward at his elbow. The blade of his katana glided into the space between the two then ran across them, the shaved ice from the lake falling onto the bandages encasing Yurei’s arm. Once at the blade’s tip, Yurei lowered the sword and his arm, the shavings falling into the snow at his feet.

The Uchiha slid the blade over his thumb, sliding it into its sheath. The lake’s surface of ice must have been as thick as he was tall. Even with low level jutsu, the Uchiha surmised it would take effort to penetrate the ice’s layer with conventional weapons. Fire jutsu, on the other hand, would easily burrow through something natural.

But that was not of interest to the pale man. The lake’s density was merely a test of his curiosity, and any fish below would likely have starved of oxygen by now. He would have to source his food elsewhere, perhaps in the rations they’d collected. Regardless, while still lacking the sensation of hunger, the Uchiha did find it easier and easier to eat his fill. It was something he could no longer neglect. His plans, ambitions had to come to fruition, and while his mind was robust, sturdy, his body was frail, and, more importantly, failing him. The minimal use of his Sharingan was still comparable to Damon in terms of their health, despite Damon’s excess use of his mangekyo.

This would not do.

WC: 252
TCW: 2802

Days of Spring (Collection)

Days of Spring (Collection)

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