The Past Catching Up

As if startled from a nightmare, Yazui woke up and shot upright in bed. Panting heavily, he stared at the sheets covering his lower body, letting reality kick in before bringing his breathing back to normal. He then took in his surroundings, eyes gliding slowly across his spacious room. His clothes, now freshly washed, hung across a line spun between two decorative hooks in the wall. When he had first entered, he had admired the large room in all its glory and felt truly lucky. But now that night had fallen, something about the large open space felt threatening. From sleeping in caves and decrepit hovels to his own private dwellings… it took some getting used to. Yet.. this wasn’t the reason for his awakening. Something felt off. Something he couldn’t place his finger on. It wasn’t this place, nor were it any of the vampires he now called his comrades.

For the first time in a long time, Yazui had dreamt of his parents.

The last time he had seen Tenka Hagutso and Tenka Hitomi had been shortly before leaving Kumogakure no Sato. The village was facing great difficulties due to the war it started and Yazui had already made up his mind. He was waving them off at the village gates. Two experienced jounin, off on another border patrol mission. One that would usually hold little risk. But this was war and their enemies were everywhere. With the treat of death ever present, Yazui and his parents would see each other off before every mission since every one could be the last. He had chosen this moment to leave because it would be easier than having to explain himself to them.

So while they were out, Yazui joined up with the band of deserters and… left. Or rather survived through dumb luck when the Raikage’s men caught up to them. Many of the deserters were captured or killed, and to this day Yazui didn’t know what the village told Hagutso and Hitomi about their only son. Were they given the message that their son had become a missing-nin? Or had they assumed Yazui to be among the many corpses left in the massacre’s wake?

Yazui had pushed these thoughts to the back of his mind many times. It was easier to focus on his new life without being reminded of what he had left behind. But now, for some reason, he couldn’t. It was like after he woke up, his parents’ presence was still there in the room with him.

Sighing, Yazui got out of bed and put on his clothes. Trying to go back to sleep was pointless, so instead he would go out and explore his new home.

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WC: 452/452

Spirit Rise Day One:

Spoiler:

After putting on his clothes, Yazui exited his room. He would then slink through the darkness in a brisk pace, sticking to the shadows and slinking through the halls like a nocturnal predator. His footsteps were light and made little sound, an unconscious habit picked up from years as a shinobi and some consecutive years on the run from hunters-nin. He had adopted the dark until it had become second nature to him.

Walking out of the hall containing each members’ private dwellings, he entered the living room. He looked around, half expecting to find his new comrades out and about, yet the room as empty and cold aside from some smoldering remains inside the firepit. The Kyuketsuki were an interesting lot and comparing them to vampires was fitting, but it looked like they weren’t nocturnal dwellers after all. He already knew they were fine in sunlight, so not all the general characteristics of vampires applied to them. Yazui figured they probably weren’t sleeping in coffins right now and wouldn’t die if Yazui slipped them some extra garlic next time he prepared them a meal.

A wooden stake to the heart would probably finish them, but that wasn’t something a normal human being could walk away from either.

Yazui smirked at his own witty pondering as he glanced across the room. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for among the shadowy outlines of the furniture decorating the room. All he knew was that the uneasy, restless feeling hadn’t passed. His left hand was in his pocket, tightly grabbing the handle of one of his kunai. He sighed and shook his head. What was he expecting? That some ghoul would be lurking in the dark corner of the room, ready to pounce at him?

Preposterous.

Yazui was about to move on when something made him freeze. The hairs in his neck rose as he took in a deep whiff from something he hadn’t smelled in a long time. His mothers’ favorite perfume….

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Spirit Rise Day Two:

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Following the familiar scent lead Yazui across the living area of the hideout and into the courtyard. The sky was clear, showing a waxing moon and basking the yars in lunar light. The cool evening air felt soothing to the Tenka, but the elongated outside area with its many stalls had a menacing quality. Were it the shadows that the buildings cast across the yard? Or was the uneasy feeling creeping up on Yazui getting the better of him?

Regardless, the brown-haired man pushed on towards the source of the scent. He would cross the length of the courtyard before finally arriving at one of the stalls furthest away from where he entered. The thing looked in far better condition than the decrepit old buildings he had seen in the rest of the Hot Springs country, but it was clear from the layer of dust surrounding its contents that these storage stalls had been something of an afterthought to the Kyuketsuki. Most of the palace was immaculate and well taken care off whereas these stalls received little in the way of cleaning.

Yazui made its way into the stall, shifting through items draped in fabric until he came to the place where the scent was strongest. He stood face to face with a tall silhouette draped in identical white fabric. The thing towered over Yazui. The man reached out to the fabric and grabbed it tight. He already knew what was behind it before he removed the drape with a single tug. The drape fell on the floor in a small cloud of dust, and Yazui peered into his own reflection in a large, standing mirror.

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Spirit Rise Day Three

Spoiler:

Standing before the mirror, Yazui smiled and shook his head. “Really? A member of the Tenka clan coming face to face with a haunted mirror? Does this ghost think its being ironic?” Apparently, he had officially started calling it a ghost in his mind. A sign of how this uneasy feeling was getting to him. Well, if this was indeed some undead spectre, this was their moment to strike. Yazui would stand in anticipation, faced with his own reflection sporting a steely glare as he gripped the handle of his kunai tightly once more.  Five seconds passed. Then ten seconds. Then thirty.

By then, Yazui was beginning to feel stupid. Here he was in the middle of the night, looking in some mirror. If any of the Kyuketsuki would happen to spot him, he would look like an absolute ass in front of them.

It was just nerves, Yazui concluded. Just nerves and difficulty adjusting to his new situation. He squatted and grabbed the fabric to cover the mirror back up. He was then about to rise again when he stopped dead in his track once again. This time, it wasn’t a vague feeling or a stray scent that had caught him off guard. This time, something was definitely wrong. He kept looking at the mirror to make sure it wasn’t a trick of the light. It couldn’t be. Was this a genjutsu?

His reflection wasn’t crouching.

It was just standing there, looking down at Yazui. An identical copy in every way, yet with its own agenda. It’s blank expression gave no indication of what it was thinking, which made Yazui feel even more at ease. It then performed a quick string of hand seals. Yazui jumped back in reflex, but couldn’t prevent being completely enveloped by the blast green, faintly glowing fog from the mirror.

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Spirit Rise Day Four

Spoiler:

Yazui would raise his arms to his face, shielding his eyes, nose and mouth while keeping enough space between his arms to look between them. Through squinted eyes he would see the fog surrounding him begin to form into vague shapes. Humanoid shapes. The fog began to draw towards these shapes, adding to their form and completing them while decreasing the amount of stray fog to the point that Yazui felt sure enough to breathe. It smelt like mould and dirt and dried blood, but it didn’t seem poisonous. The missing-nin would take several large leaps backward, making sure to determine his path beforehand as to not collide with any of the items in the yard.  He would place six meters between him and the figures, allowing him to take them all in. By that time, he had retrieved the kunai from his pocket and held it near his chest pointing up and outward in a defensive position.

He saw that the fog had formed into six…. Well, people wouldn’t be the right term to describe them. Looked human alright, but the grievous wounds they carried would have finished any human being off a long time ago. One bald man who towered over the rest of the lot seemed to have third degree burns across his entire head and most of his torso. The blonde woman next to him had a grievous neck wound and a large stain of blood on her chest area. One other man, an older dude with a grey moustache and a bandana, seemed fine. But even without showing his back Yazui could still see several kunai and shuriken sticking out of his back. Yazui would narrow his eyes. He noticed that all individuals seemed to be wearing shinobi gear. As a matter of fact, the burned man, the blonde woman and the elderly man were all sporting the Hoshigakure symbol on their headband or, in the old man’s case, bandana.

And the other three individuals… were wearing sporting the Kumogakure headband. And two of them, Yazui knew all to well. The male seemed to sport a bloody wound from his temple, the woman had a gaping hole in her chest, but they were still unmistakably his parents.

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Spirit Rise Day Five:

Spoiler:

At coming face to face with his parents again, Yazui felt his body go numb. For a second it seemed like the kunai would slip from his limp hands, but he had just enough clarity of mind left to reaffirm his grip on the weapon before he became unarmed by his own inaction. Many feelings went through him at once. Sadness. Shame. Anger. Why now? Why like this? Why did they look like that Then, there was a looming feeling of regret as he began to understand the ramifications of what he was seeing. If these were truly ghosts, it could mean only one thing…..

Regret and anger then began clashing inside the brown-haired man as his gape-jawed, shocked stare hardened into a cold glare. He raised his weapon once more. There was still a possibility that this was all some illusion, a shinobi art Yazui himself was all too familiar with. And the mere suggestion of someone pulling this trick on him filled him with vindictive fury. His next words would come out as little more than a furious hiss.

“If this is some sort of trick, then you’ve just sentenced yourself to death.”

Upon spitting out these words, Yazui’s eyes would bore into those of the spectral visages of his parents. Waiting for any sort of reaction. Perhaps a mocking sneer or vicious, accusing stare. But all he could read from their eyes was remorse and pity. And made Yazui feel even worse. This moment, this one instance in space and time, seemed to last an eternity to the man. An eternity that in face only lasted a few brief moments. After that, all hell broke loose.

As if possessed, the six shinobi sprang into action. The large, burned man would unsheathe his sword and swing it horizontally in the direction of the three shinobi wearing Kumogakure gear. A trial of green, ghostly flames would seemingly emerge from the blade, arcing in the swords' trajectory and forming a crescent wall of flame three meters high and five meters wide moving towards the three shinobi, extending two and a half meters on both sides of the man. From where he was standing, Yazui would feel the heat on his skin.

While this happened, the other two Hoshigakure shinobi would also act. The woman with the slit throat would leap backwards from the wall of flame and perform a string of hand seals. She would then inhale and breathe a large blast of wind towards the flame. Putting two and two together, Yazui would leap back another five meters, making sure to stay safe from the expanding fire and placing himself halfway the courtyard. Like he had expected, the wind would feed the roaring wall of flames, expanding its size twofold and increasing its intensity to a roaring inferno.

This apparent threat to his own well-being would snap Yazui out of his emotional state. He was still angry, but the calm, cool logic of a shinobi took over and he began assessing his situation. Step one: find out more. Moving his kunai downward, he would stick the point of the weapon into his upper leg. He would feel a sharp pain, followed by warm blood trickling down his leg. If this was a genjutsu, this pain would bring his senses back to reality.

It didn’t.

To Yazui’s dismay, the specters were still there. And worse, the final Hoshigakure shinobi, the older man, had quickly closed the distance between him and Yazui. He was now only two meters from the man and quickly closing in. In his right hand, a tanto blade’s sharp edge gleamed in the moonlight.

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Spirit Rise Day Six:

Spoiler:

Upon seeing the incoming threat, Yazui would perform three quick handseals, namely dog, hare amd boar, before raising his own kunai to meet the ghostly Hoshi-nin’s. The clanging sound of metal on metal would ring through the air as the two clashed. The weight that the man had put behind his swing pressed down on Yazui, causing him to plant his feet firmly in the ground as to not break his posture. This was definitely not genjutsu, and these spirits were definitely capable of affecting the physical world. Meaning Yazui was in genuine danger. The old man glared at Yazui, teeth clenched and growling.

“You’re their son, aren’t you? I can see it in your face. Killing you will be the perfect revenge!”

Rusty as he was, Yazui was still a soldier and thus quick to switch to a combat mindset. His left hand was already holding the kunai. He would place his flat left hand on the knife’s blade and push away to apply return pressure. In response to this, the old man doubled down on his own pressure, holding his tanto diagonally in front of him for maximum grip and dividing of force. This was exactly Yazui’s plan. Sticking out his pinky to touch the blade of the tanto, this moment of physical contact was all he needed to send some of his chakra into the blade. A gleam seemed to form around it as its reflective surface became the conduit for his genjutsu. Due to the blade’s positioning and the fact that this channeling of the genjutsu was instantaneous the second his skin made contact with the blade, there was nothing the old man could do to prevent getting caught in the genjutsu.

To the old man, the landscape around him would melt away into a demonic hellscape. The night sky was replaced with a blood-red overcast filled with soot and smoke. The surrounding environment seemed like the sight of a massacre; a barren, craggy wasteland filled with thousands of burned corpses. The air smelt like seared flesh, and he tasted blood in his mouth.

“Now, mom!”, Yazui barked as he took a step back and bent backwards. The next moment, a fuma shuriken imbued with lightning chakra flew overhead. And the old man’s now decapitated spectre sank to its knees. His head landed two meters to Yazui’s right with a dull thud. The fuma shuriken had belonged to Yazui’s mother, Hitomi. As the old man charged at Yazui, the woman had pursued the attacker to protect her son. She hadn’t been fast enough to catch up to him, but had been fast enough to capitalize on the opportunity created by Yazui’s genjutsu.

With the old man lying still at their feet, Hitomi and Yazui locked eyes again. It was a meaningful look. Both had a lot of questions and a lot of words unspoken between them. But now was not the time. Their looks would harden as they reached an understanding. Talking would have to come later. In the meantime, the old man’s body and head would begin to dissolve in the same ghastly fog that had given him shape, scattering in the wind.

Hitomi would turn away from Yazui and towards the remaining combatants. On one side, there were Tenka Hagutso and a third Kumo-nin. Yazui recognized her faintly as a woman named Hyouka. A chuunin from Kumogakure. While Yazui and Hitomi were dealing with the old man, Hyouka had apparently activated a jutsu. A steady torrent of water was spewing from her mouth, rapidly expanding in a cone and shaping into what seemed to be a dragon as it crashed through the wall of fire. It extinguished the flame as it crashed towards the two Hoshi-nin. In the meanwhile, Yazui’s father had performed a string of hand seals of his own. This was evident by the three water lenses floating above the torrent of water halfway towards the two enemies. Yazui quickly understood the situation; the water torrent would knock them off their feet and the lenses would trap them in a genjutsu. Which meant Yazui and Hitomi would be the ones to deliver the killing blow.

“Ready?”, Hitomi would ask.

“Lets do it.”, was the reply.

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AP Cost

Spoiler:

Spirit Rise Day Seven:

Spoiler:

The serpentine torrent of water crashed towards the two spectral Hoshi-nin. The large, burned man had made the mistake of looking at the aquatic lenses hovering above it. Judging by the blank expression he was carrying, his mind was somewhere else completely. The crashing wave impacted with his body, knocking him off his feet and sending him crashing into a nearby stand. The force was enough to cause the wall of the structure to crumble, covering the ghost with bits of wood and fabric.

Dazed, the man would struggle to get up. It was too late for him, however, as this short opening was the only thing the ghost of Tenka Hagutso needed. While the water was still doing his job, he had jumped high into the air before coming to a stop. Staying suspended in the air for a few moments, he would calculate the spot where the burned man would crash into the stand and point his legs towards that location. He would then begin his descend at a rapid speed while spinning his body. Wind chakra would emerge from the bottom of his feet and become swept into the spinning motion of the body, forming what almost seemed like a drill around Hagutso. By then, the burned man had crashed into the stand and was lying at the Tenka’s intended impact point. He would land in the man’s chest, pushing him further into the earth and ripping dirt and stone around him. The man’s mouth would open into a voiceless cry. If he were still alive, the force of the impact would turn his organs to mush.

The blonde woman had been savvy enough to recognize the lenses for what they were and had kept her eyes firmly on the water jutsu. She would perform a string of hand seals and sink into the earth without leaving a hole. The water would crash over the ground where she had just been.

Where could she be?

Yazui would instinctively move from his position. He would move four meters to the left, placing him in the shadow of one of the stands. When he looked up, he saw that his mother had joined him at his new position. In the meanwhile, an identical copy of Hitomi stood at their original position. As if clockwork, the kunoichi from Hoshigakure would rise from the ground behind the clone, pulling a spear of hardened earth out of the ground as she rose. She would raise the earth spike overhead and bring it down on the back of the clones’ neck. Just before impact, however, the paper bomb hidden on the clone would explode. This explosion would finish the clone as well as the final Hoshi-nin.

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Spirit Rise Day Eight:

Spoiler:

After the explosion of violence, silence settled over the yard once again. A patch of burned grass showed where the fire jutsu had traveled. Some scattered puddles were left in the wake of Hyouka’s water jutsu. The most telling sign of the skirmish was the large crater of uprooted earth caused by Hagutso’s taijutsu move. The impact had not only broken the earth and finished the bald Hoshi-nin, but had also completely shattered the stall and its contents, which now lied scattered and broken across the crater in a layer of water from Hyouka’s jutsu. The corpses of the two Hoshi-nin had vanished, evaporating in ghostly fog like the older man had earlier.

As Yazui and Hitomi stood around the center of the yard, Hagutso would make his way towards them. Hyouka would linger in the background, understanding that the family business of her comrades wasn’t something she should or wanted to get involved in. Hagutso would arrive at Yazui and Hitomi’s location and for a moment, Yazui wished more enemies would arrive. Fighting together with his parents felt good. Talking with them…. Well… the prospect of combat seemed very inviting by comparison.

But waiting for what they had to say seemed even worse, so Yazui would take the initiative.

“I guess this means you’ve passed away, huh?”, he would say. It felt like a stupid thing to say, but there wasn’t a thing he could come up with right now that seemed like a sensible thing to say right now.

Hagutso and Hitomi exchanged a look. Then, Hitomi would reply. "Yes. We did. About a month after you left.” Left. The word stung Yazui. Those who abandoned their village were considered scum where they came from so the word was a loaded one. It made him feel judged. So in a mixture of anger, hurt and not really knowing what to feel, Yazui lashed out.

“It was the smart thing to do! You know what the war had done to our village! You would’ve expected me to stay there like a good little bo-.” He fell silent. Knuckles balled and teeth gritting, he nonetheless stared at the ground in embarrassment. He felt his parents’ eyes bore into him. Damnit. A grown man, a veteran of the war, acting like a toddler.

“I apologize. It’s just… I don’t want you to think less of me.”

This time, Hagutso would be the one to reply. “We never thought less of you. Maybe you were right all along. Maybe the war was a fool’s errand. Your mother and I had just hoped that you would have at least told us or contacted us.”

Yazui’s anger slowly sunk away, making room for shame.

“Yeah….." He admitted. "Maybe I should’ve.”

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Spirit Rise Day Nine:

Spoiler:

Yazui didn’t like where the conversation was at now. Zooming in on ones faults was never a favored topic of anyones. The Tenka would quickly change the subject to something he was actually wondering. “So those Hoshi-nin were…..”

“An elite squad from their village.”, Hitomi could reply. “They were sent to Kumogakure to infiltrate the village and assassinate the Raikage. Luckily, we learned of their plan early and were able to intercept them at the border. They were stronger than we thought, and the battle that followed ended in a mutual kill for all of us. And now…” Hitomi had always been a stoic woman, but the expression on her face held traces of bitterness as she acknowledged her fate.

“We’ve been locked in combat in the afterlife for all eternity.” Hagutso wore a bitter smile and Yazui shuddered at the thought. Shinobi were supposed to dedicate their lives to their village. Having to sacrifice the peace of their afterlife too sounded like a cruel joke. “But we’ve finished them off now, right?” Hagutso shook his head. “Only their manifestation in this world. I’m sure you’ve noticed it, but something strange is happening. Something that is causing the veil between the world of the living and the afterlife to weaken.”

It was a lot to take in. Yazui would stare at his parents for a moment, taking in their features. Hagutso, who’se curly brown hair resembled his own. Although in Hagutso’s case, it was graying and his goatee set him apart from his son. Hitomi, with her blue eyes and black, flowing hair. An unusual combination, but one that made her a renowned beauty back in the day.

“Is that why you’re here?”, Yazui would ask.

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Spirit Rise Day Ten:

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