#Kuromaru Uchiha | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

vinodiriso · 4 years ago

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Mejika Nikki: The White Fang’s Last Howl.

Mejika Nikki (The Doe Journal) is an on-going series of stories that deals with crucial events in Yoshino’s story. You can navigate its tag here.

Yoshino couldn't think of anything. Her mind was a blank slab of marble, cold, unfeeling, dumb. Her eyes were open wide and fixed on the ground, but she saw nothing: her vision was past that world, spirited away to the realm of remembrance, of grievance.

Sakumo-sensei was dead. There wasn't a man alive able to kill him, so he’d taken his own life. A life he had spent serving Konohagakure to his fullest and for which he had paid the price. Yoshino hadn't been allowed in the room where they found the body. "Spare yourself this," Minato pleaded her that fateful night, when her eyes had looked even more possessed, her breath wild and frantic, "neither Tsume-san nor you deserve it."

She spent that night curled against the warm body of the last person left in the world whom she still cared about. Neither the Inuzuka nor the Yukinohana uttered a single word that night, each too busy walking through the flames of their personal hell: Haru's departure was a wound still too fresh for them to cope with, Sakumo's suicide felt quite literally like a knife in the back. They wouldn't have allowed his death to become about them, but it did feel personal, as if those other students of his had been too blind to realize their teacher's pain, the extent of his sorrow, as day after day he walked away from life. Survivor's guilt was eating away at their hearts already, wondering why he had resolved to this, why didn't he tell them what they could have done to help him, why couldn't they have seen it by themselves.

"Sakumo-sensei, is there something wrong?" "Why, no, Yoshino. I am just happy I could see you both in person after so long." “Are you turning sentimental on us, old man?" "Ah, Tsume, don't be mean. I’ve just missed my girls. I wish Haru could be here too."

"Are you ready?" Yoshino didn't even hear Tsume coming out of her house, Kuromaru showed his support by staying next to her. Her face was so pale, as if she hadn't rested a sole minute the night before. To be fair, neither Yoshino'd had.

The kunoichi tried to think as hard as she could, but her brain refused to cooperate. She was empty. She was spent. So she simply nodded, despondent and in wordless despair.

They walked side by side, never talking once, only the sound of their sandals and Kuromaru’s soft pads squashing the stone chippings accompanied them. It was a first for Tsume and Yoshino to go silent for so long, but every word uttered felt meaningless: those words should have been used on Sakumo to cheer him up, to quieten the screaming voices of anguish, dishonour and dismay which drove him to that insane resolution. But they had been spoken not, so those words deserved to die in their chest, like Sakumo had.

Konohagakure seemed eerie in its dormant state as they ghosted along its streets. It was little after dawn, so probably most of the village was still asleep, but it gave the gloomy impression that the entire population of Konoha was in mourning for the loss of such a great hero. There was a certain grey tint to the air itself, an ashen look that turned even the lively hearth of their home into a gathering of bereavement. Yoshino still could not think, of anything.

The graveyard was close to empty. A few shinobi were scattered across the meadow, Yoshino recognized Minato holding close a young, silver-haired boy. ‘Kakashi...’

Next to him, two other children, one with dark features and the Uchiha emblem on his vest, the other a girl with brown hair.

Yoshino felt eyes on herself and her companion and turned to meet Rou's frightening visage. His gargantuan, white ninrou, Kibone, swayed her tail drearily. He was back from Suna, then? she started thinking, before realising she didn't really care to know. There were few other people, some older folks she had never met and some other representative of her generation, but none could testify the place was crowded or the funeral attended.

"So he hasn't come," Tsume growled from her left, startling Yoshino. Who was she talking about? But again, as soon as her mind started formulating that thought, it stopped. It didn't want to work. It didn't want to know. If it had known, it would have acknowledged. If it had acknowledged, it would have made it real.

Yoshino and Tsume walked to the front rows and stood there, eyes fixed on the tomb just a few steps before them. Yoshino turned to observe Kakashi: he was crying and Minato was massaging his shoulder with a light hand and a tenderness Yoshino did not anticipate from such a ruthless ninja. The girl was touching his other shoulder, while the Uchiha boy just looked at him in grievance.

One sudden awareness hit her like a hammer on the back of her skull: she had yet to shed a single tear from the announcement of Sakumo's death. She had stopped eating, barely drank, laid wide-awake in her bed all night long, couldn't focus on anything, but she hadn't cried. She did realize it, yet she couldn't do anything more, because that would have meant to think, and she didn't want to think. She didn't want to think.

The solemn celebration started and carried on quietly, without making too much noise. Yoshino wasn't paying it any attention, and she would have kept doing so if Tsume didn't whisper in pure bewilderment: "...Sandaime-sama."

Yoshino spun her hear around to see as rustling murmurs started animating the sombre assembly. In the central gap, left unoccupied to allow free passage, stood the imposing, red-and-white-clad figure of the Hokage.

"Thank you, Hiruzen-sama..." there was a trembling unaccounted for in Tsume's breath. Her tattooed cheeks became lined with fresh tears. She sobbed, pain hastily gushing from the fissure in her heart. Kuromaru rubbed his big, canine head against her outer thigh to show empathy towards his owner.

The Hokage being there was retribution against all the spewers and scandal mongers that had gossiped and sullied their teacher's name. ‘So this is who she was talking about before’.

Yoshino couldn't bring herself to be as happy or comforted about Sarutobi's presence: he should have done something to help Sakumo, to protect him. Failing a mission, no matter how crucial, shouldn't have robbed him of all his achievements and destroyed his worth in front of the village. The Hokage had come to naught as long as defending Sakumo was regarded, and now his body was cold beneath the dirt and the earth.

‘Why did you have to save your comrades, Sakumo-sensei? Why didn't you just complete the mission and then come home? Why did you rob yourself of your own life?’

"Hi, everyone, my name is Hatake Sakumo and I shall be your sensei from this moment on! Why don't we start off by introducing yourselves to your new teammates? Say your name and what is your dream." "SURE! I am Inuzuka Tsume from the Inuzuka Clan, and this is Kuromaru. We are partners! My dream is to become the toughest kunoichi in Konoha and kick everyone's ass, so don't make me mad!" "Haha, I like your enthusiasm! Who is next?" "My name is Hyuuga Haru, I am a member of the Hyuuga Clan. My dream is to become strong enough to protect the people I love and this village whole!" "Very noble of you, Haru. You are the only one left, little one." "Mh. My name is Yukinohana Yoshino. My home used to be Yukinohana Shokumin, or what's left of it. I-I don't think I have a real dream..." I just want to survive and be happy, one day. "It's okay not to have clear ambitions at the start. Your path will be revealed to you when the time comes, Yoshino."

‘It isn't clear yet, Sensei. I don't know yet what I want from my life. What did you want from yours? Why did you take away your chance to be happy? Why didn't you let us help?’

"Yoshino," Tsume's voice was soft in ways her best friend had rarely ever heard. "It's time to go."

"Mh."

An intense gust of wind dragged and crushed the flowers Kakashi and the girl –Rin, her name was Rin– had laid on Sakumo's grave. She saw the petals get ripped off, dancing in the cold air, and then collapse, powerless, to the ground. ‘Not even in death will you accept the gratitude and love of those who were close to you, Sensei? Are we so undeserving of your benevolence? Did we fail you so, Sakumo-sensei?’

The attendants to the funeral dispersed a couple of minutes after the service ended. Minato escorted his team out of the graveyard, Rou gazed at Yoshino and Tsume, it was clear he didn't want to leave the latter alone, but he made the wise choice not to meddle just yet and give them some more time to spend in one another's company.

Tsume looked more at peace with herself on their walk back than what she did on their way there. She was still desperately sad, of course, but there was no more hopelessness in her eyes, rather a –shaky, unstable, feeble, but still some sort of– resolve. Yoshino coveted her strength of mind, her will to keep fighting.

Tsume was likely aware of that, so she told the Yukinohana: "you know what Sakumo-sensei would have told us, Shishi. 'Don't cry for what you can't change, strive to improve what comes after so that your pain won't be in vain'. I won't let his death be in vain, Shishi, and neither will you."

Yoshino truly did want to believe Tsume, but she just couldn't find the energy to do so. Her heartbeat felt shallow, her sight blurred and her touch irresponsive. There was a lulling sense of meaninglessness in that narcolepsy of the soul, where the entire world was absent and noiseless because everyone had turned their back on them. ‘Sakumo-sensei… how lonely were you?’

“Sakumo-sensei… you never told us your dream.” “Haha, I didn’t back then, did I? I want to leave this world a better place than what I found it, for my son and the people I love. This is why I strive to be the best ninja I can be, not to win my battles for my personal pride… to make sure that, one day, Kakashi won’t have to fight them himself.”

Yoshino looked up at the sky. “There’s no clouds today. The sky is so gray.”

“Damn, I can’t believe they actually did it in broad daylight,” a ninja they passed on a secondary alleyway to reach Inuzuka Compound hissed to his friend, “they were lucky none went there to give that bastard what he deserved.”

Yoshino halted, Tsume and her were a few meters from them now. “Say that again.”

The ninja turned back to look at her, a complacent grin on his idiotic face. “Why, what are you gonna do otherwise, you skin and bones? You gonna tickle me to death?”

“Say that again,” Tsume laid it on thick with her barking, her face tilted a bit to eye him. Even with her earnest aspirations, Tsume was still Tsume, and Tsume was not to be provoked. Kuromaru growled with her, feeling the pure murderous intent radiating from the two kunoichi.

“They. Were. Lucky. None. Went there. To give that bastard. What he deserved.”

Tsume and Yoshino sprung to action on the very same instant. The Inuzuka young woman started forming the hand seals for Shikyaku, Kuromaru dashed next to her, a black, muddled stain for how fast he was running, and filled the dense, electricity-sparkling air with his blood-frenzied snarl. Yoshino too was advancing rapidly, she had no weapons at her disposal because of her mourning attire, but someone had left a spare wooden board leaned against a fence: it was chipped, rough and too large to be used effectively as a bō, but she would have done with what she had got.

While Tsume squatted to hurl herself against their enemy, Yoshino spun her makeshift staff in her hand to empower her subsequent blow with even more might. She was not even a step from dealing her strike when she felt a tight grip on her waist cutting her breath short, her armed hand squeezed tight to stop her from hitting. At her right, a very tall individual held Tsume for her throat, claw-like nails scraping against the skin of her neck and drawing blood. ‘Rou...’

Kuromaru too had been stopped, his neck bitten down and his limbs pinned to the ground by some larger ones. Kibone, Rou’s ninja she-wolf, immobilized Kuromaru completely, a testament to her raw strength given also by her ridiculous size. The ninken’s pain was clear, stuck as he was into Kibone’s fangs and claws, but that one-eyed terrifying muzzle was still contorted into a ghoulish expression.

The shinobi Tsume and Yoshino tried to attack grew pale realising he had been saved from a very painful – and dangerous – experience. The Yukinohana never stopped glaring at him with a fiery scowl. She was still angry. Her heart still sought revenge, the bitter taste in her mouth reclaiming blood to wash the shaming insult away.

“Rou! Let me go!” Tsume yelled, trying to kick the Jounin in his shins. Yoshino glanced behind her and saw a Kage Bunshin of Rou restricting her. “LET ME GO!”

“Quit it, Tsume!” Rou screamed back at her. “What were you two trying to do, huh?! Kill him?!”

“Were you following us, Rou?” Yoshino inquired, she forced herself to keep her voice low. No movements of her prey went unnoticed as he swerved, nervous and scared, not knowing whether to hold up to his earlier affront and risk a real assault, or to deny it by running away and lose face in front of his comrade.

“Yeah, daisy girl, I was following you. And thank fuck I was, you two were about to make a mess! Tsume, what happened?!”

“That son of a bitch badmouthed Sakumo-sensei… on the day of his memorial… that huge bastard! I will kill him!” Tsume shrieked so loud she could crack a glass, she shook wildly in Rou’s binding grasp.

Rou sighed, his wild, white mane covered his countenance from Yoshino, but she would have betted in that same moment Rou was trying to bridle his own thirst for revenge; he was quite the ‘an eye for an eye’ type, and a passionate defender of responding to violence with violence, especially when those endangered were people he cared about. Moreover, he had a fervent belief in a code of his own – a code which exalted honour above most things. He couldn’t stand watching someone rob another of their honour.

“It’s not right, Tsume,” he spat from beneath his clenched teeth. “Sakumo-san… didn’t die for this. He didn’t die for you two to pick fights on his behalf, he didn’t die for you to turn bitter and resentful!”

Yoshino was taken aback by Rou’s statement. “I want to leave this world a better place than what I found it, for my son and the people I love. This is why I strive to be the best ninja I can be, not to win my battles for my personal pride… to make sure that, one day, Kakashi won’t have to fight them himself.”

“What do you know?! What do you know about Sakumo-sensei?! Nothing!” Tsume cried out, her anguish threatening to crack through once more as she glowered at Rou. “YOU KNOW NOTHING OF HIM! LIKE ANYONE ELSE IN THIS VILLAGE! YOU KNOW NOTHING!”

Rou stared her down. “I know the person he helped raise, and he didn’t raise you to be scum that attacks a fellow shinobi for a futile reason! Grow up, Tsume!”

His shouting took all the vigour away from Tsume as she, once more, broke up crying. Yoshino envied her bitterly, she wished she could have found an outlet for her pain as healthy as those tears, but she couldn’t, she didn’t have enough strength to shatter just to build herself back up. Not once more.

“Yoshino, Tsume, Haru. In your life it will be asked of you to make difficult choices. It’s the destiny of every ninja. Whatever the circumstance… always follow your conscience. Living with a dirty conscience is hell, it’s not living. Sometimes a hard choice is a right choice. Remember this.”

“Kuromaru… at ease,” at last, Tsume gave in. Then – and just then – Rou released his hold on her neck and put his arms around her. As soon as Kuromaru stopped struggling, Kibone let him go and started licking the wounds she inflicted upon the smaller animal. Yoshino looked at the scene and all of a sudden she realized she was alone. Alone in her pain, alone in her bewilderment, alone in her shock, alone in her loss.

“SHISHI, NO!”

The Yukinohana jabbed her elbow in the clone’s ribs. A swing like that would have cracked some mean bone, for sure, in fact the Bunshin disappeared with a puff of smoke. She started running, as fast as her legs allowed, her throat torn apart by a distraught, furious scream, her momentum increased the second she swung the board behind her. Her chest was heavy with despair, with resignation.

‘If I don’t do this, Sensei, what will it be of me? If I don’t let this rage build inside me, it will just be more pain, again. I don’t want to suffer, Sensei. I am tired of suffering. I wish it all went away… I wish you were all with me still, Sensei. Hacchan. I am sorry. I can’t do this on my own.’

“YOSHINO, STOP!”

‘I don’t want to be alone anymore, Sensei.’

The kunoichi was halted abruptly, her improvised weapon a mere centimetre away from the guy’s head. She could not move, her entire body shuddered with tense muscles, yet she couldn’t take another step forward. She looked around, astounded, and noticed a black pool beneath her feet. A dark tendril spiked away from it, climbed back up the fence to her left, then up the side of a house, till eventually connecting with another figure.

“Thank fuck, Shikaku. That was one hell of a scare,” Rou commented, relieved.

Nara Shikaku was kneeling on the roof of that house, his hands united to form the secret seal for his clan’s signature jutsu, Kage Shibari. He stopped her with his shadow, that’s why she couldn’t move.

“Heh, just in time,” he smirked. Yoshino noticed that him too was in black clothes. Did he came to Sakumo-sensei’s funeral? “I was on my way back home when I heard screaming and I came to check. Glad I did.”

“Release me,” Yoshino commanded.

“No. If I do, you will crack that guy’s noggin open.”

“RELEASE ME!”

“None wanted Sakumo-san dead!” the Nara stated passionately. “It’s something we can’t change, it’s the reality we must accept. That anger inside of you is fair, you have every god-damn right to be angry, I would be. I am. But even if you beat that motherfucker to death, even if you beat up all of us, that’s not gonna make him come back and you know it. It’s just gonna get you in trouble and I know for a fact that’s not what your Sensei wanted, for either of you. Don’t insult his memory by forgetting the kinda man he was in life. He wouldn’t want it.”

“Yoshino, you more than Haru and Tsume know what it is like to suffer truly. You lost your home and your family, but you found within yourself the strength to start anew. You are like the flower you bear the name of: if snowdrops didn’t blossom through the cold snow, we would never know spring is coming our way. Never let bitterness spoil your heart. Promise me, Yoshino.”

“...release me.”

Shikaku observed her for a few seconds and established that his words had managed to calm her down enough. He loosened the hand seal, his stretched shadow hasted to return to its normal size.

“You, piece of shit,” the Nara’s voice was filled with disdain as he addressed the ninja that had started the whole fight. “Go die somewhere else before I come down there and choke you myself, you vermin.”

The two of them didn’t need him to say it twice. Screaming for their lives, they ran away and were soon nowhere to be seen.

Yoshino, able to move, observed her free hand. Her fingers were thin, her nails chipped in some parts, her knuckles bruised and filled with small scars never fully healed, her skin white as a cloud. Yet she could see her hand dripping with blood, blood of those she couldn’t save: Haru, Sakumo-sensei. She survived, but she wasn’t sure she could keep on living. What for? What was the meaning of all that? Why was she breathing? No. No. She couldn’t think. She promised herself she wouldn’t think. To think meant to acknowledge and to acknowledge meant to make it real.

But it was real. It was already too real.

‘None can save me, Sensei.’

The kunoichi threw the plank she was still holding all the way down the alley. It impacted against a wall and broke in two pieces. Yoshino was hit with the sudden realization she did want to kill that guy before. She hadn’t considered the implications until she saw that piece of wood abandoned on the side of the road.

“Shishi...” “I am going home.”

Tsume pushed Rou away gently and tried to reach for her friend’s wrist, but Yoshino vehemently pulled away. She didn’t want to hurt Tsume, but she could breathe no more. She needed to be alone. Maybe then her loneliness wouldn’t have felt so acute, so distant from the world around her.

“Leave me be, Tsu. I will be okay. Rou, take care of her, please.”

“Will do,” he said, holding Tsume’s hand in his. “Look after yourself too, Yoshino.”

She didn’t answer. She just walked away, her hazel eyes as grey as the sky above them.

Her last punch against the tree ended with a painful, loud crack. Yoshino fell to her knees, clutching her right hand to the chest: it was a broken knuckle, no way around it. Her entire body was burning, not only with fatigue, but also with unrestrained chakra: she could feel true fire circling through her body, the ache limitless with her muscles overstressed, her chakra not controlled, her leg tendon pulled.

Blood was smeared all across the tree’s dented bark. Blood was dripping down her hands, not wrapped with any sort of protection or bandage, probably some chippings had ended up inside her skin, under her now broken and hanging nails. She was beyond exhaustion, she felt like she could pass out any seconds now.

Yoshino yelled out in pain, a scream so intense and tormented it resembled the calling of a sorrowful demon. None could hear her there, she was alone. She was always alone.

“Sakumo-sensei… is war right?” “Oh, dear. Men invented Hell for those who invented the war, but I don’t think it’s a good enough punishment.” “What does it mean, Sakumo-sensei?” “Hell is supposed to be a place where all evil people go to when they die. Yet war doesn’t discriminate between good and bad… actually, it ends up killing too many good people instead of those who really deserve to die.”

‘You did not deserve to die, Sakumo-sensei. I am so sorry. Please, forgive me for not having done anything. Forgive me, Sensei.’

She could not cry, because to cry meant to suffer and she was not able to suffer any more. But she could feel rage for him, and have that rage fuel her in battle. She would have not taken her own life, she could not, but if she ended up dying in confrontation… there wasn’t a ninja able to help it, after all. To lose their life in combat.

Yoshino screamed again, the pain burning even brighter. Physical pain was better than spiritual. Physical pain would have gone away eventually, but a scarred soul remains scarred forever. Her soul was already scarred enough.

‘Sakumo-sensei… I am not as strong as you thought. I am a coward. I am worthless. If only I’d been there… if only I’d been stronger… but you’re dead now.’

A sob made her chest jolt up. Then another. ‘Don’t cry!’ It was too late. She had thought. She had acknowledged.

Now it was real.

“SAKUMO-SENSEI!”

#well fuck #death tw #loss tw #suicide tw #suicide idealization tw #Mejika Nikki #long post #mirin writes #yoshino yukinohana/nara.#yoshino (headcanon)#naruto content

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