Chapter Four- Beloved

I turned, enraged. 

Why was it so impossible to let my anger out?

It was so bottled up. I didn't have anyone to air it to. I had to be physical. It was simply how I felt, how I let it go.

I looked up, straight into his face. Fear raced up and down my spine as I recognized the figure to be the same man I saw in the clearing.

The Human Snake.

My naiveté never quite satisfied, I stood, scowling at him.

"Perhaps..." he began in the same dangerously attracting voice as before, "There IS no meaning to life."

I froze. 

He knew.

He knew EVERYTHING.

He knew that THAT was the conclusion I had come to, knew I was so unsettled by that possibility I might've ended my life out of misery.

Again he showed me my place in the world.

"But..." he continued, not noticing my slight shiver (Or did he? Seeing as though he knew everything), "You might find some interesting things by continuing to live. Like how you found that flower..." He smiled, and his voice became more seductive. "How I found you..." before my mind could contemplate his words, he reached to me and cupped my cheek. 

The sudden cool, silky touch once again sent my spine flaring. My eyebrows shot up in alarm and color flooded my cheeks.

"Now, come with me."

I came.

I floated.

I found a feeling bloom in my chest like my beloved clematis flower- a feeling that I understood as what a son would feel for his father. This confused me, for I had never felt this way toward my real father- but, I realized, that wasn't the kind of relationship I just bonded. It was the relationship of a general and his soldier- a relationship of a dictator and his army. I could never truly find a reason to call my own father 'Dad'.

Now, I realized, I felt free and lifted- somebody to listen to me, to protect me, and to protect in turn. Yes, I confirmed in my mind. I would protect him, at the cost of my life. My world now spun around him. A very quick decision, many would say, and naive. To accept a stranger into your life so quickly was very daft. Ah, but those people don't understand. It was like finding my soulfather- the father I always needed, always wanted but never addressed the thought in my mind. Ah, they don't understand the strange way my mind works.

They don't understand the feeling of finding your Beloved.

---

I grew.

From that day, I began to grow, grow in the ways that revolved around becoming stronger. I trained to the point I bled out of every element of my face, and then I trained until I couldn't see. I slept for four hours then got up to train again, not close to revived from the previous day's strain. I did this all on my own- to learn, if I ever needed to, to fend off anyone wishing to harm my Beloved. The way I trained- merciless to my body, to the sting that shot and leaked out from my bones and my bones alone- was with my will.

With, and strangely, against my will.

Chapter Three-Clematis

The next day, when dawn broke, I looked down at the village.

I did keep a straight face as I analyzed the scene below; my family members, one by one, having their corpses stacked in a morbidly tidy pile.

I tried to remember when they all fell: but only the sensation of adrenalin and an occasional bloody scene returned to parr. 

A wave of fear and absolute sadness swept over me: I was alone again.

All alone.

I climbed out of the tree where I had been resting and thumped quietly to the ground. Cage, I kept thinking, sanctuary. Where was my cage? My head spun. I clutched my blade tighter. I walked, walked, ran, stumbled. I didn't feel any emotion toward my dead family- it felt morbid and wrong, but no sadness came. I was pained, sorrowful, and grieving for myself- but it was a small feeling in the back of my mind. Continuing to walk nowhere, I finally allowed myself a few hot tears for all those Villagers who had died- and since no one of the clan had triumphed, for nothing. Nothing. All those people. I thought over the people I had killed, and somehow, I had had a reason. I was needed. The thought curled through my body and made me fight on- taking lives like they were petals picked from a flower. I stumbled on until I found a pond- quiet and calm, unlike my mind, and edges blurred by the mist that covered the land. Slowly, hopefully, I looked into the water. I must've had those eyes now. After everything that happened the night before, I must've. 

I observed. 

I cringed.

 My hair, white and fair like a snowflake, still tumbled down my back, neatly, not a strand out of place. My skin was still pale, not tanned or damaged by the sun. And oh, how sane my eyes. I looked straight into them -bright and light green as ever- and they stared back, completely sane and calm. No bloodlust. No rage.

I sighed inwardly in frustration. Nothing worked. I was just a boy with a strange gift. I wasn't worth looking at. I wasn't worth fighting, wasn't worth befriending.

I had nothing.

I was nothing.

I had no one.

I was no one.

I stood, my visual features calm and everything else mad with anger, and looked to my right, trying to find something, anything, that would ensure I wasn't just a speck of dust floating by, and was actually a human being with a purpose. 

 To my absolute joy and satisfaction, I not only saw an affirmation of my existence, but something familiar, an old friend popping out of the soil.

A blossomed clematis flower. 

And, I realized in relieved fascination, not 'a' clematis, but indeed 'THE' clematis. I remembered her; she had been a friend of mine a while ago, in one of the short periods of my release from my cage. I walked to her, knelt, smiled. "What are you doing blooming in a place like this?"

She remained in her silence.

"Why won't you answer?" I asked, slightly annoyed and rejected. 

She didn't reply.

"Well, fine!" I raised my blade, angered. "Nobody'll see you out here, anyway!" 

"Stop."

Chapter Two- Eyes

I turned, using my arm as a shield from the bright light.

I was automatically confused.

Having been raised in the cage, I saw my father seldom- when food was given to me through the bars, mostly, and we NEVER exchanged words. As a result, when I did see my father that day, I felt slightly deluded- his hair, much longer, was piled on top of his head in a complex wave of beads. He was darker- skin tanned by the sun. And his eyes were even more wild than before.

The eyes threw me for a loop- being locked in the cage, I had not been broken to their bloodthirsty ways- I was still a humble nine-year-old. As no one knew of my condition, including myself, I seemed to have no backbone (metaphorically, ofcourse) and no trust in myself just as a simple coward. Though my kekkai genkai - Shikotsumyaku- was the most developed and controlled of the clan, my inability to fight without thought was detested, and so was born my cage. All because I couldn't acquire those eyes.

I stared, not recognizing him. "Who are you?" I asked. As he had opened the sealed door -placed there by elders- at the mouth of the cave, sound came in -birds, crickets, a river gurgling- and my high-pitched  voice no longer echoed. Normally, if the door had, as an example, blown open with the wind, and I could no longer hear my voice ricochetting off the cave walls, I would have panicked. I normally talked to myself to this response, the same words bouncing back to me in a friendly tone, and I felt content. But now -as another human being was standing in my presence- I felt no such fear. 

"It doesn't matter who I am," the man -or, as I recognize now, Father- said, opening my cage. 

I walked out, surprised by the freedom to leave my sanctuary, and looked up at him. 

"Kimimaro, it is time," he told me, not even looking towards my face. "For our sake, the Kaguya clan...you will fight."

_

Later that evening, all the men of Kaguya were gathered on the border of Kirigakure.

"From here we will launch an attack on Kirigakure," Father announced, "And once they are disconcerted from that incident, it will be the perfect time to make them realize our ferocity!"

Everyone but I, the youngest, chuckled in agreement.

"Make them realize the ferocity of the Kaguya Clan!"

The crowd around me cheered. 

I looked up at the moon. Full. That was what Father said- 'Attack on a full moon only'. I hardly noticed everyone else flee, I was so confused and wrapped in my thoughts.

"What're you doing, Kimimaro?" Father asked. "Get going!"

"I don't know what to do," I admitted.

"You don't need to think deeply about it." He answered dismissively. "Go to Kirigakure and kill every last person you encounter!"

He turned, leaving me slightly shocked, and waved a hand passively. "Just act on your instincts."

As he disappeared into the mist, I drew my blade and jumped into a run towards Kirigakure, to serve my clan.

Running down a dirt road, I skidded to a halt infront of two people. One was a man, with a sword longer than I, and the other, a boy, my age with black hair to his shoulders. I held my blade ready. "Are you of Kirigakure?" I asked as sternly as possible: even if I wanted to spare everyone, I could only spare those not of the Mist.

There was a bit of silence as the man looked me over, small and pale and skinny. "No..." he finally said, reaching for the handle to his blade.

I felt fear ripple down my spine. "Oh," I mumbled. "I-I see. Excuse me," I made haste to run between the two of them, not bothering to look back.

_

About a mile or so later, I came upon a small clearing, where a man stood, facing away from me.

I looked him over while thinking of my mission: kill everyone. For some reason I did not stop to ask if he was from the Mist- prey, he seemed, that was so easy to get should not be hesitated at. I noticed nothing of him as I approached- he was just labeled ONE. 

I jumped and swung my blade, but found something grasping my arm and flinging me back a few meters. 

Dazed with confusion, anger and pain, I lay still for a moment before standing up shakily to face him again. 

He was half-turned towards me, so I could see his face. 

Fear screamed in my head as a warning. His skin was a translucent white, his long black hair a contrast so great it hurt my eyes to look at it. His eyes -somehow quiet visible, being so big- were a hazel-brown of newly brewed whiskey to be put to rest for ripening. I stared at his pupils- vertical, coal-black slits. 

He was a human snake. 

The fear that rippled through me was not enough to stop my second charge at him. He was.

"Hold it," he said simply, and I felt suddenly grasped to do so. Why I never could understand. He told me to stop, I stopped. It happened against my will, and at the same time, with it.

Frightened and bewildered further by my body's automatic response to his order, I stared at him.

He chuckled softly. "A hasty one, aren't you?" he murmured. He had a strange voice- velvet, but with a dangerous undertone- like a beautiful fly-eating flower's attracting bright colors. Amused by my entrancement, he continued. "I'm not from this village."

I automatically realized how stupid I was- charging a man with intent to kill him, and being unable to, then realizing he wasn't even fit to be killed. It angered me to an  extent. 

I tried standing straight, but I had, as a terrible mistake, met his gaze.

My movement stopped. He seemed somehow, without changing his appearance, become the most dangerous being on Earth.

 I stopped. I recoiled. 

I was absolutely terrified. 

The terror shot through me so quickly it made me nauseous. I stared, unable to tear my gaze from his, and learned my place then and there.

He was the controller of the world, and I was a meaningless child that he could crush right then if he wanted so.

I willed my legs to move. They remained rooted in place.

And it was gone.

The outside terror, which he had somehow psychologically forced into my mind, vanished, and I, for a moment, felt nothing. No emotion. Nothing at all.

Then my own terror quickly filled then void, like a dam had broken on the river.

I feel back a step.

He spoke calmly. "What you seek is right there..." he stepped to the side and motioned to the village behind him. "Now, go."

Shocked again by my body's reaction, I ran, against and with my own will, past him, and jumped into the mist, to the Mist.

Chapter One- Sanctuary

The Kaguya were a small group that devised of nothing more than killing others. There were no women; they had all been driven away or beaten to death. 

Even if they hadn't been so bloodthirsty, the Kaguya would have perished quickly anyway, having no women to have children. As a result, almost every Kaguya was either asexual or homosexual. I myself am not homosexual: though I have been teased to be gay, I never considered myself as such. I treated women the way I did men; with compassion, and high regards and respect. I felt no hunger for them. I felt no physical hunger at all. I have come to the conclusion I am asexual, though, at some point, I suppose I could be proven wrong. As the last Kaguya, I feel like a slightly ironic game- how long does the clan go on? How long will he last? I feel a severely cruel joke on my shoulders: being the only one to continue the Kaguya and asexual. God was cruel. Along with my sexual handicap, I have a mental disorder- co-AL, or 'Adoring Loyalty'. As a rare mental disease -using the word 'disease' QUITE loosely, as I always do- CAL concerns of having no and absolutely no trust in yourself, or anyone else in the world, except for one or two people. Those people become the inner and core of you- they mean everything and anything to you. 

But wait, indulgent reader. 

I have contradicted myself. 

If a person, entertaining CAL, has no belief in themselves -as I do not- would they refer to themselves as 'I'? As a CAL patient, I myself know how it feels to go through that stage- a feeling you aren't even being, a feeling you are air, no, LESS than air, floating above your beloved Adored and shielding them from any hint of harm or slight discomfort- and feel a need to address the subject. As in the most intense phase of CAL, I felt not even having a name, to be a nameless nothing, but then again a something, to be protecting my Adored. Physically, we feel microscopic if not inexistant, but emotionally and morally and purpose-wise all- we feel larger than life (literally). And, even if thou are the most amazing force from Earth or Heaven- you are not physical. Nothing but a magical force, like God- God is God, he has no name or reason. God created God to be God. We invented us to be us to be protectors. The only difference between us is He gets everything to do with Him capitalized. 

As a boy, a young boy, I never understood the meaning of 'gender', par-say. I knew there were male and female, but what I never understood was our stereotypes. 

Boys liked action.

Girls liked to giggle.

Boys like blue.

Girls like pink.

Boys like dinosaurs.

Girls like bunnies.

Boys wear pants.

Girls wear skirts.

I never got the point. I find myself giggling several times a day, hold nothing against the color pink, enjoy bunnies very much, and see no point to stereotypical bottoms like pants and skirts and panties and boxers. It's not illegal for a girl to wear pants. But if a man wore a skirt- the entire world falls apart. I do not support men wearing womens' clothing- especially if it's stolen, that's just rude- but also see nothing wrong with it. I see no problems with women falling in love with women, men with men (as I was raised in such a community), women with men, men with women. I see no difference. Everyone's a person. I tried to tell this to my classmates while I went to the academy- but no one understood. I hadn't realized -nor did the instructors- that I was at a higher level than my seven-year-old classmates, as I felt it normal to inquire such deep things. Frustrated with their stupidity, I left and never came back. At seven, nobody cared. I was in school, or in my cage. I grew fond of my cage; an actual cage, carved into the corner of a darkened cave. It was my haven. It was sanctuary. But, as the years dragged on and I turned nine, I became irritated, as I always grew with everything I did continuously. I carved a face into the wall with my beloved knife -which I always carry and have never thrown out to this day-  then a spine crawling up the side of my cavern, which I used as a stepladder to see out of  a small hole in the ceiling. After I grew tired of that, I stabbed at the walls and ceiling repetitively, as the sudden THUMP of the knife felt vital now. Stab, stab, stab. Day after day. "Is there really a God?" I asked my carved face once. He didn't answer. I lifted my knife, aggravated. "If so, why would he confine me in a place like this?!" I almost struck the carving, but an erratic, deep voice I recognized at once stopped me halfway.

"Stop." Father ordered.