In the Siren’s eye

A shadow.  Filled with dread the world dissolved before my eyes.  Force folded my thoughts like batter.  Moments of clarity - like eclipses.  Far between, yet monumental.  Moonlight winked at me.  Man made corners and inky silhouettes, a cave and a desk.  I was back in the academy in one heartbeat, whereas the next found a world lost to history.

Suddenly the shadows stilled.  I turned my head and found I had awakened indoors.  It was as dark as any of my visions.  A table patterned after stone.  Cold as, yet yielding to the touch.  I looked down to find a glass of water, no- of tea?  Steaming.  I shifted my body and felt my arms.

In my mind they were bound thoroughly.  Cord winding its way from my wrists to my shoulders.  Yielding generously yet heavy and persistent as a snake.

As I looked down my arm I saw nothing.  Not a clue as to why I found them there.  As my body warmed over with thought, I heard a voice and immediately the atmosphere shifted.  From my flesh, the phantom sensation of a rucksack played like a projector, echoing visions I could no longer see.

I turned my head to the man approaching.  His silhouette bobbing along the table’s edge.  A Catwalk raised apart from the walls.  Shadows that were so deep as to feel alive.

A hive of beetles.  Something was a miss though.  Few left trails of their own, and they clung to an aura of dread.  I chide myself, wondering at what point my musings would turn to delusion.

They hadn’t offended my sense of reason yet.

This man…

I couldn’t not look at him.  His presence was so loaded that it shimmered violet about his skin.  He had no shadow, for his being blurred the lines of reality around him.

Something in me idolized him immediately.  Unshakable composure.  The scars of a veteran.  An air of mystery and ambition.

By those same standards, other parts of my mind were cowed.  Unchecked.  Uncontested.  I could taste the song before words passed the corner of his lips.  I could feel them beating from within me.

I was horrified, and at the same time pacified.  I would never ever be the one to oppose him.  He spoke and another appeared from the shadows to speak with me.  With every fiber of my being I latched onto this person.  I respected him down to the sinew and bone.  I poured every ounce of my will into his shadow.  Adopted a character so full of life I couldn’t believe the thing I brought up.

As I was brought out of the chamber I felt like molten steel being poured into a mold.  The theater was over and my course was set.

“You went too far, but if you perform well you’ll get to see your family again.”

Perform?  Out of all the places in the world, I’d never felt so complete in my act.  They’d given me a very clear target.  The thing I had left to do was appraise the hurdles they put down ahead of me.

I read into things.  I asked questions and I was told never to question.  They drilled that into me, and at the same time buried any progress that they’d hoped to see.  I was relocated from one facility to another, until at one point they tortured me.

It was so sudden and out of the blue that I didn’t realize what was happening until it was over.  That they had planted something, a restriction in my mind.  The next morning, at breakfast, I went supernova.

Jubilance and enthusiasm slipped seamlessly into iron fisted tyranny, and escalated rapidly into a physical confrontation.  The Shinobi lasted all of two steps and then promptly broke.  Something I found strange.

Normally, when people see an unstoppable force, they question it, Which leaves me an opening to switch into an immovable object.  But this person didn’t just question it.  They retreated.  That half step hesitation was gone and they were pulling out of reach before either or us had time to react.

It left me with a generous amount of breathing room and leverage.  I’d stacked up a fair amount of chakra to engage with someone directly.  That chakra bled off directly into my senses, and something otherworldly peeked through the backdoors of my mind.

Is that you my other half?

The follow up was fast.  Blindingly fast.  With the same breakneck reflexes as the one that got away, another struck from my blindspot.  I routed chakra toward the assailant.  As pressure built in my shoulder, Something gave and I felt as though I’d puked through one of my pores.

I spun, placing my ring and pinky finger beneath the hand still clinging to my blindspot.  The ninja shifted tact, and I tightened my core to the limit.  Meanwhile my fingers snaked about their outstretched arm and clutched, forcing them to let go of a device.  A plunger.

I took a hit to the solar plexus.  My abs blunted the worst of it, but I was feathering breathlessness in that moment.  That left both of their hands accounted for, and one of mine free.  I quickly transferred my chakra toward the limb, and dumped every ounce of nutrition into my bloodstream.  My reflexes became superhuman and uncontrollable.  My body swerved and danced automatically, while my only focus was on keeping them from finding a target.

The second shinobi leaned back, and in that moment decided to bail out.  The pressure on my left side fell away, and for a moment everything became still.  A heartbeat thundered, and as a second concurred my right hand flashed out.

My entire right arm vanished, drawn back and set forth like a ballista bolt in the blink of an eye.  Tables and chairs grunted at the recoil.  The shinobi jerked back - an impulse delayed by the blow to the jaw - and stumbled into the cafe furniture.

Their counterpart hadn’t moved yet, and I took a quick moment to read the room as well as gauge the trace sedatives blooming through my shoulder.  The second shinobi spat a tooth but otherwise stayed down.  As the dust settled I relaxed my shoulders.  The intervention was over.

It wasn’t the last.  The warden brought in more security.  The next wave had a third and forth act as a pincer.  They learned that ‘holding me down’ was a double edged sword.

With the third incident, they brought in a really big guy.  Strong and meaty enough to corral me into a hold.  Three times, it was a sound strategy.  This gave the other shinobi room to get some creative revenge.

The big guy eventually got called away for some other kind of work.  Turns out the reprieve made their tactics fresher, not better.  I didn’t see the big guy for months.  When the mountain of a man finally did show up again, I decided I resolved to change myself.

I excelled in the martial arts.  I hated it at first.  The sensei would trash talk and goad.  Irony and principle were their tools.  It wasn’t until I started to see that there was more to it than fighting that I began to thrive.  My body control improved with every training session.  My endurance and stamina became above average and strength followed when the rest of the class refused to keep pace.  The instructors decided to move me up with the pros and it was around that time when tiny started to lose his grip.

I wanted to dance.  I had enough passion to rip holes in walls if I wasn’t careful, and I used my strength as a shelter.  A net with which to draw in my peers.  A shelter in the wilderness, to air their thoughts and challenge their assumptions.

I started to get in trouble with the administration.  Apparently there were some habits that made people easier to control, and platoons easier to mobilize.  It confirmed for me that we were training as part of a paramilitary force, and more to the point, enabled me to address said training aloud.

The issue is, While I agree with a militant system, there were certain ideologies among the people in charge that I would not condone.  I was never able to remember their names on merit, but - as issues of conduct came under fire - I could point to exactly where, when and why issues arose.  I have a knack for throwing very specific consequences under the bus, and putting together narratives that are difficult to dismiss, slowly throttling those at fault until they had to abandon it or sacrifice face to it.

I’m not the only one who can nurse a petty grudge, and again some of my peers are rather fanatical about their positions.  There is a saying.  Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.  I have been fortunate in that thus far Root hasn’t sprung anything on me that wasn’t tangentially composed of the on sight staff. 

Somebody goes quiet or absent for the day and I know to keep my defenses on a hair trigger.  Same goes if the situation at base drifts too far from the norm under the banner of secrecy.  All the same, getting ambushed in your sleep is never a fun experience.  I was effectively half drunk from the get go, and unable to avoid the rucksack or cocktail they used to slow me down.

Fortunately, luck, or rather, the weather was on my side.  Crisp cool night air struck my head, and the humidity complimented my breathing perfectly.  As we moved from the bunker to the forest, my senses came to a revelation. 

I could count the woven threads surrounding my wrists.  I could feel the people standing next to me, hear their breathing and feel the wordless song dance from one body to the other.  I could shift my stance and feel as though I were the thumb in a greater palm.

Taking a leap of faith, I began to dance.  The escorts fussed around me, and I managed to get myself wedged, sweeping clear of the rucksack and catching the pouch around my hands on someone’s belt.  My hands danced a furious dance with each other, and I managed to loosen my bindings.

Somebody took charge and drove a fist into my solar plexus.  This time I wasn’t expecting it, and my lungs were put out of commission for the rest of the fight.  Thankfully, I didn’t start this fight shy on resources, and could hold my breath for a few crucial seconds.

Of course, just because I couldn’t breathe normally didn’t mean I couldn’t  leverage them for other purposes.  Steeling myself between carefully timed evasions, I braced my hip and fist against one of the shinobi and twisted my torso.

A hoarse shout turned the din of night.  Every head within the barracks would decide for themselves what they did and did not hear.  My point was simple.  I would not disappear without a trace.

The escort’s priorities shifted from stealth to rendering me silent and immobile in turn.

As their grips grew stronger, I relaxed my muscles and diverted chakra to the greatest mechanical advantage.  My insides shimmied like the inside of a rattle as I inched my way passed holds and repositioned myself.  Someone managed to keep pressure on my head through it all, limiting my options considerably but I still managed to keep at least one of them off balance enough to throw off their coordination.

I had one trapped.  Pinning his thigh down between my own and a tangle of limbs as his comrades struggled to bail him out.  More than once, someone tried to change things up and traded a bit more leverage for a punishing blow.

I had enough.  I just had to wait for someone to create an opening.

There.

The average center of mass shifted to the right.  I lifted my thigh and pivoted, planting the other foot against someone's chest and rolling myself upside down atop a pair of shoulders.  The squad bailed in realization, and I took that moment to bring my body weight down early.  Driving the nearest shinobi down the slope, into the forest and further off balance.

My body was righted partway through the fall, and I launched myself into a tree.  I ended up catching the shinobi in the chest, and he struck the slope with a meaty thump.

Swinging wildly, I winced as the ties were forced over one of my thumbs and quickly sprung for the extra mobility to draw myself further into the tree.  One of the Shinobi was climbing the tree as though it were a rafter rather than a skyward shaft.  I gawked at the sight and stashed that impression away for later.

Meanwhile I swung forward and feigned launching a kick or knee toward the face.  The Shinobi was wary, but he was also angry and made his way into my blindspot.

I could feel his weight changing the arc of my swing, and the branches around me shifted.   Konoha was surrounded by giant oaks but it wasn’t just those.  I slung myself from branch to branch.  Higher and higher, like a monkey.  I looked back and saw the shinobi making slow but methodical progress, tracking with his eyes where his body would go next.

I bit back a protest.  He was likely to try and cut me off.  My arms ached, but I forced myself to change my pattern of movement.  Riding one limb further and bypassing another altogether.  I lost a lot of speed but I left a lot of wood in the way~

To my growing surprise, treewalker sensei could move just as well on the underside of the branches, opening up paths that I wouldn’t dream of.  I was suddenly very aware of just how little real estate I had in this one tree.  I kept moving and before I had it worked out in my head I found myself falling.  Descending on the branch of a lower tree and leaving the high ground behind.

The shinobi was on me in moments.  Diving from on high.

No more running.  I hooked my arm around the branch ahead of me, swiveled about to meet the shinobi and dropped back to get them in my sights.  The guy came around the branch i had just used to turn.  My hand snatched the very same limb, and I used my momentum to round on them.

That’s when I learned the difference between a kid who’d taken martial arts classes for months, and a teenager who’d lived by them for years.  Their kick came several times faster, and tore through my guard like a plow.  While I was ragdolling, they were secure in their perch.

I landed on my shoulders, rocked forward onto my hips and managed to get back onto my feet.  It wouldn’t last though.  My muscles were sloppy and sore from irregular movements and sporadic contact.  My chakra control was keeping my body from having a breakdown, but that was the lion’s share.  I’d strayed from familiar territory, leaving the structure I’d trained around behind.

While the treewalker observed from above, three battle tested men in their prime made their way down the slope.  The first was a familiar build, the one I’d shucked into the ground.  They were mad.

I was losing in a matter of strength to the first.  For the second and third I was a downed stag in the jaws of wolves.

Winning was a bygone prospect.  Outmaneuvering and outlasting them fell through.  I’d become prey, and as prey I had few options.  I relaxed my posture, gathered my remaining strength and laced my body with a steady passive flow of life force.

I felt each pathway that the blows struck down as clouds that blocked the stars.  Piece by piece they beat me into submission and eyed me up like meat.  They hadn’t quite figured out what to do with me at this point.

Something cold and forceful plunged its way into my lower body.  My shoulders jerked and my chin was propped against a vice-like forearm.  My head was forced to square up to one of theirs.  I could care less.  Their masks all looked the same.  My vision swam, and I indulged it.  My gaze wandered, tracing the form of trees neighboring and distant.

A verbal song passed between them, and the guy bracing my neck pressed harder.  His voice was clear and firm.  I’d remember this one.  I registered a threat, and felt memories of my time in root drawn to the surface.  In my haggard state, a few of them were still older.  A tear flowed through my eye as I remembered the touch of a mother.  The warmth of home.

I felt an anger that resonated with the punishment I was subjected too.  Vengeance melted away and I was left with a sense of hope.  Of wanting.  I as I was lifted by the shirt, I felt something inside me shift.  I saw a stirring in the forest.  I felt a coolness like water flowing from my palms.  A whisper in my ear.

~Chibi Anima~

For a moment I thought I was struck.  Focus drained from my body, numbing every inch of my flesh until it was bordering on painful.  In my mind's eye, I saw myself held in the air between two people.

For a moment I thought I was projecting, but the angle was weird.  My vision shifted and I saw the two men shifting in turn, in real time.  I felt nauseous when I saw my own body responding to thoughts and sensations that were my own, but a cool gentle sensation drew my attention from that.

Looking inward, I felt something welling up from the ground.  I felt as though I were feeding.  A filling meal, a cold drink, a breath of fresh air.  It felt like my chakra was dancing circles around me.  Pulsing outward, and pulling inward.  It drew my mind’s eye along with it, rinsing away thought and worry.  Rather than fear, I felt a kinship forming with the bodies before them.

Some part of me, the part that oversaw my individuality felt concern.  The chakra within lent itself to that effect, and rather that struggle I watched as a pathway flowed open.  Drawn by the current~

Airflow tickled my lips and I found myself abruptly within my own body.  My eyes opened with alarm, but I couldn’t see.  Not the small creature that watched from below, nor the undercurrent of chakra.  Instead I listened, waiting for the familiar song to come.

“Just what do you think you’re doing?”

“Don’t get involved.  It’d be better if the kid just disappeared, but for the time being It’ll have to do to teach him a lesson.”

I released a breath.  Flowing between my lips, an accord.  A consensus.  An eager student.

“That would not go over so well with his trainers.  Rumor of his progress approaches the master’s inner circle.  It would look very bad if his injuries affect the other candidates.”

Restlessness.  A new angle.  Overhead the canopy shifted just so, and the furthest shinobi of the ground broke away, carrying a piece of the circle with him.

I furrowed my brow and hummed, a tired breath scraped past my lips.  An error that shifted the atmosphere around me.  So that shout did cause a stir.

“An example must be made.”

“Hmm, and this incident should be contained as much as possible.  Some hold their tongue as a sign of loyalty.”

I scoff, but I’m barely there and the craving for rest tips the effect toward an affirmative.  Holding my tongue would not affect my means in the slightest.  My actions speak louder, not to mention more frequently, save for those I hold dear.

“O~oh?  You think the master would place his mark?”

Alarm bells sounded in my mind.  I felt a gentle breeze flow through the forest, quelling my unrest.  A fire flowed alongside my tongue and the wellspring solidified in my mind.  My hands felt clammy yet - as I tried to rub the moisture my hands brushed along braille-esk nubs.

In my mind I saw a brick wall.  Endless and unbroken.  Behind it quaked the steps of a leviathan, and flakes of doubt were blown clear from the barrier.  I’d never felt more calm and convinced in my life.

“It is not our place to question the master.”

The atmosphere plunged like a waterfall.  Despair howled around me, and yet the barrier held.  At that moment, I felt like a child king.  Weak and used, yet untouchable and in a position that time would only reinforce.  I still had my boundaries, and this encounter showed me how important they were.  And…

The will of these men hinged on a spectre.  I could never respond to a messenger so zealously.  To become so unthinkingly loyal, something integral would have to break.

I was nursing in a dragon’s lair.  As I continued to rely so heavily on strength as it was fed to me, It would cripple me in a heartbeat; destroy me in the next.