Hunger and Heroes

The drain came suddenly.  My senses failed.  Vision, smell, hearing, taste.  All of that was gone.  Touch remained, but only told of the pressure acting on my body.  I sat their, crouched.  Staring into oblivion for several seconds before the first trickle of focus returned.

Like a breeze whispering through the forest, branches shifted around my joints.  My muscles fluttered as dormant intentions awakened.  Waves of white noise dredged up and carried memories.  Combining them with the world around me as my senses slid back around.

Emptiness and fatigue scattered like birds as I stretched, fleeing to the four winds.  They wracked my body like spools of cords, and drank from my reserves as chakra flowed through them.

A fraction of my full supplies; my body adjusted to the lower levels.

I bowed my head and turned my focus inward.  It was getting more difficult to access my chakra.  Resistance helped to counteract my focus, to throttle the elements produced and circulated through my body, but as training went on my body produced less and less of the former.  Training helped a lot at first, but once the muscle memory got trained in and my endurance caught up…

Unfortunately, Frustration is the herald of growth, whereas madness is doing the same thing over and over again while begging for a difference.  I’ve got better things to do than worry about why they ask for blood samples more than once a month.

My chakra pools settled.  I rose to my feet and stretched, meanwhile the latter churned.

Reaching out with my senses, I could feel elemental energy flowing through the walls.  Some days the barracks are airtight, whereas with others it flows.  Heat and musk too.  Through them, the weather makes itself known.

I was getting better at reading these auras.  Tricky, because while I could tell people apart by smell, I wouldn’t be able to tell how they acted.  For that I had to learn to sense vibrations.  Pulses that belonged to one scent rather than another.

Of course, since each smell was limited, so were my snooping options, but I was starting to refine the list of people I cared about.

Imagine walking up to someone and being like: “Hey, can I smell you?  This’ll only take a sec.”

Nah, humans are guarded.  I’ve less overt means to work around ‘comfort zones’ but it takes time.  Thankfully, there are certain boundaries that a military organization won't be bothered with.  From icebreakers to fusion moves.

The way the air moves.  The spin along a wall.  The routine meetings, be they schedules or private.  The space within this building is very much alive with the comings and goings of a ninja force.

As much as I hate to admit it, Rumors are a powerful tool.  Intrigue and scandal disgust me, mostly because they are self replicating.  A truth that warps from one set of lips to the next while avoiding something more personally relevant.

But If I’m willing to look past the who and the why, I can pick up precious details.  Alongside ‘who's got the better bunk’ we have ‘who's getting special treatment.’

Jealousy’s not a pretty look but - like all words - she carries a grain of truth.  Every now and then, we get a name that repeats.  Twice, thrice, and from multiple parties.  I’m terrible at names.  Without value to go with them they are less than worthless.  I refuse to take cynics and spiteful persons without a grain of salt.

These same people walk similar circles however, and the differences in schedule give insight to the where and when.  Eventually it comes down to an opportunity, and the only way to lift the stigma is to meet it head on.

The tricky part is keeping courage alive, and for that I have a secret technique.

Hiden: Soul manipulation - Spirit binding stone

My senses dulled.  My mind banks against my skin.  My chakra forms an inky slick between my fingers and a clear image forms in my mind.  The thought crystalized, swallowing a piece of reality as I know it.  A waystone in the astral plane: a tool to fuse my will with natural energy.

I stand outside.  From the same path I take every day, I allow my schedule to fade and dissolve into the background and let the weight of the world guide me.  The presence draws me in, closer and closer.  I can see an energy, blue and electric.  The smell of metal and oil.

A shadow erupts from behind a tree.  A fist caves my cheek, and I’m sent sprawling.  Ferns vines stroke my arms with a soothing chill.  Briars and ivy, not so much.  As I’m unpacking these sensations, A vicious beast rises over me.

A mane of black, and crimson eyes, a fierce and contemptuous gaze, “What do you think you’re doing out here?  Huh!”

White bandages crisscross her chest, binding down a red t-shirt.  A violet shawl covers her shoulders.

~dejavu~

I blinked.  Her words flew right over my head in search of someone who goes out into the wilderness to think.  Fey touched perhaps?  I didn’t like the look in her eye, but as I made to pick myself up and confront her, I felt a pressure build along my shoulders.  My hand ground against a root, and I shifted everything down to my chest to look it over.  A heavy pressure contradicted every move I tried to make, biting deep into my chakra reserves.

I took a good look at my chances and sank to the ground.

“Yeah?   You better pick your next words carefully, cause if I don’t like them the deans gonna hear about this.”

Pressure coiled in from all sides.  Tension funneled in from my head to my toes, and set forth a wild spin beside my dantian.  The nexus of chakra that flows beside the heart.  Layer by layer closed in like the folds of an accordian, releasing sparse and discordant notes.

That’s alright.  I didn’t need to like them to use them.  The pressure reached a tipping point, and the flow began to ebb and draw back.  I followed it, drawing it down and checking it through sheer force of will.

~Here we go~ Sally sing-songed.

My body reached its limits.  My chakra network hits capacity, and forces my body to bloom in other ways.  I bore it like a chestplate, and gave it very precise instructions on where and how to raid for resources.

An inner glow formed, backlighting the shadow that clung to me like a parasite.  The two forces were on parody now.  Every ounce of chakra my body produces thereafter was a toss up, and I knew it.  I gathered this energy and bound it down, carefully keeping my chakra network on par until eventually, finally, the influence it had on me was very small.

Her brow furrowed, and then I shifted my arm.  She took a step back, “What the-  what are you?”

I raised my head and scowled at her, “I believe they call it a rival?  This can go one of two ways.  Option A) walk away and come back to it when we’re both feeling like respectable adults.  Option B) spend the next lifetime trying to brainwash each other.  I don’t think they dig graves deep enough for Option C.”

The raven soured and tilted her head back.  After a few irregular breaths between us she spoke, “I didn’t think they had people like you in special.  Who do you train with?”

I raised my brow rolled my head, “And by they you mean~”

She rolled her eyes and thrust a hand out, “The stiffs obviously.”

“Stiffs?” I took her hand and she pulled me up.  Gripping my hand and glaring death over my shoulder.  If looks could kill, I’d be down an ear in a few seconds.  Her chakra was no joke either.  Tension and pressure flooded down my arm and matched every ounce of focus I threw at it.  I glared at the side of her head in our silent standoff.  Eventually though, her chakra interacted with the dregs of whatever spell she put on me, and the inky patch of maligned chakra came undone.

She pouted, and I was shocked by the transformation.  She could be adorable.

“Joseph.  You can call me Joseph.”

“Tracy.  Now what are you doing out here?”

I blinked.  I’d completely forgotten at that point.  I glanced down to my left hand and palmed the gem.  Violet as her shawl.  I couldn’t see any further at the moment.  I tucked it away and replied, “Soul searching.  You?”

“Patrolling.  That and thrashing weeds like you.”

I pouted and raised one brow skeptically.

“What?”

“Never seen a half-pint out of uniform.”

She deadpanned, “Shoot.  I forgot about those.”

The teachers had a collection of mini-shinobi that they sent out for busy work.  They stayed pretty well hidden.  Even knowing what I was looking for, it was hit or miss whether I could spot one on standby.  I’ve still no idea how many there are around the base at a given time.  They all wear blank masks.

This girl was more colorful than the average student.  Even if the bandages and uniform hid most of it, the fact that anyone got away with wearing bright red meant they had the skills to offset it, not to mention with willpower to defend their claim.  The instructors are intense when it comes to distinguishing features.

Our kunai and swords are reliable and consistent, but not the highest quality.  That’s the price we pay for anonymity.  The smiths are trustworthy enough to provide blades that will survive a skirmish or two, but not so ambitious that their performance will give them a name in the history books.

The uniform spoke of how daring a person could be, at least in some capacity.  Those who moved from one year to the next bore fewer and fewer colors, choosing instead to enhance their skills with more potent and sometimes obscure tools.

I was curious to know how she managed to get a red tee inside the base.  It could have been turned away if it was shipped in, or stolen if her bunkmates knew about it.  Actually, now that I think about it, she could be that slick herself.

I noticed movement in the corner of my eye and looked up, finding Tracy’s retreating form.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“You better get a good alibi.  I’m not covering for you if the hawks get restive.”

I smiled ruefully, “I’ll be there to rub it in your face if you don’t stay out of trouble.”

The retreating form paused.  An eerie dark aura spreading from her silhouette, “My face?  Now that you mention it~” She turned and raised a fist, “Next time you borrow someone’s face, don’t…” She squinted, trying to pierce the veil of the forest.

She sighed, “Never trust a snake Tracy.” And turned to go.

Arriving back at the training yard I tilted my head and watched the clouds go by, “Someone like me, huh?”