First Kill

       We were sent on yet another basic guarding mission. As genin we get sent on them a lot when we aren’t doing small missions around Kiri. This particular mission is to protect traveling merchants transporting some important cargo into another village. I should probably know what the cargo is, but it’s not my business now and I prefer to stay out of the know if I can help it. It’s well into the trip and we haven’t had any issues yet, but we were keeping aware of our surroundings since it’s possible bandits might target the merchants. We are getting steadily closer to the drop off point for our clients when there is a disturbance to the area. It could be nothing, perhaps someone passing through, but we are all immediately on alert and in our guarding positions as we continue, fine tuning or senses to our surroundings. In the path in front of us a lone figure appears. From the way the figure is positioned, waiting, it is easy to tell they bring trouble of some form. It becomes apparent that the figure has friends. A cracking branch in the bushes, a whoosh of cloth or simply or a feeling of others there tells us there are about 3 others. Lovey, if there’s a fight I guess they were kind enough to each give us one person each. We move into a guarding formation around our client and wait for them to attack or do anything really, make a threat? a proposition? They all move in and we quickly disperse moving to confront each figure as they appear, making sure to stay near our client in case. Yup, fighting it is. At least it’s one on one.

        One of the figures comes from the path. He is a rather large and gruff looking man. He clearly had been sleeping in the woods. I step in his way to block his path. He engages in a confrontational manner. This will clearly be a fight instead of a little chat. I quickly find the man is a close-range fighter. Fan-fucking-tastic, my weak spot and the very thing I dread, the risk of human contact. I keep trying to get distance between us but each time he finds a way to close the distance. I need to work on my speed. I can’t let him touch me. I’ve only got a few swings in from my fan before he is too close for me to use it in such a fashion. As he closes in quickly I close the fan up more so I can use it as a heavy-handed weapon or as a shield and move to block him from me with a practice grace. I might be more versed in long range, but I’ve practiced in how to keep an opponent at arm’s length at close range. His blows hit my fan as I use it to block him from me. I keep myself covered, but I don’t want to risk skin on skin contact, especially during a fight. If I want to end this little dance, I have to do something, get some distance. I hate fighting up close, I hate taijutsu. I’m only comfortable fighting as such with my father. I constantly fear that skin will bush, that I’ll freeze up, that I will see something I wish I didn’t and lose control. I keep moving to get away so I can throw attacks from afar, trying to continue blocking his blows but he slips my guard. Fuck, I’m going to have to do the hard way. I move to block and dodge all his blows with minor success. This is getting more difficult and kunai have become involved, because of course they are. As if it’s not bad enough he’s trying to punch the living daylights out of me, he wants to get stabby. He is clearly a much better close ranged fighter. I dodge most of his blows and his slices at me with the kunai. I am able to take to the blows that get through when I’m not slipping away or blocking. If I’ve learned to be anything, it is how to be slippery. Not many of my blows are getting through though, this is bad and some of those slashes have cut through my clothes. He sucks with the kunai so I can manage to move out of the way before it cuts into any skin.  I wish I was far enough away or quick enough to stop him from slicing up my clothes. I can replace the clothes but I hate that more skin is being exposed. We continue our dance for several minutes of hit, dodge, take the blow when I feel skin touch skin as he lands a blow on an area his kunai has sliced open my clothes. On no, no no no not now. Fuck. The world around me fades.

        Everything flashes so quickly in front of me. He is a child smiling, happy, afraid, determined, innocent. A montage of childhood. Quickly he becomes a teen cocky, determined, shy, awkward, on his way to life he may not have wanted. I suppose that happens a lot. As children we so quickly find ourselves soldiers or warriors. And just like that he becomes an adult before my eyes, set in his life, scared, desperate, and determined. A child, to a teen to an adult he grows. I can see the flash of his life before my eyes. So many little moments of who this man is, moments I never wanted to see. It is heart wrenching to know a stranger as such, to know your opponent so intimately. He no longer feels like a stranger, I know him even though I wasn’t there for any of this. I know his story. He is just a person like we are, trying to live his life and make a living and get by. He has spilled blood before whether he had to or wanted to. The line is hard to distinguish sometimes from the outside. So much of the violence he has committed is because it was the life he was allotted and pushed into by the sways of fate. But, with the violence there is love. This man has a family. He has a mother and father that worry for him, siblings that look up to him or look out for him. He has someone to go home to and who will miss him and worry for him if he doesn’t come home. I can see the love in her eyes for him, so clearly. I can see that spark of joy and excitement when he returns home and the gentleness in the way he treats her. She is his treasure, the reason he keeps going in the only work he ever knew. If he quits, then he can’t support her. They likely wouldn’t be able to live in what little comfort they currently have. It’s a pity because they likely would still be happy with just each other.

         As his life flashes before my eyes, I feel the earth beneath my feet, I feel his hand as he grabs at me to hold me in place. I’m already frozen, captured in the vision and unable to react to the reality around me. It’s too hard, I can move, but I can’t, at the same time and I can feel what I know is really there around me, but it’s not what I see. I feel the slice of the kunai as he slides it into my abdomen, cutting in deep. Pain sears through me and hot blood spills down from the wound. I feel the blade twist in me, pain tearing through my body. A background to the visions of his life up until now. Then the world slides back into view around me as the vision comes to and end and  aligns with the present. I can see him as he is now in front of me. He is in close, a hand gripping into my shoulder, nails digging into my skin. The other hand grips the kunai digging into my gut. It is a pity with time like these, that they will never care for me as much as I care for them in these moments after my visions.

        I quickly break his grip on me and break away. He is strong, but I know how to slip out of an opponent’s grasp. The world blurs with pain as I pull out the Kunai from my gut and let it fall to the ground with a thunk. Blood pours from the wound more freely, soaking my clothing and skin. The man charges me like a bear after a wounded deer. Adrenaline rushes through me. He’ll kill me. He has done it before and will do it again to get what he needs to support her, and himself. He will do so because it is what he knows. It’s me or him. I can’t die here. My body acts as if it’s moving on its own. I quickly dodge his various jabs before I finally get enough distance to use my fan reasonably with wind release, my  adrenalin and need for survival pushing me to move faster than I was. My hand blur through signs and I swing. Cutting wind whirls from the fan at the man. I am dead on target and he will not have enough time to get out of the way based on his speed. The wind rip and shed into him. Slicing and cutting him apart into pieces in a vicious gale. I pause, still in a daze. There’s so much blood. It’s everywhere, on me, in front of me in a bloodied sort of heap. I stare, the sight before me fading in and out before everything comes sharply back into focus. I wait for him to get back up, to move, my breath coming out shallowly. He’s not going to get up. He’s never going to get up again. The words ``I'm sorry” are on my breath as I turn away. I can’t bear the sight of the mutilated man in front of me that I had come to know. I clutch at my wound and move toward where our clients huddle around their precious cargo, I still have a job to do “we should get moving” I go up to the cart and slowly and skittishly the clients start to move with me. The other battles slow around me as my teammates win and take down their own opponents. From some of my visions from the man, Jiro, He and his companions were accomplished fighters. Their leader was a former shinobi, disgraced in his village. Clearly an accomplished enough fighter to be somewhat of a challenge to Ren-sensei. I can’t really tell what’s going on, I only know what’s in front of me, the task at hand. I stumble forward and try to hold myself together. I have to hold myself together. The area has grown quiet and can see my teammates move toward me from my periphery. I can finally relax, the client is safe. I drop down and the world goes black.

        I wake up in a blind panic. Where am I, everything is so blurred. I’m having visions again. I can see blood, boredom, pain, dryers, nurses, doctors. The hospital room finally snaps into view and I bolt up and look around me, taking in my surroundings. Terror pounds through me. One of my teammates is asleep in a chair next to my bed, and I can hear people talking in the hall. I have to get out now. My whole-body fills with panic and desperation. I don’t want to be here, it’s too much. The blood, so much I don’t want to see or remember. I frantically find my shoes and shove them on and get the rest of my clothes on as quick as possible, careful to not alert anyone of my movement before quickly opening the closest window in my room and lunge out of it. Ren-sensei will probably rather quickly figure out if left, but I don’t care. I don’t even really know where I am or where I’m going. I just need to get out, away. I get down to the ground as fast as possible and run. The pain in my side sears, it feels more healed, but still tender in a way. I keep running and running. They are others here, strange faces blur past as I run. I keep going until I’m alone somewhere, secluded in the woods. A place that’s quiet. I stop and slump to the ground, back to a tree. I sit and catch my breath. Everything comes flashing back into view again as I calm myself. What I did all comes flashing back. I sit there in this silence. No sound coming from me, no sound around me except the sounds of nature.

       I am eventually found. The words Ren-sensei has for me are “welcome to shinobi life, make sure to book a therapist” There is no way I'm talking to a therapist about this. I silently refuse to go back to the hospital, not ready to speak. It is not taken well, it never is. But I can’t go back, so I stand my ground on this. Sensei eventually seems to pick up how much it will both me to be back in the hospital and leaves it be since the wound got treated as long as I rest somewhere. I don’t speak through any of this, silently and stubbornly protesting. I can see the others shooting me worried or assessing glances. Asking questions here and there. I communicate back in nod shakes of the head, or simply silence. I don’t speak for several days after that either, just thinking things over, thinking about what happened. I got too close; I can’t let that happen again.