The Past is just a Ghost

Posts : 760

Spoiler:

The Fourth House of the House of Kuro holds the strongest fighters and warriors. This was not a statement of bragging, but more so a statement that holds many truths. The Fourth House, however strong they are, do take their strength with humility. They have a saying. This saying "We are the sword" is always said not a gesture of arrogance but a gesture of honor. Whoever in the clan started saying that has been lost in time. Whether it was the first leader of the Fourth House, or the great descendent that make the covenant, no one would know.

Alayasha would search for the meaning of this word from time to time. Despite its simple meaning, the words that came with it was something that he couldn't truly comprehend. Even now as a man grown, he could only think that the phrase "We are the sword" was simply the fact that the Fourth House of Kuro were fighters and that alone should logically intertwine with the warrior culture they have preserved. It mattered not as he walked up the stairwell towards the rooftop of the building he was staying in. It had rain harder the night before, and this morning it didn't seem like it was going to let out anytime soon. For the past week or more, waiting for this auction to come down, he was walking around Amegakure to, again, get his bearings and gather any information that had slipped by him. His spies did not disappoint him, but the information was anything but valuable.

Still, doing nothing can only go for so long. He could only handle so much non action. He had to get out and move his joints. They were fiending for more than just the periodic walk and slight run. He was half-naked walking up the stairs. Save only his pants, Alayasha muscular body was bear for the world to see. He didn't have to worry about anyone taking his gear. They were more than welcome to try and find him in this place, and even more welcomed to attempt to fight him. He was thirty-five now, but he didn't look a day over twenty-five. He could feel the life within him still reminding him that he had a ways to go before he would officially age. Oh yes, he was in his prime, and he would be more than happy than to beat the hell out of someone. His warrior blood was pumping through his veins ready to mull the first person who looked at his gear funny.

He opened the door to the building's rooftop. The rain continued to fall, but it was light drizzle. He could see sunlight try to come through the clouds through the village. Far off towards the west, he could see a trio of rainbows coming from the sky. Alayasha had been feeling the weight of the dark village. It had put him out of sync and made his view sort of bleak. Seeing the sunlight and the rainbow sort of brighten his mood. At least training wouldn't be too excruciating to deal with along with the environmental depression he thought he was getting.

He took a breath, letting the humid air fill his lungs, and then it out as he walked on the rooftop. It area itself clear of all debris. It was as plain as any enclosed dojo. He had plenty of space to move and plenty of distance to He felt warm water underneath his feet. He was surprised by this. The temperature had picked up recently. It had been cool for the last few days and now it warming up. That sounded like an equation for a thunderstorm that would be brewing in the next few hours. He peered towards the west and couldn't see any thunderclouds forming.

How long was he going to train? He didn't know the answer. He just knew that he had to move, he simply had to do more than what he was doing now. He took another deep breath. He lifted his right leg back towards his butt and grabbed his ankle. He began to stretch the quadriceps. He could feel the tension in his muscle, but it slowly faded away after he let go of his ankle. Damn that feels good. he thought He repeated the same stretch with his left leg. He swung his right arm towards his left side and hooked his left arm underneath his right arm. He drew his right side towards his left and felt the triceps begin to tense. That felt damn good do, and he said so with a sigh of relief. He repeated the same stretch with the left side.

He twisted and turned his body, slowly stretching the muscle. The routine was all the same that started from the top of his body to the feet. His father had always told his kids to stretch the body, warm it up, but do not overstretch yourself. This small foundation definitely made Alayasha as limber as he was despite his huge size and muscle. He wasn't anywhere near the level of limberness where he was a contortionist, but he was limber enough to do some splits without busting his groin.

That familiar feeling of the blood pumping was the usual indicator that he was done. He had to test it out. He kicked then. A roundhouse high in the air that was probably as high as Alayasha's height. The speed in which it moved cut through the air making a swoosh noise. He knew he made the movement, but that was because he could see how fast he was moving. He realized then that anyone untrained by it wouldn't of seen him kick. Had his attack speed increased? He thought this as he held that position for one second. Then two. Finally he slowly let his leg fall to the earth and land on the warm water.

The moment he feet his feet in the water, his hands were already moving. They were precise, five jabs towards the head , three jabs towards the torso and then four uppercuts. The speed of his punches had also cut through the air causing the raindrops to make mini splashes as his arms moved. He counted the time it took him to move his arms with that speed. Three seconds. It took him three seconds to move at that speed. Not bad, he thought. He could see if he could go just a little faster, but that would certainly defeat the purpose. He knew that too much speed would lose the focus and power behind it. He had to balance it so he could keep his strength along with the speed. The speed in which he performed those few punches was fine at this point. He looked at his the palm of his hand and began to flex his fingers.

"Oho?" he whispered. He wondered if he had truly mastered the arts of the body. Among the Fourth House, mastering the body was an achievement very few had accomplished. His father was certainly one of them, but he knew it had taken him many years to accomplish the feat only because he was born in a era where he couldn't simply focus on the art. His middle brother, Mashah, had said he had mastered his body over the years. He had remembered his brother five years ago when he was still in Kirigakure a message came from his brother. He knew it was Mashah from the handwriting. No one could ever falsify his brother's somewhat neat handwriting. But that wasn't the only thing that made Mashah. It was the seal that he used to close the letter with. It was some sort of clay that shifted colors every passing second. One moment it was green, then blue, then turquoise, then red, and then another series of colors. Mashah began using that seal when he travelled to the far regions of the earth and met up with a tribe of men who was far behind in technology but were so advance spiritually that they were able to imprint their 'souls' into things. He remembered reading the letter saying how he finally mastered the art of the body. He didn't know how to put it into words. "It just reminds me of the time we used to have our feast days and our shabbats where we would praise and sing our Father's name."

Alayasha had no proof to witness this skill his brother had accomplished, but if he had mastered it then this was the feeling he had experienced. That euphoria that was beyond euphoria. It was a bliss of harnessing the mind-body connection and truly understanding it.

He visualized an opponent who was four meters away from him. He moved in an instant moving to invisible opponent. When he reached his intended destination, he did a series of backflips to stretch the distance. What the hell are you doing performing back flips when the opponent is right next to you?! his father's voice echoed in his head. His father hated when Alayasha did acrobatics like that. He would always punish him for doing so by charging at him and shoving his shoulder into Alayasha's body. He would probably do it if he was the opponent, but Alayasha was in a euphoric state. He didn't normally do back flips but he was sure going to do it now.

He dashed forward then controlling his speed so he wouldn't be moving at an entirely full sprint. He moved to the left, then changed course and moved to the right, juking and dodging the invisible opponent. You can't hit what you can't see. He said as he moved. As he got close, he was low to the ground. He swept a long leg across pretending to trip the opponent. He estimated the time the opponent would drop to the floor. He used his hands to pivot and lift his body up to drop a hard axe kick down on the opponent's chest. He didn't let it connect with the floor. He knew he could shatter the floor as a best case, worst case he would destroy the roof entirely.

He got up from ground and twisted his neck. He time he moved his neck it cracked and there was pleasure with every movement. Damn, that was one hell of a cracking. He looked up at sky and there in the far distance he could see the thunderclouds beginning to form. He heard thunder in the distance, feint and foreboding.

"Aww, come on. I look away for like two minutes and now the thunderclouds want to come in ruin my fun." He sighed. There was no beating this type of ongoing weather that could change in an instant. He could do a bit more training, but from the way the storm clouds were forming and moving, he wouldn't fully enjoy this moment.

The rainfall did its usual increase whenever it beginning to storm. He didn't run towards the door to the building. He simply walked towards the entrance of the door.

As he closed the door, the rainfall came down harder. Alayasha was making a puddle at the top of the stairs. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He walked down the stairs and went back to his room. He took his wet clothes and was bare bones naked.

He walked into the bathroom and found himself staring at his body. He could see that he was getting leaner around his face. If his jaw line had the ability to cut through marble, it would at this point. Although he wasn't soft looking when he was still an advisor in Kirigakure, the life in Kiri had soften his body just a bit. He hadn't realized how soft he gotten until he looked at the definition of his arms, his shoulders, his chest, his abs, his pelvis, and his legs. He was quite impressed at how defined they remained. Even with all of the comfort he was living at the time, his muscle never faded.

Such was the life of the sage.

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Posts : 760

Spoiler:

He didn’t know when he fell asleep, or when his mind began to the dream sequence the moment he went into REM, but he knew he was in a dream when his dream eyes opened up. He saw that he was standing-or floating, it was hard to tell sometimes- on a blank white canvas that essentially made up just a microfraction of his expansive mind.

He had control over his dream now. He saw the dream strings that usually hold people whenever they dream. He didn’t give it an official term, not yet. He only called it how he saw it. They were the things that bounded man to the dream. In most cases, the dream has control over the mind. It runs rampant and wild, while other times it shows a series of events that is unlocked from the subconscious. Alayasha learned early in his life that there were times he simply let the strings lead him in the dream. And then there were times where he focused his mind in that he could control the entire layout of his dream and simply will it to whatever it was he desired.

He snapped his fingers and the dream strings made a twang then a snap sound. The strings began to fade into ethereal light and disappeared out of his vision. He raised a hand towards the infinite stretch of light. “May the earth rise.”

The white canvas began to shiver, and then ripple around Alayasha. Soon he heard a soft rumble underneath his feet. He looked down and saw that there was something large coming towards his feet. Alayasha began to float down towards the earth. The rumbling got louder as he got closer to this earth. When his foot touched the ground, the rumbling noise stopped.

He took a deep breath and smelled fresh air. No, not fresh air. He made his mind focus on the feeling of rain. He closed his dream eyes and thought wet, humid, the smell of rain before it arise, the smell of rain as it pours, the smell of rain after the fall. The ground is wet, muddy, leaving footprints behind every time I stepped.”

He opened and saw that it was raining in his dream. It wasn’t pouring. He never liked it when it poured. A light downfall, where someone could walk and not be bothered by the wet, the rainfall where a child could splash his feet in a puddle, the downfall where two lovers kiss and make love near a tree, the type of rainfall like that was what he had imagined. He opened his hands and let the water cup in his palm. If didn’t realize it was a dream, he would’ve taken the water and sipped on it. It would’ve tasted sweet, he knew. Sweet and light. He looked up and the clouds overhead was overcast, being a light grey. “Interesting,” he said, but not with his voice. Rather, he said it through his mind. It was spoken everywhere, but came from nowhere. “It was only three years ago, I couldn’t even visualize this type of rain. I see I’ve improved on that.”

“Alayasha…”

He opened his eyes. His real eyes. A voice that soft usually didn’t wake him up. He knew it though. He knew the voice that he remembered from when he was a child. He at first thought that he was still in his dream. His vision didn’t adjust to the darkness, but he knew that someone was standing in front of the bed looking over him.

“Who-“ he was about to say, as he was sitting up from the bed, but he knew who it was before he even said it. The language alone he was able to identify. There are very few who know the ancient tongue of genesis. And even few who can speak it.

Alayasha spoke back in the same tongue “Please tell me this isn’t a dream, father. I rather not think that I’m hallucinating on some sort of euphoric herb." It was hard to say “drug” in this language. It couldn’t even be translated. Still, his father would know what he meant. There wasn’t any movement from the figure in front of the bed, but if he had to guess his father smiled knowing that Alayasha could still speak the language.

Alayasha moved to the desk lamp and reached to turn the little knob on it. He paused for a moment. “You’re not going to reveal some dramatic shit like you got two heads or something?”

There was a pause, then a low voice said. “Why the hell would I have two heads?” That sounded like him and from the way he reacted, it had the same vibe of him.

“Just wanted to make sure.” When the light illuminated the room, he saw his father was standing there in one giant cloak. He knew it was big because his father was just a slight inch taller than Alayasha. The cloak was a dark blue, covering him from shoulder to his lower leg, only revealing his face. Many people would be fooled by his father’s appearance. He didn’t look a day over thirty-five, which, for a black man, was like late twenties. The only reason people of the House of Kuro knew he was old was because he had some grey hair in his beard. His locs, however, were as black as obsidian which made him somewhat off. They were tied back. They were shorter than Alayasha’s now. He must’ve of trimmed them last time he saw him. “How long since our last meeting?” Alayasha asked.

“It’s been close to a decade or more.” His father’s voice, just as low and deeps as Alayasha said. “Though, what is a decade to the those in the royal house.”

“True.” He said. He threw the sheet off of him. He grabbed one of his undershirts and pulled it over his face. He didn’t feel too lethargic which meant he probably went to sleep early. Five hours at the most. “What time is it?”

His father moved his hand out of his sleeve. “Almost four in the morning. You’ll have plenty of sleep once I’m done.”

“You know, I’m still not sure how you knew I was here. I made sure that none of your contacts could’ve spotted me. I’ve been damn well good at knowing who is your contact and who is not.”

His father smiled. It was one of those fatherly smiles, the one that says ‘my son, you still have so much to learn’. “I didn’t need to use my contacts. I simply just asked Lo-Ruhamah.”

Alayasha must have had a dumbfound look on his face. His father’s smile went to a fatherly smile to a smirk. “Oh.” Alayasha said. Well, that thought never would’ve occurred to him. No, that was a lie. The thought did occur to him, but he threw it in one of the mental filing cabinets under the shit that would probably not happen.

“I’m amazed sometimes.” His father said. “You, as one of the most renowned intelligences in the world, and you still have your blank moments.” He jested. “Reminds me of when you were little and struggled to figure out some of the simplest problems.”

Alayasha rolled his eyes. “Please, don’t start with that. I had reason to believe that you were far away from the shinobi countries. It’s not like I’ve been keeping tabs on you while you’re away.”

“Expect the unexpected, my son.” His father moved to one of the chairs and sat down.

“And when it’s unexpected, expect it…” Alayasha quoted. “Either way, I’m still surprised to see you.”

“Surprised, but not happy I take it.”

“I’m neither upset nor happy to see you. Like I said, I’m surprised only because you come to see me when you want to tell me something or when you want to show me something that you’re concerned about.”

He didn’t know whether his father shrugged, but if his eyes could do perform that motion it certainly did that time. “I’m been informed that you’re trying to destroy the Parabrahma.”

Alayasha hesitantly nodded. “Yeah…” he added, but he was wondering how his father knew about that little bit of information. He knew he told Lo-Ruhamah, but he didn’t even give her the chance to assume that he was trying to destroy it. In this case, it was probably common sense as why Alayasha was here hunting them down.

“You are the Hidden Hand of the Creed. That is your official title. You are supposed to let things take its course and let the shinobi world do what it does best: Destroy and recreate.”

“And I am doing that, father. I have no intention of trying to destroy the very foundation of what The Creed intends to preach. I instead am taking on a new approach.”

His father leaned back in his chair. “Now this I have to hear..”

“Tell me father, why haven’t we made an organization that we have control of. To answer that, we believe that if we attempt to influence the organization with our teachings, we would essentially be compromising our objective as keeping the balance. That was what we thought. Or at least, that is what grandfather believed. He feared that perhaps pushing an agenda on someone with them knowing it would cause too much gripe within the organization.”

Alayasha began to pace within the room. “I’m grateful that you decided to send me in as a spy. I was able to see how mankind reacts. Some are loyalist, some are lovers of pleasure, some are lovers of power, lovers of things that material. There are some who are idealistic, some who are blind to their cause, and some who will certainly die for it. I think we, the House of Kuro who align with The Creed, haven’t necessarily forgotten how mankind act, but rather we rather moved away from the path. We’ve taken too much of a passive role. We’ve stepped aside from that and began to let them do what they want.”

His father didn’t make a sound. He had one hand stroking his long afro beard and the other hand on the arm rest. He was simply tapping the edge of the rest with one finger.

“If we tie ourselves to that same dogmatic principle, then we will never be able to achieve that balance. I believe now is a time that we make a change. If not a change then an experiment on my part.”

“Ok.” His father didn’t sound convinced just yet. He was hanging on the edge. He knew this was almost like convincing his father to take his brother to next mission with him. The danger and the risk was almost the same, only on a bigger scale. “You want to create an organization under your control?”

“ The organization I want will essentially be the necessary insurance that’ll make sure there will be war. I will form create the organization whenever war is necessary. When their needs to be an organization that wants peace, I will make it another organization to instill that. I will make this the organization to rule all organizations. ”

“There is a joke somewhere in that.” His father said.

“If I want to be the hidden hand, then I must have some influenced into the shinobi world. It’s still young. It’s still fresh to be manipulated. I mean, hell, the Raikage and Hokage haven’t been seen for quite some time. Some even believe the Raikage is dead. I know that isn’t true, but that’s what these people are believing.

“The world needs its ‘heroes’. And the world needs its ‘villains’. I believe that I can orchestrate that and give what the shinobi world needs.” He paused and stopped pacing. He looked at his father who was staring up at him. Like trying to read a blank book, his father couldn’t be read. He simply looked at him.

Crap. That was what he would’ve said out loud if he was younger. His father was mulling it over in his head now, and that made the room eerily silent. He thought he played it right. At least, he believed he played it right. He was expecting his father to say no to the notion. Whether he said no or not, Alayasha was still going to go with his operation. He had no intention of stopping because his father said he wasn’t allowed to. He could attempt to stop him either by fighting him or by killing him, but then he would certainly be doing the one thing many Kuro follow.

The unexpected, however, happened. His father nodded his head in approval. “You’re right.”

“I usually am.”

“Don’t get cocky. You’re right in that The Creed has gotten passive over the last few decades. I’ve seen a decline in our action almost recently. It may be due to the fact that the Creed is beginning to branch out from the shinobi world to other continents, and simply let it go through its cycle naturally. But…” Of course there was the ‘but’. “I believe this will be a good chance to prove you as the new hidden hand.” He got up from the chair. “But I must ask you to be careful on this, my son. What you do, what you’re about to attempt. Many will think you are a madman while others will assume you have drank from the chalice of the devil.”

“Did our enemies in the past once thought of us as inhuman spirit eaters? This is simply the same thing, only this time I’m not trying to use Aluah.”

“My son.” His father returned back to the ancient form of their language. He looked into his father’s eyes and what he saw scared the hell out of Alayasha. For the first time in Alayasha’s life, he saw something he hoped to never see in his father again.

He was afraid. His father was afraid of something that made Alayasha's stomach churn in him.

"Father, what's-"

"Just keep safe." he said, getting up from his chair. "Keep safe, and keep an eye out for The Creed."

"I...will." Alayasha said. His father put a hand on his shoulder and smiled at him. How funny, Alayasha thought, he must've grown in the last year because he and his father were the same height. That's something he hadn't noticed till now. He put a hand on his father's shoulder. "I will keep safe. That, I promise."