@sangoshou // KARATACHI.
crouched high above the riverside in the wooden cup of a flowering dogwood, a man with the heart of a dog & the teeth of a fox fingers the lip of a kunai & watches the dirt come to life. hidden amongst reeds & rushing water hum fields of beetles, weevils, grasshoppers, ants. a ribbon snake slips down cragged bark, licks salt from pale skin before sliding cool, smooth belly-scales across his ankle & dropping into the long grass. fox pups trundle forth from a blue-bellied burrow to play murder in the warming light, mewling & yipping as they take turns snatching scruff & furred throats, shaking just hard enough to develop a taste for it.
haku watches them, playful yips superimposed by the the screams and warbled cries of children, he confused gurgle of blood that had coursed from his mother’s neck as she spasmed, desperate and confused, at his father’s feet ; then, gaze does wander closer, settling on the small, scarred form kneeling amid the reeds and grasses. thickly-stitched hands work in silence, their ashen pallor starkly contrasted against the lush vegetation. unnatural.
and yet it had been haku, not zabuza, utakata, or koharu, who had ordered the others to stand down when the reanimated yagura had wandered across their sanctuary. it still confuses him, when he looks at the man anger still bubbles up into his throat black and hot, the hairs on the back of his neck stiff with animal suspicion, but -- he had believed his story. against all things, against all reason, haku had been willing to give him a chance.
for years he had blamed yagura as the source of his misfortune. zabuza, utakata, koharu ━━ they all had, in some way or another. yagura made sense to blame. he was mizukage, an all-powerful jinchuuriki, a cruel man with a taste for blood ━━
only that was not entirely true at all, was it. though his taste for blood was likely the same as any kirigakure shinobi, yagura had been obito’s mindless puppet, caught in the snares of a mind-rending genjutsu, oblivious to the chaos and destruction sewn in his name. and the rest of it ━━ that was all them. the denizens of water country returning to their bloody, sordid roots.
the real monsters had always only been them.
it’s an early summer morning in tea country. the air is bald & already crisping at the edges, straining under the weight of sun bursts & insect chatter. there’s a crook in his neck from tossing & turning all last night, a horsefly’s welted bite itching-crusting the intersection of neck & shoulder.
silently does haku drop from the branches, letting his slow, steady footsteps be heard as he approaches the smaller man from behind. so much anger still coils in his gut ━━ yet his voice is soft ( if distant ) when he kneels down beside him in the long grass, keeping his eyes on the small, dextrous, deadly hands up to their wrists in reeds and weeds.
❛ What are we looking for ? ❜ he murmurs, idly smoothing the grass before him. spying a tender shoot of mint, he plucks two stalks, setting one against yagura’s hand ; the other is quickly peeled of several leaves that are then stuck in his mouth to chew. ❛ The best herbs are further down the river. ❜
