Anei's Fall : The Seeds of Corruption.

[Anei]

Anei's Fall : The Seeds of Corruption.

Tells of Anei's return to his village after joining Akatsuki, and is the final blow to his personality, finalizing his nature of being pure logic and reason, devoid of emotion or lenience, governed by fairness and equality.
(Yes I realize its rather long...Be thankful I cut it short!)


Anei had just been accepted into the organization called Akatsuki. It was a testament to his abilities, both as a fighter and as a shinobi, using his mind as a tool. His grin was wider than usual that day, the sway in his movement more pronounced, his body pulsing with his excitement. He was on the road home now, to his small village outside the former Hidden Sound. When he had been taken from there, so many years before, over half the village had been destroyed. His parents and most his family was dead. Nonetheless, that place would always be his home. His days training under the sound, becoming a true shinobi, they were all blurred together. Important, yes, but not cherished. His younger days he held in a frame of gold in his mind, each moment captured in every detail within him, held close to his heart. Playing with the other children on a hot summer day. The warm motherly embrace his mom gave him when he had a nightmare at night, the smirk and pat on the head his father gave him his first day at the academy, filling him with a sense of pride. All simple things that most people took for granted, Anei had had and lost, and they were etched into his soul, countless thousands of emotions and memories, some triggered by a smell or a sight, a song…They played through his head now walking up the road to his village.
He hadn’t been sure at first, whether or not he had wanted to return. Things would likely be so different now, most the people he had known gone, and now with being a member of Akatsuki, how much of himself would he truly be able to devote to the village? Nonetheless, the conclusion he came to he was happy with. He needed to at least touch back with them. That village and its people had a part of his heart, before it had become somewhat tainted by the evils of the world, and he felt he owed it to the village, for giving him that small joy, to return. He might even go as far as to protect them whenever he could.
Coming around the final bend before his Village became visible beyond the small hills and trees, Anei felt a sense of extreme nostalgia sweep over him, but his smile was slightly suppressed as a chill wind blew around the hills, chilling his flesh and causing his trenchcoat to flutter eerily in the noticeable silence. There in front of him was his old village. Its grandeur had been diminished by time, though truth be told it probably had never been as glorious as Anei held it to be in his mind. It looked like the outer edges of the city had hardly been touched since the sand had burned them so many years ago, and some of the outermost buildings were still nothing more than charred black ruins. Anei’s bright smile faded a little seeing this. He had hoped after so long the villages would have rebounded from the event, but it seemed like they had merely stagnated…
Despite his sudden disappointment, Anei continued along the path, glancing only once up at the sun, settling low in the sky, moving until he stood outside the village. He took a deep breath, glancing around, he entered the village. There was almost no one to be seen in the streets, except for a few haggard looking people wandering around the market, despite the fact it looked like there was little to buy. The only people he did see seemed content to ignore him, and only one stranger even gave him a second glance, arching a brow suspiciously. Anei gave them all a warm smile before continuing on, his coat shuffling at his feet, as the wind had apparently died down. He wound through the streets as surely as if he had never left, twisting and turning his way closer to the center of town, to find his old home.
And then there it was, right before him. Not a particularly glorious house, though it looked nicer than the majority of its neighboring structures. The wood was old and worn, but held a sort of ancient elegance. His boots made soft thuds on the steps as he climbed them, his eyes narrowing for a moment as he let his gloved hand trail over the doorway, his mind losing itself in his recollections. How many times he had come up these steps and through this door to find his father in the chair by the window, reading some ancient book and smoking his pipe, his mother humming a gentle tune while working in the kitchen. Anei smiled softly and pushed the door open. Of course no one would be home, his parents were long dead now…
Stepping into the cool house, his eyes narrowed more, almost painfully. The bodies were gone and the blood cleaned but beyond that…Anei clutched a gloved hand at his hair, shutting his eyes tight. He had expected to come home mind flooded with pleasant memories. To glance at the stairs and remember being chased up into bed by mother…To enter the kitchen and all but be able to smell his mother’s cooking…To enter the old library and feel his father’s hand on his head…but…this…
Nothing had been fixed or picked up since that night…As of no one had been here since. Cobwebs were strung clear from the wall to the overturned chair where no doubt father had been sitting when the sound ninja first burst through the door… A shattered plate in front of the sink in the kitchen…A broken window, even several kunai stuck into the wooden walls. The more Anei wandered the home the more horror he felt, slowly drowning in remembering that day which he had ignored for so long. His mouth twisting into a painful grimace he let himself fall onto his knees in the center of the living room. He clutched at his hair, the leather of his gloves squeaking with the strain of his grip, and he hung his head as brief flashes of that night consumed him. He had run home hearing screams and smelling smoke. The attack had begun on the other end of the village. He had gone straight home, hoping to help but already, by the time he got there,
“Is it you?”
Anei almost jumped; shaken from his memories, sparing him the memory of what he had seen when he had entered his house so many years ago. He got up off his knees and turned quickly towards the doorway. In it, there stood a girl, only a few years younger than him. Her hair’s length had more than doubled, no reaching past her lower back. Her delicate features, while still soft, were more elegant now, brittle yet bold. The doll in her hand now replaced by a kunai, and a simple girlish body now replaced by the soft curves of a fully grown woman. But still, those eyes, deep blue as the sky they had so dearly loved to look into…her voice, soft and yet somehow firm beneath, echoed in his ears for a moment before he could utter a response.
“Sora…”
The girl’s face suddenly lit up, as if melting, a large glint coming into those hypnotic eyes, and she spoke almost breathless stepping forward.
“It is you…Anei…you’re back…” She chewed her lip softly hoping to maintain her composure, but lost the battle and let her kunai fall to the ground as she ran forward and embraced him tightly, for a moment they were both back in the past, so many years ago, a boy and a girl, lost in the joy of each other’s company. Slowly he wrapped his arms around her too, trembling as his eyes fell shut remembering all the days they had spent together, the two of them, best friends. Swimming in the small river outside of town, playing tag with just one another in the outskirt forest, lying in the grass staring up at the clouds…if not for his leather coat, he may have felt the tear that had rolled slowly down her porcelain features and onto him. Nevertheless, he all but heard the tear as she continued with a shaking voice. “The villagers…They say to leave things as they were…as a reminder…but it’s so depressing…” Suddenly she pulled back and he could see the moisture in her eyes, the tremble in her lip. Before he knew it he felt a sting on his face, reaching up to touch his cheek he realized she had slapped him. “You’re not dead! Why did it take you so long to come back?”
Anei sighed softly, lowering his hand and lowering his head. He supposed it would have been possible for him to escape. It was unlikely the sound ninja had considered him valuable until the very end, and wouldn’t have hunted him down. Nonetheless he had wanted the training. After what had happened, he wanted to be stronger, so nothing like that could ever happen to him again.
“I’m sorry Sora, I wanted to… That doesn’t matter. I’m here now…” He let himself smile at her warmly, eyes lighting up. She returned the smile with an almost childlike playfulness and pointed to him.
“And what on earth are you wearing Nei-kun?” She winked at him before pulling him into another embrace, which he returned, speaking softly to her.
“I’ve come back; I want to help out the village. And it looks like it needs it.”
“We don’t need your help boy.”
Anei looked past Sora’s shoulder towards the door again, his smile fading seeing the man standing there, likely more than twice his age, a heavy cluster of gray hairs thrown into the beard that had been smaller and darker when Anei last saw him. The town blacksmith, Kordan. Anei let go of Sora, who turned to look at Kordan with a cold gaze as Anei spoke.
“What do you mean? The village looks no better than when I left!” Anei pointed at the ruin of his own home to enhance his argument, but Kordan was clearly unmoved. He stepped into the house glancing around.
“A reminder boy, of what happened. We can’t just clean up and forget about it or it will happen again.”
Anei frowned at this boots sounding against the silence on the wooden floor as he stepped forward towards Kordan. “And rotting here is a better solution? Has leaving this misery here made things any better? Would you be better prepared now if you were to be attacked again?”
Kordan puffed up angrily. “Is that a threat, BOY?” Anei growled, filling slowly with rage, standing in his home, still broken as it had been all those years ago, facing a villager he had come back to help and protect, a villager who was pushing him away.
“It is now Kordan you old fool! You think you lost anything more than I did that day? You’ve no right trying to keep me out I was as much a part of this village as any other, and I was just a boy, still too young to deal with that kind of slaughter. If you want things how they were I think you still need some blood on the floor here!” So saying Anei grasped the hilt of his katana and drew it from his sheath with a quick ringing of metal on metal, and in a flash had smashed the hilt into the old man’s face, blood spattering from his nose and mouth onto the wooden floor of his parents home as Kordan stumbled backwards and fell down the steps. Anei followed him out, point of the katana held to his chest as Kordan crawled backwards on the ground, Anei’s coat fluttering as the wind picked up. Sora leapt out of the house and ran up beside Anei, placing a hand on his arm. “Anei please, stop this!”
Anei all but ignored her, holding Kordan at sword point speaking with a calm and cool voice, though its icy edge was clearly a tone of anger and disgust. “Kordan the blacksmith, crawling helplessly on the dirt. Look around you, these burned and ruined buildings, is this the legacy you want for the village you helped build? Hiding in your home day and night, trying to ignore what happened here, excusing your cowardice with delusions of learning some lesson in remembrance? I remember FULL WELL the death of my parents without returning home to see the furniture still scattered around the floor!”
By now a crowd had begun to gather around him, and many gasps and whispers erupted, floating across the wind to Anei’s ears and he knew he was recognized. The first they had seen of him in over ten years and it was him holding a fellow villager at the tip of his blade… But no, he had deserved it, he could not back down now. Murmurs of traitor held at a low volume began to rise through the crowd, until one random villager cried out. “You left us and now you come back expecting a home? You’ve attacked Kordan, you’re not welcome here!”
The cry was echoed by the soon to be mob, yelling ‘traitor’ and ‘get out’ and other such things. Sora’s eyes filled with moisture again, she looked around pleadingly with the villagers as Anei glared mercilessly at the still bleeding blacksmith on the ground before him. These people had never recovered from the blow they received that night. That much was apparent. Sora alone seemed to even realize the futility of their actions and the resulting stagnation. They no longer even deserved his help. What good memories he had of his village, of his home, had died along with his parents that night. He should never have returned. He pulled his blade back and began to slide it into his sheath. At precisely that moment, Kordan the blacksmith pulled a knife from his pocket and flung it at Anei. He barely had time for his eyes to widen before it was flying at him. He had barely had time to gasp before Sora jumped in the way. Having dropped her kunai in the house, not having expected any danger, it was pure reflex, and the knife caught her squarely in the chest. His entire mind went numb, it all happened so fast. All the stories he read as a little child, of heroes and villains…the villain always had a slow descent into madness, into their twisted views, into their anger or hatred. Corruption took time. But Anei saw now it was really only the building up of multiple factors that took time, but the snap was instantaneous, the corruption, the fire that flared up using everything in the past as kindling, it was sudden. And it was absolute. Before Kordan even had the chance to get up and scramble away, Anei’s katana was out again and had sliced clean through his neck before the ringing of the metal had faded. Anei’s hair hung in front of his face, hiding his ice cold eyes, his lips set in a firm line, neither smiling nor frowning. The blood hit him in the face but he didn’t flinch, just stared down at the body of the blacksmith. For a moment there was dead silence that not even the violent whipping of Anei’s coat could shatter, no matter how much the wind picked up. Then a moan of pain from Sora as she faded from consciousness and a thud as Kordan’s head hit the dirt. The villagers charged him.

[Anei]

Anei was shaken from his daze and cast them all one final, cold glare. He had come here for them. His village, his friends, his family…and this was the reception he received. An attempt on his life, and an utter lack of respect for the home he loved…well let it be the end of their pitiful lives then, if they sought to attack him. He would feel no remorse putting these wretched beings down, remnant shadows of a place he had once loved. The first villager that reached him he ran straight through, the man spitting up blood straight in Anei’s face before sliding off his blade and landing with a shlump on the ground. The next few attacked him in groups, but with a spin and a few quick slashes they fell on the ground, their screams piercing the fierce wind as their gaping wounds formed a disturbingly red mud on the ground beneath them. Dangerously close to becoming surrounded, Anei leapt up into the air above them and closed his eyes gathering chakra. Wretched fools…this was not the way it was supposed to happen… Gathering chakra between the metal of the two bands on his left arm, sparks began to fly and he formed a ball of lightning which he hurled down at them. He did this three times before he began to fall, the electricity arching as it hit one villager, each ball jumping to at least three other villagers before it’s energy was used, the smell of scorched flesh and more cries of pain beginning to fill the air.
As he flew through the air and began to fall, Anei saw the reason for the increased wind. As the sun set and the moon rose, it was covered by dark storm clouds. Anei smiled.
Anei curled his body so it began to spin forward, straightening out again until he was headed head first towards the ground. The villagers closed the circle beneath him and stood below him waiting to deliver their blows. Anei held his blade out before him and the villagers gasped as it drove straight down through the skull of one unlucky villager, who’s fogging over eyes began to bleed. Before the muscle support of the dead villager failed, Anei pushed off the hilt of his blade like a pole and flipped outside the ring of people, leaving his blade embedded in the skull of a random villager, and pulled a few shuriken from his coat pockets. Slapping explosive tags on them, he threw them into the crowd, past those in the front lines and into a group nearer the center. He heard the cries as they sunk into flesh, and forming a few hand seals he activated the tags. Bodies, limbs and blood flew out in every direction from the group, the cries of surprise and pain outdone by the boom of the tags, Anei’s coat whipping violently behind him from the force of the blast, blood splattering on his clothes.
The head of the man who had Anei’s katana in it came flying out, separated from the body by the explosion, and Anei could not help but laugh as he reached out to catch the hilt, his eyes lighting up and he began to chuckle at the convenience as he kicked the head off and let it roll towards the remaining villagers, all staring at him with a mix of horror and rage. Let them call him traitor now. At least they would be somewhat justified, although in his eyes, they had betrayed him. A few of them had weapons now. But it would make no difference. Determined not to let their village fall again, they charged Anei, one swinging a small kunai at him. He simply took a step back and stabbed the man through his neck, beyond the range of the kunai. The guy tried to scream but it was lost as the blood filled his throat, and whether he died of the wound, being unable to breath, or merely choking, Anei didn’t care. A pair charged him again, slashing at him from both sides. He sidestepped, so that both men were in front of him, cutting off one’s arm, the man fell down in agony clutching his stump while the other jumped over his fallen comrade for an overhand stab. Anei stepped forward so that the man’s leap overshot him, and swung hard, slicing off the man’s legs as he flew in the air. He landed painfully face down in the dirt. Anei let them lay there as the rest of the villagers drew closer. Hearing a thunder clap ahead, Anei smiled and tossed his sword into the air, spinning and began to form a string of hand seals.
“Ikazuchi no Kiba!” Anei sent his chakra, electric in nature, into the growing storm clouds. Though it was unnecessary, Anei pointed at a group of villagers for pure effect, and in a flash, a bolt of lightning arched down from the sky, striking in the midst of the villagers. The resulting thunder clap a second later was deafening, and those not torn asunder and burned by the blast fell to their knees clutching their ears. With only a handful remaining, Anei merely ran among them, slashing to his sides or in front of him as needed, dispatching the insolent worms one by one. The blood on his face had begun to dry until the clouds above him broke and the rain came pouring down in a sudden rush. Anei glanced around at the dozens of corpses lying around him, limbs, blood soaking with the water in the ground, the wind violently whipping his coat behind him. He felt a footstep, and turned to see a shinobi leaping at him. His cold eyes never noticed that the water on that face was made of tears, not rain, or that the shinobi was unarmed, her hair fluttering behind her. The bloodlust and cold anger in his heart caused him to react instantly, and his cry far overpowered hers.
“Please no more!!”
“Rouga Bassui!!!”
Anei spun quickly and just as the shinobi landed in front of him he performed two quick slashes to her chest, slicing her open. Then swinging his blade up from her stomach to her chest with the blunt side of his blade, the tip still cutting but the force throwing her into the air, he snarled in his rage. He leapt up with her as she moved, and began to relentlessly barrage her head and face with shallow slashes, until it seemed as though she wore a mask of red, unsuccessfully hiding the gaping gashes on her formerly flawless and beautiful face. As he stared at that face, already having readied his final blow, he gasped out, eyes shooting wide and his heart stopping, a final blow from the blade slamming Sora’s limp body into the ground.
Anei landed on his knees with a shriek of agony to which no physical pain could compare. A part of him wanted to tear his eyes out but another part of him forced himself to look at what he had done. Her pale face growing paler beneath the flow of blood, her delicate slender body torn battered and bruised, her elegant face which he had loved so much, and dreamed of…shredded. A single choked sob erupted from him, a predecessor to the bile he felt building up, until finally he vomited his disgust all over the dirt beneath him. At this moment in an effort to block out this burning pain, Anei began to close off his emotion. He stood on trembling knees; shaking the blood from his blade and sliding it slowly back into its sheath. He kept his eyes shut tightly, the wind howling around him, his coat and hair recklessly waving with the breeze. The moon reached a gap in the storm clouds and the silver light flooded over the morbid scene. Anei stood there for hours, all but unconscious, his mind working hard to block out or alter what had happened to spare him the psychological trauma. He began to walk slowly away and out of the village, and did not open his eyes again until the location of the bloodbath was beyond his sight. The incident already forgotten, Anei walked away smiling.


(yay 4,000 words exactly excluding title and explanation)