Moon Devourer

Pray And Curse

He danced upon the water, kata after kata, a brutal dance between fist, legs and the tanto in his hand, silver flashing amidst the sun's bright rays, breathing and swaying to the wind's desire.

The water trickled, the trees swayed, and the wind blew. That was the essence of nature, and that was what he had to face.

Slowly closing the kata to the end of the series of swordsplay, the fish dipped down below the surface again, content to circle around each other.

And he stood still on the perfect still surface, and looked down.

A wolf stared back, grinning, canines and all as its yellow eyes flashed golden, its brown fur well cared for and groomed.

"Do I look familiar oh traveller? Do I? Do I?" It chanted like a songbird, "come, come, then you shall see."

He swiped at the surface before it could whisper more into his ears.

He had a goal. Even if he had to wait six years to see it through, he could always start early.

And if early meant going through gruelling training with the tanto first, it wasn't something he couldn't do.

The windchimes rang, and he snapped to look at the gates.

He snapped to look at the position of the sun, and back down at the pond.

He whispered a tiny prayer to the Kami before going to the gates.

Namikaze Minato was here.

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He stared at the visage of a twitching butterfly, and then back at the rack holding the cloth he was working on, a mirror image of the insect, but complete, whole.

Orange interlaced with a lighter and lighter shade of itself, a series of cross stitches, blooming on top of the white canvas, glory painted with white spots.

A monarch butterfly.

A poisonous being, from after eating milkweed from when they were mere caterpillars.

And it was dying pitifully, a hole torn through its wings from a slingshot made by one of the newcomers.

No one could save it, not even the matron, so the poor, sweet child, came up to him, and asked, "can you fix it?"

He said he could, but that was a lie. A white lie, a harmless thing, because there was no threading back the fragile wing membranes of a butterfly lest he doom the creature to never fly again.

"Course I can," he told the child, a smile to wipe the sad face off the kid, "I just need to get my thinnest threads to make it all better."

"Thank you!" The kid nearly leaped as she all but smacked the jar which held the butterfly in his open palm before bounding off.

He sunned the poor thing on his windowsill and fed it some of the honey Miatarashi snuck out of the kitchen, there was no need to be that cruel to let it die from hunger.

A foolish man, with limbs as thin as coiled rope, smiled at him before jumping towards his death.

The boy shook his head, tears softly pricking at his eyes as his hands stilled.

Gently snapping his eyes close, he put down the needle and took a long, harsh inhale.

He opened his eyes, and slowly tilted his head towards the direction of the butterfly. It had long stopped twitching, a warm death embracing the bug laying still on the windowsill.

How lovely.

It was a shame he wouldn't get that.

Shinobi. His mind whispered. There was nothing more a shinobi could do but to die upon the lands of war or in the shoadows of politics.