Journey of the Three Failures

Chapter 25: Toward the New Age, Act One

Journey of the Three Failures

Chapter Twenty-Five: Toward the New Age, Act One

Part One: Come What May

Naruto ナルト

A new day approaches...

I drew in the cool mountain air, felt it in my nostrils, my lungs, even as it played over my body, my face, my hair.

According to the toads, a week in I had progressed to a level beyond that most students might attain in years of study. How that is, I'm not really sure; after all, for the longest time all I had going for me was my gut and my grit. I'm only fourteen, for the kami's sake...

Now it's been two months, and I feel things are finally beginning to come together. I used to fear my power – I still do, but the fear can no longer rule me. I know what I am, and it's more than a container to hold a demon. I'm ever changing, transforming, growing... and the things I've learned here are nothing short of amazing. I can feel the world breathing around me, now...

The path of the Sage had brought me into balance without as well as within. Sharpened mind, abundant energy, grueling work. Destroyer, healer, trickster, wraith, demon... sage. All of these things had meshed without my even realizing, and I was finding that I had come to possess true strength.

It's with this strength – this frightful strength – that I will protect the ones I love, without fail.

I relished in the breeze. Floating down from a state of meditation, I blinked and laid half-lidded eyes on the horizon as I sighed slowly.

The critical hour only draws nearer, now... My peaceful sunrises are numbered. It's time to return – for the dawn of war, and for whatever certainty may lay beyond.

"OI! Naruto-chan!"

A voice boomed across the canyon, and I started – a motion that didn't bode well for my seating on an earthen tablet balanced atop a tall and fine-tipped stone spire. I flailed and scrambled, clinging to the column as the thin tablet tipped and split in two.

"Hai?" I called, eyebrow twitching as I watched the two halves tumble to finally shatter over the distant ground.

"Ma will have your chapped hide if you're not at the table for a last meal before ye're to be heading out! What're you doing out there, anyways?"

I smiled. In a nimble move I climbed to stand with the peak beneath the ball of one foot, the other foot tucked neatly behind. "Just... savoring the daybreak."

"What? Speak up, boy!"

"It's nothing, Shishou – I'll be at the table soon!"

Lee リー

In this land, the Land of Iron, I had found many a great warrior to challenge.

And, though initially drawn by the promise of battle, it was in Iron that I eventually became one who followed not only nindou, but bushidou as well.

"You are a great shinobi, Rock Lee... and a fine samurai as well."

"Lord Mifune..." I bowed at the waist, in the hope of conveying some fraction of my gratitude. "I cannot thank you enough."

"Raise your head, Rock Lee! Meet my eyes in the knowledge that you, as Lord Washi before you, stand among the finest practitioners of the art of pure and honorable combat. Carry the pride befitting of such stature ever upon your shoulders as you now go along your own path, and wield steel always with valor. On this day, I see before me a young man who is neither shinobi nor samurai. You are beyond these. You... are a warrior."