The Beauty of Imperfection

Chapter Thirteen

I stumble out of the house and hurry away but I don't get far before collapsing on my knees. My Father... my Father.

I'm choking and hyperventilating and panicking and my Father is the one who hired the ninja who killed Daisuke, who crippled Shun, who tore everything away from Sensei again.

I missed Daisuke.

I retch, sick to my stomach, but nothing comes up. My head is spinning and my heart is racing and I'm trembling and shaking and I can't get enough air and this can't be real this can't be real this can't be real. Everything is swirling and building up and it's all too much and the darkness is too great and everything just breaks.

My breathing slowly comes back under control as my mind fractures. Everything calms. The world settles down. A strange fog seems to descend upon me, at once obscuring my thoughts and providing a sharp kaleidoscope of clarity.

I missed team eleven.

I breathe in and out slowly. What had I learned from genjutsu? The mind was a powerful tool. What it believed... what it truly believed... was that mind's reality.

I wanted to see my team all together again.

Another breath, in and out. It's raining. The mud sullies my knees. I bow my head. The mud dirties my dangling hands. In and out. My hand's fumble along my weapon pouch for a long moment. It's full. In and out. The mud clings to me. I'm terribly dirty, stained with the earth. In and out.

Daisuke was dead.

In and out. I clutch a kunai, running a finger along its familiar edge before putting it away again. Shun was alive. Sensei was alive. I was alive. Daisuke wasn't coming back.

But we could go meet him.

Shun first. He didn't deserve to suffer any longer.

***

There was blood on my face.

The fact registers slowly as I sit in Sensei's dark hospital room, waiting for him to come back.

I raised a hand to my face and the fingertips come away red. I could feel it slowly drying on my face, cracking and flaking and turning to dust.

There was a rustle of curtains in the breeze and the sightest thump of somebody landing on the ground. I can only assume it's Sensei, returned from wherever he had gone in the night.

"Fuzen?" he sounds steady, very Sensei-like. So it was one of those days. "Sorry if you've been sitting here long. I just went to visit... y'know, a couple of stupid rocks."

Ah. So he went to Daisuke's grave. I can only assume he also went to his old friend's as well. And whoever else the poor boy's lost through the years; God knows the count was far too high.

No more.

Sensei walks slowly towards the bed, seeming to sense that something was off, something was wrongwrongwrong. I keep my head down, don't bother to stand from the chair and turn to face him. I know when he spots the blood.

There's a gasp and a faint moan of despair as he immediately assumes the worst. "No, no." His voice takes an eternity to reach my ears and make its way to my brain. When it does I slowly lift my head and lock my eyes with him. And then Sensei's hands are cupping my face, sifting desperately through my hair as he searches for a wound that was not there. "Oh God, Fuzen,  you're bleeding. Your father—you're bleeding, what did he—"

"It's not mine."

His hands freeze in their fruitless search and I know; I know that those three words have rocked his world, have twisted our future. The path was set now. All we could do was follow it.