A Dash of Chili Powder

116

Amaya very, very slowly pushed herself off the floor, getting up to her feet. She decided. A bath and then she would talk to Rage. Letting her typical cold breath, she headed off down the hall and turned into the bathroom. 

The shower curtain was a calm lavender, hanging softly over the porcelain bath tub.

She let out another quiet breath and stepped over to the tub, shoving the curtain out of the way and lazily turning the silver knobs to hot. She loved hot water. Well, because her skin was so cold. She needed something to warm her up. But by the time she was all warm, her skin would be cherry red.

A sigh.

[Blah...my brain is like...ugh]

Gracie

[You're brain's mean. D:]

Amaya slipped into the bathroom and Rage relaxed once the door clicked softly shut.

Why was he so tense around her? He'd never know. Well, actually he might if he owned up to himself instead of hiding like a child fearing rejection. Rage shoved these thoughts away along with the broom between the kitchen and the counter, storming off to find something else he could clean.

While he was vehemently trying not to allow a certain small, purple-haired child to come skipping into his thoughts, his brain made a more nostalgic alternative. Back a few years, when his life had finally found something to hold onto. Someone to hold onto....

A ten-year-old shouldn't be used to violence. Even young shinobi weren't exposed to death until far into their career, if it could be helped. There was a line of childhood innocence that just shouldn't be crossed no matter what a person believed.

Musohito - Rage - wasn't used to violence. The assassins taught it, preached it, breathed it, but Rage hadn't been able to desensitize himself to it quite yet. On the day he made his first kill, he wished that he was.

The shinobi didn't see him hiding in the brush dressed in white and red. He watched anxiously as three genin were trained by a jonin. The boys were standing to the side, blank-faced, empty-eyed. The blond one didn't even look at his last teammate. The brunette with wild hair gazed with an apathy that startled Rage. The female genin was attacking a tree for training while the jonin watched with folded arms.

Suddenly the girl collapsed out of exhaustion. The blond didn't stir. The brunette stared with empty horror. "You're not done. Get up," the jonin ordered.

She lay on her side and didn't move, as if already dead. Rage felt his insides twist with unease. Their jonin snarled and started towards her--

--only to have the brunette throw himself on the much-larger man. He grabbed his fisted hand and held as if his life depended on it.

"Naora-san, run!" he shouted.

The girl's gray eyes were wide, terror giving her expression life. Their blond teammate had already fled. "Kozue-chan...!"

"You little brat," the jonin barked as he took a fistful of that knotted brown hair.

Kozue didn't even sound like he was in pain. "Please! Just go! GO!" Naora looked frozen in uncertainty before she tore her eyes away and barreled into the trees to escape.

It was like the fire in Kozue's eyes was snuffed - or had there been fire at all? - as soon as the red haired girl was gone. The jonin threw him to the ground and set to work on him, and Kozue just took it. Hot tingles ran across Rage's skin and he felt the emotion that he'd been named after rising up in him. The dagger was in his hand. He just had to run in and do it. The jonin would never see it coming--