Writing Machine Refuge

I don't know if I should post this to chuunin because it's from and OC's POV, which embarrasses me slightly. So I guess I'll post it here and see if anyone on my limited friendslist is interested in reading it.

First Chapter




There’s blood on the deck and blood in the rigging. Fish blood and fish guts mixed together with something all too human. Amelia was screaming. Fugaku wanted to join her.

The woman with the foreign name had lived in their village for as long as he’d been alive. Lived in their village and fished their waters and babysat him and his sister and half the village kids and now, today, she was going to die, torn apart by the rigging.

At least he hoped she would die. Anything else was too cruel.

She was in the cabin now with most of the crew while he huddled out here with a man he only knew as Oni. That’s what the other kids called him, anyways. Privately Fugaku thought he wasn’t a demon, sure he looked horrible with his nose sliced off and missing ears and those horrible scars but he didn’t act like one. They were supposed to be watching the ship but Fugaku was only eight and on his first big fishing trip and therefore didn‘t know anything about these kinds of ships, and Oni was curled up by the cabin staring at the bloody deck and shivering.

“Notagainnotagainnotagain,” the man was saying over and over again. “Stupid stupid, not enough morphine, stupid.”

Fugaku edged closer. Amelia sounded hoarse now, but she was still screaming. “What are they going to do?” She couldn’t keep screaming like that, could she? “Sir? Do you know?” He shook the man’s shoulder and was slammed backwards, a knife at his throat.

Oni stared at him for a moment. He blinked rapidly and just as suddenly released him and made the knife disappear. “Sorry kid. Don’t--don’t touch me right now...”

Fugaku nodded and scooted away. The knife didn’t scare him, Father had been teaching him how to wield them every visit for the last two years.

“What are they going to do?” he asked again.

The man passed a hand over his eyes. “I saw what she looked like. Uh, legs are pretty much gone, torso’s crushed, she’s going to bleed to death soon. But not soon enough, they did her no favors with the tourniquets. They’ll--they’ll probably come out and ask me for help. Fuck, I wish there was some booze aboard.” Oni sighed, it sounded like a sob. “You know kid? There’s two types of missing-nin. There’s--there’s your dad, and don’t bother trying to deny it. No hidden village would let a guy like that have a family outside of their control, not with whatever blood limit he’s got. A guy like that, he’s dangerous.”

“And then there’s me.” He laughed, but there was no humor in it. “I can’t! I can’t I can’t I can’t. What kind of nin is scared of killing people?”

Fugaku watched him. Distantly he heard the mast and rigging creak. “I can do it, if you don’t want to.”

An agonized scream ripped the air.

The man stared at him. “Kid. You’re eight.”

Fugaku just looked at him. It was very simple, he liked Amelia--she was the one who had convinced his mother to let him come out here in the first place. And now she was in a lot pain and they couldn’t fix her--pain she didn’t deserve. It was all very simple, only adults made it hard.

“I can do it,” he repeated. “Just show me where.”

The man shivered and looked away. “You really are your father’s son, you know that?” He paused for a moment, and sighed. “Okay. I’ll show you. Just--just don’t say I didn’t tell you.”

A moment later the captain came out and gave Oni a look, and Oni nodded unhappily. As the rest of the crew filed out Fugaku ducked in. No one noticed him.

For a moment he hated them.

Oni shut the door and latched it, then drew the knife and handed it him. It was a hunting knife, heavy bladed to cut through deer hide or into a haddock’s brain, not one of the kunai his father had shown him. Amelia was moaning now and gasping. Her breathing sounded…weird. They’d covered her lower body with a blanket but that didn’t hide the pool of blood or the dark bruising covering her body. She looked…squished. And shredded.

Oni turned around and threw up. “Just do it.”

“You have to show me where.”

“Oh. Oh fuck.” But he came over and ripped her shirt open anyways, and then pointed to a spot on her chest. “You’re a skinny kid, but if you go between the ribs I think you can do it.”

It was harder then he expected. He wanted to just slam the blade home like what Father would do, but Oni was correct--he wasn’t strong enough and he might miss. And if he missed he would cause Amelia more suffering and he might lose his nerve. So instead he put the tip where Oni had showed him and pressed downward, feeling the knife scrape against bone. Amelia whimpered like a baby as the blade went in, shuddered, and deflated, the air escaping her in an odd gasp.

Oni stared at him for a moment, then threw up again. “God help me,” he said, “I made you into a killer.”

Fugaku looked at Amelia’s corpse and felt nothing.

A month later and he still felt nothing, although he wondered if he should.

One thing he had noticed was the scent of death that seemed to follow him. It wasn’t a real scent as far as he could tell, but it registered that way anyways. It centered on his hands, and no matter how much he washed them it did not leave. His mother had raised an eyebrow at him when she noticed him washing his hands once too often, but said nothing. Eventually he stopped trying, figuring it was all in his head.

But once he had the scent, he could smell it elsewhere.

Oni was covered in it to the point that he could not be around the man without wanting to gag. Oni was missing-nin, but in a fishing village that made half its income with smuggled goods no one cared, and no one asked questions. Other’s had it too, here, a grizzled old man who had been rumored to have killed his wife fifty years ago, there a young woman who, like Amelia, had wandered into town from somewhere else and chosen to stay.

And then his father came to visit, and he wondered why the scent clinging to Oni had troubled him so. His father was saturated with the scent of death, it clung to him like a cloud, followed his movements, and left a trail that Fugaku could follow if he wanted to. It was amazing that no one else could smell it, that aura. It was amazing he hadn’t smelled it until now. His sister threw herself into her father’s arms with a happy shout as if there was nothing wrong and it was all he could do to not grab her and pull her away to safety. This was ridiculous, he was afraid of his father. His father smiled that cold, careful smile of his and lifted her into the air.

Mother walked into the room smiling, and greeted Father with a kiss. “Itachi,” she said. “How long can you stay?”

“Not long.” He looked at Fugaku, his cold black eyes blank of all emotion and set Mikoto down. “I must speak to Fugaku-kun.”

“Of course.”

Outside they walked in silence to the sea-grass covered sand dunes that stood between the village and the ocean. Fugaku maintained a careful distance between him and his father, just out of arm reach, but close enough that he hoped it wasn’t obvious he was keeping his distance. It was useless, of course, Father was a shinobi.

“What happened?” Itachi asked, when they were well out of range of any eavesdroppers.

Fugaku stared at the ground and said nothing.

“Son?” His father reached out with one of those hands that stank of death to ruffle his hair, and Fugaku could not help flinching away. “Fugaku, who did you kill?”

Fugaku looked up into his father’s eyes. They were blank as always, watching him with idle curiosity, and oddly this reassured him. He took a breath and told him about Amelia. As he spoke he saw his father’s black eyes become flooded with red for a moment, before he looked away. When he was done Father motioned for them both to sit.

They sat in silence for several minutes watching the waves, the sea breeze blowing away the scent of death.

“The hardest deaths,” his father said finally, “are those of your comrades, and those close to you.”

“Who did you kill?” Fugaku asked in a small voice. For a moment he thought his father wasn’t going to answer.

“Enemies. Traitors. Those were easy.” In the far distance a whale spouted. “Badly injured comrades we could not evacuate or save, as you did. Those were the hardest.” Fugaku’s heart pounded loudly in his ears. “My best friend. My father and mother, and the rest of my family, save my brother,” his voice was almost too soft to hear over the sound of the waves, “Those were not hard at all, once I started.”

Fugaku froze, every joint locking up. He couldn’t breathe, and the death-scent which had been almost completely washed away by the breeze was now back, redoubled. He wanted to puke, he wanted to cry, he wanted to run away screaming, but his body did not let him do any of these things.

“Why?” he whispered.

When his father spoke again, it was not to answer his question. “There are two paths to become strong. The first is to forge yourself into something that is no longer human. You must put aside all bonds, all loves, and become blind to anything that does not further your goals. This is the path that I have chosen for me and my brother. One day soon he will kill me, before the end of the year, hopefully.”

Fugaku shivered.

“That path only leads to destruction, unless one can pull back from it. I cannot. My brother…” his voice trailed off for a moment. “The second path is the opposite, it involves forging bonds with others, and making yourself stronger to protect them, their ideals, and the innocent. It ties one down, but it also…healthier. It would not have accomplished my goals. It would not have given my brother the ultimate power of the Sharingan.”

“It is the path I want you to take.”

“Father, why did you…?” Why did you have us? he wanted to ask, but the words froze in his throat.

This time when his father reached out to ruffle his hair Fugaku let him. His father’s fingers were hesitant, almost fearful despite all the death they had inflicted, and Fugaku realized that he had his answer.

Itachi had not completely abandoned the second path.