2026-02-15: Bloodstained
- Cutscene: Bloodstained
- Cast: Shiryuu Ryouhara, Junpei Ryouhara
- Where: A creek in the Kanto region
- OOC Date: 2025-02-15
- IC Date: September 26, 2012
- Summary: Mmm. Sometimes there are things harder to wash out than blood.
"Shirogarasu-sama. The Kimeihi Nenkon was placed at the Kouhigoki at Kasugayama High. No one was seen. We believe it was taken during the missing time, as you predicted."
The grey haired boy was sitting on his knees primly at the side of the creek, the gentle rush of water downstream filling the air around them. He doesn't look up at the older man behind him, a man wearing the navy blue uwagi and tied hakama of the standard Ryouhara shozoku. Instead, he continues pressing the water from his washing in front of him. The older man is patient, the young man will speak in time.
"Aa ... that 'x' ... it's in their nature to protect those close to them."
Shiryuu leans back, draping the damp mottled silk over his lap. A small wooden pail is lifted as he speaks, taking a small amount of salt paste onto his first, second and third fingers, to work gently into the fibers of the silk. He continues.
"It would have been easy, for someone selfish, you know."
Beside him, the individual panels of the lotus-white haori lay unstitched from one another, each folded neatly in a pile and laid atop a smooth wood edge-glued board, the repeating puzzle pattern in the wood made up of pieces hewed from cedar.
"To walk away from making such a promise to me. To simply abandon their allies to the true nature of the sword in the dark. It would be the rational answer. To get free, to leave that thin veneer of responsibility behind."
The boy wore an exceptionally warm sweater that clung snug to his frame. Even so, his sleeves were tied with red cords at his elbows securely, the iron bangle and the white silk cord carefully undone and set, the more delicate cord laid inside the bangle with care, resting at his knee by the board. Everything had an exacting, rational process to it. From what the shinobi could read of the boy's slippery, wandering mien, it was enough to make him wary and uncomfortable.
He lifted a hand, "Shirogarasu... you don't need to...?"
"Iih. It's fine," the grey-haired boy replied quietly, resting on his heels to let the mixture sit for a breath. For the space of a thought, there was only the quiet babble of the stream, the water flowing from the nearby shrine.
"It's fine ... if I do this myself."
That boy lifted the soft horsehair hand brush, gently scrubbing at the delicate fabric, at the mottled stains all over it. There was really nothing to do with it but this, he'd let it sit too long, and the salt paste had to be worked in deeply, to draw out the blood. He worked diligently at it, quiet for a time with the efforts. Soon enough, he continued.
"A shinobi that just lives and dies to protect a distant lord's way of life is unimportant. It is the reason 'shinobi' exist. Just tools. Just weapons. That is where the lie of 'the greater good' originated."
The onmitsu submerged the fabric in the stream, letting it spread out in the turbulence, rinsing. When the water ran cloudy white around his hands, he stared at it for a long time, as if seeing it still run red.
"Who said that a lord's life was worth more? Who said that the young have to die for the old? But ... a shinobi that knew that, a shinobi that laid down their life only for the right reasons could do anything."
Leaning over against the creekside, he folded the fabric over against a rock, and gently pressed out the moisture. Unfolding it, he frowned. Like a curse, the bloodstains had only spread, only slightly fainter for the effort.
The man seemed to struggle with the idea, unsure if it were a test. "The right reasons...?"
The boy looked on the blazon of the Ryouhara symbol across the silk bolt. Fingertips rested gently on one of the three leaves of the kamon, touching lightly where the bloodstains had spread to them. He nodded. "The only thing that matters in this dismal world is people."
"A shinobi who lived and died for their bonds could change the world, if given... the right choice. I think the solution would be there, at the apex."
He tried again, this time more aggressively. A small, tiny sniff, as his shoulderblades raised, as he plunged the silk into the stream with both hands.
"Would it be camaraderie? Passion?" the boy asks, a heat kindling in his voice around the cycle of his turbulent thrust, as he tried not to wring the heavy, natural fabric in his bare hands. "Would it still be needed," he spits the words like venom, "to stain one's hands so thoroughly..."
'...to achieve real synthesis.' The words never materialized for him. No matter how much the boy tried and rinsed, the blood simply would not wash out.
The grey-haired boy sighed, surrendering only long enough to sit back, the wet cloth soaking into the stone. At this point, the man behind him dared not speak. The boy wasn't surprised, distantly; words alone were enough, they now say, to cost you your head in the presence of Shirogarasu.
Sighing, Shiryuu picked up the horsehair brush to start again.
"Ah. I know," he continues, his mood cooling with the lift of the brush.
"It's a nonsense dream of mine. but... I still can't help but think that would be a truly exemplary shinobi.."