Reborn
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Prologue
What flew in the air was a paper butterfly, covered front and back in purple markings. The thick mist stealing the light of the sun and stealing the sense of clarity of the eyes covered the village but it didn’t seem to bother the butterfly as it flew in the mist. Not until the rain started did the butterfly begin to feel heavy and began to weigh down and descend.
“It’s time to head inside,” the voice of a woman called to her child, running after the paper butterfly. The child heeded nothing of her mother’s words, deaf from laughter and her pursuit of the toy. What a handful, was the jokingly yet moderately annoyed thought of the mother as she followed her daughter through the mist and rain. With every step the woman took the little girl, traveling at her own pace, began to vanish more and more from her mother’s sight. She’ll get lost, was the next thought as the pace of the woman quickened.
Wide eyed and smiling, seeing the figure of the object she sought after, the girl, with her hair matching the dismal blue mist, caught up with the butterfly which laid in a puddle, grayed and damp from the water. The smile had subsided along with the purple markings just as the sound of shallow footsteps approached the child from behind.
Mother? The child’s memory of her mother’s voice returned to her as she turned around to the sound of the footsteps. Disappointment at the face that appeared before her own struck the child. Another child was before her, bigger and older, not by much but still significant enough to intimidate. His look made her colder and the rain mixed in froze her like ice. They said nothing to one another, the girl frozen in fear and the boy perplexed.
It took a moment, but the girl finally realized she wasn’t the object of the older boy’s glare. The sunken butterfly, with almost indistinguishable purple marks, stole the focus of the boy. The boy was captivated and the girl became so as well, wondering why her small little origami was so intriguing. It was ironic as moments before, the girl was so captivated herself with the same object that she ignored her mother’s calls.
“Mai!” The sharpness of the call quickly broke the quietness that surrounded the two children. The little girl quickly turned at the sound of her name as her mother appeared, grabbing her arm. “Mai, don’t run off like that again do you hear me? This part of the village is dangerous, especially at night,” the woman didn’t even notice the young boy until she felt the same chill as her daughter. The chastising halted as the woman took note of the white haired boy. Just as intimidated as her daughter, the woman stood silent for a brief moment. “Let’s hurry out of this rain,” the woman said, with a grip of iron on the arm of her child.
As the two females walked off, the cautiousness of the woman forced her head slightly to look at the young boy watching them leave. He continued to watch them until they left his sight completely, sight he had managed to steal back from the mist and see clearly through its stifling glaze. When they had finally left his sight the young boy turned his attention back to the paper butterfly. Two different worlds we lived in. Gabriel thought about himself and the two civilians that had crossed his path. Two different worlds we live, but we have the ability to create the world of the other.
The white and purple butterfly brought into the world, journeyed through a short life which rainined down the hardships, graying its wings and body. Its body becoming so heavy until it can no longer support itself in the world it lives and falls down, the color that once spoke so vibrantly as its soul, decaying and graying along with the body. Finally it sinks and leaves the world forgotten. What was described was the life of a shinobi.
The rain ceased shortly after Gabriel’s encounter with the civilians of his village. The mist remained, as it always did, though it lightened up enough to return some of the clarity in eyes while it still maintained its ominous allure and hiding the sun that shined.
A sun that shined bright over the Archipelago the large continent it neighbors. The cherry blossoms that spring to life at the same every year in the Fire Country bloomed even more beautiful than years prior. The dancing of the wind, dressed with the sand of the Wind Country was as vigorous as ever. Nature’s unaltered architecture in the Earth Country, illuminated by the brightness and warmth of the sun. The drawings of the sky, canvased by clouds, travel through the mountains of the Land of Lightning.
How such natural entities harbor the unnatural natures of beings that exist within their confines. Entities that disturb the balance of everything around them while maintaining the oxymoronic chaotic balance that feeds their existence but at the same time destroys them. Regardless of the sense of it all, it is what it is and has been what it has been for centuries.
The story of the Ninja World, a tragedy that saddens, angers, perplexes, those who within and outside its confines. A tragedy that is not understood by many even those within its realm, accepting it as the only life they know. However much a tragedy, it is a story nonetheless, a story that needs to be told enlighten, experienced to understand. The job here is not to understand but to be enlightened as to what the Ninja World is and what it does.
