OF TATTERS AND TABOOS
Underlined - English
‘Italicised’ - Thoughts
In Text Bolded - Tailed Beast
*Bracketing Asterisk Around Italicised Text* - Thoughts in verse. Specifically, raps.
NII YUGITO
“Yo yo, Yugito-chan. This storyteller we’re chasing ‘s ‘parently on the lam,” Killer Bee fires off rapidly, teeth bared at the challenge. She glanced over at her fellow jinchuuriki; in his hands was the depressingly thin file that A-sama had shoved at them before booting them both out of the Mission Room. “Little girl’s never fought, never shown the signs of a kunoichi - all the same saying she’s untrained may just be reachin’~!”
I grimace, frustrated with the whole situation, and snatch the file from his unresisting hands. “Bee, take this seriously. This is a punishment.”
“Yugito, my lady, don’t you understand? We’re only here because I broke some fella’s hand-” He retaliates almost indignantly, before I cut him off.
“You broke the Daimyo's cousin’s hand, Bee. We’re here because you decided to challenge a civilian to an arm wrestling match with your tentacles.”
“Chill, Nii - else you’re gonna see that hunting this story spinner’ll get harder than it has to be.”
I furiously stomp down on the Two-Tails’ chakra boiling in my chest. Now is not the time to crush his face in, unfortunately, and I can’t afford to lose control in the middle of the Lightning countryside. “Anyway,” I grit out, changing the subject - for both of our sakes. “We need to find this amazing ‘Okurimono’ soon, or else the Daimyo will be the least of our worries; A-sama will skin the both of us alive.”
Bee lets out a full bodied chuckle, shoulders shaking with each round of echoing rumbles, “Careful, Yugito. You go alluding too closely to skinning and the cat in you might just go swimming~!”
“That doesn’t even make sense!”
NARA SHIKAMARU
“Are you stupid? No - sorry. Let me rephrase. Are you fucking retarded, you useless sack of rotting flesh-?!”
I flinch at Ino’s tone, knowing I deserved it. But I refuse to respond.
“Oh no, you don’t ignore me, Nara Shikamaru. You think you can throw yourself into training and ‘clan responsibilities’ and back to back missions without someone planning to step in? Jounin or not I will hand your ass to you if you don’t haul yourself out of that damn futon in three seconds-”
I ignore her.
(Big mistake.)
‘-Though to date, not my worst one-’
“Oh for Kami’s sake -”
I barely have time to brace myself before I’m being flung through the rice door of the Nara guest house I was hiding from the world in. (- Not our guest house, though. I could never go back there -) Flipping myself onto my back, I deign it prudent to remain on the floor - the heels of my palms crushing into my eyes, trying to block my teammate out.
I wanted to drown in my misery.
“Leave, Ino.” I hiss, exhausted, mentally and physically - after so many days without being able to sleep.
“No.”
I jolt, surprised. That wasn’t the Ino I expected. She sounded … harsher.
“Shikamaru, you are going to listen to what I have to say. And then you are going to put some food into your skinny-ass body, and then you will talk to Team 7.”
I couldn’t muster the energy to argue. I just layed on the ground.
Ino grits her teeth audibly; when she lunged forward to grapple with me, I can hear her coming. To a degree, I’m ready for her to toss me around again - but as I am busy bracing for a relatively painless landing, I am easily caught off guard by Ino’s hands on my temples. In an instant chakra is being shoved into my mind faster than -
And I black out.
NII YUGITO
Even if we hadn’t tracked the storyteller here, the buzz and attention such a rural town in Lighting Country was getting would’ve been enough indication.
Okurimono was here, after all.
And it wasn’t really a small town - more like a hamlet: too small to even have a name. It was more of a trading outpost, with no real presence outside a couple of homes; scattered shepherds and farmers; and an all-in-one bar, inn, and community kitchen.
Bee, for once, is silent - and for that I am grateful. According to the reports, the girl spooks easily. If this goes well, then we’d be the first shinobi to even talk to the girl in person without scaring her off.
As the sun begins to go down, the town seems to shift: the people drifting into the hamlet’s center.
Let’s see what kind of wordsmith would be talented enough to attract the attention of a Daimyo.
‘OKURIMONO’
When I feel a set of chakra signatures large enough to rival even the Sandaime Hokage, I tense. Then I seriously contemplate running.
But … my room fees for this inn are being paid for by this performance. I can’t in good conscience leave now - I was raised better than that, despite my … shaky second childhood. I’ve got morals … in a way.
I take a deep breath, and adjust my bandages. The show must go on.
I exit the inn.
NARA SHIKAMARU
With a punch of vertigo and a gasp, I find myself somewhere completely alien (yet still strangely familiar), panting with exertion and surprise and pain and discomfort -
“What-” I cough, gathering my breath. “The hell was that, Ino?” I gather myself, shooting a brief glare at my troublesome teammate before examining my surroundings.
We somehow went from a random guest house to a clearing. No, not a clearing … The Clearing. Our Clearing. But different. Everything is … off - the trees are too tall, the sun too bronzed. The trees are all hollowed out, too - filled with doors, cabinets, arches.
“What the hell...?” I murmur, before it hits me.
“Your mindscape, yes.” Ino confirms from behind me. I turn to face her - and I can’t help taking a step back when I really see her.
This isn’t the Ino I know - not the Ino who stormed my house, determined to cheer me up. This Ino was -
‘Wrong-’ Echos almost audibly through the clearing, rattling around my brain.
The imposter’s hair was flaxen, brittle; an ugly bleached white color - as if her vitality had been sucked out of her. With sullen cheeks and splintered, broken, features, she looked as if she were a ghost. Some kind of … sick imitation. Her clothes were the same as Ino’s … almost. The color was just barely off. Her clothes ill fitting in the smallest, most awkward ways. She was close, but not quite-
I look up at her face and my heart stops.
Never, her entire life, has Ino ever had pupils.
“Who are you?” I demand, instantly on guard.
KILLER BEE
“Heyo, what do you know?” I mutter under my breath, perched on the roof of one of the tiny buildings in this sliver of a hamlet. “Okurimono’s gonna start her show.”
Okurimono, according to the reports Big Bro A gave Nii and me, was just a random woman (possibly Lightning Country in origin, though unconfirmed) that began to make a name for herself a month or so ago in the smaller towns; being well known to tell stories with some kind of magical power.
There was no confirmed indication of her being trained in the Shinobi arts; there were various cases of artisans who used chakra to augment their work, though it was more common for Kabuki theatre in the Land of Wind. Chakra strings and all.
*Yo yo, but hey, what can you do? The Daimyo wants to see the performance - we shinobi gotta pull through!*
This ‘Okurimono’ looked not too distant from the typical Lightning Country citizens, though her hair was more silver than white and her skin a tad paler. Perhaps her parents had vastly different complexions. She was dressed in a ragged, poor woman’s kimono; she looked like a beggar - as if she were straight out of a folk tale herself...
*The problem though, its gotta be, that with bandages like that there ain’t much to see...*
Cuz with bandages wrapped around her eyes, covering her face from the bridge of her nose up, there wasn’t much he could tell about how the girl looked. And not knowing something like that?
*Ain’t no two ways of saying it - hiding that kind of shit? - Less outrageousness than straight dangerousness-*
NARA SHIKAMARU
“Who am I? Oh, because of how I look?” Not-Ino asks dryly, examining a ash-like arm. “What, are you surprised? This is how you see me, these days.”
I gulp, tearing my eyes away from my desecrated teammate, “What do you mean?”
Not-But-Possibly-Ino sighs heavily. “Shikamaru,” She says lowly, voice akin to how one would approach a skittish fawn. “Look down at yourself.”
I swallow roughly, and comply.
“Oh.”
I’m dressed … familiarly, yet still alien. Not like the clearing, but … these clothes are from that day. The day we were just us - even if we weren’t, not really.
Because that day two years ago, we were on an infiltration mission … yet we were more us than I could’ve remembered. She and I both were in the Land of Hot Water, disguised as two civilians on a date during a festival. We weren’t … ourselves. She had to wear a henge for days at a time, making her curly hair long and blond like the Godaime and her eyes just as golden. But me -
She had insisted that she dress me herself - claiming that I had no taste, that I had no idea what I was doing. That I’d end up looking like a shinobi. I brushed her off as troublesome, but still let her shove me into the pressed slacks, the boots. I let her bully me into a maroon button-down shirt; sleeves rolled up my forearms. She demanded I’d wear my hair down, free. Swinging loose.
I was dressed how She dressed me that day - the day she said I was handsome, and that she was so lucky to have me. The day she said everything she wanted to under the face of another; somehow still making it all seem so genuine -
I’ve only ever dressed like this once ...
The only difference … the hole punched through my chest.
I cover the gaping, numb wound with a shaking hand, foolishly. As if the hunk of flesh missing could possibly be covered up by my useless, pitiful hands. As if I could somehow fix the weeping, ragged hole that was where I once had a heart.
Before it was ripped out of me.
Tears lay, unshead, in my eyes.
I wish they would fall. Oh, Kami, I wish they would fall.
NII YUGITO
As the crowd gathers, Okurimono begins to tap out a strong rhythm on a small metal drum she carried with her, a hapi. The music was eerie, sounding out into the air with an echo-
And she began her story.
Suddenly, the pile of wood in front of her catches alight; a campfire no bigger than a cookfire lighting without warning. The audience jumps, but the children in the front aren’t frightened, only startled into laughter. The smoke and steam from the wet wood curls into tendrils, seeming to sway with the beat of the music. It takes a second before I realize that, yes, the smoke was moving. She was moving it.
“There is a word that not many use anymore…” The mysterious storyteller begins, her voice strangely accented; rough with disuse yet still smooth with youth. She must’ve been 20, 21 at most. She plays on. “The word is ‘taboo,’ and people forget what it once meant.”
“Taboo isn’t just a word that referred to an action that was frowned upon, oh no. Taboo was something forbidden by the heavens themselves.”
With that she strikes the drum, the sound quickly followed by a lightning strike within the mist - as if the smoke was a thundercloud that belonged far above our heads, yet was somehow brought down to earth.
“The heavens whisper, you know,” The girl continued. “They speak to all. You can hear them, when you are at your worst. Or at your best. Or even as you close your eyes to breathe in the fresh air after a rainstorm.”
“And if you stop, if you pause in the hustle and bustle of life for just a moment - just a second -” The silver-haired woman pauses, hands pressed tightly to the drum beneath her fingers - deadening the sound into a tense, anticipatory silence. “- you can hear your taboo being whispered from your heart.”
The children - the adults, even - are riveted.
Okurimono begins her drumming again.
“Some taboos don’t make sense. Some make too much sense - but hear me all: no matter how absurd one’s taboo may be, it is written in their hearts.” The woman levels her bandaged eyes as the gathered villagers, listening raptly. “You’d be best to remember that.”
And, just for a second, a civilian girl a decade younger than myself seems to look directly at me -
But she’s back to her story.
“Of course, far more dangerous than tempting another to stray from their path … is straying yourself,” Okurimono comments, almost arily. The mist shifting, tendriling, until it grows to form the image of two men, walking along a path. Yugito’s breath caught in her throat at the skill, the beauty of such a performance.
“There were once two men,” Okurimono’s voice sounds out, body hidden by her mist - tinted oh so slightly with chakra. “Strangers, traveling along the same path - bonding over their travels. One, like many, did not know what his taboo was. His people had forgotten how to listen to their hearts, to the heavens.”
Of the two grey figures, one stretches languidly, catlike. Color began to bleed before their eyes, coloring the first man’s garments a startling purple. It was … curious. And impressive.
“The second man,” The wordsmith continued. “Listened to his heart. Listened to the heavens. And the heavens told him -”
Dramatic pause, a silent beat in the music.
“That he was never to eat the meat of a deer.”
Yugito felt herself jerk in surprise despite herself, startled. As the music resumed, more upbeat - faster, the audience laughed -
And without even needing to enhance her hearing, Yugito could tell that Bee was laughing too.
“Absurd though it was, the second man-” Whose garments were now a light, almost white, green “-knew to follow his heart, to respect his taboo. And so, he never ate the meat of a deer.”
The first man, the one in purple, pulled a bow as the music changed to something more anticipatory. Like a hunter stalking their prey.
“The first man went hunting one day on their travels, however... -” An arrow golden like the sun pierced the hide of a misty doe, still young enough to have it’s white spots. The children gasped at the display, whispering amongst themselves at the development. “ -And managed to win them a magnificent deer. The first man could hardly wait to begin preparing his catch; proud to have gotten such a delicious meal.”
“Of course, the second man knew that he should not touch a morsel of the deer, afraid to even help prepare it with his friend. He told his friend as such.”
A campfire was built within the mist, and the man in purple began to skin and joint the deer; his friend hovering in the background. The first man looked up at the second in clear confusion, then derision.
“The hunter was confused. He had never bothered in believing in the heavens, in their taboos. He saw them as excuses, reasons people made up to get out of things they had no stomach for. He told his friend as such.”
“Oh, but the second man was adamant: ‘No, my friend,’ he said, voice strong. ‘I will not go against my heart,’” Okurimono laughed ominously, her music hiccupping for a moment at the unexpected reaction. “But the first man would hear none of it, yet he laid off, for the moment. Instead he focused on preparing his meal. -” The figure resumed his cooking, the misty campfire giving off a warm glow. “- He cut the meat carefully, sure to trim the fat just so. He took herbs from his bag - garlic and cloves and salt - and, after grinding them carefully, rubbed the seasoning into the meat.”
The man in the mist did as such, and soon the meat was cooking, popping, with little tings of the drum in time with the crackle of the fire. Yugito couldn’t believe she was actually getting hungry from words alone - it was impressive, of a storyteller.
“The second man tried to stay strong against the urge to eat the meat, but the smell - the heavenly, beautiful aroma - of the meat made staying strong difficult. He grit his teeth against the urge to take a huge bite of the meat, desperate not to cave to his desires. -” (The second man was uncomfortable, turning away from the fire - but his arm was caught by the first man. I knew where this was going.) “- His friend saw his suffering, his struggle, and grinned at it. He cajoled his friend with words, enticing him. ‘What harm could a single bite do?’ He asked. ‘It is only a piece of meat. It will be eaten anyway.’ He reasoned.’
“But still the second man held true - that is, until the first man began to eat himself.” - the first man cut a juicy piece of venison - “And then, the second man began to cave. Yet still, he did not reach for the meat, though his hand twitched and his mouth salivated. He would not serve himself the meat.”
The drumming stopped.
“Though, he objected not when his friend served him, instead.”
NARA SHIKAMARU
Absently, I realize that Ino was talking. But I’m distracted by the hole in my chest.
“- I know what happened, Shikamaru. I got it from Naruto who got it from Sasuke who dragged it out of Kakashi. I get it - but seriously?”
I look up at her - locking onto her pupiled eyes.
“Shikamaru -” Ino breaks herself off, finding her words. “Maybe her past was a lie, okay? Noa, or Hisoka, or Tsubasa, or whoever she really is - It. Doesn’t. Matter. Because you two playing shogi tournaments till Yoshino-ba-san dragged you in for dinner? Her teaching you English in exchange for vocab? The six years you two had together - being together? That was real. Can you doubt all of that just because she changed her name to get out of an abusive household? Can you really give up on her because she had to lie to survive? Will you really hold it against her that she fought back against the family that was planning on murdering her?”
The tears are shedding. Ino crouches next to me, an arm around my shoulder, bringing my head to rest in the crook of her neck. “Shika,” She murmurs comfortingly. “It hurts. I know - but she had to to the best she could. I know mindscapes, Shika. Me looking like this, right now? You’re doubting everyone right now, right? Because if Noa wasn’t who she said she was, then who is?”
I choke on my sobs. Ino pulls me closer.
“Tsubasa Noa - who is the orphan Noa, and demon Hisoka, and the baby Tsubasa Hisoka - loves you. Sure, you two fooled the village, laying false trails left and right like the damn Shinobi you are - the Nara you are - but you can’t fool me. I know you, Shikamaru. You can’t lie to me. Not out there, not in here. But, yes. Right now, she’s gone.”
I wait for the ‘but,’ but it never comes. I draw myself up - hand clutching my chest still, yes, but far better … if not emotionally drained. “So?” I dare to ask, “She’s been labeled as a missing-nin, Ino. My … Noa is an A-Ranked threat for her murder of the rest of her clan. She’s being scapegoated for what Danzo -”
“That is exactly my point, Shika!” Ino cuts me off, fire in her eyes. “Danzo, Shika. The longer you let yourself rot the more control Danzo has. Team 7, Team 8, and half the Clan Heads are already plotting to take the bastard down.”
I jolt, surprised that I missed something so huge, but-
I was going around in a daze.
“But they need a strategist, Shika.” Ino coaxes, voice soft. “They need you.”
My fingers close around the fabric of my shirt, the fabric bunching and tearing under my hand. I take a deep breath. Hold it. Let it out.
When I look up into Ino’s pupil-less eyes, I feel a newfound determination.
Absently, I remember a saying I heard somewhere. About the Clans of Konoha.
‘Any Konoha nin could tell you that there are three things to fear. A focused Inuzuka, an angry Aburame, and a motivated Nara.’
Danzo won’t even see it coming.
KILLER BEE
*Damn, why’s it gotta be that the most interesting women there are are too young for me?*
All the same, regardless of how mysterious this silver haired angel is, it’s her stories we’re after. That girl, cuz she ain’t much older than Karui, sure knew how to play up a crowd - natural performer, I’d say. *Just like me! - the one and the only Killer Bee!*
*And some stories they are; even with the laughter - I ain’t expecting no happily ever after.*
The mist-made-men each have a slice of meat in front of them by the time I tear my eyes away from the pretty girl - Okurimono, gift - and, despite not caring for either character, the girl’s narrative makes you want to know the ending.
*Interesting fella. To think a girl with this kinda talent was floating around - no wonder she’s such a best sell-ah!*
“The second man watched as his friend tore into the venison, and his stomach growled with jealousy. He looked down at his own plate, and somehow the thought of disregarding his own limits - ignoring the heavens, his heart - didn’t seem so terrible anymore.”
The music resumed with an ominous roll.
“After all, what could one bite hurt?”
*Man, even a shinobi knows you’re limits are there for a reason - To dismiss them entirely: might as well just commit treason!*
The music became something rapid, something anticipatory. *With a beat like the one this girl be tapping - this being a job is the only thing keeping me from rapping!*
“And soon the both of them were eating, the taste amazing - the juices rich with garlic and the smell sharp with cloves. One bite became two. Two became three. Three to four to five to six to a dozen, to twenty, until soon the entire animal was gone - eaten evenly between them.”
The kids, the audience, seemed to groan at the men’s stupidity - leaning forward with morbid fascination and curiosity. Bee felt the same, in a way. *Not that I believe it, but with nothing to do … what really happens when you break a taboo?*
“That night, the two men went to bed with no regrets. After all, the first man made his friend happy and shared a full meal; while the second man broke his taboo, suffered not for it, and enjoyed the forbidden with only a pleasantly fully stomach to show for it.”
The two men retired for bed within their tent, the clearing shrinking as the story drew to a close; the sun dropping within the mist.
“While the men slept, however, the second man began to change.-” The tent is lit up in profile by the campfire, flickering. “First his hair began to shorten and spread, till he had a pelt covering every inch of his skin. Then his toes began to fuse - his fingers too. His hands hardened, and his spine shortened. He slept through it all - having fallen straight to sleep after his filling meal. By the time morning came and he woke he was a full grown buck with wide, pronged antlers and beady eyes.”
A magnificent stag, with eyes the same color as the second man’s coat, bounded out of the tent - only to be immediately grabbed by the neck by the first man. With a roll of the drum, and a flash of the campfire light, the buck was hefted into the air.
“His friend, unknowingly, drew a knife and slit his throat - thinking only of another savory meal.”
I watched as the campfire flashed like a bolt of lightning before dying into a simple pile of embers -
Before a sharp tear through my chest and distracts me from the rest of the story -
And then the screaming starts.