The Fallout

by **Tsutsubell** Wed Aug 19, 2015 10:47 am

”From this moment forward you will be considered an enemy of Kirigakure. In any situation publicly I will fight you, you will be known as a terrorist, a murderer whose destruction is a number one priority. Children will know you as a monster and parents will blame you for the all the graves. Through this cloud of blind hate and sudden impulsive retaliation you and Hisoka can escape.”

“You have an ally with me Emiko.
No matter what is said from this point onward you have an ally within Kirigakure.”

~~~
Press conference
08:00 hours

”Last night, at approximately 3am a terrorist Inoshi-sama had been tracking placed a well-orchestrated and deliberate attack upon the lower foundation of Kirigakure’s administration buildings. This was a cruel, fast and deadly move that took the lives of no less than fifteen of Kirigakure’s Elite ANBU and twenty six shinobi who have yet to be identified that were no doubt employees of the bowels that will be identified. There were no survivors… Even with my expertise I was unable to reach the bodies with the amount of damage and debris. We were lucky to get out in time ourselves.

However this is a failure, I have failed you.

As your Mizukage I take full responsibility for these actions and I promise there will be retributions and the terrorist will be caught and dealt with as our number one priority. This wasn’t just an attack in our home; this was a slap to the face. Emiko poses a threat the likes of which we have not seen in almost a decade. Death is not taken lightly, Lord Inoshi has acknowledged this -and with General Hisoka gone out to hunt down this woman and wipe her from the face of the existance. She will never kill again.”
Tsurino’s heart felt painful, crackling under the perfectly angry exterior she had been working on from the moment she stepped into the wide room like a heart that had been dead for years but remained perfectly preserved. Facing elite council, elders and all other administration to tell them what happened, and what will happen. The words remained etched in her mind, thought over, contemplated, rehearsed, she had spoken them out loud again and again. It was the hardest lie she ever had to maintain.

The village would also hear this speech, reeling from the destruction and insecure from their shaken safety. This was a domestic attack meant to frighten them….Tsurino needed to make sure they knew exactly who to focus all that anger upon because with group anger came group confusion. With such a strong focus on one thing, the whole of her people would be blind to the rest of the truth. She was herding her people into the wrong direction, keeping them safe from the truth that would kill them like it killed her.

”Inoshi-sama went out on his own? For what purpose?”

”Inoshi-sama is the best amongst us and the severity of the attack and the level of Emiko leaves us no room to hold back. Not only has Inoshi-sama been studying Emiko prior to these attacks. Hisoka is a battle worn tactician with similar abilities to our terrorist, the two left shortly before 6am to track the woman knowing that time was essential to this task once they were cleared of any initial injuries by the blast –I cleared them both myself as completely fit for duty. The city meanwhile is being thoroughly scanned for any other preemptive attacks she may have left undetonated before fleeing the city by the remaining task forces and ANBU have been stationed in scouting around the parameter . If you would like to challenge lord Inoshi-sama’s tactical or physical prowess I am sure he would be more than willing to address such statements when he returns. In the meantime as Mizukage I will maintain the village and take on more of Inoshi’s diplomatic responsibilities. Failsafe’s are in order and are being implemented in Inoshi-sama’s absence. Some of you will have alternate duties to pick up the slack but it is in his wishes that we do so, and in his faith we will not fail him until his return.”

Inoshi is dead

Time moved with such an awful flow it felt like Tsurino was unable to look back on the previous weeks as little more than a wave of awful dream like memories where she drifted through them with a coherent numbness. That night, that morning was played and replayed in any spare time she had. Inoshi’s death was buried quickly, the public, even the other council wouldn’t know of the Sin of Ascension, of Inoshi’s death or Hisoka’s disappearance and Emiko’s true involvement with any of it. Tsurino’s public role was that of a Mizukage who is reacting to an inexcusable attack upon her people and the villagers rallied with a force behind their Mizukage, their trusted leader and their iron veil. Emiko was known in name alone and a rough description that would give them little to go off of, the days to come were chaotic in her village. But they were a unified force who listened to her words.

They wouldn’t know of Emiko’s heroism. Of their sacrifice and loss.

Tsurino found herself staring at the dark seal now engraved into the inner left forearm. Only a few inches across and a dark brown the mark would fade from view when a message didn’t tingle across the delicate skin like sharp nails not quite breaking her skin, as though it was a sharp tattoo, burning- tearing into her flesh before dissipating within a few moments to the flawless white skin once more. The messages were few and far between, only carrying enough information for the other to know which direction to look towards, a warning, an update on the situations on either side. Each message was taxing on the mind and body but it was exclusive to the new unique pair, something untraceable. It was the most honest thing in Tsurino’s life right now.

Once Emiko and Hisoka left….the Kaguya realized it had been years, years since she had last felt this alone. Her body kicked into a lower drive. All the steps Inoshi and she had taken in the case of one of their death’s was taken, all the documents brought, all the people shifted to the correct positions. Inoshi prepared for anything, even his own death. She took the actions under the guise that Inoshi was absent from the village. Precautions to however long it would take for him to return. Though he might have planned for it….Tsurino never truly contemplated their mortality like this before.

The Kaguya realized she had never actually thought Inoshi capable of dying. He walked like an immortal god and though it was silly to think so she never thought otherwise…she never thought of her life as absent him. Tsurino remembered the emptiness Inoshi had felt when Hisoka was gone, when they worried for his life…for his death. He was desperate, desperate for anything to remind him of Hisoka. She didn’t even have that…just a body and Hisoka’s heart beat in the palm of her hand.

It was the one thing Inoshi never accounted for, what to do to ease his absence within the personal people in his life. That, Tsurino had to make up herself, and some days she marveled at how grief struck her body, making it hard to breath, making her chest hurt and her body to go cold and numb for hours on end.

It took her four days before she could stomach to cremate his body. Even then, even now…nearly three weeks later she would come home, her body her mind worn and the silvery urn would be resting on the small table and it all didn’t seem real. The elegant curvature and silver baroque finishing’s, fractured deep violent glaze work showed a craftsmanship worthy of Inoshi but it didn’t seem real. Tsurino could sit on her couch and still not believe he was inside that jar. It was a memory she wishes she could forget…but the haunting ordeal was something for her and her alone.

Inoshi’s body remained perfectly still, she had cremated bodies before. But it was different this time, somehow…the way his hair turned into a perfect halo of fire around his face. His clothes fell off in flakes of charred indigo petals. But she couldn’t question what happened, the smoke that whistled around him, curling, swimming above…the flames that moved with a unique life, turning violent shades of blue, of green and a harsh red she hadn’t seen in real fire. In the numbness she told herself it was the chemicals burning in different colors. But that presence couldn’t be avoided again…that darkness, like the imposing dread, a miasma of darkness that wafted from the room like smoke and fetor. His bones were black, black and whole before they to crumbled into nothing.

It took several more days for her to sweep out the ashes and put them in an urn….before she threw up in the shower and once again marveled at how this awful grief could strike her body in such physical ways. This was grief? It was toxic, poisonous illness that had no cure. It began to rot her foundation in the rare moments she was alone, making her feel so vulnerable, so weak to a heart she cursed and hated for hurting so much for no rational reason. This feeling was against anything she ever thought.

A whole village that loved him couldn’t even know they had lost someone so groundbreaking, so powerful…it wasn’t fair.
So here Tsurino lay, leaned against the backing of her couch, Knees raised and her hair no longer damp from yet another shower, her gaze fixed and still to look to the darkness of her village, it’s beautiful city scape, the sounds of the life that bustled around her and a soft radio tuned to music that echoed through her home to give her something but the imposing nothingness that seemed to choke her on the daily. Emiko’s last message showed they had reached the last check points she had given them earlier that day and were making their way out of any harm. They were safe, her administration moved like the perfectly oiled machine it was and no one was the wiser.

An eager meow came from behind the couch as Inoshi’s cat walked up to her, wide eyes looking back to Tsurino as she reached out a hand, letting the cat sniff at her fingertips before brushing his head into the palm of her hand and climb up to lay out on her hips. He didn’t purr, just rub his head against her limp hand and thigh, sometimes licking at his paws absently as she remained on her couch. When Inoshi was alive and Tsurino visited the blotted cat once or twice, it didn’t seem to like her much. Keeping it’s distance from the Kaguya like she frightened him, all the same Tsurino hadn’t liked the cat much either. It was a mutual apathy towards one another.

But when she finally stepped into his apartment after everything that had happened…the cat seemed to know, and walked right up to her…meowing once and letting the woman lift him up, cradle the cat in her arms, burying her face silently into the warm nape of its neck. He was the only creature who knew the truth without Tsurino ever having to say a word, and like her, the grief could be felt in the cat. He came to live with her, now enjoying the grieving process with her. Sleeping at her feet, in her lap, quite content in seeming to distract her from her thoughts by showering him in attention and fish, but sometimes he would pace the house, yowling until Tsurino cradled the feline and rocked the cat back and forth as she stroked its head. Now the cat remained fixed on sleeping against her stomach, little paws kneading at her soft clothes and she laid back on the ground, draping an arm over her eyes and scratching his ears. Tsurino heard a rare purr against her stomach, his rough tongue occasionally missed his paw and ran directly over her skin.

”I know, I know.”
She spoke to him softly, a whisper in the too quiet home. Outside of work, when she was in a place where she didn’t need to hide anything Tsurino just felt numb. She felt cold and alone and nothing….it was an overwhelming feeling of nothingness washing over her and it scared the Kaguya. Grief was a terrible thing, she needed something to live for and her mind wanted to dwell in shock on people who would never return. She had to live on without him, keep moving forward for her village, for Hisoka, for Inoshi, for this damn cat whose claws dug ever so slightly through the thin satin of her nightgown as a sign of affection, once more his tongue missing and running roughly over her delicate thigh.

She needed to find the truth of what the Sin of Ascension was, and why Inoshi died. For anything to make sense. There was a list of reasons, rational reasons she should just stand up, keep moving. So many aspects of her life that were untouched by Inoshi’s or Hisoka’s absence and yet…it was all effected. Did everyone feel this kind of bullet to the chest when there was such a hard loss? It had been so long she almost forgot what loss felt like. She hadn’t felt this empty since she was a child, a mere shell of a thing before she met Inoshi and Hisoka. The angry and the arrogant duo that changed her life forever in ways she couldn’t even have imagined. Tsurino never realized how difficult it might have been to go back to that kind of life.

But still the rational side of her, untouched my grief seemed to watch herself, noticing how she may be wallowing in this melodramatic emotions but she was no longer crying, there was no longer the urge to cry. How it coupled with the fatigue, the nausea that sometimes plagued her body, a lot of times when she thought of nothing at all. No memories, no nostalgia just a vague wondering if she should go to bed, or what she should eat. Right now Tsurino just stared out the window, stroking the cat’s head and letting the arm fall from her face and drop limply to the floor. She didn’t even look to the urn, resting in its new place on the island in her kitchen. Tsurino didn’t know where to put it –him yet. So until then Inoshi rested in the elegant pot on her kitchen counter.