“Shut up, Mika!”
Setsu was just as shocked as Imada was at the old farmer’s outburst. Who’s Mika? Setsu surmised that whoever this Mika person was, they were the cause of the Imada’s churlish personality. From how he had reacted to Setsu’s admission that he was taking his genin exam, the young empath surmised that ‘Mika’ had to have been a shinobi. And from the tears in the man’s eyes, ‘Mika’ was also someone Imada had cared about very much. Setsu felt extremely guilty about forcing open the man’s emotional wounds, but when a broken bone doesn’t heal correctly you need to break it again to set it properly. Imada clearly didn’t have the necessary closure when it came to Mika, and it had resulted in him becoming all twisted inside.
The old farmer grudgingly grumbled that Setsu should take what he wanted from the farm and then get lost, leaving his shovel on the ground as he headed inside. Imada’s tone was more depressed than angry at this point. The young student pondered on his next course of action. He could just collect the rest of the items on Suika’s list and go, but then he’d have reopened Imada’s emotional wounds for a short-term gain, and in the long run might have only increased the old man’s suffering. The boy wandered the farm as he pondered the matter, discovering the cow named ‘Betsy’ in the process. As he approached the cow glared at him suspiciously, and the feeling the young empath picked up from her warned him that he would more than likely be kicked if he so much as took a step towards her udders.
The boy continued to wander around the farm, stopping to pick some of the enormous strawberries he found to be especially scrumptious. The next point of interest was the aptly named Honey Shed. Setsu approached only to find the entrance locked. And not to mention, an ominous buzzing was heard from inside the shed when he had tried the handle. Setsu was quick to vacate the premises after that point.
Eventually, Setsu’s wanderings led him back to where he had initially confronted the old man. His shovel was still lying on the ground where the old farmer had dropped it. It was clear that in order to proceed any further, the boy would need to do one of two things. Talk stuff out with Imada, or take what he needed by force. The choice was obvious to Setsu.The empath picked up the shovel Imada had dropped and walked it to the house. He knocked on the door. No response. Setsu knocked harder, and Imada’s muffled voice could be heard from inside.
“I said scram. I don’t need you shinobi playing any more mind games with me.”
“But Imada-san you left your shovel ou-,”
“Just leave it. And then you leave.”
Setsu rested the shovel against the house, and then pounded on the door again, “But sir, something’s clearly bothering you, and holing up in your house isn’t the healthy response!”
“There’s only one thing here that’s “bothering” me,” the door slammed open as an irate Imada stood in the doorway, “a small brat who’s eager to die for something he barely understands!” Just inside the house Setsu saw a shrine to the deceased with incense candles recently lit. A photograph was placed on it, though Setsu couldn’t make out the subject due to the angle and lighting.
“Did Mika-san die?”
“No, Mika became the fucking Raikage. And don’t speak his name, no shinobi should be allowed to. Of course he died, the damn fool! And you’re gonna join him too, you and half those twerps in the godrotting Academy! And then the other half become mindless murder puppets for the state, so you’re probably better off dying anyway!” Setsu was still learning how to read other’s emotions, but even he could tell the anger was a mask, a shield to hide other feelings. Regret, sorrow, jealousy, concern.
“You don’t really think that, do you,” Setsu stated matter-of-factly. “You’re angry, but not at me, and only partly at Kumogakure.”
“I said shut up, kid,” Imada growled. The old farmer’s hand tightened around the door, “I think we’re done talking. I said I don’t care about what powers you have, and I believe I told you what I thought about your shinobi hocus-pocus.” He moved to shut the door, but felt resistance. Setsu had planted his feet, desperately trying to keep Imada from shutting him out.
It was a struggle for the young boy, while he had the advantage of shinobi conditioning and chakra empowering his muscles he was still just a child trying to win a contest of strength against a man who had done nothing but hard labor all his life. “Y-you’re...lying to yourself...Imada-san,” the boy panted, “about...a lot of...things. And if you...really wanted...privacy...you need to stop...wearing your heart...on your...sleeve.”
“What do you know about me, kid?! You don’t even know what I’ve been through!”
“Then tell me!” Setsu shouted, shoving his shoulder into the door. A steel wire can withstand a lot of total force when gradually applied to it, but if that same force is applied all at once, it snaps. LIkewise, Setsu’s sudden charge into the door took Imada by surprise, forcing him to stumble backwards into the shrine. The incense tumbled to the ground scattering everywhere, the picture following suit. But a pair of small hands caught the frame before it shattered on to the ground. Two people stood in the photograph, one was clearly a younger Imada, though this image of him showcased a man who was far less jaded and bitter. Next to him, stood another young man who resembled the old farmer a great deal. A great deal of confidence and pride seemed to exude from the man in the photo, and the young Imada was looking at the other boy with a mixture of pride and jealousy. Setsu placed the photograph back onto the shrine, and turned to help the old man up. “Tell me what you went through, and then I’ll understand.”
Eyes downcast, the old farmer sighed, “Fine. You want to know so bad? Mika was my brother. Early on, he was found to be chakra-sensitive and taken to become a shinobi. Everyone was all proud of him when he became a genin, then a few months later a man from the village shows up saying he ‘died in the service of the honorable Raikage and glorious Kumogakure,’” Imada almost spat the words out. “And we didn’t even get a body for a burial, said it was needed for ‘medical research.’”
“You really looked up to him, didn’t you?
“What? N-no, he was a foolish older brother who didn’t care about his family enough to come home alive. If I had-, no nevermind,” Imada cut off a sentence he had been about to finish, and bent down to start cleaning up the incense.
“If you had ‘shinobi powers’ you could have saved him? That it?”
Imada stiffened. It was a thought that ran through his head every time he saw one of Cloud’s finest. Defensively he responded, “Yeah, and?”
“There’s no guarantee you would have been sent on the same mission as him, Imada-san,” Setsu explained.
“Wouldn’t have stopped me from trying, which is more than I can say for you twiddling shinobi! Anyone of you could have done it! I’ve seen your type create storms and heal people who should have died! Why didn’t any of you save Mika! Everyone went on about protecting the damn village, who was protecting Mika? No one! And it’ll happen to you too, if you stay as one of them, left out to die alone because it would inconvenience some grand scheme I’ll bet, or something like that.”
Setsu felt an immeasurable sense of guilt behind those words. He couldn’t read minds, but he could sympathize with Imada’s feelings. Guilt, regret, and frustration. “Imada-san, Mika’s death wasn’t your fault.”
“Of course it wasn’t! It was your peoples’ damn-,”
“No! It wasn’t anybody’s fault!” Setsu raised his voice as he cut off the angry old man, “And it’s about time you accepted that! You feel sorrow, because the brother you idolized was stolen from you! You feel guilty because you resented the fact he was born with chakra potential and it soured your relationship with him! And you feel frustration because you were powerless to do anything to prevent his death!”
“You, you don’t-,” Imada’s voice began to shake a bit.
“I don’t understand? I wouldn’t know? I know what it feels like to be powerless. To be taken away from someone you care about, and how. It. Makes. You. Feel,” Setsu punctuated each word with a step forward until he was staring directly up at the taller man. The young empath was far from physically intimidating, but something about the boy’s presence refused to let the old farmer see Setsu as anything but commanding. “I can’t speak for the dead, but considering where you live, why do you think Mika would fight to protect the village until he died?” There was silence for a long while as Imada stared intently at Setsu, face contorted in anger and rage, instead of spewing more vitriol, the man just turned away from the boy. And when next he spoke it was quiet and vulnerable
“I-I know that,” the old farmer said broken-heartedly, “but I didn’t even get to say goodbye. I told him he didn’t have to go on that stupid mission, but he insisted. I said that he should take me with him to keep him safe, and he said no, because I wasn’t a shinobi. I got angry, and yelled at him, called him all sorts of awful things, anything to get him to stay. All Mika did was give that same stupid smile,” Imada laughed sadly, “The last thing I said to Mika was, ‘I never want to see your face again.’ I know a childish argument wasn’t the reason he died, and that even if I had been there I probably would have just added to the casualties. But Kumogakure was always full of strong and talented shinobi, why couldn’t they have protected him when they protected others?” Tears slowly fell from Imada’s eyes. “Look kid, you sure you don’t want to reconsider the whole shinobi career path. I’m not even one and I can tell you it’s only a path of loss and suffering.”
“I can’t,” the young boy shook his head, “because I have people who I care about who need me to do what only I can do, even if...even if they don’t want me to do it.”
Imada sighed, the boy was just like Mika, a stubborn fool. Worried too much about others that they forgot about themselves. Well this time, the old farmer wasn’t going to make the same mistake, for his sake, the boy’s and Mika’s. “What do you need from me? I’ve already said you can take what you want.”
“How do you milk a cow?” Setsu asked, and then looked a bit embarrassed as he continued, “I’m...afraid of bees.”
There was another pause before old man Imada burst out into incredulous laughter.
***
Setsu left the farm with a hoof-shaped shiner over his left eye and swelling on both forearms. While his body was recovering quickly, the mental scarring of Imada-san’s crash course on dairy farming and beekeeping wouldn’t soon fade away. But at last he had obtained all the items on Suika-san’s list.
“Hey kid, I didn’t catch your name.”
“Suzuki Setsu.”
“Suzuki. I still don’t think you should be a shinobi. It’ll change you in odd ways, and I don’t think you’re cut out for the position, afraid of bees,” the old man snorted in laughter again. “But…,” he absent-mindedly scratched his head, “if you think that the shinobi lifestyle is too much for you, I might have a few openings for a farmhand.”
“Thanks, Imada-san!” Setsu called back as he left the farm waving good-bye. He scurried back towards the Academy grounds to deliver his collected goods to Suika.
