No one talks about the Cloud Academy in anything more than whispers.
Minako wakes with her fingers laced in her hair, breathing hard enough to have run a marathon in the dark of Kumo’s labyrinth streets. She doesn’t remember walking home or going to bed, doesn’t feel the unfamiliar ache of having skipped that vital nightly routine. Time has started while she was lost in memories of a life that isn’t hers any longer, a slip off the path into an abnormality that is quickly becoming normal. She blames the new life she leads now for the gap, wipes sweat from her forehead with her jacket sleeve and rises in a single jerky movement to open the window. The view of the unfamiliar yet still grounds won’t ever be enough to set her heavy heart at rest, and Taji Minako tastes the grit of sleep and impending doom creeping up on her in the quiet dark before dawn. Minako wakes each new morning to find herself screaming hoarsely in the twilight, pressing her knees to her chest as the world around her shakes and the tears stain her calves. She can’t hold herself together anymore, can’t tell which parts of longing are from her terror and which are from her child heart shattering into pieces from grief, has no more rules left to define the science of existing.
She wants her mother.
Ninjas do not cry about missing their home.
She used to dance with her dreams in moonlight and childhood madness, tiptoed through dying hatred to come out at the end of all days with a clear conscience and a certain je ne sais quoi that makes her toes tingle and her heart ache with a familiarly unfamiliar sensation. Minako catches her own eyes in the mirror, sees her mother’s slow betrayal in the reflection of her inner beauty, and she knows that time was not kind to her. She holds her heart in her hands and smiles at the rain, sways to a shakuhachi melody and tries not to weep at the melancholic sound of her mother’s fingers dancing on the strings. Minako reacts like nothing has happened, like the loss and treachery hasn’t invaded her thoughts and stained her mind with a rage so bright she can see it in the mirror, stands up and doesn’t bother to glance back as she leaves. The Taji clan was not and will not be one to linger in madness of any sort, grasping at their own way through the rules of society that they set. She might be the last Taji in the world, but that does not matter so much when faced with the impossibility of becoming a living weapon.
She is afraid.
Ninjas do not feel fear.
So instead of being afraid she runs. Runs and runs until she can’t feel her feet and then just keeps right on running. She does laps around a park, passes the same lone tree over and over again until she’s so hot and tired that she has to peel her jacket off from her cold and clammy skin. Water is the only reason she allows herself to stop, and not even the first rays of sun over the tree tops is enough of a reason to call it quits. She stops when she can’t pick her feet off the ground anymore and her breath steams out into the air. But still she does not fall, bends her knees and takes greedy breaths through her nose. And when Minako can breathe again she picks up her weapon, not a kunai because she is not yet a real ninja, squares her shoulders and faces the scrawny tree that she tied a crude target to days before. There was paint on the boards at one point, but is has long since been chipped off by the slightly sharp edge of her shears. She stops for lunch, when her arms and legs feel like rubber and all she can manage is to stuff rice balls in her face and chew like her face hurts.
Rinse.
Repeat.
Rinse.
Repeat.
She is tired.
Ninjas do not feel exhaustion.
If she was the type to philosophize, Taji Minako would sip tea with the devils and discuss the investment return on greed and Samsara. Since she isn’t, she is content to live in the moment of each and every shred of violence necessary to keep the world at a complete standstill. But time turns even as blood sticks up the gears and stains the next reverberation into an undignified mess. She licks her lips and tastes rich despair and metallic fear, smiles and wades through the dreams of carnage with all the tainted memories of a childhood filled with lies and time unadulterated.
[Word Count: 795]
Minako wakes with her fingers laced in her hair, breathing hard enough to have run a marathon in the dark of Kumo’s labyrinth streets. She doesn’t remember walking home or going to bed, doesn’t feel the unfamiliar ache of having skipped that vital nightly routine. Time has started while she was lost in memories of a life that isn’t hers any longer, a slip off the path into an abnormality that is quickly becoming normal. She blames the new life she leads now for the gap, wipes sweat from her forehead with her jacket sleeve and rises in a single jerky movement to open the window. The view of the unfamiliar yet still grounds won’t ever be enough to set her heavy heart at rest, and Taji Minako tastes the grit of sleep and impending doom creeping up on her in the quiet dark before dawn. Minako wakes each new morning to find herself screaming hoarsely in the twilight, pressing her knees to her chest as the world around her shakes and the tears stain her calves. She can’t hold herself together anymore, can’t tell which parts of longing are from her terror and which are from her child heart shattering into pieces from grief, has no more rules left to define the science of existing.
She wants her mother.
Ninjas do not cry about missing their home.
She used to dance with her dreams in moonlight and childhood madness, tiptoed through dying hatred to come out at the end of all days with a clear conscience and a certain je ne sais quoi that makes her toes tingle and her heart ache with a familiarly unfamiliar sensation. Minako catches her own eyes in the mirror, sees her mother’s slow betrayal in the reflection of her inner beauty, and she knows that time was not kind to her. She holds her heart in her hands and smiles at the rain, sways to a shakuhachi melody and tries not to weep at the melancholic sound of her mother’s fingers dancing on the strings. Minako reacts like nothing has happened, like the loss and treachery hasn’t invaded her thoughts and stained her mind with a rage so bright she can see it in the mirror, stands up and doesn’t bother to glance back as she leaves. The Taji clan was not and will not be one to linger in madness of any sort, grasping at their own way through the rules of society that they set. She might be the last Taji in the world, but that does not matter so much when faced with the impossibility of becoming a living weapon.
She is afraid.
Ninjas do not feel fear.
So instead of being afraid she runs. Runs and runs until she can’t feel her feet and then just keeps right on running. She does laps around a park, passes the same lone tree over and over again until she’s so hot and tired that she has to peel her jacket off from her cold and clammy skin. Water is the only reason she allows herself to stop, and not even the first rays of sun over the tree tops is enough of a reason to call it quits. She stops when she can’t pick her feet off the ground anymore and her breath steams out into the air. But still she does not fall, bends her knees and takes greedy breaths through her nose. And when Minako can breathe again she picks up her weapon, not a kunai because she is not yet a real ninja, squares her shoulders and faces the scrawny tree that she tied a crude target to days before. There was paint on the boards at one point, but is has long since been chipped off by the slightly sharp edge of her shears. She stops for lunch, when her arms and legs feel like rubber and all she can manage is to stuff rice balls in her face and chew like her face hurts.
Rinse.
Repeat.
Rinse.
Repeat.
She is tired.
Ninjas do not feel exhaustion.
If she was the type to philosophize, Taji Minako would sip tea with the devils and discuss the investment return on greed and Samsara. Since she isn’t, she is content to live in the moment of each and every shred of violence necessary to keep the world at a complete standstill. But time turns even as blood sticks up the gears and stains the next reverberation into an undignified mess. She licks her lips and tastes rich despair and metallic fear, smiles and wades through the dreams of carnage with all the tainted memories of a childhood filled with lies and time unadulterated.
[Word Count: 795]