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Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2016 12:51 pm
██ ▌▌t h e¦U Z U M A K I xxxxxxxxxxxx◀◀◀xxxxWith our 『 catch ¦phrase』
xxxThe home of the Uzumaki is rather large but isolated from the rest of the village. The Uzumaki people always seem to live in packs, ignoring the outside world. The people here have their own government and their own markets and culture. It may almost seem like entering a foreign country once you enter their humble abode.
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Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2016 2:02 pm
Christian's Journal Entry When you said that, it made me so happy. I felt like I could die. I could go in peace. Nothing else mattered. I didn't say anything at the time because I was so stunned. Yes, I didn't say anything, I just smiled. And I think you knew that the reason I remained silent was because my voice had died; my throat sewed shut, I didn't have the strength to speak. You knew, but a part of you still wanted the words, didn't it?I can tell you now, Takahara. I love you. I love you so much. Please don't leave me. Please don't go.Ah... those days. Immortal in my dreams. I woke up just now. Wait, where are my socks? Oh, gosh. Dad is playing another prank on me. Not right now. I don't want a prank. I want to get up and wear my fuzzy socks and say ******** it to the world because I remember. I remember it again, clearly, worse than ever. I remember the day he died. It was sunny and hot, a summer morning in Kusagakure. We had big white flags raised because we surrendered. The war was over, now it was time for the push. For the oppression, for the years of servitude. It was time for the cycle of hatred to roll onto the next generation so that we could understand what our parents meant when they said: peace is a lie. Vengeance is all they had. It would be all I had soon, too, even being the sweet boy that I was. I went outside to my laundry room to quietly, safely watch the soldiers march in. If they were to discover that I was a shinobi, and a Jounin at that, I would surely be killed. However they did not come, for some strange reason or other. I did not know at that time, I didn't care. I ran to Takahara's house to celebrate the peace. I didn't know if it would last long. I didn't know if things would be even worse than they once were. I just needed something, something to be happy over. Something to cry over, to laugh over. So I knocked on his front door and the first thing I saw was his father, crying. Christian... He said my name. I wish he didn't. The tone in which he said my name scarred me for life. From the moment he unlocked his lips, I was beyond the point of healing. My heart was broken and I already knew; Takahara... Was going to die. When I was a young boy of eleven, a friend of mine from the Hyaka Clan compound had become urgently ill. They were fighting it every night, writhing in pain, on the brink of death but not willing to go. I overheard about it from a conversation between my mother, Takimi, and some others. She said that even she couldn't do anything about it. But that wasn't enough for me. He was my friend. My friend. I was only a chuunin back then, but I knew some medical techniques. I was really good at them. I had to try, something. Anything. I could never give up without even trying. You could say that was my shinobi way. I went to his room. His mother cried, his grandparents wailed, his young little brother stared blankly as if devastated; his rolemodel, the light of his life was to die. And me, I was beyond words. I had never had a problem that I could not solve. It made me hopeless. It made me feel like I was nothing. But then I found something within myself as the moments passed that was benign. It was my bloodline, Mokuton, and the ability to alter genetic data to my accord. I tried so hard and I did the best I could to save him. I thought it was over, that it would never be an issue again. Later after that, he unlocked the Mokuton as well. He and I practiced together, we sparred, we became closer. He became my best friend, completely. And as strange as it might be to say, I felt virtually inseparable from him. A part of me lived inside of him. It was like our two hearts were one; they were connected. I could feel his pain, his fury, his love, his joy. He could feel mine. It was true understanding. It was love. As we grew older, we began to realize that we didn't care for the sweet, delicate girls of the village. We only cared for each other. We climbed the highest mountains and bathed in the largest lakes. We protected each other at all costs. He was the sacred treasure of my being, I would have done anything to watch over him. I would've given my right eye just to keep a safe view over his shoulder. I would've pulled out my heart to keep his beating. However the issue that came to me was something far beyond what I could help. It was the work of a God, one so malign that they surely wished to destroy what we had. From the beginning, there was no hope. The boy was doomed to die, the second the illness came upon him. My changes to his code only delayed his death, because they were an illness in themselves. Not an obvious one, not one that we could imagine. They were an illness that consumed him over the span of his life, and one day he was taken from me. I ask myself why that was. I will never have the answer. But I will bring him back, so that my heart can beat as it once did.
I've been studying these letters for a while. They were written by my ancestor, Christian Uzumaki, about him. The man I was named after - a name that my great-grandfather gave me while I still grew in my mother's belly. He was old, near death, reminiscing about the past. Takahara, he called day and night. The name of his first love - the one that he would never, ever forget. He prayed to the Goddess to be with him in the afterlife, if there was such a thing. He would create it if it wasn't already there; he would split the world in two if it meant being with him again.
I was told stories of this infinite, pure love for my entire childhood. All the things they did together. To be honest, I didn't really care or think about it much back then, the person of my namesake. I didn't think much about my great-grandfather, as I never really knew him, honestly. I saw him . . . maybe once or twice before he passed away. It wasn't long after I was born; he'd been on his deathbed for years. It was said that he died smiling, clutching a picture of his family in his arms, staring at the painting of Takahara that he'd done in his youth.
Everything about my great-grandfather was a tragedy.
He fought for all his life to right the wrongs of the people around him. He brought the Uzumaki and Senju clans back from the brink of destruction, battled against the demons in the hope of ensuring the safety of the next generations, and rebelled against the Karna Empire to save the world from the cruelty of that dynasty. He worked to help the Rice and River Countries secede from the Empire during its collapse, and to modernize Uzushiogakure in the face of an ever-changing world.
He witnessed, during all of this, the deaths of much of the global population at the hands of a plague of energy that ripped through the lands. His mother died, his siblings, his friends - he continued on, alone, even after all others had gone. He kept going by memory alone; of the halcyon days where he was happy, oh so long ago as a youth, with Takahara at his side. With Meiko as a dear friend. With Aki Chiru, the shinobi who he considered one of his dearest companions.
His village, Kusagakure, lays destitute and sad now after all the wars and tragedies and cataclysms that came since his youth. The beautiful lands he arrived into lay desolate now after his departure.
More than anyone else, I feel a sadness when I think about him and the man he named me after. What kind of life would they have had if he didn't died so young, and Christian so old? These stories taught me, when I was young, to appreciate people and moments as they're there. To never stop looking at the brighter side of life. That was what he always did - maybe not when the scars were fresh, but he remembered the good things when he could.
Nearly a hundred years later, he still remembered the times they spent with one another. If I can remember the quote, he told my mother something like this . . . that he'd been wandering life incomplete, only half of him going about, yet always accompanied by his other half in his memories and dreams - kept motivated and content by the memory of the one he'd lost, knowing that life still had beauty after all the wonderful things they'd shared.
I was named after a pure manifestation of love, one that will last forever. I think as my great-grandfather saw me come into this world, carrying the name of the one he'd lost, he realized that his other half had become the beautiful family he'd raised. He finally had what he'd been searching for, all that time. It was what kept him alive for so long, a hundred and thirty years, wanting and waiting for his beloved one to return to his side.
It was there all along. He could finally go in peace.
That's what my name means, really, more than anything. That family is everything, and love can be found all around you. That there is such thing as a companionship that never dies. I say this now because as of late, life has been hard. Tumultuous. But I'm getting there. Towards happiness. I'll use my great-grandfather as my example.
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Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2016 7:26 am
Journal Entry 8th of March, Year 133
My father's love was always strong. Growing up, I never understood it, and certainly didn't do much to appreciate it. I did as other kids did - I said my thank yous, prayed at the shrine after a meal with the family, and bowed my head before the man in obedience as he instructed me in the ways of life.
But I never really cared. I mean - why would I? It was as if it was his obligation, in my eyes. If you have a kid, you consign yourself to do everything you can for them; doing otherwise is criminal. Perhaps I was right back then, but seeing the children now - after a war-torn wold - I've come to realize how privileged I was to have a father that was there for me in my days of youth.
Unfortunately, though, my dad died young. Not young in comparison to me, but by the standards of the wealthy, he was a short-lived man. He only survived to his late thirties before he was slaughtered in a war among clans that didn't even involve mine. He was a Senju, and this was a competition that involved outsiders - Aburame, allegedly, and Yamanaka. His death taught me something important: no matter what a man does in life, he cannot avoid death. My father made sure to have no part in the wars between other clans, always remaining neutral and assuring the safety of the Senju above all else. Yet, despite this outlook, he was the sole individual of my entire Clan to die from these conflicts.
Life is unpredictable. That's why it's enjoyable, in part. We learn to appreciate the small things with the specter of death looming over us, after all. But y'know, I've come to think recently that maybe that's the wrong way to think. Enjoy life while it lasts, because it won't last long - that's what everyone says. I know that we will all die eventually. But why do we have to accept death at such as young age in this world? The constant conflict, famine and suffering that embroils the people around me is saddening. "It's life," people say. But I don't think so.
The fact that I had a father that raised me, didn't be forced away to slave in the fields, loved me - this is a rare thing in this world. But it wasn't always. Before the cataclysm, the people lived longer and they stayed together. They could do more than just tow the fields and suffer death at the hands of militants. This aberration is not "life" - it is something we've built in the shadow of the old world.
We need to change. We need to stop accepting the constant decline of our humanity. The way my father died should never have been accepted by his peers as a mere unlucky casualty. The war that claimed so many of my people should not be reflected upon as merely a "conflict for resources". There is more to life than war. We need to find it.
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