The Coldest Flame

Ryōshi I
Only the fierce flames of war could churn up such a horrid sight, burning a man for who he was, not for what he had done. “He is a servant of the monster, Yanma no Enma. For that, we shall give him to the fires.” Akakōro Village was once a fishing village, and technically, they still were. But none shared the sentiment that Ryōshi had, about fishing to feed the hungry masses, to serve his duty to the village. People threw down their nets, and raised their shoddy weapons up against the shinobi of Iwagakure. “Foreigners who want to do us harm, who treat us like second class citizens in our own homes,” a speaker from Oni had come to the village not even a fortnight ago, and he had already swayed the masses to their cause. Many called them the Demons of the Hidden Rain, and despise calling them demons, clung to them as though their lives depended on it. Ryōshi was no friend to the shinobi of Iwagakure, but burning a man who bore its crest should not be the kind of actions that Oni promoted. What happened to peace? To serving your fellow man and treating them as equals? What made Oni different then the shinobi who came into foreign lands to slaughter and rape its people? Nothing as far as Ryōshi was concerned. The village shaman sat with a pipe in her hand, packing it with some weird smelling herbs, beneath a black umbrella. She, like Ryōshi, had come to see what the masked Oni man would do to the capture Iwagakure shinobi. “Do not act brash, child. It is not wise to rise up against the fires, especially when they have consumed so many innocent lives.” “I will not be branded as someone who sentences a man to death, without a trial. Nor will I watch any man be put to the torch. We are not savages, elder. We are fisherman.” “Fisherman? Aye, we wait for the tides to bring in something fresh. We take our nets and we blindly throw them in, and we take up whatever is caught in the net. We have taken to their cause,” she nodded to the man from Oni, a man dressed in a long black cloak behind a white featureless mask. “And they are snagged in our net. It will take a strong pair of hands to pry them out.” Ryōshi sighed, “What if I was those hands? If someone gets rid of the Oni, then nobody can tell us to burn men, or act like monsters.” “More will come,” she lit her pipe and took a long drag. The smoke was green colored, thick and potent, and it made Ryōshi cough. “The tides of war do not stop for one man. Now silence with these talks, child. Or you will be the next to burn.” She was right. They would burn anyone who stood against their cause, whether they be of rock or rain. There were people like Ryōshi, people who wanted alternatives to peace, and they were labeled as traitors. That was the price to pay to dance with the demons. They turn the masses against you, until one zealous man acts up, and kills you in your home. That way, no member of their cause has dirty hands, and they can pass the death off as another casualty of war. Grim tactics for grim folk. Ryōshi rose from his seat, ran a hand through his hair, “I will bring you some fresh fish tomorrow, elder.” “Thank you, child, now go find your peace.” And he left to do as she bid. Heading in the opposite direction of the pyre, where the flames were starting to simmer down. As he left, Ryōshi caught one last glimpse at the man, who was nothing but a charred corpse, figures extinguished in the smoke, mouth opened wide where his final screams had escaped him. A red-cross sat on his shoulder, smoldered to a crisp, but almost recognizable. He was no shinobi, he was a medic, come to see if anyone needed assistance.

Ryōshi cursed, and plunged his hands into his pockets, fishing for his lucky knife. When angered, he liked playing with it, flicking it open and closed, feeling the hard pearly white handle, running his fingers across the neat design that was carved onto its surface. The blade gave him some sense of comfort, knowing that he could defend himself if need be. When angry, it let him know that he still had some power to fend off even his wild emotions. He had never wanted to hurt again, so he clung to the knife in an ironic sense of relief. The world seemed so wild now, with war enveloping Amegakure for what seemed liked the hundredth time. Perhaps Amegakure was destined to burn away into nothing but ash. The other villages love coming in and taking over, how would they feel about being a king of the ashes? They would burn us down like the demon burned that medic, for the sake of showing how strong they are.

"Today I will fish, and tomorrow I will fish again, that is what I will do while they sit there and burn everything down. And when the people and the world are in ashes, I will stoke cook my fish in the flames of their destruction."

Heading home to retrieve his pole, Ryōshi pondered the thought of how well his fish would taste in a world with nobody to enjoy it with.