Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of Where We Come From

Love and Genocide

Fourteen and a half years ago:

A lonely man was sitting in the armchair. His place reeked of cheap alcohol, there were several clay flasks of emptied sake all over the floor. A mass of unfinished lunch that reminded more now of slime than it did of waffles, which it began its existence as, lay dormant on the table, just a couple of hours short before life would flourish on its surface making it dangerous to eat. It wasn't that the man cared that much of safety hazards of the edible food variety. In his line of work, tainted waffles were the least likely thing to kill him.

The man flipped the flask of sake tied down to his arm, it was comfortable to drink it that way for drunks. One didn't have to constantly hold it in their arm, one flip of the flask, just a gentle movement of the arm and the disgusting flammable devil's elixir poured all over one's mouth. Filling one with that feeling of disgust and regret but at the same time relief, satisfying one's desire for self-destruction, making their self-pity somehow feel better. As if the drunkard screamed to the world: "I'm miserable, so what, you may hate me but I hate myself even more, so fuck off".

Even with the more comfortable drinking mechanism on the man's arm, his arm twisted in a way that let the booze spill on the floor as he forgot to close the flask before lowering his hands. The man cursed but ultimately felt too drunk and lazy to fix it. His apartment already looked like a shithole so what's a little sake on the floor? If anything the liquor will serve as a decontaminant for all those bacteria and insects on the rarely cleaned floor and carpet. That furry thing was there before Nakotsumi Tsukumo could remember, belonged to his father, or maybe even his grandfather.

The man decided to pour his next drink, he spilled the contents of the flask on the floor, clearly, he was too drunk for that kind of drinking to continue so perhaps a change in habit could somehow slightly give him some sharpness of thought back. He hoped desperately that this night would be nothing like the nights of the last eight weeks, nights when he drank himself until passing out, waking up covered in his own vomit, cleaning himself up and going to work. 

People looked at Tsukumo and hated him for being a drunkard slob, they called him a mess. They were afraid of him and pointed fingers. They didn't hate the man half as bad as he hated himself. He drank because he wanted to kill himself but lacked the guts to cut his own throat. Sometimes he got so drunk that the guts toughened, the man tried to kill himself in one of his traps, "Konoha's Great Trapster" they started calling him after Tsukumo became one of the more notable genin and approached the day he'd be called a chuunin even.

Yet every time the man tried, every time he failed – a drunk mind just couldn't properly set the darned thing up and Tsukumo always passed out. They called him a mess, how does one not become a mess after being involved in a literal genocide? Following and gathering intelligence on a band of people tied together by bonds of family – "Wandering Ninja" they called themselves. It was Tsukumo's information that helped their entire tribe to be killed, just snuffed out, stabbed and slit their throats in a coordinated fashion one rainy night. All of them but one woman, Hokage was merciful enough to spare her seeing how Tsukumo got involved with her. The worst part that it wasn't even Tsukumo's word that saved her, it was Hokage's own skills of observation.

"Tsukumo," he said, "I've heard you've been hanging out with this Kei of the Wandering Ninja". At that point the genin was ready to admit he was involved and slept with her numerous times, he was ready to let go of her, he was that sad and pathetic. Admit it all and let her die with the rest of her people, "Don't worry, Hokage-sama, it won't be a bother" was the best that fuckwad which was Tsukumo could come up with. Hokage allowed her to be spared, he said that even the Daimyo was fine with one woman surviving, after all – one woman was not enough to keep the purest form of bloodline alive. Even if those mutts could be considered a clan before, with all of their mixed blood, they certainly won't be now, not for real.