soul_logs | Numerous threads of fate entwined, bringing us here

Neji tipped his head in a mild shrug, not certain of that. It was just the only thing he could think Auron would appreciate. Still, the invitation was unexpected and he blinked for a moment, but he had no other plans aside from returning home for the evening.

"Not particularly," he answered mildly, and stepped inside. Nothing had really changed since his visit a week ago, and he idly examined the carpet and furniture for bloodstains.

"I apologize for intruding so suddenly before," he said with a grimace. Because he hadn't been able to talk much before Sakura arrived, and then he'd been too exhausted to explain himself properly. "I couldn't risk Lee seeing me in such a state.."

"Yeah, I doubt he'd take it too well." Auron's couch was perfectly fine. He just had to buy all new towels. The carpet would need a thorough cleaning but he was working on that.

Auron took one of the beers in hand and the rest he shoved in his fridge. "How's your shoulder doing? Better?"

Neji nodded idle agreement and chose a seat on the couch, sitting properly this time. His right hand jumped to his shoulder, fingers feeling along the bone, then rolled it experimentally.

"It's alright. I still can't apply full force wielding Lee with this arm, but even Sakura said you did well resetting it. Any loss of strength is more likely attributed to the damage it had taken before then."

His shoulder had been shattered before he'd come back here, after all. But he leaned back, trying not to worry about that too much.

"How have you been?" he queried in turn. "Aside from busy, that is."

"Oh, the usual. Doing katas. Patrols. Trying to teach people how to swing a sword. Kanji eating all my food whenever he stops by." Seriously, where does that kid put it all? He knew teens needed more food but come on.

"Let me ask you something else." There wasn't any kind way to put it. Good thing Auron was quite practiced in being blunt. "How are you dealing with being dead in your homeland?"

Neji smiled faintly with quiet amusement. Busy in other words, not to mention the week or so he spent taking over the Watch in his place. Fully expecting to keep up their small talk, Neji almost moved to reply until Auron's additional question caught him off guard.

Of course he knew that Auron had seen the extent of his injuries, but to ask about it like this.. Pale eyes glanced off for a moment, fleetingly indecisive.

"I'm alright," he said finally. He wouldn't lie and say it didn't weigh on him, but.. "I chose death to protect those I care about, so I don't feel there's any need for anyone to mourn it."

But people like Lee and Naruto still would.

"A good answer to tell other people."

When he'd seen what had to have been fatal wounds in Neji's torn clothing, Auron could only imagine what had been done to cause them. Then finding himself back here, only to realize he could never return to where he'd been. It was the sort of situation that could drive a mind into very deep, dark places. Sure, from what he knew of Neji, the young man was very composed, able to deal with change. Death, though, was a fairly drastic thing to deal with.

He should know. He'd had to deal with it without help.

"But instead of the polite answer, there's nothing wrong with giving me the true answer. Do you feel robbed? Cheated? Angry at the world?"

Neji frowned, not expecting Auron to push the issue even if he had been a little vague and deflective. He didn't really know what to feel about the situation sometimes, felt strange to consider the world moving forward without him and that he'd never see it again.

But robbed, cheated, or angry? He laughed with a dry amusement, but sobered rather quickly because there was so much compounded with his death that would take awhile to explain properly.

"It's rather complex," he said eventually. "A true answer would take a fair amount of explanation I doubt you're interested in."

"Oh, you'd be real surprised, Neji." He had a feeling if he didn't get his boss to open up about what he felt, it turn in on itself to fester.

Auron couldn't let that happen. He didn't want what happened to Neji to happen to him, after all. "Tell me the truth. As complex as it is and I'll listen. In return, I'll tell you why I'm pushing you on this. I swear by the fayth."

Neji blinked surprise, not certain why Auron was so interested, and reluctant to delve into such a tale, but evidently there was a reason. He spent several moments attempting to divine the older man's motivations, but all he could gather was that Auron wasn't asking out of any sense of ill intent.

He sighed and considered the consequences of refusing. It wasn't something he liked to talk about, had only ever told Lain, and under duress, some of it to Roy.. But now that he was dead it mattered far less, because there was nothing anyone from his clan could do or ask from him anymore.

"Alright.." he found himself saying, and leaned back, brows pinching as he wondered where to start.

"I suppose I should start by telling you that these eyes are my clan's most valued possession. They're passed down only through Hyuuga's bloodline, and there are strict.. traditions in place to protect them in order to keep their secrets out of enemy hands. One of those measures is a seal, designed to lock away the power they possess upon the bearer's death. However, that is not it's only purpose.."

And the rest was much harder to talk about, to organize, and he frowned.

"I apologize, but perhaps I could use a drink after all- if you don't mind."

Edited 2014-04-04 01:26 (UTC)

"Not a problem." Auron went back to fridge and set all the beers out in front of them on the coffee table, along with some pretzels and a quick call on the phone. "This sounds like it'll take a while. I ordered a pizza." Better to have food to prevent either of them from getting completely wasted.

"Your eyes have some far-seeing powers, don't they? I thought it was just you and not your how family."

Neji gave the coffee table an appraising look, then purloined a beer for himself.

"I appreciate it," he said with a brief smile, and left a quick message with Lee before he turned back to Auron.

"Yes, the Byakugan is much like Clairvoyance.. both abilities can see in a wide radius and detect chakra, or in this case, the souls of others. It's extremely useful, and an ability typically everyone in the Hyuuga clan possesses to varying degrees."

He took a drink and stared blankly at the table before him until he organized the details he needed to explain, and those he didn't.

"As I mentioned however, it's an ability that's jealously guarded.. to the point where select members of the clan control and sacrifice others as it's deemed necessary to protect it."

He swallowed more alcohol, had hoped to leave his father out of this, but that was appearing to be impossible, because the reason he'd chosen death..

"The Hyuuga clan's succession typically stays within the first born to the 'ruling' family- a monarchy," Neji expanded, seemingly at random. "I tell you this because the current head of the clan is my uncle, one half of a pair of twin siblings. And so the difference between those few minutes of birth cursed my father into servitude, which in turn, cursed me when I was born.

Because anyone not in line for succession in the Hyuuga clan is sealed and regulated into a lesser 'branch' you could say, to protect our bloodline. This lesser branch lives to serve and protect the members of the Head family."

Edited 2014-04-04 02:04 (UTC)

"And because you're the branch, you serve but you don't get to rule." Which, he supposed, if you were into ruling or thought you could do a better job of it, left a lot of resentment. Auron tipped back his beer.

"So if everyone has the far-sight, does it become not as good if you're in a branch family?" What waste of good talent if that were the case.

Neji nodded, and briefly recalled how much he used to hate that.

"No, it doesn't effect our capability. Despite my position, I'd inherited our natural talents with a rare strength."

He reached out and plucked up a pretzel, chewing thoughtfully.

"As you can imagine, my father was a bitter man. His son surpassed the heir, but because of birth, something like that didn't matter. He was assigned to Hiashi-sama's protection- my uncle and his brother- and from the age of four, my life was dedicated to Hinata-sama, my oldest cousin. I was too young to understand then, but the time came when my father gave up his life to protect Hiashi-sama.

I grew up embittered. Yes- angry, robbed, cheated, believing the Head family had forced him to sacrifice himself. It wasn't until roughly ten years later, I was told the truth of that day and found myself willing to believe it. My father chose death to protect those he cared about. He protected everyone from another outbreak of war with his actions, and died a hero not only for the Hyuuga, but the village as a whole."

He smiled, the pieces falling together now.

"And so, during the next war that came a few years after that, I gave up my life to protect Hinata-sama- something I was born to do from the beginning. But it wasn't out of a sense of duty. It was a choice I made to protect someone precious to me, the same choice my father made when I was young."

While listening to Neji's story, the pizza arrived. Auron didn't waste any time paying for it and bringing it for both of them to eat while he listened.

"So you were bitter but you worked it out in time. Good." Auron ate a bit of pizza and finished off his beer. "So you really don't have as many regrets as I thought. Does your family still have the same system as it did when you died?"

Neji set his beer down and picked up a slice for himself with a murmur of thanks.

"Yes, regrettably. But Hinata-sama has a kind heart, and should Naruto succeed our village as it's leader, there's a good chance they'll change. I'd hoped to see it myself, but all I can do now is have faith. It's enough that with my death, I ensured their lives- at least for a time."

"Wait a minute." Auron put down his beer and looked at Neji incredulously. "Naruto? A leader? That sounds like long story. But...if that's how things end up, I'll trust you on that."

All he saw was a kid but...he was a kid who tried to care. There were worse qualities for leaders to have.

"Yes," he agreed with a faint smile. "That's another long story."

He only had fragments of it. Neji finished off his slice of pizza with a hum and took his beer back in hand.

"So now you'll tell me why you insisted on hearing my life's story."

Edited 2014-04-05 21:34 (UTC)

"Well, I feel a little bad because I thought your head might be going to someplace bad after dying. I wanted to try to avoid that, if I could, but you had things more together than I gave you credit for. Still...a bargain's a bargain."

Well, at the least, maybe Neji talking with Auron got his thoughts together so in the end, his good deed didn't go unpunished. Auron took a pull on his beer before sitting it down. "You probably know a few things about me. That I come from a place called Spira. That I've wandered all over that world twice on pilgrimages as a Guardian to Summoners. That the purpose of the pilgrimages was to find a way to stop Sin, the eternal monster that controls Spira. That the only way to stop Sin was through the same pilgrimage. That the second time, we were successful and won.

"That's not everything, though. In all the time I've been here, I've never told the complete truth."

Neji tipped his head mildly and supposed he did feel a little better for it.

But he nodded along with the general explanation, having caught bits of it and inferred others, but now in a more concrete fashion.

"You're only the second in this world I've explained myself to, and that had been my previous partner. You listened and I appreciate it, even if it was at your own insistence. I can only do the same for you in return."

"Well. I'm good at keeping secrets and confidences so anything you tell me won't leave this room."

Except now it was time to tell the truth. Maybe because Neji was who he was he would understand. Auron had had to keep so many things to himself for so long.

"My friends, Jecht and Braska, were on the first pilgrimage with me. People in Spira know what the ultimate price is to travel the world and gain the power of the Final Aeon. Death. Still, it's worth it to have the chance to face Sin and maybe, just maybe, kill it for good. After roaming the world together, I realized what that would mean at the very end, when we ended up in the broken ruins of Zanarkand."

Auron paused to drink the rest of his beer. If he could get through this sober, it would be a miracle. "We found out that even though Braska had all the powers of the all the other Aeons granted from the fayth, the Final Aeon was incomplete. The journey over Spira was designed to strengthen the bonds of the group. Because in order to call the Final Aeon, a Guardian that the Summoner felt strong to -- either friendship or like family or even like a spouse -- would have to give up their life as well. Jecht decided to take that on himself. When you...become the fayth. You disappear. Until you are summoned and...you aren't...you aren't really human anymore."

With a painful swallow, he continued. "So. With this power. Braska and I...we went to go fight Sin."

It was a grave tale full of unmentioned hardships and at the end of everything, sacrifice. He understood sacrifice well, but to be forced to sacrifice one of your friends even for a greater cause.. If he'd ever had to make such a decision for Lee or Tenten..

He didn't know how long ago it had been for Auron, but it was clear ir still plagued the older man, as he expected it might.

"I see.. That must have been difficult for all of you."

"Yes. It was..."

Auron's throat closed up. How he possibly tell anyone about what happened? Being the only thing between Braska and Sin and the hordes of Sin Scales that wanted him dead? Of calling Jecht, the Final Aeon, and watching a monster render and tear at a larger monster. The victory of Sin's defeat as Jecht devoured him and Braska's body rebelled at the last. Fayth, he was screaming and there was pain and Braska didn't have any EYES any longer and Auron had to hold him down to stay with him until he was no more.

He couldn't say any of those things. He never could. It might have shown on his face. Just a terrible strain that looked like he should be screaming but the past choked off all sound.

Without a word, Auron took one of the beers and drained it dry before he started again. "Things continued. Everyone was happy because Sin had been defeated. Maybe this time it would work. But...I couldn't be satisfied. Not with what happened. So by myself I went back to the fayth that had engineered this transfer of power. I thought, maybe if she would talk to me, I could make some sense of my life and promise my friends that I'd watch over their kids. Except...that's not what happened."

It was a face worn by the tortured and there was no remedy. Such past horrors continued to haunt, found you in nightmares and even waking moments. Never really faded, only.. lessened in frequency over time.

Auron lost his friends, a large part of himself, and the world moved on, benefiting from sacrifices most likely didn't understand the true nature of. And that there was more to this than all of that..

"What happened?" he inquired gently after a lengthy pause. More of a prompt to continue than real curiosity. Auron needed this more than he had.

"I found out the truth. Sin was designed to never die. Anyone who became to Final Aeon and managed to defeat Sin in turn -became- Sin in its place, to keep the cycle going again. It was an ultimate tool of control so that all of Spira could be flattened down by the Church." Auron's tone became laced with bitterness. "They kept up everything with the pilgrimages because if you have pure drudgery, no one would want to live. But if you have a story of hope and have thousands and thousands of people give their lives for it, maybe someday if you just pray -hard- enough, things will be different."

He slipped off the shades, showing fully the right eye blinded by injury. "I had to listen to this fayth tell me these things. That the friends I had were lost for nothing. At that point, I was a healthy whole man. So. If you'd been told that your friends gave up their lives for no reason, what would you do?"

It was an abhorrent truth, that the peace of an entire world was built on a large-scale game of power over everyone. He knew enough about power, control and being helplessly under the heel of someone else that his own anger stirred underneath the surface.

And Auron had given up his two best friends for it. Neji looked over the man's blind eye without surprise, having already seen more than he wanted with his own.

"I'd do everything to combat such a system," he said calmly - too calmly. The battles were carved into Auron's skin. "And work to expose the truth with every fiber of my being."

It took a certain amount of determination, stupidity, and insanity to go up against power far greater than your own. He knew, because for ten years he'd waged such a war against his own clan. And for the deaths of two close friends to be meaningless.. well, that would certainly provoke such reckless abandon.

"A good answer. It's what I eventually remembered to do. But the first thing I did was a lost my temper and attacked the fayth. Which is like attacking a hurricane with your bare hands."

This part of the story came a little easier since it was just what had happened to him. He paused to eat and drink. "When I came to, I'd been wounded badly. Alone, I went back down the long, long way back." He still couldn't quite remember HOW he'd climbed down Mount Gagazet but he'd had nightmares for years.

"I met people who were willing to bind my wounds enough and give me a ride back to Braska's city. I managed to find someone trustworthy to give my promise to take Braska's daughter, Yuna, to an island far away from any politics. And then..."

He trailed off and folded his hands in his lap. He looked up, staring at Neji with one eye. "If I tell you this next part, you can never tell anyone else. As long as you live here. Can I trust you to keep this safe forever?"

He didn't doubt it. It would be very hard for anyone to control themselves after going through something so terrible, only to be told it was worthless and for nothing.

But Neji sat up a little more at the mention of Yuna. He'd known they were from the same world, but not her lineage. So she had been Braska's daughter, and Auron for some reason, gave her care over to someone else. She must have been young.

And now they came to this, a binding secret. But he's a shinobi, and a clan member with a valuable bloodline at that. He knew how to keep secrets and bury them so far down that not even blood or pain could release them.

"I promise," he said solemnly. "I'll bury it alongside the secrets of these eyes."

Auron let out a nervous breath and drank the rest of his beer. "It's this. In Spira, in addition to being able to summon aeons, Summoners also have a charge to pacify the dead. When anything dies in Spira, it gives off these...lights. They're tiny and they float around. The nearest equivalent on this world are called fireflies but they're not really that close. We call them pyreflies.

"When a person dies normally, the pyreflies drift over the body for a while and then go seek the Farplane. It's an actual place inside Spira and the pyreflies of the dead are there. If there's too much anger and resentment at death, the pyreflies of the dead form into creatures of danger. We call them fiends. Because of how Sin roams the Spira, so fiends cover Spira. A summoner can pacify the recently deceased and prevent them from becoming fiends."

Now he was coming to it. The one thing he'd never said to anyone but Tidus. Oh, of course his party found out about it, but he never told them. "There's a third option. One that normally sane people don't do because it goes beyond...so many things. Outside Braska's city, where no one could see, I...succumbed to my fatal wounds. At the...moment of death, I felt so cheated of everything and I knew that nothing would get changed if I couldn't have revenge. I couldn't change anything. So. I faded away but because I wanted to stay so badly...I did.

"People...people have names for that here. I've heard a few of them and they aren't kind. Revenant. Zombie. Undead. I became an Unsent. A dead man walking, only instead of being young, what I looked like now was a reflection of my soul. An old man. You can't tell if anyone is Unsent by looking at them. So now I could stay in Spira as long as I stayed true to my promises of revenge, to fix the world and to take care of Jecht's son."

So that was it. Auron was dead, had died and probably only lived as long as he had out of sheer will. It was why he'd left Yuna to someone else's care. But through some deep drive that rejected the state of the world, being the only person that knew the truth and could hope to fix all the wrongs he survived as some form of the undead.

A bit like the resurrected faces in their world, though it hadn't been their own wills that brought them back or guided them.

Neji looked over Auron, taking in the aged and worn appearance with new context. Little wonder why he'd asked him about the circumstances surrounding his death. He'd been there and suffered- still did to a degree.

"Did your world ever change before you came here?"

"I had to watch over Jecht's son, Tidus, until he became old enough. Jecht was still...aware inside Sin and we could talk to each other when he came around. We figured out a plan but Tidus made it happen." A glow of pride filled Auron's voice. "Ten years and more I stuck around and with the next pilgrimage, led by Yuna, I let them find out the truth in their own experiences. Jecht was freed from Sin and could be free to go to the Farplane. As was I.

"Until I ended up here. Alive." Auron snorted. "BREW has a sense of humor. When Yuna was here, she told me things were starting to change so I guess I did some good after all. Still...I wish my friends were here."

He sighed. Some part of him was always still -there- in that terrible moment of loss and always would be. He would deal with it as he'd always done. Alone. On his own. Until finally death came for him.

So it was Braska and Jecht's son that brought about the change in their world, guided by Auron. How fitting. And then the older man had wound up here.

But the yearning for his friends he'd fought so hard for was a loss even so. Inevitably, there were things they'd miss and people they'd never see again.

"It's not impossible," he reminded him and for the first time, wondered how old Auron really was. "But in the meantime, we're left in a strange position, no longer belonging to any world."

"Which brings me back to my original point of wanting to help you." There, with a goal and a focus, Auron could easily stuff all of his pain somewhere deep. It's what he'd been forced to do, to become someone so unbelievably hard in order to do what had to be done.

"I'm used to that feeling. It's normal but don't let it consume you. Let go the land you came from and trust that the people you left behind won't screw it up too much. So it leaves you of what to do here. Far as I'm concerned, keep doing what you're doing. You have a job, friends and a life here."

The atmosphere shifted back to something more closely resembling normalcy, and Neji nodded, leaning back with a drink. He really shouldn't down much more, or he might not be returning to Lee sober.

But he didn't think he'd ever let go of Konoha completely, too many memories of those trees and streets he knew intuitively. But Death City was his home now, and he did have faith in those he'd left his world to. Naruto, Hinata, Tenten, Lee.. would all carry his will forward.

"Yes," he agreed mildly. "There's still plenty of work to do."

And so long as there was work to be done, he'd spend far less time plagued by troubling thoughts. "I just hope Shibusen doesn't send all of us back to our deaths after everything."

"That's not up to us, Neji. Hearing how people get returned right where they came from, seems like, means the same for us." Auron, of course, had had far more time to accept this simple fact for being Unsent for so long. "If we win the war, we might get to stay or we might have to leave. Dwelling about it will keep you up at night. Accept the fact that every day you get now is a gift and it's going to get taken away from you eventually. For now, live."

Sobering advice, but sensible. Shinobi lived day to day in their own world, and he'd continue to even after death. But he sighed, knowing Naruto and Sakura would take it very hard. Lee would cry because he'd certainly know by that point, and there wouldn't be anything he could do for them.

It was difficult not to worry about it, but he'd work to keep from dwelling on the uncertainty that would always linger. Not to mention the inevitability of dying a second time even if they did stay. But here he had a future, which was more than he had in his own world.

"In any case, I'm free now," he said softly, reflective. "My seal is gone, and I'll be sure to enjoy it for as long as I'm able."

It was a sobering bit of reality, but Auron was an expert at providing that. The sooner Neji realized what he was in for, the easier it would be.
"Without the seal, what does it feel like?" Auron asked. "I don't have any special powers. Unless you count using a sword."

Numerous threads of fate entwined, bringing us here

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And by the way, that's WHOLE family. I swear I can use good grammar.

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OOC: All the things Auron's saying are things that maybe Neji's picked up over time.

okay :>

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