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Heat bloomed along Juugo’s forearms and against his cheeks as he reclined in front of the campfire. For reasons still unknown to him, Konoha’s Team Eight had volunteered to return to the Land of Sound, formerly the Land of Rice, with him. Most likely to ensure he didn’t fly into a rage and massacre a village…again. It wasn’t unlikely. Every ruined rice paddy they passed along the way from his former home made the rage tickle beneath his skin like fire ants crawling across the surface, clawing, biting, stinging their way across his nerves until he was molten.
They had raped the land—the humans, the interloping foreigners that had trod the grass into splotchy patches of dirt. Smoldering ruins of rice paddies were laid to waste along the sides of the hills that led into the river at the bottom of the valley. Toxic waste bubbled from the mud along the side of the river in deceitful white foam. A single dip of the hand in the toxins would boil the skin off a normal person in less than a minute. It looked natural. Juugo could only wish it was.
The songbirds didn’t gather here anymore. They were all dead or had migrated to better, cleaner lands. Lands that could afford to keep corruption at bay long enough to not be destroyed. Lands that didn’t rely on a rice crop taxed at seventy-percent by a greedy Daimyo. Another wish: the birds would return.
When he was four years old, he could hear them every morning, singing their sweet songs passed down through generations while his mother made breakfast. They wouldn’t sing so near him if they had known what monster he had become. What kind of…animal.
Felled trees and desiccated stumps lined the other side of the hill from the terraced rice paddies: the thousands of other casualties attributable to Orochimaru’s research, the oligarchs’ greed, and the hubris of humanity. The caves he hid in for years before Kimimaro found him were nearby. He was sorely tempted to return and hide from the wandering eyes of the humans that still scratched a living into the beaten earth.
Kimimaro wouldn’t want that. He would tell him to live his life in the open. He was wrong. He would remind him that a cure was forthcoming. He was wrong. He would turn his head with pretty promises and reassurances about Orochimaru’s goodness. He. Was. Wrong.
“Juugo?”
There was a sweet melody in her voice that reminded him of an early morning warbler shaking off a late spring frost from its wings. Tremulous and fragile with every rare syllable she used. The past two weeks of listening to her had been soothing. She would never know her sweet voice had tamed a beast, had driven it back into the corner of his mind and prevented him from erupting.
“Juugo?” Hinata tried again, laying a hand on his forearm. “Are you okay?”
The nin-ken was watching them now, the scruff of his fur standing on end. There was a louder insect buzz in the air than there had been a moment before. The two men were watching them. He wanted to duck behind the few trees left to escape their intense stares.
“I’m fine. I’m. I’m in control.”
Dog boy raised his eyebrow and settled his chin on the top of the nin-ken’s head.
“I’m in control.”
Hinata turned from him to the other two. “He’s in control.”
The one in the sunglasses shrugged. He turned his attention back to the insect book in his lap. Dog boy walked off into the forest, dog in tow.
“I’m…angry,” Juugo hesitated over the word, not entirely sure of the emotion he had been feeling over the last two weeks.
Entering his homeland after passing through the well-kept forests of the Land of Fire felt like passing through a veil. On one side of the border, lush treelines ran for as long as the eye could see and beyond. On the other: desolation. Broken down shells of trunks left from overlogging when the daimyo were in power. Past the ghost of the forest were the areas Orochimaru had conducted unrestrained chemical tests in the once virgin soil.
“What are you angry about?”
He lifted his hand and pointed to the empty forests surrounding them. He gestured with his other to the poisoned stream at the edge of their campgrounds. “This. All of this. The land is ruined. And I. I helped. I helped destroy my home.”
“You feel complicit in Orochimaru’s dealings?”
“Yes. Nothing will grow here anymore. The birds won’t return. Nor will the deer. This place has become a void—a scar on the earth.”
She was quiet for a time and sat next to him, her hand still on his forearm. The minute human connection was calming, like she was a sorceress from a fairytale, bewitching him with her soft warmth. No one had ever dared before—not since his mother.
“If you would like, I can see if you ca-can be a refugee in Ko-Konoha?” She twisted the sides of her cargo pants with her other hand.
Her stutter was back, it made him wonder what in her past had frightened her badly enough to shrink herself to nothing—to desire invisibility. Like him.
“I deserve to live in the void I helped create.”
“It’s not a void.”
She slipped her hand in his and stood up, tugging him along with her. He followed behind her, always careful to keep a fair distance between them. The dead grass crinkled beneath their feet as he followed her lead back through the scarred remains of the forest. They walked slowly for an hour, letting the late night air chill against their skin. He was under no illusions, her teammates would be on him in less than a minute if she were to scream. There was something about that knowledge that was comforting. They could keep her safe from the monster that lived inside him. The monster that was strangely quiet in her presence.
Finally they stopped at the edge of a stagnant pond. Green algae coated the scuzzy surface and bubbles formed along the sides of the blobs. Another poisoned body of water.
Hinata released his hand and walked away to the edge of the pond. She knelt down and pointed. “It’s not a void.”
Standing up in the mud next to a trail of footprints belonging to the group was an evergreen sprout. Dark brown stalk, even in the light of the moon. Five waxy green needles stood proudly at the very end.
She gently leaned down and stroked the end of the needle. “It’s alive.”
Juugo followed suit, letting the mud soak through the knee of his tattered and patched pants. The moonlight illuminated the small grove as Hinata gestured to the other side of the pond.
“They’re all alive.”
Hundreds of evergreens sprouted in the shadows of the felled logs and skeletal remains of forest animals. Each waxy green needle caught the light of the moon and transported him to his childhood. He could smell the evergreen forest again. He could hear the workers in the rice paddies sing songs throughout the work day. He could practically feel the bent top grass brush against his fingertips and beneath his arm pits as he ran through the fields. He could taste the fresh mint leaves that grew along the edges of window sills to ward off mice.
The land was broken and bleeding but it was still alive. It was still fighting. They were all still fighting. Someday, the land would return stronger. The birds would come back. The deer would raise their fawns. Someday, they would all heal and the scars the monsters left behind would fade.