11 Raging Flames (1/2)

Nothing really interesting happened after I got involved in the ”White-Masks” case—until a certain news reached both of my ears. No signs were given and the people who knew kept quiet about it until I came back home that fateful day. It took a lot of suppression just for me to not to shout what I had in mind.

I'm going to be a big brother.

It was nothing new really, since I had siblings in my past life (though we weren't that close to each other—only my little sister would insist for me to be with her every day). Like my former life, I was the eldest, and normally, all of the responsibilities should've been placed on me—but all of us grew up with a silver spoon in our mouths.

We each had our personal maids, butler—name it. We were raised in a rich family, well, my siblings were. Before my younger brother and sister came to the living, my family was living on the tails of our famous family name.

To put it into words, we were at rock bottom—we were just hanging by threads, trying to survive as the successor of the main family, the elder brother of my father, trampled on the image of our family, putting my father into blame for every dirt he made.

Of course, since I still lack the mind to understand anything at that time, and I seemed to have erased the memory from its insignificance, this story was told to me by my mother when we got everything when the successor died by unknown means. With that, my bastard father had taken the top of the main family, building up the company to its succession.

It's a good thing, I know… but I felt like we didn't deserve that life.

Enough dwelling on the past—I need to look forward on this new life. Many things are going to my accord, which is actually a bad thing since everything will come back in the worst case possible, from my experience, at least. Good luck would usually come to an end, and bad luck will rise.

The luck one worked hard to build will soon come crashing down like it's nothing.

It's like snakes if you look at a different angle. The reptile might look enthralling at times, but snakes are still snakes—they will still bite no matter how tame they are. Luck applies to one like that—it may look like everything's siding with you but, like I said earlier, it will all bite you.

Not that the logic happened in this life yet, I think.

I sighed as I bit into the red bean onigiri kaa-san prepared for me for my lunch. The savoury sweet treat made all of my pessimistic thoughts vanish.

”I was about to ask why you have a long face, but that's gone now, eh?” Kakashi sat down next to me, grabbing two onigiri from my bento box, tossing one to Karasu-niisan. ”Kaiya-neechan sure do know how to make one smile with her treats.” He smiled.

”Mhm.” I nodded as I took away my gaze from him back to my lunch.

This uncle of mine doesn't like sweets, fried food, or anything of the like, but he loves whatever kaa-san makes. Sweet cakes, to simple but savoury dishes—name it, and Kakashi will probably there in an instant to eat it. That's how he is.

I looked back at him as he was pulling his mask up to cover his face. 'Fast as ever…' I stared boredly at him before letting out a somewhat silent laugh.

He raised a brow at me, probably thinking I've gone mad or something.

I simply shook my head and took a bite off of my sweet lunch. ”What… do you think the baby will be?” I asked with my small voice.

”A niece would be nice.” He looked up to see the blue skies, ”But whatever fate chooses, I'd love them as much as I love you, my cute little nephew.”

Too cheesy—I can't take it.

After a moment of disgust, I looked up at the sky with him. ”A sister… would be nice…” I mumbled to myself.

It may not look like it, from all of my denying with my little sister from my past when I was still alive then, but I do miss all of her mischiefs and sweetness. She may be also the one who motivated me to use my talents long before someone special came. She was my little sister, after all.

Vinna was my light.

”Hm?” I heard my uncle hum. I am well aware that he heard what I mumbled earlier thanks to his amplified senses, but I do not know why he chose to have a blind eye over it.

I shook my head, packing up my bento box neatly before placing it inside of a storage seal. I put it away inside of my pouch before standing up, stretching my back after they got sore from training earlier this day.

”We finished pretty early, Ori-kun.” Kakashi told me, standing up as well. ”Why don't we take a walk?” He smiled, walking past me to take the lead. Without even looking he waved his hand, ”Let's go, Ori-kun. You too, Karasu.”

I wanted to ask where we're going, but I'm not that bothered, really. We rarely go anywhere where it doesn't involve training so, this is actually pretty nice—minus the looks we're getting from the civilians because, again, who wouldn't do a double take when there's a bird-masked man walking near a child?

Call it a stroll or whatever so, it's supposed to be peaceful. It was, until a blur ran to us—with its familiar feature in sight.

”Haha! Taking a youthful walk, I see!” Guy patted (smacked) my uncle's shoulder. Stepping back slowly to not get noticed, I froze when he called me out, ”Ah! Your youthful nephew is here too!” He approached me and held my hands before he started to shake them, ”Oh, I'm so happy you're greeting me!”

”I haven't even…” I trailed off, seeing that it was no use.

With that, we got Guy with us in our supposedly peaceful stroll. It wasn't as tiring before but now, just seeing him with the sun radiating off of him is exhausting.

I walked by Karasu-niisan's side, just behind the two rivals.

This is my safest spot to not get caught with their conversation and to not melt with all of this energy. I'm not really anti-social, but when energetic people are around, I get drained really easily, so I tend to avoid them even if they're nice. Actually, introvert might be better to describe myself because I'm generally fine with a small group of people surrounding me.

Wait…

It could be because of my Nara blood… but then again, I'm like this since my past life so…

I snapped out of my thoughts when I bumped into my uncle's back. Rubbing my nose, I took a step back and was about to say something when a certain item caught my eye.

”Oops—gomen, Kakashi-kun…” The jounin bobbed his head, struggling to lift the heavy item with the help of four more ninja's—chuunin's or the like. ”The owner doesn't want us to place it in a storage seal…” He semi-whispered. ”Although, I think he's going to get rid of this sooner or later so, we don't really know why he's still taking care of this.” He awkwardly laughed, moving along and out of our way.

”It looks sad…” I mumbled, realising that I had already took a step in front to see them carry away the dusty grand piano.

”The piano does?” Kakashi took a glance at me.

It's actually been a while since I've seen an instrument I'm familiar with. I've seen a few traditional Japanese instruments and some are even scattered in the house somewhere, but I've never seen a piano here until now. I just thought that there would be none, but I assumed wrong.

Those words just kind of slipped out of my mouth. I guess that… my love for music is still inside of me, somewhere.

”It seems like whoever the owner is, they're trying to get rid of it…” Kakashi gave me his eye smile, ”… do you want to see it?”

I know he's been nice and all, but to see a piano just came out of nowhere... I sighed, looking at my fingers as they began to itch before looking back at him with an uncertain smile. To be honest, I'd love to… but why does he want me to see the poor instrument?

”Then, let's go follow them.” My sometimes sadistic uncle said in a warm tone, taking my left hand as we walked side by side.

Sometimes, I don't understand what's in his mind… but I still followed him nonetheless. Maybe it was out of curiosity, or maybe it was because of my love for music—so, I really wanted to know what fate will befall on the much-cared piano the four jounin's were carrying.

We arrived in an open area full of greens and flowers. The jounin and his team had placed the piano in a flat and raised clearing, looking as though they were taking the masterpiece on its final resting place. We stood at a distance around the dusty piano, pondering on what would happen after they placed it down.

I looked up at Kakashi, who's still holding my hand like the uncle he is, and gave him a small smile. I might be too embarrassed to say this out loud, but this scene sure is a beauty.

”It's sad, isn't it?” A hoarse and shaky yet warm voice came out of nowhere, making all of us glance at the owner of the tone. ”Letting go of a much-loved treasure is tough.”

The man who stepped in front with those words looked to be around his sixty's—with his cane, wrinkles that are scattered throughout his body, and his greying shaggy hair. His square glasses defined his saddened brown eyes that stared at the old piano. He looks like he could be someone who could play the instrument, but why would he give it up now?

He looked back at us and bowed his head, ”My apologies for not introducing myself—my name is Klavier Rukas.” He then gave us a thankful smile, ”I'm a bit touched that a few had decided to see this day. I never expected to see anyone except for those four kind-hearted shinobu's who accepted my request.”

”It's our pleasure, Klavier-san.” Kakashi bowed, and of course, we did too (by ”we”, I mean myself, Guy and Karasu as well as the jounin group).