From Darkness to Light

Father

There was a stark divide at the dinner table where the brooding and distinguished adults sat on one end while the scarred and traumatized children sat on the other. The 7-year-old Tengen, being the eldest amongst his siblings, was situated at the opposite end of the table and was directly across from his father, the head of the Uzui Clan.

Being the head of the clan meant that his father was always surrounded by talking silhouettes - warriors and shinobi of the Uzui Clan that whispered into his ear the words and rumors on the streets. Intel, strategy, politics - these were the main conversational topics at the dinner table. Naturally, the children were excluded and forced to keep to themselves. Their input had no sway as they were too weak and inexperienced. Instead, they were expected to eat their meals quietly and obey their superiors. However, the aching blisters and burns on their feet made it difficult to enjoy on the stale rice before them. They could barely walk and each slight sensation against their soles triggered a whimper and a light gasp of pain. Naively, they had believed that they had seen all the trials that they would be subjected to throughout their childhood as shinobi, but yesterday's walk along the hot coals was a rude awakening that their family would not banally stick to the same routine every day. Now, there would be more torturous, crueler exercises that laid ahead of them. While none of them wished to acknowledge that bleak truth, they knew that their future was now more gruesome than ever. This manifested itself as an air of misery and sadness that hung over their heads.

But aside from the hellfire they suffered earlier that day, there was one other anomaly that heightened their stress and worry.

Only eight of the nine seats were filled.

Their sibling, the one who had their leg swallowed by the merciless black coals, has been absent from the family meals and training sessions. The children were unaware of where he had gone. Each passing day, Tengen was losing his appetite as his sibling was still nowhere to be found. Surely, the adults would tell them where he was, correct? His leg was mangled by flames, so the best Tengen could hope for was that his sibling was receiving the proper care they should be receiving by the higher ups. His notion made sense in theory, but in his mind it felt grossly naive, as he had never once known his family to care or show compassion for the injured. A sinking feeling insidiously persisted in his gut that made him fear the worst but also remain optimistically hopeful.

Despite the brutality of their fire walk, the Uzui Clan showed no leniency for Tengen or his siblings' damaged feet and instead kept them consistent in their training as usual. Every morning, they would run 10 miles with no resting or water breaks. Once they finished, it was on to push-ups on the dirt, pullups on thorny tree branches, and squats with heavy rocks resting on their shoulders. If anyone was unable to complete their regimen, they would silently be beat with a thick stick until they got back up and continued. Years of doing this had made Tengen tolerant of the pain, callouses, pricks, and bruises across his body and gradually turned him into an obedient machine that performed his tasks without fail. At this point, completing this on a day-to-day basis was second nature and almost familiar. Still, despite being desensitized, he would still feel sympathy for his other siblings that were routinely beaten, out of breath, and fatigued horribly by it all.

Once that was over, it was time for weapons training. Being a family of shinobi, it was important to be immersed in all forms of weaponry to become the most versatile and lethal version of oneself. The children would run back to the Uzui manor and go to the dojo, which was full of shinobi tools for their use. Tengen was proficient in the katana, kusarigama and nunchacku, adeptly swinging them around in lightning displays of accuracy and precision. Against training dummies, he would display his prowess with each weapon and demolish it entirely. Instructors presided over the entire ordeal and gave dry and monotone pointers about how he should be wielding them more effectively. Occasionally, he would mess up a swing and be both slapped and heavily berated for his incompetence, but those moments were now far and few between.