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Chapter 6 — The Baptism of Ash
The war drums began with whispers, not thunder.
First, the winds shifted, carrying unfamiliar scents — blood, smoke, the sweat of dying men.
Then came the couriers, swift as vultures, bearing secret orders bound in skin-tight scrolls.
And finally, the silence — a terrible, suffocating silence — as entire units vanished into the dunes, swallowed whole without so much as a scream.
The Sand had begun its moves.
---
Far beyond the boundaries of Sunagakure, in the crumbling badlands where cracked stones clawed at the skies like broken fingers, Raghoul walked alone.
Fifteen years old, 5'11 tall, skin the deep brown of the desert stone, his long, dreaded hair whipping behind him like a lion's mane.
His eyes — feline and merciless — shimmered with a frozen grey that seemed to leech the warmth from the world.
He wore simple desert robes, faded by sun and dust, but beneath the loose cloth, power coiled in every tendon and muscle.
At his back, strapped by worn leather, was his weapon — a slim, obsidian-forged sword, nameless, patient.
He had left the monastery behind only days ago, setting foot into the broken world he had only heard about from the senile, whispering Abbot.
"The world is not kind, Raghoul," the old man had wheezed on his deathbed. "It does not reward innocence. It grinds it into dust. Trust only the blade and the fire in your soul."
Raghoul had believed himself ready.
He thought he had accepted the cost.
He was wrong.
---
It happened on a night when the stars were strangled by clouds.
Raghoul was camped by a withered tree, its bark peeling away like dead skin, the small flame he summoned with his blood-red fire barely keeping the cold at bay.
That fire — his birthright — was wrong somehow.
Not the orange warmth of the monks' ceremonial flames, but deep crimson, cold to the soul yet scorching to the skin, dancing in shapes like the writhing limbs of tortured spirits.
As he meditated, sharpening his senses, he felt it — a ripple, a disturbance.
Three small figures, moving clumsily, poorly cloaked in chakra, trying to mask their presence.
Intruders.
Spies.
Enemies.
He rose silently, stepping into the shadows.
---
The first he saw was barely more than a child — messy black hair, a forehead protector tied awkwardly around a too-thin arm.
The second — a tiny girl, trembling as she adjusted the oversized kunai strapped to her leg.
The third — smaller than the others, a boy with big, frightened eyes and hands that wouldn't stop shaking.
They wore simple civilian clothes, stained and torn, obviously an attempt to pass as wandering orphans.
But they had not completed their transformation.
Their chakra signatures were still jagged, raw.
They were academy students, barely Genin — rushed through graduation in a desperate effort to bolster the Hidden Leaf's forces.
Raghoul narrowed his eyes.
These were not seasoned warriors.
These were children.
Yet even now, they whispered among themselves, glancing nervously his way.
One of them — the oldest boy — bit his lip so hard he drew blood.
He fumbled with a kunai, and in a moment of terrified desperation, threw it at Raghoul.
A sloppy, wobbly arc — no real danger — but it sealed their fate.
In that instant, the world blurred.
Training took over.
Fire surged in his veins.
His instincts screamed:
Enemy. Kill.
He moved.
---
It was a slaughter.
Raghoul ducked the thrown kunai easily and in one smooth, almost lazy movement, closed the distance.
The blood-red flames twisted around his fingers, forming cruel tendrils that lashed out.
The girl screamed as the fire seared her face, her flesh blistering instantly.
The smaller boy tried to run, but Raghoul's blade found his spine before he took three steps.
The last boy — the one who threw the kunai — charged him in a broken, reckless dash, tears streaming from his eyes.
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" he sobbed, thrusting his weapon wildly.
Raghoul caught his wrist, crushed it in his grip, and drove his elbow into the boy's throat, shattering it with a wet crack.
The boy collapsed, gasping like a fish out of water, blood bubbling from his mouth.
In seconds, it was over.
They lay in the dirt, twitching, bleeding.
Dead.
---
Raghoul stood there, breathing hard.
At first, he felt nothing.
Victory.
Survival.
They had attacked him. He had defended himself.
Simple.
But then he saw it.
The girl — the one who screamed — her tiny hand had clutched at a broken locket around her neck.
Inside, a crudely drawn picture — her, her parents, a house with a crooked roof and a dog drawn badly in the yard.
Dreams.
A home.
Gone.
The boy with the shattered throat had a crumpled paper stuffed into his pouch — a letter he had written to his mother but had been too scared to send.
"Mama, I will make you proud. I will become strong and bring honor to our family."
The smallest one — the one who ran — he had tucked away a candy wrapper inside his boot.
The sweet was half-eaten, probably meant for later — a small, simple joy ripped away forever.
Raghoul staggered back.
The bile rose in his throat.
He dropped to his knees and vomited.
Again.
And again.
Retching until nothing but bitter acid burned his throat raw.
The children's blood pooled on the ground, dark and glistening, and their open eyes stared at him — not with hatred, not with blame — but with confusion, as if they couldn't understand why this had happened.
Raghoul's fingers dug into the dirt, trembling.
The world spun.
He remembered the Abbot's words:
"The innocent die the loudest, Raghoul. Their screams echo forever in the heart."
He thought he was ready.
He thought killing would be easy — just a matter of willpower.
But no one had told him it would feel like tearing a part of himself apart.
---
He sat there for what felt like hours, surrounded by the corpses of the children he had slain.
At some point, he forced himself to close their eyes.
It was the least he could do.
A mercy he hadn't shown them while they were alive.
---
Far away, the war grew hotter.
Nations bled.
The Hidden Leaf and the Hidden Sand clashed in minor skirmishes, each pretending they sought peace while sharpening their daggers for the killing blow.
The Land of Earth massed forces along the border.
The Land of Lightning stirred, its armies growing restless.
The Land of Water, ever secretive, prepared its own bloody games in the mist.
The five great nations, drunk on old grudges and new ambitions, marched toward oblivion.
And children — thousands of children like the ones Raghoul killed — would be fed into the grinder.
All for pride.
All for the illusion of safety.
---
That night, by the pale light of his cold, red fire, Raghoul sat with the dead boys' letter in his hand.
He read it aloud, his voice hoarse.
"Mama, I will make you proud. I will..."
His voice broke.
He burned the letter, watching the flames devour the hopes of a boy who would never grow up.
The fire crackled, spitting sparks into the dark.
Raghoul rose.
The path before him was clear now.
He would not flinch again.
The world was savage.
The world was cruel.
He would become worse.
Not because he wanted to.
But because anything less would mean death.
The naive Raghoul who hesitated had died with those children.
What rose in his place was something colder, harder.
A weapon forged in fire and blood.
The war drums thundered across the land, echoing into the bones of the earth.
And Raghoul marched toward them — a boy no longer.