Inbox: Ximilia

[singlelogbridge]

// Wei Wuxian

TEXT • AUDIO • VIDEO

XIMILIA

Comments

[blackfire]

It is as straightforward as I required.

Thank you.

[singlelogbridge]

can I ask why you wanted to know?

[blackfire]

He asked for my assistance in creating a weapon he can utilize on our missions.

1/2

[singlelogbridge]

he asked for a WEAPON?

[singlelogbridge]

that's not distrust it's disbelief. Is there a nice way to say he used to hide behind me during fights?

[blackfire]

He was not shy about discussing his shortcomings.

（ honestly, it's the second time itachi has been left with a faint impression of thou doth protesteth too much. ）

However, one's priorities can shift. Ximilia has a way of bringing about change.

[singlelogbridge]

Yeah, you're definitely not wrong. [And he suspects this might even stem from one of the many ways in which Nie Mingjue's death changed Huaisang, but anyway—]

So. What's うちは? I can't read it.

[blackfire]

宇知波.

My clan name.

[singlelogbridge]

[He'd recognized the first characters from the poem on Gwen's wall, but it isn't until the text translates them that he understands it was his name. A name that he studies carefully now, huffing a little bit under his breath to see the 知 there. Well, he had recently told Itachi that he found him to be wise, hadn't he? It's a good name. Fitting, he thinks.

But more than that, he recognizes some measure of what it means for him to openly claim the name. (He understands only a fraction of the weight, though he doesn't know that now.)]

I never asked. Why 朱? When we met I assumed it must have been part of a moniker or title, but that was before I knew most people don't use titles the way my language does.

[blackfire]

The criminal organization I was allied with. ( was. it alarms him how easily it slips. ) Akatsuki.

（ daybreak. ）

You have seen my ring. Each member wears one, these rings represent one's position within the group, corresponding to one's role within a forbidden ritual we were gathered to perform. Fire. Summer. South. Vermillion.

Another character would not have suited me.

[singlelogbridge]

[He'd seen it. 朱 was a heavy designation, with plenty of connotations to it. He suspects that when Itachi claims nothing else would have fit him, he is speaking to different meanings of the character than Wei Wuxian might. He thinks of the elegance and the nobility of the zhuque, and of its place as protector and finds himself agreeing. It is fitting.]

One of the four guardians, hmm? You seem just as suited to 宇知波.

[He doesn't know exactly what happened between Itachi and his family, but he knows that he has a brother and a village who he left behind. Wei Wuxian thinks of his own defection, and while he's sure Itachi's situation is different, Itachi reclaiming his surname and putting away the name that tied him to his betrayal carries a weight that makes Wei Wuxian's heart ache.

Despite the missing pieces of the story, Wei Wuxian feels quite suddenly fiercely proud of his friend.]

[blackfire]

うちは, technically.

（ he's hilarious. ）

How is the name pronounced for you? It is 'U•chi•ha', similar to and representative of 団扇. The clan's symbol is the rigid paper fan, symbolizing our blood kinship to fire.

[singlelogbridge]

[Wow.

And it's definitely not pronounced like that for him.]

'Yu•zhi•bo'. It's something like...hmm. The place that knows the waves. Water and fire both. A good balance! [Yin and yang energies too.]

Does your clan also have water affiliations?

[blackfire]

Not as such.

When chakra was first distributed amongst humans, it is said that those residing in areas with stronger attenuations to certain nature types tended to develop that styling of element. Hi no Kuni is a land of volcanic activity, its soil rich and lush. Thus, those born within its natural demarcation lines tended to favour either earth or fire jutsu.

However, my clan is strongly associated with Yin techniques as well.

[singlelogbridge]

[Hold on.]

When it was distributed? By the gods?

[blackfire]

A thousand years ago, a goddess named Kaguya fell in love with a mortal. She would go on to have two sons, the first in our world with human blood to have chakra. However, the world was war-torn, as humans sought each other's destruction with generations of endless war. One of her sons, who adopted the moniker 'the Sage of Six Paths', thought that perhaps humans might be able to understand each other's sorrows, pains and fears if they had access to Ninshū, which is the original and purest form of Ninjutsu. It is a method of using chakra to connect with one another, to use that connection to know without words what one is thinking and feeling. He gave chakra to each living thing to that end, and spent his time as a wandering priest nurturing those pacifist ideals.

（ but, as you know, humans. ）

Unfortunately, one of his own sons learned to weaponize chakra, and that knowledge overtook the Sage's peaceful intentions. From this, shinobi clans developed. Alliances, partitions. With chakra, war happened on a broadened scale, with more death and destruction than he ever could have foretold.

That son was my direct ancestor, Indra, the first progenitor of the Uchiha clan.

[singlelogbridge]

You know it should probably surprise me to hear that you're descended from a god, but somehow it doesn't.

[Anyway] So the introduction of chakra was meant to bring peace and harmony to humankind, and instead humans twisted it into a weapon. Unsurprising but still tragic.

Your Ninshu sounds like the empathy I perform on the dead, though I suspect it's far more potent. Connecting with the dead is easy in comparison to connecting with the living.

[blackfire]

I cannot say. The knowledge has been long lost.

[singlelogbridge]

[He nods even though Itachi can't see him. It's been a thousand years. Who knows which parts of the story remain true and which have become only legend, let alone what has been lost along the way.]

Sorry for all of the questions, I couldn't help myself. The stories about how humans came to use spiritual energy are many and varied in my world. I'm not sure what's myth and what isn't.

Aiya, I've gotten so far from what I wanted to say at the start though. I like your new username, Itachi.

[blackfire]

Discerning fact from fiction is often just as much a matter of opinion as it is truth.

（ the statement about liking the username goes... unremarked upon. ）

[singlelogbridge]

[It's what he expected, and it's enough that Itachi doesn't hang up on him for it. Not that he expected him to after all this time, but still.]

Hmm, you mean I'm not an evil mastermind who curses crops and eats babies, and spends all of my nights seducing innocent maidens? The legends lied???

[blackfire]

（ all of the awful tales told to frighten children into obedience about the exploits of uchiha itachi, as it happens, are entirely true. exaggerated, perhaps — but true at their core. what horror can be improved upon, when it comes to a man that murdered his own kin? ）

Hm.

Well, I have never seen you interact with an innocent maiden.

Perhaps there is something to these tales after all.

（ gallows humour for two. ）

[singlelogbridge]

[He gasps in delight.]

I am telling Gwen.

And who has time for seducing anyway? I spent all of my days being nagged at by Wen Qing and being her personal pin cushion! But we've already covered that part.

[blackfire]

Gwen would agree with me.

（ would she?

idk, probably. ）

Perhaps, then, I should have focused on the startling lack of crops aboard the Ximilia.

（ them curses at work ig. ）

[singlelogbridge]

Ahaha, you think you're very clever don't you. And what about the babies?