Jigsaw is a collection of Holiday specials, side stories, and one-shots related to the Seasons Wither series (Redesign, Kintsugi, Of Ivory Lies and Blackened Hearts) that compiles scenes that did not make it into the series and events that occurred behind the scenes. There will also be stories that feature the backstories of important characters and they will be broken down into chapter format.

Do consider these AU despite occurring in the same universe as the stories from which they are derived. I generally like to consider a lot of these "what if" scenarios, but a lot of them can fit within the stories (however, I can't add them for craft reasons).

I have also chosen to post them separately from the related stories because it would be too strange to have a sudden break in between events, so I hope you don't mind this.

That said, I hope you enjoy reading them (or this). Also, future specials will be posted as follow-up chapters to their respective entries.

Story: Redesign

Pairing(s): None

Word Count: 2353

Rating: T

Summary: Motou Ayuka seeks an unlikely ally in an attempt to best Kuronuma Shinya.

Author's Comment: This was supposed to be posted in between "On the Battlefield" and "The Slumbering Beasts" to formally set the stage. I edited something out. Mainly, I edited out the reason why Ayuka really wants Mio because to those only reading Redesign, I want you all to find out in Mio's POV, which will be soon. To those reading Winter, we must not speak its name — just kidding, but I said it there!

Originally posted on February 22, 2014.

The Bartering of Uchiha Mio

Motou Ayuka stared into the Fate Sphere's flat surface hours after having unfurled it over the table and watched dozens of lines intertwine in war, many of them perishing like an afterthought.

She desperately sought to avoid the upstart of an Artifact War in a time when monsters like Kuronuma Musashi and Shinya were still alive. She never faced the old Shugosha in her lifetime, but she recognized from the beginning that the wealth of guardians that followed him were not simply doing so out of obligation to the artifacts, they were doing it in acknowledgment of his power. However, Shin, she had been fighting for almost forty years. She had waged war against him after he had killed his brother Nishiki and it had been difficult, more so than anticipated.

She had been the strongest guardian after Nishiki when Shin had sworn to surpass her and burn her alive. She had defeated him several times, but he had never submitted to death. Their relationship had remained strained for decades, despite having been forced to work together in doing Musashi's bidding (which had been attempts to remedy the animosity), and it had culminated to this window in time.

Ayuka was certain he was stronger, much more powerful that the boy she nearly killed decades past, but it was a frightening thing not to know an exact measure to his strength.

Ayuka preferred to wait until his artifact's poison killed him. She predicted he would leave all his artifacts to Mio until she saw it through Madara's pathways that he would split the responsibility between them. She saw more through Madara's path, the lines propagated into many possibilities since the last time she had looked at it and it seemed certain details were bound to repeat themselves wherever he was concerned. However unnerving those were, she was able to determine Mio would be landing in the Sun Country carrying seven artifacts on her eighteenth year. Many of Madara's pathways begun with her arrival, so, Ayuka read and memorized all of their outcomes.

Mio would be imprisoned in the Sun Country without her knowledge upon her arrival. With the Kuronuma clan vulnerable and Musashi without his precious Time Sphere, it would be easy for the Mikazuki-Uchiha alliance under Hiryuu to obliterate them all despite the Senju clan's future involvement.

Ayuka tore her gaze away from the giant scroll and blinked, readjusting to reality. Her predictions were two years early and changes were possible through Mio's pathways, but she planned to set obstacles to avoid it from deviating to the desirable culmination.

For now, her focus remained on prolonging the inevitable war over the artifacts. Once word spread, she wouldn't be the only one vying for them. The strong need to die now, she thought. Mio needs to be weak. The benefit of having an overemotional Shugosha was that they were easy to break, but Shin's presence was tampering with the hard work she had investing in knocking Mio down.

"Ayuka-sama, your guests are here."

Kikumi entered with two men following close behind. She welcomed Mikami Seiko with appraisal and met her second guest with a hint of uncertainty. This man traveled long and far from the Iron Country to sate his own curiosity. He stood a foot taller than she with mousy brown hair and dark eyes, his build was lean but also muscled beneath his dark clothing. Among his clansmen, he had become a force of strength and became an Elder at an early age, but upon the shameful separation of power that the Uchiha clan had experience, he came out lacking. However, his loss had more to do with his personality than his clan's respect towards him. She knew there were members of the Uchiha clan that feared confronting him, a fact that had left Uchiha Hiryuu with few volunteers when he had gone on his first hunt for the man and Mio.

"Would you be interested in something to drink?" Ayuka offered, walking around her table to roll her scroll shut. She tucked it away in a large trunk underneath a heavy quilt. "Tea, water…perhaps, sake."

"Tea is fine," Mikami Seiko announced, inviting himself into a seat.

"I have water," the Uchiha replied. He remained standing as guarded as she was.

Ayuka sent Kikumi away to retrieve tea for herself and Seiko before offering the Uchiha a place across her table. He took it reluctantly, glimpsing around the small cabin she inhabited in the outskirts of the island. She enjoyed its privacy and closeness to the sea.

"What do you prefer to be called?" asked Ayuka.

"Taiga," the Uchiha said curtly.

"Taiga," she repeated, feeling inadequate.

"I imagine it must be difficult for someone your age to say very longwinded names, but two syllables should be fine."

Seiko grunted. "Watch your tongue, brat."

Taiga smiled at the Mikami clan leader. "Who are you?"

The insult cracked Seiko's passive mien. "You dare—"

"There will be no fighting," Ayuka interrupted. "I asked you both here for a single reason and that is moving forward with my plans. Doing so requires the participation and collaboration of both of you."

"I am listening," said Taiga.

Ayuka found herself at a loss for words in the presence of their expectant stares. She thought she had thought things through before arranging the meeting, especially in reaching out to Taiga when he was in Shin's presence. He would be a necessary driving force in moving forward and determining whether or not Mio took the correct pathway.

Kikumi interrupted them shortly to deliver tea before scurrying away.

"You brought me here to speak of Enki," Seiko interjected. "You have made plans for him, but I have seen none being implemented. With his opposition down to a measly group of Senju shinobi, he is more of a tyrant than ever. Why did you choose him to lead? Jikai was a simpler man, decent. This man is trash."

"Because Jikai's interest in the spheres was limited to one," said Ayuka. "Enki is a gluttonous man and easily persuaded. With him, my goal is attainable. It is the only way to weaken the Kuronuma clan enough to steal the artifacts from its weakest matriarch."

"What artifacts?" asked Taiga with a hint of interest.

"The Kuronuma clan is guardian to ten distinct, but powerful items," Ayuka offered in explanation. "The story of their creation traces back to the legend of the Sage of Six Paths and the Ten-Tails until it was lost through generations of the Kuronuma clan attempting to keep them from falling into the wrong hands. The spheres have since passed down from Kuronuma to Kuronuma, but things are destined to change with the ascension of the new Shugosha."

"What is so wonderful about these items?" Taiga looked skeptical. "You have not explained anything and want me to join you over a questionable revelation? If you plan to waste my time, I am leaving."

He started to leave his seat, but her shout forced him back into it. "Each artifact is different!" Ayuka stared at his youthful, serious face. "Reading the different paths into a person's lives, controlling the weather, imbuing a weapon with any chakra nature, becoming a master of the Kuronuma techniques—there is a sphere for whatever you can think of. There is even one that can increase your strength, skill, and aptitude in battle and another that can create worlds like this only better."

Taiga laughed. "That sounds absurd. How could the Kuronuma clan keep such treasures hidden for so long?"

"Does it make no sense at all? The Kuronuma clan are secluded to a mountain within Kurata where it is always winter? People and shinobi alike fearing to venture up their mountain in fear of falling prey of their cannibalistic rituals? What about their refusal to leave their mountain in the last hundred years?"

"What about the Kuronuma, Shin? He has been living in the Iron Country for two decades," he said quickly. "And there were others as well. Kuronuma that came and went with the time. How does that automatically decide that they are sitting on a mountain of rare treasures?"

"Because I was given one of their treasures long ago and I saw the nine others that were born with it." Ayuka removed herself from her seat and pulled out her Fate Sphere, letting it spill before them, unfurling atop the table a blank canvas. "I have been the guardian of this sphere for two generations of Shugosha and it has told me the pathways of many kings and warriors alike and it brought me to you both."

"And what do you see in this old scroll of yours?" Taiga asked, humoring her. He touched the surface with a bit of a chuckle and looked up at her with luminous eyes. "Tell me."

She peered down into the surface watching long, thin green lines rising from the white and running in all directions like a the spreading roots of a tree. She looked for a second, but it was long enough to see that his pathways crossed with Mio's and Madara's and other's in ways she never expected to find elsewhere.

"It tells me your interest in the next Shugosha will be problematic," she said warningly.

"You continuously say the next Shugosha, but you forget there is a candidate before her," Seiko cut in. "What do you think will happen to Kuronuma Eito? Do you plan to have him up and disappear?"

"He is unimportant. He will not live long. I have already met his demise." She smiled. "We are meeting for tea later this month."

"I know no Shugosha," Taiga said, a hint of confusion in his voice.

"She is the Uchiha you took with you," Seiko answered.

"Mio?"

"Yes, Mio, and your connection with her is doomed," Ayuka repeated. "No matter how you approach the subject, she will not be yours to claim." She had seen these pathways before, she was certain of it, but they had formed differently under varying circumstances. "Know that because she is the next Shugosha she will become the crowning piece to every man's life. You will not be the only man that wants her."

"Not the youngest, not the oldest," Seiko added with a snicker. "The fat pig here wants to make her his bride."

She read the silence surrounding Taiga tightening.

"There are two Uchiha brothers," Ayuka continued. "One she marries in half her pathways."

"Izuna." Taiga spoke his name like a curse.

"No."

His eyebrows knitted in consternation. "Madara."

Ayuka inclined her head.

"He despises her! That is impossible!" he snapped.

"I said they marry, I never said he loved her," she answered, although actions were deceptive and Madara was a snake in his own right. "His interest in her will be a selfish one, but he will be determined. Madara will have whatever he desires even if that means taking a woman that will bring him misfortune."

She saw his fisted hand on the table, the knuckles white with the strain, and smiled. "You should know there is a way to make a difference in these outcomes. There are ways to open new pathways…all you have to do is make subtle changes, things that nobody would see as suspicious." She began pulling her scroll back. "Uchiha Mio's future is secured. She will marry Enki, but you may do what you wish afterward."

Taiga stilled, jaw clenched. "No."

"No?"

"No need for you to turn down the offer, that girl will be no use for anything other than keeping the bed warm," Seiko commented. "She will lose her leverage quickly if it is as Ayuka-san predicted."

Ayuka saw the anger in Taiga start to boil. "Perhaps it is time for you to decide whether you want to reap the spoils of this war or not," she said quickly. "I can promise you an artifact once it is over or Mio."

"If there's any of her left." Seiko grunted, still finding humor in the situation. "You bore witness to what Enki did to Miwa. The pig made his own children see. I expect no less from him with the second wife."

Taiga quelled his frustration before her eyes with an odd ease and complimented its absence with a twisted smile. "So, what do you need me to do?"

"Give me your price?"

"Mio. I do not care what needs to change, you take care of it."

"Then you will have it."

"Enki will need to be killed," Taiga added. "Take what you want from Mio, but she remains mine. Nobody is to lay a hand on her."

"That is too difficult a demand," Ayuka objected. "I have made all necessary changes to bring her here to the Sun Country to have her marry Enki."

"Then I will find a way to return into Sachiyo's good graces and come here. I will bring her to you myself," he offered. "Give me a time and I will have it done."

The determination in his tone won her over. She saw no way around it. "When Kurata is overrun by the Mikazuki-Uchiha alliance and the Kuronuma clan seeks the help of the Senju clan, when it is the youngest of the Senju brothers that takes command of the enemy side and the darkness in Mt. Hyōga begins to fade, you will wait for her at port and cross the sea with her. Only when she is in this country before me, will I have Enki killed, but you must take his place."

"It is done."

Taiga left his seat without a second word and walked out of her home briskly. Ayuka order Kikumi to escort him onto the ferry as promised and shut the door. She waited a moment to speak again, but Seiko begun to laugh.

"You were right in saying he would bend to our will as soon as the girl was thought to be in danger," he said through his fit of laughter.

"We need his mind on our side. I could not risk him remaining loyal to Shinya," Ayuka replied with a proud smile.