Important Terms:
Bushiva- A female "saint" in Buddhism that has reached the utmost step of enlightenment.
Guji-Title of a high priest or monk in a Shinto temple
Mikoshi-A portable shinto shrine meant to be temporary. Usually used in parades, it can be packed quickly and used by the nobility when traveling.
Yomi- The Japanese Underworld
Chapter 2: Piety
Sakura~
I opened my eyes quickly at the sound of the morning gong an hour before dawn. No matter who you were, or what your role was, all of the holy staff were kept on a strict schedule. I numbly rose from my bedding, a thin mat and blanket, and quickly dressed into my priestesses robes. I was always the first one to rise, but my recent turn to insomnia over the last few weeks had caused my body to function mostly on autopilot.
I combed my hair, five strokes per side as ususal, put away my bedding, cleansed my face, put my long pink hair into a painful bun, and went on my way with a precise step into the female dormitories and closed my door calmly. All the while, the gong sounding was becoming more insistent, as my fellow "sisters" finally lazily rose from their slumber and were rushing about like chickens with their heads cut off trying to get ready. I looked at the controlled chaos that came alive around me, sleepy yawns, girlish exclamations about hair or skin, rumpled clothes. It would seem it was only I who had been troubled as of late. I blinked sardonically at the girls, and went on my way to the morning meeting and prayer with the head clergy and assignments for the day.
However, my observation, ironically enough, did not surprise me as much as it should have.
The great head monk and priest of the shrine stood with his wooden staff, his wizened eyes looked at us over his great long, white beard. We stood in our designated spots in five long, strict lines in the central courtyard of the temple's inner sanctum. We were primarily a Shinto temple with Buddhist ties, bu also a nunnery and critical trading spot. It was run by a famed old captain from the Imperial army. Lord Yamamoto-Guji was a stern but just leader and priest, both devote and disciplined from his time in the imperial army. He had always been kind to me, when my relatives had come to give me freely into the temple and forever be its property. He had always been a good leader, and one of the men I could stand to be around. From past experiences I loathed the male gender with a passion, and had sworn them off even before I started my moon cycle.
A woman with lush dark hair tied in a braid with eyes of serene lake blue stood by him, his second in command and a famed oracle. Abbot Retsu could have been a high priestess in the shrines of many high gods, an oracle to the emperor himself even, but the local village near here had been her birth place, and she had wanted to stay close to her roots. The Abbess had been in a good marriage until her husband died in a bandit raid. It was said as she wept, her very soul cried to the gods, and having compassion for her plight, bestowed upon her heavenly powers to hear them.
Whatever their origins, her powers were a sacred and divine gift, ones to be cherished and honored. They were rare and unique, but the Abbess had been searching for an apprentice to teach her arts and pass on her title too. That had been a year ago, on my seventeenth birthday. I had always been sensitive to spirits and the earth, I had odd dreams and saw glimpses of things I could never make sense of. Gentle whispers before I fell asleep at night as the moon rose in the sky, sighs at first dawn, harsh cries in the stormy wind.
Ever since I had been sworn to the service of the temple, now being the temple's "property", the holy ground provided a buffer for the many images that often harassed my mind, and its aura put my heart mostly to rest. The Abbot interviewed and observed all the miko, but found only me to be the one to have potential. I began my classes the next day. She had taken me readily under her wing, and had made a maternal imprint on me, allowing my usually stoic demeanor to offer a smile every once in a while.
While I tried to hide from her favors, it was always clear who she favored among us. And though I was grateful for the attentions like a starved beggar at the first act of kindness, it did me little good socially with my fellow miko. Though I have been training for a year, I am not yet ready to become a full oracle. But it was enough for the others to further shun me. I had no family which meant no money, connections, or hope of a successful suitor. With my odd coloring, I was considered an outcast and at times called "demon" because of my green eyes.
As a child growing up in the temple, life had been hard but in order. There was a kind of peace in these mountains, a harmony written in the sky. Though I was tortured and isolated, except for a few people, I was in love with the land, with my faith and with my duty. The others could snub me all they liked, and though it is always painful, in my heart I know one day I may find a true place I can be accepted and be truly at home. I stood a little straighter as Lord Yamato-Guji began his normal morning speech.
"The rain has been lately lacking, the skies no longer rumble with the joy of the dragon's battle, their divine tails and talons no longer cracking and shin got bring us rain. Heaven's tears have not fallen as they should have this year. I wish to offer an offering to the gods . I can sense change is upon us, so stay true to your faith and go about your usually routines. The gods will be sure to see our faithfulness and finally grant us water again. That is why is very important for all of you to stay to you duties, and do not dwaddle! I have faith in all of you, and it is my sincerest wish that you continue today in good health and spirit. Do not disappoint me."
Had it been just me, or had the head priest been looking at me when he said "good health and spirit"? I closed my eyes and sighed. My fellows didn't need any more ammunition to shoot down my character. As we dispersed I prayed to the Light of Heaven, the great Amaterasu, to give me strength to make it through the next few days.
"Sakura, time for your lesson! Then you can go on your other duties." Came the Abbess's calm voice, like a soft lute.
"Yes, your Divine Ladyship." I bowed accordingly and spoke softly. She smiled quietly before heading toward her own rooms. I made to follow her, but kept a respectful distance for appearances. I looked at the unfeeling or spiteful eyes of all the girls, who stared at me in disgust or indifference as if I was a rotten snake in front of the bath chamber entrance. None would have me as their companion, though there were a few I was slightly more friendly with. I stared solidly in front of me, my back having twinges of pain.
I was truly alone here.
I sat scrubbing on my knees at the base of the stone temple stairs, with a toughened horse hair brush and pine scented cleaning water from the well. I sighed as my lower back cracked in discomfort, and I stretched momentarily to try and relieve my now growing back pains. Either the labor was becoming harder, or my body was growing more tired by the day. It seemed every night for the last two weeks my dreams had been haunted by strange images, and I had resorted to going without sleep for almost three days to try and escape their traitorous hold. The Abbess had heard of my plight had tried to give me the day to sleep and the nightly chores to try and help me gain some of my health back. I had gone to see the local doctor, but there was little he could do for me.
After a awhile even in resting in the day light had not shaken my haunting visions, so I had resorted to living without all my rest, and though it caused me great distress, I kept it from public knowledge. I went back to my old routine, saying the dreams had stopped, that I was well again. Thought she looked suspicious the kind Abbess let me back into my old schedule, and I had been trying to survive without all my sleep. Besides I could catch a few hours of sleep at night, no matter how little, because it seemed the sunlight had only urged the damned dreams on in both in their vividness and their pursuit of me.
I had given up trying the free myself from this new habit that had risen from out of the blue and to get on with my life. Though the other miko shunned or picked on me, I would rather live without sleep than be like them in anyway. I would not show weakness, would not take one faltering step if it lead to any conflicts or further taunts. So I rose everyday at the normal scheduled time, dressed as I always had, and gone about my duties without even a hinting of something wrong. Though I suffered in silence, I would rather have my condition kept quiet than publicly be humiliated or talked about more behind my back.
So I gritted my teeth and dealt with the sad reality fate had dealt me. After all I was surely used to it by now. As I brooded over my life, I heard the clambering of many horses, their hooves echoing as if they were an approaching army. I looked up just as three men, on handsome stallions, rode crudely up the stairs I had just worked so hard to clean. I gaped at their audacity, but glimpsed their fine garb, stoic bearings, and swords on their sides. I almost sighed in exasperation.
Ah, nobles. What were you to do with them?
Yet my curiosity soon out weighed my irritation, for the two men that had flanked their leader had been carrying the imperials flags of the royal dynasty symbol, the metal fan. I grumbled at another pain in my back, and went back to my scrubbing. Yet I couldn't help but wonder. What did the Imperial family want with the Willow-Princess temple, and why exactly had they come in such great haste?
{Itachi}
I bowed before my personal portable mikoshi of the Sun Goddess, my personal deity whom I honored above all others. The heady incense and thick air of the early morning swept through my tent flap with a slap of silk and glamour. My advisors had set everything up accordingly and all I had left to do was pray for safe trip and peaceful health. We had set out some two weeks ago for the many shrines and temples I need to pay homage at. Only here in my tent did I truly worship the divine. We were scheduled to reach the next Shinto shrine, the Willow-Princess temple, any day now, and it filled me with great anticipation and anxiousness the likes I hadn't seen outside battle. I tried not to dwell on the feeling, but it consumed me so, and the pain in my chest grew and my eyesight was still failing me.
Yet while I prayed to the one woman I would go on my knees for, I felt a soft almost sad sigh of a heavenly voice, the great shining smile of the sun so softly on me then, as if the cold tip of fate lay behind my neck. I sensed great amusement or mischief come from the essence yet I could not place the feeling. As I looked up to survey my surrounding to find a threat or cause of my discomfort, I almost jumped back in surprise.
Had the statue of the Lady of Heavenly Light, Amaterasu-kami, just wink at me?!
I got up briskly, bowed deeply and stepped out of my temporary accommodations as composed and cool as possible. I noted to myself as I mounted my stallion to never burn as much incense ever again. It did strange things to the mind.
Sakura~
I scrubbed the polish into the great Buddha statue, silence my own companion. It was almost time for me to retire, though I thought of my room as a mere torture chamber now a days without any sleep. Taking haven in the temple I set about polishing the Buddha and deities, but felt nothing as I worked to try and clear my troubled head. I felt my heart ache, and wished it could be my day off finally. Two days from now was when it would be, but it could not come fast enough. I almost turned from the statues, my task done, yet I hung back, thinking.
Finally I lit my own incense as an offering, and bowed till my head was to the ground. I knocked my forehead on the floor before the sacred alters, praying.
With all my heart I asked for a simple thing.
Let me find peace.
I went quietly to bed then, though I knew the fate that awaited me as I got into my futon and pulled my one blanket over my head.
"Things are coming along nicely I see. They'll meet soon wont they?" It was as if a burst echoed from within my head, a sharp pain and then foggy waves of wooziness.
I knew than I had entered the same realm that had plagued me so horribly the past nights. It felt as if I was underwater, all movements restricted, the feeling of listlessly floating, how I could sharply hear, but not speak, not feel. The voices were speaking again, yet tonight I heard them clearer than ever before, and then the sense of otherworldliness, and the foreboding that came with it were starting to settle like icy chips in my gut.
I only experienced this type of sensation and different consciousness when I went into my oracle guided trance. I could not yet make the journey completely without Abbot Retsu's guidance, but I was often close enough to catch certain words and voices. But now it would seem my body by simply going to sleep had put me in a trance of some kind, one similar to when I practiced my oracle powers.
"Yes, they will meet epically, I'll make sure of that. He set out this morning, and I can't wait till he gets here. The man is finally having a sense of things to come. It took him long enough."
"Do they suspect anything?"
"The girl does most definitely, but the man is walking himself in circles, though he has an inkling"
"Poor Chi-chan, so blind and helpless. I forget he's human sometimes." The first voice sighed.
"Yes, the boy can be down right stubborn and does know how to know when enough is enough. But still he's a good boy, he accomplishes his duties well, and he worships daily. He is one of my chosen for a reason you know."
"You're just saying that because you think he's handsome and have the natural need to gawk at that fine piece of ass." TheY chortled softly, and I blushed. Who were these woman?!
"Well I can't deny that I enjoy looking on such a man, and what a man he is. But if everything goes to plan, I wont gaze upon him the same way once he seals his vows with the other."
"So noble, my friend." There was no hiding the abrupt sarcasm in her voice.
"Well yes that too, but I mean have you looked at the girl? Can you not see how fragile, yet strong her heart is. Like a glass lily she blooms, yet she dares pick up a sword at the first battle. It's an much as amusing and a bit frightening how human hearts can turn out and the way their attitudes towards life are. She loves the earth, not mankind. She worships the jewels of rain that fall from the heavens, not the glimmering bobbles that the local laddies wear."
" Have you not seen her, so enlightened and attune, yet so unhappy and her souls cries in despair and for compassion. I followed the sorrowful thread many a year ago, and I've kept a close eye on this maiden. She has potential, and I have a soft spot for her. I've never seen one so pure, so sad, so alone in such a holy place yet so dedicated. How could I not favor such a future bushiva." The first woman's voice was calm and attentive to the words she spoke, and I could almost taste the sincerity in them. However her companion sniffed.
"Oh would you stop with your favor for the girl already! I've heard nothing but her in almost every conversation since last year. I mean yes she upholds her duty, but still. You act as if she were some new goddess or something! I don't know if this plan of yours is going to work." The second voice huffed, while the first voice sighed in passive aggravation.
"Come now, she is a good girl, and has the beauty in both her enlightenment and soul to bewitch him. He will fall for her and she for him, wholly and truly, all passion and strength. They will complete each other." The gentle voice spoke serenely, and with a sudden fondness that warmed yet shocked me. Who and what was it these great voices spoke of? And why was I hearing them?
"What you really mean is, you can't wait for her body and spirit to drive him wild with unquestionable lust and obsession while she denies him at every turn. All the while he will come to love her so much he can't live without her, and he will finally pull that stick out from his ass, topple off his high horse; and worship the ground she walks on and answers her every whim!"
This voice was more teasing, less elegant, but still charming, with a sort of wildness to it, though still definitely feminine. The more mature woman's voice laughed quite beautifully, like the koto on the mountain's breeze and delicate as the faint sunlight filtering through the windows at dawn. I savored their laughter, though their conversation was too confusing for me to follow.
"Something like that, yes. It's about time that boy had some humility knocked into him. He's a good man, but his position has gotten to his arrogant head, no matter how cool he seems. His heart aches with loneliness, it even causes him physical pain now. And this poor little one has had such a hard life already, and she's so good and devote. I couldn't leave two hearts that need love so much to go without each other."
"Even though that boy will have to suffer for the way he has been treating those women he beds. They're not cattle, not matter what their character or breeding they come from. He needs to realize he needs to treat women with some respect or at least decently. Plus it's about time to let him ache with need, and sexual frustration for once." They both snickered. I couldn't help but smile as well. Their mischief was contagious.
"For one who supposedly the most merciful, you seem to be unusually cruel to your chosen, my friend. Putting the most luscious bait in front of the starved tiger, and letting it hang in front of him as he is ravaged with hunger."
"That I can truly agree to. The woman is so cute! Have you seen her closely? I watch her every morning as she rises, with her head to the sky and her determined jewel eyes! She will carry children well, and pass though the years lithe and young looking, I swear! Such delicate skin, and fine legs! So petite and beautiful! Her hair so unique, here eyes catching and her smile bewitching! She's been hurt, but she is still so open and strong. She'll do nicely don't you think?"
"You're right. That innocent face of hers, with her doe eyes and full lips. Those round hips and slim waist. They speak of great fertility and health. And that fiery, wild side that comes from her temper, she'll be a passionate lover for sure! Enough I may wager to keep up with him in battle and more importantly in bed!" The comment made me blush for some reason, quite hotly may I add, as another whoop of laughter came from both woman.
"But let us stop for now, no matter how entertaining this may be. The poor girl has been tormented for the last fortnight by us. The little thing is a bit more sensitive to us than most, but than again why wouldn't she be under the teachings to become an oracle."
"Oh well, if we must. I keep forgetting how fragile mortals can be, no matter how bold their manners may appear."
With a sigh the more pleasant voice spoke into my ear, whispering of peace and starry nights and lullabies.
"Good night, sweet child, the sun will rise for you, I promise...."
I woke gasping to the gong, the hurried feet of my fellows as they bathed and dressed for our ususal duties. I shook in shock, goose pimples rising, the hair on the back of my neck rising as almost magical spirts traveled down my spine. What had I just experienced, so vividly and so consciously. The pounding of running feet past my door woke me from my stupor, reminding me of my duties.
I looked to the window, and gave a cry. It was way past my ususal rising time. I descended on my things like ravaged beast on a kill, tearing threw my clothes and trying to look decent as quickly as possible. I splashed cold water on my face, and put all thoughts of disembodied voices, dreams and foreboding feelings to the back of mind as with a shake of my hair and a knot of my sash and I was running down the hallways as if the fires of Yomi were at my heels. I would surely be severely scolded!
I was so late!
I grumbled at my back pain before I set out for my morning chores, thankfully indoor activities, such as handing out talismans and burning incense offerings. The morning meeting had gone in an unexpected way. My tardiness had been ignored, because the miko had been in a tizzy amongst themselves, as if drunk from to many festival cups of sake. I grumbled, my dream still hanging over my head like a dark cloud, like a burden I couldn't shake. I then rubbed my ears, trying to get some hearing back into them after all the other girls high pitched squealing.
It would appear His Greatness, the Lord Shogun, would be visiting our little temple in three days time. Yet for some reason I was filled with a fluttering trepidation at the prospect.
It was as if some great change were around the horizon like Yamato-Guji had predicted.
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto
Note: I own my plot line and story! As well as some OCs too.
A/N: I would like to give my heartfelt thanks to my dear reviewers. You should be happy to know that this story is picking up nicely, and I should update soon. Again you guys are so great, and I'm so greatful!
