[ 02(1): Ninjas Don't Always Finish the Job ]

High-pitched squeals and radiant smiles filled the room as the women chattered on that warm sunny afternoon. They worked on some of their usual daily tasks - weaving, munching snacks (no, really - munching), and folding clothes. It was just like any other day.

And just like any other day, footsteps ran towards the women's room, accompanied by loud shouts of "Mama! Mama! Come see this!"

One of the women knitting paused and looked towards the sliding door. Sure enough, it slid open and revealed a young child of around ten years old. "Mama, look at this!" The child ran to her mom and showed her a fresh and new set of miniature kunais and shurikens.

The woman beamed and patted her child's head, slightly ruffling her lilac locks. For a second, her smile faltered, but the child never noticed.

Far from it actually, for her face lit up even brighter as she gave her mom a tight hug. The other women present in the room giggled at the adorable little one. Sachan looked up at the woman holding her tight, her bright violet eyes gazing excitedly at the softer, calmer shade of her mother's. "Papa gave it to me as a gift, you know? He said I'm doing really great in my ninja training, you know?"

Giddiness seemed to seep out of the child's body, and her mom can't help but smile. She squeezed her daughter's cheeks. "I always knew you had it in you," she doted.

Sachan giggled. "Mama, keep squeezing! For some reason it feels nice."

Her mom looked at her in confusion, before shaking her head and laughing. Sachan's smile seemed to enlarge at the sound of her mother's tinkling laughter. She giggled once more, settling closer to her mother's chest.

The other women in the room had fallen silent, watching the two with unreadable expressions. Sachan blinked, before looking back at her mom. The woman's eyes watered as she kissed her child on the forehead. Sachan wasn't able to see her mom's expression, but with the way she held her small body tight, she felt as if she was a stuffed toy about to be given away.

Sachan can imagine how that felt like. She lost her precious stuffed giraffe just the week before.

At the time, as she looked around in mild confusion, Sachan didn't know what the other women meant with their eyes. Her younger self couldn't care less. Nonetheless, she opened her mouth to ask what they were looking at when the door slid open.

Her dad stepped in, looking around with a calm gentleness in his fair skin. His eyes quickly found his wife and daughter while the other women awkwardly went back to work. Their eyes flitted between the masters of the household before returning to the thread and cloth they held in their hands.

"Hisato's back," her dad said. His voice, though gentle, still caused heads to turn unconsciously to him. "He's at the front garden. I asked him to put down his luggage in his room but he was intent on seeing his little sister." He knelt down and patted Sachan's head before lightly poking her forehead. "So stubborn. Don't be like him."

Sachan grinned, the light in her eyes shimmering brighter. "Why would I want to be like older brother?" she said, mischief in her tone.

Her dad laughed and ruffled her hair. Standing up, he offered a hand to her. "Come. Let's see your brother." Sachan nodded and clutched his hand, letting her dad pull her up unto his arms. As they padded to the door, Sachan turned to wave at her mom whose smile was bright with what could only look like pride.

But right as the door blocked her view, she swore she saw the smile crumble.

Sachan stared at the door slowly drifting farther away, innocent confusion painted on her features. Her eyes swept past the hallway decorated with vine and flower patterns that seemed to be their family symbol. In the corner of her eye, a figure in a white and red garments appeared from an intersection. For a second, Sachan tensed and her eyes went wide, but when she saw the soft smile on her grandmother's frail features, she relaxed.

Her dad nodded at his mother. "Where were you, Mother?"

"I wanted to take a walk for once. You know you can't keep me in my room for long," she said. Sachan glimpsed a slight shine in her grandmother's eyes, past the crinkles in its corners. Thinking it was the cunning she knew she inherited, she giggled. Her grandmother's gaze went to her. The older woman patted Sachan's hair, carressing its slightly messy lavender locks.

Sachan's dad chuckled and shook his head. "I know," he muttered. Gesturing to where they had come from, he asked, "Are you going to see Ayako?"

The woman nodded. "And I've already talked to Hisato while walking around." She chuckled. "He's become quite the young lad, like you were all those years before."

Sachan felt her dad's chest rumble as he laughed. "That's reassuring." Her grandmother smiled at that, before gazing at Sachan's eyes. Her gaze lingered longer than normal, making Sachan blink. Before she could ask, however, her grandmother turned to walk past them.

She shifted her body to see past her dad's shoulder and once again stared in confusion. Her grandmother's strange gaze made her remember her mom. Sachan shifted back to her original position in her dad's arms.

"Papa..." she said as she turned her head.

Her dad strode past another corner. "Yes?"

"Why is..." she paused with a tiny squint in her eyes before facing his smile."Why is Mama sad?"

Her dad held her gaze. Sachan didn't see anything change in his eyes. There was no curiosity nor coldness. A few seconds passed as he seemed to process what she asked. After turning another corner to the hallway leading straight to the garden, he turned away. "What do you mean?"

Sachan tilted her head. "In the room, Mama looked sad before we left."

Her father was silent again for a moment. "I'm sure it's nothing to worry about, Ayame." He then glanced back at her with a small smile.

Sachan blinked. The curiosity within her bubbled further at the use of her given name. "But––"

A loud shout broke her prying. "Aya-chan!"

Sachan turned to the garden, scowling. Her brother ambled toward them, his steps light and one hand waving at her. His eyes and tone shone with the playfulness she would've admitted she missed if he hadn't interrupted. "What? What's with that look?" Her brother grinned at her, unfazed by the annoyance clear on her features. He seemed more amused than wary.

Also smiling, her dad set her down on the floor. Sachan folded her arms, keeping her scowl trained on Hisato. As he held her glare and bent down to say something, her vision blurred. The wind picked up. Sachan blinked and her gut churned, but her dad and brother just stared, unfazed.

The clouds parted to let the sky rain down darkness around her. Sachan stepped back and reached for her dad when the blobs of darkness swallowed him and her brother. A downpour of rain followed, muffling her tiny, confused shrieks. The droplets crashing near her splashed on her body and face. Looking down, she saw red, sticky drops of wine-colored liquid trickling down her skin. She trembled. A scream settled into her throat, blocked by utter terror and confusion.

"Wh... What..."

The flowers in their garden fell to the ground, bundle by bundle, as if being crushed by a giant unseen. The petals scattered on the now muddy and red soil. Thunder crackled in the heavens and she fell to the floor. The wind picked up, sending dirtied petals hurtling through the air in a wet tornado. Several petals stuck to her face, arms, and legs.

"Mama... Grandmother..." Sachan sobbed as she tried to crawl backward. "Papa and Nii-chan, where––"

A tiny force slapped the side of her face, causing her to shriek. Panicking, she grabbed what stuck onto her face, partly blinding one eye. Her fingers grasped stem, leaves, and muddy petals. She peeled off the object, curling her hands around it as she sobbed at the remaining sting of its earlier slap. The wind howled in her ears as water, petal, and leaves flew about the wooden hallways.

A gurgling sob escaped her throat once more. She tasted salt, water, and dirt. Cold seeped into her body, causing shivers to rock her already trembling form. She slid her butt farther backward and covered her face with one arm. Feeling a strange warmth in her palm, from what she had peeled off from her face, she slowly unfurled her fist.

On her hand lay a paper flower, intact and clean. In the darkness of the storm around her, it seemed to gleam.

Sachan froze, a desperate confusion overpowering the fear wracking her body. "What's going on?" she cried, her hand shaking as the flower remained undirtied from the chaos around her.

Panicking, she moved to throw it away but the stem latched itself unto her palm. Slowly, it grew longer, wrapping around her wrist. The leaves brushed her palm as the green vine crept up her arm. Its flower gazed straight into her eyes. She shrieked as she waved her arm around, but it stayed. She rubbed her arm on the wall, numb to the scratches on the wall from the storm, but the flower still grew.

Feeling liquid on her arm, she glanced down, shaking. Blood, sticky and warm, trickled from under the stem, now a vine, as it wrapped around her arm and creeped unto her shoulder. Blood trickled on the leaves and dripped unto the floor.

Her fear choked her, grappling its way up her throat. "What..." she sobbed. Her tears clouded her vision. She couldn't see the garden, the storm, and the hallway, but she could still see blood seeped into her clothes. Blood stuck unto her arm. Blood. Blood. So much blood.

Her throat gave way to the terror shaking from every fibre of her body, and––

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

She screamed.

Sachan rose from the bed, her chest heaving heavy, uneven breaths. Sweat dripped down her forehead, neck, and back. Trembling, she hugged herself, disgust filling her thoughts as she felt the salty sweat on her arms and the shirt sticking to her back.

Then, a sudden downpour of sensations seeped into her nerves. She felt the same vivid trickling of warm, vicuous blood on her arm. The same curling vines wrapping around her body. The same cold. The same fear.

She shook her body, screaming and rolling around in her bed as if possessed.

Then she fell.

The welcoming pain from the floor shook off the remaining vividness of her nightmare, replacing them with a throbbing backside. Slowly, as Sachan squinted and cursed under her breath, the vines faded from her nerves. She opened her eyes, staring blankly at the tatami flooring and wall. Breath by breath, her panic settled down from hurried to calm.

After what seemed to be an hour, she hoisted herself up on one arm. Raising her other hand, she massaged her temple and closed her eyes.

That nightmare, Sachan mused, was different.

Other nightmares she remembered were of being chased by shadow figures, being surrounded by apparitions of her past, and being mocked, sneered, and hated by the people she left behind. Sometimes there were the occasional dreams of being pushed into a pile of corpses, and being given a kunai to kill someone without control of her body.

All in all, just normal stuff.

But that one had memories, even if slightly... warped.

Sachan cursed, shaking her head before sighing. She willed remaining images of her nightmare to curl up into a paper ball and threw them into a mental trash can. Done, she nodded to herself and tapped her temple, empty the recycle bin. Then she opened her eyes, drinking in her room's furniture. When her eyes found Gintoki's pictures taped on the wall opposite her, she blanched.

Some of the pictures were peeled off, some looked clawed, while in the others, Gintoki and the Odd Jobs were almost unrecognizable. Sachan remembered rubbing the wall in her dream and cringed. The urge to fix every picture - or have them redeveloped - arose in her nerves, but the fatigue that had settled into them post-nightmare overrode it.

With a resigned sigh, she forced herself to stand, wincing at the faint cracking of her joints. She stretched her arms and twisted her waist. Once she felt all her muscles had warmed up for the day, she sighed.

After making quick work of her bed, Sachan trudged to her front yard. She didn't care about her pajamas. Her neighbors can just turn away.

Scowling and mumbling to herself - about pictures, printing fees, food, and neighbors - Sachan gripped the handle of her mailbox and almost ripped the lid off.

She froze. "You have got to be shitting me."

Inside her mailbox was another paper flower, white, clean, and innocently sitting on top of a newspaper.

[ Author's Note ]

Alright, I didn't proofread/edit this, so feel free to point out any typos or other mistakes I missed.

I didn't expect this chapter to go this long. Since I'm not yet done writing the latter half, and this is a good spot to end the first half without interrupting the flow, I'll leave it here.

Next update's on Friday!

💌
- Lia -