A/N: Again, I take this moment to remind you that my FULL range of works is on An Archive of Our Own under the same pen name (BlackMajjicDuchess). I have 51 total works published for a total of around 500,000 words or so, a little of everything.
And again, more importantly, I take this opportunity to remind you that on my Archive of Our Own page, this story is about 5 more chapters ahead of this one, so if you're antsy and want more, you might want to head on over THERE. :)
Once upon a time on fanfiction dot net, one of my stories was removed for being inappropriate. There's a good chance they'll take down this one, too, so if you're enjoying it, I'd highly recommend you go find me on the other site before I suddenly and inexplicably disappear.
Sorry (not sorry) for repeating myself, but I really can't stress these points enough, so I'll continue repeating myself until it catches on.
Chapter Four: Butterflies
The slow way in which 'Masaru' picked at his food distressed Mito. She peeked at him every now and then, observing with what she told herself was clinical interest in how slowly he was eating. Her brain offered up reasons, like, perhaps his ribs are hurting and he can't eat. Perhaps his brain is malfunctioning from the blow to the head. Maybe he's too weak to eat, or simply doesn't like the food. In a deeper, more visceral place within her, though, she recognized that it wasn't that she was worried about his pace, it was that she couldn't stop watching him. Marriage wouldn't be so bad, she surmised, if she could spend some of her time in the company of one such as this. Masaru was polite and friendly, and there was an enthralling intensity about him that drew her in. So when she was watching him eat, she experienced a storm of feelings: false concern for his well being, mute fascination at the man who wouldn't stop staring at her, and fear of what it all might mean.
For 'Masaru' surely wasn't his true name, just as Miyu wasn't hers, and Masaru could be anyone. In a world ravaged by the horrors of war, she wasn't sure who her friends should be. Was she to be aligned with the magnificent Senju clan, or fall in with one of their smaller allied clans? After all, the busy nature of the larger warring clans sounded exhausting to one who preferred the quiet unobtrusive qualities of nature. Then again, perhaps he belonged to the Hyuuga, whose noble traditions might appeal to her father. He might also belong to the mighty Uchiha clan, whose power rivaled the Senju, though it was said that they ate children and burned people alive. She wrinkled her nose at that thought. Masaru didn't seem like that kind.
She could always ask… but to do so would breach her personal code, for she did not wish to become attached to anyone that might die in this war. She cared too much, too deeply, for her patients. She had learned that early on. When she had first started healing the dying warriors of the Senju clan, she had spent time with the Shinobi, inquiring their names and from where they had come, sharing meals and jokes and stories of kinder times. There was a very dark period in that first year when so many had died, and she had burned through her chakra within moments of attempting treatment, simply because she did not wish to see her friends die.
It was since then that she had decided no more. If she denied to look too closely into their faces, ignored their attempts to grow close to her, and avoided learning their names, she could remain apart. Those that died were now anonymous. It was a cold way to handle the situation, but for the past two years, it had been working, though there were still those that refused to be denied. Masaru was one, but instinctively, she knew that he already mattered too much. Knowing his name would only slay her if he died while she was the one attempting to heal him.
With a sigh of frustration, she pushed the thoughts from her head. Unless she asked, there was no telling who Masaru was, or from which clan he had hailed. She had never studied the clans, though she had always intended to. It was a topic her father had insisted upon, and so she'd placed it lowest on her list of priorities. After all, if her father thought that the topic was important, it would displease him if she thought that it wasn't.
And thinking of her father reminded her why she was here in the first place, and that troubled her even more. She had run away from home to avoid the pressures of her father trying to line up a suitable husband. She had been studying chakra and the healing arts, and he found it to be a foolish pursuit. If it were up to him, she would know only the types of skills that would be useful to her husband, and her individual hobbies would be discouraged. Although Mito was convinced of the usefulness of healing jutsu, her father had discredited it as a sacrilege to rob the gods of the souls that they had marked for themselves. In his eyes, if it was time for a person to die, then you let them die.
Attempting to convince him that war was different had only frayed their relationship further. How could she make him understand that war was not the work of the gods? How was she to explain that the wounds of a battle were not the call of the gods calling their children home? The answer was that she couldn't, so she'd studied her chakra and the few notes on medical jutsu that she could find, right up until the moment her father had found out and burned her texts.
She had decided definitively that she hated him, then.
Uzushiogakure was an island nation, cut off from the rest of the world by a raging sea besieged by whirlpools. Waiting for another such text to fall into her hands would see her married and aged to uselessness. If she wanted to learn, if she wanted to heal, she would need to leave. It had been a tough decision; the whirlpools were dangerous, and the wrath of her father was the most frightening obstacle she had ever encountered. She had been sheltered and felt naive and nervous. To risk his ire for her own daunting fantasy seemed like a mark of insanity.
Yet she had done it. She'd stolen one of the ships in the harbor and risked her fool neck to cross the broad expanse of roiling waves. Either she was a born sailor or a woman blessed with marvelous luck, for her ship had landed on the opposite shore unscathed. Perhaps the gods were with her, after all. She tied up the ship and set out to find her fortune, and now, three years later, she was here. Occasionally, a small party of Shinobi from her homeland came across the Senju army where she had made camp, and she was forced to hide, but they still had been unable to find her. Her father was not an idiot, though, and they would be checking the medical camps, which was why she only offered field treatment, and slept among the soldiers. It would not do for one of the regular medics to call attention to the one among them with red hair.
She glanced back at Masaru. Was this man to be her fate? She caught him staring at her again, but his previous slack jawed appreciation had already morphed into something more; his bright and curious eyes now smoldering with the promise of wild things that made her breath catch. His lips quirked into a smirk that hinted at a new world filled with wondrous abandon, a place of freedom and thrill. When he looked at her, she felt as if he was trying to tell her something. And, as the minutes rattled past, she was increasingly drawn toward knowing what it was that he would say.
Mito gnawed on her lower lip, troubled. All of her life, she had placed each foot carefully, no move wasted. Her lifetime had been sailed with a tiller of logic, reason, and cool headed decision making. Even her panicked flight from her father had been a calculated maneuver, each consequence carefully considered before the choice had been made. Her heart had never beaten so wildly, threatening to yammer its way out of her ribs. She'd never felt a deep chasm in the pit of her belly that swallowed her insides within itself and made her feel nauseous and lightheaded at the same time. And all of this, this storm of sensations, after only knowing him a short time!
Was love a kind of illness, she wondered? She pressed her fist into her belly, trying to quell the unsettling feeling and failing. Her thoughts were racing, trying to work out the logic of what was happening to her, for it had only been a couple of days, and this man had a hold on her. It should not be possible to fall in love so quickly, so perhaps she really was ill.
In all her books, love was not something she had read much about. That was a personal defense, for she knew that the concept of love mattered not to her father nor her marriage. She would marry whom he told her to, and she would either love the man or she wouldn't. Dreaming about it wasn't going to change anything, so why enlighten herself on something she may never experience? Mito was nothing, if not practical.
She must have been really distracted, for as she was looking inward and trying to determine the cause of her ailment, a shadow fell over where she was sitting. Masaru was standing before her, his hand held out. He meant for her to grasp his hand so that he could lift her to her feet, but just as badly as she wanted to go to him, she felt she should stubbornly refuse. She stared at his hand, confused and perturbed, asking the question with a lift of her eyebrow and nothing else.
Masaru leaned in slightly, his voice silken and good natured. "You looked sick," he said to her. "I thought some fresh air might help." His smile was innocent, beckoning, and she found herself ensorcelled.
Her fingers reached tentatively, unsure, and yet even as her brain screamed in alarm, her fingers moved on their own. A strange, fuzzy trance filtered through her veins, and she couldn't stop. Her fingertips touched the skin of his hand only just, but that tiniest of touches was electric. She shivered, amazed, her fingers curling into his reflexively, seeking a hold onto something solid, real.
His smile softened, fingers entwining with hers. "See?" His voice was soft and awed. Then, he tugged languorously, and Mito's body unrooted from its spot and unfurled, limbs moving of their own accord, unfolding her body from her spot upon the earth to stand before him, one hand caught in his. She swallowed, her nausea returning en force. He jerked on her hand just enough to cause her to stumble forward, and her chest bumped into his just as his free hand snaked around behind her to steady her back. "You feel this too," he whispered, never phrasing it as a question.
She blinked, too shocked to move, her senses overloaded by the complexity of feelings and sensations of just a few seconds of contact. Amazed, her chin tipped upward, and her gaze snared his, two pairs of dark eyes locked. The intensity of that one look stilled her, and she felt something akin to panic. He held her there, unmoving, as if instinctively giving her time to adjust. Her heart thudded, but for a while there was no sound. Then, without a word, he grasped her other hand and placed it over his heart. Beneath her fingers, his chest beat its own thunderous rhythm. "Me, too," he told her seriously.
She blinked several times, still wandering in wonderment, but the moment her eyelids flickered upward again, his face tipped down and their lips met. She sucked in a breath of surprise, but the air she received was his. All of the discomfort in her belly bloomed into pure thrill. It was an odd sensation, the meshing of lips, but pleasant, and after a perfunctory trial, she greedily accepted his kiss, breathless and thrown into a whirlwind of emotions from fear to excitement to not caring at all.
For a suspended moment in time, nothing mattered. Her father and his harsh discipline were forgotten. Her voyage across the countryside, trying to repair the damage done by war hungry men, lost. All of her fears, her obstacles, the blocks placed upon her own self confidence fled in a fraction of a second. For that moment, she felt beautiful, appreciated, and free, something for which she might never be able to thank him properly.
She wasn't sure how long it lasted, but when at last they broke apart, she was amazed to still be standing. She had been certain that her feet were no longer rooted to mortal earth. He still held her, for which she was grateful; if he hadn't, she might have fallen to her knees in awe. Mito had no idea what to say, and so she opted for laughing nervously and avoiding eye contact.
He laid one hand over the back of her head and pressed her into his embrace and held her like something precious, and she sighed. "You are… an exquisite woman, Miyu," he said to her.
"You don't even know me," she blurted, reeling.
It was his turn to laugh. "Not for lack of trying, I assure you."
She had to smile, for she could not deny that. Perhaps, though, she could offer him something. "I can't tell you my name," she relented. "But I'm nineteen. I don't have any brothers or sisters. My father is really hard on me, so I ran away from home."
His breathing stilled, processing new information, seemingly impressed that she had shared it. "I had four brothers," he offered. "But… now I only have one."
Mito pulled away and looked up at him, moved. "That's tragic. I'm so very sorry for your loss."
He shrugged, trying to appear strong. "My brother and I are very close," he continued. "And our father is also hard on us. We're at war, after all." A moment passed. Then, abruptly, he kissed her again, and the agitation that she had felt melted away as they focused only on each other. "Miyu," he murmured. "I've never met anyone like you. Marry me?"
Mito could hardly contain her shock. She felt breathless and wild, and yet wary at the same time. "You hardly know me," she repeated.
Masaru shook his head, smiling faintly. "It doesn't matter. I can see it in your grace, your beauty, your compassion and your smile. I'll have the rest of my life to get to know the details, and I'll love every moment of it. There can't be another woman in the world who can compare to you. I want and will want no one else." He rubbed her hands between his own, pleading with his eyes. "Miyu," he added fiercely, excitement in his voice, "destiny has brought us together. You can feel it, as can I. Denying this is to deny yourself. Live in this moment. Embrace it. Rejoice."
She opened and closed her mouth several times, at a loss for words. Hadn't she already entertained that very notion herself? All of her problems with her father would be instantly solved; she would no longer need to find a husband nor hide her aspirations. Too, he was handsome and kind, and had awakened a need in her she didn't know she had. "I… I'm not sure what to say," she breathed.
"You will want for nothing, I promise," he insisted. "Just say you will."
It seemed his spell was still upon her, she thought, shaking her head incredulously, yet feeling oddly giddy. Her streak of wickedness would continue, it seemed. "Very well. I accept." The moment the words left her lips, she felt a veil of peace and happiness settle over her skin. Another logical decision made, and one that would bring her joy. The first decision she had made for herself was to leave the Whirlpool Village, and it had been the best one she had ever made. If this was to be her second major decision, odds were good that it would be just as perfect.
Masaru claimed another kiss, intoxicating her. In the midst of another whirlpool, she was lifted off her feet and carried. She giggled, unsure of what was happening but with all of her inhibitions far removed. There was magic in this place, between them, and she was not foolish enough to stop it. Whatever was happening between her and this man was past her, above her, beyond the scope of her imagination, and she was powerless to resist, nor did she have the desire to. Despite her father's lessons in modesty, despite being conditioned to believe her virginity was her most precious possession, she gave it away, for in her heart, she was already married to this man, and it mattered not.