Author's Note: This has very little to do with the Red Sun Festival arc or the plot, but I know I love to find mood music for reading and writing purposes. If you would like to treat yourself to the sounds of the Hidden Knolls Village, feel free to check out Rajna's music on YouTube. When designing Seidou of a Hundred Returns, I pretty much had "Glorian" on repeat.
…
On the highest hill opposite of the Akane District were the steep cliffs the sensō-onna called home. When working with the contractors to carve half the highlands into steep ravines, Seidou knew what she wanted from day one. The hills were to be gutted and turned into an impossibly vertical terrain: impenetrable without her express permission.
She requested her architects provide her with an absolute and unbroken view of the village. From the cliffs, her wish had been granted. The entire village could be seen from these heights and though she and her ladies lived within the earth itself in ant-like formations, the Koyamagakure villagers looked like insects from up here.
Their subterranean residences were visible only through the colored and plated glass bubbles protruding from the stone like glowing jewels. An underground part of the river served as their hydroelectric power source, maintaining lights and electricity. And within the earth, the internal climate remained the same: a cool yet comfortable 12°C.
She made her way down the hallway, noting that some of their tiny lights in the halls were starting to dim. "Will you join us for breakfast today, Mother?" Seidou turned to her left, noticing the friendly and charming face of her oldest and most beloved "daughter." Within the earth, masks weren't needed. After all, they were her perfect little family.
'Sabi…' They were all her daughters, in a way, seeing as she'd legally adopted every last one of them–including the young ladies in the village who came to join the sensō-onna of their own volition. "What are we having today?"
"Seikei said something about duck over rice." Sabi's smile turned playful as she held out a gloved hand for her leader. "With chili oil and red peppers, I think."
"For breakfast?" Seidou raised an eyebrow. "Whose turn was it to cook?"
"Sekiei's."
That suddenly explained everything. That girl craved spice so badly that she'd once stolen all of the little hot peppers from the canopy gardens and eaten them all within the course of one hour. She then made the mistake of trying to dry Shinju's eyes when she cried over a sprained ankle. Both girls ended up going to Sabi's infirmary because their eyes burned.
"How about it, then? Think you can burn a few taste buds for the sake of good company?" Sabi's hand was still held out in offering. Seidou took it, feeling Sabi's fingers tighten between hers. "I'm glad. Some of the girls want to tell you what they saw yesterday. Something happened in the East Ward."
"It's the Red Sun Festival, Sabi. Something always happens in the East Ward."
This time of year, Koyamagakure had no dull moments. It was all the commoners could do to keep afloat while the Akane Clan launched another expensive holiday. Each extravagant celebration came at a price, and that price was always paid with the village's tax money. Perhaps the Akane meant well, but they were so financially irresponsible that it made Seidou's blood boil.
"Did you enjoy yourself yesterday, Sabi? Did you go down there?"
"I prefer to skip the Day of History, if it's all the same to you." Sabi's arm swayed as she walked, taking Seidou's hand with it. Seidou hardly minded. The contact was welcome. If anyone could put her at ease, Sabi could. "Considering how I came to be your daughter."
…
A pack of wolves were reportedly causing problems for the farmers on the outskirts of the village. Just as soon as the farmers thought they'd caught one of the creatures, the beasts made their way for the highlands and were too much of a hassle to chase.
Akane Masaru offered a year of free food for the household who killed every last wolf in the pack and brought the bodies before him. Considering what the Akane Clan viewed as a "household," that was no small feat. The hunt lasted for weeks, but the animals became stealthier than ever before. The villagers were scared, ravenous, and determined to kill the whole lot.
"You're insane," her neighbor commented when she caught Seidou trudging her way up to the higher hills carrying her bow and quiver of arrows. "At least take a spear with you. Those things go for people's throats!"
"I appreciate your concern, but you're overreacting." Seidou smirked at the older woman, hands on her hips. "I killed a bear with nothing but a kunai last year." And the people rewarded her generously for that, too. "And the year before that, there was the giant man-eating hawk."
As grateful as the Hidden Knolls were to have a shinobi clan within their confines, no one here believed for an instant that their strongest ninja was an Akane. They all knew it was Seidou: a lone kunoichi who moved here with no family ties and seemingly no history. She didn't even have a surname.
The locals loved to gossip about that, of course. They suspected Seidou was an unwanted half-breed from a powerful clan—Senju and Inuzuka were the most popular suspicions—and Seidou never contradicted them. People could believe whatever they wished, even if they believed something false. As long as they respected and feared her, they could find comfort in those lies.
Deep into the wilderness she went. The hot summer air stuck to her face like the breath of a dragon. 'I'm sure they're in the woods.' The shriek of a nearby wounded animal caught her attention–but it sounded faintly too human for her comfort level. 'What on earth…?'
Bears and hawks seldom went into the heart of the wilderness, so she'd never gone this far. All the howls of wind and the noise from the village were uncomfortably muted when the woods turned to forest. All Seidou could hear were her own footsteps and the screeching of mating insects. By this point, she lost her trail for the wolves. All thoughts about the hunt came to an abrupt halt when she stepped on something small and decomposing.
After letting out a quick curse, assuming it to be a half-eaten animal, Seidou inspected the carcass more carefully. She'd lived in Koyamagakure for three years, but this was the first time she'd stumbled across one of the village's ghastliest secrets. The kunoichi stifled a scream, covering her mouth with a gloved hand.
The dead thing by her foot used to be a human baby.
Her heart refused to slow down and her hands couldn't steady themselves. The sickeningly sweet smell of decay permeated every part of the deep, dark wild. Once Seidou's eyes adjusted to the darkness, she noted several more infants in various stages of decomposition. Some were fresh…and the faint peppery scent of the Akane Clan was among them. Pungently so.
To hell with the wolves. They weren't even big wolves!
'What IS this? Why are there so many?!' Her neighbors never reported any missing children and none of those broken little bodies could have been any older than two years old when they died.
Frantically, Seidou searched the corpses, trying to take a head count for how many were out here. Did they abandon still-born babies and little ones who died in their sleep? The Akane Clan only married and procreated within their clan. They weren't even above brother-sister couplings if it meant the child would carry stronger pheromones. They were one of the most inbred families she'd ever encountered, so–
A wet cough caught her attention. In a flash, Seidou's entire body was coated in ice-cold sweat because she knew what this meant: one of the infants was still alive.
…
Only a monster would leave a child to die. Forfeiting the hunt, Seidou brought the infant back to her lodge. Masaru, head of the Akane Clan, sat across from her; staring in disbelief at the little bundle in Seidou's tattooed, muscular arms.
Masaru confirmed what she initially expected: the baby girl was definitely Akane. Her eyes were that same amber color they all had, and her little tufts of hair looked like dark rust or autumn leaves. "I'm trying to find out which household she belongs to," Seidou confessed. "Lord Masaru, there were at least thirty babies in that part of the woods. I think we may have a serial killer on our hands."
Masaru didn't make eye contact. He merely sweated.
The village was still new. Many people, Seidou included, had come here without any family ties or public backing. Most of them were her fellow nobodies. The Akane were the closest thing they had to a legitimate clan within village borders. They ruled like little lords: affluent, powerful, influential, and charming. And all those little corpses smelled just like them!
"Someone within our walls could be stealing Akane children, but what worries me is this one was still alive." Starving and sick, but alive. After she was fed, the baby perked up a little. She even smacked her lips and tried in vain to suckle Seidou. "Most of them were so badly decomposed that I couldn't tell, but they could be dying from exposure or dehydration or–"
Masaru buttoned his lip, his long fingernails digging into the wood of Seidou's chair. She noted that he'd scratched the arm. "Those children don't exist, Seidou. You saw something that you had no business seeing and took something you had no business taking. Nobody is looking for that child because she isn't real."
"What are you saying? I'm holding her! She's definitely real! I'm certain–"
The Akane head reached for the infant, taking her into his own arms. He inspected her as he would a doll or a piece of fruit. "Ah. Here." Holding out the baby's right hand, he splayed her fingers to show webbing between her pinky, ring finger, and middle finger.
"You have to understand that our bloodline trait is very difficult to cultivate. As a result, we typically only marry among our own. Sometimes, our children are both with flaws and defects. We can't keep the defective ones. They run contradictory to what our clan deems most important. It's easier for all of us to forget they ever existed." Masaru handed the infant back. "No one's going to look for that child, Seidou. Please do my clan a favor and put her back where you found her."
…
Inside their dining hall, only some of her ladies were fully dressed. The younger girls were still in their bedclothes or had their hair in rollers. As soon as they realized their leader sat among them for breakfast, the girls stood at attention and bowed to show their respect. "Good morning, okaa-sama," they called out in unison.
Seidou smiled and politely bowed back, taking her place beside Sabi. The warm and welcome scent of hot peppers greeted her nose as she glanced down at her breakfast. "Did you make this, Sekiei?" she called out to the pink-haired lady. Sekiei grinned and teasingly put a finger to her face as if she were pondering one of the world's most difficult problems. In reality, she simply made a habit of covering her mole. "It's delicious."
"Why do you think it's my favorite?" Sekiei responded, a touch of color in her face. "We never eat your favorite, though. I don't even know what it is."
"I came from a time and place where one was merely grateful to have food, dear. I can eat most anything." And almost anything could whet her palate. "Ladies?" All eyes were on her. "How much trouble have we run into with the Red Sun Festival so far? How did the Day of History go?"
People offered money to Akane Masaru's grave during the Day of History. On top of the heavy taxes, expensive rental properties, and overpriced goods; the Akane Clan still saw fit to bleed their villagers dry. It also led to disgruntled locals wanting to vandalize the tomb.
"Why don't you ask us what you really want to know, okaa-sama?" Sekiei batted her eyes a bit and put more of her chili-laced concoction into her mouth. "You want to know who trashed the tomb this year."
"Yes, I do. Did you catch anyone?"
Masaru was long dead. He wore himself out—not that it took much to do that to an Akane—during the colonization. On his deathbed, he appointed his inept thirteen-year-old son as his heir and successor. Masaru converted this merchant town into a shinobi village with the best of intentions, but he was set in his ways. The more Seidou discovered about her beautiful fragrant neighbors over the years, the less she could turn a blind eye to their atrocities.
"My issues are with Akane Katsuro, ladies. Masaru is only a memory now. Memories are harmless. They can't hurt anyone."
…
Instead of money, Seidou placed a cooked rabbit leg in the offering bowl. The villagers were so poor and hungry that they dared to steal from the dead. This included the tomb of their great founder. A stolen food offering would get them further than gold. No one could eat gold.
"I think I'm the only person outside of the Nineteen Households who still visits you, Masaru. Minus the thieves, of course…"
It was three in the morning and her girls were sound asleep in her estate: now the largest non-Akane building in the village. Everyone knew about Seidou's adopted daughter (whom she'd lovingly named Sabi after her rust-colored hair). Here they were, years later, and many desperate Koyamagakure women begged her to take in their daughters as well. They couldn't afford to feed them. As a result, Seidou was now the "mother" of twenty…and counting.
The burly brunette sat with her legs folded beneath her, still dressed in her blood-spattered hunting gear. Akane Katsuro had no spine. He didn't know how to lead, and his arrogance led one of their greatest sources of income to seek trade elsewhere.
"They're comparing your clan to ticks now. They say you're sucking the livelihood out of anyone stupid enough to trust you. I know this isn't what you wanted, Masaru. You never wanted to be here. If you had your way, your people would belong to a larger village. You only settled with us because no one bigger and better wanted the Akane." In the cold winter air, she could see the steam rising from the rabbit leg. "We could have made it work, assuming your son tried. He hasn't bothered."
Instead of solving Koyamagakure's problems, Akane Katsuro chose to travel in search of a fresh start for the Akane…and only the Akane. His people came upon this town like locusts and it could never recover. Not in one lifetime, anyway. Possibly not even in four.
"Instead of fixing our home, Katsuro chooses to see the world. I can't fault him for finding that option more appealing. I did the same at his age, but then I found this place. In the end, I think he'll come to realize what I realized: that even with its flaws, this village is as good as he'll ever get. I'll right his wrongs while he goes soul-searching."
And for Koyamagakure's sake, Seidou would do everything in her power to make sure Katsuro never came back. The present Kazekage owed her a favor, anyway…and so did Shimura Danzō.
…
"Nobody saw the vandals, but they wrote some rather offensive things." By now, the sensō-onna were in full gossip mode, talking among themselves. "But it's all per usual, I think. Parasites. Demons. It's words and phrases we've encountered in the past."
"That's not true. Someone was bold enough to write that Katsuro should join him in the tomb!" A couple of the girls laughed over that until they saw the somber expression on Seidou's face. "You don't find that funny?"
"Not particularly, no." Seidou ate the last bit of her food and heard the rest of what they had to tell her. Two Akane were found dead not too far from Masaru's shrine, though they knew why. Those men attacked a foreign girl, and Seidou did what any sensō-onna would do. She rescued her.
By the time Shinju mentioned two men set an Akane woman on fire, Seidou's appetite was gone. Her ladies apprehended the men, of course. They were supposed to protect the whole of the village. For now, at least, that still included the Akane.
"And the woman…?" Shinju insisted she'd be better off not knowing. They apprehended the men and let the victim burn. 'This is the world we live in? I'm ashamed…'
Sabi poured Seidou another cup of tea and placed her hand on the woman's wrist. "Are you alright?" she whispered. "What's bothering you?"
Seidou got up and thanked her girls for having her company this morning. She would need some time alone to meditate and reflect.
This time of year was always the worst. The Akane Clan dragged the village deeper and deeper into debt with their lavish festivals and expensive projects. They leeched whatever they could to recover their finances…only to splurge it on such frivolities and swore the reason for it was morale.
But in her own weird way, Seidou had to thank them. If they weren't so damn good at bankrupting the village, she never would have had this many girls.
…
"You're gaining supporters in all directions. Do you realize that?"
Seidou was a guest tonight, wearing a beautiful saffron-colored ao dai rather than the combat gear she and her masked ladies sported in the Hidden Knolls Village. Her girls were in the hall, paying attention to the ANBU masks of the Hidden Leaf and comparing them to the ghastly grins on their own.
The ANBU didn't talk as much. They were boring.
As Akane Katsuro suffered at the hands of the Kazekage and was publicly forced to thank the man for providing "shelter," Seidou dined in the company of the Third Hokage and his council as an invited guest. They were near her age and each person at this table gained quite a reputation during the last great war.
When Sarutobi Hiruzen raised his glass to Seidou, the curvy brunette raised hers in response. "Is it the good kind of attention?" Seidou inquired. "Sandaime Hokage–"
"Please. Call me Hiruzen. I'm still getting used to my position."
Seidou smirked at that and took a sip from her glass. "As am I, Hiruzen-dono." But she'd created her own. There was a need the Akane Clan could not provide for her village, but Seidou did: security, stability, order. "And I'm hoping your tenure as Hokage will be a far more favorable one for my village than your predecessor's was."
Mitokado Homura sighed, glancing in his friend's direction. "We were the Nidaime's students, Lady Seidou. He could be a very severe man at points, but he always wanted what was best for Konohagakure. Even you have to admit that the Akane Clan are too toxic to take lightly."
"Try living with them," Seidou responded calmly. "Their clan head thought he'd travel the world in search of bigger, stronger allies. I'm convinced he'll eventually come back here, considering he tried with the First and the Second." But she could hear it in Homura's voice. The Akane were never going to join under Konoha's banner because Konoha didn't want them. "But it may be a while. He's presently being held as a political hostage in Sunagakure."
"And I'm sure your sensō-onna will free him, of course?" Koharu put a morsel of food between her lips and ate. "The Akane are your village's sole founding family. For a clan to go headless–"
"A decapitated government may be what Koyamagakure needs in order to heal herself, at least in the short term. Your village's sanctions against our wares, paired with the Akane's spendthrift tendencies, left our finances in a shambles. Where I come from, people are starving. My ladies are even getting reports of cannibalism."
Apricots were one of her favorite foods. The Hokage had given her so many tonight, but Seidou couldn't eat them. She didn't feel hungry. Her girls never starved, but the villagers did. Despite where she came from and what sort of history she carried in her heart long before joining Koyamagakure, that village had become home.
Seidou refused to watch it wither away and die. It was too big and too precious to fail. One of the men at the table could see it in how she firmly reached for the glass. She was itching to get back to the good fight and clean up her homeland.
"If Akane Katsuro escapes Sunagakure and attempts to come here, what would you have us do? Turn him away?"
"It all depends on what you want the future of our two villages to look like. The Akane was Koyamagakure's past. The sensō-onna is her future." Seidou's dark blue eyes glanced toward the head of ANBU. He smirked. She did not because she was deathly serious about this. "The time may come when I ask Konohagakure to do the most difficult thing possible: nothing."
…
In the winter time, few things grew. Most of Koyamagakure's winter dishes were meat and dried vegetables rather than anything fresh. Seidou and her ladies made use of balcony gardens during the summer and glassed them up as greenhouses this time of year. Only a few fruit were left on her plants.
Down below, she caught sight of something bright and blue. It flickered like foxfire or like the flames associated with lost spirits. As she opened the window to glance down, she could have sworn she heard her name in the wind.
When the blue light flickered again, brighter than before, Seidou supposed it couldn't hurt to investigate. Making her way down the great ravine, returning to ground level, the source turned out to be the young lady she'd rescued the day before. "Kaede-san?"
"Oh god." Kaede's face was scarlet and contorted into an expression of horror. "I need your help! It's…two of the boys I traveled with were…they…"
…
"I see. They were abducted." Seidou glanced down at the pot of tea she'd chosen to share with this girl. Two of her masked girls had seen fit to put a pot on and give Kaede a warmer jacket to wear inside their base. The curly-haired Uchiha girl thanked them for their hospitality, but she couldn't stop shivering. "Was it the Akane?"
Kaede slowly nodded her head. "My team doesn't know I came to you. On the books, we're supposed to be protecting that clan, but they're holding Hiashi and Hizashi hostage." She worried for them. They were a little younger than her and still had so much in the world they needed to see. Sure, they could be annoying at times; but she didn't want either one of them to suffer! They were good kids!
"The rest of our group is trying to rescue them, but…" Kaede continued to tremble, either from the cold or from rage. "I can't sit by helplessly and wait this out. You offered to let me train with you. Please, let me take on a mask. Let me fight with your girls and make these bastards pay!" Only the day before, Kaede nearly met a similar fate. Seidou saved her then and she expected Seidou to save her comrades now. "Hiashi has to go home, at least. He's going to lead the Hyūga Clan someday. Hizashi just…he got caught up in this because they're identical twins and…"
Seidou pushed the tea cup closer to Kaede. "Alright. You can fight with us, but we aren't going to do anything rash. If you want my help, you'll need to abide by my rules. Do you understand?"
"I do! Believe me, I do!"
'And you tell that boy in the pig mask that my village isn't Konoha's playground. We're willing to trade, but we won't be used.' Not again. Not ever. "You'll train with Hisui today. She's your age and the same rank as you. Train. Study up. Be prepared to fight with the rest of us tonight once we have enough intel to find those children."
