Only two of the Five Great Shinobi Villages have a longstanding tradition of stage drama. The first, Sunagakure, who put their war-puppets to gentler purpose, both to train their children and to make their weapons seem innocuous. The second, Kirigakure, whose eerier meshes of acting and genjutsu serve a similar purpose of training children for war, while simultaneously being far more insidious, using the attraction of entertainment to facilitate the spread of ideas and information.

-Introduction to the Five Great Shinobi Nations


Mino's hands were steady as she repainted the mark on her cheek. Karatachi, once grown, marked their faces with what they would have the world know of their essence at first glance. Once, she had worn a sprig of primroses needled upon her cheek, crying of the desperation that drove her, but also a defiance of sorts, for if her face was so made unique, she would be unsuited for the shifting faces of a kunoichi's trade. No longer. For Kiri had taken her children, and they would take Kiri. To Karatachi and Kiri she had sworn her life. For her children and the future, she would give everything. Besides, she was Titled now. Crimson Kinslayer, whispers trailing after her in the streets, eyes following her behind her back, loved and feared and watched. They would accuse her if betrayal. So? Her hair had darkened, after she birthed her children. Shades more, each time. Vintage sanguine now, it was. Old blood. Dried blood. Kinslayer she was, and if they would not let her forget it, then neither would they not have the luxury of forgetting.

An owl's face at the center, that most unfilial of birds, which ate its parents when grown, turning against its own blood. Spiraling into it, the Whirlpool reversed. Reversed until it was the order of the universe, of course. The irony that it was half of Konoha's mark was not lost on Mino of the Karatachi. Uzumaki rebelled and defied. Konoha's lot complied. No wonder they had let her kill her father's kin and just mourned afterwards. So much simpler. After all, living allies were so inconvenient. It was far easier to rally in the name of dead ones. Yet they dared! Kiri called her Kinslayer, and it was no insult, for behind those syllables was the acknowledgement that she had held loyalty to her village higher than loyalty to her blood, honored oath and honored choice. Of course, Mizukage-sama had his hand in making that so, when he spoke at her wedding and gave Minazuki away, Kiri giving kin to her, when kin had been lost for Kiri's sake. Konoha would soon look upon her and spit the word, as if killing was so much worse when one spilled blood not unlike that in one's veins, as if they were not as much at fault for inaction. When they let Uzushio die, and mourned and were not ashamed, added a neat spiral to their jackets and forgot the virtue of that name!

Chigiri was bloody, yet it did not forget. Chigiri honored its enemies, immortalized them in myth and legend. No child forgot the terror of Mito, who changed the world with Biju, nor failed to have lain salt-crystal offerings before the monument to Susumu, who had set down the seals which gave their lands sweet water. Chigiri feared its enemy and did not flinch at the depths it had sunk to in its pursuit of destruction, yet it still remembered its debts. Konoha forgot its allies, sought to erase its shame, did not do its blood-kin the courtesy even its enemies had the decency of doing; they would look at her askance and condemn her in below their breaths, even when they were the ones who should be more strongly condemned.

"Love." Minazuki said gently, taking the clenched-tight brush from her hands, "Do not stifle your fire when you need not. Rage at me, if you wish to."

She moved away. Out of the room and the delicate and breakable things.

"Is this about Gin-chan?" Her husband asked, deliberately obtuse, "I understand, love, that you consider the Gin-chan situation Ginkanmuri being replaced, but it isn't! Gin-chan isn't a cuckoo, and I think you know that, 'cus you've decided to adopt a duckling too, and she isn't a replacement eith—"

With a snarl, she attacked (as was his intent). Blows flew as she spent her blood-rage, and he matched her as her equal. Grief unspoken and behind duty bound. They fought mindlessly, simply to fight, not to win, unthinking, unplanning, lost in an endless moment. Her sight blurred, though whether it was from tears or Minazuki's genjutsu she could not tell; his form lost cohesion, though whether that was to escape heart-pain or flesh-pain, he could not say.

They tangled. Hand-to-hand. Leg to leg. Grief to rage to hate to love. And in the end, she pinned him beneath her, both panting and damp from exertion.

In the distance, a series of horns sounded.


Three outfits were on my bed. The first a boy's brocade kimono, patterned in clams and pearls and Hōzuki. The second a girl's battle-dress, little different from Mei's, wax-dyed rich purple with a lotus rising from water formed by the white where dye had not reached. The last was a set of fully formal robes, styled for a prince, tailored to my stature, made from a base of lavender-grey silk, with a dragon snarling at my left breast and its foreclaws upon my shoulders, picked out in imperial yellow silk and gold thread, with a ruff of pale silver and claws and whiskers of red, twin horns embroidered in the brown flight feathers of gulls' wings. Crimson waves roiled at the hems, outlined in burnished silver. In between, rising from the muck and chaos, was a single, immaculate white lotus. Folded besides it was a belt in rich purple, as well as a tie of strung black pearls.

"The first," said the exiled prince, "is merely a declaration of your position as my heir in such a way as my family will be capable of interpreting, and a hearkening back to Gengetsu that honors the Bloodlines. The second is more a reminder of Kirigakure and its founder, and our martial nature. The third is more threat than its fellows, for it is a mural to Byakuren's humbling of the Imperial Houses and a declaration of your claim to the throne."

"A paltry claim." I argued mildly, "When my name is not writ in the genealogies, and I am not of direct descent."

"Yet the one who sits on the throne is no son of his father." The exiled prince said, amused, "His predecessor spent too much time seeking to make a union of crane and man bear fruit while his brothers fought themselves and sought to dispose him. The dowager had her son begat by another, and ruled well from behind the curtain until such time as he was of age."

He frowned, "Quite frankly, I hoped that she would have ruled longer, but alas, she would not become monarch in name as well as truth. Yet there exists a memory of the good lady, even now with her unworthy son at the helm, thus the people would welcome another woman to rule them for love of her, and for that my great-nephew would fear you. Come now, and choose. There is little time until the Daimyo arrives, and we must both be arrayed to meet him."

I did not take those rich robes, because I actually wanted to have a half-decent relationship with my future co-rulers, not antagonize them at our first meeting. Nor would I claim my grandfather's sign, since I would not promise to advocate for bloodlines when I was myself uncertain. So, the battle-dress it was, and let Mei tease me for it.

However, Hōzuki were apparently a political statement, so I wore the small red lantern fruit hanging from hair ornaments of bone, as well as salt crystals, pearls, and sea-glass. They were all things that costed little but time, which, I sensed, was the point.

On the other hand, when I met my brother, he was wearing exactly the same outfit he wore daily, albeit clean and freshly laundered with no patches. I felt annoyingly overdressed even in what was also (technically) military wear. The Sandaime also did not choose to change his attire, though he did bind his hair up with jade carved as a dragon and a hairpin ending in a white lotus. One would have thought that there were already enough references to Byakuren-sama, but there was no upper limit when it came to homage to our founder, apparently.


I felt much better when I finally saw my adoptive nth cousins nth removed. For all that I wore an unreasonable number of accessories for a shinobi, at least my father had, as much as I was loathe to admit it, taste. Compared to the riot of polished gold and gleaming jewels, what I bore excluded austere elegance. And given how faces pointedly did not twist about us, it seemed that Kiri's people were of the same mind as me.

Then the Sandaime stepped forward to welcome their retinue from the ship.

"This is the first time I have been thankful for our lack of sun." My brother muttered from beside me.

"I agree, but do you mean that you haven't noticed the jingle?" I muttered back, "I'm beginning to suspect that they're trying to repel us with the noise."

"It would make sense, what with how the ringing of bells should exorcise youkai." He snorted.

"Yet another thing to blame our illustrious leader for then; on the other hand, I quite like the idea."

"You like impersonating creatures of myth and legend?"

"As if you don't like terrifying aristocrats." I shot back in an undertone, "It would cut down on the empty nest syndrome attacks as well, which I imagine is a far more salient issue, especially at this moment." I nodded towards the middle-aged woman dripping precious metal and smiling maternally at my brother.

He shuddered subtly. "There's a reason why I micromanaged the seating arrangements."

Those were for the feast, because my father had retained some of the customs and rituals of his civilian origins, and they were on full display there. I managed to muddle through by dint of not being expected to provide intelligent conversation and making any failure to comply to customs appear deliberate instead of a failing of ability.

Then I was dismissed along with the boy who was the crown prince.


He was…loud.

"Come on! Kirisara-chan, you can do magic too, right? Can you show me? It's so unfair that you get to be a Water-Walker while I have to learn lots of boooooring Classics! I want to see what you do!"

I bowed neatly at the boy a few years my elder, then held out a hand as I stepped onto the water of the Kage no Sono's pond. "Come then, Masao-dono."

He gasped, "But—Kirisara-chan, surely you did not take from me my mortal flesh, and give me the bones of immortals!"

"It is not within my power to kindle such power within you as well." I confirmed, "Yet I have enough to sustain you briefly within my world."

For to the peoples of Water, there was no greater distinction for the shinobi and mundane people than our ability to walk on water. Though there were greater arts, this was the one constant of us who harnessed the elements with will and gesture. So, Water-Walkers we were named, when it was feared to speak of us directly. I spread chakra beneath his feet, coaxed surface tension to increase and support his weight, and smiled with no little innocent pride at his childish wonder.

He took a few steps, holding onto my arm, wobbling, unsure, then crouched down to touched the water that remained water, even when it did not let him sink. We lingered for a few moments. Suddenly, he jumped up and cried, "You said 'sustain briefly', Kirisara-chan! Yet we have tarried here, perhaps overlong; I would not wish to tax you, so let us return to shore!"

Grasping my hand, he drew us both back to the bank in swift steps, which, ironically enough, were harder for me to compensate for than if he had moved more slowly. "Fear not." I assured him, "I am not that delicate." I grinned, "And I may show you some other things as well! But I demand payment, for I have not so great a means as you, and you have no right to command my powers so."

"But we are kin, Kirisara of the Mist, and I am guest of thine!" Protested my cousin, "Surely that allots this prince some luxury, and a few small gifts!"

"Be constant in your words." I chided mildly, "You just said that you would not wish to tax me overmuch, and by that you claimed that my gifts were not small. Do not be so changeable as to call them meager, simply when your own wishes change."

Masao nodded, "You speak truly, cousin! Verily you are a better teacher of statecraft than the hidebound old fogies who are my teachers. Very well! Name your price!"

I actually had something in mind, so I pointed at the seed pods close to the bank. "For such, I demand lotus-fruit!"

Which made me a hypocrite regarding the whole Byakuren-reference issue, but it was that or Hōzuki berries or green plums, and I didn't want to give suspiciously incestuous signals.

Masao clapped his hands, "Then I shall fetch them swiftly, o Kirisara of the lotuses!"

What. And then I realized. The dress.

Taking his offering, I split the spongy seed pod in half, and halved one of them again to share with him, pulling out the seeds and peeling away the flexible seed-shells and dropping them in the water to rot along with other mulch.

Then I took the last seed of my quarter, and tossed it into the water, using the motion to catch him in a genjutsu.

The delicate tip of curled lotus leaf poked out of the water, and a beautiful red dragonfly alit on it, before the swiftness of the plant's growth forced the dragonfly to fly away, only to perch on Masao's nose. He laughed in delight, carefully transferring the dragonfly onto his finger, and marveling at its delicate gem-like beauty. More leaves sprouted, a veritable throng; tender green darkened as the leaves became tough. And then, flower buds rose, slender and shapely, blooming white and lavender and blue and pink and red. The dragonfly flew away and landed on that most perfect pink bloom (because white and lavender were political symbols and I couldn't give the fruit of Kiri to a prince).

Masao cried out as petals dropped from the flowers, but I smiled as the seed pod at the heart of that bloom swelled and bent towards me, finally 'plucking' it from its stem and splitting it in half once again. Then I gave the boy the remaining half of the seedpod he had given me, sparing a bit of effort to turn his attention away from how the tissue had turned a bit brown from oxidation.

His eyes widened as he realized that what he held in his hands was in fact, real. I tricked his tastebuds to register sweetness and his olfactory receptors to register lotus fragrance when he tasted the seeds. "Kirisara!" He exclaimed, taking my hands in his own, "Truly you are no land-plodding woman, rather some form of spirit or saint, to conjure from seed a bounty of fruit! Yet woe to me that our acquaintance is so short, and I must soon return to my world of red dust, where my company is composed of doddering foozles, fighting brothers and giggling girls. Never shall I meet another so—"

"What are you doing?!"

And apparently the Daimyo's wife had come to find us.

Dragging both of us by the ear (given the absence of ANBU interference, I presumed that my father had anticipated this), she stormed back to the Mizukage tower, where councils of state were being held.


"Your little harlot just attempted to seduce my son!" Lady Haruka snarled at my father, throwing me forward in an attempt to cast me into the dust. Unfortunately for her, I was the combat-trained person of the trio, so I regained my balance with pointedly contemptuous ease and did obeisance to the Mizukage before stepping aside to give him a direct line of sight to the woman.


Finally, something to break up this monotony. My brother greeted me through genjutsu with his typical acerbity.

How terrible can it be?

Beyond description. I think it's a manipulation tactic. Everyone else is both horrible and without class. I'm reduced to rooting for our beloved overlord simply because he is more pleasant in comparison. At least his insults are amusing.

Case in point: the Sandaime was even now mocking our guests with false gentleness, "The refinement of the imperial house has fallen of late-how swiftly has it crumbled into ignominy and barbarity! Of course, that you level such accusations at a maid of four winters speaks of your own depravity, does it not? Worry not, my daughter will never stoup so low as to court your son's favor, for what bird would perch in a gilded cage when she could fly free and dive deep?"

Poor you then. Masao is surprisingly agreeable for a prince, but far too disposed to poetry. I think he takes after his grand-uncle more than anyone wants to think about

Yep. And he still won't let a chance to drive home the crimes of the Imperial House against his mother go.

To be fair, coercing consent is not at all acceptable. At least he recognizes that.

Now, if only he can apply that understanding to other forms of coercion, not just that of marriage and union.

To be fair, I think that he's quite aware of the immorality of his actions. He's just particularly ruthless whenever he thinks it is necessary for Kiri, and only thinks it terrible when the motive is only personal gain.

Is that Prisoner's Attachment I'm hearing, sister? The terrifying thing is, we're almost the same.

We wouldn't rape anyone, no matter the circumstance or how prettily it is put, would we though, nii-san?

We definitely would not. Why would there ever be something that could only be solved by that?

Depends on the definition. If you count the mental violation as a form of violation, then…

Torture genjutsu don't count. Not on that woman.

In other words, it depends on the victim?

No. Can we talk about this later? I really don't want to debate morality while listening to territory reconfirmations and defense contract redrawing and supply agreements.

I thought you were bored.

Aargh!


More people trickled in from the docks the following days, or so I was told. I was too busy checking and rechecking last minute changes to the Tragedy of the Nidaimes and talking actors down from stage fright.

"Wonderful." Ginkanmuri said, narrowed eyes scanning the shadows, "Suna has arrived."

She—I was certain she was a she—was the Yu Guard then, if she could see in such low light. They were in some ways akin to the Nara, for their bloodline was linked with shadow too. Named for the mythical worm that spat sand upon shadows to poison its victims, they could sink into shadows or harm without touching flesh. Dangerous enough and capable enough for their greatest to number among the Guard.

And if I squinted, I could make out the odd-angled shapes of puppets and the dark hooded clothes of puppeteers, see perhaps a Genin's face reflecting a glimmer of light. My sight could not pierce the mist that lurked even inside, clustering in the corners and climbing upon the roofs.

"Will they cause disturbance?"

"Unlikely. They respect theater. They also hold their own opinions of it. They will not heckle. But they will judge."

"Then we have no recourse but to make a good showing."

"Yes. I will intercede if circumstances spiral beyond control."

Positions.

Aiko sat just behind the curtains with the script in her lap—she was the prompter. I had a similar book in hand, but I was hidden behind mist and shadow high in the rafters, where I could see everyone and could most easily coordinate things, and that made it rather more difficult to make things out.

Shiro was hiding behind the market stall for the first scene's set. Kasumi underneath the stage. Two more, orphaned siblings, Haruto and Hiroto, who Kasumi had invited to live with him after they made each other's acquaintance in the genjutsu club, masqueraded as background characters and wearing easily changed clothes. Ginkanmuri joined Yagura, front and center. It was the Sandaime's bit of psychological warfare, to have Genegetsu's children narrate his tragedy.

All lights dimmed. There was a hush.

Ginkanmuri began,

Fair flowers may blossom bright once again,

Yet without return is the youth of men.

See now, the great tragedy occurring then,

How accursed conflict brings down great legends.

Yagura continued,

This epic tale begins with the Founding,

The bloody birth of our villages.

Ginkanmuri bowed and faded out of sight with the perfected invisibility of Mu's signature technique, the Dustless Bewildering Cover as Yagura chanted on. None from Iwa could fail to recognize its significance, but the Sandaime had chosen to reveal the technique on the stage, while Kiri's pride was in its illusions, casting doubt on its authenticity, while still leaving enough room for doubt and thus paranoia. He was weakening Iwa yet in vengeance for the loss of his predecessors.

I settled a net of awareness onto my comrades, even the Guard. Music swelled at Kasumi's direction.

The play began.


For those of you who found this story from With all due respect sir, meaning none, yes, Ginkanmuri/Kirisara/Basil has distressing amounts of experience coping with princes and hyperactive oblivious people.

Mino's relationship with her part in Uzushio's Fall and her Uzumaki heritage is complicated.
Masao is a prince. He is polite, but he never says please. He doesn't think before acting because he is expects that he will be obeyed anyways, hence dragging Kirisara around and excessive bodily contact. He's also a kid who's fascinated with magic/jutsu, hates history and politics, loves poetry/prose, and as of now, thinks the world of his fairy cousin. He's going to have character development.
Speaking of which, Mizu people consider Kirigakure the equivalent of a faerie court, with all the superstitions involved. Kirisara is not helping. I'm beginning to feel as if they're developing along the lines of Morgan le Fay to Arthur. Just less tragedy and incest.
There was a Duke, 卫懿公, who did fixate on cranes to the detriment of his dukedom. The Sandaime probably took inspiration from that and uh. Encouraged deplorable tendencies.
On the bright side, competent dowagers 垂帘听政(hanging a curtain and listening upon the government AKA being regent) instead of the ridiculous women in positions of power will just drive the country to ruin because it goes against the natural order of things BS.
Green plums: 青梅竹马, the green plums and bamboo horse. Refers to romantic love beginning from childhood. The girl wishes for green plums. The boy uses his toy horse (horse head on bamboo stick) to knock some down for her. Part of a poem, from Li Bai's《长干行》.
Strangely enough, there actually is an immortal associated with lotuses among the Eight Immortals: He Xiangu, literally Immortal Aunt He.
Red Dust: 红尘,or dust of lanes, refers to the bustling life of mundanity, the mundane world, etc. Masao is serious in his Kiri=Faerie thing.
Prisoner's Attachment: Stockholm Syndrome, but the lack of Stockholm means I need to think up a different name for it.
Fair flowers may blossom bright once again,
Yet without return is the youth of men.
My hopefully poetic translation of the saying 花有重开日,人无再少年. Pretty much means that compared to riches and nobility, living well and stably is more valuable, because you only have one life. The Sandaime keeps lamenting about the senseless loss of life as psychological warfare. Hypocrite.