Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. I do not own Legend of the Five Rings. No financial gain is made from this. This is for entertainment purposes only.
Matsu Kibo had adopted this ritual since she was first named head of her family. Every morning, with unforgiving punctuality, she woke up, refreshed, dressed in simple clothes and walked in the fresh morning to the Matsu shrine next to her residence. There, she would ceremoniously clean the table in front of the masterpiece sculpture, deposit newly cut flowers, and ensure the two candles in her honor, her door to this world, remained lighted.
In the meantime, she would speak with Matsu; talk to her about her problems, the issues of the family, their achievements, she would ask sometimes for forgiveness, she would sometimes thank her...
For the first time in twenty-three years, her ritual was interrupted. Matsu Kibo gathered the young girl in her arms with the softness of a mother.
"Sumi? Are you okay?" she asked sweetly, worried etched in her frown. Years had treated her well despite her hardships, and she barely looked her fifty one years old.
The girl opened her eyes, golden as hers, and moved away, scared, then bashful.
"Matsu Kibo sensei," she bowed. "I am sorry, I-I must have fainted..."
As sharp as a woman with her experience, Kibo eyed the bag sprawled in front of the altar, and the tiger that had served the girl as pillow. Haruki tended now to appear and disappear as he pleased, as he traveled his moody teenage years. "Sumi, is everything alright?" She saw the hesitation. "You know you can tell me."
Sumi heard the concern in her voice and the days - or was it weeks now - of suffering made her resolve fail and her facade crumble down.
"I am homeless," she confessed in a whisper.
"What do you mean?"
"My mother kicked me out..."
"Why? Wait, I don't need to know," she said and proposed her an open hand. "Come on!"
Sumi took it and the older woman helped her up. "Where?"
"Well, we need to get new flowers for Matsu, these are ugly now," she pointed at the few selected purple flowers at her feet. Kibo did not understand much about flowers, but she thought these purple ones pretty, and they grew conveniently next to the district's training grounds. "But how about we get a breakfast first?"
"Matsu sensei-"
Kibo took her bag and headed out of the shrine, the light coming through the doors wrapping her in a warm light as the storm finally left Konoha for new lands, "Just call me Kibo."
And the breakfast invitation extended over days, then weeks and finally months. Kibo did not know why she took the girl in, but she did not bother to apply logic to it either. She had been raised to act on impulses - strategy and reflection was for the Ikoma, the other side of her family. Maybe it was because she acknowledged the girl's dedication, her efforts when training, the time she took to improve her technique. Matsu Kibo believed little in the talent of geniuses faced with the ardor of the committed. She had seen that passion before, in her own eyes.
Matsu Kibo had been a nobody once too. She still considered herself one, despite her position. A young ungainly girl orphaned by the war, legs too long, a crooked smile and a lot of aspirations. A nobody that impressed the house leader of that time, Matsu Yunaki, with nothing but hard work. This one was already an old grumpy woman with the fire of a youngster when she made Kibo her assistant. Kibo had stayed in that post for thirteen years, until she turned twenty six. Thirteen years she used to learn, to observe, to memorize every word from Matsu Yunaki, every lesson, to train, to continue her duty to her clan...
Matsu Yunaki died when Kibo was twenty six years old, in her bed, placidly, in her sleep, with a clear conscience as the elder was sure to have taken the right decision for the clan when she declared Kibo her replacement. It was not a question of heritage: Yunaki had two daughters, but they had both grown comfortable in the luxury of their residence, of their position. No, such a military family did not bother about bloodlines. The pride must survive, and sometimes that means a new leader, a nobody that built her future on her sweat and effort.
Kibo's dedication was not only towards her work, but mainly towards her clan and Matsu, and everything she represented. Maybe that had also moved her heart that morning she took Sumi in. The Kusagakure's hero, the girl inspired by the real Matsu. How many times Kibo had wished that she showed to herself! That the statue's lips moved to share her will... And Kibo was convinced she could see it in Sumi, that fire, that courage... The girl might not know it yet, but for Kibo, Sumi was the closest she would get to communicate with Matsu. She just needed the right direction, the right guidance...
But for whatever reason, Kibo took Sumi in almost like a daughter, a decision taken without much reflection that would change their lives forever.