War-torn
A/N: Believe it or not, I have a lot of plans for this story. It's going to be a long, arduous journey for this samurai and her shinobi guide.
Hope you all enjoy.
And, as a warning, I'll be jumping to and from times and scenes. So if anything's unclear, do inform me and I'll try to find ways to make these jumps clearer.
The hermit told her he could bring her back fifteen years into the past. The hermit actually brings her back fifty-five.
All she wanted was to find a sword.
"You've come a long way."
The hermit stands his ground and she does not move to attack, she merely listens.
"Too far," he continues, "and for what?"
"A promise." She answers. And she is so sure, so determined and unwavering.
"The ocean is vast, the ocean is deep, but how can it compare to the sky?"
He smiles at her wistfully and stares, anticipating an answer. She pauses and wonders what to say. She has only ventured so far in the water and has only seen so much of the sky, but... What is the hermit even asking? What is the right answer? Is there even an answer at all?
If the ocean... The ocean and the sky...
The answer comes to her immediately.
Mirrors. Mirrors!
She catches her breath.
"A mirror." She finally answers. "The sky and the ocean are mirrors of each other–"
No, that couldn't be the answer. That shouldn't be the answer. There must be...
The hermit laughs.
"The same answer every time."
She clutches her hands into fists.
"You know so little of the world, you and the shinobi alike."
She bites her tongue and the hermit notices this.
"Have you ever felt the bottom of the ocean," he begins waxing poetics, "or reached the top of the sky?"
And she winces internally.
This is a test. Of course, it is. And anyone who had answered such a thing failed.
She readies herself for something, for anything, to be transported back to the foot of the mountain and eternally forbidden from ever returning to this place. She answered wrong. Wrong. Wrong! She waits for the sound of the wind, perhaps a thunderclap, a rumble of the earth, or perhaps the feeling of falling.
But nothing comes.
The hermit stares at her in quiet amusement.
"No, you haven't." He answers the question himself.
She wonders exactly how many have come to this place in search for the sword, how many came to the hermit with the same answer, how many years have passed since the one who came before her, how many years the hermit had been standing guard on this island.
She thinks the hermit an immortal, a god. Perhaps he is an otherworldly creature who exists beyond the grasp of time.
Perhaps he wants to find the secret to the hermit's being instead.
Perhaps.
"Which begs the follow-up question..."
She swallows her breath.
"Why?"
Yes. Why?
Why exactly?
Why, after all that fuss and all that talk of metaphysics, did the hermit chose to send her to the distant past? To the past too far for her to recognize? Was this all some show of his power? Was this some sort of stage? Does she have to gain someone's approval in order to proceed into the actual past she wishes to go to? Does she have to actually go on this quest, retrieve Murai and deliver it to Tenbutsu Masamune, before being allowed entry into the fifteen-year-ago past?
Oh, goodness.
She had forgotten to mention that to anyone.
But was it really so important?
Yes, it is.
Perhaps they might have shown more mercy. She's a woman out of her time with a goal to correct a mistake she had done in the past. She didn't mean to appear here, or rather, she wasn't meant to appear here. She wasn't supposed to be a bother. She was supposed to change the world.
His world.
Oh, how fairy tale-esque.
Perhaps the hermit saw through this. Perhaps he decided to play with her, such as the doings of gods in those stories she's read. Perhaps he'll let her go once he gets bored of her. Or perhaps he'll let her go once she accomplishes this self-made mission. Find Murai and deliver. Survive and move on. In other words, she brought this upon herself and she has no right to complain.
Which is why, in retrospect, she shouldn't have spoken against the guide assigned to her. It was something pre-destined, perhaps as part of the hermit's elaborate narrative or as the result of her carelessness. Perhaps she should have known who he is and how important he is.
But it wasn't like shinobi history was taught with gusto to the samurai.
So whoever this Senju Tobirama is, she can only assume he's some important shinobi with some generic achievements.
Perhaps this itself would be his greatest.
"I look forward to your companionship, Tobirama-dono."
No, she isn't. Not really.
And perhaps she should not have thought of such a thing.
Because the fanfare–if she may call it that–that accompanies their departure is anything but a sign of his supposed unimportance.
Hushed murmurs of variations of "Take care, Tobirama-sama!" accompany wary glances and threatening stares, both of which were directed at her. Villagers and shinobi alike, taking a brief pause from their early morning errands and routines, would greet them this way. A hushed whisper to him and a wary glance toward her. Do they not take well after foreign visitors? Was her being a suspicious character spread throughout the village so quickly? If such a thing had happened overnight, what did it say? Did it say that she was some sort of foreign spy? A traitor? Or perhaps was the rumor only about her speaking nonsense about coming from the future?
No one else should know about this, so why are they staring?
"Tobirama-sama!" A woman called out, visibly shaken and clutching her young baby to her chest.
He notices the woman's apprehension. "What is it?"
"Would you be passing by Inari no Sato by any chance?"
He glances toward her, the tiniest bit–
She hasn't heard of an Inari no Sato.
–and the woman follows his narrowed glance, looks at her with pleading, doe-like eyes.
Shikai nods immediately.
"How impulsive." A voice chides inside her head. "How kind. How generous."
She doesn't hear this. Instead, she hears a sharp intake of breath and a forced sigh.
"Yes."
"Oh, thank you!" The woman stepped forward. "I would like to request something of you."
It then occurs to her that she was the one who breathed in too quickly, who answered too quickly, and he was the one who sighed, who shut his mouth and let her run hers.
Part of her thanks this impulsive vein. He's not going to kill her.
And part of her hates the fact that such a thing still exists in her body. He's just not going to kill her yet.
"Would you deliver this to my husband?" The woman takes a small item from her sleeve, a small, expensive-looking bag likely to hold a piece of jewelry. "It's a... Tell him I... Tell him to take care."
And it's as if three thousand things rush into her at once. She's silent and stiff. She knows what to do, knows that she should reach out and meet the woman halfway, knows that she should take the item and reassure her. She knows this. She's done this before. She–
She's done this before.
It's almost as if this had happened–
"We will." He answers for her.
The woman turns to him and her face lights up. "Oh, thank you so much, Tobirama-sama! I will forever be grateful!"
He nods, takes the small bag from her hands, reassures her that her husband is safe, and walks on. But not without giving her a wary, if not suspicious, glance. She trails after him carefully, forcing such a thought out of her mind. After all, she was just retracing her steps until she reaches the island, right?
And then the memory comes back to her.
A woman, a villager, had asked her a similar thing.
"Could you deliver this to my granddaughter?"
Could this then be a recreation of her journey? Had the gods been watching her, as they have all the others who ventured before her? Could this be just inside her head, a test of her determination and will? Or could this be just a massive coincidence? That this is indeed the past and has nothing to do with what had happened to her in her time, in her original journey?
She swallows her nervousness and hopes that it is.
"You..."
It wasn't until they were past the village gates that he said a word to her.
"What are you thinking?" He turns to her completely, a dangerous aura radiating off him.
She knows she must answer, and she does.
"This has happened before."
No. Wrong answer.
Thankfully, the words don't escape her mouth.
"She was hopeless."
He doesn't say anything, and she continues.
"Whatever she wanted to give him was expensive." The woman was dressed plainly, her yukata frayed at the hem, and she looked to have had little to no sleep. She could only assume the woman had spent a month's earnings to acquire such a thing. "She had no more money and hoped that–"
"You had no right." He cuts her off sharply. "You know nothing."
It is a threat.
And he makes sure she knows this. He steps forward, too close to her space, a presence looking her dead in the eye, an aura strangling and suffocating, so much power, so much repulsion, so much anger. He doesn't tower over her, not that much, so she tries to breathe evenly, remain calm, stand her ground. She's faced opponents like him before, strong and masculine and could easily crush her spine if given the chance.
She remembers that she gave none of them such an opportunity.
But him... It might be a different story.
He might force her to give him the chance.
Just like him.
And she fears that terribly.
"I only–"
"You will not speak to anyone else," he hisses, "unless I allow you to."
She hears her heart beat a still, calm rhythm.
Good.
"Yes." She answers.
He steps back and walks without telling her anything more.
"The smart know what to say, the wise know when to say it."
It was among her mother's list of proverbs, and it was something she repeatedly failed to do.
"A promise."
That is what she tells the hermit.
"A promise." He echoes. "A frail, yet powerful thing."
She supposes that he, like certain gods, amuses himself by toying with humans.
"But surely there's more to it than that."
She supposes she's right.
"Isn't it enough that a promise is kept?" She asks.
"But you aren't here to act on just a promise."
Of course, he would know.
"You are for something else. And perhaps that is the only thing you are here for." The hermit approaches her slowly, studying her expression as if analyzing relic.
"You are here for yourself." He frowns. "How selfish you are."
"I am not." She denies him.
"It is only your promise." He continues, undeterred by her answer. "He did not make it."
"You lie."
"I promise." A boy's words ring in her head, loud and clear. "I shall wait."
"A promise is a fickle thing." The hermit chides her as if she were a child.
And perhaps she is, to some immortal like him, perhaps she has yet to outgrow her childish hope and her immature desires. Perhaps he finds it funny that she, even at her age, treasures such petty things as testaments, that she still wears the small hairpin as proof of his...
No. This is a test.
"A fickle thing with unimaginable power, is it?" The hermit muses aloud.
"How boring." He yawns mockingly. "You're just like everyone else, it seems."
"You're nothing special." A voice adds. "You're just like everyone else."
She wonders if she would have been better off not running her mouth like this. And her mother did tell her that running her mouth would only lead her to a dead end.
"There's a reason why we only have only one tongue. Can you run with just one leg?"
She didn't understand what her mother meant back then.
But she does now.
Now that she's running across treetops when she would rather ride on horseback. Now that she's lagging behind a shinobi due to inexperience this type of travel. Now that she's feeling very threatened by the man who is supposed to guide her. Now that she's regretting ever opening her mouth at that particular moment. Now that she wishes she becomes sure that this is the past and she no longer hopes that this is a dream.
She thinks things would be better once she's sure. There would be no more room for doubt.
But how can she?
Her father told her of a way to know if one is still dreaming.
It involves pain. A physical sensation. The sight of blood. Death.
She fell from a cliff in a dream once long ago, and she woke up right before she hit the ground. Some genjutsu also have death as the trigger, and some...
No, she shouldn't risk it.
Not until she can trust him to not kill her outright.
Not until she can trust him with her life.
And she knows that will only happen after he trusts her enough with his.
No. "If."
If he trusts her enough.
And all she wanted was to find a sword.
A/N: Well... That was something? I felt like writing so... Nothing substantial happened?
Feedback is always appreciated. Thanks for reading.