PART III
The Weapon
Gohama kneeled solemnly and extended her tanto to lay it in front of the Yukikage's feet.
After lowering her head in a bow, she looked up and spoke the ceremonial words, "I, Kyura Gohama, deliver to you, my Yukigake and my Village, my weapon as a symbol of my warrior duty. The love for my homeland moves me. May my devotion balance the darkness of a warrior. May my sacrifice be sweet if it protects and honours. To you, Yukikage-sama, and to Bikigakure, I pledge my skill and I pledge my life.
"If death comes, may it be in honour of the Arms."
When Gohama finally met the gaze of her Yukikage, Father's eyes were hazy. If the redness was because of a happiness or of a sorrow behind them, Gohama didn't know. Her chest tightened but she didn't let her pride fall.
She averted her gaze to his Yukikage ring and his wedding band - his weapon and his snowdrop.
The same hand, with fingertips tinted red, moved to reach her weapon and she looked up at his eyes. It had disappeared, only her Yukikage was sitting before her.
Yukikage-sama smiled softly and picked up her tanto. "I accept your weapon as a symbol of your warrior oath, Kyura Gohama."
He turned to the wooden bowl on the table beside him. Immersing the tips of his fingers in red powder, the Yukikage traced a line on the blade of her tanto. He gave the weapon back to her.
"The blood of our ancestors seals your weapon with sacrifice, duty and honour" He took a hitai-ate from the table next to him "I give you your hitai-ate." She accepted it and tied it around her forehead. "I pronounce you, Kyura Gohama, a Bukigakure no Sato shinobi.
"If death comes, may it be in honour of the Arms."
The first time Gohama killed another human being she was seven years old. Her three month old team, Nomura Katsuo was her sensei, and her genin teammates were her best friend, Minake Haku, and her cousin, Kyura Hiashi. They were running through the forests of the Land of Snow after a simple C-rank escort mission. They were speeding from cedar branch through cedar branch, snowy field through snowy field, eager to return to the warmth of their home.
Three explosions surrounded them and blocked their view with think dust. Five chakra signatures popped into her and Hiashi's sensorial field. An ambush from a missing nin group.
She hadn't thought of the meaning of what she was doing when she threw a deadly kunai towards one of the men creeping up on them. She just threw it because that was what she had been trained, conditioned to do. To kill not to think. It slowed him enough for her to shove her tanto into his chest before he could throw a kunai back at her. With a frenzied war cry, she plunged her weapon into too soft, too slice-able flesh.
He let out a gurgling grunt and gripped her arms, still extending into his chest. Gohama started at the violent, desperate touch and with wide eyes, almost as wide as his frantic brown ones, twisted her hilt. Shattering of bone and ripping flesh met her ears and, with one final disbelieving frown, one final hateful glare and one final terrified whimper, the man was limp against her arms.
A gush of red, impossibly red, and wet and warm blood continued to flow out of his chest. And then she remembered her genin ceremony. And with the weight of the limp body and the fading of stagnant chakra, she understood why Father's eyes had been red and hazy when she had offered and accepted her weapon, her warrior duty.
Not every snowdrop on a grassy field could cleanse her from the darkness seeded in her on that day, growing and looming.
Where was the honour on the pool of red blood soaking into the white forest ground? Where was the honour on the five cooling chakra-less dead men, their skin as pale as the winter snow?
Death would always come. And Gohama waited for the honour with trembling, too small hands and wet, too big eyes.