Author's Notes: So, time for another chapter. This is a very important chapter, as it finally solidifies things between Ise and Yi in many ways. This chapter and the next contain the last of the really important character development before the end. I worked hard on portions of this, and I hope things are convincing.

Anyway, thanks to reviewers, and an answer:

Thorn1484: actually that's not nitpicky at all, and I appreciate it. I'm not much of a speller, so I generally have to rely on Word to supply me with options, and sometimes I guess I chose the wrong thing even knowing what I want to say. I'll try to keep an eye out for that error in the future.

Chapter 20 – From the Recesses

The days passed surprisingly swiftly in the confines of Hidden Rain. Ise and Yi spent the days together, two Mist ninja isolated in a world of strangers, where the dark looks and suspicions kept them apart. They appeared with the rain ninja only on a rare official summons, usually for a ceremony or a memorial, where they stood silent as representatives of the founding village.

Left alone by the rain ninja Yi and Ise clung to each other, becoming close companions by nature of necessity and the common bond of their bloodline heritage. They spent many days in long bouts of training, practicing taijutsu and the ninjutsu of water, increasing their strength and endurance, focusing their chakra, all the while never revealing their greater abilities. Yet those powers progressed as well, and Yi learned to read the way fire would burn across the water forms she controlled, and Ise felt his senses continue to sharpen, until he felt as if he had lived his whole life before blind to the things that had been constantly about him.

Training occupied much of these wintry days, but talking was also a great part of their lives. Ise and Yi discussed many things as those days passed. He told her all he knew of being a ninja, all the things he had been taught in Mist, completing her long deficient education in the ways of the ninja world. She in turn shared all she could recall of the world of her family, and the nature of her blood. They went through their pasts with brutal honesty, balancing between each other all the horrible concerns they had learned, and all the discoveries they had made, until their way mirrored each other.

Yet beneath all this openness each held something back, a silent, blank moment hidden in each ninja's past that they would not discuss, not even with the one who had become closest to them in the world. Ise and Yi stayed silent, holding a single thing in themselves unsaid, a silent sin that would not be shared between them.

All the winter passed this way, with few distractions, and only this one silence held between them. It seemed to each ninja that this silence would persist forever, and neither made any move to force it to the fore. They were ninja; they could hold their secrets deep inside.

Some secrets, however, have a way of burrowing to the surface.

Two weeks into the stay at Rain Ise had passed a marked letter onto a merchant, the last to leave before winter, to be taken to a relay in the grass country, and from there to pass eventually into the hands of Mist and the Warlord Akai. It said little enough, for Ise was careful to continue to keep his true mission hidden. Instead, it relied on his story to avoid detection.

'The girl is with me still, but we have been delayed by the winter in Hidden Rain. I anticipate few troubles when spring comes.' So Ise's letter spoke, enough of a confirmation he hoped to tell the Warlord he was still alive, and that his mission would succeed.

Everything was going well, and spring was fast approaching, when the first trader of the year broke through the walls of cold. He came from the desert of sand to the south, as the northern roads were still closed. He brought a letter to Ise.

Receiving that letter as he went to gather the weekly food supplies Ise was quite shocked, and he brought it back to the residence immediately.

Yi looked up when he entered. She sat silently at the small table, reading one of the scrolls of ninja history she regularly borrowed from the Rain library. "You're in a hurry," she remarked idly. "Did something happen?"

The paper seemed to burn a hole in Ise's hand, and even seeing it had ripped away the cloak of idleness that had passed over him all these winter days. "Word has come from Mist," he whispered low, closing the door behind him solidly.

Yi's head shifted, understanding instantly her companion's call for silence. She looked about to confirm that they were unobserved, nodding slightly when she was finished.

That done Ise pulled up the other chair, and pulled forth the letter from its envelop. Unfolding it he read out the sharp characters of the Warlord's script in a slow and steady voice, concerned as always for security. "It is from the Warlord," Ise began. "It reads: it is welcome news to know that you are well. Less so the news that you are delayed. That is a bad tactic; to be caught in one place for long is always a risk, no matter the circumstances. Your mission is important, and a ninja should no allow distraction to serve as an excuse. Leave as soon as the roads open. With regard, Warlord Akai of Mist."

Ise looked up from the letter to Yi, only to see her sitting quietly, digesting the news as it were some great shock. He thought about it for a moment, looking back to the words again, and only then did it strike him. "With regard?" Ise hissed.

"Huh?" Yi looked at him. "Why should that matter?"

"It is a code," Ise whispered. "The Warlord would only put something before his name if there was a hidden message. Get ink and a candle."

Yi brought the two things quickly. Ise took the brush and wrote three characters on the back of the letter, a coded seal he had long ago been instructed in. Then he unrolled the paper to its maximum openness and put it to the flame. There, as the letter slowly burned, were revealed a series of short characters. Yi and Ise squinted at the paper, and read each character as it appeared and then faded.

"Danger…get…out…of…Rain!" they turned to each other in shock, and then away from each other as the paper crumbled to ash between Ise's fingers.

For a long silent moment they sat at that table, as the sunlight faded between the boughs of the great trees, casting streams of pale yellow light and long shadows across the room.

Yi was the one to break the silence. "How long till the roads open?"

"I spoke to the merchant today," Ise answered. "If it stays warm we could leave in perhaps three days and the roads would be open when we reached them. We don't have to go any further north than waterfall, so it should be okay."

"Three days?" Yi whispered. "It's too soon."

"Too soon?" Ise turned around to look at her, but her face was turned away. "How is it too soon? There is a danger here, we both sense it, and now it has been confirmed. I'd leave sooner but it would only seem suspicious. I suppose I must go inform Suwa Shiori this evening." Ise moved to stand.

He had risen to his feet, but his hand was still on the table, when Yi's arm came across like a striking snake to grasp it with a vise-like grip. "Not yet," she hissed. "Don't leave."

"What is it?" Ise asked, genuinely confused.

When Yi looked up at him there were tears in her eyes. "I'm not ready to leave here," she sobbed. "I can't go to Mist yet."

"What?" Ise did not try to get Yi to let go, but he pulled her to her feet roughly. "What are you talking about?"

"I told you," her voice rose. "I can't go. I'm not ready, I'll never be ready! It won't work!" She almost screamed.

"Yi, what's happened to you, haven't we been through all these things many times? Only by going back to Mist with me is there any reason to go anyplace. You must be a ninja, you have to accept that."

"Do I!" Yi yelled back. "Do I! I believe everything you said Ise, I did, I believed it and I tried so hard to live like that, to believe that by being a ninja it could all be all right, that I had a life worth living." Tears streamed down her face now as Yi reached up and ripped the forehead protector off her head. Her long red hair with its brilliant blue lines cascaded down, flaming in the sunset light that streamed through the room. "It's not enough Ise, it's not enough. There are some things that even a ninja cannot be forgiven!"

With that act and those words Ise knew he was on unstable ground. This is deeper than I have ever been before, and there is blackness about all sides. The thought flashed through his mind, but not before he opened his mouth in return. "Will you throw everything in my face like that? We are the same, it is the same for me as well, do you dare tell me I'm not worthy of living!"

"No!" Yi shouted through her tears. She raised her hands in fists and slammed them into Ise's chest. The shark blooded ninja took the empty blows with stoic resolve, not even twitching as Yi's hands slammed again and again into the hard scales covering him. "You don't get it. You don't know, you don't know what I've done!"

There it was, out in the open. Even in the deepest, blackest sea, the shark always knows which way lies the surface, and which way lies the bottom. Ise could sense that in that moment he held tremendous power. What he said in the next few moments had the power to either save or destroy the being known as Mizain Yi. Even as his heart reached out to succor her, a dark current within him screamed back to cut into her, to slash her apart. Crush the vulnerable one, now, strike. Strike! Ise's whole body shuddered, and he threw Yi back roughly. His arms seemed to move of their own accord toward her, but in that moment she looked up at him and he saw something behind her eyes.

Fear burned there, a strange primal fear, beneath the human reason, a blinding terror of the thing that even now reached toward her. Ise's eyes shot wide open, to the point of pain, and he arms slammed backward, striking the wall with enough force to rip the scales bloody from his knuckles. "I don't know? I don't know! Tell me then. Tell me! Yi!"

Yi curled up upon the floor, fetal, a child hiding in a corner from the wrath of someone greater. Yet when the fifteen year old girl spoke it was with an adult's voice. "When I lived with my family there was one who was my companion," she began.

Ise's eyes returned to normal with these words, for even as the urges remained untamed he knew the truth behind those words. Yi's stories had long left out another person, for her tales of escapades in the jungles of her homes had many gaps in them, and now Ise knew why.

"He was my only friend," she continued. "He didn't have the mizuho, but he was my friend, a boy. Shiro was his name, and he was dutiful, virtuous, a good ninja, even though everyone else considered him less than nothing. He was my friend, we went together constantly, getting into trouble together, practicing together, learning everything we really knew of life in that jungle."

Yi turned up to Ise then, meeting his blank shark eyes with her own burning red orbs. "He knew me better than anyone Ise, all my ways and haunts, all the places I would go. So, on the night I fled, when they chased me, it was only Shiro who could find me. And he found me that night. I had just learned the greatest secret of my powers, and I stood on a pond wreathed in flame, reveling in Mizuho as I never had before or have since, letting my anger free the demon in me."

Oh god, Ise sensed what was coming, and the tears formed salty in his shark's eyes, even as he stared at Yi without blinking.

"He found me there Ise. Shiro found me," she gasped in pain, but continued anyway, tumbling out the words without control. "He was a good ninja, a great ninja, he did his duty no matter how much it hurt you see. So, when his duty was to bring me back he did as he was told."

"But I was the demon then, and I refused, for I would not be caged, not by the desires of my father. I told him to stay back, to leave it be, but Shiro would not, he would not! He drew that simple sword of his and leapt up over the flames, a desperate, stupid, stupid move. He must have known, he must have, but he did it anyway. He jumped at me with his sword drawn, and I…and I…" With that Yi collapsed, weeping inconsolably.

"Say it," Ise hissed.

Yi glanced up at him, but then turned away, burying her face in her knees.

"Say it!" Ise growled, letting the shark take his voice now.

"Why, what does it-"

"Are you a ninja! Say IT!" the howled words ripped through the room a lethal saw, cutting through illusion and regret.

"I killed him! Damn you, damn you Ise! I killed my best friend for no reason, for no reason but to defy my father, for my empty, worthless, forsaken, deluded freedom! I killed him!" Yi shot to her feet and slammed her fist into Ise's face. "Now do you see why I can't be a ninja?"

Ise took the blow full force, accepting it as the price he deserved to pay for what he had said, but his own hand came out and grabbed Yi's chin. He pulled her up with all his strength, so that her eyes stood level with his, and then he lowered her a few short inches, so that she was forced to stare at his mouth and its needle sharp shark teeth.

"You think that means anything?" Ise rasped. "I told you it could all be given a purpose if you would be a ninja. You think you are the only one with a horrible sin. I have killed a man with these teeth. I ripped his throat open with my jaws, just as a beast would. Does that horrify you, well? It should, but it doesn't matter, because I am a ninja of Mist, and I did it to preserve my mission, and that is the only way I can live with myself after doing something like that. Now, you need to come with me to Mist Yi, because if you turn aside now you will never forgive yourself, whereas if you come, you might just do something that makes it worthwhile."

Ise put down slowly, and as he did he felt her hand move slowly along his jaw, touching each one of his teeth in turn, slowly, carefully taking the measure of his words with her touch. "That's the truth isn't," Yi mumbled. "Gods, I didn't know, I'm sorry. So, it is really the same for you then, you are hoping to do something as a ninja to atone, just as I must, aren't you."

"It's the only way, otherwise we're just monsters," Ise answered, and they sank to the floor together. Instinctively Ise put his arm around Yi's small form, and she grasped it in return, two monsters clinging to each other in a desperate attempt to prove their humanity.

They stayed like that for a long time, crying together, until the tears dried up. Yi twisted around so that she sat beside Ise, but did not let go of his scaled hand. Her fingers ran over his knuckles, feeling the blood there. "You're a mess," she muttered.

"It's what happens when you punch a wall," he muttered offhandedly, and Yi giggled in response, a girlish act that seemed to totally break the room apart into a whole new light. Suddenly they were both laughing stupidly, and then the moment broke again, and they were silent.

Yi let go of Ise's hand, and stood up. "You're a mess, so I'll be the one to tell Shiori."

"Tell her?" Ise blanked on the thought for a moment.

"That we'll be leaving in three days, right." Yi's tone had returned completely to its normal openness with Ise. "We do need to tell her after all."

"Right," Ise stood up. "In that case," he flipped her forehead protector back to her. "Fix your hair first."

"He," Yi reset the forehead protector in her hair then and there. She went to the door, and as she stepped out, she spoke of what had just happened for the first, last, and only time. "Thank you, Hoshigake Ise."

While Yi was gone Ise busied himself mindlessly by putting together dinner and cleaning their small space, but his mind was not on such things, but on the realization that the dark secret that had existed between the two of them was now gone. Have I ever shared all my secrets with anyone like this? I wonder…

Then Yi returned with a cunning smile on her face and a strangely satisfied look in her eye.

"Well?"

"Suwa Shiori has given us permission to leave in three days, but she has also insisted that we attend the celebration of spring tomorrow evening," Yi smiled that cunning smile again.

"The celebration of spring?" Ise wondered.

"They measure spring here by the flowering of a certain kind of orchid," Yi replied.

"That's not really…"

"It's a dance," Yi winked at him. "Partner."

"What?"

"As my escort, that would be part of your job right," she remarked with a laugh. "Come on Ise, it will be good to do something fun before we leave."

"I suppose," he responded cautiously. "It's just that Mist ninja don't do that much of this sort of thing."

"How gloomy."

"No, you'll understand when we get there, but I suppose I'm caught in your trap aren't I?" Ise jokingly replied.

"Yes, you are."

"Then I surrender, and accept being your partner," Ise smiled himself. Maybe it will be good to have a distraction before we launch into the harsh outside world again.