Hey! Hope everyone is being safe and protecting yourselves while we go through this Pandemic. Now's a lovely time to write if you feel the inkling!
Sorry for the wait. I hope you enjoy. BIG smooches to those still with me. I adore you all and I appreciate each and every review (they're read! I swear).
~Yasha's Sis
Circumstance
Book 2: Land of Grass
Chapter 26:
Uzumaki
Huddled in the large tent that Hotaru kept sealed on her person, the woman watched the boy poke through the appropriated gear she unsealed for his examination.
InuYasha-sama was strange. His curiosity in the weapons wasn't unexpected in someone his age but the questions he asked, his insights-
The boy expertly flipped the kunai in his hand a few times, testing the weight and balance before placing it in the growing pile at his side.
He did not act like a normal child, even a shinobi trained one. Growing in Iron should not have left the boy this ignorant to Shinobi ways and yet so proficient at cataloguing their equipment.
And yet he was.
It took the entirety of their travel for InuYasha-sama to start calling Chakra by its name. He reacted to it strangely and twitched at the most minute shift in her system. She had not known someone so sensitive to Chakra who was not of Uzushio.
Thinking of that made her remember the boy's unbelievable words.
"You remind me of the woman I'm looking for. Kushina. A… friend said her family name was Uzumaki."
Golden eyes, rich and warm and aching with some unspoken pain, held hers for a long time before turning back to the lamp light and gear.
"She might like to meet ya, if you keep following me."
Hotaru could barely breath with the possibility of that option. Family!
All she's had is her brother and parents. Her brother who was barely four and her parents who were far too old to easily continue service to Ame. They were not Shinobi, would never be granted that title, but they taught Hotaru seals to aid others and offered themselves as a guide to those who crossed Ame and Kusa. It was the price she had to pay for keeping her family safe and she would pay it, perhaps not gladly, but willingly at least.
Konoha… was too predictable a target to strive for and her family wanted to survive more than they wanted a chance at seeing the rest of their kin. They continued West, ignoring the promise of salvation in Konoha's gates- because they abandoned us- to reach safety as far West as they could conceivably travel with a pregnant woman and a young child.
Hotaru never pretended to understand her father's hatred of Konoha.
Half lidded eyes tracked InuYasha-sama's confident sharpening of the few weapons lacking a deadly edge. Their enemies were highly skilled. High chunin and above at the least. That Hotaru was forced to expose her Chains at all was a testament to their ability.
That InuYasha-sama neither flinched nor demanded answers of the same…
It has been a long time since Hotaru felt trusted with anyone other than her immediate family.
Within her, the suspicious creature, honed from her father's paranoia and the poor conditions in Ame, watched this boy with squinted eyes. He could betray her, now that he knew. He could sell her to Suna or Konoha or Kiri if she let this attachment be. Hotaru needed to be ready, at any moment, to eliminate potential threats to her family.
It was the way they've survived for so long.
And yet…
(A/N): Thoughts? Comments? Concerns?
We'll get rolling onto the next segment soon enough. Stay with me!
~Yasha's Sis