Chapter 2: What Lies Ahead
By: DragoonMen
'Human Thinking'
"Human Speaking"
Technique/Jutsu Use
'Bijū/Non-Human Thinking'
"Bijū/Non-Human Speaking"
Published: 25/Jul/2020
Pre-Chakra Era Arc
26 Years Before the Chakra Event (BCE)
7 Years Before Ōtsutsuki Arrival to Earth
Chapter 2
—Land of That—
Uesugi's Farmlands
One Year Later
The sunset view was something most people would find intriguing. How could the Sun cast a light so bright it burned your skin in the morning, yet at its final hours it turned into something so magnificent and beautiful to spectate.
Still no dice, no matter how stunning or great it may look for some folk. For a great bunch of people, this meant that their daily day activities were over but a handful of individuals didn't believe the same thing and continued their work, like a certain raven-haired teenager.
Zrash!
Zrash!
A slightly rusted scythe was moving in a sporadic movement. Cutting down the rice crops that his current user had sown some months ago. Better do it now before it rots. The summer season was ending so it would be good for said teen to reap the rice now, than let autumn and winter let it all go to waste.
Aim
Loose
Cut
Return
Repeat
Jigen was in a hurry to mow down his harvest before nightfall made it all but impossible to do.
A bead of sweat running down from his forehead to his jaw, gleaming thanks to the little sunset light still being emitted in his location.
Bringing his forearm to remove some beads of sweat from getting into his eyesight and making his ocular organs sting, he finally stopped to take a breath. Thinking about everything that has happened in the term of one year for him and that life seemed to get harder and worse for him.
His father ever since last year has only seen little leaps in progress regarding his health. He was still too weak to work but that didn't stop him from helping his son by seeding the rice. His father was forbidden from overexerting himself unless he wanted to detriment his condition even further.
It was a good thing his old man was not a useless person. So, Jigen as the only son of the family had to take over the hard work in the fields which he did without any complaint or objection on his part.
After an hour, and with the last of the reapings safely secured in his self-pulled cart, he started to make his way home as night settled in the infinite sky.
'Time to rest finally...'
Meanwhile, on his way home, he started pondering on the subject that has all the nation falling over their heads.
'When is the last straw that broke the ox back going to come?' He inquired to nothing in special.
It has become common knowledge around the province that their proud country was on the verge of war with the land of the Ancestors.
Intense skirmishes in the border and the sealing off of all trade routes only let room for one single thought.
'When is this war going to break out?'
Reaching the edges of his humble abode location, he parked his full cart on his family decent-sized barn. He finally allowed his wrist to relax from the stress of his work and proceeded to go right into his home.
He took a hold of the doorknob, wincing at the contact of cold metal against his callused hand. He opened the door to discover a welcoming picture.
His Kaa-san was cooking food in a water pot. The water pot was suspended mid-air by a metal rod held by twin pillars of stone, a fireplace on the underside. The flames licking at the metal pot. Then her mother turned to glance at him, her raven hair so similar to his own held in two buns greeting his vision.
"Mother." He acknowledges her presence. "Where is father?"
"He is outside... probably using the latrine." She said now looking at him. A tint of confusion lacing her tone. "Didn't you see him?"
He slightly turned his head to both sides. An universal gesture to tell someone "No".
"Hn." The sound came from his throat.
He moved forward to wash his hands in a bucket, specifically placed for that same purpose near the kitchen.
After cleaning himself, he walked right to their dining table in the house and dropped to his knees. Tucking away his feet under his legs, like kneeling but with two legs at the same time. Once he settled on the table, he swiveled to look at the woman who gave him life.
"What are we going to dine tonight, Kaa-chan?" He only ever let his frigid and cold demeanor melt when he was with the people he loved. Those people were very few, two to be precise.
"Your favorite one, son. Meat and rice stew." She said with a smile adorning the end of her lips, already proceeding to serve the dishes.
The door suddenly opened and the shape of a brown bearded man he knew all too well, makes his entrance.
"Jigen." The newcomer said. No emotion behind his words but pure formality.
"Father." He respectfully greets him. His neck and head going down for a moment then returning to their original position. A slight bow. A sign of respect.
His father didn't reply and slowly made his way to their dinner table, acquiring the same posture as his offspring, the one he had taught him so long ago, Hachiro took a seat in the table.
His wife put down both bowls full of stew, steam lazily leaving the soup, silently showing that the meat rice stew was very hot. She then left to serve her own bowl.
As soon as she left, both men nearly at the same time started dinning almost as if they were synced.
Jigen was very careful in the way he partook in his meals. His father was a very strict man, reprehending him every time he made a mistake in his actions. Sometimes even getting physical.
The senior man had taught him everything about how to carry himself, what to say and not say in certain situations, what was appropriate and indecent by public standards, and the rules about social etiquette. In this situation; table manners.
"We may be of common birth my son but we won't act as the common rabble down the street. That is the difference between us and them." His father had said that to him once when he was a kid, after slapping him for eating with his hands dirty.
Cleaning the tears trail rolling down his cheek with his thumb. He smiled at him.
"You will thank me one day." He had said.
He was so engrossed in his train of thoughts of the past that he nearly didn't hear his mother asking him something. Nearly.
"Pa-pardon me, Kaa-chan." He apologized for not giving his attention to her properly. "Can you repeat yourself again?" He sometimes hated it when he got too deep in his head.
"I just asked how was your day, son. Kami above, sometimes I wonder what stuff you got in your head that you space out like that." She said in a teasingly way, Jigen swallowed his food and opened his mouth to respond until his mother beat him to the cake.
"But I got a clue." She said with an evil smirk. "Thinking about little Suki-chan again, eh." The food going down his throat suddenly got stuck and he choked on it.
Coughing and hitting his chest, he managed to recover his composure, looking embarrassed when his father raised an eyebrow at his odd antics.
"My day was good, thanks for asking." He evaded. "I just got a lot of thinking you know... with the conflict right on our doorstep." The evil smirk on his mother's face lessened at that.
"And about Suki-san..." He paused. "... haven't seen her since the Harvest Festival two fortnights ago." He said with a serious face but internally he sniggered at his mother.
"We understand you, son." Surprisingly, it was his father's voice that answered back. "Either way..." He put down his wooden spoon on the table. "... you should invite that girl some time to dine with us. Suki is a nice girl from an honorable family. His father was my friend, so I know how her upbringing went on." He stared right at him.
"You would do well to remember that you aren't going to be teenagers forever, better initiate looking for someone to settle down and h..." His old man continued his rant but Jigen was deep thinking about what his sire strived to make him realize.
'Settling down and having screaming kids'
The simple idea frightened him. He knew his parents were looking for his well being. Suki was a good girl —eveyone in Kōbe could attest to that— but he had enough commitments right now.
He had the suspicion that Suki's father and his own had agreed to marry both of them when they were of age. It was not uncommon for families to join together in arranged marriages, thereby strengthening their bonds in a more intimate way. Very few people in these times could allow themselves the luxury of marrying out of love, while the great majority did it out of duty. Jigen belonging to the latter group. His family were farmers and Suki's were ranchers, the union of both their households would greatly assist him in the future. Jigen would become the owner of not only lands for agriculture, but of livestock too.
Usually for girls, this was abhorring. Having to marry a guy or —in worst cases— an old man sometimes you didn't even love or even met just because it benefitted your family. It seems that Jigen could now feel for them.
He exits his inner thinking just in time as his father was finishing asserting his statement.
"...tter choice than her, so keep her within your good graces. You understand me, boy?" He waited for his response. "Yes, father. I understand." Jigen said without delaying the moment any further.
"Good. Let us resume our dinner in peace." The patriarch of the family retorted, his parents resumed dinning. Safe to say that dinner that night was awkward.
OoOoOoO
It was on the last day of autumn just before winter arrived in their valley, coating the entire landscape with a thick layer of icy white, when things finally went south.
The hostilities between the land of That and the land of the Ancestors had been an all-time high since last year.
The event that unleashed all havoc was the assasination of the Ancestor's Minister of Foreign Affairs and his escort at the border, just as he was on his way to the capital of Ka to discuss peace talks. The land of That said that it was pure coincidence, even going as boldly as claiming that the Emperor of So killed his own Minister, blaming Ka no Kuni to incite war.
This was just the breaking point. Lord Matsuo just couldn't and wouldn't let this transgression stand, to do so it would be perceived as weakness by his people. Something his pride couldn't abide.
At last, in the first days of winter, when the temperature started dropping slightly to let the inhabitants of Earth know of his arrival, war broke out.
Both nations quickly sealed off their borders and began moving their forces to said places. The land of That began sending couriers to spread the news of the war. They would rally their people and notify everyone that Lord Oda was calling on his banners.
Gathering troops was no easy feat but it was feasible. Recruitment envoys were sent out all over Ka's territory to raise levy troops, even from the most remote places of their country. They would get even the last able-bodied man to fight this war.
OoOoOoO
—Land of That—
Ka no Kuni Capital City
Genbu liked to call himself a ladies man. The fact of being the son of one of the most well-respected generals of Ka no Kuni has a lot of perks.
He was raised in the core of a noble family and that could be compared to winning the jackpot in this Feudal Era.
Since little, Genbu never suffered from cold or hunger, having home teachers that gave him an education that a commoner could never hope to afford, a maid that constantly watched and cooked for him whenever he felt like it and having everything he wanted at the palm of his hands. So yes, Genbu has hit the jackpot in this life.
'How dare he send me. Me. The son of a nobleman to meet those inbred hillbillies' Genbu was fuming, better yet, he was burning in impotent rage.
Lord Oda has decided to send him to serve as the leading army recruitment officer with an envoy to the northwestern region of Ka.
He was pissed, of course. He should have been sent to the front lines and taught those Ancestor's idiots a thing or two about the repercussions that followed when you decided to cross paths with Ka no Kuni.
'And let their women know what it feels like to be with a true man.' He thought lecherously.
Deciding to dress in his blue garments, he soon left his bedroom. A sleeping girl he just met in a tavern the last night still sleeping on his futon.
Once he reached his living room, he sat in a pile of pillows acting as his chair and closed his eyes. The estate he owned had a lot of available rooms, but not as large as this one.
He already had the map that showed the route that he was to pursue, spread on his work table.
Unlocking his eyes again, he reviewed it one more time.
Several villages that stretched far and wide connected by roads. He followed the line until the final destination.
A black dot which symbolizes a small village was the last point on their journey. He read the Kanji that adorned the underside of the black dot.
Kōbe
'What a drag'
End of Chapter
AN: So you can start figuring out where this story is going. Jigen will surely have a bad time in the future. And before you ask I know Jigen's background from what I have seen in Boruto but I feel entitled to fill the missing spaces before he ended up as a monk and from there it launches it into the Naruto Timeline events.
Also, Genbu is a Canon character for your information like others mentioned before. Search for them.
From this point on some canon characters of the Pre-Chakra Era Arc will start appearing so pay attention. Also, take time to study the little details of the story, some things in the past will surely have repercussions in the future.
Anyway, see you soon. Remember to leave a review if you like my story. Flames will be ignored so don't bother.
DragoonMen