I took some creative liberties with the dragon rot bc just coughing up blood is boring and not as iconic as i feel a dragon illness should be
Amidst the chaos of war, small settlements began to spring up throughout the large country of Ashina.
Tucked away in secluded valleys and small caves, they could hardly be called villages, for all of those had been destroyed, plundered and pillaged by soldier and bandit and Ministry alike. Families, merchants, farmers, draft-dodgers - all types squeezed in by the dozens, makeshift huts and market stands littering the cramped new places they called home, and a few brave men kept their perimeters patrolled. It was remarkable, how each one worked like a well-oiled machine, all remaining incredibly intact and functioning so similarly despite the lack of contact between them.
Before Wolf came to find them, for all they knew, there were no other survivors like them. They persisted nonetheless, their survival a top priority, even in the wake of chaos.
Wolf knew not if Ashina's military knew of such settlements. Surely if they did, they would not still exist; Genichiro was in need of soldiers and not above taking them against their own will, and the survivors of his bloody war were in no shape to revolt. Ashina could not handle a civil war on top of everything else, either, should it come to that.
Whatever the case, Wolf had no intention of betraying the locations of the safe havens. Once he had proven he was trustworthy - in most cases this consisted of saving them from some threat - they welcomed him in with open arms, and the merchants were always pleased to see the coin and goods he brought that they could not attain otherwise. At some point, a brave few eventually went out seeking the other groups, and now a shaky trade existed among them, hushed and careful but hopeful, all thanks to Wolf's news of survivors.
And perhaps he had grown a bit fond of a few of them, for they had a tendency to none-too-subtly slip small candies made just for him into his hand for no charge. Surely they could not afford to waste such precious resources on him, but they insisted, so he took them with many quiet thanks amidst many knowing smiles, and savored them sparingly, never knowing if the settlements would still be there when he returned.
Especially as the monsters of Ashina grew more restless and the dragon rot began to spread.
The first time he arrived to the hushed voices and worried looks of guards, knowing dread pooled in his stomach. The way they had turned to him, eyes lighting up with hope but faces unsteady like they dared not expect too much, and fell into deep bows that Wolf could not let go without mirroring.
"Mister shinobi," one of them began, rising from his bow, "you are well-traveled, yes?"
His partner elbowed him in the side before Wolf could respond. "Lord Wolf, you may not wish to enter. One of the children is very ill, and we don't know if it's contagious."
Wolf already knew what had happened, but prayed he was wrong. Stepping between them into the cave, he said, "I do not fear illness. Show me."
Trading cautiously hopeful glances, the soldiers moved past him, leading the way into the cave they called home. A narrow tunnel funneled into a wide cavern lined with crude structures acting as homes. As they cut a path straight through the middle, faces peeked out from the straw huts, curious and hopeful at the sight of the shinobi that had done so much for them. Wolf had saved them before - perhaps he could again.
Wolf hoped he could.
Their path veered toward one of the many huts, and from it a man exited, granting Wolf a short bow. "Shinobi," he greeted, tone hushed, polite. Wolf recognized him well enough - there were only so many people there - and he was usually a friendly, boisterous type. "I don't know if there is anything to be done, but I'm glad you're here."
"Let us find out."
He nodded mutely, and ducked back into the shelter, returning with a frail body swathed in threadbare blankets in his arms. The two guards stepped away instantly, and the shinobi could all but feel the fear radiating from them, but he only knelt before the father and offered his hands. He watched the father's throat bob in a swallow, and after a long moment of hesitation placed his child in the shinobi's arms.
Wolf recognized this girl. She was one of only three in the small community, full of spirit and joy even in such dark hours. Wolf remembered how vividly she had tried to trade one of the white flowers outside the cavern for one of his sweets, and how obediently he had shared the candies with her, keeping the flower safe until it inevitably wilted. How fondly that moment came back to him; how jarring reality now was.
She was warm through the blankets, and her skin searing hot to touch when he pulled one corner aside. She squirmed and shuddered, her hair plastered to her forehead with sweat from fever, and Wolf's heart clenched when her eyebrows furrowed and she began to cough. They wracked her fragile frame, wet and deep, and he could see the blood it brought forth in the pink of her teeth. Her father made a noise of distress, but busied his hands with twisting his clothing, unwilling to interrupt Wolf's diagnosis.
She turned her face into Wolf's chest and grew still again, and Wolf gingerly reached for the sleeve of her kimono, sliding it carefully up to her elbow. There was the symptom he was looking for, and he could only exhale sharply at the sight of it - a dark patch of skin that curved slightly around her forearm from elbow to inner wrist, nearly black, tinged teal in the low torchlight. As softly as he could, he brushed his fingers along the tough scales, and instantly the child whined, tucking her arm against herself protectively.
And then her eyes flickered open, hazy and unfocused, settling on his face. "Mister Wolf?"
"Yes." She brought up one of her little hands, and he obediently took it. Her skin was scalding hot. He did his best to ignore it.
"Don't feel good." Another chilling cough shook her. "Hate being sick."
Wolf shifted her in his arms so he could reach into one of his pockets, and his fingers closed around some of the delicately wrapped, caramel-esque sweets one of the kindly older ladies had made for him before. He offered her one. "You'll feel better."
Her tiny hands fumbled with it, but the delighted way she bit into the sweet gave him hope. It was a white lie, of course, but would do her no harm. It would buy him time. He returned her to her father's arms, who had only watched the exchange silently, and he set her gently back inside the hut on a little cot before returning to face him.
"Lord Wolf?" he finally spoke, loaded with uncertainty.
"You will not get the disease through contact with her." Wolf rose to his feet and pulled a few more candies from his pocket, pressing them into the man's hand. "It will be good to keep her in high spirits. Be careful not to touch the rash - it pains her."
"Please, tell me there is a cure."
"There is," Wolf replied carefully, "but her condition . . . "
"I cannot lose her," the father said, voice trembling at his hesitance. "She is all I have."
Wolf nodded, jaw set. "I will try my best," he replied, and hoped it would be enough.
"Thank you," whispered the man, taking his hand and bowing his head. "Thank you, honorable shinobi."
It was not enough. Hope never was.
By the time Wolf had successfully located a dragon's blood droplet, dropping a coin purse into the hands of a faceless merchant too far away from the little cave, she was gone. Wolf gathered as many of the white flowers as he could hold in one hand to place on her grave, and though the father insisted he laid no blame on the shinobi, his pitiful weeping only deepened the guilt and blame Wolf placed on himself.
She was not the first of Ashina's people to become sick, and she would not be the last. Wolf wished such tragedy on none of them. But wishes did not save him from death, and by extension did not save those he spoke to from the dragon rot. Knowing when they grew ill, obtaining the droplets of dragon's blood, utilizing them in time - it became a delicate balance Wolf could not hope to keep up.
Not many died, no, but there were not many of them to die. Watching as healthy young men, lively children, and doting mothers fell to the disease deepened Wolf's exhaustion far more than the deaths that caused them. Being responsible for more than his own wellbeing were on him more than he wished to admit. And as he continued his journey, where he once recklessly threw his life away to accomplish his goals, he now treated it with more caution, aware he doomed far more than himself should he continue to fail.
Caution was not always enough.
And as his mission continued, as Kuro's requests came and went, as word spread of the one-armed shinobi and who he served, so did the legend of the Dragon's Heritage. Days passed. Information was shared. Dots were connected.
Wolf was no longer the only one that believed he was to blame.
He was not sure how many snow white bouquets he had brought to the girl's grave when it started. He visited her before beginning most of the tasks he was to complete, the first death representative of them all, and it was his way of paying respects to them all. Of encouraging himself, urging himself, not to repeat his mistakes. Some days, it was successful. On others, he was not so lucky.
This day, the citizens had glared as he passed. Had kept a wide berth. Watched from the shadows, never smiling, refusing to greet him even once, and Wolf realized quite quickly that they knew the truth. He was hyper aware of the footsteps gathering behind him, and allowed them to follow him to the back of the cave. There would be a confrontation, no doubt, and rather than prepare for a fight Wolf merely wondered what he would say.
What could he say? What was there to say that could possibly make up for the suffering he had caused?
He reached the rock that marked her grave. The mound of once-fresh dirt was nearly flat now, nearly one with the rest of the cave floor, and it brought a chilling sense of finality with it. Three more graves had joined hers, more people he could not save. He placed the flowers delicately at her makeshift headstone and knelt silently before it, bringing his hands together before him to pray.
Wolf knew not who he prayed to. He had never been the religious sort; the only deity Owl had ever taught of was the dragon, who brought naught but suffering, so instead he sent his prayers out into the world and hoped that a worthy god, a benevolent god, would do something with them. Perhaps the Buddha; the sculptor sure seemed to hold him in high regard.
His pursuers stopped behind them. How many, he wondered? It was hard to tell with the way noise echoed in the cave. Perhaps a dozen, give or take. Roughly half its population.
" . . . shinobi."
No honorifics this time. He recognized the voice, and the guilt only sunk deeper into his gut like a twisting knife. He could not face the father. Not when his voice trembled with grief and tears. Not when Wolf knew the hatred that would reside in his eyes, a fire that would never be quelled now that he knew the truth.
"You did this."
"Yes," Wolf said, because it was true. He had done this.
"You killed her," the father whispered, and Wolf's hands trembled with the quaver of the man's voice.
" . . . yes."
The silence that followed was so heavy it felt as though his bones would crack under its weight. Wolf waited, his eyes sliding closed, and listened for more footsteps. Eventually they came, his pursuers spreading out in a semicircle behind him, and he knew should he rise they would be on the defensive. The rustling of clothing told him well that they bore weapons, though of what kind he did not know.
"Bare your back," the father ordered, and Wolf obeyed.
He did not fear their weapons. Truly, he was not sure what he feared. He could cut these men down in a heartbeat if he so wished. Perhaps it was the memory of the same order in Owl's voice that sent his stomach dropping as he shed first his haori, then his shitagi, laying them across his lap. Perhaps he could not help but feel anxious about what he knew was to come.
"Now, shinobi," the father ground out, voice shaking with grief and fury, "pray."
Wolf put his hands back together once more, bowing his head before the girl's grave.
When the first switch came into contact with his skin, sudden and intense with only a faint swishing noise telling of its arrival, Wolf grit his teeth and pushed his hands together to stop the flinch and exhale that tried to escape him with the stinging pain. It was only the start. Perhaps it was a testament as to how long Wolf's sins had gone unpunished that he found it so difficult to hold in his pathetic response.
Again and again, the crack of the switch against his skin echoed in the cave, and with each biting lash it became harder to hold in his grunts. He could no longer prevent the flinches, however, and he was not certain when he had squeezed his eyes shut. At some point, as well, he had stopped feeling the blood weeping down his back; his skin had become numb to anything but the sting of the switch.
And then it bit into one of the open cuts, already raw and pulsing with pain, and he could not stop from gasping out at the way it erupted like fire across his back. And as a derisive noise answered him, the lashings became aimed at the open wounds, and no longer could he hold in the pained noises that strained to escape his throat.
It seemed that satisfied them, though, for not many more lashes later and finally, it was over. No more strikes fell upon his skin, and his assailants left one by one, many spitting at him, a handful kicking at his kneeling form. He allowed it to happen, waiting with his shoulders hunched until the receding footsteps told him he was finally alone. Still, he knelt there, hardly daring to move, to even breathe.
Several minutes passed before he finally unfurled from his position, and he was slow in putting his layers back on. His muscles ached from the tension he had unwillingly held in his back, and the welts and cuts on his back burned and stung fiercely as his shitagi rubbed against them, but he dared not take a swig from his gourd even as blood inevitably seeped into his clothes.
He deserved this, and would gladly keep the scars as payment for his failures.
It was not the last time Wolf would face such punishment for daring to step foot into a settlement. The response to a murderer of their people having the nerve to return to them was quite universal, though rarely as coordinated as the first incident. To be greeted with a beating by sticks or rocks thrown at his head was common, and he frequently left the little villages with a split lip or blackened eye.
Surely he could simply avoid them, but in a way Wolf craved the repentance it brought, even if he hid it through the excuse that the merchants still had valuable things to sell, however loathe they were to speak with him.
If Kuro noticed the odd limp or bruised face, he said nothing, though his features softened as they always did when the young lord saw his shinobi injured. With a gentle voice and pleading eyes he would ask him to see Emma, but where once Wolf would have quietly obeyed he now insisted it was unnecessary. There were more important things to do, more pressing matters to focus on, and though Wolf could see the dissatisfaction in his master's furrowed brow and thin frown, Kuro never pushed.
For that, Wolf was glad, for if he were ever to be forced to heal his injuries he was not sure if he could handle the guilt it would bring. He was not one to run from the karma he had accrued.
But he could not hide forever.
Perhaps he had been too eager in his search for atonement, made too antsy by the way the scars on his back faded, by the way he moved without pain, by the way his good health brought the guilt back in spades. It was what had him leaving the castle even when he had no mission from his master to pursue, giving the idle excuse of a supply run that would come back to betray him later.
Because Kuro was no fool. Once Wolf had returned with only a flimsy few shurikens to show for his journey but a blossoming bruise on one cheek and a jagged cut above one eye, he could no longer hide.
"Wolf," Kuro said, "look at me."
Wolf, his head ducked, stiffened. He watched his master's bare feet step into his view, and knew he was caught. Still he hesitated, worry making his stomach tie itself in knots. What if he was ordered to heal his injuries? What if he was asked to reveal the extent of them, forced to show the fresh lashings and bruises he allowed himself to sustain? But he could not deny an order, so, slowly, he raised his head, forcing himself to meet his master's eye.
"My loyal shinobi," Kuro sighed, sounding pained, and the softness in his gaze was almost too much to bear. A small hand brushed against his bruised, swollen cheek, no doubt fractured, and it took everything Wolf had not to wince away from the touch as pain flared at the site. "Who has been doing this to you?"
Woulf could no longer stand to meet his eyes, so he averted his gaze to somewhere over Kuro's shoulder, his jaw set as he replied, "There are many that don't take kindly to being casualties of the Dragon's Heritage."
He did not miss the way Kuro's eyes widened in his peripheral, nor the sharp inhale that followed his words. "Wolf," he whispered, lowering to his knees before the shinobi, "oh, Wolf."
"My Lord?" Wolf hesitantly answered. Kuro's shoulders drooped, and he took Wolf's right hand. Two of his knuckles were split from a strike across them, a punishment for daring to offer sweets to an unknowing child.
"I'm sorry," Kuro murmured, voice quivering, lip trembling. "I should have thought of this before sending you out on such a fool's errand. Of course there would be repercussions like this."
"It is nothing to concern yourself with, my Lord," Wolf protested, gut churning uncomfortably at the hurt in Kuro's tone. "Were it not for my own incompetence, there would be no price to pay."
"Were it not for my orders, it would not be possible at all," Kuro countered. He softened a moment later, tracing his fingers over the split knuckles. "It pains me to know how many innocent people fall to my childish dreams, but to see you bear the brunt of it . . . "
"It is no less than I deserve," Wolf replied honestly, "for failing you and them."
Kuro's head snapped up, wide eyes searching his, and his lips parted in shock. "No," he replied, sounding absolutely horrified. "Wolf, no. That is not . . . nobody deserves this."
Wolf shook his head. "Were I not so incompetent - "
"Shall I be punished as well, then?" Kuro interrupted sharply, and Wolf's fingers tightened around the small hand in his in immediate protest. "Am I to seek out wronged survivors so they may beat me themselves for my role as orchestrator? If this is about deserved punishment, then I shall leave now to find my retribution, just as you do."
"Young lord - "
"Wolf." Kuro's eyes burned with a passion the shinobi had never seen before. "Perhaps we will see retribution for the mistakes we have made, but it will never be by the hands of men. Your longing for punishment is selfish."
"Selfish?" Wolf echoed, something in his chest twisting at how his master was laying him bare. Kuro nodded fiercely, voice stern.
"You know well that your suffering rights no wrongs. You seek temporary relief from your guilt by allowing others to take their anger out on you, but it accomplishes nothing." Kuro's voice grew gentle when Wolf winced, his words ringing true and bringing shame with them. "Please, stop this. I cannot continue to watch you punish yourself when you do not deserve it. You're doing the best you can."
Kuro was so earnest, so kind, even when scolding his shinobi. And of course, he was right; Wolf sought his own relief through punishment. He knew the little girl, at least, would not resent him for her death - how many of the dead would? He may have fooled himself into thinking he was repenting for their untimely loss, but in truth, he bore the beatings to absolve himself of his own regret.
"Yes, my Lord."
And then, unexpectedly, Kuro wrapped his arms around his neck and hugged him. "Thank you," he mumbled into Wolf's shoulder, and then, more quietly, "It's all right."
What was all right? It took Wolf a moment to realize there was wetness on his cheeks - when had any tears fallen? He knew he should feel shame for showing such weakness to his master, but instead of disgust Kuro only expressed sympathy. So finally, hesitantly, Wolf wrapped one arm around the child in return, allowing his eyes to close and posture to relax for just a moment.
And for just a moment, for the first time since the girl had died, Wolf felt the guilt that sunk in his stomach melt away.