Again, I want to apologize to everyone for taking so long with this story, but trust me when I say I got a scene coming up that I hope that will make the wait entirely worth it. I couldn't believe the amount of blowing up my phone did once that last chapter was put up haha, it was great. Your comments are fantastic, and they make me feel amazing and make me want to wow you all even more, so I hope that's what I do with this one and the next few 😉
What light had been left of the fading afternoon had not been adequate for Hanzo to have tracked down the men that had attacked his family. He recounted the battle in his tearoom and retraced his steps out in the garden where he had chased them before they disappeared over one of the shorter walls that surrounded the estate. Yet when he searched clearing and the road that was half a mile from the wall, he saw nothing that could indicate in which direction they had fled, not in the fading light he hadn't anyway.
When the sun had set, and the light with which he had used to search was extinguished, he decided to retrace his steps again in the morning. Perhaps there was something he missed in his search for noticeable signs. He returned to his room to think and rest; however, it would have been a blatant lie to deny that he was worried that his father might try to remove Jun from his reach.
Yet when the servants slid the door open after announcing his arrival to the guards inside, he saw that she still slept in his bed. Turned on her uninjured side so that she was facing the door, she looked more peaceful than he had ever noticed before. He sent the guards outside, but when they hesitated, he felt more fatigued than angry.
"But young lord," One of them burly, scary looking men began to speak, he glanced to the two other men beside him for backup. The men nodded, "It is improper for the two of you to be left alone together before your marriage has been blessed the priest."
"I did not ask…" Hanzo sighed heavily, tilting his head back, "what was proper, or tradition." He felt the tension in his back and could hear the squirming the men were doing in their armor. "I gave a simple order, did I not? I am weary. I wish to rest. Tomorrow I join the search to hunt down the men responsible for the entire upheaval of my lifestyle." He slowly lowered his head until his chin reached his chest before rotating it right and left slowly so to ease the tension as it slowly spread up his back. "My brother has been kidnapped, the woman I love has been injured, yet here I am…without a single lead or clue as to who attacked us."
"I understand young lord," The man spoke again, "But your father."
The anger flared inside Hanzo once more, he felt strength return to his arms like snakes wrapping themselves around his limbs. He rolled his neck once more and looked over his shoulder, glaring with one eye at the trio of guards who remained kneeling behind him. The guards flinched at his gaze and shuffled back to the door when Hanzo spoke through his teeth, lips faintly moving, though he whispered for Jun's sleeping sake, his voice seemed to fill the room and their ears like the rumble of thunder—a storm about to strike.
"If my father has any complaints, he may bring them to me himself." Two of the guards got to their feet and bowed at the waist before turning and fleeing down the hall, the last trembling on his knees. "Feel free to deliver my message to him." The guard bowed before getting to his feet and taking his leave without any more complaints or concerns, servants sliding the door closed so that Hanzo was alone with Jun. He dared not move until all had gone still, he knew there was a single servant outside his room, as there always was in case he needed something. The candles in the corners of his large room lit his room in a golden light that seemed to calm him easily enough. He moved to one corner and removed his armor, putting it down neatly before shrugging out of his fighting clothes and putting on a set of light sleeping garments, removing the tie from his hair and running his fingers through it before he had a realization.
Jun was in his bed.
Jun was in his bed.
Jun WAS IN HIS BED. He whirled his head around, heart hammering in his chest violently he watched as she slept. Perhaps it was a little brash of him to have put her in his bed, but his first thought had been of her comfort, now he thought of where he would sleep. He thought about sleeping by the door, but it did not appeal to him. He walked over to her and noticed she had shifted in the bed so that she was further away from the door, but still faced it. Hanzo sat down beside his bed and wiped away stray locks of her black hair from her face. She stirred for a moment, and he thought he had woken her.
Instead, she murmured sleep filled, soft words that Hanzo could not hear. He resumed petting her hair and found himself on the verge of tears. If his father succeeded in his plan, he would never get to see her this way again. He would never see her smile at him, feel her touch his arm, teach her archery. They would be denied their wedding in spring with purple and blue peonies. The first kiss that Hanzo had often thought of, dreamt of, would be stolen away by someone else. His parents would never agree to let her stay in the same house as him, she would be shipped to a vacation home to clean and keep the place proper while they were gone. She would forever be lost to him.
It made his heart ache, his stomach clench and his eyes sting, yet after the sorrow came the fury. There was a heat in his stomach that made its way up his throat to his mouth. It warmed his skin, and for a fleeting moment Hanzo thought he saw a tint of blue around his left hand, but when he looked down it was gone. He sighed angrily, feeling too agitated to sleep now despite his weariness. He looked back down at Jun and noticed two blue shapes draped over her protectively. It was two, long dragons, identical in every way from the soft blue glow of their scales and fur, to their long snouts and sharp teeth. They were much bigger than any dog Hanzo had ever seen, able to coil around Jun easily in length, and their width was almost equal to that of his sleeping bride.
The dragons lifted their heads to look at Hanzo, and he felt something stir in his chest with their movement. The fierceness, the protectiveness he had felt before seemed to resonate with the strange creatures as their haunting blue and white eyes stared not at—but through Hanzo.
"I won't let that happen." He swore to the dragons, "Jun will stay by my side, if she will have me."
"Young lord?" The servant called into the room, unsure if Hanzo was speaking to them.
"Nothing," Hanzo replied a little more loudly, never looking away as the dragons slowly faded from his vision. "Just talking to myself." He laid down beside Jun, half on the soft bed, half off as he lifted his hand and began stroking her black locks. He assumed that the dragons had just been a manifestation of his anger and desperation for a solution, between the silky feel of Jun's hair and her deep breathing, Hanzo found himself drifting to sleep. In his last few moments of being awake, he lowered his hand to the futon and placed it over Jun's who held it tightly, as if for life.
Hanzo woke early the next morning, alone. Fear and anger swept through him like a fire, he jumped to his feet grabbing his bow and quiver before storming out of his room, scaring the servant who had been sitting outside his door. He ran for the tearoom and found his father sitting quietly, eating a simple breakfast by himself. He looked up lazily and scoffed as Hanzo's ragged appearance. Hanzo had shrugged off the sleeves of his sleeping clothes and knocked an arrow, his hair hanging down around his shoulders as he took aim for his father's head with the bow and snarled, his eyes wide and hard with rage.
"Where is she!?"
"She left." Lord Shimada answered flatly as if he wasn't interested. "She was gone before the sun rose, by her own choice—not by force mind you."
"Liar!" Hanzo roared, moving further into the room to show his father he was serious in his threat. "You did something!"
"I did." His father admitted, putting down his chopsticks and looking up at his eldest son. His cold brown eyes impassible and impossible to read. "I gave her a chance to earn her place back in the family. Perhaps now you will not think me so heartless."
"She already had a place!" Hanzo shouted, pulling his bowstring back as far as he could, his hands shaking, throwing his aim off as it slightly bounced and jerked in his grip. "She was to be my wife! She needed no other place in the family!"
"She is an orphan." Lord Shimada corrected, picking up his teacup and drinking from it. "So I gave her a chance to prove herself. She's searching for Genji's attackers." Hanzo roared in anger, releasing the arrow, but it missed his fathers head by inches, freezing the elder man stiff as Hanzo stormed forward and kicked the table, making it slam into his father's chest.
"Have you gone mad!" Hanzo demanded, putting a foot on the table, "She is injured! Tell me where she was searching so that I may bring her back!"
"I pointed her in the direction the men were last seen, dropping over the wall in the garden." Lord Shimada growled, "That was hours ago, I told her not to come back until she found something. I pray we will be lucky and she will have succumbed to her wounds to die by now." Hanzo flipped the table with his foot, it tipped up and out of the way as he grabbed his father by his throat.
"Pray I do not succumb my temper and also lose a father—there is more than one way to gain ascension in a family—Lord Haido!" He cursed before throwing his father to the floor. "Get in my way, and I will not avert my arrow again. We will see what complaints you have when I am the lord of the Shimada clan." Haido Shimada shook ever so slightly as his son retreated from the room, running back the way he had come so that he could gather his armor and battle gear. He dressed hurriedly and answered the servants who came to call, asking him if he wanted breakfast.
"Would milord like to eat before he goes?" The woman asked, but Hanzo strapped his quiver to his back and snapped.
"No, but I would have you start the spread of word," He said as he adjusted his shirt, "Jun has gone in search of Genji if anyone has seen her or heard of her whereabouts I want a messenger sent directly to me, not to my father. He is not part of this command, is that understood?" He pulled his hair back into a high ponytail to keep it out of the way and tied it off with a white ribbon to keep it secure. The woman said she understood and left him to finish. Before he had made it to his own tearoom, two maids came to the door to tell him that Jun had been seen traveling on horseback down the road about two hours ago. Hanzo cursed his luck and retrieved his own horse from the stables, checking with the servant who handled the steeds that confirmed that Jun had taken a swift mare with two bags of supplies.
"How was she?" Hanzo asked as he climbed onto the saddle. "She was wounded yesterday, her injury, could you see it?"
"No young lord," The man shook his head, "A little pale in her face perhaps, but she seemed just as strong as ever." Hanzo nodded and gripped the reins tightly in his hands. "Young lord?" The man asked as he walked the horse from the stable to the path that would lead to the road. "Please be careful, and I pray to the gods you find Lady Jun. She is a kind woman, and we the servants just adore her." Hanzo smiled down at him, he was an older man, meek and soft through and through.
"As do I." Hanzo pat the man's shoulder before having a thought. "If she manages to return before I find her. Hide her. Stow her away in the stables if you must, or, best send her to my mother's family for safekeeping until this is resolved with Genji." He looked at the path, and a feeling nagged at him that he wouldn't be returning this night. "Do not let Haido lay eyes on her. Keep him ignorant of her whereabouts and trust none of my father's guard to keep her safe. Dress her in servant's clothes until I can come for her. I fear for her life more, here in my home than the open road—if it can be believed."
"It can milord," The man replied solemnly as he looked back to the main house, "You have my word, my family and I will do all we can to protect milords, true love." The man bowed deeply as a sign of respect, and Hanzo thanked him before setting off at a quick pace, leaving his home behind as he scanned the road ahead of him and the forests around him for any sign of a horse or Jun. The Shimada estate was secluded in a forest, out away from prying eyes, Hanzo lost a great deal of time getting to the road as he searched, but once he made it to the known road, he quickly spotted the hoof prints of a large horse that had headed east, further into the wilderness.
Hanzo steered his mount and followed the prints for hours, he was shocked to see they never wavered, keeping to one side of the road until suddenly they veered off, telltale signs of a horse picking its way through the woods. Hanzo gently led his horse inside the wood line for a ways until it became to difficult. He dismounted and tied the horse to a small tree, patting its head and stroking its mane as he thanked it in a hushed tone by its ear and promised to return for it. He removed his bow and knocked an arrow as he began picking his way around through the woods as quietly as he could manage. The sun was high, it was noon, and he knew he had few precious hours to find out what happened to the tracks before he would be lost in the dark.
She had attempted to cover her tracks and did reasonably well, Hanzo had a tough time following it, stopping several times to retract back to a marker he made with broken branches in the shape of an X and trying again until he found the next sign and marked it. She didn't seem to know where she was headed either, or she had found tracks that had worn away in her attempt to cover up her own movements. A few hours later, and many more markers, Hanzo found the mare Jun had taken and noticed that clothes had been discarded, the clothes she had been wearing the day before. Hanzo cursed and jumped to his feet, scanning the forest floor for her next set of tracks which lead him off to the left of the camp for several hours.
When the sun had nearly set, and he decided to make camp, Hanzo found what he was looking for. Part of the forest had been cleared away, and a house sat in the center with a small shack off to the right. Hanzo listened and could hear music being played from inside, at first he thought that this might just be some commoners home. However, as he got closer, he noticed that there were armed guards outside the front entrance, dressed in grays and blacks as the attackers had been and wielding similar weapons.
He kept to the woods for a while, overseeing them. They were lax and seemed bored as they spoke to one another in hushed tones, so Hanzo risked getting closer, running along a coach that sat unoccupied, no horse hitched to it and then made a break for the walkway on the side of the house beside a large window. He peeked inside but this room was empty, Hanzo pushed on the window and was thankful when it swung sideways, the glass centered in the middle. He slipped through it and replaced it carefully before going to the wall on the far side of the room by a doorway and listening.
It seemed that the party was just on the other side, Hanzo could make out several male voices and one higher pitched voice, a woman. He looked up to the ceiling and counted his blessings, this houses ceiling was much like his own homes, he could crawl among the rafters and stay out of sight as he observed them. Climbing on top of a dresser, Hanzo reached up and removed a mat from the ceiling and hoisted himself up into the attic above. Thankfully the home was only one level and wasn't that big, so he had little issue following the sound among the wooden beams until he came to what he assumed was the far corner of the right side and poked a hole through the mat, trying to peek through. Yet he could see nothing.
Taking his small knife from his hip, he cut away a small section of mat gently so not to disturb it too much and draw attention. When he pulled it away, he noticed he was looking down into a party hall, a place where people would gather for sake, drinks, and company, usually reserved for large parties that could not fit inside an intimate tearoom. There were several men in Hanzo's line of sight, so he began counting them as he made rounds, going from corner to count all the bodies down in the room below. One wrong error in judgment and one of several things could happen. He counted at least ten men in similar clothing lined in straight lines with food and drink in front of them. There were three at the head of the room. A man with a grey kimono on, his greying hair pulled to the side in a soft, low ponytail, a woman—probably a geisha meant to entertain the men, and a young man bound and gagged that Hanzo recognized immediately. GENJI!