Chapter 04 | The Kuronuma Tree
Mio felt something warm crawl down her cheek and reached up to touch it, hot and watery against her fingertips. The tears streamed down her face, falling like droplets of water to the ground seeming to echo as loud as her hasty breaths. She clutched at her chest, every beat of her heart hurt like someone held it crushed in their fist, squeezing every second she wasted on the floor.
She sent Saori out there.
Why?
How could she be so stupid?
Not again.
"It's Saori, isn't it?" Yayoi cried, covering her mouth.
Mio forced her quaking body to stand, tugging off the first two layers of her robes and the many trinkets in her hair, casting it all to the ground before she reached to take the Vision Sphere from Madara's sash.
She ran to Saori. She recognized the part of the forest she had seen in the pathway that had entered her head. She could reach it quickly.
"Mio!" Madara shouted, his voice carrying after her. "Damnit! Nako, take a team of shinobi and search the forest, capture anyone suspicious!"
"But—!" Nako began.
"Takuto!" Izuna snapped.
"Nako, do it!" Takuto ordered, his voice fading in the distance. "Take Taiki and Akira!"
Mio sped through the forest, scaling trees and jumping from one to the other in her rush to find Saori going by memory. Madara, Izuna, and Takuto chased after her, quick to catch up.
"You need to calm down!" Madara shouted.
"I can't!" she yelled. "Saori—I can't—I sent her here…I—"
She could barely think straight. It was a wonder she was running to the point her muscles were screaming from the strain.
"Calm down!" Madara snapped again. "This is reckless enough!"
"I cannot lose another Guardian!"
"If Saori is hurt and we reach her in time, I can heal her!" Takuto shouted. "Just listen to Madara and calm yourself!"
Their voices overlapping only made her cry harder, the tears fell from her eyes and her heart raged inside her ribcage. She pushed past the escalating pain, biting back every scream it threatened to take from her, and led them deep into the forest.
Mio touched the ground first, followed by Takuto. The two went straight for Saori, who they found trapped under the earth with fresh blood flowing from her neck. Takuto immediately sliced his palm open and pressed it to the wound, channeling chakra into his hand to heal the cut.
Madara and Izuna parted ways after landing, sensing the presence of the shinobi responsible.
Mio buckled under the weight of her body, heaving for air, as the muscles in her body began to cramp and twist into throbbing knots, followed by the feel of her bones being smashed by a hammer, cracked then flattened. The Time Sphere took a deep draw of her chakra and startled her when it erected its iridescent shield at her back. She heard to sound of a blade smashing to pieces when it made contact and the singing of the shards as they shimmered to the soft earth below.
A man cursed behind her. She turned slowly, her eyes widening at the sight of a strange shinobi holding the handle of his broken sword with a furrowed brow.
They knew she would come. They were after her.
Again.
No, not again.
Mio took the Vision Sphere from its sheath and attacked the shinobi swiftly, barely cutting at his legs when he jumped back, away from her. She hopped on her feet, wincing at the pain radiating through her as Takuto shouted for her to be careful, and pursued the man.
The shinobi drew several kunai, each nestled between his fingers before throwing them at her like darts whizzing through the air. She blocked them all with a swing of her dagger, the kunai flying off their trajectory and stabbing into tree trunks and the earth. As he reached into his weapon holster, she saw the crest on the breast of his jacket—an arrow pointing up with small lines along the base.
She landed for a split second and propelled herself forward, seizing him by the neck before he could pull out another set of throwing knives. The kunai spilled from his holster, clattering along the ground. She slammed him into the ground, tightening her grip on his neck to hear him croak in protest.
She dug her knee into his chest and watched his face redden. He let out a strangled noise.
They were in the middle of a small patch of dirt closed in by trees that sat too close together, the canopy of interwoven branches shielded them from all but a thin stream of moonlight that helped her sear this man's face into memory. He was not the one that pulled the knife across Saori's neck, had he been, her fury would have forced her hand to extremes.
Mercy. She could offer him mercy. This one alone.
"You have two options: tell me who sent you or die," she proposed, body singing with pain and adrenaline. She felt her heart pounding against her head and her fingers digging into his neck, so fragile in her grip. "You have one chance to speak. Only one."
She loosened her hold on his throat. He coughed violently, gulping down air in desperation. His eyes, clear and wild under the soft light, were frightened but stubborn.
She would not receive an answer.
"You won't kill me," he spat hoarsely. "You're the weak one, the compassionate one."
"Won't I?"
Mio grabbed his head, witnessing his horror as it sank into his mind that she had no compassion to offer, and she twisted it until she heard his neck crack. The life left him slowly, like a drawn out sigh.
As she rose to her feet, pushing her black hair back—wild and tangled with a lone hairpin trailing down the length of it until it hit the forest floor—her body's aches doubled. She drew her hair over her shoulder and reached down to tie the skirt of her juban above her knees to increase her mobility. She searched the dead shinobi for any information, but he only carried weapons.
She left him there and ran back to Takuto, but she was intercepted by another shinobi wearing the same arrow crest. She blocked his attack with the Vision Sphere and continued using it to hold off his blade. She pushed him off, but he kicked her in the stomach. She slammed into one of the nearby trees, coughing up saliva. His foot went to her hand holding the Vision Sphere, crushing it until she dropped the artifact. He stabbed his sword through her shoulder, pinning her to the tree, with a proud grin. The blade slicing through flesh, muscle, and scraping bone did not amount to the throbbing ache coursing through her body. It was a mere sting.
She was familiar with pain. That would not measure to the turmoil she felt, not the physical aches, the emotional ones—the nameless ones that hurt without being obvious.
"The thing about Kuronuma is that you have to pin them down," the shinobi said smartly, "keep them from putting their hands on you and you might live another day. That's how I took care of that other man." His eyes went straight to her sphere, the mist within it spinning lazily about the object sitting in its core. "This is the main artifact, is it?"
He committed the mistake of not pinning her legs. She jumped and thrust her feet forward hitting him square in the chest with all the force she could muster. He went stumbling backward until he hit a tree on the other side; the force that propelled his body put a dent on the sturdy trunk. It splintered, pieces of bark flying everywhere. He tumbled to the ground with a groan and a curse.
Mio grabbed the sword impaled in her shoulder and forced it out, the blood splattering across the floor sizzling as it sank into the earth. She moved to the shinobi as he raised his body on his hands and knees, suppressing the tremors that raked his body. She kicked him over and pointed the sharp end of his sword to his neck as a droplet of her blood rolled off, hitting him in the throat. It withdrew a guttural scream from him. The black water running through her veins seared his skin.
"Who sent you after the artifacts?"
"You think I'll tell you!" he yelled, before another droplet of her blood fell on his neck and drew a line down the side of it, making him howl in pain.
"Then know you will have a useless death," she said. "I can and will find whoever sent you and I won't care how many of your clansmen I have to kill to see it done."
"Wait—"
She plunged the sword through his throat, ramming it straight through and into the earth. The blood built up in his mouth and spilled out of it a red river. He made a choking sound.
Mio touched her shoulder and her hand came back bloody. She ripped a part of her sleeve and tied it firmly around the wound, over the shoulder and under the arm, to staunch the bleeding. She went back to the other side and picked up the Vision Sphere, sheathing the dagger and sliding it behind her sash.
She followed the pulse of Takuto's artifact and reached him without another shinobi springing out to attack her. Takuto had pulled Saori out of the earth and was holding his hand to her throat, healing her. He had a tube connecting the two together to give her a transfusion while he held onto her wrist. Trained all his life to be a Kuronuma medical specialist, Takuto's mixture of black water had been a blend of medicinal herbs and anti-poisons (as toxicology was his specialty). He knew a special technique where he could change his blood type to mimic another's and offer easy transfusions, as well as another one that helped him reproduce his blood at ten times the normal rate to circumvent weakness, though he paid a steep price in chakra. He would be weak for some time, wouldn't be able to perform the simplest of jutsu.
Mio stopped herself from approaching the two, worried she would get in Takuto's way.
"She's alive," Takuto said, smiling, and the confirmation was uplifting. "She lost a lot of blood and she has a weak pulse, but she'll be fine." He zeroed in on the wound on her. "Come here, I can heal that, too."
"No," she said quickly. "Please, just Saori."
"You don't have to stand there."
Mio hesitated before sinking down into a seat beside Saori. She clasped her hand, feeling a hint of warmth in it that brought her peace. She could not stop herself from weeping.
"I was so scared," she said, sobbing. "This was my fault. I sent her to go to the Senju." She proceeded to tell him about Fuyukichi and the shinobi that said he had killed him. "We have to find him."
"You did not know this would happen."
"No, but I had a terrible feeling the whole day. I should not have let her leave." She wiped away her tears as quickly as they dropped. "I wanted everything to be okay. I just—"
It did not take long for Madara and Izuna to return, the latter having apprehended one shinobi to interrogate. The two returned with few scratches and contusions, their fine clothes torn, dirty, and wrinkled.
"There weren't many enemies beyond this place," Madara said. "Hopefully, that Uzumaki had better luck."
"We got one," Izuna said, dragging the unconscious man behind him. "I'm back to the compound."
"Drop him off and find Nako."
Izuna nodded, leaving them quickly with his prisoner in tow.
Madara held out his hand for Mio and she took it, allowing him to pull her onto her feet. He took a moment to look at her wound by peeling back the collar of her juban and the makeshift bandage she had wrapped over it to staunch the bleeding. She winced, struggling to look down at her injury as it throbbed and oozed blood.
"How is Saori?" Madara asked, pressing his hand against her shoulder, wincing.
"I stabilized her condition," Takuto answered. "I should be able to move her once I finish this transfusion. I can't do much after this. What about Mio?"
"I'll be fine," Mio said softly, trying to move away from Madara. The pain in her body decreased, appearing in her like little pulses in different places, not all centered in the stab wound she had received. She lowered her eyes to the floor. "This is nothing."
"You are still recovering, Mio," Takuto remarked.
"This is nothing," she repeated.
"I can stop the bleeding," Madara said, "So, stand still."
Mio nodded, feeling a slight tingle against her skin as Madara's hand glowed for a brief moment.
"We can leave the rest to Yayoi," Madara told her, ripping a long strip from his sleeve. He tied it over her shoulder and under her arm, knotting it loosely before helping her pull her juban back in place.
Takuto completed the transfusion and grabbed hold of Saori, cradling in her arms as if she were as delicate as glass.
Together they traversed the forest at a slower pace.
Madara led Mio by the wrist, though he stopped periodically to dab her tears away and offer her the comfort she did not feel herself worthy of receiving.
Nako, Izuna, and Yayoi were waiting for them to arrive. Sachiyo and Kana were standing outside with a few of their guests, most of them their allies.
Yayoi went straight to Takuto with watery eyes. "Oh, Saori!"
"She's okay, I'm taking her to the encampment," Takuto said. "I leave Mio to you."
Yayoi ran to Mio's side, quick to notice the blood. "Mio!"
"I captured several shinobi," Nako relayed to Madara. "Took them all to the compound and saw to that they were properly caged."
"Good," Madara said with a slight nod. "Izuna, have several scouting teams assembled. This was a calculated attack and if these men were foolish enough to be caught, they are foolish enough to leave a trail. Find it."
"Yes, brother," Izuna said. "Nako, let's go."
"Oh, me too?" Nako questioned, looking to Mio for approval.
"Go Nako," Mio said.
Nako followed Izuna's lead. She had torn a chunk of the bottom fabric of her kimono's skirt, to permit better mobility. Izuna had discarded his ripped clothes for a more comfortable outfit.
Yayoi sat with Mio as Madara went to explain the situation to his clan's allies. The priestess cleaned out her wound before healing it.
"I worried we would lose Saori," Yayoi whispered.
"I thought we did," Mio answered, her hands trembling.
The priestess took her hands and squeezed them. "I wanted everything to be okay."
"That would be impossible," Mio answered, finding Madara's back in the distance. "There is always reason to wage war. So long as these artifacts exist, we will always be in danger. You saw it in the Fate Sphere. We are all in danger, not only me. Someone is plotting against me again and they are after the artifacts."
Yayoi leaned in to rest her forehead against Mio's good shoulder. Mio felt the priestess begin to tremble and heard her hiccup. The warm tears that fell from the priestess' eyes fell sank through the thin fabric of her juban. "I'm scared, Mio," Yayoi cried. "I couldn't see any of this. I should have seen this. I should have been able to see this. Saori could be dead now and I could have—I could have stopped it."
Mio's heart hurt and her eyes were wet from her own tears as she wrapped an arm around Yayoi, holding her head. "None of this was your fault," Mio said, reminding herself that she needed to be strong. "We should be happy that we found Saori on time. Takuto is doing everything to make sure she'll recover."
As the priestess tried to contain her tears, Mio watch Madara leave the leaders and representatives of his allied clans, who inclined their heads in respect when they became aware of her stare.
Madara returned to her side. "I asked them to return to their own clans," he said. "They will be safer away from here."
"We have to move everyone," Mio told him. "We can't leave anyone here to the dangers this night has brought."
"Move them where?"
"I will gladly take everyone to the Iron Country," came Murakami Keishuu's voice. The samurai's leader came to stand with them, an older male with his gray hair pushed back. The man had a square jaw covered in gray hair that hid the small scar on his chin, but not the one he had over his right temple. At Madara's glare, he added, "I apologize for eavesdropping, but if this place is to become a battlefield, it might be best to evacuate those that may not be able to protect themselves. Here they will simply become another weapon against you. Besides, my wife would like to see the twins again."
Mio nodded.
"You can keep Keigo, though."
"What?"
Yayoi raised her head, wiping her tears, to look at Keishuu. "What's a Keigo?"
"I don't need Keigo right now," Mio told him.
"He will do you some good, keep him, I don't want him," Keishuu said dismissively. "I'll have him dropped off after I make it to the Iron Country. So, just round everyone you want gone and call for me. I'm going to find alcohol."
Madara and Yayoi exchanged glances, then returned their eyes to Mio.
"Who the hell is Keigo?" asked Madara.
"Yeah, I want to know that, too," Yayoi said, dabbing at her eyes with her sleeves.
Mio stood up. "Now is not the time, we have to move everyone."
She beckoned a Kuronuma that was walking by. There were more important things to do than sit around and feel sorry for herself. "Gather a group," she started solemnly. "Fuyukichi is dead. I need you to find his body." She paused, her throat dry. "If you are attacked, you must fight."
"Yes, Shugosha-sama," he said, bowing and walking off to do as she bid.
"Yayoi, please go see if Takuto requires any assistance."
Yayoi stood. "Yes, I'll go do that."
Once she was out of earshot, Mio turned around to face Madara. "I'll make sure everyone is gathered and on their way before the night is through."
"You shouldn't overwork yourself," Madara advised.
She shook her head. "I'll be fine," she said. "Please, don't worry about me."
"Don't do anything stupid, Mio."
Mio returned the Vision Sphere to him. "Take it with you, wherever you may be going."
When Madara left her side, Mio felt her body sway. She grabbed onto the nearest wall, holding herself up. She took several calming breaths before pulling herself together and walking to round everyone up to travel. She didn't have time to be weak.
Mio woke the following morning at dawn because she heard a sound downstairs. She rose into a seat and the dry washcloth sitting on her forehead fell onto her lap. Madara wasn't lying beside her, which explained the noise. She left the room in pursuit of the shuffling downstairs. The house was empty without everyone sleeping in it, but even though it would have been smart to stay together, Yayoi stressed the importance that she and Madara spend a whole week alone in his grandmother's house, as Sachiyo had decided. Everyone had decided to stay in the Kuronuma clan's encampment behind the large house.
She quietly walked down the stairs, exiting into the long verandah that wrapped around the house. She followed it to the room where she and Madara had been married and found him with the black-barked sapling in his arms. The Kuronuma Tree was supposed to be planted the day after the ceremony and it was supposed to become a symbol of their marriage. However, Takuto insisted it was fine to break tradition after their eventful reception.
Last night had been difficult. It had been hard not to shoulder any guilt about having sent Saori out to the Senju clan's territory because it had nearly cost her life. It had shaken Mio to the core, but having been confronted by Yayoi's own guilt had reminded her that she needed to be strong. She had to be a pillar for them, for her Guardians. So, she had stopped her tears and had gone ahead gathering every civilian in their territory, which had included her twins Yuuka and Noe. The girls had cried and clung to her, calling out for Takuto to help convince her otherwise. Keishuu had to pry them off her body, even though it had meant his face would receive a pummeling at their small hands.
Mio had resisted crying, every inch of her body shaking with the desire to let the emotion go, but if she had caved to it, she had no idea how she would recover and she had much left to do. She had watched them go, wailing until their voices had disappeared in the distance.
"You shouldn't be up," Madara told her, moving past her. "Yayoi said you should be resting."
Mio took the sapling from his arms, feeling as though she had taken a great weight from him. "I wasn't going to succumb to a fever."
"You were sick the entire night."
Mio had woken in the middle of the night gasping for breath, her throat aching with every violent cough. Madara had brought her water and had tried to help her drink it, but it had made her feel like she had been drowning. It had left her shaken, but he had held her in his arms. His left arm had carefully cradled her head, hand on her forehead, and his other arm had been looped under her knees where he had clasped her hand. She had tightened her grip to the point she felt she had crushed his bones.
Once the coughing had subsided, Madara had informed her that she had been feverish. He had left her in bed to fetch Yayoi (because Takuto had been busy with Saori), who had assured him that it had just been a fever and likely the repercussions of her fight earlier that day.
She had been feverish the whole night, as he had accused.
"Wait here." Mio put the sapling on the porch. "I'll come back quickly."
Mio returned to their room and pulled a haori on over her sleeping robes. She grabbed one of Madara's haori and a scarf before leaving. She made her way to his side, handing him the black haori. As he slipped into it, Mio draped the scarf over his nape and wrapped it around his neck. She tugged his haori towards the middle, smoothing out the fabric across his shoulders.
"You shouldn't push yourself," Madara told her.
"I promise you that I'm not." Mio smiled lightly. "Let's plant this tree."
Madara nodded, allowing her to pick up the tree and lead the way. He carried a spade to help dig a hole, though he accidentally dropped it over a frozen bucket when his sandaled feet sank into the snow.
They ventured to the lake that sat near Sachiyo's home. He had proposed early on that it would be a good place to plant the tree because she liked to fish and would need the shade if she continued to do so. She had no objections to it.
She thought it would look lovely in full bloom.
"I can hear your teeth chattering," Mio pointed out, hearing Madara force himself to stop, though he fought a losing battle. Since she had strengthened the Climate Sphere last night, the temperatures had dropped several degrees. "You should have been the one to stay behind."
"Shut up," he grumbled. "I'm fine."
It had gotten chilly enough for her to feel it, but she easily remedied the cold with another layer of clothes or an extra blanket.
The lake had frozen overnight; its surface glistened iridescently in the morning light. Mio stared on ahead at the horizon, at the frosted trees sitting aligned around the lake, at the snow on the ground, at the sun shining behind white clouds moving slowly to reach its peak. There was something infinitely beautiful about the scenery and something increasingly wrong with her heart. It tightened in her chest, growing heavier with every millisecond that rushed them by. She thought it might explode, everything bursting from it like a broken dam caving to the pressure of the water.
Madara stabbed the spade into the ground, coming to stand beside her. He tugged his scarf up above his nose and held his hands to his mouth, puffing out hot air onto them.
She sensed his steady gaze on her profile, observing her and knowing that he watched her crumbling.
"You don't need to be strong for me, Mio," he said, surprising her. She snapped towards him, big eyed and tremulous. "I know you are hurt. I know your body is aching. I know that you're scared. I know you hated losing Taiga, and now, you almost lost Saori."
Mio reached past him, taking the spade from the ground forcefully. She didn't want her brittle heart to break, so she chose not to listen.
She picked a spot and pushed the spade through the snow, shoveling it into a small mount beside her before stabbing into the earth.
"You are allowed to cry, Mio," Madara told her, standing back.
"What will crying solve?" she demanded. "I cried enough! I don't have time for crying any longer. I'm not a child. I'm a Shugosha and I have responsibilities and I have to keep them safe. I have to keep all of them safe."
"Someone is waging a war against you—"
"I know that!" Mio clutched the Time Sphere hanging from her neck and pulled on the black cord a bit. "And it is because of this! Because I'm not strong enough to destroy them!"
"You will find a way," he assured.
"But what if I do and I can't destroy them, not before it kills me," Mio continued. "What if I can't before another one of my Guardians is killed? What if it isn't one, it's two, it's three, it's all of them? What am I supposed to do then? What if I get killed before that? I can't—" She let her Time Sphere go and abandoned the spade, tossing it aside. She dug her hands into the frozen soil, forcefully pulling chunks of it. "I can't. I can't do this. I can't go through this. I don't want to be Shugosha. I don't want to feel this way."
Saori's near-death had recalled the memories that haunted her. The bloody induction she had been given into the Artifact War by Mikazuki Gouki, who had slain her parents before her eyes. The torture she had endured at the hand of her aunt, which had left her back covered in tiny little scars that ached every so often, after witnessing Eito's death, the blood pouring from his ruptured neck was like a violent red river. The invasion of Mt. Hyōga that had taken Yuuka and Noe's parents as well as her great-grandfather and predecessor, which had caused her to go to succumb to Motou Ayuka in the Sun Country. The humiliation and disgust she had experienced at Motou Enki's side. Her relinquishing her title as Shugosha to save Madara after he had been poisoned and near death before she had gone to marry Gouki. The reminded of Gouki's touch on her skin that had revolted her and the helplessness that had kept her prisoner. The death of her grandfather had always saddled a weight on her body, of guilt she had not yet surpassed because she had always (and will always) believed that if she had not felt that inkling of hesitation towards killing Gouki, her grandfather would have lived. Nishiki's castle having been destroyed and littered with death, and the activation of the Universe Sphere that had spelled an end to all of their efforts.
Everything had culminated in one thing: the death of Uchiha Taiga, her Vision Sphere Guardian. It had taken a piece of her being.
Mio shoveled more chunks of dirt out of the way with bleeding fingers as Madara shouted for her to stop, but she didn't listen. Everything came pouring out in tears and sobs, but she pushed through the pain in her chest, feeling it numb against that in her hands.
"Stop this!" Madara shouted, seizing her bloody hands by the wrists. His voice had boomed through the area, silencing everything within it. "Stop it!"
"Stop hurting yourself," he told her, lowering his voice, eyes on her. "You're already crying."
Mio sobbed, bringing her hands up to cover her face. She let out another pained sound.
As she sat hunched on the ground, crying, Madara picked up the spade and continued to dig the hole. It took him some time to make it deep enough, but once it was he heaved the sapling inside. He quickly pushed the dirt in around it, finishing once he patted the area about the small trunk with snow.
He took the handkerchief from his pocket after taking the seat beside her and wrapped a fresh cut on his palm. She leaned into him, resting her head on his shoulder as her body shook with emotion.
"Saori is alive," he said. "That's enough. Takuto said you can visit her whenever you want."
She nodded, continuing to cry beside him silently.
"I'll find out who did this to her. Everything will be fine."
1. Juban – underclothes—like a camisole, except kimono-shaped article of clothing—worn underneath a kimono. There are two basic styles of juban, a one-piece that resembles a kimono only that it is shorter, and a two-piece juban, which consists of a top and wrap-around skirt bottom.
xl: Mio is definitely going to die of sadness at the rate things are going.
On the plus side, Saori is alive! D:
I'm sorry about the last chapter, though. I'm sorry about this one, too. They're pretty depressing. :'(
Many thanks to: Loteva and SilverRider09 for reviewing the previous chapter!
I initially wrote this chapter in Takuto's POV, but I ended up changing it. I still think his POV was pretty awesome, so I posted it as a Jigsaw chapter at my livejournal if anyone is curious about reading it!
There should be a preview up for the next chapter on my livejournal, too.
Thank you for reading!
-On a gross, unrelated note, I had a Flying Gorilla earlier and omg...I can't stop burping the fucking banana! I'm like tired of it's nonsense!
