A/N: Because one chapter is generally never enough to truly get anyone hooked, and in the case of this piece was merely introduction, I give you two. Also wanted to let you know, the rest of the cast is coming, promise. Thankyou for reading this far!
Warnings: violence, language
Firefly Effect
Downpour
It wasn't particularly nice outside by Amaya's standards. The rain had done nothing to cool the air, but had instead added a dense humidity to it as the puddles that had been left behind evaporated into the air. Even though she could barely tolerate the muggy weather, she waited dutifully just outside the gates of Sunpu Castle. Trying to avoid the worst of the sun's glare and heat, she was leaned against the wall, barely shaded by its awning, with hands clutched behind her back and her legs crossed at the ankles in front of her. At the moment, her head was bent down and her eyes were closed, the heat lolling her into a lazy state.
"Amaya-san!" someone called from above her.
Amaya stepped out several steps so she could see whoever was talking to her from up on the wall, hoping futilely that it was Yashamaru. A familiar guard whose name she couldn't remember, but that she knew she saw regularly waved down at her.
She managed as much of a cheery smile as she could and squinted her eyes to look up at him and wave back.
"What are you doing down there?" he shouted.
"Waiting for someone," she answered, unable to think up a convincing lie.
"Who?" he questioned.
Amaya finally gave up squinting and lifted a hand over her eyes to shade them. "Yashamaru-san," she answered. "Have you seen him?"
The guards face contorted into a confused expression and she realized he must not recognize the name. "Oh! Was that who you were with yesterday?" he asked.
Tired of shouting up the wall, Amaya just nodded hopefully.
"Nope, I haven't seen him at all today."
Amaya bit her lip, knowing that the guard wouldn't be able to see the expression in the shadow of her hand, and barely managed to hind her disappointment when she shouted, "Thank you anyway," up to him. She resumed her position against the wall and her shoulders slumped. Sulkily she realized that even if he were to show up, by now her hair was frizzed and falling from the knot it had been tied in on the top of her head and her kimono was becoming damp with moisture from the air, not to mention the sheen of sweat that was collecting across her cheekbones and forehead. She forced herself to wait another ten minutes before straightening up and heading toward the gate to ask the guard to just let her back in. As she was tugging down fabric that had ridden up into her obi, there was a startling crash in the middle of the complex. She darted out from under the shelter of the wall, half afraid that it would collapse and craned her head to look at the spires and roofs within it.
There was a noticeable amount of soot and dust rising up off a lower roof as parts and pieces of clay shingles toppled down its slanted surface to shatter further on the ground below.
"My god, what's going on?" Amaya shouted up to the guard, who seemed just as rattled as she was when he opened the gate to let her back in.
"I don't know," he answered, meeting her on the ground. "Though rumor has it the Shogun is holding something in the center most courtyard."
Amaya cast another glance in the direction of the damaged building which still had a steady could of dusty debris rising off of it. It was adjacent to the courtyard in question. "Huh, I think I'll look for myself," she decided, turning on her heel and slipping inside. She thought she heard the guard yelling after to her to let him know what was going on, but she ignored him.
Amaya knew full well that it would be a fruitless endeavor to trudge all the way to the doors of the innermost courtyard, because it was more than likely that she didn't merit entrance if she hadn't merited an invitation. However, one doesn't grow up in Sunpu Castle and not know there way around, and Amaya knew the perfect vantage point from which to see into the Shogun's personal court yard.
It was one of the highest points of Sunpu Castle and like most of the castle, it was no longer inhabited. Amaya couldn't remember a time during her nineteen years living in the Shogun's castle that this particular tower had ever had an occupant, which was all for the better because it had been her secret sanctuary for most of those years and had allowed her to be privy to dozens of things she doubtlessly was not supposed to know, namely the number of mistresses the so-called happily married Shogun actually had as she had been witness to the seduction of nearly all of them.
However, what was going on in the courtyard today was far from seduction. There were a total of seven figures there. She recognized Shogun Ieyasu with his massive tumorous chin and his two closest advisors who knelt just in front of him to his right and to his left. Just outside of them, as though forming the shorter legs of an obtuse triangle were an elderly man and woman. The woman she recognized as the elderly lady who had snapped at Yashamaru. The man she had never seen before. The last two persons were moving at such speeds that from her vantage point so high up she could make out little more than blurs.
They weren't blurs for very long. A huge man with a hunched back and long, obscurely bent arms scurried up the wall beside her window, startling Amaya and causing her to stumble backwards away from the window so quickly that she toppled over onto her hands and rear. She barely managed to get back to her feet and scramble back to the window sill in time to a see a familiar set of threads wrap tightly around the spider man and yank him back to the ground with an aggravated grunt. Once he was gone, Amaya leaned nearly her entire upper body out the window to look out onto their battlefield, as by now she had figured out that was what the inner courtyard was being used for today.
Sure enough, poised for a fight and braced on the balls of his feet was Yashamaru. His arms were held up and away from his body and long tendrils of thread snaked out away from them. Amaya watched with wide eyes as the threads darted, seemingly of their own accord at the hunch backed spider man at a much more menacing speed than they had at her the night before and tied him fast to a large rock. She could tell the spider man was struggling against the threads, the sheath of his katana the only thing holding them at bay as they slowly pulled tighter around him. Amaya winced seeing slashes dart across his skin where the ever tightening strings bit through. She barely refrained from vomiting when she saw one particular wire slice into his cheek and she whipped her head away from the window and squinted her eyes shut, even lifted her hands to cover her ears. Her body tensed in preparation to drown out the horrifying sounds Yashamaru's opponent would produce when his body was sliced to literal shreds.
No such cries of agony nor squishing sounds of severed flesh reached her ears, though, only a frighteningly loud collapse easily bypassed the barrier of Amaya's hands over her ears. She jerked her head back around in order to look back out the window.
The fighters' audience had lifted their arms up over their heads as shards of shattered rock exploded in every direction, momentarily distorting Amaya's view of the battlefield with more dust and debris. When the clouds of dirt dissipated, two fighters still remained, both on their toes and panting with exertion, ready for the other to strike any time.
In a disturbing display, the spider man's tongue darted out of his mouth and spewed a noxious green, gooey substance at Yashamaru. The Iga ninja flung up his arms to block the attack, but the glop stuck hard to his face and trapped his arms in their position blocking it, hindering both his ability to move and his ability to see.
His opponent stalked up to the struggling Yashamaru, swinging his katana languidly back and forth through the air. Amaya swallowed loudly, easily able to imagine Yashamaru's trepidation as he heard the tell tale swish of the blade cutting through the air. Part of her wanted to squint her eyes shut, another was completely unable to take her eyes off the fighting pair, and the last part wanted to fling herself down through the window and bring the madness to a stop. The impulsive, crazy part of her wanted to do that, she decided; the same part that had wanted her to learn to use the throwing knives that were ever present under her kimono.
Spider man was circling Yashamaru like a shark, drawing a little closer with every round, always swinging his blade lazily back and forth as though to taunt his prey with it. Yashamaru was by now holding completely still, focussing what remained of his senses on his opponent's impending attack.
The hunch backed spider man slowly sheathed his katana when he was close enough that another step would press him flush against Yashamaru's back.
Amaya could feel her heart rate quickening and the urge to look away becoming ever stronger, but still not strong enough to her overwhelming need to watch and know for certain what was going on.
A sinewy arm snaked up between Yashamaru's legs from behind and another wrapped around his shoulders, taunting him, letting him know just how badly he was at his opponent's mercy at the moment.
The only visible part of Yashamaru's face was his mouth, and the corner quirked up in a smirk that clearly stated that he was unaffected and unworried about his opponent's proximity. Suddenly not only the strings wrapped around Yashamaru's arms, but also a set around his ankles lashed out, causing the spider man to jump back out of the way and shredding the gook masking Yashamaru's face.
Unfortunately, Amaya noted with slight disappointment that was rather inappropriate considering the situation, the move had also severed Yashamaru's silky shoulder blade length black hair, leaving a shaggy uneven mess behind. She sighed and leaned her elbows on the window sill and then rested her chin in her palms, content for the moment that Yashamaru was safe, if the full blown confident smirk on his face was any indication.
Spider man's face sported a few new bleeding slices and his body heaved a little with each breath, the agility required to get out of the way without his losing his head or a limb to Yashamaru's Gokujou having taken a toll on him. He wasn't down for long, though, and a volley of what Amaya had decided must be the man's phlegm shot from his tongue like bullets at Yashamaru, who was now prepared for such attacks and easily maneuvered out of their path. His arms shot out in front of him and the threads of his Gokujou lashed out toward the spider man, who yanked out his katana with just barely enough speed to deflect the deadly strings.
Amaya inhaled deeply and held her breath as the two fighters were lost again in another blur of exchanging blows, only the faint glint of sun on Yashamaru's Gokujou and the occasional glob of phlegm splattering against a wall could be clearly seen from where Amaya was poised in her tower.
Their struggling blur of fighting limbs and strings leapt onto a roof, giving it the same treatment as they had the first, only the crash of splintering timber and shattering tile was excruciatingly louder because of Amaya's place so close to it. She pressed her back flat against the wall just to the right of the window as ceramic shrapnel exploded off in every direction. She could hear it careening with the wall she was leaning against, and she squinted her eyes shut and turned her cheek against the stone when shards flew in through the window and smashed against the opposite wall. Absently, she realized that there would be nothing left of Sunpu Castle if this was allowed to go on much longer.
Apparently Shogun Ieyasu felt the same way, for she heard his rumbling voice holler for the two combatants to stop as loud as he could. To Amaya up in the tower, it was faint and she had to strain her ear to hear exactly what he said, but to those on the ground – or in the case of Yashamaru and his opponent, the roof above the Shogun's head – it would be an unignorable frighteningly loud booming order.
When the dirt and dust and ceramic bits had finally settled, Amaya slowly turned to look out the window. It appeared the Shogun had called the match just in time, for had it been allowed to go on a moment longer one or the other fighter would have been killed. Yashamaru was precariously balanced in the center beam of the roof, wide blade braced in one hand. The long fingered hand of the spider man was wrapped over the top of Yashamaru's head, poised as if to crush his skull. Very briefly, she wondered if the two fighters would listen to the Shogun at all, or if they would continue despite his order. After a tense moment of stillness and silence, both fighters drew apart and dropped down from the roof.
Amaya felt a rush of air exhale from her lungs that she hadn't realize she had been holding and turned so she could slide down and slump against the wall, her mind whirling at ninety miles an hour as she realized how worried she had been for Yashamaru's safety. The next she looked out the window, the party was filing out of the courtyard in a small mass. She'd have to hurry if she was going to catch Yashamaru before he disappeared into the recesses of the castle.
Lucky for Amaya, he had just split away from the group when she collided with him. She flung her arms around his waist and pressed her face into his chest. "Yashamaru! You're not hurt are you?" she demanded, looking up at him with something of a cross between worry and anger.
"No…" he seemed slightly confused as to why she would ask, and it took a moment for him to realize what must have happened. "You saw all that?"
Amaya squinted her eyes shut and pressed her cheek a little tighter against his chest. Yashamaru gently rubbed her shoulders, trying to soothe the anxious creature who clung to him. "Amaya-san," he cooed, "That's not something a girl like yourself should have seen."
Amaya cast a baleful glare up at him in a expression that was much more like herself. "I was worried when you didn't meet me this morning…" she admitted, finally releasing her death grip on his waist and standing back to stare at her toes.
Yashamaru reached out and gently patted her on the head, which caused her to look back up at him. He had his trademark grin plastered across his face. "Well, I don't have to leave for a little while. We could go somewhere now."
Amaya was content with this, and the two of them left for the same spot on the bank of the Abekawa River they had relaxed at the day before.
"So," Amaya began, leaning back in the grass and propping herself up on her elbows, "What was going on? What were you and spider guy fighting about?"
Yashamaru snickered quietly at Amaya's name for the Kouga ninja Kazamachi. "To decide who will be heir to the Tokugawa Shogunate."
Amaya wrinkled her nose at this. "What?" she demanded, confusion laced into the word.
Yashamaru paused and thought a moment, searching for the right way to word the answer. "I represented one potential heir, Kazamachi of the Kouga ninja the other. The potential heir whose representative won would have be named official heir to the Tokugawa Shogunate."
When Amaya's nose wrinkled again and her brow furrowed, Yashamaru thought he was going to have to explain again in even smaller terms, but she spoke. "That's stupid. One of you could've died. Why the hell die to pick an heir? Tell that asshole Ieyasu to pick an heir himself."
Yashamaru's eyes widened a little at the blatant disrespect Amaya had just shown for the Shogun, but at the same time, he couldn't quite find argument with her words. When she put it so bluntly, it did seem a foolish thing to die for, even if the prize was coupled with favor from the Shogunate.
There was an awkward silence as the two of them mulled over their respective feelings on the matter before Amaya spoke. "Well, who won?" she asked.
"Neither of us. Shogun Ieyasu stopped us before a winner could be determined for the sake of Sunpu Castle."
Amaya nodded agreement with this decision, then continued. "Well, then, is he just going to break down and pick and heir?"
"No…" Yashamaru debated heavily whether or not he should inform Amaya of the new plan considering how strongly she had reacted the original idea.
Amaya peered up at him through narrowed eyes. "What new plan did that idiot Ieyasu come up with now?"
Yashamaru gulped. "Well, since a one on one fight was too damaging to his property and was taking too long, Shogun Ieyasu asked Iga Ogen and Kouga Danjo to inscribe ten names from their clans onto a scroll."
Amaya's eyes widened. She knew the story of the Iga and Kouga rivalry, and was afraid of what was coming next.
"Whichever clans' members survive, the prospective heir they represent will be named."
"That's ludicrous!" Amaya flung herself to a standing position and threw her arms out in an exasperated gesture. "It's a waste of life! You can't really want to sacrifice yourself because Ieyasu is an indecisive bastard can you? Besides, doesn't such a large amount of bloodshed violate the No Hostilities Pact?!" She sounded outraged.
Yashamaru stared up at the tyrading young adult dumbly.
Amaya's arms dropped to her side and her face fell along with the motion. "You're going to go through with it, aren't you? The clans are really going to do this. You're going to let yourselves be used by Ieyasu like… like a fucking coin toss!"
Yashamaru stared guiltily at his feet, which were crossed at the ankles in front of him.
If anything, Amaya's shoulders slumped further. "You want this. The clans fucking want this! They've been waiting four hundred goddamn years for that Pact to be annulled, haven't they? It's going to be a bloodbath!" She turned haunted eyes on Yashamaru. "You could die, Yashamaru. Do you really want to die for that asshole Shogun?"
"I don't think you understand, Amaya-san. It's not for the Shogun that the clans are going to fight. It's for revenge and for dignity." For the first time, Yashamaru was unable to look at Amaya as he spoke.
Amaya, for her part, was speechless. Then, quite suddenly she fell into a sitting position on the grass, legs crossed in front of her, hands clasping her overlapping ankles so tightly her knuckles were white. Tears were leaking from the corners of her eyes, and her body trembled with the effort to with hold them. When Yashamaru craned his head to look her in the face he saw that her eyes were squinted shut and she had bit down on her bottom lip so hard a trickle of blood ran down her chin.
"Amaya-san…" Yashamaru trailed, reaching out a hand to gently lift her head up. She made a half-hearted attempt to swat his hand away, uselessly. Amaya glared at him as best she could through tear blurred vision.
"This is stupid!" she snarled, though her voice was hoarse with held back tears. "How many people are going to die for something that happened four hundred years ago, Yashamaru?" Tears streamed from her eyes of their own will, but Amaya's jaw was set and her glare had become more forceful.
Yashamaru didn't know what to say. He wished fervently that he had never told her; he had never expected this kind of reaction. He looked guiltily away.
"The clans were so close to true peace, I thought." Amaya leaned around to look Yashamaru in the face as best she could. "Why would you let this rip it apart?"
"Amaya-san, I'm sorry, but you cannot possibly understand," he gritted out, still refusing to look her in the face.
"Oh, I think I understand just fine," she said darkly. "The Iga and Kouga clans are trapped in the past, so fixated on blood that they can't move foreword and they're going to start a fucking war because of it. You can't really believe those twenty names will be the only people to lose their lives to this petty grudge? How many more people will have to die, Yashamaru?" she accused.
Yashamaru couldn't deny this at all. In fact, he expected as much to happen. The Iga would slaughter ever last Kouga they found, if they had their way. He stared coldly at the ground.
"You probably want that to happen," Amaya spat acidly.
Yashamaru whirled around, wanting to deny the barbaric accusation Amaya had just made and found by his own admittance that he could not. Amaya was bitterly aware of as much, and it stung her. He could see the sadness in her face and eyes, even if it was belied by her caustic words. She snorted and turned away from him, curling her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them, then resting her chin on them and glared out over the Abekawa, as though somehow the river could be held responsible.
"Amaya-san, I'm sorry…"
"No you're not," she interrupted, still glaring at the water, which sparkled peacefully in the setting sunlight, unaware of the hostility on its shores.
Something large floated past them, interrupting the endless orange stars that glimmered on the surface, and Amaya lifted her head a little so she could see what it was. Her horrified gasp was simultaneous with Yashamaru's as he, too, noticed the disturbance in the water.
Iga Ogen and Kouga Danjo's bodies floated by, cuddled close to each other in a final embrace. A grizzly trickle of blood trailed behind them, attesting to the conflict that had occurred not many moments before. Barely visible because of the distance and the sun's glare, a long needle skewered through Ogen's throat, the last traces of blood around the punctures not yet washed away by the river. There was probably a similar injury through a vital point of Danjo's body, but an overwhelming wave of nausea overcame Amaya and she jerked her gaze away as bile rose in her throat. Then, decidedly she flung herself to her feet and placed herself between Yashamaru and the gruesome preview of what was to come if the Kouga and Iga were allowed to have at each other again.
"Do you see them?" Amaya snarled with harshness she didn't feel, flinging her arm out to point at the floating corpses, and the tears spilling freely from her eyes yet again gave her away. "Do you want to end up like that?" she just barely managed to snarl out before her voice gave away to tears, then rasping sobs. She stumbled a little, nearly toppling over, but Yashamaru caught her against him, hands holding her shoulders tightly, not allowing her to force him away, even though she struggled. Finally the fight in her died away and she collapsed against his chest, fisting her hands in the fabric of his shirt, unable to stop the sobs. "You could die, Yashamaru," she choked out. "I don't want you to die!"
"Shh," he soothed gently, holding her head to his chest with one hand, fingers tenderly stroking her hair. "I'm not going to," he promised. Then slowly he forced her arms length away from him, still holding her shoulders, half afraid she would topple over if he let them go.
Amaya sniffled and wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand, trying to refind an angry glare and failing to blink back tears long enough to be successful.
"It has already begun, Amaya-san. Nothing can be done now." He patted her head. "Don't worry about any of this, and certainly don't worry about me. A girl like you should never be so broken up about anything. You're not as pretty when you cry."
She scowled.
"And it appears I must be going a little sooner than I planned." He bent and pressed a chaste kiss to her forehead. "I hope I'll see you again, Amaya-san." He didn't flash her his overly bright grin, nor wave goodbye. He was just suddenly gone with characteristic ninja speed, not even leaving a direction in which Amaya could stare after him.
Instead she turned her swollen eyes on the couple floating down the river. They were almost out of eyesight, but the trail of blood they left behind remained, a grim picture of the future. Amaya bit her lip and fisted her hands at her sides. Her whole body was trembling with tension. "I can't let this happen," she whispered to the setting sun. "I won't."
A/N: Just to let you know, this is not not not not a Yashamaru x Amaya piece. I would never break up Yashamaru and Hotarubi like that. Please, bear with me, and thanks so much for reading. Reviews are, of course, adored.
