Their first meeting went well enough.

When their daughter was born, their son had still not discovered his first alternate weapon form.

Which was perfectly normal, as the Power sometimes took a few years to develop; it varied with each individual who obtained it. The fact that he could currently only transform in to a katana was nothing to worry about.

At the time, anyway.

In fact, at that moment in time, they were so happy to be having a daughter that they couldn't even consider being worried about anything. There had been many complications when their first child was born, and the head of the Nakatsukasa Clan and his wife were told they would never have another child. But, here they were: the proud mother cradling her new daughter while her husband lifted their son onto the bed so he could meet his new sister. Young Masamune peered at the girl with curiosity. After watching the baby sleep for all of thirty seconds, he promptly declared that babies were, in fact, boring and did nothing but sleep. His parents laughed and told him that they were really too small to do much else. Masamune reached over and poked his sister gently in the cheek. They baby squirmed and clumsily batted him away with her tiny hands before rolling away from him to the best of her ability. Looking a little offended (in a pouty, three-year old sort of way), Masamune sat next to his mother and listened to his parents try and decide what they were going to name her. However, he quickly lost interest in the conversation and went back to watching the baby sleep only to be reminded that she wasn't any more interesting than his parents were being at the moment. After several minutes of this, he asked:

"Is she always going to be this quiet?"

His mother stopped her discussion to look at him with a tired, slightly annoyed look. "Masamune, you just met her a moment ago. You should give her some time to grow and prove herself before deciding you don't like her."

"I never said I didn't like her! I just said she was being real quiet, that's all!" Masamune said quickly, glancing back and forth between his parents, "I

mean… I haven't even heard her cry or anything! Aren't babies supposed to cry and stuff?"

This was true. Neither parent had heard their daughter make a sound save for when she was first born and had to clear lungs out by crying, like all babies do. But even that hadn't lasted very long. They hadn't paid that much attention to it in their excitement, but she was, indeed, uncharacteristically quiet for a new born; not even make grunting noises or whining or anything.

As they pondered this, Masamune let out a short burst of laughter and said, "She's kinda like a tsubaki!"

Now, coming from him, this wasn't much of a compliment; he wasn't really one to appreciate anything beyond its usefulness and he found the tsubaki to be an utterly useless flower. After all, it had no smell. It was a flower that didn't even have a smell! What was even the point of that? It just bloomed and died; which was ridiculous to him, even in his three year old brain.

His mother however seemed to have a different frame of mind. Her eyes lit up and she bit her lip thoughtfully.

"A tsubaki, huh…" she murmured. She'd always loved it when the tsubakis around the manor were in bloom. The large red flowers were vibrant and beautiful. Not only did they look wonderful, but she'd always associated the word "tsubaki" with "home", as she'd always had them around, both before and after marriage. They were never in bloom for long though; a fact that always saddened her. Glancing at her husband, she could see the same sort of thoughts reflected on his face.

"I think that'll do, don't you?" she asked him with smile.

He nodded, also smiling, and left to tell the doctor what they'd decided.

Masamune yawned and his mother repositioned herself to make more room, wrapping her arm around him as he prepared to fall asleep beside her. As he began to drift off he noticed his sister peaking at him from under the arm she had laid across her face. She yawned, her tiny mouth stretching into an O shape across her tiny face. Masamune fell asleep with a small smile on his own face. Babies were kinda cute after all…

…

She would have gladly given it to him if she could have.

Tsubaki practically flew in the room, chattering so quickly and with so much excitement that her parents were rather taken aback.

"Tsubaki! Tsubaki! Calm down; I can't understand you!" her mother said, holding up her hands and barely suppressing a laugh. The four year old chain scythe could barely stand still; she was shaking with excitement. On the other side of the room her brother was sitting at the table with her father, watching with unsuppressed amusement and wondering what was causing her to be even more excited about life than usual.

Maybe she'd seen another deer or something.

"Alright, now take a deep breath," her mother instructed, "and tell me what you're so excited about." Tsubaki attempted to do as she was told. The little girl took in a huge breath, standing on the tips of her toes for some reason before slowly letting it out and stumbling back to a normal standing position. Then, with a huge grin on her face she said:

"I just turned into a ninja sword!"

The grins disappeared off of her family's faces and Tsubaki's excitement deflated as she suddenly became worried that she'd done something wrong.

"What?" she asked in a small voice as her mother glanced at Masamune with shock then back at Tsubaki.

"Tsubaki," her father said with a scary look on his face, "you shouldn't tell such stories. You are a chain scythe and the second child of the family. You cannot change your form, the way your brother will someday."

Now Tsubaki was really confused. She felt like crying.

"But I can!" she insisted miserably, her eyes beginning to water, "I just did it a second ago!"

"Then show us," Masamune said quietly. He had become rather pale and his voice had taken and unpleasant edge.

Shaking, Tsubaki nodded, causing some of her black hair to fall across her face. Flustered, she fumbled with her bangs for a minute and tried to summon the power to transform.

But she couldn't do it. All she could do was shake. Like the windows during that typhoon last year. A lump formed in her throat; she was so unfocused now, she wouldn't even be able to change into her chain scythe, and that was normally as easy as breathing for her. Now, she was panicking.

It took a minute for her to realize why she was so shaken up: she'd never been called a liar before. Least of all by her own family.

Finally, her mother took pity on her, "Tsubaki. Remember what I said before? Deep breaths. Stay calm. Come on, you can do it…"

But it didn't help at all.

Tsubaki just wanted them to believe her, but that wasn't happening and she didn't know how to fix the situation. So she just sank to floor, in an almost overly dramatic way, and rolled over so she wasn't facing them. Her father tried not to roll his eyes and was bracing himself for a four year old temper tantrum when he noticed that she was curling herself into a tight ball. He opened his mouth to ask her what she was doing but was interrupted when she abruptly shrank and exploded into smoke. In all the confusion and the coughing and the spluttering, Tsubaki popped back into her human form and used the smoke to hide herself as she attempted to flee the room, her heart pounding in terror.

She had not meant to do that.

She was not entirely sure what she had done, but she did know that all that smoke was going to cause a mess and her parents were going to be really angry that she'd use a weapon form against them.

That was a major violation of the rules.

You do not attack your family, especially with your own weapon form, unless you're training or something. And Tsubaki had no idea how to explain to them that she hadn't done it on purpose; she had simply panicked.

She was almost at the door when her father gripped onto the back of her kimono and snatched her up into the air. She froze, terrified that if she moved, she'd do the smoke-thing again and make her father really angry. The smoke began to clear away and the coughing coming from her mother and brother settled down. Her mother approached them cautiously; afraid she would upset Tsubaki and set her off again.

Literally.

"What on earth was that?" she asked in an unsteady voice.

"That was a smoke bomb," her husband replied evenly, not taking his eyes off Tsubaki as he set her down on the ground but didn't let go of her kimono, "It's almost more of a defense mechanism than a real weapon form; we caused her to stress and she responded instinctively by exploding and then trying to flee."

"That's not what I meant!" his wife replied sharply, making Tsubaki flinch. Catching her daughter's reaction, she adjusted her tone and said, "Why did she turn into a smoke bomb? She's a chain scythe!"

"I would think that answer would be obvious," he responded stiffly, "she inherited the Power; the great legacy of the Nakatsukasa Clan."

"But how? That Power should have gone to Masamune! He's the eldest!"

"I don't know but…"

He trailed off, remembering his children were still there.

"Tsubaki! Masamune! Go outside and play."

"But father, wha-"

"Go!"

Both children scrambled out the door as fast as they could, each catching the beginning of their parents' next conversation: "And what's this about a ninja sword…"

Tsubaki kept her head down as she walked, not understanding what had upset them so much in the first place.

She thought they'd be happy that she learned how to change forms.

They'd been waiting so long for Masamune to do it.

But wait, what was it their father had said? That she was the second child? Were only first children supposed to have the Power? Did they think she had somehow taken it from her brother? Is that why they were mad?

She was so confused.

When they got to the courtyard, they could only stand there in a kind of awkward silence, each waiting for the other to say something. After a long pause Tsubaki noticed Masamune's favorite red ball by the steps. She was feeling really awful, like she'd done something terrible to her brother. So, as a peace offering she timidly and somewhat reluctantly asked if he wanted to play ball. For a brief moment, she caught a cold expression on his face before he smiled and answered yes.

Tsubaki kicked the ball to him, stepping on her kimono in the processes and nearly falling. She really hated this stupid game. There was no point to it; they just kicked the ball back and forth and Tsubaki would usually fall on her face and her brother would laugh and they'd just repeat the process over and over. Plus, she usually missed the ball, which slowed game down and frustrated Masamune. This game was always going to be either frustrating or mind numbing. Or both. But for some reason, her brother enjoyed it, so for now, she'd try and enjoy it as well.

Or maybe she could try and play it with him more often.

He never really seemed to enjoy playing "house" and if she really had stolen this Power from him, then the least she could do was kick a ball around with him.

Right?…

There were times when he really tried to be a good brother and she tried to be a good sister.

A few years later, Tsubaki and her brother were sparing in that same courtyard. Tsubaki kept her strikes light and let a few of Masamune's own attacks through rather that blocking them. She knew she was faster than her brother and didn't want to risk bruising him up, like last time.

You would've thought she'd broken all the bones in his body with how upset their mother had been. That was a lecture that went on for hours: You know you're much stronger than your brother! Stop trying to show him up all the time! You don't impress anyone, Tsubaki!

And it wasn't like she even tried to hurt him; he was just too slow. She'd thought that if she batted him around a little bit; it would give him incentive to try harder the next time. She really didn't hit him very hard either, but she might as well have been trying to convince a rabbit that it was fox for all the good it did for her to explain this to her mother.

Tsubaki really didn't even know what the point of these training sessions was. If she couldn't do anything to help him get stronger, then why did they practice fighting anyway?

Unless it was to boost Masamune's ego; which was highly probable.

So the "training session" ended like usual: Masamune kicked at her feet and she fell over, pretending to be out of breath and declaring she was too tired to continue. Masamune stood over her frowning. He wasn't stupid; he knew she was capable of more than that, but their parents seemed pleased. Both of the praised Masamune and asked if there was any sort of treat he would like as a reward. Masamune shook his head, not really feeling like he needed a reward for this, and waited for them to offer to get something for Tsubaki.

But of course, they didn't.

So he told them that he'd changed his mind and asked if they would bring him a couple of rice cakes. They nodded and smiled in response and went to go tell the servants what he wanted.

Tsubaki sat on the ground, picking aimlessly at the grass stuck on her clothes. Masamune extended his hand toward her.

"Hey, you want to play something?"

Tsubaki looked up at him for a minute before taking his hand and being pulled to her feet.

"Sure. What you want do you want to play?" she asked as she brushed herself off.

"You always let me choose. Why don't you decide this time?"

"…Okay, the lets play with the ball," she said with a smile.

Masamune wanted to pull his hair with frustration. She never really seemed to have fun playing that game, so why did she always pick it whenever given the chance to choose something she enjoyed for a change?

He'd make a different suggestion, but he really didn't have any idea what Tsubaki liked. She never talked about herself to anyone, especially not him. The only thing he knew for a fact was that she liked rice cakes. And he'd only learned that through pure observation.

He barely even knew who this quite little girl was, despite the fact that they'd lived together her whole life and called each other siblings.

He sighed and went to go get the ball.

…

If you hear something said out loud enough times, whether you're the one hearing it or saying it, you will eventually start to believe it.

Tsubaki really didn't understand what she'd ever done to make them dislike her so much.

She approached her parents, almost with fear, and stiffly asked if she could tell them something.

Not looking up from their work, her parents gave their permission.

"I just thought I should let you know that I've gained a new weapon form; a shuriken," she said with a slight waver in her voice.

Her father nodded and dismissed her without saying a word. He just waved her away without even looking up.

It was very difficult to leave that room without throwing something or screaming in frustration.

She didn't exactly expect them to be excited, but a smile, a few words, a simple acknowledgement of some sort would have been less soul-crushing. Or maybe if they would just look at her on the rare occasions when she tried to talk to them…

On the way out, Tsubaki nearly ran into Masamune, who'd been listening at the door. A few years before, there may have been concern or pity on his face, but now his features were twisted into a cruel, mocking smile. He'd come to believe that he really was weak and that it was the fault of his self-important sister who was always so determined to make him feel inferior to her.

The worst part was that she'd come to believe it as well.

"What did you expect?" he snarled, "Did you think they'd be impressed? Are you really so in awe of yourself that you'd actually go and brag about it to our mother and father? You really are pathetic."

Guilt caused her heart to clench. Is that what she had been doing?

"I'm sorry-"

"Don't apologize!" he hissed, starting towards her, "It makes you look weak, and we all know the great Tsubaki isn't weak, she reminds us every day…"

Tsubaki flinched and bolted away to the other side of the manor where her room was.

It was really the only place she ever felt comfortable in.

…

She was convinced she had done something to deserve it.

Tsubaki didn't ever have much to say anymore.

She sat at the table, listening to her family's happy chatter as they talked about the various events of the day over dinner. Tsubaki herself only politely spoke when spoken to. She didn't dare even ask the servants for anything. If she had, one or all of her family members would make light, casual remarks at her audacity to order other people around. And even worse they'd say it to each other, like she wasn't even there.

So she just sat there, picking at her food and waiting to be formerly excused so she could go back to her room and stare at the ceiling some more.

It was strange to think she had once been such a loud, energetic child.

But what was the point of speaking when everything you said was wrong?

Why bother being loud when you have nothing worthwhile to say?

Her brother told her frequently that the sound of her voice made him sick, and her parents never exactly disagreed, so why bother?

She was, after all, a selfish, conceited brat whose number one goal in life seemed to be making her poor, "sickly" brother feel as worthless and miserable as possible. She didn't even have to say anything to accomplish this; she did so purely by existing and being in his presence.

Her head was pounding again and she didn't really feel like eating.

He'd called her a pathetic flower the other day. What kind of an insult was that? He'd yanked on her hair until her eyes began to water, but she just bit her lip and refused to cry out or fight with him. That only ever made things worse.

You won't do anything, he'd taunted, You don't ever fight back anymore. You're just a little girl with no voice; a pathetic flower with no fragrance!

And he was just a sad boy with no life. Not after she'd come along and taken what was rightfully his.

Her parents had implied as much.

Her head was hurting so badly, she felt nauseous.

The first time Masamune had ever hit her, she'd been too shocked to retaliate. She'd just stood there, staring at him, trying to remember if she'd done something wrong or if he'd just done it on a whim. He didn't hit her hard enough to leave a mark, so she didn't bother telling her parents. Though it's not like they would have believed her even if there was evidence.

She'd once heard her mother say that she felt like a failure as a parent, with a daughter who lied so much.

Her father once claimed that the Power had gone to Tsubaki's head, and that Masamune would have handled it much better that she did.

They treated Masamune like a prince, giving him anything and everything because of the one thing they couldn't give him: that which had been taken from him by his heathen sister.

The room was spinning now. She needed to leave; before she threw up all over the place.

She stood up quickly (the room swirling in response) and asked if she could be excused. Her father looked annoyed at the interruption, but waved her away and went back to reviewing training tips with Masamune. When she was out of the room, Tsubaki found one of the nicer servants and quietly asked if she would bring some pain medicine and an ice pack to her when she got the chance. Tsubaki walked into her room and laid on her futon (which she hadn't bothered to put away this morning), cutting off all the lights as she went. She lay on her back, staring up at the dark ceiling and waiting for that servant to bring her the items she'd requested.

Earlier that morning, when she had ventured out of her room to go take a bath, her brother had passed her in the hall way and shoved her with no warning at all. That was the way he had been recently; sometimes he treated her like an actual human being and other times he'd just snap and attack her (though usually verbally) for no apparent reason. Taken off guard, Tsubaki had lost her balance and smacked her head on the wood of a nearby door frame. She didn't think he'd meant to push her that hard, but did just walk away and leave her there… And, as a result, her head had been throbbing all day.

But the pain was easing away now, which was good; she wasn't one hundred percent sure her parents would take her to the doctor if she'd told them what happened. Maybe if she changed the story and left Masamune's name out of it…

And became the liar they always said she was.

Oh, irony.

She heard a gentle knock on her door and winced in pain as it was slid open and the bright hallway lights poured in. Understanding that Tsubaki had a headache, the servant sat on her knees and gently slid the tray into the room before swiftly but quietly pulling the door closed and leaving her young mistress alone. Tsubaki was grateful for this and, being as her futon wasn't far from the door, she could easily reach the tray and gather what she needed. Upon closer inspection, Tsubaki realized that there were extra items on the tray: a cup of her favorite hot tea and little plate of pudding she'd missed when she had excused herself before dessert could be served. Her throat tightened.

Well, at least one person didn't totally hate her.

…

AN: This is getting morbidly depressing, I know. It's based off a sad dream I had not too long after seeing episodes ten and eleven. The following chapter will be the continuation and then maybe we can see Tsubaki get some well-deserved happiness…