Wandering was something that Rihan was good at. It was a wonderful feeling to be able to drift wherever one wished to go. It was something that that he had often done to escape from paperwork and the liveliness of the Nura-gumi main house, much to the frustration of his retainers. Kubinashi especially had the habit of panicking every time he went missing, much to Rihan's amusement.

Wandering was something he knew. It was familiar to him, even in the strange land that he had woken up in. So he wandered and did as he had often done before.

This new place was weird. The technology seemed backwards. They had showers and sinks and refrigerators like in modern day, but cars and telephones and the like seemed non-existent. And that wasn't even mentioning the people.

Many of them didn't dress like he had gotten used to people dressing. They didn't wear T-shirts and jeans and sneakers. They didn't wear short skirts and tank tops. At least, most of them didn't. Many of them wore the clothing of Rihan's childhood. Kimonos and yukatas and haoris and hakamas. It made it almost unnecessary to use his Fear to keep himself invisible to prying eyes, were it not for his obviously inhuman hair and eyes. As it was, it made it so that he could easily walk around in his human form and be unnoticed.

And then there were shinobi.

It was amazing to watch them. They were so in control of their own energy, and they could do feats that he had thought only mononoke would be able to do. They could leap from tree to tree with ease, control water as if they were kappa, use the winds in attacks like kamaitachi, and heal almost as well as his mother had been in life.

He had thought that only onmyouji would be able to fight yokai.

That was apparently not the case in this world.

And it fascinated him in a way, because it made the lines between human and demon blur together and mesh until it was difficult to tell what was human and what wasn't.

It also made it so that Rihan's abilities would blend in perfectly.

So Rihan wandered. He wandered and watched and waited and went. And it was fun. It was challenging and exciting, not unlike the days of Edo during the Tokugawa reign when yokai ran wild and there wasn't a human alive that didn't believe in them. As much as he had enjoyed the peaceful lull of modern day, his yokai blood had always run hot at the thought of battle.

Such was the life of a yokai.

And with no conceivable way home, he got used to the idea of living in this world, at least temporarily. His clan would, in all likelihood, not be coming to get him. They probably believed him dead, killed by the sword that small girl, the one who had so resembled Yamabuki, had stabbed through him.

So he would wander. And he would live.

AN: Here is Rihan's beginning in the Naruto verse. No explanation for how he arrived just yet. Just the vague 'he was killed and woke up here' for now. I also wanted to say that I will be including as much about yokai and the like as I can in this story. As stated in the summery, this fic is going to be a lot about what it means to be human. As such I will be using a lot of terms that might be unfamiliar to you. I will be putting translations and explanations and the like down here in the AN. Please feel free to let me know if I get anything wrong with these translations.

Gumi - From my understanding, this generally refers to a group, typically Yakuza. I could be wrong though, as this particular information was gathered from fanfiction rather than official sources.

Kimono - A sort of robe commonly made with silk. It is worn by both men and woman, although with different designs. The type of kimono that a woman chooses to wear can often give insight to things like age, martial statues, and wealth.

Yukata - Commonly considered a more casual type of Kimono. Often worn after taking a bath, but used in other situations as well.

Haori - A half-length coat worn over a kimono.

Hakama - A pleated skirt. Traditionally worn by men, but now worn by both genders.

Mononoke - translates to 'unexplainable thing'. It generally refers to the supernatural. I will be using it as an umbrella term for all things supernatural, from Kami to Bijuu to Yokai.