***PART 2: Perspectives***

***Chapter 1***

"Do nothing which is of no use"

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The heat of the orange sun was reflected by the dry grass that crunched underfoot from lack of water. Loud locusts buzzed in the foliage, adding a feeling of discomfort that would be undesirable to anyone. The terrain wasn't very good either; too many hills, too much underbrush. It made for slow, but still strenuous traveling that left the two travelers exhausted and covered with debris.

Kiota glanced to the setting sun and laid himself down in the cool shade of a large acacia with a grunt.

"Where are we going?" Kya asked exasperatedly.

"I told you," he growled. "I don't know."

"We've been walking for days! Do you even know where we are?"

"I've got a general idea, but I could be wrong."

The lioness growled frustratedly and laid down beside a fallen log not too far away from Kiota. The rogue just watched her discomfort with satisfaction. So far, she was not holding up very well in this harsher environment. To be fair, neither was he with his wounds from Ojiro, but she was worse. With any luck, she would give up on following him and decide to leave for a more favorable climate.

She glanced up at him and for a brief moment, their eyes locked. One look at the determination in her icy blue orbs was enough to tell him that she was not nearly ready to give up. Damn her stubbornness, he thought to himself before focusing his attention onto his own condition. His injuries were healing, but slowly. The constant travel he was partaking in only kept the wounds open and exposed to the irritating brush that they walked through.

"I'm hungry." Kya remarked dully.

"Good."

"We haven't stopped moving for three days, you can't tell me that you aren't hungry too."

Kiota grinned inwardly. Maybe the terrain and climate weren't bothering her, but she was clearly hungry. A rumble from her stomach was enough to tell him that it was more than simple desire; she truly needed food. He may have gotten used to long days without food, but she was apparently not used to it at all.

"I'm a little hungry, but I'm in no condition to hunt."

"So you're just going to starve?"

"I'll eat when I need to, and not a moment before then."

"You're trying to wait me out, aren't you?"

"I told you before that I don't want you around me."

"And I told you that I'm going to kill you."

Kiota nodded with a bored expression. "Any reason you haven't slit my throat while I sleep?"

Her expression instantly darkened. "It crossed my mind… but I want to see you suffer. I want you to know that you're going to die."

"You know, Kya," Kiota began slowly. "After a while, your death threats really start to lose their meaning."

She was silent for several moments. "I'm still hungry."

"I DON'T CARE!" he shouted angrily. "I'M NOT GOING TO GET YOU ANY FOOD, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE CARE OF YOU!"

"Of course not! You only care about yourself!"

"You're right, I don't care about you or anyone else! In fact, I think that I just might hate you as much as you hate me!"

"Then why don't you just kill me like you did to my father?"

"I wish I could." He mumbled inaudibly.

"What did you say?"

"I said that I just MIGHT!"

"Well we'll just have to see, then won't we?"

Kiota sighed exasperatedly, suddenly weary of the fight. "Go to bed." He said tiredly. "Maybe one of us will die in our sleep and this whole thing will be over."

"I still hate you."

"Go to sleep."

Kya snorted irritably and laid her head down. "Fine."

Kiota closed his eyes and tried to sleep, but Kya kept shifting around and sighing annoyingly. In truth, she was pretty quiet, but to Kiota it was deafening. After what seemed like hours, her breathing regulated and she grew still in unconsciousness. Kiota exhaled in relief and closed his eyes again.

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A deep fog set in without a breeze. It was thick, but Kiota was still able to navigate alright. His footsteps fell on the ground lightly and softly. He walked past Kya's sleeping body and soon found himself at a nearby stream. There was no flow at all and the water held the perfect reflection of the trees above. He stared at his reflection for several moments and analyzed himself with neutrality. He looked as he always did; a little unkempt but otherwise fine. He was about to lean down to drink the calm water, when a ripple in the water caught his attention. The pool blurred from the sourceless disturbance, but only barely. Kiota was still able to make out his body quite clearly, just not the finer details of his face.

The surface calmed shortly and returned to its original clarity. Kiota blinked in shock as he looked at his reflection. Instead of his own eyes looking back, Ojiro stared at him from the other side of the water. Kiota leaned to the left and his motion was reflected by the other lion. He moved to the right with the same result. Ojiro blinked when he did, frowned when he did, and breathed in time with his chest. According to his reflection, he was Ojiro.

Kiota blinked and in the split second that his eyes were closed, image suddenly changed. Ojiro was dead, lying in a bloody heap on the ground; his life stolen from him by some unseen attacker. Deep gashes in the neck and arm were the clear causes of the fighter's death. Kiota gasped as blinding pain shot through his own arm and neck. He tried to yell out as a sharp twisting feeling erupted from his paw, but nothing came out from his throat. Just when he didn't think that he could take it any longer, it stopped. He gasped and almost fell forward from the sudden relief. The pain had been so intense. It left his heart beating a thousand times a minute and his breathing was ragged.

He recovered in a few moments and looked back to his reflection, only to see his usual self staring back. Ojiro was gone, and only a simple reflection remained. He sighed heavily and stared into his image. One thing that he had always known about himself, even as a young cub, was the intensity of his eyes. They were strong, determined, focused, and unwavering. He stared deeply into his own eyes in the water and slowly lost his peripheral vision as he became more entranced in their tenacity. For whatever reason, he just couldn't get over the incredible quality of his eyes. They were so resolute, alert, indomitable, focused, and so icy blue… Blue? His eyes weren't blue! Kiota blinked in surprise as he realized that the image in the water was no longer his. It was Kya. The lioness stared at him with her usual stare, making him feel slightly nervous. She moved as he did, blinked when he did, and breathed in unison, just as Ojiro did; she was his reflection.

"WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?" He shouted angrily.

Though Kya's mouth moved as his did, he didn't hear her voice. He stared at her for several moments with furious eyes, almost expecting an answer from the mysterious water. For a while she stared back just as a normal reflection would. After several moments, however, her expression softened and her eyes looked past him in a mild sort of daze. Kiota stared in confusion and almost curiosity as a soft tear ran down her unwavering cheek and dripped into the water that served as a barrier between them. She was crying. As the tear hit the surface, it made a ripple that slowly extended in all directions. The ripples disturbed the image and slowly rendered it unrecognizable. Unlike before, the blurriness did not dissipate and the glassy surface did not return. The ripples extended to all sides of the stream and grew more intense. They reverberated off of each other and gained intensity, even affecting the nearby shore. Kiota watched in amazement as the land around the water grew blurry and rippled as the water did. It melded with the fog until everything was just a distorted blur of its former self. For Kiota, it was complete visual overload; his eyes became dizzy from the pulsating images and the ground seemed to move underneath his feet, throwing himself off balance. A splitting headache made him grit his teeth in pain and clench his eyes shut. He tried to stay standing, but it was all too much. He fell to the side for what seemed like forever, finally hitting the ground with a solid thump. As soon as he touched the hard dirt, it all stopped. The headache dissipated, the ground stopped moving, and everything seemed to be normal.

He opened his eyes warily, being instantly blinded by a bright light. As his eyes adjusted, he slowly realized that the light was in fact the sun. He blinked away the discomfort and sat up to survey his surroundings. It was morning and he was lying in exactly the same place that he had laid down at the night before. He looked over to where the mysterious stream had been located only moments ago, but there was nothing there. Only grass and brush that wove into itself like interlocking fibers; no water at all.

It was a dream? He thought amazedly. It certainly made sense with all the bizarre occurrences, but still. It had just been so real and vivid! He shook his head as he remembered the sharp pain and the strange vibrations. What a weird dream.

He looked over to where Kya had been sleeping, but she was gone. Kiota blinked in surprise at the matted grass that had served as her bedding and wondered where she had gone. Maybe she had finally had enough and decided to leave! The hopeful thought was about to bring a grin to the fighter's face when a dull thud sounded from the side. Kiota looked over to see the source of the sound, only to be disappointed at the sight of the hated lioness.

Kya stood over a freshly killed Zebra for a while without even acknowledging Kiota. Her breathing was heavy from carrying the kill, but it was regained eventually glanced at him with a smug expression and bent down to begin eating her kill.

"You caught a Zebra?" he asked as he rose to his feet.

She nodded, but didn't answer due to the food in her mouth.

Kiota looked over the animal; it was quite healthy and was undoubtedly a difficult animal to take down. "How did you know that I wouldn't have left when I saw that you weren't here?"

Kya swallowed a chunk of meat and turned to face him. "You were tossing and turning all night. I figured that you would tire yourself out enough to sleep in later than usual." She tore off another mass and began to chew it enthusiastically.

Kiota looked to the sky and was surprised by the sun's location. It was higher than usual, almost halfway to midday. "I was tossing and turning?" he asked blankly.

"Yea… you said some stuff too, but I couldn't hear it."

Kiota nodded numbly, slightly shocked at the revelation. He had been talking in his sleep? This was something completely new and strange. He dreamed, sure, but not like this. Never before had his dreams been so out of the ordinary, and never before had they caused him to talk in his sleep!

He slowly realized that Kya was almost finished with the Zebra. There was still plenty left, but her bites were slowing and her face showed of satisfaction. She looked up at him with irritable eyes.

"I know that you said you weren't hungry, but you should eat."

He stared at her for a moment in silence. "Are you offering your kill to me?"

The lioness glared at him angrily. "My father always told me to never waste anything, especially food… I don't want to give it to you, but I can't eat any more."

He nodded slowly and took a step forward towards the carcass. He pulled off a strip of meat and chewed it slowly; contemplating the idea. He had always made the most of everything he had, but out of necessity rather than morals. He supposed that if he had all the food in the world, he would still act the same. Did that mean that he had something in common with her father? He shook his head at the thought.

"He was right to think that."

She cocked her head confusedly. "What?"

"Your father, he was right about not wasting food."

Anger flashed across Kya's face. "DON'T TALK TO ME ABOUT WHAT MY FATHER SAID! YOU HAVE NO RIGHT!" With that, she stormed furiously off into the grass.

Kiota watched her leave with mild amusement mied with unease. "Lionesses." He huffed. They were all crazy, but Kya was a whole different level of craziness. He continued to eat his fill of the Zebra without considering trying to leave without her; he knew that she was nearby and any attempt to get rid of her would only make her angrier. One thing that he had noticed over the last few days was that if Kya was angry, she was loud. The only way to keep her quiet was to keep her temper down.

Almost an hour later, the carcass was all but bones and Kiota was full of the meat. The sun was high and they needed to get moving. He glanced over to see Kya waiting patiently at the edge of the clearing with a frown on her face.

"Are you still mad at me?" he asked sarcastically.

"I still hate you, if that's what you mean."

"Likewise."

Her lip curled up in a slight sneer as he walked past her. "Are we leaving now?"

"Yes."

"You still don't know where we're going, do you?"

"No." Kiota replied as he pushed through the thicket.

Kya huffed irritably. "Of course you don't."

***Author's Note***

Welcome to Part 2, everyone; glad you followed through with it! As I said before, Part 2 will not be guided by Miyamoto Musashi, though I will try to incorporate some basic ideas of his later life into it. Thanks for reading!

REVIEW AND COMMENT PLEASE!

-Ben