Turning Swallow

Summary:

OR, One morning, four-year-old Sasaki Kojiro remembers a life not yet lived, and decides to do something about it. History changes. SI!Sasaki Kojiro. Expect general lightheartedness, but dark topics when the time comes.

CH. 31 START

Any hope of peace shattered the moment that the warring daimyo had come to them. Surrounded on all sides by foreign powers, the Clans had to make a choice, or die. No warlord could stomach the idea of the Koga Clans, a group of capable, and more importantly, neutral, ninja. After all, why would they, when an opposing warlord might hire the Koga to perform an assassination or spy on them? So in the end, the Koga Clans were faced with a choice that wasn't really a choice. Join the war, or die, crushed between the overwhelming might of the samurai armies around them. The Koga Clans failed to come to a unified decision, given that they were so far apart. An advantageous alliance to one clan could prove fatal to another clan, and one by one, the cohesiveness of the Koga Clans vanished, each of the fifty-three ninja clans joining their local cluster of fellow clans in serving one warlord of another. Chiyome's clan was no exception, her father chose to ally their clan with the forces of Takeda Shingen, on account of a distant relative of the clan, a man named Mochizuki Moritoki, serving the warlord. Chiyome was the one sent to secure the connection via marriage, though her father was against the decision. The people she'd grown up with, her friends and aunts and uncles, feared her, saw an opportunity to keep her away and took advantage of it. Nearly half of the village had jumped on the marriage alliance, all of them voting to send Chiyome away.

Despite her father's leadership, keeping Chiyome there against the will of the Clan would have lost him a lot of support. The memory of when Orochi had manifested in her weighed heavily on all of the village, she could see it in their eyes. When they looked at her, they didn't see the girl that they'd helped to raise or the girl that they'd grown up with, but a ticking time bomb. She was the only thing that the people of the village could hold against him, so Chiyome had gone willingly. Chiyome was sent away to get married to a man that she'd never met, and hadn't even seen a portrait of. She arrived in the Saku District of Shinsu with a carriage and some attendants. Over the course of that week, marriage was arranged and performed, and on the day she was to be wedded, her attendants stayed long enough to see the marriage complete, before they'd made their way back to the clan, footsteps hurried, as though she'd chase them back there for the insult. The night of their marriage, her new husband had slept with her. Chiyome felt nothing from the act, the pain of her first sexual interaction was just another type of hurt, barely noticeable when compared to the Curse. Her husband had stayed for a week, then headed off for some battle or another.

The marriage hadn't lasted long or been pleasant. Their sexual interactions had produced no children, on account of the Curse altering her body, nor had they had any productive normal interactions. Chiyome had lain with her husband six times, each occurrence happening after the man returned from his previous deployment in battle. Despite his best efforts, she hadn't given him an heir, and over the months, he drifted from her, choosing to lay with his mistress instead. Chiyome didn't begrudge him for it. Not only had her husband's actions alleviated her of the burdens of sexual intercourse with him, but now, she didn't even need to pretend to like him for the good of the Clan's alliance to the Takeda. Then, after two years, which mostly consisted of Chiyome writing poetry and reading books, she received the news that her husband was dead, perishing honorably in what was now known as the Fourth Battle of Kawanakajima. The message had come from the mouth of Takeda Shingen himself, whose path home had taken him past the estate. The Takeda Clan Head had delivered his condolences with a regretful frown and eyes full of sorrow, and Chiyome suspected that the man held more affection for his dead comrade than she did for her dead husband. She received the message with a blank expression. It wasn't as if she could cry for the man. Her tears had dried up long ago. Rather, the one to provide the tears was her husband's mistress, who Chiyome still didn't know the name of.

All Chiyome herself could think of doing was to make sure that Takeda Shingen remained aware of her Clan's continued support. Still exhausted from the war and saddened by his ally's death, the man had simply nodded and left. It was only a month afterward that the dots were connected and Takeda Shingen showed up in front of her house with a plan. He requested her help in building up a network of female operatives, who'd be able to, well, do anything that a ninja could do. Her father, still irritated with the Clan for sending her away, provided only nominal support to the Takeda, apparently. With Takeda Shingen's funds, she set up a base of operations in the small village of Nezu, within the Shinshu region. Pulling on the knowledge that was decades old at this point, Chiyome began to work, recruiting sex workers, orphans, victims of the unending wars of the Sengoku, and widows. All of them gathered under her banner, and Chiyome trained them to be information gatherers, seductresses, messengers, and assassins, everything a member of her Clan was taught to do from birth. She taught them to be actresses, geisha, and shrine maidens, for when they needed disguises to travel or as cover. Her forces could infiltrate towns, villages, castles, and temples with ease. For two decades, Chiyome kept Takeda Shingen a step ahead of his enemies, operating her network of hundreds with flawless efficiency.

Apparently, that wasn't enough for the man. A messenger came, with an order from the Takeda Clan Head to report to him at once. It was written like a request, but to Chiyome, it was obvious that the message was actually an order. The messenger, a man, reported to her what was going on. See, while Takeda Shingen had ordered her to make a network of female operatives, Chiyome had gone ahead and made a secret network of male operatives. She'd planted these into the Takeda forces, to prevent infiltration. Apparently, a Koga ninja from a different clan had tried to assassinate the man. Despite her loyal service, the Takeda warlord had decided it was better to be safe than sorry, feeling that it was better to do away with Koga entirely.

Chiyome disagreed with that plan, so, when the warlord began his siege of Tokugawa Ieyasu's Noda Castle, she joined him. She'd sent the messenger back with a reply, telling Takeda Shingen that she would arrive at the camp with due speed, a day or two after the messenger. Unaware that she was aware of his plans, the man took the message at face value, returning to his siege of Noda Castle. Chiyome arranged for a convoy to arrive on the day she'd told Takeda Shingen to wait for her on, so when he rode out on his horse surrounded by only a few bodyguards, given his army still besieging Noda Castle, he wouldn't be expecting danger. She was waiting in a tree facing the road, and when the man passed on his horse, she drew the string back and let it go. It flew true, striking the man in the chest and pushing him off of his horse. He hit the ground, and rather than wait to see if the fall had killed him, she disappeared into the woods. After all, there had been a generous coating of her blood on the arrowhead. Not enough to eat through the steel immediately, but enough to fatally poison Takeda Shingen. She didn't need to care about the convoy. There was no one of importance on the convoy.

The next day, back at her dead husband's estate, Chiyome sent out an order of recall, telling them to extract from all ongoing missions, regardless of current progress. Those who didn't return would be considered to have cut ties with the spy network. Two months passed, and while Takeda Shingen's heir tried to keep control over the sinking Takeda forces, her own force of spies and ninja returned. About five hundred of them gathered in Shinshu's Saku District, and once all of them had arrived, Chiyome headed back home, taking her small army with her. It was about time for her to go home anyways. She'd been away for too long. Yet, a joyous welcome wasn't what she received. As she would find out later, Chiyome had returned to a further fractured Clan, caught in the midst of a small civil war. Her father had died, and with his final words, ceded control of the Clan to her. The half of the clan who'd sent her away, most of them elders now, had refused to let such an occurrence pass, trying to seize power from her sister, who'd taken control of those loyal to her father's dying wish. The Clan hadn't been big before it split, maybe six hundred at most, and of those six hundred, perhaps only half were able to fight, the rest being too old or too young. Out of the three hundred, only a third had sided with Chiyome's sister. That meant that two hundred capable ninja were attacking Chiyome's village.

Cold anger surged, and anger was always cold since hot anger meant Orochi. With a word, the small army descended on the attackers. Bows were raised, then fired into vulnerable flanks, maybe fifty fell. The traitors fell into chaos, and Chiyome's followers cleaned up the rest. Perhaps only two dozen managed to flee into the forests. They were let go, and without her needing to order them, a dozen of her own began to chase. Her sister approached her and explained the situation. Chiyome nodded, reassuring her that everything would be okay. And it was, for, within the week, the Clan had been reunified. The rebels were slain and her Clan was brought in line. As the Clan Head, she also took the liberty of bringing all of her followers into the Clan's ranks. Her numbers swelled and her influence expanded. Now, Chiyome's Clan was the absolute largest Koga Clan within the local area, if one considered trained ninja. Six hundred ninja were no joke, and with them, she brought the neighboring Koga Clans under her control. The Koga Clans had been divided for too long and in their separation, had fallen apart. Had the Koga Clans remained one large clan, perhaps the samurai lords wouldn't have dared to pressure them.

Two years later, most of the significant Koga Clans were under her control. There was dissent, obviously, but Chiyome had dared each and every one of them to try and kill her. Many had tried. Many had failed. Once she'd woken up with a knife in her chest, but the Curse kept her alive, burning away the knife's blade, and allowing her the time to kill the man. The stab hadn't made contact with her heart, having been too low. In the brief confrontation, Chiyome had recognized the man's movements as the techniques of one of the more distant Koga Clans, and had ridden there herself, and planted the assassin's decaying head on a spike in front of their village. The melted knife was left as well, and she made certain that some of them had seen what her blood could do. That clan had fallen in line with Chiyome after that. Single-handedly, Chiyome had converted the disparate Koga Clans into a formidable power. From then on, all who wanted to cross through Shinshu Province and several neighboring provinces needed to announce themselves and pay a price to do so, lest they suffer the consequences. As the war between Oda Nobunaga and the Ikko-Ikki monks was being fought, neither side was happy. The Oda warlord was upset that she needed to pay taxes to get through her 'own territory,' but after the first few attempts at establishing supply lines were ruined by Koga ninja, she gave in reluctantly since the Koga were doing the same to the Ikko-Ikki monks as well. The monks, given that they had to travel in secret to avoid the larger Oda armies, couldn't announce themselves and pay the Koga off as easily, so in the end, the Oda warlord came out on top. They'd been given an 'I'll get you later' by the Oda Warlord before she'd gone off to do other things. The war had been majorly profitable for the Koga, and they had stockpiled enough money, supplies, and armaments to last for decades.

Then, as if to spite all of her efforts, the Snake God, after having been silent for decades, began to act up again. The gags had come loose, and the whispering began once more. One voice, then another, then another. Each time, Chiyome had shut Orochi up again, but in every instance, the gag was torn away quicker and quicker. Three years into the conflict between Oda and the monks, Chiyome could only keep one of Orochi's voices silent for a week before she needed to reapply a gag. Five years in, that number dropped to five days. At seven, it became three, and when the war was over, that number became one. Then, every twelve hours, until Chiyome failed to gag Orochi again. She'd woken the very next day with a desperate gasp, only to find that one of her hands had been choking her. Chiyome had wrenched it away. But the incident struck a deep fear into her.

Orochi was done trying to get her to go mad and kill her family. It wanted to move on, but couldn't. The Curse worked both ways. Chiyome was stuck to it, and Orochi was stuck to her. Usually, Orochi was the one at an advantage, since most hosts would go man, but somehow, she'd managed to keep her sanity. The Curse was backfiring, in a way, since the Dragon God had become her prisoner. So, to escape, Orochi had begun to use its' limited control over her body in order to attempt to get Chiyome to kill herself. Sometimes, it even got close to succeeding. It knew exactly how the Curse worked, and thus, could get around its regeneration. Too much damage at once would kill her outright. Extended deprivation of air would suffocate the life out of her and as long as the water stayed in her body for long enough, she wouldn't come back to life. A poison stronger than Orochi's own could kill her with enough time. But beyond that, the Curse would keep her alive. When she went to sleep though, Orochi gained much more influence over her body, so she avoided sleeping as much as she could.

Orochi's influence became too much, and so, desperate and rather afraid of the Dragon God regaining too much power over her, she'd sought out priests, holy artifacts, and sacred places. The priests had been able to do nothing, citing their inability to channel enough divine power to cleanse the curse. The sacred places had done very little, only serving to quiet Orochi's incessant voices by a tiny bit, but otherwise, did nothing. The holy artifacts had done better, holding off Orochi's voice for some time, before they too, failed. It was a matter of Orochi overwhelming whatever divine power was in the objects, and unless she could get her hands on one of the Three Sacred Relics, the priests told her, there was no chance. The only way to actually be rid of the Curse, one priest had said, was to have one of the royal family perform a ceremony for her while using all of the Sacred Relics in said ceremony. Chiyome did just that, securing a meeting with Emperor Ogimachi, who had been surprisingly understanding and respectful. The man had performed the ceremony with haste, and the ritual went through without issue. Orochi's voice vanished, though its presence remained in the back of her mind. All was well for a time, and Chiyome pledged the Koga Clan to serve under the Emperor in return for his services.

Things never went to plan. The Emperor began to act erratically, becoming cold and harsh, when he'd been kind and patient before. Worried, she'd taken a copy of the ceremony to a priest to examine its functions and she was informed that the ceremony hadn't silenced Orochi like Chiyome thought it had. Instead, all the ceremony had done was pull Orochi into someone else's mind. The ceremony was supposed to exorcize spirits and curses by yanking the course or ghost straight into the mind of someone with divine blood. From there, the blood would destroy anything unholy. Long ago, she was told, such a process might have worked flawlessly, the blood of Amaterasu burning away Orochi's poison, but now, Ogimachi's blood ran too thin, though no fault of his own. The Emperor had damned himself, in trying to help her. Guilt flooded her, and she'd returned to the Imperial Palace. Five more years passed as the wars came to an end, and by then, no trace of the man's former personality remained. When a servant irritated him, he had them killed and when he got angry, the man became destructive.

Chiyome had stayed at the Emperor's side for far longer than she'd been with her husband by now, perhaps out of guilt, maybe out of shame. Oda Nobunaga came to visit, and for a moment, Ogimachi's old personality had returned, only for it to vanish the moment that the feast ended. When the man ordered Chiyome to send some of her ninja to kill Oda Nobunaga, she'd done so, but all the act did was cement the fact that the Emperor who'd aided her was well and truly. A samurai appeared in front of her. She'd thought him one of her ninja at first, but somehow, he managed to mimic the strictness and protocol of mission reporting perfectly. Then, she realized that the boy wasn't one of hers, once she noticed his partner, who was shaking in his boots. The boy spoke to the Emperor, and Chiyome just watched. The Emperor walked towards the boy, and the boy kept his head down, and she let the events play out, until she saw how the boy's shoulders tensed. To an ordinary person, it might've seemed like anxiety, but to Chiyome, that movement signified danger. Ogimachi was going to die. That couldn't be allowed to happen. The body of the Emperor who'd aided her would not die to some assassin's blade, so ignobly, but through seppuku, to allow Ogimachi's spirit an honorable death. She moved, the Curse providing strength, and rocketed forward to deflect the attack. When she did so, the Emperor stumbled away in fear, but all Chiyome saw was the husk of someone who'd been good to her, shambling away. The Emperor spoke to her, and Chiyome responded harshly, for all she could see was Orochi puppeting him as Orochi had puppeteered her.

She looked back at the boy. As it turned out, the boy wasn't an actual ninja, but a samurai. He'd done all of this, gotten so far, all without a minute of training in any ninja art. All Chiyome felt was regret. Regret for the Emperor, regret for her family, regret for herself, and regret for the boy. She was what she could have been, had the Curse never touched her. Determined, talented, and serving a purpose, like the boy in front of her. Something told her to offer a hand to the boy, to give him everything she'd never had a chance to have, and she did so. The boy had stabbed at her hand. Desire, envy, and frustration presented themselves to her conscious mind like pouring rain, and in the moment that she lost control, Orochi stepped in. Chiyome was slammed back into her mind, and all the emotions vanished. The Dragon God had played its most clever trick yet, Chiyome realized, by feeding emotions to her. Combined with the mental impact as it pulled itself back into Chiyome from Ogimachi, she'd been knocked from the seat of control. With Orochi gone, the Emperor's body was on the floor, limp. Cold.

Orochi decided to take its revenge. It would kill the boy, to make her suffer that little bit more, before killing the Koga Clan once and for all. For the first time in decades, Chiyome was not in control, helpless to do anything but watch as Orochi brutalized the boy. Over and over, strikes fell towards the boy, as though he was the anvil and Orochi the blacksmith. Her memories were being pulled upon to make the effort that much more fatal. Each blow was meant to kill, never incapacitate. The boy should have died a thousand times over, and yet, he pulled through. He took a roundhouse kick to the ribs and stood, though his bones had to be broken and hurting. He kept fighting, so much like her, unyielding and determined. Too young, the thought came, just like her.

Suddenly, something changed, and the boy's eyes shifted. Orochi froze. The Dragon God forgot itself and trembled in fear. Trembled. Chiyome felt her eyes dilate, her breaths get heavier, her rage reach a fever pitch, felt her mouth open and growl in a guttural voice.

Orochi hissed with Chiyome's throat, "Susanoo?! How very like you, to haunt me even now. HOW DARE YOU SHOW YOURSELF AGAIN?!"

The boy was no God descended, Chiyome knew. No God, with all the power available to them, could have such a look in their eyes, with all the power they received for nothing. That steely determination and that unyielding will were not things that a God could ever possess. The Gods had never suffered, never starved, and never truly worked for what they wanted. The boy was no Susanoo reborn, but with his regal posture and those eyes, he seemed to Chiyome close enough. It was as if the fight had forced the boy to transcend his limitations and what had been brought forth, as a result, was something more. Undeniably human, but closer to a spirit than the average man. Orochi could bear that gaze no longer, moving to destroy the boy. Her body swung viciously, able to crush stone, but it was as though wind guided his feet. In a single motion, he was in Orochi's guard, one of his blades slamming down to prevent her own from moving, while the other came for her neck. Orochi blurred away from the attack. Her body pulled out kunai, launching a trio of them at the boy, but he walked forwards as if the deadly blades were of no concern. He shifted to the side, so slightly that Chiyome would swear the blade made contact before his swords came up to fling the other two away.

They slammed into the floor, sinking all the way into the wood. The boy was in front of her again, as if the very wind was carrying him, and he attacked once more, with a flash of lightning and the roar of thunder. Orochi twisted to avoid the attack, but even still, despite the unnatural movements that the Curse allowed, some of Chiyome's hair was sheared away. Mid-twist, Orochi swung her sword again, desperate to force the boy back. The boy just walked through the swing, and once more, he was inside her guard. Three blows, one after another, landed on her sword like stormy waves against the shore, overlapping, overwhelming. Orochi tried to make room to flee, swinging out again desperately. The strike was caught by the boy's blades, and he returned the kick from earlier, planting his foot in her chest. Another swing and another miss, but to no avail. Trying to cut the boy was like trying to cut the very wind, fruitless and impossible. Again, the boy was in her face, and suddenly, her blade was clattering against the floor. A cold realization hit Chiyome. The better part of a century had led her here, in front of this boy's swords. These next strikes would kill Orochi, and in doing so, take Chiyome with the Dragon God. They fell like divine punishment, and Chiyome felt relief. Perhaps in her next life, she'd be reborn in a more peaceful time, without the Curse hovering over her head.

The Orochi refused to die so simply. A wave of mana flowed out of her body, and the sheer density of the energy held the blades at a distance. Horror filled Chiyome. The Orochi that she was familiar with was a fraction of the real thing, a splinter of the true Dragon God. It was a shadow, clinging to life by virtue of the Curse. When the splinter began to call, Chiyome felt the whole answer. Something incomprehensible looked at her, sixteen eyes, a body larger than a mountain, eight heads, and eight tails. Monstrous. Divine. Might so terrible that Chiyome wanted to scream, sing, cry, and worship, all at once. She did none of those things, staring back at the God defiantly. What was death, when she'd already suffered so much? The God turned its attention to the splinter of itself and gave the splinter power. For a brief moment, she regained control as the Orochi she was familiar with screamed in mad triumph.

She smiled at the boy, saying, "Congratulations."

She meant it. To have defeated a God, even one held back a mortal body that it was possessing and diminished due to being a splinter, was an enormous feat. Then, she lost control again, as Orochi began to speak.

Its voice overlapped with hers, chanting, "CURSE THAT FLOWS WITHIN THIS BODY, CALL THE GREATER WHOLE! BRING VENGEANCE AGAINST THOSE WHO HAVE SINNED AGAINST OUR DIVINE FLESH! THIS UNDYING HATRED CANNOT BE CLEANSED! I, THE OMEN OF THE GREAT GOD OF MOUNT IBUKI, BECKON!"

The Yamata-no-Orochi descended in full. No longer was the splinter of Orochi possessing just her body. Chiyome's body had become the core of a greater form, a reflection of the real Yamata-no-Orochi, from wherever the real God was. It was much smaller but still big enough to shatter the roof of the Imperial Palace upon forming. With the sky above it, splinter Orochi roared, declaring to all that their God had descended once more. The sky shook as if even the stars were about to be brought down, and the ground trembled. All in Kyoto saw the splinter of Orochi But, Orochi did not care about them. It only had eyes for an ancient enemy, the God it thought was possessing the boy right now, that had once slain it so long ago. The boy took a deep breath, and the air behind him shimmered for a moment. An older man faded into view, and to the splinter of Orochi, it must've seemed as though Susanoo had finally shown himself. It was an older man, wielding an odachi. Chiyome noticed that the man stood the exact same way as the boy, blinked when he blinked, and breathed when he breathed. There was no doubt in her mind that this was the boy, just older. He would not be able to cut Orochi's summoned body as he was now, so he needed help. Apparently, that help was himself, just older and with a longer sword.

Orochi screamed again, yelling, "SUSANOO! COME AND DIE."

The boy moved, and the image of his older self moved with him. One of Orochi's newly manifested heads shot forwards, like a round from a cannon, but the boy stepped to the side. One of his wakizashi had been dropped, leaving him only one blade. He cleaved, lifting the small sword above his head as if it was much larger, and behind him, his older self did the same. The blades aligned, and the image of the boy's older self merged with the boy. The wakizashi fell, but it did not cut like a wakizashi, but rather, an odachi. The head, about seven feet across and six feet tall, was cut clean in two. Orochi roared in pain, and struck again, two heads shooting forwards, and when the boy moved back to avoid them, three more moved to intercept. One was cut down just before it could make contact with the boy. The two heads were evaded, and while Orochi dealt with retracting those, the boy was already rushing for the two that'd attacked previously. With the heads entangled by one another, the boy cut those two apart with ease. Four heads were cut away within moments of the splinter Orochi's new body being summoned. It was cautious now and attacked with only one head at a time. It bit forward and when the boy moved to cut it, that head was pulled back so that another head could make an attack.

The blade was still in mid-cutting motion, but against all odds, the boy reversed the downward swing, and within the blink of an eye, the other head was sent flying away. Three heads left, and Orochi retreated in fear, suddenly afraid. The boy took advantage of his size, darting towards the chest of Orochi's body and with one great sweep, severed all three heads at once. It looked so simple for the boy. Orochi's body collapsed and began to dissolve into red and black mana particles. Chiyome's body absorbed all of them. Joy filled Chiyome, but it was cut away when she realized that the true Orochi was looking at her again. Rather than take back its power, it snorted, did the equivalent of a shrug, and the pain of the Curse vanished, turning into something else. A wave of vitality filled her, and the scales that had marred her body turned into a pattern of what looked like ink on her skin. A Blessing, the true Orochi informed her. Dragon-like greed overwhelmed her, and Chiyome realized that the God had claimed her. Almost like a possession, as if the real Orochi was saying 'since you destroyed a part of me, you have to fill in for it.' The image of a shrine maiden's outfit appeared in her mind, and the God grinned before the connection was severed. Had she just been conscripted into a religion?

A/N:

This took so long to write. Since this is the end of daily uploads, this is my list of important characters. Can you guess who's who? Maybe who's next?

Saber: ?, ?

Archer: N/A

Lancer: N/A

Rider: N/A

Caster: N/A

Assassin: ?

Berserker: N/A

Ruler: ?

Edited Chapter 31 on 12/31/2022 for Spacing and Minor Spelling Errors.