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Chapter size : 12500 words
Opal and Obsidian
Part 4
Hinata
April 28 1016
Land of Iron
Her zest for life had faded. The blooming flora and the soothing warmth of spring had not brought it back. The days had passed and become similar. The same habits, the same rituals, the same loneliness. She would get up, check the ink on the paper, scratch the calendar, read, eat, go to bed.
For more than a month, nothing had changed. Then, in the thirty-fifth waking nightmare, a book telling the story of the arrival and establishment of the Nara Clan in Konoha had spiced up her blandest life.
In the middle of the book, on more than twenty pages, a conversation between Tomaru Nara, the author of the book and Chūnin of the Leaf, and Masanobu Nara, a septuagenarian in charge of the Nara Forest, was transcribed. In his somewhat philosophical answers, Masanobu explained the basics of gardening.
Perhaps one day, if time allowed, she could thank this man personally... if he were still alive.
Even though the season was over, in early June she had started planting the thirty or so potatoes that she had taken out of the bucket and sprouted. It was... liberating.
Then she went to the forest at the foot of the mountain and cut small bamboo trees to make the framework for her tomato plants. And continuing to follow the book's meticulous instructions, she used the nettle stalks for string and the bucket of water to water the seeds.
Between her forty-first book and her daily check of the dry ink, she had continued her gardening, and when her small field of potatoes and tomatoes at the back of the hovel was finished, her sweet smile had returned for a moment of contemplation before she made it disappear.
So it was thanks to simple potatoes that she had read The Art of the Seal by a certain Miyako Uzumaki to make up for her lack of water. Or rather, to avoid having to go to the river twice a day.
As she read and her headache grew, she had understood from the way Miyako addressed the reader that the book had been written for the Uzumaki and only for them. She had wondered how Master Jiraiya had gotten his hands on the book and, the notes, anecdotes and other advice that the author had handwritten between the paragraphs and drawings had given her the answer.
The book was written in the year 982. Master Jiraiya was twenty years old at that time. This meant that between 82 and 86, when Uzushio was destroyed and the Second Great War began, the Sannin had been on the island of Uzumaki long enough to gain the trust and knowledge of the clan.
By reading the handwritten sentence on the last page of the book, it was easy for her to guess that the meeting with this Uzumaki woman had not stopped at a simple friendship. It was much more than that and this news had really shocked her.
Sensei had dated a woman without paying her... this was an inconceivable, almost paradoxical information.
Wherever you may go, I hope that the path you take will lead you back to me. Your beloved, Miyako.
It had taken her over a week to create a seal that could hold a solid, which according to the book was one of the basics of Fūinjutsu. Another week later, the same seal could hold a liquid.
Two weeks to get it right, but she had succeeded, much to her pride. Her seal was not as sophisticated as the one they had left behind. Waterproof and able to contain, preserve and filter water, but she had succeeded. She had to redo it every few days because the weather washed out the ink and ruined the paper, but, nonetheless, she had succeeded.
She had learned the basics of Fūinjutsu on her own, and learning more about the subject had kept her mind busy for the next month.
After sixty days, paranoia was added to her daily routine: at every sound that came from the dirt road that led into the forest and down the mountain, she rushed out to see if it was them, even in the middle of the night.
The wind. Always the wind.
The third month had passed quickly. The fourth month had followed, and except for her thoughts, no one had come to disturb her.
Through reflection and observation, she had finally resumed training. The trigger had been the third month, when she had written him yet another note that he would surely never read. The umpteenth note explaining how much she missed his presence, how much she loved him. That she hoped they would come back, despite his promise that he had not kept. If that was the reason he didn't come back, she had to tell him how much she didn't care, that she forgave him.
These are only words. Come back, look at me, I beg you.
Although during the summer she had managed to persuade herself that they would come back, she had not rested on what she wished, hoped for. Even though she didn't like to think about it at the time, she had prepared herself for it.
If they didn't come back... she needed to be able to defend herself against anyone, anything.
Resting on one's laurels was the most serious mistake of a shinobi, the number one cause of their death, this was the first lesson Master Jiraiya had taught her. Therefore, in addition to her reading and gardening, she had practiced every day without interruption. Morning, afternoon, evening.
The fifth month had passed like that, in sweat and regularity, and November had finally covered the clearing and the forest with its blanket of snow, ending the countdown.
The sixth month had begun. They... still hadn't returned.
Sitting on one of the kitchen chairs, her elbows resting on the wooden table, her hands clasped in front of her closed face, she watched the seal on the wood in front of her, right next to the burning candle. Accompanied by the rain pounding on the windowpanes to her right, she sighed heavily.
Yesterday was the day she ate her last bowl of rice. There was no more. No more food, no more gas. The animals were hibernating and becoming scarce, and her garden, which had provided her with more than two weeks' worth of rations, was now just a pile of dry grass. In other words, even if hope became edible, she would soon starve.
They will not come back.
The last few days of training had not gone well. She could have blamed it on the deep snow, but it wasn't that. Her mind was elsewhere, she just hadn't felt like it. The idea of lying down on the bed and not waking up had crossed her mind several times, but she hadn't felt like it either.
The thunder shook the forest, and the lightning that followed illuminated her long obsidian hair.
What did she have left? She had nothing left. The books she had read, most of them twice, annoyed her. The Fūinjutsu book had nothing more to teach her and even the trees were tired of being beaten by her. All she had left was that tiny hope. A hope that faded with every day that went by, with every night that brightened.
They will not... come back.
In an uncharacteristic impulse, she grabbed the empty seal in anger and threw it toward the living room. The simple paper didn't even make it two meters and wobbled miserably until it reached the entrance of the hovel. Faced with her failure to see the paper suffer a little, her anger increased momentarily and she kicked the chair in front of her on the other side of the table. A deafening noise spread through the cabin as the furniture scraped the floor and slammed violently into the living room chair.
Suddenly lucid, she crossed her arms under her chest and inhaled deeply, exhaling softly.
Her breath extinguished the candle and plunged the house into darkness, leading to her second dry, disbelieving sigh. In the total darkness, somehow managing to keep her composure, she struck a match to relight the candle.
They will not...
All her senses left her as her muscles clenched. With the match in her hand and her breath taken away, she remained petrified. Each of her thoughts began to explain what she saw, the shadow in front of her, but none of them managed to reach her muscles and make her react. The flame of the match began to burn her fingers, but even then she did not move an inch.
Sitting opposite her on the other side of the table, on the chair she had just thrown and returned to its place, he observed her.
"Good evening, little wolf."
The hoarse voice startled her so suddenly that she bit her tongue. The next moment she fell heavily backwards onto the floor. Her hiccup of pain only had time to rattle her eardrums as she sat upright in the soft chair, panting and sweating.
Thunder rumbled and lightning cracked the shadowy clouds. Eyes wide open, she looked straight ahead under her incessant chest pounding. Then, inevitably, she frowned and looked at the window to her left, then the daylight on the closet to her right, before letting the opal of her eyes descend on the sheet that covered her legs.
A nightmare. It was all a night...
Her eyebrows still furrowed, her thoughts still overwhelming, she pulled back the sheet and left the bed to make her way to the entrance. Dressed in a simple nightgown, she walked past the burned-out candle and picked up the seal in front of the door.
A cold sweat ran down her spine as she turned back to the kitchen table and noticed one of the four chairs in particular. Not the one she had pushed in her dream, which matched the table perfectly, but the one she had fallen into. The one with the backrest still touching the floor.
An ominous cracking sound startled her and made her recoil so abruptly that her head hit the wooden wall with a thud. Her eardrums immediately whistled, and panic made her look around, but she saw no one for miles around. For the first time, she did not trust her eyes.
"Is that... is that you? Why are you hiding? Show yourself..."
The rain answered her, intensifying its rhythm on the three windows of the hut. The deep voice she had been waiting for did not appear. Then, the jaw contracted, she tugged at her hair for the umpteenth time and lowered her face.
"How... can you be... still alive? How... did you find me?"
She was going crazy. The loneliness had reached the point where she was seeing ghosts.
Memories of a man being stabbed in the chest flashed through her mind, and uncertainly, she turned to the front door and placed her palm on the handle.
She had thought about it for several weeks, wondering if it was a good idea. The answer was simple: it wasn't. But the current situation had just convinced her otherwise, because of all the questions that plagued her, there was one to which she could answer, and she had to do it now, or she would really lose her mind.
She opened the door and, not bothering to close it, ventured out onto the porch until she encountered the snow and icy rain.
She crossed the faded clearing and the forest with a weary step and walked along the dirt road that came down from the snowy mountain. After several minutes of following the thick snow and wild bamboo, she finally reached the edge of the river. Then she did what she had never dared to do: she crossed the river with a step full of chakra.
There followed a cold walk that lasted more than half an hour. Thirty minutes during which she did nothing but rearrange her soaked obsidian hair, which kept falling onto her lowered face. One thousand eight hundred seconds in which half of her mind, interspersed with her trembling and chattering teeth, kept trying to reason with her, to convince her that this was a bad idea, while the other half defended her crossing body and soul.
If she didn't move, she would starve anyway. And even if she didn't, if she managed to stop the snow from falling on her garden, to raise its temperature, to chase away the animals that had fled the freezing cold, she would still have to light a fire to cook the meat and boil the water.
A smoke that would alert them of her presence, no matter what.
Was it better that they visit her or that she visits them?
Slowly, standing in front of the main entrance, she turned her attention to the dwellings of Shinjō, the only village in the vicinity where the answer to her existential question lay.
In red and black, brick and wood, she passed under the old archway from before the Provincial War and entered the village. The wooden and canvas dwellings flashed before her eyes, and she shivered as the cool wind swept down the huge main street, chattering her teeth all the more.
Despite the increasingly deafening rain and the temperature just above freezing, a dozen villagers were in the alley. One in particular, closest to the entrance of her frozen self, was busy carrying crates of fish in front of what she imagined to be a shop bearing his name.
"Cursed autumn, cursed time, cursed region, the only thing missing was the wind."
About forty years old, dressed in a dark kimono and a straw amigasa as a headgear, the man did not hear her approach. But it was undoubtedly the clicking of her teeth that drew his attention.
"Huh?"
Crate in hand, he turned to her with a curious face, blushing from the cold. Then he studied her from top to bottom in a very... attentive way?
Never before had she seen someone become so livid so quickly. She saw him literally turn pale at sight.
She wanted to bow to properly greet the first human she had seen in more than six months, but her chilled lower back told her she could not make that move under any circumstances. So she opened her mouth, but closed it again when the man's did the same.
"Y-Y-Y... Y-Yo-Yo-Yoyok... Yokai."
The man's stutter reflected some surprise as well as fear. A lot of fear. A fear he transferred to her as soon as he said the word ghost.
She turned abruptly in fear, thinking he had followed her here, only to find the curious yet terrified faces of villagers gazing in her direction. Again, her obsidian eyebrows furrowed.
There were no ghosts. In fact, there was no one within twenty yards of the shop.
She turned her attention back to the man with fright as the crate he was carrying shattered on the thin layer of snow and the fish slipped on the muddy ground, drawing more attention from the silent village.
"Y-YUKI ONNA!"
To add a bit of drama to the howling that terrorized her, thunder began to rumble behind the huge snow-capped mountain range on the horizon, and it didn't take much more than that to send the man running to the other side of the store, as far away from the village, as far away from whatever had frightened him, as far away as possible from her.
The man stumbled in the mud, catching his foot in one of his crates, and immediately got up and continued his escape amid his alarming cries, which she was sure could wake the dead.
"YUKI ONNA! YUKI ONNA! YUKI ONNA!"
She watched the villager's frantic run as he stomped away, not understanding.
What could that name mean that could scare someone so much? And where could this Yokai be? This Yuki Onna? She couldn't see it anywhere, not even outside the village. There was no active chakra coil here. Neither in the streets nor in the windows of the houses. Only her own.
Stopping observing the tenketsus of her arms, she watched the dozen or so faces facing her from about twenty meters away.
Craftsmen, for the most part, had all stopped their daily and morning chores to stare at her. Pale, frightened, just as the man had been before he screamed, she made the mistake of moving in their direction, and like a disease, the screams spread through the street, multiplying what she had just witnessed tenfold. Windows were slammed, shutters closed, doors locked.
Suddenly alone in the street, her lips bluish and half-open, she blinked several times under the condensed smoke of her disbelieving breath.
These people, this whole village, acted as if they had actually seen a ghost... but there was no one there. No one but her. Were they afraid... of her?
She resumed her walk and stopped in the middle of the huge puddle without her feet touching it, which definitely plunged the village into a deathly silence.
Looking around at the thousands of souls in the area - about a hundred of them were looking in her direction - she finally made her way to the building with the largest number of them, about twenty, and stopped right in front of the tavern, which had a very fitting name.
Izakaya.
Tavern.
She watched the movements of arms, which required as quiet as possible to block the entrance, but since she was already less than a meter away from it, no one dared to venture there. She opened the sliding door that pushed back the accumulated raindrops and stepped inside the three-story building.
The warmth of the room pampered her.
To her right, separated by a crackling fireplace, were perfectly set tables. Despite the glasses of sake and cups of coffee, the overturned chairs were empty. To her left was a bar, stools, and a drunken man slumped over the counter. And in the back, just off the stairs that led upstairs, in the storage room and hidden behind a door, nineteen people were huddled together.
Of what? She still had no idea. Of her, perhaps.
In a silence broken only by the glowing embers, the rain outside, the man's alcoholic snoring, and the drops of water dripping from her soaked nightgown, she moved toward the counter. Under the curious and frightened eyes in the doorway of the storeroom, she stopped in front of the stools and caught herself watching the man's budding beard.
Although she had just had a conversation with a villager, well, if you could call it that, she remembered that it had been more than six months since she had talked to anyone.
Where should she start? Should she introduce herself? Greet him? Both at the same time? Or should she just start by waking him up?
The right side of her body warmed by the fireplace, she gently moved her warm hand to the auburn hair. Several frightened hiccups were heard in the storeroom. Loose, jerky sounds that were covered by equally frantic fingers.
She only had time to reach the black hanten that covered the man's shoulders before he jumped and sat up on his stool. Eyelids closed, he staggered a bit before stabilizing himself and blinking.
With a slow, imprecise, heavy gesture, he picked up the small white mug on the counter and, sticking his nose into it, studied the ceramic for a long time without saying anything, as if the thoughts that had awakened him had suddenly stopped.
Before he finally spoke.
"Oi... Hanshiro... can't you see... that my glass is... empty? Hanshiro? Han...shiro?!"
The man slammed the cup down on the counter. No one in the storeroom moved a finger. Not even Hanshiro, whose heartbeat she could hear accelerating.
Tachycardia was close.
"What is... what is this... this service... Hanshiro?! Is this how you treat your most loyal customer... in the morning?! Hanshiro?!"
After his rant, the man turned his head to the right, toward the tables and the fireplace, completely disoriented. With a clumsy movement, he tucked his short hair back into place before dropping his arm back onto the counter.
"Very well... continue your hide-and-seek... I... leave... don't count... on... you... on me... to... pave... parry... peep... ?"
Seemingly thinking about what he wanted to say, the man paused for a moment and looked straight ahead, motionless. Then he shrugged before getting down from the stool, and of course, almost falling.
His green chrome gaze finally settled on her, less than a meter away, which stopped him in his gesture. Silent until then, the breaths of the storeroom simply stopped while the man, with his wrinkled gaze, moved his face a little closer to her opal irises.
"Oi m'dam... don't you see... that you are... in my way... ?"
While the man tried as best he could to speak to her, or rather, to poison her with his breath, his dilated pupils fell for a fraction of a second on the nightgown she was wearing, and... she lost him completely.
This time, with his eyes wide open, he remained blocked for much longer. In fact, she thought he would never come back to her until his nose began to bleed. Pinching it at once, he nearly choked on his own saliva before beginning to stare at her, then at her body, then at her, then...
Given the condescending tone he had taken to address her, she did not bother to introduce herself or even greet him. She went straight to the point, to what was important to her, what she had come here for.
"What day is it?"
The information took more than a second to reach her interlocutor's brain, and it was not complete. In fact, she was convinced that the only information he had received was that she had just spoken to him. What had she said? He didn't seem to have a clue. Even maintaining contact with her eyes seemed to be difficult for him.
"What?"
She breathed softly.
She definitely didn't like drunken people, but since she had gotten used to dealing with them and taking care of them thanks to Master Jiraiya, she managed to stay calm as always.
Another knowledge that Sensei had taught her, although this one was unintentional.
"Can you tell me what day it is?"
According to the calendar she filled out daily, today was November 13, but nothing was less certain. What was certain was that the first snow had fallen two days earlier.
Winter was near, it was coming, December was just around the corner.
A corner that the man designed with a movement of the hand, behind the counter, without stopping to fix her. At least to look at her body.
Curiously, she glanced at the shelves containing a large number of ceramic bottles, before turning her attention to the wall calendar between a small mirror and a colorless photograph.
Her impassivity turned into an amused chuckle, and the same chuckle turned into a silent laugh that only shook her shoulders.
She was crazy. She was crazy, and it made her laugh.
It made her... laugh.
Joy turned to sorrow, and her white teeth disappeared behind her lips to give way to grief. The tears came and flowed freely, but in the wake of her obsidian locks, soaked and clinging to her cheeks, they went unnoticed.
She inhaled loudly, and the terror in the storeroom reached its peak. She put a hand to her face, then exhaled with a jerk before turning toward the tavern's exit.
"Oi... Miss, are you... are you okay?"
She felt the man's hand approach her from behind, but before he could reach her soaked shoulder, a high voice rose from the storeroom. The first brave soul... who was strangled by the cowards present with it.
"DON'T TOUCH HER, YOU IDIOT, IT'S A TRA-!"
The man, though drunk, backed away abruptly and she continued her walk outside. The sliding door remained open behind her, and the cold welcomed her back. Looking down, she didn't notice that the rain was gone, replaced by fine white flakes that began to clump in her hair.
Three days. Three days were missing. Today was not the 13th, but the 16th of November.
She stopped in the middle of the street and looked up at the sky. Her long sigh covered her vision with thick white smoke.
Why was this happening? Why was this fate upon her? What could she have done in her past life to make it haunt her so much?
Why?
That morning she had returned to her mountain with even more questions than when she had come down. However, she had achieved her goal, she had found the answer to her existential question.
Yes, she had been unconscious for three days. Yes, during those three days, something dramatic had happened to them. Yes, she was sure, she was the cause.
That day, she had not drunk, not eaten. She had just lain in bed and stared at the emptiness above her.
She was not suicidal. She wanted to live, but she had to admit that surviving without a purpose, without knowing the reason for a loss, was difficult to overcome. Even more so when you knew the reason for the loss was your fault.
She had been lying in bed for several hours, thinking about her life, her reason for being. Then she remembered a sentence. Words that a certain Masanobu had said. The Nara who had managed to change her everyday life.
Maybe it was that simple thought that had given her hope. Hope that they would come back now, tomorrow, in the distant future. She didn't know, but one thing was for sure. The second she had thought about it, she had gotten up.
"You know, Tomaru-san, I'm not the kind of person who believes in fate, but sometimes I wonder where it comes from. That thought, that impulse that changes your life. The one that seems ridiculous at first and you don't pay any attention to it. Then this so-called time passes and you remember, you remember where it all started, you finally say to yourself that it was there, it was here. It was this person, this desire, this exchange... this thought that changed my life."
Strangely enough, and as if the stars had aligned with her hopes, the very next day she was able to eat her fill. Not thanks to her garden, or even the hunt, but thanks to her mistake. At least what she thought was a mistake: the village of Shinjō.
On her way back, she had stopped in the middle of the river and watched her reflection in the moving water. Apart from her almost apparent nakedness, the only thing she could say about her was that she was frightening. The dark circles under her eyes, her blue lips, and her opaline eyes had not helped. She looked like a ghost from a horrible legend.
Henpei Peak was indeed home to one.
Though she had been angry with herself all afternoon and most of the evening, that anger had quickly faded as she looked out over the village from her bed.
Offerings. A lot of atonement offerings.
All of the villagers who had seen her, as well as some who had taken her word for it, had participated in the oblation to appease her future killing spree.
This time, dressed warmly, she had returned to the village in the middle of the night to collect the rice and lentils they had brought, leaving the rest behind. Whether it was the incense or the dog tied to the arch of the main entrance.
She didn't know if the poor animal had been put there to warn them of her possible arrival or to be offered as a sacrifice, but it hadn't heard her approach and had continued to sleep peacefully.
Or perhaps it had died of cold?
After the seven hares she had killed, and knowing that they thought she was evil, she was not embarrassed that the villagers thought she was capable of killing and eating an innocent dog. After all, she didn't know how far hunger could take her. Fortunately for the poor animal, she knew how to get by on water and starch.
So it was no surprise that the next evening she saw an even larger crowd, this time bringing much more food, when she noticed that what she had brought the day before was gone.
In one night, she collected more food than she would need for a month. And the next month, and the next. She had filled the seals in three nights, and when she found herself without food again six months later, she appeared in an alley at dawn.
That night, the seals were filled again.
"April 28, 1016,
It's been a year. After what you did for me, I don't deserve much from you, I know that, but to know what happened to you is all I ask.
Can you answer me?"
Hinata
June 2 1017
Land of Iron
"I warned Shima that you would be alone here. I would have liked to offer you to go back to the mountain for two months, but reverse summoning is not possible unless you sign the contract in blood, and I don't want to force that on you. So just know that if anything happens to us, Shima will come and get you."
Anger. Grief. Tears. A horizontal movement of her vision.
"She didn't come, Sensei, she didn't come. Why didn't she come? Why didn't she come for me?"
A smile.
"Well, to tell you the truth, it's possible that-"
The three knocks on the door of the hovel startled her. Opening her eyes, she sat up on the bed and looked straight ahead, panting and still shaken by her memories. Three more knocks sounded, and what she had just dreamed was gone in an instant.
If her heart was pounding and hissing in her ears, it was not because of the presence of the twelve men on her porch and on the parched earth in the hottest of summers, it was because she had believed, before opening herself to the auras outside, that it was them.
That it was him.
The door vibrated for the third time and her eyes widened. She hurriedly pulled herself out of bed just as the handle clicked. She barely had time to refold the sheet and hide behind the side of the closet before the door creaked open.
The heavy footsteps ventured across the floor and stopped between the kitchen and the living room. The door closed and the unmistakable clank of armor was heard. She didn't need to use her eyes to know its affiliation. Their affiliation.
Samurai.
"How could anyone choose to live in a place like this?"
The muffled sound of the second man's mask gave her the impression that they were not in the same room, but that was not the case. There were indeed two samurai in her hovel, and she had no idea why.
With ease, she opened up a little more to the changes outside and felt the presence of the four who remained on the porch as well as the four who were outside.
Still hidden behind the closet, her breathing stopped and every thought flew out of her mind as a gray helmet passed right outside the bedroom window.
"Choices are often forced upon us."
Fortunately, the samurai searching her garden did not turn to her hiding place.
"There is a garden here."
She closed her eyelids as tight as she could before opening them again.
Was she... dreaming? A lucid dream perhaps?
She imagined a dove landing on the window and, faced with her failure, tried in vain to just wake up with her thoughts. The wood creaked under the weight of the man's armor as he paused in front of the kitchen table, startling her.
She was not dreaming. It was reality. Her reality... why? Why did they come after all this time? Why now?
In fear and to control her breathing, she clenched her jaw.
She was trapped, she would soon be unable to hide, and running away was the last solution. Because, and she knew it, she had nowhere else to go. This place was her home, but most of all it was her only haven of peace. Outside of this place she had nothing. Outside of this place, she was a target.
At this moment, the only thing that could save her was a metamorphosis, but since she did not know why they were here, if they ever stayed more than half an hour, she would run out of chakra and the situation would become... comical. Without chakra, even running away would not be an option.
Moreover, a metamorphosis would require her to constantly release her energy, and although the samurai were not known for their extensive knowledge of Ninjutsu, she doubted that one of them could recognize the signs of a henge. Knowing that she was not at all skilled in this area, the risk was far too great.
Realizing that the situation was getting out of hand, she did the only thing she could do at that moment: she covered herself with insults.
Stupid, dumb, lazy...
How could she not hear them coming? How could she not see them coming? She was a disgrace to everything Sensei had taught her. She did not deserve to be in this situation. She had been resting on her laurels, those same laurels had grown, and the fall was going to be hard.
"Whoever lives here is of the fire."
Foolish, silly, idio...
Her back stiffened against the wood of the closet.
In a reflex she could not control, the veins that surrounded her dark circles swelled and her eyes widened even more than they already were.
A joke. It was a joke. Kami was laughing at her. It could not be otherwise.
She was fast, very fast. At least much faster than a samurai, even in simple hand-to-hand combat. She was sure of that. But as ironic as it was, she wasn't fast enough to escape their gaze.
Even if she managed to avoid being seen by the two men in the hovel, the other six at the windows, and the last four at the edge of the forest, she could not escape the thirty-seven who surrounded the clearing, but especially the more than four hundred who were prospecting in the forest surrounding the mountain.
There were literally ten times as many samurai as wild animals for miles around.
Her lips half-open, she couldn't catch her breath.
Since the beginning of the Great War, the Shogun of Iron had mobilized his Ashigarus to the borders of the neighboring countries of Sound, Waterfalls, and Fire, even though Iron had not participated in the war. No one knew the exact number of his light armored peasants, not even the historians of the Second Great War dared to ask. However, Sensei estimated that there were more than four hundred thousand of them, more than all the major countries combined. This number may seem huge, but it was not much.
According to what she had read in the tales of the utterly gutsy shinobi, most of which took place in the land of Iron, a single Genin from an elemental nation was capable of incapacitating over a hundred Ashigaru on his own. A thousand for a Genin from the Land of Water. Therefore, she could only imagine the carnage a Chunin could wreak on these inexperienced soldiers.
A Jōnin... she preferred not to think about it.
It was clear that if these Ashigaru were the only military force in the Iron Nation, the country would have been wiped off the map for centuries. So, in addition to these frontline soldiers, there were the Samurai.
According to the bingo book of the Waterfalls, two experienced samurai could compete with a Chūnin, sometimes even a Jōnin. In fact, it was not uncommon to hear the story of the Shogun, the current general and leader of the country, to support this fact. The one who, in his youth, from the Second Great War, had faced the Rain Kage, Hanzō of the Salamander, and survived.
A samurai had fought a shinobi of the greatness of Sanshōuo no Hanzō, of the power of a Kage. News that had caused a stir and planted a very specific thought in every mind: leave the Iron Nation even more peaceful than it already was.
Fifty thousand.
Tetsu had over fifty thousand samurai, not counting the Monbanshūs, Jōbans, and Rusushūms, who, as castle guards, were not included in the military forces. Only Yumigumis, Teppōgumis, Yarigumis, Kachigumis, and other military ranks were considered as such and formed bans. Elite groups that could compete with the ninjas. To wipe out entire units of shinobi.
Knowing all this, and being logical, she really wondered. What on earth was a whole Ban doing in their hovel in the middle of a mountain?
"Is it the books that make you say that? This person could just be fascinated by this village and be from the Sound, or even from Earth, don't you think?"
After the question, she stopped focusing on the garden outside to concentrate on what was happening behind her back. On the conversation between a samurai and the one she thought was the Kashira, the one at the head of the Ban, the one with the horns on his helmet.
"It could be, yes, but these apples tell me otherwise."
Facing the wall, her porcelain face swiveled mechanically.
These... apples?
"These... apples?"
She raised an astonished eyebrow, and the clanking of the breastplate of the man at the head of the small army announced his arm movement toward the fruit.
"They are not found in Iron at this time of year, it is much too cold. This species is only found in the warm regions, especially in the southern nations and especially in the Red Beans. They are imported to Miasao, where they are snatched up by immigrants from Hi."
Her face immediately changed from a surprised look to a frown.
This man just happened to find out where she was born, thanks to luck.
It was just a coincidence, nothing more. She had no idea where these apples came from, she had just eaten them once and liked the taste so much that she had been eating them ever since. The villagers of Shinjō, faced with the sudden disappearance of the fruit, had simply noticed that she preferred them to the others and had brought in a large quantity of them four months ago. That was all. The taste had only reminded her of her chi...
Oh.
"They are only present in the country during spring, and I know only one way to preserve a fruit for that long. Fūinjutsu. The person who lives here is a shinobi."
That was starting to be a lot, a lot of information for just apples. She would never eat them again. Ever.
"Daisuke-sama, why would a fire ninja come here? To this region? You know better than anyone how the people of Hi behave in the capital, they can't stand the cold. Every winter, they disappear, only to reappear at the beginning of spring. Why would someone want to hide in a place like this? If this person wanted to hide, he should have stayed in Hi. The forests along our borders are so dense that they are often mistaken for the Demon's jungles. It doesn't make sense."
She didn't know who this man was, this samurai, but one thing was for sure, she hoped he would be able to convince this Daisuke who was starting to worry her. She almost wondered if he would find out who she was by looking at the spider in the corner of the living room.
"I have no idea."
Silently, she breathed out her fear.
The palm of her right hand on the hilt of his katana, the bluish silhouette of the Kashira turned and stopped in front of the front door, or more precisely, in front of the seal hanging on the wall. She expected another remark, another piece of information from his helmet, but after a few seconds of immobility, he continued on his way.
"Do you know why we are here two days' march away and not in Isanawa at the side of Lord Teitarō, your father?"
She... simply stopped breathing.
Isanawa? The capital of the region? This Teitarō was the Daimyō of these lands? And... the one in the center of her hovel was... her son? In her hovel was the Prince of one of the five regions of the Iron Land that obeyed Miasao, where the Shogun, the general of the land, resided?
She really was dreaming, it was impossible.
Where and when would this dove arrive?
"No, I don't know."
After looking at the books on the shelves, Kashira stopped in front of the armchair and the nightstand.
"Three days ago, an old man came to the capital seeking help. Your father, in his usual kindness, received him to find out what was going on."
She tensed a second time behind the furniture as the samurai's gloved fingers settled on the book on the nightstand.
"He had been walking for over three days, and even when a member of the court offered to rest before speaking, he politely declined."
A small, deformed book with a yellow cover.
"Love, hate, fear. These are the three dominant feelings. The only ones that could have given an eighty-year-old man the strength to walk for three days."
The book opened and she swung her leg slightly before she managed to control her reflex.
"This man was terrified. Terrified by what he had seen."
"What did he see?
She didn't know what the old man had seen, and to be honest, she didn't care. All she could think was not to throw herself on the nightstand.
Despite her Byakugan, she couldn't see which page Kashira was reading.
Maybe it was the very first ones where she asked him when he would come back, maybe the next ones where she told him how much she missed him, or the last ones where the second year had already passed.
She didn't know, but what she did know was that this man was invading her privacy, and that bothered her. Very much.
"Yuki Onna."
But this anger was gone in no time.
"Yuki Onna? Like the Yuki Onna from the children's stories?"
So that was it. The reason they were there was the reason she had survived until now. Yuki Onna. The name they called her. The one she had used for a year to eat.
A Ban had moved in because of a tall tale. Several Kumis had come for a ghost story. Five hundred men had come for rice and apples...
This story didn't hold water, there had to be something else.
"You... came all the way... with so many men... to confirm a legend for children?"
She was going to wonder if she was thinking out loud.
With the sound of a mechanical opening, the Prince removed his mask and helmet and placed them under his right arm, allowing her to hear his true voice for the first time under the silence of the Kashira.
"Did Father send us here? Has he lost his mind taking the word of an old man? Yuki Onna? What's next? Kyūbi has resurrected in the area?"
Caught by a sudden curiosity, she nosed out of the embrace of the wardrobe and observed the man's features.
Slightly taller than his counterpart, who was still hidden behind his horned helmet and mask, he wore the traditional samurai uniform of full gray armor, a katana, and the helmet and mask he had just removed. His hair, perfectly coiffed, was jet black and his square face was covered with microscopic scars, one of which was on his left cheek, the one facing her. A rectangular white bandage was taped to his nose. A nose that seemed to have a habit of being broken. His black and arched eyebrows showed another scar on his arch.
With dark irises, sunken cheeks, and a chiseled jaw covered by a beard several days old, he looked no older than thirty. Twenty-five, maybe more. What she had before her eyes was not a prince at all. It was a caricature of a samurai as depicted in books.
A prince... wasn't he supposed to live a quiet life as far away from conflict as possible? This one was far from that.
The two tenketsus on his shoulder were closer together than normal and clearly told her that the same shoulder had been dislocated several times. The small amount of chakra on his lower right calf indicated a significant injury that was several years old, and the large amount of chakra in his forearms and wrists told her that they were by no means inexperienced. That they were used to flowing chakra.
Was he a lord or a warrior? She did not understand.
"I agree with you, Your Highness, that it would indeed be inappropriate to come with so many men. But there was a detail in this story that made me personally ask your father to come with my ban and Masato-san's ban. Did you hear about this in the ranks?"
With a simple stiff movement of the jet black hair, she understood.
"Stop beating around the bush and tell me what this is all about."
Despite the respect between the two men, she understood who would obey whom when the situation demanded it.
She didn't need to see Daisuke's expression to know that he was calm and that he deeply respected the prince. She only had to look at his chakra coil to see that.
"You who read a lot must know the legend of Yuki Onna, the spirit who appears only at the dawn of a blizzard and takes the lost travelers with her."
Bringing the hilt of his katana closer to his center of gravity, the Prince placed both hands on it to lean on it, then simply nodded and waited for more.
"In the tale, she is a beautiful young woman with long, black hair and a piercing, dark gaze. Her skin is smooth and inhumanly white, yet her features are so beautiful and refined that her victims pay little attention and are charmed. This is more or less what the old man said. But despite their offerings, the ghost continued to appear every month. Even more surprising, no one has ever disappeared. This spirit simply collects the food that the village offers to appease it."
The yellow ornament closed.
"One could believe in a simple scam, and that was what your brother Hideharu-sama claimed, but even though the old man was formal, it is indeed Yuki Onna, it can only be her, and for that he gave an additional detail. The one that piqued my curiosity. The one that silenced the court and made me come here."
She repositioned herself behind the closet, more attentive than ever.
"This spirit, this young woman whom the village of Shinjō fears, has white eyes."
She thought nothing, said nothing, did nothing. Motionless, she could only analyze what she had just heard.
This man had not needed a spider after all. The books, the seal, and the apples had been enough to confirm what he thought.
"How does being blind make a young woman a ghost? It doesn't make sense."
The prince paused in his question and, after a few seconds of silence, came to the same conclusion as she did, again.
Inevitably, the princely katana slightly came out of its sheath.
"You're not thinking about that clan, are you?"
There was silence again before the Kashira decided to end it.
"There is only one lineage that has these physical characteristics. Only one family that came from the Fire. Only one clan that started the Fourth Great War."
The princely blade half out, the yellow-rimmed book completely left her mind.
The question of knowing the consequences of her next actions no longer existed. The possibility of returning here was gone.
"Why did you bring so few men if you thought a Hyūga was on my father's land?! Two Bans might not be enough, what were you thinking Daisuke?!"
Sparingly, so as not to be felt, she infused a small amount of chakra into her legs and right hand. The vibrations of the Prince's ranting faded, the guards outside alarmed and alert, she glanced at the wall in front of her for the umpteenth time.
The woods would not stand against her, nor would the seven men down the mountain. They would see her, and she wouldn't be able to come back here, ever. She wouldn't be able to get her things back, and she wouldn't be able to leave them a message.
"Nothing was less certain, Your Highness. I couldn't afford to take more men with me. A blind young woman wandering the streets of a village in the Iron Land is not convenient. A Hyūga even less so."
With tears in her eyes, she folded her fingers and raised her hand.
It was all over.
"Put away your weapon Musashi-sama, you will scare her."
The rush of blood around her irises subsided, the chakra she had just breathed into her hand dissipated, the growing tremor in her legs subsided, leaving the field open for a tiny discomfort. An unpleasant sensation that ran up her spine and electrified her neck. The stifling heat was quickly felt and then she let her hand go back down along the furniture.
The katana returned to its gold-crowned sheath and the Kashira's attention turned to the closet, to her, before the Prince Musashi's followed his eye movement.
Was he talking... had he... yes.
There was no doubt about it. He knew she was here, he knew it all along. But then, why all this drama? Why reveal the Prince's identity to her, she could have used it against them... was it a test?
"You can come out, we won't hurt you.
To her surprise and as a result of the request, the dilemma was not difficult to overcome. In fact, she hadn't been able to get a single thought out of it. Her hand had risen by itself and, hesitating to hit the wooden wall, had clung to the edge of the closet. It was only after she had exposed herself that she had realized her gesture. The one that no longer allowed her to turn back.
When the Prince's gaze first looked at her, it quickly went through several emotions. Going from surprised to intimidated, before simply turning wide-eyed. She felt a slight concentration of chakra in his gloved hand placed on the pommel of his katana, however, he did not pull it out.
In contrast to the roaring sounds of her entrance three minutes earlier, her progress across the floor was interrupted only by a slight creaking until she stopped with her bare feet in front of the bedspring. Three meters from the Prince and four from Kashira, she hesitated to bend her back, but the leaden silence made her realize that her eyes and her indiscretion had already done the introductions.
With her hands clasped in front of her pelvis, she overcame the only look she could make out, that of Musashi, who was already watching her from head to toe.
She didn't have time to guess what he was thinking when he removed his hand from his weapon and walked with a heavy step toward the living room chair. Passing in front of the high-ranking and silent samurai, he picked up the blanket she had used the night before during her nocturnal reading and almost threw it in her face.
In almost perfect stoicism, she moved her left arm along the trajectory of the fabric to receive it, literally giving the impression of a robotic gesture. Gently lowering the fabric, she began to stare at the Prince again.
Without explaining why, she covered her body and her simple white nightgown with the beige blanket. He did not return to his position. He remained at the sides of the man to the head of the ban, at several meters of his original place, to two meters more away from her.
Was it a way to calm her down by putting more distance between them or a way to calm him down by putting more distance between them, she did not know the answer. On the other hand, she knew that Daisuke was not asking himself this question.
The fear that the Byakugan could bring didn't seem to be part of his vocabulary.
"Yuki Onna, I guess?"
For a long time, she tried to see through the mask that covered Kashira's entire face, but all she could see were the two faint red lights of the samurai's famous night vision.
Who could be the most afraid in the hovel? Her? Them? The spider?
She did not react to the sarcasm behind the mask. Smiling was the last thing she wanted to do right now.
"I see."
Following her silence, the oldest man in the room placed a hand on his breastplate.
"Daisuke Yoshida, Kumigashira of the seventh Ban of the Imagawa Clan Armed Forces."
Before moving it in the direction of the prince.
"And this is the first son of Lord Teitarō Imagawa, the Crown Prince Musashi Imagawa."
The introductions over, she returned her gaze to the black irises that continued to stare at her.
He wasn't just a Prince, he was the Crown Prince. He was the one who would replace his father when he died. He was the one and only suitor, and he would become lord of these lands in the near or distant future.
It was all surreal.
"What is a Hyūga doing in the Land of Iron?"
The question was asked, and she only had time to notice the movement of the heir's lips as he continued.
"The war you started has just ended and you are already trying to start it again? Is this the hidden side of what the Hokage preaches? Wasn't what happened in Doroppu enough for you, wasn't it enough to provoke the wrath of the Gods?"
The questions were clear and calm, and everything led her to believe that her opal irises were the only reason the princely tone had not risen a notch.
The assumption was quickly forgotten when she realized what she had just heard. Her thoughts made her heart miss a beat. Two. Frowning, she opened her mouth, and her two interlocutors were hanging on it.
"The war is over?"
Her honeyed tone spread through the hovel and reached the Prince, who raised two surprised eyebrows.
The news was such that the situation she found herself in had faded into the background. She could not believe it.
The war was over.
The roles reversed and faced with silence, she did not wait for an answer to her rhetorical question, but moved on to the next.
"What happened in Doroppu?"
She didn't know the place, but the etymology of the word made it clear to her that it was a Rain village.
Although the land was on the opposite side of the peninsula from the Lightning, could it have anything to do with what had happened to them?
Dazed, she took a step forward and Musashi put his hand back on the hilt of his katana, causing her to immediately step back. She sighed softly at the lack of discernment she was showing under the impassive air of the Crown Prince... as well as the possible one of the Kashira.
She preferred not to know the samurai's expression. Activating her Byakugan now to look under the mask would be the same as dodging the Prince's blade the next second, at least if the desire took over. Because defending herself was the last thing she wanted to do, which scared her enough to have persuaded her to run away a few seconds earlier.
She had been thinking about it a lot lately, and these two men scared her. Not because she was afraid of them, but because they could fulfill her darkest thoughts. The loneliness, the grief, the loss... was hard to bear. More and more difficult.
If the blow was accurate and well delivered, the temptation to avoid it would be great. Much too great.
"What happened in Doroppu? ... Do you live in a cave? How long have you been hiding here?"
She sighed a second time, but this time more quietly.
This conversation was going to be endless. One question would lead to another, and another, and another, until they came to blows. If she wanted an answer, she would have to take a step toward them first... well, metaphorically.
"I've lived here in this hovel for over two years."
"Two years."
The prince's spontaneous disbelief shattered every last one of her convictions.
Maybe this had been a bad idea.
"You've been living in my father's land for two years, two years of terrorizing the village of Shinjō, two years of spying on the Iron Country?"
The blade came out of its sheath again, but this time it was halfway out. She wanted to say that she had only been terrorizing the village for a year and a half, but she preferred to keep that to herself. Then, without thinking, she made a gesture that put an end to the Prince's austerity. She suddenly knelt down on the floorboards of the house and lowered her face, which surprised him.
The honor of the Hyūga was not to be repeated. Such a gesture from one of them was not to be taken lightly. Even if it was an act, a Hyūga would never bend his knee, even on the most important mission.
She had simply disrespected the name she bore. The same name she had disowned.
"Believe me, Your Highness, I mean no harm to this country. I have nothing to do with Konoha, I have nothing to do with the Hyūga-Clan, I..."
"Not affiliated with Konoha? The Hyuga Clan? How dare you lie like that?!"
The calm tone was gone. The blade sheathed in its scabbard was no more. The fear in the opal of her now lowered and closed eyes was no more.
Even though she had just told the truth, what she thought was the truth, her truth, even she could hardly believe it. So she was not surprised by the reaction her supposed lie had caused.
Despite the blade pointing in her direction, she did not move an inch.
Getting pierced by that katana would be the best thing that could happen to her, but then again, she knew it would never happen. It was just a way to scare her, to make her talk. If she didn't attack him, he would never lay a finger on her. Their Bushido would prevent them from putting an end to her cowardice. She would just go back within four walls for the scam she had pulled.
One thought among many made her realize that this was not the only possible end. And that, in turn, terrified her.
For fear of retaliation, Tetsu would be able to warn Konoha of her capture. She would be killed before the news could leave her cell.
Dying by the hand of a stranger in anonymity was acceptable. Dying by the orders of the top Leaf leaders who had ruined her life was not. She had been sacrificed, abandoned, twice. Loneliness and routine had nearly killed her. She did not want to go through that again.
Why did she have to choose that bridge? All this way just to wish for the same thing in the end... was it worth it?
If they couldn't attack her until she did, all she had to do was ask, right? That was allowed by their Bushido. A single blow would do.
"Go ahead."
The long silence that followed spoke volumes about the request she had just made. On her knees, her tired arms could not even hold back the blanket as it slid over her shoulders.
"What did you say?"
She raised her dry gaze on the astonished air of the Prince and, her jaw clenching to not swallow her words, her courage, she finally looked at the two red lights of Kashira. The one who seemed to know her without ever having met her.
All she had to do was kneel down to extract the smallest molecule of chakra from the Crown Prince's katana.
He would never do it. He was not capable of it.
Her hand trembling, she clutched her nightgown over her heart and squeezed the fabric with all her might.
"Please, end it."
She didn't belong here anymore. She never did. She didn't want to anymore.
Under the clanking of his armor and weapon, the Kashira came with a stiff step less than a meter from her. With his left hand on the scabbard, he drew the blade a little with his thumb.
"Is this really what you want?"
She held her breath for a moment before lowering her face with a grin. She straightened her back and moved her hair to the left side of her face, freeing her neck. Then she closed her eyes and nodded.
"What are you playing at, Dai..."
The sharp sound of an arm moving reached her eardrums, but she paid little attention. She heard the man remove his mask, but again, she did not care. Her face lowered, her vision plunged into darkness, she let go and emptied her mind.
"Tell me your name or I will not take your life. As custom dictates, I must remember you until my last breath. As long as I live, this world will not forget you."
Under other circumstances, she would have laughed at what she had just heard, but in this situation, she had neither the strength nor the desire.
A millennium would not be enough to forget her.
Could she afford to fall into such a simple trap? So trivial that she wondered if it was one at all.
He wouldn't kill her, he just wanted to confirm his thoughts for one simple reason: He couldn't know if she was lying. If she was really connected to Konoha and he agreed to her request, then war would be declared. A paradox in itself.
Why would she want to die when she was on a mission?
She opened her eyes again and focused her attention on the chocolate irises above her. There was only one solution if she wanted him to execute her: grant his request.
Hairstyle identical to the Prince's, some gray hair went up along his brown hair as well as his goatee. The fine features, the cheekbones slightly burned by the autumn cold, gave even more depth to his hollowed cheeks.
Strange as it may seem, there were no scars on the samurai's face. There were only two possibilities. Either he had never fought or no one had ever hit him.
As unlikely as both were, so was the decision she had just made.
"Hinata."
The Prince's katana in the left corner of her field of vision slowly lowered, and she continued to overcome Kashira's gaze even as the Heir's whispered.
"No way."
She knew exactly what she had just done, she had just condemned herself for two reasons. The first was simple: she had given her name. Exactly what the forty-year-old man had asked her to do. The second was equally simple: because she had given her name.
Some time after he had rescued her on the banks of that river, he had explained to her why she could never give her first name: everyone knew who she was.
Everyone.
The Great Nations of the South over the forests of Hi, the Great Nations of the North over the mountains of Tsuchi, the Great Nations of the West over the deserts of Wind, the Great Islands of the East over the Teiryuu Ocean. Everyone.
Even the Demon and Swamp realms had heard of her. Six months on foot for one, a year for the other. Trivial distances for the traveling merchants.
Just as the First Hokage's decision to offer the Tailed Beasts, the Second Hokage's death during the Kumogakure coup attempt and the destruction of the Uzushio no Satō by the Lightning had been, the main reason for the war had made its way around the world. Again and again, Kaze and Hi had set the peninsula on fire, again and again, Konoha had declared war. Her name had crossed the peninsula, empires, cultures, seas, countries, borders.
Hinata Hyūga, the heiress behind the Fourth Great War.
Just as the First Hokage's decision to offer the Tailed Beasts, the Second Hokage's death during the Kumogakure coup attempt and the destruction of the Uzushio no Satō by the Lightning had been, the main reason for the war had made its way around the world. Again and again, Kaze and Hi had set the peninsula on fire, again and again, Konoha had declared war. Her name had crossed the peninsula, empires, cultures, seas, countries, borders.
Hinata Hyūga, the heiress behind the Fourth Great War.
"Musashi-sama, call Hayato."
"You can't possibly believe her!"
"That is an order, Your Highness."
With her head still clear, she turned to see the grin on the Crown Prince's face as he sheathed his katana, placed his helmet on the nightstand and walked toward the entrance. She blinked several times, not understanding what was happening, before turning her face back to Kashira, who had just put his blade away. The door opened and she stared at the samurai at the head of the Ban as the Prince stepped out onto the porch.
Was the honor of the samurai overrated? Had she seen right?
"I respected your wish, I gave you my name, will you not respect mine?"
Impassive, the man did not answer. He opened his mouth but remained silent. He closed it again, thought for a few seconds, then opened it again.
"Do you understand what you just said?"
She frowned.
One thing she understood was that he believed her. What she didn't understand was why what she had just said had changed his mind. Didn't these men, this peninsula, hate her? Shouldn't the simple fact of knowing who she was have convinced him to kill her even faster?
"Yes, I do. So what are you waiting for? My apology? You won't get one. Does your honor have no weight? Life is as light as a feather, honor as heavy as a mountain. Is that not your country's motto? Is it a facade?"
She didn't like what she was doing, but maybe the provocation would get her where she wanted to go. To the end.
With a slow, calm movement and within arm's reach, the samurai knelt in front of her and came down to her level, which surprised her more than she wanted to pretend.
"Everyone was talking about it for months. Even today everyone is talking about it. You really don't know anything?"
She just shook her head and he looked at her for a long time, which confused her even more. This man seemed more inclined to take her word for it than the fact that she didn't know about it.
What was so important about this news that everyone was talking about it?
"Hinata Hyūga is dead."
The fresh breeze blew into the house through the open door, and a shudder of disbelief added to her frown.
She was alive, right in front of him, what was he talking about?
"Six months ago, during the peace treaty between the Alliance, Iwa and Kumo, Konoha demanded the heiress of the clan as a condition of the agreement. Kumo announced the death of the child Hyūga. You died in your cell at the age of six."
Mouth half open, pupils dilated, she watched the brown hair in the same confusion.
Konoha... had asked for her release?
"How do you know all this?"
She didn't say she found it hard to believe, but she found it hard to believe. He might have been high up in his capital, his region, his country, but the Iron was not known for his information network. In fact, he didn't seem to have one. Like her, the nation lived in autarky within the peninsula itself.
Since when did Tetsu have informants?
"I own a television."
She didn't know if it was a joke to lighten the atmosphere or if the Kashira wanted to be sincere, but the look he gave her remained impassive.
"Do you understand the meaning of your words now?"
Yes, she understood now. She understood perfectly.
The peace treaty was based on lies. Kumo had lied. Believing in her death was easier than believing that she had managed to escape. This allowed the Lightning to keep its face. If the Peninsula learned that she was still alive, the treaty would be broken.
Two years ago, she had foolishly thought that she was competing with a volcano. To be the cause of a war. But she had underestimated herself. This volcano was nothing.
Their disappearance had led to the Fourth Great War. Her reappearance might start the Fifth. Now she sincerely wondered: what should she do? It was no longer just about her. Innocent lives were at stake. She no longer had the right to choose. If she asked this man to kill her again, what would guarantee that the Iron would not bring her body back to Konoha after her death?
Sure, Tetsu wasn't known for seeking conflict, but a Fifth War would come sooner or later no matter what she did, and from Master Jiraiya's echoes of how the Fourth had gone when it was still ongoing, Konoha and its allies were dominant. She didn't know how the war had ended, but Konoha still seemed to be there. The fact that Tetsu would try to side with them, even though she didn't think it made sense, was a possibility she couldn't ignore.
If she had known the situation, she would never have given her name. She would never have shown her face. She no longer had the right of life and death over her own body, no matter how much courage she could muster.
This Deisuke was strong, very strong. Never before had a person managed to make her change her mind, change her way of seeing life, in such a short time. In a simple explanation, this man had just forced her to defend herself if her life was threatened. In a few words, he had destroyed the least of her suicidal thoughts.
She had to live, to stay dead.
The roles had just been reversed for the umpteenth time. Her next words would decide her fate, the fate of the prince who had just whistled at the edge of the dirt road, the fate of the four samurai in front of the porch, the fate of the six others behind the house, the fate of the thirty in the forest, the fate of the four hundred at the bottom of the mountain.
The Kashira's eyes crinkled and she had no doubt that it was because of hers. This little spark that had just been born behind her opal irises.
With a much drier tone than the honeyed one she had used before, she asked the only question that mattered to her at that moment. She repeated the last word he had used to reason with her.
"And what are you going to do now?"
One hand resting on the hilt of his katana, the man rose to his feet amid the incessant clanking of his leather and metal armor. For the second time, he didn't answer her, and the next second, footsteps were heard on the porch. She barely had time to see the white collar through the kitchen window before the prince appeared at the front door.
However, it was not the Prince's pupils that she saw first, but the small black ones of the bird that stood on his wrist.
So that was Hayato, she had thought it was another samurai, but it was not. A messenger. A carrier pigeon.
A dove.
Fate was laughing at her.
"It's not my decision to make."
She looked back at the Kashira who turned his head toward the bird. He held out his arm and the bird flew in his direction. With a few quick flaps of its wings, the dove changed its wrist, and the samurai wasted no time in retrieving the small piece of paper hanging from the animal's leg.
Silent and still on her knees, she watched the movements above her without saying anything.
The man unrolled the paper and, injecting a small amount of chakra into the tip of his index finger, began to write with his finger. In a few seconds, the message was finished and the rolled paper was placed back into the base hanging from the dove's leg.
She knew what was coming next, and she couldn't make a move to make the decision to attack them. The bird would fly away, and the person who would receive it would know about it.
The bird turned to the door, spread its wings, and flew away. She did not move. These men did not deserve it. Even though the fate of the peninsula hung in the balance, she couldn't bring herself to harm them.
The dove brushed the Prince's face, the wooden posts of the porch, and began its ascent into the sky.
She had no code, no honor. Yet she couldn't hurt these men because they had done nothing to her.
Why, why was she such a coward?
"Your Highness, please close the door."
With a continuous squeak, the prince complied and closed the door, isolating her once again in the cabin.
She looked away from the entrance and met the gaze of the Kashira who crouched in front of her again.
"Hayato will be back tomorrow evening until the court meets and makes a decision. In the meantime, we'll stay here."
It was not a request. Her opinion was not wanted. But that didn't matter. The paper was, and the look she gave the Kashira made it clear what she wanted to know.
It did not take him long to speak.
"I informed my Lord. I asked him if I could take you to the capital."
Her mood immediately turned sour.
"The capital? Why would I go there?"
Facing her tone, which clearly indicated that she refused, that she would not move from here, or if she did, it would be without them, he offered her a slight smile.
"If the court and Lord Teitarō accept my request, there is one person I would like to introduce to you."
"A person?"
Her request was immediate.
"I cannot tell you his name. But you should know that he, like you, was betrayed by your village."
She stood slowly, and this time it was she who looked down at the gray armor.
Did she understand what he had just said? She... she wasn't dreaming, was she?
"How do you know that I was betrayed by Konoha?"
Kashira's small smile lingered.
"June 2, 1017,
Two men woke me up this morning. You might think it was the beginning of a sensei joke, but it isn't.
The conversation, if I may call it that, was... surprising?"