Prologue / Variabiles Aenigmaticus

"Who goes there!?"

Ikaruga's hand slid out a shuriken from her sleeve, ready to throw it if deemed necessary. When she returned to the Ninja Room to retrieve some tea for her friends, the last thing she had expected was to feel a heavy presence consuming the atmosphere.

Her hostility was enough to bring the intruder out from the shadows, stumbling onwards to disarm her caution through his sicky expression. Those eyes, the ones glaring right back at her, were swirling in darkness, unable to see anything further than his own suffering.

As well as the one whom he believed to have caused it.

"Murasame…?"

"It's been a while, hasn't it? Little sister."

His words oozed with venom. Even as he was sarcastic about it, he couldn't hold back the hatred and spite looming underneath his tongue. It was painful for Ikaruga to listen to, wincing at every letter he uttered, but her attention had to fall onto what was in his hand.

As if it could slip away at any moment, her nodachi suffocated within her brother's grip.

"What are you doing with Hien?"

"What am I doing?" Hysterical laughter erupted from her brother. "Ha! What, indeed!"

Murasame raised Hien before him. "I'll do what I want with it. It doesn't concern you."

"You can't. Mother and Father gave that to—"

She instinctively bit her lips to stop whatever she was saying, but it was too late.

"…Mother and Father?" His voice trembled with rage. His teeth grinded up. "Are you still playing that game!? Don't be so conceited! You dare still act as if you're supposed to be here!? You think you can waltz in, acting as if everything belongs to you!? Is that it!?"

From his explosive rage, Ikaruga's eye contact instinctively broke off. After all, it wasn't as if it was all falsehoods. No matter her excuses, it didn't change the fact that from Murasame's perspective, that might as well be what happened.

A nauseating twist in her stomach climbed up and claimed her voice. It was a far cry from the student class president that her friends knew her as. Where was her confidence? Where was her willpower? If there was anything that she could do here, she would have done so a long time ago, but all she did was look away.

It was all she could do.

"I may not have been given Hien," Murasame spat, "but it's still a family heirloom. I don't care what was said. A family heirloom has no business being in the hands of an outsider."

"Murasame. Please…"

"It… It was supposed to be mine…" Unsheathing the blade slightly from its sheath, Murasame longingly gazed upon the shallow reflection of its steel. "Hien wasn't supposed to…"

His breathing grew raspful.

"You…! You…! If you weren't around, this sword would have been…!"

He tossed aside the cover and pointed the long blade towards Ikaruga.

"No…! No, I can still correct this! If you aren't around anymore, there will be no one that would be stealing Hien from me! I'll make sure that you disappear like the outsider peasant you're supposed to be! A dead person can't ever inherit a blade, no matter the circumstances!"

Murasame widened his eyes with a deranged smile, but although she was the one without a weapon, Ikaruga merely tossed away her shuriken. She needed to take a deep breath to reclaim herself and in a moment of silence, that was what she did.

She had her role.

She was told to keep it for herself for the sake of the clan.

"Huh? You're throwing away your tools? Are you looking down on me!?"

"Murasame." Her voice was lined with frost, all while ignoring his tone. Her frozen aura clashed with his heated screams. "Please return Hien to me."

"If you want to take it so badly, you'll have to pry it from my dead hands!"

Murasame pulled back Hien as he stepped forwards.

A wide swing came across where Ikaruga was, but by the time the blade should have made contact, Ikaruga was already behind Murasame.

"Fuck! Stay still!"

Murasame turned, prepared to swing again until he noticed what was in Ikaruga's hands. It was Hien. She slowly returned the nodachi back into its sheath, but she didn't dare turn around to see Murasame's face growing red. It was already enough for her to hear his distress.

"Murasame… Please stop this…"

"It's not over yet!"

From his jacket, a scroll emerged and with a quick unraveling, it popped out his kusarigama. The chains quickly wrapped around his arms as the sickle fell into his hand. He spun the weighted end in a circle as he ran forward without much of a plan.

"I'll have you know that I recently placed sixth place in the local chain-sickle tournament!"

He spun his body to propel the weighted end towards Ikaruga, but she merely stepped out of the way. The weight came flying around as Murasame continued to spin while closing the gap. His sickle lashed out, but that attack missed as well. He started flailing around his weapon, hitting everything except his intended target. All Ikaruga did was take a few steps to dodge them.

For someone like her, it was not difficult to anticipate such an obvious intended trajectory, despite how chaotic Murasame's moves may appear. When it came down to skill, there was none that could be seen, so everything was predictable.

There was no need for her to ever unsheath the nodachi against him.

Not that she wanted to.

"Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!" Murasame swore loudly with every missed attack. "Stop dodging! It's annoying! If you've got any sense of value left, you should die by my hands and let everything go back to the way that it should be! With Hien in my possession!"

"If I could apologize any number of times to make it better, I would, but I cannot give you Hien. That is the one thing I cannot do for you."

"Shut up! Shut up!"

Murasame slammed his sickle downwards onto Ikaruga, but all that he met was the wooden table that was behind her. He tugged on it, but it sank in rather deep.

"All you did was ruin everything from the moment you stepped in!"

As Ikaruga kept her distance, Murasame's grip on his sickle quivered.

"Do you know how much of a disappointment Mother and Father painted me as once you came into the picture? Having your name ranked higher than mine in the family tree, despite coming out of the middle of nowhere? You couldn'tpossiblyknow how I feel!"

Murasame pulled back, ripping through the table to slash at Ikaruga.

Once again, Ikaruga dodged it.

Murasame was starting to wheeze, but Ikaruga hadn't even broken a single sweat as she looked at her brother's pale face.

"I'm sorry. I'm truly sorry."

"I don't need empty apologies!"

Murasame threw out the weighted end and this time, it managed to wrap around Ikaruga's body. He snatched the chain tight while laughing.

"There! Your guard was down! I got you! How's that!? You can't move anymore!"

"Murasame." A sigh escaped from her. "I'm over here."

"What!?"

He had merely caught an afterimage of Ikaruga. Her swift movement allowed her to change positions almost instantaneously as the wrapped chains fell to the floor. With a bloodthirsty growl, Murasame leered in her direction.

Ikaruga hadn't raised a weapon towards Murasame, but her arm reached out to grab a rope that dropped down from the ceiling. This was the only move that she permitted herself to do against him—dodging around the room until Murasame stood where he needed to be standing.

"You aren't getting away! Get back here!"

"Please take care."

Before he could take a step, Ikaruga pulled the rope which caused the floorboards beneath Murasame to open up. With the moment of suspension fading away, gravity pulled Murasame downwards, but while he fell, their eyes met for the first time during that meeting.

Ikaruga had never seen such revulsion before. It made her sick, knowing it was against her.

"You…! You…! You fucking bitch!"

It lasted for only a split second as Murasame's body disappeared beneath the floor. His voice dispersed as the echo buried his screaming, but as the floorboards closed back up, she realized that those echoes were ringing in her ears. That was enough to well up her tears, turning away from the trapdoor as if that would have done anything to soothe her torment.

Ikaruga had only wished things didn't turn out this way.

"If only I didn't exist, huh…?"

-/SK-EV/-

"Fuck! Damn it!"

Murasame grumbled loudly as he made his way out from the waterway where the trap door sent him. It wasn't supposed to catch others shinobis, only intruders that probably didn't know what they were intruding on in the first place such as normal students.

However, it caught Murasame despite his self-declaration of his status as a shinobi.

"She'll get what's coming for her one of these days."

Climbing up the ladder, Murasame noticed it was already starting to become evening. He heaved himself over the edge to find himself back in the familiar area of the shopping district. Nobody was around, so Murasame rolled over onto his back to catch his breath.

"An outsider comes into the family and takes everything from me right before everyone's eyes." Murasame's hand slammed on the pavement. "And nobody says a fucking thing! They let it happen, as a matter of fact! And apparently, I'm the only one that sees the problem here!"

A heavy sigh laid itself outwards.

"Why…? Why is this bullshit happening?"

Many years ago, Murasame was once on the same path as Ikaruga.

As the only child to the head of a shinobi clan, that position would have been passed onto him since they were the main family, after all. Not many children would like for their future to be predetermined, but Murasame was delighted to know what he was meant to do. He had looked up to his parents as shinobis and he thought there was no greater honor than to continue carrying the legacy that his ancestors passed down.

All of those emotions, hardships and tribulations were resting within the family heirloom of Hien, a nodachi used by the head of the family for generations upon generations. He had looked forward to the day that he could wield it as his own, constantly practicing with a bamboo replication of the weapon.

When the day came for him to take the entrance exam, reality became harsh.

They claimed that Murasame had no aptitude in becoming a shinobi. They denied his requests, refusing to train a child that couldn't show results, no matter how much effort he put in. Some people were naturally talented, but there were others that were naturally untalented.

And Murasame was the latter.

That was whenshestarted to enter the picture.

"Fuck! It's so aggravating! What the hell did I ever have to do to deserve this!?"

"Young man? Is there a reason why you're on the ground, screaming to the heavens?"

"Wh-What the—!?"

There was an old man, suddenly standing next to him. Murasame didn't see anyone nearby a few moments ago, so where did the old man come from? He must have had such a quiet and unimportant presence that Murasame completely overlooked him.

"You shouldn't be laying around when it's starting to get dark."

"Why don't you mind your own goddamn business?" Murasame pulled himself up and straightened out his clothes. "Nobody asked you to meddle."

"You'll have to forgive this old man," he chuckled. "You sound like you've been going through some troubles and I couldn't simply ignore you."

"Then I'll do the ignoring for you."

As Murasame was about to leave, the old man spoke once more.

"How about you come with me for now? I have a sushi restaurant nearby that I run with my son-in-law and while we're just about to close up for the night, I think I can make an exception for you."

"You must think I'm inept, don't you? Listen here, old man! I don't know who the fuck you are, but I'm not some random homeless on the streets! I'm destined for more! So don't you ever look down on me! I don't need your pity! I can handle my problems by myself!"

"I have no malice behind my intentions. I merely offered help. Sometimes, it takes more strength to accept it than to refuse it. And sometimes, you yourself need to take that first step."

The old man walked off, glancing over his shoulder as if to silently beckon Murasame.

"This weird old man must be crazy."

However, it wasn't as if there was anywhere else for him to go. If he walked himself home, all that would happen is that he would head back into his room again and sleep until his next hopeless day approached him. It wasn't as if he really had anything important to do.

"... I must be crazier then."

Murasame followed the old man down the street. People started to fill up the sidewalks as Murasame wondered how long it would take to get there. The old man said it was nearby, but it must have been twenty minutes since they started walking. The small crowds weren't making it easy to pass them, but the old man had been weaving through them like an expert. Even though they weren't moving out of the way for him, the old man was nimble on his feet.

After a few more minutes of walking, he noticed the old man enter one of the restaurants. It was flipped as closed, but by ignoring the sign, he was taking up the old man's offer.

It was a coincidence that his stomach was craving for sushi.

"Oh, sorry. We're closed."

A man was behind the counter, putting things into the refrigerator, but the old man raised his hand to intervene. "Don't worry. That young man is with me."

"Is that so?"

"Do you mind if you leave the rest of the clean-up to me?"

"Are you sure?"

"Of course. Go spend the extra time with your daughter. Between her education and your management of the shop, there's little time that you have for bonding. She should be home soon from her training, no?"

"Thank you, Hanzō. I appreciate it."

"Hanzō…?"

Murasame mulled at the name. It sounded strangely familiar, but he couldn't remember where he had heard the name before. Of course, there was the academy that Ikaruga attended called Hanzō Academy, but that was of a different matter. There was no chance there was any relationship between a school and a sushi shop owner.

As the son-in-law took off, the old man stepped to the counter.

"Take a seat, young one. Are there any favorites that you enjoy? We carry most of the commonly popular ones, but we have our own special rolls. You can check the menu for them."

"How much are you wringing me out of this special treatment?"

"It's on the house. Don't worry."

"Is that right?"

When he sat down with some skepticism, the menu was already waiting for him there. Listed were certainly a large variety, but the one that caught his eye was the one at the center. It was probably the advertising space that it had reserved for itself.

"The futomaki roll. Get started on making that one."

"Well chosen. It's a popular menu item here."

"When it's the dish that you've actively trying to push with such an obvious design format, it's difficult not to give it a try. Baiting a lot of customers into picking it because it convinces them that above all else, the futomaki roll is the thing that they must try before leaving this place. It's a deceptive practice, especially for the fools who can't see past it. It's probably the cheapest thing you can make here, so you maximize your profits with a simple trick. No, probably not the cheapest, but it might be what gets you up with the most revenue per serving."

"Then why have you decided on it?"

"Curiosity." Murasame scoffed. Despite the accurate analysis he provided, his tone suggested he couldn't care any less. "Don't think that you've fooled me. I only wanted to see how bad it really is."

Hanzō couldn't hide his amusement.

"Huh? What the hell are you smiling about, old man?"

"It's nothing, but I will say that you've made one error in your assumption. The futomaki roll isn't cheap to make, far from it. I'd say in terms of profits, it's one of our lowest earnings per serving. We simply make up for it with the sheer amount that we manage to sell."

"That's why it's your so-called special?"

"It's the special menu item because it's my grand-daughter's favorite."

"A sentiment value, huh?" Murasame clicked his tongue. "I guess a story because that would also drive up sales like crazy. It doesn't mean it'll taste good."

"Why don't you try it for yourself?"

"What are you talking about? You haven't even started making—"

Before he realized, the futomaki roll was already in front of him. He didn't even see the old man lift up the knife. Everything was plated perfectly with no sign that it was ever rushed. It made Murasame doubt what he was seeing for a moment.

He inspected it to make sure it was really there. The old man probably had a fancy move somewhere or had already prepared this ahead of time or this was someone's leftovers.

Honestly? At this point, Murasame stopped complaining and took some chopsticks.

"Before you start your meal, I would like to ask you something."

"What makes you think I'll answer?"

"Think of it as payment for the futomaki roll."

"There's the catch. I knew it."

Murasame's silence that followed prompted Hanzō to continue.

"Why don't you want to return to work with your father's business, Murasame Houou?"

Murasame narrowed his eyes.

Was it safe to assume that this mysterious old man already had knowledge of the shinobi world? Murasame could not say, but he had the connections to at least know of him.

"How do you know about that?"

"I am the one asking the questions here, so please answer me."

There were only two words that Murasame could say.

"Fuck 's why." His hand slammed against the counter. "I have no reason to go to a bastard like him, not that he would want me in the first place. He has forsaken me. He turned his back on me when I needed help the most, leaving me with nothing. And then he gave everything that was supposed to go to me…"

Murasame bit his lips.

"To an outsider peasant."

"You haven't talked to your father about this?"

Murasame grumbled. "He made it evidently clear he wants to do nothing with me. He didn't even talk to me about bringing that outsider into the family until the day that he brought her in. That goes the same for my mother as well. Both of them casted me aside and left me behind. They can all go to hell for all I care. I'll laugh when they do."

"That's a dangerous emotion you harbor, Murasame."

"You don't know anything," he hissed. "Don't talk to me like you know me!"

Murasame slammed the table once more, standing up at the same time.

The old man did not flinch.

"I do not know you. I will not pretend to, but you yourself must know that the hatred that you carry in your heart will end up destroying yourself in the process. Hatred has never done anyone any good in the past."

If anything, Murasame was the one that ended up flinching.
"When one door closes, there are others that remain open to a worthwhile future. You cannot trap yourself into thinking that there is only one path to tread."

"If they can't even see myself as a shinobi, then what point is there? Why do you even care!? None of my family matters concern an old man like you!"

"Your father is a friend of mine."

Having it click, Murasame started to slowly laugh. He pushed himself off the seat, leaving the food behind and started walking out the restaurant.

"Of course, it all makes sense now." He leaned forwards in his chair, clenching his fist before he slammed it. "My father must have sent you to try and convince me to back off. That fucking guy didn't even bother to come to talk to hisonlysonface-to-face, but he sent someone else to do it for him! This is an absolute joke!"

"Do you know what your father told me one day?"

Murasame stopped.

"He said that his son was one of the biggest shinobi failures he had ever seen before. He had a suspicion of it when you were training for the academy's examination. While you understood what you had to do, your body could not keep up."

Murasame grimaced and sighed.

"I don't doubt that he was talking shit about me behind my back. If he's got nothing good to say about me, it only makes sense that all that is left were the bad things."

"However—"

As footsteps came closer to Murasame, he turned around to see the old man slowly approaching him while holding the plate of futomaki rolls.

"He recognizes your ability as a businessman. In fact, he said that your shrewdness and your perception is the complete opposite of your shinobi abilities. In other words, he believes that you are one of the best businessmen he has ever met."

"... You're lying."

"I'm unsure as to why he has never told you that before, but perhaps he has his own regrets that he cannot easily undo. I will not place fault on you alone. That is why before you continue to carry your hatred, I want you to talk to him. "

Hanzō glanced at the menu.

"The way that you analyzed that was concise. You know what you're talking about, but you don't realize what you're saying. You're a smart man. Your father must have realized this a long time ago. If he had given up on you, why would he bother sending you to university?"

Murasame didn't know what to say. He kept listening, but none of it made sense to him. Or was it that he didn't want it to make any sense? If it did, then what was his anger all for? What was the point of lashing out? The vicious flame inside his heart started to hesitate.

Hanzō raised his arm, offering the futomaki rolls once again.

"This old man doesn't want to be lifting his fingers so much anymore. I'm satisfied with appreciating the beauties of the world. And for you, there's no need to think that you have to be a shinobi. Everyone walks their own path in life."

Hanzō smiled softly through his beard.

"I ask of you, for your sake. If you wish to see what the future has in store for you, speak to your father after all these years of distancing yourself away from your family."

Murasame's arm instinctively reached out for one of the rolls. He pulled it over to his mouth where he nibbled it once, twice, three times. It didn't stop his tears from welling up. Even if it was through a proxy, not even knowing if his father truly said that about him, it was enough for the moment. Before he knew it, he had finished his short meal.

Murasame had never heard any encouragement ever since he failed the entrance exam. Even if it was a lie, he thought it was fine to pretend that the old man was speaking the truth.

"Who exactly are you?"

"I told you already. I am merely an old man who tends to a sushi restaurant."

"Sure. Whatever you say."

Murasame turned away without another word. He opened the door, but before he closed it behind him, he muttered underneath his breath.

"That futomaki roll was good. Thanks."

With a sniffle, Murasame left the restaurant to see that night had already fallen.

"Was I always this sentimental…?"

As he walked down the empty streets, he pulled out his phone and manually dialed a number he hadn't touched in a long time.