So here's another chapter. Next week I'll start another year in college so I probably won't be able to update very frequently. A hiatus will probably be on its way but I'll do what I can. Anyway, thanks for reading and please leave kudos :3
She remains expectant, alert as the days go by, analyzing the few people who visit her bringing food with a slight curious look. She does not think... She thinks, observes anything that could be useful and shows her that she isn't being stupid in creating conspiracies in her head.
Karen is now calmer, past the precious hysteria. Her swollen eyes are the only sign that she has cried enough.
But she's smart. She can't go back into a forest where she doesn't know what dangers there are with just her clothes. The dirt is the least of it but being sensible, not succumbing to fear, she thinks things through better.
"[...]" The strange woman gives her the usual: rice with a piece of bread along with a glass of water. The food is simple. She assumes that at the end of the day she is still a kidnapped person, except for the facts that neither her feet or hands are tied and there is no surveillance.
"[…]" Karen doesn´t say anything, she looks at her carefully until she gets frustrated and leaves.
She's not being rude, she just doesn't want to say something that they simply won't understand, so... why make the effort?
She turns, sitting reluctantly against the wall, still suspicious.
The sun doesn't appear from the lacking windows of the room. Until the door opens again to reveal that strange man she saw the night before, the one with red pupils accompanied by another with a complete apology gesture.
Her head doesn't hurt, but she can't help but clench her teeth.
"[...]", the kindest one tries. He takes another tentative step but she foolishly does not acknowledge him, still stuck to the wall without eating anything they brought her for now. "[...]", he tries to express again. He makes exaggerated gestures until his partner grabs his shoulders.
The bleach-haired one glares at her with that cold and alien gesture and gives her a warning with his thick voice. They both begin to talk. She makes no effort to communicate in an immature stage of ignoring whoever has locked her up.
Blame her, but after hysteria comes denial.
And she doesn't want to admit that according to the stars, this isn't the place she can call home, leaving aside the fact that there is no pollution that covers the beautiful night view. Her logic rejects her crazy theories that surely her sister, who is always in her fantasy worlds, would love to hear.
She hates watching so many Sci-fy movies with her.
"[...]" The long-haired man was already in front of her in the blink of an eye, scaring her with a double blink... She sticks to the wall out of her primary reaction to frown reluctantly.
"STAY AWAY!" Karen makes an effort to get away, standing right in the corner of that poorly decorated room.
"[...]", the foreigner sighed, raising his hands in an expression full of gentleness as he gently approached.
His clothing is strange. She analyzed his features before and they are not ideal for someone of this era. There are no Japanese people with those natural features... She tries to forget her theories of parallel worlds in favor of not taking that hand that is raised towards her.
They talk. They both share words in tones that sound somewhere between hostile and calming.
It seems that there is a dispute, one that she caused and that Karen could care less about.
"は-市-RAラー-MA." She sees the inner fight the long-haired man is having. He points to himself repeating over and over again what he says slowly, as if he was talking to an idiot. Karen snorts, she doesn't move but looks at the effort with a hard gesture neither friendly not acceptable.
The communication gap is necessary to break to find out where she is and escape if necessary... She analyzes fer few hopes that she's been listing before.
"This is stupid," the girl complains sighing. She purses her lips, feeling uncertain when the other man interrupts the crazy attempts to communicate. "I see that there is someone who sees the foolishness of all this...", she growls before pointing to herself. "Ka-ren," she imitates the man's actions.
The long-haired man stops arguing with the other person, which makes him show an abnormally large smile that scares her when he takes her hands with a solemn gesture. "DA RE!", he tells her smugly. That's not the least of it... but the touch is. She tries to get away again but he is strong.
"Let me go!" She sees her mistake in humoring the stranger.
"[…!]", the other man snaps harshly, which makes the other realize his mistake, releasing her immediately. Her fingers hurt and she doesn't avoid making a difficult gesture squeezing her extremities, which are numb and red.
"[...]", the stranger says, but she is already close enough to the other wall not to approach him hiding her hands. She doesn't want the touch of that effusive stranger when with so little he did a lot. The terror of the possibilities are drawn in her mind.
She is anxious, quite apprehensive and with some obsessions, one of them being to always stay alert, something that has led her to survive in the difficult world of work. And now they're yelling at her how dangerous foreigners are despite the fact that one looks guilty. He tries to get closer and break what prevents the exchange of words.
But she refuses to listen, abandoning her previous stupid feeling.
"Dare?", he calls her. He tries again and again.
"[...]", the faded man grips his shoulder and shakes his head. She doesn't look at them... She hears the door being closed indicating that they will give her enough time to relax. She isn't... her heart pumps heavily because of the strangeness of the meeting.
She looks at her hands, which are red, and she sees that they are starting to turn purple due to the strong grip she was subjected to. She doesn't cry... This shows her how stupid she was.
These people want to harm her... even though it may seem otherwise.
In a room far from the isolated house, Tobirama doesn't see why his brother strives to see things that aren't there. He sees the logic path... it would be easier to kill her and study someone who clearly has no chakra system. "You should have let me heal her," he complains. Hashirama sits heavily in the office with various scrolls and papers scattered around.
Before, it belonged to his father and now it belongs to him. As a clan leader he has a role and he sees that he is diverting from the matter.
"Your techniques don't work and you know it," he growls reluctantly with a cold crossing of his arms.
"But-"
"Hashirama," Tobirama barks harshly. "We should have killed her, not allowed her to treat you that way. It is a sin even among our clan," he scolds.
"She's not from here."
"I know she is not... You should have let me analyze her when you realized the absence of a chakra system."
"She is not an Inuzuka dog for you to study her," Hashirama complains. "She is like us... a person..."
"We kill people... shinobis."
"She isn't a shinobi."
"She is not a civilian either."
"How do you know?", Hashirama looks at him expectantly. He hates when he puts his curiosity over his duty but the youngest of the Sunju won't admit out loud how weak he is to the whims of his brother, the last one he has... the last one left.
"She does not behave like us."
"Of course... She's afraid of us."
"I do not mean it like that. She is attentive, observant... She analyzes us."
"She can't see us."
"I know she cannot she us when we are watching her," the white-haired frowns. "But it is silly to maintain her when she does not contribute anything to the family... In battle, none of our clan are as useless as she is, so it would be easier to learn what she can do by opening her."
"I have allowed you work on her things."
"That is not the point... I did not learn anything from them," he snarls remembering that strange box that turned on and other things that had strange components whose operation didn't cause any kind of reaction, other than the light it emitted and the images it had.
"And you won't learn much from her."
"Or course I could..." Tobirama sees the possibilities. In the absence of a chakra system, he imagines some type of technique-cancelling jutsu that would be innovative. He imagines putting it to use in war to protect better his lands and clan.
"Stop thinking rare things." Hashirama knows his silence.
"They are not rare."
"They are," Hashirama sighs. "It's just that... she's curious, her language..."
"No. I will give you a month. If there is no cooperation...", Tobirama warns harshly before his brother can convince him of something else. There is an alarm that calls them. Touka, a kunoichi guarding the area, arrives injured and with information.
The Uchiha clan brazenly comes to claim war on them.
The battle is inevitable... for now leaving the topic of the foreigner apart.
Not caring what happens to her but curious about what he may discover. Tobirama has always been the coldest for a reason, plus his curiosity to demonstrate other uses of chakra, such as the techniques he has invented.
This can mark another benefit and with that thought he jumps into action.
Uchihas vs Senjus.
Hashirama doesn't like the feeling when he sees his former friend being so hostile. His wounds heal themselves which makes him let most of the warriors who supported him be treated. He smiles... He gives firm words of pride and encouragement that this has been the best result.
The Uchihas have escaped again... Madara gave him a long look, he is his rival after all. The only person who has fun every time there is a battle.
He doesn't... He still hasn't completely forgotten his dream of peace.
The village they wanted to found.
"Stop thinking nonsense." His brother makes him react when he feels they are in a safe zone. The trees that he tries to plant around them are a deceptive field of protection. The moon is the only thing above their heads that tells him they will soon arrive home.
"I'm not," says the leader, sure to see off the warriors to their homes, to their families... The clan consisted of several widespread houses scattered among light fires. There are kunoichis, shinobis so loyal that they followed them and did not question their growth.
Except when his father... Butsuma died.
"Mmmm... where are you going?", Tobirama asks, noticing that he's deviating to his father's old house, the one they abandoned as soon as they were old enough... Now isolated and being used only for work and access to the nobles.
Where that woman is.
"I'm going to check some papers."
"Hashirama."
"Maybe I can communicate with her."
"You know you cannot."
"Tobirama... Just let me try."
"Let me remind you that you have up to a month from now to demonstrate her usefulness. Otherwise..."
"She's a person..."
"It is useless to keep her and you know it."
"You make it sound like she's a pet."
"So it seems and you already know it, Hashirama. She does not speak our language, she brought dangerous things... Keep that in mind."
"Mmmm... " Hashirama sees the point. "She's a civilian."
"Only you say that... You know that Mikami says the opposite," Tobirama warns, but Hashirama uses his secret weapon making a weak pout that makes the other gnash his teeth. "Do whatever you want... as long as it does not obstruct your duties and let me analyze her at the end of the month. I will only give you that much time," he warns one last time before leaving.
Hashirama was always curious about the life of a civilian. Just before becoming leader, his father always scolded him for that so he stopped doing so... However he knows this woman is different, which makes him be in her bedroom in seconds. Even with his war armor he doesn't make any kind of noise. She is asleep, sitting in the corner with no desire to move.
She didn't even move to the bed. "She didn't eat," he complains noticing the tray. At least the water isn't there so he assumes she will hold on because forcing her isn't necessary, being too kind for the taste of the rest of the clan who let him be despite the rumors around him.
He is a monster, classified as such for his skills and ability to suppress even the heaviest shinobi, with its obvious exceptions, but few know his kind side of such a bloodthirsty legend... So he doesn't hesitate in approaching, taking the woman to lay her down.
He feels guilty. His brother not so much for having hit her, but for bringing her to this place out of curiosity and sense of duty when she was a civilian in the middle of a bloody battle, with strange things... with strange language.
Her features are unnatural to those he normally knows, not even those from that clan from the country of the wind or the grass look like what he sees.
So Uchiha... but at the same time without being one.
He sighs looking at those purple hands... He doesn't say anything as he sighs with his arms crossed. He has to work on being able to communicate, so maybe he can let her go later right? Because this is not the life of a civilian... They break, not even the merchants last that long.
But... what's going through her mind? Why is she so hostile? He sees that she is afraid of them but she is different from those he has met in his life. Could it be because she is not from here? Why does she speak another language? Where does it come from? So many questions without being able to be answered anytime soon.
Hashirama just took this personally. He will have to do extra work on a pure whim, one that comes from curiosity...
For now.
Author's notes:
Greetings!
This is still an intro, but here we are again updating another character... The truth is I feel that Karen is being foolish to see the possibility that she's not kidnapped, but she grew up in a dangerous neighborhood (something she doesn't tell many people but I'll spoil it for you) where you can't trust anyone easily, always looking over your shoulder waiting to be assaulted.
Things that even if it's a world of peace happen. Hashirama is still infatuated with something that Tobirama allows because he is weak to his brother. However, will he regret it? I don't know... for now this path will continue to be difficult to investigate.
Thank you for watching and I'm glad you liked this post. Where will it go? It's something I still don't know... I'll have to imagine many the things, since the canon says so little about the time of the warring clans.
Author-chan out!