Chapter 2: The Embers
The wind blew gently as the sound of her voice turned to ambiance the way lullabies do, Kazuki found himself still pondering of all the questions he wished to ask her.
"What exactly, do you do?"
As he asked this, Mariko completely stopped what she was doing. A note hung in the air even after the silence fell, she soon continued to play, whilst still finding the words to answer his question they momentarily sat in silence, until she finally spoke.
" I... am the daughter of one of the founding clan members of the Kastura clan. Not governed by any laws, many who walk among us are known as ronin."
Kazuki, now intrigued sits still with the intent to listen. Watching as the wheels turn behind her eyes once her story started to unravel in front of him, revealing her mystery.
"We've come along way in order to be here...my father conquered many in his path to be here, the place he saw fit to call home... After all the lives he took in his own name.", anger is what he saw in her expression for the first time in all the time he had known her, which was evidently a short time but none the less the very atmosphere darkened as she spoke of her father, such hatred in the manner of how she uttered the last few words, spitting them out as if they held the bitter taste of bile. She continued;
" Where is the fine line between man and beast if the man has already excepted the beast he has become..?" she looked at young Kazuki, her eyes welling up with tears, but not of sadness but of anger. Tears of anger, repressed for too long, the condensed steam of an over boiled pot. Kazuki thought, holding on to Mariko's words, words that questioned his thoughts of earlier contemplation:
'Will I be killing myself, holding back..?' holding back on the monster, that will soon wish for it's turn of control, a painful war that which Kazuki believed he would have to fight against himself. Personally exposing his true fear to himself, ripping him bear of his moral security. He felt the chill of the wind that filled the silence.
They both sat there, Kazuki- silently thinking of how to justify his personal choice to accept what he has become, the topic at hand completely devoid of his mind. When just then, he thought of something:
" What if it was not much of a choice..?" she abruptly stopped strumming and snapped her head towards him, slightly wrinkling her nose resentfully. But Kazuki continued not paying attention to his companion,
"W-What if...it was our circumstances that lead to the choices we make..?"
"What circumstance could possibly condemn a man to the murder of his wife for the sake of his demon child.", her voice was dangerously low as she glared through stray strands of long black silk like hair hauntingly, with a certain yet slight wildness in her eyes suggested her rage.
Kazuki- swiftly recoiled apologetically, tapping his mouth three times in regret of his words though yet he was confused. Holding his fingers on his lips as he thought hard about what she said.
He figured she had been bitten. But no:
"'She was just a vessel' my father used to say...'nothing more.'. ", Mariko said this with no clear emotion, as if she was holding back something. Suddenly she said:
"Hōzuki." resuming her strumming though something about how she did, changed. She continued:
"A beautiful flower...only meant to die to create beauty. That is what my father told me."
A beautiful flower that which only bloom in the wake of winter, reserved for funerals as a symbol of rebirth from most rather unfortunate circumstances.
She never did attend the funeral, but now he knew why.
For you see it was unheard of for royalty to keep the company of commoners... No one even knew she came her, not even the four from the night before. But, they did indeed seem accepting of her promise of his prosperity in such ill endeavors.
So be the irony of his challenge.
The two sat still in the forest as if it belonged to them in this peace, until - they heard twigs snapping in the distance, Kazuki looked behind him and found a small bird bathing in a small dip of water made in the soil by the floods;
"Your family wasn't hurt alone...", Mariko said with no real emotion that which he could read with his back turned a moment but as he turned back he knew and too felt that despite moving to higher ground that mother nature so spiteful in hindsight.
"I know...", he said," But, it is all I have and nothing else mattered..."
"What if you don't have a family anymore, Kazuki-san?", she asked as they turned to each other in a silence that held nothing but the sounds of birds and wind;
"Then you will become just like me..."
"I see...", he said, "So be it."
"Excuse me?"
"You will no longer be alone-"
"I was never alone."
"And now...you have me."
"What good will you do if you can't fight."
"I am here because of this, why would I need to, why would I need to fight-"
"Because, I plan to dethrone my father!", once these words were said, it seemed as though the wood too went silent.
"I, am no longer part of such a clan, we are strangers, outsiders to even the ronin.", she breathed,"All we ever had was one another. I was never alone, Kazuki but now, yes, I have you. So if you are willing to fight along side me, will you be doing so willfully?"
"I don't... Know how to fight."
"We will teach you."
"And if I say no, will you kill me?"
" This is not an ultimatum, it's a choice. But, what will you do if you do say no?"
"I don't know.", he said, knowing that this was fate's unltimatum but he knew that Kami was not cruel. This life that which she lived was not their doing but that of the monsters that infest her home, he felt her pain but suddenly only felt like her soldier;
'She couldn't have planned this...', as mystical as they were as creatures, she couldn't control the seas.
But just maybe if one of them could, many lives wouldn't have been lost.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
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