[Graded][Closed] Bring Light into my Dark

Willoria · Post by **Willoria** » Sat Mar 18, 2017 4:33 pm

[flash]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VInr-cSNNU[/flash] It was a beautiful night, the full moon shining up above and even the tell-tale mists that were usually even this far from the village seemed to have blown away to reveal the stars in all their shining glory. Yet in truth, Yuri hardly noticed. She had found a secluded and quiet place at the edge of the water on one of the various nearby islands, a place she knew very few came and almost no one inhabited, at least not within several miles. There was a waterfall here, pouring out of the cracks of the rocks that had formed so long ago, willow trees forming all around it leaving that little place almost like a secluded slice of heaven. It was rare that Yuri sought out this place, unless there was something wrong. In fact, the last time she had been here was shortly after she had received the worst of her scars.

Her clothes were in a pile by the shore, under a tree, and even her weapons had been thrust into the earth there, standing upright as if guarding her. Yuri herself was under the water of the fall itself, letting the cold cascade down her skin as her back faced out towards the shore. Her hands both rest of the side of the waterfall, her forehead against the cold stone just above her hands as tears ran down her face, rushed away by the water itself. A thin line of blood was still present across her neck where Shiv had pressed the blade, and she had pushed back against it. Here and there a touch of the blood was rushed away by the water itself as the woman stood near motionless, her mind lost in that moment so very long ago.

But it wasn't the moment from earlier that night, it wasn't Shiv on her mind. It was the man who had succeeded in his attempts to defile her, before cursing her. He had left those scars that ran from her upper right shoulder, down and across to her left hip. He had also left one that seemed small, in her lower abdomen. That one most missed, but she would never forget how it had bled, and what it had meant for her future. Certainly she had killed the man for what he had done to her, for what he had taken from her... yet vengeance hadn't cleared his curse from her mind.

Golnax · Post by **Golnax** » Sat Mar 18, 2017 6:07 pm

Coincidence and fate were such curious bedfellows. When the two crawled in bed together, it was so hard to tell who was who and which was doing what. So it was that Yamai found himself an observer of these two as they wrestled beneath the proverbial sheets provided by Destino, in so much that he couldn't sleep. Be it for this reason or that, Aimi laid in his room on his fuuton staring up at the ceiling, right arm held over his forehead, the rest of his nude body splayed out for no one to see. What was keeping him awake, who could say? An excess of energy? Thoughts wriggling on the brain like worms? Both were plausible.

Exasperated with the attempt, Aimi sat up in the dark and grabbed on to his cloak. He threw it on over his shoulders and walked out of his room, heading for the front door of his apartment, stopping only to grab a hold of his sword before he left which was leaning up against the wall in his room. He figured that if he couldn't sleep, he could tire himself into exhaustion by training with his sword. Fate would have it, though, that as soon as he stepped out into the misty night that he felt it was a bad idea to do that. At least right there in the open court yard of the Yamai. If he was to practice his sword play, he'd need a place of solace and quiet with plenty of room so that he caused no damage to anything around him. He cared not for the fake that he was still mostly nude.

Leaving the compound, he headed into the village and walked. This time of night, all was silent and dead within the village. No one was awake to see a mostly naked man strolling along with a sword, nor would he have cared if anyone was. This wouldn't be the first time that he'd been out like this, either. He walked, looking around idly from one place to the next, thinking of where would be a good place to burn off some energy. Coincidence would then dictate that his position in the inner wall, no matter where he went, simply wasn't good enough - didn't have enough space - and so to the outer walls he went. Similarly though, wherever he went in the second and third layers of the village, he seemed to find some reason to reject it. There were too many houses near by and therefore too many people he might wake up, or there wasn't enough space for the movements he wanted to perform which would be destructive in nature. He moved on.

Fate would again step in as Aimi climbed to the top of the outer most wall of the village while the white haired jounin surveyed the land as best as he could. He was thinking of simply walking on the water of the lake to train and therefore exhaust himself all the quicker, when it would happen that the wind should blow, and rather fiercely at that, caught within the draft that was the ring of mountains that surrounded the village. That wind, guided by Fate's hand as it trailed over the backside of Coincidence, parted the mist on the lake to give the light of the moon enough levity to illuminate a small island some distance away from the main island on which he stood. He figured that would be isolated enough.

Climbing down the wall, he made his way across the water quickly. His foot steps were no longer completely silent as his bare feet slapped against the cold surface of the water. His cloak billowed out behind him as he ran, taking long, elegant strides, his arms pumping fiercely and his left hand gripping tight his blade. On the surface of the lake, he couldn't really see where he was going because of the thick fog. He had a rough idea of his destination in his mind, but he'd never actually been there before and the moon had only been gracious enough to light his path for a moment, and though he was heading straight towards where he had seen it to be, traveling through fog was always a strange limbo.

Never the less, Coincidence delivered him to his destination safely. The willow trees were the give away. In the light of the full moon, their dark, vaguely mushroom shaped cluster of vines were like a shadow that he could be drawn towards. He made landfall on the island and that's when he heard it - the sound of running water. Intrigued, his breaths coming in quiet pants as he breathed deeply in and out of his nose, Aimi turned and walked along the shore line of the tiny island until he came across a strange sight - a pile of clothes. What was more strange was some weapons which had been stabbed into the ground right next to them.

Furrowing his brow, Aimi looked up from the clothes and then spotted her. He didn't know who it was, and in fact could only tell it was a woman by the shape of her body. In the pale moonlight, though, he could see her posture, her dark black hair wet with mountain spring water, and the vague outline of scars on her back. He took a quiet moment to himself to not only catch his breath but to enjoy the sight before him. Whoever she was, she certainly looked appealing. All the same, it was rude to stand there unannounced, and so Aimi placed his sheathed sword in front of him tip first in the shore, both hands held on the pommel in such a way that, despite being mostly naked himself besides his open cloak, his weapon would preserve at least some of his modesty.

He cleared his throat and called out in his nonsense language, "Gutten nocht, hier fraulien." Coincidence, or perhaps Fate, had delivered him safely to his destination on that night.

Willoria · Post by **Willoria** » Sat Mar 18, 2017 6:16 pm

She barely heard him and not only for the pounding of the water as it came down around her ears. She turned and looked towards him, her blue eyes cold and empty for a moment as her mind fought to return to the present. As she realized she was being watched, the woman cleared her throat, turning fully and stepping out of the direct waterfall and into the shallow bits of the small water outlet itself. She didn't seem bothered by her own lack of modesty at all, her wet skin gleaming in the moonlight, almost seeming to highlight the scars all the more. It was hard to see who it was in the shadows, but the blade she recognized and the manner of dress, or rather the near lack thereof. The woman chuckled and shook her head as she reached back, pulling her long wet hair around and over one shoulder as she looked at the man. "Hello, Aimi." she said simply as she took a couple more steps towards him, crossing her arms under her chest as she looked at him a moment.

"What brings you out here in the middle of the night?" she asked, her usual demeanor only mostly returned. She hadn't begun her typical flirtations just yet, if only because she knew standing there in the nude in front of a man was enough of a flirt for a single night. Perhaps also because her last attempts to flirt with a man earlier that evening had nearly gone so very very badly.

Golnax · Post by **Golnax** » Sat Mar 18, 2017 6:28 pm

The Yamai's eyebrows lifted up. He hadn't expected it to be Yuri sitting beneath the water fall. He'd expected a water nymph, or some yokai, a hallucination maybe. But not Yuri. Her prescience there puzzled him - what was she even doing out so far from the village so late at night? As she stepped out of the pool he could see her body more clearly than before, and it seemed to him that he was only just seeing an actual part of the woman, as though the clothes on the ground in front of him and the encounter he'd had with her the other day were some elaborate bunraku performed to all. But something was different about her now, though he couldn't place his finger on just what that was. Her body was rather muscular and toned, the stray rivers of water rushing down over her arms, chest and thighs glistening in the moonlight. She wasn't as bust as he'd expected her to be, frankly, and she had quite a few more scars than he'd expect of a kunoichi assassin.

"I couldn't sleep," he answered her truthfully, lifting his sword up from off of the ground and slinging it over his shoulders. He saw no reason at all to be modest around her since she'd already seen everything there was to see. "I came out here to burn off some energy on a whim. Didn't expect to find anyone here so late at night... or at all, really." Again he spoke truthfully with no reason not to, his darker blue eyes darting across her body - less seeing a naked woman and more seeing a story not yet told. "Did I interrupt something? I can leave if you like."

Willoria · Post by **Willoria** » Sat Mar 18, 2017 6:34 pm

"No, you're not... interrupting." Yuri managed to stammer out, glancing back at the waterfall almost as if she were expecting another person to step out of it. She wasn't used to anyone seeing her in such a state, or coming so close to catching her in such a moment. Her own mothers didn't know the full story of what had happened to her back in those caves so long ago, so little of it was even in her official file that next to no one knew about her incident. As she turned her eyes back towards Aimi, her hand strayed to touch the line of blood that was now drying along the base of her neck.

"I guess I was just..." She motioned back to the water and found herself almost blushing, as she told only a half truth. "Just enjoying the water." she told him, looking up at him a moment before one of her trademark smirks began to slide across her lips. It was almost like the return of some kind of armor as she reached up towards him, offering him a hand.

"You could join me."

Golnax · Post by **Golnax** » Sat Mar 18, 2017 6:48 pm

Aimi narrowed his eyes and focused. No, it wasn't right that smirk of hers. She was lying. He was interrupting. She wasn't just enjoying the water. This had been a quiet moment that he wasn't meant to find, not meant to be a part of - that no one was supposed to be a part of. Why else would she be so far out from the comfort of her home where she could just take a shower to enjoy the feeling of water cascading down on her? Why would she hesitate in telling him what she was doing if all she really was doing was enjoying the water? Why would she hesitate at all, really? That wasn't the woman that he'd come into brief contact with before. Something was wrong, and now that she hadn't outright dismissed him, he was determined to find out what.

Arching his sheathed blade from off of his shoulders, Aimi walked over towards the willow tree that her clothes and weapons were under and leaned his own against the trunk of the tree before shrugging out of his cloak and hanging it between two splintering branches. He turned to her and smiled. "Would love to," he said, stepping over her clothes and over towards the pool of water. Wading in the knee deep pool, he shivered a bit as the almost icy cold water sent a wave of goosebumps under his skin. Walking over to the waterfall, already thinking a few paces ahead of this encounter, he dipped his head beneath the cold water and gasped as his white hair and scalp were doused with the cold mountain elixir, resting his forehead on the rock face and holding his arms in a way not dissimilar to her.

His eyes snapped open suddenly, though, and he reached up to his forehead with his right hand, touching between his brows and feeling for the familiar, barely noticeable texture of paint that was, to his surprise, absent. In his rush to get outside and burn some of his energy, he'd forgotten to put on the red dots that covered his bruising. He'd washed it off before bed, believing he wouldn't need the marks until morning. The realization that he was before someone else without them made him feel more naked than any removal of clothing could. He'd rarely, if ever, been in the presence of another like this. It instantly made the encounter more intimate than he'd ever intended it to be.

Willoria · Post by **Willoria** » Sat Mar 18, 2017 6:56 pm

Yuri grinned as he accepted her offer and went to undress, resting his sword against the same tree her things were underneath. The grin of course was a farce of sorts as the woman tried to keep up her usual attitude, sitting down in a part of the pool that was closer to the waterfall as she watched the man drop beneath the water. She couldn't help a chuckle at his shiver and the oddly familiar words slipped from her mouth. "Do you need warming?" she teased, leaning back in the water enough to feel it fall through her hair once more and looked back to the man as she noticed he seemed to be out of sorts himself.

"Something wrong?" she asked, completely unaware of the absence of the two marks on his forehead. She had never really paid much attention to them before, and found herself unaware of their absence really. The woman knew next to nothing of the clan, though she had her curious moments. "So what keeps you from sleeping? Just a mind unwilling to let up?" she asked, trying to keep the focus on him, some part of her knowing even he would notice something off about the woman.

Golnax · Post by **Golnax** » Sat Mar 18, 2017 7:05 pm

At first, he ignored her teasing question as he, for a moment, panicked and reverted back to childish, repetitive teachings that the Yamai had drilled into him as a youth. He couldn't stop thinking for a brief moment that the elders would punish him if they found out that he had left the compound without his paint! The moment passed though with her second question and he remembered that he was an adult and could, in his own way, defy the Yamai like this if he so chose. It wasn't as if they even knew he was there. They would never know.

Turning around under the water, letting it fall on the back of his head which he shook. "No, nothing wrong. I just remembered something is all," he explained, stepping out from the waterfall and walking towards Yuri. In the pale moonlight, she'd be able to see the borderline perfection of his skin as far as scars went, a stark contrast to her own body. He lowered himself down into the pool further, taking in a sharp breath as his unmentionables were submerged. "I'm not sure what's kept me up, but I do know one thing," he said, half swimming, half jumping through the water as he rolled and came to a stop on the shallow end of the pool next to her, propped up by his elbows. "I would like to get warm. Would you?" he asked, looking at her and almost guessing how she would respond. There was no sign of lust on his face, it was merely an honest answer and question in kind, as though he weren't saying everything on his mind.

Willoria · Post by **Willoria** » Sat Mar 18, 2017 7:17 pm

Yuri almost snorted as Aimi got deeper into the water, watching him shudder as his unmentionables submerged. She knew she had a moment like that herself before but that had been awhile ago, her body had long since gotten used to the cold. She looked over though as he got close and she chuckled again, shrugging. "I'm used to the cold already." she told him. "And somehow I doubt you managed to sneak any sake out here." she added with a wink. "At least, I didn't see any pockets... or hiding places." It was only as he was this close to her that she noticed something was off, looking at the man with a curious look on her face a moment as if trying to figure out a puzzle.

Something was off, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it. To her the marks were still there, some part of her assuming they looked more like bruises simply because it was so dark out. It hadn't occurred to her just yet that he didn't even have the red paint on at all. "What did you have in mind, for keeping warm?" she asked, leaning towards him as she spoke.

Golnax · Post by **Golnax** » Sat Mar 18, 2017 7:25 pm

He smiled to himself. There was the woman that he'd started to get to know the other day in the alley way and on the street. There was that sly, feline like (quite literally sometimes) vixen who knew the ins and outs of her profession well. It'd taken her a moment or two to show up, but here she was all the same; and she was not the woman Aimi wanted to see. He was after the one who'd been shoved to the side by the one who poked her head out now, hidden away behind a curtain with a 'pay no attention' sign strapped to it. The white haired man wasn't fooled.

"No, no sake," he said, reaching up and dragging his wet locks of hair from out of the front of his face, slicking them backwards. His hair would likely be a mess to untangle later, but it was nothing he hadn't dealt with before. "I don't normally drink, not for a long while. What I had in mind was more... personal," he said, leaning forward towards her a bit as she leaned towards him. He stopped, though, spreading his legs in the water and dragging his fingers across the surface between them invitingly. "Come have a seat why don't you? I'll give you a massage," he offered. In a very literal sense, he was baiting a trap, but one she was unfamiliar with he'd wager. He had little doubt that she'd bite, and then...

Willoria · Post by **Willoria** » Sat Mar 18, 2017 7:34 pm

Much like a curious feline, the woman tilted her head to the side and looked at Aimi a moment. "Personal, hm?" she asked with that smirk right back on her lips. "I thought last time kissing was the furthest you wanted to go, or have you decided you want more now?" she added as she seemed to accept his invitation. She moved through the water to sit between his legs and lean back against him, grinning up at him.

Yet the smiles were a show, her actions also a betrayal of her lack of action. A woman who was so highly sexual in nature, she would have normally made her way to his lap, perhaps even straddled him and tried for more. But the events of earlier that evening had left her with no inspiration, and she simply followed his request. Some buried part of her actually hoped this wasn't about to turn more physical, her mind still on that one incident when sex was something far worse, even for her. Yet she followed his lead and would continue to follow it... still just something less than she normally was.

"How good are you at massages?" she asked as she grinned up at him. "I'm interested to find out."

Golnax · Post by **Golnax** » Sat Mar 18, 2017 7:49 pm

Aimi's smile was bitter sweet as he watched her glide through the water and move between his legs. He had to admit that, even when she wasn't at her best, her movements, at least in the water, were quite graceful. As she settled down in the water, he scooted forward a bit so that his lap was pressed up against her backside, seeming in every way to be the instigator of trouble in this situation! "If there's something I'm confident about it's this; we Yamai know how to give excellent massages because of what we are."

It wasn't a lie by any means. Having a kekkei genkai that was so intimately tied with ones anatomy came with inherent knowledge of anatomy, how muscles worked and what strained them. It would come to no surprise to anyone familiar with his bony lineage that his hands were soft and yet firm against her wet skin, his right hand resting on her shoulder while his left scooped up her black hair, quite the contrast to his own, and pushed it between her cleavage. His eyes, meanwhile, were even more busy. This close to her, he was able to see the majority of the scars on her body by the light of the moon by leaning forward or back a bit in each direction, depending on if he wanted to see the front or back. He studied her scars like a cartographer would a map, noting as best as he could definitions of scar tissue that denounced age.

His hands, all the while, went to work on her shoulders. Clasping on to them gently, he pressed his thumbs into her shoulder blades while digging into the tops of her shoulders and kneading at the thick patch of muscles present. The heels of his hands dug into her back along her spine and dragged in slow, sensual circles from the base of her neck downwards, his hands moving gradually outwards towards where her arms and torso met to knead into and wring out any kinks or sores before returning inwards, his thumbs pressing into the base of her skull and leaning her head forward as he spiraled down the back of her neck. It was quite obvious by his slow, attentive fingers that, yes, he knew quite well what he was doing.

And this would be made quite plain as his hands moved to the base of her neck and slowly slide forward, gliding wet skin over wet skin as if to reach down to her breasts, stopping short at her collar bone. "Now where did you get this?" he asked softly into her ear, his fingers resting over the still fresh cut right at her neck. He'd noticed it immediately when pulling her hair back and suspected that this was the reason that she'd come out here all on her own seeking solitude. It was always better to get ones' suspicions confirmed before completely jumping to conclusions, though.

Willoria · Post by **Willoria** » Sat Mar 18, 2017 8:00 pm

Yuri groaned under her breath as he pressed up against her, biting back a more sensual response as she reminded herself that he had spoken only of a massage. As his hands came to work her shoulders it was then she couldn't help some of the moans that came from her lips, his hands wandering and even the seemingly simple act of moving her hair was something that sent a tingle across her skin. But as his hands slid forward she found her mind turning to a different place and she hardly even heard the question. She could hear the skidding of the chair again as Shiv had knocked it back, coming up to his feet with cold steel against her neck, even as Aimi's fingers touched the fresh cut.

With a sudden hiss, Yuri moved quickly away from him, realizing only after she'd done it that she was a few feet from him now, facing him with eyes wide almost like a deer having discovered it had been hunted to the final blow. She forced herself to swallow hard as his question finally registered with her mind and she cleared her throat. "Sorry." she said quietly. "Bar fight earlier tonight... guess I'm still a bit on edge." Half lie, and half truth, after all she had been in the notorious Bloodriver Bar when it had all occurred. "Someone didn't appreciate my advances towards her man." she added, also a truth of sorts. She pointed to a small wound on her chest, upper left towards her shoulder where a blade had penetrated though not too deeply.

That part wasn't a lie, a woman who had thought herself Shiv's company for the night had delivered the wound with the same knife Shiv had later threatened her with, yet she was leaving Shiv out of the story entirely. The stab from the other woman was closed of course, having been properly treated and freshly closed using Iijutsu. But the one on her neck? It hadn't seemed significant enough for Iijutsu at the time, and was only still open due to Yuri herself prodding it from time to time as her mind kept returning to what had nearly happened.

Golnax · Post by **Golnax** » Sat Mar 18, 2017 8:11 pm

There she was again! Fleeting and sudden in appearance, the woman that Aimi really wanted to speak to showed herself. With a quickness that only a trained kunoichi had, she darted out from his grasp with a gasp and found herself, he imagined before she knew it, several feet away from him in the deeper part of the pool, his hands still held in the air in front of him. His face was stoic and looking at her, his facade similarly dropped as he faced this as of yet strange woman with no hint of deceit. He lowered his hands and listened to the lie, piecing things together gradually.

Half truth or not, he didn't believe a word of what she'd said. A kunoichi didn't get into random bar fights that she wasn't prepared for, especially not a kunoichi from Kirigakure. Being 'a bit on edge' didn't cover a nearly six foot spread of distance between him and her. Something was on her mind, and now that he'd found irrefutable evidence of such, he wasn't letting the matter go. This was what he really wanted to talk about now.

Crossing his arms in front of his chest and pulling his legs in to cross them over one another under the water, he continued to look at her with that same unphased look. "Tell me what really happened," he said flatly, yet his voice soft. It was clear by his expression that he wanted to know, and likely would pursue the line of questioning to the best of his abilities until he got an answer. He might have even been mistaken for caring, and one some level he did. His much more immediate concern, though, was the satisfaction of his curiosity. He wanted to know what had happened for the simple fact of knowing, of owning the facts of the evening and what had brought her there underneath the water fall in the first place. If he knew that, then he would decide if he should care properly or not.

Willoria · Post by **Willoria** » Sun Mar 19, 2017 9:27 am

For a moment Yuri simply stared at Aimi as he pressed her for the truth. As closed off of a woman as she normally was, even she could feel the desire to tell him, to let go. But she had never told anyone what that bandit leader had done to her, why would she tell anyone what Shiv had nearly done to her? The part of her mind that was winning out now was the part that just couldn't see how anyone would believe her. Shiv may be a Bannin of the village but she was a Jounin and expected to still be able to defend herself. After several moments the woman simply shook her head. "I told you what happened." she insisted as she briefly submerged herself in the water, soaking her hair once more.

When she came back up she walked back over to where Aimi was but did not sit down close to him again. Instead she was in the waterfall once more, letting the water run over her as she sat on the stone and let out a heavy sigh.

Golnax · Post by **Golnax** » Sun Mar 19, 2017 10:27 am

The moment of silence between them were broken by the trickling of the waterfall. She stared and he stared right back, holding his gaze on her as he waited for her to tell him what was wrong. Her reply was more of the same, and yet revealing as she stood up and returned to the waterfall, sitting beneath it and putting even more distance between he and she. That spoke volumes to Aimi, and he still wasn't about to let this line of inquiry go. Standing up in the shallow end of the pool, he walked into the deeper parts over to the water fall where she sat.

Kneeling down in front of her in the pool, the water coming up to his upper torso as he balanced on one knee, the Yamai jounin looked up at her with the same stoic, stony expression. "Tell me what happened," he insisted, though his tone was the same as it had been before. If she were to ask why he wanted to know, what the importance was, he'd gladly tell her. His hope, though, that whatever it was that had driven her to this little island in the first place was weighing heavily enough on her mind that she'd tell him without much more of a fuss.

Willoria · Post by **Willoria** » Sun Mar 19, 2017 10:44 am

There was an oddly helpless expression on the woman's face as Aimi asked again, as he knelt before her and she turned to look at him a moment. "Why?" she asked quietly. "You know as well as I do admitting any kind of fault, any weakness, is enough to get one's self killed in this village." she added as she looked him in the face and sighed heavily. She knew if she admitted what had nearly happened to most, it would not go well. To tell her mothers? They would lose all hope for marrying her off, even without knowing she was barren, they would know it meant all her work had been for nothing and she would be weak and worthless in the eyes of anyone else. Kasai? She almost scoffed aloud at the thought. The Reaper was the pinnacle of the heights of assassin she wanted to reach, to tell him what had happened would only showcase her true weaknesses... and her uselessness to such a man. She certainly wouldn't be able to get a mission with the man again, something she sorely needed if she wished to continue rising among the ranks in this village. And Kuro? She may have known that when it came down to it she had most advantages over him, but she could almost see the sickness and disdain on his face if he were to hear it.

Of course, this was all in the woman's head, who knew how much of it was fact.

As her mind mulled over every thought, her eyes flitted up to Aimi's forehead and for the first time she realized he didn't wear the paint. She hadn't noticed the bruises before, she had never seen or known of them really. In a moment of her own curiosity she reached out and, assuming he didn't pull away, ran the tips of her fingers over them, oddly enough asking the very question she had been avoiding answering for the man. "What happened?"

Golnax · Post by **Golnax** » Sun Mar 19, 2017 11:01 am

Now it was Aimi who sighed as she stated the obvious, all the while ignoring the forest for the trees so to speak. He couldn't blame her, though, as he'd been like her not all that long ago - like every shinobi in Kirigakure for that matter. They were born, raised, trained and oft times beaten with the knowledge that a shinobi was a weapon for the village they served, and a useless weapon was to be discarded. He was truly fortunate, he knew in moments such as these, that he had seen beyond this and evolved. He thought that if he could get her to tell him what was on her mind, that perhaps he could help Yuri along the same path that he had found and taken himself.

He didn't move as she reached out and touched his forehead, noticing for the first time apparently that the dots on his head were not paint but instead scars of his own. He remained still for a moment as she asked her question. He first asked himself why should he answer if she wouldn't answer him first? Selfish greed wanted him to demand that she answer him first, but wisdom urged that he share a part of himself before he could expect her to do the same. It was only fair. "Nothing. Nothing that I can remember, anyways," he said, leaning his head forward into her touch. "A long time ago, when I was an infant, I was dying. The Yamai took me in and in doing so, saved my life. These are a constant reminder of that debt, a mark of weakness and shame that we Yamai work our whole lives to eradicate."

Pulling his head back, Aimi looked up at Yuri's helpless expression and reached his hand up slowly from the water, grabbing a hold of hers. He held her eyes with his own and he answered her question. "Admitting to weakness is not the antithesis of a shinobi's experience like our elder would have us believe. In admitting our faults, we can instead set a goal for ourselves, something to overcome, to be taken and to make us stronger. Because the truth is, as much as the Mizukage and the village elders might like to tell us, we are not as my sword. We are human. We are complicated. We are infinite in potential. Pretending to be a sword limits that potential. Not admitting weakness is to deny weakness in the first place, and if there is no weakness, how can we become stronger?"

Standing up slowly while keeping a hold of Yuri's hand, Aimi looked down on her as an angel might look upon an infant, and his touch was warm despite the cold water that clung to his skin, soft as a feather. "Tell me what happened," he repeated for a third time. He did not believe he'd have to repeat it a fourth.

Willoria · Post by **Willoria** » Sun Mar 19, 2017 11:12 am

Yuri didn't remove her hand from his, listening quietly as the man before her spoke though she was more than a little surprised. This was confirming to the woman how little she knew about the clan... he wasn't born into it it sounded like? But not just that, the fact that he admitted to her what they really were, what almost sounded to her like some kind of clan secret. Then there was what he went into telling her, something she had been fighting with for a very long time without realizing it. She had spent so much time fighting to become a stronger weapon for kiri that she had even used her gender and sexuality towards that end. It wasn't until tonight that she had realized even she wasn't ready for what that could really mean.

"I was almost raped." she finally said aloud, her eyes dropping as she leaned back against the stone of the waterfall and sighed, hardly believing the words had been spoken along by herself. Clearing her throat she said a little more, though not a lot. "There's a long story there... some stupid bits to it too but... that's what happened earlier tonight. I was almost raped at the Bloodriver Bar, and if they hadn't brought him sake when they did, I think he might've..."

She didn't look up, but neither did she try to pull her hand from him. Instead she simply waited for his reaction, almost holding her breath as if expecting some kind of explosion of anger from the man.

Golnax · Post by **Golnax** » Sun Mar 19, 2017 11:26 am

There. He had his answer. His curiosity was satisfied, but his work, he felt, wasn't anywhere near done. In this moment of honesty and faux tranquility, while he listened to her story that lacked characters and detail, he appreciated the shear transparency of it all. He needed no more details than what she had given though, not really. He still didn't really know this woman all that well, he likely didn't know the man who had almost raped her, and he was certainly no avenging angel for a damsel in distress that didn't exist. Something bad had happened, or almost happened, to Yuri, and he was a pillar for her to lean on.

What was a bit surprising, though, was that she didn't pull her hand away. Aimi expected her to try to shrink away from him some more as she'd done before, perhaps get huffy and irritable at him having pried what he wanted from her, but no. Instead she seemed to him almost reliant on his touch, even if she didn't realize it. He held on to her hand, cradling it in a sense as he gave her a moment to continue if she wished. When she didn't and instead back against the rocks as though exhausted, he gently pulled her back forward through the water.

Getting back down on one knee in the same movement, Aimi let go of Yuri's hand and wrapped his arms around her in an embrace. He didn't speak, for what could he say? He'd never been nearly raped, so he couldn't empathize. Not really. But something violent had happened to her, something that had left two wounds. It reminded him of his graduation from the academy, when he had been forced to kill a man. Without realizing it all those years back, he'd wanted someone to hold him as he was holding her now. He could only hope that his embrace would supply some comfort in the moment.

Willoria · Post by **Willoria** » Sun Mar 19, 2017 11:37 am

She didn't say a word as he pulled her into a kind of embrace, oddly enough it was as if she didn't even remember that both of them were nude and yet somehow the skin to skin contact in that embrace made it a true comfort to her. She rest her head against his chest as the entire scene played in her mind again, washing over her, and yet this time it wasn't as if she were reliving it. It was just a memory now, replaying in her mind. "It was a stupid thought." she said quietly. "My mothers have been trying to marry me off for awhile now... they don't even know how fruitless that search is going to be." she added, not entirely sure why she was telling him the rest, or at least starting to. This wasn't even the beginning of why it had affected her so badly, yet this was where she felt comfortable starting.

She didn't even know why she felt comfortable telling him any of this. She hardly knew the man, and yet somehow that was exactly what was so comforting about him in this moment. "The same mission that gave me my nickname, Shi no Tenshi, also resulted in a wound that took away my ability to have children. I guess tonight I wanted to try and end things without my mothers knowing about this... I've never wanted them to know." She sighed, knowing that her attempts to keep Shiv's name out of it was likely coming to an end. Yet at the same time some part of her knew Aimi wouldn't be stupid enough to try and get any kind of revenge on her behalf, the man was simply too strong an adversary.

"I had heard of a bannin that was unmarried, but lost a lover some time ago. They say he's become Kiri's true weapon, lost himself since her death, that and he's not in a clan." She shook her head lightly, almost burying her head in his chest moreso as she spoke. "I've always been able to reach men in my flirtations, no matter what kind of 'weapon' they think they are. I thought I could reach him, maybe strike some kind of deal with him... I had no idea how bad he really was. There's nothing of the man left in him. He is the weapon, paired with instinct and urges... if his urge to drink hadn't outweighed his lust things would have gone much worse."

"God saying it out loud... the idea sounds so dumb to start with..."

Golnax · Post by **Golnax** » Sun Mar 19, 2017 11:53 am

Aimi listened attentively to her confessions. Not interrupting, not interjecting, not interpreting. He merely listened and took in what she was saying at face value. She had two mothers who were trying to marry her off, though that was apparently a fruitless effort. She was infertile, as a result of a wound on her abdomen that he'd seen earlier. She was known as the Angel of Death. She spoke of a bannin, and from the sound of it she could only be speaking of one man. He'd never met him before, though he knew him by reputation. She believed that the entire endeavor had been stupid to begin with.

He didn't judge. He didn't assume. He took these things to be self evident facts, just as admitting what this bannin had almost done to her was merely a fact. He could see it in his head - a young kunoichi, pressured by her parents to marry despite her profession seeking out who she believed to be among the strongest, most appealing suitors in the entire village, only to find there was not a man but a shadow in his place who almost acted violently towards her - or rather, more violently than he already had. He would have agreed, were it fitting to, that the encounter had been idiotic.

Aimi held the embrace for a moment or two more before pulling back from her slightly, keeping his hands on her shoulders and letting her head rest against his chest. The thought crossed his mind that she'd be able to hear his heart if she so inclined, which was fitting since they were both speaking their hearts on their sleeves. "It didn't happen. You're safe now. There's nothing to fear in this moment," he stated. In truth, he didn't know what else to say aside from these words of comfort which, for all he knew, fell on deaf ears. He was content to continue to hold her for now, though, for as long as she wanted to be held so that she could speak her mind as freely as she liked. Sometimes, it was easier to speak to someone if you couldn't see their face.

Willoria · Post by **Willoria** » Sun Mar 19, 2017 12:09 pm

Yuri took a deep breath, still resting her head against his chest as she suddenly chuckled, finally lifting her head from him to look at him a moment. "You know, I've been around men that violent before." she mentioned. "Just not used to them being stronger than me I guess... some part of me walked into that thinking I could keep him amiable no matter what... never met a man before though who had lost so much of himself." She shook her head, clearing her throat before continuing. "I don't want to become that. If that's what it means to become fully a tool of the village... I don't want it."

Admitting such a thing aloud, that was something Yuri never thought she'd do. She was raised to want and desire just that, all her life she had fought against her own disadvantages to get there and here she was, realizing she wanted nothing to do with that at all. But a morbid chuckle came from her lips as she realized something else. "Yet I can't be anything else..." she said quietly, touching the scar on her lower abdomen. She knew women who did not become tools of the village, even if a woman remained a shinobi, they would start families and pour everything into them. That was a dream she could never have and she knew it. It was a fact she had never allowed herself to face, she had simply moved on to being what the village needed of her.

So now where did that leave her?

"I've been raped before you know." She said quietly, sighing heavily as her fingers touched the top of her largest scar that ran diagonal across her body. "I had killed the entire crew of bandits, but their leader... he caught me. He bound me to the bed and... did this, while he did that to me. While. Doing. It." Tears were running down her face now though she did not cry nor sob aloud, honestly she hadn't even noticed them. But this was an incident she had never spoken aloud of before, she had never told a soul, not even the village. "When he was done he made sure I was hurt enough that I would never have children... told me it was my punishment for taking his 'brothers', as he called his men. But his plan was to leave me alive, it gave me enough of an opening to finish it."

She shook her head and her eyes returned to Aimi's a moment. "No one knows that." she told him. "Not even the village... I left it out of my report."

Golnax · Post by **Golnax** » Sun Mar 19, 2017 12:26 pm

As Aimi listened, he began to realize just how much of a mask her previous persona was. As she spoke and he listened, watching as she began to cry, he wondered if it wouldn't have been kinder to have let her pretend, if only for a little while. Her admission that she didn't want to be a hollow husk was affirmation enough that he'd taken the proper course, though. This, everything she was telling him, was things that had been on her mind for a very, very long time. She had the scars to prove it, and in the morning she'd have two more to add to the collection. The very least he could do, since he was the one who had asked it of her, was to pay attention and hear her story out, whatever it might be.

It was sad, horrific and gruesome for sure. The sight of her touching the jagged line that ran shoulder to hip was proof enough that the experience had left a very lasting impact on her that was still smoldering. Yet through her story, he began to understand more about her. The other day when she'd been playing around with the children while being a cat he hadn't understood properly why she was doing that. Now he knew that, on some level, it was maternal instinct that she wanted to express and was unable to through the act of child birth. Again he was struck with familiarity though not empathy.

"I'm sorry for your losses," he said to her. "I understand. Truly, I do. We Yamai are infertile. We can never have children of our own and are set to adopt a new member of the clan once they have undergone the surgery, which is what renders us barren." It didn't feel like the right thing to say, not really. Aimi found himself at a slight disadvantage now, as he had nothing to really say to such pain. His only recourse, then, was to find some common ground for them to walk on and go from there. "Your secret is safe with me, should you wish it to remain as such."

Willoria · Post by **Willoria** » Sun Mar 19, 2017 12:36 pm

She heard what he said about his own plight, but the woman only nodded slowly in response as it didn't fully impact her just yet. She nodded again as he mentioned her secret being safe with him and even as she did so, she chuckled as well. "Odd isn't it?" she remarked quietly. "I barely know you... and yet its you I spill my secrets to." As she sniffled she finally realized she'd been crying and reached up a hand to wipe the tears away with the back of her hand, pausing only as what he had said finally sunk in.

She looked at him a moment, remembering too how he had played with the children and for a brief moment she remembered his cat, glancing around as if she expected to see those eyes staring at them from somewhere. "Is that why you play with the children sometimes?" she asked turning to look at him, also remembering something else. "...and why the mothers acted so weird about it?" Suddenly realizing what she asked was likely personal, perhaps even sensitive, the woman suddenly cleared her throat. "I'm sorry, it's just... I know almost nothing about your clan."

Golnax · Post by **Golnax** » Sun Mar 19, 2017 12:54 pm

He shook his head, trying to say without word that no, it wasn't odd. Frankly, he doubted anyone else had approached her like he had in the past or urged her to talk about what was on her mind. Most everyone else, he would assume, just had her soldier on and pretend like nothing was wrong. A sword didn't shed tears, after all, which was what all shinobi and kunoichi were expected to be. "Come. Let's get out of the water to talk further," he suggested, wrapping his leg arm around her shoulders and walking her towards the edge of the pool. Once they were both out, he removed his hand from her so that he could run both of them through his long white hair, squeezing it into a bundle and wringing as much water out of it as he could while walking over towards the tree that supported his sword and cloak.

"Sometimes a fatherly notion comes over me, yes," he admitted to her, turning and parting the vines of the willow tree so that he could lean against it's trunk and drip dry. "It's a fairly recent notion, I admit, but one that was bound to come around eventually. I suspect that their mothers were acting the way they did not because I was a Yamai, but because I was a shinobi. We're basically celebrities who are given free reign to do as we please with the general populace, so I have no doubt that there is more than one ghost story about a mother's child being taken from her... in fact, I know in my case specifically there's an unspoken rule about it."

Looking over at Yuri, he ran his hands through his hair again, slicking it back against his skull as he let out a sigh and looked up towards the moon, somewhat veiled by the willow tree's branches. "Since you don't know, I'll inform you. The Yamai are not like any other clan. We don't breed our warriors, we're incapable of it. Instead, we are... given members. A Yamai is born with a lethal disease called Heterotopic Ossification. It's essentially an excess of bones that grow out of control in the soft tissue. The Yamai have a cure for the disease which gives us these marks," he said, raising his left hand up and placing his index finger tween the two bruises between his brow, "and makes us infertile. In exchange for our lives, the Yamai demand that the child be given to them to train and mold into a shinobi or kunoichi. This is how we keep our numbers up. Sometimes, very rarely, a parent would rather their child die than to be a part of such a brutal family. In these cases, it is not unheard of, or indeed uncommon, for a member of the Yamai family to simply steal the child from the parents, cure it, and then raise it. It's the only way to make certain that the clan does not disappear..."

Looking away from the moon and back at Yuri, Aimi finished by saying, "No doubt, their mothers thought I was a fabled boogeyman come to take their child away without knowing that they need to be diseased first. It wouldn't surprise me."

Willoria · Post by **Willoria** » Sun Mar 19, 2017 1:03 pm

Yuri followed him out of the water though she made no attempt to wring out her own hair as she followed him through the willow tree, even leaning against the trunk as well. It was a large tree and actually one of her favorites, she listened as Aimi spoke and simply nodded in response at first. It seemed like an odd way to keep a clan's numbers up, but at the same time it made some kind of sense. Yet at the same time it was almost sad. "You know, I can understand in that case... the need to keep a clan number's up, the need to save a child's life..." she remarked, sighing quietly and yet shaking her head. "But it baffles me what almost happened tonight. If he had raped me... he could have even killed me and likely nothing would have followed. No punishment, nothing."

She turned and looked at Yamai and said something aloud that, had they been inside the village proper, might have been dangerous to voice. "Sometimes I think there's things that need to change... even though I know they never will." she mentioned. "Sometimes there are moments when all the power shinobi are given has a good cause, like with your clan and those children, as much as it frightens the local populace... but there are also moments when it is entirely wrong. How useful is a tool of the village if it cannot differentiate between ally and foe?" She shook her head as her eyes went to the ground and an odd chuckle came from her lips before she said something suddenly.

"You know, I think this is the first time I've spent this long nude around a man without something happening."

Golnax · Post by **Golnax** » Sun Mar 19, 2017 1:18 pm

"What is a good cause to strength?" Aimi asked coldly, keeping his gaze on her. "What's stealing a child if that child will grow up to live and be strong, stronger than it ever could have been without the Yamai? What the chances of being raped if you could end a man's life when he's at his most vulnerable? What's the use in morals if you don't have the strength to back them up? Before we can have morals, we must first have strength. This is what most believe in Kirigakure," he stated. Unlike her, he would have freely spoken his mind inside of the village as well as outside of it, because he was in fact strong and he knew it. So long as he had strength, no one could touch him - except for those stronger than he. Such was the way.

"You're not wrong, though. The way things are looked at in this village is... antiquated. I've not had too much experience with shinobi from other villages, but I fear they're leaving us behind in several ways. I've nothing to back up this claim except intuition, but, there it is," he said, speaking a bit easier now that they were out of the pool and not directly talking about her. It wasn't so much that he hadn't wanted to know what she told him, even if it was far more than he had asked for, but just hat he couldn't empathize with her plight and thus could only say what he felt were hollow words. He was glad that they had found some common ground to speak on.

Hearing her sudden statement, he cocked an eyebrow and, despite himself and the current atmosphere between them, he smirked. "Do you want something to happen?" he asked plainly. "Would that be a comfort after revealing your soul? The familiar physical embrace with a perfect stranger?" He wouldn't have blamed her if she had wanted thing to go that way, and on some level not at all deep within himself, he wanted things to go there as well. It wasn't often that the problems of clan and village were brought up in conversation, and it was always so uncomfortable after a certain amount of time. It would be far easier to give into his lust which he'd been holding back since he suspected that there was something on Yuri's mind than to continue with what they were speaking of.

Willoria · Post by **Willoria** » Sun Mar 19, 2017 1:30 pm

His words were almost harsh, and she might have taken them as such if she hadn't recognized them for what they were. They were a simple repetition of the dribble the village had always fed the people, that useless notion that strength meant foregoing everything else... even morals, care, and family. She sighed and shook her head at it, though she knew it was the life she lead. "Sometimes I wish I could change it." she admitted. "But no one short of Council or Mizukage could initiate such a change... and I don't think that is a life I will ever lead." She replied, looking up at him and almost chuckling as he asked her if it was what she wanted.

"The thought crossed my mind." she told him as she shifted to lean only a shoulder against the tree, facing him entirely now as a hand reached out and touched him on the chest. "But that would make you just as any other man has been to me wouldn't it?" she mused aloud. "I think I like that you're different to me." she added, almost blushing at the thought. It wasn't that she didn't want to be physical with the man, or that she wasn't attracted to him. Both were honestly true, but some part of her didn't want to change things and somehow she felt that would change things.

"If you were the same to me as any other man I've been with... I don't think I would have told you all this at all."

Golnax · Post by **Golnax** » Sun Mar 19, 2017 1:43 pm

Aimi watched as she reached out and touched him, expressing how she liked things as they were. He believed her when she said that things wouldn't have turned out the way they had if he had gone the physical route immediately from the start. Though it was honestly disappointing to him in a selfish way that she wouldn't don on her mask again now that he'd seen what's behind it for the sake of physical pleasure, he wasn't about to hold his own desires against her for not enabling them at that time. Wrong time, wrong place. Their nudity, from the start, hadn't been of a sexual nature at all, but rather one of transparency and openness. Why discard that at the end for the sake of a pity fuck?

"No, you probably wouldn't have," he agreed with her, reaching up and placing his hand over hers. He ran his hand over her wrist and down her arm, turning towards her to mirror her position beneath the willow tree. With the thought of sex out of his mind for the time being as he brought his hand to rest on her shoulder, he suddenly felt quite tired, as though some purpose had been fulfilled without him even realizing it. Without a word, he leaned forward and placed a kiss on her lips, similar in form to the one he had given her the other day though vastly different in function. Before he had merely been asserting himself as controller of a situation he had been thrust into. Tonight, he gave it to her as a punctuation to all of the things said and as a sort of promise that what had been exchanged between them would not leave the island.

Pulling back from the kiss after a moment, Aimi looked Yuri in the eyes and said, "I'm feeling much more tired now. Would you like me to take you back to the village, or would you prefer to go on your own?"

Willoria · Post by **Willoria** » Sun Mar 19, 2017 1:48 pm

Yuri returned the kiss, keeping it simple as such as he had shown her it could be the last time the pair had met. Though things had not become physical between them, she could feel a different kind of intimacy here, one that really made her wonder and yet those were more questions that were to be pushed down for now. As he asked her about returning to the village she nodded at first, a small smile on her lips that gave away her own exhaustion. "I wouldn't mind going back with you." she admitted even as she went to her clothes and pulled some of them on. Of course she only put on what was necessary, including her blades, keeping a few items in her hands as she turned back towards Aimi. She looked quite unlike herself, her hair loose and no mask to speak of, looking more like a simple woman than the kunoichi she had always been.

She would wait until he pulled his robe on again before walking along with him back towards the village, leaning a head against his shoulder as it occurred to her that she could invite him to stay at her place. But somehow she knew that might change this friendship the two had begun.

'Not yet.'

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