[Training//Socials] Daughter's Prerogative

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Willoria
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[Training//Socials] Daughter's Prerogative

Post by Willoria » Sun Sep 08, 2019 6:38 pm

A Daughter's Prerogative
Part I
It had been hours, with the event rolling through her mind over and over again. On the final word of his technique it was like someone had let the air out of the room and all that was Hiraku Kenji, The Thing that Should Not Be, had fallen into a heap. Suzume herself had barely seen him fall before she herself passed out, having lent her own chakra to the ritual and being nearly drained as a result. It would be hours before she came to, rolling over onto her side and freezing at the sight of the heap on the floor. How long she simply laid there and stared at it, the girl was unsure. Her mind was trying to process it all, and yet simultaneously just refused to believe it. Eventually she did push herself up to her feet and made her way over to what was left. She knelt and sifted through what was there before she found the oddest part of the mass of tendrils, she found his heart. It wasn’t quite what she had expected, though she also wasn’t sure what she expected. The organ felt rubbery to the touch, and had no blood in it, flesh turned black by the holder’s chakra. She carried it to her hand to the memorial statue her father had made for her mother, and set it against her mother’s core. ”Together in the end.” she whispered to them, sighing as she shook her head at herself. ”If this worked, then you’re with her, and alive. If it didn’t… then you’re together in death. A King and Queen, happy regardless, together.” she muttered, staring at the heart. ’And yet if it worked, I feel like I shouldn’t be staring at this at least…’ she shoved the thought aside and turned her attention to a nearby desk. ”It had to work.” she whispered. ”You simply knew too much for it not to.”

At the desk she found it rather a mess, which of course just made her chuckle. Most would assume Kenji was an extremely organized person, and for the most part he really was, just not when it came to this desk. She spent a few moments simply looking at it, but after a while she picked up a nearby bag and started grabbing certain scrolls and notebooks, filling the bag to the point where it looked like it might break. ”You never would have wanted these to fall into just anyone’s hands, and you always suspected travel between realms was possible. So I’m taking them with me, I’ll learn from you for as long as I can.” she told no one in particular before finally looking to a kunai resting on the desk. It was the last way out of the realm, and she knew she could never come back. She took accounting of everything she had on her, which included the scroll Kenji used to first ‘gift’ himself with the EGF, and upon touching the kunai she simply vanished.
Had it been days? Weeks? Honestly Suzume wasn't entirely sure. She had chosen to travel to Dragon Country, after hearing a rumor of a cult started in her father's name. She thought perhaps she could find shelter there, a place to start, or maybe even just something to fill the hole she felt digging its way through her. But upon her arrival, she hadn't found much. She heard more rumors, hints, but never anything more substantial. If there were some cult, it either hadn't happened yet, or never would. After searching for some time, she found an empty store front in the Gullean Markets which she quickly bought with money she and Kenji had set aside.

But ever since then it was one day of complete numbness after another. The girl often found herself sitting in the middle of a large room, in a chair, simply staring at nothing. If she had been around when her mother died, she might have found a strange irony in it.

Eventually her lonely silence came with boredom, and she found her eyes beginning to wander as she looked over the little storefront she had bought. The more her eyes wandered, the more she noticed the state of the place. She started dusting, even cleaned the floors and walls as her boredom consumed her and her thoughts threatened to pull her into the dark. As she thought about the old commune, the orphanage where she grew up, she took the time to refinish the floors in spite of the moments when her tears would smudge the stain, causing her to redo those parts. As she remembered how she once felt like she was dying to know her family, she redid the walls in a light wallpaper with images of green bamboo. As she remembered the moments in which she first met Kenji, she found herself decorating. A mat by the front door for shoes, hooks for jackets, and even using swords to decorate the walls. She remembered the day she ran to Kenji for help, the day the commune was attacked. She was so badly wounded and still he saved her, even as he tried to act as if he didn't care. As she remembered the doctor, she set up several weapons stands with wooden training swords in them.

When it was done, she surveyed the storefront and found herself happy with the progress. The front area with the largest window would be a great place for training groups, and a smaller open area under the stairs would be a better space for one on one lessons. From there her work continued in the upstairs apartment. As she redid the small kitchen to suit her needs, she remembered many nights huddled around fires and cooking wild hares she had caught while conversing with her father. As she redid the bedroom and set up a desk she remembered days of training, the days when she found out what happened to her mother. As she laid out the scrolls and such she had taken from her father's realm, she remembered how much she had hated him for some time. She remembered how she'd even contemplated killing him herself.

Every step in the new dojo and small upstairs apartment attached to it brought another turn of thought, and pushed Suzume from her grief into a state of acceptance. It was hard to accept, but her father was gone. The family she had desired for so long was gone now, in its entirety. She knew she needed to form a new life for herself, and for now teaching others the earliest basics of Yoshin and Bone Breaker were a great way of doing that. She made enough coin to even invest in a safe for her money and her father's documents.

She had a life now. Somewhere as she wallowed in her thoughts of loss she had built a life. She had started this small dojo, she had a favorite tea shop and a favorite sushi spot. She loved the early morning activity in the market, and she even came to love cooking for herself. Little Koto had no combat roll in her life but the little weasel had her own bed on Suzume's desk and plenty of space in the apartment to play.

Everything was a calm sort of normal, until a knock at the door.
Suzume pulled the door open and was surprised to find a man standing there, soaked through with rain. He wore a cloak up over his head, obscuring his face in darkness, and his clothes were rags. "Is it true?!" he suddenly demanded of her. "You are the child of he, yes?"

Suzume blinked a moment, but knew better than to answer in too straight forward of a fashion. "What do you want?" she demanded in return, a hand on her sword as the man grinned, showing rotting teeth.

"To pay off a debt. He told me to keep an eye open, but he I cannot find. So I give it to you, to the Oni's Daughter." He pulled a small scroll out of his cloak and held it out to Suzume with a shaking hand.

"The Oni's Daughter? Who in the hell do you think I am?" she asked, taking the scroll and glancing down at it. She couldn't help but to think that the man had the wrong person. Her father was known as the Thing that Should Not Be. He was never referred to as 'the Oni' as far as she knew, and the words confused her.

"Oh but they call you that. Maybe not to your face. Your father was impossible. The Thing That Should Not Be. Yes? Then you are the Oni's Daughter indeed." He hissed a small bit of laughter before taking an offered coin from Suzume's hand and racing off to disappear into a crowd.

Suzume had only offered him a coin because he seemed homeless, and alone. She thought he was a bit crazed, even as she closed the door behind him and shook her head, heading up into her upper apartment. Yet curiosity ran rampant in her family and she did not discard the scroll. Instead she took a seat at her desk and opened it, eyes widening as she saw the information. "Yozei..." she hadn't seen the boy in so long, and yet just seeing his name caused a flutter in her chest and her hand touched the bracelet on her wrist. 'He must be on mission... but why was my father looking for him?' she shook her head, knowing it was an answer she would never receive. But just maybe she could at least see the boy she cared so much for one more time...
The Tales of the Aes Sedai Fukusha Reina - Iwagakure No Sato - Jounin - #EF2B2D Atsushi Cho - Tea Country - D Rank Samurai - #A34402 Hanzo - Sunagakure No Sato - Genin - #35C4AF

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Willoria
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[Training//Socials] Daughter's Prerogative

Post by Willoria » Tue Nov 12, 2019 2:22 pm

A Daughter's Prerogative
Part II

Suzume was sitting at the reception desk of the Chishiki headquarters, surrounded by the dark hardwoods and several portraits on the walls, but even in the still silence she found herself distracted and unable to work. In front of her was the empty piece of paper, quill in her hand, and so far the only words she'd managed to put down were "Dear Yozei." She had been staring at those two words for the better part of an hour, unsure of how to even articulate her thoughts properly. "How am I supposed to tell him." she said to herself quietly, shaking her head. "No matter what I say, no matter my reasons, he's going to see what I say as a betrayal, the words will break his heart." She sighed heavily, staring at the words. "If only there was a way to avoid hurting him at all... but even if I found a way to disappear entirely, that too would hurt him. He might even obsess, try to find me, and he needs to know that its time to move on, and that he can move on." she told herself, swallowing hard as she finally took up the quill once more.

"I wish I was writing to set up a time and place to meet, but I'm afraid what I have to write isn't nearly so filled with hope. I love you, but the truth is we come from two very different worlds and its time to admit that to ourselves."

Suzume leaned back in the chair suddenly, snarling to herself as she cast her yellow eyes towards the ceiling. "I can't write this without hating myself." she said to no one. "I hate every word of it..." she shook her head and sighed, looking to her left at a small wooden box. She ran her fingers over the Chishiki symbol engraved in the top, the box containing rings and necklaces with the insignia of the organization. She almost shook her head at it again. "But I can't have him in the middle of this... what I'm doing is something his village will hate me for... his father will hate me for... a day may come when his village even has to hunt me for it. I can't risk him being in the middle of that." She turned her attentions back to the letter with a sigh, dreading every word even as her hand wove them.

"I feel more and more driven in my task, the very one that I could see made you ill when I first told you. I have revived my father's organization, Chishiki, and I lead it by my own hand with renewed purpose. Sadly as I strive to collect my secrets and my own power, this leaves no room for love, especially not with someone tied so strongly to one of the Five. Things between us now comes to an end, as even though I still love you, I cannot be with you in any way that you deserve. I cannot do what my father did, I cannot risk the life of the person I love most for my end goals. And so I do what he was too weak to do."

For a few moments Suzume stared at her words, reading them over and over and silently praying that they would be enough. "He'll hurt at first, but hopefully this way he won't be constantly searching for me, perhaps he'll find someone else even." With a sigh she wrote a simple departure including the word 'Goodbye'. She paused a moment, staring at the bracelet on her wrist that had always felt like a silent promise, and in spite of the tears that slipped down her face Suzume removed it slowly. She sealed the letter into an envelope before rolling it almost as if it were a scroll, and put her bracelet around it to hold it all together and in its shape.

The young woman took a few minutes to compose herself, wiping the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand as she tried to mentally move on to the next letter she would have to write. The second was far more business and for that she was almost grateful, though a sense of dread washed through her as she began by putting the name 'Natsuki Takeo' at the top. When she thought she was calmer, she took a deep breath and began to write the second.

"On the day this letter reaches you, a second will be reaching your son, Yozei, as well. You needn't fear any kind of worst, but I felt you have a right to know. I have written Yozei in an attempt to end things. I think both you and I can agree that my world leaves me no room to love him in the way he deserves, and your world leaves him no room to love me when he must be in fear that one day he could be asked to hunt me. It is my dearest wish that he moves on, that he loves someone new and has a family, that he lives his life to its fullest."

Suzume chewed on her lip as she looked at the words. They were sincere but for a moment even they pulled at her inexplicably. She found tears threatening to spill once more but with a silent curse and the back of her hand she wiped them away, determined to get down to the business portion of the second letter.

"But this is not all I write to you about. Fact is I hope that you and I have business, though I'm not sure if Yozei passed my message along to you as I asked, as I have not yet heard word. Because of this unsurety, I write to you directly now. I am amassing my father's contacts and reviving his old organization of Chishiki. I have adopted a change in our goals that, I hope, will allow us civil dealings with at least some of the villages including your own. I would like a meeting of some kind, though I'm sure you can guess I am after village guarded secrets... in return I offer information. I could use my father's network to gain information on criminals from your village to deal with them directly or even return them to you. Of course in doing so I would require a traded secret of equal value. I hope for a meeting, though that is where things here get complicated. I am ending my romantic relationship with your son, and yet your son is the only person of your village I trust enough to meet with directly... assuming he leaves his babysitters at home this time of course."

Suzume couldn't help but to laugh at herself as she wrote the last line. She distinctly remembered one had brushed by her, unseen, but made sure he was felt and she had made sure to slap the sheath of her sword against the person's shin. She wasn't able to stick around and see the reaction, but still it made her laugh. She could only imagine it was, at best, unexpected. She kinda wished she could have seen the reaction in full.

"It is an open ended offer at this point, something to consider. If you wish to contact me, simply send a letter back the way yours was found."

Suzume finished off the letter almost with a flourish before she put it in an envelope. This one she sealed not only the envelope, but rolled it almost like a scroll before sealing it that way with a proper wax seal portraying the insignia for Chishiki. Both letters were quickly labeled with a name before she stood and walked out of the Chishiki headquarters. As she crossed into the threshold of her dojo, closing the wall behind her, she turned to look at a boy waiting for her who couldn't be more than twelve himself. "Tell me the plan again, as you understand it." Suzume said coldly, waiting for the boy's response.

The boy nodded rather quickly. "I take the letter to the tea merchant heading for Konoha." he replied.

Suzume smiled happily and nodded and offered the two letters to the boy. "There are two letters, Junko-chan. Do not disappoint me."

The boy bowed deeply and headed straight out the door.

Suzume was satisfied. She knew each step of the way had their instructions but none knew the names of the others, none would make it back to her. The letters would go to a tea merchant who would keep them among diplomatic papers they had already been asked to deliver as a favor from some nearby lord. Of course those papers would go to the shinobi of Konoha upon arrival, and those letters would be mixed in with official papers when dropped off. Except for Yozei's letter of course. That one the tea merchant would hang on to, to deliver to a small tea shop Suzume knew he stopped at sometimes for tea for his step mother. She was satisfied with her method of delivery, and that it would get to the appropriate places with at least a hint of mystery.
The Tales of the Aes Sedai Fukusha Reina - Iwagakure No Sato - Jounin - #EF2B2D Atsushi Cho - Tea Country - D Rank Samurai - #A34402 Hanzo - Sunagakure No Sato - Genin - #35C4AF

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