Ways of the Heart

[Yura]

“I think tonight was a rare perfect night.” Misato said as she rested her head on her boyfriend’s shoulder. Mitsuo looked down at her, her bright green hair gleaming in the lantern light and smiled. The pair had just returned from a night out together, a rare occurrence for two high ranking shinobi who never seemed to be in town at the same time anymore. When they had returned to the home they shared, they detoured off into the garden in the side yard, not quite ready for the night to end. It was a stunningly peaceful little place, an assortment of bushes and shrubs, even a few small trees, arranged ever so perfectly with little string lanterns hung all around and in the corner a comfy little bench where they were now seated. In truth, it had been Misato who had worked tirelessly to make the garden what was which made it all the more special.

“Actually, I have something for you that might actually make it better.” Mitsuo replied, reaching into the depths of his jacket pocket, his heart rate beginning to increase. “I made it for you myself actually. I spent an entire night in the forge to make sure that it was perfect. To make sure that it accurately represented how I feel about you.” From his pocket emerged a small black box and he heard a slight audible gasp from Misato as he did. Opening the box, Mitsuo revealed a beautiful ruby engagement ring that had small diamonds dotted along it’s two toned gold band. He heard a soft audible gasp escape Misato’s lips. “I-I...I Uh…” He was so nervous that he couldn’t even think. He had been imagining this moment for months. The place that he would propose, the kind of ring that he would make her, even the way that she would react. But now that the moment was actually here, his nerves were taking over. Taking a deep breath, Mitsuo took a moment to focus himself before continuing. “Honestly Misato I don’t think I ever thought I would be as happy as I’ve become with you.” He began, this time more confident, “When we first met I thought that you were just Tatsuo’s bratty younger sister, and I wasn’t exactly wrong, but I’ve come to see that you’re so much more than that. You’re kind and you’re strong and you stand for what’s right even when it threatens your own safety. You’ve been there for me when I needed you, and you are the person that I want by my side and in my corner for the rest of my life.” He looked down at the ring, momentarily admiring his work for a moment before slipping off the bench and kneeling in front of Misato. “Misato, will you marry me?” He asked, his voice trembling but his smile wide.

Several moments of silence passed as his question went unanswered. He had expected some form of elation, maybe some tears of joy, and ultimately an acceptance of his proposal. But when Mitsuo looked up into his girlfriend’s eyes, all he saw was what looked like pure shock mixed with sadness and fear. “Misato,” he said, a hint of concern in his voice, “Are you-”

“I can’t.” She said, barely louder than a whisper.

“Wh-What?” Mitsuo replied. Had he heard her correctly? “What do you mean you ca-”

“I can’t marry you, Mitsuo.” She said louder, tears beginning to form in the corner of her eyes. “If I marry you, we will never be happy or at peace.”

What was she talking about? Never be at peace? Mitsuo was clearly shocked and confused by Misato’s response and it must have shown on his face.

“Our clans would never allow it, Mitsuo.” Misato explained, “Well, yours may, they have been nothing but welcoming to me, though I’d imagine the older generations would be apprehensive to the idea. But I can tell you that the Akari definitely would not allow it.”

Mitsuo sat there on one knee in a state of stunned silence. He wasn’t quite sure what he was feeling, but it was far from the joy that he had been hoping to feel five minutes ago before he asked. Had she felt this way all along? The entire time that they were together? “Why?” He asked, his voice trembling, an uneven mix of confusion, anger and desperation. “Why would you date me for this long when you knew that this would be your answer all along. You had to have known that this day would come eventually.”

“Because I was a fool, okay!” Her voice cracked as she bolted up from the bench and began to pace, “Because when I let you take me on that first date I told myself that I was just humoring you and after it was over I was going to let you down easy. You had asked me so many times before that I thought that if you just got it out of your system it would be done with and then you could go back to being my brother’s dorky friend. But I enjoyed myself that night, and I started to like you and the next thing I knew, I was in love. I couldn’t imagine life without you, and I still can’t imagine life without you and i don’t want a life without you I just…I let myself believe that it could work, that we’d find a way.” Tears began streaming down her face as she stopped pacing and looked back at Mitsuo. “If the Akari learned that I was trying to marry into another clan, they would come for me. Come for us. Officially they would oppose the marriage, but unofficially my life would be forfeit to most of them and the clan would do nothing to stop them. I can’t bring that on to you. Honestly it’s already a miracle that they haven’t come after us by now.”

Mitsuo stared at her for a moment before standing and closing the gap between them, pulling her into him and wrapping his arms around her in a tight embrace. “You know I would take on the entire clan by myself for you, right?” His words were meant to comfort, but the desperation in his voice was noticeable.

“Which is exactly why I need to walk away.” She didn’t want to, but she pulled free from his embrace, wiping tears from her eyes. “I don’t want you to die for me, I don’t want you to die at all! But if by some miracle we were able to find a way to get married without clan approval then your life would be in danger just like mine. Akari don’t like outsiders, they don’t like being disrespected, and they especially don’t like being disrespected by an outsider who marries one of their own without their permission. They have killed for less. Much less. And I know that in that big beautiful head of yours you’re thinking that we could withstand anything and everything that the clan sent our way and maybe you’re right...but maybe you’re wrong. Maybe we both end up bloody and dismembered, watching eachother be slowly tortured to death for our transgression of love. Or maybe they target our families or our children if we even live long enough to have any. Hell they’d probably let us have a few just so we could watch them get slaughtered in front of us. There is no moral boundary for these people.”

Mitsuo just shook his head. He understood her logic, but there had to be something to make her change her mind. “Your family seems to have plenty of moral boundaries, who is to say that there aren’t others?”

Misato scoffed at Mitsuo’s response. “My family is the exception, not the rule! My parents are among the few who hold disdain for the ways of the rest of the clan. Make no mistake, there are far more clan members that love the blood and the violence than there are those that do not. You were at the arena that day, you saw the sheer bloodlust that erupted with little reason for it. Now imagine all that bloodlust aimed directly at us!”

Mitsuo swallowed hard. The day that Kota and Tatsuo had fought in the area, he had been there in disguise and when Kota unexpectedly won his match, the entire crowd turned violent. Clan members turned on each other for no real reason at all. Misato’s point was valid, the clan wouldn’t need much of a reason to come after them and the two of them would be giving them plenty of reasons. But still. “What if I marry into the Akari instead then? The Enkouten wouldn’t be happy about it, but I don’t think that they would try to kill us.”

Misato just shook her head. “You would have to renounce your loyalty to the clan that raised and loved you, the one that supported you and encouraged you. One that builds it’s clan members up on values of love, unity, and courage instead of power, fear, and destruction. I’m not going to let you give all that up just so that you can join a clan that breaks each other down and fights for supremacy through power, especially when I don’t think that they would even accept you as one of their own.”

“But why do you just get to decide that?” Mitsuo replied, trying not to let his emotion get the better of him, “I get that you are worried about the dangers and I accept that you are probably right about it, but I am willing to risk my life if it means getting to spend it with you. Hell we are shinobi! We risk our lives every day! Death is a very real and regular possibility for us so why now does it have to come between us?”

Misato looked up at him and for a moment there was a flash of anger in her eyes. “You really don’t understand do you? You say you do, but you don’t. If you died tomorrow on a mission, you’ll have died for the village. You’ll have died a hero. But if you died tomorrow, on the floor of your own home, bleeding out after being brutally attacked by a horde of Akari radicals, you’ll have died for me. Not as a hero, not for the village, but as a warning to me and my family not to disrespect the clan. I. Will. Not. Allow that.”

Mitsuo sighed and rubbed the side of his temple with his free hand. He was frustrated. “How can you expect me to just stop loving you?” He asked, his voice low and his tone depressed. "How am I supposed to just stop and pretend like there's nothing between us anymore?"

“That’s just it, I don’t.” She said, that flash of anger gone and replaced with a soft teary-eyed smile, “Just like I don’t expect to stop loving you. Just like I don’t expect to be able to go through life without feeling like a part of me is missing. But if it means you’re safe, if it means you get to go on living your life, then so be it.”

“But what life?!” Mitsuo trembled, tears of his own running down his cheek. “Don’t you get it? You might be saving me from the Akari, but you’re damning me to a life of misery without the one person that I want in it! And maybe you find that dramatic and maybe I am being a little dramatic, but it is still true all the same! You are the reason that I wake up happy every morning. The person that I can’t wait to see every day. What kind of life do you truly expect me to have without you in it?”

This time Misato closed the distance between them instead, bringing her hand up to gently wipe the tear streaming down Mitsuo’s face and softly caressing his cheek with her thumb. “I love you so much. I’m not doing this because I want you to suffer, I hope you know that. I want your life to be full of love and laughter. I want you to grow old and have a family. I want you to be happy.”

“I’m already happy.” He said, lifting his hand and covering hers with his own, “Maybe not in this moment, but…” He could tell by her face that her mind was made up. As much as it pained her, pained both of them, she was adamant about following through with this and he knew it. Nothing he said was going to change her mind if it hadn’t already. “If not for the clan, would you have said yes?” He asked softly.

“If not for the clan, I would have already asked you to marry me.” She replied with a soft chuckle, “Traditions be damned.”

Mitsuo just shook his head in response. God he loved this girl. “So what happens now?”

“I should probably move back in with my parents. I’ll pack some stuff and leave tonight, have the rest out by the end of the week.” Misato said, quite matter of factly.

“Does it have to be so soon?”

“I think it would be best for both of us. There’s no point in prolonging the end.”

He nodded reluctantly in response, gently pulling her hand from his face and bringing it to his other hand, placing the ring that he had made for her in her palm. “Take it. I made it for you after all.” Misato opened her mouth to protest, but Mitsuo cut her off before she could speak. “You can throw it in a river or sell it for some cash, I don’t care. But I’ll never be able to move on from you if I have it and I’ll never be able to bring myself to sell it or destroy it.” Misato stared at him for a moment and then looked down at the ring. It was a selfish thing for him to ask of her, but she enclosed it in her hand and put it in her pocket anyway.. Oh how he wished she had slipped it on her finger instead.

“I…”

“I know, I love you too. But this is the way it has to be." She stepped forward, leaning in to give him a kiss on the cheek. "Goodbye, Mitsuo.” She said, barely louder than a whisper, before turning and hurrying off.