On the Right Path [Kaji]

[Kagetsu Yuii]

It was hard to sink into the depths of despair, to reflect on all the unfortunate events of the past, to drink in sorrow and worry for one's future with butterfly kisses on her neck and nibbling on her ear. Grieving for what should have been, moaning over past hurts and lamenting over a childhood devoid of love was difficult with Kaji's breath on her cheek and patient words. One by one, every apprehension she expressed was cut down with the same precision he promised her scornful clan. Her passive head swings, the only means of protest she could muster in retaliation soon died off.

However, Yuii's very body refused to muster anything like a smile as she roused herself from his lap enough to meet Kaji's eye. Any other time his optimism would have been infectious enough to make her heart sing. Her round blue eye would have brightened as the storm of conflict inside of her cleared. His warm smile ought to have kindled the simmering desire and love that always burned when they were together. She should have wanted more of his embrace instead of swaying like a willow in the breeze.

It felt like her heart was being ripped in two, she realised grimly as a hundred awful endings flashed through her mind. All too real and all equally likely, her tired mind twisted out everything from bloody ends to betrayals that felt impossible to recover from. Her lip quivered as she realised to worst and most terrifying part of them all was the loneliness in the end. Lose Kaji, and now Umeko, and she would have nothing. It would destroy her.

Except, what was death and beyond to her?

"Forever?" she questioned, as her heart split in two. In another world, Yuii pulled away, stood, and muttered about needing a walk. She kissed Umeko then Kaji's cheek and walked into the night. That Yuii didn't come back; she kept walking until she found the path to Kumogakure, she trudged over the very hoof prints of their morning escape right back to the Kagetsu. That Yuii claimed no knowledge of a daughter, denied her association with Okada Kaji, and silently cut herself from his life, all in the name of protecting them but really out of fear. In that world she let herself become a puppet to Ishiyo in the clan and was willing to commit political atrocities in order to keep their favour. It would be years before she realised her mistake, years more before she reconciled with her lost love and began to rebuild into the person she ought to have been and fight the fights that needed to be won, only to lose him again to death. To lose her daughter to when she vanished soon after. But that was a darker timeline.

This Yuii made a small, desperate, broken cry and flung her arms around her paramour's neck. Her face buried in the firm flesh of his neck, normally a favoured playground but for now a source of comfort. She clung there, for a minute that felt like an hour desperately fighting to find equilibrium with her emotions. Finally, her breathing evened, and Kaji would be forgiven for thinking she had fallen asleep until her next move.

"Promise me?" Yuii asked, raising so her nose and lips tracing across his cheek until they were eye to eye. She sank into the forest hidden in her emerald orbs, where her home was, where her heart was buried and sighed contentedly, " I want forever." she pleaded, kissing the corner of his mouth and nuzzling further against his cheek and nose "Now, death and the unknown beyond. Forever?"

 

[Okada Kaji]

The question was enough to make the man stop and contemplate what the word forever truly meant; a love meant to last through the known and unknown. For all Kaji knew, assassins could come riding with the sunrise and meet them with blades pointing. What kind of danger were they asking for by having Umeko and wanting their union? Forever. The word had him running the odds, ready to crumble under the weight of the same uncertainty that had Yuii ready to break apart only seconds before. They were shinobi, and Kaji, in particular, had a reputation for seeking danger. He knew she deserved much better than him, and an aching came from his core worse than broken ribs punching into his soft center. He almost uttered a preemptive apology for such a desirous claim; words bringing the false hope of a future that wasn’t promised. Even if they survived their journey, the odds of them living long lives together seemed impossible. Just the slight bit of pragmatism had Kaji washing in a blend of guilt and sorrow. He knew that love was not a force capable of withstanding generations of conniving shinobi. If not the Kagetsu, then something else would doom them. How foolish he felt for trivializing Yuii's sorrow with lustful playing just a moment before— now the panicking was his to do.

Yuii was against Kaji with a pining touch, heavy and full of a love so genuine it left them both exposed to euphoria and misery all at once. Forever. The press of her lips against his was like the shot of a drug numbing their innermost pains. Kaji answered the touch of her lips with more of his own thirsting for her, begging to hold onto those long seconds. Her touch was like a calming, focusing effect for Kaji, allowing him to forge words from his mess of emotion.

“Coming to this land and meeting you was the only good decision I’ve made in my miserable life” Kaji admitted in a whisper which came to Yuii beneath the sound of fire licking the endlessly wintry night. “My days before you were all sorrow— in death, I would have gone nameless with just a body count to define me. ‘Just a murderer with a conscience and a coat of paint deeming me honorable. ‘A charlatan.” He was a shinobi in the truest sense, yet buried tension surfaced distracted him with the deed he committed before nightfall— the face of the dead assassin was fresh in his mind. Yuii was a kind, strong, beautiful and wonderful woman, but she was resigned to be with Kaji of all people. He often wondered why him, and how she could feel for a wretch like him the way he did for her, for any length of time, let alone forever. “You’ve salvaged me Yuii... I want to serve you the way I serve the Cloud; to live for you or die. I owe you more than you might ever know. My saber is yours in these hands, and my heart beats for you and only you, forever.” He spoke as if he were practicing vows for their wedding day, but a streak of moisture on his cheek revealed the confession for what it was.

 

[Kagetsu Yuii]

Yuii stilled, her cheek aligned with Kaji's stubble patched own, as she listened. Her eyelids lowered dreamily as his baritone whispered sweet, heretical words into her straining ear. Every syllable quickened her heart as she waited for the promise she desired. Forever, all she wanted was forever. And yet, his deliverance of her coveted promised made Yuii frown. Any other woman would have melted to hear such words. What woman didn't want to be the saviour? The reason to live? An object of absolute devotion?

Not Yuii.

"You're wrong," she hissed, catching his chin between her thumb and index finger. She drew back to meet his eye with her face a mask of gentle conviction. "You are the sum of your encounters and every decision you made brought you closer to me. I see, have always seen, a warriors spirit and a hero's heart in you. It may have been tarnished by the stains of your worst experiences but don't deny that you have always had the potential for greatness. You were merely succumbing to neglect." Kaji had yet to speak to her about his past, but she knew it had not been kind to him. Dark, unimaginable things had happened to her lover, and they had left their scars in subtle ways that could catch her off guard. The violent nightmares, his hatred for the underground cellar, his self-destructive need for perfection, the melancholic way he watched their teenaged disciples. But despite whatever he had endured, Kaji had grown, overcome, and shaped himself into a leader of man, a guardian, a shinobi of worth. He had become a man worthy of being a Hokage's guard, of travelling to Kumogakure. Of finding her.

"My heart and soul did not yearn for a man wishing to be saved. If I had need of a malleable tool, I could have had my pick. You know that." Her chilled fingers traced her neck and tangled into his raven locks as they so often did in the throws of passion. And yet the desire that burned inside of her had nothing to do with the needs of the flesh. "I have put everything in my life on the line to be with you Okada Kaji. You are my equal, my partner, my home and I won't listen to you insult us both by belittling yourself with such stupid, misguided offers as if I'm to be your master. I don't want to wield you, you are more than a weapon. Together we will live a full life walking side by side. Together we will meet our greatest potentials. Together we will travel hand-in-hand with you into the unfathomable abyss of the afterlife. I want forever with you, not controlling you. It's distressing to be offered such a power over you."

If it hadn't been for the single tear or the selfless, emotion-filled way he's offered his life, Yuii might have mistaken Kaji's motive as a quick method to make her realise how ridiculous she had been acting. The new mother's eyes went to Umeko, who was still happily curled in the arm of her father, as the horrific realisation that she had almost abandoned her perfect newborn sank in. An intense sense of love for her baby made her heart clench, followed by a soft keen of distress as guilt followed.

"I feel like I'm losing my mind. Like I've been drugged," She curled back into the comfort of his neck, twisting her body to better fit against his torso. She reached for their baby girl, "Everything is too intense. Hold me until I sleep? Tell me a tale? I don't want to think about tomorrow yet."

 

[Okada Kaji]

Could Yuii know how her declaration cut like a blade’s edge? She spoke from the soul, delivering words that made a fine line through Kaji Okada, cutting through the thick webs which bound him to shinobi idolatry. For Kaji, devotion was the sum of his being, and he sought to place his love where he was once lured to place his home. It was a rare instance where his years of suffering brainwashing was showing; a broken man with broken ideas. It was the product of a lifetime being a warrior trained to the brink of zealotry, as that was the height of what it meant to be a shinobi. And at that moment, by denying his worship she in-turn freed him from a vicious cycle and allowed him to instead feel something true. Of course, he wanted to give her all he had and all that he was— wasn’t that the sum of forever? But his devotion could not be so selfishly flawed; love and the lovers’ devotion was never a one-way process.

And so they’d walk this road together— neither walking in front or behind, but as a pair: shinobi facing the demons of their past and future, and those who’d aim to derail this life they sought together.

The contemplation left Kaji silenced and swimming in a sea of thought. He saw himself as a warrior first, a shinobi by class but a fighter at heart who answered the call of the road. He wrapped his arms around Yuii like a blanket for warmth and held her and Umeko close. He wondered just how prepared they were for this new life. Kaji trusted Yuii— he believed that if he ever failed she would still be the incredible woman he loved, and even more so, a strong mother for Umeko. If Kaji went on some adventure and took a spear to his heart, quieted for eternity, Yuii would still be there for Umeko. Was it selfish love for him to think she’d be the wiser one while he strode ahead as their protector? Perhaps it was. Yuii was capable but did she really yearn for the road like he did, or was she merely accepting the dangers that came with her love of Kaji Okada? She made a declaration that chose them both and it Kaji had to accept the weight of that decision— to do so was in itself the truest love, the greatest trust, and the respect required for forever to be something attainable.

“You’ve had a long day,” said Kaji softly and agreeably; he was exiting the vacuum of deep contemplation and focusing on his exhausted lover. “Have some rest and we’ll sort things out in the morning.” He hoped that he’d have something more comforting to say by then, and to be able to look her in the eye come sunrise. smiling confidently. He could feel Yuii's tension slacking as she got ever closer to a well-deserved slumber, yet she kept a solid grasp on their newborn in her lap. Kaji broke his silence to began reciting a melody that was old and committed as one of his earliest memories. He was not a bard, but he knew how to sing a lullaby often sang to him as a child, one known simply as the mountain song.