To Be Hewn
"These people are born, but ours are sculpted."
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-- Kaji Okada has entered the thread.
-- Requesting Daenerisu.
-- This is a private thread, please notify before considering entry.
"These people are born, but ours are sculpted."
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There are many bonds who connect us to one another as human beings in this life. Ideas like the familial bond tie many of us together with the strength of ribbons on two wrists. In the world of the shinobi, the family often takes a backseat to organization bonds— the allies who you live and fight beside, often with the potential of dying by their sides. However, for many of us, as we shift through life like pieces on a shogi board, those familiar bonds change and lessen as we move deeper into uncharted territories. Perhaps it is the call to adventure that takes us to foreign lands where we settle, or the iron rule of a monarch crushing their people forces families to take flight in search of freedom. We live in a world of immigration; rubbing shoulders with strangers and new customs, ever full of wonder for us to explore.
Kaji Okada was certainly not new to living life in new lands. He was a shinobi who had crossed the borders of nearly every dominion in the western continent in his forty-something years of life. To him, this wasn’t much of an accomplishment though, as much of those travels were a matter of duty— war and pursuits as an agent of sovereign authorities. It was a life too long to condense into a digestible blurb, rather, he was a man living in the present with a history best left behind. Several years ago, he had settled in this land of lightning after being chosen by Lord Umashiashikabihikoji, his friend and the Hokage, to serve as an alliance shinobi in the Hidden Cloud. His mission was to oversee a transcontinental railroad linking the lands of fire and lightning, but once that two-year mission was complete, Kaji was in a budding relationship with his now wife, Yuii Kagetsu. A lowly commoner from the land of earth stealing the heart of a noble elite from the land of lightning… But that was a story for another time as well.
The Blue Lady was at the center of his being. However, whenever Kaji ventured to the highest peaks at the Spine of the World, the thin air felt like a long lost home. Galloping on horseback in the rolling hills where the haze gray banners of the Cloud were all but missing, he had lingering memories of years past. So when one of Lord Ayumu’s aides sent word to Kaji of a recent immigrant to the village with origins in his homeland, Kaji was curious. With that news came a request, which he obliged, to meet with the child and discuss their homeland at length. The aide spun the idea as a history lesson of sorts, but Kaji was never orthodox when it came to how he taught.
A request for her attendance would have come a few days prior, inviting Daenerisu Nanjirou for brunch with a fellow immigrant from Stone who’d settled in the cloud. The note would tell her his name, but left off the part about being the Grand Commander of the ANBU— that part simply wouldn’t matter. The setting was the Dawnbringer’s Plaza by the statue of Raiden, promptly at ten o’ clock in the morning.
On the morning of their meeting, Kaji’s habits of being timely had him there early enough for him to stop for a coffee from a vendor. He was a tall man with a slim physique that hinted grace over brawn, with a tone form. His semi-casual attire must have been worn a thousand times before. The coffee cup to his lips masked his clean shave, which was rare. His eyes were precocious and almond-shaped, with emeralds for pupils which looked around scanning the busy streets. His raven hair was under control, bound back in a loose knot as if he expected a busy day ahead. His mood appeared content, perhaps even cheerful until a sudden splatter of something white dropped on his shoulder, thick and with splotches of black and green. He shouted “Aww shit” full of ire, drawing glimpses from strangers passing by. He hopped to his feet, off of the base of that Raiden statue, which stood over three times his height and seemed to be staring down at him condescendingly then. There were birds perched all along the old god, and he too was covered in shit. Finally, Kaji felt some kind of connection to the chosen deity of the Lightning people.
“Raiden you smug bastard… Always liked you the least of The Five.”
<FONTFACE fontface="georgia">Kaji Okada was certainly not new to living life in new lands. He was a shinobi who had crossed the borders of nearly every dominion in the western continent in his forty-something years of life. To him, this wasn’t much of an accomplishment though, as much of those travels were a matter of duty— war and pursuits as an agent of sovereign authorities. It was a life too long to condense into a digestible blurb, rather, he was a man living in the present with a history best left behind. Several years ago, he had settled in this land of lightning after being chosen by Lord Umashiashikabihikoji, his friend and the Hokage, to serve as an alliance shinobi in the Hidden Cloud. His mission was to oversee a transcontinental railroad linking the lands of fire and lightning, but once that two-year mission was complete, Kaji was in a budding relationship with his now wife, Yuii Kagetsu. A lowly commoner from the land of earth stealing the heart of a noble elite from the land of lightning… But that was a story for another time as well.
The Blue Lady was at the center of his being. However, whenever Kaji ventured to the highest peaks at the Spine of the World, the thin air felt like a long lost home. Galloping on horseback in the rolling hills where the haze gray banners of the Cloud were all but missing, he had lingering memories of years past. So when one of Lord Ayumu’s aides sent word to Kaji of a recent immigrant to the village with origins in his homeland, Kaji was curious. With that news came a request, which he obliged, to meet with the child and discuss their homeland at length. The aide spun the idea as a history lesson of sorts, but Kaji was never orthodox when it came to how he taught.
A request for her attendance would have come a few days prior, inviting Daenerisu Nanjirou for brunch with a fellow immigrant from Stone who’d settled in the cloud. The note would tell her his name, but left off the part about being the Grand Commander of the ANBU— that part simply wouldn’t matter. The setting was the Dawnbringer’s Plaza by the statue of Raiden, promptly at ten o’ clock in the morning.
On the morning of their meeting, Kaji’s habits of being timely had him there early enough for him to stop for a coffee from a vendor. He was a tall man with a slim physique that hinted grace over brawn, with a tone form. His semi-casual attire must have been worn a thousand times before. The coffee cup to his lips masked his clean shave, which was rare. His eyes were precocious and almond-shaped, with emeralds for pupils which looked around scanning the busy streets. His raven hair was under control, bound back in a loose knot as if he expected a busy day ahead. His mood appeared content, perhaps even cheerful until a sudden splatter of something white dropped on his shoulder, thick and with splotches of black and green. He shouted “Aww shit” full of ire, drawing glimpses from strangers passing by. He hopped to his feet, off of the base of that Raiden statue, which stood over three times his height and seemed to be staring down at him condescendingly then. There were birds perched all along the old god, and he too was covered in shit. Finally, Kaji felt some kind of connection to the chosen deity of the Lightning people.
“Raiden you smug bastard… Always liked you the least of The Five.”
-- Kaji Okada has entered the thread.
-- Requesting Daenerisu.
-- This is a private thread, please notify before considering entry.
