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It was said that the shinobi did not care about marks. Fate and love shall only exist to empower, not imprison, Tengen had once heard from his father. His brothers, his mother, they all chanted similar lines, announcing to the gods and the world and Tengen that no amount of skin blessed with the promise of a half could ever disrupt the natural order.
Still, Tengen knew the day he had been born, unmarred by the stains of destiny, had been quite a shame for the family.
As Tengen grew, he understood — the truth about traditions is that they are always built around some kind of lie. They don’t care about marks; Suma, Makio, and Hinatsuro were assigned to him just as his mother had been assigned to his father. The important, however, is if you bear one at least one so they can repeat at you that they don’t care about it, then put you together with people you don’t belong with.<;p>
But he was not a shinobi anymore — estranged by the gods, fate, and family — and he would gladly sit and wait for the day one of his girls would tell him she had met her someone. It would hurt, for sure, but Tengen would much rather live a life of miserable longing than be the man to tell them no. The matters of soulmates were decisions beyond him, anyway.
Yet his life had been a mess of caring and not caring. Some days, he would watch the sunrise, basking in the early morning silence, and feel like everything about him was himself, that no Universe had a say in his choices and actions and consequences. Others, he stared at each inch of skin searching for something. He trembled with jealousy for every single person who had a simple pattern on their arms, legs, chest. His body was repeatedly torn apart, he had scars, less an eye, less a hand, yet destiny couldn’t find in itself enough kindness to concede him the only marking he had ever begged for.
A life of envy — but if even the gods burn, who could possibly judge Tengen?
Agatsuma Zenitsu appeared in his life as if to answer that question. No one knew, no one had ever once implied Tengen was not marked, no man, no woman, no friend, no foe—
you’re not marked right
your heart doesn’t beat for them like it does for a soulmate
i know
And Tengen would remember that moment until the day he died — the way that boy’s golden eyes overflowed with understanding, how the serious tone in his voice wasn’t condescending in the slightest, the nervous beats of his heart as he confessed his own secret. Tengen would never forget the feeling of curling around him protectively, keeping this rarity between his arms and telling himself he shouldn’t let this chance go.
When he mapped each inch of Zenitsu’s body he saw nothing but scars — and it felt like fate.