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The rumors of Shiroki Hatake's sudden disappearance perpetuated for days.
All that her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren would say was that one fateful night, there was a thunderstorm the likes of which they had never seen but had definitely heard of—eerily similar to the very one where Shiroki got struck by lightning.
(The very same one that preceded the birth of the first generation of Hatake, but that was another level of rumor altogether.)
The one-eyed and ancient ex-samurai, who had been uncharacteristically listless and distant during the last few days, had left for a walk in the middle of the storm, and had never come back.
Shiroki, who survived more horrible things than even her children knew of, was missing under mysterious circumstances, mostly presumed dead.
Kama would have been the first to look after his mother once he knew, but his osteoarthritis was worse during bad weather, and veteran ninja or not, his nephews and nieces did everything to keep him ignorant of his mother's disappearance.
Two of the best trackers, Tamanegi and Wasabina, volunteered to look for their founder. Plans were made accordingly and a search party was made in secret. The hunting pair ended up returning to the old Hatake farm, but the trail passed beyond that, going out of Hi no Kuni before they lost the scent.
They had no choice but to tell Kama then. That was several days ago.
Kama should have seen it coming, in hindsight. Perhaps, he had seen the signs, but had refused to acknowledge them.
Hahaue had been the only truly constant thing since he was born. Who would want to be confronted with her mortality? He certainly didn't.
The old Hatake prerogative would have been to make like a dying dog and find a nice spot in the forest or somewhere hard to find to lie in. Or to return to a lost home to die there...
And Kama knew exactly where Hahaue could have gone.
#
Kama and Raiun, originally Kabocha's wolf companion, appeared near the borders of Kyukei in a flash of lightning, making their way to their first home and probably waking and scaring villagers out of their sleep.
Or, at least, that was what should have gone down.
What happened instead was this:
Kyukei was an abandoned shell of itself, a ghost town, and the once abundant huts and houses of Kama's childhood were now overgrown by a frightening infestation of greenery.
Thick, gnarled tree trunks of both alternating red, black and white strips and the ordinary mottled grey-brown kind crept and twisted and claimed and wove through and around like gigantic vines. Some had bypassed fences, grown inside windows and crushed structures through the sheer size of its growth. Twigs, branches, trunks and roots all woven and warped in ways nature never intended it to.
Raiun growled, her hackles raised, and Kama stroked her fur to calm both her and himself. Tamanegi and Wasabina were not far behind them, alert and bristling with tension.
None of it looked natural. What certainly seemed like nature gone rampant at first glance looked more and more like a Mokuton-user had had a tantrum and let loose on the tiny village.
Kama hadn't heard word from Kyukei for decades—villages can rise and fall just as fast during the era of constant warfare between clans and daimyōs, and protection only came from either complete insignificance or from strategic value.
The little village had the former, not the latter, which meant little in the long run. But that was still no reason for this current state of...devastation.
The old shinobi then remembered an offhand remark about a teenage Tobirama that had been mentioned a decade or two ago, that the Senju once made a detour to a little town in Take no Kuni long before the founding of Konohagakure, supposedly to recuperate from injuries before returning all the way to the Senju clan compound.
Except the allotted time had come and gone and there was still no albino Senju, so his dear brother Hashirama had gone looking for the last place his younger brother was. And so, if the Senju had made his way here...
"Just what did that oaf do to my home town?!" he growled under his breath.
Silence. Static crept up Kama's spine.
And then earth roared. Raiun growled louder. Fire and thunder unleashed. Shinobi and ookami moved in tandem, claws out and lightning cackling beneath sharp teeth, dodging a relentless assault of twisting vines and spines and overgrowth that siphoned chakra through contact. Kama's tanto and localized wind jutsus made short work of what Raiun's fangs and claws could not, but they were both going to eventually be overrun through sheer numbers, and drained of their energy bit by bit.
It took some time but something finally snuck past their defenses and smashed into them from the left, Kama's temple hitting something even harder with a crack. Something that took hold of him—too many somethings—vines or what felt like hands, covered in bark and nettle-like hair, maybe. He heard Raiun yelp and they were dragged in two different directions.
Kama, fingers failing to scrabble for purchase, caught a glimpse of Tamanegi's bleeding face, awash in red and black ichor and raging terror.
"Ojii-sama!"
Then darkness.
#
Kama woke up and Hahaue was nowhere to be found.
He slowly got up to his knees and fought the urge to tip sideways, limbs feeling too short yet too long, too strong yet too weak, his body feeling familiar yet alien in a way he cannot yet explain. He has to find her...quickly.
It took several tries before Kama conceded to the fact he cannot stand properly and half-crawled, half-limped, posture askewed in such a strange way. Like he wanted, no, needed a cane or some assistance but he is just ten so why would he need support exactly? Did he damage his leg? Was there an accident?
More mysteries for the Hatake, but looking for Hahaue was the biggest priority, so he listened to his gut, picked a direction that felt right and moved along as best as he can.
He followed that feeling—that insistent tugging sensation that brought him past what should be the village square, which was empty of people but filled with a maze of thorns that he had the impression weren't there before.
Kama shivered. Someone was watching but it didn't feel malignant, not quite, only different. His mouth felt dry and swallowing was hard. He kept going, stumbling a few times, while thorny vines hooked at his clothes and skin and pulled him forward. The houses were rundown but he ignored them. The gravestones were mostly broken down and the names near-faded but he ignored that too, keeping his concentration on putting one foot in front of the other.
Soon he could hear something...someone singing, and he moved deeper, accumulating more scratches due to the density of foliage. There was the faint sound of voices, weak and watery like an echo of an echo, calling back...but he was so close to Hahaue he could sense her presence in the air.
A forest of brambles blocked the path so he unsheathed his sword to start hacking away, but then the brambles surged and swallowed him, grabbed him by the ankles again. And Kama was pulled into a long winding path that slithered left then right and spun and so on till he couldn't tell what direction was what, then gravity took him down down down until his body hit the ground with a worrying thud.
#
Kama didn't remember how long he was unconscious, much less how long it took to rouse into awareness. It was only fortunate his combat instincts kept his body reinforced by chakra during the entire ordeal, or he would have had to wake up to broken bones instead of what must certainly be hairline fractures and cracked ribs.
After taking note of his injuries and patching up those he could, Kama took a look at his surroundings. And stopped and stared.
Flowers. Flowers and curling vines everywhere. The Bleeding Tree smack dab in the middle of a sea of small white trumpet-like blossoms in full bloom. And there, perched on the grave marker, was the small figure of a one-eyed white-haired maiden...and the looming shadow of someone else sitting right behind her.
The man was truly not much taller than the young woman, but his presence was larger than life, possessing sad amber eyes and a shorn fuzz of mossy hair, his countenance down-to-earth in comparison to his companion's delicate and unearthly one.
Kama hadn't expected that.
"Come meet your tousan," said Hahaue, her eyes half-lidded yet happier than he'd seen since...forever.
The choir of voices at the back of Kama's head went silent.