Chapter Text
The young samurai ties the strings of his kasa, which have come loose, and curses under his breath. The simple bamboo hat is the only thing that offers him shelter from the rain pelting everything around him; every little flower and every little weed – but it is not enough. He’s drenched to the bone, save his grimy white hair, – oh, and what is that? Streaks of red nestled within the pale locks – tied up in a messy ponytail.
He laughs a little, shaking his head: oh, what a turn fate has taken! Riches to rags. Riches to rags. Still, a part of him can’t help but be excited at the prospect of making a life for himself, Out Here. I don’t have a home to call my own, he thinks to himself, and even as he does so, he knows it’s not true. Home, to a vagrant, is Everywhere. Comfort accompanies that thought, and with it, freedom.
He journeys up the steep Yashiori landscape, holding onto brambles and stepping on rocks wedged into the dirt as footing. He trudges upwards and upwards until he finally sees it, shrouded in a heavy fog – a giant skull. An involuntary gasp escapes his lips. Orobashi.
He starts running. He slips on the moist soil (more than once), has his kasa blown off of his head up by relentless gusts of wind, leaving him to retrieve it (more than once), the hilt of his practice-worn sword clanging against his clothes, and one of his sandals are nowhere to be found. So, he kicks his feet and abandons the other one too.
He is all out of breath by the time he reaches the massive serpent skull, now looming above him. Massive is an understatement. He knows he’ll catch a cold by the end of the day, but that hardly matters – today, he is a child, fascinated by anything and everything. The fractured sky, the tall Otogi trees, the eerie tune the wind has taken up – they are all his friends.
Exhilaration paints his footsteps as the boy peeks into the dark void which happens to be the serpent’s maw. A second later, he jumps back, startled. Two glassy eyes stare back at him from the darkness, and for a second the boy thinks it’s a ghost.
But no – a figure steps out of the void, all sunken eyes and white rags and tangled hair. The two face off for what must be a minute but feels like an hour. At last, the samurai points towards the hollow; a silent question: May I come in?
The other boy wears a strange expression on his face, almost like he’s conflicted. As the shadows dance across his gaunt face, the wanderer realizes that he really does look like a ghost. Or like he’s seen a ghost.
Dusk transitions to night, with no sign of the rain stopping. The thought is an unbidden, unwelcome one, and it unsettles him slightly. It feels like a few more hours pass before The Ghost In The Void nods, gesturing at the samurai to follow him.
He follows. He soon realizes that the ‘cave’ is hardly a spacious one, fangs jutting down at the two boys, but it will have to do for now.
The Ghost In The Void sits down on the coarse but dry grass wordlessly. The samurai realizes that he cannot just keep referring to this person who has been kind enough to grant him shelter as The Ghost In The Void, and asks, “What is your name?”
His voice echoes and he cringes, even more so once a reply doesn’t grace him. “What is your name?” he says, whispering this time, afraid to shatter the fragile quiet.
“Kunikuzushi,” he murmurs back, voice hoarse from disuse. In fact, the name barely makes its way out of his throat before the boy chokes on it, so it sounds like a rasping cough instead. Still, there is something peculiar about the way he says it – rolling the name around on his tongue, like he’s tasting it for the first time. Destroyer of nations. “What … would yours be?” he manages to ask painstakingly, and the young samurai cringes again.
“Kaedehara. Kaedehara Kazuha.” Just like that, the two of them have names.
Kazuha can hear Kunikuzushi mutter a string of curses under his breath, and is perplexed. He doesn’t say anything, though, and plops down beside the paper-thin figure. The grass scratches his knees and it’s ever so slightly damp. Kazuha sneezes and it grounds him back to reality: the boy beside him isn’t a ghost; he’s a real, living, breathing human, and they’re both stuck inside the jaws of Orobashi until the ferocious Tatarigami palliates, even if it is only for a while – just enough for him to journey onwards without any obstructions. He might as well try to make a friend.
“You can just call me Kazuha, if you wish. My family name isn’t worth anything to me, not anymore.”
Finally, Kunikuzushi speaks, voice laced with what must be … mockery. “Alright then, Kazuha. I believe an apology is due.”
Malice, Kazuha realizes. Not mockery, but malice.