Chapter Text
"Under the moonlight,
our whispered vows float away, carried by the wind,
Yet the cherry blossoms fall, reminding me of your touch."
-Anonymous
They called her The White Kosumosu, because it had been many seasons of Springtime since anyone with honey colored eyes like hers had set foot in their village.
By that time, no one remembered the name of some obscure fallen insect clan from honestly-nobody-cares, or why said fallen clan was so "fallen" in the first place.
The only clue they had in solving this honey-scented mystery, striding very cheerfully through their very austere village, was the heirloom golden hair pin she wore, paying honorable tribute to the common honeybee. Her hair artfully weaved into a waterfall bun around it, shimmering white like the water blossoms that bloomed along the Great River, separating the territories of the mightier Land of Earth from the humbler Land of Flowers.
Perhaps, what struck the villagers' more was not where the unnamed lady had come from, but why anyone in their right mind would willingly come to the Village Hidden by the Flowers.
Outsiders were a rare sight these days.
Tourism in the Flower Village had dried up, thanks to the Daimyō's strict border control orders, and the war on the brink of exploding into an all-out siege.
Turning what was once a dreamy destination for honeymooners and horticulturists into a nightmare recluse of a country, anxiously biting their nails for fear of being devoured by their hungry neighbor, the Land of Earth.
But where the Stone Village made a name for itself on the battlefield, the Flower Village had made a profit in fields full of rice, rather than blood.
Their lush, fertile farmland fed the people of the five great nations.
Their main customer being the Land of Earth, whose stone mountains and villages made a hostile and unforgiving landscape for growing anything green on their own. The Flowers' rice, grains, fruits, and vegetables--which the Land of Earth purchased with their own precious gems, building stones, and weapons--had been a godsend keeping the Earth people from starvation.
And yet--as the late Flower Daimyō had once smugly pointed out to check the Earth Daimyō's hubris--for all their political power and shinobi pride, the Land of Earth would still be nothing without a "runt of a nation" like the Land of Flowers to ensure their people's survival.
The half-jesting remark in front of their other Daimyō peers left a bitter taste in the Earth Daimyō.
Soon, it was all they could talk (laugh) about when the Earth Daimyō was invited to a fellow Daimyō's bōnenkai soiree.
How is it that the Land of Earth, with all its war glory and honor, still has no real power to feed its own people?
And to add fire to the fuel, the Flowers now had the audacity to enter a trading contract with the Land of Wind, making competition for its food exports more fierce, and as such, more expensive than the Earth Daimyō was willing to cough up to that "pansy Daimyō and his fruity village".
'In fact, I have a better deal for his lordship,' the Earth Daimyō had reportedly announced to the Flower's messengers, as they stood over the new trade agreement explicitly spelled out by the Flowers with a higher price tag. 'The fact that his puny little village is still standing after this war is because Earth has agreed that it should be so. Flowers is protected at the expense of Earth. To repay our generosity, I say he pays us with his happy little land instead...or die!....All in favor?'
But war was nothing new to the lady with the honeybee hair pin.
As daughter of "the disgraced and the unnamed", her first breath was not filled with the scent of flowers buzzing with bees, but the stinging smoke of bee bombs lingering in the suffering silence of war.
And she knew that one day soon, it would be war that would take her last breath away from her.
Since war had given her life, war was all she lived for.
It was her fate to fight and die under the banner of her fallen name, just like the ones who had died failing to restore their clan honor from its disgrace.
That name being the only thing worth anything to her now.
If there was any other path she might've taken apart from war, she had turned away from that painful fate nearly a year ago.
That bitterly unforgettable day that she left her heart in Sora-Ku.
Would she have even made a good wife to him, considering the animosity they were up against?
Considering his unforgivable insolence?
Considering her wasp of a personality?
He was definitely better off.
Just like she was better off...doing that which she did so much better.
Aggravating barbaric massacres of war campaigns and such--while in her down-time--helping soulmates fall in love after they've found each other.
Because just as much as she reveled in the ruthless bloodshed of her enemies, she absolutely adored happy endings.
And having spent so much time exiled and wandering in the foggy bamboo forests of Sora-Ku, she hadn't been home for near a year to know that the Land of Earth was dangerously closing in around the Land of Flowers, and that getting back into her old matchmaking business again might've been put off a little longer.
Yet, after being cooped up for so long in the Land of Fire, where all was wet and gloomy for her, how could she resist showing everyone how great a matchmaker she still was, and snag together another 'happily ever after' success story?
And as an added bonus, the Flowers was such a beautiful village that smelt so green and left her high with energy and new possibility.
Even her insects seemed to perk up their sing-songy buzzing with so many new and exotic flowers to meet.
No matter the dark fog she'd walked out of a year ago, or the lonely yearning ache inside her chest that waited just on the edge of eating her alive, the bright-faced honey-scented lady of honeybees felt like a bride on her wedding day walking into a fairy tale, as she quietly approached the Flower Daimyō's courtyard.
Blushing pink, yellow, and white petals fluttered from the stone walls of Morning Glory vines and Hazel trees, as they merrily danced in the flowery breeze that ruffled her sunshine-yellow hooded cloak, clinking spare bug jars on her skirt belt, and knee-high brown boots.
"Honeysuckle! This place is faa-bee-lous!" she squealed happily, madly in love like a bee in a flower shop. "What an absolutely perfect place for a springtime wedding! I can already smell all the floral table arrangements!"
And having so decided that she would be more than ecstatic to take on the Flower Daimyō as her newest client waiting to be matched to his perfect soulmate, the honey-eyed matchmaker reached into the pocket of her traveling cloak, rummaging around through a half-eaten bag of Konpeito candy, a spare curved shuriken, and her favorite sugared-chestnut lipgloss.
Until she whipped out her buttercream-colored Scroll of Fated Souls, clicked her handy honeycomb-tipped pen into action, and daintily slipped on her golden reading glasses.
"Now let's see...Eligible Bachelor...Rich," she jotted down some quick notes for the Flower Daimyō's most winning qualifications. "Beautiful home with ample courtyard gardens in Hanagakure. Perpetual fair, Springtime weather. Extensive knowledge about romance and flowers. Personal..."
Her honeycomb pen came to an abrupt pause on her Scroll of Fated Souls.
"Bees' Nest," she sighed dreamily. "Is he a dragonfly? Because I'd love to be the pond where he lands."
Her sunset-golden eyes dragging up to peek over her reading glasses, scanning up and down the hardened, gargoyle-like hunks standing guard at attention around the Flower Daimyō's stone courtyard wall.
Each beefcake snack for a guardian proudly showing off the Lightning character engraved into their ninja headbands, as they claimed every three feet of wall around the courtyard.
Once again, the lady began scribbling fervently.
"Scary hot personal elite bodyguards, courtesy of the Land of Lightning--"
"Hey!" the one who took notice of her first growled. "Get moving, girl! No one has permission to pass this point, unless they have special orders from the Flower Daimyō himself."
Remembering her manners, the matchmaker gracefully placed her dainty palms together and bowed respectfully for his pardon.
"Apologies," she excused herself. "I am new to this village, and have only come to see that his lordship finds matrimonial happiness."
The Lightning Ninja's nose shriveled up at the very first word she spoke, as if it smelt of the odious cow dung manure caking the fields all over the Flower village.
Immediately recognizing the accent of the enemy in her quietly polite, Iwagakurian way of speaking.
"A hideous Stone woman?" he growled, as he advanced threateningly on her. "How dare you show your ugly, murderous face in this village after the war crimes you've terrorized the Flower people with!"
"I'm not here for a fight," the matchmaker kept her eyes lowered out of respect as she remained bowed, trying to look as demure and unthreatening as she could, knowing that if these Lightning ninja suspected any wrong move of hers, it would be her last.
These were times of war, after all, and she was now alone.
And this wasn't like any other matchmaking assignment she had taken on.
It was the threat of war in the Land of Flowers that had brought her Matchmaking Art to Hanagakure, not the harmonious matrimony of true love between a happy couple.
The Flower Daimyō was desperate for a solution, and desperation to protect his people had led to the desperate decision of inviting the Land of Lightning there as his mercenaries.
Yet even with the Lightning Ninja under his command, the Village Hidden by Flowers still couldn't match the full, unforgiving power of the Stone Village. And judging by how tense they all looked, they had to have known it.
"How about you drop dead?" the Lightning Ninja's mountain-mighty hand reached for the hilt of his Broadsword strapped to his back.
"Do it," she dared him softly. "And I'll take this whole village with me."
It wasn't a threat she needed her own jutsu to make good on.
It was an irrefutable reality of the Flower Daimyō's little war problem.
Here, she didn't need to be a kunoichi.
She had come humbly as a common lady with only a jar of bees for company, and one scroll with the Daimyō's long-awaited answer that stood between war and peace for his country.
One lady against the full force of the Lightning technique.
And her way back out of this village without losing a whole hive over it was now hung in the balance of how jumpy the Flower Daimyō felt today.
That bartender had warned her, after all, as she slurped on her last bit of curry at that shop, conveniently placed right on the border of the Land of Earth and the Land of Flowers.
'A girl like you, going out there alone? It's getting bad over there in the village. Everyone is packing up and running. We had to move our shop twice, because the Earth and the Flowers wouldn't stop fighting. The only thing keeping the Earth Daimyō from getting his way is the Shinobi Union, and all their empty promises made at the Continental Summit. I heard the Flower Daimyō was too scared to attend the summit and advocate for his own people, leaving the fate of his land up to the other nations. That turned us against him for sure.
'The people no longer believe he can lead the nation after his father died in the war. He's such a young fellow. Too young to be Daimyō at a time like this. I feel bad for him, but he's no longer just his father's heir. He's our leader, and he must find a way to assert his power, or the Land of Earth will always be a threat to us. I don't know about you, but when the Earth Daimyō decides to take the Flower Village by force, I don't want to be anywhere near Hanagakure.'
Could things be so bad already that the Land of Lightning had gotten in the middle of it now?
Could she already be too late to work her Matchmaking Art into carving out an advantage in winning the Flower Daimyō on her side?
How could a place so beautiful as this become so inertly dangerous, should she make one careless misstep?
It was more of a risk than she'd bargained for, but she was already here, and being a completionist to a fault, the only thing she had to lose at this point was her nerve.
And after Sora-Ku, she was done losing things that belonged to her.
She had to play it cool.
Anything but give those Lightning Ninja the impression that she'd come here with a insatiable taste for revenge and her own set of ulterior motives. She needed them to believe she really was a sweet girl, despite her home village being the most hated village in all the Land of Flowers.
"Identification," the Lightning Ninja snarled at her. "What is your name and business here?"
"I'm a Matchmaker," she told him sunnily. "Nothing makes me happier than to help two people find out how much they are meant for each other."
"A matchmaker, huh?" he doubted her story.
"Right. I've been bringing soulmatches together since the Ox's Year."
"Well, we'll see about that," he grunted. "I don't believe you mentioned your name, Lady Matchmaker. Identification. Now."
Reaching into her traveling cloak, she presented him with a romantically pink envelope, deliciously fragrant with roses in full bloom.
"The Flower Daimyō has asked for my services," she explained. "Is the rose symbol not the Daimyō's official letter seal?"
Snatching the letter from her offering hands, the Lightning Ninja passed it to the Lightning guardian who had walked over to join him.
"Verify the authenticity of this seal with the Daimyō's staff," he ordered his comrade. "If she's lying, I will cut off her head and mail it back to the Stone in this pretty envelope."
"Yes, sir," the latter affirmed, jogging into the Flower courtyard to carry out his command.
"You're a bit young to be the Great Lady Matchmaker, Akirabachi," he remarked to her, trying to poke holes into her allibi. "And a bit...stripe-less, wouldn't you say? They told us to expect a big, giant bee arriving for tea with the Daimyō this afternoon."
"I hope the Daimyō will excuse Matchmaker Akira for the unexpected change in plans," she apologized on behalf of the Matron Bee. "I'm sure his lordship has heard of all the gossip buzzing around from village to village lately?"
The Lightning guard's hardened, glowering face remained stiff and unaffected.
Though, the subtle raise of his brow gave him away as one who is a particular chump for a rather juicy slice of gossip.
"They say the Kazekage, Gaara of the Sand, has finally given in to the demands of the Sand elders and is looking for a bride," she let him in on the rumors. "And our reputation as the most revered matchmakers of all the Great Nations proceeds us. The end of the Ninja War has brought many high-profile clients to our shop lately. So, unfortunately, when it came to choosing between a Daimyō and a Kazekage as a client, I'm afraid Great Matchmaker Akira chose her highest bidder. Leaving me to find the Daimyō his perfect soul-match. I assure you, the Daimyō and his heart's desire are in good hands."
"Do you think this is all just some stupid blind date?" the Lightning Ninja demanded of her. "The match you have come here to arrange will decide the fate of three nations. You can't tell me that the war between the Flowers, Earth, and Lightning now depend on the naive romantic fancies of some silly girl?"
"Lady," she corrected him. "Lady Matchmaker."
"What can you possibly know about the brutal world out there, and the responsibility for this war that now sits on your shoulders?"
"If the Flower Daimyō has a problem with my years of experience, I will let him find his own match, and negotiate his case alone with the Shinobi Summit," she informed him firmly. "But considering what bind he's in now, and how much time he has left to give his answer to the Summit, I'm sure he wouldn't care if I were a giant bumble bee or a snail at this point. So long as he gets his answer. And if I were you, I'd be afraid. I'd be very afraid of how unhappy he will be if I--his answer--am kept waiting outside his courtyard any longer."
"She's right," the sound of his Lordship's voice carried over from behind the ninja, making the guardian stiff and pale, as if he'd been struck by his own Lightning. "Is there a reason you've kept me waiting this long, while my guest is interrogated outside my door?"
The Lightning Ninja turned to bow his respects to the Flower Daimyō, who despite rumors, did not look at all like a pansy pushover (as the brunt of the Stone's propaganda about the Daimyō's weaknesses). Instead, he stood tall in magenta tea ceremonial robes. His voice proud as the long dark hair that flowed to his waist over his proud, straight shoulders. A pride and strength that might've been apparent in his expression, had his attending servants allowed her to get even a peek at his face. His eyes and distinguishing features shadowed by pink and lilac parasols that shaded all sides of him--except for his full pleasing lips--protecting his lordship's privacy and exposure to the relentless sunlight.
"My lord," the Lightning Ninja bowed again to give his excuses. "These are dangerous times. I have been ordered to thoroughly question any stranger who enters your noble court. And she is...one of them, my lord...A Stone Village whore."
"I see no such person here," the Flower Daimyō disagreed, a hint of a smile playing on his lips, more beautifully pronounced by the colorful plethora of his blooming umbrellas. "Opportunistic, perhaps. But not self-serving. Merely a White Kosumosu Flower, blown away from her kinsfolk by the river's unforgivable breeze, seeking kinder, more nourishing meadows for the seedlings that grow after her."
"My Lord," the Lightning Ninja pursued his argument. "I humbly ask that you reconsider. To accept help from 'one of them', for such personal business is an insult to the Flower Village. We want your people on our side. Shouldn't we ask your own matchmakers to find you a suitable bride?"
The Lightning Ninja's suspicious gaze darted back to the matchmaker before them.
"You never know if she is actually working as a spy for the Hidden Stone."
"Lady Matchmaker," the Daimyō spoke kindly to her again. "I noticed you're carrying a jar of bees with you. Are they bees conditioned for battle? Have you brought the Stone's war to my village?"
"No, your lordship," she vowed to him. "I keep them for honey. Beekeeping is a tradition where I'm from."
"And what clan do you belong to in the Hidden Stone, my lady?" he probed deeper.
She hesitated.
Was he testing her?
If she gave him her answer, would that somehow prove that she wasn't a spy...or would it only aggravate the suspicions of his Lightning mercenaries?
Whatever the case, if she meant to make her ally out of the Flower Daimyō, lying to him would only leave a bad first impression.
"I am from the Kamizuru Clan, my Lord," she answered him quietly.
And when she did, she felt again that stinging lump of grief catching in her throat, that never seemed to go away, and always became more noticeably painful each time she spoke the lost name of her beloved clan.
"Kamizuru," the Daimyō nodded thoughtfully. "I see."
And then steadily, he turned his attention back to the Lightning Ninja.
"She is not a spy," he informed the Ninja certainly. "The Stone Village wouldn't dare send a Kamizuru to do its bidding. Not after how irreparably they embarrassed their entire village while fighting against the Aburame Clan, before being exiled into shame. Her kind are no more useful than the larvae they nurture for honey. Not only that, but it would be stupid of her to come here alone as a vigilante, when there is not a single shinobi in the Stone who would care to come looking for her, if she never returns."
The words were like a flea in her ear.
Her nails digging into her palms as his contempt for her name found its place with so many other words of loathing burning her clan's fragile reputation to ashes.
Each branding of public contempt and humiliation smearing across the once noble name of Kamizuru, leaving her identity ever more unrecognizable to her.
Did the Daimyō mean to insult his honored guest...or was this merely a warning?
Did he understand more about her business trip to the Village Hidden by the Flowers than he was letting on?
But before she could second guess herself and abort her personal mission to earn his favor, the Flower Daimyō warmly held out his hand to her.
"Welcome, Lady Matchmaker. Please join me. I have a tea ceremony prepared in your honor," he told her. "I have been waiting with great anticipation for you."