❄𝔗𝔢𝔞𝔯𝔡𝔯𝔬𝔭𝔰 𝔬𝔫 ℑ𝔠𝔢

[Wolfe Whitehorn]

❄Snow fell o'er the reaches of the furthest mountains of the Empire, and a lone man trekked through the blizzard, unphased by the bitter cold even in his current state of dress. Seiji Hattori, heir to the Kirigakure and Kumogakure Hattori mercantile dynasty, and the grand legacy of Myurai Hattori sighed and brushed against another evergreen, his back pressed to the firm surface for only a brief moment while he caught his breath. The loose jade kimono he wore, torn, faded, and muddied was pulled open and his left arm sat cradled inside. His opposite hand brushed his long mane of jet black hair from his face and he stared down the mountain path.

"Just a little further, it ends where it began." As his hair fell, it framed his face, too long and unseemly even for him, and reminiscent of his brother's features now.

As he crested the lower mountain, he stared in the direction of Kumogakure. The nation had given him so much, but left him poor where it mattered. His life was entirely compared to another's and everyone he cared for now was gone. Several dead, one exiled, one just gone. Though admittedly, the latter was better that way.

The Hattori pushed his way forward and into the oldest manse of his family, where the last relationship that mattered to him had reached fruition and ultimately come unraveled. Snow had blown in during the last storm, the staff hadn't made it to the halls before the pass was cut off. Though, Seiji preferred it this way. He walked the length of the manor and out to the central courtyard, where he had spent the night in relaxed banter with his entire team, and forged the connection with her.

I'm too tired, and too hurt. There's no going back home after my last fight with Kaileer. He's too impetuous for the role he's been given, there's no home for me anymore. Seiji thought to himself as he stared over his arm and found himself a rope. Sorrow filled the young man, loneliness, and most of all, misery.

"Well, at least there's no one to mourn me. He'll just go on about his life, wherever he went." Seiji said, his words cold and stoic, but his mind an array of emotions, lost amongst themselves as he prepared the noose and stepped up onto the edge of the well under the tree limb.  

[Koresephone]

Karleen was royally ********. She had been gone from Kumo for far too long and the safety of Takumi had made her too used to fair weather. But now she was stuck in a snowstorm of you're-gonna-die proportions and Kumogakure was still a while away. The couple of years she had stayed with her grandmother were nice, but she was ready to get home... well partly. She was fearing of returning to the village only to find that Seiji had moved on without her, had gotten married to some daughter of another merchant family to make the Hattori's reign better. She'd pretend to be happy, but it would kill her. Would he even want to talk to her, after disappearing like she did? Would he ever forgive her. Kar drew her heavy but still not sufficient coat tighter around her, letting out a loud huff of annoyance. Damn mountains.

Suddenly her surroundings seemed familiar, and as the estate came in to view she realized why-- this was the hattori home. Her heart soared, it was safety! And it was people she knew! She let out an excited noise and started to stumble through what must have been a foot of snow by then. Memories of a warm fire, of happier times, of Seiji flew by in her mind. A warmth filled her where there was once a numbing chill; perhaps he'd be here, waiting for her. She quickly made her way through the forest and gates, her heart hammering in her chest. She would search the grounds first, she knew cold like this would't affect him.

It didn't take long for Karleen to find somebody, and at first she thought it was Myurai; but a closer look told her that wasn't the case. She knew that frame, those hands that had brushed hair from her face, those arms that had carried her... and then she saw the rope. It was Seiji. It was Seiji. The young woman's heart came to a halt in her chest, her legs froze to the spot, her mouth wouldn't open and her lungs couldn't do anything but let out a sound akin to having the air kicked out of you. Her arms had a mind of their own though, and in a fluid movement a hand plucked a knife from the holster on her thigh and set it flying. It would hit the rope, cutting it, and burying itself in a nearby surface. Seiji would easily remember the blade, from it's carefully taken care of blade to the beautiful redwood handle.

He had made it after all.

Her body suddenly found the will to move again and Karleen took off, stumbling across the courtyard, her mouth suddenly remembering how to speak. "Seiji!!" Her voice was a gut-wrenching screech, panic clear in it. Her hood fell back to show that, once wild lengths of golden hair, had now been tamed in to a braided hairastyle. Her long winter coat was dusted with snow and her boots were not the kind of boots one should be wearing in this kind of weather.  

[Wolfe Whitehorn]

❄Seconds passed and felt like hours as Seiji contemplated his final decision. The call of birds in the immediate distance caught his eye, but the moment faded and he stared down the well for a moment more, eyes locked on the water that flowed at the bottom, unhindered by this deep freeze. His eyes glazed over as he thought back to the night the team sat in the courtyard and took turns with stones, each tossed one to the well, yet only Karleen had the aim to...

As his mind wandered in the peace of the past he was oblivious to the sounds of the woman who made her way through the manor and found him on the edge of the well. As he rocked back off of the ledge he heard her breath catch and opened his eyes to see a knife sail over his head into the rope.

The cut was clean and the noose frayed, faltered, and landed on Seiji's chest as he alighted upon the ground below.

Only Karleen had the aim and skill to sink the stones into the well that night. And now the Konoha Redwood handle, inlaid with bronze filigree, that he had made for her years prior, mocked him as it sat lodged in the tree he had attempted to end his life upon.

"Yes?" Was his sole, deadpan answer as he lay on his back, head spun and ears filled with a ring that left him barely able to discern the woman's voice.  

[Koresephone]

Karleen slid to her knees by Seiji's side as he gave her his laconic answer. "Yes?", as if she had just walked in to see him doing some mundane task instead of trying to take his life. Shaky hands, warm despite the frigid temperatures, ran along the Hattori to look for any other injuries from the fall. He looked as if he had just been in a fight, perhaps back in kumogakure. Eyes that used to be gold, but now were more akin to an emerald color, were filled with panic and tears in till she ascertained that her ex-squad captain was physically fine. It didn't take a medical a shinobi to uncover the hyouton user's mental state was anything but fine, however. Relief filled her face for a moment before she started wailing on the male on the ground, tears rolling down her cheeks and splattering on to his exposed chest. "Seiji Hattori, I didn't take you for a complete ******** moron!" Karleen's onslaught stopped after a few moments and she dragged Seiji up and in to her arms.

He was freezing cold but she didn't care. He was battle torn but alive, breathing, in her arms instead of hanging from a tree like a grotesque christmas ornament. Each breath she took rattled out of her chest as she tried to gain her composure, and her tears soaked the shoulder of Seiji's ruined kimono. When she was able to speak again, her voice was a whisper in his ear. "I-I'm... I'm so sorry... I was coming back, I just got caught up..." Her voice cracked and caught in her throat like glass shards, her hands desperately clinging to the man she loved as if he'd fade to nothing if she didn't. "You hear me...? I was coming back, you laconic a*****e..."  

[Wolfe Whitehorn]

❄Seiji lay half naked in the snow, cradled in the arms of death's noose and of the lovely Karleen, his eyes half lidded as he wandered somewhere half-between. He sighed and coughed, blood from the tension on his neck and nothing more.

"You thought... too much." He laughed between labored breaths and put a hand on the back of the woman's head as he clutched her into his chest.

As she whispered her apologies and reasoned for her absence into his shoulder, the young man simply held her. His breath rattled in his throat and he coughed again as she choked up and rightly called him a laconic a*****e. He craned his neck, sorely, to bring it around the side of her cheeks as she sobbed and nuzzled into her. Long disheveled hair cascaded around them, snow fell around as death still refused to take him.

"Your eyes have changed." He whispered.

He could withstand the abuse, and anger, and even invited it. He knew he had trespassed into a territory that she couldn't forgive him for. He had given someone room to mourn him, and brought his greatest fear upon himself. Sullen eyes stared into the heavens, over top of Karleen.  

[Koresephone]

She wanted to keep hitting him and kiss him at the same time. He wasn't himself, he wasn't her Seiji... Karleen's hands gripped at Seiji even tighter and she reached up and undid the rope around his neck. The young woman pulled back a little at his comment about her eyes, letting out a sharp snort. "A lot has happened since that day in Takumi, Seiji... I've changed." Karleen gingerly helped Seiji to his feet, allowing the male to support his whole weight on her if he had to. "C'mon, let's get inside. You'll catch your death out here... though something tells me you wouldn't mind that. I would, however, like to keep you alive. Jerk." Another sniffle escaped her as she helped Seiji inside, and she tried to shove down her rising anger and sadness.

If she had taken a different path, he'd be gone from her life forever.

She knew part of this was her fault. She never visited, never wrote. For all he knew, she had been dead or had just disappeared without another word. But Kaileer hadn't let her come back, hadn't let her write, hadn't let her do anything. He had be pissed when she sent word that she needed to stay with the distant remains of her family in Takumi, he had even threatened to have her killed. She couldn't tell Seiji this, at least not right now. The last thing she needed was for him to recklessly stumble back in to the empire to try and seek revenge on him.

Karleen set Seiji down by the fireplace inside the main sitting room in the estate, and lit it with the ease of snapping her fingers. She sat there in silence for a moment, hoping she could stop the tears stinging at her eyes and cheeks as she tended the flame. She had almost lost Seiji, and it was all her fault. She could have fought harder, right? Harder to come back, harder to see him, to tell him that she was okay. Those years in takumi had been downright miserable; there was nothing to make you feel more alienated in the world than watching someone you cared for slowly wasting away. Her grandmother had been a bright and fiery person, just like her...

Flameheart.

Seiji had called her that once, she remembered her childish reaction to the pet name. Cheeks puffed out, face bright red, hands shoved into her pockets. Nathaniel and Liori had been unaware of it, she had been in the back of the group. She had been looking forward to those days again, the childish innocence, the fun, the laughter. How could she ever laugh again after this? She wiped at her cheeks, shucking off her heavy winter coat to reveal a battle dress and gloves underneath. The younger version of her had been so carefree, so good... Would Seiji even care for her like this? Broken and battered and changed? She could pretend to be her old self, fake the smile and the snark. Maybe that would work.  

[Wolfe Whitehorn]

❄For several minutes the man said nothing, even as she baited him with an easy retort to his own wish for death. When she untied the noose from his neck and cast it aside he only sighed and leaned into her, and allowed her to help him into the manor. As she took him into the grand chamber and set him down in front of the fireplace and lit it, he looked longingly into the flames she conjured with such ease.

She had changed. She had garnered control. He had lost it.

"You changed, you learned how to dress." He said, eyes opened wide as the light blue started to return to them for the first time.

He was far from recovered. But he knew he wasn't alone.

He had always challenged this team, and now only one of them came to challenge him in his hardest of times. He chuckled softly underneath it all, his eyes closed as he leaned back and his left arm slumped out of the kimono, bandages soaked in blood revealed. His laughter grew, gentle at first, then slightly hysterical.

"I was always hardest on you..."  

[Koresephone]

Karleen couldn't help but snort at his comment about her learning how to dress; it was true she had gone through a wardrobe change. She had changed in a hoodie dress for proper clothes, ankle-length boots for knee length ones. she had grown, matured. She turned and looked at him, a half smile on her face. "My grandmother was a mean old crone of a woman, but she beat some manners in to me. Sometimes literally. With a purse. Which must have had bricks in it because oh my goooddd it hurt." She quickly lost her humor upon seeing the Hattori's arm, a frown quickly replacing it. She grabbed her pack and slid to his side, carefully searching through it.

"Kaileer?" It was all she asked. If he said yes, she wouldn't need any more explanation from the male. Karleen remembered the tension between them-- Seiji thought Kaileer wasn't ready for the position thrust upon him and was still a child, Kaileer thought Seiji was "insubordinate, crude, and rash" which was a direct quote from one of their many fights. Careful fingers unwrapped the bandage around his arm to inspect the wound, her golden emerald hues holding a deep sadness. She didn't want to lose him from a bad injury having just saved him from himself. Kar couldn't lose anyone else... Seiji was all she had left.  

[Wolfe Whitehorn]

❄"Good woman." He wheezed through his hysterical laughter the thought of her Grandmother hilarious to him, eyes squeezed shut as his body lulled back in her touch.

As soon as she had said that name and addressed the injured arm, the Hattori sighed. The impetuous Raikage had never been one well for physical confrontation, and often argued with villagers he didn't agree with. Seiji was no different and the two settled odds extremely, both exceptional swordsman, but one willed more to turn to the blade. The other turned to his advisors.

His laughter subsided and he clenched his right arm on his chest, the fabric beneath gathered and frayed where it had already become threadbare but for months of hard wear.

"Impetuous child, played leader." He remarked, his eyes now opened and stared to the ceiling.

"Couldn't stand on his own feet. Surrendered Kumo as a Vassal state, alongside Kirigakure, Arashigakure, and a handful of other survivors of the UHV War. Those of us who were outspoken in our disdain were heard, but kindly told we weren't accepted in our opinion. Kaileer and I, our relationship never recovered. When I threatened to leave, it was affront to him and Wanryoku and the ANBU were sent for me, in my own home. I had more weapons, they had more men. He recalled, and lifted the injured arm, several shallow cuts up his arm where he had used it under ice as a shield.

The worst injury was near his elbow where he had a piercing wound near the ligaments.

"b*****d couldn't even pass his own judgement or just sit down and talk. I was angry, not unreasonable. That was always his problem."  

[Koresephone]

He relaxed at her touch, and something about that calmed Karleen. Some part of her Seiji was in there, still floating around the broken mess of his mind. The ex-kunoichi carefully and gently cleaned and dressed the man’s wounds. Her hands we’re warm where they touched Seiji’s skin, warm like the flames from the fireplace that danced lights across her face and caught the gold in her eyes like molten metal. “Oh Seiji...” She breathed softly, carefully placing his hand back in his tattered kimono. Even before all of this, he was always getting himself hurt.

Karleen looked up at Seiji’s face and carefully reached up to caress the very faint scar by his eyebrow. He had saved her life when she was younger, more naive. Part of her wished she still was. “I wish I had been there... To fight beside you. Not like you’d need my novice skills and smart-a** humor but...” She stopped, swallowing hard, tears stinging at eyes who’s sclera were already bloodshot from crying. The young woman forced herself to take a breath before continuing.

“I never thought this would be one of the ways you’d be taken from me. I always thought Myurai would marry you off to some other woman— who’s a** I’d have to kick —in some stupid political marriage... Not.. N-not this...” Her voice cracked despite her best efforts to not let it. Years of a perfectly crafted facade were quickly crumbling under the weight of the scenario. She had hoped to impress him with her maturity... now it all just seemed so trivial. Karleen’s lip trembled in til she drew it between her teeth to make it stop.

With slow motions, like she might break the man in front of her like glass if she moved too fast, Karleen moved closer to Seiji in til she could lean it and press her forehead against his. Once again her eyes were closed, this time in fear that if she opened them she would lose control. “Strong, brave, incredible Seiji... never once did it occur to me that you could die before I returned... even less so that you could fade away by your own damn hands... I underestimated the strain put on you...” Deep breaths, she had to tell herself as her voice began to tremble. Control, condense, then breathe out. Her breath was hot on exhale, as if all the boiling emotion was escaping.

”I should have fought harder to come back. I should have told Kaileer to ******** off...”  

[Wolfe Whitehorn]

❄"Myurai, actually do something, involving me? Hah." Seiji only laughed at the preposterous idea of his brother attempting to be involved in his life.

"You were there, you guided my hand in combat. I was angry a every decision he made. Yours most of all, the petulant child." The Hattori groaned as he reacted his head back, his consciousness faded in and out the more he spoke and tried to push himself up to keep attention at her.

He refused to talk about what he had just done, and the world grew dark as he fainted.  

[Koresephone]

"Ffffff-" Seiji went limp in her arms and quickly she caught him, one hand under his arm, the other on the side of his neck closer to the ground. She winced, her muscles straining, holy hell he was heavy. With much effort, she carefully moved herself so that Seiji's head was carefully sitting in her lap, face turned up towards her so she could watch his condition. She was no medic, but she saw enough dying faces to know what it looked like. Seiji looked close enough.

Karleen carefully stroked his hair, trying to keep on a brave face. He couldn't go, not now. "C'mon you a*****e... you can't do this to me... You can't leave me now.. we just found eachother again... You have to make it. You have to make it for me... Please..." Despite the fake smile she had forced to her face, tears gathered in her eyes, catching in her throat. "I know you don't want to live... I know you want to just slip away but you can't leave me here alone. Please."

The young woman took in a deep breath, sitting back against the fireplace to stare up at the ceiling. Whether he slipped away or not, she would be right here, holding him to the end. It would kill her, but she would not leave him. She couldn't, she had already left him once and it had destroyed her.  

[Wolfe Whitehorn]

❄For the next minutes, then hours, and ultimately days should Karleen have chosen to remain at his side, Seiji suffered through intense sickness. He thrived on the kindness of the woman and the waking mindfulness that she rested with him each time his weary eyes peeled open. Sorrow filled him, coursed through every hollow, but he could ill afford to speak of such things now.

》 Eighteen Nights Passed.

The bitter cold of the Hattori Manse mid-winter was made all the worse as Seiji awoke, frightened, and grasped for his sword. Unable to find it, one forged from winter ice and plummeted the nearby temperatures with his rage. Slate eyes scanned the room and saw nothing, no-one. Sharpened and over-sensitive ears from days of silence heard only the rustling of fabric from the courtyard, and he moved for it. Thrown aside, his caution, as he sought to face the enemies that had laid him low once, he tossed open the door and leapt into the courtyard to find himself blinded in the stark winter sun, and against Karleen's warmth as his body collapsed following his leap. His sword arm collapsing in, broken near.

"You broke my arm." He winced against the pain, as he tried to collect himself against shock.  

[Koresephone]

She had stayed by him for every second of every day, battling his complications with all of her mediocre knowledge. There were several time when she had been sure he had died, when his breathing was so shallow is was nearly there, or when he wouldn't stir when she shook him. It was like this for nine of the eighteen days; where she barely ate or drank in favor of keeping Seiji alive and comfortable. Then one day, he started to improve. His fever began to break, his breathing started to become steady and normal, his color began to come back. These were the days where she could do more, she could clean and find new clothes for Seiji, clean her clothes, bathe, eat-- it was when she was less scared he would slip away from her.

Karleen was standing in the courtyard, preparing to go out and hunt for more food. Whatever she had brought with her, and whatever had been in the estate had run out now. She was tightening a shoelace when suddenly the grand doors behind her flew open. She was barely able to fly around and throw her hands up in protection before Seiji's entire weight flattened her like a pancake. The wind knocked out of her, and she tried to keep her balance for the both of them which caused her to stumble back. His arm broke against her, she felt it break. And the force of his forearm bending downward sheared his sword through her coat and arm. This time, her gasp was one of pain, but she gritted her teeth and kept Seiji upright.

"No s**t you crazy b*****d! You could have seriously hurt yourself! I'm gonna tie you to the damn bed next time!"  

[Wolfe Whitehorn]

❄"Promise?" The beaten man asked as he looked up into her eyes, sweat slicked hair skewed across his face as he shifted into her momentarily.

He knew the damage he had done and worked to undo it with his single arm. As he crawled back off of her, his face flattened into her chest and stomach while he regained balance and kept his blade still with his good hand. There was no colour to him, but he moved on resolve alone at this point.

"On three... Three!" He exclaimed, as he steadied the blade on his knee and gave it a smooth pull from her arm.

"Just let me die, you're killing yourself trying to save me. You're free to the manor, and anything here, Ryo included. I'm no use like this. Even my sword arm gave out."