Chapter 5: Chapter 5: Kojin (II)

In the end, they're both completely drenched and heaving.

"Shikai-san! Hoshigaki-san!"

Tenkou Asayake looks at them in disbelief, like a mother seeing her children playing in the mud. There is mud on their clothes, some grass and leaves too, but no blood. In the end, he'd won three rounds but she'd managed to surprise him with her stamina. Her footwork is quick, almost like a shinobi's, and he wouldn't have a doubt if she'd trained with one before. Or if she'd somehow managed to steal a shinobi's ability.

"Come inside!"

He hears the samurai's laugh over the downpour and feels like his younger self again.

"Come now, Tenkou," the samurai says, "It's just a little rain."

He thinks it's like a little catchphrase for her, how she thinks she won't be affected by it. Her clothes are sticking to her body, and mud and grass, and he has no doubt it will be a pain to wring dry. He has no doubt it won't be so easy to wash off.

"I am grateful for the bout, Hoshigaki-san," she turns to him and bows, "it is not so often I can approach a member of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist, much less one with great skill such as yourself."

"Former member," he corrects her and shrugs, noticing how she's never taken her eyes off Samehada, "but thanks all the same."

He doesn't often come by samurai like her either.

"You shouldn't get sick, Shikai-san."

The way the younger woman says it makes him curious. Why shouldn't she?

"Don't worry yourself, Tenkou," the samurai says, "I won't."

Tenkou returns inside the building and the samurai follows swiftly. She shakes off the rain and sets her swords by the door. She is so at home here, Kisame thinks. The way she talks to the younger woman is casual and familial. She must come here often. But why? Who is she? Why is a samurai like her among the ranks of the Akatsuki underlings? Surely it just can't be out of convenience in her fairytale quest of collecting… whatever it is she's after.

Later, when they've both changed into dry clothes and are sitting by the fire, he hopes to have these questions answered. But she is the one who questions him instead.

"Have you ever heard of the Kojin, Hoshigaki-san?"

Her hair is still damp. The cot where Itachi had lain is now empty. There is no sight of the young shinobi or of the Asayake runt. Kisame thinks there is no escaping the samurai here.

"No."

He decides to add quickly, "Am I supposed to?"

"Hm," the samurai blinks, "no, I guess not."

And it's quiet again. The fire between them flickers, sending embers into the air, and part of him thinks it's both literal and figurative. Part doesn't want to think that way, knows that it's just the adrenaline, just the tense high, just Samehada's bloodthirst taking root in his mind once more. There is a fire between them, part of him thinks, the same kind of fire that showers a battlefield each time swords clash.

Swordsman to swordsman, he has much respect for her. As a shinobi, he has as much distaste towards the samurai as anyone else, but he isn't sure whether the same kind of distaste can apply to her. After all, she's already in such unsavory company and she treats it as nothing. Maybe she is as despicable as them, as criminal as them.

So he decides to ask this now, "How did you find yourself here?"

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He isn't sure which honorific to use with her, if she even is deserving of any.

"The same way most had," she replies easily, "how did you?"

He knows there are some things one likes to keep to themselves, and he understands that. But this? What does she mean by "same way" and who does she mean by "most"?

"Mizugakure branded me a criminal," he encapsulates his entire life in one sentence, "I had nowhere else to go"

"No, you could have gone to the samurai."

She says it so quickly that it seems like it's an obvious answer. But the sentiment is idealistic, if not childish, because what samurai country would accept shinobi so freely, more so one who'd been branded a criminal? Wait, had that happened before? Was she a witness to it? His questions about her just seem to pile up.

"Your people would sooner behead shinobi like me," he replies because he knows all the stories about shinobi who'd dared cross the samurai, "else they risk war for harboring a criminal."

"You would be given an honorable death," she continues, "in a ritual that would grant you pardon."

He doesn't think any ritual or any prayer or any offering to any god would grant him pardon. It's probably by a god's wrath that he is the way he is, halfway between man and monster. Well, if his death would appease that god and give me another shot at life–

Do the samurai believe in the same afterlife as the shinobi?

"And you will be reborn," she looks at him then, like a wise sage offering worldly advice, "if the gods find it fit."

Well, that's it then. The gods won't ever find him fit.

"No god would," he mutters, staring at Samehada and wondering what ever became of the Isonade whose skin had been torn to create it.

"Then find one," she says it like it's so simple, "you find one god who will."

She is giving him more questions than answer. Just who is this samurai? Is she even a real person?

"Have you?" He questions her, noting how she fixes her position opposite him. She's going to tell another story, he can tell.

"Have you ever heard of the Kojin, Hoshigaki-san?"

She repeats the question with mirth and the fire reflected in her eyes.

"I already told you," he huffs, "no."

She smiles then, looking very much like the first storyteller Kisame had seen visit Mizugakure.

"But I am sure you have heard of its more common name, the ."

He hasn't heard of it either, and so she begins another tale. Between them, the fire crackles. Outside, the rain continues.

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