Kotetsu had spent the last few hours of the day being questioned by the Matriarch. Most of these questions had something to do with seals, and she had continuously asked him the same things over and over until he felt like crying. He honestly had no clue what she was asking him for, and every time they reached the end of the questioning, the torture began.
Snap.
Another cut slashed across his arm as a small piece of wood twisted off of his cage wall, lashing out and digging into his skin. His body was covered in dozens of cuts at this point, layered over the bruises he had received from the earlier beatings. The Matriarch had promised to remove his pain if he would only tell her what she wanted to know. It had gotten to the point where he began making things up just to get her to stop. However, when he was caught the only time he tried, the lashing he received across his back put a stop to any further lies.
Kotetsu sat and breathed heavily for several seconds as he held the wounded arm. Several cuts were present alongside his newest one. The Matriarch's cold voice cut through his detached thoughts.
"We're done for now, brat. We shall resume this topic tomorrow, when you are more open to conversation."
—
The Matriarch walked away, and Aina kept close behind. The Matriarch noticed the conflicted look on her daughter's face.
"What's the matter, child?"
Aina hesitated for a moment, but knew she had to speak up now.
"Is all of this really necessary? He clearly doesn't know anything about seals. I see no reason in trying to torture something out of him that isn't there." Aina argued.
The Matriarch nodded in recognition.
"This is necessary. You fail to understand who he is, girl. His heritage is far more dangerous than you would expect."
Aina half expected her mother to leave the statement off there and the question basically unanswered, as she did enjoy being cryptic. So, Aina was surprised when she continued.
"His grandmother took everything from us."
The two had walked out a short distance from the cages, far enough to not worry about anything being heard. The Matriarch stopped as she spoke, and Aina stopped too.
"She took my sisters from me. My children, your older siblings. She took your father, and countless others from the clan."
Aina contemplated her mother's words. She, as well as everyone else in the clan, had always been told that a great tragedy fell on the Senju at the hands of an enemy. She assumed that this enemy had been another clan.
"You're telling me that the Azuchi Kingdom went to war with the clan, led by this woman?" Aina asked. She saw the Matriarch flinch at the mention of the kingdom's name.
"No… it was just her."
Aina narrowed her eyes at her mother's claim.
"She hunted the clan down, by herself? Such a feat must have taken months, if not years…"
Before Aina could speculate further, her mother's next words made her shut up.
"It all happened in a single night, against all of us."
During this unprompted conversation, Aina had crept forward until she was angled slightly toward her mother's face. Cascading shadows from the forest fell across her body, yet they failed to hide the look of horror she held. The Matriarch spoke with a somberness Aina had never heard from her before.
"Koyu Hoku was supposed to die by herself that night, 16 years ago. We had waited years for an opportunity to strike at the Kingdom, to show that we were not to be taken lightly. Their source of strength, the Cinders, had weakened over the generations. Grown too soft. It was only natural for a stronger force to rise to the top."
The story spilled from the Matriarch's lips, and Aina listened intently.
"We had received information that Koyu Hoku would be overseeing a meeting between two smaller factions with minimal defences. We prepared to enter with the intent to wipe out everyone present. Many noble lords would have to empty out their coffers just to command half of our force. In total, our numbers were nearly 60 strong… upon arriving, however, we realised that a fatal error had been made."
"It was dusk, and the meeting took place at a crossroad with no real landmarks, only noted for its location between two borders. Yet, there was no one present when we showed up in force. At least, that was what I thought at first. It was only after it was too late did I see her sitting in the middle of the crossroads."
Aina had let herself lean against a tree as she listened. Her mother stood without moving an inch.
"A barrier of incredible strength appeared without warning, trapping every Senju present. It was clear that this was a prepared encounter."
Ghosts played across her visage as the Matriarch remembered that fateful day. The strongest image she could remember was of the white-haired demon standing alone without a sword or any other weapon, facing what amounted to the entire Senju clan. On that field filled with battle-hardened Shinobi, the most dangerous one present was the unarmed Cinder.
"She tore through us effortlessly. Despite wielding no weapon, her lightning style was more impactful and deadly than any of our Ninjutsu. She ripped through our wood style like it was paper. It was hardly a fight, as we simply could not land any meaningful hit against her. We were like dolls in her grasp."
The Matriarch's usual air of superiority was replaced by a haggard appearance as she told the story.
"After hours of just trying to survive, there were only three of us left. Myself, my sister, the Matriarch at the time, and Touma, the guardsman. All of our children were dead. We were at our limits, but so was Hoku. This was the first time I had ever seen her this close to exhaustion. My sister made her last cowardly move, foolishly trying to escape the barrier. She thought her seals could negate its effect. Her burnt corpse was the only proof she was wrong."
"Since the role of Matriarch had just fallen to me, I did the only thing I could think of. I ordered Touma to sacrifice himself, which he moved to do without hesitation. That was when I made my own move. The ground had been littered with wood and corpses from the long fight, and I had hidden a final attack under one of my fallen sisters. When Touma moved in, Koyu would step over her body to strike back, which she did…"
The Matriarch went silent for several seconds. Aina didn't want to disrupt her mother, but she felt compelled to ask either way.
"And then what?"
The Matriarch turned to look at Aina. Deep in her yellow eyes, Aina saw a shadow pass somewhere beneath.
"It didn't work. She moved directly in line with the spear of wood, but right as I triggered the attack, she dodged as if she had known about it the whole time. I hid it well within the ground, even going so far as to use as little Chakra as possible. There should have been no way she could have sensed it unless she was touching it. Then, she turned and gazed right at me."
The Matriarch shivered. Even if only by coincidence, Koyu Hoku also possessed yellow eyes like herself and her daughter. However, there was no content between their appearance, as Koyu held the eyes of a predator.
"Her final moments were spent glaring at me. I only realised why after the fact. Touma stepped forward, and cut off her head with a mere swing of his blade. He made it look effortless, but in actuality… Hoku had already run out of Chakra. We had survived on the simple fact that she had nothing left to use. After her body fell to the ground, the barrier that had ensnared us faded almost instantly, as if it was never there."
The story was over with an abrupt end. The Matriarch stood for several seconds, then looked down at her daughter, who had slid down the tree she was leaning on.
"That is the legacy of that boy."
Then, as suddenly as she had stopped, she continued to walk away into the dark forest, leaving Aina behind. She did not bother to move for several hours.
—
The Matriarch kept walking, still stuck in the past. She had left out one final detail that, some days, even she wished to forget. After the fight, Touma and herself had discovered the source of the barrier. Some months prior, several Senju had vanished during a recon mission. Buried in the ground forming the perimeter were desiccated bones left in an elaborate configuration, which they discovered belonged to those Senju.
The barrier had been specifically designed against the Senju clan. What horrified Touma, had only intrigued Mutsue. That kind of knowledge could be used to accomplish so much more. And she was willing to do anything to have access to the source.
—
"We're done for now, brat. We shall resume this topic tomorrow, when you are more open to conversation."
Kotetsu had barely heard the words, only really expecting more pain at this point. It was several minutes later when he realised that she had actually left. Looking up, he glanced around the front of his cage to find that even Aina had left. However, the itchy feeling in the back of his head told him that the sword was somewhere nearby, so perhaps she had not entirely left. That was the only thing he could possibly connect the feeling to, as it had vanished and returned whenever the sword was somewhere nearby.
Taking a deep breath, Kotetsu pondered his situation. Bloody, beaten, and hungry. The hunger was present as he had not been left with food this time around. He looked at his wooden cage with resentment, wishing he could burn it all down. An absent thought floated to the front of his mind as he sat still, and he spoke out loud to no one.
"If only I could just make my Chakra do whatever I want, like I can with my fire…"
Several seconds went by.
Then, another thought made him pause.
Wasn't his fire just his Chakra?
He could only make fire when he performed the hand signs for his Ninjutsu. But after that, he could freely control the fire, for the most part.
It was such a simple principle, but he had never fully considered it. Somewhere along the way, he had assumed that Chakra needed to be formed into a technique in order to be controlled. Surely, that was how it had to work, right?
Suddenly, the itching feeling in the back of his head intensified. He suppressed the horrible thoughts as he tried to think through his potential revelation.
Having been reminded of the principles by Taisei, Chakra needed to be infused with mental energy before it could be used. However, he thought this was done through hand signs or physical seals. Since he couldn't do hand signs at the moment, and he had no clue how seals worked, he shouldn't be able to do anything. But one thing continued to bother him.
If it's mental energy, shouldn't he be able to control it? It's supposed to be his energy, after all. There was just one problem. He had no clue how controlling it would even work. Even though he thought he was having an epiphany, he had really just been leading himself on needlessly. Of course there was no way to control your mental energy. You can only control Chakra through the proven methods. He was nothing but a stupid idiot. As he considered these things, the horrible thoughts came back with force.
"You'll die."
"Focus."
"It's the only way."
"Don't move."
"...find your soul."
Kotetsu opened his eyes as something cut into his right arm. He had pulled himself into a huddle, cradling his legs between his arms. Nothing was near where he was cut. The only peculiar thing about the cut was its location. His right arm had only suffered two cuts from earlier, but a third one was now present, right along the scar made the day he found out Solomon had died.
Kotetsu backed up mentally, trying to remember what he was doing leading up to this. There was nothing present on or around him that could have cut his arm, and he was certain that the cut had not been made earlier. While the horrible thoughts washed over him, he felt an itch on his arm, and he had a sudden immense desire to scratch it.
A strange feeling fell over Kotetsu as he considered this. Looking down at the opened scar, multiple ideas ran through his head, going against what he understood, how he thought everything worked. The horrible thoughts brought forth an overwhelming image, Kotetsu slowly panning up to find the glaring eyes of a wrathful silhouette, and from their mouth rang words that shook his very skull.
"WILL IT!"
Without hesitation, he thought about widening the cut. He wanted to cut deeper with his own fingers, but kept them at distance. After focusing for a few seconds, he watched in horror and fascination as the wound opened itself, sending pain arcing up his arm. The only other sensation he felt from the interaction was a vague pressure both on and under his skin, and he latched onto it with all of his attention, concentrating on understanding the feeling.
Over the next few minutes, he experimented. He discovered that by essentially thinking really hard about doing something to his body, he could make it happen, somehow. As long as he understood how to do it physically, he seemed capable of doing it. It also appeared to be restricted to his own body at the moment, as his childish efforts to mentally snap his wooden cuffs were made in vain. He really had no idea what was going on anymore.
He felt no flow of Chakra to the areas he was thinking about, so that couldn't be the cause. However, that thought brought forth another idea, and he jumped on it immediately. He had always been able to feel his own Chakra, and so he thought about using his mental energy, or will, or whatever the hell it's called to push it. Several minutes went by. His Chakra flow began to speed up, causing him to get excited, but then the shackles disrupted their flow and he felt his Chakra crunch to a stop.
In the moment of his Chakra speeding up, he had a vague feeling similar to right after forming the hand signs for a technique. If this was what he thought it was, then he was actually creating infused Chakra somehow. Though, it seemed extremely limited.
Another thought struck him, which he considered quite lucky as he had taken a decent number of blows to the head. There were actually two thoughts, but he tried to not get ahead of himself. He guessed that the shackles were restricting one of two things. His first thought was that the shackles only activated when the flow of Chakra reached a minimum threshold. The second, was that the shackles only activated when they detected infused Chakra trying to pass them.
Focusing once again, he reached out mentally and only tried to speed up the Chakra to one arm. This by itself was a strenuous exercise, as all of his experience with flowing Chakra involved his entire body. However, a few minutes later, he got a result as the now familiar feeling of infused Chakra moved through the limb.
The Chakra in his left arm began to speed up slightly, and he felt the shackle on the arm react. The rest of his body was left untouched, with only the arm receiving backlash. The reaction resulted in him losing track of the infused Chakra. He continued to experiment with the same arm, moving infused Chakra slower or faster. He confirmed that the shackles seemed to activate every time infused Chakra attempted to flow past them, no matter how fast it moved.
With a few more tests, he also confirmed that he could flow his Chakra around individual parts of his body, even between strange regions such as his shoulders or his knees. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't flow infused Chakra past the shackles.
Kotetsu had a flash of another brilliant idea. In a moment of blind confidence, he thought that by infusing Chakra in his hands past the shackles, he could get around their restriction of hand signs. He weaved the signs for a modified fire pulse, which was what he had named the technique for exploding fire Chakra from his limbs.
Feeling through the process with more clarity than ever, he directed his will to infuse the Chakra in his hands. The process began, and for a moment, it began to work. Up until he felt the familiar pins and needles of the shackles activating, and all of his Chakra defused. He grudgingly crossed out hand signs once again.
Despite his minor setback, he still felt great success from his earlier achievements. Breathing heavily and covered in blood and sweat, Kotetsu finally grasped onto hope.
Now he only needed to figure out how to infuse a lot of Chakra without hand signs.
Then, an uneasy thought hit him.
Was this how a Shinobi normally controlled Chakra? Was he always supposed to know this? Had this been what he was missing all this time?
He considered the question, and came to one simple conclusion.
He had been an idiot.
While unsurprising, it was also the complete and utter truth. How many years had he spent playing with stupid mental images? He truly thought that his imagery was the standard method for Chakra control, that he was doing what everyone else did. He was so naive. The thing that he had managed to get lodged in his head for so long was no more than a training tool, a handicap for those just starting their path in Chakra control. He had only been hampering himself all this time.
When he thought about it, it was entirely his fault, as well. Now that he knew what he was looking for, he could recall multiple times growing up in the Hyuuga clan where his family had essentially told him what Chakra control was, yet he failed to listen. Solomon had even explained it at least once, though admittedly even his understanding seemed incomplete.
During his time among the Uchiha, he had never once bothered to ask how the others actually controlled their Chakra, only ever asking what imagery they used. Of course they would only think to tell him about their training imagery. If he had known what to ask, they likely would have explained it in great detail, while making fun of him endlessly.
Kotetsu was truly at a new low. By now, he had completely fallen apart mentally, and was on a fast track spiraling further down, brought low by his own ineptitude. If only he had listened. Then, a horrible thought of his own making sprang up unbidden in his mind's eye.
Teruo, in the hands of Sochua the monster.
Kotetsu had been powerless then, only surviving due to his rudimentary skill with Fire ninjutsu. He thought about what had been the problem that day. If only he was just a little bit stronger, if only he could push for a little more speed.
Teruo's death had already weighed heavily on his mind before. But now, he undoubtedly knew that it was all his fault.
He failed all of them.
The horrible thoughts came like rain, pounding into his skull.
"Terrible."
"I faltered."
"So weak."
Kotetsu didn't even bother trying to push them back. Nothing was clear anymore, and he had no way out.
"They were weak."
"Use your will…"
"You'll die."
"Focus."
"It's the only way."
"Don't move."
"...find your soul."
Kotetsu closed his eyes, letting the pain of the previous day wash over him. Something began to swell deep in his mind.
"Look closer."
"Find your weakness, squash it out…"
"WILL IT!"
From one second to the next, Kotetsu found himself somewhere else. Opening his eyes, he was just in time to pull his head back from a swinging staff aimed right for his head. Moving on instinct, Kotetsu dashed to his right, and-
Smack.
He fell over with a huge welt adorning his left side. The staff had swung back around faster than he could react and followed him along his dashing motion. He didn't bother to cradle his head, instead standing up to face his attacker.
"Terrible."
The commanding voice of a woman rang out. Kotetsu looked up, finding a tall white-haired lady standing before him. She wore well-fitting combat clothes, and bounced a quarterstaff in her right hand.
"Why did you fail?" The white-haired woman questioned.
Kotetsu thought for a moment.
"Because I faltered." He answered.
"Next time, don't act so weak. Face me head on. Remove my options for attack by forcing me to defend." The woman commanded.
"Yes, mother." Kotetsu answered in tone.
Suddenly, Kotetsu realised what was happening. The realisation caused him to snap awake with a jolt. He jumped straight up several feet, knocking his head on the ceiling of his cage. He fell back down to his butt, grasping the top of his head. He had widened some of the cuts across his body with the sudden movement. Trying to calm himself, he worked on his breathing, bringing it into a steady rhythm.
After bringing himself to a semblance of calm, he tried to understand what just happened. The horrible thoughts seemed to lead into what he assumed to be a memory, which he had honestly just figured to be a side effect of going crazy. But now, right after exiting the memory, he at least partially understood that it was real. Well, real in the sense that he wasn't hallucinating it by accident.
After several minutes, he noticed that the horrible thoughts had not come back after exiting the memory as well. With supreme caution, he began thinking about the memory again, and the horrible thoughts seemed to resume. Kotetsu decided to follow this rabbit hole after a moment of hesitation. With that final thought, he allowed the horrible thoughts to consume him once more.
—
Between blinks, Kotetsu found himself and the white-haired woman from earlier walking down a long arched hallway made of stone bricks. Sconces were evenly mounted along the sides, occasionally interrupted by large wooden doors. Neither spoke as they marched along. They eventually came to a stop in front of a large ornate wooden door. Kotetsu felt dread as he stared at the door.
"Your brothers and sisters all failed to succeed in the task I am about to give you, because they were weak." The white-haired woman stated matter of fact.
Kotetsu looked up at the woman as she spoke. She did not turn to look back at him.
"If I succeed, I can see them again, right?" Kotetsu asked. By this point, he was pretty sure he knew whose memory this was.
After a moment of silence, she answered.
"No. They failed. You will not."
With those words, the woman led Kotetsu into the chamber. It was circular and barren, lit by a single wall sconce, with the most glaring detail being a single stone slab in the middle large enough for someone to lay on. There were four metal restraints at the end of chains connecting down to the ground. Sitting to one side of the room was a weapons rack placed against the wall, filled with multiple long black rods standing upright.
Without saying anything, Kotetsu moved to climb up onto the stone slab, and the woman followed. She did not have to say anything to or order Kotetsu, or Kouga in this case, to do anything. He wanted to get stronger. He had been told that this was the only way to do so for him. The woman clasped a restraint each to his arms and legs, then walked out of sight for a moment. When she returned, she held a black rod in both bare hands.
"In order to survive, you must use your will…"
She stared down at the rod for a second, then looked over at Kouga.
"If you fail, you'll die."
Without any more words, she lifted Kouga's shirt with one hand, and lightly pressed the black rod against his stomach. Agony immediately took hold as the meager defence Kouga had mustered up was torn away in an instant. Any Chakra he tried to protect the area with simply disintegrated upon touching the ebony rod, and he failed to hold back tears as he groaned. A sizzling sound filled the air.
—
Kotetsu suddenly snapped out of the memory and his eyes fluttered open.
Beyond the pain, something else had happened in the memory.
He could still feel the black rod pressed against his stomach, but it didn't touch his skin. Instead, there was another force there, something he recognised as the same pressure from when he applied his will. This time, instead of simply feeling the pressure, his vision appeared to shift, like uncrossing his eyes. Looking down at his arms, a foreign yet oddly familiar sight greeted him, and it seemed as though his skin had been dumped in green paint.
After several seconds of observation, his vision began to slide back to normal, and his arms lost their green hue. There were two possible explanations for this, he reasoned. The first was that he was extremely tired, and his brain was now hallucinating some very strange things. The second, which he was more likely to believe, was that he could somehow see… something. He wasn't sure what.
He found that by focusing on the pressure he felt from using his will, the sight would return. He used this time to experiment. The first thing he confirmed was that he could not suddenly see Chakra, despite how cool that would have been. He also couldn't see the green hue all that well below his clothes. There also appeared to be light and dark variations to the green, subtly moving up and down his body. He obviously couldn't see his own head to tell how light it was. He doubted it was very bright.
Pulling off his clothes, Kotetsu inspected most of his body. He found that when he sped up his flow of Chakra to certain parts of his body, a lighter green would move to that area and move in roughly the same way as the Chakra. Though, he was kind of guessing there, since he could not accurately tell the flow of his Chakra. He could only think of one thing. He must be seeing his own mental energy, or willpower.
Hours quickly passed as he investigated this new sense. He experimented with flowing his Chakra, and found the act of seeing his own will respond to his thoughts oddly satisfying. Strangely, the green hue also seemed to hold solid shapes deeper under his skin, and they appeared to actually exist within the body itself. He guessed that they were his organs, but he had no idea why they were visible in the shape. Either way, he found that the green hue seemed to stick exactly to the shape of his body, even down to wounds.
The shallow cuts along his body were present on the green shape, though it was more like the shape simply morphed to match them. Despite the pain, he once again tested wounding himself by thinking really hard, and watched as bright green dots seemed to pull at the shape, until eventually his body began to pull apart as well. This time, the shape appeared to actually tear. This gave Kotetsu quite a few insights, as the shape was clearly determined by his body, but his body also seemed to be somewhat determined by this shape. In effect, the two were linked.
During his full body inspection, he discovered some other interesting details. He found extremely tiny, barely visible purple lines present in his shackles. There were only a few to each shackle, and after seeing them, his first answer came from a gut reaction, which he trusted. It must be the will of whoever had made the shackles, which Kotetsu would wager belonged to the Matriarch.
He had a thought.
If his will could touch and manipulate his green shape thing, then maybe it could touch other similar things like someone else's will, too. He considered this for some time as he stared down at the shackles.
"Could I…?"
He didn't know the answer to his question. But he was definitely going to figure it out.