The Incendiary

It was an odd feeling, for sure. To be stuck in a body as frail and small and yet, to have the prevalent desire to move, touch, smell, taste and talk. A part of her brain, the one which she found was astonishingly tough to keep track of, was talking about various concepts, even equations with symbols she could clearly see but not understand, and the other part just needed to sleep and felt so, so displeased and on edge. She could hear them both, but she lacked the control or grasp to completely realize them. She could remember, half assed, something about dissociation. The first part of her, the darker part which seemed to be permanently clouded, whispered to her the definition of the word she knew she understood but she just couldn't recall….

After few days-or was it months, concept of time was not quite as clear- after continuous strain and vomiting from headaches and migraines none of the shadows of loud people following her could identify, she gave up. Perhaps it would be smarter to try later. If she would even be able to.

…..

"My granddaughter is ill."

An old man, the unfortunate receiver of Emiko's anger, cradled his chin in his right hand, rubbing his slowly thinning beard. "She's not ill. She's a child. Emiko," he looked at her as if he was seeing her incredulous behavior for the first time, even though he's been through years of this, "children throw up. You should know, you've had many." The jab was cruel and uncalled for, but he was just so tired of her.

"She's not well. She's… damaged."

"She's not a kunai." Why did he even bother with reprimanding anymore?

"She needs to be fixed." Emiko was a hard woman, with sharp edges. Gommu sometimes thought that the outside reflected the inside. Glass-cutting features, weathered by the biggest rainstorms of Amekagure and by the truest winds of Sand. She would've made a fine leader stead of him, but she was just as old as he was now. But, as opposite to him, she battled age as if it was her mortal enemy, refusing to accept death's close presence.

Gommu sighed. "Where's her mother?"

"Away," was the simple and resolute answer of the self proclaimed matriarch of Fuuma clan. Gommu might've found her attractive in the past, but as her wrinkles grew, so did her vile nature. And while she was strong and cunning as a fighter should be, she was not the kind of companion his late wife Komura was, gods bless her soul.

He spat out some of too soaked chewing tobacco which he'd been mulling absentmindedly around his mouth in duration of this exhausting conversation. "Bring her to me immediately after she returns. And cut the girl some slack. She's barely a year old, she needs guidance and family love, not… whatever you are doing."

Suddenly, he wished he didn't say that. Her face was now uncomfortably close to his own… perhaps Emiko has forgotten her own age? "I am this child's grandmother. I'll see to her being strong and capable. Not you or anyone else."

"She has her mother." He pointed out docilely.

Emiko scoffed, her eyes liquid poison. "She's lost all the trust I've had in her sensibility and functioning eyesight when she fucked that Uzumaki."

And perhaps, Gomma thought, Emiko was the blind one. Because fucking that Uzumaki was the best thing Ameyuri has ever amounted to.

…..

Shit. There it was. Sunlight.

"Emiko-sama?" She had a decent grasp on the vocabulary now, even if half of it was just based on assumptions and she was being corrected more often than not. "May I play outside?" She didn't want to play. But if she was to spend one more day inside of this moving death trap, she might just bang her own head into that pretentious vase glued onto her small dresser. Why was that thing there, she would never understand. It held no flowers, but apparently it was an heirloom.

"You keep asking me the same question every day, child. And the answer is no."

She nodded, dozing off slowly. There was nothing of interest around her and the books were insanely boring. She wanted to go outside, to see the trees around with her own eyes, not just through some split in the wooden walls of her caravan. They were about to make a camp, if the overheard info was true.

Her cousin, who she didn't know the name of and didn't care for it, was drawing some blob on the floor with ink and Emiko paid the little vandal no mind as she directed her irritation at the poor toddler. "Perhaps later. Now study, Kinnosuke." She whacked her not so gently with her fan.

Kinnosuke fought the impulsive urge to correct her. It arose every time someone tried to call her that. Kinnosuke. It felt like when a principal would call you a wrong name in the school's auditorium in front of the entire school. It was shameful and wrong. She wasn't Kinnosuke, but she had no idea what she was either.

She remembered more now. Like patches of green and forests linen with trees so thick and dark she was able to get lost in them. She remembered cold winds and storms which wouldn't quiet. She remembered more than she would've liked about a short woman with graying hair and short statue, a smile permanently etched on her face like a decoration which brightened up the whole house.

She didn't allow herself to dwell. She didn't want to spend not another day in that weird frenzy of memories and fevers, alternating with violent retching as if her body was trying to forcefully empty itself of these treacherous thoughts.

She didn't know how she got in here. Her mind tried to come up with an answer, everything in between a drug-induced hallucination to reincarnation seemed equally plausible. And if she had to decide between multiple irrational choices, she'd rather not choose at all. As someone who ate up knowledge like candy, she's long ago learned to not dwell on certain things. Human minds were fickle, and easily disturbed by things beyond their comprehension. She didn't fancy herself being above these laws, there were things she just couldn't understand yet. And she might never be able to.

Her cousin smiled at her, full of rotten and disturbingly small teeth. Kinnosuke blanched, even though she knew it wasn't her fault. She was somewhat of a genetic failure, which Kinno suspected resulted from an especially wild case of inbreeding. Shit, she hoped her own mother didn't fuck her brother or something, or her current body was in for a ride.

"Grammy's right." She had this snooty, smug expression that didn't belong on her teenage face.

"Grammy can go suck a-" she muttered, not quietly enough to avoid another hit, this time a bit more painful. The duckling, not destined for a swan-like glow-up, grinned even wider.

Emiko stood up. "Your mother is going to talk to you about your behavior today. I'd been informed it's not my place to do so recently, considering she's back from her… vacation." She might as well have swallowed a rotten tomato as she was saying it, with the way her face twisted. "Till that, I'd recommend you to complete your writing exercises." She looked down on the toddler in front of her, as if mulling over something. She shook her head and scoffed . "Gods know you need them."

She picked her other granddaughter up, or was it her daughter, Kinnosuke didn't know and didn't want to know, rather unceremoniously. If the deranged teen felt anything when Emiko grabbed her bicep, digging her sharp nails into her pale skin, she didn't show it. Only after the door slammed behind them, she noticed her cousin's drawing.

Shit… Kinnosuke thought she was good looking enough to pull off a missing eye and a slashed throat, but guess even the best of the best can be wrong sometimes. She'd be thoroughly disturbed, and to be honest she wasn't all that happy about it, but her cousin's way of communicating through murder was not something out of ordinary. Although, she might wanna go and ask her about it.

…..

It was nearly sundown when Kinnosuke managed to sneak out of the van. She needed the sunlight, despite what Emiko thought, and her mother's promised visit just wasn't coming. She was greeted by a line of trees closing up on their camp, obscuring the land around them. She had no idea where they were, just that the air seemed damper, and the trees were insanely large. She sniffed again, and she could swear that there was a large body of water nearby. Even without noticing the distinct smell, the vegetation supported her claim. If she was able to feel the change in environment even stuck at this underdeveloped body, she was sure the water should be nearby. Shit, she could hear a waterfall.

She moved like a cat, careful not to disturb the careful dynamics of her tribe. Because that's what she called it, despite the way Emiko called it clan and talked about weapons and chakra and all that. She did figure out this wasn't her typical world and she wasn't just stuck in a time period she didn't understand, but in such a universe. It didn't disturb her as much as it should've. She, after all, did remember her bonding time with niece as the child dutifully recited new things she learned about chakra and elements and other magic shit from her little comic book. Shit… was she hallucinating a comic book? That's a new low.

Some of her momentary confusion must've been showing on her face when a young women came so close next to her face that Kinnosuke had a near heart attack. "Are you okay there, little cub?"

Kinnosuke blinked away the remnants of her thought. "Yes, perfectly well. Thank you."

"Whoa,"the girl chuckled, "that's a very fancy way'a speakin'" Kinnosuke was about to protest because honestly, can she really mock her way of speaking when she wasn't the one sitting in a freaking death cage with Emiko? But before she got to it, the girl poked Kinnosuke's stomach. "Ya look hungry. We made mushroom soup so…"

Kinnosuke's gaze jumped from the scrawny teenagers to a skillet in which a quite large portion of a rather suspicious looking soup was boiling. But the smell was good, she was hungry and highly doubted that anyone in her tribe would consciously want to poison her. And her weapon-mistress of a mother could not remember what day it was, let alone feed the kid. Soup sounded nice.

"Sure." Kinnosuke nodded and let herself be dragged towards the skillet and a group of boys sitting next to it in various position of comfort, stuffing their faces.

The girl starting fixing a rather large portion for Kinnosuke, hovering over the skillet like a particularly underfed pigeon would over crumbs. "These'r me brothers," she stated as she thrusted the bowl in Kinnosuke's tiny hands… why did no one care that she might not be able to eat properly at that age or even digest mushroom was beyond her. But in her tribe, childcare was an unusually neglected field. Or maybe they just didn't get into that stage of societal development yet. "Don't worry 'bout them."

The boys, who were all in various stages of age from pre-teen to late teens waved at her, and the only child who was seated on the oldest one's lap looking like a miniature king smiled at her the most perfect smile of a six year old with front teeth missing. She smiled back… she had to. Tiny people were too precious. "You are Ameyuri's brat, aren't you?" The large man asked, absently containing the youngling's wandering hands in his own, large one, when he tried a rather ambitious grab for his weapon pouch.

"Yeah," Kinnosuke mumbled, slurping down the soup from her bowl. "I am."

"Name's Kosu." The girl said, and Kinno was pretty glad to put a name to the face. She needed to know who to call for food next time. The soup, while horrifying in looks, was hella tasty. "These are Totoro, Kobu, Akata and Nagisa. The small one is Toru."

"It's a lot of people." Kinnosuke stated in between slurps. She discovered that keeping her speech to minimum gave her the best results. Probably because no one wanted to speak to a snooty brat with a large vocabulary, no matter the pride Emiko took in that certain skill of hers.

"We 'ave a busy mom." Kobu laughed, wiping his face from the remains of his dinner. "She be going places."

"Who's your mom?"

"See tha one, black hair?" he pointed to a woman chatting animatedly in a faraway part of the camp, skirt a little too short and smile a little too bright. "She makes extra money." He snorted again, uncaring of the glares his siblings were sending him.

"Ya don't talk like tha 'bout our ma." The girl scolded, her face a deep frown, "brats are here."

Kinnosuke smiled into her bowl. "I don't care. About your mom's hobby or my age."

Totoru switched his focus on her. "I heard you be getting lessons from Emiko-sama."

"Yes. My mother is rather… busy." Kinnosuke said amiably, setting the bowl aside. She truly didn't mind Ameyuri being an absent parent. She didn't quite need parenting, and she would actually pay someone to get Emiko off her back. Having one less proactive adult to worry about was something she was almost grateful for. Sure, Emiko meant well with her education and Kinno was happy about that, but she was awful with kids. And if Kinnosuke was an ordinary kid, Emiko's methods would be food for long and expensive therapy in the future. "I don't mind tho."

"She be even more tonight." Kobu challenged, something sharp in his eyes. Kinnosuke decided she quite liked this one, even if his speech manner was questionable.

Before someone could smack some sense into him or glare him into submission, Kinnosuke piped up. "what's tonight?"

Kobu leaned forward, smirking, and whispered. "The attack on Uzushio."

As Kinnosuke froze, the rest of the family broke into a shouting match. But she couldn't listen to their warnings and talks about sensitive information when she was having troubles processing what the fuck was actually going on. Uzushio, from what she remembered, was a long lost village. Where in time period was she again? What was going on? She knew they were partly thieves, partly a mercenary clan, but destruction of a village? Full of people, kids, elderly? Was there a reason, were they in the middle of a war or was this a simple every day event? Cause Kobu sure as hell didn't look bothered.

Only a gentle touch broke her out of her thoughts. "Can Toru stay in yer van? Issa strong van, stronger than mine and family's." Kosu asked and damn, did she look desperate.

"You are all going?" Kinno blinked.

"All who can hold a weapon goes. Few stay in to guard the brats and supplies." She said, and Kinno absentmindedly thought of the girl's upbringing. They clearly neglected her education and she wondered if it was because of her mother's questionable choices or because she was female.

"Are you going?"

"Yes." Kosu sighed.

"Are you scared?"

"Yea.

The thought saddened Kinnosuke. Kosu probably didn't know how to hold a weapon, she was young and she gave her food. These were good reasons as any to try to not let her die. "Can you stay here? Guard me and Toru? 'Stead of Emiko?"

"Hunny." She hugged Kinnosuke briefly and then stood up, gathering all the remaining supplies and bowl to wash them in one of the nearby water sources. "I am a good fighter."

"Good as a ninja?" She pressed on. Why wouldn't she just choose the safer option?

"We are all ninja here too, ya know?" And with that, she left.

Kinnosuke stood up too, the oldest brother tailing her. She didn't know rats ass about how her tribe worked, still. Kosu looked like the proper image of a neglected female daughter in a world full of strong men, and yet she chose to fight as if she knew how to. Perhaps even the most neglected here were better than the others and truly, who cared about her pronunciation if she could kill a man. Being cutthroat and strong was more valuable for a mercenary than language skills. Kinnosuke smiled a little at that. She loved different, she loved difficult and she really loved people in their natural habitat.

She opened the door and let Totoro put his youngest brother on her futon. He patted the young girls shoulder and smiled. "Imma protect my sister. Don't worry, little one." He then crouched to look at her. "How old are ya, anyway?"

"Dunno. Two or three. Don't remember the date." Kinnosuke shrugged, plopping on the van's floor in thought.

"Ya smart for a young one." He said as he exited the van, sliding out and closing the door soundlessly.

Smart… if she were smart, she wouldn't be sitting like this right now, waiting like a damn dog. She wouldn't be so confused and she would be able to identify the nagging feeling in the back of her head that told her this was important.

But she wasn't smart, so she chose to go to sleep before she could give herself another headache. She didn't even notice Emiko pushing her cousin inside the van in haste.

And she didn't notice the smell of fire burning as the sun begun to rise on the horizon and morning fog started setting in. She didn't notice until it was too late.

...

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(So, how do you like it so far?)