The Lost Chapter of a Lost Woman

It had started at what seemed like an ending of a chapter. Her father had noticed it before she had even if she bothered to. That's not where her mind was at. It was a blur as she recalled the events. He had been gone from everywhere; Kenshin hadn’t been there in the morning when she woke up. Not in her room, not her house, not the whole village; she could not find him anywhere. It wasn’t until much later, perhaps a year, that she even learned Kenshin had defected from the village entirely that night; but in those first couple weeks that's not what she was thinking.

The memories of those first couple weeks were burned into her mind in a simple, abbreviated succession: pregnancy test, the plot, and a marriage. How long did the actions themselves take place? What was their chronology? How long did they all last? A week. They all took place as fast as her first week after he left did.

Her father insisted on a pregnancy test. It was unheard of in their family for her, someone who was supposed to take her vows to the church and her religion so seriously, so whole-heartedly with such blind devotion, to subject themselves to a pregnancy test. Even worse, it came back positive. She remembers it like yesterday; pacing back and forth in the townhouse she lived in within it’s bathroom as she waited for the urine-based stick to cure and produce a negative result. She fretted because she wanted to be cool and collected but she was nervous about what she was going to do if it was not. Then she checked it; the little white oval to the right of the timidly-dampened cloth showed two lines with one more defined than the other. Genevieve had to grab the box from the bathroom counter and flip it around a few times to find the chart to even define her result’s meaning. Pregnant. Two lines for this test? They meant positive. So that meant she was pregnant. The realization was heavy and studded as she robotically dropped the box into the bathroom trash can, took a few unconscious steps back until her back hit the closed bathroom down and slid down it’s cold surface until she was sitting on the floor and her knees were level with her head. As she let this new reality seep in, she forgot everything about herself; she forgot her name, she forgot her age, she forgot her clan. Her world began to drain color into hues of greys as they took sound with them. They took everything from the drip of the water faucet down to the bugs skittering outside. Her age quietly arose back to the surface of her mind; eighteen. Even that was drowned out by her feelings amplifying and she felt her face grow hot. She pulled her knees together and put her forehead against them as she became overcome with terror and guilt.

What was she going to do? She was terrified of what was going to happen because if this was true… it changed everything but then the heaviness lifted with that thought. The lone ‘what if’ of this being a lie, of this not being true. She looked up at the clock in her bathroom to check the time and tried to remember if she had to go on a mission today or not. She didn’t recall anything and she forced herself to her feet and put all of her negative feelings into that little life-altering-stick before she definitely and aggressively chucked it into the trash. Tossing open the bathroom door she wiped away the makings of a tear and lifted her head, pulled on her coat after grabbing it from the small couch in her home and left her house. Her next mission? The store. As soon as she entered she grabbed a little red-hand basket and bee-lined for the feminine hygiene section, stopping in front of her new enemy:

A small, single-foot wide collection of pregnancy tests that spanned three middle-section shelves, tucked away like a secret meant to be forgotten between maxi pads and ‘fashionable print’ adult diapers. They were many and Geni was only one, timid shinobi; but she felt empowered by the fact that even compared to the largest of the boxes, she was no less than ten times its size… but the options were plentiful. She spotted the one her father had gotten her and glanced at it’s price tag sheepishly; 3000 ryo. “Oh my god.” She whispered under her breath to herself. Who pays 3000 Ryo… for a pee-stick? Well, obviously, her father; the box proudly displayed the small icon of a medal and their calendar year that identified it as the best option available. In her opinion? It should have also had a medal for the most expensive as well. The other options were lacking but varying in price and though she wanted too, she refused to pick them up and opted to stay with her back pressed against the jutting shelves of the aisle behind her. There was a 100 Ryo option that seemed like the cheapest in price and quality, another promised fast results at the staggering price of 1500 Ryo, another promised a lack of confusing symbols to determine the result at the nauseating price of 2000 ryo, another promises results not in symbols but lettering for accuracy at the wallet impact of 100 Ryo and another promised to identify optimal ovulation times. The last one she didn’t need since, if she truly was pregnant, obviously she had been ovulating. Ridiculous. Geni sighed in frustration and decided to step away and digest the information for a moment before deciding on something and she wandered about the store to grab a snack or two and put them in her meager hand basket before returning to the aisle. She stared at them a bit more before she abandoned them all together and checked out with her snacks and no test in tow, going back to her house and setting the bag down before she picked up the phone and punched in the phone number for her parent’s house, waiting as the phone rang. Then her mother picked up. She stiffened as fear overcame her again, “Hi mama… could I… Could I talk to dad?” This time instead of the usually condescending demand as to why Geni didn’t want to speak to her, the matriarch simply passed the phone over to her father, “Hi, Daddy.”

“Are you ok?” He asked and she bit her lower lip as she tried to think of a way to explain her predicament, “...what’s wrong?”

“I…” She took a deep breath and decided to just blurt it out just to get it out of the way, “I took the test and it came out positive but I… I think it might be false. I’m having a hard time deciding on another one.” She said and her father clicked his tongue on the other end of the line,

“Ok, I’ll be over in a little bit.” He said and she hung up and as always, he kept his word and came over. She explained her anxiousness and nervousness about the situation and he listened to every word and then asked a question she never thought she would be asked, “Will you keep it?” Her father asked and she hesitated. She had never thought of… the alternate option of terminating the pregnancy. “The clinic brochures say you’re able to do so up to-”

“No.” Geni said firmly and her father paused, “I… I don’t want to do that just because it’s easy… It’s not right.” She said and pulled her hands from the table where she set them and into her lap, looking at them. She was shaking but she tightened her hands into fists to try and stop the involuntary movement, “I’m terrified and I don’t know what is going to happen but I need to be responsible. I need to hold myself accountable for this; I mean, one of us has to.”


“I think… I think he would have came back if he was interested in me…” She said as tears began to steadily roll down her cheeks, jump from her skin and fall into the fabric of her clothes to vanish from existence with only deposits of salt to remember them by. “I thought… I thought he liked me.” She choked as her father stood up, and she tried to watch him through her blurred gaze as he came around the small table to her side and stood in front of her, “I don’t understand.” She said as she struggled to even speak and her throat tightened while he knelt down to her, “Why…But I… I thought…” She sniffed before the tears took over and her father’s words echoed in the empty house,

“Sometimes, we project onto people the things we want so that we can see what we want to see.” These words echoed in her mind even after he left the home and she moved to her small couch and spent the duration of his absence crying and sobbing dejectedly on this same piece of furniture until her father came back with a bag full of more emotionally destructive little sticks like the one that had told been positive earlier. There were ten, no, maybe twenty different boxes and when she asked why her father responded absently, “Ah, that’s because I panicked.” It was reassuring to hear this ran in her family. After her crying had come to a stop a heavy headache occupied her thoughts and an even heavier wave of tiredness crashed upon it like waves against a rocky shore. She sighed and reluctantly submitted herself to the task of using every little boxes’ contents. An hour later, they now had twenty-one positive tests ranging across five different brands. “I told you; a wolf’s nose doesn’t lie.” She put her head in her hands.


The plot? Geni was merely a silent partner in that as her Father did all the work. He explained to her about a creature called a brown-headed cowbird. It was a bird that, instead of building a nest, would lay its eggs in other bird’s nests; the cowbird’s eggs were larger and had a thicker shell, oftentimes their eggs crushed other eggs when they were put in a nest and the other bird would raise the child as their own. However, Geni wasn’t bothering to hear what her father was saying discreetly and instead demanded, “Daddy. What the fuck does a cowbird have to do with me being pregnant?” Now, she knew her father’s intent as it happened. When her father asked her as he had not seen Kenshin before, what the boy’s hair color was she spoke up and said ‘black’, remembering that at one point it had been black, long before he came to be what he was now.

Her father took a whole day to make arrangements and the next day? She was hastily being sized for a wedding kimono. She was once more, terrified, as her father constantly reassured her that he had done everything he could- “I don’t understand why I’m being married so quickly.”

“The faster we marry you off, the better the chances of your new husband not realizing that the children you’re carrying aren't his.” He said simply and she shuddered at the coldness of his matter-of-fact tone and attitude to the situation and the wedding itself was remembered by this memory piece. The next memory was her seeing who her husband was when she was sitting next to him; it was Usagi. The banker that she had seen a few times. This was followed by them having the normal newlywed night including the sex to seal the arrangement; there probably wasn't a time in her life she had felt more used and less human than that.

The first year of marriage was… hard. He was ecstatic to be a father and she was still grappling with the fact that she had to take these steps; these obscure, hard steps to make sure that she and her children were well looked after. He had a pretty nice house; the hallways and the rooms were brimming with unsettling silence and unfamiliarity no matter day or night. He assured her that once the children- twins- came, it would seem smaller… but still, it was a massive house with enough hallways and rooms for her to get lost in. Usagi didn’t seem to talk much until he was impassioned by a line of conversation; then he never shut up. Perhaps the first week or month she woke up in the middle of the night to check if he was still there and when he was, she would just as easily return to sleep. It was… comforting to see him in the morning.

The more she saw him… the more she grew scared. Slowly, agonizingly the fear that it was all a lie grew and grew inside of her; that she was lying to him. That he was plotting and lying to her in some way by continuing to be a genuinely good husband and making sure to sleep next to her through the night. She began getting light-headed at first and dizzy, no matter how much she ate or drank- “You’re so pale… are you alright?” Usagi asked and she nodded but it happened right at dinner; He was sitting down at their medium-sized table, meant to house more but his large home held just the both of them for now. The food had been laid out already and she had gotten up to grab something before she collapsed completely. The next thing she knew, she was waking up to look at a white ceiling with no recollection of where she was or how she got there. The first thing she heard was a familiar voice, “Good morning.” She looked to her right where the voice came from and she saw her husband, Usagi, in a chair at her bedside. Her heart wanted someone else to be there but who else should be there aside from her husband? He smiled at her, his long black hair pulled back into a high pony-tail and only bits of his face-framing bangs that didn't make the cut to be pulled into the ponytail remained, “Well, its evening; but how are you feeling?” When she asked what happened he voiced, “The doctor said you passed out from exhaustion, he thinks it might be stress-related since it came on so suddenly... You’re in the hospital right now, you’ve been resting here a couple days.” She shot up into a sitting position and almost immediately a wave of vicious nauseous and dizziness overcame her as he jumped up from his chair to gently grab her arm, “Hey, don’t move so fast-” “Why are you here?!” She demanded with irritation and then followed it up with, “I can’t afford this.” He pushed her back to lay down in the bed,

“You haven’t eaten, the doctors said you might not feel well when you woke up; come on, lay back down.” Usagi coaxed gently and she reluctantly complied, “I’m here because I love you and it’s my job to take care of you when you’re ill.” She stared at him sadly and he smiled, “Just… take it easy. They’re running tests on your blood right now, I think you’ll be discharged soon enough...I’ve taken care of the bill already.” Why was he still here? Why was he being so kind to her? She looked at him and searched his eyes and face for some ulterior motive as he sat back down and smiled at her, “May I, um… call you Evey?” He asked and she blinked in confusion, “I don’t think we’ve had a chance to properly talk and connect since we got married… so I thought maybe having nicknames would be a way to do that.”


“Yes, but you’ve been guarded and defensive with me since we got married. You weren’t like that before when we were getting to know each other.” He recounted with a bit of whimsy, “I was really happy and excited when your father chose me as your marriage candidate but…” He looked at her, “I feel like something happened to you and since then you haven't been as friendly and open with me. Thank you for agreeing to marry me but I wanted this marriage to be more than just surface level…” Her heart sank but he reached over and grabbed her hand, “If you need support, I’m here for you, and if you need more profound and professional help… I know there is a stigma of being a shinobi and that being mentally unsound means you are unwell, but I’m here for you and if that's what you think you need then let’s go it together until you can do it by yourself. I don't know what’s been stressing you out so bad but please just… please trust me and rely on me more than you have been lately.” She smiled and thanked him and spent the rest of the day just… talking to him. Even when she was discharged she watched as he took over speaking to the doctor and learning what he could, taking the paperwork they provided to him and reading it attentively when they got home. He proceeded to spend the next couple of weeks watching her like a hawk. He was a bit overprotective but it wasn’t meant with malice; more like he was watching to make sure she was taking care of herself and he was doing his utmost to ensure he was helping where he could. He even cooked a couple nights; granted he was a horrendous cook who used salt the same way a professional five-star resort chef would uses rosemary to garnish a dish, and the first attempts at them cooking together resulted in terribly salty food, burned pans and a kitchen fire they are able to put out before it damaged the house too badly, they had fun. They laughed and she smiled. She was enjoying herself and the thoughts of Kenshin and where he could be, the unease of being alone while he had vanished and left her with a pregnancy, and the uncertainty she felt were all wrinkles in her mental space that Usagi was patiently soothing out and erasing. Even as they sat in their blackened, half-burnt kitchen, eating some restaurant take out at the table and she apologized, he had a better, more positive outlook on the situation than she had allowed herself in months. “Ah- Well, I always thought this kitchen was a bit dated, now we can just remodel.” He laughed light-heartedly and she smiled at him thoughtfully while he busied himself with eating. She had forgotten how to think about that. She had forgotten who she was and now… now she stood in a mental space where she didn’t know who she was anymore.

He didn’t make plans without her; even for the kitchen remodeling when he came home with blueprints he had picked up after work and after a long talk with a contractor, he laid them out fully so she could see and comment. We’ll put a kitchen in the middle so that we don't burn the walls next time.” He said jokingly and she chuckled as she absently ran a hand over the white-outlines on the blue paper. Her husband… no… Usagi, had put so much thought into the layout as he babbled and rambled over what he was thinking when he was talking everything over with the contractor and where his mind had been at. It was such a contrast. When had Kenshin babbled and rambled with such openness like this? This type of thing made her feel… warm and fuzzy and guilty. Nothing made her feel so disgusting as the day she presented a positive pregnancy test to him- “I’m going to be a dad?” He exclaimed happily and he was so excited. Everything about him shone with warmth and acceptance and love. Usagi immediately called his family doctor and giddily set up an appointment for her to get looked over and make sure she was in the best health possible and he ranted about how the moment his break at work the next day started, he would go and buy as many baby-rearing-based books as he could carry. He wasn’t fucking lying either when he came home with four bags of them. Still, she spared time from him and his overwhelming and almost smothering love to speak to her summon about this, in private.


“You act as if you have never lied before.” Then the Nameless one lowered his head towards her and she reached out, putting her hands under the warmed scales of his chin as their eyes met. He always made her feel so sure of herself and for a long time she pictured him as an embodiment of her courage, her strength, a physical representation of the person she was on the inside but she never thought of being or growing stronger herself. Geni had believed for so long that in those deep, radioactive green eyes, there would be some sort of power that would change her the more she relied on him, the heavier she leaned on him, the deeper she trusted him that would just change her from one form to the next… Now she even doubted that. She doubted their connection and she doubted herself more than ever now. Geni thought in these silent moments of the dead of night with the trees gently rusting around her with a soft, bated breeze that she could never be a woman who was strong of character as she was of strength. Geni had tried to be strong but even then she had fallen behind and lacked and while her old teammates grew organically and naturally like weeds in summer rain; resilient and defiantly reaching for the sun, she felt that she remained stunted. She had plateau even. Was there a way to get past this? “Yes. There is.” He whispered to her and she rested against his snout; gently backwards scraping her nails along the dark scales that glistened dully in the moonlight of a waxing moon. “You’re never going to be like me; I am old and weak. You need to be better… you have always had the opportunity but you have been too afraid to take it. Now? You have more than enough reason.”


“Yes; but not just any mother. A dragon mother cherished her brood in a way animals seek to replicate and humans can never rival.” Nameless said, “You can’t be weak anymore, child; You don't have the luxury of your ragdoll around to keep you safe; you need to be your own keeper.” Geni wanted to oppose but when it became a shared thought he spoke, “What would happen if someone discovered their lineage… and acted upon it?”


“These are not any babies, child; That ragdoll was never liked, never cherished; he was so twisted and broken he didn’t know warm from you even when you freely gave it. Humans are like wendigos; their hunger for power turns them to cannibalism and then they are forever changed and starved, eating and devouring with no true end.” The Nameless one lowered his head and caught her gaze, “They won’t look at your children as babes if they know their lineage; they would look at them as omens of the apocalypse; horsemen in flesh and blood form.” She watched him and listened while her mind tried to give feeble, weak attempts to disprove him but- “Children rise from the legacies of their parents; these ones you have will be known as monsters before the world around them even has a face to put to a name. They would be killed while they slept, whole you rested, their jars of baby food in the stores poisoned before you had a chance to change it with the hopes that the deaths of your children would outweigh the cost of dozens of other children. The sooner your children could be killed, even if you carried them in your belly, or you were killed in the process, would be worth the corruption of morally correctness if they stopped those children from reaching fruition. From reaching their potential.”


“You know that answer; you are too scared to say it aloud however, so I will do so; From tonight on, believe they are his. Believe there is no question they are your husbands. The faster you convince yourself, the more steadfast your beliefs, the more people around you will believe you… after all… why would someone like you lie to them? You’re so upstanding, aren't you, child?” The last sentence was coated with sarcasm and as detestable his viewpoint he was right. “Now… is the time for you to use your religion. Pray, beloved; pray they have dark hair like your husband. Pray their skin is like yours; pray they have your eyes or your hair.” She stared up at him unsurely and he concluded, “Ask your higher power that if they have any love for you; they will make these children look like you and your husband so that they can have some type of normal life.” She lowered her head as she tried to keep her emotions steady, “Pray that you are able to keep this secret as long as you can until the day comes when you can tell it to him; or to his tombstone and pass peacefully, knowing you’ve done your best.”


“What the fuck about him?” He quipped moodily, “Do you see him here, giving you ideas? How attentive he is, being here beside you and working with you on this… oh wait, he isn’t.” Geni looked down sadly and her summon sighed, “Genevieve; By you doing this? You are honoring him the best you can by keeping these children alive.” She dismissed him and went back to the home she shared with Usagi who looked up at her and smiled, “Did you have a good talk with your summon?” He asked and she nodded, smiling. The appointment went well; but she was having twins. She kept her mortification and horror at the news inward since this was the concrete confirmation of it. Usagi was excited; so excited he babbled about making baby shower announcements and setting up a baby shower. “What is a baby shower?” Nameless asked and when she explained the vague aspects of it he huffed, “Humans are ridiculous; a party because you are pregnant? As for dragons, we continue by watching the brood while the mother rests and the father hunts.” That would be nice if he could even comfortably fit into the streets. Or their house’s courtyard but he couldn't. However she liked listening and watching Usagi giddily plan ‘with her’, it was mostly one-sided but he had made lists, filled spiral notebooks with ideas, sketched out designs of mural options to paint on the nursery walls. Murals. He wanted to paint fucking murals on the children’s bedroom wall, one idea even included some type of hyper-realizing detailed ocean scene that would look like the doorway was parting the seas to reveal the children’s room. Including a sandy-beige carpet change to their room’s floor. It was all elaborate, well-thought-out even if they were a little over-the-top for her. She reigned in his creativity with her commentary and thoughts but even as the months went on and she was getting bigger and bigger, carrying the children, she noticed something about herself.
Not in a negative way, and not in the obviously physical way she was growing but she felt herself changing as a person and she noticed that she thought of Kenshin less and less. Her husband commented that she was more opened and receptive to him now and he in turn was attentive and vigilant to her needs; burning the first trimester, a doctor has informed her husband that she was a high-risk pregnancy because of her weight and height and not only did he take it the completely wrong way, he damn near had a nervous breakdown thinking they would lose the children until another nurse clarified it only mean she needed to be careful about her health. So, She stopped doing missions- which she had really done while she was mentally struggling to grasp that she was pregnant. She reluctantly stayed home and snapped at Usagi during bouts of moodiness and irritation with his seemingly overbearingness. Pregnant was rough for her; she became nauseous at her favorite foods and would throw up at even the distant whiff of sweets. She cried. Constantly. Geni cried profusely about things she would normally, never bother to give a second thought much less spend an hour and a half crying about. From having to wake up in the morning to having to brush her teeth at night she became emotionally exhausted over her own freaks outs and bouts of hysterics, whether it was crying or just yelling. Poor Usagi handled it as well as he could; but what could he really do when he was the victim of her woes, pain and suffering when she was crying hysterically about him throwing a bag in the trash rather than the recycling and making a catastrophic situation of it, blowing the mere forgetfulness into some ballistic, unrealistic attempt of a no-good-Uchiha like him- her husband- at destroying the entire village and the planet by throwing a used and holey grocery bag from the supermarket, into the trash rather than the damn recycling bin? They proceeded to have a week-long fight; but ‘they’ was not Usagi and Geni, it was ‘Geni, her baby blues and her hormones’, who had a one-sided fight while Usagi stayed a room away and stayed quiet.

Eventually she calmed down on the crying and her temper took the wheel next, taking a sharp left here and a sharp right there, flicking and crashing into damn near every situation as she just unconsciously meandered through life, not knowing how vicious she was being or how toxic she was. Once more, Usagi tried to do as much damage control as he could possibly do when he wasn't working; then he came up with a plan that kept her mostly contained. He set up renovations around his inherited, massive estate of a ‘family home’. First the kitchen, then the living room and family room, then the master bathroom and their bedroom, then additions to their garden. While the workers were working and doing their job, the commotion not only pissed off Geni’s already riled up pregnancy hormones; they kept her distracted and occupied. They kept her from going out in the world as often as she would without the bedrest because she began investing in watching them while home-bound. In the short-term and during that time she was livid how Usagi could be ‘so selfish, so insensitive’ for doing construction work in the home while she was on bedrest but looking back at it she was grateful for his planning. However, it also left her with a lot of time to herself to think, to process, to reflect and grow on her actions. She had been childish and sheltered so she was comfortable with standing in the background; she had never liked it but she had been complacent in her position. That was something she wanted to change. There were women that were stronger even if they were quiet and that meant one thing to Geni in her bedridden state; she didn’t have to be loud to be strong. Even Nameless, who had seemed so strong and all-powerful, wasn’t all the strong outside of his roar. She wanted to be more than just her ‘roar’ or her words or her kindness; she wanted to be strong. If she could just breathe strength then that would encourage her children to be strong as well, wouldn't it? She waited for her husband to get home to bring the topic up to him:


“No.” She said firmly, “I want to talk about this now.” Later on she realized why he was trying to gently deter the situation. She wasn't in the right mind frame; her mind was addled with presetting post-partum depression and ‘baby blues’ was seeping in like gas from a turned on but not lit gas burner. She was half mad and he meant well but in that moment, he responded in a way she didn’t want him to. She wanted a yes. Without conditions, without thought, without resistance and strings, she wanted that type of unconditional yes.

“I don’t want you returning to being a shinobi, Evey, I want you here with the children for a little while until you recover.” Usagi said directly. Rationally. Matter-of-factly. Her response? It was fair and appropriate in her mind, at the time. She flipped the whole box in a huff of a temper tantrum, throwing their ordered food on their plates across the mid-renovated floor and she screamed at him for not giving her what she wanted. Hoping it would force him to change his mind- “What’s done is done, I put in the request to your superiors the moment I found out you were pregnant, so that we would have a year’s time for them to get back to us; I hear paperwork in a timely fashion isn't a shinobi strong suit.” He said coolly and looked at her, sitting atop the empty tile box he precariously used as a chair, “When you pass an evaluation that allowed you to return back to the field, after the children are born, I will even be open to the idea of you returning. Until then; No.” She ranted and raved incoherently to him for the rest of the night and the next day and he stayed quiet. As if she hadn’t been unbearable enough then they were blessed with summer; the sweltering heat didn't help her mood but rather it melted her composure and her self-esteem; she didn't feel desirable, she wasn’t happy, she was miserable, she was spiteful and she was lonely. These emotions were also dictated by the heat and swirled together like neapolitan ice cream on the summer sidewalk. When she looked in the mirror she didn’t see a strong woman with unique hair. She saw a pale, tired, bloated woman looking back with purple circles for under-eye bags and greasy, darkened tendrils for hair. It's not that she liked being filthy or a mess or unbathed; she just couldn’t rise to the occasion, she summoned her motivation and it felt like shaking a can of soda with just enough liquid left in it that the lip kept it from reaching the tongue. She left like the empty air remaining. Her husband weathered her storms however and helped her in when needed; she struggled again with the thought of him. She couldn't tell if he was an ideal or he was a figment of her imagination; whether she liked him or liked the idea of him… or worse, she liked the aspect of not being alone. Then one day, he came home with pamphlets; a sundry of tri-folded, summer-inspired leaflets in flashy-yet-catchy neon colors that he handed to her. Some were work-outs for expecting mothers, others were yoga glasses, a parenting class, a class to make sure the dad was prepped to also weather the first few months of life- and a safe-sex pregnancy class. However she took the worst and ran with it in her mental state,

“Oh, so you think I’m fat?” She demanded of him as he was taping paint samples from Nin-Depo to the master bedroom wall, to help them decide on a color story and a color and he paused a moment to look at her attentively as she waved the pamphlets around, “It’s because of the bedrest!” He put the last one up with a satin-finish piece of tape and turned to her,

“You just seem so unhappy lately and you are sighing a lot more recently…” Usagi answered calmly, “I got permission from the doctor to give you those; he thinks those ones will be best with your condition-” She snapped at him a harsh reminder that there was a sex-class pamphlet too and he gave her a flirty smile, “Ah- yes, that’s for us; I wanted to make sure there was no harm to the babies-”

“What makes you think I’m attractive enough to even be interested in that?” She demanded and she mentally quipped that the sentence didn't make any sense but it was too late; she had said it and she chose to storm off rather than try to hear him out. Eventually she came back around to talk when the food came and he didn’t say anything at first before he began talking,

“I think before we got married, you didn’t pay much attention to me, Evey.” He said bluntly and she kept eating but listened as he voiced, “Just because you didn’t; doesn’t me I did to. I think… the woman sitting in front of me today, is more beautiful than the one from yesterday and I think that tomorrow? You’ll be more beautiful than today.” She stopped eating and looked at him, “I am very much attracted to you; I know you are struggling right now, and maybe you don't feel beautiful or deserving; but never once am I doing to think as badly about you as you think about yourself right now.” She tried to go back to eating before he hit her guilty conscious, “Honestly, you’ve been an absolute nightmare to deal with lately and we fight over everything; but I am able to sleep at night because I know it’s not you and you wouldn't outright say these things to me. I thought maybe… if we got a little more sexual, you would open up more and be more comfortable with me…” He reached across the fridge box that still served as their temporary table and held her hand, “Intimacy is not always about sex; its about the trust and I think… I think we need to work on that.” He pulled his hand away and left the decision up to her. Still, he slept in a separate room and in the morning ate breakfast with her and went to work. She called around to the places after reading the booklets and told Usagi she set up appointments for the parenting classes, an exercise class and the sex class, blushing as she did so and explained that despite her behavior… she did want to have a better relationship with him. The first few sessions of the classes- all of them- were hard to be open to but in the end, the rest of the summer was spent under cold showers. To clarify, they shared cold showers so that she wasn't dying of heat.

With the exception of the time she spoke to him, she didn’t summon Nameless for the duration of her pregnancy. Not until after the twins were born. However, that did not mean their connection was severed; As summons could be pulled to their summoner, so could summoners be pulled to their summons. Nameless was eager to pull her to Mt.Shinsora; but he would not pose a danger to the children by doing so while she was pregnant. He was not keen on her coming after the children either; he later decided to perhaps not bring her all together. How was he spending this time? Pouting. He was huffing and puffing, pouting. He was restless, in a sense; he wanted to be present for the birth, to assist in the caring of the children but he feigned patience. They both knew she would bring them and present them to him; it was only a matter of time. Regardless, he was impatient. He wanted her to be recovered quickly but it seemed even the recovery would take some time. He didn't want time, he didn’t want excuses and she wanted to get back to him as soon as possible; and then she gave birth to the twins. It was not an easy process and the labor itself for the both of them was sixteen hours but at last they were in the world; Usagi made sure to proudly sign their names.

Sumire Uchiha was the first between the twins; born with a full head of jet-black hair, her mother’s steel-blue eyes and fair skin. Shinichi Uchia was second, born with the same full head of mussed, jet black hair, steel-blue eyes and a beauty park under the corner of his left eye. While Sumire huffed and puffed, Shinichi said nothing; he was breathing, nothing was wrong with him he just didn't say anything. She stayed as long as she needed to and Usagi was anxious to get them all home. By the time she stepped foot in the door, all of the renovations were done. A team of maids was even in the house, cleaning everything, someone in the kitchen cooking; she had never seemed to worry about getting by with Usagi as she had when she lived alone. She had recalled her father mentioning something about him having a lot of money on his marriage application to even be a candidate but she didn't pay him no mind. He was so excited when he brought the babies into the house, into their room- “Tomorrow, I’ll open their savings accounts.” She furrowed her brow in confusion but saved it for when they ate dinner after she had fed the children. That's when she asked to know about the finances; she didn't even know what his job title was- “OH, well right before we got married I got a promotion, so I’m the vice president of my bank’s company.” He said and thought about it, “If you are worried if we will ever be in a position where we will be poor; don’t. I make a lot of money and outside of the utilities and health insurance for you and I and the babies; I don’t really spend a lot.” Then he divulged that he had been left a couple modest properties by his parents who had passed when he was young, including the family estate which was paid off for. He had no outstanding debts and they were close enough to his job for him to walk, so there was no need for any type of transportation. Of course he did have the time to gamble or drink; but he, instead, came home and really only stayed out if he mandatory had to and social drank with his coworkers and boss; however, he would come home buzzed time to time but never drunk so he could hold his liquor- “I don’t like the taste though.” He admitted, “And with all the risks involved, I don't like gambling either; it doesn't make any sense to me to just hope on a one-in-a-million chance when I can easily make so much more money by, say, investing in real estate or buying the majority stock of a product.” Then he proceeded to passionately talk about stocks and math. Geni smiled and tended to the babies but other than that she had no idea what in the hell he was talking about, honestly.

He was happy and passionate and excited to share these things with her so she listened. The next months were hard after their birth; they couldn't be left alone. The twins had to be in the same bed or else they would both scream; as expecting parents they had set up a crib for each of the children but more often than not, they found sticking both of them in one crib ceased their screaming. Gradually their personalities began to show as she weaned them from breastmilk to formula milk. Usagi had never been an entirely religious man; but those children became his religion. As they grew their steel-blue eyes remained and so did their hair; Shinichi remained quiet and Sumire became the bossy one. You had to lay her within inches of Shinchi or else she would scream at the top of her lungs until she was moved closer or Shinchi himself crawled over to her. He gradually gained the strength to go farther distances but in the end, when he got to her, he would flop over her and lay his head on her stomach and she would stop crying. They held hands when they slept. Usagi liked dressing them up in their little onesies and always tried his best to make them both match, he even helped make bottles and attentively changed diapers. He loved those babies and changed his hours at work so he could spend more time at home; as a father, she could not have asked for better. However, as it had before, once more the emotions and negativity of the fact that these children aren't his and he was seamlessly raising them, arose and began to annoy her once more. It sniffed at the edges of her well-meaning, and as the days passed it grew courageous to give a few timid licks to test the waters and to see how far it could go while she tried to ignore it. Then began the nibbling and gnawing, no more like teething. The more she watched Usagi interact with them and bond with them, the more powerful this nagging grew and soon it began to rip off pieces from her, blatantly chewing them with no care for manners, no need to cover or close its mouth as it messily chewed and shredded what it had pulled off. What pieces fell tried their best to re-mesh with the places where they had been pulled but the recovery was a drop in the bucket compared to what had been lost. He quietly had a favorite even though the baby books screamed for indiscrimination or favoritism; Shinichi was his favorite with his cool demeanor and almost silent existence.

Shinchi relied on Sumire as they grew up; when she cried, he cried in unison. He was… a bit off-putting because he was always seemingly staring at you; but he was observing. Always observing. Like his father, he was calculating and you had to keep guarded movements or he would figure something out. He had watched Usagi come into the house, watched the way he locked the doors and the process he did to do so and went to find his sister who he pulled with him to go to the door; she rarely denied him. Then they sat down in front of the door, babbling and playing with toys. Or so it seemed. After five minutes Geni heard the front door open and went to see what was going on to find her quiet child walking over the threshold in his footed, light-blue, duck-themed onesie- “Excuse me.” She called and he stopped, looking back and his smile was unsettling. It was wide, manic and deeply thrilled; a teeth-forward version of Kenshin’s smirk. Geni crossed her arms over her chest as Sumire sat inside the entryway of the house, looking at her then at her brother. “Making a great escape?” Shinichi turned to her and gave an unnervingly dark giggle and nodded his head, then Sumire said,

“Home, chi, home!” Sumire said as she sniffed; the beginnings of a twin melt down from the distance. Geni watched as her son looked at his sister and the darkness melted away and he walked back into the house and plopped down next to her, taking her hand and using his free hand to cover his mouth. Their mother walked over them, shut the door and locked it up, and he looked up at her innocently. She asked Usagi to have a locksmith come by the next day to change all the locks in the house. If he was smart enough then, at perhaps one year old, then what would happen if he grew into his intelligence? What would happen if he was not guided from an early age? Would he become a monster? She dreaded the thought of the only theoretical answer in her head but she still poached it to her husband that night at dinner,


“Usagi, they are too smart for me to keep around the house.” She told him in-between feeding Sumire with her own little baby spoon- it was purple. Not because Geni wanted to give it to her but because that's what Sumire had wanted. When her teeth had begun coming in she destroyed the rubber spoons in other colors to leave a purple spoon and a minty-green one and she refused to eat out of the minty-green spoon. It became Shinichi’s spoon and unlike his sister, he gave them no problems about the change because he wasn’t the one destroying spoons in the first place or fighting them at damn-near every turn like his sister. “If we give them one or two, they will be old enough to be in pre-school and get the basics of an education; they’ll stay out of trouble.”

“They are a year old, Evey, aren't you worried that will affect them on a, I don't know, chemical level?” Usagi asked as he looked at her in bewilderment while Shinichi ate and Usagi carefully prepared another bite in the little spoon, “I am not ok with this.” He looked at Shinichi who looked at him and just stared- “Are you done?” He shook his head in a ‘no’, “Ok, do you want another one?” He stared, then nodded and reached for him and Usagi fed him another spoonful, “Evey, I just… I want them to get an education yeah but is this the best way?” As she finished wiping Sumire’s mouth with a damp cloth, she answered calmly,

“Today, they opened all the locks on the front door, opened it, and Shinichi was making a run for it.” She said and Usagi laughed and muttered encouragement to the boy who grew giddy and clapped his hands, chirping and gurgling happily as well, “Usgai, no.” She said curtly to reign it in and Usagi chuckled as he fed his charge another spoonful of unappealing baby mush, “Their bodies will grow; not their minds. I’m asking maybe one or two pills for each; just enough to make sure we can put them in preschool.” She said and looked at her husband after a lull in her feeding and he looked back at her after a lull in his own feeding, “I want them to be evaluated; if I’m over thinking it and seeing more than what is there, they will be able to properly tell me. I’ll drop it if they’re just not mentally there to be accepted. I’ll home-school them if I have to, I just… my sister is smart but she’s a sex worker. No one looks past the fact of her occupation; I don’t want the kids to fall into being looked at for what job they work rather than who they are.” Usagi stared at her a while before Sumire fussed for attention and food and she looked away to feed her another spoon of food, “Please just… consider it.”

“We’ll do it your way for now, since you put a lot of thought into it.” Usagi said confidently and she smiled as they finished feeding, ate themselves and put the children down for bed. In the morning, she showered and waited until the locksmith came around and she supervised him changing the locks to completely different systems and she sensed something. Something not right and precisely to her back right and when she looked back she was Shinchi watching them too- glaring at them when they finished before he let out a little huff and walked off. He was thwarted… for now. He had proved himself to be not overly troublesome… just covertly causing inconveniences. However once the locksmith and his team were done with their task, she left for the store and grabbed a small bottle of aging pills from the cashier who had to go over, unlock a case, grab them, and rang them up for her. She also bought a mortar and pestle and brought them home with her. She set up the mortar and pestle on the kitchen counter next to two prepared baby bottles and an opened tin can of baby formula. She put water in a pot, clicked the stove on to boil the water, and opened the pill bottle then proceeded to tilt the bottle’s lip towards the bowl and lightly tap the bottle for two pills to tumble into the mortar. He put the bottle down and hesitated; two seemed like a lot but considering they were one at the time, and the age to even apply the kids for preschool was three… so two would be enough but it was still something she was hesitating with. She bit her lip and picked up the pestle and began to grind the two pills into a finely ground dust and finished just as the water began to boil. She turned the burner off to let the water cool as she put added two evenly level scoops of baby formula to each of the waiting and bagged bottles; then poured the ground up pill into the baby formula in one bottle and poured the water from the pot into the bottle once it was lukewarm. She screwed on the cap and sighed reluctantly and shook the bottle up until it was all smoothly blended and set it aside then begrudgingly ground up two more pills, made the other bottle and put the pills in, before cleaning up any mess she made and she looked at the two bottles. The two damning, final instruments in this concert.

“It’s hard to swallow but think of the benefits; now there’s no way people can think they are Kenshin’s children.” Nameless purred and she grabbed the bottles and pushed his valid point away as she walked over to the children and handed them each a bottle. She watched them drink it; Sumire was greedy but Shinichi was diligent and paused every so often to ensure he and his sister finished at the same time.

She continued to watch them and she didn’t see a gradual sizing between either of them. Still that didn't make her less guilty or less anxious, and she probably checked the directions on the bottle of Aging Pills to make sure she used the amount she was supposed to; and she did. One pill for one year. They happily played together, “Nothing?” Usagi asked and she shook her head in a ‘no’, “Well...hopefully they were out of expiration. Maybe they won’t work?” She went to bed that night; but she didn’t sleep. She couldn’t. Not because she lacked a desire but because her mind won't calm down, her thoughts wouldn’t calm down.

She laid next to Usagi, her husband, who snored softly for a man but  he seemed happy and content, in two-thousand-thread-count sheets, under a weighted blanket because it helped with her newly developed slight anxiety post-birth, under a plush but airy comforter perfectly enveloped in a duvet. Now she lived comfortably. She had been out of the battlefield for about two years now. She was happy and comfortable but once more… guilt’s chewing of her fabricated reality was louder than her own thoughts. She tossed off the sheets from herself and left the room quietly so that her husband could sleep and she went to their courtyard garden and sat on a small bench in front of a pond. This courtyard had enough trees in it, carefully placed so that no matter the time of day there was always shade over two places- this bench she occupied and the large koi pond before her. Usagi was meticulous about his pond like she was about her garden. The koi were plump and active; He even went so far as to feed them treats and a man came once a month to tend to the pond and the little motors to make sure they were in working order. In the winter her husband checked on his koi three times a day; In the morning after breakfast before work, when he got some from work, and before he went to sleep, to ensure they were happy and healthy and there wasn’t a hair’s breadth of a change; for a civilian Uchiha he was unscrupulous about their habitat and care. He could tell one of his koi was under the weather before he could identify himself surcomming to a cold. This quirk of his? No one cherished it like Geni did. It was boring and normal and lame to Shinobi but to Geni? It was just Usagi being himself. He loved her, he loved the kids, and he loved his fucking koi fish. He wanted the ability to take personal pictures to develop quickly so that he could buy the system and needs for it to take pictures of his koi fish and put them around the house; thankfully, technology wasn’t that advanced yet. But she wasn't brought here to worry about the koi Usagi had individually named, she came to think. To clear her head and she directed her eyes towards the sky; it was cliche but other people could find their answers up there, why couldn’t she? If she worked through things one at a time, she could grow.

Why was she doing this? That was because she needed safety not for her but for her children. Nameless said it harshly and brazenly but he was right… in a way. If people knew that her children, now sleeping in their beds after she grew exhausted of Sumire’s screaming and ground up half a children-friendly drowsy allergy medication into their last bottles to put them to sleep faster, that they were Kenshin’s children? She had heard a few months ago that the year anniversary of his defecting had passed and when she looked into it, it lined up the last time she saw him as well. He was a traitor to the village now; and that made things worse. She wasn’t strong enough to take down her own teammate in a chunin exam to even advance without the rank being handed to her. She was told even then that she didn't have what it took; but she wanted to be better. She wanted to be stronger. She wasn’t doing this for her anymore; she was doing it so that her children could be stronger.

What was the point of all of this? Of this life? She needed it. She needed the protection and the safety of this position of housewife to protect her like everything else had. She hated that she needed to be protected and she hated herself for doing these things to get it to set things up for her children but she needed this one last time to have her children and make sure they were safe. It was all a guise… wasn’t it? It was all a facade a darker side said of her, one groomed by the Nameless One, as her other side questioned it. It was wrong of her. It was disgusting of her. It was something her father convinced her to do in a moment of weakness and emotional vulnerability. She had fallen for it and taken this role. No one forced her hand even if she felt pressured to take this, but she had done everything. She had married him. She had convinced him they were his children. She had fallen for him and opened up to him; Geni had no one to blame but herself.

Did she deserve this? She felt like she didn't because of the way she had built the foundation of this. However out of all the men she could have married, she could have done worse and Usagi could have been worse. He was supportive and stood his ground against her when she was out of her mind. Maybe she didn’t deserve this because she lied but Geni did deserve this life. She deserved to be loved for who she was, she deserved to be protected and she deserved to have a good life. She didn't feel like she was worthy of it and she didn't feel she was worthy of being protected but she did deserve to feel safe. So did her children and she felt guilty about it even being this way.

Was all of this wrong because she was lying? Yes… and no. She had done what she needed to to survive. She had to. There was no other way for her to look at it but this was the first time she was processing this in a while and she was proud of her growth. It had been the first time she thought of Kenshin in a while as well… she had found herself more enamored in Usagi’s stupid little Quirks like his love of his Koi fish and dressing up the babies he was raising. His children. He was their father; Kenshin had helped make the children but Usagi was raising them and loved them, guiding them on the paths to being individuals and teaching him all of the good traits he had so they could learn to be decent human beings as well. Geni started to cry, just letting the tears roll down her cheeks and her face as she stared up at those unanswering stars in the sky. Maybe this is what other people found as well? Clarity. “Evey?” She lowered her gaze and looked towards the voice to see Usagi, standing on the wooden open walkway,  “What’s wrong? Are you ok?” He asked as he walked over and while her mind screamed for her to tell him everything; she just cried and nodded. He sat next to her as she cried and when she had finished he led her back into their bedroom, tucked her in, and laid next to her silently. He didn't complain. He didn’t quip. He didn’t comment. He just did what he needed to do. In the dark she turned over and hugged him as he fell asleep and let herself fall asleep as well. The next day she left to go check on the children before her husband woke up and it seemed their growth spurt happened in the dead of night. Not only were they bigger, their hair had grown out like weeds in the summer and Geni sighed. What had she done? She had hurt her babies to make herself feel better… What type of monster had she become? As she fretted over her decision and tried to think of a way to maybe reverse it, her husband came into the room and looked at both of the children; “Did you remember to buy clothes in their size?” At first she didn’t hear him and then his words gently rang out in her head and it dawned on her that she had indeed completely forgotten. He chuckled. “I’ll go and grab something for them.” He left to do that and she tried to proceed with the day as normal but until he returned with new clothes; they both wore diapers and one of Usagi’s nightshirts. Their hair dragged behind them a bit on the floor and while Sumire admired the new addition and chirped that she looked and felt like a princess- Shinichi was not pleased until it was braided and he cooed thoughtfully. She made breakfast as they ran about in these nightshirts until her husband returned as breakfast was finished and the kids were put in their highchairs that they were now too big for. For Shinchi, Usagi had gotten him a short-sleeved shirt and a pair of pants, and Sumire got a matching dress she was quite happy with. After breakfast, Usagi went to work and Geni took the kids to get their haircut and took them to the pre-school she had already decided on; one with a set of programs geared at keeping them occupied and getting them to a higher grade’s reading level academically. She filled out the applications in the lobby and waited with Sumire and Shinichi before a lady came out and asked to see them separately to evaluate them- without their mother- then sent them home on the premise that a phone call would follow up the evaluation as to whether or not they were accepted into the program. She spent the remainder of that day pulling out their old baby clothes, getting new ones and replacing their highchairs with more age appropriate booster seats, while having little beds and mattresses delivered to the house so that they could be built.

The call came a bit after dinner while she and Usagi were building Shinichi’s new bed and the children were ‘helping’- which looked, more or less, like them huffing and puffing, distracting their parents and yelling ‘what's this’ while grabbing the parts they needed to finish the project. “Mrs.Uchiha, this is Hina from the preschool?” The voice on the other end of the line said as Geni nodded, “Your son got remarkably high scores on the test, we think he has the potential for perhaps a genius-level IQ with some guidance and your daughter passed, however it was not as high.” The lady said, “We are happy to extend to them both a place in our academy; please bring them by tomorrow, with their testing levels we should be able to bring them up to speed with the current class.” Geni thanked her and hung up, going back to the room and excitedly told her husband. They finished up the last bed and took the children with them to get proper clothes, and Usagi was adamant about them having matching sets. When the children were put to bed in their new little beds, it lasted about an hour before Gei heard noises and went to their room to check on them. She found Sumire had left her bed to climb into Shinichi’s bed and they had fallen asleep together. Their childish tendencies seemed to not have abated yet and the next day she took them to the Pre-school and reluctantly dropped them off. Sumire huffed and puffed and screamed and Shinichi cried and while she fretted the staff reassured her that it was part of the process and that she needed to let them calm down. Geni anxiously spent the day… well, aimlessly while she was without children now and she went about the house cleaning, donating the ill-fitting baby clothes and furniture, and did laundry until she picked them up and walked home with them, holding their little hands, “Did you have a good time?”

“Yessum.” Shinichi said quietly and Sumire nodded, “Lotsa people.” Sumire quipped and Geni smiled.

That's how the full following year of her life went; The children went to pre-school and she timidly eased back into summoning her partner and doing small missions around the village, then picked the children up, made dinner before Usagi came home and started it all over the next day. Sumire and Shinichi’s learning excelled quickly and though they were biologically two years old, they now had higher mentalities from pre-schooling and even qualified to be put into kindergarten. However, when they were scored for their IQ, Shinichi easily hit a minimum of 200 on each of the tests while Sumire’s median score was 175. That's when the problem rose it’s head; “I don’t want them to be shinobi.” Usagi said about the situation as Sumire sat in his lap while he braided her hair for her, “That’s a dangerous profession and the statistics say that it’s rare for anyone to even make it to your age; more often than not, they barely make it to 18 much less 22.” He sighed as he finished and Sumire hopped down then trotted over to a mirror to look at herself and giggled happily then Shinichi wandered over. Lured in to the happier and more positive emotions like an emotional vampire, he stood next to her for a moment before she huffed that he sat down so she could braid his hair, and he submitted and Sumire sat behind him and began braiding his hair. “I want them to live longer than their teenage years.” Geni frowned as this had been an ongoing issue for the past few weeks. It had been brought up because the staff had alerted the both of them a few weeks ago that they no longer had the resources to occupy the children; for the duration of the year apparently, they had been borrowing more advanced material from other parts of the preschool to teach Shinichi and Sumire. “Mr. and Mrs.Uchiha, it is not that we do not want to have your children here, they are a joy and we love to see them, however… The fact of the matter is that we can’t keep them occupied anymore. Shinichi finishes his work too fast and Sumire blatantly answers enough questions to finish her day’s lessons in the first hour. We are happy to administer a higher education test and sign off to verify they have what it takes to go into an Academy at such an early age; but this needs to be decided before the end of the month so that next month they can get into an academy and be the future shinobi.” Usagi wasn’t having it and Geni couldn’t sway him this time so they were at a stalemate. Her husband wouldn’t sign off on the paperwork for the higher learning tests and she would not sign off on the paperwork to put them in a kindergarten class rather than an academy. He also didn’t want Geni to keep doing menial missions around the village, “You are my wife; I don't want you go back to the full life of a Shinobi and die. I love you but as a man, I don’t have the emotional intelligence or validation for both of these children without you. I can’t raise them without you and here you are; wanting to go back to fighting for your Village, which is all well and good, and die for it then I’m left with a gravestone and two babies.” As if she didn’t feel guilty enough about the fast that they weren’t his kids, she was hurt and pained by his argument that only grew more concentrated and potent as time went on.

“It’s time, child.” Nameless told her one evening when she went to go see him with the children who loved him. He stayed still as they climbed all over him, giggling and joyfully screaming as they slid down his sides, down his tail, or down the back of his wings. “Prove him wrong; stop hiding behind your fear. Your husband seems scared because he doesn’t know your strength. Show him. Cultivate it and grow it. Become what we have wanted from you.” He said as Sumire held her hands up to the Nameless one who looked down at her,

“Kitty, up?” She asked and he gave a disapproving snort of air towards her but then said, “Up, please, Kitty?” He purred and compiled and dipped his head down, tilting it to let her grab his horn before gradually lifting her into the air and carefully craning his head back to set her on his back, letting her hop down to safety, “Thank you.” She said and then slid down his back, to the cushy grass below.


“They won’t; to a child, their parents are god. If you show them strength, then will grow strong, if you show them fear, they will grow fearful. They will follow almost unconditionally, where you lead; you need only have the courage to chart the course.” He growled, “As for Usagi; he has served his purpose, don’t you think?” She looked up at him in disbelief, “It would be a shame if he happened to go to sleep and not wake up again…for stunting the growth of these children of ours.” He grumbled and she hesitated, “Choose. Carefully. Where you stand.” And with that she left with her children back to the house, made dinner, helped them bathe and put them to bed and laid down next to her husband. Kill him? After all he had done and put up with, kill him? She looked at her husband who slept soundly next to her and she turned to him, touching his face. Here lies another problem; she had fallen in love with this civilian. Goddess help her as she reminded herself that tomorrow was a new day for all of them and the day she had decided to take her first steps back into the Shinobi World.

[Total WC: 12,534 ]
[Claims post to follow]

[CLAIMS]
[ Claiming 125 stat points]
[ Jutsu claims will come later ]

Approved on the WC and stat claims. Please put up a separate reply here when you're claiming jutsu instead of editing your claim.

[Jutsu Claims Post:
Claiming half-seal mastery for Tidal Command (S-Rank) 5000/ 5000 WC to claim, claiming handsealless mastery for Tidal Command (S-Rank) 5000 / 5000 WC to claim, and remaining Wc towards half-seal mastery for Hozuki Hydrification (A-Rank) 2534 /2850 WC]

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