#and does a ritual she doesnt realize she's technically more qualified than most of her other clanmates to do

[oh-no-its-bird]

Since Ichigo dies at about 15, and Hatake get their marks at like 14? what do her clan markings look like? 👀

OHHH OK THIS IS ACTUALLY A WHOLE THING, SO,

Ichigo got moon stripes !! It's also known as the story teller stripes, and is the traditional tattoos of the Hatake clan's religious leader and story keeper. Which Ichigo does end up in training to become!

There's actually a bit of drama with the fact that Yuki, the current clan shaman, is so old (she's in her 70's, which is basically like being in her 120's for a shinobi), and she's only now picking an apprentice in Ichigo.

Yuki did actually have an apprentice before, who was fully trained and set up to take up the position whenever Yuki died— but they were one of the 5 Hatake to die to illness the winter before the Hatake were summoned to iron court (which is the event that got the ball rolling on the Hatake joining Konoha a year or two later)

Yuki settled on Ichigo being her next apprentice relatively quickly after that, but wouldn't actually tell anyone about it for some more years— stubbornly staying quiet on the topic even when pressed with increasingly stressed and worried questions about it. Ichigo was only about 8 at the time, but Yuki set to training her just a little bit under the table

It was easy enough, when Ichigo was always happy to listen to her stories and gossip about past and present events. Ichigo kind of ended up soaking in a lot of things she'd be expected to learn in the role (religious rights / mythos of spirits and gods / traditions and why they do them / stories passed down through the family / etc.) naturally throughout the years.

Finally, Ichigo turned 14 and lead her first hunt— the marker of a Hatake coming of age. Afterwards, it was Yuki's job to give her the stripes Yuki deemed to 'fit her best,' which is ofc when she gave her the moon stripes and officially announced her plans with a "teehee congrats <3"

It wasn't actually too much of a surprise to those who'd been paying attention to what had been going on, but still caught some off guard. Ichigo had been "training" for like, 6 whole years at that point, without even realizing it. So she was honestly pretty well into her education on the roll, and would probably only need a few more years afterwards to be deemed officially ready to take it on

But then ofc, she dies a year later. And Yuki dies in very quick succession. (Losing her third apprentice, and so old already, had done terrible things to her heart and spirit) And with both of them went a very large portion of the clans history.

Others in the clan, of course, still knew plenty. Yuki's teachings had not been for Ichigo alone, and many had sat by her side and listened to her stories as well. But no single person knew as much as they had or had been in the same position of authority to do things like honoring the spirits of their ancestors or assigning Hatake stripes to their young.

In their deaths, Haruka had to take up many of their duties, mostly by default via being the highest other figure of respect in that regard. But they lost a lot.

There's some sort of interesting point to be made that the Hatake's religious leader wears tattoos that symbolize a red moon. And that Kaguya-hime is among the gods they pay respects to.

I don't really have any real thoughts on it other than going "hmm." and writing that down to reference later, but like !! That's something

anyways Yuki herself is also pretty cute, I find myself enjoying her immensely, so take this art I drew for her the other day that I've been looking for an excuse to post: