#arrgh I wish I drew a bit more

[chocolatemilkandregrets]

Artfight dump from this year!

Characters in Order: @voidseers @galaxy-lilies @kation-kat

[rasenkaikyo]

(Another) Last Light

[This is a remake of a drabble I wrote last year, while also referencing written recent events.]

The clouds yielded to the stoic light of the moon reflected off the rooftops of Kugane.

The cool nighttime breeze normally served to reinvigorate Sen, but it did her no favors this time. She inhaled deeply, in attempt to deter the inevitable yawn.

Still, the shinobi was determined to maintain her vigil, knelt firmly on that apartment roof, blanket beneath her to keep some of comfort. She pressed her canteen to her lips and took another swig of water to try further to stave off her fatigue .

Instead, it was as if it served to pull her down further. She struggled to focus through increasingly bleary eyes. Her head drooped... lower and lower.

Lower. She didn’t understand... No! She, she owed it to Lady Daigo! She promised... she promised that she would watch over Mozu, that-- that she... wouldn’t...

she wouldn’t...

she.....

The canteen...

Damn it... Sen’s cantine fell from her hand as she collapsed upon her side, the little remaining water therein trickling out and down the stone tiles.

“Sen, come on!!”

The girl struggled to maintain full awareness even as Nitori pulled her along, wrist in hand. Her perky-eared comrade was always quick to get things going with her, but this time it was clearly in a dire way. She looked around the village, where no shortage of concerned person stood or peered, and murmurs filled the air beneath the weight of darkened skies.

As they made it to Iwa’s prominent torii, what awaited the two ninjas brought the girl to her senses: villagers were gathering around a body - another Resistance shinobi, pooled in his own blood. He seemed to be still breathing, flanked by faces Sen knew well. While the seasoned old priest made a desperate attempt to heal the man’s withering state, Shigen - Resistance squad leader - kept attentive of the man’s whims...

“He’s... he’s coming... Please... You have...” He rasped as he reached out.

Shigen firmly grasped his hand. “You have done well, my friend... We will... we will.”

The warrior could give a weak smile... before his eyes went dull and he went still.

Sen bit her lip; it wasn’t the first time she had witnessed someone die, but it was the first time to see a brother-in-arms. The villagers around them winced and gasped while the Motouji slowly rose to his feet.

“Pray forgive me... I did my best, but I fear he was too far gone even upon arrival.”

“Of course,” Shigen shook his head and arose as well, as his subordinates covered the fallen shinobi’s head. “I cannot fault you. All that matters now is that we act on his warning.”

“What did he say?” Nitori pressed for detail.

Shigen grew further intense. “Doma has fallen. Lord Kaien’s rebellion has failed at a calamitous level.“

He paused for a second as his words incited cries of shock and sorrow in the gathered villagers.

“--Miss Daigo, you just arrived a short moment prior, right? I assume you gathered as much as is from your preliminary inspection of the battlefield.” He continued, as he turned to the high priestess in his periphery, who returned a faltering gaze. “As Keiten would tell it, the fighting showed promising results until the XIIth’s legatus, the accursed Viceroy himself, took afield -- nearly single-handedly crushing our united front. ...It seems that the Empire’s dogs weren’t so diverted as we thought.”

“Kami forfend... how could one man...” Kaya, Shigen’s lieutenant, yet mulled this over with as composure as she could manage. A taller, broader shinobi, Goro, furrowed his brow in tense silence. Nitori rested her hands on her hips.

“...There’s more, right?” Sen spoke up. “When we got here he was trying to bid us to do something.”

Shigen sighed. “...Yes. While the whereabouts of Zenos are unclear, the acting viceroy seems all too eager to weed out any surviving rebel. It appears that Keiten ran afoul of the Legion even while he was trying to spread the word, hence his wounds. He said they seemed to be northwest bound from Monzen.--”

“Here.” Hinako stepped forward. “You think they’re coming here.”

“Do they know?” Goro grunted.

“That might have something to do with how we’ve lost our wards...” Mine crossed her arms from behind Hinako...

“How in the hells would they know about those?” Sen rubbed her temples. No one had a real answer for that.

“Alas, there is little time to think on it.” Shigen said. “If our presence here has compromised the village then everyone here is in great peril.”

Hinako reflected on this. “...It is not a chance we can take, for certain. We can all expect a tenfold reprisal at worse, resistance or not. We must not linger.”

Shigen nodded.

“Evacuation, is it?” Mine asked. “Yet if they were close enough to mess with our wards...”

“Then we’ll stave them off,” Shigen said, motioning to himself, and following that up with a sort of lax shrug. “It’s the least we can do, after all, if we invited such candor here.” With that he turned to his subordinates. “Kaya, Goro, Nitori... You know what to do.”

“Sir!!” They returned in unison.

“Sen...” Shigen looked back to the youngest shinobi. “I need you to remain, and aid this village’s people in their departure.”

Sen’s eyes widened. “Wha... w- Sensei, wait a moment...! Are you for real?! I--”

“You have the most important job of all. If we falter, it falls on you to protect the villagers.”

It terrified her. Nothing terrified her more than now than the prospect of losing her family, and letting them go.

“But I should be doing it with you!!” Sen shouted.

“Sen...” He looked at his protégé in the eye. “I’m sorry, but this isn’t your fight. I couldn’t live with the cost of putting you against a foe like this, here and now. You deserve better.” He tapped the jeweled circlet Sen wore on her head, and she looked away. “We’ll take care of this. You take care of yourself, and them.”

“Don’t worry about us, Sen!” Nitori surprised Sen with one of her warm hugs. “We’re not going to go down so easily, you know.” The Miqo’te then flashed one of her smug smiles.

Kaya simpered. “We’re counting on you, Sen.”

Goro nodded. “Have care, Sen.”

While Nitori broke her hug to join her fellow shinobi, Shigen turned to Hinako and handed her a rolled sheet of parchment. “Commander Yugiri of the Liberation Front relayed an evacuation plan should the worst come to pass. Pray use it to make your way to the coast. We shall attempt to return within a bell, but do as you must.” He glanced to a defeated Sen and back. “Kami be with you.”

The priestess nodded. “Of course. Likewise.” Then she shifted her step. “Everyone, make haste!! Ready the carriages! Gather your essentials -- We needs be ready to depart out the east end as soon as we can muster!”

“See you on the other side, Sen...” Shigen said as he and the rest of their squad jumped outside of sight, leaving the girl stewing in her own frustration. Reluctantly, she followed Hinako as the masses scrambled around them...

Sen stood on top of the rock spire. The view was stunning; you could practically see all of Yanxia beneath the veil of clouds. It was just her, her sensei... and a set of wooden dummies.

“Alright, Sen. You have proved yourself a deft hand at the cut of ‘Ten’. However, it is one thing to channel a weapon and another to channel nature around you. Focus. Gauge the air. Find your center, unite ‘heaven’ with ‘earth’, and perform Raiton on the rightmost target here.”

Heeding these words, Sen took a deep breath, and tried to focus... Focus on the wind...

Ten... chi...!!

A rabbit medium appeared on Sen’s head. “Ergh..”

“Refine your cut and try again, from the top.”

A ball lightning.

“Try again.”

A lightning bolt strikes several yalms off behind the dummies.

“Try again.”

A lightning bolt strikes near Shigen’s flank.

“Oops...”

“...Try again.”

A burst of electricity occurs at Sen’s feet, causing her to step back.

“That’s enough for now,” Shigen stood up. “You’re getting frustrated. If you don’t keep your mind at ease then you’re liable to hurt yourself from the feedback of a lightning bolt... We’ll try again later.”

“Arrgh...!!” Sen fumed and fell back to sit. “Damn! Why’s it so tough, sensei? How can I become a chuunin like this?”

She gazed at the ground below her. “Hells, I bet Moonrise and Redbeak nearly mastered ‘Jin’ at my age...”

Shigen could just but sigh and shrug a little, before walking over to Sen, taking his place beside her. He watched the golden rays in the sky above. “Sen, those shinobi were raised under very different circumstances. You were cut from a different cloth. Not a bad thing. You will learn in time.”

Sen thought about it... It irked her so. She always felt like an outsider, barely even Doman, raised in seemingly endless strife. She struggled, and she doubted, but Shigen supposedly had an eye for character. He saw her no more disadvantaged than any other ninja, maybe in her even something special that she had yet to see in herself. She couldn’t know. She looked to her mentor. “When? How?”

Shigen looked back, giving a small smile. “Know your mind, body and spirit. Know your balance... It will come to you.”

Sen thought back, grunting while picking up a heavy rice sack... “...I wish it would come to me now...”

As she hoisted the sack, she was brought to attention by a sudden... boom.

She turned, as did others, to the rising smoke and flame billowing from beyond the torii, beyond the treeline.

Sen was livid. Something in her had snapped.

“You...!!” She glowered and dropped the sack to clasp her hands, taking firm grip of a massive shuriken. She slid her feet against the ground and drew her arm back--

“Ggh!” She felt a firm grasp around her wrist. She lurched around to see... Hinako.

“No... please..!!”

“Sen...” Hinako spoke soft, her sympathy pure. “We need to go. Don’t do this... Please don’t let their fight be for naught. Your story’s just beginning.”

The shinobi clenched her teeth and tried to jerk her wrist away, to no avail against a shockingly firm grip. In spite of her struggle, she found the priestess’ presence to be comforting, assuring... Eventually she relented and dangled to her knees, dropping the shuriken. Hinako drew her into a comforting embrace.

“D- Damn it...!” Sen hugged back, burying her face into Hinako’s shoulder. The Raen sighed gently, hearing the soft sobs and sniffles within.

“Let’s go...” Hinako eased and guided Sen, shoulder to shoulder, to the waiting carriages... 

The girl remained silent for the excursion to the coast, curled up and huddled against Hinako. She again grew weary, and through heavy eyes she caught a glimpse of that last warm lights of the village, soon fading behind them into the dark of the unforgiving night...

...

The ninja slowly opened her eyes to broad daylight... The rooftop. How long had she even been sleeping? She pushed herself up and wiped the drool from her mouth, before noticing the blanket that had covered her. She blinked a couple of times, then looked at the canteen she had dropped, then back.

Reality had set in.

“Ah... bom boko bollocks...”