Kotetsu snapped awake. It was an uncanny feeling, suddenly finding oneself alive. Especially after living through what many would consider to be their last moments. Upon waking up, he tried to open his eyes, as one might do. Only to find that he was in complete darkness… Again.
"What day is it?"
He tried to speak, of course. But no words came out. Rather, it felt like his mouth moved, but no air pushed through. He obviously panicked.
"Am I dead?!"
Yet again, the words were mouthed, but not voiced. It wasn't like his mouth was restrained by anything… In fact, he couldn't feel anything on his skin. Actually, now that he thought about it…
He couldn't feel his skin. Well, he couldn't feel anything below the neck. Not that he could feel his face all that much, but he at least could perceive movement. He had no sense of his limbs, his fingers, his feet, or even his toes. But he could wiggle his tongue.
Then, while panicking over the state of his body, there was a prick of light, right in the middle of his vision. It slowly expanded from a pin, to a hole, to a wide chasm. There were even colours, though mostly just a muddy brown. He considered for a moment that perhaps he really was dead, and he was simply buried. But then he saw the familiar pattern of wooden planks, and recognised the layout.
He was once again in the matriarch's cabin. The very matriarch he had punched. He wondered if she was the kind to hold a grudge, but stopped himself mid thought at the voice that greeted him.
"Here we are again. Enjoy your nap, boy?"
Kotetsu suddenly found himself barely able to move his eyes around. At the same time, a feeling like warm water washed down his body, bringing with it a tingling that made him painfully aware of every aching muscle. Everything, except for his right arm, which remained completely unfeeling. There was more, as well. A deep painful throb pulsated throughout his bones, like they were trying to push their way out of his body.
He couldn't answer the Matriarch at all as he was completely overwhelmed by his situation.
"It is quite nice, not hearing your yapping… However, all nice things must come to an end."
Kotetsu almost puked as he was pulled upwards by an unseen force. He was now facing forward, and a bright light burned through his eyes.
"Too… bright…"
No sound came out. A moment later, the light was blocked by a moving shape. He recognised the shape as the matriarch's form came into focus.
"Are you really so weak, boy? You cannot even speak?"
Kotetsu tried to nod, but found his neck unable to move more than an inch in any direction. His panic rose more as he desperately tried to get his body to work. He needed to regain control. With a supreme focus of will, he tried to speak again.
"What day is it?"
Nothing. He decided to refocus on one word at a time.
"What…"
Nothing.
"What… Day…"
"D…"
He put all of his effort into a single sound. The easiest sound.
"...A."
All that came out was a bare squeak, but he did it. Pure joy flooded him, and he grew more determined. After what felt like hours, he finally got out what he wanted to say, one painstaking sound at a time. His mouth and throat now felt thoroughly hoarse. The Matriarch seemed amused at his question.
"Thursday."
At that moment, Kotetsu realised his mistake. He remembered the last day he was awake was Tuesday, or was that last week? Had he been out for a whole week, or potentially longer? He immediately cursed his inability to think ahead, but the Matriarch put his unspoken questions to rest.
"Your stunt earlier this week was a sight to behold."
Two days. Okay, that wasn't so bad.
"After you broke my boar pit, broke my trust, broke most of your bones, and destroyed your arm, it was indeed a sight to behold..."
Suddenly, the events that had mostly felt like a fever dream vividly snapped into place. His vision sharpened, and he reached to infuse his Chakra, wanting to be prepared for whatever might happen next.
But there was nothing to infuse. Well, there was something, but the amount of Chakra Kotetsu felt in his body was less than he'd ever felt. He wasn't even sure he should be alive given how little Chakra there was. His shock was apparently evident given the matriarch's soft laughing.
"You are likely wondering what is wrong with your body, or why you are still alive… well, allow me to enlighten you."
Kotetsu caught movement from the bottom right of his vision. He was still reeling after learning just how low his Chakra was, and was wholly caught off guard when a long tangle of roots entered his view. It looked like the matriarch had taken a thin branch, and then messily tied a bunch of loose roots around it. Some of the roots curled out toward the end farthest from Kotetsu. In other words, he had no idea what he was looking at.
The matriarch seemed amused at his lack of comprehension, seeing how she kept chuckling. She casually waved toward the curled piece of wood while she spoke.
"Do not worry, this is not how most of your body looks. Though, this is not much different than a piece of cracked pottery, just waiting to crumble apart… but, I will not let that happen."
Kotetsu glared at her, and spoke through the raspiness.
"What… do… you mean?"
The old lady's smile turned malevolent as she played up her response.
"Oh, you mean… do you not recognise it?"
Turning back to the coil of roots, Kotetsu looked it over again, but nothing obvious about it jumped out at him. He caught slight movement out of the corner of his eye, and found Aina shuffling uncomfortably in the corner. His stream of thought came crashing to a halt at the next words spoken.
"I suppose it is only natural, seeing as not much of your arm is recognisable anyway."
Kotetsu felt his attention pulled back down to the roots, and he visually followed it down, toward his body. It ended at his shoulder. It was connected with his shoulder. Only then did he notice the feelings of wrongness emanating from where his arm should be, as if it simultaneously existed and didn't.
"Good. You noticed. It only took you long enough."
—
Mutsue stood with immense satisfaction at seeing the look on his idiot face. Even still, there was much more to reveal, and it would only be proper to notify him of the accommodations she had made for him. The boy didn't even look up from his new arm at her words. So, while he stared down with vacant eyes, she continued to speak.
"I suppose you are wondering why I would go so far as to encase what remained of your arm… and I, too, wondered how best to explain my reasoning to someone like you."
Mutsue leaned back in the chair she was sitting in, maintaining her relaxed demeanour. The boy still refused to acknowledge her words in any meaningful way, so she kept talking.
"In the end, I chose the simplest explanation."
Kotetsu's eyes appeared to harden as he continued slowly drawing his gaze up and down the arm.
"I did this out of petty revenge. For wronging me, I have wronged you. But do not think we are even. You owe me, now, for the lengths I have gone."
Indeed, she had gone to great trouble for the child. It is not every day she had the opportunity to replace someone's working arm with a facsimile capable of responding to the user. The amount of effort put into the object amounted to one of the more complex pieces of sealwork Mutsue has ever produced. But she was properly motivated, and had many new ideas to test out, thanks to the user himself.
Kotetsu continued to stare at the facsimile arm. His complete lack of response to her words was… irritating. Right as she decided to force him to pay attention, the unexpected happened. One of the fingered roots at the very end of the facsimile moved, without her input at all. There was no hint of Chakra in the movement, as far as Mutsue could tell.
The boy continued looking down at the arm with growing determination, and Mutsue understood.
"Of course, there are some limitations and functions I have imposed on your new arm. But first, I suppose it is time to describe my expectations regarding the dues you owe-"
The entire arm twisted, lurching forward, bringing along an entire boy with it as it shot straight for Mutsue's face. The finger roots clenched together in a horrible imitation of a fist, clearly ready to re-enact the action that got him into this mess in the first place. Mutsue didn't even flinch.
Unfortunately, the arm barely made it more than a foot before it stopped. Kotetsu was not even restrained in any way, both physically or otherwise. His body had previously been half-laying on a long reclined chair, and now he sat awkwardly pulled upward, as if suspended on a wire from the ceiling. The thing actually keeping him in place, after making a few more attempts at moving, turned out to be the facsimile arm.
"Wha-"
Kotetsu clearly looked pained as he now stood half-propped up, unable to move with the facsimile arm remaining still, as if frozen in space. Sweat formed across most of his body while he continued to uselessly struggle. Mutsue decided to alleviate some of his pain, putting both hands together in a sign.
The facsimile arm flew back into Kotetsu's chest, bent at the elbow, pushing him back into the reclined chair. He was beginning to breathe heavily now, clearly distressed at the developments.
"I told you once, boy."
She released her hands.
"I am not forgiving."
The two stared at each other, one's eyes clearly defiant and unwilling to bend, the other's cold and calculating.
"And now, for your amusing attempt at defying me, here is your punishment."
She didn't move. She didn't have to, to use the 'feature' she referred to. If the boy had remained silent, he would have learned all about these features, but alas. With a mental pull, she enabled a single function.
Constrict.
Kotetsu's face went white. His entire body began to shake violently, as his eyes went unfocused and his mouth suddenly gaped open in a silent scream. His left arm shot up to claw at the wooden sleeve, trying to rip it away, to save what remained of his right arm. He coughed and choked, twisted, and rolled off the reclined chair with a feeble cry, his loinclothed body bouncing on impact.
This went on for half a minute before Mutsue was pleased with the effectiveness of her work. With another mental pull, she disabled the function, allowing the facsimile to resume nulling his pain. He immediately gasped in relief when the pain stopped, sweat now rolling off his body in sheets, layering the hard wooden floor.
"Are you willing to have that civil discussion, now?"
Mutsue patiently waited for Kotetsu to regain a semblance of dignity. After several minutes, he pushed himself off the floor, barely even able to move, which was impressive in its own right. Just two nights ago, many of his ribs and even his collarbone were still fractured, but that appeared to no longer be the case. His body's ability to heal was outrageous for his age, and was just one of the topics she planned on discussing with him, assuming he could even answer. If nothing else, the effect would be interesting to study further.
Finally, the boy pushed himself into a vague sitting position on the floor, not fully facing Mutsue. She could accept that for now. It was time to see just how much he could tell her.
—
Aina would not exactly say she was uneasy, standing in the corner, observing her mother torture a boy. Rather, she was wholly disturbed at the unfolding scene. But she could only stand and watch.
After first dragging Kotetsu to the cabin two days earlier, her mother had completely shut herself in with the boy, not making any contact. That is, until that very morning, when Aina found her mother standing over her bed in her own lodging, a spark of mania lingering in her eyes. She was creeped out to say the least.
"When you were in the boar pit, did you experience anything that might have given you insight toward Asuras, or seals?"
Mutsue spoke clearly, ensuring there was no mistake in her words. Kotetsu remained silent on the ground, where he had rolled out of the chair. Mutsue looked at him from her own chair with disgust.
"I will count. I expect you to answer before I reach three."
No response.
"One."
Kotetsu's eyes darted around nervously. His breathing, which had begun to calm, grew slightly discordant.
"Two."
His body began to involuntarily shake as he no doubt remembered the pain from before. His head twitched as he tried to look anywhere but at Mutsue. He looked toward Aina, and their eyes met for a moment. She saw his suffering, and… something else. She tried to silently communicate for him to give in, and his breathing hitched.
"Thre-"
"YES!"
He hyperventilated after blurting out the answer. His eyes turned back to Mutsue, still flitting around, never actually meeting her face. Aina saw the corner of her mother's smile from where she stood.
"Good… Finally, progress."
Mutsue leaned forward, the sudden act causing Kotetsu to jump back slightly in fear. He attempted to control his breathing, but that was clearly difficult in the face of his tormentor.
"What did you experience?"
—
After an hour of talking, Kotetsu was given a reprieve. He had explained everything he knew in broad detail. The memories of his ancestors, his ability to pull on specific details, and even how those memories sometimes pushed forward on their own, such as those of his deceased father. The more he talked, the more the matriarch wanted to know.
Eventually, she asked how he discovered the memories, which began its own rabbit hole of questioning. He was extremely hesitant to reveal that. However, he had no choice, as he related the actions of the Samurai, his father's final fight, and the event that led to Kotetsu's survival. He kept out what little details he could, such as Kouga's ability to control the sword, the Samurai's possession of Jadestone, whatever that was, and the thing he definitely wanted no part in explaining: Kouga's refusal to die. He had no clue how to even begin explaining that, so he skipped it, partly out of fear that the matriarch would grow angry at his lack of understanding.
Eventually, the questioning stopped. The old lady appeared deep in thought at the many answers he had given so far. Both she and Aina had left him while they moved outside of the cabin. Kotetsu was left with some cold food and water, which he consumed with a shaky left arm. He could barely taste the mushy porridge, but he gulped it down with fervour as his hunger reared its ugly head. He really needed to stop passing out so often, or else it might become a habit.
He idly wondered at menial things, aimlessly inspecting the weird art kept in the room. Eventually, the reeds covering the front parted, letting the matriarch through. Aina was nowhere to be seen. The old lady looked vaguely in his direction, not really paying much attention. She moved to sit in the same chair as before, and after making Kotetsu's heart race a little at wondering what she would do, she finally spoke.
"Tell me about the Hyuuga clan."
His mouth dropped open a little. After a few seconds of not saying anything, one of the matriarch's eyebrows lifted slightly.
"What?"
With a snap, his mouth closed shut.
"N-nothing. I just… I thought you wanted to know about Asuras, and seals, and… Cinder stuff."
"I do. However, all in due time. I will learn everything I can from your life first, before I go digging around in your ancestor's lives."
She smiled. It was not comforting in the slightest.
"We have forever, after all."
Gulping, Kotetsu tried to get his bearings.
"Uh… when you say forever-"
"-I mean exactly that." She cut him off.
Suddenly, he got a weird feeling. It originated in his right arm, like an itch in the crook of his elbow. It slowly spread out to the rest of his 'arm' while he thought.
"Hey… how long will it take my arm to heal… fully?"
The question came out of nowhere, and he was now highly interested in the answer. Mutsue's continued smile did not alleviate the slow dread that built in his gut.
"Time to heal? I suppose I never considered it…"
She paused for a dramatic few seconds.
"...Especially since I never intend to allow your arm to heal."
He licked his lips and spoke one word in a small voice.
"...What?"
The itching in his right arm grew to a dull throb. He tried to manoeuvre himself to a better spot, hoping to alleviate the feeling, but it did not subside.
"There is no reason to heal your arm, because that would remove your reason to stay."
Kotetsu looked up at her for several seconds. Then he looked down at his encased arm. As he did, his situation finally dawned on him. As long as this old lady was alive, he would remain a slave to the Senju clan, his leash now the arm he would never regain.
His heart thumped along in his chest and in his ears. He felt… wronged.
"You will find yourself in an impossible situation one day."
He felt like the world had just spat in his face. He felt anger, deep in his gut.
"You may not be able to get around it…"
That anger was fuelled by words echoing somewhere in his psyche. The anger began to transform under the weight of those words.
"...but I want you to understand that giving up will never solve the problem."
After a moment, he finally remembered where the words had come from. His feelings regarding the person who gave him that speech could be settled some other time. Instead, Kotetsu listened, and absorbed the words to his core.
"You have to keep going forward, one step at a time…"
His anger transformed into a cold determination.
"...until you beat that problem into the dirt."
Kotetsu whispered barely aloud to himself.
"What was that, brat? Speak up." The matriarch barked down at him. Kotetsu had remained on the ground where he rolled off the chair earlier, a bowl of half-eaten mush and a large empty cup that once held water sat next to him.
He barely had the strength to stand, let alone sit up straight. He leaned to one side, using the abandoned chair as support for his back. Even then, he looked right into the matriarch's eyes with resolve. He would not be stuck here. He would not be a slave, or some walking bookshelf. She stared back haughtily, clearly not impressed by his current state. Not that she was wrong, seeing as he was defenceless as a newborn deer. That did not deter him one bit.
"I said my mouth tastes like dirt."
She looked down at him for a moment longer before deciding to ignore his rambling, at least right now. With a wave of her hand, the tingling that had remained in his arm suddenly stopped. The tingling that apparently was not just a figment of his imagination.
Almost simultaneously, a warm flow began to emerge from his body, a recognisable and entirely welcoming energy. His Chakra levels were returning with the slow trickle of a tap filling a bathtub. He had not fully gotten over the strange emptiness of having no Chakra, so getting even a fraction of his energy back was great for his mood. Though, it did not shift his newfound determination at all.
"I suppose we can discuss the Hyuuga clan later. You are free to roam and do as you please. I will call you when necessary to explain in detail. Now, leave."
With the rush of energy returning, he also found that his ability to stand had begun to return, though that was finicky. His body still felt like tar, but he was able to rise to his feet. He was also unable to move the wooden arm at the moment, though he knew he could. He figured the matriarch was just suppressing his ability to do so.
Placing one foot in front of the other, Kotetsu eventually made his way out of the creepy cabin. The strange 'art' pieces she kept around bothered him, but he couldn't place his finger on why. Not that it mattered.
The morning sun greeted him for the second time from this angle, cascading down through trees and dancing across the wooden balcony. Taking a step further, he glanced off the edge to find the bridge that had saved his life earlier that week. He stepped off the balcony and fell a few meters down onto the roped bridge. His fake arm bounced awkwardly to his side, completely limp. He stared at it for a long moment.
Making a possibly rash decision, he vowed not to move this arm. He would not allow himself to become comfortable with using it. He would not even acknowledge it. As far as Kotetsu was concerned, he no longer had a right arm. It would be a little awkward, but he absolutely refused to give that old lady the satisfaction.
With that personal affirmation out of the way, it was time to get some serious learning done. If the matriarch was going to force him to relive more memories, he would get as much out of it as he could. But first… he looked down at his near-naked body. Pants come first.
—
Mutsue no longer needed to keep her senses trained on the boy as he stepped out of her cabin. With a mental nudge, she had an immediate direction and general distance right there in her head, all thanks to her Chakra that flowed through his facsimile arm. Not that she planned on needing the tracking, what with the threat of instant all-encompassing pain now following the child around everywhere he went.
After his spectacle, and the subsequent activation of the static seal she placed on him, Mutsue had considered the best way to keep the boy in check without needing to invoke another prison cell. Her solution had come in a flash upon seeing his utterly destroyed arm, giving her the grand idea to combine the cell with the boy, never truly letting him escape. It was some of her best work, and she had him to thank for it. She was still lacking much conceptually, but the idea of manipulating mental energy was just too enticing not to try.
The Senju clan had many techniques for interacting with mental energy - the most obvious application used in the cuffs which un-infused one's active Chakra. This was just one of many, if rather boring, use cases. The truth was that the effect was never useful in combat, unless the user was targeting someone far weaker than themselves, in which case other less expensive methods were more practical. However, clearly, that was not the end of the story, as was apparent by Kotetsu and the Cinders.
So, with much fervour, Mutsue had resorted to study. She had some foundation to go on thanks to her efforts toward solving the inner garden technique, and especially the work done with the Asura project, but most of the discoveries she made were based on Kotetsu's incident in the boar pit directly.
The Asura boar tusks, and his ability to attach Chakra to them was the largest data point for her to study. It was by far the most unique usage of this mental energy manipulation. Mutsue would not attempt to replicate the technique, as she was sure there was much more to learn before performing such a feat, so instead she worked toward one specific aspect. Something she only vaguely detected: the intent of his Chakra.
When it comes to seals, there are many ways to determine the function. The most obvious is to simply read the characters outright and determine the technique from there. This provides the least accuracy, and can lead to misjudgement in how the seal works if there is a difference in fundamental understanding. A less obvious approach is to read the intent directly in the Chakra infused in the seal.
Of course, this only works if the seal is powered, and with active Chakra no less. Static Chakra carries no intent, no mental energy to read, and is built entirely with an exact structure, essentially becoming predetermined. Despite this predetermination, the structure of static Chakra is rather difficult to uncover. In turn, active Chakra is in constant flux, and can change its structure based on the intent behind it. The best way to accurately tell what active Chakra will do is to read the intent.
And Mutsue was able to read Kotetsu's intent. And… Well, it was hard to explain at the time, but after ruminating on the subject for several hours, she finally drew her conclusion.
He simply wanted his Chakra to stick to the ebony. That was it. It made no sense. She could infuse the exact same intent into her Chakra and not achieve the same result, even using eight times the Chakra he did. So how the hell did he do it, with as little Chakra as he did it with? Could mental energy get stronger? Was there a quality to it, or quantity? She had many questions, but there was not much in the way of answers while the boy was out cold, so she got to work.
The lesson she took from what she had seen was that Chakra was so much more flexible than Hanao's Chakra model would suggest, but it was clear that the standard model was already missing many details. Using this new knowledge, she worked through two entire days and nights to develop an entirely experimental seal. Something that relied on her intent, with little to no actual seals within. Her Chakra, her mental energy, completely dominating his own Chakra and mental energy.
She had weaved the intent into the root, flowing through its inner xylem. She only needed to design a few main functions, namely pain suppression, tracking, Chakra absorption and responsive intent, but even that much was almost too much for her to bring together into a finished object. She would surely need to test and refine the functions over time. But for now, it will work.
The fruits of her labour were exquisite. When Kotetsu tried to attack her unprovoked, she could feel his intent behind the swing, plain as day. But even more so… she could suppress it, suppress him. It told her that right here and now, she was the stronger one, both mentally and physically. Of course she was. But it was still nice to affirm.
After she had her fill of playing around with the inept boy, and questioning him plenty, she pulled her daughter outside to get her opinion on the state of things.
"This is a good start. We finally have confirmation on many of the things we discussed the other day. Now, we simply need to rebuild a new Chakra model to properly frame our understanding…"
Mutsue continued to talk for several minutes, laying out her thoughts and plans for the future. She felt giddy in the knowledge there was to gain from this, and the strides in progress they would be making.
"...There are also the aspects of the Azuchi Kingdom collapse. There were plenty of first-hand reports regarding the shattered Kingdom and its assaulting force, but there has been no sign of this rogue Samurai faction for over a decade. I am unsure what to make of their actions, but it is clear they, too, knew part of the Kingdom's secrets…"
At one point, Mutsue reached a soft lull between one thought and the next, when her daughter rudely interrupted the mood.
"Mother, is this… really the best way to treat him?"
Mutsue snapped a sharp look at her daughter, but reined it in after a moment.
"...Explain."
Aina took a second to gather her thoughts, or maybe her wits. Likely both.
"I mean that he will be constantly uncooperative with us. This is not good if we intend to keep him around long term, is it not? Why are we pushing him into a corner like this?"
Mutsue patiently listened to her daughter's hopeful questioning. Afterward, she searched for the right words to use in response.
"He… is the enemy. We cannot change that. He cannot change that. Based on his own words, I fully believe - I expect him to find the memories of his grandmother. He will see what we did to his family, and what his family did to us. We cannot change history, daughter."
Aina stood and quietly listened, appearing to accept the words, but Mutsue saw that flame of righteousness flare in her eyes. She needed to nip this in the bud, and quickly.
"You do not understand. If he were ten years older, I do not believe we could have captured him, let alone fought him in any meaningful fashion. That is the kind of power I truly expect he would have over us. We need every advantage we can get. This is a fight for survival, Aina."
Using her daughter's name seemed to get through to Aina, if only a little. She appeared to fall deep into thought.
"The difference would really be that large?"
Mutsue did not hesitate to answer.
"Yes. Without a doubt."
Mutsue watched her daughter repress her distaste of their actions. It would do for now. They talked for a little longer, until Mutsue waved off her daughter's presence. She had much to plan and think about.
There was so much to do. And Mutsue could not wait to get started. Not that she had to rush, though, as they had all the time in the world.