*The annoying black bar that was there when making chapters is gone, thankfully*
Latest Update:September 19, 2022
Summary: Malenia, the Blade of Miquella had suffered her first and final defeat to the Tarnished of legend, while this was the end of the Empyrean it was not the end for her soul and the foul rot so tied to it. Now a daughter of a rice farmer she must find her own path in this shinobi world without falling into the trappings of her past life's mistakes.
Link: https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/the-rotten-wings-of-a-scarlet-crane-naruto-elden-ring.1011234/
Word count:23k
Chapters:6
Chapter 1:
I have memories that aren't my own, memories of demi-gods, an endless war, and a story told on the falling leaves.
I have memories of many victories.
I remember fighting over a shattered ring, I remember fighting below a golden tree that gave life to all, I remember fighting atop a cliff of storms, I remember winning.
I have memories of few defeats.
I remember fighting a giant with the power to hold up the sky, I remember a golden needle holding back Armageddon, I remember rot, and I remember a warrior of tarnished light, I remember defeat.
I am an only child yet I remember a brother I must protect, it hurts to think of him, how I failed him.
Despite this I am not the scarlet woman in my dreams, I have never fought a giant holding up the sky, I was never the child of a god; I'm the daughter of a rice farmer, and I've never fought anyone.
We are both corrupted though.
Horrible scars dot both of our bodies, both of our eyes simply rotted away when we were young, I have a single arm the same as her though I lack the golden replacement for the other.
I do at least have my legs unlike her, they help me stay grounded and remind me of who I am.
Mizutori, daughter of the Ishida family, not Malenia, daughter of Queen Marika and Elden Lord Radagon.
The Kami despise a coward.
This wasn't something a monk or priest would tell you, but all the same Kojirou Ishida knew it to be a truth of the world. To him it felt like all his problems could be sourced back to one event, the time he ran, the time he fled, the time he let his commander, sensei, and nation down.
Eight years ago in a world war that his home country had little to do with, his team mere mercenaries sent for money making purposes alone. His team was composed of fourteen samurai including Kojirou, and his teacher. All of them were great fighters, strong enough to take on the vast majority of Shinobi on both sides of the war, or so they thought at least.
In a routine job given to them by the Shinobi of Kusagakure they had met their match. It was a memory he hated thinking about, yet everyday he would set aside time away from his crops and family to just sit at his personal shrine and think of it, time to ruminate upon his sins.
His teacher was permanently scared because of his cowardice, logically Kojirou knew that Mifune had forgiven the rest of the team, and they had all made it back to Iron to continue being Samurai worthy of legend, yet Kojirou knew in his heart that even if his sensei was given the chance to personally forgive him for running he wouldn't accept it.
So when the rest of the team had decided to turn back and at least collect the body of their former leader and commander, who they thought dead at the time, Kojirou had kept running.
He was afraid, of what he wasn't sure, all he knew was that no matter what, he needed to keep running.
Was he scared of dying? Perhaps, yet something in him rebelled at the thought that the great washing pole samurai had been frightened of something as simple as death.
He should have stayed when the others fled, he should have been stronger than them, he was stronger than them; and yet, perhaps he was the weakest of them all, at least they had returned to face his sensei's disappointment.
Now, eight years later he was no longer Kojirou Ishida the famed washing pole samurai, now he was a simple rice farmer near the outskirts of Kusagakure. Shortly after running he had met and fell in love with a young waitress at a bar he was wasting his life away in; they unfortunately had a child before they got married, another shame in his long list of sins.
He loved his family no matter how much the gods would punish them for his sins. His dearest daughter, Mizutori was afflicted with some sort of disease that rotted away at her, she had lost her eyes and an arm while young because of it. He had taken her to every doctor he could find and afford, and unfortunately they had all said the same thing.
"We don't know."
It was a total unknown, it affected her physically and was very obvious in its symptoms, yet not a single one had been able to find an example of it elsewhere. That his daughter was physically crippled was one thing, they could have adapted somehow, gotten a prosthetic arm for her and taught her how to live as a blind woman, but the disease didn't stop at her outer form.
It affected her chakra; while that alone was never unheard of, diseases that hindered and rotted away at the chakra network were an unfortunate reality of the world. This rot that afflicted his daughter however, wasn't like those diseases, it didn't hinder her network, it infected it, it was like a poison or a disease that ate away at and converted other's chakra if it was to come into contact with it.
This led to even the doctors he could afford outright refusing to attempt an operation on her lest they get infected in turn.
It pained him to know that the gods had seen fit to punish his family for his cowardice in such a way that not only was his dearest daughter a blind cripple, she couldn't and would never be healed or given a prosthetic easily, at least not one that he as a simple farmer could afford.
"Dear." Kojirou was brought out of his ruminations by the voice of his wife, he turned his head towards her but decided not to open his eyes.
"Sorry to interrupt you, but there is a shinobi here to see you." He could hear the apology in her voice, Ashina hated to intrude upon the shrine, she, like most people of the Mushroom Nation, were more often than not followers of Buddha rather than of the Kami.
At the mention of a Shinobi asking for him, a dark emotion took ahold of his heart before he swiftly brushed it away lest it linger for too long.
Kojirou sighed and opened his eyes to the sight of his beautiful wife, somewhat unusually for people of this nation, who usually had hair closer to the color of black tar, she had bright red hair that resembled more of a tomato than anything else, in fact it was that hair combined with her dark red eyes that brought him to her in the first place.
"It's no trouble at all, I was nearly done anyway, set out some tea, I'll be in soon." as he got up from his knees, she left to go handle the guest, though not before a quick hug.
Ashina Ishida, formerly Ashina Uzumaki, was not a Shinobi.
She wasn't completely out of the loop with the goings-on of them as many civilians were, she did come from a family that was very ninja forward after all, it just wasn't something she had ever been interested in. Needless to say her rather typical shinobi father had been rather disappointed in her, but well, Ashina had likely already burnt any and all of those bridges well before she had a child out of wedlock with a washed out samurai; now however, the ashes of those bridges had likely been scattered to the four winds.
But she didn't hate this life, it had its ups and its downs, her daughter was a lovely if quiet girl with some… unfortunate deformities, and her husband was a kind man who, despite not following the religion she had adopted upon settling down in Mushroom, never abused her, and to be honest, by her estimate for a civilian woman from a ninja family inside of a ninja village that her family had nearly nothing to do with, it was a calm and safe life that could always have been worse.
So once she had fully made her way back to their small house from her husband's little shrine, she quickly nodded to the Grass shinobi waiting patiently by the door.
"Kojirou should be in shortly, you're welcome to come in and enjoy some tea while we wait."
The shinobi, a rugged looking man in his early thirties with a black ponytail and slight beard, glanced up at the sun before humming to himself.
"I should have enough time for a drink, thank you for the offer Ishida-san."
Once they both got inside and had taken off their sandals she told the man to leave his twin swords at the door, rather unusually for a Shinobi, the man gave them up easily. As they came into the dining room they came upon her daughter sitting quietly at the table.
Mizutori was a wonderful daughter, certainly she wasn't as excitable as any of Ashina's siblings had been as kids, and her sickness had likely robbed her of many potential paths forward in her life; but she was smart, polite, and though it saddened Ashina somewhat, accepting of her lot in life.
"Welcome back, Mother, I hear we have a visitor." Mizutori's voice was as it always was, somewhat distant and lonely sounding as if she was constantly bearing some great tragedy, it was understandable really.
"We do, this is a shinobi from the village, make sure you welcome him kindly." As Ashina turned to start up some tea she heard her daughter and the shinobi say their hello's.
Once she had gotten the water to start heating up she turned around to rejoin them at the table.
"Apologies, I had not realized your condition was so far advanced." Mizutori simply tilted her head at the man and gave a small sad smile.
"Why must you apologize, it is what it is, unless you have a cure hidden away somewhere, there is no need for it." The shinobi blushed and rubbed the back of his head.
"Well still, if I had realized that Koujiro's daughter was sick I would have tried to help somehow."
Ashina gave the man a curious look, she hadn't realized her husband had any shinobi friends from Kusa.
"You know my father closely?" Mizutori asked the man, clearly having the same thoughts as she did.
"We were old friends from the last war, though clearly not as close as I had thought."
"Don't let him fool you," the light voice of her husband filtered through from the doorway leading into the dining room, "We drank together a few times and he beat some sense into me after the war, but we were never really friends."
At the sound of her husband's voice the man had stood up to turn towards him, "Kojirou, it's good to see you again, and looking better than the last time as well."
Her husband glanced at the man with something close to a grimace before going to give their daughter a hug, "Musashi, I can't say I'm quite as pleased to see you as you are me, knowing what it likely means." The Shinobi now known as Musashi now took his turn to grimace.
After a long beat of silence, where Kojirou moved to take his own seat, Musashi let out a breath of air while sitting down, "Unfortunately, the Daimyo has decided to call in that favor," The ninja was interrupted by the kettle going off as she hurried off to get their tea she could hear them behind her.
"Iwa is posturing again, and unfortunately for us, it's pointed at us this time rather than at Konoha." Ashina felt herself freeze up at the likely implication such a thing would have.
She could almost sense her husband shift in his seat slightly, "That's bad, Konoha doesn't have the strength to win another war like the last one." With a slight jump at the sound of Kojirou's voice she got back to pouring the drinks.
When she turned back around to the table, drinks now in hand, she couldn't help but notice an odd tension in her daughters frame; that Kojirou was tense made since, he had rather bad memories from the second shinobi world war after all, but her daughter had only known peace for her seven years of existence, she shouldn't even know what war was really.
Passing it off as something someone, likely kojirou, had taught her when she wasn't looking, she sat down everyone's drinks before taking back her spot at the table.
After giving her a brief thanks Musashi continued, "Fortunately for us, this one is shaping up to be a defensive war unlike last time." Musashi took a small sip of his tea before making a small noise and blowing on it.
"Unfortunately, that won't mean much, considering what the current alliances look like." The ninja grimaced again at Kojirou's words.
"Which is what brings me here unfortunately, the Daimyo has decided that Kusa will need all the fighters it can muster." Her husband stared at the man for a long moment, before sighing, "and that means me as well." Musashi blushed slightly before continuing.
"Due to how rusty you are, we have decided that the best place to use your skills will be reactionary, only to be used in case the Salaman-" Ashina jumped slightly as her husband pounds the table hard enough to shake the windows.
"I refuse to be brought into this again, I learned my lesson the last time we were brought on 'in case of The Salamander' attacking Kusa, look where that has led me." Musashi sighed at the former Samurai's anger, "You're the only one we have that's survived an encounter with him."
"I ran, that's all there is to do, and if you want to survive you'll run too, that's how it is against him."
"Kojirou we both know we ca-"
"Leave, now." By this point Kojirou was standing up, his voice getting louder with every word.
"Leave my house and don't come back." They both glared at one another for a long moment before with a sigh Musashi stood up and turned to leave.
"Musashi," Kojirou called out, causing the ninja to stop at the doorway leading to the entrance, "I'll draw my sword again, and I'll start training, but I won't go against him… I can't… not again." Kojirou had calmed down slightly by this point, he still looked out of sorts, and he was breathing heavily, but he was no longer yelling.
After a silent moment, "If that's the best we can get, Kojirou." The sound of a door closing followed shortly after by silence.
The following week was a tense and mostly silent one, neither of my parents paid me much mind, father too focused on the past and his attempts at training to pay me any mind and mother spending more time on our crops with my father too busy for his usual duties.
Meanwhile I spent my time sitting, waiting, and 'watching' for the most part.
It wasn't really watching of course, I had no eyes, but there had always been something that had allowed me to see in some manner of the word. While watching mother in the rice paddies was interesting enough, with mothers gentle but firm blue aura seeming to meld pleasingly with the strong greens and blues that made up their families crops as she worked, but I had already done that my whole life.
What really caught my interest was my father's training. I couldn't help but be drawn in to the new feel and actions that his normally melancholic purple aura had while he was training. Father was usually all straight narrow lines, easy to predict and even easier to understand, but with a sword, he suddenly became all jagged edges and rough movements, unpredictable and easy to anger.
Everyday since that visit I would sit on the steps to our family shrine to father's war god, and simply drink tea and watch the motions that father's aura, that I assumed corresponded to his actual movements somehow, would go through as he worked. It was familiar in that way I had always hated, I wasn't familiar with it, she was; yet all the same, I couldn't help but want to jump up from my seat and grab a stick and attempt my own movements, movements that she had once made.
I kept telling myself not to, that it would be the wrong thing to do, that father would never accept his crippled daughter even beginning to entertain the thought of picking up a sword and laying waste to all around her.
To my shame, I only lasted a week before I caught myself moving to grab my father's practice sword when he wasn't looking and I wasn't thinking. It was only the fact that I attempted to grab it with a golden prosthetic that I lacked that kept me from going any further.
I only lasted another day before I ended up grabbing it with the right hand.
Father had come back from helping mother with something inside to find me swinging his freakishly long wooden practice sword around. I hadn't really gotten to try anything that I knew I should be able to do, but still despite father's worried yelling intermixed with astonished admonishments, I couldn't help but feel that those few scant moments had decided my fate for the rest of my life. Like a hook catching the koi, I was being dragged to this fate no matter what anyone had to say about it.
It's true that I wasn't Malenia 'The Severed', the Empyrean that had never once known defeat until the very end; but I was Mizutori Ishida, and I would be damned if I would let someone get in my way.
Link: https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/the-rotten-wings-of-a-scarlet-crane-naruto-elden-ring.1011234/