WAP Chapter 2

The first test of Aiko's self-assigned status as the protector of a tiny mountain village came in the form of hoofbeats.

She held a hand to shade her eyes as she came out of her shrine to see the visitor. A heavily armored man alighted from his horse and looked around before heading to the village community center. He walked with one hand on his sword hilt and the other guiding his horse.

Aiko followed, frowning slightly.

'A samurai? Why is he here?'

From the resignation on the faces of the villagers, she was the only one who didn't know.

"The Daimyo requires 38 koku of rice; to be delivered in 4 weeks' time," the samurai announced.

A chorus of teeth-sucking sounds passed around the crowd as they internalized that number.

"This is your duty," the samurai said firmly. He looked at all of them. Aiko raised her chin and met his eyes when his gaze passed over her.

He barely seemed to notice her. They were just an anonymous crowd of peasants to him, she realized.

She folded her arms and watched as he left. Apparently, there was no discussion. Just an announcement.

"What will we do?" Chiyo murmured, eyebrows furrowed. She bounced the baby in her arms. "If we don't have a good crop, we can't do that, can we?"

An Ichirou rubbed at his chin. "That's nearly half of what we have planted," he said darkly. "We- it's too late to plant more, even if we had the labor."

Aiko frowned.

'That's going to end in starvation. And for what? So that some useless insect can sit on a pile of resources?'

"Why is it so much worse than last year?" Hana asked. Her voice was very small.

No one had an answer for her.

When Aiko took a step forward, all eyes were on her. "I think we should not provide this absurd tribute," she said.

Someone clicked their tongue. "We must pay it," Jiro said. His tone was uncharacteristically dark. "The Daimyo has a lot more samurai than we do, you see." He spread his arms to display the zero samurai employed by their village.

That got a laugh, even from Aiko.

She shook her head and smiled at them. "None of you will come to any harm," she said firmly. "If you will let me intercede, I will ensure that you do not have to pay this."

She could see the uncertainty in their eyes. Faces glanced between her and the road the samurai had disappeared down, clearly weighing them against each other and finding her wanting.

Despite their obvious concern that heaven's generousity might not be super effective against swords, Aiko's mind was made up. She watched the people toil and she worked with them, at day and during the night when she coaxed any plants on the verge of death back to perfect health. She led the people in prayers for good weather and good harvests and health. She grinned when Hana's stomach grew so round she needed to borrow a new yukata for her pregnancy. The warm regard of Izanami's power surged and crackled again in Aiko's chest, reminding her of why she was here.

At night, she stoked the coals in the central pit in her shrine and slept alone, marveling that she'd gone from the mansion in Kirigakure to a hut that she'd built.

And she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she wasn't going to let some petty dickwad steal the fruit of a whole village's labor. How would she ever grow the flock if she couldn't take care of these people?

The rice grew and the gardens flourished, then harvesting began in earnest. Aiko found herself treating injuries- cuts to the hands, bites from snakes in the fields, and twisted ankles. She gritted her teeth and did what she could, feeling the long-forgotten ache of self-loathing for only having the talent to kill. Sasuke, Hinata, Ino, Karin, Shino- so many of her peers had been able to heal.

The elderly woman who had been bitten by the mamushi died. Aiko spent a long time looking at her useless hands and avoiding the eyes of her congregation. She felt their regard wane, just a bit.

She did what she could. The rhythm of life was seductive in a way she wouldn't have anticipated. She missed technology and convenience, but the lack of information was absolutely healing. In Kirigakure and Konohagakure, she'd had dozens of reports every day that needed her attention. There was always death and hunger and suffering.

But this village was small enough that she could hold them in her hand and keep them safe, she felt. Safe from most things.

"How certain are you?" Jiro asked her one day. His eyes were hard and the line of his usually cheerful mouth was serious. "If I tell them that we will not give the tribute, how certain are you that no harm will come here?"

Aiko felt relief uncoil in her chest. "I am absolutely certain," she replied. "Any hand that is raised against you will drop to the earth."

Jiro's eyebrows shot up. He ducked his head and looked away, chuckling uncomfortably. "That sounds a bit bloody."

She blinked at him. "None of your blood," she reiterated. "Only enemies."

He stared at her for a second as if she was speaking a foreign language. Then he shook his head, ran a hand through his hair, and left without another word.

The day approached. The rice was harvested, dried, and gradually stored. And then there were hoofbeats on the same path.

Aiko hummed to herself. She tucked her hands inside the large white sleeves of her hakama as a small group of samurai approached. There were 4 samurai, and a few men dragging a two-wheeled cart on foot.  "Most people should go inside," she said. She narrowed her eyes at the incoming group. "It's getting hot anyways. Jiro-san, walk with me to greet our guests?"

"You're not going to do this," Ichirou the bald said, aghast. He dropped his scythe as Aiko and the village head began to walk away. "They'll kill us all-at least all the men!"

Aiko turned back enough to give him a reassuring smile. "That will not happen," she promised, willing everyone listening to believe it. I will kill them all myself if they choose violence."

She walked away.

After a few seconds, there was a small, confused, "Priestess?" She didn't turn to see who it was.

Jiro was trembling. She glanced down and noted how his hands shook. "Things will be fine," she reassured him. "They're only human." He gave her a wild-eyed look, but swallowed.

"Stop! Are you leaving?" The first samurai put a hand out. His horse danced backwards a bit to protest the sudden stop.

Aiko craned her neck to look up. "Good afternoon," she said mildly. "How might we help you?"

"We have only come to collect the tribute," the first samurai said stiffly.

Aiko glanced beyond the samurai at the cart, made by some optimistic thief. She hummed. Then she reached out and directed her chakra into the cart.

It broke cleanly in two.

"Oh no," she purred. She put a hand to her face. "Your cart."

"What happened?" The loud samurai shouted, anger in his voice already. "How did that happen?"

Aiko folded her arms again and watched the flustered anger and confusion.

"It will be extremely difficult to transport rice in that," Jiro said. He managed to sound politely concerned.

The samurai wasn't dim enough to miss that this was convenient for them. He wasn't rude or temperamental enough to level accusations of something that seemed impossible, either. He took deep breaths, jaw clenching. There was a long silence. "We must make a new one or repair it here," he decided.

Jiro grimaced.

The samurai clearly noticed. One of the silent ones jerked on his horse's reins. "You may go," the leader said. "Someone in town will assist us."

"Ah…" Jiro's mouth dropped open helplessly as the leader began to steer his horse past them. "You see, I'm the village head."

"Then you can come with us. Move."

Aiko channeled chakra into her hand and placed that hand on the horse's chest. It halted abruptly.

"What?" The samurai made a disgusted noise in his throat and kicked at the horse again. It walked, but it didn't move forward.

"You're not coming into town," Aiko said calmly. She waved a hand at Jiro, indicating he should take a few steps away. "The tribute is ridiculous and you will not get it. You can leave now in peace or you can leave in a worse way."

"Girl, shut up," he snapped. "Are you even a priestess, using those words? You can't make such a decision. The tribute will be delivered to the Daimyo. The only question is how peacefully this will happen."

Aiko let go of her hold on the horse and grabbed at his ankle, far too quickly for him to do anything. She pulled with vicious force.

There was a faint pop which probably came from his hip joint as he fell off of his horse and landed hard. She pressed a single toe to his armor. "I said no," she repeated. She glanced at the other 3 samurai.  Belatedly, one of them began to unsheath a sword.

She scoffed. "What are you going to do with that?" Aiko mocked. "Even if you're feckless enough to kill holy women, you don't have the reflexes for it. Better practice on some dilapidated old priests first. You should try the over-80 age group judging by how slowly you move."

There was a thump as the three laborers decided now was a good time to drop the cart and run away.

The man she was addressing looked uncertainly at his colleagues. The man on the ground gritted his teeth and reached for his own weapon. Aiko stepped on his hand and kicked the sword out of the sheath. It shot out and all the way off of the path.

"Want that?" She asked Jiro. "Not to use, I mean, but it might melt down into something useful."

There was a roar of incandescent fury. The man on the ground leveraged his considerable weight to rip his hand away and stand. She didn't let it happen. The force he used popped his wrist clean out of the socket. He howled again, but this time it was in pain.

She tapped her fingers against her hip. "This is embarrassing," Aiko muttered. It was like an Academy combat exercise, except that they were so serious about it. One of the men on horses finally swung at her. She sidestepped it and used a twisting motion to break his wrist. She tore the sword out of his grip and twirled it into her hand so that she was in a waiting position. "I feel like a bully, " Aiko lamented. "You can just go. I don't particularly want you dead."

The samurai with a broken wrist kicked at her. She swung at the offending limb. Muscles in her back that hadn't been used properly for weeks purred at the motion. Aiko felt herself smile at the familiar feeling of cutting through resistance. The shin armor parted easily, folding inward. But her swing stopped abruptly at the metal covering his kneecap. Jarred, Aiko leapt back and to the side in time to dodge the spray of blood.

The sword stayed stuck, hanging limply from the man's knee. He screamed high and horribly, wrenching forward to clutch at his ruined leg.

The other two were moving forward, one of them yanking on his horse as if he wanted it to trample her.

The next couple of seconds were a cacophony of screaming and metal clanging. She rolled underneath that horse and popped up on the other side. She stepped into the man's guard, grabbed hold of his ankle, and dragged him off of his horse as well.

But this one she didn't let go.

Some latent memory of Tsunade with a tree sparked in her subconscious. She spun and swung the bastard at his remaining uninjured colleague. He collided with a very satisfying collection of clanks and grunts. He flew off, along with the friend she'd hit him with.

Aiko grabbed the horse's reins, turned it around, and slapped it on the flank. It took one uncertain step and then stopped.

Ah. Too well-trained for that.

Her first thought was that Ki would make them scatter. But that would affect poor Jiro.

She used doton to upset the ground underfoot. The horses scattered, 3 with empty saddles and one carrying a screaming man who was gripping his gushing leg. His voice hit a crescendo as the horse bounced over uneven ground. The blood sprayed out in huge fans when the horse hit the ground.

"He's probably not gonna live," Aiko muttered to herself. She looked at the downed samurai captain, who had by now struggled to his knees and was giving wide eyed glances between his opponent and his routed men. "Let's go for a walk," she decided. "We're going to explain to the Daimyo that his request is an undue burden."

He stuck a knife in her ankle.

She clenched her jaw and ran through the hand seals for her dear old friend Sen Tsurara. She took his head off with it.

As the dust cleared, Aiko shook her ankle and let out a hiss between her teeth. She lifted the foot off of the ground and examined the wound. It was already closing. That was… well. She'd already had accelerated healing as a result of her Uzumaki blood, but this was faster than usual.

"P-Priestess!" Jiro's face was very white. "Are you- you're injured."

She sent him a reassuring smile and patted down her clothes. She'd managed to keep the blood off of her white shirt, although her red hakama pants had not been as lucky. "It's fine. I'll heal in a few minutes." Aiko ran a hand through her hair and watched the two unhorsed samurai scramble away. "Look at that, a tax break!"

In the distance, from the village behind her, there was a confused cheer.

"You picked that man up," Jiro said blankly. "You… You swung him like a grass cutter."

'More like a golf club', Aiko thought. "Aa," she said.

"How did you-" Jiro ran his hands over his hair and clutched at the back of his head. "How did you do that? The strongest man couldn't do that."

She stared at him, not sure where to begin. She wasn't going to identify herself as a ninja in this context. They'd just be afraid of her. "Well." Aiko flexed her rapidly healing ankle. "Of course you can't. You're human."

She meant something about how the baseline human body had limits without the use of chakra. The instant the words were out of her mouth, Aiko had to hide a grimace.

Jiro stared at her, mouth slightly open. "You're not?" He asked, very quietly. "You're not human, priestess?"

What an awkward question.

Aiko avoided his eyes. "I am only a devoté of the mother," she said. She began walking back to the village.

"The mother, or your mother?" The village head asked in an undertone.

'...he thinks I am Izanami's child.'

Well. In a religious sense-

"We are all the children of Izanami no Mikoto," Aiko said firmly. She looked back enough to give Jiro a smile. "And she protects us."

The swell of faith that surged in her chest was so intense that it nearly hurt.