Kinuko/Biography

"When strength isn't enough, only faith can save us." -Haburame Kinuko

Biography

CHAPTER ONE: Chasing Daylight

Kinuko leaped over a windswept hill and continued to course across the prairies to the west in the morning sunlight. The clouds overhead were few and far between, and the heat of the Sun at her back spurred her onward, while the pleasant feeling of morning dew lingering on the low grasses beneath her feet kicked up into the air. The dew formed a light mist that glossed her face and tickled her nose as she slid down the gently sloped hillside.

She navigated the shallow vales and softly-rolling landscapes, bending flowers in her wake as she passed. A feeling of calm and contentment overcame her being so far from Man. Nothing but her shadow and the wilderness kept her company.

The combination brought a smile to her face.

She mounted a large stone and launched herself high into the air, gliding to a landing amidst a floral blizzard. Their enticing smell exploded in a shower of sweetness around her as she launched again, and brought to the air a sense of life.

She dipped low into a small patch of dandelions, and leaped into the air. She went into a spiral, sending the dust motes dancing in her wake in a beautiful floral snow.

She dared to let herself have a bit of fun. She cartwheeled over large stones in her way, surprised a flock of birds, and cleared entire dips in the land with single jumps.

To her, it felt like she had been born all over again. For the first time in months, she felt grateful for her continued living.

As minutes turned to hours, the skies shifted from pinkish violet to cyan. Kinuko filled her lungs for her second wind and scaled a hill crowned with a magnolia to scan her surroundings. Much of her journey had been grasslands and streams as far as the eye could see.

Far ahead, though, through the mists of vast distances, she could just begin to make out a towering purple range of mountains. The landscape ahead of her became dotted by the distant silhouettes of trees, and something glittered beneath the Sun's radiance a few miles off. She deviated off her path to investigate.

Kinuko crossed the distance between the hill and the waters in a matter of minutes, and weaved her way through the thick cattails and reeds. The vast lake shimmered and turned a beautiful indigo towards the deeper areas. Fish darted back and forth near the water’s edge, and a turtle launched itself into the water nearby, fleeing her approach.

She stepped onto a set of smooth stones and knelt to peer at herself in the mirrorlike waters. She swept a hand back along her scalp and removed the beaded band that had kept it restrained in a ponytail behind her. She received welcome relief from the headache she had begun to develop.

The winds hadn’t been kind to her hair.

The lake terminated at the edge of a thick evergreen forest. A quick scan of the area revealed neither predator nor prey.

The clearing glowed bright and cheerful, so full of life and so full of beauty; all things that had become such rarities in her travels. For the first time in weeks, she felt at peace, and let herself drop her guard.

She cupped her hands and lowered them. She splashed some of the water on her face, wiping the grime, sweat and dirt of her long journeys away, savoring the refreshing coolness.

She reached for a second dip into the scaly surfaces, but the moment her hands made contact, her limbs became numb, as if they had been thrust into the snow of the Thawless wilds.

The numbness suddenly replaced itself with an agonizing pain that squeezed her entire chest, stealing her breath from her and seizing her breast with a scorchingly cold vice with every belabored heartbeat.

The pain was enough to send her down to her hands and knees. She cried out for an entity not present to have mercy on her, and stared back down into the platinum pool.

Her reflection gazed back at her with spreading rivers of familiar ink, coursing shadow through the whites of her eyes, and staining her normally-silver irises a sickly ichor color. Her sight blurred as her entire body shuddered as another surge of cold wracked her body, and caused her to nearly lose her balance. Her struggle unsettled the glassiness of the lake. Its surfaces quivered, perhaps in fear of her presence.

She turned her eyes to the katana slung to the belt at her left side. On the scabbard she had taken the liberty of cutting a small diamond-shaped hole to expose some of the gleaming purplish metal.

She slipped her fingers in through the opening and ran her fingers up and down along its surface.

A spark erupted from the blade that struck her arm and ignited into a deep and ghostly azure flame. It engulfed her hand and lower forearm, and music of a strange but beautiful variety echoed through her subconscious.

A warming rush came over her like sunshine on a clear day, and filled her veins with heat again. It traveled up her arm, through her shoulder and into her chest, and eased the excruciating freezing sensation.

Gradually, the numbing sensation subsided, and she allowed herself to breathe again.

The warmth that radiated from her sword took awhile to push away the shivers she had found herself with – shivers not of cold, but of her lingering discomfort. At last, she pushed herself up and surveyed her surroundings to ensure that she hadn’t attracted attention.

A few snowflakes dusted her black gi, and the winds picked up, slicing at her with icy knives.

Deciding it best not to tarry long, Kinuko plunged her emptied water skin into the deep of the lake, tied it off, and jumped to the other side.

The shadows of the forests beckoned to her.

She had to keep moving.

CHAPTER TWO: Human

The Sun had disappeared behind the treeline by the time Kinuko had found a clearing for the night.

A large rock formation jutted up out of the earth, centered in a ring of trees. A small stream cut a path around it. A little alcove in the stone looked like it’d provide reasonable cover from the coming rain.

The skies had become lined with thick clouds, and the moon would shine only a bit longer before she would be left in the dark.

She carried a small heap of firewood over to the makeshift shelter, and gathered loose brush to ensure a reasonably-dry evening.

She gripped the hilt of her sword and produced it and a piece of flint from a pouch on her hip.

A single scrape of the blade's blunt end showered the tinder with sparks, and a flame leaped into being over the dry wood. Its erotic dance warmed Kinuko’s ice-touched skin, and the temptation to relax by the blaze and fall asleep pulled strongly at her willpower. She ignored her desires for the time being, and knelt by the stream. After she refilled her skin, she wiped some of the coolness across her brows and cheek.

Something felt off.

Kinuko brushed her right cheek again.

She felt nothing.

Once more.

Again, she felt nothing.

A sigh escaped her lips as she returned to her makeshift campsite and reached into her shoulder bag, feeling around through the various items. She grasped at a small, smooth object the size of her palm, and drew it out. Her mirror often came in handy for when it came time to blend in with the populace of a town, or when it was appropriate to be inconspicuous.

It was also useful for noting when her cosmetic had given up the ghost.

It took a moment for her to adjust to the poor lighting conditions, but eventually, the fire prevailed over the darkness, and she could see herself in her reflection.

The right half of her face was covered in shallow cracks running over her cheekbone and down to her jawbone. The more she nudged at the cracks, the more they flaked, and revealed a layer of dark blue underneath.

She grasped at the false skin and pulled. A loud ripping noise cut through the silence.

She felt no pain. Her blue-tinted flesh hidden beneath the foundation had long since rotted away, and the nerves that once gave her the ability to feel a blush fell on those of the left half of her face. Her gums tickled at the exposure to the wind and her mouth dried quickly. She ran her finger along the exposed bone and the half-dead muscle, up to the sinus cavity and her cheekbone. The blue illness had inched upward towards her eye since the last time she had had to replace her cheek.

"Damn."

The visual reminder left Kinuko in a dour mood, and she reached for her shoulder bag. She emptied it's contents out on the grass before the fire in front of her, and shuffled through the stacks of supplies. She selected a small mixing bowl, a pouch filled with the powdery ashes of an Everroot, and a small vial of a milky-white potion.

As the two mingled in the bowl, they began to form a thick, gray, clay-like substance that became more rubbery the longer she stirred.

At last, its peach color came through. She flattened the clay between her hands, and pressed it against the affected side of her face. Soothing healing magic surged from the palms of her hands in a greenish glow.

A dull ache formed in the right half of her face as nerves began to knit together, muscle intertwined, and skin and fat began to form. The ache turned to pain as the exposed pain receptors activated, and caused Kinuko to hiss sharply at the unpleasant sensation. She poured more mana into her efforts to dull the discomfort and accelerate the process. She felt the clay begin merging together with her natural body structures, slipping over and reinforcing bone, and strengthening eroded muscle. The arcana the clay had been infused with displaced the diseased flesh, and suspended its decay.

The process took nearly twenty minutes to complete, and by the time Kinuko had finished, all she had the energy to do was collapse on her side.

She had hoped to warm enough water on the fire to at least rinse out her hair, and make herself feel somewhat clean again. Hot springs had been rare or too warm to be of use anyway.

She reached for the small oval mirror nearby and drew it up to her face. Her face. She forced a smile, and softly stroked the newly-spawned skin just recently settled into its new location. A rosy color had already begun to return to the false flesh.

As she collapsed into sleep, Kinuko was grateful to at least appear human.

CHAPTER THREE: West

Kinuko had awoken early and eaten some salted jerky from her rations pouch. The bitter lingering taste of the strange herb she had ground up the previous evening had tainted the flavor slightly, and her sleep had been made restless by dreams and images of her flesh falling away.

Her eyelids were heavy as she cleared out her campsite and continued her trek towards the purple-shaded mountains to the west.

The evergreens gave way to more wheat fields, beat flat by the heavy rains that had come overnight.

She had almost felt like the only person left alive until she came across the twisted dusty road.

Kinuko veered off her path a short while and followed the pathway up into the foothills. She rarely traveled on roads, unless she needed someone to see her enter a town. Otherwise, it only invited an arrow to the back. Despite the risks, the early morning mists and rolling fogbanks the rains had provided were thick enough to give her cover from sight at great distances. And after days of travel, she had felt so removed from Man’s world that there was little risk of her running into trouble…

Then she came upon the caravan.

Kinuko drew herself to a halt and waited in the carriage’s path. From its hazy outline, she couldn’t tell a merchant traveler apart from a garrison’s supply truck. The latter carriages were richer prizes, but they never went anywhere without escort. She felt fatigued, and risking a fight without anything proper to eat in so long could risk an injury, something she could ill afford.

As the carriage pulled out of the mists, she saw two carts being drawn by a pair of common ponies; nothing close to the massive white stallions the Imperial Army or Legionnaires had available to them. She let her worries subside somewhat.

“Greetings traveler,” the driver tipped his straw hat to her as his carriage traveled up beside her.

She had gone so long without human interaction that she had nearly forgotten to reply.

“Greetings,” she recovered clumsily.

“You look rather out-of-sorts.”

Kinuko initially said nothing and eyed him suspiciously. It had turned into something of a poor habit of hers to regard all strangers as if they could try and rob her, or try and sell her something. She deemed either a crime.

He looked the latter part.

She noted his apparent lack of curiosity at her attire. Logic prevailed, however, and she attributed it to him having seen his share of mercenaries out amongst the wilds. Rogues, runaways and other rabble became more common the farther from the seat of the Legionnaire's power base one went. He had probably taken her as one.

"Been hunting a criminal out in these parts," she lied.

"Oh? What might the name be?"

Kinuko narrowed her eyes. The merchant came off as unusually curious for being in the presence of one who carried a sword on her back. Common sense dictated one should know as little about such people as possible.

"Keep your nose pointed to matters that concern you." She nodded towards his cart. "Your wares for instance."

He looked back at his wagon and smiled.

"Oh? Interested in a purchase?"

The tension eased out of Kinuko's shoulders a bit. "Food and medicine. What do you have in those regards?"

The old man got up from his bench and came around back to the second cart.

He came back with an armful of supplies; a few helpings of salted beef and pork, a half-good cabbage and a small bag of rice. A few other bags he carried must have contained the medicine she had asked for.

"This is all I have I'm afraid. Not the best condition either. Would two silvers be reasonable?"

Kinuko's nose crinkled. Even at her most desperate she allowed herself a bit of pickiness. She took the rice and meats and the medicine bags, and dropped a silver piece into his empty hand. She considered it a kindness. A haggler wouldn't have paid a fake bronze for what he had peddled, but her situation only allowed her so many options.

She slipped the items wordlessly into her shoulder bag.

"But..." he had begun to protest.

She gave him a look, and he became silent.

She slung her bag over her shoulder and vanished down the road a few moments later.

"Ice in that one's soul..." he muttered. He removed a stone from his pocket and brushed his thumb over a star-shaped crest embedded into the rock. It hummed to life and vibrated, throwing off a deep red color.

CHAPTER TEN: Road

to be edited