章 10: Chapter 9 - One eye open
'Wonder if those two kept following me, or went back to their clan.'
Ernie thought as he looked around his surroundings. The sky was dark and the wind chill cold. He didn't really mind the cold, it didn't make him shiver or anything like that. He could live without a fire, but it just felt natural for him to make a fire every night.
"What are you looking for?"
Himari questioned Ernie as she sat on the ground by the fire next to her sister.
"Nothing, just seeing if we were being followed is all."
Himari scanned their surroundings with her blue eyes after she heard Ernie. Not sensing anything, she gazed back at him.
"You don't think we were followed do you?"
Ernie shook his head.
"I don't believe that to be the case, at least not by those ninja from earlier. But, it's hard for me to tell and you can never be too sure in this world. They might come back, but in bigger numbers."
Himari snorted as she crossed her arms over her flat chest.
"Let them, this time i'll crush them like the insects they are."
Compared to earlier when they met, she seemed a bit more mellow. Yet, Ernie could still feel her attitude did not change in the slightest, it was just she showed him less disgust.
"We were lucky Himari, if Ernie had not shown up one of us would be dead. Or, we could have been taken alive and tortured. You know they have many ways to try and make us submit."
Hina joined in on the conversation as she stood over the fire turning over the snake meat.
"I've been meaning to ask, but who were those guys?"
Hina looked toward Himari, and Himari nodded her head.
"You asked us earlier if we had a fued with anyone, but we never answered you. We don't actually have a fued with any clan in the area, but weeks ago the Hikaru clan came to propose a marriage alliance with our clan. Me and my sister would marry into their clan, while the genius child of their clan would marry our brother. In hindsight it doesn't seem like a fair deal, giving up two for one. But, that girl was a prodigy we don't see very often.
As much as our clan was tempted to agree, my brother refused. The marriage with our two clans would increase our power, but the Hikaru clan has many enemies. If we allied with them, then their enemies would become our enemies as well. When that happened, we'd be in a constant state of war, which is not what my brother wanted for our clan. We've been a peaceful clan for many years now, and no one wanted to see that change."
Hina explained a bit about her clan.
Ernie nodded his head.
"I'm going to assume the Hikaru clan did not take it that well and ended up sending men to go kill off your entire village or to force your hand. At that time, your brother was already outside of the village going to propose marriage. What I don't understand is the medicine they wanted."
Ernie said as he felt he got the general idea of what happened.
Due to their clan refusing, the Hikaru clan must have been embarrassed and outraged, so they retaliated. That, or they had another agenda they wanted to accomplish.
Himari laughed when she heard Ernie speak as if he knew their situation.
"If only it was that simple. The Hikaru clan wouldn't bother us due to a refusal of marriage. We believe that it was due to them hearing of our brother going to propose a marriage alliance with the Kizamaru clan. The Hikaru and Kizamaru clan's have always had a fire and ice relationship, so you can understand how they must have felt when they were denied marriage for us to propose marriage to one of their rivals.
In the past years, the Kizamaru clan has grown considerably but due to their nature they are a neutral clan, not involving themselves in any other clans conflicts. That's not all, the Kizamaru clan has come into a special herb recently. It's called the Flower of Yama, the flower has the power to restore a person's youth by two years.
Our father, the leader of the clan was fighting an affliction. If he was a bit younger, he would win and recover his strength. But alas, he was too old and in a weakened state.
That was the real goal of our brothers plan in proposing this marriage."
Himari explained the rest of the details.
'Marriage alliances, hidden agendas, mystical flowers… this world may be a bit more complicated than I thought.'
Ernie nodded his head as he started thinking to himself.
"Honestly, i'm surprised you told me all of this."
Hina sat down as she passed a stick of snake meat to her sister and smiled.
"That's because you use ice techniques. After going through all the clans in this area in our head, we realized that none of them have a ninja which can use ice. Most of them fire, wind or earth. However, none use ice.
This told us that your story could be considered true, you were a wandering mercenary who came from a far away place. While you may be a bit dangerous due to your mysterious nature, we don't feel you mean us any harm."
Hina told Ernie before she bit into her snake meat.
Himari giggled a little.
"Also, because we can kill you whenever we want."
Ernie looked over at her and could not tell if she was kidding or being serious.
'Alright, i'm sleeping with one eye open tonight!'
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