Chương 25: Chapter 25: Karasuna Aoki and Xie Yuxuan.
Somewhere in the border between China and Korea.
Xie Yuxuan was going about his daily life. He was a scholar in the king's court but was banished due to the machination of other jealous scholars as he had a good relation with the King and his family. His banishment came from the decision for choosing to support 3rd prince instead of crown price as he was the teacher of 3rd prince. Everything was going well and the first prince didn't have any prejudice against him.
When the battle for throne started, the scholars, who were jealous of the Xie Yuxuan, started to talk bad about him to the first prince. At first the prince didn't take their words to heart. But slowly the battle got heated and the prince started to doubt that the Xie Yuxuan was making moves against him.
At the end of the battle the 3rd prince was killed along with his supporters. But the Prince let Xie Yuxuan live because of his contributions to the Kingdom. He was asked to take up a position of adviser under him. But due to his loyalty to the 3rd prince he declined. He was then banished.
He knows even if the King let him live, the advisors will find a way to kill him off in order to avoid any future troubles. So, he staged his own murder and escaped to the woods, where he lived a secluded life.
This all happened 400 years ago. And how he was able to live this long? It was because he is an Elf. He is an elf that got kidnapped when he was a kid and was sold out to a magician. During his captive years under the Magician, he learned magic and escaped from him.
Then he disguised himself as a human and start living in the human world. He even let go of his elven name. He did not know the way back to his home. So, he stayed in the human world. He started to learn many arts and enrich his knowledge. That was how he was selected as a scholar in the King's court. But after the banishment he start to avoid society and lived a secluded life.
He trained himself in magic and will go into the human world now and then for some necessities and to find any news about magicians or elves. If there is any lead, he will try to search for them but if there is none he will go back to his house in the woods.
This was his life until now. What changed was, there was a human kid of about 16 or 17 just fell into his yard from the sky, by gods know how and now in the verge of dying.
All things said and done, even though he isolated him from others, heartless he is not. After living in the human world for so long, he did not get the pride and arrogance of the elves. He was not aware how an elf would act. Even if an elf came to him now and tell him that he is not suppose to care for other races, he will not follow that advice. Rather, he will be perplexed as to why they will act like that.
He took the kid into his hut and started treating his injuries. While removing the torn clothes, he found too many weapons on the kid. The kid had too many weapons. Xie Yuxuan started to suspect that he fell from the sky due to the weapons he was carrying with him. When is removed all the dress except the underwear, he was able to see all the battle scars, old and new. He was astonished by the sheer amount. It is not like he has not seen such number of scars, but it was only present in warriors who where in the battlefield their whole life.
Once Xie Yuxuan started to treat his injuries, he was sure if he did not use any magic, the Kid will die. He hesitated, but after few more contemplation, he decided to use magic. It will be the fastest and surest method to complete the treatment. He treated the major injuries with magic and the less severe injuries got bandaged with medicine.
After he completed, Xie Yuxuan prepared some light food and placed it near the Kid's bed and went to his room. He was sure the Kid will wake up in an hour or 2. He will be hungry and he did not want him to mess up and make his small injuries to open up again. Yuxuan then went to the library to check where the Kid came from.
He was sure that the Kid did not belong to China or Korea. The kid's face structure and aesthetics pointed out that he was from a different continent. After referring to the books in his library, he was able to pin point the Kids lineage was from Japan through his weapons and he is a Shinobi or Ninja. But he got confused.
As per his knowledge from all these years, he was sure that these Ninjas will be kept as a shadow bodyguard and will not be sent out this long distance to waste manpower. And from the various news and information he gathered, he already knew that most of the Ninja clans were eliminated by the Omni Yoji faction or the five principal clans, due to their relation with the Youkai's.
Only few clans were left, for they serve the emperor as his shadow guards or if he wanted to do something dirty. And this is done within Japan. After a long contemplation and connecting the dots, he deduced that either the Japan war with Korea is on the high note and Japan got greedy and started to eye China too. Or this kid was sent to China to die.
For now, most of his questions were answered and will have to wait for the Kid to wake up to get a clear picture of the situation. He hoped that the Kid would be willing to talk. As per the records, the shinobi clans have undying loyalty to the emperor and will do anything if the emperor even if he asked them to die. This is kind of a creed they follow from the ancient times. They may be assassins but they are respectable for their loyalty.
Karsuna POV
My name is Karasuna Aoki. We the Aoki clan were sent out on a mission to eliminate the border post of Chinese army. It was supposed to be an easy mission as the Chinese army was not well developed and we have the upper hand in infiltration and assassination.
Everything was going smoothly and we infiltrated the border with ease and we were setting up an ambush point for the supply wagon to disguise ourselves as a supply regiment and infiltrate the base.
We were waiting for the supply wagon, but I was getting some bad feeling regarding this mission. This all started when we were back on the clan grounds. I was roaming around the base with my friends, when we heard the emperor's messenger and our Clan heard arguing. They were arguing about something regarding deployment, but all we heard was,
Messenger, "…. Emperor. Are you saying that you will disobey the emperor?"
Lord Aoki, "No, I'm not saying that we will disobey. I'm just asking for support for the mission so that it will be done efficiently and without any backfire. As you said this is an important mission and it will have to be completed at any cost."
Messenger, "Yes, that is why I said it will be your responsibility to complete it without any issues. This is the emperor's order and you will have to depend on yourselves to complete them. There will be no more discussion."
After that the messenger got up and left without any word. Clan head got pissed and started to break all the vases in the office. We were confused but we are just the grunts. We just had to do what the superior tells us. So, we just left there.
But things went bad from that day, we were sent to different mission on a daily basis. We were not given any breaks. It is normal during the war time but the problem is that we were all sent to very dangerous mission after dangerous missions and it gets harder and harder to survive without proper rest and treatment.
In the span of 2 years, we lost almost 3/4th of the Shinobis on duty. It is not like they were out of commission but they are all dead. But the good thing is that we only have 2 more missions. One is in the homeland that can be done by the low-level ninjas in training and the other one is distant land, China, where we have to take down a guard regiment in the border for the main army to invade.
All the younger shinobis were excited as this is the first time we will be sent to a distant land for a mission. Except for me and my friends. We were having a bad feeling, but we just summed it up and assumed it was due to the out of the normal mission. Once we complete this we will be allowed to go into seclusion for 50 years and will only have to do some palace guard duties.
I was getting ready when my uncle walked in. He is the only family left as my mother and father died. Mother died shortly after I was born. Not because of me, but due to her being sent on a mission shortly after my birth. Father died when I was 10 when he saved me and my team from a rouge priest from a Shinra Clan, one of the Five Principal Clans. My uncle was the only family left in this world. He is the elder brother of my mother.
As for why my team was targeted. It was because we are one of the few shinobi clans that can use chakra. We are a branch family that got separated from the Main clan of ancient Kaguya clan, centuries ago. We are the distant descendants of Lord Susanoo. And my family is one of the few, having strong touch with our bloodline. It was the reason my mother was sent to a mission even when she was not well and my uncle has a grudge on the clan and emperor for killing his sister. That was why, I grew up without feeling any attachment towards the clan except for the few whom I call friends.
As soon my uncle walked in, he said, "Suna-kun, I will not confirm or deny anything. But just remember this, once I tell you to run, you run like your life depends on it."
This made the bad feeling I neglected come back in full force with a trace of dread. I understood. Something is going to go wrong and we will not make it back alive if the fate wills it. But I did not ask uncle about the details. I got serious and just nodded heavily at him.
And here we are, at the ambush point, waiting for the supply unit. The bad feeling, I was getting came back as if has a grudge on my heart and the dread was so apparent as if it was covering us like a tight rope. When I turned to my friends, they were acting the same like me. It seems they too felt it.
Due to us being able to use chakra, we were able to perceive danger a head of time. But now it seems like it was a danger where we will all be killed. My uncle came near my team, He gathered us without anyone noticing and just said one word in a very quiet voice, "Run."
That's all we needed to hear. We just took off like we got fire in our pants. Once we moved about a kilometer distance, we were able to see that the others were being attacked. And the worst thing is that our clan Ninjas were being killed by our own country's solders. The team came here were all the shinobi's I worked with. Almost all of them were have saved me a time or more during missions as I to them.
My heart was aching for the loss of the comrades that were being slaughtered by our own people. I wanted to go back and fight with them and die alongside them but I know all of them wanted us to survive as I can see all of them there is using their body as a shield to stop any attacks coming our way. We were all crying as we run.
Then suddenly, there was an explosion. It was not from the back but from the side. It is when I saw that there was an ambush here and we missed it due to the panic. I saw 2 of my friends exploded into pieces of flesh and bones. 3 were severely injured and close to dying. Last two jumped in front of me before the blast hit me.
The blast messed up my hearing but I was able to understand what they were saying.
"Survive and live well. Don't waste your life."
"Don't go back to the clan. Live your live far away from home. don't let anything hold you back."
But we miscalculated the ambush preparation. The blast hit me and I was thrown up into the air like a ragdoll. Before I was able to reach the ground, there was priest who attacked me with air blades. This threw me up higher and out of their focus. Now, I know I will die.
'I am dying. Sorry Uncle, I was not able to escape as you wished. I tried. But it is very hard to stay awake. Sorry Shinho, Haru-nii, I was not able to escape as you wished. Mika-nee, Asahi, Ren, Hana-chan and Mei-chan, I will join you guys soon.' I thought and I hit the ground.
3rd POV
As Yuxuan was staying inside the house, the house started to smell very bad. When he followed the smell, He was able to see that the Kids body was expelling something. It started smell very bad that he was close to vomiting. He immediately used magic to send the kids bed to the yard and Air out the smell inside the house.
As Yuxuan was going this, Karasuna woke up. Once he woke up, he was able to see the blue sky and green vegetation. He then said to himself, "So, this is how heaven looks like. It is no different from Japan, except it smells really bad. Or is it just me?"
As he was doing his monologue, Yuxuan was listening to it from the door, "The smell is not from the air Kid. It comes from you. Your body is expelling the impurities that had been accumulated."
Karasuna was stunned to hear a voice, but he immediately asked, "Are you the God? I thought I will be judged by Shinigami-sama or Susanoo-sama. Not sure why I was being judges by Elf god. But why are you removing my sins? Is it for weighing my sins and calculating the pusnishment? Or is it because of …." Kurasuna kept going.
Xie Yuxuan was stunned and became speechless. Not only there was something wrong with this kid's head and he was able to see through his Transformation Magic. He listened for few more minutes and suddenly said, "Okay stop!" Which made Karasuna stop his rambling. Then Yuxuan continued, "First You are not dead. Second, I'm not a god. Third, start explaining how you fell into my yard. Fourth, how were you able to tell I'm an elf. Fifth, before all that, take a bath in the river over there. You smell like shit of shits."
Karasuna was completely speechless and got embarrassed for his rambling. He immediately got up and went to the river for cleaning himself up. He did it without caring about the pain he got from moving around. This impressed Yuxuan. Once Karasuna came back, Yuxuan gave him some food. Karasuna ate it without any trace of doubt. If Yuxuan had any thoughts of killing him, he would not have treated his injuries.
Once he finished his food, Karasuna started to explain his situation. Why he came to China and what happened to him. After listening to him, Yuxuan gave his theories that he came up with. After finishing he concluded, "So, after hearing you I can conclude that the Five Principal Clans made a deal with the emperor with something in exchange for your clan's death. I'm sure they will come for you as I just destroyed their tracking spell."
After Yuxuan finished, Karasuna got worried that he will bring his problems to Yuxuan. So, he started to say, "I…", But Yuxuan beat him to it saying, "Its decided, you will be staying with me for the foreseeable future as I need someone to take care of the house and teach me combat." He said it in a matter-fact-tone and went inside the house. Karasuna was stunned to silence. He looked at Yuxuan in a daze. Then he came back and ran behind Yuxuan to explain something.
What they don't know was that someone was seeing all this from the dark.
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