SOOT

煤

The pain is blinding, a catastrophic feeling of agony and helplessness that burned into my broken body- though to be brutally honest, my life spills out of me in streams of bright red, so perhaps it will be soon that my own consciousness will slip away from this battered vessel. I cannot move, pinned down by broken steel and drowning in the black oil flowing around my face from the crushed vehicle that takes over my body, and somewhere in this numbness, I wonder if a fire will start to stir up more troubles for me.

I hear a woman screaming alongside someone near my face with calm, soothing voice that possessed shreds of distress as they speak to me, only for it to not process through my mind, and I wonder if he was telling me I would be okay. Perhaps if I was more alert, I might be able to catch the words and the lies woven into the voice that comforts me in these last few moments. Red and Blue flash in my eyes, too bright, and too loud- too much, too much! When did I start to cry?

My eyes felt too heavy, the distress on my body finally too much to bear, prompting it to abandon the effort; although I fight it for a moment when thinking of my older sister, my body gives out when the emergency services surround my body. With my last breath, I managed to hear a broken cry of a voice in my left ear.

"There is a fatality on the scene! I repeat; there is a fatality-"

煤

I am born again, in a rush of waves that terrified me more than that of when I was surrounded by black, liquid gold, and I am born quiet, too old for tears and too terrified for anything else. I am tugged roughly from the warmth of my new mother by feet, where they slapped my backside until I shrieked at the motion. Women are loudly giving orders, and I am tightly swaddled in silk, warm wrappings until I quiet. A man rushes towards us, not too fine looking, but he wears satin around his waist.

"What is the gender?" He cries desperately, anxiety eating away at his face when he picks me up in his terrified worry, tearing at my blankets, but one woman who I assumed was the midwife takes me back.

"Don't touch the princess!" She barks, holding me close to her bosom in comfort, her pale eyes sharp in wisdom from years and years of experience, and in her arms, I feel more loved than I have since my rough birth. I whimper uselessly when the man falls to his knees in disappointment, his head on the floor, pounding against it with his fist.

"A...princess." He repeats slowly, his eyes watch me from his place on the floor, not full of disdain like those of the ladies who surrounded me constantly for my short twenty minute life, but instead sympathetic of my situation, even if I knew not what it was or how it affected my life. "Emperor Ōtsutsuki will not be pleased. He will not be pleased at all at another daughter."

I am saddened by the words, because I am a girl, but also for the fact that my gender is looked down upon in this new life of mine. Yet the reason that I began to cry was not because of this new information or this new world, but because I knew of the name of my father, the emperor. I am the daughter of the patriarchal of the Ōtsutsuki clan, in a strange land where that was once only a manga in my former life and world. I cry and cry, because of the dangers I am in and the realization of who I now am.

..

I am watched constantly by a series of women, perhaps a dozen if my counting is correct, and I am alone in this world without the comfort of a mother to be there for me, and the women know I am upset by my unrest. Two different wet nurses quenched my thirst, because my own mother will not come to me to do so herself, and I believe that I am more attached to my nurse maid than to the woman who gave birth to me. My nurse is plump and pale, without a name to be called, because she is only a servant with no reason to tell me her name. The world around me is a sad one, full of completion that rages on outside in war and inside between the harem of women who are the unofficial wives of the emperor.

My mother is not the empress, but a very favored consort whose political power in court is what saves her from being tossed away because of her constant miscarriages and my birth, which is worse than a dead child, because a female cannot be his heir. I am the youngest sister of four princesses, each from a different concubine than I, and they visit me often, all of them almost the same young age as my mother. Two of my new sisters are blond with dark eyes and pale skin. The other two are brunette with pale eyes like my own, and skin like satin. I do not know of their names either, but they visit me quite a bit and I am fond of them.

It is Asahi who I most fond of, because he closest to my age at six years old, and his father dragged him in alongside my own personal nurses and ladies. In front of my, he kneeled to me and swore his allegiance to me in all manners, even if he was practically still a baby (in my eyes anyway), and he was my guardian when he finished his training to become a swordsmen. It was when I realized that this was world without chakra; I finally accepted who I was, even if the tuffs of white hair and pale eyes were hint enough with the last name. I was Kaguya Ōtsutsuki, the one who would be remembered for ages in this world for being the Mother of Chakra, and the cause of the Fourth Shinobi War, and I am a terrible person, except I am not. I am not a terrible person who wants to cast out my future sons for their chakra. I am not someone who wants to combine myself with the Shinju Tree, except that I am.

They call me Nayotake-Hime, which is the name given to me by my mother, because I am not given an imperial name by the Emperor until I turn one, which proves no evil demons had entered my soul to cause an early death. My eldest sister, one of the two blonds, smiled at me when I was a few months old. She told me that our father has considered Kaguya for my name, and it is much better than her own. I am his favorite, she told me, not full of envy, but weary of this world where our father controlled everything.

It helps to confirm my anxiety, even if I already knew and accepted it. My mother comes to visit me almost every week (though sometimes it takes weeks to get her to come and in that time my maids think I am possessed with my wisdom beyond my years), and I can smell her perfume before I see her, and she is lovely, even more so than my former mother in my past life. Her face is delicate as a flower, perfectly pale like snow with rose-colored lips, and her satin slippers kiss the ground that she walks on. I winced when I first met her because her light eyebrows had been plucked into circles to represent royalty. I knew it would happen to me one day, because the Kaguya- not me, the real one- had her eyebrows plucked.

Mother's name is Sasahara of the Okina Clan, whose bamboo forests where broad and eyes were pale, but had no purpose like the Byakugan, and her platinum blond hair is always piled into elaborate styles when she visits. She never holds me, never even comes more than two feet away to where I lay. She is pleased to contemplate me from a distance, and I stare back at her just as curiously. We share lilac eyes and when she comes, I watch her eyes as she does mine. She sees my unhappiness and I see her disappointment.

She wanted a boy.

I wanted a better mother.

煤

I am renamed Princess Kaguya Ōtsutsuki when I am exactly one year old in the sweltering heat of August. I never understood how any mother could be so aloof when she stared at me on my birthday. The traitorous lords and daimyo were quiet these days as they searched for a new empire to align themselves with, because our warriors easily crushed their vassal armies, and we reigned supreme, but we were still not allowed to have my banquet outside our place walls. Mother arranged the small celebration with her closest friends of noble blood and our finest swordsmen warriors. Among our men was Asahi, whose face was serious and structured despite his youth and I pitied him for his loss of youth for my sake. His baby fat was mostly gone and his red hair was cut short, his dark eyes sad and honored all at once. He watched me for the entire banquet, and I made sure to smile at him every chance I got. I remember what it was like to grow up too quickly in my former life.

The entire time I was petted and stroked, passed around by the royal family to be their newest pet. "Kaguya-hime," They cooed in their sickly sweet voices, the women too scented for me to think and the men too damaged. Their finest warriors were broken with scars and lost limbs replaced by wooden prosthetics, and I realized how cold this world truly was with its war. It was constant bloodshed and something deep inside twisted around when I realized this, because I thought of why the real Kaguya would eat the forbidden fruit to stop the bloody wars that she no doubt saw, and I will see. I don't want to be the Antagonist nor do I wish to be influenced by the chakra, but to be able to stop a war...

My future is undetermined and fragile with Death creeping up at any opportunity if my sudden death at only seventeen was anything to say about it, but I will take it in stride, because if I must do what the former Kaguya did, I will to save lives...even if it costs me my own eventually.

..

I grew up quickly as the daughter of an emperor, and at times I was overwhelmed. Seventeen years and still, I was lost in these ancient ways. There was no electricity, only candles and the sun. The entire palace rose with the sun and fell with the last candle, though small parties were often. I was only a girl, and I did not get to learn how to fight. Asahi was allowed to study alongside with me when it came to cultural matters, and I found a close friend in the older boy who was tasked with being with me between lessons, even if the situation was a little more of a master and servant feel, we were overly fond of each other's presence. My sisters and I were given private tutors, but since they were finished in their schooling, I was left alone to my own devices, and I couldn't help but think I was born into the wrong world, where all my mathematical education and school-oriented learnings would help me. Minato, Naruto, even Mirai's generation would have been better than this, where the Academy exists and my former world's education system would be useful in some way or another.

My new nurse maid, Ishii, made it her duty to teach me womanly values that I had never found necessary in my former life. She taught me dances and songs from our clan, and made sure I knew how to sew; although, I did know most of these manners and sewing, I couldn't even untie my obi or dress myself in these elaborate kimonos, and I depended on her for most things.

Ishii was twenty, with a toned, muscled body from her time in the country with her father, and she smelled like tea and flowers. She secretly taught me things forbidden to girls of my rank, such as basic stretches and how to hold the dagger she kept in her many layers of silk and satin. I appreciated her because she let me do things that I wouldn't even dream of doing without her. When she cleans my chambers, she lets me shuffle back and forth with a bamboo broom that's taller than I am, and despite my attempts, I only make a bigger mess. She lets me wash my own face (she plucks my eyebrows herself, because I may mess it up), fold my clothing, and dress myself when I can manage it. She appreciates me as an adult despite my young age of eight, while everyone else treats me like a fragile piece of glass, and sometimes I forget I'm my own person.

I wonder how the other Kaguya from the manga managed to work the courage up to leave home and approach the Holy Tree that everyone whispers about. It's coming back; they say when they think I'm not around, though I am easily missed when I hide in the nooks and crannies of this palace.

"If you stay frozen like that, I will fetch the imperial healer, Hime-sama." Asahi tells me nonchalantly, but the underlining tone in his voice is enough to remind me he is always worried over my safety. This has been his duty since I was born and he was but a boy of only six. At fifteen, he was much taller than I was, his body toned and tanned from his time in the sun, while I was short, with a sickly pallor, and soft muscles. His crimson hair was brighter now, and his darker eyes were quite a bit more mysterious; although he still had a round, childish face, he was an adult in a different way than I am.

I huffed, staring at the calligraphy I had created. It was written in flowery kanji with the terms Beloved Lady Mother in a deep ink on strange parchment. "How does this look?" I ignored his former statement, looking at the scroll that would be a gift for my Mother. He leans over from where he was, sharpening his blades, setting them down next to his side to stare at them for a moment to consider what they said, and when he got it, he nodded, but the look in his eye is plain enough to see that he doesn't understand what it says, but I don't say anything about it to him, or act like I knew that he didn't know.

"Yes. It will be a nice gift, Hime-sama."

"You don't have to call me that!" I blurt suddenly, before blushing in embarrassment at my own outburst. "You can call me Kaguya." I didn't even expect him to take me up on my offer, because it went against tradition, and he was a lowly servant. He looked somewhere between upset and horrified at what I had said, and perhaps that was my own fault for putting him in such a situation. To ease it up, I spoke while he was still gaping. "Or at least Kaguya-Hime like Ishii calls me," I paused, before adding a soft. "Please."

Asahi's face softened, nodding without a real response, and I gave him a soft nudge on the shoulder encouragingly. I felt guilty, very guilty for stealing his childhood the way my grandmother had stolen mine when I was young; although life protector at six and making a ten year old watch six kids under the age of seven were very different circumstances, I understood his way of thinking. Rules were everything; they were what made sure the child you were watching didn't die on your watch. I suppose however, that this also runs more towards the blood oath he took among witnesses that he would always acknowledge me as his master, so I suppose referring to me by name would make him feel like disrespecting his reason for living, in a way.

"Kaguya-hime," He speaks cautiously, almost unsure of the unfamiliar words in his mouth, and I smile at him, a giant smile that relays everything I feel towards the only one in this world I can call a friend, happiness flooding through me veins, and I encouraged him on with setting down my ink brush to give him my full attention. "Do you think...I mean if you wish...?" He trailed off, looking at his swords uselessly, like they would give him a sudden boost of confidence that would be enough to get him through his words.

I smiled, thinking of some blurry memories of my high school experience with boy his age of fifteen, who were loud and obnoxious, with only sex on their minds and I couldn't picture Asahi like that at all, he was too composed for such actions. "I might be able to help if I know what it is," I said sunnily, which must have been enough to get a fire lit under his confidence, and he met my eyes for a few moments.

"I cannot read." He admits what I had known, "Can you...teach me, if it conveniences you, how to read?" Asahi looks down like it was shameful for a teenager to ask an eight year old princess how to read the language, which was surprising to me, because even with my advanced mind, I have constant difficulties with certain characters. He stares back at his blade again, but I nudged his arm again to get his attention.

"Of course," I reply formally. I dig around the scrolls I have around me, looking towards the one written by the monks of Goddess Amaterasu just for me by order of my father, and I carefully unrolled it, the simplest of kanji were written on the page for childhood learning, but I had never needed it, so I offered it to him to hold while I started to point to one or two. He was smiling. I was smiling. I hadn't felt like this in a very long time, I hadn't felt needed and I hadn't had a real friend for eight years.

I wonder, did the other Kaguya have Asahi as a friend...Did she have anybody in this world of loneliness and royalty? Or was the only constant in her life her obsession with peace that had stretched too far into chakra and destruction? For the first time since my discovery of this villain in my favorite anime and manga did I wonder if she really deserved to be one? And would I turn out like her?