Warning: This is based off a manga called Sengoku Strays. If you haven't read it yet, I highly recommend that you do! I don't own anything but my OC, and I will probably end up using artistic license to butcher Japanese history, so I would just like to apologize in advance, and I don't mean to offend anyone!

[Narration]

{setting/stage directions}

"Speech."

'Thoughts.'

"English speech."

—¡–!–¡–!–¡— Scene shift/passage of time.

A whole line of text like this without quotes is a written letter or something similar.

WORDS IN ALL CAPS AND NO QUOTATION MARKS ARE SOUND EFFECTS.

Flashbacks and changes in POV will be labeled. Unless stated otherwise, the POV will be third person omniscient.

If you ever have any questions, please feel free to ask.

{Spring, Year 2011, Kyoto—Saionji Temple}

"Ayako!" A thirty-five-year-old Buddhist priest called as he walked through the residential house on the temple grounds.

Saionji Temple was a very small and old temple, not to be confused with its larger and more famous counterpart of the same name. The priest, Himura Isshin, was currently the head priest of the small temple. He had inherited the duty as head priest after the previous head had passed away. There were only a few others living in the temple now. There were three other monks living at the temple now, including Hiroshi, his apprentice. There was also his blonde, hazel-eyed, half-American/ half-Japanese niece, Ayako Louise Himura, although, now that she was no longer living in America, the order in which her name was said had changed. She now went by Himura Ayako Louise. Isshin had adopted her when she was twelve and her family had been in a horrible car accident. Ayako had survived with just a small scar on her arm, but both of her parents had died. Since she had no living relatives on her American mother's side, and Isshin's parents had disowned his brother long ago, Isshin decided to bring the girl here, to Japan, and adopt her, since she had nowhere else to go. The other monks had not been particularly open to the idea of having a girl, especially one who had been brought up as a Catholic and not a Buddhist, living in the temple, but he had put his foot down, and that was that. Ayako had been understandably depressed when her parents had died, but she was a strong child, and recovered beautifully. Part of what had helped Ayako get over her sadness and frustration, was that Isshin had thought her a little hanbojutsu, the art of wielding a hanbo or short staff. The brat was pretty good at it, and in the last four years since he took her in, Ayako had already managed to surpass him in skill. She could even defeat an opponent who was armed with a katana.

"Uwaaah!" Isshin heard Hiroshi cry from outside in the courtyard. SPLASH! "Ayako!" Hiroshi yelled indignantly.

'They must have been sparring again…' Isshin thought.

He slammed open the sliding door and stepped out into the courtyard. Just as he had suspected, the two teenagers had been sparring, and during the fight, Hiroshi had lost his balance and fell into the koi pond. The eighteen-year-old boy was pouting like a disgruntled four-year-old, and he looked like a drowned rat. Ayako was leaning on her short staff for support, trying to control her laughter.

"…" Isshin said as he sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. He could feel a headache coming on. "I don't know what happened, and I don't care. Ayako, I want you to go clean out the storehouse where we store the temple's old artifacts. Be very careful. Some of that stuff is hundreds of years old." Ayako didn't think the situation was so funny after she heard that.

"Eh? Why me? Isn't Hiroshi-kun your apprentice and main source of legal child labor?" Ayako said.

"Hiroshi-kun is already going to polish the temple's bell and clean out the main temple until I can see my reflection in the golden Buddha… Once he's dried off and changed, of course." Isshin said without a hint of mercy. Ayako sighed. It had always been like this, ever since she came to the shrine. In order to calm the protests from the other monks, Isshin had told her she would have to earn her keep so that they wouldn't be able to complain against her. Those who don't work, don't eat. So, Ayako had ended up participating in a lot of the chores around the temple, other than the prayers, of course, since she wasn't Buddhist. It had kept the other monks from objecting too much whenever her mischievous streak shined through. She knew that Isshin really did love her like a daughter, even if he didn't show it most of the time.

"Oh, all right! But only because I love you so much, Isshin-ojii-san." Ayako said, smiling cheekily as she ran off to clean the storehouse. A vein mark throbbed on Isshin's forehead.

"That brat… she used to be so cute… When did she get so cheeky? How many times do I have to tell her, it's 'Oji-san' not 'Ojii-san.' I'm too young to be an old man." Isshin deadpanned. Hiroshi sweat dropped.

'Blame yourself! She was just a sweet little girl before you corrupted her with your influence, you violent, fake priest!' Hiroshi yelled internally. 'You think I don't know you smoke behind our backs?'

—¡–!–¡–!–¡—

Ayako's POV

{In The Temple's Storehouse}

Ayako coughed as a huge cloud of dust flew up into her face when she tried to start dusting.

"Ugh! How long has it been since this place was last cleaned?" Ayako said, chagrined. The storehouse was bigger than it looked from the outside. It was full of shelves that were stuffed with miscellaneous items that needed to be sorted through and cleaned.

"This is going to take forever… I wouldn't be surprised if the Ark of the Covenant was buried in here somewhere." Ayako said jokingly. "I guess I'd better get started." Ayako pulled her T-shirt up to cover her mouth and nose as she continued to dust. Everything was going just fine… until she saw 'it'.

"Gyaaaaah!?" Ayako shrieked as she practically flew backwards to get away from the spider that had just dropped down right in front of her face. Her back slammed into the shelf behind her. The shelf started to rock, and fall towards her. "No way!?" Ayako cried in disbelief as something long, skinny, and hard rolled off the top of the shelf and bounced off of her head, and she instinctively caught it in her hands. It looked like a fancy walking stick, and it had a round, blue crystal charm tied onto it with a leather cord. It felt heavier than a normal bamboo walking stick though. Before Ayako had a chance to react to the strange item and the chaos around her, the small crystal ball suddenly glowed and a blindingly bright flash of blue light surrounded Ayako.

—¡–!–¡–!–¡—

Isshin's POV

{Just outside the storehouse}

'I guess I should give the brat a hand…' Isshin thought guiltily as he approached the storehouse he had sent Ayako to clean. Nobody had cleaned out that storehouse in months. The poor girl had probably turned into one giant dust bunny by now. A bright flash of blue light suddenly shot out of the open windows of the storehouse.

"!?" Isshin said in surprise as he started running towards the storehouse, concerned for his niece. "Ayako!?" Isshin yelled as he threw open the storehouse's door. The blue light disappeared just as suddenly as it had come, but it wasn't the only thing that was gone. Ayako had disappeared as well. "Ayako…?" Isshin said, stunned. His niece had definitely been in there. One of the shelves had been knocked over. Isshin noticed one of his master's favorite items, an antique wooden box from the Sengoku era, had been smashed in the fall. Isshin knelt down to pick the pieces of the box up, but froze when he saw the contents that had been spill out of it. "This is…!? It can't be!" Isshin said, stunned. The key to the lock on that box had been lost long ago, and it's contents forgotten, but now that the box was destroyed, the five hundred-year-old secret it had hidden… had finally been revealed.

Author's note:

For those of you who are wondering, I based Isshin's personality on the character Sanzo from the anime Saiyuki. He kind of looks like Sanzo physically too, only he has brown eyes and black hair since he's pure Japanese.

The joke, or rather the bad pun I made, where Ayako called Isshin 'Ojii-san' with two I's instead of 'Oji-san' with one, is that although they might sound similar to the untrained ear, Ojii-san = old man and Oji-san = uncle.