Eternal and Immortal

Hotaru laid fresh flowers on Utakata-shihō's grave. It was a quiet day without wind in the air. The sun was not shinning too brightly. You would have enjoyed this day, Utakata-shihō. Towards the end of his life, she had known that her master enjoyed warm days without the wind and clouds in the air. He would find a spot in the shade under a tree and sleep until she found him. That's how it was supposed to be, Hotaru wistfully thought. You were not supposed to die. She glanced at Utakata-shihō's modest grave. It was slightly smaller than her ojichan's, although she thought that Utakata-shihō would have wanted that. He was a modest man. The grave faced the opposite end of her ojichan's, so that Utakata-shihō would see the world even when his body, not spirit, was dead. Only the small hiragana revealed who lied there. Hotaru traced them. I couldn't find his body, Hotaru thought regretfully. She remembered finding the only thing she had found in the mudslide. It was a shredded piece of his blue kimono. Almost hugging the material apart, Hotaru somehow knew that her master had gone. She remembered vividly the bubbles that had surrounded her, and how they had remained there until she returned. Then they had popped and disappeared.

Hotaru had asked her caretaker what had happened to her master. She could never forget the look of horror and despair on his face when she explained to him what she had found. In her hands was a piece of Utakata-shihō's kimono and his bubble blower. Quietly the older man had explained that her former master was now dead, taken by an organization known as Akatsuki for the biju inside him. Utakata-shihō had been a jinchuuriki and had lived a life similar to Hotaru's in his own village and was targeted for the biji held inside him. "They think of us…as tools. Tools...who don't speak." Utakata-shihō's words echoed in Hotaru's mind as she numbly walked outside, listening to the wind blow. You were like me, weren't you, Utakata-shihō? In the present day now, two years later, Hotaru had become a kunoichi in her own right. Since her master's death, she hadn't taken any other master, even though she could have traveled across the shinobi world to find one. Utakata-shihō was her only master, even though their time together had been brief. Hotaru had taught herself about chakra control and chakra nature. She taught herself to handle weapons, the kunai, katana, shuriken, and Utakata-shihō's bubble blower. As time passed, she found herself capable of doing things only her master had been capable of. The villagers were able to recognize her as a human being and as a kunoichi. Now the wind blew as she thought of her lost master. He would be proud of her, she was certain of it. The ruminant of his kimono now was tied around her long golden hair. "Hotaru…you must live." That is what he had wanted her to do. To live, knowing that he was gone from this world.

A part of her had wondered if she should go to his home village to find out information about him, but Hotaru now realized that she had made the right decision of not going. Her master had his reasons for being isolated. Intruding in his past would almost seem like insulting his memory. He would want me to remember him as I remembered him as. But no matter what I found out, he would always be my eternal and immortal master. She remembered the song he had hummed to himself, the same song that she had hummed when he had died. She hummed it now, remembering the memories of the master who would always be dear to her.

"Utakata-shihō," Hotaru whispered, "you will always be my master to me, no matter how much time has passed. You are eternal and immortal to my heart." Silently, she left her master's grave, knowing that Utakata-shihō would folow her wherever she was.