Weeping Samurai | Uchiha Itachi [Editing]

Chapter 4: Misunderstood

I do not own any Naruto characters or settings.  I only own my OC, Musei Shiro.

This chapter does not contain any contents of blood.

I hope you enjoy the story of Shiro, the Weeping Samurai of the Land of Iron!

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The massacre of the first village spread like wildfire throughout the Land of Iron; the few who had survived and witnessed the encounter were quick to call up the main squad of samurai who ran the country to hunt down the new “Shidare no Bushi.” Unfortunately, Shiro was already long gone when the samurai even heard of the crime, and there was nothing left but the blood soaked village and the vague descriptions of a white-haired girl the traumatized citizens bombarded the police with.

The Land of Iron was filled with people with white hair, so that trait was very common among the citizens. The one thing that caught the samurai police force's ears were the two distinct white katana that hung at her side, or so the remaining people of the town had described. Along with the lead of twin white blades was the young girl's life as a drifter and her unusual thinness.

For many years that came after the incident, Shiro had tried to take back the terrible mistake she had inflicted upon the helpless village, but the people of the small Iron village, along with the rest of the Iron, could never forgive her for the ruthlessness she had portrayed. Her madness, already beginning to bud since the murder of her parents, blossomed to dominate over her mind and became as infamous as her dreaded title; her wailing at the end of every massacre was witnessed by those who were too frightened to stand up against the bloody samurai. This was the notorious Shidare no Bushi.

The strong icy wind ruffled her long white hair, her narrowed onyx eyes skimming over the woods in a cutthroat manner. Her white katana sheaths hung loosely from her hips, her dark cloak rippling in the breeze as she brushed her feet ever so slightly across the powdery surface. Her pale face was still as a frozen lake, relentless as the wind that bit her cheeks, and harsh as the cold that numbed her body. Her whole attire was once again pure white, as she had scrubbed off the pesky crusting blood off back in the Iron Snow; her white linen dress that had been soiled in the massacre as replaced with a plain white kimono.

Her eyes gazed forward into the barren emptiness, her journey and destination unknown as it had always been. She was a wanderer, and as a result, ended up where the wind desired to take her.

She traveled for miles on end, never breaking her porcelain mask she always plastered to her features, so emotionless and bleak some mistaken it for hostility. The freezing numbing in her feet helped, as she couldn't feel the aching that penetrated the soles of her feet, or the soreness of the blisters that erupted from the bottoms. At the very end of the day, her feet were raw from travel and from cold.

She decided to take shelter inside a cave in the side of the mountain range that separated the Land of Iron from the rest of the world; after twelve years of aimless traveling, she would finally make it past the boarders of the Land of Iron.

The white haired girl took a seat after a few branches had been chopped off from the frozen trees into small logs. She struck two rocks together, making sparks flutter from the stones and caught a bundle of tinder on fire. The wood shavings slowly started to smother before Shiro brought her pink lips to blow on the flames, making the golden fire roar to life. She quickly stuck in a few branches and let the fire consume the fuel, basking in its warmth with full internal enthusiasm.

She shed her heavy cloak and unbuckled the belt that held up her two blades, taking out her bamboo sheath to finally eat some dinner.

She took the steamed lotus leaves, still moist, from the top of the tube and set them to the side, revealing beautifully preserved, but stone cold, balls of onigiri. The white haired girl set one onigiri on a damp leaf and shoved it near the blazing flames that crackled and hissed; brilliant orange sparks flew everywhere as it popped.