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vagabonddawnTitle: feelings and places you once brought to life
Summary: What happens when you can't go home? What happens when the journey is over?
Notes: Fic based on wafflelate's Gardens!Shikako (post-Split).
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Where is your home when it all is done?
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One day, they'll tell the story like this: There was a god and a girl and a quest, a journey to return home. The story will say – the road was long and hard, but she made it, in the end. She won, vanquished the evil, and got a joyful hero's welcome home.
That's the happy ending – the storybook, the fairy-tale, the Aesop. The one that ties the ends neatly into a bow, comes a full circle, satisfies it's premise.
The other versions of the story go like this: there is a god and a girl and a quest. She wins, vanquishes evil and cannot turn back.
She keeps walking forward, endlessly wandering.
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Gelel drops Shikako in the Land of Hot Springs for the last time. She takes it in, the wild forest, the small town, the way that the shrine is small and humble – the Jashinists haven't yet started expanding for their rituals.
She knows she isn't home. She knows she's not the lucky one.
She isn't the Shikako that gets to go home.
Disappointment is too shallow a word but grief is too large to fit inside her lungs, so she sets it aside. There are still actions to take, and actions come easy, especially by now.
This is not the first time she has killed the temple full of Jashinists. This is not the first time she has burnt it all to the ground. The place is damp and cold with late winter snow, but her fire jutsu burn white hot enough to scorch the place bare anyway, purification of a sort.
She watches it burn with hooded, shadowed eyes, then walks away, leaving no footprints in the snow.
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Gelel is nearly awake as she approaches, the here-and-everywhere connection through universes strengthened enough to make it feel like a restless sleeper in the hold of a dream.
All Shikako has to do is make that last, insignificant, change. She wonders, as she touches the heartstone, what would happen if she tried to go on? If there is now a Shikako in every world, is there anywhere for her to go onwards to? Would she simply fade into Gelel? Would she cease to exist?
Would she die?
The garden erupts around her, as beautiful and as safe as always.
And as empty.
There is only Shikako and Gelel in the garden. It is their domain. Nothing happens here that is not created by the two of them.
If that had been enough for her, she would have remained starlight.
When she leaves, she takes the Gelel heartstone with her. If she left any footprints in the sand, the desert would swallow them for her anyway.
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Konoha isn't even a dream yet, but Shikako stands atop the cliff and looks out to where her home should be – will be one day.
There's nothing there for her. Not yet, not yet, and she'll do more than wait for it.
When she goes, the leaves don't even rustle in her wake.
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She wanders, but her feet drag her inexorably east, the reverse of her normal path, as though she's stuck in rewind. Or maybe she's retracing that first fateful trip – Konoha to Hot Springs, the one that started it all.
Spring is starting, by the time she arrives. The snow has melted, flowers starting to bloom and cherry blossom petals filling the air in a pink, drifting haze.
By the temple, the ground is still black and charred, but green shoots are peaking out through the ash and dirt.
Even here, things grow.
Even here, after Shikako razed it. Even here, after decades of Jashinists pressing hatred and malice into the world.
What does grass care about gods?
She crouches down and touches it, gently, gingerly. In her pocket, the Gelel heartstone is as heavy as a galaxy.
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They say in the forests of Land of Hot Springs, there's a garden that blooms all year round, where the fruit is always growing and plentiful.
They say there's a natural spring, where the water is hot and sweet and can cure any ailment in existence.
You can't find it by any normal means, even those who have been there before can never return. But they say there's a spirit, in the forest, and if you get lost, if you try to take shelter from a storm, if you are fleeing men with swords, then she'll find you and take you to it.
And when the storm is past, when the men are gone, when it's safe to go home, she'll walk you out of the forest to safety.
And they say, if it's never safe to return, then she lets you stay.
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The second Shikako is… a surprise.
They stare at each other warily, same face, same body and mind and history and yet – slightly different. Diverged at the end point, changed by different actions.
The second Shikako is warier, confused, ready to fight.
"Well, that answers what happens if we use Gelel again," the first Shikako says, deliberately casual. She turns her back, calls over her shoulder. "You should come have something to eat!"
She doesn't ask, doesn't press or question or particularly think too hard about what has happened to the other Shikako. Clearly – the world she landed in was insufficient. Clearly – she left.
It's enough.
"Why here?" The second Shikako asks. "Of all places… why here?"
They aren't the types to stew in their trauma, prefer to ignore it and move on. Of all the places Shikako could have set down to live in, why Hot Springs.
She thinks about how to formulate her answer. It's hard – she hasn't had to vocalise it. The only people who know enough to even ask that question are her and Gelel.
"It's not enough to win," she says, at length. "I shut the door, but I'm going to erase him from here too. He doesn't get to keep this place."
She's going to overwrite him. She's going to be petty and spiteful and use that to be kind and help people until the world balances out.
It's not easy. Kindness is always harder than killing.
"Huh," says the second Shikako. But she doesn't leave. And that's an answer too.
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The third Shikako is blank and cold and full of the deepest shadows. She doesn't ask why here. Doesn't ask anything.
But she stays too.
"One is happenstance, two is coincidence," the second Shikako says, pointing to herself, "three is-"
Three is enemy action she means to say.
"Three is a clan," the first Shikako corrects. "Welcome home." There's a long silence as they all think about home. "Also, we're really going to need to pick individual names because this is getting ridiculous. I dibs 'Ichigo'."
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SCREAMING, INCOHERENT SCREAMING
Date: 2018-12-17 05:41 am (UTC)Re: SCREAMING, INCOHERENT SCREAMING
Date: 2018-12-17 08:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-17 05:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-17 08:01 am (UTC)Thank you! I'm pretty sure the word for three Shikako's would be 'chaos' or perhaps 'world ending disaster' but they'd probably go for 'clan'. XD
aaaAAAA
Date: 2018-12-17 06:19 am (UTC)"three is" enemy action "a clan."
that last joke is so. like--yeah, this is sad, but you move on. you learn to make do with what you have. put three shikakos together and they're gonna figure out new names for themselves because they can't ALL be shikako. (though if they're a clan now they could still, technically, be kako...)
i love this
Re: aaaAAAA
Date: 2018-12-17 07:53 am (UTC)Re: aaaAAAA
Date: 2018-12-17 08:08 am (UTC)(etc etc), then 'Shikako' is the clan name of this set of strangely identical sisters. XDRe: aaaAAAA
Date: 2018-12-17 05:27 pm (UTC)having the kekkai genkai of a specific clan but not being a part of that clan... presents some few problems. shikako is mostly into sealing, and non-traditional usage of clan techniques via gelel stone, but she's still a nara with shadow techniques. explaining that when konoha becomes a thing will be Fun
edit: or they're literally (number) shikako which is definitely the funnier option. i love shikako??? so much ? ? ??
Re: aaaAAAA
Date: 2018-12-17 08:06 am (UTC)And I think she would deal. Not happily or necessarily quickly but eventually.
Shikako is also so good at undercutting tension with her words and I love that. XD
no subject
Date: 2018-12-17 06:21 am (UTC)(if Shikako can't have her own clan, she'll make one. even if every member is herself.)no subject
Date: 2018-12-17 08:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-17 06:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-17 08:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-17 07:52 am (UTC)This probably means Ichigo (God Shikako you're just at great at naming things as ever lol) is the one best set up to take care of them. I wonder if there are others, and Gelel is filtering where they would fit best?
also this makes me so happy, to think that Shikako's who end up in bad universes, who can't make a place in a new home, have somewhere to turn too. Can be safe and be happy and make their own little clan of not *quite* all the same people
God, I love your description of things growing After Jashin, After Shikako, that was heartwarming as well. "What does grass care about gods?" what a lovely poignant sentiment I love it. And also how clearly its helped Ichigo heal a little, being here and doing this. The fact that *shes* the one to end the phrase in family instead of paranoia.
I wonder what names the others will pick? Did you have any in mind? Do they come up with a funny naming scheme, do the rest chose numbers as well? Does the third eventually pull herself out of the Black ? What happened to her, to throw herself in so deep. I'm just so glad there's now a place for those like her now, for them all to heal and hopefully be happy eventually. I would read a full fic about whatever this clan turned out to be actually, and eventually interacting with the world. It's all so very lovely.
no subject
Date: 2018-12-17 08:15 am (UTC)and yes! things growing! things recovering! I love the imagery of new growth after fire damage, because no matter how bad it looks things to recover. And sometimes better for it.
I think they absolutely stick to a number theme, because Names Are Hard. The second Shikako probably goes for 'Nidaime Shikako' just for the inevitable confusion when Konoha elects a Nidaime Hokage and she can troll
Tobiramapeople with her name alone.no subject
Date: 2018-12-17 10:35 am (UTC)An entire clan of Shikakos is going to be chaos for everyone else to deal with. The in jokes alone...
no subject
Date: 2018-12-17 09:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-17 10:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-17 09:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-17 02:28 pm (UTC)Btw, are these Shikakos (what is the plural of Shikako? Catastrophe?) going to do anything about Zetsu before he gets going? Do they know how old Zetsu is? Like, was that part of the pre-derailing plot, or the post-derailing bit where Tobi-is-Madara-is-Obito-is-Madara-is-Obito? Is that part of DOS canon or not?
no subject
Date: 2018-12-17 09:05 pm (UTC)Pepper has started a discussion in the comm thread though! If people want to throw ideas around: https://dreamingofsunshine.dreamwidth.org/2040.html?thread=37112#cmt37112