Unlikely Saviour - Mizu x Reader

The Snow Covered Path - Arrival at Kyoto

I'v been walking for two hours, following the footsteps in the snow clumsily as I trip over my own feet and twigs that stand in the way of the path, I can see owls in the trees, softly hooting with the sound of snow to accompany them. 

I hear voices in the background, they sound as if they are arguing, "Perhaps my samurai I've been searching for has run into more trouble?" I think with a scoff until I realise I've stumbled my way to the end of the straight path of footsteps. I look around frantically, hoping he doesn't think I'm a potential attacker and has planted an ambush.

I look to the side of the path where I see the samurai and the boy from the shop arguing.

"There's another one??" the samurai groans. I look to myself with doubt as I think maybe it wasn't a good idea to walk all this way, that I would be a burden rather than a helping hand. I'm no good with a sword, it's not like I'd be plenty useful to him. I should just lay here in the snow and die to his blade.

He composes him self before he looks to the boy and calmly says, "A breeze can blow a crane off course. You... are a typhoon," he says leaving a sad yet still determined look on the boys face as he continues to beg to be his apprentice.

I think to myself solemnly as I realise how useless I'd be to the samurai, I attempt to get up and take my leave, but I slip on what seems to be a patch of ice and fall at the feet of the samurai.

I look up in shock as he stares down at me pitifully.

"You must be one of Hachiman's?" he says looking down at me, I feel my face heat up in embarrassment, embarrassment that I had been tied to that filthy man's name, I slowly nod my head as he lets out a deep sigh. I hear the crows call out to each other in the trees and look up, my mouth gaping as if I'd never seen something like it.

Then it hit me, I hadn't, I'd only ever heard them from the horses I'd been dragged along. Hachiman had always blindfolded me on the horse rides, so I'd never remember the way to escape back to society. It was cruel and disgusting but it was like seeing a new world, hearing sounds of the outside world without the blindfold on was something I hadn't experienced since I was 15, before I was sold.

My attention turned back to the samurai, who had seemed to now have rope in his hands as he quickly grabbed to boy and tied him to the tree with his bag set not too far from him.

"You should've just gone home," he said under his breath, before walking away. 

"WAIT!!" I called to him desperately, tears filling my eyes as I realise this is my only window to reaching him, to finally leaving my old life behind and starting a new one.

"What? your.. 'skillset' is of no use to me," he says blankly before turning away.

"HACHIMAN CONFIDED IN ME, SHINDO IS THE HEAD OF A DOJO IN KYOTO" I scream out desperately to the man before me. The samurai's eyes widen as he slowly approaches me, then grabs my hand.

I flinch and push myself back, he stares at me not understanding why until his eyes widen more and he apologises. "If you know where Heiji Shindo is,, then I guess I can make an exception," he says reluctantly, as he walks away. I take that as a sign to follow him through the snowy path, but before I do, I take a hatchet from the boy's bag and chop through one of the rope bindings before running away to the samurai.

I didn't look back at him to see his reaction, I knew I shouldn't have done that, but I couldn't just leave him there. I find myself looking back frequently, seeing if the boy had caught up with us, I still felt that sense of responsibility for the boy, that motherly kind of care, that feeling of having to protect him, but I still don't understand why.