#chojuuro

[chojuuro]

everybody shut up look at chojuuro without his glasses on

[iantoyawrites]

Another amazing commission by @ottermelonart ! Chojuro playing Beat Saber with Hiramekarei!

[azuzeldraws]

 Been pondering Kiri,That land of hubris. Sooooo much to explore

[spooky-kakashi]

chojuro and isari funato enemies to lovers fanfiction dropping when?????

[jay-and-joy-write-naruto]

M, W, B: Kisame, Chojuuro, Zabuza

Joy: hmm, marry the lovable shark boi (samehada can be our pet), bed Zabuza (he is thicc) and behead chojuuro

Jay: OMG SAME!! I love Kisame soooooo much and Zabuza…. well, what she said ;) SORRY CHOJUURO

[chojuuro]

character/s: Karatachi Kagura, Karatachi Yagura, Karatachi Tamayo (oc), Chojuuro, Shimizu Hiroki (oc) rating: SFW content: character death, near death experience, afterlife reunion, canon divergent. spoilers for boruto episode 246. not edited. words: 1,274

He wakes in a pair of strong arms, nestled against a familiar chest that he hasn’t felt in many years.  And he’s calm; so, so calm that he can very nearly forget how he ended up here in the first place.  His head swims, dizzy with loss of blood and the swiftly changing surroundings, but he feels warm, safe, at peace as he feels himself drift again, feels himself nuzzling into the hold on him.

“My Kagura…”

When he wakes again, feeling more rested and stronger than he had before, he’s not sure how much time has passed but he’s still happily in that familiar hold, leaning into the touch of fingers dancing along the crown of his head, playing with his hair.  And he realizes, belatedly – still sososo tired and bleary eyed – that he recognizes the voices around him; vaguely, like a dream.

“Can we keep him?”

“Father.”

“Sorry.”

Kagura squints against the light as he opens his eyes, brows pinching at their center.  It’s bright – and then he remembers.  He remembers the searing pain, the feeling of blood welling up inside his chest and out through his throat; the screams of his friends and his uncle and his father, desperate and aching and angry, so, so angry.  But here?  Here, it’s calm, bathed in a gentle light diffused by the mist surrounding them atop a shallow lake that Kagura can’t see the edge of.  He tries turning his head to look but a hand on his cheek stops him, and finally, finally he looks up at the person holding him, and he cannot suppress the urge to cry.

“...Mama?”

She smiles that smile that she reserved for him all those years ago, the gentle tug at her lips that Kagura knows so well from childhood.  He didn’t know her long, only a handful of short, short years, but Kagura knows a mother’s touch when he feels it, recognizes her familiar, warm presence like he saw her yesterday.  She brushes his bangs out of his face, wipes his tears with the pad of her thumb.

“It’s good to see you,” she whispers, and the laugh she gives him is soft, gentle, accented with the tears prickling at her own eyes.  “You’ve grown so much.”

Kagura reaches up for his mother’s wrist, gripping it loosely with all the strength he can muster.  He’s tired, so, so tired; just wants to curl up in her arms and let her hum the lullaby that she used to hum for him, the one his father couldn’t get through without breaking down, the one passed down to her by her own parents.  But he knows he can’t, knows that he has someplace to be, others to be with.

“He looks just like you, father.”

He turns his head enough to greet him, finally;  the air he gets from Yagura is different from the one he’d expected, far different from the bone-chilling, murderous aura that he’d heard so much about.  This one is warmer, almost playful – it’s the same chakra signature that Kagura expects to come from an academy student, but he knows that face well, knows that he’s far from an academy student.

“Lord Fourth–”

“You can call me grandpa,” Yagura tells the boy, on one knee beside them, dodging the halfhearted swing his daughter takes at him as she corrects him – just call him Yagura, she says.  “Sorry we had to meet like this.”

Kagura frowns, sitting up in his mother’s hold.  And she allows this, allows him to move as he needs, but she doesn’t let him stray too far from her.  He feels like a little boy again, protected in his mother’s arms from the world.  It’s been years, far too long since he’s felt her hold like this; and he cherishes it, wishes he could bottle up the warmth he feels bloom in his chest and keep it for a rainy day.  Somewhere in the back of his mind, he yearns for his father’s touch

His jaw clenches slightly watching Yagura’s face; Yagura, who he never met properly, who died nearly a decade before he was born but whose legacy he’s forced to remember on a daily basis.  But he seems at peace now, Kagura thinks, and though he’s not sure if he can ever fully forgive his grandfather, though his blood-stained legacy may never wash away completely, he can’t deny that being able to meet him finally, and to see him in a light that isn’t tinted red, is quite nice.

“I have to say I’m very proud of what you and the swordsman are doing with the village,” Yagura says.  His smile softens, just a hair, and Kagura feels his heart swell.  “It’s hard to come back from where it was.  I don’t know how you’re doing it, but I’m impressed.”

“It’s mostly Lord Chojuuro and Lady Mei, I haven’t been–”

“You’re a big part of the new generation of Kiri, Kagura.  You’re doing a lot.”

For a moment, Kagura wonders if the stories were never true to begin with.  He knows, realistically, that the Blood Mist era happened; Shizuma had made sure to make a point of ensuring he knew.  But this Yagura is not the Yagura that he’d ever expected to be the face of the Blood Mist.  This Yagura doesn’t instill the same fear that the stories of him had so many years ago, nor does he make Kagura want to run away and hide like he’d wanted to as a child, taunted by cruel academy children who knew too much, yet not nearly enough about the situation.

Perhaps he’s at peace these days after all.

“...Mama,” Kagura whispers, and he doesn’t meet her face – can’t meet her face.  “Am I…?”

“It’s not your time yet, beloved,” she assures him, holds him so close to her heart that it hurts to let him go, but Tamayo knows that she must.  She trusts Chojuuro and the Shimizu boy to watch after her son, trusts wholeheartedly that they will keep him safe, and although she wants so, so badly to keep her boy, she knows that keeping him here – to herself, to her father and to his father, all who miss him terribly and who never truly got to see the boy grow up – would be selfish.

“I can’t wait to see you again, Kagura,” she whispers to him, cradles him to her bosom like she did when he was young.  He grips onto her wrist loosely, already feels her dissipating as she kisses his forehead.  

Yagura offers him a smile as he ruffles his hair. “But don’t hurry back, okay?”

⋯

He wakes again in the hospital – for good, he knows, for there’s no more dreamlike quality dancing among his vision – and the first face he sees is Chojuuro’s.  His glasses are off, set off to the side on the table at Kagura’s bedside, and his eyes are red, puffy; it takes Kagura more than a moment in his hazed state to realize that he’s been crying.  Slowly, his gaze shifts around the room; Boruto, Sarada, Iwabe…  Hiroki.  

And Kagura doesn’t know why, he really, truly doesn’t, but he feels tears well up in his eyes and spill over, and they won't stop.  Gratitude?  Sorrow?  He’s in no position to place it, no headspace to really consider it, but Hiroki quickly scoops Kagura into his arms, settled on the edge of his hospital bed and holding the boy – his boy – close against his chest, careful not to jostle him too much.  And Kagura finds himself slowly gripping at Hiroki’s haori like if he lets go, he might slip away again.

[chojuuro]

Hiroki presses a kiss against his Mizukage's head and Chojuuro can't help but lean into it, grabbing at Hiroki's arm to steady himself as he's pulled into the embrace. But he doesn't fight it, nestling himself happily in the strong arms of his beloved.

received this lovely gift from my beloved @yamanaka-shin of my boys by @kanekolinkk today 🥺💛 thank you both so very much, i'm in love 💛💛

[iantoyawrites]

Chapters 9 and 10 are up Of Sharks and Men on AO3. Links in the chapter titles below.

Chapter 10, Bonds of Steel, could be read as a short one shot if you want the meat of the story. Gaara and Chojuro are rescued by a gilled swordsman. Kisame recalls how he encountered Hiramekarei and gave it to Chojuro in a moment of need. ⚠️WARNING ⚠️ for non-graphic mentions of rape.

Chapter 9 - Clouded Judgment

Ao startled awake. He activated his uncovered Byakugan, scanning the mansion. He caught glimpse of the unique signatures of Hiramekarei and Gaara leaving the building. He felt the Mizukage stir beside him.

“Is everything okay?” Mei mumbled sleepily.

“I think so. Chojuro and Lord Gaara are off somewhere at this time of night. What could they possibly be up to?”

“Don’t even think of telling me what time it is,” Mei warned, “Or else. Let them be.”

Ao didn’t wish to be threatened any further. He settled back down in bed, wrapping an arm around Mei’s soft and warm waist. His strong chest pressed to her back and she shifted back against him. He growled in arousal, pressing soft kisses against her neck.

“Let me sleep,” she groaned.

Ao kissed her neck once more in apology and inhaled deeply, enjoying her warm scent.

Chapter 10 - Bonds of Steel

"I think that's how I found you this time," Kisame continued. "Samehada was drawn to Hiramekarei's distress. It's not the first time it's happened with these two swords."

Chojuro's eyebrows raised in earnest. He longed to hear more. "I hope you'll tell me more, but we have to do something about Gaara."

He looked down at the Kazekage pressed against his side. Gaara shuddered violently, his arms wrapped tightly around his chest trying to keep warm.

Kisame could feel Samahada rustle against his back. No doubt, she was hungry for the immense chakra reserves the Jinchuriki possessed. He was so weak. It would be so easy to take him now.