#jinryu

The definitive cover for A Silver Tale is all done!

After confronting the Ghost of Tsushima one last time with no prospect of emerging unscathed from the fight, Ryuzo expected death's embrace to claim him. After all, a virtuous outing is what he wanted. But not so virtuous was to survive the impossible as reality seemed to strain itself into a tight rope. One he had to walk on.

Upon waking up, he senses a pair of strange eyes watching from the shadows. Those of a fox. Left without a choice, Ryuzo decides to follow it.

Pairings include Jin/Ryuzo and Ryuzo/OC.

"MORNING GLORY HOT SPRING" are you serious ??

I mean, to choose to reflect on Kenji's sake here you must be really, really REALLY straight.

(And let's be honest, Jin wouldn't.)

Chapters: 7/? Rating: Explicit Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Ryuzo/Jin Sakai Characters: Jin Sakai, Ryuzo (Ghost of Tsushima), Masako Adachi, Yasunari Adachi, Sadanobu Ishikawa, Yuna (Ghost of Tsushima), Tomoe (Ghost of Tsushima), Lord Shimura (Ghost of Tsushima) Additional Tags: Jin saves Kazumasa on Iki, and things aren't necessarily better, but at least Ryuzo becomes a samurai, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Minor Character Death, as usual, It's pretty dark, not really darker than the game but still, Established Relationship, but also flashbacks to when it wasn't, at the root of it there is some, Hurt/Comfort, Iki Island Spoilers, some but it takes place on Tsushima for now Summary:

“So, what’s your sword’s name?” Ryuzo asked.

“Tempest’s End,” Jin replied.

There was something ominous about the fact that Jin was calling it that, considering that Lord Sakai’s, his father’s, sword was called The Storm.

The Dragonblood Village was not a ninja village.

It wasn’t a massive city like Naruto’s Konohagakure, it was an actual village – a subsistence-level farming community where the people struggled to grow food from infertile land. These people were too busy fighting the land and its wild beasts to support a trained military force like Konoha’s shinobi corps.

It couldn’t have even been like a ninja village from the real world, or else the Shinobi and other trained members of the village would have been serving as spies and mercenaries for King Medius or some other powerful figure. But the King and his people would rather destroy the Dragonblood Clan than make use of them, and it’s only after the destruction of Dragonblood Village that any clansmen venture to the city to become mercenary adventurers.

By all appearances, the Dragonblood Village just wanted to live and let live, focused more on merely surviving the hostile environment of their home and trading with their few neighbors rather than interacting with any of the kingdoms.

It does still make sense that someone like the Shinobi would exist. The Dragonblood Clan know their enemies would like to destroy them, and the Divine Family likely attempted attacks in the past. The power granted by Atruum’s blood wouldn’t always be enough, so it makes sense the community would permit some of their own to focus entirely on training for combat rather than farming the land, with the community providing them food in return for protection.

So the Shinobi was born to one of the village’s previous guardians, and he and his friend were trained from birth in the arts of stealth and combat, so that they could one day take over as the sentinels watching over their people.

What makes less sense is why his friend would be considered a “nukenin” for running away to Marlayus, and then hunted down and forced to return.

As I understand it, the primary threat a “runaway ninja” posed to a ninja village was exposing their existence and giving up all of their secrets. But what secrets would a poor farming village have? The village’s enemies knew exactly where it was.

It just seems like a waste of time and energy hunting down a trained ninja who doesn’t want to serve the village anymore. How is capturing him and dragging him back supposed to change his mind? They can’t spare the resources to imprison him, and they can’t trust him to not run away again, and clearly they didn’t intend to kill him since the Shinobi was bringing him back alive when the village was attacked.

Oh, and I think someone over at TVTropes supposes that the Shinobi and his friend were trained by the branch of the Dragonblood Clan in Marlayus, but that doesn’t make any sense either. If the two branches had so much contact with each other, why would anyone care that much if his friend ran away from one to join the other?