Her Autumn [Hanzo x fem!Reader]

Chapter 4: Suiren

Hanzo sighed. His day progressed well so far up until now: he had an early morning stretch with his brother and a peaceful breakfast in his garden. But his gut told him something was going to ruin the good start of the day.

As usual it was right. One of Sojiro's personal attendants visited him when he had just finished his meal, bringing the news that he and his brother had to attend a mandatory dinner with an envoy of the Tsukiyama family tonight.

Hanzo was in no mood to deal with anyone with that clan right now - or rather, he was never in the mood to do so.

The security of the whole castle would be alert when that envoy would come, even though they were a single person. Hideyoshi Tsukiyama was too much of a snake to fully trust him or his people.

It had been two months since Hanzo had properly spoken with his father. He didn't expect that the next meeting with him would involve the northern clan.

The young successor walked to the garden in front of the garden. There was a large pond there, possibly as deep as a lake.

As he passed the Suzuran Tsukiyama statue, he looked up to the stone woman, whose stone form was around two times as tall than she was when she was real. Her body was facing away from the castle, to the north, but she was looking south at the Shimada castle. It was dynamic; it looked like she was walking away from the castle, with the wind blowing her hair in her face.

Hanzo walked around to study the art. He always wondered who this carefully carved statue depicted, but he had never thought it would be someone from their enemies.

Suzuran's face was mostly covered in hair, but the features that Hanzo could see, he had to admit, were beautiful to him. She looked sad, almost as if she was crying.

It made him curious. He didn't understand why his father wanted to wait for the right moment to tell him.

Hanzo left the statue alone again and headed to the pond, where he ordered his maids to prepare a cloth for him to sit on. He always meditated on the same day, on Wednesday. 

However, much to his surprise, someone was already sitting on the cloth. A woman.

It seemed that she didn't take notice of Hanzo yet, since he approached from behind. He stood still, just a few feet away.

"Excuse me." He said, his words sounding more like a growl, unbeknownst to him, which made the mysterious figure look around at him.

Long, pitch black hair that was braided in a large bun, navy blue lines that winged above her clear blue eyes and porcelain - frail-looking - skin which was, paired with her white obi-less kimono, as if she was almost ethereal. Her simple kimono looked almost royal on the young woman's body.

She caught Hanzo off guard. They both didn't say anything, which made the atmosphere very awkward. In fact, she was just waiting for him to say something, since he was the one who took her attention from her meditation.

Hanzo recomposed himself, but he still sounded quite irritated. "Who are you? I have never seen you before."

The unknown woman stood up, patting her skirt straight, and curtseyed. She looked straight in his eyes. Hanzo felt a chill running over his spine. Her gaze looked cold.