In one, she was small. No bigger than a man's left thumb, in fact. Perhaps, maybe even smaller. Everything looked so far away. The straw like tufts of grass standing like muddled tree trunks towering above her. Shadows of monstrous beasts passing over like clouds. The sea of speckled sunshine stretching forever forward. She could feel the gritty surface beneath her belly, coarse and cold. Getting in between her scales, coating her tongue. It chafed and burned every one of her yellow splattered legs as she scampered desperately, [/size]desperately towards that one ray of light. A fragment of heat moving just beyond her reach. Meter by meter, inch by inch she raced the hour. But the sun was too quick. The creature was too slow...too cold....

In the other, she died.

At least, she should have. For a moment, she was falling. The hand, whose fingers had become so entwined in her thoughts had finally let go and she plummeted without mercy down to the steely water below. But this one did not resist. No, she embraced the salt water wind that bit at her flesh as she tumbled down the cliff side. She did not cry out as the waves swept her in to the sea-scoured rocks somewhere below. She would not even fight the current as it swept her back and forth, to and fro, until finally allowing her to rest in the greater expanse of deep azure grey. This being had long since accepted the fate this world had created for her and yet.... she was not dead.

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The colder dream was cruel. The negative degree of the ocean water was icy enough to numb the stinging of the cuts but it couldn't overpower the almost electric pain of broken bones. Water constantly took place of oxygen, and even in those beclouded moments where she could maybe open her eyes, her vision was plagued with flashes of hope.
Once, she had been brutally thrust from her desert chase when something had rammed in to her with enough force to make her aware that not only had she caught her arm over what remained of a splintered plank, but had floated out to join the rest of the wreckage... or at least, what still could be seen above the rolling ripples. It was here, in this moment, during this iota of unexpected happenstance, the Sotsuji caught herself glancing around. Reaching out for something... anything at all. Because perhaps, just this once the insatiable need for survival of that other dream seeped through the frayed border. That just maybe...maybe the sudden shift of worlds had caused a part of one to remain in the other.  Whatever it was that had stirred some semblance of will within her broken exterior, it was just enough that she discarded the foot length of plank that had been her life line for some time, and surged for the broken barrel, wrapping her one good arm over it's edge and holding until she was in range of something bigger. Like that over there.
It could have been a row boat once. With oars and sides to hold them, a net hanging off the side and a few less holes. Now it nothing more that a few pieces of curved timber, warped and knotted and a half rotted box to one side. It was barely above the surface but it was enough. The female waited. She waited for what felt like hours for the wind to push her close enough that she could hear the wood bang against the rusted metal ring of the barrel. Only then did she let go, and fell on to the edge of the half submerged structure.

It would be longer before she had the energy to pull herself up to the box.
It would be even longer before she returned to this dream once more.

The nightmare. The hellish cycle: The wind flowing low over the waters surface, whipped up salt tainted spray that lashed against her skin, making it feel like every inch was covered by irritated burn that would never ease. At least not until the all encompassing ache set in. The semi rhythmic throbbing that would bury itself so deep that she could feel it in her joints and in her bones. It was right there...then, in those moments before everything went numb and even the endless quaking ceased that she could find the strength to pull herself further up on the make shift raft, curl her knees in to her chest and find a flicker of warmth that would drive the nothingness away and start the cycle all over again.
It would continue like this for hours... maybe days. The box she had clung to from the beginning held nothing but false hope and little by little, her piece of wooden salvation would break away. Maybe from a misplaced foot, sometimes from a rouge wave tossing it too harshly against the roiling surface. Every other time she adjusted herself to sit further away from the water a bit would break away and she would sink further and further in to the water. But not just in to the water. In to that other dream. It was getting harder to pull herself back. Eventually.... the next time she would be aware of this ocean world... there was not enough to cling to keep the pattern going.

How long? How long had she been out here? The shinobi had lost all sense of time of day. Then again, did she really have it? Was she aware that all that was keeping her afloat was two lengths of rotted timber held together by a rusted bolt? Or that the only reason she hadn't slipped off yet was because the sub degree temperature had locked her muscles in place? Was that a silhouette of a coast over there? Or was she so far gone that the two dreams were blending together and what she was really seeing was the distant dunes she would no doubt be led over in her eternal chase for that one blessed moment of warmth? The answer pushed her over the edge.

Her bones were broken. Shattered some even. Only her right arm had been spared from the blows of both man and stone. Every breath was fiery pain across her torso, there was no strength in her legs to support even half her weight. Her spine, had somehow remained intact but that was less of a blessing that one might think. Her once olive skin, now sickly pale grey  was mottled with bruising and tears. Coal black hair was brown with mud and whatever was left of her clothing was all but glued to her form. As was her mask. The bottom half had crumbled away however the rest had remained firmly fixed and would not be easily removed. She was thin, dehydrated and cold.... so very, very cold.

Tenmei slipped. Her grip came free of the edge of the wood. Muscles frozen. Bones unstable. Will left behind on the cliffs of Kumogakure. She drifted down to be lost to the other dream forever.

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Words:1201

How many poets had composed odes to the sea? Moonstruck fools who in their hubris wished to capture a small portion of the great primal force that was the ocean, and transfer by proxy some of it's majesty to their verse. The statements made in their compositions were more often than not true, the sea was beautiful beyond measure, and that stark beauty contained harsh brutality, that cared nothing for those who sailed its lengths.

Though Dragonkind also produced poets of exquisite skill they never centred their sonnets around the ocean. The gods of the sea knew the futility of encapsulating such a thing mad as one who would try to enounce the nameless dao. Di was one such divinity through a fledgling in both years and power. What had transpired with Yatagarasu had left him with a bad taste in his mouth. Learning that the system that you had placed yourself into was rotten from its heart was a stining blow. Ayakashi had from a distance seemed a harsh but fair Kage but with the revelation that she was the killer Yatagarasu  it was clear that she didn't even play by the rules she created.

It would be easy enough to simply blame this on the humans. It was human society that Di had joined after-all. The truth of the matter was that all things in heaven were mirrored on earth and humans were simply falling for the same failings that dragonkind had made millennia before their existence. Really it was the fact that Di was powerless to do anything about it that was at the heart of this matter. He couldn't overthrow Kirigakure by himself and even if he could would it be right of him to meddle in the human system of government to that extent?

Damn Ayakashi for her madness and damn Di for having no good answer to it. In the stories the detective solved the case revealed the villain and that was the end of it. Di had made the discovery but had been left impotent with information that he could do nothing with. So now to clear his thoughts he glid beneath the waves. A sinuous serpentine shape far longer than a person with noble horns and a fine white mane.

Around Di fish parted, their tiny piscine minds comprehending that they must show reverence for their master. Dragons were the undisputed lords of the surf and even though Di was not fully grown  nothing within the natural order would challenge him. The unnatural was a different story with the great dark Umibozu and the spectral Bake Kujira being rather dangerous in his relative youth. There was little chance that he would encounter such phantoms here however.  

Di had just passed by a school of rather delicious looking salmon when he began to feel something at the back of his mind. It was like a memory caught in the twilight between sleep and wakefulness but like some of those hazy thoughts seemed to pertain not to the past but the future. Di had felt this once before it was the sixth sense that warned dragons that others were in danger.

With great power came great responsibility and the reptilian gods were meant to be caregivers and guardians over the earth and the humans that lived there. Somewhere nearby a human was in grave danger.  Letting instinct take hold Di sped through the waves swifter than any craft breaching the surface with a jet of spray.

There she was, a human figure floating away from a chunk of flotsam. Lank hair flowing like spun onyx and sallow skin spoke of deprivation. The cuts and bruises that marred her form told a take of violence. In truth the young woman could hardly be told apart from a corpse so terrible and emaciated was she under the dying light of evening. As she drifted down into the ocean strong clawed arms grasped hold of her limbs. Clammy and cold Di couldn't feel a pulse.

Across the waves a ship could be seen. The craft was small but perhaps they would have something to help resuscitate the maiden. Di glided across the waves the Sotsuji clutched in his arms like a doll. Closer he came and the dragons heart fell, this was no ship of the the living. Hitodama flames danced around the vessel and skeletal forms each draped in the white funereal garb of death manned the vessel. Funna Yueri the drowned dead come to collect the soul of another unfortunate. Bony hands reached out for the ninja ready to add her to the eternal vigil of their crew.

No. Di wasn't going to be letting that happen. With a roar of defiance he rose from the water to the skies one hand keeping her aloft he breathed over her the warmth of his lungs washing over the girl.  A small strike to the back caused water to come up from her lungs in a fit of weak coughing. It seemed that she had some fight left in her yet small as it may be. Across the evening sky the pair travelled beyond the sea and towards the land.

Alighting with the grace of a natural predator Di's form blurred and shifted till he stood in human guise the woman clutched in his arms. She was still cold and weak but her breathing was steady. Not wasting any time Di stepped from the cover of the thicket where he had made his transformation and onto the road to Kirigakure. There he would book her into the nearest hospital to recover.