A Simple Grudge

[Harau, 1281 CE]

The dawn breeze drifted up from the Harau Valley, carrying the chorus of insects and the distant murmur of the river. Hattori—now living in Sena’s body and using his name—sat motionless at the cliff’s edge until the first light of day fully broke.

The oath he had spoken the night before still echoed in his mind, but words alone could not fill his empty, growling stomach.

As the sun rose completely, the sharp pangs of hunger finally broke through the calm he had built through years of discipline.

“Hah… this body is so demanding,” he thought to himself.

He descended the hillside carefully, each step feeling unfamiliar; he had not yet fully grown accustomed to Sena’s frame. The small muscles in his calves trembled slightly, and the soles of his feet were raw from sharp stones and damp soil. Hattori could well understand—life had never been kind to someone as frail as Sena.

Fragments of memory drifted in from time to time, now without the searing pain they had brought before. They flowed gently, like muddy water finally settling clear.

Sena Sanjaya. An orphan at fifteen years old. His mother had died from an illness that had never been treated. His father had perished after being sentenced to a public whipping while performing forced labor, building the stone road leading to the Singhasari garrison post in Harau.

His father’s body had never been returned whole; only whispered tales remained of a back torn open and breath failing beneath the scorching sun. From that day on, Sena had survived on the pity of the villagers.

He became a laborer, hauling timber and breaking stone, stepping into his father’s name on the forced labor register while still just a boy. His thin frame was not due to laziness, but because his food rations were always far too little.

And then there was Balun, the burly youth—son of the forced labor foreman. Sena’s childhood friend, now turned petty enforcer who delighted in stepping on those weaker than himself to maintain his own power.

Of course, everyone wanted to live comfortably—Sena no less than Balun. All were pushed by circumstance.

“Your grudge is so simple, Sena,” Hattori murmured softly. There was no excess hatred in his voice, only a cold, detached observation.

He reached the village as the morning began to stir. Raised wooden houses stood among coconut trees and clumps of bamboo. Cooking smoke rose, carrying the scent of boiled cassava and burning firewood. People glanced at him—some with suspicion, some with disdain, and others with pity.

Sena was known as a quiet, unconfident boy, often the target of mockery from his peers.

But today, they noticed something strange. His frame was still scrawny and frail, yet his gaze now held a different quality.

Sena walked toward a dilapidated hut at the village’s edge. Its thatched roof leaked, its walls leaned crookedly, and its floor was nothing more than cracked, hard-packed earth. Yet as he stepped inside, a strange warmth settled in his chest.

This was not the home of Hattori Zen, the Iga Jonin. But it was the place where Sena had clung to life.

He sat cross-legged. Regulated his breathing. Counted his pulse. Opened his palms and moved his fingers slowly.

For the first time since his death in the snows of Iga, Hattori allowed a faint smile. “Interesting,” he whispered, accepting his new reality.

In the days that followed, the transformation began.

Hattori continued to act as Sena would. He still worked—carrying timber, clearing fields, and hauling stones. But his rhythm was different.

He no longer wasted his strength. He controlled his breath, distributed his load, and shifted his weight with perfect efficiency.

Minor scrapes and cuts still appeared, but they no longer festered into serious wounds.

Each night, when the village fell asleep, he trained in silence. Not harsh exercises that tore at his muscles, but drills in posture, balance, and breathing. He re-learned how to stand, how to step, how to fall without injuring himself.

Hattori was forging this new body—Sena Sanjaya’s body—into something capable of survival.

Balun watched from a distance. The burly youth still muttered insults, but he no longer dared draw near.

His hand, once caught in a nerve-lock, had not fully recovered. The pain had faded, but a lingering fear remained—an unease he could not explain, a trauma that, if left unaddressed, often bred malice.

On the fourteenth night, as fine rain fell and the village sank into silence, Hattori awoke with a sharp premonition. The killing instinct honed over decades screamed within his soul.

Danger! his intuition warned. This was not Sena’s reflex, but the instinct of a Jonin—of Hattori Zen.

He peered through the cracks in his hut’s walls. Shadows moved in the distance.

“They have begun,” he thought. But the figures only watched, not daring to approach.

Unwilling to wait any longer, he gathered what few belongings he needed and left the village before dawn. His goal was clear: to train Sena’s body until it could adapt to high-level shinobi techniques without tearing itself apart.

Fortunately, Sena’s frame was actually quite sturdy; years of forced labor had built a rough foundation. Only the lack of proper food and nutrition had left him weak and gaunt.

The Harau Valley at dawn was like a grand painting brushed by the heavens with mist and sunlight.

Granite cliffs hundreds of meters tall rose proudly, like ancient giants guarding the earth’s secrets. In their crevices, lush green vegetation clung like an emerald tapestry, hiding all that was wild and forbidden.

To Hattori Zen, this beauty was nothing more than terrain. Atop one of the less frequented cliffs, Sena sat in seiza posture.

He drew deep breaths, passing through a throat that still felt stiff. Each exhale felt hot and heavy, like steam rising from the earth’s belly.

“Rin… Kyo… Toh… Sha… Kai… Retsu… Zai… Jin… Zen…”

These were not mere words or chants. Each syllable was an anchor, binding body, mind, and spirit together. His fingers formed the hand seals with a precision no boy of his age should possess.

For now, he only practiced to remember each seal and exactly which nerve points to press. He did not apply real pressure, for Hattori knew this body was not yet ready—it could not yet withstand such strain.

Sena’s body was like long-abandoned clay. Forced labor had given it hard but rigid muscles, like rusted old iron.

Hattori knew that Iga shinobi techniques did not rely on brute strength, but on muscles supple as rattan, responsive as a drawn bowstring.

And so the true training began. He started running, strengthening his arms, legs, and above all, his flexibility.

Days turned into weeks. In the first month, he ran to build strength in his legs. At first, he stumbled, slipped, and misstepped often. But gradually, he grew in harmony with Sena’s body, until he no longer ran like a long-distance runner. Instead, he leaped from root to root, from stone to stone.

His steps were light, almost soundless. At first, deep footprints marked the mud beneath him. Slowly, those prints grew fainter, a sign his steps were becoming lighter and his control over his feet more precise.

By the second month, he had mastered shinobi-aruki—the silent walking technique that shifts weight to the outer edge of the foot. He moved through thorn bushes without breaking a single twig, mimicking the silent stalk of a clouded leopard closing in on its prey.

By the third month, his upper body had grown firmer, and his arms could now grip firmly onto tree branches. Each evening, he stood beneath the waterfalls that crashed against Harau’s rocks. Thousands of liters of water struck his body like heavy hammers.

His skin reddened, his breath came in gasps, and several times he nearly lost consciousness.

But he endured.

“Stronger,” he whispered. “If this world is a wilderness, then I must become the unseen predator.”

Meanwhile, the Village of Harau simmered in quiet tension.

Sena’s disappearance was not merely the affair of a poor orphan. For Datuk Lagang, the village chief, it was a blow to his authority. Under the rule of Singhasari, which was expanding its reach into the Minangkabau lands, order was the most valuable currency.

One missing laborer meant less tribute sent to Dharmapuri, the small kingdom now under Singhasari’s control.

Balun walked uneasily behind Purwa Wangsa, the Bekel—Commander of the Harau garrison post. The commander’s face was stern, marked by a scar slashing across one cheek: proof of a man who had stared death in the eye and survived.

“You say he has been gone for three months?” Purwa’s voice was heavy, like stone dragged over sand.

“Y-yes, Lord Purwa,” Balun stammered.

They entered Sena’s abandoned hut, now overgrown with weeds. Purwa crouched, his fingers brushing the faint indentations in the earthen floor.

“This boy did not simply leave,” he murmured. “These are marks left by someone sitting cross-legged for long periods. Balanced—like a man in meditation.”

Balun swallowed hard upon hearing this.

“Find him,” Purwa ordered coldly. “If he is dead, bring back his body. If he lives, break his legs and bring him before me.”

Balun shivered. He was only a village youth given authority by Purwa to collect tribute—why not send Singhasari’s own soldiers instead? he wondered, but dared not speak the thought aloud.

To Balun, money was lifeblood, and comfort was all that mattered. And Sena had cut off both.

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