“Do you wish to rest, Tokio?”
It was the first thing he had said to her all day since “Good morning,” but Tokio had mostly become used to the silence. Her husband seemed to be one of the few people in the world who didn’t feel the need to prattle on and on just because she couldn’t speak above a whisper.
They had been walking along the road to Osaka for three days now, and while she did indeed wish to rest, she hated to do so if Saitou still had copious energy—not that she felt worried at seeming weak in front of him. It merely annoyed her that she couldn’t keep up.
“No. I can go on, for a bit more.”
They had camped off the road the first few nights, a new experience for Tokio, and one she didn’t particularly like. She’d slept outdoors before, but always in the city, away from the wilds of the forest, which alternated between eerie silence and strange animal noises.
Saitou seemed to have the same dislike for the outdoors as she. He’d run out of cigarettes the day before and seemed irritable, something he expressed not in words but in violent actions: destroying any fallen logs, trees, or other impediments to their route. Tokio made mental note to squirrel away some extra cigarettes for the next time they traveled, if not so much to keep Saitou from laying waste to the entire forest then to bribe rest breaks out of the seemingly inexhaustible man.
They came to a fork in the road, and Saitou stared at a marker for a moment before choosing a direction. “We’ll reach the dock by sundown.”
“Dock, Teishu? Are we going by boat?”
“Don’t be stupid, Tokio. How else are we going to get across the strait?” Saitou snapped in reply.
Tokio merely glared at the back of her husband’s head for a moment before casting her gaze downward in submission. Of course, logically, she should have known that they could not walk all the way to Osaka. But she hadn’t really thought about it. She hated making stupid mistakes. But what did it really matter? Her husband could be as snappish as he wanted, as long as he continued to allow her the freedoms he had promised.
Maybe in a few years, she could leave him. Though, the thought of that seemed about as pointless as anything else in this world. One existence would be as good as the next, provided it allowed her to live in a minimal state of pain. That was all life really was about anyway, without becoming too tied down to anyone or anything that might be taken away.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
For himself, Saitou fumed silently at not remembering to bring extra cigarettes. He’d just have to wait until they reached the dock; that was all. And then he fumed that Tokio was being infuriatingly non-infuriating. Maybe if she chattered or yelled or had some annoying habit or did anything besides just walk silently behind him, they could have had some sort of exchange that would have allowed him to relieve his aggravation.
So he took every available opportunity to arouse her ire. But he found himself ignored. She just wouldn’t take the bait. Was she a masochist, or did she just think herself above responding? As Saitou listened to the footsteps of the silent woman behind him, he had a growing suspicion that her lack of response stemmed from something even more annoying. He had a feeling she just didn’t care.
Compounding this idea was the fact that her detached ki seemed to be even more hollow and listless with each hour of every passing day. It didn’t exactly present a tone of sadness. That was a hue he could easily recognize in a ki. Hers just seemed empty.
“Tokio. Did you make anything to eat for lunch while cooking breakfast?”
“No.”
“Damn it, aren’t wives supposed to think of these things? Quit being so useless.”
That last attack, Saitou knew, sounded more than vaguely feeble. If she didn’t provide him with some real ammunition soon, he would likely … likely what? Likely slap her? Pointless. She’d dodge. Likely run her through with his sword? Where in the hell did that idea come from? Unlike the Hitokiri Battousai, he didn’t get married to women just to take pleasure in killing them later. Not only was that distasteful, it was thoroughly psychotic.
But nothing. She said nothing. She did not cry. She did not offer an amusing retort. Her ki didn’t even flame in anger or sink into self-loathing.
So Saitou found himself vaguely relieved when he realized they were not truly alone—being watched by more than one person, it seemed. Whomever it was, they weren’t really taking any particular steps to be overtly secretive about it.
The man who stepped out of the brush to a spot a few yards in front of Saitou couldn’t have been more than nineteen or twenty. He wore dirty khaki peasant pants and a tan-colored gi that might have once been white. Obviously both garments had seen better days. He had a short ponytail of brownish-black hair pulled back from a lean but charismatic face.
“Ah. What have we here? A man with a sword and a dainty little blossom. Don’t worry, sir, if you hand over your money, the girl shall not be harmed.”
“Is that so?” Saitou replied, wishing so desperately for a damn cigarette he almost considered asking the bandit if he had any.
A half dozen youths stepped out of the bushes, all bearing rather dilapidated weapons. Most of them seemed to be between the ages of eight and fifteen, and all wore a hungry look that Saitou knew well.
Several of the boys put themselves pointedly between Saitou and Tokio. The youngest one actually waved at her.
“Mm. Amusing,” Saitou noted coolly, not even bothering to put his hand on the hilt of his sword.
“Hey, mister. Please don’t make me repeat myself. We really don’t want to have to rough you up; we hate doing that sorta crap. So, you know, hand over your money.”
Saitou himself was currently weighing how killing starving bandits might weigh on the Aku Soku Zan scale. On one hand, they were brigands, a horribly disreputable subset of humanity. On the other, they seemed to be merely hungry kids, likely war orphans. But he so really did want to fight someone.
Tokio waved back to the young man who held her hostage, a scraggly kid who looked like he hadn’t eaten in weeks. His face seemed lined with bruises and cuts in a pattern so intricate she felt almost mesmerized. Such a brave boy he must be, Tokio thought. To continue living under such circumstances.
“Would you like some candy, young man?” Tokio whispered, holding up her bag to root around.
“Would I?” The boy brightened up immediately, looking hopeful as the girl rummaged through her things.
“Oi, Taki, don’t eat whatever she gives you. It might be poisoned,” the boy next to him said.
At these words, Tokio looked up and blinked, twice, at the older boy. He seemed a lanky youth, wirier than his compatriots. His head sprouted a furious mane of wild brown hair, which he kept tied back with a red bandana.
“But, Zanza, I’m sooooo hungry,” Taki replied. The younger of the pair looked hopefully at Tokio, his cheeks puffing out, “It isn’t poisoned, is it, lady?”
“Actually,” Tokio whispered in reply, letting her bag fall back down to her side, “it is poisoned.”
“You’re sick, lady, you know that?” Zanza said, crossing his arms and puffing out his chest. “Poisoning little kids. How freaking gruesome.”
“No more gruesome than letting them starve to death,” Tokio replied listlessly, turning her gaze away from the pair to an indeterminate spot somewhere deep in the woods. “At least my way ends his pain. Yours forces him to linger in it.”
Behind Zanza, Saitou still had not complied with the leader’s request, bringing the young bandit almost to the point of exasperation.
“You don’t like that girl back there very much, do you?” the bandit asked, indicating Tokio with a wave of his hand.
“She’s my wife,” Saitou replied pointedly.
“I feel sorry for her. What did she do to deserve marriage to a guy like you? Anyway, enough chitchat. Hand over the money now. Or she dies. Do you get it? Is that sinking in to that creepy skull of yours?”
Saitou shifted his weight impatiently. If this bandit would just do something, then he’d have a reason to draw his sword. Obviously this asshole hadn’t been in the robbery business very long. Or perhaps no one had ever resisted before.
“Look,” Saitou began. “How about this? If you can land a punch on me, you can take anything I have. If not, yare, I’ll still pay you, just for the amusement. But let’s leave my wife out of this, eh ahou? Only cowards take women for hostages.”
This appeared to be an acceptable deal to the leader of the bandits, who squared off against Saitou as Tokio looked on from behind her husband and a row of young bandits with what appeared to be only a mild amount of interest.
Ten minutes later, Tokio was once again alone with her husband, walking through the forest. She found herself almost pleased at the fact that he had paid the bandits so well, even though the leader hadn’t even gotten close to landing a punch. At least the little boy she had almost poisoned would eat that night. She wasn’t sure if she should find happiness in that consolation, as it didn’t seem to provide any reassurance that the boy would eat the next night or really any night after that.
As for her husband, he seemed to be less violently obliterating obstacles in their path, so, she supposed, it all worked out in the end.
“Are you feeling better now, Teishu?” Tokio whispered, noting the change in his disposition.
“Aa. I am.
Years later, when Saitou Hajime would come upon an ex-street fighter named Sagara Sanosuke (formerly known by the name of Zanza), the younger man would look into the older man’s “evil” eyes and recognize them from somewhere he could not place.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The boat ride to Osaka took two days because of unfavorable winds. Saitou’s mood seemed to improve slightly when they reached the port—and cigarettes—as he at least stopped attempting to insult Tokio every other minute. Nonetheless, the Miburo peered out upon the waters from the deck with scant regard. He had no use for the sea and had never seen anything useful come of it—only pirates, smugglers, and even foreign ships bearing cannons. It seemed to him that some ancient God had deigned long ago that naught but evil should come from man’s machinations to overpower the oceans.
On a bench behind him, Tokio sat impassively, occasionally working on some embroidery, occasionally staring into space. Saitou turned his head to study the horizon. He had a pressing question he needed to ask his wife and now seemed as good a time as any.
“Why do you want to die so badly, Tokio?”
For once, Tokio seemed surprised, so much so that she dropped her embroidery and held only the needle. The young woman stared blankly at the sewing in her lap. Yare yare, this is interesting. She didn’t so much as blink when I asked her to marry me, when I told her we were leaving Nagasaki, when I insulted her, or when we were attacked by bandits. It seems my deduction is indeed correct. Saitou congratulated himself on his cleverness by indulging in another drag on his cigarette.
Tokio parted her lips several times as if to whisper her reply but then merely settled for looking up from her lap and glaring at her husband. For the first time, he saw anger behind those eyes, anger at someone knowing more than she had revealed. Her intent stare promised retaliation for this trespass.
“I do not see how that could possibly matter to you, Teishu.” Her voice, for once, turned from a whisper to a gravely rasp of warning.
“But it does,” Saitou replied, flicking his cigarette over the side of the ship with one expert movement. “Who do you think has to bury you?”
Tokio picked her embroidery back up and began again to thread the needle. “Feh. Leave me somewhere in the woods to rot then. I care not.”
He really had struck a nerve, hadn’t he? Tokio had never been anything less than formal and overpolite in his presence. Maybe if he could just find a few more strings like this one, everything would snap into place and he could play her like a marionette. Somehow, Saitou almost didn’t relish the idea. It was almost as if Tokio was an occasional puzzle, an idle past time which served to take his mind off the weights of the world.
“I think committing suicide without a decent reason seems particularly devoid of sanity.”
“That’s nice, Teishu,” she replied curtly, visibly attempting to focus on the intricate sewing in her hands. “But I do not have any such ideas in mind. Even if I did, what exactly do you think you could do to stop me?”
Damn. A good question. He didn’t really have anything to hold over her head to keep her from committing suicide if she took the idea to heart. No family would miss her. She had been brought into a loveless marriage and taken away from the city she knew as home. She didn’t seem to have any goals in life she wished to accomplish or any overwhelming ideals that kept her bound to the world.
“So what? You are just going to float impassively through life, waiting for an exit, Tokio?”
“I suppose,” Tokio replied, wincing as she pricked her finger with the needle by accident. “Most people are constantly looking for exits and find them in the form of food, or drink or pleasures of the flesh or … even anger. Everything that seems good in this life is merely an illusion and will bring as much pain as happiness. Because of this, I do not have anything and I do not want anything. Why strive for an exit that is not an exit? You see, it isn’t so much that I want to die … I just haven’t found a good reason to want to live.”
Saitou pushed himself off the railing and moved to sit on the bench beside his young wife. If her eloquent speech didn’t reminded him so much of Okita, he’d have likely chalked it up to the melodrama that seemed to come part and parcel with youth.
“I find the sea detestable,” Saitou said, leaning back and looking at the sun overhead. Of course, he also found sunlight detestable, but the ship seemed cruelly devoid of shaded areas.
“As do I, Teishu,” Tokio replied, executing an intricate stitch, her expression softening now that her husband had changed the subject.
“And, Tokio?”
“Yes?”
“I heard what you said to that boy about the poison. If you try that on me, I’ll know. And I will make you really wish you were dead.”
Tokio looked up from her sewing. Honey-colored eyes met honey-colored eyes as a cloud passed in front of the sun, finally coating the ship’s deck in blessed shade. And in that matched gaze, something of an understanding based on mutual respect passed between the ‘married’ couple.
“All right, Teishu,” Tokio whispered as she tied off her sewing. “Tell me about Osaka.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The little house on the outskirts of Osaka stood at the top of a grassy hill. At the bottom of the slope, a sizeable creek wound its way past the few neighboring homes and continued on toward the city. Behind the house, beyond the high fence that had been constructed for the occupants’ safety and privacy, loomed an ancient forest.
Tokio never asked how Saitou had arranged for them to live at the house. He seemed familiar with the place, so she assumed he either knew the owners, or had at least been there before. The house didn’t look recently inhabited but hadn’t yet fallen into a horrible state of disrepair, so she estimated someone had lived there within the last few years.
He’d been equally as cryptic about the length of time they would be staying in Osaka. “Until I have another assignment” was the only reply he would give, so Tokio didn’t press the issue.
They arrived at the beginning of summer and spent the first few days cleaning the house and repairing any damages that had occurred during its disuse. Neighbors would occasionally come by to greet the newly arrived pair but would find themselves reluctant to return after meeting the “creepy, wolf-eyed man and his all-too-quiet wife.”
After about a week, she awoke to find Saitou gone. He returned in the afternoon, wearing a pair of gray hakama and a crisp black gi.
“I’ll be instructing kendo at the local university during the day. If you get bored staying here, go to town and find something to do with your time.”
So Tokio did. In the mornings, she brought a basket of her sweets and embroidered scarves, handkerchiefs, and hair ribbons to the marketplace and sold them to passersby. In the afternoons, she would return to the house, have her lunch, and do whatever housekeeping seemed necessary (while keeping an eye on the sweets she would bake) before starting the evening meal. Saitou would return around five, covered in sweat and grime from teaching kendo all day but still somehow managing to look both severe and crisp in his black gi. He’d bathe before arriving to eat dinner, an affair which progressed mostly in silence, to the delight of both occupants.
Nonetheless, they didn’t stifle each other with their lack of words. Saitou would occasionally offer a few observances on his students or other faculty, and Tokio would fill him in on anything interesting that had occurred at the marketplace. The sparse and rare conversation seemed enough for the two to keep an air of respectful civility.
After eating, Saitou would peruse various newspapers he’d brought home. Tokio had tried reading them on occasion but found them filled with bland politics. Instead, she spent her evenings working on embroidery, a task she found let her mind roam while keeping her fingers busy.
On his off days, Saitou generally assisted in repairs and the heavier house chores that Tokio could not finish, such as chopping wood. The rest of those days were spent tutoring exceptional students or receiving the occasional visitor. Most of the guests, Tokio could tell, were fellow faculty of the university; however, a few seemed to be of other origins. These generally carried themselves with the confidence of warriors, and Tokio knew better than to inquire about the nature of their acquaintance with her husband.
Tokio, Saitou noticed, seem to have little need for social interaction. When guests were received, she would excuse herself as quickly as she could without being impolite. Nonetheless, none of the visitors seemed to begrudge the young woman her shyness. Far too many ladies these days took on the annoying habit of being outspoken and less than demure.
The sleeping arrangement remained the same as it had at the Hachiko estate, and true to his word, Saitou never imposed himself on his wife. She always went to bed far before her husband and woke long after he had left.
One night, Tokio resolved to stay up and ascertain exactly what her husband did after she had fallen fast asleep.
She’d had the idea earlier in the afternoon and prepared herself by taking a long nap before he returned from work. After dinner, they passed their time as usual. Eventually, as per their routine, Tokio put away her embroidery and bid her husband good night.
She’d been thinking for a while now about how to gain more insight into Saitou—not so much because she wanted to know him better, but because she was determined to pay him back in kind for the insight into her psyche he had displayed on the boat trip to Osaka. And she could wait for the opportunity to present itself. Even at the tender age of sixteen, Tokio had infinite patience. She’d cultivated that particular virtue over her years of living with her aunt Junpei and had decided patience was one of the most useful traits any person could possess, but one that few people, especially those of her own age, could master.
Tokio put on her sleeping yukata and lay down on her futon. Save for the midsummer cicadas, which could be heard rhythmically calling to one another outside, the young woman discerned no noise but the occasional rustling of Saitou’s newspaper.
Hours passed before Tokio heard her husband stir from the main room. Through the shoji in the bedroom, she could tell that he had extinguished the lamp light. After a few brief footsteps, she realized he had gone into the courtyard. Tokio strained to hear what he might be doing outdoors.
As quietly as possible, she rose from her bed and slid open the shoji. She made her way to the courtyard in darkness, half savoring the bravery of her illicit actions, half filled with dread that she would be discovered. Her breath caught as she passed the final obstacle to the courtyard, a bamboo wall that jutted out to create a small barrier to shield the porch from the wind.
There, in the fullness of the moonlight, Saitou Hajime stood, stripped to the waist, his sword held horizontally before him. Tokio watched with fascination as her husband practiced. The gleaming reflections of the moonlight upon his sword as it danced provided counterbalance for the taut contractions of muscles on his upper torso. Metal. Flesh. Metal. Flesh. The smooth movements of the fabric of his hakama seemed only to act as a thin veil for those two elements, like the cape separating a bullfighter from the deadly horns of his opponent.
Tokio had seen many a kata practiced before but never in such an alarming manner. Perhaps the difference lay in that her husband did not practice to improve at the art of sword fighting. No. Even her untrained eye could tell that his practice was designed for him to become more efficient at killing. Every artistic nuance had been stripped away, leaving only a sword style based on the raw necessity of destroying one’s opponent as quickly and as efficiently as possible.
Tokio had heard of the Shinsengumi motto of “Aku Soku Zan,” but she had never once realized to what extent it could be manifested in actual kata and refined. In her mind, she had compared other martial art exercises to meditation, to the flight of majestic butterflies, to the smooth flow of water over a stony creek bed. But in regarding her husband’s fluid movements, his lean body sculpted through the continual diligent application of this profession, she found something more profound. Purity stripped of all sentimental attachments and grace unfettered by the need for society’s approval embodied in one man’s crusade against evil. Every decision, like every move of his sword, would be cast in black or white, life or death, good or evil. He was judgment come alive and unleashed upon humanity.
Her husband, she realized, did not eschew death, but neither did he seek it. He merely understood death. Understood it as if it were his own kin, his twin. And suddenly, Tokio knew he had not been taunting her on the boat. He had not meant to reveal her secrets merely to get under her skin. Perhaps Saitou sought to understand why someone would need to die to understand death.
Saitou stopped abruptly, his back to her. Tokio watched as her husband sheathed his sword and reached up to pull escaping strands of wild black hair back into his high ponytail, casting his wiry back muscles in the sharp relief of the moonlight, reminding Tokio very much of a picture in one of her father’s books on the Greek warriors of Sparta.
“What do you want, Tokio?” he asked in a low rumble that caused Tokio’s grip on the bamboo wall to tighten.
“I didn’t …” Tokio hadn’t been prepared to speak and found the words caught in her throat. Her whisper seemed to blaspheme the scene she had witnessed. How long had he known she had been standing there, Tokio wondered, as she timidly stepped out into the moonlight. “My apologies, Teishu. I napped earlier and could not sleep.”
Really? Saitou’s mind drawled sarcastically to itself. You can sleep anywhere at any time, Tokio. I’ve seen it. Much like a cat. What game are you playing now, kitty?
“Is that all?” he replied, turning to meet his wife’s gaze.
“No,” Tokio whispered, stepping from the porch into the courtyard, “I was curious to find out what you do while I sleep.”
“And exactly what will you do with that information now that you have it?”
After thinking about this for a moment, Tokio shrugged slightly and whispered, “Nothing. But I wonder, after spending all day practicing kendo with your students, you come home and practice more. Does it not tire you?”
“Not particularly. I would ask the same thing of you and your embroidery. To me, your needlework seems to be the same thing over and over. But I am certain it is different and interesting to you every time, ne?”
“True,” Tokio replied. She found his gi hanging on a nearby post and handed it to him, sitting herself on the edge of the porch while he put it back on. “My father practiced but … I think he was born more for politics than for swords. He had a charming voice that seemed to entrance people, and he could sway any opinion. I guess that is why …” Tokio trailed off, pursing her lips slightly in remembrance of the night her parents died.
“Is it true your parents were killed by the Hitokiri Battousai?” he asked, sitting down on the porch a few feet from her as he searched his gi for his cigarettes.
“Yes. I even saw him,” Tokio whispered. “I had been hiding under the porch because I had heard a noise in the house. It was something my mother had instructed me to do—whenever I heard anything strange at home, I was to hide under the porch. He came out of the house, down the steps, and two men stepped out of the shadows to speak to him. He had hair like blood and eyes like the fires of hell. I remember … he looked right at me. Or I thought he looked at me, but he mustn’t have really seen me, because he left. The two men went inside our house, and as soon as I could … I ran.”
Saitou considered this in silence for some time while going through the elaborate ceremony of lighting his cigarette. “I fought him several times during the Bakumatsu. It always ended in a draw. As far as I know, only one or two others can claim to have met him in battle and survived. I’m sure your father was a good man, Tokio. But there is nothing that could have been done.”
“That is what I have been told,” Tokio replied, her whispered voice hollow. “And that is what I have accepted.”
“Yare, he’s one dead hitokiri now.” Saitou shrugged almost imperceptibly, “I suspect his own forces eliminated him after his usefulness ended. No one’s seen him in years.”
“I see.” Tokio almost seemed as if she were going to say no more, but then she wondered aloud, “Will your people come for you when your usefulness has ended?”
Saitou’s eyes darted to the small form beside him. If anything, his wife was astute. “Are you … worried … about me, Tokio?” Saitou chuckled behind a veil of smoke. “I suppose someday that some idiot may try. They will fail, however.”
Tokio smiled in reply, one corner of her mouth moving upward independently of the other. After what she had seen that night, she had to agree.
“Yes, Teishu. They would be fools to try.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Summer turned rapidly to fall, and Tokio noticed her husband’s irritability growing once again. He hoped, she understood, that word would come of his next assignment before winter made traveling difficult. But no such message came. The lack of a focus for his life’s work seemed to slowly eat away at him, causing Saitou to become more snappish than he had been the previous season.
In an attempt to keep the household civil, Tokio decided to try a few new recipes. During the summer, they had subsisted on rice and tofu cooked with a few vegetables or on soba, which she found her husband ate with zest. Besides sweets, Tokio knew little of cooking, so after she had worked up some courage to become acquainted with a few of the other vendors in the market, she began to ask them for their advice in expanding her cooking range.
She decided to try chicken, the freshest she could find, and ended up buying one directly from a neighbor, who decapitated the creature while Tokio watched. Tokio returned to the house, a bit nervous about the idea of cleaning and gutting a whole chicken but willing to try anything once.
Saitou finished putting away various kendo equipment as his advanced students bid him adieu. He’d heard from more than a few of the older ones that he “scared the underclassmen witless.” Upon noticing this, he encouraged the upperclassmen to spread rumors of the rigors of his sessions. No need to waste his time with classes full of idiot layabouts.
Of course, the Miboru’s favored pupils were the ones who not only excelled in kendo but in other useful areas as well. Those who assisted him in spying on the other faculty, of course, might be forgiven a tardiness or two. And those who hailed from certain backgrounds or espoused certain ideals might find their kendo errors to be corrected merely by sharp words rather than a sharp bokken blow.
Classes had been let out early because of a festival being held in town that evening, and Saitou finished cleaning the training hall (a task he usually left for wayward students) and stepped into the passageway. Students scurried away from his presence, eyes downcast, like mice fleeing the presence of a hungry hawk.
One ki, however, did not flee, but seemed to be approaching quickly from around a corner. Ah. Kozue. Saitou smirked to himself as he pressed himself against the doorway. How many times have I told you, ahou?
As the pupil rounded the corner, Saitou pointed the bokken in his hands downward, achieving the double purpose of striking the young man sharply on the ankle and tripping him in front of his classmates.
The young man rolled on the ground for a few seconds before sitting up to grab his now-stinging ankle. As he did so, he caught sight of the school’s infamous and feared kendo instructor, leaning against the door.
“Ah … oh … uhhh … Fujita-sensei. I apologize, I did not see you.”
“Yes, Kozue, I doubt you did,” Saitou replied. “Any particular reason you were running like a wild pig through the passageways … again?”
“No. I mean … yes. I mean … no, Fujita-sensei,” the student mumbled nervously, trying to scoot backward to avoid the Miburo’s piercing glare.
“No? No good reason to run? Well, then for no good reason, you can clean the training hall after classes the rest of the week.”
“Yes, sensei,” Kozue said, standing after some trouble and shifting his position to favor the uninjured leg. He bowed deeply and then limped off in the direction of some of his now snickering compatriots.
Saitou watched his student leave and then turned to retrieve his things from his small office beside the training hall. Kozue really had built up an amazing speed; Saitou had seen it in the boy’s training. But he seemed to lack the ability to keep his perception focused on the details of the world around him. Good thing for him he’s my favorite student, Saitou thought. Any of those other morons would have gotten a broken leg.
Saitou left the university by way of Isoruko Kojiro’s office, politely depriving his coworker of the previous week’s newspaper and political announcements, as per their arrangement. After bidding the surly history professor adieu, Saitou Hajime walked home.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Tokio had made quite a mess in attempting to clean the chicken. Feathers stuck to chicken guts. Her yukata had become splattered with blood and gore. Nonetheless, after two hours of fussing over the dinner bird, she finally believed she had it ready to begin to cook. After washing her hands furiously, Tokio surveyed the wreckage, deciding she should probably attempt to clean the kitchen and bathe before her husband returned.
But as she considered the damages, Tokio heard the front shoji slide open. Too early for my husband to be home, she thought, waiting only a moment before deciding the person entering her home must be an attacker. The young woman pressed herself up against a wall, wondering how she might escape. No, Tokio, you must keep your wits about you. There is no way to leave the house without passing the front room. Perhaps whoever it is won’t even come into the kitchen. Nonetheless … you had best be prepared. Tokio grabbed a nearby knife and put it into the sleeve of her yukata, tearing open a secret pouch hidden there.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Saitou arrived home early because of the festival. As he slid into the front room, the acrid scent of blood hit him with the force of a runaway carriage. Blood. I smell it. The Miburo’s eyes became slits as he unsheathed his sword and checked the front room for signs of trespass. No. The kitchen. And … Tokio is there, in distress. He examined his wife’s nearby ki, the usual detached hollowness now quivering violently from somewhere inside the nearby room.
The next few seconds passed in a blur. The Miburo stalked down the hallway silently, listening for signs of struggle. Arriving at the kitchen, Saitou slashed an X in the kitchen shoji and burst through it, looking for his wife on the wrong side of the room because of her misleading ki. A stinging pain shot through the left side of his face and neck, alerting him to the direction of his attacker. As he turned, the sight of the gored chicken sitting on the counter whizzed through Saitou’s mind. Chicken. Blood. Tokio.
Tokio stood pressed into a corner, one hand balled into a fist at her mouth, the other clutching her yukata at her neck. A yukata that once had been beige with blue stars on the sleeves, now seemed spattered in blood and chicken guts to which stuck tiny white feathers. Her eyes opened wide with both determination and fright, the teenager quaking slightly as she stood.
“Tokio …”
“I … I’m sorry. I thought you were an intruder,” Tokio replied, removing her fist from her lips.
“I smelled blood. Ah, kuso, Tokio, what in the …?” Saitou attempted to put his hand to one of the stinging spots on his face only to find he made it worse by brushing against whatever it was.
“No … no, Teishu. Onegai, stay still.” Tokio dislodged herself from the corner and moved toward her husband. Reaching her hand to his face, she whispered, “You frightened me. You are home early.”
Saitou remained motionless while Tokio quickly performed her ministrations on his face and neck. She pulled her hand down afterward and opened it for him to see.
Needles. A good dozen. Along with two small, slender bamboo tubes, one hollow and one covered on one end with a piece of string holding a bit of cloth in place.
Saitou stared incredulously at his wife’s hand. And then quite a few things snapped into place in his mind. The empty tube had contained the needles, which she blew at him to cause him to look her direction. The other tube would contain metsubishi powder, a concoction of blinding agents, which would also cause chest constriction and hamper breathing.
Suddenly, Saitou knew where he had seen Tokio’s defense style before.
“Are the needles poisoned, Tokio?” Saitou asked, sheathing his sword before bringing a hand to his still-stinging face.
“No,” Tokio whispered barely audibly, still shaking slightly and breathing quite rapidly. The teenager deposited the implements on the counter.
Saitou reached out and plucked a small feather from Tokio’s cheek. He indicated the tubes and needles on the counter with a small flick of his hand. “Your mother teaches you this too?”
Tokio nodded an affirmative reply, looking down at her messy yukata. “I was making … chicken for dinner.”
With this, Saitou broke out in a low chuckle. “No? Really? With all this gore, it seems your chicken was quite a fighter.”
Tokio smiled slightly in response as her husband continued speaking.
“Yare, Tokio, I don’t eat meat. The … smell of blood and cooking flesh … I am not fond of it.”
The young woman bit her bottom lip in response. She looked at the chicken and then back to her husband and then back again. He didn’t eat meat? All her efforts to cheer him up would be wasted. Nonetheless, he had smiled, even laughed. Maybe it wasn’t a waste after all. Tokio sighed slightly and whispered, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“All right, Tokio. No need to get despondent. Let’s clean this up and … then … I’d recommend you take a bath. Unless you want to go for dinner in town looking like you’ve just gone to war with half the fowl population of Osaka.”
Dinner? In town? Tokio beamed, smiling openly for once, her misgivings and worries cast aside. Wrinkling her nose, she bent down and began to clean.
Saitou watched his wife. A strange woman, indeed, but he had grown somewhat fond of her odd nuances. Sneaky, clever, full of patience and shy, lanky and graceful and able to surprise him like a wildcat jumping from a tree—yes, she definitely reminded him of a cat.
And yare, yare, kitty, Saitou thought. Now I know something about you that I bet even you don’t know.
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