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His strides were long. Aia struggled to keep close. With little effort, he pushed bodies aside. Men who were offended at being moved so casually puffed their chests and tried to square off with him. Some used their weapons. Others, their fists. They were, all of them, put down by a swift strike to the center of their chest.
Yui had not made it out of the house. Aia did not see her until Nen stooped and slung her over his shoulder. Swollen, discolored flesh disfigured the right side of her face. Blood dripped from her nose, smeared in places down her chin and throat. Where the dried blood ended, her yukata and undergarments were torn to shreds.
Hot hurt stung Aia’s throat. Had she fainted before or after rough hands took advantage? What base man could find arousal in this mess?
Yelling for Nen to bend near, she shrugged off her hanten and draped it around her sister’s limp body. When he straightened, he grabbed Aia around the waist and, suddenly, bodies tumbled backwards at his approach and did not inhibit them as they burst from the house.
Behind them, shrieks and pleas rose to a deafening pitch and then stopped with sickening abruptness. Her ears rung. She turned her face into his side. She feared to look back and find a lump of anger following them like the bulbous twisted arm of a monster feeding its gluttony.
“Coward!”
In a spherical motion, Nen pushed Aia behind himself, slid Yui into her care, and brought his blade across his body, halting an axe hurtled at them. It dropped, cloven in two.
The man shouted again.
“Weakling! You were Kime’s man! And you leave him to these mongrels?”
He bolted towards them, mouth gaping and tongue wagging, his hands gripped around a curved sword.
“Nen!”
“Stay behind me.”
As if drawing energy towards himself, Nen widened his stance and crouched. At his chest, he kept his blade perilously still. The man screamed and lifted his terrible sword high, plowing it downwards. Yet, the brilliant silver blade met flesh before its challenger could inflect harm. The opposing weapon dropped, and the man crumbled forward, wailing as blood spilled over his hips and legs, steaming into the frozen ground.
Aia’s body betrayed her, and she retched but Nen gave her no time. With the command to “get on,” he took Yui from her and knelt. Coughing, trying to wipe her mouth, she grabbed onto his shoulders, and they were off.
To her left and right, surroundings were a blur of colors and shapes. Sour bile clung to the roof of her mouth. Her head and ears pounded. Nausea threatened in the pit of her stomach, while hot flashes ran rampant across her body. She shivered and perspired. She felt electric to the touch and exhausted.
Was this how those who lived near Tokyo Bay felt when the Black Ships came? In the dead quiet of a summer night, thrown from their beds by cannon fire? Their ears rang as they ran to their windows and saw fire belching from Captain Matthew Perry’s ships. All of this had begun then. The world demanded Japan open and stormed her coastline, same as the mob demanded justice from Kime.
Clinging about Nen’s strong neck, she shut her eyes to all that blazed past and hated the revolution.
***
ONLY WHEN HIS SPEED stilled did Aia wake. Gathering her sensibilities, she tried to take stock of where they were. The area wasn’t instantly recognizable, though she wondered if she was currently capable of comprehension.
They stood in front of a small house.
Between heavy breaths, Nen said, “I need to get you out of this cold.”
Sliding off his back, Aia took a few steps towards the road she assumed they’d taken and looked around. Not only was the house small but also the main street and other houses. And quiet. Quiet surrounded them. Only soft lowing from an unseen cow mingled with the sweep of the wind.
“Where are we?”
“Off the Nakasendo highway. This is Komaki. Come.”
Nen adjusted Yui in his arms and knocked on the door half his height.
“Why Komaki?”
“If nothing else, your friend needs warmth and rest. Tell me, would she get either of those things in the wake of that throng?”
“No.”
She walked back towards him, Yui asleep in his arms like a child in the safe care of her father.
“I’ve never been off the Nakasendo.”
On the other side of the door, shuffling steps neared.
From his height, Nen looked at her. “Here, I know both of you are safe.”
“I think,” she began, warmed by his gaze, “I might be safe wherever—”
The door opened.
Ducking, Nen walked inside and Aia followed. Swiftly, the door was shut behind them, latching off any wisp of daylight that may have tried to enter and they were surrounded in darkness. It fairly pulsed. Her balance and hearing wavered while her sense of sight tried to distinguish shapes.
A voice as hushed as the room spoke, shortly followed by the scratch of a match and the meager, fizzling light of a lone candle.
“I did not expect you.”
“My apologies. I had no time to send a message ahead.”
“You know you are always welcome.”
Peering, the small light a sneeze in a windstorm, Aia stared at a petite man. He might have been spun from the gossamer of a spider’s web. Translucent skin and hands as small as a child, his eyes were alert and bright. The only indication of his age was the milk white length of his hair.
“For myself and my sister,” Aia said, keeping her voice as meek as the surroundings, “I thank you for your kindness, Sir.”
In reply, he bowed and motioned they follow. Nen explained what happened at the okiya as the little man led them to a room not much wider than Nen was tall. Fetching two futons from an alcove in the wall, he set them next to one another and then fetched pillows from the same storage space.
“There is much unrest in the land,” he stated.
“Do they cry?” Nen asked.
“Seldom. But they refuse to go outside.”
“That’s...”
“Not natural. Something is wrong.”
Carefully placing Yui atop the bedding, Nen agreed and then spoke to Aia. She and Yui must rest. Hatogi would bring them food and tend their wounds. He cautioned Aia to keep to the room, and only open the widow if she felt she needed fresh air. Hatogi had weak eyes; he kept the house dim. She might stumble. Stay in the room.
“I’ll return later.”
“You’re going?”
Hatogi slipped away. From the bed, Yui groaned but her breathing steadied and though her face was still pale, it was no longer wan.
Nen stepped near. “I’ll return within a few hours.”
Around her his voice stole, deep and hushed, like a midsummer midnight. Warmth pulled at her from the timbre, and she moved towards him.
“I’ll be glad when you return.”
She felt the careful weight of his hand on her shoulder.
“You’re shivering.”
“It’s been a long day.”
She felt his hand slide to the back of her neck, strength reserved but powerful enough to force his will.
“Sleep, Aia.”
“I suppose I must obey you,” she whispered, her insides screaming to feel an ounce of the power he was capable of.
Into her hair, his fingers stole, twisting the tresses before pulling downwards on an angle. Forced to tip her face towards him, her lips parted and a groan, resonating and far, reverberated from his throat.
Over her, he bent. Though she could not see, she felt the weight of his size dwarf her. Instinctively, she reached for him, catching the chiseled sculpture of his shoulders.
“Nen...”
Between his thumb and forefinger, he grabbed her chin.
“Hush.”
Away from her, she felt the heat of his body retreat. In the feeble light of the room’s lone candle, she saw the movement of his robes and heard the door open and shut. Ache pooled in the pit of Aia’s stomach and for a long while, infinitely more tired after withstanding the mountain’s power, she crouched down, and crossed her arms about herself.
***
QUIET AS HE WAS DIMINUTIVE, Hatogi must have moved in and out of the room several times throughout the hours. Waking once to relieve herself, Aia saw Yui had been bathed and tended; a white cloth had been wrapped around her midsection and a woolen kimono shrugged about her body. Later, the smell of gohanand hot tea pulled her from slumber, and she saw Hatogi cradling Yui’s head while he fed her. Her own belly full and warm, Aia barely opened her eyes a third time to find she had been divested of her garments and donned in a white woolen kimono.
A great deal had happened. Yui drugged herself and Okaasan was angry. They were to leave in mere hours before violence surrounded the okiya. Now she lay in the house of a man who might be a translucent mole in human form and his words to Nen were that something was wrong.
Something.
Between them, they understood. And from Nen’s tone and expression, it was grave. Something didn’t go outside. Something wept. Could it be the same thing Nen fought in the trees? If it was, did its presence have any connection to the attack on the okiya? Was the air made of anger?
That was absurd. Yet so was the wind in the trees.
Sitting upright, she pushed the blankets away and stood. First, she paused alongside Yui, listening to her breathe and scanning, best she could, her bandaged wounds. Discoloration marked her, but swelling had receded, and she seemed to sleep without discomfort. Shuffling around her sister, her eyes able to adjust only so much, Aia moved carefully to the small window. She fumbled for a moment with an unfamiliar latch, wondering if everything in Hatogi’s house was strange.
Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised if I open the window and find myself floating among the clouds.
To herself, she smiled.
Hatogi takes his darkness very seriously and floats to the sky each night where ink can fully surround him.
Aia opened the window. Night was heavy but she heard cows lowing, chickens disturbed from roosting, and the occasional door slammed shut. They were still on earth.
Pity. I should like to see a star. Run my hand through a cloud.
Although she enjoyed what it felt like to smile, Aia was relieved to look out on a normal night. The world always righted itself. Order and balance were part of the world’s very structure. Dawn, night. The moon’s phases and the sun. Boats sailed by the tide so reliable men could provide for their families from it. Seasons marched in and out, oblivious to current events. Pattern and repetition were present in Nature. A child might fall and skin her knee, but a hen would lay an egg each day.
What a misfortune her own life did not fall subject to such edicts. Yui would heal and Nen would return his sword to someone’s protection.
Yui won’t go back to Okaasan and I don’t blame her. Will I, though? I’m not sure she would have me. If the house even still stands.
If Okaasan is alive...
Further out the window, Aia pushed her face and let her arms drape over the sill.
I owe it to her to return. When I presented myself, I had nothing to recommend me and though she is not a kind woman, she took me in. Odd, though. For all these unimaginable things to happen and then I return to what had been my life, as if all of it were only a distraction.
Maybe order did rule her days.
She sighed and it billowed into the air, lingering. For a moment, Aia was sure a breeze she could not feel moved it into vague shapes. Putting her hand to her forehead, suddenly convinced she must have a fever, she squinted. Her breath swirled, expanded, and then flew apart in all directions, leaving the outline of a three-legged crow, the size of a man.
“Yatagarasu24!”
For an instant, it was transparent, motionless, and bore the appearance of a sketch. Life seemed to touch its beak first and the powerful mandible, thick as a young tree’s trunk, opened and closed silently. Into its body, life stabbed. Feathers ruffled, scattered, and then covered its form. Then each of its three legs began to step alternately.