Blade Of The Immortal Fan Fiction ❯ Abstinence Education ❯ Part Thirty-Four ( Chapter 34 )
[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]
By: Madame Manga 
Turning over the page is the only way to see both sides...
Anime/Manga: Blade Of The Immortal Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Hentai / Drama / Samurai | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 02.28.2007 | Pages: 4 | Words: 5.6K | Visits: 708 | Status: Completed
Turning over the page is the only way to see both sides...
Anime/Manga: Blade Of The Immortal Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Hentai / Drama / Samurai | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 02.28.2007 | Pages: 4 | Words: 5.6K | Visits: 708 | Status: Completed
The characters and universe of Blade of the Immortal/Mugen no Junin are copyright by Hiroaki Samura and do not belong to me. Not one sen will come into my hands in consequence of this story.
Warnings for sex in various forms, including quasi-incestuous themes and a sixteen-year-old female paired with an adult male. Violence and dismemberment are legally required in any BotI fic... and here it is. Let me state that without ambiguity: it's going to get even nastier as we proceed. Be suitably warned. :D
Abstinence Education
by Madame Manga
Part Thirty-Four
“Listen...”
His voice might have been cut out of him with a broken blade. Rin shut her eyes so hard that they hurt.
“Listen, girl... listen to me...”
What could he possibly have to say? What could a murderer say to anyone, especially to the daughter of a man he’d killed with his own hands? Rin felt her throat tighten and her stomach clench with nausea.
“I’m sorry.”
Rin’s eyes flew open. O-Hama lowered her head so that she hid her face, and wrapped her body in her long sleeves as if for protection.
“I did it – it was me. I killed your daddy. I cut up your big brother. I don’t think I remember it... but it was me.” Manji took short, painful drags of breath. “I’m sorry. I know that don’t mean a particle of shit. But I got to tell you anyway. I’m sor – ”
“Be silent... scum!” Ryonosuke staggered up to the tree where Manji stood bound and swung his arm. His palm hit Manji’s jaw with a smack; Manji grimaced and tilted his head back when the young man wound up for another blow. “Foul abuser! You... will not... address my lady!” He struck his captive in the face again, then shook his hand and wrung it in the other, mouthing an expression of pain.
“What the hell do you want?” Manji’s voice rasped like a file; Ryonosuke flinched. “I was supposed to know? She’s a whore, she’s open for business, I needed to stick it in a woman even worse than you need a brain and a pair of balls! So I paid my money and I screwed her!”
Ryonosuke put a hand to his mouth and took a backwards step. Manji showed his teeth in a caricature of a grin, as if he comprehended a cosmic joke at his own expense. “Oh, I could tell she didn’t like how I tasted. Pissed me off when I couldn’t convince her otherwise.” He shook his head, still displaying the sharp edges of his teeth. “But fuck me ragged, I don’t figure any woman in that position was going to tell me the problem! What the hell can I do now but say I’m sorry?”
“Then... then, my demands – ”
“Yeah, dickless, I’m apologizing!” Manji barked a harsh laugh. “To HER. I’ll sprawl on my knees – to a whore. I’ll grind my goddamn samurai forehead in the dirt and tell her I’m sorry, because I am sorry.” He stopped and took a hard swallow. “When I did in all those officers... I was a beast. I was a frickin’ blood-crazed animal... who'd forgotten everything but killing.” Again he stopped and pulled his jaw tight. “Nothing I can do... will make up for even one of those deaths, see? But I got mine. Yeah – I got mine...”
Manji’s gaze moved down and to the side, and then gradually in Rin’s direction. He didn’t meet her eyes; he seemed to fight his own throat’s tension as he opened his lips to speak again.
“You acknowledge your fault?” Ryonosuke interrupted in a high, querulous tone. “You beg my – ”
“You, little boy?” Manji’s eye flared; his head snapped around. “You want an apology from me? For callin’ you a few choice names and giving you what you deserved?”
“I... I... ”
Manji noisily gathered saliva in his mouth and spat right between Ryonosuke’s eyebrows. The gob spattered the bandage on his nose. “You can kiss – my hairy – ass.”
Ryonosuke’s face blotched red and white. He didn’t strike again, however; his raised arm trembled in midair under the pressure of Manji’s glare. He wiped his defiled face on his brocade overcoat and retreated to O-Hama’s side, looking utterly cowed.
“You should have taken my head for that, kid.” Manji made a contemptuous sniff. “Yeah – and I should have cut your fucking chicken throat instead of clipping your beak. Guess samurai ain’t all it’s cracked up to be, hey?”
The young man seemed ready to cry. Manji curled his lips in a vicious smirk. Rin’s heart beat fast. Again, though tied to a tree and weak from loss of blood, her outnumbered bodyguard commanded the situation. Perhaps he really could save her from these men, even now?
“Sorry, girl... I was going to tell you something else.” Manji’s expression changed when he looked at O-Hama. She gave no sign that she heard him address her. Manji’s features worked and he took a few deep breaths.
“Listen. The last cop I killed was... my own sister’s husband. In front of her, on the first pass – he took my right eye, the top of his skull hit the ground and – ” Manji stared at his own feet. “She woke up believing she was three years old again... and that she could trust her big brother to keep her safe.” He gave a dry chuckle. “That’s how I knew for sure... that she’d lost her frickin’ mind.”
The hirelings all peered curiously at Rin as if expecting her to babble like an infant.
“I tried to give up the sword. I tried to confess my goddamn sins. You know what that got me? My crazy little sister, who I was trying to take care of, was cut to pieces in front of me.” His chest heaved. “Payback.”
Rin had never heard him say so much about Machi. Yaobikuni had told her the story, by way of persuading her to search out that murdered girl’s brother and hire him as her yôjimbô. Yes, dear, he killed a hundred officers, the ancient nun had said... and lost the last person he had to love.
“I didn’t go crazy... maybe. I just took up the sword again... and kept on killing.” Manji raised his head. “You see that girl there? She got sent to me... so I could try again.”
He shook, his teeth gritting; Rin saw torment flare in his expression. “She knows... better than anybody... how bad I screwed that up too. Yeah, Rin-chan?”
Rin’s eyes opened wide. Why would he ask her forgiveness? “Manji-san?”
He didn’t reply, but fixed his gaze on O-Hama again. “Lady, I reckon you want to take something out of me in exchange for a life and a couple of limbs. I did the crime. But this girl – ” He nodded at Rin. “There’s nothing you want from her. She’s nothing to do with what I was then – I never met her until six months ago. Just tell your man to let her go, see? Then I’ll – ”
“How d-dare you!” spluttered Ryonosuke.
“Shut up, little boy. I’m talkin’ to the lady, not you!” After a few moments of silence, Manji quirked his mouth. “Sorry, ma’am. I’m just saying he’d set her free... if you asked him.” The hirelings muttered and grumbled, but didn’t speak out loud.
Again O-Hama gave no sign that she had heard. Manji grimaced slightly and went on. “You say you were born samurai, and you talk like you know what that means.” His chest expanded with a deep breath. “She’s samurai herself – she’s the daughter of Asano Takayoshi, Mutenichi-ryû. That ought to say something, hey?”
Rin bit her lips. Maybe by humbling himself he could gain a little mercy for her, even though he’d insulted O-Hama’s lover to the greatest possible degree. What about his own case?
“She’s only a kid. She’s in kind of the same... well, it’s never the same, but you two girls got a bit in common. She tried to do what you did – something like it, anyhow – and she meant it for her family’s honor. But – ” Manji hesitated; it seemed he had second thoughts about this line of appeal. “But I wouldn’t...” His words fell to a whisper. “I wouldn’t let her...”
Manji’s voice failed him; his mouth opened and he stared over O-Hama’s head. The blue sky’s reflection filmed the dark iris of his good eye. Some vital quality in him seemed to go blind; his focus turned inward.
The air felt heavy and tense, like the harbinger of a thunderstorm. No one spoke, as if Manji’s silence dictated to them. Rin strained to read her bodyguard’s dark and working face. What was he talking about? Like what O-Hama had done?
Sell her body, he meant. To buy revenge. Cold fingers crawled over her skin. Manji hadn’t allowed her to prostitute herself to him; he’d reproved her like a big brother and then taken up his sword for her, as if he’d always meant to agree. He had never told her why his answer had so abruptly changed...
Manji made a grimace tinged with despair, as if disgusted at what he saw in his own mind, and closed his eye.
“Manji-san! You haven’t done anything wrong – uh, I mean...” Rin glanced at the spectators with trepidation. “You’re... you only let yourself be human!”
“Human? My ass.” He shook his head. “What kind of bushi am I? I had a man’s job to do... and I blew it.”
“What? Oh, no, Manji-san, I was the one who never should have – ”
Manji opened his eye and gave her a level glare. “I ran off and left you on your own. Because of nothing I should have given one warm shit about. I knew my duty and I knew what I had to do to honor it, and all I could think about was a goddamn female.”
Rin’s mouth dropped open.
Manji let out a deprecating snort. “Aw, not like it’s a woman’s fault, what she does to a guy – a cat scratches because it’s a cat. It’s a man’s business to keep his hands off the pretty pussy in the first place.” He laughed with a coarse rasp. “Nope, I’m the one that went soft in the head! If I’d kept you three paces behind me – or even let you walk right where you belonged... well, look at me now. Tied to a fucking tree and begging pardon from a whore!”
Quivering, Rin lowered her head. Honor... and duty? If he had persuaded her to abandon her own duty in his arms, maybe he’d accuse himself with the same regrets now...
“Samurai.” Manji’s voice cracked on a chuckle, still hoarse and rough. “Yeah, that’s what we were born to be... the whole goddamn bunch of us.” He looked back at O-Hama. “Doesn’t matter if you’ve lost caste, lady – I’ll credit you anyhow. You want to show me... how much samurai you got?”
At last, she raised her face and met his gaze. Her beautiful features might have been fired of white porcelain.
Manji’s crooked smile gradually faded as he looked into O-Hama’s unblinking eyes; he set his jaw and drew his brows together.
“Uh... wh-what...” Ryonosuke stuck out his lower lip and spoke in a tone that might have sounded pugnacious without the pronounced stammer. “What shall I... How do you w-wish me to punish him, my lady?”
O-Hama’s whisper was barely audible. “Punish... him?”
“Yes, punish him! I... I meant to bring him in alive, but I had no idea of the d-depths of his iniquity until now! Declare your verdict – your word is my law! Sh-shall I execute him on the spot?” He looked around for his dropped sword and gestured to the gaping boy, who scuffed in the grass and brought the weapon to him.
O-Hama averted her face and made a small gesture. “No... he will live.”
Rin let out a long breath she wasn’t aware she had been holding. Manji only compressed his lips a little more tightly, as if he knew he hadn’t heard the whole of his sentence.
“V-very well.” Ryonosuke bowed. “But, please, O-Hama-dono, allow me to act on your behalf in some way, before I deliver this foul beast to Edo. Shall he be beaten? Yes?” His eyes brightened and he swished the long tachi through the air as if it were a rattan cane. “My men will beat him severely, like a dog or a commoner!”
O-Hama made a slight sound that might have been a suppressed laugh.
“My lady?”
She looked towards Manji, though not into his face. His bloody clothes bunched around his hips, his outstretched arms lashed to branches like a crucified prisoner’s. Her gaze paused on the slowly fading flushed splotch below his collarbone, the only trace remaining of the bullet wound.
“So long.” Her soft voice sounded clearer; she had mastered her tears. “Three years and more. So often I imagined... what I would do at a moment like this. I knew that the author of my family's woe would never come under my hand... but he has.”
O-Hama’s pink lips parted; her head tilted back. For a moment she looked almost ecstatic, her body shaking with sharp little trembles. “Revenge. I dreamed so long... of revenge.”
Rin struggled to hold back her own tears. Manji was right – she and O-Hama had many sorrows in common. Like the two sides of the same page...
“I thought of taxing the murderer with his crimes when I confronted him. I thought he would deny his guilt. I pictured him blustering, threatening, cursing...” She touched her mouth with the back of her hand. “My brother said that such hardened criminals often had to be tortured before they would confess. I imagined the murderer as a craven coward, begging for mercy at the first pangs...”
Manji watched O-Hama with an uneasy frown. For an instant, her pearly teeth showed between her lips, but she kept her dreamy expression. “My brother often describes the agonies he would inflict on his crippler. He speaks of execution by flaying, or by burning alive. And after a death long in coming... he dwells on the torments of Mugen Jigoku... the everlasting hell.”
Rin’s ears prickled as the skin tightened on the back of her neck. Although she pitied his condition, she didn’t much like how O-Hama described her brother; she had a sense that even his sister’s natural affection had undergone some severe tests.
“I did not enjoy talk of such horrors. I believed that human beings should not be made to suffer the tortures of the hells, fit only to transform damned souls into demons. Even such a man as the killer of a hundred...”
“Allow me, O-Hama-dono! I will give him what his arrogance deserves!”
“My lord, his mind is not at all as I imagined it.” O-Hama meditatively shook her head. “He admits what he has done, and he is remorseful. The only mercy he begs is for another. What can I say to him now?”
Rin knew how it felt to discover that her hated enemy might not be the demon she had believed him; she swallowed a lump in her throat. O-Hama seemed to be taking it more gracefully than she had...
“Remorseful? He is feigning!”
“Feigning?” O-Hama gave a high trilling laugh, startling Rin. For the first time she sounded like a professional. “No, my lord – not so. I know too well the taste of a courtesan's tears.” The young man’s face fell in confusion.
O-Hama moved towards Manji, taking slow steps but not faltering. She stopped a pace’s distance from the tree and extended one hand, her nails groomed into fine points. She reached up to just below Manji’s collarbone. With her fingertip she followed the outline of the healed wound, almost but not quite touching his skin. “This was not feigned, because it happened before my eyes.” Her lips parted as she examined Manji’s lean chest, her eyes scanning its many scars. “This man gave his body to the bullet. He fell at the feet of this girl, his heart’s blood pouring from his breast.” She took a deep breath. “I believed him dead.”
Manji’s face twitched, a tight muscle pulling at the corner of his mouth.
“I rejoiced in his death. But how strange, I thought... that this vile criminal, who thought nothing of taking so many men’s lives... should have laid down his own life for a woman.”
Manji’s body gave a half-suppressed jolt. Rin tried to hide her burning blush against her shoulder. O-Hama had listened to everything they said, and even if Ryonosuke couldn’t make out the truth, an experienced courtesan of obvious intelligence could probably take it in at a glance. She was their ultimate judge, as Manji had immediately understood; everything might ride on how one wronged woman weighed their characters and deeds.
“Girl. Who are you?”
Her? Rin flinched.
“My lord maintained that you were brother and sister. This man says his sister is dead, and that you were sent to him in her stead. What does he mean?” O-Hama left Manji and moved towards Rin’s tree. The two of them seemed to stand almost the same height, though Rin had lost her geta in the forest. Under the baggy men’s clothing, O-Hama looked more filled out and nubile than Rin. “Who is this man to you?”
“Uhm...” Rin choked and then cleared her throat. “He... he’s my bodyguard! Like he said?”
O-Hama tilted her head and lifted a brow. “He called you... Rin?” Rin nodded. “O-Rin-san, how old are you?”
Rin’s eyes opened wider at the calm courtesy of O-Hama’s address. “Ah... I’m sixteen.”
“I've just turned eighteen.” She smiled slightly; Rin cringed a little at her beauty, which struck her as even more perfect at close range. “Yes, he is your yôjimbô – he’s amply proved that. But he also spoke as if he wished to claim you, as your lover.”
“Err...” Rin flushed dark and looked away, cursing Manji’s unguarded talk. They could suffer far more than embarrassment, if O-Hama took that the wrong way... or even if she didn’t.
“Perhaps he also meant to prove that claim?”
“Uh... I... I guess you’d have to ask HIM that, wouldn’t you?” Rin involuntarily glanced at Manji. He stared at her and gave a brief, tense shake of the head. Not to answer, or to deny what he’d said? Rin creased her brows, and then realized: O-Hama wouldn’t accept any other testimony, especially Manji’s. It was all up to her.
So far, Rin had no idea which way the verdict might turn. At least O-Hama was asking questions first...
“You were sent to him?”
“Well, yes – by an old nun I met, who knew him and – ”
“To have him protect you? To let him atone in part for his sins, perhaps?”
“Yes!” Rin blazed up. “He’s done so much to keep me safe – he’s killed – uh, I mean... ” She gulped and started again. “He's been hurt so many times, defending me! And he went all the way to Kaga just to find me – ”
“He has spared no effort for you?” An almost imperceptible edge in O-Hama’s soft voice. “Acted righteously even at cost to himself?”
“Of course he has! He’s a... he’s like... a... a big brother!”
“What a comfort that must be to your loyal protector – when his ghosts throng around him.” A flicker behind her long lashes. “O-Rin-san, are you a virgin?”
Rin gasped. Straight to the point!
“Six months. Has he taken you in his pillow yet?”
Manji’s teeth clicked together and sweat glittered on his forehead. The question horrified him – why? Not because he feared exposure, Rin thought – he’d exposed himself quite enough already! In confusion, she didn’t reply.
O-Hama prompted her. “Has this man had you?”
“Errm...” Rin hastily glanced around at the spectators. The bandit and ronin listened with obviously prurient interest. She couldn’t explain fine distinctions in front of these disgusting men! She wished she could read Manji’s thoughts more clearly, but he wouldn’t even meet her eyes. All up to her! Rin clenched her jaw and lifted her chin. “Why... why do you want to know that?”
O-Hama arched a feathery eyebrow. “A virgin, he said to me in scorn. A skinny virgin could have satisfied him where I did not.” She examined Rin’s figure as if assessing her sale price. “I didn’t realize his words might have a meaning beyond insult...”
Rin puffed with indignation. “Manji-san hasn’t done anything wrong! I – I AM a virgin!”
“Ah?” O-Hama blinked as if a little startled at Rin's heat. “I'm inclined to believe you.”
“Uh... you are?”
“Yes, you may well be telling the literal truth. And yet... he calls you his woman and declares that no other man will have you.” O-Hama looked towards Manji. “If the killer of a hundred were to take advantage of his power over a friendless girl... how would that reflect on the remorse he feels for his murders? On his possibility of redemption?”
“Men aren’t all the same! Some of them aren’t anything like – ” Rin cast an angry glance at the leering bandit. “Manji-san wouldn’t ever...”
Her face flamed and her voice failed.
“Wouldn't he?” Sarcasm lightly tinted O-Hama’s tone. “Your trustworthy bodyguard treated me exactly as many men have. More so, if anything.”
“More so?”
“The evening he visited me, seven days ago, he possessed me twice in half an hour’s space. He placed me as he wished and entered me forcefully – ”
“My lady!” Ryonosuke clenched his teeth and put his fingers in his ears. Manji made an irritated, half-embarrassed grimace at the snickering spectators; O-Hama probably wasn’t exaggerating.
“Men are indeed all the same, girl. They think they can purchase absolute claim to a woman’s body, whether they pay in gold or in blood. I was afraid my father’s murderer meant to hold me captive all night, since release did not sate him. I didn't think I could keep from betraying myself... if he took me again with such... vehemence.” A peculiar suppressed shiver rippled through her; she shook out a little laugh. “I had to demand more money and make a scene before that animal would let me go!”
O-Hama's throat rippled with a tight swallow. She took a deep breath, observed Rin’s anguished blushes, then leaned a little closer. That indescribable hardness again froze over her beauty.
“Yes, you are skinny. But at sixteen, you rapidly approach womanhood... and you must have changed greatly in half a year. If the killer of a hundred hasn’t taken you yet... little sister... it’s not because he isn’t hungry for a woman. Nor because it’s never occurred to him that you are his any time he wants you.” A cynical sneer worthy of Manji lifted the side of her pretty mouth. “It’s because it doesn’t suit his greater purposes to steal your maidenhead. That’s all.” She turned and paced towards Manji again.
Rin cringed. No, O-Hama wasn’t nearly as easy to fool as her lover...
“So you are a cleft stick he has cut for himself.” O-Hama circled behind Manji’s tree and faced round to him. She scanned his features, two fingers delicately poised over her lips. “To claim your body, though he has purchased you with his blood, is to destroy all his illusions of accomplishment. He couldn't take the virgin for whom he burns... so in her stead, he chose a whore.”
Manji made a low sound in his throat, though he stared resolutely ahead.
“Perhaps, after he encountered me, it seemed that no woman could give him ease. Only the girl he could not have.” Her cheeks moved under her concealing hand as if she smiled. “What torments he must have suffered...”
Rin hyperventilated, her lungs constricted. Each breath pained her. All her fault, no matter what Manji said – her own heedless, selfish impulses. She closed her eyes in despair. If she had never asked her bodyguard for a kiss, never given him too much money, never even dreamed of him...
“Thus, when he flung himself between you and the gun, it was for his hopeless love as well as for his duty.” A soft, almost dreamy sigh. “For that sacrifice alone... I could have forgiven him... everything.”
“What?” Rin’s eyes flew open. Manji looked stunned, though not less uneasy.
“Would you not pay homage even to your greatest enemy for such an end?” O-Hama raised her hands to Manji, then clasped them before her. “Faced with the possibility of dishonor, instead he welcomed a valiant death!”
“Uh... b-because he...?” Rin could barely speak for the lift of her heart. This woman might know something about hopeless love herself...
O-Hama nodded gravely, a faraway look in her eyes. She examined the periphery of Manji’s face, avoiding his gaze. “The moment he fell, I realized his motives must be greater than I had assumed. More human... perhaps even noble. With the gush of his blood, I meant to wash out every mark he had left...”
“You did?” Rin exchanged a look with Manji, flushed with hope. To her shock, his lips peeled back and he ground his teeth. What was wrong? Everything O-Hama said accorded with bushido. Death was a samurai’s focus: his only honorable object in life was to die well. Bravely sacrificing himself in the performance of a duty –
Manji couldn’t die. Even if he wanted to.
Rin felt a slow, dreadful, downward pull to her vitals. As if in response, O-Hama’s brows tightened; her eyelids lowered to slits.
“I recalled every detail of his flesh... the scars upon scars that crossed his limbs. He... he had kissed me with that hard mouth.” O-Hama raised her little chin and skimmed a soft gesture over Manji’s face, again not quite touching him. He stood like stone, his eye locked to her. Her gaze moved no higher than his lips. “Perhaps he didn’t mean to treat me ungently, but the marks of his hands remained on my skin...”
A shiver of emotion distorted her features; she wiped one hand down her upper arm. “I could not blot out the memory of how my father’s murderer had used me. Though he had left my bed, he still would not let me go.” She hid her eyes with her sleeve. “I often thought... if I took myself from this life, I would not have to remember this man’s body any longer...”
“My darling!” Ryonosuke reached out, but O-Hama didn’t turn to him. She held out a hand to ward him off and kept her face concealed.
“Now he lay dead before me. I wanted to remember nothing about him. Except his death.” She gave a shuddering gasp and remained silent for a few moments. When she lifted her head, she didn’t immediately open her eyes. “I looked only at the great wound that had killed him. I felt, for the first time since my father died... something approaching peace.”
Manji sagged a little in his bonds. O-Hama tilted her head up and met his gaze. “I never took my eyes from that ghastly cavity. I meant to memorize it forever.” She stared directly at him without a quiver. “For a little while, nothing changed. Then, beneath the blood and blackened ruin, I saw his torn flesh, his blasted organs... draw together again.”
The hirelings listened with rapt attention.
“The wound wove itself through with thickening strands, a translucent web of flesh. His shattered ribs extended and joined like the rafters of a house. Under the spreading membranes, growing shapes writhed and expanded like a mound of hellish insects. They emerged from seeming death, but they were alive...” O-Hama’s mouth distorted for a moment. “Alive! I wondered – was I losing my mind?”
She trilled her startling, flirtatious laugh. “Do you remember the taste of a woman’s madness so well, ‘elder brother’?” Ryonosuke watched in obvious consternation. “Tell me, killer of a hundred! Had I taken leave of my senses?”
Manji looked at her for long moments, then slowly shook his head once, as if it were almost too heavy to move.
“Th-that’s not possible!” Ryonosuke pointed at Mado. “The gaijin says the bullet only grazed him!”
“Look at him, my lord!” O-Hama indicated Manji’s stoic expression. “He is well aware of his nature.”
Hebi wagged a triumphant finger at Mado, who waved it away with a deprecating snort. The bandit’s knees knocked and he put his hands together in prayer as if to ward off an evil spirit. Ryonosuke expostulated.
“You are weary from the journey – you’ve had no refreshment for hours – my lady, please don’t speak as if this insanity were true! You distress me greatly!”
“Then watch, if you still doubt.” She raised her right hand. Her slim white fingers curled into claws, and she raked her pointed nails across the tender new skin of Manji’s just-healed wound.
He let a sharp grunt through his teeth, but did not move. Blood pearled in the furrows she tore through his flesh. The separate drops ran together and coalesced; warm red trickled down Manji’s chest. O-Hama watched with deadly calm. Manji blinked away sweat that ran into his eye and kept it closed.
“He suffers pain and lust like any man. But when he used his body to shield his woman, he knew that he would not die. What can pain and sacrifice mean, if a warrior cannot give up his life in service to his duty? What can love mean?”
A chilly, buzzing whine in Rin’s ears.
“A man’s sacrifice means all the world. An honorable death, bravely welcomed, may redeem him from the most dreadful iniquity. But – this is not a man.”
She took a cloth from her sleeve, wet it with a water container she carried at her belt and wiped Manji’s chest. “You see?”
Of course, there was nothing to see. The deep scratches that O-Hama had inflicted were gone. Only the still-descending drops of fresh blood striped Manji’s abdomen.
A collective indrawn breath from the spectators: a muttered curse or two. Rin had taken the bloodworms for granted for a long time; whether Manji had been half-gutted or merely grazed was all one to his immortal flesh. She had never before shuddered while watching his wounds disappear, as if by reasonless sorcery...
“This, my lord... is a demon.”
Continued...
Warnings for sex in various forms, including quasi-incestuous themes and a sixteen-year-old female paired with an adult male. Violence and dismemberment are legally required in any BotI fic... and here it is. Let me state that without ambiguity: it's going to get even nastier as we proceed. Be suitably warned. :D
Abstinence Education
by Madame Manga
Part Thirty-Four
“Listen...”
His voice might have been cut out of him with a broken blade. Rin shut her eyes so hard that they hurt.
“Listen, girl... listen to me...”
What could he possibly have to say? What could a murderer say to anyone, especially to the daughter of a man he’d killed with his own hands? Rin felt her throat tighten and her stomach clench with nausea.
“I’m sorry.”
Rin’s eyes flew open. O-Hama lowered her head so that she hid her face, and wrapped her body in her long sleeves as if for protection.
“I did it – it was me. I killed your daddy. I cut up your big brother. I don’t think I remember it... but it was me.” Manji took short, painful drags of breath. “I’m sorry. I know that don’t mean a particle of shit. But I got to tell you anyway. I’m sor – ”
“Be silent... scum!” Ryonosuke staggered up to the tree where Manji stood bound and swung his arm. His palm hit Manji’s jaw with a smack; Manji grimaced and tilted his head back when the young man wound up for another blow. “Foul abuser! You... will not... address my lady!” He struck his captive in the face again, then shook his hand and wrung it in the other, mouthing an expression of pain.
“What the hell do you want?” Manji’s voice rasped like a file; Ryonosuke flinched. “I was supposed to know? She’s a whore, she’s open for business, I needed to stick it in a woman even worse than you need a brain and a pair of balls! So I paid my money and I screwed her!”
Ryonosuke put a hand to his mouth and took a backwards step. Manji showed his teeth in a caricature of a grin, as if he comprehended a cosmic joke at his own expense. “Oh, I could tell she didn’t like how I tasted. Pissed me off when I couldn’t convince her otherwise.” He shook his head, still displaying the sharp edges of his teeth. “But fuck me ragged, I don’t figure any woman in that position was going to tell me the problem! What the hell can I do now but say I’m sorry?”
“Then... then, my demands – ”
“Yeah, dickless, I’m apologizing!” Manji barked a harsh laugh. “To HER. I’ll sprawl on my knees – to a whore. I’ll grind my goddamn samurai forehead in the dirt and tell her I’m sorry, because I am sorry.” He stopped and took a hard swallow. “When I did in all those officers... I was a beast. I was a frickin’ blood-crazed animal... who'd forgotten everything but killing.” Again he stopped and pulled his jaw tight. “Nothing I can do... will make up for even one of those deaths, see? But I got mine. Yeah – I got mine...”
Manji’s gaze moved down and to the side, and then gradually in Rin’s direction. He didn’t meet her eyes; he seemed to fight his own throat’s tension as he opened his lips to speak again.
“You acknowledge your fault?” Ryonosuke interrupted in a high, querulous tone. “You beg my – ”
“You, little boy?” Manji’s eye flared; his head snapped around. “You want an apology from me? For callin’ you a few choice names and giving you what you deserved?”
“I... I... ”
Manji noisily gathered saliva in his mouth and spat right between Ryonosuke’s eyebrows. The gob spattered the bandage on his nose. “You can kiss – my hairy – ass.”
Ryonosuke’s face blotched red and white. He didn’t strike again, however; his raised arm trembled in midair under the pressure of Manji’s glare. He wiped his defiled face on his brocade overcoat and retreated to O-Hama’s side, looking utterly cowed.
“You should have taken my head for that, kid.” Manji made a contemptuous sniff. “Yeah – and I should have cut your fucking chicken throat instead of clipping your beak. Guess samurai ain’t all it’s cracked up to be, hey?”
The young man seemed ready to cry. Manji curled his lips in a vicious smirk. Rin’s heart beat fast. Again, though tied to a tree and weak from loss of blood, her outnumbered bodyguard commanded the situation. Perhaps he really could save her from these men, even now?
“Sorry, girl... I was going to tell you something else.” Manji’s expression changed when he looked at O-Hama. She gave no sign that she heard him address her. Manji’s features worked and he took a few deep breaths.
“Listen. The last cop I killed was... my own sister’s husband. In front of her, on the first pass – he took my right eye, the top of his skull hit the ground and – ” Manji stared at his own feet. “She woke up believing she was three years old again... and that she could trust her big brother to keep her safe.” He gave a dry chuckle. “That’s how I knew for sure... that she’d lost her frickin’ mind.”
The hirelings all peered curiously at Rin as if expecting her to babble like an infant.
“I tried to give up the sword. I tried to confess my goddamn sins. You know what that got me? My crazy little sister, who I was trying to take care of, was cut to pieces in front of me.” His chest heaved. “Payback.”
Rin had never heard him say so much about Machi. Yaobikuni had told her the story, by way of persuading her to search out that murdered girl’s brother and hire him as her yôjimbô. Yes, dear, he killed a hundred officers, the ancient nun had said... and lost the last person he had to love.
“I didn’t go crazy... maybe. I just took up the sword again... and kept on killing.” Manji raised his head. “You see that girl there? She got sent to me... so I could try again.”
He shook, his teeth gritting; Rin saw torment flare in his expression. “She knows... better than anybody... how bad I screwed that up too. Yeah, Rin-chan?”
Rin’s eyes opened wide. Why would he ask her forgiveness? “Manji-san?”
He didn’t reply, but fixed his gaze on O-Hama again. “Lady, I reckon you want to take something out of me in exchange for a life and a couple of limbs. I did the crime. But this girl – ” He nodded at Rin. “There’s nothing you want from her. She’s nothing to do with what I was then – I never met her until six months ago. Just tell your man to let her go, see? Then I’ll – ”
“How d-dare you!” spluttered Ryonosuke.
“Shut up, little boy. I’m talkin’ to the lady, not you!” After a few moments of silence, Manji quirked his mouth. “Sorry, ma’am. I’m just saying he’d set her free... if you asked him.” The hirelings muttered and grumbled, but didn’t speak out loud.
Again O-Hama gave no sign that she had heard. Manji grimaced slightly and went on. “You say you were born samurai, and you talk like you know what that means.” His chest expanded with a deep breath. “She’s samurai herself – she’s the daughter of Asano Takayoshi, Mutenichi-ryû. That ought to say something, hey?”
Rin bit her lips. Maybe by humbling himself he could gain a little mercy for her, even though he’d insulted O-Hama’s lover to the greatest possible degree. What about his own case?
“She’s only a kid. She’s in kind of the same... well, it’s never the same, but you two girls got a bit in common. She tried to do what you did – something like it, anyhow – and she meant it for her family’s honor. But – ” Manji hesitated; it seemed he had second thoughts about this line of appeal. “But I wouldn’t...” His words fell to a whisper. “I wouldn’t let her...”
Manji’s voice failed him; his mouth opened and he stared over O-Hama’s head. The blue sky’s reflection filmed the dark iris of his good eye. Some vital quality in him seemed to go blind; his focus turned inward.
The air felt heavy and tense, like the harbinger of a thunderstorm. No one spoke, as if Manji’s silence dictated to them. Rin strained to read her bodyguard’s dark and working face. What was he talking about? Like what O-Hama had done?
Sell her body, he meant. To buy revenge. Cold fingers crawled over her skin. Manji hadn’t allowed her to prostitute herself to him; he’d reproved her like a big brother and then taken up his sword for her, as if he’d always meant to agree. He had never told her why his answer had so abruptly changed...
Manji made a grimace tinged with despair, as if disgusted at what he saw in his own mind, and closed his eye.
“Manji-san! You haven’t done anything wrong – uh, I mean...” Rin glanced at the spectators with trepidation. “You’re... you only let yourself be human!”
“Human? My ass.” He shook his head. “What kind of bushi am I? I had a man’s job to do... and I blew it.”
“What? Oh, no, Manji-san, I was the one who never should have – ”
Manji opened his eye and gave her a level glare. “I ran off and left you on your own. Because of nothing I should have given one warm shit about. I knew my duty and I knew what I had to do to honor it, and all I could think about was a goddamn female.”
Rin’s mouth dropped open.
Manji let out a deprecating snort. “Aw, not like it’s a woman’s fault, what she does to a guy – a cat scratches because it’s a cat. It’s a man’s business to keep his hands off the pretty pussy in the first place.” He laughed with a coarse rasp. “Nope, I’m the one that went soft in the head! If I’d kept you three paces behind me – or even let you walk right where you belonged... well, look at me now. Tied to a fucking tree and begging pardon from a whore!”
Quivering, Rin lowered her head. Honor... and duty? If he had persuaded her to abandon her own duty in his arms, maybe he’d accuse himself with the same regrets now...
“Samurai.” Manji’s voice cracked on a chuckle, still hoarse and rough. “Yeah, that’s what we were born to be... the whole goddamn bunch of us.” He looked back at O-Hama. “Doesn’t matter if you’ve lost caste, lady – I’ll credit you anyhow. You want to show me... how much samurai you got?”
At last, she raised her face and met his gaze. Her beautiful features might have been fired of white porcelain.
Manji’s crooked smile gradually faded as he looked into O-Hama’s unblinking eyes; he set his jaw and drew his brows together.
“Uh... wh-what...” Ryonosuke stuck out his lower lip and spoke in a tone that might have sounded pugnacious without the pronounced stammer. “What shall I... How do you w-wish me to punish him, my lady?”
O-Hama’s whisper was barely audible. “Punish... him?”
“Yes, punish him! I... I meant to bring him in alive, but I had no idea of the d-depths of his iniquity until now! Declare your verdict – your word is my law! Sh-shall I execute him on the spot?” He looked around for his dropped sword and gestured to the gaping boy, who scuffed in the grass and brought the weapon to him.
O-Hama averted her face and made a small gesture. “No... he will live.”
Rin let out a long breath she wasn’t aware she had been holding. Manji only compressed his lips a little more tightly, as if he knew he hadn’t heard the whole of his sentence.
“V-very well.” Ryonosuke bowed. “But, please, O-Hama-dono, allow me to act on your behalf in some way, before I deliver this foul beast to Edo. Shall he be beaten? Yes?” His eyes brightened and he swished the long tachi through the air as if it were a rattan cane. “My men will beat him severely, like a dog or a commoner!”
O-Hama made a slight sound that might have been a suppressed laugh.
“My lady?”
She looked towards Manji, though not into his face. His bloody clothes bunched around his hips, his outstretched arms lashed to branches like a crucified prisoner’s. Her gaze paused on the slowly fading flushed splotch below his collarbone, the only trace remaining of the bullet wound.
“So long.” Her soft voice sounded clearer; she had mastered her tears. “Three years and more. So often I imagined... what I would do at a moment like this. I knew that the author of my family's woe would never come under my hand... but he has.”
O-Hama’s pink lips parted; her head tilted back. For a moment she looked almost ecstatic, her body shaking with sharp little trembles. “Revenge. I dreamed so long... of revenge.”
Rin struggled to hold back her own tears. Manji was right – she and O-Hama had many sorrows in common. Like the two sides of the same page...
“I thought of taxing the murderer with his crimes when I confronted him. I thought he would deny his guilt. I pictured him blustering, threatening, cursing...” She touched her mouth with the back of her hand. “My brother said that such hardened criminals often had to be tortured before they would confess. I imagined the murderer as a craven coward, begging for mercy at the first pangs...”
Manji watched O-Hama with an uneasy frown. For an instant, her pearly teeth showed between her lips, but she kept her dreamy expression. “My brother often describes the agonies he would inflict on his crippler. He speaks of execution by flaying, or by burning alive. And after a death long in coming... he dwells on the torments of Mugen Jigoku... the everlasting hell.”
Rin’s ears prickled as the skin tightened on the back of her neck. Although she pitied his condition, she didn’t much like how O-Hama described her brother; she had a sense that even his sister’s natural affection had undergone some severe tests.
“I did not enjoy talk of such horrors. I believed that human beings should not be made to suffer the tortures of the hells, fit only to transform damned souls into demons. Even such a man as the killer of a hundred...”
“Allow me, O-Hama-dono! I will give him what his arrogance deserves!”
“My lord, his mind is not at all as I imagined it.” O-Hama meditatively shook her head. “He admits what he has done, and he is remorseful. The only mercy he begs is for another. What can I say to him now?”
Rin knew how it felt to discover that her hated enemy might not be the demon she had believed him; she swallowed a lump in her throat. O-Hama seemed to be taking it more gracefully than she had...
“Remorseful? He is feigning!”
“Feigning?” O-Hama gave a high trilling laugh, startling Rin. For the first time she sounded like a professional. “No, my lord – not so. I know too well the taste of a courtesan's tears.” The young man’s face fell in confusion.
O-Hama moved towards Manji, taking slow steps but not faltering. She stopped a pace’s distance from the tree and extended one hand, her nails groomed into fine points. She reached up to just below Manji’s collarbone. With her fingertip she followed the outline of the healed wound, almost but not quite touching his skin. “This was not feigned, because it happened before my eyes.” Her lips parted as she examined Manji’s lean chest, her eyes scanning its many scars. “This man gave his body to the bullet. He fell at the feet of this girl, his heart’s blood pouring from his breast.” She took a deep breath. “I believed him dead.”
Manji’s face twitched, a tight muscle pulling at the corner of his mouth.
“I rejoiced in his death. But how strange, I thought... that this vile criminal, who thought nothing of taking so many men’s lives... should have laid down his own life for a woman.”
Manji’s body gave a half-suppressed jolt. Rin tried to hide her burning blush against her shoulder. O-Hama had listened to everything they said, and even if Ryonosuke couldn’t make out the truth, an experienced courtesan of obvious intelligence could probably take it in at a glance. She was their ultimate judge, as Manji had immediately understood; everything might ride on how one wronged woman weighed their characters and deeds.
“Girl. Who are you?”
Her? Rin flinched.
“My lord maintained that you were brother and sister. This man says his sister is dead, and that you were sent to him in her stead. What does he mean?” O-Hama left Manji and moved towards Rin’s tree. The two of them seemed to stand almost the same height, though Rin had lost her geta in the forest. Under the baggy men’s clothing, O-Hama looked more filled out and nubile than Rin. “Who is this man to you?”
“Uhm...” Rin choked and then cleared her throat. “He... he’s my bodyguard! Like he said?”
O-Hama tilted her head and lifted a brow. “He called you... Rin?” Rin nodded. “O-Rin-san, how old are you?”
Rin’s eyes opened wider at the calm courtesy of O-Hama’s address. “Ah... I’m sixteen.”
“I've just turned eighteen.” She smiled slightly; Rin cringed a little at her beauty, which struck her as even more perfect at close range. “Yes, he is your yôjimbô – he’s amply proved that. But he also spoke as if he wished to claim you, as your lover.”
“Err...” Rin flushed dark and looked away, cursing Manji’s unguarded talk. They could suffer far more than embarrassment, if O-Hama took that the wrong way... or even if she didn’t.
“Perhaps he also meant to prove that claim?”
“Uh... I... I guess you’d have to ask HIM that, wouldn’t you?” Rin involuntarily glanced at Manji. He stared at her and gave a brief, tense shake of the head. Not to answer, or to deny what he’d said? Rin creased her brows, and then realized: O-Hama wouldn’t accept any other testimony, especially Manji’s. It was all up to her.
So far, Rin had no idea which way the verdict might turn. At least O-Hama was asking questions first...
“You were sent to him?”
“Well, yes – by an old nun I met, who knew him and – ”
“To have him protect you? To let him atone in part for his sins, perhaps?”
“Yes!” Rin blazed up. “He’s done so much to keep me safe – he’s killed – uh, I mean... ” She gulped and started again. “He's been hurt so many times, defending me! And he went all the way to Kaga just to find me – ”
“He has spared no effort for you?” An almost imperceptible edge in O-Hama’s soft voice. “Acted righteously even at cost to himself?”
“Of course he has! He’s a... he’s like... a... a big brother!”
“What a comfort that must be to your loyal protector – when his ghosts throng around him.” A flicker behind her long lashes. “O-Rin-san, are you a virgin?”
Rin gasped. Straight to the point!
“Six months. Has he taken you in his pillow yet?”
Manji’s teeth clicked together and sweat glittered on his forehead. The question horrified him – why? Not because he feared exposure, Rin thought – he’d exposed himself quite enough already! In confusion, she didn’t reply.
O-Hama prompted her. “Has this man had you?”
“Errm...” Rin hastily glanced around at the spectators. The bandit and ronin listened with obviously prurient interest. She couldn’t explain fine distinctions in front of these disgusting men! She wished she could read Manji’s thoughts more clearly, but he wouldn’t even meet her eyes. All up to her! Rin clenched her jaw and lifted her chin. “Why... why do you want to know that?”
O-Hama arched a feathery eyebrow. “A virgin, he said to me in scorn. A skinny virgin could have satisfied him where I did not.” She examined Rin’s figure as if assessing her sale price. “I didn’t realize his words might have a meaning beyond insult...”
Rin puffed with indignation. “Manji-san hasn’t done anything wrong! I – I AM a virgin!”
“Ah?” O-Hama blinked as if a little startled at Rin's heat. “I'm inclined to believe you.”
“Uh... you are?”
“Yes, you may well be telling the literal truth. And yet... he calls you his woman and declares that no other man will have you.” O-Hama looked towards Manji. “If the killer of a hundred were to take advantage of his power over a friendless girl... how would that reflect on the remorse he feels for his murders? On his possibility of redemption?”
“Men aren’t all the same! Some of them aren’t anything like – ” Rin cast an angry glance at the leering bandit. “Manji-san wouldn’t ever...”
Her face flamed and her voice failed.
“Wouldn't he?” Sarcasm lightly tinted O-Hama’s tone. “Your trustworthy bodyguard treated me exactly as many men have. More so, if anything.”
“More so?”
“The evening he visited me, seven days ago, he possessed me twice in half an hour’s space. He placed me as he wished and entered me forcefully – ”
“My lady!” Ryonosuke clenched his teeth and put his fingers in his ears. Manji made an irritated, half-embarrassed grimace at the snickering spectators; O-Hama probably wasn’t exaggerating.
“Men are indeed all the same, girl. They think they can purchase absolute claim to a woman’s body, whether they pay in gold or in blood. I was afraid my father’s murderer meant to hold me captive all night, since release did not sate him. I didn't think I could keep from betraying myself... if he took me again with such... vehemence.” A peculiar suppressed shiver rippled through her; she shook out a little laugh. “I had to demand more money and make a scene before that animal would let me go!”
O-Hama's throat rippled with a tight swallow. She took a deep breath, observed Rin’s anguished blushes, then leaned a little closer. That indescribable hardness again froze over her beauty.
“Yes, you are skinny. But at sixteen, you rapidly approach womanhood... and you must have changed greatly in half a year. If the killer of a hundred hasn’t taken you yet... little sister... it’s not because he isn’t hungry for a woman. Nor because it’s never occurred to him that you are his any time he wants you.” A cynical sneer worthy of Manji lifted the side of her pretty mouth. “It’s because it doesn’t suit his greater purposes to steal your maidenhead. That’s all.” She turned and paced towards Manji again.
Rin cringed. No, O-Hama wasn’t nearly as easy to fool as her lover...
“So you are a cleft stick he has cut for himself.” O-Hama circled behind Manji’s tree and faced round to him. She scanned his features, two fingers delicately poised over her lips. “To claim your body, though he has purchased you with his blood, is to destroy all his illusions of accomplishment. He couldn't take the virgin for whom he burns... so in her stead, he chose a whore.”
Manji made a low sound in his throat, though he stared resolutely ahead.
“Perhaps, after he encountered me, it seemed that no woman could give him ease. Only the girl he could not have.” Her cheeks moved under her concealing hand as if she smiled. “What torments he must have suffered...”
Rin hyperventilated, her lungs constricted. Each breath pained her. All her fault, no matter what Manji said – her own heedless, selfish impulses. She closed her eyes in despair. If she had never asked her bodyguard for a kiss, never given him too much money, never even dreamed of him...
“Thus, when he flung himself between you and the gun, it was for his hopeless love as well as for his duty.” A soft, almost dreamy sigh. “For that sacrifice alone... I could have forgiven him... everything.”
“What?” Rin’s eyes flew open. Manji looked stunned, though not less uneasy.
“Would you not pay homage even to your greatest enemy for such an end?” O-Hama raised her hands to Manji, then clasped them before her. “Faced with the possibility of dishonor, instead he welcomed a valiant death!”
“Uh... b-because he...?” Rin could barely speak for the lift of her heart. This woman might know something about hopeless love herself...
O-Hama nodded gravely, a faraway look in her eyes. She examined the periphery of Manji’s face, avoiding his gaze. “The moment he fell, I realized his motives must be greater than I had assumed. More human... perhaps even noble. With the gush of his blood, I meant to wash out every mark he had left...”
“You did?” Rin exchanged a look with Manji, flushed with hope. To her shock, his lips peeled back and he ground his teeth. What was wrong? Everything O-Hama said accorded with bushido. Death was a samurai’s focus: his only honorable object in life was to die well. Bravely sacrificing himself in the performance of a duty –
Manji couldn’t die. Even if he wanted to.
Rin felt a slow, dreadful, downward pull to her vitals. As if in response, O-Hama’s brows tightened; her eyelids lowered to slits.
“I recalled every detail of his flesh... the scars upon scars that crossed his limbs. He... he had kissed me with that hard mouth.” O-Hama raised her little chin and skimmed a soft gesture over Manji’s face, again not quite touching him. He stood like stone, his eye locked to her. Her gaze moved no higher than his lips. “Perhaps he didn’t mean to treat me ungently, but the marks of his hands remained on my skin...”
A shiver of emotion distorted her features; she wiped one hand down her upper arm. “I could not blot out the memory of how my father’s murderer had used me. Though he had left my bed, he still would not let me go.” She hid her eyes with her sleeve. “I often thought... if I took myself from this life, I would not have to remember this man’s body any longer...”
“My darling!” Ryonosuke reached out, but O-Hama didn’t turn to him. She held out a hand to ward him off and kept her face concealed.
“Now he lay dead before me. I wanted to remember nothing about him. Except his death.” She gave a shuddering gasp and remained silent for a few moments. When she lifted her head, she didn’t immediately open her eyes. “I looked only at the great wound that had killed him. I felt, for the first time since my father died... something approaching peace.”
Manji sagged a little in his bonds. O-Hama tilted her head up and met his gaze. “I never took my eyes from that ghastly cavity. I meant to memorize it forever.” She stared directly at him without a quiver. “For a little while, nothing changed. Then, beneath the blood and blackened ruin, I saw his torn flesh, his blasted organs... draw together again.”
The hirelings listened with rapt attention.
“The wound wove itself through with thickening strands, a translucent web of flesh. His shattered ribs extended and joined like the rafters of a house. Under the spreading membranes, growing shapes writhed and expanded like a mound of hellish insects. They emerged from seeming death, but they were alive...” O-Hama’s mouth distorted for a moment. “Alive! I wondered – was I losing my mind?”
She trilled her startling, flirtatious laugh. “Do you remember the taste of a woman’s madness so well, ‘elder brother’?” Ryonosuke watched in obvious consternation. “Tell me, killer of a hundred! Had I taken leave of my senses?”
Manji looked at her for long moments, then slowly shook his head once, as if it were almost too heavy to move.
“Th-that’s not possible!” Ryonosuke pointed at Mado. “The gaijin says the bullet only grazed him!”
“Look at him, my lord!” O-Hama indicated Manji’s stoic expression. “He is well aware of his nature.”
Hebi wagged a triumphant finger at Mado, who waved it away with a deprecating snort. The bandit’s knees knocked and he put his hands together in prayer as if to ward off an evil spirit. Ryonosuke expostulated.
“You are weary from the journey – you’ve had no refreshment for hours – my lady, please don’t speak as if this insanity were true! You distress me greatly!”
“Then watch, if you still doubt.” She raised her right hand. Her slim white fingers curled into claws, and she raked her pointed nails across the tender new skin of Manji’s just-healed wound.
He let a sharp grunt through his teeth, but did not move. Blood pearled in the furrows she tore through his flesh. The separate drops ran together and coalesced; warm red trickled down Manji’s chest. O-Hama watched with deadly calm. Manji blinked away sweat that ran into his eye and kept it closed.
“He suffers pain and lust like any man. But when he used his body to shield his woman, he knew that he would not die. What can pain and sacrifice mean, if a warrior cannot give up his life in service to his duty? What can love mean?”
A chilly, buzzing whine in Rin’s ears.
“A man’s sacrifice means all the world. An honorable death, bravely welcomed, may redeem him from the most dreadful iniquity. But – this is not a man.”
She took a cloth from her sleeve, wet it with a water container she carried at her belt and wiped Manji’s chest. “You see?”
Of course, there was nothing to see. The deep scratches that O-Hama had inflicted were gone. Only the still-descending drops of fresh blood striped Manji’s abdomen.
A collective indrawn breath from the spectators: a muttered curse or two. Rin had taken the bloodworms for granted for a long time; whether Manji had been half-gutted or merely grazed was all one to his immortal flesh. She had never before shuddered while watching his wounds disappear, as if by reasonless sorcery...
“This, my lord... is a demon.”
Continued...