Blade Of The Immortal Fan Fiction ❯ Abstinence Education ❯ Part Thirty-Eight ( Chapter 38 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

There we go! I'm glad I didn't rush this one, but it's always a good feeling to finish a chapter and round off the corners.

For anyone reading this on Mediaminer: I'm finally updating the chapters here after almost a year, having written quite a few of them. The reason I haven't been putting it on Mediaminer is because I have had very little response from this site. Should I even keep posting it here, or just stick to Livejournal and aff.net? This isn't a threat -- it's just a lot of work to prepare the files for each site, and if no one's looking at it here, then I'll save myself the effort.

Revenge consumes; how much more so can love...

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. (Yeah, this also applies to future chapters!) Violence and dismemberment are legally required in any BotI fic... and more of that stuff is coming as well...


Abstinence Education
by Madame Manga

Part Thirty-Eight



Rin rubbed her upper arms and hunched her shoulders; the breeze had grown cold at sunset. The dark columns of trees swayed against the dimming sky when she looked up, the branches whispering and embracing each other. Dry twigs crushed under her feet like sparrows’ bones. Usually Rin didn’t dwell on the thought of spirits very much; she’d lived with ghosts too long already. But as the twilight faded, every step through this forest seemed to drag her deeper into a realm of elusive fears. She was starting to glimpse half-formed shapes in every shadow.

Her pace faltered and slowed. Had she already missed the place she searched for? For at least ten minutes she’d been walking in gradually widening back-and-forth arcs to cover more ground; maybe she wasn’t even going in the right direction... and her feet were getting sore. Since Rin had lost her geta soon after Mado and Hebi had grabbed her on the road, she still wore only cloth tabi. She stopped, leaned against a boulder and massaged each toe in turn.

Halting only increased her apprehensions. She heard no human footfalls; for the moment at least, she was alone. The forest’s whispers and rustles seemed to congregate and draw closer, following her scent-trail. What was a little girl doing out here in the wild without her well-armed bodyguard at her side, they seemed to ask each other. Could they hope to feed on such a tempting windfall?

Rin abruptly stood upright and stared down the phantoms. There wasn’t anything there, of course: nothing but bushes that resembled crouching beasts, trees that stood like men holding upright swords in their hands. “Oh... don’t be stupid...” She was tired, to say the least, but even to allow such ideas into her head, like a child afraid of the dark... She rubbed her bleary eyes with the heels of her hands.

A patch of lighter ground showed through the trees to the right when Rin raised her head, and she walked towards it, picking her way to spare her feet but still stubbing a toe every few steps. The biggest clearing yet. Clumped shrubs and arching roots of the forest floor gave way to a wide stretch of grass. Gray in the twilight: the light was too dim now to make out many details. What was that smell?

“This looks like a possibility, from your description.” Her companion’s voice – Rin jumped, though he spoke in a low, even tone as he approached along the edge of the clearing.

“M-maybe... probably. We’ve certainly walked far enough now – but everything looks so different in the dark!”

Anotsu Kagehisa passed her with a few strides and bent down to set his lantern in the trampled grass. He untied his bundle and touched the wick of a candle to the glowing coals in the charcoal holder.

In the flare of the flame, steel threw back glints of light in a near-circle around them. Manji’s abandoned weapons. Sprawled in the grass, stuck upright in the earth. The hooked knife lay against a tree root, blade and handle both clotted dark. Rin heard a sharp little growl and saw a couple of pairs of reflective eyes shifting low to the ground under that same tree. The animal’s bodies were cloaked in darkness, but they might have been facing off over something that both of them wanted.

“Oh!” At Rin’s gasp, both animals blinked at her and retreated into the woods with a soft skitter of paws. “Are those foxes?”

Anotsu glanced over his shoulder and shut the paper-screened door of the lantern. “Where?”

“They’re gone now...” Rin ventured towards the tree. The thick stink of spilled blood rose like a miasma. Festoons of frayed rope, one splintered branch. What was that sodden heap at the base of the trunk? Rin peered at it. Manji’s torn kôsôde, entirely soaked in blood.

She stopped short, her stomach pulling in with a jerk. That – that sight was no phantom conjured from childish fears. Real fury and cruelty loomed before her, an almost palpable presence. Manji could take pain, and he’d lost limbs before... though usually not by gradual whittling. But his freedom, his strength, his samurai’s pride? Rin held down the threat of a sob. Between them, those two young lovers had stripped away almost everything her bodyguard possessed. Maybe for a little while, when she held a sword to her own breast, he’d even lost hope.

Rin stared at Manji’s ruined clothes, the low light merging dark-dyed white and rusty black into one murky shade. All she’d misplaced today? A pair of geta...

Anotsu stood up behind her and held the lantern at shoulder level. The light rose over the ground and tree, interrupted by the wavering outline of her shadow. Details sprang out at her like a pack of lurking creatures; the relative blackness surrounding the scene underscored it with a final appalling stroke. Rin put her hand to her mouth, fighting both panic and nausea.

“I see... that this is undoubtedly the place.” Anotsu glanced around, his voice still even.

Rin swallowed hard and looked at the sky for a moment; she felt both irritated at his calm and ashamed of her own disturbance. It wasn’t as if anything dangerous remained here now – nothing stirred in the clearing but herself and her companion. The light moved as he peered at the ground near his feet. “Hah? Whose is this?”

“What?” Rin startled and looked back at him.

“Your bodyguard is missing neither of his ears, so I presume this must belong to one of the dead men.” Anotsu smiled briefly and approached her with the lantern.

She’d nearly forgotten. “Oh... yeah! Manji-san took some chunks off them before they captured him.” The memory heartened her; she returned the smile. “Gosh, I wish I could have helped him do it – those disgusting jerks!” Rin slapped the hilt of her sword and rolled her shoulders.

“Then it’s fortunate that Mado had already secured you out of harm’s way.” Anotsu pursed his lips as if suppressing amusement.

“Oh, you think so? Manji’s been teaching me a lot!”

“I don’t doubt it.” His tone was dry. Rin’s face flushed hot; of course, weapons training hadn’t been on the agenda for days. An uncomfortable twinge tightened her groin and she let her gaze drop.

Anotsu’s expression warmed a little more, or maybe that was the light of the lantern touching the smooth planes of his face. Not just amusement: some element of his interest in her safety made her shiver again. As if she had a specific value in his mind, like gold secured in a strongbox. She still had no proof why he was here at all, or why he seemed so determined to help her find her way that he would walk so far when already weary and not entirely well. Maybe he thought it was his opportunity to search out a key to that lock...

Even though they’d taken parallel paths within the sound of a hail rather than staying close together, walking with Anotsu again hadn’t turned her thoughts in welcome directions. Rin didn’t want to consider exactly why. The experiences that she and Anotsu had gone through together in the Kaga mountains still seemed to enfold them, a strange bond of grim toil and unwilling dependence. Far more than that: awareness of his humanity where he’d once seemed to fit her idea of ultimate evil; reluctant respect for his endurance and unblinking clarity of mind; even more reluctant realization of his larger motives. Before they had parted, those new perceptions had already worked on her with great consequences. Unable to kill her greatest enemy when he lay sick and helpless? Anotsu himself had wondered why she hadn’t acted, and all she had been able to tell him was that this wasn’t the time.

When would that time ever come?

With every thought of Anotsu and her duty to her parents, that hard-won awareness of him rose up to confuse her instincts, like an aura of human scent on a garment borrowed and returned. It made her restless and self-conscious; it irritated her when she couldn’t banish it by will. So she had tried to hold her breath against it instead. How long could anyone live without drawing air into her lungs?

Meeting Anotsu again under such circumstances surrounded her with forebodings, Makie's speculations not the least of them. The memory of those last few days with Manji had to be her best defense against all such threats; Rin hugged her arms around her chest and closed her eyes. Manji-sensei’s lessons, which he hadn’t treated like lessons for very long. Her fascination with his male flesh; his hands’ grasp, his hungry kisses: the way he’d looked at her, and how he’d called her his woman. Rin hid a smile, a shadow of her naïve pleasure in Manji’s arms warming her from inside.

His rough-edged, grudging tenderness shamed her. He’d tried so hard to shield her, especially from his own longings. A hundred impressions of Manji’s struggles piled up as a shifting muddle in her head, like a bulwark of flood-wrack. Familiar ideas and actions looked so different when torn from their foundations and broken apart...

Rin drew a breath that caught on an obstruction deep in her throat. What exactly had Manji smelled on her when he got her back? After the euphoria of rescue and reunion had faded a little, his mood had not escaped her notice. Even a young virgin could mark out a man’s uneasy consciousness of her womanhood for what it was. She hadn’t tried very hard to tell Manji about the journey or about Anotsu; wasn’t that because her yôjimbô raised prickles at every mention? She’d put that down to protectiveness and natural vigilance against an enemy. But protective instinct didn’t invade a man’s dreams while a young woman slept a step or two away. It didn’t prompt him to push her limits when she asked for a simple kiss... nor to follow her into the woods with conflicting intentions.

Had suggesting to Manji that he turn lust into instruction only steered them more quickly along their dangerous course? She'd had no idea that carnal urges could have such power, and so she'd been able to pledge her innocent faith in him as a man and as her mentor. With unthinking confidence she had made his difficult task virtually impossible, blithely sweeping away dikes and barriers that might still have turned them aside from the rapids.

But she hadn't wanted to stay safely on dry land. She’d been so sure that her trusted bodyguard could help her wash away the least trace that Anotsu had left. He’d guide his ‘little sister’ into the shallow water and teach her how to swim. If she floundered in midstream, he would haul her out with a strong arm and scold her for getting in over her head. She was the one at risk, not he. Her ‘big brother’ had told her so himself, and like an idiot she believed him. So she’d let him drown instead...

Rin trembled, trying to dam her tears.

“Are you cold, Rin-dono?” Anotsu offered her the lantern. She took it in confusion, and he slipped off the knee-length padded coat he wore. “Take this, please.” He held it out to her.

“Oh!” Rin blushed as if he had offered to strip to the waist. “No, that’s – uh, aren’t you...?”

“I feel quite warm after our walk.” He laid the coat over her arm and took the lantern again. “It’s mostly for appearances, anyway.”

“I thought all those Shingyôtô-ryû guys were dead or crippled. So what’s the disguise for?” She dangled the coat from two fingers, but Anotsu made no move to accept it back. His slim figure looked a little incongruous in the long, loud-patterned kôsôde, very different from his usual half-feminine elegance of dress. He’d even left his long hair unbound and removed the two gold rings from his right ear. “Who’s looking for you now, hnn? Didn’t the bakûfû get mentioned somewhere?”

Anotsu gave her a sharp glance; his smile had vanished. “Never mind, girl.” He pulled up his scarf to cover his throat to the chin. Rin felt better; she much preferred his annoyance to his courtesy. She dropped Anotsu’s coat on the grass and picked up one of Manji’s fallen weapons.

It was the shido that Hebi had taken away from her. Rin’s chest tightened at the heavy feel of the hilt in her hand, but she lugged it to the middle of the clearing and started pulling the standing fence of swords from the earth where Manji had planted them. They rang dully against the ground and loudly against each other; they’d make a weighty bundle all together.

Anotsu held up the lantern and inspected the ropes hanging from the tree and the cut strands scattered on the ground. Rin wondered again how Manji had freed himself. There wasn’t any sign of Ryonosuke or O-Hama or their horse. Had they just fled after their hirelings had run after her and the Ittô-ryû men? Surely THEY hadn’t cut their prisoner loose! She glanced again at the hooked knife on the ground. That was the blade O-Hama had used against its owner. Rin unconsciously pressed her tongue against the roof of her mouth and made a slow, painful swallow. Even though it was the lightest weapon Manji routinely used, she would have to brace herself to pick up that one...

Anotsu stooped low and examined the ground directly under the splintered branch. “Hah...”

“What?” Rin looked up.

“I’m afraid... that we won’t be able to collect every piece of flesh that your bodyguard must have lost.”

Rin clapped her hand over her mouth, then mumbled through her fingers. “The... foxes...?”

“The smell of blood attracts all kinds of interest.” Anotsu hung the lantern from a broken-ended branch, then shook out a square of cloth and laid it on a bare patch of ground. “Perhaps what remains will be sufficient?” Rin gulped hard, but resolutely walked over to the tree to look. Anotsu made way for her.

It took her a moment to register what she was seeing. Tattered flesh, gnawed reddish bones – that had been a hand? Incongruously, several of the fingernails remained in place. Rin dropped to her knees, palms over her pounding heart. “Oh, no!”

“The last two fingers are partly missing.” Anotsu hunkered down by her side and pointed. “But they seem to have been disjointed by a blade, not by the animals’ teeth.”

“Y-yeah – I know.” Rin put the back of her hand to her face.

“What? Was that... a deliberate act?”

“Manji-san told him his aim was terrible...” Rin giggled with an edge of hysteria, then caught her breath with an effort. Don’t cry, don’t cry, it already happened and his pain is past –

Not too convincing a thought, even to herself. Rin trembled with a great wave of emotion. She wanted to escape this horrible place, now, and flee through the forest. Straight back to her beloved Manji, whom she’d left behind with a corpse, a dying man and a gravedigger. She longed to embrace his tortured body and weep out all her sorrow and sympathy on his breast, as if she could somehow pay him for his pain with her tears. Her dry mouth tasted bitter.

“Simple incompetence?” Anotsu stood up and let out a gusty breath, as if somewhat shocked himself. “Tsukue Ryonosuke could hardly have done worse by design.”

“Worse? O-Hama was a lot better at it than he was.” Rin pressed her fist to her lips so hard that they throbbed. A fox spirit could take the shape of a beautiful, dangerously seductive woman, at least in stories. And then return in her animal guise to finish the job she had started? “Oh... stop it...” She pinched her cheek to chide her wandering imagination.

“Excuse me?”

“Uh... nothing.” This was ridiculous; she’d seen dismemberments before! Rin steeled herself, leaned forward on her knees and parted the blood-dappled grass to search for scattered pieces of her bodyguard.

In a few moments she located Manji’s smallest finger, curled up like a shrimp. Partly defleshed by small sharp teeth, it harbored a swarm of inquisitive ants. Her throat closed, but she reached out a shaking hand. It took a couple of false attempts before she could touch it, but she picked up the finger with the tips of her nails, shook and blew the insects away and dropped it on the spread cloth.

Anotsu watched her with his arms akimbo and one brow raised. Manji’s hand itself she could hardly bear to look at again; Rin shielded her face with one sleeve and reached out for the unrecognizable member. How could this even help? She imagined Manji’s reaction when she presented him with a half-eaten ruin to add to the stump of his mangled arm; would he be crippled for life because he’d turned back to defend one stupid girl? Stupid, thoughtless, ungrateful...

Cruel. Heartless. Irrational guilt sickened her. If she hadn’t refused Manji’s embraces – declared that he could never touch her again – then this never would have happened. They would have been walking as a couple rather than barely in sight of each other. They would have turned aside from the path hours before to find a place to sleep – to make love. Rin’s thighs shivered.

Her wavering fingertips brushed the sharp edges of chipped bones. Rin got up, staggered to a spot behind the tree, sank to all fours and vomited. There wasn’t much in her stomach to lose, but she felt as if she had consumed Manji’s torn flesh herself. At least O-Hama had attacked openly, fully intending to inflict extraordinary revenge on her father’s killer. What on earth had she, Rin, intended? It didn’t matter, because the whole result was all her fault anyway.

While she gasped and retched, dizzy with self-disgust, Anotsu unhooked the lantern from the branch. “Obviously this isn’t a task that calls for a woman’s touch.” He cleared his throat with a suggestion of sarcasm, though he spoke with perfect courtesy. “Allow me to spare you the rest of it, Rin-dono.”

Rin’s eyes flew open. So she was a silly, squeamish girl? A surge of anger pushed her to her feet, though she swayed and had to lean against the tree. Anotsu had no business sneering at her, even if he didn’t give a damn if Manji could ever hold a weapon again. Hadn’t he ever seen a loved one suffer? Rin almost laughed. Him, love anyone? Him, want to soothe another person’s pain? He couldn’t possibly realize how she felt right now!

“Take this with you while you collect the weapons,” said Anotsu with an air of slightly impatient command. “I have plenty of candles.”

“Okay... fine...” Rin wiped her mouth, grabbed the offered lantern and made a wide circle around the tree on her way back into the clearing. At least it was a job to do...

It didn’t take much searching to find the rest of the blades, though she had to proceed slowly and hold the light near the ground. The chained sickles hung half-wrapped around the tree where the horse had been tethered. Ryonosuke’s discarded helmet remained on the ground, as did the expensive men’s clothes that O-Hama had removed while trying to seduce Mado. Rin stared at the crumpled hakama and silk coat as she walked back and forth to pick up each blade in turn. The lovers had left in haste, then. Frightened of something?

Unwilling even to touch them, Rin left the couple’s possessions where they lay and lined up the weapons to make a count. Eight, nine, ten, plus the single shido that Manji had taken with him, and that hooked blade... hadn’t he been carrying a small knife, too? And where were his treasured pipe and his tobacco? She found the pipe at the spot he had fallen when shot. The damp earth stank; how much ground had her bodyguard’s blood drenched? He might have lost every drop of what had been in his body that morning. Rin sighed with worry. Would Manji even be conscious when she returned? She doubted that Magatsu meant to see to his comfort.

Anotsu paced back and forth in an expanding area near the broken-branched tree, bent almost double. He held a lit candle at an angle and shaded the flame from his eyes with his free hand, closely examining the ground and the tussocks of grass. A couple of times he stopped and picked something up.

Manji’s pouch had been shredded; the tobacco remaining inside wasn’t fit for use. He’d have to go without again – oh, how he hated an empty pipe! It was easier to concentrate on minor losses than greater ones; remembering how Manji had grumped and growled when he had nothing to smoke, Rin smiled to herself and bit her lips. She carefully cleaned the pipe, avoiding the little blade under the bowl, and put it in her shoulder bag.

Anotsu stood up and wiped his hands. “That’s everything the animals left, I think.” He glanced down at the spread cloth, where he had laid out the fragments as he located them. “All that’s completely missing is the last joint of the second finger.”

Losing even one fingertip might cripple a swordsman like Manji. Fighting two-handed with dazzling dexterity was his best advantage, especially against multiple opponents. Rin’s heart sank; her lips quivered. But she realized that the loss wasn’t Anotsu’s fault; of all people, once he had taken on the task he would have done his punctilious best to find everything he could. No point in betraying her disappointment; he’d probably take it as more proof of feminine fragility. “Uhm... I give you thanks for your honorable assistance,” she said with stiff formality. Anotsu gave her an opaque look and knelt down again.

She watched him tie up the corners of the cloth to make a small, neat packet. Then he gestured as if to offer it to her. Rin blanched, but approached and took the packet from him. Relieved that her hands didn’t shake too much, she stowed it in her bag next to Manji’s pipe.

“I’m afraid,” said Anotsu with an air of choosing his words, “that I have not yet seen a sign of the other loss he suffered.” He sat back on his heels and tapped his hands on his thighs.

“The other loss...?”

He raised a brow at her. “His tongue.”

Her knees almost gave way. The sight of Manji’s half-eaten hand had pushed away some even more unwelcome concerns for his health. “His – oh, my God!”

“Rin-dono?” Anotsu hastily got up and offered his arm. She whirled away from him, her stomach quaking. “Are you still feeling ill?”

“The... the... what if the, the animals...” She couldn’t go on.

“I won’t mince words – they seem to have eaten or carried off almost all of the smaller morsels of flesh. Probably they left the hand for last, being mostly bone and sinew... or we wouldn’t have found it at all. So a severed tongue – ” Rin let out an agonized squeak, and Anotsu gave her an odd look. “You are concerned that your bodyguard may permanently lose his power of speech?”

“Uh... yeah... speech...” Rin flushed hot all over. O-Hama had actually meant to show her enemy a little mercy. She’d thought that removing a man’s tongue wasn’t as dreadful an act as emasculating him – and Manji probably would have agreed, if he’d been able to express an opinion. Thinking otherwise for even a moment was pure selfishness, not to mention pretty icky –

“Uh... I don’t know if he can regenerate something like that. Maybe he can grow back what the foxes chewed off his hand, but... oh, gosh, he’s the only person who could heal from this even part way, so I don’t know why I’m so...” She laughed tremulously. No, Manji wouldn’t have traded for an instant, no matter how much he liked to taste a woman. That wasn’t what Makie had assured her was a man’s most powerful urge... nor what Manji had once spoken of as a dream of pleasure. To take and to be pulled in: to enter completely into the soft grasp of a woman... who really wanted him.

Last night seemed like a strange dream to her still – but she remembered perfectly how he’d loved being inside her, more than anything else their bodies were capable of doing. And they hadn’t even done it in the way he liked best. Rin flushed from nipples to hairline. The way he’d tried to show her today, the same as giving her his promise... and she’d shoved a knee into his most valuable organs.

“Yes, I’ve heard. Restoring severed limbs... surviving wounds that would have killed any normal man.” Anotsu made a low sound in his throat and shook his head.

“What?”

“How strange it must be, living by such means.” He looked at his own hand. “A man would scarcely feel like he inhabited human flesh.”

“Well, uh... he deals with it.” Manji was as human as anyone! And twice as much of a man as – was that really why she’d told him it was impossible?

“I suppose he hasn’t much choice.” Anotsu smiled at her. “You’ve had reason to be thankful for his unusual talents.”

“Th-thankful?” Rin drew her lips back from her teeth. “Not thankful enough!” Anotsu seemed about to speak again; Rin jabbed a finger at the frayed ropes and bloody clothes. “You couldn’t possibly realize half of what he’s suffered for me, only today! S-suffered... FROM me!”

Anotsu’s eyes widened; his frown displayed obvious concern, which agitated her even more. She wasn’t coming unhinged – she had a right to feel this way! “Rin-dono? Are you sure that you – ”

“I owe him – I n-never paid him enough – all the money I could scrape together in a lifetime wouldn’t – ” She put her face in her hands and dragged in a deep sob. “Oh... Manji-san!”

“Ah... your bodyguard is an experienced fighter... and an outlaw, of course.” Anotsu raised his brows and puffed out a breath. “He must have realized that backing your cause involved some risks, even with his abilities.”

Caught in the middle of another moan, Rin parted her fingers to blink at him.

“Battle seems to be... his true vocation.” He slightly tilted his head as if calling up all the reports he had heard of Manji's doings. “I doubt he’d choose to avoid any honorable duel, even if he hadn’t been born to the sword. In any case, this... ” Anotsu pointed his chin at the tree. “The true root of this incident was Manji-san's alone. Not yours.”

She deflated a little and rubbed her upper arms. Well, he actually had a pretty good point there...

“Though perhaps, after this day...” Anotsu lifted his head and scanned the clearing from side to side. “This may not be the last time the shadow of his old crimes draws an innocent into danger.”

“Err...”

“Your womanly sympathy and natural loyalties – take some thought to what cause you should devote them. To honor your father’s lineage – ”

Rin's fists closed and her face flamed. “Don’t you dare lecture me! You think I need YOUR advice? Or your – protection?”

Anotsu looked at her in startlement. She put her shoulders back and glared at him. “So you decided to help me today. Big deal! That doesn’t mean I’m going to follow wherever you lead! Whatever you’ve done, you did for your own reasons. You think I’m a stupid little girl who’ll fall for anything?”

Anotsu’s eyes veiled over. “Hardly.”

Rin quivered and closed her mouth. Mado had already put him on alert; Anotsu wouldn’t miss the smallest hints. He looked for nothing so obvious as a key to her mind – he sought to place each element of her situation in a logical pattern, like stones that encircled a position on a game board. He wouldn’t lose a single fragment once he had grasped it.

Anotsu took the lantern from her and walked away. She almost called out to him, panicked at the idea that he might abandon her in this place, but he only circled the clearing, looking at the ground. He paused for a while by the tree where the horse had stood tethered, then crossed the grass a couple of times with the lantern held low.

Obviously he was looking at the tracks, though what he could tell at night Rin wasn’t sure. She’d probably spoiled most of the traces already. She busied herself with laying out Manji’s reeking, blood-stiffened clothes.

“What is that?” Anotsu returned and stood above her with the light. “You’ve stained your hands.”

Sticky reddish smears covered her palms. “It’s what Manji-san was wearing. When he took a bullet that would have killed me. Did Mado tell you that?”

“...It was mentioned.”

In the lantern light she could see the damage better. A huge irregular hole obliterated the upper half of the manji symbol on the back, and the front collar on each side looked ragged where it had overlapped on the owner’s chest. Rin paused while folding the garment lengthwise. Had that bullet really gone straight through his heart?

“You’ll never get that clean again, and it smells like an execution ground.” Anotsu picked up his coat from the grass and put it back on. “Why salvage it?”

“Because it’s his and I’m bringing back everything that belongs to him. If you don’t want to help me find any more dirty, smelly things of his, that’s OK – I’ll do it myself. Can I have that lantern for a minute?”

He looked skeptical, but gave it to her. “Where do you intend to look?”

“I had an idea just now.” Rin searched on the ground until she found a small flat stone, then walked right up to the spot where O-Hama had stood while she cut out Manji’s tongue. The tree loomed before her, its rough bark streaked with bloodstains. Rin took a deep breath, blew it out slowly and set the lantern down. “Okay... she was just my height.”

Manji was about this much taller – she raised her hand well above her head. He’d been slumped and unconscious – she lowered her hand again. Then they’d propped his head up with a stick between his jaws. She had to make her best guess, considering that she had been hanging over Mado’s shoulder at the time, but she covered her hand with her sleeve as O-Hama had done, held the stone at the approximate level, reared back and flung out her arm as if horrified by what she held. “She threw it away right after she... There.” Rin pointed; the stone swished through the leaves of a group of shrubs four or five strides to the left and behind the tree. It trickled through the branches to land softly on the ground.

Anotsu’s head turned to follow the motion. “A... good thought.”

“Gee, thanks. But I’ve still got to look all through there, and I don’t know what I’ll find. If anything.” Rin picked up the lantern. “At least I know the animals left one other bit of flesh alone, all by itself – that damn bandit’s ear! So just maybe...”

Anotsu let out a quiet sigh and approached her as she moved over to the clump of shrubs. “Asano Rin-dono. If I have offended you, I apologize.”

“Hah?”

He gave her a small, stiff nod. “Of course you are loyal to the man who has protected you. It’s to your credit that you spend your pains to make him whole again when he has suffered so much in your service. A samurai woman could do no less.”

Rin looked at him with wide, wary eyes.

“Mado told me that you intended to die rather than submit to the hands of the hired men. You hold your woman’s honor so highly?”

“Just my honor?” She clenched her lips. “I’ve got some idea how that sort of thing goes for real, Anotsu Kagehisa. Remember?”

“Yes.” His gaze didn’t waver. “Rin-dono, care for a good name is only natural for the daughter of Asano Takayoshi. No one should dissuade you from defending it. But please, consider this. Honor can be mended, or avenged... but life never returns once it’s lost. Above all – don’t throw away life.”

“That’s not what a samurai would say. He’d say death wipes out all stains.”

“No. To live stained is still to live. And eventually to prevail... perhaps even over death.” He gave her another small nod. “Allow me to assist you again.” When she didn’t reply, he knelt to crawl under the bushes where the stone had fallen.

Her father’s lineage? He meant samurai lineage, the status his grandfather had lost. Probably Makie had also told him that she had learned her mother’s lessons. She wasn’t sure if she felt insulted or flattered that he credited her with her breeding and complimented her on fidelity to its strictures. It was like being set up on a family altar beside her father and mother. A living memorial tablet...

Rin leaned over the bushes with the lantern, but the dense leaves blocked almost all light. Anotsu was going to have to search by feel alone. The leaves shook and rustled as he pushed into the thicket’s narrow spaces.

“Hm.”

“What? Anything?” She crouched down, trying to see through the thick shadows.

“Not yet – ah? – ughh!”

Rin jumped backwards, her heart pounding. “What is it? What did you find?”

Anotsu’s head broke through the leaves a little distance from her and he stood upright, strands of dusty cobwebs snagged in his hair. He looked shaken, but grimaced at her. “Er... nothing.”

“Eh? Then why...?”

He turned away from her and furtively scrubbed one palm with a handful of leaves. “Snails.” He actually shuddered.

“Snails?” Rin stared at him, then yielded to a snort of surprised laughter. “Oh, uh, sorry...”

He brushed the debris from his hair and sent her a narrow-eyed look from under his brows, almost a warning; Rin received it as a challenge. “Gee... it IS pretty gross when you accidentally squish one with your bare hands and the shell goes crunch and it bubbles up and squirms... don’t you just hate that?” Anotsu looked down at the bushes, which surrounded him on all sides and rose to his groin. “Wow, there must be a whole lot of them sliming around in the damp under there... they always come out in hordes after sunset, don’t they?”

“...Yes.” Anotsu folded his arms, one eyelid twitching.

So the great Anotsu Kagehisa was disgusted by snails... did he shudder at clams and oysters, too? And he really didn’t seem to like the smell of spilled blood. Why did that particular set of phobias strike her as so unspeakably funny? Rin coughed into her hand to keep from snickering out loud at the sight of him, stranded in the middle of a dense thicket hiding little slippery things. The horror! “Aww, you think maybe... this calls for a woman’s touch instead?”

With an air of stoic resignation, Anotsu carefully picked his way out of the bushes, lifting his scabbard free of the entangling branches, and took the lantern.

No more than two or three minutes passed before she found what she sought. Not on the ground after all – it had caught in the fork of a high twig. Rin moved the branch aside as she knelt in the shrubs, and something disengaged and dropped. It brushed her wrist on the way down: not a slimy snail, but it gave in an odd, fleshy way. Almost instantly she realized what it was, and dove to catch it. “Oh!”

It wasn’t as dreadful an object to her as the gnawed hand, merely an amorphous lump of flesh, but Rin had to hold her breathing steady as she cradled Manji’s severed tongue in her palm. Anotsu helped her wash it and wrap it. She tucked it into her bag, giving silent but extravagant thanks to the gods that it had landed in a spot out of the reach of hungry foxes.

Anotsu took a couple of cords and squatted by the pile of Manji’s blades to sort them into two bundles. Rin finished folding the bloody kôsôde into a square, the half-vanished symbol uppermost. What a hideous load she had to carry through this dark forest! “Uhm... thanks for taking the heavy stuff. I’ve never really figured out how he manages all those weapons...”

“Mm.” Anotsu turned the sharp edges inwards and tied them in place, yanking on the cord. “Would it be correct to say that his blades are all your bodyguard owns in this world?”

“Not really, no... well...”

“It had struck me... perhaps because he wears the divine manji... that he lives rather like a wandering monk.”

“A monk?” Rin scoffed. “He’s a swordsman!”

“An acolyte of the sword, then. Bearing the vestments and talismans of his peculiar sect.” He laughed softly.

“Hnn?”

With the lantern behind him, Rin could see only Anotsu’s outline against the light. “My friend Magatsu Taito had a good opportunity to make Manji-san’s acquaintance, some weeks ago.”

“Magatsu Taito?” She’d heard only a brief account from Manji; he'd told her that their old enemy Shira had attacked him on the road and eventually met his end, though she gathered that he and Magatsu had started the journey to Kaga together. Hadn’t they parted as somewhat-friends? “What did he tell you?”

“Essentially, that Manji-san’s every action was ultimately coupled to a single overriding goal. Though he also devoted considerable effort to irritating his traveling companion.” Anotsu chuckled and knotted his furoshiki between the two weapon bundles as a carrying strap. “But I can only speculate why this goal should be so important to him...”

Obviously he wanted her to respond to such a leading comment, and probably hoped that she would let something slip for the benefit of his calculations. Whatever they might be: she didn’t yet consider Makie’s advice either confirmed or disproved. Rin turned her head away and showed her teeth to the night.

What could Anotsu Kagehisa ever really know about the truth of Manji’s feelings? She read them herself too clearly by now, written on her yôjimbô’s face as plainly as his scars. Just before he crossed the road to buy tobacco for his empty pipe; when he listened to an old man tell him to cherish his young woman; when he tried to drive down all emotion to let her do what she must in the face of a woman’s ultimate nightmare. He’d worked so hard to escape his bonds and save her himself! Rin’s heart and spine seemed to heat and soften within her like wax. She’d reward his devotion and satisfy his longing, every last measure of it. She’d tell him yes, for life: yes, Manji...

“Speculate, hnn?” Rin touched her cheek, though she knew the darkness hid her warm blushes. Let Anotsu try to pry open a human heart! Chilly, loveless man... “What goal do you m-mean?”

Anotsu paused before replying, though his answer was firm. “Atonement.”

Her body went cold from throat to groin.

“Samurai or not, most men count their own survival highest. Your bodyguard has no need to take his life into account. In effect, he is a dead man still occupying the earth. He wishes above all to cross the river to rest, but until he can lay down the weight of his crimes, he cannot shed the flesh which continues to give him so much pain. And so... a monk, who must look beyond temptations that can only chain him to the agony of this life. He seeks the great sacrifice alone... the key that will unlock his mortal bonds.”

Anotsu stood and slung Manji’s weapons over his shoulder, balancing them with a grunt of effort. “...As I say, a strange existence.”

He picked up the lantern and led her into the woods.



Continued...