InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Transient Winds ❯ Jade ( Chapter 12 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

There were roughly twenty beds in a row, lined perfectly along the wooden boards of the floor.  In the morning, they would be rolled up and neatly arranged against the walls out of the way of traffic.  For now, they were aligned and messily wrapped around cold bodies that had seen better days.

One side of the room was darker than the other and whispers could be heard there late in the night.  Often lovers amongst the servants would make their way to that far corner when everyone was thought to be asleep and not be seen for hours; however some were heard more than they intended.

The door to that same room stayed shut at night, not to disturb the lord and his lady.  Although, the room was the furthest from their quarters as it could be, it made no difference.

Small lanterns lined the walls and the glow from each wick lit the room enough that it was never pitch black except for the middle of the night.  There was nothing necessarily decorative about this place only the essentials were present; robes that lay splayed out over the tops of the small mats; small makeup pouches in close proximity to the owner’s beds; pails of water that lined the far walls in the room, waiting for the crack of dawn.

Itsuka’s curious eyes had scanned the room numerous times, discovering what each servant hid underneath their mat late in the night.  She rarely slept because of this.  She had seen the small girl in the front corner travel to the back dark corner with the boy from the fifth bed on the far right.  She would watch them from time to time.  They were not hidden as well as they thought and she’d laugh, only because she had seen the looks that the boy offered her earlier that day.

She had wink at him and gave a coy little smile.  He was a handsome boy and his naïve ways lent an easy feeling about him that she liked.

She had also seen the girl in the first mat travel to the corner with the girl from the tenth mat and she had watched them as well.  They intrigued her interest, however it was also something of an abomination to the man that first mat girl had professed her love to.

She also knew that underneath the third mat was a small pouch of goodies that were stolen out of the kitchen and she had wondered if she could get away with something like that, as well.  She didn’t try it, however.  There was also a secret bag under the thirteenth mat that held lipsticks and powders, along with a sharpened piece of black coal.

When the first rays of sun broke through the small window, to high to reach, and the servants had begun to file out into the bath house, Itsuka had also noticed that the small pouches disappeared into the folds of silk woven sheets.  Then, they were left for the day.

Soon after the start of colder days, when the sleeves of her kimonos were thicker and heavier for the weather, Itsuka stepped into an empty room.  The mats had been rolled up for the day and the floor swept by bamboo brooms.

She stepped slowly out of her sandals, not taking the time to place them against the door frame as was proper.  Socked feet tiptoed over aged wood, not to make a sound.  

They came to a stop in front of that thirteenth mat, neatly rolled around the special pouch.  Taking a moment for cautious hesitation, she turned to peer at the door to make sure that she was not being followed.

The corners of her mouth turned upward and the small glint in her eye turned hazy as she approached her prey.  

Her chubby little fingers fumbled at first.  The tie on the damn thing was worst than any of the others that she had broken into.  Soon enough though, the intertwined thread began to loosen.  Determination forced her to tug even harder.  Before long she started at the purple cloth used to cover the owner.  The smell of body order it produced from night sweats, turned her nose, but it did not stop her from her task.   Fingers grope through the material, until thin wood cool to the touch brushed against her skin.

The break in between her smiling lips meant that she had found what she was looking for.  Loosing the careful precision that she had previously, she yanked the small wooden case from between the covers and lifted it to gaze at her prize that could be hidden in the palm of her hands

Small, rounded, and an ugly color brow, it didn’t look to significant as she held it up to get a better look.  On baited breath, she raised the covering wood, watching it pivoted on small brass hinges and fixed her eyes on the riches inside.

In the sunlight, it twinkled.  Its red color seemed even brighter in her fingers and she could image it on her lips.  Then, she could image Yamato’s lips upon hers’.  The only thing between them would be the red lipstick that her fingers held.

The triumphant feeling made her heart swell with satisfaction and she hugged the small case close to her chest.  In the middle of the room, she twirled, streams of sunlight playing with the threads about her head.  The smile on her lips was enduring.  In her mind, Yamato watched her and soon enough he would dance with her.  That was how alluring she would be.

He would want her.  Her scent would be captivating, forcing him to turn his head in her direction.  The ruby color that would soon grace her lips would tease him.

She laughed out loud.  The twittering sound echoed off the empty walls bouncing from the floor to the ceiling and into her ears.  She liked the sound.

“What’s so funny girl?”

The voice was familiar.  It brought a frown to the corners of her mouth, and a grunt to her breath.   She stopped mid-spin and nearly tumbled over her own feet.

Before she lifted her eyes to see the face in front of her, she took a deep breath and dismissed the glint in her eyes that thoughts of Lord Yamato had provoked.  Meeting her glaze with all the humbleness of a woman with nothing to lose, she was unflinching.

The woman that stood before her had her hands placed on her hips.  Her feet planted on the ground with the toe on the left one tapping rather loudly.  She wore a face that had wrinkled a bit about the eyes.  Her nose had not yet stopped growing and lay widely in the middle of a flat face.  But on her thin lips, the same color ruby that Itsuka sheltered in her closed fist.

“What’s so funny?” Words spilled out through that ruby color.

Itsuka jarred her lips together to keep from laughing out right.  “Nothing,” she spat out at the woman, harsher than she meant to, but the laugh tickled her throat.

“Well, then-” she took a step closer to the young girl.

The purple coverlet in bunches behind Itsuka’s feet, she should have been nervous, maybe shaking in her winter boots, but the lady met her challenging stare with one of her own and refused to move her eyes.  After all, the first one to break the stare would be the weaker.

Itsuka knew what she was doing.  She thought nothing of it because it was the women’s pride that she’d missed the coverlet that belonged to her.

Had she dared to look away from Itsuka’s challenging stare, she would have seen it?

The women turned, abruptly with a condescending laugh as dry as the chilly air around them.  She tried of her game.

With the same precision that she used when she made her way through her duties, Itsuka kicked the purple fabric hard enough to intertwine it into the others lined along the wall.  Still a mess, she tapped the top of it with the tip of her toe and soon it had begun to look as the others.

The woman, never the smart one, did nothing untoward her normal character as she continued towards the door and Itsuka let out a gush of anxious breath.

“I assume you are ready to continue your work.”  She turned once again to face the girl that she considered a nothing, a nobody.

Itsuka’s smile did not fade although she followed the woman’s led and made her way into the open sun to begin another day of service.  Her feet touched the cobblestone walkway as she tucked the small wooden rubies into the heavy sleeve right beside the small bottle of perfume.


Her fingertips itched.  The day was moving at the pace of a snail and there were things that she could think about in the cover of night that made those nights in that damp room worth it.

Itsuka stared across the way at the narrow waisted girl.  Unlike Itsuka, she was unique and her hair glowed under the sun like the netting from a spider’s web.  She glided over the cobblestone like the wheels of the carriage that they had taken to get here.  Her eyes were glued to the fabric that she held.

Folding.  Yes, she had always been good at that.

Itsuka rolled her eyes and with a sway of her hips she dismissed Gekido.  A carefully practiced posture moved her across the dry grass to the doors of the store house.  The basket in her hands had stared to leak small grains of rice all about her feet.

Kami, how she hated the feel of grainy things.

She adjusted her left breast against the basket, it was starting to hurt, and took notice of the brown eyes that winked at her from across the yard.  The guy from the fifth mat.  She smiled at him and almost involuntarily heaved her chest up and her butt out.

Afterwards, she took a quick look around her.

Unfortunately, his girlfriend wasn’t in hindsight.  She knew that he wouldn’t dare glance her way if the skinny girl was around.  Still, Itsuka would have loved to see the look on her face if she ever found out how her boyfriend really felt.  After all, she was always one for a good drama.

Disappearing through the open door of the small store house, she dumped the rice from the ragged weaved basket onto the pile about her feet.  She lifted her eyes to gaze at the old building.  The wooden walls had small indentions to emphasis its’ age.  A few grains of rice stuck into these holes making them look as though maggots had infested the place.

She shook that thought away because she was now free for the rest of the day.

And sure, there were sneers and jeers, from servants that were still racked with duties.  They watched as she passed by.  Her hips sashayed to a rhythm that only she could hear and it felt good to be done early, even before the boss herself had finished.  It would look good on her, especially if word got to Lord Yamato.

Who wouldn’t want a reliable and hardworking servant?

Itsuka laughed outright since no one else knew, nor did they suspect.  They’d never find the small grains of rice she’d buried in the yard, by the bucket load.  Nor would they discover the dirty sheets that she had tucked under the stairs of the out house.  She’d get them when she returned from the bar.

And burn them, her laughed deepened.  It was simple because that was just what she would do, just like before.  They wouldn’t miss them.

Her feet happily made trails through the cobblestone path that led to town.  The woven rice basket still in her hands.  With a curl of her top lip, she rolled her eyes and tossed it with no knowledge of where it would land and what’s more.  It was a rice basket.  Who cared?

From her lips, she had started to hum the melody of an old nurse rhyme that had been somewhere in her past.  With the meticulous movements that came from practice, she ripped the black band from her hair, allowing it to fall decoratively over her shoulders.

It had grown a bit, sheltering the round contours of her face.  She had become pretty, yet she was not captivating.  She was average.  Though to herself, she was gorgeous.  Running fingers through her hair, she arranged the strains over her head so that her right eye only peeked from underneath a thick fringe of curls.  She’d made them from long stalks of bamboo that she’d wrapped the strains the night before.

She thought that it was sexy.  So did the guys who had winked at her in the streets and smiled, knowingly.  

Stopping by the walkway of cobblestones, she pulled the small wooden case of that lovely red ruby color from her sleeve.  Her eyes glowed at the expectations that she could imagine.

The attention thrilled her.  She rocked on her heels and couldn’t help the squeal that escaped her throat.

Anticipating fingers reached into the opposite sleeve and pulled out the small mirror she had taken from the six mat two days ago.  She blew at the small threads that had attached themselves to the mirror’s frame.  Once the red color had begun to absorb on her lips, she could feel her heart jump.

Afterwards, all she could do was stare at the girl in the mirror.  For she had aged.  She looked like a woman.

No, it was the woman that she was, Itsuka smiled exuberantly.  If she had any thoughts of giving the small red rubies back to the owner, she had forgotten them as she turned to race through the street to the run down old bar that she had started to frequent.  Maybe that monk would be there.  Then again maybe not.

She had thought about him, a few times.  Wanting him to return, she had been back there in hopes of finding him.  

In the meantime, she had met Okii, or that was what she called him anyway.  His real name was no more important to her than those white sheets beneath the stairs.

Okii was Okii for a reason.  He was a big man.  His hand could nearly wrap completely around Itsuka thigh.  She learned early from dealing with him that he was a little bit on the slow upkeep.  It only bothered her for a moment until he started to pull shiny little coins from his pockets.  With him, Itsuka would leave the bar with a full belly, an extra bottle of the most expensive sake they carried, and a gem or two that he thought she would like.  He was usually right.

Once he handed them to her, she’d race to the other side of town.  A small pawn shop was out there.  The old man who owned the place would take one look at the shiny glass and offer her more money than she anticipated.  She’d walk out stuffing the lining of her kimono with coins similar to Okii’s.

After all, what would she need a jewel for?  From Okii no less.

His attempts.  They were flattering, but he wasn’t what she wanted.  Settlement was not something that Itsuka considered doing.  He had all the lovers potential, however he lacked were it mattered most.  

Even as she stepped on the front steps of the bar, she heard his unnecessarily loud laughter on the other side of the rickety sliding door.

On her lips a frown, as she circled down the alley beside the building to make sure that she was in rare form.  She loosened the obi around her waist allowing the top of her kimono to slip open about her chest.   The perfume that she had taken from Miyabi had been a big hit with the men of her previous bars and she had been ecstatic.  So, she sprayed a little more this time around the contours of her neck.

It only took a moment for Itsuka to approve of her own look in the small oval mirror.

When she walked into the bar, a minute later, the looks that she garnished made her smile and it wasn’t long before the man at the corner table in the back of the bar noticed her.

His jovial laughter made her smile, or so he thought.  Either way she made her way over to him, with a smile that illuminated her round face.  Each step she took was calculated to make her legs longer and her body more appealing.

Itsuka shied herself away for effect only as she listened to the click of her shoes.  It was better than the sound of his laughter.  Around him women of all sizes engaged in whatever he said as though honey dripped from his lips.

However, when Itsuka approached the man, his eyes brightened even more and his laughter was caught somewhere in his throat.

To him, the feelings were there.  She made him smile, his heart stopped, and nothing mattered as much.  The only honey that dripped was from the sway in her hips; the curve of her smile.  The pout in her lips that she forced, he knew that it was not natural, but it was cute on her.  Words spoken from her warmed his heart.

He never noticed the stiffness when he touched her.  She gave him her company and he appreciated that.  The furthest that they had gotten was a kiss and even then she blushed and raced away from him.  He thought it was enduring.

Itsuka placed herself in an empty seat that was opposite him.  From in between a narrow slit of curls over her right eyes, she gazed at him.   He wasn’t good looking, so she could only expect so much.  His eyebrows were incredibly thick today and his hair could be trimmed a little neater.

She sighed.  Shifting in her seat, she prayed that her feelings had not shown on her face, for Okii stared directly at her.

She shivered.

His extra round nose twitched.

He leaned over mumbling words from oversized lips to the woman next to him.  From the heavy discontent that had stared to take over the woman’s charming features, he had said something vastly disappointing and she rose from her seat.

“Itsuka,” his voice belled out.  “Come here, girl.”

Girl, she thought as she rose from her place.  Insulted, Itsuka’s smile tightened just enough that only she knew it.  How dare he?

The closer she got to him, the sloppier he became.  His mouth was to wide and open.   His face was gangly and his eyes rounded by fat made her smile falter.  His dark kimono was not flattering on him at all, not to mention, he held the odor of sake as though it had spilt on him.

On her face Itsuka forced her smile to widen as her heart sank.

A far cry from Yamato?  She whined within herself, even as she sunk down next to him.  One deep breath of his sake odor and her stomach turned.

He smiled at her with crooked teeth.  With all the boldness of a lover, he slipped a meaty hand of fat fingers on her thigh.

Itsuka shifted her position so that she seemed more open to his advances, yet she couldn’t help her gaze falling terrified as she looked down at his hand.  It wasn’t meant to go that far with him.

Her gazed moved up to his face, but he wasn’t looking at her any longer and she was glad that he wasn’t.  The laughter was back in his throat as he engaged the other women around him in conversation that she had no real interest in.

Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to a semblance of tranquility.  He was after all a means to help her.  With that in mind, she leaned into him and beamed.  Slowly, she allowed her head to lay on the flabbier side of his chest.  The women were appalled.  She could tell.

It wasn’t very lady-like to garner so much in public, but she didn’t care about that when it came to what she wanted and right now Okii was the only one supplying.

She shifted her head to turn away from glaring eyes.  Brown, and hazel; the colors that they were, didn’t matter.  The idiot that she laid against didn’t bat an eyelash.  The breath in her lungs let out in a heavy gush as she pressed herself further into him.

She could feel the soft poke that came through his sheer fabric.  It stuck her right in the ear.  She didn’t move right away, because it didn’t hurt.  She had felt it before and almost grimaced openly when she realized that it was his nipple.  

He was all man, though.  She had felt it, albeit mistakenly, as her hand brushed down upon her last visit.  However, the man was big and fat gather in the more objectionable places.  Thus he had breast and she wondered if they were as big as hers’.

Never the one to hinder her opportunities, she didn’t mention it.  Even when he had grabbed her in that unwelcome kiss.

Asshole, she thought gazing at him with an admirable smile on her lips.  A game, she told herself.  And she was winning.  She always won.


It never failed.

Itsuka flipped the green gem in her hand.  Flat like a pebble and smooth as the skin of a baby, she was sure that she had something on her hands.  She fixed the sleeve of her kimono, making sure that it held all of her valuables.

Sure enough, Okii had gems in his pockets.  She had stepped outside with him as he’d asked her to.  Without a word, he had kissed her.  His lips engulfing half of her face and for a moment she couldn’t breath because they were sloppily over her nostrils.  He’d reached one of his fleshy hands into the top of her kimono and wrapped it around her breast and she realized just how clammy his skin was.

All for this fucking jewel, she thought, shaking the waves of nuasea from her gut.

She’d let him touch her, kiss her, and even place her nipple in his mouth and he sucked like a child.  Pushing him away finally when her nipple became sore between his lips.  All the while her stomach lurching at the redundant odor coming off of him.

“Couldn’t you just give me the fucking jewel?”  she spoke out loud to no one.  “Asshole.”

He had made her sick.

When she pushed him off of her, she told him that she must leave.

“I’ll be late,” she gasped gripping the front of his kimono with the lie of being his lover.  “I must get home before it is found out that I left.”

She fled from the bar and ran as far from him as she possibly could.  Right after he had place the jewel in her hands, of course.  

Jade…..

That’s what he called it.  She took it and stood in front of him with tears in her eyes.

“Thank you,” she gazed at it.  The smell of sake on his breath brought even more water to her eyes and she didn’t know how much more she could take.

She allowed one more kiss before she had no choice, but to get away from him.

It was made up in her mind that she would not return.  She couldn’t allow his hands on her again.

Her looks had garnered the sights of a few people on the streets. She didn’t care enough to stop and fix herself.  She wasn’t interested in them in the least.  She made her way back up the cobblestone path.  Today, she would have not time to make it to the pawn shop and back before she would be on duty for supper.

The red lipstick was slightly smudged on her lips, and the smell that he had left her with was starting to fade away, leaving the odor of Miyabi’s perfume on her skin.  She had remove her tatami sandals and dared walk barefoot through the cobblestone path that she knew to be clear this time of day.

However, it was click of boots on the stones that caught her attention.  Her head jolted up at the sound.

A man’s voice.  If she had not been lost in her own thoughts, she would have recognized who it was and hidden herself as well.  She was very unsuitable to stand before him.  He was to close, for before she could gather enough of herself he stood before her.

When she dared look up at him, he wore a contemplative scowl that folded the scar on his cheek.

She bowed lowly and moved to the side in hopes that he wouldn’t recognize that she was Miyabi’s servant.

But Lord Yamato was everything and vigilant was one of those things.  So it was no surprise that his form stopped in front of her, and his eyes lingered.  He was questioning, she knew even as she stared at the iron boots he wore.

Yamato would have laugh, would have chastised the woman until she felt ashamed of her actions.  However, the view of her scandalous clad form was enough to entice him.  She had smooth skin that stretch over the swell of her breast.  Minutes seemed to past as his sights roamed down the outlines that her body made, taking mental notes of well contoured features.  Even the skin of her leg showed creamy as the skin about her wrist.  The frazzle of curls about her head were almost mangled, but suited her look.  He liked them.

Stunned that she would be caught like this, he enjoyed the look of her.  

Where had she been coming from with lips that color?

Looking for words, he finally noticed the light green stone intertwined in her fingers and asked, “What do you hold woman?”  A demand.  He knew no other way to speak to the help.

A little offset by the first words spoken between them, Itsuka tightened her grip on the rock as though just realizing it was between her fingers.  Forcing her heart to calm and the color in her cheeks to dim, she lifted her head slightly in response.

“I am told that it is jade, my lord,” her voice was horse from the whopping tongue that had invaded her mouth moments ago.  Or maybe is was the breath that refused to come.

“Hmm,” was his answer, deep and spine tingling.  Before she had a chance to react the green jewel played between the fingers of Yamato.

Like the cunning man that he was, he had ripped it from her fingers.

More importantly, he had brushed her hand against his.

“Where did you get such an impressive gem, girl?” he asked.  His voice distance as he lifted the rock towards the sky glaring at it.  The sun bounced from on end of the rock to the other casting a greenish hue to Yamato’s face and an unnatural glint in his eye.

She stole a glance of him and felt almost ashamed for it.  He was very well-groomed today and for that he was handsome.  She glowed like a child, so close to him.

“What is your name?” he cut his eyes down to her without the movement of his head.  Miyabi had told him before, but he didn’t think it was significant.  So, he hadn’t paid her any attention.  Staring at the gem still high in the air, he was starting to reconsider.

Her palms were sweaty.

“Itsuka,” she rasped out.

A smirk crossed his lips.  She liked it.

Reaching some unspoken resolve, he wrapped his slim fingers around the smooth rock and turned to continue on his path.  The rock clearly his.

No words escaped her moving mouth to stunned by his presences.  So, she stood there, watching the black yukata that he wore fan out behind him.  Her thoughts to slow to realize that her gem was indeed gone.

“It is payment,” he called back to her.  “For the broken dishes, Itsuka.”

She gasped at his amazing recollection, opening the fist that had once held the precious stone.  Her sights dazed as she looked down at her empty hand.

Was she memorable to him?  

She would have smiled had her mouth been able to move from its open position.  She opted instead to watched his back long after he had disappeared down the cobblestone.

She had heard her name on his lips, brushed his hand, and had seen for herself the fold in his skin when he smiled.  For now that was enough.

So, she smiled when her feet turned towards the palace.  Each step was reminisces of what had just taken place and she was tickled pink.

She had bared the tops of her breast.  Her legs could be seen piercing through the thick kimono and her feet were bare upon the cool stones, but she didn’t care.

Lord Yamato knew her.