Mirage Of Blaze Fan Fiction ❯ A Stone's Throw ❯ A Stone's Throw ( Chapter 1 )

Disclaimer: The characters of Mirage of Blaze belong to Kuwabara Mizuna, Cobalt Books, AnimeWorks, and probably a good number of other people and/or corporate entities whose names I don’t know--but they’re certainly not mine. No challenge to copyright is intended, and no profit has been made from this story.

A Stone's Throw
by Cerise Tennyo

Naoe watched Kagetora-sama's newest host stalk towards him. Whenever Kagetora-sama's hotter passions were roused--his anger, his hatred--that fire shone through him, a searing light that blinded the unwary and unwise. To Naoe, it felt as if coming out from a deep pit into the noonday sun, a mixture of pain and profound relief.

"What do you want? Who are you?" the boy demanded.

Who...Am...I? His own anger, banked by years of despair, roared to life. Another game, my lord? I will not be so casually discarded!

"Don't just stand there!" the boy continued, bristling with scarcely leashed hostility. "Say something!"

Demanding as ever. When I speak, he orders me silent. When I am silent, he demands that I speak! And he still wishes to play as if he does not know me?

Broken pieces of concrete and small stones lay scattered over the stained pavement. He raised his hand from his side, envisioning the invisible strings that wove through all things. He felt them gather in his hand, the slack drawing tight. Who am I? What do I want? That even you could say such things to me!

The stones rattled and slid, rising up from the pavement. He heard the boy gasp. The air currents swirled around him, displaced air seeking to settle, stirred and stirred again by active magic. He met the boy's wide-eyed stare. Those eyes...those unchanging tiger's-eyes, the soul behind them... He was not mistaken!

When he'd first planned this meeting, he'd meant for only a small display, something that might pierce this absurd facade Kagetora-sama had raised between them. 'Who are you? What do you want?' Over two decades, eking out his life on the slimmest of hopes that he might find Kagetora-sama again. Two decades, watching, feeling that hope grow smaller and dimmer with each passing month.

And now, here Kagetora-sama stood before him, a near-adult of seventeen years. Seventeen years of silent suffering for Naoe--so Kagetora-sama could treat him like the basest beggar when they met?

He flicked his hand outward, and the stones streaked through the air, catapulted by his will, fed by his anger. He expected to see Kagetora-sama's own power deflect the barrage, to endure another derisive comment on his display of temper. Instead, the boy twisted to avoid the worst of the assault, hissing in pain as a stone grazed his cheek. Blood welled up to fill the track it left.

That stance... He'd seen it countless time over the centuries: the half-twist and crouch, one arm reaching across the body for a weapon outlawed since Meiji. A true swordsman's stance, in an age of bokken.

"Why do you hesitate?" Naoe demanded. "The smallest use of your own power could end this. Or do you intend to rely on my kindness?"

He'd drawn his lord's blood--an offense that would have earned him execution in times past. He'd insulted him--Kagetora-sama had no use for Naoe's kindness. Was Kagetora-sama toying with him, seeking an excuse to deliver a harsher punishment when this game ended?

'If you can defeat me, Naoe...you can have me.'

A promise and a taunt from a lifetime ago. If he struck again, and Kagetora-sama still failed to summon his own defenses--a forfeit was the same as defeat!

He sent the rain of stone out again. Again, the protections they all could summon by instinct failed to appear. The boy flung up his arms in a futile attempt to shield his head.

"Stop!"

Naoe responded to the command in reflex, freezing the attack. A brief glance told him where those stones would have struck. I might have killed him, Naoe realized, his anger turning to dread. His desire for Kagetora-sama did not spring from a wish for the man's true death. He would never allow Kagetora-sama to journey to a place he could not follow!

Kagetora-sama needed no magical protections, not when Naoe's own emotions could be turned against him with such ease. Part of him marveled at the stark beauty of such strategy: to risk death by seeming defenseless, to then snatch victory away from the attacker. The audacity took his breath away.

Four hundred years, and Uesugi Saburu Kagetora was still samurai in his soul. And he... He was Kagetora-sama's dog.

Naoe lowered his hand, letting the stones fall.

Defeated. Again.

--end--