Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Kazemaru and Miharu ❯ Chapter 21

After he left, Miharu stood staring at the cave a moment, a little stunned. At last her brain kicked into gear again.

 

First, she thought, a bath. She figured he would be gone long enough for her to wash and redress and be decent by the time he got back. She walked to the small pool, which she discovered was a few feet deep and perfectly clear. She gently removed her obi, tabi, and outer kimonos, leaving her white yokata* which was fairly clean. Loosening her hair, she stepped into the water, finding it a little chilly. She walked in quickly, to get over with it, and dunked herself for a few seconds. When she came up, she pushed her hair back and ran her fingers through it, trying to remove as much mud and dirt as possible without tangling it too much. She then used her yokata sleeve to scrub the dirt from her face, hands and feet. At last, she stepped out of the pool, shivering. She picked up her kimonos and comb and walked to the edge of the small room. Sitting down, she began to comb through her hair, waiting for her yokata to dry off.

 

***

 

Kazemaru went back to the border first. He was more concerned with his territory than Miharu's family, not that he would ever tell her that. He found his vassals had suffered no more loss than when he had last seen them, and flew down to discuss the battle. About half-way through the retelling, one of his vassals sniffed and frowned. He tilted his head to the side and sniffed again, his eyes coming to rest on Kazemaru.

 

“Kazemaru-sama, forgive me for asking, but why do you smell…” he sniffed again, “Of human?”

 

Shit. Kazemaru carefully schooled his features not to betray his inner thoughts. “As you may notice, Suskeimaru is no longer among us. He and his entire regiment were defeated, our only real losses. I pursued the invaders to a human palace which they were ransacking and destroyed them there.”

 

“Ah.” The vassals all smiled and nodded, accepting it for face value. Kazemaru sighed inwardly, relieved that he had provided an acceptable answer that was not entirely untrue. He had followed the demons to the palace and destroyed them, but that was not precisely why he smelled of human. He finished working out what had happened in the battle and redistributed his forces along the border, making sure every one of them knew exactly what to do.

 

“Of course, my lord.” The last of them bowed. “If there is any more suspicious activity we will send someone for you.”

 

Kaze froze. “No. Send a bird.” His vassals stared at him, not daring to ask. Damnit. Time for another lie. “I need to think this over, and would rather not be disturbed. Also, I will most likely be flying over the other borders to make sure they are all fine, just in case. It would be best to use a low-class spirit, one of the ones we've trained to find my jyaki*. Then it would get to me sooner.”

 

The vassals all nodded again, although they didn't seem to take this one as well as the last. Time to go. He dismissed them, and then flew off towards Kurihama palace.

 

***

 

Once Miharu had worked out all the tangles from wind and water, she decided she had better get dressed. Her Yokata was long dry, and her skin beneath it. She walked to the cabinet Kazemaru had indicated, and opened the drawers. Inside were kimonos.

 

Miharu gasped. There were so many…. Eight drawers in all, there were six or eight kimonos in the top seven, depending on their thickness and size. Miharu quickly tallied up to an incredible sum of 44 kimonos. And every one of them was exquisite. Miharu closed the cabinet, her mind reeling. She sat down at the table, staring at nothing. 44 kimonos. She had never heard of such a thing. She had only 20 at home, and together that made… 64. Unbelievable. She doubted any other daimyo's daughter had as many. She wondered if even the empress did. Absently, her hand wandered to the bowl of dried fruits that was on the table. She ate a few, but found that she wasn't really that hungry. She remembered the magic stone, and her stomach did a little twist that completely finished any appetite she may have had before. Strange that it was so good when it was in her mouth, but thinking back on it made her nauseous.

 

So, she thought. 64 kimonos. And she had 47 with her. Three of them were dirty, but it was just mud, it would probably wash out eventually. At last she stood up, and walked back to the cabinet. She opened the top drawer. This one held only 4, as one of them took up a lot of space. It was pure white ribbed silk, with a spatter-dye that looked like purple mist. Wandering through this mist were embroidered butterflies, intricately detailed and accurate. And they just went on like that. Some of them were colorful with embroidery, others were mono-chromatic but dyed in deep, luxurious colors. One by one she studied them, her fingertips handling them carefully, until she came to the last kimono drawer. This one held only 4, and a good number of obis which would compliment the kimonos. But before she could look these over, the kimono folded on top caught her eye. It looked like liquid silver in the candle light, and when she slid her hand over it, it was almost as smooth. She lifted it from the drawer, finding a strange, sleeveless white yokata underneath. She saw quickly that the kimono required such an undergarment, as the sleeves were made to show the shoulders and upper arm.

 

“How curious…” she wondered out loud, and decided that she would wear it, just to see what Kaze said when he came back. The problem was, it was too long. It was easy to see, as she held the kimono at arm's length, that it was made for a woman who was much taller than she. She hoped she wouldn't look too silly. She slipped off her now-stiff yokata and tried on the new one. Thankfully, it was plenty short. It was almost indecent, and reminded her of a skimpy outfit she had once seen on a peasant girl who her nurse had explained was an outcaste, and from a village of ninjas.

 

She then slid on the kimono, closing her eyes at the exquisite feel of the material against her bare arms. It was just as smooth on the inside as it was on the outside. As she brought the front together, she found that strangely the kimono now fit her perfectly. The sleeves were almost too short, only going half-way down her hands. And the hem pooled only an inch or two in front of her toes, a little bit of a train in the back. There was no obi, but a thin sash was sewn onto the back. It was extremely long, though, and so she wrapped it around herself a few times before tying it in the back. She found a pair of long winter-stockings and pulled them on, simply to cover her rather exposed-feeling legs. She stepped back from the cabinet, examining herself in the priceless mirror fixed to the inside of one door. The skin of her arms was pale ivory against the silver material, and she felt a little naked. This must be a yokai fashion, she guessed.

 

She closed the doors of the cabinet and sat at the table, beginning to twine up her hair. She would just have to wait now.

 

***

 

Kaze found the palace in relative peace, cleaning up the aftermath of the battle. They were piling the demon corpses up in one of the courtyard, and the monk was purifying them before they were burned. There wasn't too much damage to the structure itself, the building was a little burnt here and there, but the wood had been damp from the earlier rainfall, and they hadn't had too much trouble putting it out. There was plenty of timber in the area, and they would recover quickly. But if they should be attacked again, they wouldn't fare so well. Kazemaru sighed. He didn't really feel like keeping tabs on the place as long as Miharu wasn't there, and that meant only one option.

 

He landed a short distant from the palace, keeping out of sight, but close enough that this wouldn't be difficult. He unhooked one of the sickles at his side, and stuck it in the ground. He then began to drag it through the earth, making a wide circle around the palace.

 

“This would be so much easier to do if I had a sword,” he cursed, the size of his weapon making him crouch along the ground awkwardly. “But, all the good swords are taken or sealed at the moment, and these do me just fine,” he reasoned. “I could have one commissioned, but that would take time and money and these do the job well enough. Plus, then I would have to train with a new weapon, and now is not the time for that sort of thing.” So he continued as he made his way through the surrounding meadows and copses. At last he came full circle, and wiped the dirt off his blade before replacing it. He knelt down on the ground and concentrated. It had been a long time since he had done this, he had little use for this sort of thing. He placed his hands on the line of broken dirt and poured his power out into the circle. A line of light went in the direction he had cut, coming around in a few seconds. When it met his hands it raised into the air before meeting in a dome shape, and then disappearing.

 

There, it was done. He stood up and brushed his hands off, feeling weary and a little stiff. Putting up barriers always took it out of him. Time to go home. He smiled. Time to see Miharu again.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

AN

I love that kimono… totally my own design…. Kusarigamas suck… they are really hard to draw. But DAMN do they work well… once you've trained with them for a couple decades.

* Obi- The tie which goes around the waist, functioning as a corset and keeping the kimono closed.

Tabi- socks which have a separate section for the big toe so that thong sandals can be worn with them

Yokata- a simple, short cotton kimono worn by lower classes or in the summer to keep cool.

* Jyaki- demonic aura. Each demon has a unique aura, distinguishable from a good distance, depending on the strength of the Yokai. Kazemaru has a strong aura, and so his Jyaki could be felt from at least a few hundred yards away, if not more. Holy humans and other demons are most sensitive to this.