Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Kazemaru and Miharu ❯ Chapter 39

Surprisingly, Kaze found that Harumi was right. There were many ways to occupy his mind and time. His vassals had acted on standing orders, which were adequate but dangerous the longer they used them—if the patrol pattern became too regular it became ineffective: they could be observed and unwanted intruders could slip by in predictable gaps. He developed a series of new patterns to be followed, and resolved a few disputes between his men.

 

He gave no explanation for his unplanned and extended absence. No one asked, either. It seemed they had grown accustomed to his odd behavior, and knew better than to poke their noses into his business. It was a development he wasn't sure he liked—it meant they knew he had secrets, and he didn't want them speculating as to what the nature of them might be.

 

Although he was only gone for one night and half the morning, it felt like days. There were many tasks to be completed, and he had no clue as to how long he could attend to them. Beyond that, his worry for Miharu kept him preoccupied, and he would frequently pause and examine his connection to her for any signs of change. This was a little difficult while coming into contact with a variety of jyaki, which, while familiar, caused changes in his own.

 

At last, when the sun had nearly reached it's zenith, he felt a sudden surge of energy, as if the drain from Miharu had quickly been released. This alarmed him at first, and he feared she had slipped away with him gone. But his energy continued to increase, as if there were an excess being fed back from her, in return for her recent dependence. Fortunately, he had been poring over maps at the moment, and easily excused himself from the midst of his underlings and rushed to the small house in Yokosuka.

 

Once he reached the back, he noticed that the door hung askew, revealing the room he had left Miharu in. But rather than her prone figure he saw only Harumi carefully wrapping a bandage on baa-san's arm. She addressed him without even looking up, his jyaki enough to recognize him by easily.

 

“You just missed your lady wife,” Harumi said with a cynical edge. “I gather she's feeling much better.”

 

“What happened?” Kaze asked breathlessly.

 

“I went in to check on her,” the old woman said suddenly, clearly in a vague, unconcerned state of shock. “I shook her awake, to make sure she hadn't slipped under, and just like that,” she snapped the fingers of her free hand, “she was out the door. I didn't even realize at first what she'd done.”

 

Kaze stared with a rising sense of horror at the tidy bandage. He was glad Harumi had already treated baa-san, he didn't want to know what had happened.

 

Harumi sat back and sighed. “Well, you best go collect her before she massacres a whole village,” she admonished.

 

Horror instantly changed to rage. “This is YOUR fault!” he argued. “You didn't tell me it would be like this!”

 

She refused to rise to his challenge, not even looking him in the eyes. “I had no knowledge how the transformation would affect her, beyond the benefit of immortality. You should have asked the mermaid.” She looked up at him with the last, and he saw in her eyes both guilt and accusation. This was both of their fault, he knew. Harumi gestured to the broken door. “She headed away from town, at least. Your nose should be adequate to find the way.”

 

This kicked Kaze out of his shocked state and to the task at hand. He turned around without saying goodbye.

 

“Kazemaru,” she said softly, the intimacy of it catching his distracted attention. “You must not fight her, if it comes to that.”

 

He stiffened. He could not even imagine facing the need. “How… how am I to… subdue her?” he said very quietly.

 

“You must remind her that she is human. Be as contrary to your nature as possible: caring, tender, capitulant.”

 

Kaze bristled, both at these behaviors and the picture it painted of him in opposites. He disliked both equally. He had never realized how his love of Miharu had torn him so deeply.

 

“Also,” Harumi said, her voice thick with hesitation. “Should she remember her relation to you and not herself…” she trailed off.

 

Kaze turned his head to the side to examine her from the corner of his eye. She seemed strangely embarrassed, a look he could not equate with his image of her. “What?” he demanded hoarsely.

 

She cleared her throat, and cast her eyes down demurely. “You must not give in to your desires while she is still not herself. She may try to… seduce you.”

 

Kaze felt a strange tightening of his throat. He knew precisely the behavior Harumi spoke of, common among yokai females who were… temporarily fertile. Mentally, he had never found it attractive, but could not deny that it appealed to something feral and instinctive he could not deny. It was perhaps the only reason he had not come to Miharu inexperienced. However, her innocence had been a large part of her appeal. She had been so different from all the other women he had known, and now he realize he may have ruined all that….

 

“I understand,” he choked out, and was gone.

 

 

 

Even if Kaze had been possessed of an incredibly sensitive nose, he would have had no need of it. Miharu had left a swath of destruction in her path, broken branches and scraps of cloth that the most inexperienced of trackers would have noticed. This allowed him to move quickly along her trail, and he hoped he would quickly catch up to her.

 

It also helped that she had gone in nearly a straight line, deviating only when she met an obstacle. Before long, he could hear her in the distance, and tried to mask the sound of his approach so as not to alarm her, but in his haste he managed to knock over a fallen branch and start a small ground slide. After it stilled there was an eerie silence not a single cricket would throw its voice into.

 

Kaze knew she was only about ten yards ahead of him by now, and was now aware of his presence. In this alarmed state, she was much more likely to see him before he saw her. He stood up straight, holding his hands away from his body in a non-threatening gesture and stepped forward carefully, but not soundlessly. As he came to a small clearing, he saw that she had made no effort to conceal herself—and worried at the implications. If her instincts were such that she did not worry about facing any potential foe, she may be harder to take than he had guessed. He felt a momentary spark of perverse fear, that she may even be more powerful than him.

 

He smothered it, however, with a careful evaluation of her stance. It was possible that she outmatched him in brute strength, but she had no more technique than a wild animal. She stood with a too-wide stance, her sudden, unnaturally long claws extended. Her kimonos were shredded, and her hair expressed its own will more than ever, obscuring the snarl on her face. Her eyes were a vivid, luminescent violet, and it was only by the color and length of her hair that he knew it was her for certain.

 

He gathered the courage to break the heavy silence. “Miharu…” he spoke softly, but his voice cracked with emotion and she flinched back a step. He reached out to her without thinking, to keep her from going. She lashed out with her claws, cutting him deeply. Physically, it didn't hurt, but the pain was nearly unbearable. She stared at him, assessing his reaction. He had frozen in shock, and held it to think. He realized that no matter what Harumi had said, right now the only thing she would recognize would be a show of force. Acting without hesitation to prevent giving any warnings of his movement, he used every ounce of speed in his body and caught her in his arms.

 

It was so quick, she didn't notice at first. Then she lashed out with all the ferocity of a trapped animal. He had caught her around the arms, so she had a limited capacity to injure him, and he struggled to hold onto her with the absolute minimum amount of force to keep her. It was still far more than he would have ever dared to use when she was human. Up close, he sensed no intelligence or recognition behind her strange new eyes. What had he done? Had she somehow suspected his plan? Was this the monster Kaoli had warned him of? He should have tried something else, something less drastic. He could have left, took her somewhere where there were no humans, where she couldn't catch anything. He had always known that she would eventually die, he just hadn't prepared himself for it to come so soon, even with the danger of her pregnancy.

 

A horrible sense of dread came over him. If she had become a monster, what should he do? Should he lock her up somewhere? Would it perhaps be better for her if he… if he… if she were to receive from his hands what fate had intended for her? Insensitive to her thrashing, he clung to Miharu tighter, pressing her head against his chest. He felt hot tears burning from behind his eyes and down his face—he had not cried since he was a child.

 

“Oh Miharu, koishii… what have I done to you?” he moaned into her hair.

 

Suddenly, she stilled. After a moment, she turned her head up to examine his face. She frowned, and sniffed deeply before leaning forward to lick one trail of tears off his face. He froze, fearing Harumi's second warning. Instead Miharu leaned back, and as he watched the unnatural light faded from her eyes, and they darkened to a deep purple that was not quite her natural warm brown.

 

“Kaze?” she asked, her voice harsh with screaming at him.

 

He felt as if he might pass out, but merely held her closer. “Yes, it's me, Miharu. Do you… do you know who you are?” He pulled back to look in her face as she answered.

 

She looked confused, but he couldn't tell if it was from difficulty remembering or the oddity of the question. “Yes… but where are we? I remember you gave me something to eat, and then I fell asleep. Why are we in the woods, and why are you bleeding?!” her voice rose in pitch as she pulled back to examine his wounds. “Great Kami, what happened….?” She turned her attention from him to herself, her tattered clothes, her bloody hands, her nails, although shorter than moments before, still sharp and wicked looking.

 

She blanched. “What… did I…? How…?” he could see she knew she had done it, and guilt began to creep over her. He knelt quickly in front of her, so his face was only a foot or so beneath hers.

 

“No, no, no, my love, this is my fault, all my fault. I'll heal in no time, it's nothing.” He carefully pushed the hair out of her face, absently picking leaves and twigs out of it. She stared at him, uncomprehending, and her eyes glazed over as she seemed to take internal stock of herself.

 

“What… has happened to me?” She asked carefully.

 

Kaze buried his face in her chest, ashamed to even look at her. “I had to save you…” he murmured through her hair. “She said it was the only way…”

 

Miharu swallowed carefully. Kaze was more upset than she had ever seen him, and this made her terrified of his answer. Still, she had to know. “I… I promise I won't be angry with you. Just tell me. I'm different… I can tell. I have to know.”

 

Kaze froze. There was no way out of explaining it to her. Still, he clung to her like a frightened child, as if when he let go she would disappear, or become that horrible monster again. “The sashimi I gave you to eat… it wasn't exactly fish.” He paused, choosing the direct truth as best. “It was the flesh of a mermaid.”

 

“Oh…!” There was so much relief and surprise in her voice that Kaze looked up, watching her process this. “That would explain it. I didn't know the stories were true…” she laughed a little. “Should have known, I suppose.”

 

He was speechless a moment. “You… You're alright with this?”

 

She frowned a little, thinking. “I'm not sure… I really don't know what it means. I'm… I'm not human anymore, am I?”

 

His face fell. “No.”

 

She took that easily in stride, and considered the situation a little more, examining what little she could see of herself. “Am I… terribly hideous?”

 

“No!” Kaze said quickly, sensing her perpetual need for approval from him.

 

She was startled by the rapid, vehement answer. As she pondered further, a strange look came over her face. A slight lowering of the eyelids, a tiny, wry smirk. “Am I more appealing to you this way?” she asked slowly, clearly liking the implications of a positive answer.

 

Kaze let go of her, stood, turned away and took a couple steps from her in one fluid motion. Miharu easily saw every motion, despite the preternatural speed, but still swayed from the sudden loss of his support. He swallowed hard, and ran his hands through his hair. “Not in a way I would have you be.”

 

Miharu was distracted from his cryptic answer by the better view she was now afforded of Kaze's wounds. She walked carefully towards him, infinitely more aware of her movements than she had ever been before. She could smell him, too, a strange sort of smoky sulfur, like past fireworks, or an old campfire that had been rained on. The thought of fire caused a sudden burst of anxiety in her, but she pushed it away, still overwhelmed by her new senses. She examined a long gash across his back, and could see it slowly stitching back together. She wet her lips, afraid to ask the next question.

 

“I haven't… killed anyone, have I?”

 

He turned around quickly, making her jump a little. As keen as her senses were, he was still sharper, and she wondered that she had never noticed it with her human eyes.

 

“No,” he reassured her softly. “You gave Obaa-san a little scare, when you left, but it was only a scratch, I think.”

 

Miharu looked crestfallen. “And after all she's done for us. I must go apologize to her.”

 

Kaze nodded. “Alright, and then let's get you cleaned up, alright?”

 

Miharu looked around helplessly for something to wipe the blood off her hands. Despite the tattered condition of her kimonos, it grated against her upbringing to dirty them further. A strange thought occurred to her and she lifted her hand to lick her fingers off.

 

Kaze caught her wrist before she could succeed. He looked darkly at her. “I'll not have you grow accustomed to the taste of my blood…” he warned softly, clearly more angry at himself than her. “We passed a stream on the way, you can wash them there.” She nodded, and he bent to pick her up, despite the fact that she was clearly capable of walking back.

 

 

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

AN

 

Hey! I'm not dead!

Sorry about the long delay… I've had a bit of a dry spell the last six months when it comes to writing. I've been focusing on visual arts a lot more, lately. I knew eventually this story would start to bother me again—it's so close to being finished that it seems such a shame to leave it alone.

Part of the problem was that this chapter was almost as hard to write as when Shiori died. Although I originally patterned Miharu after myself and Kaze after my husband, the reality is that they are both a little of both of us, and the older I get the more I relate to Kaze. This was far more emotionally disturbing to him than the death of his daughter, and it was difficult for me to put him through it. But now that it's past, everything is downhill from here!! Hopefully this will encourage me to finish the darn thing and begin the process of revising it.

Having read some of the earliest chapters I'm starting to itch for revision… what was my best work ever in 2005 is now fairly embarrassing to me!

Hope you enjoy reading!