Ronin Warriors Fan Fiction ❯ Koi wa Kurushimi ❯ Beneath the music from a farther room. ( Chapter 8 )

Koi wa Kurushimi
By Djinn Hashiba-Maxwell

And indeed there will be a time
To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?" --
Time to turn back and descend the stair

- The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
- T.S. Eliot

Nothing in this chapter is the least bit based in historical fact. So don't ask. And it's almost all about Touma's past, so the plot will pick up next chapter. But this will give you a better understanding of why Touma is who he is and why Shizuru is still alive, and a Catholic nun.

* * *

Twenty years ago a group of French nuns built Japan's first Catholic convent. There was about fourteen of them at first, led by a Mother Superior named Mother Sarah. The convent was a small brick building, not far outside of Nagasaki. The nuns saw it as their duty to spread the word of Christ to all who would listen.

Not many people listened.

Still, the sisters struggled on with the little money they received from weaving blankets and selling vegetables they grew in their gardens. But people just seemed to ignore them more and more. Then some didn't ignore them any more ... they condemned them.

It started small, once someone climbed over their garden wall and destroyed all their plants. They were upset, but it was not that bad. Then more violent things. Someone shattered the stained glass windows of the chapel. The nuns were upset, but they still held firm in their faith that God would take care of them.

Then the violence was taken on the nuns themselves.

Three of the nuns had left the convent to got shopping for necessities, dressed in habit and whimper as was their custom. They never quite made it.

Raped and brutalized, two of the nuns died from their injuries. The third, Sister Ann Lawrence, was never the same again.

Sister Ann Lawrence was one of the younger nuns; her Christian name was Delphine, but at that time, you took a new name when you took your vows. She had been all of twenty years old when she came to Japan, she was only twenty-three when the tragedy occurred. Sister Bernadette and Sister Celia, the two nuns with her, were both almost sixty. They had lived long lives, and they died while praying to their God to forgive their murderers. Sister Ann survived.

It wasn't until a month later that she discovered she was pregnant.

It was a shocking thing for the young nun; as if what had happened to her was not bad enough, now a life would be brought into the world as a result of it? But her sisters did not shun her, they helped her. She knew that, no matter how conceived, this was her child, and she would love him or her, no matter what.

She gave birth a month early, not to one child, but two.

First came a handsome boy with night-pale skin, dark blue hair, and fathomless indigo eyes. Sister Ann named him for her father, Thomas. Then came a small girl with soft hair so silver it was blue, and steely grey eyes framed by long lashes. Sister Ann gave her a Japanese name, Shizuru.

Sister Ann could not raise her children; there was no place for them in the convent. But she was not asked to give them up; Mother Sarah had them placed in a local orphanage, where Sister Ann could visit them every chance she got. At the orphanage they learned Japanese, and her little boy's name was corrupted to 'Touma', but she taught them French language, and told them of the wonders of the Western world, and about her God, and they grew up as the only children at the orphanage with a woman to call 'mother'.

The people never really learned to like the Catholic nuns, but things had quieted. They seemed to tolerate the Westerners for many years. That was why it was so unexpected when the convent was burned to the ground.

Sister Ann Lawrence was thirty-four. Her children were eleven. And now, they truly were orphans.

Thomas and Shizuru eventually learned to accept their life without their mother, clinging to each other for comfort when times grew too harsh. But now that the Western nuns were gone, the bigots needed a new place to aim their contempt. And where better than the children of the Western heathens?

They spoke strangely, their coloring was all wrong, and worst of all, they disregarded Shinto, the religion of Japan. They did not recognize the divinity of the emperor. They were sacrilegious. They should not be.

Some men abducted the children. Neither they nor the children knew it, but one of the men was their father. They raped the girl; the boy they beat, leather whips cutting into the flesh of his back, cutting him almost to the bone. Demanding that he renounce his 'God' and so forth. Just and excuse for cruelty, in the end.

The children were twelve.

Thomas and Shizuru never returned to the orphanage. The men who abducted them died not long after, when their homes burned down, one after another. They never found the person who did it, but the footprints left were those of a young boy.

The children wandered for a while, surviving on what they could scavenge. The girl prayed to God every night. The boy watched her with curious eyes and in the back of his mind, he cursed that same God. A God who had not protected neither his mother, nor him, nor his sister.

Thomas learned to get money by selling his body. It really wasn't a far step from that to murder. Money was money, after all.

It was about that time that the boy and his sister split ways. They were thirteen.

Thomas never went by Thomas again. He let people call him by the Japanese name they'd given him, Touma. And he took for a last name the name of the Matron of the orphanage. She had been called Hashiba Yoko, and she had been the only person besides their mother to care for him and his sister.

Hashiba Touma was born.

Shizuru, on the other hand, turned her life to one of peace and compassion. She found a small home in a small town and made her place there. She tried to spread the word of Jesus, much like her mother had done, so long ago.

She was received just about as warmly.

But Shizuru, unlike her mother, was able to protect herself. Touma had taught her that much before they parted. She knew how to handle a dagger and a crossbow, and was not afraid to defend herself, if it was called for. Those who would do her harm did not have the desire to outfight her, so they tried something else.

There was a name being whispered around the inns these days, the name of a assassin, a killer for hire, who would kill anyone for the right price. He was good at what he did, young and handsome. And they decided that this man would rid them of the troublesome Catholic. So they sent out word that they wished to hire Hashiba Touma.

The boy thye wanted came, young and skinny and not very intimidating. With him came an older, dark-haired boy with tan skin and blue eyes. He was from a clan of honorless ninjas called Sanada, and he trailed the blue-haired boy like a dog. They walked into the tavern like they owned the place, the ninja with a pair of katanas sheathed at his back; the other with nothing but a wakizashi at his belt.

"I'm Hashiba Touma." He said.

He was nearly laughed out of the place.

But they gave him his orders anyway, told him where the girl was to be found, and sent him on his way. He and the black-haired boy nodded mutely and left, to set up camp in the woods. Once there Touma turned to the Sanada, a man named Ryo, and said to him "The girl we have been hired to kill is my sister."

The ninja frowned back and replied, "Then why did you say yes?"

And the assassin smiled that enigmatic smile that Ryo had not yet come to hate and responded, "If she must die, better she be killed by her own blood."

That night Ryo sneaked out of their camp and to the girl's house, and he told her that he was her brother's lover. This was the only reason she did not kill him when he forced himself on her, because she could easily have done so.

They came for her the next morning. Touma with his wakizashi at his belt and nothing further. She stood outside her home, calmly smoking a pipe, as if waiting for him.

"Hello."

"Hello."

"I've come to kill you."

"Wakatta."

"Then come."

And calmly, as if nothing were wrong, Shizuru put down her pipe and rose to her feet, following her brother into the forest as he beckoned. And Ryo just stood and waited.

The woods were deep and dark and Shizuru was not normally inclined to venture into them, but the truth was she would follow her brother anywhere, even to her own death. She did not even ask why he had come for her; it didn't matter. If she had to die, at least it would be by the hand of the one person she loved.

"You could join me, you know. You know how to fight."

Was there a faint tinge of hope in what he said, or had she imagined it?

"Thou shalt not kill."

"But they wouldn't let us live."

And then there was a polished blade at her throat, cold against her skin, and she was almost afraid. Almost, except that there was no murder in her brother's eyes. And he whispered words to her, a cool command.

"Scream as if the world were ending."

And she did, screams of fear that tore at her throat. She didn't ask why, and she didn't need to know. But the fear changed to something more bitter as he turned to go. Anger colored her voice, and anguish, and she thought he was going to leave her again, as he had left before. She stopped, needing to breath, and he returned, wakizashi wet with blood that covered him as well, a deer carcass at his feet. And he said to her a line from a play their mother had read to them once, a long time ago; a tragedy about revenge.

"Get thee to a nunnery."

And Sister Mary Francis was born.

* * *

Ryo blinked at the boy before him, uncertain of how to respond. "Touma ... why tell me this now?"

The boy shrugged, blue eyes dim, as he looked anywhere but at his friend. "Ryo ... I don't love you."

Ryo blinked again. Not the response he had been expecting.

Touma hurried to clarify. "I don't love you ... but I care about you. It matters to me whether you're alive or dead. And I don't know ... that's a big thing for me, I think. There are only two other people I could say that about ... Shuu and my sister. And maybe ... no, nevermind. And I guess I just thought ... I mean, they both know the story already, because they were there. I didn't say anything about Shuu, but ... his family used to visit the orphanage, and the children would come and play with us ... " Touma shook his head. "That isn't the point. The point is, if I care about you, you deserve to know, I suppose. So that when I'm not here ..."

"Enough!" Ryo snapped. Then, more gently, but no less emphatic, "Enough, Touma. You're not going anywhere, and I'll make sure of that."

Touma smiled slightly at that, eyes crinkling at the corners. "You'll make sure of it, ne?"

"Yeah." Ryo reached out to affectionately ruffle Touma's blue hair. "You're not going to get away from me that easily."

* * *

Kaiya: EVIL!! Djinn quoted Shakespeare!

Nai: EVIL!! This chappie is sorter than all the others!!

Djinn: Oh, will you two dykes just shut the hell up ... *sigh*