The Twelve Kingdoms Fan Fiction ❯ Soliloquy in the Rain ❯ One-Shot

Soliloquy in the Rain - Draft Version

A Juuni Kokuki (Twelve Kingdoms) Fan fiction

Written by Sango-sama

Juuni Kokuki is a manga written by Fuyumi Ono. Media Blasters holds domestic rights to the anime.

Possible spoilers for the first arc (through episode 13.)

*****

He had been searching for firewood when the rain had begun. Of course, with the rain coming down hard, it would be quite impossible to find a dry log or two to carry home.

With a sigh he picked up a larger leaf to use as a makeshift umbrella and headed back towards his home. He hadn't walked very far when he came upon a girl lying on the forest floor, soaked through and bleeding from a wound in her hand. She was a young girl, probably no more than 16 or 17 years. She was wearing pants, which seemed uncommon for a girl in this region, and she carried a sword.

Rakushun did not know a great number of girls. The Emperor of Kou was not particularly keen on letting young girls into the schools; so many young girls had trained to do housework instead of attending school. And since the school and the market were one of the few places that he, as a hanjyuu was able to go, he did not have the chance to meet many girls, but he had never before met a girl who carried a sword.

He crouched down closer to her. She seemed to be breathing, but her lips were starting to turn faintly blue.

In his mind, he briefly considered running to get help as fast as his legs would carry him. It really was best to get her inside and warm as soon as possible. His mother was a fairly hale woman and probably would be able to help carry the girl, but by now she would already have left to sell some of the baskets she had woven. And in his rat-like beast form, his arms would hardly be long enough to lift her off the ground.

That left only one alternative.

His eyes slid closed and his wet, matted fur practically melted away with the rain. His arms and legs became bare and elongated. He was now slim, his chubby rat form stretching into sinewy muscle and bare human flesh. His lips pressed into a thin line as he kneeled down and slid an arm beneath her neck and knees.

"Please, don't wake up yet," Rakushun chanted quietly, hefting her up onto his arms and trudging slowly forwards. As if sensing the warmth, she curled up, nuzzling her head against his chest. Her long hair was tickling his chest and it was taking quite a bit of effort not to focus on the sensations it was causing. She may not have been dressed as a demure female, but holding her this close was making him think that was quite to the contrary. Thankfully there was no one around (or awake) to see the bright red flush that had consumed his cheeks. "Please, stay asleep."

It was not until he was holding her that he really looked at her face up close. She was...familiar. His eyes widened as he realized why. The wanted poster for those Kaikyaku! If anyone was more mistreated than Hanjyuu in Kou, it was the Kaikyaku.

It was fortunate that he had found her before someone else came and found her.

He hurried home. Being seen naked would certainly be an embarrassment, but if he was right and this girl was one of the Kaikyaku, they both would be in an awful lot of trouble.

*****

Sometimes there were advantages to living in a secluded forest. One of which is that he could walk back to the tiny wooden house without being seen, something of practical importance when running around naked. Few people, let alone the officials, rarely ventured out to this area of the woods, giving Rakushun ample time to carry the girl out of the open and into the small home that he and his mother shared.

Setting the girl down on one of the wooden beds had proved a difficult task. He had a difficult enough time maneuvering a hand out to open the door. Whenever he was forced to use his human form it was a large investment of his strength just to maintain that form; the added weight of the girl was making his muscles throb in protest of the effort. He had never before been much concerned with strength and muscle, but now he was certainly wishing for more strength than Tentei had granted him.

He placed her head as gently as he could manage against the thin pillow and once he had settled her legs comfortably on his bed, he all but ran from the room to change forms. At least in his animal form, he could be somewhat at ease...and sufficiently covered. The situation had been startlingly uncomfortable; the girl could have woken up at any time and, given the rather elaborate sword that lay at her side, might have misunderstood the situation and done him some rather serious and permanent harm.

A few minutes later, with a relieved sigh and a long thin strip of cloth, he wandered back into the room with every intention to wrap a bandage the rather large wound on her hand. It was no real help that in holding her so close for so long, he had found his eyes drawn to her sleeping face. The girl still looked quite pale; her hair, still wet from lying out in the rain for so long, had plastered itself against her forehead and to the sides of her neck. He smoothed down her hair with long bony fingers, careful that his sharp, claw-like nails did not scratch the girl's face.

Shaking his head, he forced his eyes to stray instead to the wound on her hand, which rested atop her stomach. He looked a bit startled as he finally examined the wound in real detail. His eyesight might be a bit limited in this form, but was almost positive that her hand had been stabbed by sword or dagger.

Her right hand--that was probably the hand she held her sword in. For all appearances, she had been left for dead with no means to defend herself should harm have come her way. But that made little sense; even if she were the `evil Kaikyaku' that King Kou had ordered to be captured, it made no sense why she would have been left alone-and yet living. They wanted them captured, and harmed, if this girl was any indication. This superstition was ridiculous; the harmful Shoku that it was said that the Kaikyaku had brought to Kou was a phenomenon that would happen whether the Kaikyaku wanted it or not. The Shoku brought the Kaikyaku...not the other way around. Word of drought and disease plaguing the kingdom had been spreading for many years.

Rakushun did not wish to speak against the King that the heavens had placed on the throne; such an act would surely be considered treason to both the King and the Heavens. But it was the problems within the kingdom that showed that the heavens took issue with the King himself. The fact that the King did not want Hanjyuu, like himself, to be seen by others, to work and earn their way in life was evidence enough that the King did not like those that were different. He simply seemed to want to blame those who were different for faults that were his own.

He sighed, working the last bit of the cloth bandage around her hand as carefully as his clawed fingers would allow. Complaining to himself would not better his own situation, nor would it improve the health of this girl. At least it seemed that her wound had stopped bleeding.

However, her baggy clothes were still quite a bit wet and were starting to cling to her prone form. The rational part of his mind argued that the wet clothes would do her health far more harm than good, that she would also develop a cold--or far worse. The not-quite-so-rational, and far more modest part of his mind argued that removing any clothing would be a bad idea for many number of reasons, most of which might result in the use of the sword that was currently propped up beside the doorway of the back room-misunderstanding or not.

Understandably, modesty prevailed. `Her clothes aren't really all that wet.' He told himself, as he threw one blanket and then another over the girl. `I'll just be sure to bundle her up nice and tight so she stays warm.'

Sparing a quick look over his shoulder to ensure that she would be all right, he wandered out of the room to sleep on the straw bed in the main room.

******

When he had found her the day before, she looked pale and cold and she was being soaked through out in the rain.

But when he had come in to check on her this morning, she was feverish. Her face was an alarming crimson and the muscles of her face were contorted in a pained cringe as beads of sweat matted her recently dried, dark brown bangs to her forehead. The change was drastic and frankly had him a little worried. Perhaps he should have gotten her out of those wet clothes after all. He placed his palm on her forehead; it was only a few seconds before he turned around and ran to the kitchen as fast as his short legs would allow in order to grab a clean cloth and that water bucket that he had retrieved the night before.

There was a time, long ago, when his mother had fallen quite ill. He had been only ten at the time and his father was still alive. He had spent hours at his mother's bedside changing the cool rag on her forehead and helping her to drink this special kind of tea that helped to bring the fever down, while his father was off at work. Unfortunately, that tea was long since gone. With all the books that he had read, he knew at least the closest source of the bark was in the mountains of Kei, which was currently not the ideal place to hike to. His only other option would be to go out and locate a healer to see if they had any of that tea. Finding a healer meant leaving the house for some time and might mean that the healer would come in to see the patient and might recognize her as one of the Kaikyaku. The more he thought about it, going to a healer seemed like a bad idea.

With surprisingly nimble use of his long fingers, he folded the cloth and dipped it into the water. He gave the rag an expert twist and smoothed the girl's bangs off her forehead with the very tips of his claws, before he placed the cool cloth on her head.

Since he certainly didn't have any of the bark handy and she had shown no signs of waking up to be able to drink, at least not any time soon, he could pretty much eliminate the tea as a possibility. It seemed his only option would be to keep her forehead cool as best as he could. He pulled the tall stool over beside her bed, maneuvering it to set right in between the table where he had placed the water pail and his bed.

******

He had sat up with her for a good portion of the day changing the rag on her forehead, he only strayed from her bedside just long enough so that he could prepare some sort of food for himself and in case she woke up and was hungry. When his legs began to grow sore in the middle of the afternoon, he rushed down to the lake to replace the water in the pail and made an equally hasty return.

As the darkness of night began to settle in, he found himself growing bored, and so he spent the time neatly arranging the girl's sword, the cloth, and the translucent, blue glass ball in tidy pile on top of the bedside table. He wondered how wonderful and strange the world that the Kaikyaku came from was that she possessed such an extravagant sword. It might be an extravagant sword, but it was at least it was serviceable enough protection to keep her alive for a few weeks. It had been a few weeks since the officials started to wander the countryside with their wanted posters for the girl and her companions.

He wondered if all of the Kaikyaku had such an unusual coloring. In human form, his hair color matched the color of his gray fur in his rat form; the same could be said for most of the other Hanjyuu, or at least that was what he had read. But he had never seen anyone with that deeper color of skin and, as her hair had dried, it had almost seemed to look red. He had heard that the Emperor of En, the Taiho of En and the Taiho of Tai had all come from the land of the Kaikyaku, but they were all Taika. Supposedly, the Taika all appeared slightly different when they arrived in this land.

He wondered how long it would take before she finally would wake up.

He wondered what she would think of him when she finally awoke. As a hanjyuu, a half-beast, life was sometimes difficult when he first met others. People would see him and immediately think him to be half-witted or backwards. He was simply more comfortable in his half-beast state and chose to remain in that form whenever possible. Clothing was constrictive and hampered his ability to walk on his relatively short hind legs.

It wasn't boastful to say that he got the highest marks in his school and, were it not for the fact that he was what he was, he would have been able to get a good governmental position. But the laws of the Kingdom of Kou made it impossible to find work and to study further. He accepted what he was and learned all that he could on his own. It was what Tentei had destined him to be. It seemed, now, that Tentei had also destined him to meet this girl. Kaikyaku and Hanjyuu alike were able to get work and become citizens in En. It was possible, that she could be his ticket out of the woods of Kou.

He could only learn so much from the occasional book and from his mother; his thirst for knowledge was insatiable. Out in the middle of the forest, he and his mother, the kindest person he knew, lived in this small wooden house. It always made him sad that he would never be able to find a job in the Kingdom of Kou and would never be able to--unless he braved the voyage to En. He would be able to attend school there and perhaps find work after that in the government there. It would be some years later, but he would be able to support her as he hoped. He had been saving what he could for years, so he would be able to make the voyage. Until he had saved up enough, he was perfectly fine living quietly in the middle of the forest. He had no real desire to leave his mother all by herself in these woods; the opportunity for him to learn would help them both, but he had never been away from his home longer than it took to make an occasional delivery or shopping trip to the market.

He sighed as he pulled the now lukewarm rag from her forehead to rinse it in the water and wondered when he would fall asleep.

******

Her fever had broken some time during the night.

He wasn't sure when as he had finally fallen asleep sometime before sunrise, but her color had returned to somewhere between ashen pale and the fevered red and her breathing was far calmer than it had been the two days before.

Hopping down off of the stool, he walked out into the main room to cook some food for breakfast and to clean up the main room. As he closed the door behind him, he figured that it was fully possible that she would awaken sometime today; he decided he would also make a little of the cold herbal tea his mother used as an all purpose remedy. It was bitter, yes, but it always seemed to work wonders on him.

He wanted her to trust him. He wasn't sure that it was even possible. It seemed to be pretty clear that King Kou's men had been trying to capture her and had nearly succeeded in killing her. And there were probably quite a few people who would have tried to turn her in for the reward money. He sighed as he stirred the medicine in the water and set it aside to cool. He wasn't even sure if she would be able to understand a word of what he would say; the Kaikyaku surely came from another Kingdom a world away after all.

He certainly had the knowledge to get the both of them safely out of Kou; he knew the geography and had spent a long time dealing in the marketplaces of Kou. But it had always seemed that the presence of a normal human always garnered a little more assistance from the merchants.

If there was anyplace where both of them could escape the poor treatment of Kou, it was En; the government in En gave special assistance to both Kaikyaku and Hanjyuu. There, he was sure that he could find work, study to his heart's content, and send money back to his mother so that she would not have to work quite so hard anymore. Surely, the girl could also find something that she wanted to do in En. Right?

Gaining her trust might seem hopeless, but there certainly had to be some reason that he happened to find her, he reasoned to himself. Fate is, after all, only what you make of it. `Besides,' he thought hopefully, `I do not intend to do her any harm-`

His ears twitched backwards as he heard a faint noise coming from inside the room. He paced over to the door, but he hesitated slightly before knocking. Surely his ears weren't just playing tricks on him.

He picked up the tray that held the medicine and with a quick rap on the door, he shouted, "Are you awake?"

There was no response. In fact, the room had grown suddenly quiet.

He opened the door, only to see the girl sitting up on the bed, her hand brandishing the sword that had, until a few moments ago, been lying on the bedside table. Her green eyes blinked, as if confused, and the sword dropped to her side.

"How are you feeling?"

When she didn't answer, he could only walk towards her offering the small, wooden cup. "I brought you medicine. Here."

She turned her head away. He tipped the cup back over his lips to show that the liquid wasn't poisoned. "See? It is just medicine. It is a little bitter, but it is good for you."

The girl still refused to look towards him.

With a resigned sigh, he mutters, "well, okay then."

"What kind of stuff can you eat? What about rice porridge?"

She turns slightly, lifting the sword towards him blade first.

Eying the sword briefly, he looks back to meet her emerald green eyes. "You've been sleeping for three days. If I wanted to do something I would have. I could have hid the sword, too, so considering all that, can't you trust me a little?"

After hesitating a moment, she lowers the sword. "I want water."

"Thank God!" He smiled broadly, his tail "You can talk! I'll bring you some water right away."

*****

He happily scurried down to the stream with a bucket. Maybe she didn't trust him very much, but at least things were moving forwards.

And she could talk and understand the language. He couldn't recall hearing of a Kaikyaku that spoke the language after they came from Hourai. Perhaps she was a Taika, then. The few Taika that he knew of all happened to know the language; so maybe Taika could speak the language when they returned to their homeland.

When he reached the stream, he dipped the bucket in the cool water and hurried back to the girl.

******

He knocked at the door again. "May I come in?" Rakushun entered the room with his tray once again and handed her the bowl of water.

She quickly finished off the bowl of water and heaved an almost contented sigh.

He smiles slightly and offers her the contents of another bowl. "Here, I thought you could eat this. It is peach soaked in alcohol and boiled in sugar. Don't worry," he adds belatedly, "the alcohol is just for fragrance."

She looked away quickly, but gave him an appraising look before she replaced the water bowl and pick up a slice of the sugared peach. She tasted a small piece of the slice and then, satisfied that it was safe, devoured the rest of it greedily. "It's sweet."

Rakushun's ears twitched and he gave a satisfied sigh.

She looked away from him again, fearing that she was allowing him to get too close.

But he was not yet deterred. "My name is Rakushun. What's yours?" When still said nothing, he sighed sadly, so that even his tail drooped to the floor, and set down the tray on the table. "'Raku' means easy and `Shun' means nimble, but my life isn't easy and I'm not nimble." He grabbed the stool from the other side of the room and pulls it closer so that he could talk with her. "I don't know why she names me that."

She had, meanwhile grabbed another peach from the bowl. "Do you have parents?"

"I live with my mother, but she is out right now."

"Do you know a man named Keiki?"

"Keiki? Is he from around here?"

"It is okay if you don't know him." She murmured, nibbling on a bit more of the peach.

"So what is your name?"

She still hesitated for a moment but then she did answer. "Youko."

Encouraged, he leaned forwards. "How do you write it?"

A knock could be heard coming from the main door. Youko turned her head suspiciously.

"That must be Mother." He walked to the front door, while Youko still suspicious followed him with her eyes.

He opened the front door and was not too surprised to see a low officer of the local government standing at his doorstep; his mother would not have had to knock just to come in. "Hello officer," he spoke a bit loudly for Youko's benefit. He gave a nodding gesture to the poster in the man's hand. "Yes, I received the bulletin earlier."

"There were three of them, but it seems the split up. The woman we're looking for could be with a man or traveling alone. She's about 17 years old. She has red hair and controls Youma." He tucked the poster away. "King Kou himself is offering a large reward. A hanjyuu like you would never get a decent job, so I thought you'd be interested."

Rakushun bowed deeply. "Indeed. Thank you for your kindness." He kept bowing until the officer was well out of sight.

When he returned to the inner room, Youko was not seated on the bed. He didn't bother to turn around; he could tell she stood behind him, waiting with her sword drawn. "If I wanted the reward, I would have reported you in while you were asleep."

"What do you want from me?"

"I can't let them take you to be killed."

"But I didn't do anything!"

"Everyone here thinks you're the Evil Kaikyaku. The officials are trying to kill you."

"Shut up!" she shouted, pointing the tip of the blade at his back.

He didn't even flinch. "King Kou believes that Kaikyaku ruin the kingdom, but I think it's a superstition." As the hanjyuu turns around, Youko withdrew her sword. "They can't kill you for what you are."

The sword lowered to her side and Youko looked almost repentant.

Rakushun silently cheered. She was starting to trust him, even if only a little; with a little explanation, he would be able to help them both to escape from Kou. "Youko, you should go to En."

She blinked. "En? Is that a town?"

"You really don't know anything about this place, do you?" The corners of his mouth drew upwards slightly; he might be able to be more helpful to her than a simple guide after all.