by C. J. Anaya
Eventually, he let go, surveying the slumped nekomata in disgust and then promptly forgetting him. The blossom he stored within his keep stood as sentry, a type of barometer attached to Musubi’s heart and ki. Since his ability to keep tabs on the god of love and marriage remained virtually impossible, he had created his own fail-safe to ensure the darkness within Musubi’s heart remained intact. He’d doubted the necessity of it, fully believing that nothing short of Musubi’s soul mate might be capable of saving him once the darkness became firmly rooted within his ki. After all, only one kami in the history of creation had been allotted a soul mate, and anyone who understood the prophecy believed that kami to be Katsu.
As had he.
If the princess happened upon Musubi before her marriage to Katsu, the inevitability of their union was certain. Amatsu had no idea what a union with The Healer and the god of love and marriage might do for the veil, but he determined one thing: the princess and Musubi could never come to know one another.
His anger spiked anew at this disturbing development. He had counted on Musubi’s part in all of this. Severing The Healer from her soul mate had been vital, the only thing capable of making the prophecy null and void. Afterward, the only other weapon he possessed, and a highly effective one at that, was time. Time used to sufficiently erode and weaken the veil’s impermeable wall, and with The Healer his prisoner, and Musubi on the path to becoming a nekomata, he could begin his grand reentry into the world of the living with his arsenal fully loaded.
Only one course of action made sense at this point, now that his meticulous planning had failed. He spoke to all of the nekomata assembled.
“We must capture The Healer before her eighteenth birthday.” Eager eyes followed him as he moved across the floor. “My power to send any of you through the veil is extremely limited, and the longest you may remain in the world of the living in your current form is one year, possibly two, before you must return to the underworld or risk disintegrating within the world of the living. You all understand the risks involved? There is no guarantee I will have the power to bring you back.”
In truth, Amatsu held no concern for their plight and loathed the idea of wasting an ounce of power returning them to the underworld before the laws that governed life and death eventually righted the wrongs of their presence in the land of the living. If they disintegrated within a year or two it mattered very little in the grand scheme of things.
“She must be captured and brought back here where she will never be capable of joining with her true soul mate.”
“Forgive me, sire, but why not kill her when the opportunity presents itself?” The nekomata groveling at his masters feet hunched his shoulders.
Amatsu studied his grotesque follower with disdain. He longed for the moment when he might finally surround himself with beauty instead of death and the constant reminder of his own failures.
“The Healer can be killed with our weapons, it is true, but I have recently made a few startling discoveries concerning the properties held within The Healer’s blood and the role The Grass Cutter Sword plays in all of this. If we kill her, the powers of The Grass Cutter Sword will ensure her eventual return. She will be reborn anywhere at any given time. No, it is better to keep her alive, for we know where she is, but more importantly, we know who she is. At this point she is more useful to me alive. We require an army of kami for the war we plan against Heaven and Earth, but we need a way for all of you to return to the land of the living with your original forms intact.”
Without Musubi’s dark heart and connections, another kami’s participation was necessary to carry out this new twist to his plan. His thoughts immediately turned to that arrogant upstart, Fukurokuju.
The kami had always thirsted for power and position, willingly aiding him in Heaven when war broke out and then changing sides last minute, abandoning Amatsu to this hellish existence. Amatsu intended to make him pay for that stinging betrayal by helping him build up an army. Fukurokuju would realize only too late that the kami army he built belonged to his former ally. Amatsu rubbed his smooth palms together in anticipation of the look on that simpering kami’s face when he finally discovered the deceit. It would take great planning and several nekomata to pull something like this off. The veil’s walls needed to weaken considerably in order for them to get through, but he had plans for that as well.
After all, if The Healer had the power to strengthen the veil, she must also possess the power to weaken it, cripple it even. He could use that to his advantage when the time came.
“What about the dissenters?” the nekomata before him asked. “What if some of them cross over when we do and kill The Healer before we can capture her?”
Amatsu nearly cursed at this, but held his anger in check. Several nekomata wanted The Healer to die as soon as possible. They believed it would somehow end their own miserable existence. A group of misguided zealots hiding within the ranks of his loyal subjects.
“If they are located, kill them immediately. Your survival depends upon The Healer’s blood and her inability to form a union with her soul mate, and if her soul mate truly is Musubi, then we have more than just one kami to deal with.”
He bade them all leave for now. Multiple variables needed to be thought through. Details that couldn’t be left out and possible contingencies to his planning that couldn’t be overlooked were at the forefront of his mind. He had eighteen years to get it right. He felt confident The Healer and a full kami army would be available to him long before the end of those eighteen years arrived.
Mikomi: 1000 A.D.
“I wish you had not become involved in this mess, Mikomi.” Daiki took a long swig of tea and swallowed. He forcibly set his cup down upon the table. Droplets of herbal tea sprang forth, discoloring the grain of the table’s wood. “I warned you of the dangers involved by forming an alliance with the rebels.”
“If your father discovers the part you play in this it will go badly for you,” Hatsumi said. She cradled her son in her arms, and my heart squeezed in satisfaction. Her maternal instincts played in sharp contrast to those of the woman who gave birth to me nearly eighteen years before.
A little over five months had passed since Akane, the commander for the rebel insurgents, came to my room and requested I aid her and the rebels with my gift for healing. I had been eager to join their cause and give the rebels any leverage I could against my tyrannical father, the emperor of Kagami. My role soon expanded from that of healer to spy as I discovered more information vital to the survival of the rebel army, including the knowledge that my father planned to raise a kami army with his own blood, intending to have dominion over not only the empire of Kagami, but the whole of Japan and eventually the world.
I secretly fought alongside the rebels, hoping to find out anything that might enable us to weaken my father’s forces so we could eventually lure him from the palace and take him into captivity, and I did it without my betrothed’s knowledge.
Masaru Katsu.
Yet another problem requiring a solution. Several months ago my father had forced me to heal my mother, causing irreparably damage to my ki. My worrisome discussion with Kenji in regards to Katsu’s inability to heal my ki had forced both Kenji and myself to scour ancient scrolls in search of some hint as to the identity of my true soul mate and where I might find him. Though this particular mystery was probably the most important item to solve, I balked at the task, falling more in love with an altogether different warrior, a man I simply had no right to be with.
Musubi was my teacher and nothing more, though I desperately wished to change those circumstances. I was betrothed to Katsu through some ghastly prophetic error, had fallen in love with Musubi, a samurai insurgent, and now I faced a choice between pursuing a relationship with him and risking the safety of our world or searching out and joining with my soul mate whoever and wherever he might be.
Discovering who my true soul mate was and overthrowing the emperor before he succeeded in creating h
is kami army were made even more impossible due to the constant interference of my intended, Katsu.
He had become obsessed with my health and well-being. I was never allowed to exert myself, barely allowed a walk in the gardens, and my father, stymied by my fiancé’s interference at every turn, continued to employ other nefarious avenues to force me into another healing. He secretly desired more bondings of kami blood to take place and remained ignorant of the fact that I had found a way to circumvent the bondings. His moods had grown worse due to the false intelligence he believed he had received in regards to the location of the rebels’ base.
Thank the gods I had succeeded in warning Musubi of the impending ambush the emperor originally planned for their camp.
The only thing Katsu allowed me to do was sit and meditate in an attempt to sense the veil that surrounded me. All I truly sensed was a mounting frustration toward my prison within a prison. If I had felt stifled before, it was nothing compared to the smothering worry I received from the warrior god. Every now and then, when he determined that I had sufficiently rested, he did his best to connect with me and heal my ki, failing miserably, of course, and growing more desperate for answers with each floundering attempt.
It pained me to witness and experience his frustration and worry, and the kisses he employed in order to facilitate a healing merely confused me as to my situation. They were methodical, almost clinical in nature, and I hardly felt cherished or loved when accepting them.
I’m not sure why it bothered me so. I didn’t love him, but I cared for him deeply, and keeping so many secrets from him was liable to backfire, wounding him in the long run. I hated the idea of causing him pain despite the rightness of my decisions. Katsu was undeserving of such treatment.
With how obsessed he had become about my well-being, my educational outings were no longer allowed, forcing me to sneak out at night to train with Musubi. Our training location changed frequently to avoid discovery through routine behavior. We rarely met in the same area more than once, and the ruins of Yanbaru were used purely for emergencies. We hadn’t had any of those yet, thankfully.
I didn’t know how much longer I could withhold the truth of our situation from Katsu. He wasn’t my soul mate, but if I shared with him that shocking truth, where would that leave us? Would he hold any kind of affection for me? Would I be cast aside for someone else? Was that even possible, despite our inability to join together?
I seemed to do nothing these days, save clumsily navigate the murky waters of my life without a way to guide myself or keep myself afloat.
I was never sure when Katsu might pay me a surprise visit. Even now, my very presence at Daiki’s establishment involved a terrible risk, though risks to my safety had never stopped me from visiting the tavern whenever my surrogate father needed me.
And here I sat, with Daiki and Hatsumi, hoping to drown my troubles by thinking of someone else’s needs. A little girl, sick with fever, wasn’t recovering. Though it proved more challenging than usual to sneak away during broad daylight rather than late in the evening, the little girl was not expected to last much longer, and Daiki never asked me to come during the day unless circumstance deemed it necessary.
Once I arrived, Daiki rushed me into the back room and presented me to a little girl no more than three years of age. The sweat lining her brow and the dark circles under her eyes gave me cause to assume the worst. I feared touching her. She appeared so fragile.
I instructed the sobbing mother to leave the room as her open-ended grief gnawed at my concentration and threatened to pull it apart. Considering the state of my own ki, a lack of concentration would render my ministrations virtually useless, and the little girl’s illness held no interest in waiting for me to catch up. After connecting to her, blessed relief caused my tense muscle to slightly relax, assured she was meant to live a long and full life. Her body simply didn’t have what it needed to fight the fever. Her poor constitution was due in large part to the abysmal situation of the villagers and my father’s epic failure to provide for his subjects.
Taking care of the fever should have been easy enough, but I found it just as difficult to help her as I had Kenji. My ability to attend to anyone had become a slow, agonizing process, requiring an extended time of recovery after the fact; an alarming handicap I wasn’t accustomed to.
I also had to repair some damage to her heart and lungs due to the intensity of her illness, and after thirty minutes of diligent focus and strain I nearly collapsed on the floor from exhaustion. I managed to heal her, but I wouldn’t be able to help anyone for at least another twenty-four hours. I was completely spent.
After sending her and the mother away with a few herbs and some relieved and happy tears, I sat with Daiki and Hatsumi, allowing them to fuss over me as they were both aware of my limitations where my gift was concerned.
I didn’t mind being lectured about joining the rebels. Anything to take my mind off of the future planned for me and the large question mark replacing it. I didn’t want to think on the precarious position this revelation of Kenji’s put me in, but my father’s reaction to this news would be anyone’s guess. We wouldn’t be able to hide the problem surrounding my soul mate for much longer. Not with my union to Katsu looming in the not-so-distant future. If he failed to heal my ki by then, he was going to figure out the truth and uncover Kenji’s lie in the process. My tutor had risked his life for my sake. The time for leaving the palace drew closer with every lie we were forced to tell.
Yes, escaping the palace would be the only option for Kenji, Saigo, and myself. I brought my thoughts back to the present, responding to Daiki and Hatsumi’s comments.
“I know you both wish to protect me, but helping the rebels lends me a certain sense of control over my life. It gives me hope that perhaps I can assist with ending all of the suffering and pain my father continues to cause.”
Daiki wore his concern like a mantel over his broad shoulders. Over time that mantel might crush him. “I know you are in good hands with Musubi, and assigning him the role of husband was a smart move on Akane’s part, but the danger to your person is real nonetheless. What happens if Musubi is set upon by more foes than he can handle while you are there healing the warriors? What if a soldier from your father’s army is able to reach you? With your ki as damaged as it is you’ll not recover before death comes to steal you away.””
“That’s why I am learning to fight.”
“Not fast enough,” Hatsumi interjected. “Training to fight like a samurai takes years to master. You may have learned some basics thus far, but you cannot fit into a few lessons what thousands of pupils have learned over the course of a lifetime. You will not last long in a fight to the death, Mikomi.”
Though I didn’t like it, I had to agree with their logic. I took to my lessons like a fish takes to swimming, but I was still hopelessly lacking when it came to defending myself or anyone else for that matter. There had to be a way to learn at a more rapid pace. With the prophecy flawed and my soul mate unaccounted for, a confrontation with my father seemed inevitable. I didn’t want to consider my mother’s reaction to these recent developments.
I startled when the front door burst open. My heart nearly leaped from my chest at the sight of Musubi standing there with a small smirk adorning his tempting lips.
“Come to training early, have we? If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were following me, little healer.” He folded his arms over his chest as Akane walked in behind him.
I stood up from the wooden bench and gave him a challenging smile. “Since when do we train at the tavern? I’m merely here visiting with friends. I believe it is you who is following me.”
His smirk grew more pronounced, as if my response had delighted him in some way. A wave of pleasure coursed through me at the lighthearted way he walked over to the table.
“Akane, Musubi,” Daiki greeted. “What brings you two here? Are you in need of some weapons?”
“No, nothing like that,”
Akane said. “We ran into a woman in the woods who claimed her daughter had been miraculously healed by a talented medicine woman at the village tavern. And just how many talented healers in the village do we have the great pleasure of claiming an acquaintance with? I felt this was our best chance to pass along a message.” Akane motioned me to move over and then positioned herself next to me.
“I see.” Daiki gave me a resigned look and stood. “Hatsumi, let’s give them some privacy to talk these things over. No doubt the less we know the better.”
Hatsumi placed a comforting hand on my shoulder as she rose. “Try to get some rest when you can.”
I reached for her hand and squeezed it, then followed them with my eyes as they walked to the back of the tavern and through the door to their living quarters. I turned back to watch Musubi lower himself in Daiki’s place across the table from me. He intently studied me, something I found both disarming and exhilarating.
“Mikomi, what on earth has happened to your eyes? He reached across the table and lifted my chin. “It is painfully clear you’ve suffered some form of injury.”
He looked livid, as if he might kill the persons responsible.
I mentally berated myself for my folly. I’d managed to keep my injuries a secret from him during our trainings together. The layers of darkness during the lukewarm evenings aided my subterfuge, and Musubi’s reticence to make eye contact with me furthered my success. The emotion he exhibited now surprised me after the cold indifference I had endured for the past few months. His fight to maintain some emotional distance from me had barely wavered since my warning of the threat to the rebels’ camp. It was as if our intense moment together had scared him away, encouraging this great distance between us.
Our trainings were challenging and draining, but he did his best to maintain our student-teacher relationship and never allow for anything more. I ached for his teasing smile and sarcastic comments, but he remained distant and inaccessible. It hurt to be so close to him physically and know he was so far beyond my reach.