by C. J. Anaya
“So, I look at the whole of the picture.”
“Correct. Now I want you to study the whole of me. Try deflecting my advances by blocking my attack with your palm extended forward.”
“Yes. I can—oof.”
I looked up at Musubi from my place on the soft grass. His wicked smile had returned. I was relieved to see him back to his mischievous self; happy to have my legs kicked out from underneath me over and over again if it resulted in a smile like that for the rest of the day.
“We’re just beginning, and once again you’re already flat on your back. Sloppy, young lady. Very sloppy. Again!”
I rose from the ground and squared off with him. What followed was one failed block after another. Though I focused my sight on the whole of Musubi—I could have easily excelled in this particular exercise—it seemed a more prudent idea to downplay my abilities, especially since his wicked smirk continued to grow with each failed attempt. After about an hour of this with no progress in sight, he took on a calculated look, preparing some new idea with which to torture me.
“I think perhaps we should up the stakes just a little.”
“Why would we want to do that?” I lifted myself off the ground again, but didn’t bother wiping the grass and dirt off my back. It would only return after my next failed block.
“If the stakes are higher your reflexes will be sharper…hopefully, and I think we’ve already established the fact that your everyday clothing, whether women’s or men’s, is a health hazard during training.”
It took a second for me to realize what he was getting at.
“Oh, no. There is nothing wrong with my attire this time around. I get to keep my clothes on,” I said emphatically.
“Only if you can block my attempts at taking them off.”
I faced him with barely suppressed energy. My senses were on high alert now. I wanted my clothes to remain intact. I watched Musubi as a whole and tried not to let the blue of his eyes get the best of me. His right hand flickered for a second, distracting me from his left hand, which shot forward and ripped the sash from my waist, releasing the wrap of my shirt and exposing the undergarments on my chest and torso.
I tried not to let it rattle me and focused harder on my attractive tormentor. He feinted left, but I saw him shift his weight to the right. I immediately held out my hand, palm flat to block his advance. My flat hand hit his chest, preventing him from moving any further. His hands stayed raised at his sides as if he had been getting ready to grab my shoulders.
The intensity with which his eyes had fastened on mine and the mere centimeters between us made the warmth in my heart spread throughout my chest, filling my body from the top of my head to the very tips of my fingers and toes.
The energy between us was charged with so much possibility. He must have sensed the way it built, encircling our bodies and begging us to explore it further. I slackened the stiffness in my arm and eased forward ever so slightly. I didn’t know what else to do after that. The different futures that lay before us could only be determined by a single choice. I knew where my choice would lead and what kind of life I wanted to look forward to despite my determination to accept my responsibilities, but his choice remained uncertain and might lead us somewhere completely different.
His turmoil and indecision caused him to hesitate, and then that thrumming anger returned with a vengeance fueled by bitterness, hatred, and despair. He held to something dark and poisonous. He covered himself with it like one might cover themselves with a shield. The warmth in my heart turned frozen and shattered. Events from his past continually denied us the opportunity to pursue a joint future. I was powerless against this insubstantial enemy.
Musubi pulled back abruptly and picked up my sash, handing it to me as if nothing had happened. Pretending this connection we made and the moment we shared was nothing but a dream...much like the way he had kissed me.
Twice.
“I think it wise to cook our dinner now while it’s still light. The glow from a campfire at night will give away our location.”
He walked past me, but I reached out and gently took hold of his hand.
“You called me Edana last night when you were sleeping.”
In all honesty I didn’t want to hear his response. I don’t know why I felt so compelled to delve into a subject I had recently attempted to avoid, but a part of me almost wished he might turn to me and acknowledge that he had intended to kiss me, not some insubstantial vision of Edana.
I expected him to go rigid and rip his hand from mine, but he did nothing. He didn’t even move. After a moment of silence he rubbed his thumb gently across the back of my hand.
“It wasn’t your dream then, was it? When I kissed you the dream was mine.”
He gave my hand a soft squeeze and let it go, taking my whole heart and soul with him.
* * *
Dinner was a silent affair. Musubi pulled out some berries, nuts, and dried strips of meat, something I had never before encountered, but thoroughly enjoyed, though I think the company had something to do with it, even if said company remained silent and sullen. By the time the sun sank low to the ground we had eaten our fill and extinguished our small fire. He didn’t say one word to me as he went about his preparations, but I always knew exactly how he felt. His anger smoldered just beneath the surface, causing me to wonder how he could operate under such stifling negativity.
At first the silence was like a peaceful balm to my injured feelings and frazzled emotions, but the steady thrum of his anger eventually offset the silence in an uncomfortable way.
Faint hints of darkness descended over the forest, bringing a slight chill to the end of our meal. It reflected the sorry state of our current relationship. What happened to our easy camaraderie? Why did he so doggedly refuse to discuss the darkness of his past? By the time we retired to the cave, the silence had grown unbearable, and I blurted out a question that had troubled me for some time.
“Why does your anger never subside?”
“What?”
He turned from feeding his horse and fixed me with a puzzled look.
“Your anger, it’s…persistent. Disturbingly so. Emotions are in a constant state of change. They rise and fall in intensity just as waves rise and fall in the wake of a forceful storm, but in the end, the waves die down and become part of the sea once again. Yours never seem to find any peace.”
“How do you know this?”
“I can feel it. Do you not remember the first time we met? The pain I experienced as Hatsumi labored to bring her child into this world?” His look lightened for a moment, signifying his memory of our first moments together. “Part of being a medicine woman is understanding and absorbing others’ emotions. I feel everything you feel whenever you let your guard down, and your anger is always present. There are moments when it is worse than others, but it never goes away. Not completely.”
This information was not well received. I imagined that for someone as closed off and secretive as Musubi, this revelation was considered a violation of his privacy. He stuttered for something appropriate to say.
“You must be mistaken, child—”
“I am not. You already know about my empathic abilities.” I wanted to tell him I wasn’t a child either, but with the line drawn, and my relationship to him being relegated to that of student, I honestly didn’t have the desire to endure the sting of that reminder yet again.
His anger spiked to a new level of outrage. It didn’t frighten me as it had before, but I decided to exercise patience and not press him any further. I sensed his battle to keep his anger tightly reined in. After a few moments the wave of anger subsided into a calm strumming sound held in check with an enormous amount of effort.
“That must have been hard for you. You don’t usually calm yourself so quickly.” I thought I’d said it under my breath, but his surprise led me to believe he had excellent hearing.
His look held a thousand questions, but I intended to do the asking fo
r the duration of the evening. I didn’t want to meet his questions with more lies. My poor heart could take no more of it.
“What is it that you’re holding onto?” I pressed.
It took several moments for Musubi to answer. His anger and indecision turned into apathy as if keeping his secrets to himself no longer mattered.
“I lost someone close to me. I believe I mentioned that several months back.”
I nodded, but said nothing. I feared that saying anything might stop him from sharing what he so desperately needed to share, and I also feared upon opening my mouth I might beg him to never give utterance to the name he called me last night.
“Her name was Edana, and she was my life.” He paused as pain, raw and aching reared its ugly head, preventing him from speaking further.
It was difficult to hear those words fall from his lips. I’d experienced jealousy through other people’s emotions, but I’d never had cause for it myself, never felt it penetrate my heart as if it were cutting away pieces of my will and reason. I pushed through the uncomfortable sensations and forced myself to ask another question.
“Did you grow up together?”
He gave me a sad look. “No. I was visiting the area she resided in for business related purposes, but when I met her I decided to stay.”
I sensed there was so much he wasn’t telling me. “What was she like?”
Musubi looked at the stony floor. My questions caused him to reflect on moments he wanted to forget. Memories he had worked hard to forget.
“She was vibrant and strong; a bright flame against a dark loneliness I’d felt for quite some time.”
“Why were you so lonely?”
“There isn’t much that I can tell you about my profession, other than that I am a warrior and as such I am not afforded the same opportunities to find love in this life. From the moment of my creation, my parents led me to believe that love would never be part of my future.”
I felt outraged that any parent would be so heartless as to teach a young boy that loneliness was the only path available. What a horribly bleak outlook.
“I don’t understand why the option would have been denied you.”
“There are many things about myself and my history that I cannot share with you at the moment, Mikomi. All I can say is that I was not allowed to form attachments, and leave it at that.”
“But you formed one with Edana?”
Musubi’s expression turned pensive. “Yes. She was one of the few women I’d met during my travels who was...unattached to any other male.”
I puzzled over this.
“What happened to her?”
The soft lines around Musubi’s mouth hardened. His anger returned, slamming into me.
“She met someone else, someone who revealed to her things about my life I hadn’t yet felt courageous enough to speak of. It turned her against me and into the arms of another man.”
I swallowed hard. “I’m so very sorry.”
“I wasted several years of my life agonizing over the way things ended between us. If she had really loved me, she would have let me explain myself. I hadn’t meant to keep certain things about my life or my identity a secret, but I had to be very careful before sharing those things with another, for her sake and for mine. If she had let me explain why I’d remained silent, if she had trusted that I had my reasons, the outcome might have been different.”
The details surrounding Musubi’s profession must have been serious indeed to have caused him to be less than forthright with someone he cared about. I understood the position it put him in.
“In the end, the man she chose over me spurned her to prove a point.”
His anger began to boil anew.
“Why would he do that? Had he no intention of loving her?”
Musubi swallowed hard. “No. He used her just as he used every other human…woman with whom he entered into a relationship.”
I noted him stutter on the word human. It was an odd thing to say. He continued on before I could come to any conclusions.
“He wanted to prove to me she was no different than any other woman of his acquaintance. He didn’t realize that Edana would be so heartbroken by his betrayal that she would take her own life.”
I gasped outright, clamping a hand over my mouth to try and mask the horror I felt at such a travesty. To take one’s life was one of the worst things a human could do to themselves. Not just in a physical sense, but the way it destroyed their ki was immeasurable. It would take time for their ki to recover in the afterlife, and the afterlife is better served for intellectual and spiritual progression. That kind of progression can’t be accomplished with a ki in need of serious reparations.
“Musubi, I understand the anger and pain this experience caused you, but you must know that holding onto those emotions—those feelings of bitterness and betrayal—can only hurt your spirit and poison your soul. You’ll make unthinkable decisions, ones you never would have considered before, choices that may have terrible consequences, leading to your own destruction, your own type of suicide. Surely, you recognize the danger these emotions hold for you.”
Musubi’s anger intensified and his eyes blazed like blue fire. “You think it wrong that I mourn the death of the woman I loved and seek vengeance on her behalf?”
“I think it’s noble to right the wrongs of those that would hurt, steal from, and murder their fellow man. I think it right to be a part of the samurai insurgents to overthrow the empire. Their goal is worthy and will save so many lives.” Musubi’s eyes continued to glint flinty shards of hatred in my direction, but I had to remind myself that his anger wasn’t meant for me. “I know you won’t wish to hear this, but Edana wasn’t murdered. The person responsible for her death is Edana herself.”
Musubi jumped to his feet. “How dare you blame her for any of this?”
I stood with less alacrity, feeling a tired ache settle over my chest. I had taken steps in claiming my own kind of control and independence, and I wasn’t going to let him tower over me simply because the things I said were difficult for him to accept.
“I only blame her for the part she played in her own death. Even you said she took her own life. This man you hold so much hatred for is most certainly culpable for treating her as if she didn’t matter, as if she were nothing but a pawn or a tool in his hands, but something I am fast learning is our destiny is in our own hands.” I felt on the very cusp of my own personal enlightenment. Maybe this discussion was as much for my benefit as it was for Musubi’s. “Our path is as clear as we make it. No one told her she had to die; no one forced her to end her existence. In a moment of pain and heartbreak she made a terrible error, but it was her error, Musubi.”
He was before me in an instant, grabbing me by my shoulders. “Don’t.” He shook his head as if to cast away the ringing truthfulness of my words. “Don’t ever speak of Edana like that again.”
His black anger pulsed between us, threatening to wrap itself around me and consume me. I should have been frightened by this explosive situation, but I knew in my heart he was a good man. He would never hurt me. He had lost his way and needed someone to guide him back.
“I only speak the words you need to hear. You are not this man, Musubi. You are not a vengeful, hateful human being. I sense there is so much more you must accomplish in this life, in this world, but you cannot fulfill your true purpose if you are distracted by revenge. You must let this go.”
Musubi’s grip on my shoulders tightened for an instant and the stormy set to his features promised another tirade of pain and anger, but as we stared into each other’s eyes his features slowly began to soften. The flinty glare was replaced by an awful sadness, the tightness in his body deflated as if he could feel nothing more than indifference for all he had suffered.
He lifted his hand and cupped my cheek, rubbing his thumb softly against my cheekbone. I wanted to sigh in relief, but he appeared so defeated.
“You might have been my salvation at on
e time, little healer. I wish I had found you much sooner than this.” He rested his forehead softly against mine and breathed me in. His body relaxed even further, but his emotions were all wrong. Resignation—perhaps a sense of determination for some purpose or goal—carried him far beyond my reach. “I made a deal long ago that will keep me bound and chained forever.” He lifted his head and looked at me with such longing and regret I felt the effects of it right through my center.
I shook my head and grabbed hold of his hands, frightened that I was losing him. “No deal or bargain is more powerful than your own will and reason to live the life you wish. The choice still belongs to you.”
He took a step back. “I can’t choose anything.”
“You can choose me.”
Before I had time to reconsider, I boldly closed the distance between us and lightly placed my hands on either side of his face. I touched my lips to his as delicately as I could, not because I was afraid or hesitant, but because I wanted to give him the opportunity to make his own choice, to stand his ground and change his path. I wanted to afford him a chance at happiness, but not force that decision upon him as so many decisions had been forced upon me. So I took that first step and kissed him as softly as a sunrise kisses a darkened sky, hoping to receive warmth and acceptance despite the certainty of an endless night.
Musubi startled, but he didn’t push me away or pull back. He brushed his lips against mine, hovering between his desire for love and absolution, and his pressing need for revenge. Then he wrapped his arms around me and crushed his mouth to mine. His kiss was filled with passion and pain submerged in an endless sea of torment. His lips drank from mine as if he had been thirsting for most of his life and intended in that moment to take what he could in order to survive as long as possible.
There was a frantic urgency in the way his arms pressed me to him. Our ki touched and then embraced, merging with one another. I welcomed him in, allowing him to repair the parts of me that were broken—the years of damage and abuse slipped away in an instant—but it was almost as if he denied himself the same opportunity for healing. My ki could do nothing for him with this black barrier looming between us. Our powerful connection continued building. Hues of gold, streaks of glowing yellow and the stunning brilliance of the purest white suffused my mind. I readied myself to finally reach out and bridge that gap separating us and obliterate everything damaged and broken in between.