Traitor's Hope

by Virginia McClain

  Or perhaps they had simply watched her heal enough men to decide that she must know what she was doing. Whatever the case, no one had given her much trouble after she’d rendered Iruka-san unconscious, and she had been able to help a number of soldiers in that time as well.

  Most of the injuries weren’t that grievous, and she would have wondered why they were waiting in the tent to be treated if she hadn't realized that leaving the tent without treatment would likely mean that they would have to fight again with an injury. Any men who weren’t in the healing tent were returned to battle at once. Only a few men had injuries that required them to be completely immobilized or bed ridden, but many had injuries that would make fighting dangerous if they weren't treated.

  Taka stretched her arms above her head, and looked around the tent once more. She’d found another healer who had been willing to tell her how the pallets were organized, and what system they were using for triage, not long after she had incapacitated Iruka-san. Now she inspected some of the areas that were lower down on the priority list.

  Iruka-san himself had been attending to the high priority healings, so she had taken those over as soon as the man was unconscious. She had just healed the last high priority patient, though, so now she was looking farther down the line.

  There was a man moaning on a pallet that was farther away from her in the section meant for patients who would likely last a few days before they needed immediate care, and something in her gut made her move closer to the man.

  When she got to him, she saw that his face was covered in a thin sheen of sweat and that his breath was ragged and stuttering. She gently placed a hand on his forehead and reached out with her own kisō.

  Infection. It didn’t take long for her to sense that his body was fighting off something strong, and that it was beginning to lose the battle. Taka took a deep breath and prepared to push her kisō further.

  A hand clamped on her wrist and pulled her away from the man on the palette.

  “I thought I told you to get out,” said a deep voice, as she looked up to see Iruka-san looming over her once more.

  “And I told you,” she said, keeping her voice as level as she could, “that if you didn’t let me go I would be forced to render you unconscious. Do you need another nap, Iruka-san?”

  The man glared at her, but dropped her arm.

  “I won’t have all my efforts of the past few tendays ruined by some idiot girl.”

  Taka held her chin high as she replied, “That’s true. You won’t.”

  Iruka-san looked at her as though she’d suggested they both go have sex with dolphins, but she held her ground.

  “This man doesn’t have time for me to stand here arguing with you. He needs immediate attention.”

  Iruka-san snorted derisively.

  “This man is fine. His wounds aren’t deep, he can wait. That’s why he’s in this section of the tent.”

  Taka shook her head.

  “Whoever assessed him when he first arrived must not have assessed him with kisō. His superficial wounds have led to an infection, and if he doesn’t get help soon, he’ll die.”

  “Ridiculous! His coloring is perfectly normal, there isn’t any pus at the wound site, he—”

  “Stop using your eyes and use your kisō! His blood is tainted. It’s possible the blade that cut him was tainted too, but it doesn’t matter now. Now all that matters is stopping it before it’s too late.”

  Iruka-san glared at her and put a hand on the man on the floor. His face was set in a grimace, and his temples had begun to sweat.

  Taka didn’t want to let Iruka-san take the time to assess the man again, but she’d have to forcibly remove the other healer at this point if she wanted to treat the ill man, so she simply waited and hoped he was quick about it.

  Iruka-san’s face paled, and then his mouth set in a firm line.

  “It’s already too late. The infection has spread, he only has a few more minutes.”

  Now Taka did push Iruka-san out of the way.

  “Get out of my way. Let me work.”

  Iruka-san stepped back and watched her with the same set face.

  “He’s beyond what even I can treat, child. You’re wasting your time and energy. You’ll probably just wind up hurting yourself.”

  But Taka had already tuned out the older man and his nay-saying, placing a hand on the infected man’s chest. She sent her kisō immediately to work. She was soon so deeply focused on sending her kisō to route out the taint in the man’s blood that she barely felt the hand that grabbed her shoulder and pulled on her, or heard the commotion that followed when that hand suddenly let go before it could part her from contact with her patient.

  She had to work quickly. The infection, as Iruka-san had said, was everywhere, and moments were vital to staying ahead of it. Taka spread her kisō wide, seeking out the water of life that called to her just as any water did, and finding the parts that didn’t belong, the parts that attacked what did belong, the things that made a man so ill that he could die without ever shedding more than a drop or two of blood, and sometimes not even that.

  After a long time, though Taka had no idea how long, she blinked. Her eyes finally opened once more, no longer looking inwards, and saw the world before her. The man on the palette was asleep, breathing slowly and evenly.

  Taka took her own deep breath, and smiled.

  The faces that greeted her when she raised her head were not smiling, but Taka barely noticed their expressions, since she was too busy taking in what their bodies were doing.

  Iruka-san lay on the floor facedown, still conscious, but unmoving, and Kusuko sat on top of him with a small dagger held casually to his neck.

  The other healers in the tent were all completely still, some remaining next to their patients, others circled around Taka and the tableau on the floor. Taka wondered briefly if Kusuko had ruined her chances of collecting information with this display, but before she had time to worry about it, she realized she needed to fix things before they got out of hand.

  “He’s healed,” she said. “Now, before anyone else moves, I’d like to point out that pulling me away from a patient is never a good idea. Not only could it kill the patient, as it certainly would have in this situation, but as you can see, I am not without my defenses.”

  And so what if my “defenses” are a tiny woman in full kimono, she thought to herself. They are obviously effective regardless. Taka decided that if Kusuko had brought this much attention to herself then she might as well take full advantage of it, and try to make it so that her services as “defense” were never needed again, at least not against these men.

  “Now,” Taka continued. She stood up and almost instantly went down again. Kusuko was immediately by her side, holding her by the arm. “I need rest,” she announced, perhaps unnecessarily. “I will be returning to my quarters for the night, but if there is an emergency I expect to be sent for. If not, I will return in the morning and expect no more trouble.”

  She said that last with as much command as she could muster, and hoped that, between her tone of voice and the threat of Kusuko’s dagger, her words would be heeded.

  Then she let Kusuko help her through the tent flaps and out of sight of the healing tent entirely before finally collapsing. She was surprised to feel herself lifted into a set of arms, and to look up and see Kusuko’s face smiling down at her as she was carried across the camp.

  2nd Day, 3rd Moon, Cycle 1 of the New Council

  KUSUKO WATCHED TAKA’S chest rise and fall in the flicker of the low candlelight, her slow, somnolent breaths barely discernible against the constant background noise of a military camp, and wondered what it must be like to save lives rather than take them for a living.

  She had pulled Taka out of the kimono she’d been wearing, as it had been covered by more than its fair share of blood and other fluids. She hadn't thought that Taka would appreciate soiling her bed roll that way on her first night in her quarters.

&nb
sp; Now Taka was tucked away in her bedroll, sleeping the sleep of a woman who had just saved a life and impressed the devil out of more than twenty other healers. She wondered if Taka knew that none of the men in that room were capable of doing what she had done.

  Kusuko knew, not only because of Iruka-san's reaction and his attempts to “pull her away from that man before she hurts herself,” but also because she could see it in the faces of all of the healers who had watched Taka cure that man. The surprise, astonishment, and even envy on some of them had been clear within a moment or two.

  She hadn’t meant to show her true abilities anywhere near so soon in the assignment. After all, people would be far more willing to speak in front of her if they thought that she was a quiet, demure maidservant. Yet she rather relished the idea that those men, who had secretly hoped that Taka would fail in her attempt to heal the infected man, would attempt to stop Taka again, and this time get a true stomping.

  She had thoroughly enjoyed taking the pompous Iruka-san down a few notches in front of all of his healers. It was always particularly entertaining to take down a man almost twice her height, especially with an audience. So, the men would be reluctant to say anything to her or in front of her, at least for a tenday or so, but eventually they would forget. They always did. She was so small, and she dressed like a doll, and they were so unused to women being able to fight…they would forget. But, for a little while at least, they would be leery of trying to force Taka out of the healing tent, and perhaps that would be long enough for Taka to make her own impression on them. If she hadn’t already.

  When Kusuko considered what the other healers had been saying when they’d been trying to get Taka away from the sick man—”He’s beyond saving,” “She’ll just hurt herself,” “Using that much kisō will kill her,”— and then when she considered the looks on their faces when Taka had finished, still conscious and with the man clearly resting peacefully…she thought perhaps Taka had already impressed them.

  Not that she’d been given a choice, but the healing arts had never appealed to Kusuko. Of course, perhaps that was because she was a fire kisō and wouldn’t be able to use her power for healing anyway. Even still, she preferred learning how to defend herself, and how to incapacitate her enemies, to learning how to heal the wounded or sick.

  It wasn’t the killing that satisfied her, it was knowing that she could outsmart her enemies, learn their weaknesses and exploit them. It was the power of knowing that she could protect herself.

  Then she thought of Taka rendering those men unconscious with the touch of her hand, and remembered her doing something similar in the battle at Rōjū City. Perhaps the woman wasn’t completely without defenses then, but she still wouldn’t like to be as unprotected as the young healer was.

  She shuddered.

  That was all right, she would be here to protect Taka, to make sure that none of the men got the wrong idea about her, or tried to hurt her out of jealousy or spite.

  Then she wondered why she felt so protective of the young woman. She was just another assignment, she told herself.

  Inari’s subtle warning rang in her mind again. You know how Mamushi-san can be.

  A shiver ran down her spine. Yes. She did.

  ~~~

  Kusuko threw the ball to the puppy and squealed with delight when the puppy caught it. Her small, rounded face was alight as the small red and white dog trotted over to her with a triumphant grin on its face.

  “Do you like puppies?” her father asked.

  “Yes, Otō-san, I love puppies!” she shouted gleefully.

  “Excellent,” her father said. “Now, please hate puppies.”

  Kusuko looked quizzically at her father for a moment.

  “But, Otō-san, I love puppies.”

  “No, child, you hate them.”

  Kusuko had already learned in her five cycles that her father could turn angry very quickly, and she did not wish to anger him. She had already disagreed once, and she knew better than to do it again.

  “Yes father, I hate puppies.”

  “Now, please convince me that you hate puppies,” he said, in a calm voice that made her wary.

  Kusuko thought about that for a moment.

  “Go away, puppy!” she shouted. “Go away, I hate you!”

  The small red and white fluffball looked at her with one ear raised and the other half folded, its small head tilted to one side, but it didn’t move.

  “Go AWAY, puppy!” she shouted again, now afraid of what would happen if the puppy persisted in staying with her. The puppy just looked at her, then began to whine.

  “You don’t sound like you hate the puppy, Kusuko-chan,” her father said. His voice was still calm and even, which made Kusuko scared. If this was a lesson, then she couldn’t predict what would happen. Mamushi-san never reacted the same way twice between one lesson and the next.

  “I HATE YOU, PUPPY!” she screamed, trying to will the puppy to run from the courtyard. The puppy looked at her and whined again, probably desperately wondering why she was afraid.

  “Kick him,” her father suggested.

  Kusuko blanched. She had been willing to scream at the puppy and chase it away, but kicking it would hurt it and she didn’t think the puppy deserved to be hurt.

  “Go on,” her father prodded. “Kick him.”

  She knew she shouldn’t refuse, that it would make her father furious, but she couldn’t bring herself to hurt the small creature. It was so tiny, and it trusted her so much. They had just been playing and it had been so happy with her, why did she have to hurt it?

  “I can’t,” she whispered, terrified of what the punishment would be for failing her father this time.

  “Yes, you can,” he encouraged. “You have to.”

  She tried to picture herself kicking the small, trusting furball, but she couldn’t make herself do it.

  “He trusts me, Otō-san,” she replied.

  “And you must kick him, or else I will kick him, and you don’t want that, do you?”

  Kusuko thought about that for a moment. Did she want her father to kick the puppy? It would mean that she wouldn’t have to kick the puppy, which was good, but her father was much bigger than she was, and much stronger too. Wouldn’t it hurt the puppy more if he kicked it?

  She stepped forward to kick the puppy. She even pulled her leg back. But the puppy just sat there, whining, wondering what was causing tears to stream down his playmate’s face, and she couldn’t do it.

  “I can’t Otō-san, I’m sorry.”

  She closed her eyes and waited for the beating that would befall her. Perhaps it would be the same as the time she had failed to lie successfully to the maids who worked in the nursery. She waited, but no beating came. Instead she heard a loud crack and a muffled yelp, then her father’s footsteps leaving the room.

  When she opened her eyes, the blank stare of the puppy met her gaze, and she sat in the small courtyard crying until the sun came down.

  ~~~

  Kusuko startled awake and wiped a hand across her eyes, but found them dry. She didn’t think it was coincidence that she’d had that dream tonight. Her memory knew well what Mamushi-san could be like. She would have to be very careful going forward. She knew that she had good reasons for this hifu to befriend Taka, even good reasons to take it further than that. It could be very advantageous to her current assignment to get as close to Taka as the young healer would allow, but she would have to be careful indeed if she didn’t want Mamushi-san to misinterpret that closeness, or consider it a threat.

  She sighed, as she turned to check on Taka’s sleeping form a few armspans away from her. She would have to make sure that her core-self felt none of the affection for Taka that her hifu might feel, and then she would have to be very careful to prove that to her father.

  3rd Day, 3rd Moon, Cycle 1 of the New Council

  MISHI CAUGHT THE smell of smoke and rotten meat on the wind and she turned to look at Mitsu. He nodded, but said nothing,
and they both quickened their pace as they descended through the densely forested valley toward the creek and the small village that lay next to the nearest road.

  They had left the road for a few days after Mitsu had picked up the trail of what might have been a sanzoku scout, thanks to Riyōshi’s warning, but either the man had realized they were following him, or they had simply lost him. Now they headed down through the valley toward a small village that they had heard was one of the few places to report the birth of a female Kisōshi since the overthrow of the Rōjū Council.

  Despite the change in the laws that governed Gensokai, and the efforts the New Council had made to spread word of those changes and support the new laws, there were almost no reported births of females with enough kisō to become Kisōshi. It was difficult to know if this was because the births were that rare, or because none of the parents felt confident yet that their children would actually be spared.

  With these latest attacks from sanzoku on towns supposedly harboring female Kisōshi, Mishi could hardly blame the parents. It didn’t seem that there was any guarantee that their children would be protected, and what good did it do to proclaim them to the New Council? Children couldn’t attend schools for Kisōshi until the age of five. Why risk anything before then?

  Yet, the village they were nearing had done precisely that, or the parents of the child had, and now Mishi’s stomach was turning as the smell of smoke and rotten meat grew stronger, the closer they got.

  It wasn’t long before both Mishi and Mitsu were running, by unspoken agreement, though Mishi wasn’t sure what good they thought it would do to get there more quickly. Still, the feeling of apprehension was only getting stronger, and Mishi supposed it couldn’t hurt to find out for certain what had happened sooner rather than later.

  When they got to the village, Mishi thought she could have gone a lifetime without seeing what had happened.