“You could always put yourself out of a job,” she mused.
“Oh?” Kusuko asked, looking startled.
“You could teach me to defend myself,” Taka replied.
Kusuko smiled then, and something about the gesture made Taka’s insides turn in a warm, pleasant way.
“And if I don’t wish to be out of a job?” she asked, with a playful tilt to her head.
“Surely you must be tired of keeping an eye on me. This must be the most boring assignment you’ve ever been given.”
Kusuko actually laughed aloud at that comment. She looked around the room as though assessing whether or not anyone else could hear them. They appeared to be the only ones awake at this hour, but appearances could be deceiving, as Taka imagined Kusuko knew all too well.
“You underestimate how boring our training assignments can be,” Kusuko said, as her gaze returned to Taka. “And you underestimate how much I enjoy your company.”
Taka could feel the blood rushing to her neck and cheeks, but she tried to ignore the reaction, deciding to change the subject instead.
“Earlier, before the attack, you were asking about Mitsu-san. Why?”
Kusuko shrugged, and Taka wondered, not for the first time, if the woman was excellent at dissembling, or if Taka could trust what she read in her face. She had seen Kusuko keep a carefully blank face in front of Tsuku-san…could she also look genuine when she wasn’t? Mishi had said that she had believed for days that Kusuko-san was an air-headed courtesan, but then she had proven herself to be an incredibly insightful spy and assassin. Taka tried to remind herself that the beautiful face she saw before her belonged to a hishi, but she had a difficult time believing it. Not because she doubted the woman’s fighting abilities, far from it, but because she saw something in her that seemed too…sincere. Perhaps she was just fooling herself.
“I wanted to know more about you, and…Mitsu-san and Mishi-san seem as though they mean quite a lot to you.”
Taka nodded, then yawned. They had been working throughout the day, and half the night was probably gone as well.
“Shall we return to the tent?” she asked.
Kusuko assented, and they walked out of the tent together.
“So, how did you discover that you and Mitsu were siblings?” she asked as they walked.
Taka considered whether or not she should share this story with Kusuko, but she couldn’t think of a reason not to. What importance could her familial ties possibly have to a spy?
“When we were traveling together this past winter, Mitsu-san and I were staying outside of the village where he lived with his parents before they died in the fire that took their house and, he believed at the time, his sister as well. I didn’t know any of that, but we made camp for the night and I had a dream in which I was trapped in a burning house, searching for a small hawk figurine. In the morning, Mitsu-san went to visit the small shrine he had made for his family. I saw the same hawk totem on it that I had seen in my dream, which led me to tell Mitsu-san about it. Apparently, I’d gotten a number of details right about…things I shouldn’t have known unless I had been there.”
“And the figurine?” Kusuko prompted.
“Mitsu-san informed me that it had been the totem his parents had given, first to him, and then to his baby sister, to help them sleep. His baby sister called it “Taka,” and it was one of the only words she could say at the time his parents were killed.”
“She?”
“Well, I, apparently, although it’s not as though I remember any of it.”
“So you don’t know how you survived?”
Taka shook her head. She didn’t remember much of anything until after she’d arrived at the orphanage.
“I only know that everyone at the orphanage called me Taka. I once asked Haha-san why, and she said that I’d had a scrap of parchment with that word on it in my hand when they’d found me on the doorstep. I always thought she was just making up a story for me, but now…”
By now they had reached Taka’s tent, which was where Kusuko had been staying most nights as well, since the first time that Taka had found herself with an unwanted nighttime visitor.
Taka pulled back the flap to enter, but Kusuko put a hand on her arm.
“Does Mitsu-san know why his parents, your parents, were killed? You made the fire sound as though it wasn’t an accident.”
Taka shook her head.
“He’s never said. I can only assume it was because of me. If it had become known that our parents had somehow kept a daughter with enough kisō to be a yukisō…I would guess that someone reported them to the Rōjū, or at least to the local magistrate.”
Taka saw Kusuko’s face change slightly in what little moonlight was available, and she wondered if it was sadness or some other emotion that crossed her face.
“The Rōjū must never be allowed to regain power,” she muttered.
Taka only nodded, pulling the tent flap back once more.
When she turned to enter the tent, her world went black
Kusuko saw the sack go over Taka’s head, and had her hand on her shuriken before Taka could be pulled inside the tent.
She rolled low, directly behind Taka’s disappearing form, and quickly threw three of the small multi-pointed blades into the three men she could just see on the other side of the opening.
Luckily, they were only treated with a sleeping draught, not poison, as she had no idea who these men were or why they had been sent to take Taka. If she killed some of Mamushi’s men by accident…well, he would blame them for being sloppy, but he wouldn’t be happy with her, either.
Of course, the effect of the sleeping draught wasn’t instantaneous, so she rolled once more to get through the door, quickly sweeping the legs out from under the man who restrained Taka’s arms. He went down, but he pulled Taka with him. Kusuko decided that he wasn’t a priority; Taka could likely render him unconscious herself, now that her arms were free, and the sleeping draught would take effect soon.
In fact, just as Kusuko was regaining her feet and turning toward the next opponent, he dropped on his own, and she heard the man behind her collapse as well.
“Well, that was interesting,” she said, standing up and brushing the dirt from her kimono. “Are you all right?”
She reached a hand down to help Taka up as she asked the question. Taka had already removed the sack from her head on her own.
Taka merely nodded. She looked paler than usual, and she shook ever so slightly, but she wasn’t panicking.
“More reason for you to teach me to defend myself,” she said eventually.
Kusuko found that thought amusing, but was intrigued by it too. Taka was athletic enough in her own way, excellent runner that she was, so she could probably be taught a few things about fighting that would help her in a situation like this. And teaching her could have…potential. If she wanted to get close to the young woman, sparring was an excellent way to do it. She ignored the small shiver of excitement that ran up her spine at the prospect, and instead focused on the present. She reached for the flap to the tent and checked outside, then continued to hold it open.
“We shouldn’t stay here tonight. Whoever sent those men could send more. Come with me, I’ll show you to the inn I was staying at before.”
The room she’d rented the first few nights after their arrival might not be available anymore, but something would be, and Kusuko didn’t like the idea of sleeping anywhere predictable after this.
Taka nodded, gathered a few belongings, and turned to follow her, but Kusuko gestured for her to exit first.
Kusuko waited until Taka was outside of the tent, and then in a breath that was barely a whisper she said, “I’ll talk to you later Inari-san.”
The shadow that hid within the shadows behind the tent flap that she held open only nodded, a motion that even Kusuko wouldn’t have seen if she hadn’t been looking for it.
Then she stepped outside of the tent and led Taka away.
> Taka lay with her eyes open, staring at the ceiling of the room in the small ryokan that Kusuko had led her to, and listened to the soft sounds of Kusuko’s breath and the silence of the inn. She breathed in air that smelled of tatami and cooking fires, and she wondered what was keeping Kusuko awake.
The young assassin’s breathing was soft and regular, but she was not asleep yet. Taka could tell that her heart was not following the steady, constant pattern that it would if she were asleep.
Was the young woman also lying there wondering if more men would seek them out tonight? Did Kusuko have any idea what those three men had planned to do with her?
Taka was still rattled by the attack that had come when they’d reached her tent. It was somehow different from the other attacks that she’d endured since she arrived. Was that because there had been more than one attacker? She certainly wouldn’t have been able to escape the three men who had been waiting for her if Kusuko hadn’t been there. The other two men who had attacked her over the past tenday…she probably could have rendered them unconscious before they hurt her, which somehow had made the attacks less threatening. That wasn’t true of tonight’s attackers. If Kusuko hadn’t been there, she would be in their power right now. She shuddered. She didn’t know what they had planned for her, but she was very glad that she wouldn’t be finding out.
She noticed that she was shaking and took a few deep breaths to the count of ten to try to stabilize her breathing. When that didn’t work, she closed her eyes and thought of her woodland home. Visualizing the small creek that ran near her cave and the animals that she often encountered there helped her to regain a feeling of calm.
Once her breathing was even, she tried to maintain that breath pattern, slow, calm, measured breaths, until she fell asleep. It didn’t quite work, though. Her brain was alight with concerns, and no matter how carefully she breathed, her mind would not allow her to rest. Even with her eyes closed. Even when she curled up on one side in the position that was most comfortable to her for sleeping.
She was surprised then, when she heard Kusuko get up from her palette. For a moment, Taka thought that the young woman was coming over to join her, and she wasn’t sure if she was disappointed or pleased when it turned out not to be true.
She was certainly confused when she heard the shoji door slide open and closed, and then she began to feel confusion give way to dread when she realized that Kusuko had “snuck” away thinking that Taka was asleep.
She tried to tell herself that she didn’t care if the assassin was trustworthy or not, that it didn’t matter if the former hishi was actually loyal to the New Council, or still somehow loyal to the Rōjū. She knew that was a lie, though, as she began to suspect the latter. She did care, and the thought made her quite sad.
So she did nothing when she heard the young assassin return in the hours just before dawn, and she never asked where the young woman had been.
At least she didn’t have to go far to find Inari-san this time. The warmly lit room, filled with the familiar scents of sake and cooking food, was just across the road from the ryokan where she and Taka were staying for the night.
Kusuko poured the warm sake, careful not to drip onto the sleeves of the server’s kimono she had “borrowed” from the back room of her own inn, and settled herself across from Inari-san.
“Is there anything else I can get for you, okyaku-sama?” she said, addressing Inari-san as befit her role of izakaya server.
“I would like some information,” he replied.
“I’m afraid I have nothing of interest to report,” she said, keeping her tone as neutral as possible.
“After all the time you’ve been spending in close company with Taka-san, you have nothing to report? I find that difficult to believe.”
Kusuko bowed, allowing the point.
“I have managed to learn a number of personal details about Taka-san, but nothing that I think would be of interest to any of our employers.”
“And is that your decision to make?”
Rather than answer that inconvenient question, Kusuko countered with a question of her own.
“Why were you planning to abduct the woman I’ve been assigned to protect?”
Inari-san looked at her with an assessing gaze. For a long moment Kusuko wondered if he was going to refuse to tell her, and if so, on what grounds, but he eventually replied.
“The Rōjū have decided that she would be of greatest use if she came to be on their side of the current conflict, and had hoped to…persuade her to heal their soldiers.”
“An interesting choice….Did they really think that she would agree?”
Inari-san shrugged.
“They perhaps planned to neutralize her, if she did not wish to aid their cause.”
“I see.”
Kusuko thought about that for a moment. She tried to ignore the hot spike of anger that pierced her at the thought of Taka being “neutralized” for the sake of the Rōjū’s aspirations, an emotion she found altogether surprising and disconcerting. Even still, she understood their reasoning; Taka had materially altered the outcome of this conflict so far, so much so that the enemy had begun surrendering in order to be treated by her rather than their own healers. What remained of the Rōjū and their allies must be facing a war of attrition at this point, and that was likely not a situation they embraced. Perhaps they thought that there would be a way to manipulate Taka into working for their side. Perhaps they had something they thought Taka would consider valuable enough to make her comply. She considered that.
She took a moment to weigh what she knew of the players. There was Mamushi-san: ever practical, but merciless when it came to his own people and their loyalties. Then, the remaining Rōjū: increasingly desperate as their chances of reestablishing themselves as the dominant force in Gensokai dwindled with each day that the New Council did not fall. And Taka: stubborn, loyal, and with a deep hatred of the Rōjū that could likely only be overcome if she needed to save the lives of people she cared about deeply.
Finally, she considered, briefly, her own wants and her own emotions. She wasn’t sure exactly what she felt toward Taka, but she was certain of one thing: she did not want the young healer to die. But the Rōjū were desperate enough that they would certainly kill her if they knew that she would refuse to serve them. Was there anything she could actually do to keep Taka out of the hands of the Rōjū? She could try, but that would risk Mamushi-san’s ire and the outcome was by no means guaranteed. No, the best way to keep Taka alive would be to make sure that she would comply with the Rōjū, should they manage to capture her. She calculated all of this in a few cold seconds of thought, and then spoke.
“Are you aware that Taka-san has a brother?” she asked.
Inari’s eyebrows rose, and Kusuko began to tell the tale that Taka had shared with her earlier that night. Inari’s face was carefully blank through the whole telling, except when she reached the part about the fire, and Taka disappearing and then showing up at the same orphanage that Mishi would be taken to a cycle later. It was barely a twitch of the brow, and if Inari had been responding to the story as a normal person would she might have thought nothing of it. But Inari had schooled his features, as he often did during her reports, and that twitch was as jarring as if he had jumped up and down screaming.
Inari knew something about the story that Kusuko was telling, which meant he knew something about Mitsu and Taka that he wasn’t telling her.
11th Day, 3rd Moon, Cycle 1 of the New Council
TAKA WAS SURPRISED that she’d fallen asleep again after hearing Kusuko return in the middle of the night. She had assumed that the time she’d spent lying awake waiting for Kusuko to come back and do something sinister, be it return with Rōjū zantō or simply try to poison her, would have led to her being unable to sleep for the remainder of the night. Yet she had awoken with the dawn feeling as though she had slept for at least part of the night.
Her mind resumed its worrying, though, as soon
as she was awake, and she could do little to distract it from wondering whether or not Kusuko could ever be trusted. Then Taka had wondered if it was reasonable to even want to trust Kusuko. Mishi had warned her that the woman was deceitful, and she knew that Kusuko was a trained spy and assassin, so was it crazy to wish for her to be trustworthy? Was she being naive to think that a person like that could ever develop real loyalty beyond her current employer?
She sighed, then looked around the slowly brightening room to see if Kusuko had heard her, but the young woman appeared to be asleep and, this time, her heart rate and breathing confirmed it.
Taka’s eyes wandered around the small, simple room, only six tatami mats large, and unadorned save a single small painting on the sliding door that led to the hallway.
Was it possible that Kusuko had gone somewhere benign in the night? Could she have left to go bathe, and simply taken a luxuriously long time doing so?
Taka shook her head. She was being ridiculous. When a “former” hishi pretends to sleep, then sneaks out of a room in the middle of the night, she doesn’t do it to have a bath. She does it because she is serving more than one master and doesn’t wish for the one to know of the other.
That was ultimately the conclusion that Taka had come to the night before. If Kusuko was sneaking off in the middle of the night, it was because she wasn’t working for Zōkame-san and the New Council alone.
A knock on the shoji startled Taka from her musings. She pulled off the blankets that she’d slept in through the night, and was just reaching for the door when Kusuko was suddenly beside her. She saw the woman holding a dagger discreetly by her side, even though her arm was in a natural and relaxed pose. Taka wondered vaguely if she always answered the door like that, or if she expected trouble.
Either way, she decided it was best to stay behind the petite assassin while she slid the door open, just in case.
“What do you want?” Kusuko asked.
As she hadn’t attempted to stab whoever she was speaking to, Taka decided that it was at least safe enough to take a look at the person at the door. She shifted so that she had a clear view of the doorway, and almost gasped in shock.
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