So, there had been no chance for them to share their stories, and there were likely many questions all around. She frowned when she thought of the story behind how Mizu and Tsuchi had joined their ranks, but she took a deep breath and explained it all to Taka anyway.
Taka was in turns horrified and impressed as she covered the state of the children’s village, the fate of the villagers, and then how the children had hidden—not just from the sanzoku on that day, but from every adult they had ever encountered their whole lives.
“Are they twins?” Taka asked.
“I believe so. They haven’t said as much, but they appear to be the same age. At least, as much as I can tell through that much mud. I haven’t gotten a very good look at them yet, to be honest, since they’ve gone from mud puddle to mud puddle over the past few days and this is the first time we’ve rested near water long enough for them to wash up properly.”
Even as she said the words, she could hear the two children approaching from the woods. She and Taka both turned to see them, and indeed Mishi found it refreshing to be able to make out their individual features. Mizu-chan’s face was slightly more rounded than her brother’s, and her nose curved up at the end, while his was straighter and his cheekbones were more prominent. They both looked like children finally, rather than statues, and indeed, so similar that she thought they must be twins. They were too close in height and weight to have much difference in age at all.
She turned to Taka to see what she made of them, and almost drew her sword when she saw the look on her friend’s face.
“Taka-chan? Are you all right? You look like you’ve seen a spirit.”
“I think I have.”
Taka felt trapped in her own mind as the memories crashed over her: Kiko-san questioning the instructors and getting sent to the cages, Kiko-san saying her name in the hall as they awaited their punishment, Kiko-san laughing quietly on the palette next to hers as they impersonated the instructors that terrified them most.
Kiko-san.
Kiko had been ten cycles old when Taka had first met her at the Josankō, and only thirteen when she had died in childbirth, but Taka had spent hours memorizing that face. If she had ever worried that she would forget Kiko-san with time, here was the living proof that she would not.
Even still, it took a moment for Taka’s mind to catch up with what her eyes so clearly saw.
She was looking at Kiko’s children. Yet how could that be?
She had never been certain that Kiko’s children had survived birth, and she certainly thought that the instructors would have considered them an inconvenience to be gotten rid of rather than humans to be taken care of. If nothing else, she couldn’t imagine how the instructors at the Josankō, the very people responsible for training Josanpu in how to detect and eliminate female Kisōshi at birth, had not done precisely that with Mizu-chan.
Yet here she was, clearly female, clearly a Kisōshi, and clearly alive.
Taka could feel the tears building in her eyes and her throat tightening, but she wasn’t sure what the driving emotion behind the reaction was. Sadness, in memory of Kiko? Joy, at finding Kiko’s children alive? Shock, at having both the joy and sadness thrown at her so suddenly? She couldn’t begin to isolate one, and wasn’t sure it mattered. She simply let the tears come, and let the sob fill her throat.
“Taka-san, are you all right? What is it?” asked Mitsu-san, who had just emerged from the woods, with yet another rabbit.
In her peripheral vision she could see that his eyes were locked on her, and she wondered if he had seen Mizu and Tsuchi yet without the mud covering their faces. She couldn’t remove her gaze from the children, though. Even Tsuchi, now that she took a good look at him, resembled his mother.
Finally, Mitsu followed her gaze, and then she heard the soft thump of a rabbit hitting the earth. She turned to see his eyes as wide and white as hers felt.
“It can’t be,” he said. “You said they were dead.”
“I thought they were.”
A long moment passed in which no one said anything, and then Mizu, her hair still wet and her clothing damp, asked, “Why are you staring at us?”
Taka finally realized that, as familiar as the children’s faces might seem to her or Mitsu, they would have absolutely no idea who she was, or what connection she might have to them.
She cleared her throat, but it took a few attempts before she could speak.
“I’m sorry, children. You must think me incredibly rude. I…well, I believe I knew your mother.”
Now it was Mizu and Tsuchi’s turn to stand there wide-eyed and staring.
“We don’t even know our mother, how could you?”
“I can’t be positive,” she said, after some thought. “But you both resemble her, and, Mizu-chan, you look like her in miniature. Mitsu-san knew her too, and he agrees with me.”
Mitsu nodded emphatically before speaking.
“I suppose I didn’t notice before because of all the mud,” he said, when the children looked to him for confirmation. “But you do look just like Kiko-san.”
“Kiko-san?” asked Tsuchi. “Where is she?”
Taka felt the tears well up once more, but she found she was still able to speak.
“She died.” She couldn’t bring herself to add any more, but Mizu seemed to have figured it out.
“She died when we were born, didn’t she?” the young girl said.
Perhaps she had made up the story long ago, trying to fill in the blanks of her existence, and was simply eager to have it confirmed. Hadn’t Taka done the same a thousand times in her own childhood?
“Yes, but…well, it’s more complicated than that.”
Rather than looking worried or guilty, as she had feared they might, both children seemed to be relieved. They shared a brief smile and nod, then turned back to Taka.
“And our father?”
Taka’s own face darkened with the memory of what had been done to Kiko, and she chose her next words very carefully.
“I never knew who your father was,” she said. It was the truth, or part of it, at least. How did you tell a child that her father was one of at least five men who had forced themselves on a twelve-cycle-old girl as a “punishment”? You didn’t, as far as Taka was concerned. Perhaps someday she would explain in full what had been done to Kiko-san, but not today. “I know absolutely nothing about him, not even his name.”
The children shared another look, and this time seemed a bit disappointed, but neither of them seemed overly upset.
“How did you know our mother?” asked Mizu.
Were there any safe answers she could give?
“That’s a very long story,” she replied, after some thought. “But I guess you could say that we went to school together.”
School wasn’t the word she generally chose to describe the Josankō and all the evils it held, but she didn’t know what else to call it without explaining more than she felt comfortable with to the children.
In a flash of rustling trees and general commotion, Inari appeared in the middle of their small gathering.
“I hate to cut short this touching—albeit one-sided—reunion, but the sanzoku could be closing in on us even now. We must decide where we are going, and then break camp as quickly as possible.”
Taka frowned.
“What do you mean, decide where we’re going? Aren’t we taking the children to the Zōkame estate? Surely it’s not safe to keep them out on the road like this.”
Inari said nothing in reply, but looked pointedly at Mishi and Mitsu, who exchanged a glance.
It was Mishi who spoke next.
“We had actually been torn between taking the children to safety and staying to keep an eye on the sanzoku, hopefully executing our original mission.”
Mitsu nodded, before adding, “It may be our best, perhaps our only, hope of stopping them before they strike again.”
Taka considered this, realizing what must be making them look so uncomforta
ble.
“You want me to take the children to the Zōkame estate without you,” she said.
They both nodded. She thought about that, and what it might mean. Despite the attack by the Rōjū zantō before she had left, the New Council’s soldiers had still had the upper hand in that exchange. The commander of the camp had assured her, before she left with Inari and Kusuko, that the situation would be well enough in hand without her. He had also assured her that the healers would be permitted to continue to treat townspeople in her absence. She hoped it was true, because it seemed that now it would be a question of tendays, rather than days, before she could return there. She fervently hoped the fighting would end before she had a chance to go back.
Yet, the problem wasn’t her responsibilities as the New Council’s chief healer. The problem was that she wanted to stay with Mishi and Mitsu, to ensure that they were all right. She couldn’t help them fight, but she could do her best to make sure that they didn’t die. She almost said as much, but she knew what the response would be. They would be all the more likely to get hurt if they had to worry about keeping her safe as well. She knew better than to make that argument, and she also knew perfectly well that Mishi and Mitsu would be unwilling to leave the children in anyone’s care but hers.
“Fine,” she agreed. “But I’ll need some help.”
She looked expectantly at Kusuko, and ignored the small flip that her stomach performed when the young assassin smiled, agreeing to join her without hesitation.
“Now,” said Inari, before any more questions could be raised. “We really must be going.”
Inari received no argument on that point.
As they packed their meager belongings and prepared to break camp, Mishi maneuvered herself close to Taka’s side before asking, in a whisper “Do you trust Kusuko-san to help you?”
Taka cringed a bit at the question, not because she thought it was unfair, but because she didn’t have a simple answer.
After a pause, she said, “She has had ample opportunity to hurt me, or worse, over the past few tendays. If her goal was to do me harm, wouldn’t she have done so by now?”
Mishi caught Taka’s eyes with her grey ones.
“Is that enough for you to trust her with Kiko-san’s children?”
Taka thought about that for the span of several heartbeats.
“You and Mitsu-san are needed elsewhere, and I certainly don’t trust Inari-san…. It seems foolish to travel alone with the children. I suppose it will have to be enough, for now.”
Mishi looked a bit helpless for a moment, then finally nodded her assent.
“Be careful, neh?”
Taka smiled.
“I’m the careful one, remember?”
15th Day, 3rd Moon, Cycle 1 of the New Council
KUSUKO DIDN’T LET the soft sun, light breeze, and clear skies lull her into a sense of safety, though she could understand the temptation, as winter slowly released its grip on northern Gensokai. Instead, she kept her senses open to whatever might lie just off the road, or ahead of them around a bend. The mountain forest that surrounded them, full of pine trees and dappled sunlight, was beautiful, but it would provide easy cover for anyone who wished to surprise them.
If she was meant to be the protection for their small group, then she was determined not to fail at what might be the easiest assignment she’d ever taken. Safe passage to the north for a woman and two children was perhaps not the given it would have been a cycle ago, before the remnants of the Rōjū’s allies had started their attacks, but it was still easier than almost anything she’d ever been assigned to do. Protecting Taka alone in the New Council military camp had been substantially harder than she expected this assignment to be, and even that she had considered light work.
She had spoken to Inari briefly, before he had left to do kami-knew-what—he certainly hadn’t told her what he was up to, but he hadn’t given her any additional instructions, despite his vague remarks earlier about guarding her heart. When she had asked him directly about his intentions toward handing Taka over to Mamushi-san, he had responded with standard Inari-style vagaries.
She was not reassured.
Yet, she suspected that if Inari planned to hand Taka over to Mamushi-san, he might have insisted upon it while they were on the road, with only her for a companion. It certainly would have been easy enough for them to overwhelm her on the journey from the military camp to the sanzoku stronghold, but he had never once suggested it.
Was it a test of loyalties somehow, to see if she suggested it?
She would put nothing beyond her father and Inari-san, but she wondered if she was reading too much into it.
The sound of one of the children laughing distracted her from her contemplations, bringing her mind back to the present.
She watched Taka and the children walking along the trail ahead of her, and wondered how they felt about Taka’s revelations about their mother. She pondered what it would be like to meet someone who had known her own mother. Of course, Mamushi-san had known her, but he never spoke of her, and Kusuko was uncertain whether he’d ever held any affection for her, or if she had simply been a woman he had impregnated. She knew that her mother had died in childbirth, and that Mamushi-san had not allowed the josanpu to drown her on her first day of life, and that was all.
Had the children spent the past five cycles of their lives wondering about their origins, or had they been too busy surviving to give it much thought? Surely there was always time to wonder.
It surprised her to hear either of the children laugh, and made her wonder what Taka must be telling them in order to make them forget their troubles, even briefly.
As she paid closer attention, she realized that Taka was sharing a story about the children’s mother.
“She ran so fast, even I couldn’t catch up with her,” Taka was saying.
Both children laughed.
“All for a scroll?” Mizu asked.
“Yes,” Taka said with a nod. “We were very curious. We both wished to learn more about healing than the Josankō was willing to teach us. We snuck into that library often at night, so we could choose the scrolls that actually interested us rather than just the ones on animal husbandry—interesting though those were, in their own right.”
“And they didn’t catch you?” Mizu asked, still wide-eyed and smiling.
Taka’s face clouded suddenly, her smile hiding like the sun behind a cloud.
“Not that time,” she said.
“Did they ever catch you?” Mizu persisted.
Taka nodded, the light gone from her eyes, and Kusuko felt her own gut tighten to see such a change overcome the young healer.
“What happened?” Mizu asked.
Kusuko could see the pain cross Taka’s face, her eyes tightening, her cheeks paling, her mouth a hard line.
“Mizu-chan,” she said, not knowing what Taka was going through, but feeling a desperate need to make it stop. “Did you know that Taka-san can run faster than anyone I have ever seen?”
She said it with a determined brightness and interest that made Mizu-chan look between her and Taka with curiosity. Kusuko could tell the little girl was not distracted, but she seemed willing to change topics.
“Oh?” she asked. “Have you seen many fast runners?”
“Oh yes,” Kusuko replied, her shoulders and neck loosening as the topic was accepted. “I was in Rōjū City once when they held a competition to find the fastest runners in all of Gensokai.”
Taka’s face still held traces of the pain that had gripped her earlier, but she smiled as Kusuko began her tales of watching such a competition.
Kusuko tried to ignore the warmth that spread through her when Taka mouthed “thank you” to her, as the children peppered her with questions. She told herself it was just this hifu that was thrilled with Taka’s gratitude, not her true self.
She told herself that many times, as the day wore on, and she continued watching Taka interact so easily and playfully
with the children.
She told herself the same thing when a deep sense of longing filled her that night as they made camp by the roadside. She was not capable of romantic love. Love was nothing but a liability, especially in her profession. Love was dangerous. Attachment led to pain. She had been taught that lesson over and over again by Mamushi-san. She was an expert at feigning attraction, even feigning emotion; she watched those around her closely and was well aware of what love, lust, and longing all looked like, and what they did to a person.
But she had never felt those things herself. She had never wanted to. She still didn’t want to. It could lead to nothing good. Her father had taught her that love was a liability, and made one thing perfectly clear: anything that she loved would be taken from her.
She fell asleep that night with the crack of a puppy’s neck ringing in her ears, and tossed and turned with nightmares until dawn.
17th Day, 3rd Moon, Cycle 1 of the New Council
MISHI WATCHED MITSU prepare their breakfast again, wondering if she would tire of rabbit soon.
“Are there other animals that you like to eat?” she asked.
Mitsu shrugged.
“Rabbits breed quickly, and often. It seems a kindness to help rid the world of a few of them, and squirrel doesn’t taste very good.”
Mishi smiled at that.
“Is that all you can catch then, squirrel and rabbit?”
“They’re the easiest things to snare,” Mitsu explained. “But I can hunt just about anything with the right tools.”
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