Traitor's Hope

by Virginia McClain

  “And yet, you and Taka-san arrived with reinforcements just in time to save us all,” he said, turning her trap around on her.

  She didn’t sigh, but she wanted to.

  “I had my orders,” she said, wanting to see if Inari actually knew what they had been.

  “And did those orders instruct you to arrive here with New Council soldiers in tow?”

  “My orders are none of your business,” she snapped. It was a risky move, but the truth was she didn’t officially report to Inari-san. She had started doing it only to save him the trouble of spying on her, and to leave herself the chance to misinform him, if necessary. She reported directly to Mamushi-san and no one else.

  Inari-san bowed his head slightly, though it was difficult to tell if the movement was one of agreement, or deferral. She supposed it didn’t really matter. A silence stretched between them for a long time.

  “Have I ever told you about the two times I directly disobeyed the orders Mamushi-san gave to me?”

  Kusuko didn’t allow her face to register the surprise she felt, but it took all of her lifetime of training to prevent it. She shook her head.

  “I’m certain you haven’t,” she said, trying to sound disinterested.

  Inari-san took a deep breath, and then began to speak.

  “It was long ago. I was your age…perhaps slightly older. You know that I’ve never minded contradicting Mamushi-san, and as long as I only do so in private, he has allowed it. But there were some orders that neither of us had the power to contradict. Things that neither of us could stop, whether we would have or not. I don’t know how often Mamushi-san wished to go against these orders. You know him well enough to know he doesn’t discuss his choices, or his views. Yet there are things that I’ve been asked to do that I have flatly refused, in private, and when this happens Mamushi-san simply assigns another hishi to do it. So my refusal has no effect on whether or not the thing is done, only whether I am the one who has to do it. But that is now. There was a time when I didn’t know the world well enough to know that there were things even a hishi should not have to do. Times when the idea of something proved to be very, very different from the reality.

  “I was once given an assignment that took me to a tiny village, not at all far from here. I, and a handful of my fellow hishi, were instructed to burn down a small cabin, and kill anyone who tried to escape the flames.”

  Inari paused in his story, to gauge her response, but Kusuko simply intensified her stare in a silent bid for Inari to continue.

  “I wasn’t the one to start the fire, nor was I the one who hunted down the two adults who were in the cabin when they tried to escape, but I was the one charged with eliminating the two children who were supposedly residing within. The first, a child of about five cycles of age, had been removed and deposited in a log outside of the home. I knew what I was charged with, but could not bring myself to do it. Duty or not, it seemed a monstrous task. I left him there, and did not inform my associates as to his whereabouts. The other child, a tiny girl of around two cycles of age, was pulled from her mother’s arms by one of my fellows and I took her from him, promising to dispose of her. And I did, after a fashion…I took her to an orphanage, almost a tenday away, and left her there, hopeful that no one would ever think to look for her.”

  Kusuko didn’t let the dawning realization show on her face, but her mind raced as she tried to align all that she knew of Mitsu and Taka’s childhood with the man sitting before her. A man she’d thought she’d known her entire life.

  “And the second time?”

  “Not long after that, a few moons at most, I was sent on another assignment that was centered on killing an infant…but this time I volunteered.”

  Kusuko only raised an eyebrow, but that was as good as screaming “why?!?” as far as she was concerned.

  “Not one of all my fellow hishi had thought it strange, or wrong, that we’d been asked to murder children on that assignment a few moons before. Of course, perhaps they just hadn’t thought much about it, since I had been the one asked to accomplish the task. But I couldn’t abide the idea of yet another small innocent life being taken for no good reason. I decided that I would volunteer for the very next assignment that required it, and try my hand at hiding a child again.”

  Kusuko was awed into silence at this point, but luckily Inari chose to continue anyway.

  “Yet again, I was not alone on this assignment, and my fellows were responsible for killing the adults. Yet again, I did nothing to stop it. But I had once more been assigned to taking the life of a child, this one a girl of only one cycle, possibly less, still a babe in arms. She was hidden well by her parents, and it took me some time to find her. That turned out to be lucky, as it meant that most of my companions had finished their assignments, and made their own escapes. The whole incident was meant to look as though the small family had been set upon by bandits, and our orders had been to leave the scene as soon as we’d taken care of our part. I was left to sift through the wreckage of the carriage that had been overturned and set alight, and I just barely found the infant before she was engulfed in flame. I took her to the same orphanage where I’d taken the first girl, only because I’d been able to drop her there in the middle of the night before, and no one had seen me arriving or leaving.”

  Kusuko didn’t recognize any part of this second story, except that the age of the second girl would have been right for Mishi, based on the story Taka had told her. The idea that Inari-san had saved the lives of those two girls astounded her. It defied everything that she’d known about the hishi and the laws that bound and governed them. Added to that was the thought that Inari had directly helped two people whose lives had become inextricably linked to her own. She was dumbfounded.

  “How many others did you save?” she asked at length, curious how Inari could have gone about rescuing girls without further defying Mamushi-san’s orders. He’d said that he’d only done so twice.

  “None,” Inari said placidly, though the regret in his voice was audible to one who knew him as well as Kusuko did. “I do not know if Mamushi-san realized what I was doing, or if it was mere coincidence, but I was never again assigned to a mission that required the death of a child, after I rescued the second girl. I assume that Mamushi-san knew, and did not wish to punish me, but could not allow me to continue and risk being discovered. Regardless, that was the end of my attempts to play the hero.”

  “What made you do it?” Kusuko asked, after pausing to think about what it all meant for a moment. She couldn’t understand how a trained hishi could choose to forget his conditioning so easily. They were not meant to judge their orders, only to carry them out. It was up to the hishi leader to decide if an order was appropriate or not. No individual hishi was allowed to make that judgment, else the whole group would fail in their mission, which was unacceptable. She’d been raised with that mentality, and she knew better than to question it, or at least, she’d thought she had known better.

  Yet how different had her own actions been over the past few days? She hadn’t contradicted her orders, precisely. She’d been informed that the attack meant to trap Mishi and Mitsu was coming, and to be sure to protect Taka. Yet instead of quietly moving on to the Zōkame estate, she had woken Taka and told her what was coming. And why? Because of her own personal feelings? Wasn’t that worse than disregarding an order because she thought it was wrong? Or was it the same thing? She was making a judgment call. She had decided that Mitsu and Mishi didn’t deserve to die. What gave her the right to make that choice?

  “The person I was then wouldn’t have been able to live with himself if he’d killed those children,” Inari said simply. “It’s not a choice that I regret, especially now that I’ve met the results. Indeed, I think I would have regretted the alternative far more, had that been my choice.”

  Kusuko’s eyes snapped to Inari’s face, as that comment pulled her from her own musings. So, Inari knew who he’d saved all those cycles ago. Interest
ing.

  “What choices will you regret, Hifu-chan?” Inari asked, as he rose to his feet, heading to the sliding door on the wall behind him. “Don’t let your father’s obligations betray your soul.”

  Mishi’s eyes were locked on Mitsu’s face, pale in the soft dawn light that permeated the room of the small ryokan where they had been placed the night before, the air filled with the herby scent of the healing salve that Taka had applied to Mitsu’s wound.

  Inari had offered for them to stay in his private residence, but Taka had insisted that it would be best if her patient didn’t have to be moved very far, and the ryokan was a short distance from where Mitsu had fallen. Mishi refused to leave Mitsu’s side.

  She had spent the night sleepless, legs folded beside the small futon on which he slept, her own exhaustion forgotten as her mind repeated the same horrid scene, over and over again.

  Mitsu falling away from her, an arrow in his shoulder. Mitsu hitting the deck below her, blood trickling from his mouth. Mitsu not breathing, his kisō distant, as though he were standing half a league away from her rather than lying right in front of her.

  Eventually those scenes had muddled and merged with other horrors—Sachi crying as poison flowed through her body and her end drew near, Kuma-sensei being run through by a sword, a parade of unnamed soldiers that she had put an end to. It hadn’t been a restful night, by any stretch of the imagination.

  And then, sometime around dawn, she had begun to contemplate what would have happened if Mitsu hadn’t started breathing again, what would happen if he didn’t wake up again, despite all of Taka’s healing efforts.

  Even imagining it brought on a hollow feeling that she knew all too well. She cursed herself then, for having allowed Mitsu into her heart. She realized that without wanting to, and in fact having tried to avoid it, she had allowed Mitsu a place in her soul that could hurt her just as easily as the loss of Sachi-san and Kuma-sensei had. She laughed then, silently, mirthlessly, thinking about how little control she seemed to have over these parts of herself. She could no more stop caring for people than she could stop the dreams in which she relived all of their deaths.

  She didn’t want it, though. She didn’t want this hollow feeling that came from even the thought of losing Mitsu. The same hollow feeling that persisted, moons later, in the wake of the deaths of Sachi-san and Kuma-sensei. She didn’t want any of it.

  And besides, how could Mitsu possibly want her? Knowing all that was wrong with her, how could he wish for her company? He couldn’t care for her the way he said he did, at least not now that he knew what she truly was.

  She looked up then, to see his eyes open and a smile beginning on his lips.

  “Mishi-san,” he said, in a voice that sounded rough, incapable of more than a harsh whisper.

  Without meaning to, she found that she’d placed her hand over his.

  “I’m here,” she whispered.

  “Did we win?”

  She smiled then, and squeezed the hand that lay at his side, unmoving.

  “Yes, Mitsu-san, we won.”

  “And did Taka arrive and save my life?”

  Mishi nodded.

  “She did.”

  “I’m the luckiest big brother in all the world,” he said, still smiling.

  “Indeed, and Taka will likely remind you of it for the rest of your days.”

  “Oh? Do you think so?”

  “She still reminds me of the time she put out a fire I started in our orphanage, before I’d learned to control it properly.”

  “Well, I suppose I can’t complain, really, even if she does,” he said.

  “Nor should you,” Mishi replied, smiling. “Besides, you’re on strict orders to rest until that wound has fully healed, and complaining is probably not on the list of approved restful activities.”

  “Hmm…you’re likely right.”

  He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them again he was no longer smiling.

  “Mishi-san, when I first awoke you looked sad. May I ask what’s troubling you?”

  Mishi smiled at how politely he phrased the question. Of course, she didn’t really want to explain what she’d been thinking about when he’d woken, but she thought she owed him her honesty, if nothing else.

  “I was thinking about how many things we think and feel aren’t truly under our control,” she began, glancing up from where her gaze had been locked on his hand under hers, and finding his gaze locked on her face.

  The corners of his mouth quirked slightly.

  “Ah yes, an issue I’m quite familiar with,” he said, turning his gaze to the ceiling and then closing his eyes, as though the effort of keeping them open was too much for him.

  “Well,” Mishi continued hesitantly, “I…I’m afraid, I think.” And as she said it, she realized that it was true. “I’m afraid of the pain of losing the people I care about, and whether I meant to or not, I’ve added you to the list of people I care about. It already scares me to think of how much it would hurt to lose you. I’m terrified of what might happen if I start to care for you any more than I already do.”

  And that was it, she realized. She had planned to explain that she was also a monster and that she didn’t deserve the love that Mitsu offered her, but as she explained her fear she realized that her own shortcomings were just an excuse. Mitsu knew his own mind, and he could no more control how he felt about her than she could control how she felt about him. To say she didn’t deserve it meant nothing in the equation, even if she truly felt that way. What really bothered her was the fear, almost overwhelming, that she could lose whatever might grow between them, along with losing Mitsu himself.

  She was so sick of the ache of loss.

  “That’s an honest answer,” Mitsu said, after a long moment. “And I like it better than the idea that you think you’re a monster who doesn’t deserve to be loved. Not that my liking it makes it more valid, but…well, I know how you feel. The pain isn’t as recent for me, but…it took me until I met Taka-san to ever let myself care for another person again, and even then…. You know, you weren’t the only one to have a deep heart-to-heart with Yanagi-sensei while we were in his forest.”

  “Oh?” Mishi was briefly embarrassed that she had been so absorbed in her own troubles that she hadn’t noticed that Mitsu was also in distress. “What did you discuss with him?”

  “Well, a number of things, but one of them was how much it terrified me to have a sister, and…a friend who I found more than a little attractive.”

  “Terrified you?” Mishi asked.

  “Losing my family once was hard enough. Having the potential for it to happen again…frightens me.”

  He took a deep breath before continuing.

  “But Yanagi-sensei informed me that I was being foolish, and that if I had found people who cared about me despite all my many flaws, then I should be overjoyed, rather than frightened.”

  Mishi laughed. She could imagine Yanagi-sensei delivering the lecture.

  “And did he enumerate your many flaws?” she asked.

  Mitsu gave a slight nod, and the corners of his mouth turned up.

  “Oh yes. I believe pigheaded and foolish were in there, at least once. I’m not sure. He went on for a bit.”

  He paused for a time, and Mishi wondered if he’d fallen asleep. She started to take her hand away from his, but found that his grip tightened. When she looked up again, he was looking straight at her.

  “I expected to be rejected for all of those things, and more. You accept those things about me, or maybe you just haven’t realized them yet…but instead you would reject me because you share the same fear that I do. The whole notion is sad enough to be almost comical.”

  But he wasn’t smiling, and he wasn’t dropping her gaze, either. Mishi thought she’d never been scrutinized so closely, and she shivered under his gaze, both warmed and chilled at the same time.

  Finally, he looked away, to the ceiling once more, and closed his eyes.


  “Will you really live your whole life alone, simply to prevent the pain of losing someone?” he asked.

  “Are you asking me, or yourself?” she asked, before she could think better of it.

  She saw the corners of his mouth turn up again, even though he kept his eyes closed and his face toward the ceiling.

  “I’ve already answered that question for myself. Yanagi-sensei asked it of me, over and over again, as I wallowed in…whatever it was I was wallowing in. And I answered it the moment I decided to travel with you. If I’m not willing to risk that kind of pain again, I may as well die now. It would be less tiresome, and more peaceful. I don’t wish to die, though. So, I chose to have a sister, and a friend, and…perhaps more than that, if you ever wish it.”

  Mishi didn’t know what to say to that, so she said nothing at all. Eventually Mitsu drifted into sleep once more.

  ~~~

  Mishi looked out from the top of the northern gate, at the trampled road and vegetation extending away from Shikazenji, and took a deep breath. She was relieved to find the air free of the scent of burning flesh, singed cloth, and spilled blood. The gate stood open beneath her, and the road was empty as far as the eye could see.

  She could almost believe that yesterday hadn’t happened. Almost.

  How quickly things had moved, once the New Council’s reinforcements had arrived. Mishi had been relieved beyond words that their leader was high ranking enough to take care of the sanzoku’s surrender, custody, and transport, instead of her.

  Now they simply had to hope that the force they had apprehended actually represented the bulk of the sanzoku who had been destroying villages throughout this region. She thought it likely that they did. She found it difficult to imagine too many more camps of sanzoku littered throughout the mountains, burning villages to the ground. The number that they had dealt with yesterday was more than sufficient for the damage that had been done to this region.

  “When does Zōkame-san expect us to report?” Mitsu asked, from beside her.