“You look much better than when last I saw you,” she said, unshed tears still in her eyes.
Mishi only nodded. She didn’t think she could speak without shedding her own tears, and she preferred to wait until they were in the privacy of the kitchens before she did that.
“Come,” Ami said again, taking her hand.
Everything looked different now, as Mishi had known it would, since everything was new. The old school had been razed to the ground by the fire that Kuma-sensei had asked her to light when they were abandoning the place to the Rōjū soldiers seven moons ago.
Ami, Katagi, and Tenshi had been forced to construct a new school, from nothing. Yet, Mishi was pleased to find the layout identical to the old school, her old home, and was delighted that the kitchens were exactly where she had expected them to be.
“I never thought I’d be able to return here,” she said, without thinking, as they entered the kitchens and the smell of steaming rice filled her nostrils.
She was surprised to see that Ami only nodded.
“I had thought it might be that bad,” she said.
“You knew what was wrong with me?” Mishi asked, awestruck.
Ami tilted her head to one side, in a manner that was so nostalgic to Mishi that she almost laughed, despite her surprise.
“Not exactly, no, but I could tell that I made you uncomfortable, and that Katagi-san did as well. Mishi-chan, we’ve been sisters for eight cycles now, and in all that time I’ve never made you uncomfortable, not even when I’ve pelted you with nosy questions, or spent a tenday without bathing. I knew something was wrong, and, well…you weren’t the only one who was having nightmares. Mine likely weren’t as troubling as yours, but…I could guess.”
Mishi fought back tears at the thought that Ami had suffered any portion of the same nightmares that had been tormenting Mishi for all these moons. Unsure what to say, she reached forward, embracing her adopted sister and letting tears stream down her face.
“I’m so sorry I didn’t talk to you about it,” she said, still holding Ami close. “I don’t know how I could have been so selfish as to think that I was the only one suffering…”
“It’s all right, Mishi-chan,” Ami said, her own voice also choked with tears. “I didn’t say anything either, and…well, it was hard enough as it was, ne? I’m just glad that you came back. We’ve missed you, Mishi-chan.”
Mishi couldn’t think of anything else to say, so she simply held Ami tighter, and let the tears flow freely from her eyes.
“Any chance you’ve got one of those to spare?” an uncertain voice asked, from the doorway behind them.
Mishi released her sister and looked up. She had been too absorbed in the emotions of the moment with Ami to sense anyone approaching, and her stomach dropped slightly to see Katagi standing in the doorway, his eyes downcast like a kicked puppy’s.
“Katagi-san,” she muttered, unsure if she was pleased to see him or not. Still, when she saw the pain in his eyes, as he glanced at her once more, she knew that she didn’t want to be responsible for that hurt any more than she already was. “Come here,” she said, opening her arms and wrapping him in a hug that was only slightly less desperate than the one she had given Ami.
“It’s good to see you, Mishi-san,” Katagi said, returning her embrace.
Mishi nodded, not sure what she could say without her voice breaking.
Ami touched both their shoulders, then wiped at her eyes.
“I should go check on the students,” she said. “You’re staying for dinner, Mishi-chan?”
Mishi nodded, even as she and Katagi released each other.
“You look much better,” Katagi said, as Ami made her way out of the kitchen.
Mishi chuckled, wiping at her eyes.
“So everyone tells me,” she said dryly.
Katagi smiled then, and Mishi grinned to see the genuine happiness on his face. She had worried that she would see hurt in his eyes every time that she looked at him.
“You look better too,” she said, only now remembering the brooding stares she had received from him moons ago, before she had taken off with Taka and Mitsu on their travels north.
Katagi laughed then, a full and earnest sound.
“Yes, well, I think I’ve finally learned that pining after a woman doesn’t give you any right to her affections.”
Mishi flinched at that statement, surprised by the brutal honesty behind it, but there was no malice in Katagi’s tone, and he only laughed again when she cocked an eyebrow at him.
“I think I owe you an apology for…my assumptions about our friendship, Mishi-san.”
Her puzzlement must have shown on her face.
“Let’s just say that, after many hours of conversation with Tenshi-san and Ami-san, I’ve reassessed what all my confessions of love were really worth.”
Now Mishi was sure that her eyes must be wide as tea cups.
“Mishi-san, you were the first person that I had ever had feelings for, and…well, you know everything that I said…and I meant it all, but…after you left I felt that you had betrayed me somehow. That I deserved your time and affection simply because I had offered you my own.”
Mishi waited for Katagi to say more. She couldn’t begin to guess what kind of a response she was expected to give.
“Thankfully, Tenshi-san and Ami-san made it very clear to me that I was…well, an ass, to put it simply. You had never made any kind of commitment to me, and it was ridiculous for me to expect anything from you.”
Mishi was dumbfounded. She had come here dreading the conversation she would be forced to have with Katagi, worried that the hurt puppy face she’d seen at the beginning would only be the start of a long conversation, in which she would have to explain her feelings to him. Instead, he had flipped the whole thing on its head, and was telling her all the things that she’d thought she would have to explain to him.
“I do hope you’ll still accept my friendship, though,” Katagi said quietly, after a long silence.
Mishi looked into his eyes, and saw that the offer was sincere. She smiled then, and wrapped her arms around him once more.
“Katagi-san, I would be honored to continue to call you friend.”
19th Day, 9th Moon, Cycle 3 of the New Council
TAKA LISTENED TO the rhythmic clack of Mizu and Tsuchi going through their forms together, then laughed as the choreographed play of wooden swords deteriorated into an unplanned wrestling match.
“Knock it off!” she called, from her place by the fire at the mouth of her small cave, without ceasing her careful scribbling on the scroll she had laid out on her small scribe’s lap desk. The school of yukisō was expecting her latest report on the advantages of mixing kisō from various elements in healing soon, and she wasn’t about to allow Mizu and Tsuchi’s sibling squabbles to distract her from her writing.
The children continued their wrestling match, though, and she was about to stand, to break things up, when another voice called from the far side of the clearing in front of her cave.
“I can guarantee you that your weapons instructor will be furious, if she hears that you’re ignoring your healing instructor.”
Taka swallowed then, recognizing the voice, and took a moment to breathe and compose herself, before looking up at a face she hadn’t seen in over two cycles.
“Mishi-san will be here in a day or two. She had business at the Zōkame estate, and she will not be pleased to learn that her pupils are ignoring their other instructor,” Kusuko said to the children, who now stood with their gazes on the ground.
“Yes, Kusuko-san,” they replied.
“Now, Yanagi-sensei has informed me that he is in need of some arrowroot for a salve, and I have some sweet bean mochi, fresh from the Zōkame’s kitchen, for the first person who finds him some.”
The two children were gone, almost before Kusuko had finished issuing her challenge.
“I have arrowroot stored in the cave,” Taka said, not knowi
ng what else to say to the woman who approached her, clad in a pristine red and black kimono, complete with an elaborately tied obi and shining hair combs.
“Then I suppose you win the mochi,” Kusuko replied, smiling.
Taka laughed, though she wasn’t sure what was funny.
“It’s good to see you,” she said.
“Is it?” Kusuko asked, the hope in her face almost painful for Taka to see. “I wasn’t sure I’d ever be a welcome visitor here.”
Taka sighed. She didn’t know how to explain how she felt to Kusuko, or anyone else, for that matter, so she changed topics.
“Mishi-san told me that you’d been helping her look for female Kisōshi,” she said.
“Yes. After she started helping me heal, after you talked to her about using fire kisō to heal another fire kisō…we’ve become friends, of a sort. And I find myself well suited to asking the kinds of questions needed to find people who might still be in hiding.”
“I imagine so,” Taka said. She felt the smile that had started to form on her lips fading, and realized that they had inadvertently come right back to the topic that she’d been trying to avoid.
“Do you think you could ever trust me again?” Kusuko asked.
“Was it you who told the hishi about the children running away? About how they could be used against us?”
Kusuko hesitated, but eventually nodded.
“It was. I went to report to Mamushi-san, as soon as you turned me away,” she said.
Taka cringed, hating the reminder that she had been cruel to Kusuko that night. Could she blame her for acting against them, then?
That still didn’t explain things.
“What made you change your mind? Inari-san said that you sent him to us, that day.”
Kusuko smiled, then.
“Ah yes, Inari-san. Rather like the many-tailed fox he’s named for, don’t you think?”
Kusuko paused for a moment, but when Taka said nothing, she continued.
“He found me that day, right after I’d reported to Mamushi-san, and questioned me about everything I’d just done. I told him, as he was a colleague, if you will, and I had no reason to hide anything from him, anyway. And then he looked me in the eyes and asked me a question that I couldn’t answer, for a moment. He asked me if I wished it undone. Of course, I told him that was preposterous, that it couldn’t be undone. He admitted that was true, in the strictest sense, but that the outcome could be changed, if I wished it.”
Kusuko stopped then, and Taka waited for her to continue, but she didn’t.
“That still doesn’t tell me why,” she said, after a long while.
“Two reasons,” Kusuko said, after pausing so long that Taka thought she wouldn’t speak. “One of them was that none of it made sense anymore. I used to think that following my orders helped to preserve the ruling of Gensokai, helped to keep things running. But everything I was asked to do against the New Council was sowing disruption—it was the opposite of the purpose that I’d always thought my role was serving. I had just spent moons with you and your allies, learning how desperately the New Council was trying to establish order, an order that made way for women with power, and consequently those without it as well, and then my actions, my orders, were to help tear that all apart.”
“And the other reason?” Taka asked, after a long moment.
“The other reason was you,” Kusuko replied, her gaze suddenly flitting to the trees nearby. “I hated the idea of putting you, and those you cared for, in danger.”
Taka was quiet for a long time, and Kusuko didn’t disturb the silence.
“I wondered why you never joined Mishi-san when she came to visit and instruct the children,” she said, at last.
“I thought I wouldn’t be welcome, and…I was too much a coward to see the rejection in your eyes.”
Taka appreciated the honesty of that reply.
“Kusuko-san, I can’t say that I can trust you right now,” she said, after careful thought.
She saw the disappointment in Kusuko’s eyes, and quickly added the rest of what she wanted to say.
“But I would love to get to know you, the real you, whatever you’ve decided that is, and learn to trust you.”
The smile that radiated from Kusuko brought a warmth to Taka that did much to help counter the chill fall air.
“I hear you need help keeping the two miscreants in line anyway,” Kusuko said, her face full of too many emotions to name. Taka decided she preferred it to the cold mask that she was used to seeing on Kusuko.
“They do prefer their fighting lessons to their healing lessons, most days,” she admitted. “And Mishi-san doesn’t visit often enough.”
“Perhaps I could help with that,” Kusuko offered.
“Perhaps you could,” she replied.
A Note to Readers
DEAR READER,
THANK YOU! Thank you for choosing to read Traitor’s Hope, for staying with it to the end, for caring enough about what happens to Mishi, Taka, Kusuko et al to want to get to the last page. I’m honored that you have come this far with me.
Reviews are an author’s lifeblood. Both good and bad reviews (as long as they are thoughtful) help a book find the right audience, so if you feel compelled to leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads it would be much appreciated!
If you haven’t read Blade’s Edge yet, but you would like to spend more time with Mishi, Taka, and the gang, you can find it here!
If you enjoy short stories, you might enjoy Rain on a Summer’s Afternoon, which is a collection of short stories that are completely unrelated to the world of Gensokai.
I have a newsletter. If you sign up for it, you get a free short story delivered straight to your inbox and you’ll get announcements when I write new books, or web serials, or what have you. (I use it sparingly, a maximum of a few times a month when I have a new book coming out, generally less than once a month the rest of the time.)
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Acknowledgements
WRITING ALWAYS SEEMS like such a solitary job (and in many ways it is), but in truth there so many people who play a pivotal role in making a book come to life. If I miss anyone, it’s the product of an addled brain and too many people to thank. I’ll do my best though.
First, I have to thank my editor, Aurora. Not only is she a rockstar under normal circumstances, but for this book she powered through like a champion to finish up her edit before giving birth. She knocked it out while nine months pregnant. You know, no big deal. She’s a total boss.
Next, I have to thank my husband and daughter. My husband is always supportive. He plies me with tea and coffee, takes care of more than his fair share of the housework, and encourages me at every turn. My daughter is miraculously patient for an almost one year old and lets me ignore her long enough each day to not only write books, but to get them ready for publication too.
Nonetheless, I wouldn’t be nearly as productive if I didn’t have some wonderful people in my life who are willing to distract the aforementioned almost one year old periodically so that I can get some more intense work done. Namely: Anne, Kirby, and Lee. Without you three… well, this book would still be sitting on my computer and no one would be reading this acknowledgements section.
A huge thank you also needs to go out to my Japanese language hero, Gavin Greene. Gavin is the magic behind all of the Japanese and pseudo-Japanese used in both Blade’s Edge and Traitor’s Hope. Of course, his volunteered wisdom can only go so far, and my user error is to blame for any and all mistakes you might find within the text. He is a professional translator, so if you ever need Japanese-English translation done, be sure to look him up.
The following people were kind enough to volunteer their t
ime in helping to seek out and destroy comma splices, typos, and continuity errors (again, anything left over after these superheroes helped out is entirely my own responsibility): Angela, Brenda, Anthony, Corey, and Jill. Thank you all so much!
Finally, I would like to once again thank the Kickstarter backers for Blade’s Edge. Had that first project not succeeded, this book would never have been written. In particular, I would like to thank my dear friend Johnny McDowell, whose name (thanks to a communication snafu) was left out of the print edition of Blade’s Edge. Hopefully, this will make up for it a bit.
About the Author
VIRGINIA WRITES because when she stops the voices pile up, and it’s more fun to share them anyway. When she isn't writing she'll take any excuse to go play outside. If there are no excuses to play outside, she will curl up with a good book and a warm beverage. She currently resides in Winnipeg with a dog named Artemis, her husband, and a tiny, new human that delights and mystifies her daily.
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