I

age 8

She remembered Saizo before the infamous attack on Igasato, when he still had one working eye. The other had been ruined by a shirukin to the face, and she remembered how he always kept it closed, hidden behind what Rhajat considered to be a clean, neat scar. To her it completed his look, bringing ruggedness to an otherwise pretty face and further distinguishing him from his twin brother. (In other words, she thought it was 'cool'.)

What blinded him in his other eye was anything but. In the same blast that killed her 'aunt' Orochi, he was left with a horrific burn that covered more than half his face. His only working eye was seared to the cornea, it's accompanying lid burned away completely. That stony dead eye remained open for the world to see, surrounded by marred skin. His left ear was completely deformed, curled in on itself like freshly cooked shrimp. Rhajat once—only once—saw him take off his mask, and she saw how his lips had also been burnt, the upper left corner so badly damaged that it shrank upwards, leaving perpetually bared teeth. She could hardly stand to look at him, but she supposed this was the only blessing in his blindness: he wouldn't know either way.

Saizo had always been prickly and unapproachable, but the event that left his wife dead and himself plunged into a world of darkness changed him. His peers felt the brunt of it in a sharper way than she ever would—King Ryoma had no use for a blind retainer, her mother seemed unable to reach him, her irritable father could no longer stand to be in the same room as him. But Rhajat was a child, and so she saw the change in him in no clearer manner than in the way he treated his son.

He would one day rename himself Asugi, but at that time he was still Saizo the Sixth. He was more like his mother than anyone else—teasing, aloof, but skilled. But in line with the tradition of their clan, he was expected to carry on the legacy of his forefathers. And because Saizo could no longer train him to the fullest extent, Rhajat saw her mother, Kagero, step in to help the nephew of her heart.

The pair traveled to their Wind Tribe home every day—sometimes, they would even stay overnight. Rhajat would spend her days indoors with her father, Hayato, and he would train her in various forms of divination. They always sat by the window overlooking her mother's training area, the one her father had built when they married so that she could have a space to call her own. It was from there that she saw it all, the training that took place under a sun encased in rainbow rings: every accomplishment, every failure, every insult, every berating.

"Do you really think you'll ever be able to carry on our family name making idiotic mistakes like that?" her 'uncle' might sneer. Or maybe, "You're a disgrace—an embarrassment to our ancestors! Why the gods would curse me with such a weak, useless son is beyond my comprehension."

Rhajat would see how tense Hayato would become at Saizo's verbal abuse. He would grab the ends of the table they were working on, his eyes closed as he murmured incantations under his breath: praying to calm himself, to give the boy strength, for Saizo to be struck down by a bolt of lightning. "I don't know what your mother ever saw in that man," he confided in his daughter one day, knowing that at her age she had no way of knowing what he meant. Hayato—who hated Saizo, both for who he'd always been and for what he'd allowed himself to become—would keep the window open for as long as he could, but would close it whenever Saizo's abusive scolding's turned into full-blown rants. He'd pause at the window once he was done, his face contorted in disgust, as if trying to rid the house of a bad smell.

The breaking point came one day after Saizo the Sixth made a particularly stupid mistake—which prompted a particularly cruel response from his father. "Were you able to predict that screw-up? Did you have a dream about it?" he taunted. "Face it, your so-called 'talent' is utterly useless. Was it able to protect your mother? Your grandmother? Our decimated village?! You won't be able to do anything relying on that garbage!"

Rhajat snapped her head towards the window, and in front of her, Hayato became very still. The boy had as much promise in divination as he did ninjitsu, because of his prophetic dreams. His talent had been proven to everyone, including his father. Orochi was known to gush over her son's rare ability, and did everything she could to help him further it while she was still alive. That Saizo would insult his son's gift was, in effect, an insult to his wife's memory. Even at her young age, Rhajat knew that was low.

Outside, Saizo took a blind step forward. Even in his misdirection, he was menacing. Rhajat felt that he wanted to strike his son, who stood frozen in place beside Kagero, his head bowed so deeply that his chin touched his chest. His left cheek was a clouded purple, the eye just above it swelled pink. Her mother regarded Saizo with hard eyes. "That was unnecessary. What do you hope to accomplish by spitting on everything Orochi stood for?"

Her voice was level, but Rhajat could hear the seething anger behind her words. Orochi was her best friend; Saizo the Sixth was the only thing she left behind in the world, as much her legacy as anyone else's. But that was not all.

"And to insult my husband's profession, in my very presence. It seems you've lost respect for me as well."

Saizo did not respond to this. (What could he say?) After a few moments of stilted silence, the boy broke the tension by offering to redo his drills. "Very well. And this time, no foolishness," was his father's only response.

That night, after Saizo and his son left to begin their hazardous journey back to the remnants of their village, Rhajat saw her parents get into an argument.

"That arrogant, pigheaded dastard! Coming to my village, my house, and insulting what I do for a living! And where our daughter could hear him! Who the hell does he think he is?!"

Rhajat slid down onto the floor, not daring to peek out past the doorway where her parents might catch a glimpse of her. She wasn't afraid of them in the slightest; rather, she didn't want her presence to stop their fighting. She wanted to hear this. She wanted to wallow in her distaste of the man her mother was so foolishly helping, her uncle who wasn't really her uncle.

"If Rhajat's innocence is your concern, then perhaps tomorrow you could train her elsewhere in the house."

"Tomorrow?" Hayato whispered incredulously, his voice faint from the shock. "Tomorrow?! I don't ever want to see that son of a wretch again! He should consider himself banned from Wind Tribe grounds!"

"You do not have the authority to do that," Kagero flatly reminded him, to Rhajat's annoyance. Of course Grandfather Fuga was the tribe's ultimate authority, but Hayato was, in effect, his son—adopted or not, that had to count for something. "Besides," her mother continued, "if he is banned from here, who will train his child?"

"That isn't our problem, Kagero! I know how you felt about Orochi, but if she were truly that good of a friend, she wouldn't want you to be around Saizo. Not the way he is now."

Rhajat heard her mother shift around—crossing her arms, or perhaps her legs. Anything to show indifference to her husband's argument. "He's not much different now than he was before."

"No, he's gotten worse. He used to at least show gratitude to the people who helped him. Now he's like a feral animal—biting the hand that feeds him!"

"Oh please, husband. Do you not have a single sympathetic bone in your body? You know he's going through a… difficult time right now." This excuse sounded weak, even to Rhajat's naïve ears.

"Again, not our problem. Do you think our daughter can concentrate on her studies with that man spewing his venom right outside her window?" Hayato paused, and Rhajat wondered what he could be doing. Pinching the bridge of his nose? Rubbing his temples? Fighting with his wife always seemed to leave him more annoyed than anything else. "Honestly, does he hate his son? The way he talks to that boy… most people wouldn't address their dogs in such a manner."

"He feels guilty, Hayato. Useless. His life has no value anymore, and he doesn't want his son to suffer the same fate." Kagero paused; when Hayato offered no response, she continued. "Saizo has failed twice—once in avenging his father, and again in preventing Orochi's death. He lost one eye to each event. He cannot serve King Ryoma anymore. The only thing he has left is this boy, and he does not want to fail a third time. So he pushes. Besides," and here, Rhajat knew, she would appeal to her father's heart, "if you truly care for the boy, you'll want to keep him close. Do you think Saizo's treatment of him will improve if we stop them from coming back here? Or will it become worse?"

Hayato huffed. "I see your pity for this man knows no bounds." He paused, and Rhajat heard the slight, subtle thud of him leaning up against the wall that separated them. "Sorry, that came out more tartly than I intended. Look… I suppose they can continue to come here, on the condition that he curtails his verbal abuse. It spoils the peaceful aura of our home, and distracts Rhajat from her studies. I mean, really," and she heard the smile come back to his voice, "today we were studying a hex that can turn someone's hair into snakes, and Rhajat completely ignored it. Snakes, Kagero! That's the sort of thing our daughter loves! Please, if not for anyone else, do it for her."

Kagero laughed lightly. "Of course, husband. Anything for Rhajat."

And she did talk to him—time and time again, to no permanent avail. Saizo would take her admonishments and stop for a time, but before long his pent up guilt and his rage would rise to the surface, finding a target in his son. Hayato and Kagero would continue to have variations of the same argument, again and again and again until Rhajat's ears felt ready to bleed.

She came away from this with the impression that blindness was a curse of the worst sort. It robbed a person of their value, causing deep-seated anger that would burst forward, drenching the afflicted in wickedness so putrid that even those who actively sought out such things would be put off by it. Just as the beauty of black magic could only be appreciated alongside the existence of white magic, so did she feel about the world her uncle was trapped in. To be plunged into that flat, unending darkness had to be nothing short of a living hell.

But because nothing can change when nobody changes, Rhajat would spend her evenings much the same as she always did: with her father by that window, idly listening to Saizo's ranting, her eyes fixated on the various candles her father would use to light their home.

Such lovely rainbow halos they had.