Rated: K+
Language: English (Ch. 1)/Français (Ch. 2)
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Dedication: This One-Shot Surprise is a gift dedicated to Luka - chan 64, my most faithful reader – and friend at the same time – to thank her for her support with my publications and our great conversations, in addition to motivate me and encourage me to continue publishing despite my many downs! If it had not been her, believe me, my fanfics now completed would literally being on hiatus, or I will have only abandoned my profile forever.
And because the pen itched me.
Disclaimer: I don't own Seirei no Moribito and the characters. Just the context of the story.
Note 1: I try a new writing style (merge two versions – One into English, Other into French – my native language) I don't have Beta-Reader, so, sorry for my mistakes or wrong spellings. But I tried to do my best for you, English readers.
Note 2: I'm used to do OoC for specific reasons in my fanfics. But I will try in this one-shot to stay as close to the original characters, although I know it is impossible even for the best fanfiction writers.
Note 3: Surprise Pairing ; D I invented the name of the Karuna's wife since no reference in the anime or the book makes the mention. And the drawing is from me. See my DeviantArt for more details.
I hope you will enjoy reading it, especially you, Luka-Chan! Knowing that this one-shot is a gift before all.
I'm Yuka Yonsa and I'm nineteen years old.
I'm mostly recognized as the little sister of Karuna Yonsa, and I study medicine like my brother. Member of the Yonsa Clan. Today is a great day: my niece or nephew is born! And I am designated as the godmother. I replaced my long brown hair that reaches at my waist, mounted my palomino mare robust short and went straight to my older brother, Karuna with gifts and sweets. I went down, tied my horse and went bang.
"Yuka!" My brother greeted me, twenty-six.
"Karuna!"
"Come on in."
"So how did it go?" I asked, entering, removing my boots and my cape before giving him my presents. "No complications?"
"Everything went well, but..."
"It's still not the first birth which you assist however, am I wrong?" I reminded him.
"Not false. But look at my hand..?"
I observed it: indeed, his wife had scratched it.
"Can I see the baby now?"
My brother looked at me and took me in their bedroom. I found my stepsister, sitting on the bed holding a small package wrapped in blankets.
"We have some visit, Aona."
She looked up at me.
"Yuka, good morning."
"Hello! So that's it, I'm finally Aunt!"
"Will you come to meet your niece old not even a day?"
"Of course."
I approached quietly, but quickly close to my stepsister and sitting me on a chair. I held out my arms with confidence and Aona gently handed me the newborn in my arms.
"She is so small! And already pretty as a heart," I smiled, patting her cheek. "Is she have a name?"
"We thought named her 'Balsa', the first name that thou hast suggested earlier before her birth."
"It's true that I have a crush for this name. You did well."
I rocked my niece for a while, spoke to her even though her eyes were still closed and that my niece made, sometimes, some funny noises. I then placed it in its wooden cradle and jumped into my big brother's arms.
"You made us a beautiful niece!" I complimented him.
"My wife is there for something. I wonder just what character this little will have when it will older."
"With all the blows she gave in your wife's womb, I would say a similar character to mine."
My brother Karuna narrowed his eyes and executed a pout followed by a pulled tongue. It was a love that overflowed!
The little three years Balsa was full of life.
Just like myself, according to the words of the family members, at the same age. She couldn't staying put and could put the shame to all boys of her age. She was born tomboy and Karuna was accustomed to say that she had left something very important in her mother's womb. Although Jiguro Musa was the best among the king's spear-wielder, he and I tried to out together, which seemed to works since we're going on our second year. He was accustomed to the little Balsa, even if he didn't like, basically, children. They bored him more than anything else and don't know how to react in their presence.
I had at that time, twenty-two years. I quickly put my books in my bag and took to the streets of the capital to join my brother and Jiguro.
"You still have to spar yourself and make the competition against Prince Rogsam?" I asked.
"Unfortunately yes. I know we don't spend much time together lately, but I promise you that when we will be less loaded, we will benefit it."
I smiled and he flew me a kiss furtively. Although he was a bit silly sometimes, I liked his human side before all. Karuna cleared his throat.
"Don't worry about me especially..."
"Anyway," I replied. "Karuna share holiday with my Stepsister, Aona. So I'll keep my adorable little niece at home!"
"I'll come and carry you Balsa late evening."
"This is perfect; it leaves me a little time to clean the house of healing."
We leave, going all of us about our business. I closed the wooden garden gate and entered the house to find my Sensei, Meiko. She was the owner of the current house of healing. It was a sweet woman to appearances, physically imposing, but with a very strong character.
"My niece is going to spend a few days here, I think I had already told you, Meiko-Sensei?"
"Yes of course," she smiled. "She must undoubtedly have grown."
"Children change a lot at these ages."
"How is your relationship? You speak few about you and Jiguro."
"I know... in fact it's just that we haven't found time for both of us. But it's going well."
"When will the children?" She teased.
"Not yet, anyway," I laughed. "We should marry at first."
Balsa arrived as a gale of wind in evening. Karuna speak to me on the edge of the door when he gave me the bag darling niece.
"Are you sure that all will be fine?" he dare to asked me.
"We have a similar character, I'll be able to hold it... better than you, apparently" I laughed, mocking kindly of him.
"Hahah," he laughs sarcastically. "Well, I'm going to leave soon. Is Balsa can just give me my kiss?" He searched everywhere with his eyes.
"Eh... Balsa?" I helped him as I turned my head behind me.
A broken vessel noise sounds to our ears from the living room and we heard Meiko scrape her throat and swallow an angry sentence.
"It already started... Good holiday my brother!"
We gave a hug and I went to the living room at the double speed. Balsa was sitting on a cushion on the floor, the head sheepishly and looked Meiko who had said nothing or, at least, she's contained by her best way, to bullshitting the niece of her apprentice – saying, me. She was red with anger, name of God Yoram!
"I'm on it" I sighed. "I'll buy you another vessel to compensate. Please, stay calm, Meiko-Sensei."
Meiko stared coldly at me, took a deep breath and exhaled as she get out from the room. Probably to calm down herself.
"I didn't make mistake Aunt Yuka!" Balsa retorted.
"What did you do? And how?"
"I wanted the sheep stuffed behind, right there..." She pointed sheep on the shelf.
"I see. Let me just pick up the broken vase, don't move."
I fetched the broom, picked up a single grain of dust and glasses and took the sheep to give it to my niece.
"Daddy's gone?"
"Yes... he wanted you to give him his kiss before leaving, but you've goofed."
"I haven't made a gaffe, it's my imaginary friend who has."
Children's imagination... I sighed in my head.
Balsa escaped to my vigilance during I checked up a patient into the examination room. It seems that the colored pencils and sheets of paper couldn't calm her.
"Your blood pressure looks good... your breath too" I listed, registering all in a folder before getting my brown eyes on him. "What do you look outside?"
"The tree... there are beautiful mature yukka and fresh that should be picked. And a larger red fruit that moves through branches."
"It may be a bird... though—"
Suddenly I quickly sat up of my office, startling my patient and peered in the window to see my niece improbably in the tree. On a branch, straddle. Oh shit!
"Excuse me... This is my niece... wait for me here I will come back."
"No problem."
I went out into the corridor and ran outside with my assistant who was also apprenticed with Meiko's assistant. We opened the door.
"Balsa! What are you doing here?"
"Aunt Yuka! There was a nest up there... I wanted to see."
"Balsa, please you, down right away. If your father learned that thou hast broken your arm because of your thoughtlessness..."
But my niece three years didn't listen anything. She continued to venture into tree branches to reach her goal: bird's nest.
"Get me a ladder, please," I asked to my assistant quickly.
"Yes, right away."
He went, running. I tried by all tricks to convince Balsa back down, that the bird Mom was near because I heard its cries shrill alarm, and saw the bird in question flying from to the left to the right very close to my niece. She didn't even wince. I turned to my assistant-apprentice who placed the ladder on the tree trunk.
"Young girl, come down from there! Don't make me to—
"Aunt Yuka, eggs are blue!"
"Don't touch it!" I thundered, including my niece suspended her hand in the air, probably surprise my dry tone used.
"Why?"
"Because the bird Mom may abandon it if it smells human scent. It's like your mum would no longer take care of you because Titi Lans have made you crazy."
Balsa looked at me, looked at the nest and decided to take a fruit, extending a hand. Her body swayed slightly and my blood made a single round in my body. No choice... I rolled up my sleeves, climbed the ladder and began to climb the tree at my turn despite my cotton dress. My patient has to wonder what I'm doing... I thought.
"Balsa, you force me to commit an act that I have no desire to commit!"
"Eh...?"
"I climb the tree to get you down before the Mother bird decides to attack you. Come down toward me."
"But I still want to see something else... the view is so huge!"
"Balsa, if you go down, a nice surprise waiting for you at home. But you have to get off before."
"A surprise?!"
"Yes, come to me and we'll get it."
This sentence seemed to change her mind and Balsa started down toward me. Together, we get down slowly to the ladder until Balsa stood up on the branch, and without warning, lost her balance and fell to the ground. My assistant and I shouted a surprise cry when we saw her crash to the ground and recovered uttering a cry of excitement. I inhaled. I wanted to bang my head against the branch and curse all the gods of all universes could exist and, in particular, the God Yoram. I went down and saw that my little niece hold her arm by making a pout. It'll cry soon...
A few hours later...
Balsa cried when I replaced her bones, and again when I affixed two wooden splints to solidify her right arm and doing many laps with the tire.
"It was your misfortune, girl."
"No! It is the tree that pushed me and the floor called me."
"Balsa," I despaired, finishing my bandage with my assistant. "Your father will not be happy to see or hear that..."
"Can I have my surprise now? "
I sighed and took a pink scarf before tying the ends together, pass it over her head, her neck and put her broken arm in
"Here!"
"It's not a nice surprise!" The girl replied.
I added a triumphant smile. When Karuna came for her daughter after four days, he saw the bandage and looked at me.
"What happened to her?"
"You'd better ask to your daughter why her arm is in such a state."
"Balsa, what have you done?"
"..."
"Tell him, honey," I insisted, looking at her as she was pouting furiously.
"A tree pushed me" she said.
"What?" Karuna asked, looking puzzled. "The tree pushed you?"
"Yes... my imaginary friend was forced to do so."
He gave me an incredulous look and I contented myself with only shrugged. Later, he realized that her daughter had climbed a tree and had miscalculated her actions by trying to jump down from the tree to come down and having lost balance, fell to the ground.
After this episode, Jiguro and I spent more time together for our relationship. Maybe even a little too much. All was well. Until such day...
The day when nothing is happens. I started to feel tired, to be sick and nausea not only the morning, but in the day and even during the night. Meiko asked me to take leave to care myself. But I continued to fight back, that it was maybe just a discomfort due to my work. But for her experienced doctor's eyes, I could tell she didn't believe me.
"I want to check you, even if you can resist."
I couldn't hide anything to her. She already knew. She was a doctor after all, the most famous in our Yonsa Clan. I was terrified... I was pregnant, unmarried with a man who wasn't even in my own clan... Here, people cannot marry someone of another Clan. It's imperative that it be in our own clan. But people know me and found that since our clans got along well, it wasn't a big problem. On the contrary, it would strengthen ties between our Clans.
I was sick at heart. Mentally. Meiko-Sensei checked me and I had to spread my legs, lying on a bed to check there. I begged her to do quickly. She went smoothly and quickly as I closed my eyes, anxious. Once finished, my legs and my thighs were shut tight.
"Don't say anything to anyone... Sensei... I beg you…"
"What about your brother and Jiguro?"
"I will inform them about it... but please Sensei, says nothing..."
I burst into tears. She calmed me, reassuring me that nothing and no one would know except my brother and Jiguro. Jiguro… Jiguro... How to tell him without he didn't get angry? I already knew, basic, he wasn't ready to be a father. He had never thought of being either. But should I hide it to him? I don't think so. This would be seen as a betrayal in our relationship, lack of trust and communication. So I summoned a dinner between lovers to confess. After eating, he looked at me.
"So, there's something you want to tell me?"
"... Yes. In fact... I'm afraid to tell you."
"We are a couple, we say everything."
"I know..."
"I don't like to wait and take an eternal time, so tell me."
If the spirits exist, I beg my guardian angel to help me... I prayed in my head. I inhaled and opened my eyes to look him in the eye.
"I am pregnant."
There, it is said, done! Now, he will probably go as a gale and leave me alone in this restaurant, on this gallery. He looked at me, raised an eyebrow and approached me.
"Are you serious?"
"... Yes."
He said nothing more. In fact, he had become mute. Though I have guts and a strong character, this time, I didn't know what to say to defend myself from, only this:
"I intend to keep it... I keep the baby…"
He said nothing again. After the meal was finished in silence, each of us paid our part and walked side by side without saying a word before leave. No hugs, no kisses, no words. The days that followed, he never spoke to me, he tried to avoid contact with me. My brother saw well that something was happening between his best friend and his sister. He came to visit me, alone, at the house of healing. We were sitting in the living room. Alone.
"Yuka, you know I care a lot about you."
"I know..."
"But I see that something isn't working in your relationship, you and Jiguro. I'm worry about you…"
"Yes, sometime, it happens..."
I played in my hair, trying to calm my nervousness. Karuna noticed it: of course, I was his sister, he was a physician, the king's more and doctor and we spent much of our childhood and teenagers' year together! He walked over me and took my hand before looking me in the eye. I tried to deflect my gaze.
"I know the truth... He briefed me."
"Karuna I—"
He affixed his finger on my lips.
"I haven't told to anyone, not even to my wife. I just wanna know what happens to you and it" he said as he pointed to the bottom of my stomach.
"I keep it," I answered in one go.
"Yes, it's okay, sweetie."
He continued to talk to me, to reassure me that Jiguro was only a little confused, but I had a feeling it was going like this until the birth of the child...
Two months...
It doesn't seem much at first, yet even made two months. Jiguro spoke to me, but never spoke about the baby. If not, it's been two months we hadn't having sex. He wasn't the person to go toward other women. But I had doubts about his abstinence. Where he would spend his impulse out of the solitary pleasure?
My meal is digested poorly. In the evening, alone at my home, I was seized with stomach pains that refused to disappear despite teas and heat pad with hot water. Jiguro made me nervous... maybe
This morning...
I awoke strange. I was in the latrine and opened eyes wide. Blood... I fixed my own blood without saying anything, a long time. I changed my clothes, took all to quench this problem there and let my tears run free. I sent a messenger to my brother to meet him and explain to him at a first time. Meanwhile, I lay down in my room. My brother knocked a few hours later. He entered and found me in bed, lying down, a cloth filled with bright red blood in my hands. I raised a wet eye on him. He said nothing, put his medical bag, patted my back and took me in his arms. He let me cry as much as I needed, stroking my hair.
"I wanted this baby... big brother... I wanted it so much..."
"I know, little sister..."
The next day, I found Jiguro at his home. I gathered enough courage, begged my guardian angel and I told him. I confessed that. "No, I wasn't pregnant... there was no baby in the future..." He looked at me. He was taciturn. He didn't even approach me to take me in his arms. Maybe he doesn't know how to react. I sat down on his couch and his dog came to me, licking my face. I squeezed his dog in my arms and I started crying over it. Jiguro approached me, putting his hands on my shoulders.
"Maybe it's better on this way..."
His words gave me the same effect as a knife piercing across me. I brust and I exploded with anger.
"But what's better than this, huh?!" I yelled, taking him by the coat at his chest. "When I needed it, where were you?" I looked him into his eyes. "Yes! I know, I know you don't like kids! But I really wanted this child, and now I have the courage to tell you that there will not be, all that you find to tell me is 'that it's better on this way'?! Do you think about me sometimes?!"
"…"
"You say nothing?! Have you no feelings? You're an idiot, Jiguro, an despicable idiot!" I said while I hammered my fists.
"I just don't know what to say. I'm not the right person to reassure and comfort... Especially in such a situation like that."
Our relationship ended there. Sad to say, but yes. We ended our relationship on this point. It was a decision by both of us. Karuna and he still continued to stay best friends, but I saw him as an idiot who didn't care about my feelings, my emotions.
Poor Balsa...
Her mother, my sister, had died of illness. Karuna was out of it, depressed. So I suggested him to keep my niece, the time he can breathe a little from the shock. Balsa wasn't being aware yet that her mother had died... she was too young. I went to bring her to school, she played with her friends. She even rides a goat's back with his herder friend, Nono.
One day I scolded Balsa five years for making a mistake that could have cost her dearly. Not to play with the embers of the fire with the poker, for risks to make the fire at the home.
"But I just want to stir the fire! I will not burn me!"
I held my warning.
"Anyway, you've never wanted me!" she cried to me.
"Balsa, it is wrong and you know it!"
"No! you don't know anything... I hate you!" she roared to me.
"Balsa, calm down... please."
"No, you know nothing! You're not my mother! I want my mother! I WANT MOMMY !"
"Balsa..."
"I WANT MY MOMMY! I WANT TO SEE MOMMY!" she cried, weeping, throwing the poker on floor, furious.
"Kitten..."
Balsa stamped her foot and went upstairs in the guest room, sobbing. She stayed there all the morning and early afternoon by the time I treat my patients. But I felt it, she doesn't answer anymore. So, I opened the door of her room with my tray of food: she was nowhere! I looked in her closet, under the bed... nowhere. But the window was big open. Alerted, panicked, I ran to get my Sensei and our assistants to tell them that Balsa was gone! We sat so all at her research, in the institution and outside. If she had fallen into a well... oh my god...! I went back into her room and saw her teddy was lying on the bed. She never goes out without her teddy... Like a flash in my head, I guessed where she could have gone... My sensei and our assistants confirmed that they hadn't found her. I thanked them and continued to look on my side.
I crossed the merchant's place and came to the place that I doubted she could have gone: the cemetery. I walked from grave to grave, from row to row, to see a red coat, kneeling in front of a stone. Balsa... it was her, no doubt. I knelt beside her.
"... Honey..."
"Aunt Yuka... I don't want to forget— I don't want to forget Mommy..."
"We will never forget her," I replied as I already had my eyes already filled with tears before wiping her tears. "We can come back here when you desire, okay? Even if it's the night."
She wiped her eyes and nodded her head positively. I gave her teddy, took her in my arms and returned to the house of healing. The relief was felt and read in the eyes of my sensei and our assistants. In the future, I will make sure that my niece feels better and miss nothing... She was like my own child to me.
It's seemed like heaven and earth had turned upside down! But in which world are we going?
Jiguro fled the country without to tell a word to me or to my brother, I feel betrayed! Meanwhile, Balsa disappeared at her turn; drowning into a well, and at his turn, my brother had been murdered few times after the sudden death of King Naguru. I didn't understand anything anymore... I checked up the body of my dead brother, although my conscience wouldn't tell me it was true. Something was wrong, but I didn't managed to put the word on it... Everything around me was falling apart: my miscarriage, my step-sister's death, the Jiguro's flee, Karuna and above all, my little beloved niece, Balsa, six years... and following to some family problems, I no longer spoke to my own parents. Jiguro was treated as selfish idiot, like a thief. We were remembering to me that I was in a relationship with such an idiot, a dirty traitor. And when they told me this, I came to think, and say, that I have had a baby with him if I hadn't lost it... ButI would have liked this baby anyway. But I had had enough they criticize me, to the point where I am allowed myself to give punches and fighting, physically, mentally, those who continued to constantly remember me these facts. I had more than enough, I was disgusted...
Meiko, worried about me, came to see me every day and asked me how I was. I slept badly, I ate very little, if yes, very badly. She told me she thought I was falling into depression with everything that happened to me, but I told her that everything was okay. I was a strong woman who will not let pull down... I had my guardian angel with me. So I lived twenty five years of my life trying to solve all these puzzles and sometimes bizarre, totally twisted like an endless puzzle. What had it been happening with these three? I had no answer... I spent the days trying to rebuild myself. I spent hours in wanting to pass the time without thinking. I took more character; I didn't let me pull down, so that even the highest-ranking member of all nine Clans bowed to me with respect. I make perfect medicine, becoming ever better and go further. The operations, amputations, childbirth, the making remedy, all medical fields so far had no secrets for me and I excelled in everything.
Twenty-five years later...
And now, I stand before the woman who claimed to be Balsa, Karuna's daughter. I didn't want to believe it was her. After all, in the words of my brother, my niece fell into an artesian well, trying to catch her teddy which had been dropped into it. Her story was incoherent, like a twisted maze. And I didn't see her body, but she reminded me of the time she had fallen from a tree. But, finally, a little voice is telling me constantly that it was my Balsa. My niece, my only, my precious and unique beloved niece. She looked like a bit to her father, but very much to her mother physically. She had become a beautiful woman, although masculine in her words, Karuna would have been so proud of her daughter. Perhaps, he might be intimidated by her and her progress. She exuded such strength of will, a masculinity that merged perfectly with her feminine side. The puzzle pieces are assembled and I could now know the figure once they composed all placed in order.
And that child who followed her... she was the spitting image of Balsa at her age, I felt like I seeing my little Balsa to six years. Balsa was also motherly despite, sometimes, her harsh and terse air.
"Now I understand why you came back. I feel like I've lived through twenty-five years in a single day" I smiled. We haven't run out of things to say, but I for one am hungry. Can you give me a hand? We'll make some supper."
Fourteen years have passed since I still know the truth...
And here, I am now in front of my great niece, the daughter of Balsa, Alika twenty years in a therapy, listening to my story, fascinated. Poor child, so young and so many trials... I know exactly how she feels. I know how to help her. Yes, now, I know. I will become a new pillar and she will go up the slope just as I did with Meiko-Sensei. If I success to did it, she'll be able to. I already know.
"Come, Alika, it's time to continue your therapy. Are you ready?"
She nodded positively now that her mother had recently left to return to the kingdom of the new empire Yogo for the rest of her family. Four others children, younger, waiting for her with impatience her returns at home. Alika took my hand and followed me into my therapy room. Blackness years are over, the best years are still arriving, and I have in hand to rebuild the broken life of my great niece.