Disclaimer: yeah, yeah, yeah. Blah, blah, blah. I don't own the rights to
ANYTHING like my dear Aoshi-sama or the spunky little Misao-chan. No, they
are owned by Nobuhiro Watsuki and many other respected business-types.
*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*
Tears of Buddha
Chapter 1: Possessions
By Starhopper
He continued to roll the two bells in his left hand, flexing his fingers to brush against his palm, then letting them crumple back to prevent the silver bell from sliding between the cracks just as its partner rounded the ridge of his thumb. It had begun as a way to pass the time, but after some three minutes of repeating the same motion, he was locked into a trance that only heavy meditation would unravel.
"Okashira?"
The man who was addressed continued to stare blankly at the open doorway before him, not even batting an obsidian eyelash as the bells jingled to the rhythm of his breathing, steadying the balance of his chi. How he had possibly allowed himself to become unbalanced was still beyond him.
His attendant was more persistent, waving a gloved hand in front of his leader's gray eyes. "Okashira?"
Closing his eyes, Aoshi pieced the real doorway from his sight into a meditative dreamscape, recreating every detail as it had lain before him before his world was so rudely intruded upon. There had been that disjointed nail hanging off to the side, serving no purpose to the function of the doorframe. The view had been dismal, nothing important there. Rain as could be expected during the Fall in Kyoto and the puddles that collected on the ground bore no great burden on this man's shoulders. Then there was that piece of wood peeling at the lower right-hand corner, fraying out like the tail of bound braid. A particularly long one that swung as if independent from the head it trailed from . . .
The bells fell to the ground, clattering in unison as his eyes opened with another intrusion - this one edging in using the guise of a short little ninja with pools of blue peering up at him.
Aoshi could feel his attendant move to leap back in surprise, but with a quick hand, grabbed a hold of his pant leg to seat him.
Only after he silently checked himself for any signs of emotion did he move his head to address the annoyingly half-witted dolt that had somehow made it into his elite group of ninjas. "What is so gravely important Sukoshi?" His tone belied the interest in his question. It was a sigh if it was any sort of exclamation.
"Shinomori-sama, it seems that the information has come in from Tokyo regarding,"
Clenching the material at his thighs, Aoshi closed his eyes and tried to regain his composure. Balance, always balance. With a voice vexed by wandering thoughts and the untimely loss of all rational thought, Aoshi took a breath. "No need to continue Sukoshi-san." How he hated using such an informal with this man. He really didn't deserve Aoshi's friendship.
She agreed too.
Sukoshi lurched back to allow his leader to stand. "Okashira?"
See? There he was over-reacting yet again. Was it entirely possible that this man was never entirely sifted through the Oniwabanshuu screening process? That would account for his untrained senses and bold moves when the situation needed to be dealt with the utmost care and respect. Certainly this man could never move in the night, strike with precision, and disappear like a ghost just as quietly as he had come. Well, truth be told neither could Misao, but she was loud in that way and effective in others. Yes, very effective.
"Sukoshi-" he took a breath and grated out the "san." Once he was standing in the courtyard outside his little temple, he turned and waved off the attendant before making his way over to his room. Why had he even bothered with addressing him in the first place? Offense or not, he was Okashira and could do as he pleased.
Like her.
Cool composure bleeding into panic, Aoshi cleared the little garden courtyard, drenched as it was, in no time at all. Sliding his door shut, he stood stoically for a moment, eying the neatly folded futon and his Kodachi crossed over it.
He hadn't done anything like that. Striding over to inspect them, he found some flower petals scattered over the bundle.
She had been wearing that stupid flower for weeks now. Tucked just behind her left ear. She probably didn't take it off to bathe. Oh, stop thinking right now Shinomori.
The one time he's too relaxed, too comfortable within his own skin, and she had to call him on it. And then they were standing alone in the garden, and he just had to pick that flower for her. Why did he pick it? He still couldn't say, but by far, the worst thing about the whole incident was that it was a dandelion. A weed half eaten by aphids . . . which he had taken the greatest care to shake off before sliding the green stem between her ear and hair. That raven soft hair, with an emerald sheen.
He kneeled as if in repent for such a silly sin.
Yes, but she was happy with a weed. To her it was a bouquet of the finest roses, if only because it was picked and handed to her by him. But to have his fingers, gloved as they were, brush against the firming line of her jaw . . . It was a truth he accepted with hesitation: She wasn't a child anymore.
He allowed himself but a smile to flicker over his features before turning them rock solid once more.
Makimachi. Look at what you've done to me.
"Aoshi-sama?"
Aoshi willed himself to not look directly at her as she sashayed so sweetly into his room. Just like Misao to not wait for his invitation and barge in on his personal space.
Not that he wasn't really complaining.
"Misao-chan," his eyes focused on the dying dandelion drooping over her ear as she bent to place the tea set before him, taking care that not one drop hit the immaculately polished floor. Even as she sat back, he kept his eyes on the left side of her face, reassuring himself that his attentions were preoccupied with the dandelion. He wouldn't allow them to travel over the defined curves, count her breaths, tally up all the marks of her maturity and count them in favor of -
"Aoshi-sama," she nodded her head slightly, taking a seat on the opposite side of the folded futon.
For a moment, Aoshi took leave of his senses. Here was a perfectly desirable woman sitting next to him, who would do anything to please him and had done so since she was old enough to smile, and had loved him with a mad obsession for most of her life. He could easily take her now, with the doors shut. Just to hold her, breathe her in, hear her say his name in a whisper laced heavily in euphoria -
With a firm shake of his head, all notions of uncovering more truths to Misao's maturity first-hand dissipated and he was left sitting next to the woman who adored him.
Misao shifted under her new kimono, whether it was in discomfort or anticipation he couldn't tell as he stood to balance his senses. She seemed to sense his unease in her close proximity, and moved farther away to appease his chi.
He actually smirked at this, and turned his face for her to see her affect on him as he rose to his feet. "Calm yourself Misao-chan."
She looked up at him and a flicker of inner-relief passed over her eyes. But in that flicker he could see the intensity of apprehensive fear that percolated behind those pretty sapphires. Had he disregarded her with a cool swing of his head, or walked out of the room when she had taken a seat so near to his person, things would have been as they should be.
Yet, during the argument between balance and brain, Shinomori Aoshi had actually decided to let his emotions glide on through undiscovered and unchecked by both zen and logic.
And she called him on it, as only she could.
She leaned onto the heels of her palms, cocking her head at an inquisitive angle. "Are you feeling alright Aoshi-sama?"
Aoshi now chose this moment to disregard the little ninja by refusing to make eye contact. He suddenly found the crease in his futon much more interesting than the fold of her kimono just below her neck as she brought her arms closer together on the floor, even going as so far to narrow his steely gaze at the futon and create shapes out of the fold lines.
"Aoshi-sama?"
There was a spindly tree branching out from the center.
"Why won't you look me in the eye?"
He rocked on his heels while driving nails deep into his palms. And then there was that bird winging its way over to the tree.
"I'm sure you would tell me if everything wasn't alright,"
Kami-sama, she was consoling herself. Where did the tree and the bird go? Now all he could see was her face, those wide eyes searching his for some sort of sign -
As he literally stumbled out of his trance, he was caught by Misao. She held onto his arms as he steadied himself, her lithe little body more sturdy than it appeared. Gripping onto her shoulders, he bent down to her level, his face unreadable as she guided him back to where he had been sitting. Only this time she kneeled in front of him.
"Now Aoshi-sama, you will tell me what's going on!" she flared, pulling one of his hands into her lap. Then, upon noticing the nail-imprints cut into his palm, shouted, "Nani?"
Aoshi couldn't breathe. She was sitting too close. He was breathing too fast. As the balance that he constantly sought for slipped away from his grasp, he felt his entire face go numb. He knew he had his jaw hanging, that his ice-cold eyes were wide with what some might call fear while others would beg desire. Every muscle in his body tensed, becoming just as solid as that untouchable rock he made himself to be even while his tongue and all senses of perception turned to gooey jello.
"You shouldn't hurt yourself like this," she admonished, tracing delicate fingers over the indentations. He had never truly realized how sensitive the palm was until she started to massage the marks out with her thumb. "What possessed you to do this?"
He wanted to look her straight in the eye and tell her that it was her who possessed him so completely. He wanted to lean in, wrench his hand from her grasp and slide it along her hip, just to touch her with more than a courteous pat on the shoulder or accidentally as he disgraced her living beauty with a dead flower. Recently slain daydreams resurrected themselves as she stared at him, waiting for an answer. Consciously he reminded himself that she had slid the shoji shut and that if he could move as quietly as a cat when he was on assignment, that he could certainly keep his vocal chords still even as a release of emotion overwhelmed his senses. No one in the Aoiya would hear or suspect a thing.
He tried to speak over these feelings that were welling up like lava inside him. But the gooey mess his tongue and mouth had melted into prevented him from getting very far in conversation.
Misao kept watching and waiting, her head moving slightly as he tried to form words. Then to his astonishment, she set his hand down on the floor and hoisted herself up on her feet. "I can see you're not going to talk to me Aoshi-sama," she let her chin fall to her chest, the flower hanging over her left ear drooping even more pathetically. Remembering how to use the muscles in his face, he winced guiltily as she stood there, defeated.
And her only victory was the flower that fell to the floor. He watched its descent, and felt the pain emanating from her chi as she smashed the petals beneath her wrapped feet. A step away from the closed door, she turned back to find his back turned to her. He could hear the door clack open, the swish of fabric as she stepped down onto the porch, and the final sliding of the shoji back into place.
Moments too late, Aoshi took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Drawing up a fist to rest his forehead on he said, "You, only you Misao," and rolled his knuckles back and forth on the immaculately polished wood floor. "Look at what you've done to me."
*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*
Tears of Buddha
Chapter 1: Possessions
By Starhopper
He continued to roll the two bells in his left hand, flexing his fingers to brush against his palm, then letting them crumple back to prevent the silver bell from sliding between the cracks just as its partner rounded the ridge of his thumb. It had begun as a way to pass the time, but after some three minutes of repeating the same motion, he was locked into a trance that only heavy meditation would unravel.
"Okashira?"
The man who was addressed continued to stare blankly at the open doorway before him, not even batting an obsidian eyelash as the bells jingled to the rhythm of his breathing, steadying the balance of his chi. How he had possibly allowed himself to become unbalanced was still beyond him.
His attendant was more persistent, waving a gloved hand in front of his leader's gray eyes. "Okashira?"
Closing his eyes, Aoshi pieced the real doorway from his sight into a meditative dreamscape, recreating every detail as it had lain before him before his world was so rudely intruded upon. There had been that disjointed nail hanging off to the side, serving no purpose to the function of the doorframe. The view had been dismal, nothing important there. Rain as could be expected during the Fall in Kyoto and the puddles that collected on the ground bore no great burden on this man's shoulders. Then there was that piece of wood peeling at the lower right-hand corner, fraying out like the tail of bound braid. A particularly long one that swung as if independent from the head it trailed from . . .
The bells fell to the ground, clattering in unison as his eyes opened with another intrusion - this one edging in using the guise of a short little ninja with pools of blue peering up at him.
Aoshi could feel his attendant move to leap back in surprise, but with a quick hand, grabbed a hold of his pant leg to seat him.
Only after he silently checked himself for any signs of emotion did he move his head to address the annoyingly half-witted dolt that had somehow made it into his elite group of ninjas. "What is so gravely important Sukoshi?" His tone belied the interest in his question. It was a sigh if it was any sort of exclamation.
"Shinomori-sama, it seems that the information has come in from Tokyo regarding,"
Clenching the material at his thighs, Aoshi closed his eyes and tried to regain his composure. Balance, always balance. With a voice vexed by wandering thoughts and the untimely loss of all rational thought, Aoshi took a breath. "No need to continue Sukoshi-san." How he hated using such an informal with this man. He really didn't deserve Aoshi's friendship.
She agreed too.
Sukoshi lurched back to allow his leader to stand. "Okashira?"
See? There he was over-reacting yet again. Was it entirely possible that this man was never entirely sifted through the Oniwabanshuu screening process? That would account for his untrained senses and bold moves when the situation needed to be dealt with the utmost care and respect. Certainly this man could never move in the night, strike with precision, and disappear like a ghost just as quietly as he had come. Well, truth be told neither could Misao, but she was loud in that way and effective in others. Yes, very effective.
"Sukoshi-" he took a breath and grated out the "san." Once he was standing in the courtyard outside his little temple, he turned and waved off the attendant before making his way over to his room. Why had he even bothered with addressing him in the first place? Offense or not, he was Okashira and could do as he pleased.
Like her.
Cool composure bleeding into panic, Aoshi cleared the little garden courtyard, drenched as it was, in no time at all. Sliding his door shut, he stood stoically for a moment, eying the neatly folded futon and his Kodachi crossed over it.
He hadn't done anything like that. Striding over to inspect them, he found some flower petals scattered over the bundle.
She had been wearing that stupid flower for weeks now. Tucked just behind her left ear. She probably didn't take it off to bathe. Oh, stop thinking right now Shinomori.
The one time he's too relaxed, too comfortable within his own skin, and she had to call him on it. And then they were standing alone in the garden, and he just had to pick that flower for her. Why did he pick it? He still couldn't say, but by far, the worst thing about the whole incident was that it was a dandelion. A weed half eaten by aphids . . . which he had taken the greatest care to shake off before sliding the green stem between her ear and hair. That raven soft hair, with an emerald sheen.
He kneeled as if in repent for such a silly sin.
Yes, but she was happy with a weed. To her it was a bouquet of the finest roses, if only because it was picked and handed to her by him. But to have his fingers, gloved as they were, brush against the firming line of her jaw . . . It was a truth he accepted with hesitation: She wasn't a child anymore.
He allowed himself but a smile to flicker over his features before turning them rock solid once more.
Makimachi. Look at what you've done to me.
"Aoshi-sama?"
Aoshi willed himself to not look directly at her as she sashayed so sweetly into his room. Just like Misao to not wait for his invitation and barge in on his personal space.
Not that he wasn't really complaining.
"Misao-chan," his eyes focused on the dying dandelion drooping over her ear as she bent to place the tea set before him, taking care that not one drop hit the immaculately polished floor. Even as she sat back, he kept his eyes on the left side of her face, reassuring himself that his attentions were preoccupied with the dandelion. He wouldn't allow them to travel over the defined curves, count her breaths, tally up all the marks of her maturity and count them in favor of -
"Aoshi-sama," she nodded her head slightly, taking a seat on the opposite side of the folded futon.
For a moment, Aoshi took leave of his senses. Here was a perfectly desirable woman sitting next to him, who would do anything to please him and had done so since she was old enough to smile, and had loved him with a mad obsession for most of her life. He could easily take her now, with the doors shut. Just to hold her, breathe her in, hear her say his name in a whisper laced heavily in euphoria -
With a firm shake of his head, all notions of uncovering more truths to Misao's maturity first-hand dissipated and he was left sitting next to the woman who adored him.
Misao shifted under her new kimono, whether it was in discomfort or anticipation he couldn't tell as he stood to balance his senses. She seemed to sense his unease in her close proximity, and moved farther away to appease his chi.
He actually smirked at this, and turned his face for her to see her affect on him as he rose to his feet. "Calm yourself Misao-chan."
She looked up at him and a flicker of inner-relief passed over her eyes. But in that flicker he could see the intensity of apprehensive fear that percolated behind those pretty sapphires. Had he disregarded her with a cool swing of his head, or walked out of the room when she had taken a seat so near to his person, things would have been as they should be.
Yet, during the argument between balance and brain, Shinomori Aoshi had actually decided to let his emotions glide on through undiscovered and unchecked by both zen and logic.
And she called him on it, as only she could.
She leaned onto the heels of her palms, cocking her head at an inquisitive angle. "Are you feeling alright Aoshi-sama?"
Aoshi now chose this moment to disregard the little ninja by refusing to make eye contact. He suddenly found the crease in his futon much more interesting than the fold of her kimono just below her neck as she brought her arms closer together on the floor, even going as so far to narrow his steely gaze at the futon and create shapes out of the fold lines.
"Aoshi-sama?"
There was a spindly tree branching out from the center.
"Why won't you look me in the eye?"
He rocked on his heels while driving nails deep into his palms. And then there was that bird winging its way over to the tree.
"I'm sure you would tell me if everything wasn't alright,"
Kami-sama, she was consoling herself. Where did the tree and the bird go? Now all he could see was her face, those wide eyes searching his for some sort of sign -
As he literally stumbled out of his trance, he was caught by Misao. She held onto his arms as he steadied himself, her lithe little body more sturdy than it appeared. Gripping onto her shoulders, he bent down to her level, his face unreadable as she guided him back to where he had been sitting. Only this time she kneeled in front of him.
"Now Aoshi-sama, you will tell me what's going on!" she flared, pulling one of his hands into her lap. Then, upon noticing the nail-imprints cut into his palm, shouted, "Nani?"
Aoshi couldn't breathe. She was sitting too close. He was breathing too fast. As the balance that he constantly sought for slipped away from his grasp, he felt his entire face go numb. He knew he had his jaw hanging, that his ice-cold eyes were wide with what some might call fear while others would beg desire. Every muscle in his body tensed, becoming just as solid as that untouchable rock he made himself to be even while his tongue and all senses of perception turned to gooey jello.
"You shouldn't hurt yourself like this," she admonished, tracing delicate fingers over the indentations. He had never truly realized how sensitive the palm was until she started to massage the marks out with her thumb. "What possessed you to do this?"
He wanted to look her straight in the eye and tell her that it was her who possessed him so completely. He wanted to lean in, wrench his hand from her grasp and slide it along her hip, just to touch her with more than a courteous pat on the shoulder or accidentally as he disgraced her living beauty with a dead flower. Recently slain daydreams resurrected themselves as she stared at him, waiting for an answer. Consciously he reminded himself that she had slid the shoji shut and that if he could move as quietly as a cat when he was on assignment, that he could certainly keep his vocal chords still even as a release of emotion overwhelmed his senses. No one in the Aoiya would hear or suspect a thing.
He tried to speak over these feelings that were welling up like lava inside him. But the gooey mess his tongue and mouth had melted into prevented him from getting very far in conversation.
Misao kept watching and waiting, her head moving slightly as he tried to form words. Then to his astonishment, she set his hand down on the floor and hoisted herself up on her feet. "I can see you're not going to talk to me Aoshi-sama," she let her chin fall to her chest, the flower hanging over her left ear drooping even more pathetically. Remembering how to use the muscles in his face, he winced guiltily as she stood there, defeated.
And her only victory was the flower that fell to the floor. He watched its descent, and felt the pain emanating from her chi as she smashed the petals beneath her wrapped feet. A step away from the closed door, she turned back to find his back turned to her. He could hear the door clack open, the swish of fabric as she stepped down onto the porch, and the final sliding of the shoji back into place.
Moments too late, Aoshi took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Drawing up a fist to rest his forehead on he said, "You, only you Misao," and rolled his knuckles back and forth on the immaculately polished wood floor. "Look at what you've done to me."