These Scars Are My Badges
Never in all his years existing in the expansive Makai, had the wind master seen such white and fluffy clouds hovering in the heavens before. They looked like a hybrid of rabbit's tails and handfuls of freshly picked cotton, as white and spotless as a pristine wedding kimono. Jin found it hard to believe that they were really made of water and not from those dry wisps on the tops of dying dandelion weeds. Not one tuft upon any of the clouds was marred with a splotch of gray or darkness. The backdrop of the sky looked like the clearest of ocean reefs and the clouds made it appear even bluer by comparison. The rolling sun was to the setting side of its noonday position, around two thirty, and thus Jin did not have to squint his own blue eyes in the slightest in order to watch the clouds above pass over his prostrate form. He then closed the windows to his soul and took a deep uplifting breath, consequently raising the infant girl that lay upon his chest upward, holding the inhalation a bit before releasing it once more into the air.
'Mmmmm...feel that breeze comin' in. It's like a beautiful wind nymph is breathin' down upon us from some distant cloud...faith and beggora! Such a beautiful day, with even better company...I almost feel undeservin' of it! Maybe later I can convince Touya to let me take him and Einin on up for a jaunt, cause oi does he ever hafta get o'er that anxious feelin' towards flyin' if he wants to keep on toleratin' me! He he he...'
"Would ya' like that angel?" He asked the squirming infant as he picked Einin up to hold her above his chest, looking down at him with the most curious of expressions. "Aw, ya' know you'd love to go for a wee fly with me eh? I'd let ya' touch those clouds rather than look at them! Then ya' really would be an angel flying o'er the lands spreadin' that light o' yours...err, though minus the wings o' course!" Jin smiled warmly as Einin responded with a happy chirp of a coo and he lowered her down to nuzzle her face, making her babble happily.
"OW! Damn..." Jin's blissful playtime with his "little bird" was interrupted by a rather loud exclamation causing him to turn his head slightly to the right side and call out to his best friend.
"Ya' alright Touya? Or do ya' need any help getting' disentangled from that there bugger of a task?" Jin asked jokingly, knowing perfectly well why Touya had yelled and cursed. He giggled to himself before returning his gaze to the sky, at the same time tickling the tiny foot of the little babe, after laying her back on his sternum to look at the clouds in delight. She murmured slightly after hearing Touya's angry voice and Jin swooped his eyes down to his chest to see her squirm in discomfort, as if knowing from whom the voice came and that it was not a happy one.
"Aww...no worries me darlin'! Uncle Touya just needs to take a little teensy break from his work...yes he does, yes he does!" Jin assured, switching into baby talk to make the infant smile again.
"You know darn well I could have had an 'teensy break' when I asked for your help three hours ago! And I know for a fact that it does not take that long to give Hikari a bath!" Touya yelled right back over the line of bushes that hid Jin and Hikari from his line of sight. Not hearing any cohesive response, save for some well-placed Gaelic mumbling, the frustrated ice demon sighed and turned his back to the bushes to look in contempt at his finger wrenching work.
'One would think Jin could at least give me a hand with sewing all of these patches of cloth together and mending HIS cloak after it was torn apart. Gods he probably has not even put Hikari into the water yet!' Touya thought to himself with a little frustration mark sitting atop his brow.
Touya was sitting upon the green blades of grass in a small clearing, with an array of different kinds of cloth and thread laid out before his cross-legged lap. He looked at his injured, pinpricked finger for a moment and watched as another little pebble of blood poked its way out of his digit. Touya promptly put it into his mouth to stop the bleeding before he got any of the red stain on the clothes he was making for Hikari.
Not being one accustomed to making his own attire from scratch, the ice demon was having a bit of trouble with his needlework and never failed to prick himself after only four or five stitches. Needless to say he was not making much progress save for the one garment he had finished sewing for Hikari, which she was now wearing, out of his own Shinobi cloak. He felt they no longer needed two heavy cloaks since the group would not get cold traveling in the direction they were going, so Touya had decided that disassembling his own to make something sturdy and warm for Hikari was the most practical alternative to just leaving it behind. The one thing he had forgotten to purchase on the way to the lakeshore was a thimble to protect his finger. But despite the troublesome pokes on the same digit over and over again, Touya continued to mend together patches of cloth, making what appeared to be a very small shirt.
It had been six days since Jin and Touya had left the Shinobi lands once and for all, leaving a rather large hole in the earth where the head quarters used to be...hopefully no one of importance would notice it, like a visiting sect leader from another section of the Makai.
After the demon pair had rifled through their own living quarter in the cave system, or what was left of the chambers, gathering what few assets they together possessed, they began on their trek down into the Southern portion of the Makai. Touya had felt that it would be best to move away from the North, where the closest of the other Shinobi sects lay, with its own members and sets of values. The ice demon knew that they needed to give themselves a longer head start at escaping without incident...Jin had whole heartedly agreed, not eager to face an opponent and risk putting his "little bird" in harm's way again.
On the way to their present campsite, the demon partners, using Touya's remaining sums of salary, had purchased numerous supplies in one small town to keep them moving without any possibly...noticeable stops in any more populated areas. Jin often had the tendency to...draw attention, but Touya felt that with Einin in their care the wind master would refrain from going to any of the frequented pubs or even touching a drop of Makai whiskey; he was more responsible than most other persons gave him credit for. However, on a sour note, the ice demon had noted that Jin never seemed to know where his own coin pouch had gotten off to and Touya hoped he was planning on paying him back for all of the times the bill had been covered for the both of them.
Despite Jin's "lack" of funds there was now food for the three of them, milk for Einin, some scraps of cloth, and sewing supplies. They had planned on stopping by the lake for a total of three days after such a long initial hike, for a well-deserved rest. The weather in the south was considerably drier and warmer in comparison to the north and west; though this heat did not sit well with Touya's over all feeling of comfort, it certainly sat better with him than having Hikari become sick from the bitter cold that the Northern or Western portions of the Makai would bring. While Jin had given up his...well, independent itinerary, of going out for little jaunts into the villages, Touya had given up living in the element he was most suited for. And as far as the two demons were concerned, this alternative life together with Einin was worth a few petty discomforts. Speaking of which...
"OW! Not again! Why can't they just make clothes into one seamless garment?!" Touya cried before he put his finger back into his mouth and waited until the coppery taste dissipated. He then withdrew his finger and sighed, wiping his right hand across his perspiring brow before growling, exasperated at the discomfort of the rather hot weather...well, it seemed hot from the ice demon's perspective. Touya put his needlework to ground and nearly ripped off his most outer top, with the mesh sleeves, and tossed it into the pile of their supplies just under the tree to his right. The ice demon then calmed as he felt a small breeze go through his remaining, thin tunic and over his skin. 'Much better...maybe I should just take a nap and rela...'
"Touya? Ya' okay o'er there? I don'a wanna find that my only traveling partner who can hold a conversation, at least as of yet, is a demon pin cushion!" Jin yelled over the bushes teasingly, knowing that Touya needed to take a break from his toils and hoped that this would bring him over to the lake away from his time consuming task.
"Jin, if you had helped me I would have been done by now...then at least we both would have been pin-cushions..." Touya said with half a smirk on his face as he leaned back on his arms to face the canopy of leaves.
"Not so! I'll have ya' know that me own mother was quite handy with a stitch or two and I was quite handy myself when she needed my help...besides why didn't we buy a thimble back at that town we passed in order to get here?" he asked quite innocently. Touya grumbled slightly before responding.
"WE did not buy a thimble because I have spent almost all of MY funds...you daft ELF! Arrggg, and you don't seem to have any money otherwise I am sure you would have offered it...(sigh) have you even started bathing her yet?" Touya asked with a sweat drop.
"...........yes," Jin responded as he sat up, repositioning Einin with his back to the ice demon and the line of bushes.
"Why did it take you so long to think about it?" Touya questioned, afraid of the response. 'I just keep setting my self up don't I?'
"Well...all depends on your definition of the word 'bath' I suppose...she's been in the water plenty, if that's what ya' be meanin'..." Touya then sighed, his eyes still closed as if he did not want to see what Jin meant, and stood up from his comfortable position on the soft grass.
"Jin a bath means you use SOAP in order to clean all of that dirt off of her...so did you use soap?" Touya asked. After a long silence from the wind master the ice demon sighed again and he began walking to the small lakeside where Jin was supposed to be cleaning Einin, and stepped through the line of tall bushes that separated the campsite from the shore.
"Are you telling me you did not use the soap I spent all of that money on because it was the only place that sold it in the village we passed?! Jin I paid a good chunk of my remaining funds for soap that was not made from the oily skin of some rodent, or other disgusting creature, and you haven't even begun to..." the ice demon stopped at the edge of the lake when his foot hit something soft. He opened his eyes looking downward to find a pile of clothes...the smaller of the garments in the pile he knew were the ones he had sewn for Einin, but the others....
Touya then heard a little nervous snicker come from the water and when his eyes met Jin's form, the ice demon promptly fell over anime style.
Jin now faced the ice demon and was in naught but his most inner trousers, which only came down to his thighs, and was sitting on the lake bottom up to his chest in the water. Einin was no better when it came to apparel and simply wore her lower garments. It would seem that Jin had joined Einin in the water for a very prolonged soap-less bath, lasting for about three hours; one could tell they had been in the water for so long by how prune like the pair of demons appeared. Touya just looked astonished, and he could not decide which made him want to turn around and go to sleep more: the fact that Jin was taking a bath while the ice demon worked his fingers till they bled or the fact that the expensive, soap free of rodent skin still lay in its wrapping on the shore.
"Aw, come on Touya don't use the no-nonsense face like that and be a stick in the mud...join us! It's great fun to look up at the sky like this with all o' those pretty clouds! I tell ya' I was not a few minutes ago floatin' on me back here with Einin on me chest and we were just watching the sky! If ya' look real hard and all ya' can make the clouds into shapes! If ya' join us ya' may see...ummmmmm, a cloud that looks like a snowball!" Touya's face grimaced at the idiocy of this last statement. "Come on, take a break for gods' sakes," Jin said ginning as he began to come out of the water holding Einin up to his shoulder, with her facing his back.
Touya was about to say that HE had to finish mending and sewing so that Einin would have things to wear, because it would be irresponsible of them, as her caregivers, to leave her open to the elements when they had the means to clothe her little shout out to a reviewer . At least...Touya was going to list off those points of argument before he saw Jin turn his back to the ice demon, crouch down, and pat the water with his free right hand.
"Come on ya' silly pixie! He he he...I know better than anyone that ya' probably want to get in the water in this parched heat...ya' may be an ice demon but that don't mean ya' can deal with the hot weather like the rest o' us can, ya' know?" Jin finished with a big smile and he continued to swish his hand through the water invitingly. When he heard no reply he turned his head to the side to view a silent Touya. He then stood up erect with a questioning look on his face, because the ice demon was now biting his lip almost...ashamed. Jin was utterly confounded by the message Touya's countenance was sending him. 'Is he hungry or somethin'? Why is he bitin' his lip like that?' After a moment's thought and tracing the line of sight to what Touya was looking at, it hit Jin right on his horn...Touya was gazing quite intently at the wind master's back.
After the plummet through the ravine in the Shinobi lands, and the necessary action Jin took to keep the trio from crashing into the rock face, Jin's back had retained a mesh like web of pink scars, extending from his lower back right up to the base of his neck. As Touya had predicted, an infection formed after so much dirt and moisture from the ground had gotten into the wounds, and due to this the skin did not heal back together in a smooth manner, but rather was bumpy and did not look entirely like actual skin.
His broken nose and the other wounds from his fight with Reisho had healed quite nicely, but after days of his friend trying to make Jin's back look the way it used to, the wind master knew that though the injury was quite free from any further infection...the skin itself was as healed as it was ever going to be; and all things considering, it looked exactly as it should have...like it had been dragged for miles across a bed of rusty nails. This sight apparently did not sit well with the ice demon, and had not since he first saw that his treatment had done little to help the scars recede. Despite Jin's assurances that he was fine, Touya still felt pangs of shame when he looked upon the wind master's scars.
"Touya..." Jin called as he turned to directly face his comrade. Touya looked up into Jin's eyes as the wind master walked closer to where he stood, still holding Einin snuggly as she cooed and squirmed as infants are wont to do. "Look me friend...it's not your fault that I have these, and they don'a hurt at all thanks to your medical talents and treatment...che, did ya' think I could have healed these half as good without your help?!" Jin grinned trying to make the ice demon crack his own small grin at being complimented, but Touya looked unconvinced.
"You do not at all mind that your back looks...that way? Or that my carelessness..." Touya was interrupted when Jin came right in front of him and leaned down to be eye to eye with his partner, his face serious but still gentle.
"Mind? Why would I mind?" Jin asked shifting Einin into a cradled position in his arms. "How could I mind...when I earned these scars protecting the very demons who've made me life as bright as it is?" Touya's eyebrows rose and his mouth gaped slightly before Jin decided to continue. "You may look at my back and see the result of an obsessive demon's revenge...but I bear these scars with the pride and honor that the act of obtaining them was inspired by. Their not even scars Touya..." Jin paused, handing Einin into Touya's smaller arms, before standing up erect with the same gentle look on his face. "They're my badges, medals...whatever ya' want to call 'em, they are symbols of a worthy deed...I do not have many of those to look back on and feel pride for accomplishing; and in all honesty, I'd rather have them on me back so that you both can see, and know everyday, what I am willin' to do for ya'." Jin finished, smiling at his shorter partner.
"I was still careless with myself...and with Hikari for gods sakes! If you had not reacted to my gross mistake then we could have died and if I had been more alert then..." Touya stopped as an index finger and thumb came up from under his chin to smoosh his cheeks into a lip puckering expression, making Einin squeal in delight at the only funny face Touya had ever made in front of her. Jin leaned down once more to look Touya right in the eye still squishing the ice demon's face.
"If this...If that...What if's and could have's...all piffle an' blarney rolled into a big ball o' nothin'! I could say a few what if's of me own...what if I had paid more attention to Reisho when he was lyin' there nearly dead...what if I had killed him sooner instead of dawdlin' to hear what he had to say...what if I had been faster at getting' to the both of ya' as ya' fell to your deaths?! None of this speculatin' changes a thing and it only makes ya' feel worse about what happened...we all could have done something different to keep bad things from happenin' to us, but if ya' keep your mind stuck in what ya' could've done in the past then ya'll never be ready to deal with the stuff that faces you in the future," Jin said his voice softening as he saw Touya's eyes still held a hint of doubt. "Touya, the only way that the badges on my back could have been your fault is if you did something to me deliberately to cause them. Ya' didn't, and I know ya'd never hurt me...the one who should take the blame is dead now and..."
Jin paused once more to take a deep breath and hold it before letting it out. He looked at Touya, with a saddened expression on the wind master's face, before removing his hand from the ice demon's cheeks. Jin then closed his eyes, put his forehead against Touya's, and placed his left hand on top of his best friend's shoulder. "Why do ya' do this to yourself? Ya' always take on so much for yourself to handle...whether it be lookin' after your well bein' or takin' care o' everyone else or doin' so much at once that it makes your head feel like explodin'.
"If ya're tryin' to show me that you are responsible and duty bound, then I hate to tell ya' this...but I have known that since the first time I met ya'. I have seen ya' worry more in the time I have known ye then most people do in five lifetimes...and so I am afraid that I have no other choice..." Jin stopped to stand up with his hands on his hips facing a perplexed ice demon. The wind master had this mischievous glint in his eye and grinned to himself, making the ice demon a little concerned.
"Ya're takin' a bath with us and that is final!" He cheerily yelled as he swooped down upon his comrade, and scooped Touya up into his arms bridal style. Before the stunned ice demon could even respond, Jin had brought him into the water, which was up to the wind master's chest as he stood on the lake floor and Touya's posterior was in the lake. At this point Touya had found the words with which to respond.
"JIN! I still have my clothes on!" Touya exclaimed, as Jin took Einin from the ice demon's arms and held her against his broad shoulder once more.
"Aw kwitcherbehlyachin'! I can just use the wind to dry 'em out, no problem! Now...have a stand with me and watch the clouds for a bit!" Jin replied as he let go of Touya's body with a splash and stared up at the sky himself.
At first Jin expected Touya to say something in an angry retort, but when the wind master heard nothing from his friend he cocked his eyebrow and looked back down to where Touya was...or at least was supposed to be. Jin had unfortunately forgotten that though the water level was up to his own chest...Touya was approximately a foot or so shorter than Jin, placing his head about inch below water level as he stood on the bottom. Jin eeped loudly as Einin giggled at the bubbles coming up from where Touya stood under the water. Jin grabbed down quickly for Touya's back and dragged him up above the water by his soaking tunic.
The red headed wind master grinned nervously and sweat dropped, as he met the face of a now speechless ice demon. Touya's eyes were very wide and his pupils constricted...well, only one pupil was constricted, since his right eye was completely covered by his matted down green bangs and his mouth was agape. The water droplets on his face dripped bit by bit into the lake, whose water level was now up to Touya's chest since he faced Jin in one of those rare moments when their heights actually matched. Jin's eyebrows knitted together as he kept the grin on his face...hoping to all that was good and merciful in the world that Touya would not decide to freeze the lake, and leave him in it. 'Why am I such a bugger?! I try to cheer him up and o' course instead I screw it up!' he thought to himself.
"Touya I am soo sorry! I just forgot how short ya' were...err...wait I mean ya're not short! Not at all! In fact ya're height is perfectly normal and really I just forgot how...tall...I was?" At this point Touya's eye, the other still covered, moved to look beyond Jin's face and the wind master thought he had really messed it up this time looking down at the water in shame.
'Oi not only did I give him more work on top o' his worryin' with the sewin', me knowin' he'd just add on even more tasks for himself to do and frazzle himself into stitches, but now I just put him into a state o' shock! He looks bloody catatonic! Jin, why are ya' so stupid?! Why don't ya' think?! Why...' Jin's self-berating was interrupted by a small "hn" coming from Touya.
"You know...you were right Jin..." The ice demon muttered, before looking quite frankly into Jin's eyes. The wind master looked completely astounded and wondered why the yelling had not yet started. 'I don't know if he's gonna bite me or bloody freeze me!' Jin thought, poising himself for either another broken nose or a very cold splash.
"...you can see a snowball shape," Touya then smiled warmly at his best friend and chuckled to himself, seeing that Jin raised his brows up to his hairline. 'He's gone nutso he has!' Jin thought as Touya released himself from the wind master's grip and doggy paddled toward the shore, leaving behind a very confused wind master and a very pleased infant, who thought this had been one of the most entertaining events of the day. Jin turned around to see Touya standing knee deep in the water looking back at his partner.
"See? It's a snowball," he said still smiling genuinely and pointing up to the rather circular shaped cloud off in the distant sky. Jin's face relaxed and he started laughing, 'He really is something genuine isn't he?' The wind master made his way to the shore to join Touya, who was now sitting himself down at the edge of the water.
"So you're not at all mad?!" Jin asked ever hopeful as he sat down in the sand holding the still squirming Einin to his shoulder. Touya reached over to the infant and picked her up to lay her down on his own prostrate chest as he laid half in the sand and half in the water. He wrapped his arms gently around Hikari's small frame and took in her scent before responding to his partner.
"No, you big elf...for one thing I can never stay mad at you for long, I guess I just don't have it in me. Second, you did not try to submerge me on purpose...I figured you had forgotten about how much shorter I am in comparison to your own height, I genuinely understand that you can be impulsive at times, and actually that is one of the things I like most about you. And third...well, you are darn lucky you were holding Einin otherwise I just might have let you have it good this time," Touya responded grinning to himself as his half-lidded, pale blue eyes met the clouds in the sky. Jin continued to sit cross-legged and look at Touya with a smile of his own.
"And besides..." Touya yawned as he felt the sleep inducing effects of the warm sun begin to influence his state of consciousness. "I need to learn to actually stop working for once, just sit and exist in this new life in the light...and if there is anyone up to the task of teaching me to lighten up a bit...it's you Jin..."
The ice demon then drifted off to sleep, curling to his left side and holding Einin closer in his arms as her little hands started to play with his face gently. Jin's smile broadened and he put the fingers of his right hand into Einin's, keeping her from pulling on Touya's skin so much as to make him wake up from the much-needed slumber. 'I'll do me best me friend...to help you both have the lives that you never got to have before,' Jin thought to himself as he continued to look out over the lake, watching the clouds move by and dance with each other in the wind.
TBC...hopefully you like this chapter! More soon to come. This was dedicated to my cousin who died recently in his sleep at the age of 19...I hope that he knows I love him, and hope that he has achieved his own Light. I love you B, may there be a clear blue ocean on which to sail, where ever you are.