But I Have Promises To Keep
"I am sorry," the young man said with gentle formality, "but I can not
permit you to harm these people. Be gone from this place, and trouble us
no more; else I shall be forced to cause harm to you."
The leader of the thugs smirked at him. "You and what army? Don't you
know who we *are*, little man?"
"I believe you to be about to inform me," he replied. Behind him Kaede
pulled her kimono slightly apart as surreptitiously as she could manage,
giving her legs more freedom to take longer strides.
The gang leader glared at him, certain that he was being mocked but
unable to determine quite how. "We're Ishin Shishi!"
/Well, isn't this ironic./ "I've heard of the Ishin Shishi. They fought
to create a new Japan, an era of enlightenment, where life was better for
everyone and woman and children could walk the streets without being
harassed."
"Ah, come on! Nobody believes *that* bullcrap!" the group laughed.
"The strong do what they like; the weak submit," their leader added.
"I had friends," the soft-spoken man told him, his eyes narrowing, "who
died for 'that bullcrap,' as you so elegantly put it." He felt the
seduction of the anger rising within his breast, but did not succumb to
its siren song.
His master had taught him, years before, that anger was worthless if you
let it use you. And the years since had taught him that all emotions as
well were to be mastered and then used, focused and without waste.
If he took out the one blocking the alley, Kaede and her brother Isamu
could get away. The narrow way led straight back to the market and the
safety that a crowd of people would bring.
/Move... now./
He leapt, knocking the man out with one precise blow of his sheathed
sword. "Back to the fish stand!" he snapped quickly, foregoing the
politeness of his usual mask.
Kaede dipped her head once in acknowledgment, grabbed Isamu's arm
tightly, and took off. The swordsman spun to face the remaining thugs,
angling his scabbard so that it was poised for a rapid draw, hoping that
they would do the sensible thing and back off.
The 'Ishin Shishi' (who might well have been such in truth; many people
had joined that loose alliance, few with the purest of motives) paid less
attention however to his practiced stance and more to his slight figure.
He had resigned himself some time ago to the fact that he was apparently
going to have the build of an early adolescent for an indefinite amount
of time, perhaps the rest of his life; despite his body being in essence
whipcord muscle over bone, in his loose clothing he looked like a skinny
kid with a pretty (albeit scarred) face.
And to most people, these being no exception, that particular
combination spelled E-A-S-Y M-A-R-K.
They attacked.
Vwhoosh.
There, that was most of them knocked out, and --
As he paused for a moment to catch his breath and determine what he'd
have to do next, the aging roof above him, complete with panicked gang
lookout, finally sighed and gave way.
He *almost* leapt clear.
it was only one loose tile that hit him on the head.
But at the velocity it had acquired, he blacked out for a second; and as
he swam back to consciousness again, he was aware of the distorted face
of one of the two men he hadn't taken care of yet leaning over his and
something -- /cloth/, his mind identified it -- around his throat.
And it was growing tighter and he couldn't breathe and his hands clawed
feebly at the strip but it was so fast and his concussed head couldn't
THINK and air he needed AIR at least Kaede and Isamu got away oh please
AIR --
The merciful darkness claimed him as one thought swam through his lower
consciousness, to be examined more fully later:
/Well, isn't THIS ironic./
He swam back into consciousness with the feeling of some indefinite
wrongness.
Hm. Everything *felt* there; he was sitting seiza, there was no
sensation of blood or anything like that, and the terrible choking
feeling was gone...
That *was* odd. His breathing didn't seem to fill his senses the way it
ordinarily did, and yet....
He tentatively opened his eyes.
"Well, *finally*," the woman before him remarked, looking down at him.
"After all the bother you've caused and will cause, I have better things
to do than wait for you to come back to yourself so that you can choose."
He blinked. "Oro?"
The woman remained. Her shining hair was long and uncut, as befitted a
woman of noble blood. In contrast, her violet kimono and the darker
underrobe were pushed open so much as to be nearly falling off her
shoulders; below the golden obi's binding, it again spread to reveal
quite an amount of white-sheathed leg.
The legs were particularly evident because she was casually seated on an
*oar*, of all things, attached to...
Leaning sideways to try to determine precisely what it might be attached
to, he found himself describing a loose circle in midair --
He'd been sitting in MIDAIR?
-- and noticing the street below him, empty now except for a sprawled
figure.
Regaining his earlier position, he carefully leaned slightly forward and
looked down.
/Is that me?/
It certainly appeared to be. Although the face was partially turned down
and covered by hair, that same bright red hair was unmistakable, as were
the rather well-worn clothing and partially unsheathed sakabatoh beneath
the figure.
Its peculiar slackness was also familiar to him; he'd seen that
particular sack-of-produce look far too many times ever to mistake it.
"I'm dead," he said to the woman. "Am I not?"
"Give the boy a bean-jam cake," she remarked sarcastically. "In a way,
yes."
"I am NOT a boy," he told her indignantly.
She looked at him with the same expression his master had often regaled
him with. "I, Sumire, have guided the warriors of Nobunaga and Onzoushi
to the other world, and remember the Court of Heian in the days when Lady
Murasaki Shikibu was writing her elegant comedy of manners for the
amusement of the Empress. What are your years on this earth to that,
boy?"
"Etto... not much, I suppose."
A faint smile graced her face.
"Are you a goddess, O-Sumire-dono? And what did you mean by 'in a way'
and 'bother?'"
O-Sumire laughed in earnest this time, putting her hand before her mouth
to politely disguise it. "To answer your first question first, no; I am
merely a guide for crossing the Sanzu no Kawa. And as for 'bother' and so
forth: you are a special case, you know. Several of us had to gather more
detailed information in order to properly judge the best course of action
in this situation."
"Information?" He was truly puzzled now.
"We interviewed those who are acquainted with you." Her mouth twisted.
"That teacher of yours made a *most* improper proposal to me."
"Sh-sh-*shishou*!?"
"Whatever made him think that I would entertain such?" Her hair seemed
almost to rise and fan out in indignation.
"Perhaps if you pulled your kimono a bit tighter... " he suggested
tentatively.
She looked down her nose at him. "What, and melt?"
The noise and bustle of the market could be heard clearly in the
distance.
"What situation?" he finally said, curious.
"It has to do with what you are," O-Sumire began.
/Oh./ The blood had soaked deep enough into his soul, then, that the
Lords of Hell needed to devise some special punishment?
"I see," he said, inclining his head. He would take it, whatever it
might be. And yet, even now, he could not see how he could have done
anything other than what he did.
"Oh, you knew then? It'll make it easier not to have to explain about
your being not quite human."
/WHAT?/
O-Sumire was tapping her fingers on the handle of her oar when he
managed to think himself up from the ground and back to a position before
her. "It's not polite to deceive people like that," she remarked to the
empty air. "I thought you knew about your being han'you."
"It... makes sense," he ventured. "Of many things. But -- how?"
"In the usual way, of course."
He blinked, violet eyes beginning to narrow. "And what is the usual
way?"
"It seems that your mother went to a shrine to pray for a child," the
guide said in a pedantical tone, "and a youkai happened to be wandering
by and heard her, and saw her to be pretty."
"'Tall and lordly, and woven of moonshine,'" the redhead said quietly.
"Yes, of course. She told me the story -- I just never put it together...
"
"There are a fair amount of you around," O-Sumire resumed, "but usually
either the youkai heritage finds a rather obvious outlet, or you get
killed very thoroughly, or both, or -- well, in any case, usually your
files have very definite death dates. But yours has two possibilities, so
-- " She shrugged.
"Two possibilities?"
"Depending," she explained. "on whether you choose to be human or
youkai."
Even the sounds of the market seemed to have stopped now.
"Explain, please," he said. "I seem to be dead *now*. Surely this is a
moot point?"
"You... died," O-Sumire explained, "because your lungs couldn't get any
air and your brain thus starved for lack of oxygen. But it's not as if
you were physically damaged; you could conceivably return to your body
and take up your life again."
Enticing. Or.. not so?
"There must be," he said, his tone even, "more to this."
"Naturally," the woman from the other world agreed. "Your choices are
two. To be no more than human, and to die in this place, and for me to
guide you across the River of Three Forks and to the country near the
Gates of Judgement. Your wife waits there, in a small house, while her
case is put on hold. You, too, might wait there, to sleep at long last,
and be healed of all your wounds, and wake to rest with her in a place
where time has little meaning, until at last the two of you are ready to
walk through the Gates; and I am authorized to tell you that in this
lifetime you have expiated many of the burdens that had weighed you down,
and that after your sleep whatever awaits you will not lie heavy upon
you.
"Or -- you can be youkai in truth, as before you feigned being. You drew
upon the suppressed ki from that side of yourself to use the power of the
Hiten Mitsurugi school far better than any human your age should, and to
become a legend in Kyoto some years before; it could flow freely through
your body, giving you more endurance and more recuperability than any
mere mortal might attain." Her head tilted slightly. "Much more than your
shishou.
"And you would never more be human. Your aging, already slow, would seem
to stop; any human friends you might make would grow old and die around
you, while you seemed no older than the day you met. You would be hurt,
greatly, and your reward for enduring that pain would be more pain to
add. Not in a hundred years and more will you be able to be happy without
having that happiness shattered within a mere eight of years. The world
will change to some strange thing that you cannot even comprehend now;
and for much of your life you will be lonely, lonelier than you are now,
sundered by time and space from any who would understand you.
"Well?"
"Must I answer immediately?" he asked.
"Not immediately," she said. "In this moment we are outside of time. But
soon, for this moment cannot be held long. And no one may help you in
this; you must decide for yourself."
"I see." The young man's sight turned inward, as he sat seiza and
remained thus for a long time. Finally he looked up. "May I ask a
question?"
"You may *ask*," O-Sumire said. "I may or may not answer; but you may
ask."
"You have told me," he began, "how I would be affected by each choice.
How... would other people be affected?"
The guide smiled fully then, transforming her face to one of great
beauty. "Good question, Himura. If you choose humanity... the fates of
most of your close friends are set, and nothing you may do would change
them. The common people of Yamato will muddle along somehow, as they
always have: they will be born, some will bear children, some will grow
old, all of them will die. They will suffer, but not as they have
suffered; the government will be changed again and perhaps a third time,
and progress will take three steps forward and two steps back, as always.
"If you choose the other... you will make a few large changes, the
effects of most of which will cease to be felt within a generation; you
will save three of the people you now know, two of whom would not need
saving had it not been for other deeds of yours; and the lives of a great
many people you have not yet met will be rather better than they might
have been, and a few *will* live who would have died if not for you. But
many of those have not been born, nor have their parents: and, as I said
before, it will be long and heartbreaking work, and even you cannot save
them all."
The small man traced, not quite nervously, the lines of the crossed
scars on his cheek, looking at his fingers as if he expected to see them
marked with blood.
"It would," he said finally, "to be lovely to stop, and rest, and have
it all go away. But -- "
"But?"
"I made promises. A few to people now living. Many to people now dead."
"They will forgive you the breaking, if broken by death," O-Sumire told
him. "Across the Sanzu no Kawa, there are no grudges. We don't let them
by."
"But, you see, even if I ignore the promises to all those I killed -- I
cannot forget that I promised one other person. I promised me.
"I promised me," he repeated. "That I would make a difference. That the
new era wouldn't be another one where people get hurt -- and die --
because those who could have saved them did not bother. So I cannot stop
now, you see."
"I see," his companion agreed.
The urgent tones of a girl's voice echoed from the direction of the
marketplace, the words muffled and distorted.
"We are running out of time," O-Sumire warned him."You must return to
your body at once. This will hurt."
"I have been hurt before."
"So you have." She gestured to his limp body. "Lie more or less inside,
and I will jump-start your vital organs."
"Oro?"
"It's easier to do than to explain." She dropped to the ground and laid
a hand on the lifeless chest, as he, after a shrug, threw himself down to
occupy most of the same space as his former shell. "You will remember
very little of this afterwards, except in dreams. However, I think the
memory of your eldritch heritage will remain.
"And may I say, Himura Shinta who was, how very proud I am of you?"
"*Oro?*"
And then *something* dealt him a tremendous blow to the chest, and the
blackness claimed him again.
Air!
He wheezed and then gasped in air, drawing it past the thick throat into
the chest that felt as if it had been kicked by a horse.
/I wonder when that happened? Maybe one of them stepped on me./
All of his ribs seemed to be in place, luckily. He sucked down another
gasp.
"Yo -- yokatta... " a voice breathed from above him. He opened his eyes.
Kaede.
"You should not be here," he choked out, scolding her gently.
"I brought them," Kaede told him, gesturing to his right. He turned his
head and managed to raise himself a bit. Ah. Police.
"I thank you," he managed, ignoring the protests from his overworked
throat. "You must have frightened them away from strangling me."
That had been the closest he had come to death in some time; no wonder
he still had an odd feeling. The rush of merely being alive, and not dead
despite all odds, was familiar to him; yet it was not usually so sharp,
so perfect an imitation of the well-being he could not logically be
feeling now.
/Han'you... / a woman's voice whispered within his mind.
One of the police officers shot a suddenly sharp glace at him.
"Akage-yatsu, didn't I see you carting a sword around earlier today?"
"What sword?" Kaede asked, adjusting her kimono to better cover the
sakabatoh she was leaning over. "I don't see any sword."
The officer snorted before turning away, followed, after a moment, by
the other two.
"Here, lean on me," the girl told him, helping him up.
"No, it is all right," he reassured her. "It was a moment of weakness,
but it is almost past." Indeed, he felt almost better than he had ever
been.
"Thank you for saving us," Kaede finally said after he carefully took a
step, then another, without toppling on his face. "A... anoh... they have
some very good fish for sale, and I'm getting out of practice only
cooking for Isamu and myself, and it's a rather large table... "
"I would be happy to share a meal with you before I leave," he smiled.
"Leave?" Kaede looked crestfallen. "So soon?"
"I have promises to keep," the redhead told her. "And miles to go... "
"I am sorry," the young man said with gentle formality, "but I can not
permit you to harm these people. Be gone from this place, and trouble us
no more; else I shall be forced to cause harm to you."
The leader of the thugs smirked at him. "You and what army? Don't you
know who we *are*, little man?"
"I believe you to be about to inform me," he replied. Behind him Kaede
pulled her kimono slightly apart as surreptitiously as she could manage,
giving her legs more freedom to take longer strides.
The gang leader glared at him, certain that he was being mocked but
unable to determine quite how. "We're Ishin Shishi!"
/Well, isn't this ironic./ "I've heard of the Ishin Shishi. They fought
to create a new Japan, an era of enlightenment, where life was better for
everyone and woman and children could walk the streets without being
harassed."
"Ah, come on! Nobody believes *that* bullcrap!" the group laughed.
"The strong do what they like; the weak submit," their leader added.
"I had friends," the soft-spoken man told him, his eyes narrowing, "who
died for 'that bullcrap,' as you so elegantly put it." He felt the
seduction of the anger rising within his breast, but did not succumb to
its siren song.
His master had taught him, years before, that anger was worthless if you
let it use you. And the years since had taught him that all emotions as
well were to be mastered and then used, focused and without waste.
If he took out the one blocking the alley, Kaede and her brother Isamu
could get away. The narrow way led straight back to the market and the
safety that a crowd of people would bring.
/Move... now./
He leapt, knocking the man out with one precise blow of his sheathed
sword. "Back to the fish stand!" he snapped quickly, foregoing the
politeness of his usual mask.
Kaede dipped her head once in acknowledgment, grabbed Isamu's arm
tightly, and took off. The swordsman spun to face the remaining thugs,
angling his scabbard so that it was poised for a rapid draw, hoping that
they would do the sensible thing and back off.
The 'Ishin Shishi' (who might well have been such in truth; many people
had joined that loose alliance, few with the purest of motives) paid less
attention however to his practiced stance and more to his slight figure.
He had resigned himself some time ago to the fact that he was apparently
going to have the build of an early adolescent for an indefinite amount
of time, perhaps the rest of his life; despite his body being in essence
whipcord muscle over bone, in his loose clothing he looked like a skinny
kid with a pretty (albeit scarred) face.
And to most people, these being no exception, that particular
combination spelled E-A-S-Y M-A-R-K.
They attacked.
Vwhoosh.
There, that was most of them knocked out, and --
As he paused for a moment to catch his breath and determine what he'd
have to do next, the aging roof above him, complete with panicked gang
lookout, finally sighed and gave way.
He *almost* leapt clear.
it was only one loose tile that hit him on the head.
But at the velocity it had acquired, he blacked out for a second; and as
he swam back to consciousness again, he was aware of the distorted face
of one of the two men he hadn't taken care of yet leaning over his and
something -- /cloth/, his mind identified it -- around his throat.
And it was growing tighter and he couldn't breathe and his hands clawed
feebly at the strip but it was so fast and his concussed head couldn't
THINK and air he needed AIR at least Kaede and Isamu got away oh please
AIR --
The merciful darkness claimed him as one thought swam through his lower
consciousness, to be examined more fully later:
/Well, isn't THIS ironic./
He swam back into consciousness with the feeling of some indefinite
wrongness.
Hm. Everything *felt* there; he was sitting seiza, there was no
sensation of blood or anything like that, and the terrible choking
feeling was gone...
That *was* odd. His breathing didn't seem to fill his senses the way it
ordinarily did, and yet....
He tentatively opened his eyes.
"Well, *finally*," the woman before him remarked, looking down at him.
"After all the bother you've caused and will cause, I have better things
to do than wait for you to come back to yourself so that you can choose."
He blinked. "Oro?"
The woman remained. Her shining hair was long and uncut, as befitted a
woman of noble blood. In contrast, her violet kimono and the darker
underrobe were pushed open so much as to be nearly falling off her
shoulders; below the golden obi's binding, it again spread to reveal
quite an amount of white-sheathed leg.
The legs were particularly evident because she was casually seated on an
*oar*, of all things, attached to...
Leaning sideways to try to determine precisely what it might be attached
to, he found himself describing a loose circle in midair --
He'd been sitting in MIDAIR?
-- and noticing the street below him, empty now except for a sprawled
figure.
Regaining his earlier position, he carefully leaned slightly forward and
looked down.
/Is that me?/
It certainly appeared to be. Although the face was partially turned down
and covered by hair, that same bright red hair was unmistakable, as were
the rather well-worn clothing and partially unsheathed sakabatoh beneath
the figure.
Its peculiar slackness was also familiar to him; he'd seen that
particular sack-of-produce look far too many times ever to mistake it.
"I'm dead," he said to the woman. "Am I not?"
"Give the boy a bean-jam cake," she remarked sarcastically. "In a way,
yes."
"I am NOT a boy," he told her indignantly.
She looked at him with the same expression his master had often regaled
him with. "I, Sumire, have guided the warriors of Nobunaga and Onzoushi
to the other world, and remember the Court of Heian in the days when Lady
Murasaki Shikibu was writing her elegant comedy of manners for the
amusement of the Empress. What are your years on this earth to that,
boy?"
"Etto... not much, I suppose."
A faint smile graced her face.
"Are you a goddess, O-Sumire-dono? And what did you mean by 'in a way'
and 'bother?'"
O-Sumire laughed in earnest this time, putting her hand before her mouth
to politely disguise it. "To answer your first question first, no; I am
merely a guide for crossing the Sanzu no Kawa. And as for 'bother' and so
forth: you are a special case, you know. Several of us had to gather more
detailed information in order to properly judge the best course of action
in this situation."
"Information?" He was truly puzzled now.
"We interviewed those who are acquainted with you." Her mouth twisted.
"That teacher of yours made a *most* improper proposal to me."
"Sh-sh-*shishou*!?"
"Whatever made him think that I would entertain such?" Her hair seemed
almost to rise and fan out in indignation.
"Perhaps if you pulled your kimono a bit tighter... " he suggested
tentatively.
She looked down her nose at him. "What, and melt?"
The noise and bustle of the market could be heard clearly in the
distance.
"What situation?" he finally said, curious.
"It has to do with what you are," O-Sumire began.
/Oh./ The blood had soaked deep enough into his soul, then, that the
Lords of Hell needed to devise some special punishment?
"I see," he said, inclining his head. He would take it, whatever it
might be. And yet, even now, he could not see how he could have done
anything other than what he did.
"Oh, you knew then? It'll make it easier not to have to explain about
your being not quite human."
/WHAT?/
O-Sumire was tapping her fingers on the handle of her oar when he
managed to think himself up from the ground and back to a position before
her. "It's not polite to deceive people like that," she remarked to the
empty air. "I thought you knew about your being han'you."
"It... makes sense," he ventured. "Of many things. But -- how?"
"In the usual way, of course."
He blinked, violet eyes beginning to narrow. "And what is the usual
way?"
"It seems that your mother went to a shrine to pray for a child," the
guide said in a pedantical tone, "and a youkai happened to be wandering
by and heard her, and saw her to be pretty."
"'Tall and lordly, and woven of moonshine,'" the redhead said quietly.
"Yes, of course. She told me the story -- I just never put it together...
"
"There are a fair amount of you around," O-Sumire resumed, "but usually
either the youkai heritage finds a rather obvious outlet, or you get
killed very thoroughly, or both, or -- well, in any case, usually your
files have very definite death dates. But yours has two possibilities, so
-- " She shrugged.
"Two possibilities?"
"Depending," she explained. "on whether you choose to be human or
youkai."
Even the sounds of the market seemed to have stopped now.
"Explain, please," he said. "I seem to be dead *now*. Surely this is a
moot point?"
"You... died," O-Sumire explained, "because your lungs couldn't get any
air and your brain thus starved for lack of oxygen. But it's not as if
you were physically damaged; you could conceivably return to your body
and take up your life again."
Enticing. Or.. not so?
"There must be," he said, his tone even, "more to this."
"Naturally," the woman from the other world agreed. "Your choices are
two. To be no more than human, and to die in this place, and for me to
guide you across the River of Three Forks and to the country near the
Gates of Judgement. Your wife waits there, in a small house, while her
case is put on hold. You, too, might wait there, to sleep at long last,
and be healed of all your wounds, and wake to rest with her in a place
where time has little meaning, until at last the two of you are ready to
walk through the Gates; and I am authorized to tell you that in this
lifetime you have expiated many of the burdens that had weighed you down,
and that after your sleep whatever awaits you will not lie heavy upon
you.
"Or -- you can be youkai in truth, as before you feigned being. You drew
upon the suppressed ki from that side of yourself to use the power of the
Hiten Mitsurugi school far better than any human your age should, and to
become a legend in Kyoto some years before; it could flow freely through
your body, giving you more endurance and more recuperability than any
mere mortal might attain." Her head tilted slightly. "Much more than your
shishou.
"And you would never more be human. Your aging, already slow, would seem
to stop; any human friends you might make would grow old and die around
you, while you seemed no older than the day you met. You would be hurt,
greatly, and your reward for enduring that pain would be more pain to
add. Not in a hundred years and more will you be able to be happy without
having that happiness shattered within a mere eight of years. The world
will change to some strange thing that you cannot even comprehend now;
and for much of your life you will be lonely, lonelier than you are now,
sundered by time and space from any who would understand you.
"Well?"
"Must I answer immediately?" he asked.
"Not immediately," she said. "In this moment we are outside of time. But
soon, for this moment cannot be held long. And no one may help you in
this; you must decide for yourself."
"I see." The young man's sight turned inward, as he sat seiza and
remained thus for a long time. Finally he looked up. "May I ask a
question?"
"You may *ask*," O-Sumire said. "I may or may not answer; but you may
ask."
"You have told me," he began, "how I would be affected by each choice.
How... would other people be affected?"
The guide smiled fully then, transforming her face to one of great
beauty. "Good question, Himura. If you choose humanity... the fates of
most of your close friends are set, and nothing you may do would change
them. The common people of Yamato will muddle along somehow, as they
always have: they will be born, some will bear children, some will grow
old, all of them will die. They will suffer, but not as they have
suffered; the government will be changed again and perhaps a third time,
and progress will take three steps forward and two steps back, as always.
"If you choose the other... you will make a few large changes, the
effects of most of which will cease to be felt within a generation; you
will save three of the people you now know, two of whom would not need
saving had it not been for other deeds of yours; and the lives of a great
many people you have not yet met will be rather better than they might
have been, and a few *will* live who would have died if not for you. But
many of those have not been born, nor have their parents: and, as I said
before, it will be long and heartbreaking work, and even you cannot save
them all."
The small man traced, not quite nervously, the lines of the crossed
scars on his cheek, looking at his fingers as if he expected to see them
marked with blood.
"It would," he said finally, "to be lovely to stop, and rest, and have
it all go away. But -- "
"But?"
"I made promises. A few to people now living. Many to people now dead."
"They will forgive you the breaking, if broken by death," O-Sumire told
him. "Across the Sanzu no Kawa, there are no grudges. We don't let them
by."
"But, you see, even if I ignore the promises to all those I killed -- I
cannot forget that I promised one other person. I promised me.
"I promised me," he repeated. "That I would make a difference. That the
new era wouldn't be another one where people get hurt -- and die --
because those who could have saved them did not bother. So I cannot stop
now, you see."
"I see," his companion agreed.
The urgent tones of a girl's voice echoed from the direction of the
marketplace, the words muffled and distorted.
"We are running out of time," O-Sumire warned him."You must return to
your body at once. This will hurt."
"I have been hurt before."
"So you have." She gestured to his limp body. "Lie more or less inside,
and I will jump-start your vital organs."
"Oro?"
"It's easier to do than to explain." She dropped to the ground and laid
a hand on the lifeless chest, as he, after a shrug, threw himself down to
occupy most of the same space as his former shell. "You will remember
very little of this afterwards, except in dreams. However, I think the
memory of your eldritch heritage will remain.
"And may I say, Himura Shinta who was, how very proud I am of you?"
"*Oro?*"
And then *something* dealt him a tremendous blow to the chest, and the
blackness claimed him again.
Air!
He wheezed and then gasped in air, drawing it past the thick throat into
the chest that felt as if it had been kicked by a horse.
/I wonder when that happened? Maybe one of them stepped on me./
All of his ribs seemed to be in place, luckily. He sucked down another
gasp.
"Yo -- yokatta... " a voice breathed from above him. He opened his eyes.
Kaede.
"You should not be here," he choked out, scolding her gently.
"I brought them," Kaede told him, gesturing to his right. He turned his
head and managed to raise himself a bit. Ah. Police.
"I thank you," he managed, ignoring the protests from his overworked
throat. "You must have frightened them away from strangling me."
That had been the closest he had come to death in some time; no wonder
he still had an odd feeling. The rush of merely being alive, and not dead
despite all odds, was familiar to him; yet it was not usually so sharp,
so perfect an imitation of the well-being he could not logically be
feeling now.
/Han'you... / a woman's voice whispered within his mind.
One of the police officers shot a suddenly sharp glace at him.
"Akage-yatsu, didn't I see you carting a sword around earlier today?"
"What sword?" Kaede asked, adjusting her kimono to better cover the
sakabatoh she was leaning over. "I don't see any sword."
The officer snorted before turning away, followed, after a moment, by
the other two.
"Here, lean on me," the girl told him, helping him up.
"No, it is all right," he reassured her. "It was a moment of weakness,
but it is almost past." Indeed, he felt almost better than he had ever
been.
"Thank you for saving us," Kaede finally said after he carefully took a
step, then another, without toppling on his face. "A... anoh... they have
some very good fish for sale, and I'm getting out of practice only
cooking for Isamu and myself, and it's a rather large table... "
"I would be happy to share a meal with you before I leave," he smiled.
"Leave?" Kaede looked crestfallen. "So soon?"
"I have promises to keep," the redhead told her. "And miles to go... "