The moment I saw him, the next line of the lullaby died on my lips and my legs simply froze. I had never seen anyone with that hair color before. Was he some sort of… god? He must have at least been a prince: his two swords were the best argument I could come up with, but there was also something about him.
My eyes traveled from his elegant swords in their double scabbard back to his blonde hair, on which stray sunrays danced, guided through the leaves above. He was asleep. I could almost see his chest rise slowly through the crimson trench coat he wore. In almost eleven years of existence, I had never seen anything more beautiful, simple as it was.
However, something caught my eye; a flaw, located on his upper, left arm. I could tell it was a blade cut even before I saw the bleeding wound staining the material. My eyes saddened and my fingers fiddled with the hem of my shirt until I managed to rip a big piece of it. Careful not to wake him up, I approached him.
A silver flash of light caught my attention immediately, making me halt, startled. The sharp point of a katana was only a few inches from the tip of my nose. I let out a small gasp and my knees melt under me, leaving me to fall on my bottom, on the soft grass.
"Do you have a wish of death?" a deep growl echoed in the air as the katana was put back into its scabbard.
"N-no…" I breathed out, raising my eyes to meet the man's reddish-brown ones.
A singing bird broke the silence between us, keeping the nature entertained while I was trying to get back into my senses.
"Hey, mister? A-are you a prince?"
He slowly turned his gaze back to me and frowned.
"Samurai." he replied curtly.
I stared at him for a few moments, contemplating that word. He stared back, as if expecting some reaction. I only frowned slightly and muttered to myself.
"My parents were samurai."
I'm sure he heard, but he had no reaction whatsoever.
"What happened to your hair?" I suddenly asked, fixing him carefully, but lowering my lashes.
He blinked calmly and looked away, leaning back on the tree. He had dark circles under his eyes, so I figured out he hadn't slept in a while.
"The same thing that happened to your eyes perhaps." he said.
I 'hmphed' and turned my head towards the small stream to the left, a light blush growing visible on my cheeks. People always picked on me for the color of my eyes, since light silver was an unusual color in the world I knew. But then again, people must have picked on him a lot too, for the color of his hair. Thank kami my hair was a normal jet-black, wavy and tousled like a halo around my head.
I suddenly remembered the reason I was sitting on the grass and got up, wetting the piece of cloth in my hand in the cold river water. The blond watched me as I knelt next to him and did my best to clean his wound, then wash the piece of shirt and tie it around his arm.
"Your mother is not going to like that." he said, looking at my ripped shirt.
"Don't worry; I'm an orphan, Kyuu-chan!" I smiled bravely.
He repeated the nickname in a low, inquiring voice I considered funny, though he probably couldn't find anything funny about it.
"Well, I didn't know your name, so I came up with one for the moment. You can tell me your name now."
"Kyuzo." he replied after a little break.
I stared at him in disbelief for a few moments, then smiled and shrugged. I found coincidences rather amusing. He didn't find out my name, though. Even after a few days in which I had followed him quietly everywhere he went, he still didn't know my name. He hadn't asked for it and I was going to give it to him if he would, of course. But until then, my mouth was sealed.
Even as a child, I could tell Kyuzo was an inborn loner. He only worked with a partner if he had no choice and even then, he was more than reluctant to cooperate. And yet he didn't seem bothered by my presence, always quiet, like a small shadow. He didn't need to turn around to see that I was following him. I had never once asked him anything; I didn't question his actions or slow him down in any way. No complaints, no whining, no words at all. I was doing my best to stay out of his way and, at the same time watch over him. He must have appreciated that in his own way, since he made sure I wouldn't lack food or be cold at night.
We slept outside most of the nights and Kyuzo had a passion for sleeping in the forest, where no one could find us. He usually picked a tree: I climbed on the nearest comfortable branch and he sat at the base, a few years of experience making his sleep superficial enough for him to be still vigilant. The one time we spent the night at an inn, our room – the only one free – had only one bed and we both slept on the floor, on either side of it.
Kyuzo probably noticed I liked to watch him every time he drew his swords; I was fascinated by those deadly weapons as much as I resented them. My muscles would flinch involuntarily when he handled his twin katanas, imagining myself in his place. I despised all other samurai except him.
--
"Nee, Kyuu-chan…"
I called, waiting for the silence to respond in his place.
"I don't like your employer." I continued, not bothered by his quietude. "Why do you put up with him?"
"Because."
"That's not an answer."
But I didn't insist. Kyuzo had given up being an assassin and had been hired by a noble to be his bodyguard soon after I 'joined' him. Sometimes I felt guilty for entering his life just like that. Maybe he was also putting up with me… because.
I heard him move and iommediately knew something was wrong. It wasn't just the fact that Kyuzo never made any noise when he moved, I could also feel it. My mother might have once mentioned a term to define the new, peculiar sensation: intuition.
Before I could even look around, I heard Kyuzo's blades cutting through metal and recognized the scent of oil from the killed nobuseri. What where the nobuseri doing in that forest? Another sharp sound and a loud bang and something hit the tree I was in, sending me tumbling on the ground.
Kyuzo felt the last of them and so did I, but it was a tad too late for him to be able to get there and kill him before he struck me. The nobuseri's sword was in mid-air when my blond prince shouted at me, coming up with a name because he didn't know mine:
"Chidori, duck!"