Love Hina: All Our Sons
Act One: Crushed
Kenichi followed the lazy drift of the lilly as if meandered back and forth across the still, mirror like surface of the lake his wife had so loved. So tranquil was its simple beauty that he couldn't help but think of her as she had been in health…
In the crook of his arm, his newborn daughter shifted in her sleep, blissfully unaware of the dark thoughts racing through her sole remaining parent's mind.
His wife had died to birth this child, this thing of innocence that seemed to defy the reality of her creation, the tragedy.
He wondered if he hated her…
…No, how could he ever despise something that came from his love.
Toying with the wisps of raven hair atop her small head, he smiled an empty smile. Would she look anything like her mother when she grew? Would she be a dagger to the heart every time he looked upon her?
Strange, that one can feel such morbid curiosity in the midst of prevailing sorrow.
Tracing her tiny features he marvelled at how fast she had grown. This was the first time in many weeks he had been sober enough to hold her alone without one of his wife's maids hovering nervously nearby.
As the moonlight glinted of his tears he cursed himself. He was such a weak man at heart; it had taken a scolding from his elder brother to drag him from his self-pity when his family needed him the most.
No more, he could afford such weakness no longer if he hoped to hold onto what he still had.
Kyoko shivered in his arms, reminding him of the coolness of the night air, he would have to bring her inside least she grew ill.
Standing carefully, he took one last lingering look over the pond, etching its every detail into his memory.
This would be the last time he ever came here…
As he turned, his mind was full of plans, decisions coming like a raging torrent.
Firstly he would need to make some changes, his wife's maids would need to be assigned to his daughter to care for her when he could not while he took charge of all the duties his wife had overseen until Kyoko came of age. There would be many in this family who coveted her position and power, and if Kyoko were to hold it, she would have to be schooled thoroughly in the subtler arts of intrigue and politics.
There were a few teachers he was sure he could trust, some who still owed his wife favours, they would raise Kyoko with everything she needed to defend herself, everything he couldn't provide.
Kenichi thrust his rising despair aside at that thought; he needed to be stronger if he wanted to protect his family.
In the distance he heard the cries, his son was calling out for his mother again.
For a moment he almost faltered, almost gave in to the desire to go to his boy's side and cry along with him but with a gargantuan surge of will he restrained himself.
Koichi would have to become stronger as well, learn to stand alone; there was so much to do.
Lost in his own mind he couldn't even hear what he muttered.
"Forgive me my son, forgive me…".
Over the lake an ethereal being, garbed in moonlight wept crystal tears for the man she had called husband as she watched his heart even now, harden, becoming dead to his cause.
She longed to call out to him, to make him see the error of his ways for she had foreseen what his decisions would do to those he was trying to save, but she could not.
The dead cannot speak to the living.
Act Two: Newborn
Koichi's trademark smile had never been wider or more prominent as he held his newborn son in his arms.
He turned proud eyes upon his exhausted and panting wife. As she was, tired, sweaty, her hair matted to her face and her eyes drooping but serene as he handed their child to her, he couldn't help but think she had never looked more beautiful.
"He's here at last Motoko-chan", Koichi whispered into his wife's ear, taking a seat on the bed next to her and his son, grinning at the solemn expression his child wore as he looked back at his parents with clear sea grey eyes.
"Ryuuya", she breathed back, her gaze never leaving her child, the name that they had chosen somehow seeming much grander as she spoke it now.
"Ryuuya", he agreed, pushing back her sweat clogged hair to offer her a lingering kiss.
"My Lord…", Koichi reluctantly turned away from his family, casting an irritated look at the source of the interruption.
The seven councilmen neither shrunk nor apologised in face of his ire and he supposed that was his fault after a fashion, he had never been able to run things with an iron fist like his father had, it just wasn't in his nature to stay too serious for too long.
They had all been present for the birth of the heir as was custom, but this time something strange had happened, and he knew they would not simply let it pass.
"Can we do this another time? My wife is tired and I wish to spend time with my son", he hated how formal he sounded, but it was the only way to get these men to listen to him at times.
"I fear not my Lord, this concerns the…child", Koichi bristled at the pause the older man left, but he had said nothing he could call him to account on, and in the back blading world he now found himself entrenched in, hitting the old man with a Steel Cutting Rose, would only cause him more trouble than it was worth later down the line.
"I apologise my Lord, but you cannot deny what we all saw and felt", the others nodded in affirmation.
Koichi knew what they were talking about. Anyone sensitive would have felt the unnatural amounts of spiritual power Motoko had been putting off during her labour, a power that seemed too great even for one of the Aoyama line to produce.
It was an energy tinged with darkness and evil that had threatened to drive all of the more sensitive members of the Temple mad ebbing and flowing in sickening swirls, and then just as soon as it had manifested it had vanished. Vanished at the precise moment Motoko went into the final stages of the birth.
"And the boy's eyes my Lord, there is nothing in nature that exists as they did", the old man shuddered slightly and Koichi bit his lip to stop himself from screaming at all of them to leave.
When Ryuuya had first been born, his eyes had not been the colour they were now. They had been flecked with a vivid and glowing crimson like the very fires of hell itself.
They were the eyes of a demon.
"That was just a trick of the light, there is nothing unusual now", he managed to keep his voice level but only barely.
"The demon hides itself from our eyes my Lord but that does not mean we should allow wishful thinking to lead us to our destruction… the child must be destroyed", he finished gravely.
"The first person to lay a harming finger on my son dies", Motoko's voice seemed to freeze the air and all eyes turned back to her and the bokken now gripped shakily in her hand as Ryuuya rested in the crook of her other arm.
Her balance was shaky as she stood, but there was death in her eyes for anyone who saw that as weakness.
"My Lady, be reasonable", the eldest of them held out his hands in a placating gesture, "We must put the security of the Clan ahead of our own desires at all times".
"That was the old way of things, and we are better for it to see it go", Koichi stepped between his wife and the councilmen, shooting her a warning glance as he did so.
"Lord Kenichi would have understood the necessity", one of them dared to voice earning a baleful glare that left him shaking until he remembered he was amongst the greater number.
"My Father made a great many mistakes. One of his gravest was putting the Clan before his family. I do not intend to repeat such errors…are we clear?", he eyed each of them in turn, ready to grab Motoko and Ryuuya at the slightest sign these old men were going to question his leadership again and take action for themselves.
"…As you wish my Lord, but we will keep a close eye on that child", the head council member said stiffly, bowing shallowly and turning on his heel, the others following his lead with looks ranging from anger to disappointment.
Koichi let out a long slow breath when the last of them were finally gone.
"Same shit different day", he muttered with a wiry smile that turned to a grimace as something hard came down painfully on the top of his head.
"Mind your tongue around our son", Motoko spoke reproachfully ignoring his mutterings about hormonal women as he rubbed his aching skull.
"You see what you're going to have to put up with when you grow up", he asked his son, ducking another swipe from Motoko and grinning at her as he backed out of range, "Too slow Motoko-chan, I-ahhhh!".
Motoko sighed as the Lord and Master of the Oni's Bane school tripped over a chair, landing with a crash of furniture in a pile on the floor.
"One of the strongest swordsmen in all the land, the man who unlocked the secret of his ancestors most sort after weapon…defeated by a chair… There are times I despair marrying you Koi-kun", Motoko smiled as he pouted and tried to make it look like being bent backwards over a chair was exactly what he had intended to happen, "And that's your Father Ryuuya".
She chuckled as the baby looked on grimly.
More To Come...
