There are many kinds of beauty, but only two kinds of people in this world. Those who have scars. And those who have none. There are some scars that can never be hidden. They are on your skin, on your face, in your clothes. Every scar has a story. And when you find a person with scars, how do you act? How are you supposed to judge?
Baiken's reflection stared back at her from the blue waters of the Mogami River. Her rouge-pink hair was long and wild, the wind pushing back the strands of her messy ponytail. The cool autumn breeze prickled her skin, it's touch flowing through the loose sleeves of her black and white kimono. Each breath came out as a puff of warm fog being left behind by the ferry's speed.
Despite the cold she leaned out to catch the wind on her face. Her left hand reached down and she smiled at the river foam splashing up to grasp at her arm. The woman grinned at the touch, yet her reflection still held the look of someone tired and distant. Beneath the currents slender fish darted in and out of her view, while the moss covered rocks in the riverbed tinted her image green and black. Behind her, the sound of the ferry's engine hummed and groaned while the waters tossed about in its wake.
The woman sat up and straightened her legs to rest on the window's edge. Sunlight beamed downriver, making each wave sparkle and dance in her view. A cloud hovered in front of the sun. The sparkling blue waters dimmed. The world grew dark, and she turned right toward the other passengers on the boat.
The ferry's interior was simple and almost rustic. Floorboards under an open space, tables and chairs spread out beneath a white tent. A small bar with no stools was at the opposite corner where Baiken sat, near the entrance to the pavilion. The people in the ferry, languid after the few hours of travel, sized each other up through sidelong glances and hidden, self-conscious stares.
A man sat at a nearby table. In her mind, she called him "the bachelor." His eyelids were drooped, his face turned beet red from too many drinks. Baiken would watch his eyes dart sideways toward her, trying to hide his stares by sipping at the next cup of sake. She watched and analyzed him just as he ogled her. She noted his loose brown cotton robe, plain, stained with dust and slightly worn from days of travel. He was younger than her, had a handsome face with short, thick brown hair and light skin. He was running away from something. The bag of cash tied to his side and the heavy traveler's pack by his feet indicated as much.
Baiken watched the bachelor's eyes drift across her body as she sat poised on the windowsill. She had no doubt he was staring at her breasts, cradled as they were in her white and black kimono. The red sash wrapped tight around her stomach emphasized her hourglass body. Past her waist, the flowing cloth fell down to the floor, leaving her bare legs exposed. His eyes went up again, and Baiken smiled back at him while raising her own cup of sake to her lips. The bachelor looked away.
Another man sat at a corner table, his back to the wall, head down. A yellow bamboo hat cast the man's face in shadow. His body motionless, yet it was easy to tell he was staring down everyone in the bar with equal scrutiny. He had purposely chosen that table so he could keep the bar entrance within his line of vision. She watched his head turn subtly left to right as he analyzed each other person just as she was. When that man locked eyes with Baiken, they sized each other up from head to toe, stares inevitably resting on the swords strapped to their waists. Baiken's katana was shorter than the standard, allowing for a faster draw and more control up close. Its red hilt matched with the crimson scabbard that housed it. The warrior kept the standard two swords in black scabbards. One katana and one wakizashi.
The warrior wore a green kimono and blue hakama. A family crest was stitched into the left and right side of his chest. It announced his occupation as a bodyguard, a retainer to a noble family. There was not much of him exposed, but she could see the beginning of a scar on his left clavicle. His left hand rested flat on the top of the table. The fingers of his right hand curled around a cup of tea.
And while she looked at his worn crest, he in turn looked at the picture of a human skull stitched into the right shoulder of her kimono. The woman wondered wondered what the warrior thought of her. Did he see her as a threat, or a kindred spirit? If they fought, what would be revealed between them? Baiken took another sip of sake.
Her view shifted to the last two passengers on the boat. A husband and wife, both looking back at her from the opposite corner next to the exit. They both stared at her the same way one would look at a floating corpse in a well, or a bloody fight taking place before them. A morbid curiosity kept their attention. And the fear of potential violence made them seem to cower back. Baiken sighed and looked back out into the river. Beyond its banks the falling Autumn leaves piled up in rows along the forest floor. A breeze kicked up then, blowing Baiken's hair back and making the trees bend and sway in the whistling wind.
Their stares were justified. Even among her own people she knew she didn't belong. These people were different from her, so used to living life in the colonies, isolated from the rest of the world. Would they know what it's like to wander those dangerous lands outside the colony walls? Would they understand if she told them what made her face the way it was? What would they say?
Strange. Alien. Wild. In her spirit, that's what she was. Always will be.
When Baiken turned back, it was the wife that she scrutinized. Her pretty face. Milky white skin unblemished by the sun. The wife had long hair the same shade of pink as her own and tied up into a modest bun. She had makeup on, making her eyes stand out and giving her cheeks a rosy tint. She stared back with a mixture of fear and confusion, and without realizing it she took a step behind her husband.
Baiken closed her eyes and leaned her head forward. Her left arm lay limp against her legs while her fingers still held the now empty sake cup. Outside, the sun peeked out from behind the clouds. Its rays were gentle and warm amidst the chilly autumn air. The left side of her face began to glow in the light, and she knew everyone in the bar had their sights set on her.
When she opened her eyes again a young boy stood in front of her. Patches of brown soil and grey dust stained his clothes, the loose black shirt and pants looked grimy and rough to the touch. He smelled of dried blood and ripened fruit. There were patches of dirt and dust on his face and purple bruises on his right cheek. Baiken blinked once. She had not seen the boy when she first boarded the boat. Had not sensed his presence during its travel. She sized him up head to toe and concluded that he must be an orphan, maybe a thief. He was skinny and disheveled, so thin and weak that it looked as though he shouldn't even be able to stand.
He stared at her with blank, black eyes. Emotionless. Without hope. He couldn't have been even old enough to be a teenager. What compelled him to stand before her?
The woman smiled at him and cocked her head to the side.
"Something you want boy?" Her voice sounded low and cracked, like someone who had worn her throat out from yelling.
The orphan brought a thin, shaky right hand up to point at the right sleeve of her kimono. The skull on her shoulder wavered in the wind. It smiled back at him through eyeless sockets. The end of her sleeve had been torn away, strands and ribbons of the cloth dangling about in the gusts of frigid air.
"I want to see it. What's underneath the face." He whispered as though it were a struggle to speak.
Her smile grew wider. Her left hand lay the sake cup next to her leg on the window sill. Then it reached over and pulled the sleeve all the way up. The cloth was long enough that when she pulled it, it covered the rest of her torso. The top of her breasts were no longer exposed and bare. Instead, what was shown was the stump of her right arm. Scars and slash marks extended all the way up her shoulder. They layered on top of each other, haphazard markings of the muscle and sinew and bone being hacked away rather than slashed clean. The end of it was broken and uneven. One bone in the stump was longer than the other, both flat and jagged as though her arm was crushed first before being ripped off.
And attached to the stump, strapped tight with leather belts, were metal chains ending with a three-pronged claw.
The bachelor no longer tried to hide his stares. He faced toward her, eyebrows raised. The wife gave a gasp and covered her mouth with one hand. She took another step back. The husband's eyes curved inward in an expression of pity. The warrior remained stoic, body still and unflinching as he sipped from his cup of tea.
The orphan said nothing. His blank eyes drifted up and down the metal arm. A slow nod as though he understood everything about her in that one reveal. Or, more simply, that there was nothing else to understand, as if what he saw was nothing more than another answer to a question nobody asked.
"Just looking won't tell you anything. You don't really know about something unless you know how it feels. You have to get close enough to touch it."
She leaned forward and held her hand out, palm facing upwards.
"Do you want to know how it feels?"
The orphan boy held no fear as he placed his hand in hers. She then pulled him closer until the tips of his fingers pressed into the scarred, broken flesh of her arm. There she dragged it up and down, the sensation of his touch dulled on the built-up scar tissue. His fingers were callused, rough, peeled back as though the skin was burnt off in some sections.
Her hand pushed down until his palm pressed against the cold steel of her prosthetic arm. They traveled along the chains, jingling the links. The orphan's eyes narrowed, and he recoiled slightly as she pushed the boy's hand into one of the blades of her metal claw.
Baiken's thoughts were aimed just as much toward the other passengers as the orphan boy.
What do you think of it? Do realize the significance of this arm? Can you understand why I would need this? What I'm missing by having it? What do you think of its sharpness? Can you imagine the people I've killed? The fights to the death I've been in? I remember them all.
Her grip tightened and she pulled his hand up onto her face. She leaned her head into his hand, the bangs of her hair falling to cover the eyepatch over her left eye.
His fingers caressed the right side of her neck and chin, pointer finger tracing the diagonal cut that extended up through her lips and ended near the bottom of her left nostril. Then she brushed his knuckles against another scar, a smaller one that slit diagonally across her right cheek.
Women aren't meant to have scars. They are painful to look at and painful to bear. For a woman, scars are to be hidden away. Yet, it's perhaps for that reason that they are a source of pride for me. What do you think of them now, when my failures and pains are laid bare for all to see? And what of your scars boy? Do yours match mine?
But the woman said nothing. She just peered at the orphan's face, watching his reaction, feeling his own rough and broken skin against hers. Her working right eye looked down to see the torn, peeled back skin around his knuckles. They were pink and blackened, discolored from repeated bruising. Those fingers traced the lines on her face, soothing, gentle, yet cautious, like the lines were the cracks of a shattered mirror.
The woman picked her head up and looked at him square in the face. And he returned her gaze.
What do you think boy? About the tattoo on my forehead? The blood red moon dripping downward? Or the tattoo of a red tear pointing down from my right eye? Would you understand the significance of it? Do you understand what it means to me?
There was neither pity nor disgust in the orphan's expression. It looked as though he were trying to match the tattoo with something else. Baiken imagined him trying to think of it was like the ones belonging to street gangs and criminal groups.
Baiken smiled, but her face dropped. A sense of exhaustion flowed through her. The boy looked at the tattoos like it were a brand that made her belong to a place or people. But the image was unique. It belonged to no group or name. It was her's alone.
She let go of his hand, but the orphan's arm did not drop. It lingered for a second before drifting to the other side of her face. There, he placed his palm on her cheek, and ran a thumb along the longest and deepest of the scars on her face. A massive line that started at the left side of her forehead and extended straight down to the left side of her chin. The thickest, widest part of that scar was in the middle, covered by her eyepatch. The orphan's fingers brushed away the bangs of her hair so that he could see the black patch of leather strapped to her face.
His thumb brushed against the leather, pressing into the sides like he was trying to outline it with his touch. Baiken kept her head still, watching his face while his fingers traced along the straps wrapped around her head. She looked over to the other passengers, all of them watching her with a frozen expression of suspense. With slow movements, she brought her left hand up and lifted the eyepatch so it rested on her forehead..
She had to make a visible effort to open her left eyelid. Crust had formed within the skin. Baiken imagined a grotesque puss that stretched and broke as her eyelid strained and pried itself open. And she focused on the boy, watched him react as her blank, pupil less eye presented itself. His gaze darted across her face, before settling and staring at nothing.
What do you think of the eye that stares at you, cold, blank, and dead? What do you think of my blindness, of my handicap? What do you think of the life I lost? The life that I can never get back. The part of me that I've always known was missing since I was your age.
The boy didn't react. Everything to him was exactly as it was. A scar was just a scar, a wound was just a wound, and whatever pain was shared between them wasn't nearly as important as the sheer will for survival.
Baiken looked over to the couple at the bar. The husband had looked away out of politeness. However, the wife's scowling face stared back twisting with a mixture of fear and disgust.
The scarred woman couldn't help but wonder. What would happen if they had switched lives? If the wife had grown up in the same situation as Baiken, would she have survived? Or would she have lost her life? Killed and left to rot beneath the dirt like the rest.
And what if Baiken had her life? If she had grown up with a family instead of being alone. Grew up caring about her appearance and education. Would she be able to get a husband? Mother a child? If she had done all that, would she be happy in the end?
What do all of you think? Of the stump where my right arm used to be? Of the tattoo on my face, a blood red crescent moon? Of my weapons, or the scars on my neck and chest? What do you think of my eye, staring back at you thoughtless and unfeeling?
Baiken kept silent. The boy's palm pressed lightly into her cheek, thumb rolling over the rough calluses of her skin. She looked behind him toward the others on the ferry. The bachelor had stopped looking at her. No longer bringing the sake to his mouth, he stared into the cup as though looking at his own reflection.
The warrior lifted his head enough so that his dark brown eyes peered up at her from just below the brim of his hat. Like the boy, there was no judgement in him. But all the same, she was a threat. He was wary of her, yet understanding. Just in their looks they shared a mutual respect, but also a sense of caution and distance.
The husband turned and gazed at her with an expression of anger. One of his fists clenched and pressed into the top of the bar. It was as though he were looking at something that should not exist, as though she was an affront to everything he's ever known. Baiken saw him wince when they made eye contact, before he looked away again. She sighed.
She knew he was thinking: "Someone should have protected you."
The woman frowned. She had always hated those kinds of men.
And from behind, the man's wife snarled into his ear in a half-whisper heard by everyone in the room.
"What are you doing? Stop looking at her! She's dangerous!"
Her husband turned and placed both elbows atop the bar.
"S-Sorry." His voice meek and hesitant. Baiken almost chuckled when she spotted the warrior shaking his head at the couple.
Baiken looked to the orphan boy and smiled while covering up her left eye once more. Her hand reached forward and touched his face now, caressing his darkened skin and the bruises on his cheek. Her hand rose and ran her fingers through his matted hair.
Then she looked out the window again. By now the yellow and green of the forest trees made way for the blue, red, and brown of the next town in the Japanese colonies.
To her left, the sparkling waters ended with the grey stone slope that rose to an even white pavement. Above the slope more of the Japanese wooden houses lined the river's edge. A thin shadow passed by overhead as the boat went under a redwood bridge. And looking up, Baiken saw the faces of both children and adults looking down into the water. More boats joined hers as they all bobbed up and down in the same river, returning or setting off on whatever journey they set off for themselves.
When Baiken let go of the boy he turned around and slinked away, disappearing to whatever dark corner in which he hid.
The quiet peace of nature had made way for the noise of people, and Baiken looked at each face in the crowd. She leaned her head back on the windowsill, observing the boats and the fish that pushed against the ebb and flow of the water.
The ferryman outside announced to the passengers inside that he had reached his next stop. Baiken stood from her seat and made way to the exit of their floating pavilion. When she opened the tent flap, her hair and kimono waved lightly in the frosted autumn air.
She took one last look back.
The bachelor smiled wide and raised his cup to her. She grinned back at him. The warrior gave her the slightest of nods, one which she returned. The husband and wife looked away, as if refusing to acknowledge her existence.
And she spotted the orphan boy hidden away beneath the floor of the boat, looking up at her with blank, wild eyes.
Baiken turned and walked into the open air. Forward she marched, on her own journey like everyone else.
Every scar is a story. Physical or mental, everyone had them. The point of a scar is its permanence. It could not be changed, no matter how much you wish it away. A scar is simply something you live with, something you must get used to seeing in yourself.
There are many kinds of beauty, but there are only two kinds of people. Those who have scars, and those who have none. My name is Baiken. And my scars run deep.