Title:
Along a Nameless River
Characters:
Anotsu/Rin, Magatsu, Makie
A/N: Written
for Senri for Yuletide 2007; please give this a miss if the description of Tetanus symptoms bothers you.
Summary:
If Manji hadn't shown up by the lake.
---
in seasonal rain
along a nameless river
fear too has no name
(Buson)
---
Furious and pointless even now, he throws a bowl of tea after her, misses and sends it sloshing across the tatami.
Look at you, she thinks. Such a big man now, soiling yourself. Too feeble to hit me.
His beady eyes are saying fuck you and Rin, please, and he suppresses a seizure until she finally understands.
Open the shoji. Please.
She does, immediately feeling a pang of jealousy at seeing Makie in the yard. Makie, composed and regal, playing her shamisen among the leaves.
When Anotsu's eyes close in sleep, Rin sighs. Typical.
Not so much as a thank-you.
---
As revenges go... officially registered, proper, lawful revenges... this one has certainly gone pear-shaped. Rin contemplates the still form under the blanket, a scrawny ankle poking from the rags. She wonders where it has gone, her sakki, her holy fire.
Must have left it by the lake, she thinks. Or lost it earlier, in the mountains, gasping retching wheezing, hot on his trail, only to find him waiting at the top, grudgingly holding out a hand to help her up.
A tremor runs down the contorted ridge of his spine, and she mouths a silent shhh, shhh. She's seen what can happen, they've all seen it - when his back whips into an archer's bow, muscles knotting with enough strength to break bone.
Hoping he won't hear, Rin rises from her crouch and pads across the worn tatami to pick up the bowl. She knows Makie is watching her, even as she plucks away on her strings. Not quite trusting, not distrustful either, the way she leaves Anotsu in Rin's care... as if that had somehow become Rin's duty. A pact forged in the woods.
So yes, as revenges go, her hunger has run out. She doesn't need to coax tiny sips of miso down Anotsu's paralyzed throat to know this. If he doesn't improve within the next day or three, he's dead anyway.
Once she has cleared his mess, she steps outside and noiselessly shuts the sliding door. Makie's eyes must be following her, shrewd eyes with the tiniest sliver of lead in them. Rin doesn't care. She turns her back to Makie, and to Anotsu, and steps off the wooden walkway to disappear among the trees for a while. And if Anotsu has another seizure? Rin's head almost swivels back before she sets her mouth in a narrow line, stomping off toward the ravine. Let Makie deal with it.
I need time to think. Time to... to...
Her feet hurt. There's a stain in her tabi from a split toenail, torn in the mountains, that hasn't healed since; malnutrition, probably. She only notices it now, away from the insanity of their shared abode, lying below at the foot of the hill. Better than your average peasant shack; most of the walls, doors, and matting are still intact. It's been stripped of course, but thankfully not so vandalized as to make it unsafe.
They've dragged Anotsu here, away from the bloodbath by the lake.
At that time it had looked as if Rin was going to be relieved of her burden: Magatsu and Makie had taken turns carrying him, and Rin had limped several steps behind, stopping repeatedly - to look over her shoulder for pursuers, to look into the far distance and wonder where Manji was. To stop and ask herself why she didn't leave. Magatsu said he'd parted ways with Manji near the turnpike road. If she went the way Magatsu had come...
And then she'd wheel around to see Anotsu falter and fall, slipping from the grip of his companions. The least she could do was see this through to the end.
---
When she clambers back down after an hour, judging by the setting sun, she returns to the picture of Anotsu curled up fast asleep in Makie's lap.
Oh, so that's how it is.
She doesn't say a word, starts making dinner instead. It was Magatsu who put the hearth back in working order; Rin who found a dented cast-iron pot still good enough to cook in. But it's Makie who gets to sit in the shade and play the shamisen; Makie who gets to thread her fingers through his tangled hair and over his softening stubble.
Rin doesn't comment on that. She ladles out water and washes the rice. After a while she says, quietly, "When do you think Magatsu will be back? We're running out of food." What she means is that they're running out of time. Anotsu needs a doctor, one who's discreet enough not to go blabbing to the bugyo. As if the Shingyoto-ryu massacre hadn't been a glaring red pointer. The human remains of an entire sword school, spread along the shore...
"I said, we're running out of food."
"I heard you." Makie doesn't stop smoothing Anotsu's greasy hair, but she does acknowledge Rin with a blank look.
Their eyes lock until Rin drops her gaze and starts chewing her lip. Fine then. For a petty, petty moment, Rin considers telling her about Hisoka-dono, but the thought of losing what grudging respect she's garnered makes her clam up - that, and the galling taste of her envy, misguided and irrational as it is. So she watches the water, makes tea with their next-to-last handful of sencha, stirs the rice, and listens for any change in Anotsu's ragged breathing.
Eventually Rin carries a chipped bowl of tea over to them to share and takes her own out to the wooden walkway in front of the house.
A few planks are jutting up, torn and twisted from their joints. Certain features of the blueprint lead Rin to believe the place was an inn at some point, maybe from a time when this stretch of road was still part of the turnpike. Neglect is hanging heavily from the eaves - the floorboards have splintered, the shoji are ripped - but it's a roof over their heads.
Cradling the bowl in her hands, Rin looks at the last streaks of peach and sakura spattered across the indigo sky; five magical minutes before the sun disappears behind the mountains. Another five, perhaps, before she makes out a silhouette on the dirt road, a figure with telltale hedgehog hair and a bag slung over his shoulder.
---
"A word, Rin," Magatsu had pulled her aside. The morning he left he drew her down into the yard and past the well, pinning her against a dilapidated shed. "What are you doing here?"
Her chin jutted forward. "Don't you know? I'm Itto-ryu now."
"Right." He snorted. "And I'm the Shogun."
"Well, I... I pledged my loyalty, no? He and I, we travelled together. He said I could follow him."
Magatsu slowly let his arms drop. "I'll bet my six mon for the Sanzu you're making this up." With that he took a step back, shaking his head. "Why are you still here?"
And then she told him about the poison. How Anotsu had refused it. She just never got around to telling Magatsu how much she'd admired Anotsu then before Magatsu grabbed her wrist again.
"You want to watch him die. That's it, yeah? So your parents can rest, and you can tell yourself you've seen him brought low without smudging your hands, yeah?" He looked disappointed. Sneering. As if he had expected better of her.
She still carried the papers, that much was true. Legal, sealed, approved by the machi bugyo. Permission to kill Anotsu, without fear of retribution or bodily harm to herself. No use in telling Magatsu she'd forgotten about those documents the moment she'd first slipped an arm around Anotsu's ribs to guide him to the ground.
He wouldn't believe her anyway.
---
Rin is still replaying their last conversation in her head when he trudges up the creaking walkway.
"Hey," he says, face unreadable in the dusk.
"Hey." She thinks she hears the question in his voice and softly shakes her head. "Unchanged."
Magatsu pauses nonetheless, listening for some sound perhaps, or to collect himself and not blunder into what feels like a house of death already.
"I thought you wanted to bring a doctor," she says quietly.
His feet in their worn sandals are measuring the space between her and the edge of the veranda, and after easing down his bag, Magatsu sits. "Had to continue for another two villages before I even found one." His voice has dropped to a low rumble. "Guy can't make it tonight; a case is keeping him. He said he'd be here by first light."
They must be thinking the same: that a full night is ample time to alert the authorities to their whereabouts. Ample time to gather a force and come collect their little band of misifts in the morning.
"I've boiled some rice," she says. "Come on in."
---
The small cooking fire is their only source of light. Magatsu has brought supplies, as much as he could carry - lamp oil, too - but every bit of light could spell discovery, even tucked away in a room facing the back yard.
Rin feels Magatsu's eyes on her back: wearily overseeing how she unpacks the wrapped and tied foodstuffs, sets apart what small bundles of herbs and medicines he could get. For the first time she thinks of her hands as competent, as unflinching, adult hands that know what they're doing. Not a girl's soft, unlined fingers. It makes her preen a bit while she shakes out the change of clothes he's bought for everyone.
There's an extra blanket for Anotsu which she rolls out and folds back; so far they've only heaped whatever clothes they could spare on him.
He's drowsily resting on his side, eyes unseeing, or glued to something only visible to himself. Her surprise is all the sharper when he feebly pushes himself up on an elbow. He manages to signal to Magatsu, and they spend the next few minutes in silent conference.
Anotsu's hands aren't soft. She noticed that when he painted words into her palm -something he hasn't done since, something she begrudges Magatsu now. It's in mid conversation, if their fumbling, angry sign language can be called that, that both turn to look at her, and Rin pulls a face.
Then she blushes and tilts her head away, worrying at her lip.
---
In the soft light of dawn, Anotsu's face looks ashen underneath the thin scrape of beard. As far as Rin can tell, he has had a rotten night. His eyes show the look of the nearly dead, and she finds herself praying to the Buddha Amida and to Kannon until she is interrupted by voices outside - Magatsu's, and what must be the doctor's.
The physician who traipses in to peer at her patient is a small, wizened ape of a man, dressed in peasant's garb. Either he's not very good, or he's very humble, or there's more poverty in this area than Rin thought.
She bows and waits at the edge of the tatami, suddenly angry at herself: Magatsu is right. There's nothing here for her. She's not Itto-ryu. Why pretend when Itto-ryu is everything she hates, and when this turn of events is nearly good enough to bring out the sake and celebrate?
You kenshi. You think you're men, but you can do nothing without your swords.
Her words start ringing in her ears again. This - this is what it always boils down to: rotting wounds and gashes, the sour smell of sweat, and some poor woman to pick up the pieces and wash the blood from her kimono.
Her Golden Wasps feel heavy then, as she tries to evoke the filial piety she needs to continue, with the honour of Mutenichi-ryu resting on her shoulders. But things used to be easier, and clearer too - like the black-on-white of the document she carries. That's the point where Rin's thoughts begin to stutter and stumble.
She should... she should just get up and leave.
I have done you great harm, child.
The fucking nerve. If he weren't dying already, she should get up and kill him. Kill him now, before she has to admit to herself that she doesn't know what upset her more, the casual apology or his calling her child.
---
When the doctor leaves, the sun stands high above the valley, and Anotsu lies in drugged sleep. They've set up a makeshift screen with broken shoji to shield him from anything that could prompt a fit, and eventually, Rin trudges into the yard to bury the bloodied bandages they can't burn. The first wound, the scratch that started it all, has become a gaping hole after the physician declared that excision was the only way to stop Anotsu's body from further poisoning itself. They'd called on Rin to help hold him down, to press against the crazed strength Anotsu can still unleash.
The earth is soft from a summer rain, and after a while she discards the piece of wood she's been using and digs with her fingers instead. She pushes her fingers into the loose soil and feels like crying.
"Asano-san."
Makie's voice sounds flat and oddly formal, and it makes Rin swallow her impending sniffles. She slowly turns to see Makie half-kneeling on the ground, crouched on foot and shin.
The woman regards her with a level gaze, cool, but less unkindly than before. "Thank you," she says simply, hinting at a bow. "Your presence is no longer needed."
"Wha-" Rin's vocal chords make a strangled sound. He's dead then. "Has he-"
Unmoved, Makie bows again. "Nothing of the sort. But you may go nonetheless."
Rin bristles, clenching a handful of dirt. "Now wait a moment. I'm Itto-ryu, and-"
"I don't think Anotsu-sama would concur," Makie interrupts.
Rin's eyes flit across the overgrown yard to Magatsu, leaning against a wooden pole on the veranda. If she didn't know his stupid, stupid type, kenshi, the whole stupid lot of them, she'd be angry. But he has no reason to side with her. No reason. Just a dead little sister, like Manji.
"I didn't hear him complain, the last ten ri of our way or so," Rin snaps back. There are ugly, inflamed spots on the back of Makie's hand, and Rin doesn't know what to make of them, just as she doesn't know what to read into Makie's rejection. Other than jealousy, perhaps.
---
Of course she doesn't leave. Not when she's this close to her target.
He's still not doing well; that's easy to see. With the worst of the infection filletted out of his shoulder like a choice piece of meat, he may be mending, true, but too slowly, and with too many relapses. At least the herbs and the drugs keep him at rest, and every time Magatsu or Makie run to fetch the doctor again, Rin watches over him.
Just like she promised to.
One morning, drawing water, she laughs out loud and hits her head on the broken-tiled well because of the irony - the sheer fucking beauty of it that she could kill him if she chose to. She makes a grabby gesture to illustrate that she's got him in the palm of her hand, and if Manji were here to take care of Magatsu and Makie... She's laughing so hard she has to hold on to the cover of the well.
"In fine spirits this morning."
Rin whirls around and stares at the source of the hoarse whisper. Anotsu looks like shit. A skinny spectre just back from the dead, leaning on a staff, lanky hair pulled back from his ferret face. "Yup," she nods. "And amazed at your staying power. But you know what they say about weeds. Pull them by the root and all that."
He doesn't deign to comment. Instead he snatches the water bucket from her and starts rinsing himself. It's a complicated procedure since he has to anchor himself between well and walking stick while trying to wash.
Seeing how he spills most of the water, Rin draws some more - even if it's against her will, and after too little of his begging.
"Where are the others?" he rasps, still dripping.
"Makie-san went back past the lake to see whether there was any sign of the bugyo. Tai-kun's gone the other way to get supplies." Rin eyes him sceptically. "You shouldn't be up."
"Mmm." He smiles, sliding one leg up the walled enclosure to sit. "Makie-san and Tai-kun. Haven't we got familiar." His smile is still crooked and painful to watch, too much of a rictus to project real mirth, but his tone is sarcastically soft. Then he leans against a beam and closes his eyes.
"And now?"
"What, and now?" he mumbles, face turned towards the sun.
"Your little empire is falling to pieces," she suggests, matter-of-fact.
Anotsu's breath is a shallow in and out, betraying no emotion. "And you're here to pay your condolences," he muses without opening his eyes.
She drops her head, then looks aside, gazing past the yard and into the mountains. "I stayed to help bury you."
He remains quiet for a while, then murmurs an acerbic, "How disappointing for you." Too bad his grand exit falls flat, because as soon as he's hefting himself off the wall, he goes down in an undignified heap.
Snorting, Rin helps him up and back into the house. "I'm still getting my kicks out of this, you know," she laughs. It sounds surprisingly tender, even to herself.
---
His bearing has always been a sick sort of poetry in motion, his arc of kiri otoshi like a bloodied parabola, but now he slumps onto his bedding like a sack of rice, still in danger of being strangled by his own muscles. No wonder it comes as a shock to Rin when he snatches her wrist and doesn't let go.
His grip is too powerful for such a wraith, and she gasps, "What are you do-" as he crushes her face into his shoulder. The other one, the good one. His fingers are digging into her scalp, pulling at her hair while he wraps around her.
"What are you doing," she wheezes, close to panicking.
He doesn't reply. Just holds on to her.
She thinks she can feel the frantic beating inside his chest, and as he tightens his fingers around the back of her head again, he slides and settles under her. His erection pokes into her groin, and Rin makes a small noise against his collarbone.
When he lets go of her, it's as unexpected as the grabbing. She's tempted to frot against him, even as he lies slack and still. In the end it's she who rolls off of him - rolls off and curls up with her back to him. Anotsu traces her spine with a finger, not saying a word. "What was that all about," she hisses. Her voice is at odds with her body, and when she turns to him at last, she feels anger at the lack of explanation in his eyes.
If anything, he looks confused. "Rin, I wasn't..." But then he interrupts himself, blinking. They're back at the beginning, back with the hurled tea bowls and the mute curses, and she crawls over to him.
His mouth tastes foul. The cold water from the well hasn't been able to remove the stench from his skin either, but as long as they're kissing, Rin doesn't notice. At least not that much.
They soon break apart with the approach of steps on the porch, and they'll never know whether their soft grunts of protest meant more, and stay, orget the fuck away from me.
---
The nights out here are full of strange noises. Rin always thought life in the country was quiet, peaceful - but some of the things she's heard in the mountains and villages make her miss the familiar, perpetual shuffle of the city.
There are noises now, too, but she squeezes her eyes shut. There's the soft rustle of feet on wood; probably Magatsu stepping out to relieve himself. If she jerked and twitched every time she heard something, like at the beginning of her travels, she wouldn't get a single night's rest, so Rin merely throws her arm over her face and tries to go back to sleep, mouth open and drooling a little.
Somewhere between dreaming and waking she can still smell Anotsu. Experimentally, she opens one eye. It has to be a dream, she knows this, because the moon wasn't that bright in previous nights, and Anotsu would never kneel in front of her, one knee and the knuckles of his right hand pressed to the floor. He has put down his sword between them, axe by his side, and drops into a bow. It's a tight, contained warrior's bow, proud and measured, but it's a bow, so Rin smiles in her sleep and flops over towards the kneeling shape. Nonetheless, it has to be a dream, because he's gone as soon as her vision clears.
---
Waking with a gang of angry men in the room hardly is Rin's favourite thing. She drags herself against a wall, clutching a blanket, and splutters in indignation. Until she sees the uniforms, that is, and a banner, and a few headbands that tell her this is not a pack of robbers or peasant vigilantes with pitchforks.
She feels the bile rising in her throat, but somehow manages to blurt, "Officers, what outrage is this?" while her heart is about to jump from her ribcage.
A pockmarked man wearing a black-lacquered metsuke's hat snarls at her to shut up, then dispatches more of his men to search the premises, and Rin flounders, shocked and stunned until it dawns on her.
Last night's noises... the soft scrabbling of feet...
They left her behind. Simple as that. She's about to rise, furious now, but a sword at her throat forces her to recoil and sit back... which is when she notices another thing, beyond the fact that she's been dumped like excess baggage. There's no trace of them, not a single trace to betray that three more people made camp here. No bedrolls, blankets, or bowls, no leftover food, not even dirt beyond what naturally accumulates in deserted spaces.
"We're looking for one Anotsu Kagehisa," one of the men barks. "Wanted by the bakufu for the murder of Kensui-dono, for sedition and conspiracy against the government-"
"Err," Rin clears her throat, "that's great, officer. Sir. I'm looking for him as well." She scrambles for her bag and prays to all that's sweet and holy that they haven't stolen her stuff. Rummaging for her paperwork, she nearly gasps when her fingers brush across a tied stack of coins that feel like a ryo, at least. Trembling, she holds out her letter with the seal of the Edo Registry and assumes her best act of hurt virtue. She holds her breath for as long as the metsuke studies the document, only letting it out when the crumpled paper is handed back to her with a terse nod.
"My deepest sympathy, miss. Please don't take it the wrong way when I say that a young lady like yourself shouldn't be attempting such a thing on her own. Especially since it interferes with the current objectives of the bakufu."
She blushes, blinking furiously. "Sir, I've made a vow at the temple and will not-"
"You will go back to Edo, miss," the man counters. His tone brooks no argument, and Rin breathes a secret sigh of relief.
Later, she can't help smiling to herself when the bugyo escort her past the lake, back towards the turnpike road, back towards the spot where Manji and Magatsu split up.
Typical. She smirks.
Not so much as a thank-you.
---