Disclaimer: I don't own them, Kuwabara Mizuna does.
Author's Note: I'm awfully sorry it took this long to continue the story. It cost me a lot of time to outline what I was actually going to write. But I'm clear now about what's going to happen in the first 5-6 chapters. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean that I'll be able to put them here in short time. This year I'm taking my finals which very often keeps me from writing.
Thanks a lot to everyone who reviewed, sent me PMs and favved the story. It means so much to me!
Couldbesunshine: Kenshin choosing the rest of the troop for Kagetora's benefits was my own idea – it appears nowhere in the books as far as I know. I like the idea, though, since as you said it sheds a new light on their interactions. Also, Naoe is the only one Kenshin revealed his reasons for picking exactly these people to. The others don't know of Naoe's role in Kagetora's first life and they don't need to at this point in time ;-)
Haruna-Hakkai: Thanks ^_^ For the story, I cannot stick to the outline of the 400 years as they were being passed in canon. Things will develop a bit differently here. I'm curious as to how you will like it.
For some reason, this first chapter turned out to become more of a prologue than the actual one. Practically, it's 14 pages of introspective which I felt were necessary to map out the psychological states of our two heroes as the story starts. I tried my best here to do both canon (what little I know of the prequels) and my own AU story "There Is No Such Place" justice.
Almost 70 years have passed since the events described in the prologue.
Enjoy :-)
~*~
Chapter 1: The Sound of Silence (1652)
Naoe's POV
The village lay quiet. The late afternoon sun threw a golden glow over the uneven snowscape. Hidden underneath the powdery surface, there was a layer of black ice that could quickly and unpelasantly make you stumble and fall. Buckets in hands, I was treading very carefully on the path that led from the well to the half-decayed farmhouse where I had left my sleeping companions. A fine column of smoke erupted from the chimney – proof of the fire I had lit there earlier.
The exorcisms we had performed the night before in the nearby castle ruin had left us all drained. Unsurprisingly, I was the first to get up again after we had decided to spend the day resting. My own exhaustion notwithstanding, my sleep had been fitful and light. To tell the truth, I hardly remembered it ever being anything but. In part, it was naturally due to the task that lay with me for the third lifetime, or rather, for the third possession.
Although I had never even considered disobeying Kenshin-kō, I'd had my reservations against serving under his son. I couldn't forget what Kenshin-kō had named as the reason for me having been chosen as his son's protector. But that had been almost seventy years ago. I had learned to differ between what had brought me into this situation – a subject I extremely rarely touched upon and only in my thoughts – and what being in it was actually like. I had come to terms of some sort with my task. More than that, actually.
Every thought of mine while awake seemed to revolve around the safety of the one I had sworn to protect. Even in sleep, all my senses seemed to be tuned to his each and every movement. This awareness, this identification with my assignment stealthily had come over me as the years passed. Part of me resented this development, of course. But I had such thoughts under my control by now. Waking up in that barn, I immediately sought out the slumbering figure of my lord about a couple of steps away from me.
The five of us had been reunited only the other night after almost twenty years which had been spent with the people from whose children we had stolen our current bodies. Each of us had performed the act of possession before, several times in fact. This had been the first time, however, that each of us had possessed an infant's body in the mother's womb.
Ever since my reappearance in this world in a foreign body, most of my attention had been occupied by what concerned the dead. However, that didn't mean that I was blind or deaf towards the political developments in our homeland. To think that, in the beginning, I had feared more harm to come to Kagekatsu's Echigo from his reincarnated brother's side than from his living enemies. It certainly was a daring move of Kenshin-kō's to put the one measure to control the vengeful spirits of the Otate no Ran in the hands of the one who had lost this war – and had probably more reason than anyone to thirst for revenge.
When he claimed to be indifferent towards the question of who ruled Echigo, I hadn't bought into it at first, but he had never as much as set foot into Kagekatsu's capital as long as his brother lived. And Echigo had been lost anyway within two more generations as Toyotomi Hideyoshi gathered more and more land and his domains swallowed up more and more of the warring states.
Those houses and clans that had been great in our times had almost all vanished from history. In the process, not only the unification of our country had been brought about, but also new armies of vengeful spirits which couldn't let go of their hatred and grief.
We had seen it all. But as time passed, possessing one body after another – carrying the consciousness of the previous lives into the new incarnations every time without the chance to digest what we had witnessed – had proven itself to be a burden too heavy to bear in perpetuity. Possessing an unborn body and spending a normal childhood unawares of the burden that awaited us had felt like finally being allowed to catch up on well-deserved sleep after having spent three days awake in a row.
Natural birth had presented us with an interesting side effect, I thought, eyeing up the features of the one I had come to call "Kagetora-sama". I had been presented with this sight countless times in the past: my master sleeping close by, just out of reach of my hand even if I'd extended my arm towards him. So familiar was this view that by now I had sucessfully broken the habit of remembering another time and place where I had once woken up in even closer proximity to the soul that now housed shells very different from the one it had inhabited when we had first met.
Of course, this was the very moment when natural birth had to go and restore some of our original looks to each of us. Where our lord was concerned, this meant a slightly higher forehead, a longer nose and broader cheekbones, but everything else about this face was Saburo's. Even the black hair fanning out on the empty rice sacks he was sleeping on seemed every bit as silky as back then.
Snowfall apparently having stopped a while ago, I felt that I could just as well get up and make myself useful. The simple chores that came with being part of a small traveller's group which had to provide for their own well-being always had a calming effect on me. There had been a time when I would have considered it beneath myself to cook or wash clothes, but it was long gone. My leaving the barn hadn't gone unnoticed. When I returned I met one of the village people at our door who had brought something to eat for us. They were grateful for us putting the castle spirits to rest and wished to reciprocate. I opened the door and gestured for him to follow me inside.
At once, I noticed that one of the makeshift beds had been cleared in my absence. Kagetora was standing at the window with his back to me, but turned around when he heard the door crack open. His eyes caught mine for a fleeting second before they briefly sought out the water buckets I was carrying and returned their gaze to the outside.
During the last almost seventy years, there had been times when I had wondered whether I had just idolized his appearance as it had been during his first lifetime. I hadn't. Also, people still reacted to him in the same way they had back then. The young peasant that carried the pots with our food was no exception. Laying eyes on my lord, he actually stopped in his movements. His face betrayed no immediate desire. Just astonishment.
"That will be all," I said, mindful of sounding casual. Making a scene would have made the insolence all the more obvious, and I was sure this wasn't in Kagetora's best interest.
The man bowed hastily and left, though not without another glance at my master. Since Kagetora-sama didn't as much as bat an eye-lid at the small encounter, I was unsure whether he had noticed what was going on at all. I remembered how he even as a youth had been able to completely ignore such blatant stares, and there had been lots of them.
Having first met him during a campaign, I had attributed the way my men were unable to keep their eyes off him not only to his beauty but partly to the fact that they were all a bit starved for contact after being out in the field for months. At Echigo, though, I came to understand that this was more of a rule than an exception.
Later, during the war, the subject would arise ever so often. I had done nothing to stop the despicable allusions among Kagekatsu's of how his allies had probably only joined his side in hope for "allowance in kind". I had listened in silence – and lain awake at night afterwards, fighting off the nagging questions whether any of these rumours were true. While I couldn't imagine him offering himself to anyone like this, I couldn't forget how he had fooled me before.
It was the same with his abilities as a leader. On one hand, I had thought him too soft-hearted and magnanimous to enact what was necessary to make him the sole ruler of Echigo. On the other, I had known his cunning first-hand.
In the afterlife, he had presented me with even another version of himself. So different was the General of the Meikai Uesugi Army from both the beautiful, head-strong creature I had embraced in that forest and Kenshin-kō's adopted Hōjō child who had hoped against all hopes until the very end that reconciliation with his brother was possible – I sometimes wondered whether they were actually all the same person.
His self-control was accomplished. The occasional displays of vulnerability – there had been one or two that I had come to witess over the years – made this all the more obvious. They never failed to catch me by surprise. So now his murmured comment almost escaped me. It probably wasn't meant for my ears either, but came as an involuntary reaction.
"I'd forgotten just what a nuisance this appearance used to be."
~*~
Kagetora's POV
My eyes flew open when I heard the door being pulled shut. Too late again; another chance blown. He had woken up first of us, as had been to be expected, and immediately had stolen away. He often did that kind of thing early in the morning.
Although his solitary walks didn't actually bother me (I would have done the same if I could) and had never interfered with his duty to protect me, I found myself thinking of the distance between us as a cord at such moments. When I needed him with me, I could just order him to my side. I had done this, ocasionally, just because I could. I couldn't really explain it, but I didn't feel that I needed to, either.
But even then, if he bore his chores with inner resentment, he never showed it to me. The better for him. It hadn't been I who had chosen him for this task as we both hadn't forgotten.
Not for me, as he had implied during our very first encounter as posessors, did he shoulder his burden, but for the dutiful promise he had given to my father. The fealty he had promised to me had been meant for Kenshin – and I wasn't going to fool myself into believing anything about his reasons for protecting me had changed. When he had put my safety over his own in the past, shielded me with his body or even died for me as it had come to pass during our last possessions – he wasn't doing it for my sake.
He would have done this for any person that Kenshin had ordered him to protect. It didn't matter whether it was me or anyone else. In fact, he probably would have served happier under anyone that wasn't me. I understood, however, that there was no good in arguing about the point. He had given my father his word. Also, it wouldn't have been the first time that I was wrong about something. I preferred not to interfere – if only, because I trusted Kenshin's judgement more than I trusted my own.
When my father had explained to me the task that awaited me as the General of the Meikai Uesugi Army all those years ago, he had never once mentioned a guardian. The image struck a dissonant chord with me. Guardian. Protector. Someone who had your back – which literally put them in the best position to stab it. Wouldn't I just know?
To start with, I didn't feel that I needed such a person by my side. Much less was I inclined to believe that Naoe Nobutsuna was fit for the task. Although Kenshin didn't know what had really transpired between his son and his young subordinate, it was still possible that he had acted with reference to those days he knew I had spent in the woodlands with Naoe Nobutsuna and his father all those years ago. He knew that they had taken good care of me back then; I had told him this myself.
But still. Naoe Nobutsuna was a former enemy of mine and the right-hand man of my brother after Kagekatsu, too, had become an enemy. What on earth could my father have been thinking to entrust my safety to this person? The ways of the gods were mysterious indeed.
I didn't trust Naoe on so many levels. I didn't trust him with my life, for once. I didn't trust him not to be the murderer of my child. I didn't trust him not to betray my secrets. But what was most important: I didn't trust him to stay.
I couldn't put my finger on where this particular suspicion arose from. I never imagined any of the others to leave. Maybe it was because he kept so many things strictly to himself, not revealing anything of what moved him. If anything moved him at all.
Or maybe it was because I still remembered our very first run-in when he had suspected Kagetora – not knowing that he was actually talking to the object of his distrust – of a lack of identification with his role as Kenshin's heir. Spurned by this comment, I had indirectly accused him of not knowing the meaning of loyalty himself – and had visibly hit a nerve. He knew it himself, then, I had concluded from his apparent speechlessness, that there was some truth in my assumption.
The sun had almost completely sunk when Naoe returned and it was near pitch-dark outside when our companions were getting up one by one. We were gathering around the rice pots the villagers had brought us.
"We really have to do something about the food," Haruie murmured after the first bites.
"A day and a night back in the field and you're already complaining," Irobe chided softly.
"I'm afraid, it's a vicious circle," I said to Haruie. "We're going to where we are needed the most. We're needed the most where people aren't ablo to follow their usual patterns of work and life anymore because of the attacks of vengeful spirits. Where people aren't able to do that, the food usually is a bit meagre. Which leads us to our reasons for being here."
"Still, it's a shame."
"Your cooking isn't that famous either, Haruie," Nagahide reminded.
Next to him, my sworn protector smiled and for a moment even looked as young as his body actually was. Hints that he meanwhile felt at ease within the small army he was part of, despite having been responsible for the deaths of two of his comrades, were sparse, but they were there.
Before meeting Naoe, I had always considered myself quite adept at reading others. I remembered how what was going on in his head had been a mystery to me even when he had encountered me in kind. So how could I expect to make sense of him when he was guarding his innermost thoughts so thoroughly these days?
Maybe if I finally managed to watch him asleep and therefore unguarded, it would reveal something about the many things I didn't understand about him. But I had only ever seen him asleep once and both of us had been very different then from the people we were now.
I had believed it to be false serenity even then. A mask to hide anger with or insecurity – or irritation about my supposedly upstart manners and various way of provoking him when I hadn't known how to deal with my attraction to him. I believed his apparent poise to be an inability to deal with anger and resentment – and meanwhile I knew that I had been right.
Not that I cut much of a better figure when it came to talking about my feelings. The best proof of it was that I hadn't even once brought up the subject of Donanmaru's murder. If this had meant that I wasn't still brooding over it, my quiet would have been excusable. But it had much more to do with a pattern that was established by now.
Having been unable to ever talk openly during our first lives, it came as nothing much of a surprise that we kept our silence in the afterlife, too. That didn't mean that I didn't go on wondering what was going through his head, though. Was he angry? Was he angry still? Did he feel ashamed? Was he disappointed? Did he hurt?
Say something! There were still moments when I wished nothing more but to grab him and shake a reaction out of him. Don't just stand there like a log!
But I couldn't very well voice any of these thoughts which frequently popped up in my mind every now and then. I was reasonably sure that none of it could be guessed at from my usual composure.
"No, it isn't," Haruie conceded calmly to his cooking skills being insulted. "But then, I didn't have the same training as did Kagetora-gimi either."
The hand holding my chopsticks stilled half-way to my mouth.
"What do you mean by training?" Irobe asked.
Haruie laughed. "Don't tell me you don't know the story of how Kenshin-kō forbade him to join the army and he snuck away from Echigo to fight in the war against Oda anyway. Right," he frowned. "You had died by then, you probably really don't know. Anyway, he ended up with Naoe and his father and told them he was actually Kagetora-dono's servant. That's why he knows how to do this kind of stuff and we don't."
"You werent't even there, Haruie," Nagahide chimed in.
"My father was there and he told me about it later."
This, of course, was the absolutely last subject I wanted to arise, especially while Naoe was sitting with us. There was nothing like a silent pact between us not to let the others know about our common past at any cost. We were just that – silent. He was probably just as relieved as I was when a knock at the door interrupted the exchange.
It wasn't true, I thought getting up to open since I was sitting nearest to the door. He hadn't taught me how to cook. In order not to blow my cover, I'd had to figure this out by myself in short time while at his father's camp. He had taught me other things, though – things that tainted his perception of me far worse than a bit of cooking and washing clothes could have done, and kept him from wholly accepting me as his master.
I knew I had to adress the matter sooner or later. I had known for more than sixty years and done nothing about it.
Outside, a small group of peasants was waiting. For the evening, a musical presentation was planned, the village eldest informed us, having undertaken the effort of coming to see us himself. He had to lean on who I assumed was his grandson. It was the same boy that had brought our food earlier. He sent me a slightly too long look, again.
I felt equally touched by the old man's attentiveness and the prospect of being able to listen to music for the first time in a long while. I told him we would be glad to attend and watched him being led away by his grandson. Turning around to my small group, I met Naoe's eyes. They were narrowed as if he disapproved of my decision.
Cold, so cold. So different from the young commander who had found out my best-kept secret by coincidence and instead of drawing away from me in disgust…
But what if there just isn't anything behind the façade? Maybe that was all in your imagination when you had nothing better to do than let him bed you in the grass…
I flicked the thought away. We had finished our sparse meal and got up to follow the invitation. Stepping out of the barn, we turned towards the center of the village where the eldest housed. In our way, I suddenly became aware of the boy, his supposed grandson, leaning against one of the houses we were passing by.
This time, he was smiling openly and his eyes were directed straight at me. Now this was impudent even for what I had been used to in my day.
"This is getting annoying," Nagahide muttered under his breath. I couldn't have agreed more. Years ago, the mere fact that someone commented on my being stared after would have angered the living hell out of me. Stares were one thing. But stares being noticed by third parties… they seemed to leave a stain.
Anyway, possessing bodies which bore no resemblance whatsoever to Uesugi Kagetora had given me a reprieve for quite some time. It had only been in this life that memories of what it had been like to be the object of constant speculation and suggestive looks caught up with me thanks to the body I found myself in.
This youngster, however, seemed a lot more obvious and a lot more persistent than my usual "admirers". What on earth did he hope to achieve like this? I snorted inwardly. It would have been amusing if my ability to be amused by such things hadn't been used up during my original lifetime already.
"What are you looking at?" Haruie inquired in not too friendly tone.
The boy laughed softly, as if he alone could truly appreciate the funniness of what was going on. "Am I not allowed to enjoy a bit of diversion in my haven of tranquility?"
As one, we all stopped and stared. The boy started to grin more broadly.
I didn't remember seeing him around the day before. It wasn't very likely for a possessor to have been born here of all places for us to stumble upon him by coincidence. He must have used hypnosis on the villagers to fool them into believing for a short time that he was one of them. A lot of us had this gift at command. Nagahide would have been capable of the same thing and so would I.
I looked at Haruie and saw his eyes widen. A heartbeat before he could reveal our opponent's past-life identity to me, I knew it myself. It should have been obvious from the start, but he had probably applied some kind of shield that kept us from figuring it out at once.
"There is never much tranquility where you are, Kōsaka Masanobu."
~*~
Naoe's POV
Eyes narrowed, I sharply glanced at the young man and was met with a cheeky grin. He was younger than us, by several years apparently.
Here I was being confronted with another piece of my past I very well could have done without. I had met Kōsaka Danjō only once during my first lifetime – at the fourth battle of Kawanakajima. But his life and deeds had been crucial to influence mine long before.
The shouting of men in the distance, the swift breath of our horses, their thundering hooves. The crashing and cracking of our castle falling prey to the flames, behind us. Riding on horseback, arms clamped around my uncle's middle as we speed along the river bed leaving the country of my birth behind. The sickening feeling of falling, the gurgling waters engulfing me, part of me never forgetting just how cold that rapid river had been…
Gradually, I became aware that everyone was staring at me. My companions knew, of course, what had happened at Junshuu when I had been nine years old and still been called Nagao Kagetaka. Did they expect me to act upon those feelings of resentment long buried if never come to terms with?
Ours wasn't a happy profession: putting the vengeful dead to a rest that we ourselves weren't permitted to experience. It was a curious experience to be part of this small army, knowing that I had been responsible for the decease of two of my comrades. I knew what was expected of me. I had been given a chance to redeem myself. And I had never come as low again as at that one time in my life when I had seriously been thinking of ending it.
I wouldn't gamble that away, I thought, looking into Kagetora's eyes as if trying to convince him of my resolve, for the sake of taking revenge on Shingen's general who had led the Takeda troups in their assault on my home country.
"How did you find us?" Kagetora demanded to know from our unbidden visitor.
"Easily," was the fresh reply. "I went where vengeful spirits were stirring the most trouble."
Kagetora looked up and down the youthful body possessed by the Takeda. "Is he…?"
"The eldest doesn't have a grandson. The body is the one I was born in this time around." He looked at us one by one, taking in our appearances, the slight resemblance to what we had looked like during our first lives. "Apparently you, too, got tired of all the baggage and needed a break."
"Was there something in particular you wanted?" Kagetora interrupted.
"Yes, Saburō-dono. I've come to let you know that I presented your compliments on the earliest possible opportunity."
The change Kagetora's features were undergoing was remarkable, if only just a little. For a tiny moment I was able to catch a glimpse of an emotion buried deeply, something wild and literally uncanny. Then the mask was back in place and I couldn't tell whether I had actually seen something or the slight shock it still brought whenever somebody referred to Kagetora as Saburō had made me imagining things.
"I cannot say for sure," Kōsaka added when my lord made no reply, "that they were appreciated, though."
"That is quite enough."
I was at a complete loss about what was going on. Carefully, I looked at my companions, but judging from their expressions, they didn't fare any better. Kagetora on the other hand didn't seem very keen on clueing us in. And what concerned Kōsaka, he seemed not only to notice but to have anticipated my master's discontent at being confronted like this. He very much looked like he wanted to present us with some more wiseacre remarks, but he was interrupted by the soft voice of the village eldest who had appeared by his side.
"Make yourself useful, child." The old man stroked over the pitch-black hair of the one he took for his grandson. I half expected Kōsaka to make use of his abilities and turn the old man's attention elsewhere. But he took a small bow and disappeared in his would-be grandfather's house.
"Come now, young master," the eldest said, his tone a splendid mixture of respect and fatherliness. Brittle fingers on the edge of Kagetora's yukata, he was leading my lord to where the village musicians had started to play their tunes already. Uesugi Kenshin's adoptive son let himself be pulled along by the small, fragile figure without putting up the slightest bit of resistance.
Having been interrupted in my observations like this, the music distracted me for a short while even further. It maybe wasn't the best performance I had ever come to witness – not that I had ever cared much about such things – but the small ensemble featured a flutist. That was all it needed to put my brooding thoughts to rest for a while.
I loved this instrument. It had become a symbol of my returning back to life after risking a glimpse into the abyss. In spring 1571, I had come so close to ending it all. Mere fear of the reasons for my suicide coming to light had prevented me from carrying out my intention. I had hated my weakness. Seeking to hide it from everybody else, I had kept to myself for a long time, spending the days at my father's house and the nights wandering around Echigo and the nearby forests.
There was another reason, though, why I had come to love these nightly hours: the music.
During one of my strolls, someone was playing the flute in the distance. The nightly silence made the music ring out all the more clearly and easily allowed the sound to be transported what I assumed were several miles. I suddenly felt that I had never really listened to music before. I found this one extraordinary – not as penetrating as a goblin's music, but just as bewitching.
The nights to follow, I purposefully sought out the place where I had heard the flute. Once or twice, I even tried to follow the sound, hoping it would lead me to its creator, but in vain. Soon afterwards, rumours were spreading though Echigo about the mysterious "ghost flute" that could be heard at the edge of the forest by night.
The melodies were completely unknown to me, as if they stemmed from a faraway country.
The ones we were being presented with now were much more down to earth, the play itself held nothing of the perfection that unknown flutist in the Echigo forest had displayed. But it was enough to make memory of that other sound flicker to life.
"So," Kōsaka's voice next to me roused me from my thoughts. "What is it like serving the leader of one's former enemy faction?"
"What is it like serving a lord who is trapped beneath a kekkai?" I shot back.
To my disappointment though, Kōsaka didn't let himself be baited. "I've only known him as a precocious, aloof child," he announced in a conversational tone, his eyes on Kagetora on the other side of the room. "It probably wasn't his fault that relationships between him and his adoptive brother came to such a bad end. What Kenshin might have been thinking when he made you of all people his guardian, clearly goes over my head."
"That might be because it's simply not your place to comment on any orders Kenshin-kō gives his abiders."
"Surely. I think it a fascinating matter, though. Both his decision and how you two act upon it although it must have caused you some grievances. In the long run, one of you will lose their edge. That's only natural." His gaze shifted to me again. "I imagine it to be you, Naoe Nobutsuna. Not only did you never have a reason to hate Kagetora that went beyond politcal opportunism, but contrary to him, you simply don't have it in you to hold a grudge for more than a few lifetimes."
I glared at him.
He raised his brows. "Are you denying this? You're not even seeking revenge against me and you have quite a reason to, don't you?"
"Just go on like this and I might reconsider my attitude." Junshuu was not something I wished to discuss with this Takeda halflife. I shook my head in irritation. "How do you even want to know that I don't harbour a grudge against you? That I'm not just waiting for an opportunity to let it get the better of me?"
"Because you're different from your master," he smiled at me. Involuntarily, my eyes sought out Kagetora who returned my gaze but probably hadn't been able to hear what we were murmuring to each other from his side of the room.
Kōsaka had been speaking in riddles all evening – or had he? Or was there a hidden meaning that I just couldn't grasp? What was going on that a Takeda was allowed to know about while we weren't?
They had met before, this much was obvious – and most probably with none of us yasha-shuu present. Not even me who was supposed to watch his back. I didn't like what this implied. I was impatient to ask Kagetora about it myself. Of course, he wasn't any happier with his father's orders concerning the two of us than I was, but didn't he owe me at least this much trust or this much openness in order for me to fulfill my task and watch over him?
~*~
Kagetora's POV
Naoe was suspecting me again. Of what, I wasn't sure and maybe he wasn't either, but he had this look in his eyes. He had watched me like this in the beginning of our precarious pact, whenever I spoke of Echigo or my brother. With everyone's attention being drawn to the musical presentation of our hosts and even Kōsaka shutting his trap for once, I had some time on my hands to ponder what Shingen's general had told me earlier in a roundabout way.
Ujikuni was dead. Killed not on my orders, but still on my behalf and knowing this as he took his last breath. I had known what awaited him at the Takeda's hands and done nothing to spare him this fate.
Where were the others, I wondered. They hadn't come to his aid. He'd finally gotten to know what it felt like. Now what would the rest of my blood clan do? There were five of them left. Would they figure out that their eighth star had something to do with their brother's demise? Things had been set in motion now, though, and I found myself waiting for the other side's reaction.
Conviction aside, better knowledge aside, my father's cause aside, I was still human – and with it came a human's grudges and mortifications. They didn't disappear just because I had seen the errors of my ways. I never said I was impeccable.
Naoe had returned his attention to the village musicians. Maybe something Kōsaka had said to him just then had made him throw me this look. Was he suspicious because he believed to know what I was capable of? Expectedly, his first reaction had been to look towards the others and guess from their expresssions whether I had let anyone else in on my little secret that Kōsaka wisely had chosen not to express verbatim. Having come off the worst the last time I hadn't let him and a group of others in on something important had marked him. Whenever I kept something from the other yasha-shuu, he was prone to believe that this concerned him in a special way and somehow more than the others.
I had detected that trace of self-pity within him from afar years ago. Reluctant as I was then to cross his path, he did an even better job avoiding me. First, all I could feel about this was relief, but as time passed, it began to disturb me. In part, this was due to my fears that he might tell someone about our tryst, but at the same time I was genuinely worried about him. There wasn't much to do about it, though. I couldn't very well seek him out myself or go around asking how he was faring. Still, I had one short conversation with his father – who himself avoided me like the plague after we had returned to Echigo – that seemed to indicate that something was wrong and sincerely so.
It had been my wedding day, a few weeks after we had returned from that very successful and very ill-fated campaign. After the ceremony, I had approached Naoe Sanetsuna to ask in a casual tone whether his son wasn't attending the festivities. I knew it was a stupid move, that nothing good would come of it, but I couldn't help myself. I just had to know what and how he was doing after I hadn't seen him for what seemed like an eternity to me.
Sanetsuna-dono had looked at me for a moment with a fleeting expression that I believed to recognize as thinly veiled contempt and answered that he wasn't. "I think, my lord, you know why that is."
Yes, the old man had definitely had more than an inkling. Of course, it was the last time I made inquieries about Naoe Nobutsuna.
And this was where things should have ended, I thought in a fit of new rebellion against my father's crotchety ideas. Why couldn't he just have chosen Haruie as my protector, or Irobe? Even Nagahide would have been a better option, former enemy or not, than someone who could never truly respect me, who had developed a grudge against me as a pretty plaything that he hadn't had the chance to cast aside when he was finished with it?
As proudly and self-assertively as I demanded his obedience, I couldn't really blame him for his point of view either. Wouldn't anyone be hesitant to take orders from somebody they'd had naked on their back beneath them?
When I ordered him to do things he despised, when I was being haughty or short-tempered – under that false serenity of his, he probably entertained thoughts of my shame. Whenever he was displeased with me, whenever he questioned a decision of mine, whenever he felt humiliated to have to serve a lord that any nonentity undressed with his eyes – memory of our sordid past would inevitably come back to him. What kind of master could I be to him under these circumstances?
Sighing inwardly, I turned my gaze away from his unrevealing features with difficulties – and found myself looking into Kōsaka Danjō's eyes who apparently had been watching me watching my retainer. A fine smile tugged at his lips.
I couldn't even guess at the expression I had been wearing. Clenching my fists, I half expected Kōsaka to comment on it, but he surprised me by cocking his head towards the small group of musicians which had just stopped playing and bowed as well-deserved applause rang out.
"Why don't you play for once?"
My retainers all at once turned around to look at me in surprise. There weren't many things that I had managed to keep to myself, spending so much time with them.
I hesitated. I hadn't played in several lifetimes – never again since my first life, to be exact. After leaving Odawara, I had used this as a link to my past, to Ujiteru-ani. Nobody in the Uesugi clan had to know about it. I took up the habit of playing only at night, in a distance from Echigo. When rumours began to spill through the capital nonetheless, I had abandoned my pastime.
I didn't want to reveal my affinity to music to my retainers, but Kōsaka had already snatched the instrument from its owner who apparently didn't dare protest. They were all looking at me. Feeling uncomfortable among others, under their curious stares, was by no means a new experience for me, but now I couldn't help but squirm a little. Ironically, I only saw one possibility to put an end to this.
Gingerly, I got up from my seat and took the small wooden flute from his fingers. It was slightly different from the kind of flute I was used to, the one I had learned to play with as a child under my elder brother's tutelage. It felt warm from the hands it had passed through. There were scrapes everywhere on its surface. But my fingertips were gliding into the right places with the greatest naturalness.
I collected my breath and blew into the fragile shell of birch wood.
~*~
Naoe's POV
Foreboding gripped me, as I watched how Kagetora took hold of the instrument and placed it in between his slender hands, his fingertips finding the holes in the wood with much practised ease. His gaze cast downwards, he set the wooden piece to his lips and took a breath in.
Then, the first notes spilled from the instrument, spreading throughout the room and taking possession of every living soul within. The melody pierced my marrow and bone, spinning away from this time and place with the sheer beauty of the sound.
It would have been too much to claim that I actually recognized the piece. My memory wasn't that expert when it came to music. But I most certainly recognized the style of it, bewitching as goblin music.
For a moment I felt like being ripped away from the small room, from my companions standing stockstill and the peasants listening with their mouths open. The sound of the flute seemed to get through the dense trees of the Echigo forest to where I was sitting, harkening to the tone of the finely tuned instrument as it freed me for a while from my gloom and lifted the weight of the world from my shoulders.
The unknown flutist – whose music I had sought out night after night – had been him. It had been him all along.
Incredulously, I watched the fine, painfully familiar features, the downcast eyes, the expression of silent concentration. I had been unable to make the connection back then because I hadn't even known that he knew how to play until now.
The one who had thrown me into the depths of Hell, had been the one to also pull me back up again. The irony of it moved me in a strange way. Gratefulness for the comfort his music had brought me at that time mingled with the realization of my delusion.
I just can't seem to ever get a step ahead of you, can I?
Still, this hadn't been another plot of his, even if the feeling of surprise and having been tricked was awfully familiar. He couldn't have known that I was listening. Much less could he have anticipated how important his music had been to me at this point in my life. It had felt like being purified every time I listened.
Why had he done this anyway? Keeping his gift to himself and not telling anybody? So that some part of his life could be his and his alone?
Even more secrets, Saburō? I thought, but for once I didn't feel bitter, but intrigued.
There were so many things I didn't know – leave alone understand – about him. I remembered the words Kenshin-kō had used to describe me, as if my utility and contribution to his cause had been determined by my falling in love with his son, and how trapped I had felt at the sentiment. But there was the other side of the shield. The one who loves him, Kenshin-kō had called me. Not: the one he loves. It was all about what Kagetora needed, after all.
The last notes swirled away. Across the room, I met Kagetora's dark-golden gaze as he set down the flute. We had never spoken of it. Back then, it had seemed the best or rather the only solution. In later lives, this silence had become an established fact which meant that seventy years later, I was still at a loss about what he had thought of his lapse – and what I could allow myself to think of it.
This was it. This was all the old questions had needed to rise to the surface.
What did it mean to you?
A new thought had been added to the gallimaufry of my convictions and self-evident assumptions. That maybe – just maybe – he'd had the very same reason for his nightly strolls as I did. That maybe he, too, had been plagued by memories and had chosen this very measure to find some peace of mind – unwittingly presenting me with it as well.
What were you thinking?
I was watching myself as if from afar: letting go of the parapet after decades and falling into the familiar trap.
Are you…? Or have you ever been?
~*~
Author's Note: The last two phrases are from somewhere, I think. Most probably a movie. Not mine anyway.
The part about Kagetora's brother Hōjō Ujikuni (which is probably still rather cryptic to you, but it will be explained during the chapters to follow) was inspired by a short story from cerise tennyo.
And – surprise: Naoe had a life before he became Naoe. I don't know who led the attack on the Sōsha Nagao clan, the part of Kenshin's wider family that Naoe belonged to, but I made it Kōsaka for the sake of the story.
From what I've read about the prequels, the Uesugi seem to be struggling with several enemies for the length of a few centuries before meeting their main opponents. I don't have such a long breath :-) As a result, from the Hōjō brothers over Takeda Shingen to Oda Nobunaga everyone will step on the scene much earlier than they do in canon.
Personally, I like stories with long chapters but I think I might have overdone it with this one. What do you think – too long? Too short? ;-) Just about right?
Oh, and: How did you like it? :-) Shall I go on with it?