Author's Note: I have used (*) to mark specific words or phrases that I feel
require explaination. The follow up for these can be found at the end of each
chapter.
kuraireikan
Plans and Persuasions
After that declaration and ultimatum, Akiko nearly fell out the door in her hurry to be out of the widow's presence.
She remembered little of what happened throughout the house for the rest of the evening. All she knew for sure was that she had managed to perform her duties, but only because no one had called her out for not doing so. She didn't even remember getting herself ready for bed. Aside from blowing out the bedside lamp, everything was a blur.
That night was quite possibly the longest of her life. Even as exhausted as she was—the widow had been right about that, at least—there was no room for sleep with so many things running through her mind.
How could that woman ask such a thing of her?
To kill a man.
She was a healer!
Yes, but you are also onmyouji*. Hasn't it been your family's duty for centuries to protect innocents, such as the widow, by destroying demons?
Yes, but this woman didn't want her to slay demons. She wanted Akiko to kill men. Bad men granted, but men all the same.
Were they? Perhaps they had been possessed.
Then the demons needed to be exorcised. One didn't destroy the host unless there were no options left.
And if there were no options left? Would you take this opportunity to show your family that you, too could be worthy?
Her family was onmyouji, but Akiko herself had never displayed a talent for anything other than healing. She couldn't even read auras. But that didn't make her unworthy! She was a good healer!
But not good enough to heal the evil in these men, to drive out whatever demons may have possessed them.
That could only be done by a qualified onmyouji or priestess; by someone like her father, her brother, or even her older sister. But certainly not by the likes of her!
So then, not so worthy after all, are you? What if this were what the widow needed in order to heal. Would you be able to do what needed to be done if that were the case?
Do what was needed, or what was wanted? There was a difference.
Did it really matter which when so much was at stake?
What was at stake was her soul, and the soul of the widow as well. Regardless of what she might want to do, she was not an onmyouji or even a priestess. She was, first and foremost, a healer. A saver of lives, not a taker.
And how many times have you witnessed the taking of an irreparable or gangrenous limb in order to save the whole?
These and so many other thoughts fought their way through her mind as she tossed and turned that night, making sleep impossible.
Finally she roused herself from dampened bedclothes, pulled on her robe, and; keeping her small hand lantern semi-hooded so as not to wake anyone, wandered quietly through the large house.
It was peaceful at this time of night with even the staff tucked away in their beds. She often did this when she couldn't sleep, wandering out to the rear garden to sit and watch the sun rise.
But rather than her usual perch she found herself gravitating toward the private portion of the house, that area where the family's quarters were located.
It was no surprise that after such a tragic loss, the widow now lived and held audiences—court?—in a suite of rooms in the guest wing of the home. She could no longer stand to enter here.
This private wing was a separate building; the only things that connected it to the rest of the house were the bath and water closet, and a small cluster of servants' rooms.
She moved past all these, down the entrance hall proper, and stopped outside the room to the left. Slowly she slid the door open.
The room had belonged to Reiji, the oldest of the widow's children. The ten year-old's clothes had been neatly folded into his closet drawers while his books, writing materials, even his bamboo and wooden practice swords and kendo gear had all been neatly crated and the crates stacked, looking for all the world as if someone would be coming to get them in the morning.
She slid the door closed again before stepping across the hallway to open the one opposite.
This room was the same in size and general appearance. All of Raitso's things; his clothes, books and school supplies, even the eight year-old's hand carved wooden soldiers, all packed up and waiting for a moving crew that would not be coming.
Not while the widow still lived.
The only real difference here were the couple of childishly adorable sketches and paintings still hanging on the wall.
Akiko would never forget the day Ishikawa-Ojii-sama came with the workers to pack and remove it all. His reasoning—excuse—being that his daughter-in-law had enough on her plate, so to speak, without having to put herself through the pain of clearing all of these things away. She should concentrate on getting better, he'd told her.
The widow, for all her injuries, looked as though she would rise from her bed and tear him to pieces with her bare hand. And likely would have, had she been able.
As it was, she'd had to settle for glaring him into submission.
The meaning of the phrase, "If looks could kill," had never been more obvious.
Ojii-sama* left empty handed.
Akiko continued down the hall until she came to an ornate door right at the end. She entered ever so quietky, though she couldn't have said why. There hadn't been anyone here for months.
This had once been the suite of rooms belonging to the widow and her husband.
The two long but narrow rooms that served as clothing closets stood each to a side of a large sleeping area that boasted shelving units on the far side of the closet doors. She knew from her walks in the gardens that the area beyond the sliding doors directly across from her was one of the most beautiful to be found anywhere on the grounds of the eatate.
Within the right hand closet, Ishikawa Retsu's clothes and personal belongings remained untouched. Apparently his father's machinations had been stopped just short of packing out Raitso's room and hadn't gotten this far at all.
On the opposite side of the room; the widow's half, the closet was empty of all but her finest and most expensive clothing. The rest had all been moved but only because she was now staying elsewhere.
What did remain—aside from the widow's finery—were the sleeping basket and all of the toys and clothing that had belonged to little Minami. These had been neatly folded and put away in the special little closet drawers made just for her, the toys all sitting in their places on a shelf set above the drawer's chest. The sleeping basket stood at the ready next to the sliding door where the widow could have reached her immediately should she cry out in the night.
These things were not packed to move but had been put away, and with obvious care. She might be a shrew now, but the widow and her family had been, and still were, Akiko told herself, well loved by their house staff.
Here in the sleeping area, to the left side of his closet door, a shelving unit held Retsu-sama's katana and wakazashi on a simple, but beautifully carved and lacquered rack, and a small version of the Ishikawa family banner hung above it. The few smaller non-symmetrical shelf spaces to either side of the sword rack held items of sentimental value.
The widow's sleeping area shelves stood to the right of her closet door, directly across from her husband's. And while it also contained a few of the same smaller spaces bearing items of significance, the larger area equivalent to where Retsu-sama had set his swords, held a treasure of another sort.
The widow had made a lovely arrangement of all the various photographs of her family; and there were many.
Actual photographs, as opposed to artist renditions, were hard to come by, and expensive. Having even one was a sign of status, but to have this many...
She had not been aware that the Ishikawas were so well off.
A telling detail that would only fully register with Akiko later, after much needed sleep, was the fact that they were all here.
The only one missing was that of the entire family sitting together, all in their finest outfits, during last year's Gion* festival. It had been taken only days before the incident that had cost them all their lives. That one the widow kept at her bedside in her current quarters.
Aside from that one, all of the photographs were here in this private living chamber.
Not a single one of these lovely images were displayed in a more public area of the house. Not one was set out as a show of wealth to be flaunted in the company of less well-to-do family members, business partners or visitors.
Wealthy and modest.
These were good people.
What happened to them was a tragedy.
But it was not her tragedy to avenge.
Well, it's not as though the widow can do it herself now, can she?
Why should anyone do it? Let it be, what's done cannot be undone.
Again with the spinning arguments in her head. Leave me alone, she wanted to scream.
No such luck ever favored her.
No, it can't be undone, the thought floated up from the depths of her subconscious, but you can prevent it from ever happening again.
Ever? This is just the one group, the one battle. There will always be more. Others always come in place of those who have gone before.
Others are not the reason this woman suffers. They are not the reason you suffer. These are the ones resposible. These are the demons of the Shinsengumi, wolves among wolves. These are not worthy of your concern.
All are deserving of my concern.
But she knew she was lying to herself even as the thought crossed her mind. She had never been able to concern herself with everyone. This was perhaps the main reason she was unable to display the skills necessary for becoming a priestess, like her sister.
There were just some things she could not forgive, some people to whom she could not open her heart.
But while Akiko was no saint—and the first to admit it—the thought of killing someone,
No, of murdering someone...
It isn't as though these people don't deserve it. What's more, they expect it. A cruel and violent death is par for the course with this lot. Some of them believe that to live to old age should be considered cowardice.
It was a convincing argument she told herself. But could she, someone who had dedicated her life to healing, really commit such an act, even against people such as this?
She didn't know.
But she did know one thing for sure and it was that she could no longer sit by day after day and watch the widow's suffering. It was tearing them both apart and something had to be done about it.
These were the thoughts that flew through her head as Akiko closed the doors behind her and left the private wing to wonder out to the garden, where she would once again sit and watch her own breath on the cold air until dawn.
No matter how she fought it, no matter how many arguments against it all she conjured, there was no doubt in her mind that she would end up agreeing to this.
She was just too tired to fight it, was her rationalization.
And so, she mentally wrapped herself in the pretty trappings of justice and told herself that tomorrow morning she would give the widow her answer and resolve herself to taking that first step down a long and ugly road.
Would she ever make it back?
Only time would tell.
But for now, her fate—as well as that of the widow—was in the hands of the gods.
Notes: *AnOnmyouji was a spiritualist tasked with everything from demon slaying and exorcism to astrology and divination.
*Ojii-sama: Ojii means respected elder. Sama is an honorific most often used when refering to someone of importance such as the head of a family or large household. In this case, the widow's father-in-law.
*Gion Matsuri, the festival of Yasaka Shrine, is the most famous festival in Japan and takes place over the entire month of July.