A/N: Just got done with this chapter, and now I must run to work. I just wanted to let you all know that I am –deeply- grateful to those of you who nominated me for the RKRC fanfiction competition. Thank you all of you for your support of Bird in Hand. I'm glad to know that I have written something that has been interesting and good to read for all of you. Bird in Hand is competing in the "Drama" category. Story-wise, the story is finally moving ahead, as I promised. Happy reading, please review- Murasaki.
Saitou Hajime was on the outside of the wall to the Kurasawa residence, along with some of the boys, working on repairing where part of the wall had crumbled and collapsed, when a strange wind whipped up out of nowhere. For a moment, his breath caught in his throat- to him, the wind smelled rancid, like meat gone bad. None of the boys noticed however, although it did blow one of the youngest ones over, dropping him neatly in the dirt.
Fighting the urge to gag- the smell was gone even to him now- he turned back to his work, barking at one of the boys to bring another board over.
Tokio pushed open the door to the kitchen. Yaso-san had her back to her, cutting vegetables to be put into a stew. "It seems there is a storm coming in, Yaso-san," she commented idly, looking around the familier kitchen in hopes of seeing what exactly what Yaso needed her help with. "The rain will do us some good, although hopefully the boys can get the wall fixed before the storm hits."
Yaso said nothing, although Tokio knew she was probably just caught up in her work. She slid the door shut behind her, humming softly. Over time, she'd become very relaxed in the kitchen. As Yaso got more sick, she spent more time here. Taking off her shoes, she walked over toward her friend.
Kurasawa Keiko jerked awake, sweating. She hadn't been feeling well in the past week, but that dream, that dream had been particularly horrifying. She didn't think it had anything to do with the sickness- perhaps it was the weather. Sometimes storms brought bad dreams. If that was the price of water for her household, she would abide by it.
It was not the first nightmare she'd had about her dear Tokio-chan, although this one had been more violent than most. She used to tell her about the dreams, but Tokio, in her ever-polite way, had brushed them off. The younger generations didn't seem to take much stock in their elders' dreams anymore. Although, she reflected, Tokio-chan had seen and done things Keiko-chan could only imagine. Perhaps such reality clouded the mind from understanding the mystical realm.
Still, the nightmare had been disturbing. She laid in her bed, pondering on killing and death, in the way that only a person who has never seen it could. Outside, the sky turned a sickening shade of gray-green. The storm was moving in with its usual characteristic swiftness. Always taking the people below by surpise, huge, swelling raindrops fell to the ground. Children standing by baskets down below in the courtyard shrieked in joy as the drops hit the baskets.
Lightning shot across the sky, and thunder rolled. Some of the younger children ran for shelter, and were chased back out by the older children to look after their baskets.
"Yaso-san?" Tokio asked, coming up behind her. Yaso was not chopping vegetables as Tokio had thought. Dangling limply from her friend's hand was a radish- other vegetables had already been cut up into their respective piles. Next to the piles was a chunk of meat, also to be diced for the stew. Yaso's eyes were riveted to the meat, her nostrils flared. "Yaso-san? Are you feeling alright? You should lie down for a while, my friend, do try not to overexert yourself. You've done your share of work for today."
"My elder brother was gone when they attacked my home," Yaso said quietly, sounding in possession of herself enough that Tokio let out a little breath she didn't know she'd been holding. "It was myself, my father, my mother, my little sister on her back, and my little... my little brother."
Tentatively, Tokio put her hand on the other woman's shoulder. She didn't know exactly who 'they' were- in this war, so many people, so many sides, might have been responsible for destroying a village. "Yaso-san," she whispered, "It's not your fault. The world is too big and life is too sad to blame ourselves."
Yaso seemed not to hear her. "My father- he fell too easily below their swords. He had no time to tell his family anything- not even to run. My mother..." Her voice shook, her hands clenching around the radish and knife in her hands. "They threw my sister off her back, into the cooking fire. She burned to death. I will never... forget that sound."
Tokio could hear the coolness of the sound of the rain. Somehow, although everyone would have retreated into the house at the beginning of the rain unless they were watching baskets, she knew no one would come into the kitchen, not even Saitou Hajime. She was alone with Yaso. The rain isolated everything. There was nothing she could say to Yaso. She didn't know why this had come up now. It was perhaps, something in the wind. Sometimes the wind in the storms brought despair- didn't she know?
"My brother reached out to me, but I turned from him, left him as a sacrifice, as I ran. I pushed his hands away," Yaso's voice was steely now, "And I gave him up to the murderers. Because of it, I escaped with my life, and my shame."
Yaso's skin was clammy, her eyes blank. Although she was dimly aware of the kitchen around her, she was more consciously aware of another house in another time. And on her shoulder, a hand. Grasping at her, keeping her from falling entirely into her past. Damn that hand- she wanted to be there. She wanted to burn- she wanted to feel the pain. It was the only time she could live with herself. Something stretched too far in her mind- and snapped. And somehow the meat- the human- that had been behind her was now suddenly before her, and her knife was before her too, at the meat's throat.
Even Tokio was not entirely sure exactly how it happened, but she came to grips with her situation quickly enough- she was pinned against the table where Yaso had been kneeling, cutting vegetables, in a mostly reclined position, with Yaso's knife at her throat. "You've killed before," Yaso hissed lowly, stroking Tokio's neck gently with the knife. Tokio felt the skin being scraped away. Fear slipped into her bones. She knew how she must look to Yaso- afraid, in the same way that any helpless soon-to-be victim must look. Yaso's other arm, stronger than Tokio had thought it was, pinned her to the table. "But yet you can sleep at night- I've seen you, your face at peace."
"Yaso-san-."
"Shut up. I would take your life now, perhaps. Scream, and I will. I am a dying woman anyway, what would it matter? A dying- a damned woman, with nothing to lose, little bird. Nothing at all to lose, and I'd love to feel your blood against my skin."
She scraped again at the raw skin. Against her will, Tokio flinched, and the knife bit in just a tiny bit deeper. Yaso pulled it back, but looked only pleased with herself.
"I can do it. There would be nothing to stop me. You're nothing but pile of meat. We're nothing... but piles of meat, Tokio."
The lack of a title at the end of her name made it seem naked, defenseless.
"You never finished the story," Tokio said in a rush of breath, before Yaso could bring the knife back down.
Yaso's burning, feverish eyes focused down on her, "What?" She demanded harshly.
"You never finished the story. Your brother came and found you?"
The knife had gone back to taking away skin a little bit lower on her neck. Tokio felt the blood trickle down her throat, but knew better to move again, even though it tickled. "Yes. He found me in the woods, and we ran- mostly on foot- to the next city, and then eventually on to Tonami." The knife pressed harder, opening another cut. "Is that what you wanted to hear?"
"No," Tokio rasped, "You're still not finished. You came to Tonami-."
"And my elder brother died, leaving me alone!" Yaso's eyes and voice were now poisonous.
"In the care of the Uenos!" Tokio replied, her voice trying to leave in fear, "And then you were married to a man- Fujita Goro. He respects you, now."
"I saw you two the night before my wedding."
Tokio had suspected, somehow as much. It was always a fear that had lurked in her mind. "That was the end of it, Yaso-san, that was the end of it. We never met again. He has taken care of you more than he will ever take care of me! You are not a lonely woman any longer. You have friends, and a place, and a husband. Pray for your family- but let them go. Bury them. We were all foolish, we were all too young for what happened. Not youthful, just young."
Yaso released her very slightly, and Tokio, finally arrested by panic, pushed her way free. Yaso slumped along the ground by the table as if limply paralyzed. Tokio watched numbly as her feet took her to the door- no time to stop for her shoes- and out onto the engawa, pounding past people as they watched, startled, and out into the countryside, into the pounding rain.
"There went Tokio-san," one of the men who had earlier been working on the roof muttered amusedly to another man. "She's always so busy, running everywhere." No one seemed to have noticed her neck or her feet, "No doubt she realized she left her mending out by the river or some such. She did that the other week."
"She's a sweet girl," another agreed, and the easy laughter filled the courtyard. Saitou Hajime, however, completely missed by his friend and lover as she fled, had been right next to the gate, and had missed neither. Snuffing out his cigarette, he strode to the kitchen- he would have to pick up her shoes.
Inside, he found a slightly ruffled looking Yaso, kneeling at the table as if she would be cutting vegetables. However, the knife in her hand was not moving, and he saw blood, not radish juice, on the edge of the blade. "I'm not going to ask what you did," he said to his wife roughly, watching her flinch. "I am going to go clean up after you. Pack your things. We are leaving this house. Gods willing, that will be enough to save your reputation. You may only depend on Takagi-san to be gracious, you foolish woman."
He took the younger woman's shoes and went immediately back out. Back inside the kitchen, tears streamed down Yaso's face. The one thing she had not heard in her husband's voice was surprise.