The morning sun was strong and gentle, warming Kuri's back in a pleasant and friendly way. She and Soujiro had been on the road for several hours already, despite the early hour of the day, and she welcomed the comfortable companionship of the young sun. Later on in the day, past noontide, she knew that she'd grow weary of his company as he continued to beat down on their backs relentlessly, making her heavy gi too hot for her, but for now she was content to bask in his company as he chased the chill out of the air.

She'd enjoyed the company of the sun, Soujiro, and the open road for more than a week now and she was having difficulty imagining ever living in any other way. Already her life at the inn seemed distant, although this was partially due to her actively striving to divorce herself from it. She didn't want to think about herself in conjunction with the inn ever again. She was Soujiro's traveling companion now, and that was just the way it was.

Not even their lack of funding put a damper on what Kuri still saw as a lark, despite whatever thing that Soujiro claimed to be searching for. He seemed unwilling to offer any more information on the object of his (their) search and Kuri was not inclined to pester him about such things. She feared that if she irritated him too greatly then he'd just leave her along the side of the road somewhere and this was an outcome that she desperately wanted to avoid, not only because her quality of living had greatly improved just in the few days she'd been traveling with him, but also because she'd gotten quite fond of him already.

He was so dark and mysterious! She still didn't even know how he had gotten her away from the inn, although frankly she didn't really care so long as she was away from it and never going back. Still, despite his generally blank smile and occasional brainless tendencies, he was quite a romantic figure. He'd rescued her from certain doom, protected her innocence, bought her clothes, listened to her talk, and saved her from an irate police squad all in the span of a few days. Plus, he was terribly handsome in a strangely feminine way. Kuri found him completely non-threatening in that sense, and this just added further mystique to his already fantastic character. As a young girl unwise and untried in the ways of the world, she had few defenses against the ronin who kept pace beside and slightly in front of her. In any case, he didn't seem to mind her constant prattle and she blessed him for that because constantly talking to him made her feel more at ease and didn't leave much time for her to brood on the fact that although she felt magnetically drawn to him, she doubted he was even marginally interested in her.

Since leaving the town where she'd had the unfortunate run-in with the police over sukiyaki they'd traveled with little incident, sleeping in fields, haystacks, and under trees since they could not afford an inn by any stretch of the imagination and Soujiro didn't want to risk being discovered by any local authorities. They were still dangerously close to the inn where Kuri had spent her life in servitude and Soujiro had left a bloody tangle that had once been an inn keeper. So far there had been no repercussions to his "theft," but at this point he was sure the local authorities were still trying to piece together exactly what had happened. If the inn keeper had no close relatives who kept abreast of his affairs, then it was possible that Kuri still hadn't even been missed. Whatever the case, it was still not prudent to tempt fate. Soujiro kept them to the fields at night and traveling inconspicuously down side roads during the day. If he hadn't some relatively close destination in mind already, then they'd be on Tokaido Road north to Tokyo already, and far, far away from that dismal little inn.

Despite the straw that Kuri insisted on picking out of his hair every morning, they lived well enough. Deeper into the prefecture people apparently became more hospitable, more willing to offer simple food to travelers who'd "had a run of bad luck." Country folk were often nicer than town folk, Kuri had declared to him, as if she were a world wise traveler and not an ignorant country girl who'd spent the last few years of her life venturing no more than fifty steps away from the front door of an inn that sat on a minor thoroughfare between Kyoto and Tokyo.

Still, her enthusiasm was endearing, and Soujiro was glad for the company. He also found that he enjoyed being depended on. It made him feel important in a strange way that being the strongest of the ten swords of the secret militia had never even touched upon. She needed him in a way that no one else ever had and he found that he wasn't bothered by this dependency at all. Still, It wasn't as if he had any sort of strange affection for her. He fully intended to find her a nice home and drop her off at the first available chance that wouldn't weigh on his conscious. She was just a girl after all, and all she would eventually end up doing is slowing him down. Yes, he was best off without her, no matter how pretty she was.

He blanked and his mind skipped. How had something so logical as a discourse on a way to dispose of her humanely jumped to something so esoteric as reflecting on beauty? Beauty was so so objective, after all. Who was he to say she was beautiful? He had no experience in such matters, nor did he have any desire for such experience. As far as he was concerned, the girl was just that, a girl. She was his ward and he was nothing more than her temporary protector. He had no right to speculate on her beauty even if he felt the desire to do so. Still, even he could not deny the strange feeling he'd felt when he'd seen her come out the bath after having cleaned the filth and muck from herself. He wasn't quite sure how to classify the feeling; he'd ended up deciding that he was simply surprised that the girl could get herself so presentable in such a short time. She cleaned up well. That was it.

He dismissed the random and fleeting fancy that had occupied him for several minutes and turned his attention back to Kuri, at least marginally. He didn't want to get himself into another predicament where he agreed to something out of sheer inattention.

The time passed easily enough, Kuri filling up any silent spaces with her random prattle. Soujiro felt it necessary to punctuate these verbal dissertations on the state of the world with occasional comments, sometimes agreeing with her, sometimes disagreeing. In keeping with her knowledge of country folk and city folk, she had confirmed opinions on just about everything under the sun, particularly things that he knew she could know very little about. It interested him to find that many of her confirmed opinions directly contradicted things he'd physically seen himself. At first he'd tried to quietly correct her, provide her with more sound information to base her inferences on. He wasn't sure whether she actually absorbed anything he said to her or just dismissed him politely out of hand as being well-meaning but incorrect, as she never seemed to change any of her real opinions. She stayed obstinately stuck in a dangerous sort of naiveté that he worried would someday get her into trouble. In this way he would have found her entirely too frustrating if not for his obscenely vast amount of patience. On the other hand, no matter how silly her unsullied innocence seemed, it still intrigued him in a way that he could not quantify, no matter how hard he tried.

In any case, Soujiro's full attention had not been directed at her for a least three days, if it had even been fully directed at her in the first place. Something buried deep in his psyche was throbbing with the slow, steady ache of a heartbeat that gradually quickened as he neared his destination. Four miles up the road was the stream of his spawning and of his slaying. The village they approached was the same one he'd left without a whisper so many years ago, under the cover of a violent storm and at the side of an even more violent man. He had finally come home.

After watching the ruins of the shrine he'd called home for almost ten years smolder and finally hiss out under a gentle rain from an overlook on a nearby mountain, he had been at something of a loss as to what to do. Himura had sent him off to find truth without even a vague indication of where he might find it. Soujiro had aimlessly wandered into Kyoto carrying nothing but the mauled remains of the Kikuichi Norimune, careful to avoid the places in the city where he knew he might run into violent ninja who had not been properly informed of his amnesty. He need not be formally pardoned for his crimes yet because he had not determined for certain that they were crimes. Himura had set him on a quest to try himself to determine if he were guilty. He had no great desire to involve anyone else in it, if at all possible, so he avoided anyone whom he suspected might have issues with his freedom or continued life in general.

Eventually he'd ended up in a black market sword dealer's shop. The old man who owned the shop had been Shishio's top supplier of rare and masterwork swords, and Soujiro had often run errands back and forth from the shrine to the shop. When Soujiro had dragged himself into the shop and collapsed unceremoniously into a wicker chair, the old man's first thought had been of the half-destroyed sword that hung listlessly from the boy's right hand.

Soujiro had been mostly vacant, caught in a desperate inner monologue, debating his future heatedly with himself. He only absently responded to the old man's remonstrations concerning his care of the magnificent blade that was now shattered like so many pieces of a fractured soul. Somehow, the old man had managed to pry the last vestiges of the sword out of Soujiro's hand and disappear with it into the back of his shop. Soujiro was unclear on how the next series of events played out. His next coherent memory was waking up on the floor of a side room of the shop, covered over with a blanket.

The old man had come in sometime later to give him a long package wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. Soujiro did not make any comments on the old man's hospitality and the old man did not volunteer any information as to why he had ministered carefully to a young man he knew to be a deadly assassin. Perhaps it had something to do with the Old Man's past, a paternal softness that had driven him to take care of the boy while he was in a fugue state and nearly defenseless, or perhaps it was just simple human decency that Soujirou could not yet understand. The old man apparently expected no thanks, simply presented the package to the boy without a word and then silently left the room, presumably to attend to other matters.

What Soujiro found in the simple brown wrappings, coupled with the memory of a conversation he'd had with Yumi shortly before leaving the shrine were what had driven him out of Kyoto and onto the road north. It was the Kikuichi Norimune reforged and carefully bound again in the same worn white leather that was so familiar under Soujiro's hands. He had no idea what favors the old man had pulled to get the sword reforged, but the metal was sure and sharp and true. Soujiro was no expert on masterwork swords, but he knew his own like he knew his left hand, and as far as he could tell, he held the Norimune reborn. The balance, weight, keenness, everything was perfect.

It was staring at this blade that he remembered his own words to Yumi. To build a house correctly, it must be rebuilt from the foundations. If there was a place where his foundations truly began, then it was in the village ahead, under the wholesale rice warehouse. Having decided upon a destination, Soujiro had wasted no time in starting towards it. He left the shop without a word or a backward glance, stopping only to buy food and a small sack for essentials. That had been roughly two months ago.

Now as he neared the objective of his original journey, he was reminded that the trip hadn't turned out exactly as he had planned. Kuri was hopping about excitedly from foot to foot, apparently quite enthused about this little town, which she declared looked "very nice and homey." Soujiro disregarded her comment but she didn't seem particularly distressed by the fact that he didn't answer her. Either she was especially empathetic and had picked up on his pensive mood so carefully hidden by the insubstantial smile or she was terribly oblivious and hadn't even noticed his lack of comment. He was so new to all of this, both the complexities of human emotions and the habits and propensities of his new traveling companion, that he really had no idea which of them was a more correct assessment.

At the edge of the town he gently caught her sleeve, startling her a little at his closeness and the ease with which he touched her. She immediately hushed and regarded him wide-eyed and obedient as he spoke softly, although with a frightening sort of singleness of purpose that even she could detect, despite the fact that he obstinately hung onto his vacant and truly expressionless smile. He wasn't fooling anyone, certainly not her. Something was bothering him.

"Kuri-san, I have some important things to do today in town," he seemed to be looking past her, down the road and into the town.

She ducked her head slightly, an acknowledgment to his statement. She was anxious to know what was bothering him.

"And I need to do them alone," he finished before she could even open her mouth to ask him how she could help.

She was singularly dejected at his lack of trust in her, but she hid it well and didn't press him. Whatever it was, she hoped that in time he'd tell her. She was worried about him and his communication skills regarding his emotional state left something to be desired. Still, she was quiet and pleasant, agreeable in a way that she hoped would put him more at ease with her. Without her prompting, he continued.

"I ought to be done with my business by dusk. I'll meet you back here at this tree then," he gestured behind him where an old and gnarled cherry tree stood alone on the outskirts of town. It was just beginning to blossom.

Soujiro worried that she would demand to go with him or know his business or be frightened of staying alone in a town for so long, but she simply smiled pleasantly and agreed, "Hai, Soujiro-kun. I'll meet you here at dusk," she squeezed her eyes shut mimicking his own vacantly pleasant expression, "Just be sure to be here on time, or I'll eat all your dinner."

He was relieved at her lack of protest, and relaxed to a degree, folding his arms inside his gi.

"Hai, Kuri-san. I'll be there."

He repressed the urge to thank her so as not to arouse her suspicions further than they might be already. Kuri turned her head so that he wouldn't catch her direct gaze and her eyes softened. She was glad to be able to comfort him in any way at all. He'd been so kind to her, after all. And he was so . . .

She bounced on her feet and turned on her heel, unwilling to follow that unhappy train of thought any farther. There was a momentary pause in her step, a moment of regret that would have been invisible to all but the most perceptive. Soujiro noticed it, but didn't know what to make of it. He almost called her back to ask about the minute tell, but she ran off towards the village, before he could stop her. He waved at her retreating form absently, already preoccupied again.

Once she was out of sight, he began his own journey into town. His steps were slow and sure, his pace measured and sedate. He was in no hurry to visit the house where he'd spent so many torturous days and nights as a child. Being broken as he was, he could no longer objectively view his past, despite his attempts to do just that. His emotions were mixed, but none of them were pleasant. His stomach flopped and twisted over on itself, although he gave no outward sign of discomfort. Still, he was grateful that Kuri had found something else to busy herself with so he had less to complicate his own turbulent mind.

He didn't have to ask directions. His feet still knew their way home, even if he had long since lost any pleasant feelings concerning the loose collection of buildings he was heading towards, if he'd ever had any pleasant thoughts about them in the first place. He stopped at the well and peered in. The water was low and murky, not much different that they way he'd left it. He had no desire to pull up a pail of the questionable water, which he remembered tasting sulfurous and bitter, so he settled for idly pushing a few pebbles off the lip of the well and listening to their small, anemic splashes.

Looking straight down the road from the well he could see the wooded hill outside the village where he'd dragged that policeman to bury so many years ago. Even then he'd been working at Shishio's hand, although he was sure that his mentor had never been away of this little service. It didn't matter, Soujiro had done it gladly. The gangly bandaged man, although frightening to the boy-child that he had been, had still been the first person in his life to offer even measured concern or interest in his activities.

And he'd also been afraid. Afraid of what might happen if a policeman were found dismembered on the small streets of the town. Afraid of the beatings he would get if anyone found out that he'd offered Shishio sanctuary in exchange for his own meager life. He'd buried the policeman to help Shishio, yes, but he'd also buried the man in self-defense, although in the end, that had mattered little.

Behind him, down the street to the left was the crossroads where he'd met Shishio for the first time. Ah, this place was full of memories. Swathed in bloody bandages and blessed by the light of the moon, shining dangerously in the night as he made ribbons of the man in front of him with no discernible effort. This was the image that was still burned into Soujiro's mind. Shishio had been so impressive, so terribly, terribly strong. For a brief fleeting moment, Soujiro had wondered if such a man were strong enough to save him from his own pitiful fate. But then that moment had passed and Soujiro had never again desired for Shishio to take care of him. He knew that it would have been fruitless to ask, even if he had still desired it secretly, deep inside.

Taking a deep breath that was as soft as a whisper, Soujiro turned his back on the well and followed his feet again. Before he was ready, they led him to the yard in front of the gray, weathered rice warehouse. He had no idea who owned the distributing center now. The name posted on the building was not familiar to him at all, not even in a passing sense. His night of infamy, that rainy spring night so long ago had killed off every single blood relative he'd had left. No, that wasn't right. The night hadn't killed them. He had, with a fine little wakazashi that Shishio had loaned to him to help "take care of his problems." There was no use denying anything to himself, certainly not here. He glanced up at the unfamiliar name and reflected that since no one could stake a legitimate claim to the company, it had probably reverted back to the state. Whomever might own it, the yard seemed blessedly deserted at this time of the day. He did not want to have to explain himself to any irate new owners who might spy him "trespassing" on their property. He couldn't really explain himself anyway, not without telling bald faced lies. He doubted any new owners would react well to stories of being the sole heir, back to inspect the homestead after having killed off all his other relatives at age ten and then spending over a decade in the service to the greatest threat to organized government that existed, if they even believed any of it, which he doubted. Even he could recognize that the actual facts of his life seemed a little far-fetched. He also thought it was as likely that he could convince a random passerby of his god-like speed without a demonstration as it was that he could sell that same person a piece of beach front property in Nagano.

After one last cursory glance around to make sure no one was watching him, he took a deep breath and strode deliberately into the yard. The smooth sand of the yard shifted a little under the weight of his sandals, a chillingly familiar feeling. He made a sweeping survey of the yard and building without actually going into it. A new padlock on the door quashed any notions that he might actually get to stroll inside and see the very room where he'd had so many of his early conversations with Shishio. Still, just being in this place triggered a rushing tide of nostalgia that nearly knocked him over in its force. Near the edge of the warehouse he found a little hollow in the dirt, perhaps the same little hollow he'd found all those rainy nights ago and used to seek sanctuary from his remaining blood relations, and sat down.

It didn't take long before the volume of memories came singing back over him abrasive and cacophonous. He could not help but relive his childhood, whether he had any great desire to or not. He was beaten by his older half-brothers on every possible occasion. Once, at age six, after failing to scrub the steps clean enough for his grandmother, they had nearly beaten him to death. He remembered being black and blue and bleeding, scared senseless in the storage room, cowering under a pile of burlap sacks terrified that they'd come back and do it again. He had felt that they had broken something inside of him, and lay as still as death, wishing he were dead, or invisible, or anything so long as they wouldn't hurt him again. Miraculously, he did not die that night from internal bleeding, and they had left him alone for the better part of a week. But then it had started again, and it did not stop again after that, no matter how severe or overzealous the beatings got.


He remembered hauling heavy sacks of rice until he passed out from exhaustion, afraid to stop lest he provoke another beating. Then he remembered waking up in the yard at night under an infinite and beautiful sky, his arms and back covered with new welts they had given him as he lay there. He remembered learning to sleep on his stomach so he wouldn't irritate the open sores on his back. Then he remembered nights when he had to sleep on his welts, because they covered his whole body. He cried often, but never when they were around. He had learned to never let them see. Whenever they saw they just beat him more. He learned to smile for them, and although his smile occasionally provoked their violence, they lost interest quickly. To them he was like a thing dead. Even to himself he seemed like a thing dead, but he still harbored hope. One day he'd leave the rice yard forever. One day he'd be able to sleep without worrying whether one of his older brothers would storm into the cellar one night and beat him just for the hell of it, or because a woman had jilted him. It had happened before. It would happen again and again and again, and he knew that it would continue to happen until he left. Someday he'd be safe from them. Someday they wouldn't be able to hurt him any more. Someday he'd be able to leave.

Soujiro found himself crying silently in the shade of the warehouse, hands covering his face in an attempt to ward something off, either the very emotions that made him cry or the tears themselves. He had never wanted to hurt them. No matter how many times they beat him, he never wanted to hurt them. He had always hoped that in some way they cared about him, even if they never showed it. He had desperately hoped that some day he would be welcomed into their home, not only for the warmth of the fire and the food, but the warmth of care and attention that this simple action would grant. If he had wanted to hurt them back, then he would have been no better than they were. He had never wanted to hurt them. He had never really even wanted to leave. They were all he had ever known, after all. All he wanted was for them to care for him, even a little bit. Even after they had made it abundantly clear on that final night that they would never love him, never think of him as anything other than an animal to use and abuse and kill on a whim, he had still not wanted to kill them. Only to be free of them. Free.

He leaned forward and drew his knees to his chest. He held his head in his hands and his tears wet his cheeks and the cold sand under him. He had slain them all in a few moments of terrified rebellion, flailing mindlessly about with a killing sword. He had done things too terrible for any child to do, so he had locked the little boy in himself behind a soundproof screen. The boy had watched him kill and kill and kill, always smiling, never mindful of the fears, sorrow, and happiness that he shunted away and locked in an airtight box. The boy had seen everything, and now he wept openly, as he had wept behind the screen so many times before.

After fleeing from one broken home, he had made himself slave to another master, one that was kinder to the killer, but worse to the little crying boy. But then it hadn't really mattered. The boy had been locked behind the screen, where his torment could not be heard. During his fight with Himura, the screen had finally cracked, allowing the killer to finally hear the boy's voice again. Now they both existed inside of him, the killer and the boy, and together, they made him the ronin. No one had been there to stop what had happened to him, but now with the soul of the boy and the skills of the killer, perhaps he could stop it from happening to others. He fisted up a handful of the fine sand of the yard and let it sift through his fingers as he had often done as a child, counting the breaths it took for his hand to empty. Maybe he could stop it.

The moment the screen had cracked during the battle with Himura, the boy had begun to assert himself, after having been gagged for so long. Now it was the boy who enjoyed the rabbit girl's company. It had been the killer that had freed her, but the killer was not capable of enjoying anything. The boy could love and hate and cry. At that moment when he had thrown himself against the floor, Yumi had called him broken. She had been incorrect. He was not broken. He was finally free.

*

The moon was high and full when he finally made his way back to the cherry tree, another inauspicious omen, since the last time he'd been in the town under a full moon it had been stained with the blood of his kinsmen. This moment of unease lasted only briefly and he chided himself for being superstitious. He found Kuri asleep at the base of the tree, arms tight around a sack of food and their small pouch of money. He smiled at her fondly, softly, and then gently shook her awake.

It seemed to him that she must have only been half-asleep, because she came awake almost as soon as he laid a hand on her. She blinked once or twice and then yawned cavernously. Her yawn caused a similar reaction in him, which set her to giggling. He found it easy to gently join in, and she had to consciously stop herself from gaping at him because he seemed honestly and innocently amused. She managed to keep her astonishment under control, but only barely, and to distract him from her wide-eyed reaction she launched into a rapid-fire account of her activities in the town.

Soujiro had to ask Kuri to lower her voice one time, as they were still on the outskirts of the town when she'd felt it necessary to cover him over in an avalanche of information. It was just her way, he supposed, and he had to admit that he found her prattle (as random and disjointed as it always was) oddly soothing.

Once she'd gotten herself tonally under control, Kuri explained that she had spent most of the day working at a local restaurant. She'd done dishes for hours, but she was proud of what she had to show for it. She had a sack of food for their dinner and breakfast, and had earned enough to buy food at market stands for several days. He praised her in his softly and she warmed to his smile, which for a moment, didn't seem so forced. Prudently, she didn't ask about his day and Soujiro didn't offer to tell her. He wavered. He might. He might someday. He might someday, but not tonight. Her smile was too bright tonight. Her step was too light and youthful, unburdened.

They stopped for the night in an old abandoned barn that they had passed on the way into town that morning. It seemed a fitting place to stay the night after his epiphany in the sand strewn yard of the rice warehouse, which was a converted barn itself. The straw inside the dilapidated barn was warm and dry, and Kuri made herself comfortable immediately, but not before making sure that Soujiro got some rice and vegetables inside of him. He accepted them without protest, and she found it was easy to go to sleep in the sun warmed hay because she could sense that he was happy and relaxed.

He sat up watching her sleep and thinking about the decisions he'd made that day for a long while, tracking the mother moon across the sky as she waltzed with her stars. Her blanket was silver and ethereal, and when he looked back to Kuri, snuggled comfortably in the hay, he almost caught his breath. She was so small, so like a child wearing clothes a little too big for her, pulling her arms inside her gi and crossing them over her chest to retain warmth. The sun might be a little too generous with his heat during the day, but the moon was much less giving with her gifts and they were far more subtle. Kuri shivered in her sleep and he shrugged out of his own gi without a thought. A light breeze whipped into the open barn and caught his hair, driving of the chillness of the night home, into his bones. Still, he carefully laid his own gi over her, tucking it gently in at the sides so as not to wake her. As he did so he noticed several spots of pale pink silver nested in her hair. It took him a moment to place exactly what they were, but then he breathed in deeply and a familiar scent graced his nostrils. They were fallen cherry blossoms, holdovers from Kuri's lengthy stay underneath the tree. He delicately brushed a few out of her hair and then examined them in his hand, still leaning slightly over her, braced by one arm. Cherry blossoms were reminders of the past. Soon perhaps he could put his past behind him, but now that he had been home he knew that he had one other stop to make before starting his journey again in earnest, and it was the very place he'd just come from. Kyoto. They would go to Kyoto next to pay their respects to a fallen empire that was never meant to be. Now that the ashes had cooled and the sparks were all out, now he could perhaps inspect the ruin objectively and learn from the picture that it painted.

This decision made, he too found it easy to settle into his own bed of straw. The night was quiet, comforting, and companionable to him as the morning had been to Kuri. Once again, he found himself drifting off to the steady rhythm of her breathing. But just as sleep was about to wash over him he heard a slight noise that shattered his peace and chilled his blood.

It was the soft scrape of steel on steel as someone unsheathed a katana.

*

Author's Note:

If you are intrigued by this chapter you can always go back to Tears and Rain proper to see the original fourth chapter and to continue the story, or you could wait until I get off my keester and actually revise the fifth chapter, which maybe a better deal for all of us.