Chapter Six: Confrontations
Well, as far as I know Misao WAS the only child, but I put in more to make the story flow. I began with the intention of following the anime to the letter in order for this to be my own twist on something that was never actually mentioned, but it didn't turn out that way, and you peeps don't seem to mind, so I guess that's O.K. Again, I would like to thank you all for the nice reviews! You guys are the best!
P.S. If you want to check out another story/ CG art by me, go to www.bakaneko.com and click on the MOC contest link at the top right-hand corner of the screen. From there click on the "contest" link, then click on "August 2003". My artist name is Chibi Dragon. Depending on how late you're reading this, it may be in the "archives" (along with the July 2003 entry) section. There are lots of neat authors / artists, so I recommend scoping it if you have any free time!
P.S.S. For my excuses for not posting this sooner, see my A/N at the bottom.
She took one step after another, one breath at a time, and each moment as it came, every one pulling her farther and farther away from the safe haven of her bedroom and nearer and nearer to the uncertain future beyond. There were other children with her, so she wasn't totally alone, but she was the only newcomer and thus an outcast nonetheless. Now, she only had herself and her dratted conscience; the thing had spoken to her nonstop for the last hour or two. If she were older, she may have concluded that she'd gone insane, but the youth in her concealed that idea from her thoughts and left her to simpler troubles, such as fitting in and meeting her savior.
'Your savior? Look at where your "savior" brought you. You can't leave this place, you know.' 'I don't really want to leave this place. I get what I need here, as well as luxuries that some don't have. I'm very fortunate that I was rescued from the street.' Her inner battle came to an abrupt halt as she walked into the sunny courtyard and came face to face, icy blue eyes to deep blue eyes, with the man who had plagued her thoughts ever since she awoke: Aoshi Shinomori.
She stared helplessly at him, growing especially aware of her ever increasing heartbeat. Her entire body seemed to throb with amoration as she looked at him, the ice in his eyes doing nothing to cool her burning cheeks. There he was, standing tall and proud, and of all things to look at, he was looking at her. All of her previous uncertainty vanished into the moment and she knew, somehow, that he would listen to her if she spoke; comfort her if she cried; laugh with her if she laughed.
These things passed through her head, from there going directly into her heart, causing it to swell with joy. Confidence surged through her body, and she, at last able to move, began to march toward the circle to sit down.
"Hmph. It seems we have a new student. Name?" Aoshi's voice came to her ears, the coldness and distaste evident even to her, and she felt warm tears began to form in her eyes. This wasn't the way it was supposed to be. Where was the kindness in his voice? Mentally, she hit herself over the head for completely forgetting his tone the previous night: that cold, heartless tone that made it seem like he had no emotions, or no pleasant emotions, anyway. 'He didn't save you because he thought you were special, he did it because he wasn't thinking' taunted her conscience in a self-satisfied way.
"Name?" He repeated, slipping in some annoyance along with the coldness and distaste.
"M-misao." She stuttered, growing embarrased at herself for being so inarticulate.
"Well, Misao, what are you waiting for? Sit." She obeyed swiftly and silently, just like Hannya and Beshimi had the previous night; or, for that matter, the way anyone did when the order came from Aoshi. However, one thought sprang immediately into her head: the way he said it reminded her of the way someone would address their dog.
'Like a lower being. That's all I am to him.' Even as she thought it, the words had yet to sink in. She didn't want to believe it, so she didn't. All of her feelings seemed to be drained, the good ones replaced with a void and the bad ones deeply suppressed almost to the point of being completely absent. 'Absent……of……..emotion.' Three words she had used not long before to describe her would-be-lover. 'If I am absent of emotion, maybe he'll like me. No, that's too rediculous. Isn't it? I don't know…..'
"Misao, are you paying attention? Repeat back to me what I just said."
"Sit." She knew he must have said something after that, but at least it was an answer. Judging by his face, it definitly was the wrong one. His glare cut into her much more deeply than the old man's scorn, much more deeply even than a reprimand from her mother or father, and oh, how she hated it. The tears came again, this time unrestrained, for now the void was gone and all of the terrible emotions came swiftly and surely to take its place. She looked around at the faces of her peers in an effort to avoid his gaze, and noticed something strange. They were neither angry at her for disrupting the lesson nor amused at seeing her be yelled at; no, the emotion there was deep empathy. It took a moment to register, but when it did she knew, without being told, that lessons here were taught and sealed with pain, the sort of lessons that one doesn't easily forget.
"I heard you got a pretty harsh punishment, but I didn't think it would be this terrible. What did you do that got him so mad?" Yukaria's voice was now coated in tenderness, and she patiently doctored the deep lashes in the young girl's back.
"He asked me to repeat what he said back to him, and I couldn't." She replied through her sobs. This was officially the second-to-worst day in her life.
"Why not?" She didn't sound as though she, to, had turned against Misao, but more like she was curious and a bit concerned.
"I was thinking about……other things."
"Oh. I see." She left it at that. Pressing the child for information would just make the situation worse, if that were possible. The blood had been mostly cleaned up, so she began to wrap the bandages. Misao hadn't stopped crying, and most likely wouldn't for some time yet, but the tears seemed less profuse now that the cream Yukaria had mixed and applied to the wounds began to take effect.
'What were you thinking Aoshi? She's only four years old and her skin is so frail and delicate…..it seems like it should be a crime to treat her like this…..she's such a sweetheart.' Her thoughts became angrier from there, fury for Aoshi growing steadily. She made a mental note to give him a rather large piece of her mind later. He might be in line to be the next leader, but it gave him no right, no right at all.
"I'm done with the bandages Misao. Do you want me to stay with you?" Her answer came in the form of the child lunging at her and beginning to cry into her chest. Yukaria wrapped her arms around her, whispering things like "It'll be alright, Misao…." "You don't have to go back until Hannya takes over again….." and "Aoshi is like that to everyone. It isn't that he hates you, it's just that that's the way he is. He'll treat you with more kindness once he gets to know you. You're a really sweet girl."
They sat like that for what seemed like forever, Yukaria's kimono becoming saturated with Misao's salty tears. Finally, Misao drew away and wiped her eyes, saying that she needed some sleep.
"Yes, sleep will be good for you. Sweet dreams, Misao. I'll see you in the morning."
"Sweet dreams, Yukaria." The teenager began to walk to the door, but she was stopped by a softly spoken request from behind her. "Yukaria, now that I don't have a mommy or a daddy, and since I can't look for grandpa anymore, will you be my sister?"
She was taken completely by surprise. Tears began to swell in her eyes as well, and a smile came to her lips. "Yes Misao, if you'll be mine." The small girl beamed for the first time in what seemed like ages. That expression was much more suited to her face than the one contorted in grief that she had shown moments before.
"Then everything's going to be o.k." Even as these words played across her lips their truth was accepted in both of their minds as absolute. Everything would be o.k.
The night passed by slowly, visions and dreams floating by in Misao's mind. None of it made any sense, but her dreams seldom did, so that wasn't unusual. There was something else, though, that seemed conspicuously out of place in the young girl's heart, something that she'd never before experienced, that being a deep desire for revenge. Revenge? That just wasn't like her. Before, she had always blamed herself for anything that went wrong in her life, even if she weren't at fault. This time, though, she couldn't find any possible way around it: Aoshi had hurt her and she wanted revenge. She wanted it so badly, even worse that she had wanted to impress Aoshi in the first place, perhaps even worse than she wanted to find her grandfather. The desire for it seemed to encompass her whole being, every fibre inside of her bent toward it: he had to pay.
But how? How would she make him suffer as she had suffered? She couldn't inflict physical pain, he was much too strong and skilled to be injured by a little girl. She doubted that she could hurt his feelings, for he seemed to have none that were joyful or positive in the first place. What did he value? What was important to him? If she could destroy something he loved, then she would feel much better.
'When you have your revenge, what will that accomplish? He hurt you. You can never change that. Will you really feel better if you hurt him as well? Even if you do, how long will that last?' Her conscience was back to playing its old role again. The satisfaction it got from being right the last time must have finally worn thin.
'It will make me feel better. I want him to know what its like to know pain.'
'This isn't like you. You're still really upset. Why don't you wait until you're a bit more calm and then see how you feel.' This last statement was painful, but she knew it would be for the best. Her inner self was correct last time, why not trust it again? She went back to sleep. Now that the decision was made, her rest was much more peaceful than it had been.
"How are you feeling this morning, Misao?" The child stirred from somewhere deep in the depths of her blankets and sheets, then poked her head out from under the covers. The skin around her eyes was still red and raw from yesterday's tears and the orbs themselves had turned approximately the same color, revealing her lack of sleep. Her hair was tangled and some of the strands still clung to her face. She made a half-hearted effort to wipe them away, but it made little difference in mending her disheveled appearance.
"Huh?" She was still too sleepy to readily comprehend human speech.
"I said 'how are you feeling this morning, Misao?'"
"Oh. I'm better than I was last night. Mainly I'm hungry. Is breakfast ready?" Her words were slurred together and Yukaria could bearly understand them.
"Yes. Get dressed and meet me in the dining room. Hurry up before it's gone! We have a lot of people with big appetites here, and most of them have already raided the kitchen."
Soon after Yukaria left, Misao closed her eyes and fell back asleep. It wasn't intentional, but she did desperately need more rest, so her body responded to this without consent of her mind. The older girl soon became worried, but when she saw what had happened she let it be. Misao had had a rough day, she deserved some extra sleep. She decided that now would be the perfect time to have that little "chat" with Aoshi.
"Shinomori! Open up! You can't hide in that room forever!" Yukaria's 'knocking' reverberated thoughout the building, her yells right alongside it. The rest of the Oniwaban, Misao and Okina excluded, came to see what was going on, and by the time Aoshi did open the door he was greeted by what closely resembled a mob. Everyone knew what was going on; keeping a secret would have been hard enough in such close quarters, let alone close quarters made up of spies.
"Coward! How could you? You jerk!" She yelled, further punctuating each of the emphasized words with a hard smack of her rolling pin. "What in the world made you think that was appropriate? Huh? Answer me, Shinomori!"
"What makes you think the way I chose to handle the situation wasn't appropriate?" He didn't even bother blocking the blows. They felt like the soft kicking of a baby's feet against his well-toned chest.
"Isn't it obvious? She's new here! She didn't know what would happen!" The rest of the 'mob' agreed with her, but decided not to interject statements of reproach for fear of causing Yukaria to turn on them. You never knew how she would react when she was like this.
"Now she does. End of story."
"End of story?! End of story?! I'm just getting warmed up here you unfeeling pig!"
"That's the way each of us learned to mind our manners. Why should she be any different?" Yukaria stopped yelling for favor of glaring at the boy who towered over her. She was older than him, he should listen to her. Instead of conceding her point, however, Aoshi gave her a glare of his own. It seemed they were evenly matched for a while, but even Aoshi couldn't stand up to a furious Yukaria. He agreed to give Misao an apology, but in return Yukaria had to stay away from him for the rest of the week. That being settled, she went into the kitchen to fix lunch, the rest of the Oniwaban returning to their previous activities.
"Misao! Misao-chan, wake up honey. Lunch is ready!" The child stirred for the second time that morning; this time was no more graceful than the last.
"E-excuse me, but what's your name again?"
"Okon. Goodness! You haven't even gotten dressed yet! Tsk tsk. Oh, well, no one will really mind. Come on!"
"But-"
"Walk and talk hun, walk and talk. No time to waste! There's lunch to be had!" She rolled over out of bed, stumbled to her feet, and did her best to keep up with Okon, but this was a definite chore. Her training in martial arts had done much for her speed, not to mention that her legs alone were the length of Misao's entire body.
"Wait! Okon, slow down!"
"Sorry sweetie, but if I don't hurry the boys will have everything eaten by the time we get there!" In a matter of moments they reached the kitchen, but they were not the first ones. The fact that one other person, the one called Kuro, was already seated in the dining area with a plate full of food seemed to make Okon exceptionally angry.
"I can't believe it! Beaten to lunch by a boy! What's the world coming to?" She continued to grumble a few other things under her breath, including some unprintables, but even in doing so wasted no time getting a heaping pile for herself. Misao followed her example, but only got about one-tenth of what the taller girl grabbed. They both went to sit down, Okon making a point of choosing the table farthest from Kuro. Kuro didn't seem to mind: he was too busy stuffing his face to really notice that he was no longer alone.
"Well, how do you like the Aoiya? Other than what happened yesterday, I mean." Misao was astonished that Okon was still able to speak so clearly while practically inhaling her meal.
"I think it'll be o.k. living here. Yukaria says that when Hannya comes back I'll start lessons again. Once I get really strong I can go on missions too! Life is kinda boring right now, but I'm sure everything will be more fun when I learn martial arts."
"Fun isn't the word I would use. Going on missions is really dangerous. If anyone from the new government catches you, you could get thrown into prison or even killed. Don't take it lightly, Misao. This is serious." Misao got the impression that Okon would have had a very admonishing tone if she weren't eating, but as it was she could only make out the words.
"I'm sorry, Okon. I'll be more serious from now on."
"That's good. Hey! Omasu! Over here!" In order to raise her voice to a yell, she did finally have to put her plate back onto the table. Misao wanted to laugh, but decided that would be rude, so she sat there silently stifling her giggle. The one named Omasu went through the line snatching a few morsels here and there, but not nearly as much as Okon or Kuro, then walked over to their table.
"Hi! How are you, Misao-chan?" Her smile was tiny but yet conveyed a very deep and quiet friendliness. She seemed like the type that would do almost anything to please other people.
"I'm a lot better than I was yesterday. How are you, Omasu?"
"Very well, thank you." She replied, then delicately seated herself. Okon and this girl were like two opposite ends of the spectrum: at one end, there was Omasu, the gentle and delicate type; at the other end, Omasu, the loud and sturdy one. They seemed like a perfect pair.
Lunch time seemed to crawl by, the rays of the sun lazily pouring themselves into pools, reflecting back onto the white walls after coming into contact with the perfectly polished wood of the floor. At some of the tables, the Oniwaban discussed important political matters, at some they discussed future missions, but at the table of the three young women they discussed those sitting around them. Misao was ready and willing to listen to the endless stories and gossip about her new "family," laughing at most of them.
"Oh, then one time, when Aoshi was only three, I told him that if he jumped off of the roof and flapped his arms he would be able to fly, and he actually believed me! It took him a whole month to recover from that one!" That was Misao's personal favorite. It just seemed like something Okon would do.
"Hey, Okon, do you remember the time that Kuro ate all of that sweet bread and then had to run two miles as part of his training? That was really gross. I guess he hasn't learned his lesson yet, though." All three of them turned to Kuro and started laughing histerically.
"Wow, I don't remember the last time I've laughed so much, do you, Omasu?"
"No. It seems like there's hardly anything to laugh about anymore."
"I'm really glad I live here now. I think I'm going to like it a lot."
"That's great, Misao! We all hoped you'd feel that way!" Misao beamed. Except for the tragic event of yesterday, this didn't seem like such a bad place. She walked back to her room after they were done chatting, deciding to sew herself some decent clothing in order to fit in with everyone else.
She had been tediously working for about an hour when the thoughts of Aoshi started to return. Did she really want revenge, after all? He surely was only trying to be a good instructor, wasn't he? No. That couldn't be right. He didn't really care about teaching anyone, especially her, about much of anything.
So, back to the previous question: how would she do it? What did he care about more than anything else? Which one of the people she had met so far did he seem to really look up to? He didn't seem so like Yukaria, or her, or either of the girls, so who? Who did he respect? Then it hit her. The only one who seemed to really matter to him was his leader….Okina. It was so obvious! Why didn't she think of it before?
Now that she knew who to strike, how would she do it? Maybe instead of striking at Okina, she would ruin Aoshi's reputation in Okina's eyes. That would be perfect. She would show him how it was to be rejected by someone whom he looked up to…..she would show him………
I know what you're thinking "No! Not another dreadfully long author's note!" and, quite frankly, I don't blame you. Well, this time I'll list my excuses for not posting this sooner
I tried out for the school play "Meet Me In Saint Louis" tonight. I'll know what part I got tomorrow (I only know I got one because I asked the teacher to let me work backstage if I didn't make it in, and she said that I would get a part, she just didn't know where.) I'm in key club, spanish club, art club, band, the play, science club, math club, piano, student R.U.S.H. (a Christian youth group) on Wednesdays, student venture (another Christan youth group) on Sundays, not to mention that I have to keep up a really good GPA (I received a 4.0 all four quarters last year) and go to church on Sunday mornings. I have this weird feeling that I'm forgetting something……… I'm extremely sleep deprived I HATE CARTOON NETWORK! They play Inuyasha only on nights that I can't watch it, they cancelled Yu-Yu Hakusho, and they moved Rurouni Kenshin to a once a week showing on Saturdays. At least they still play .Hack//Sign. Well, that really isn't a reason, except that not having my daily shows to look forward to dampens my creative spirit. I know where I want it to end, but not how to get it there. GRRRRRRRRRRRRSo, ummmm, yeah. I hope you can forgive me! Be sure to tell me if I'm getting OOC, A/U (whatever that means), or if Yukaria is growing into a mary-sue. I will go back and change it! I take your opinions to heart, really! -Chibi Phoenix
