In the morning, the sun streaming through the window woke me. I didn't move immediately, instead just rolling over and pulling the blankets up to my chin. The sun wasn't intrusive, merely comforting, and the warm rays only helped to make me more cosy. It took a long moment for me to recall where I was and what had happened the night before. As I sat up, slowly stretching my arms, a bird landed on the windowsill and twittered away happily. It was hard to believe that the attacks, and even the rainstorm, had occurred just a few hours earlier. While I got out of bed and started to dress, I glanced out the window to see that the sun was high in the sky, indicating that it was late morning, and I wondered why Tokaki hadn't woken me up yet. Surely we should have gotten moving earlier in order to find Karasuki and the Shinzaho quickly.
When I opened the door, I discovered the answer to my query. Tokaki had apparently been sitting and leaning back against my door, and he fell backwards into me when I swung the door open. I stepped back quickly to avoid having my legs knocked out from under me, and his head landed on my feet.
"Owwwww…" He mumbled, raising a hand to his head, then stopped himself and was quiet.
"What are you--" I started, but also stopped when I realized that he could see right up my skirt. "PERVERT!" I jumped back, my face turning bright red and clamping my legs together.
Tokaki got to his feet quickly, still rubbing the back of his head. "Oh, come on, it's hardly my fault! And besides, it's not like I haven't seen you--"
"Don't even say it," I warned quietly. "…I suppose that's what you were doing outside my room too, huh?"
"What? No!" Now his cheeks turned slightly crimson. "I was-- I was just, you know, in case any of those, uh, Karasuki's men came back, I wanted to make sure that, that, uh…"
I watched him stumble over the words, and my heart pounded. I was thrown off; Tokaki never acted this way. He was always so sure of himself, to the point of being cocky, but now he couldn't even think of a decent excuse. Deciding to put him out of his misery, I finally spoke. "We should probably get going soon."
After breakfast, we headed out of the village. Though there were no visible signs of the fight the night before, the innkeeper's news had spread rather quickly, for we could hear the murmurs among the people in the streets, as well as some curious glances at Tokaki and me. Once the town had vanished into the horizon behind us, we came to a fork in the road.
"Which way?" I asked Tokaki.
He shook his head. "I suck with directions. I'm leaving this one up to you."
I looked both ways. The land was relatively flat, and I could see for miles. The road to the northeast went straight, while the road to the southeast veered off to the south and entered a dense forest. I felt nothing about either roads, nothing that would give me a feeling that one was the direction we should follow. "I don't know. Maybe we should just go back to the capital. It could take weeks, or even months to find Karasuki! We don't even know that he's still in the East anymore!"
"We can't just give up, Subaru." I turned back to look at Tokaki and saw a determined look on his face. Feeling ashamed for even thinking of giving up, I nodded, then pointed to the forest road.
"Good choice," he replied once we had started towards the trees. "…Nice and secluded."
"What?!"
"I mean, it'll be nice to get out of this sun," he explained, but with a suggestive grin on his face.
"Do you EVER think of anything else?"
"Not with those around," he said, gazing at my chest.
I gave him a glare, then kicked at my horse and galloped forward into the woods. It felt strange, but also good, to revert back to the teasing, light-hearted relationship we had before we had slept together and everything had been messed up. Even though his perversion was irritating, it was also a deformed version of flattery, and I felt better about that, especially now that he had seen everything and still said those things. It wasn't perfect, but it was better than just ignoring and avoiding each other.
A rustle in the leaves above my head jerked me out of my thoughts, and I looked up to see a face looking down at me from inside a black hood. I didn't even have time to scream as the figure jumped down on top of me, grabbing my shoulders and pushing me off the horse, towards the foliage on the side of the road. Things seemed to move in slow motion as the black-cloaked figure clamped a hand over my mouth and we hit the ground with a painful thud. The man straddled me, keeping the one hand on my mouth while raising the other to his lips, and whispering "Shh," and grinning down at me with an evil glint in his eyes.
I could hear the horse whinny and then the thudding of its hooves as it ran off, and a sinking feeling came over me. I didn't know how far back Tokaki was; I had run off rather quickly. Tears sprang to my eyes, but I blinked them back, a new determination running through me as I remembered my resolve from the night before to not be useless. Simutaneously I bit down hard on the man's palm and raised my knee hard to connect with his groin.
He grimaced and released me momentarily, but as I scrambled to get away, his hands grabbed me again - this time around the throat. I choked, trying to draw breath, my own hands trying to pull away his arm, but to no avail. "Little bitch," he hissed in my ear. "Is that all you can do? I thought the Byakko Shichiseishi would be slightly more impressive."
The thought reverberated in my mind. He's right, I told myself, you're a Byakko Shichiseishi, and you are not going to die here! I gripped his arm harder, digging my nails into his skin, and pushed the last breath of air out of my lungs to form the words "Omnikartera whamasu."
When his hands didn't lose their grasp immediately, I squeezed my eyes shut. I didn't know what I was trying to do; I had only ever used my powers to heal people before, so I didn't know what I could do to fight off an attacker. I had just started to pray for my life when his hands finally loosened.
Relieved, I fell forward, coughing and gasping for air, and thanking Byakkoseikun. Then the man started screaming. Surprised, I turned to look - for I thought I had just done something to make him let me go, not hurt him. What I saw would haunt me for the rest of my life.
He was aging rapidly. He had been a young man, no more than a few years older than me, but now he appeared to be in his late fifties or sixties. "What are you doing to me?! What's happening?!" He shouted in a gravely voice, looking up at me with horror on his face. He leaned towards me, holding out wrinkled hands to grab me again, but I quickly got to my feet and moved backwards, out of his reach. I couldn't store staring; the same terror that I had seen in his eyes was reflected in mine. His skin now hung off his bones and his voice quieted to a whimper, finally trailing off as he fell face-forward into the dirt.
I continued to stare at the body for a long, silent moment. There was no movement; he wasn't breathing. Slowly, the realization dawned on me: I had killed him. Horrified, I shook my head as if to deny the fact and stepped back further. You killed him, you're a murderer, a murderer, a voice in my head repeated in a taunting tone. I shook my head more vehemently, whispering, "No!" This wasn't real, it couldn't be. It had to be a dream. I wasn't a murderer, I had never even killed a bug or spider before!
"What happened? Subaru, where's your horse?"
I looked up to see Tokaki walking towards me, leading his horse by the reins. I kept shaking my head, echoing my thoughts out loud: "I'm not a murderer!"
"What? Su-" Then he saw the body, and looked back at me with an astonished expression on his face.
"I didn't mean to! I didn't want to hurt him! I didn't know that I could hurt him, I didn't want to kill him, he just wouldn't let go and I had to do something so he wouldn't, so he wouldn't--" I sounded and felt hysterical. I couldn't put all the words together in my head and make them sound right; I just knew that I had to say something so that Tokaki didn't think I was a killer. But you are, my conscience told me. "I'm not, I'm not, I'm not…"
But instead of accusing me, Tokaki appeared in front of me and pulled me into his arms. I started to sob, my tears soaking his shirt, and he only held onto me tighter. "Oh God, Subaru, I'm sorry… I should've been here, I shouldn't have let you go off alone," he said in a broken voice. "You're not a murdered, you did what you had to do, don't even think that you did something wrong."
I didn't say anything. I couldn't forget the man's expression - even when I closed my eyes, the image was burned onto my eyelids. My throat was sore and my head was pounding from when I had fallen off the horse. I couldn't catch my breath and the tears wouldn't stop coming. But still, I felt a bit calmer in Tokaki's arms, like he was the one who could make it stop and make it all better.
"I'm sorry," he repeated, whispering the words in my ear. "I'm sorry. I never wanted you to get hurt. I never meant to hurt you. I never should've let you out of my sight. I never should've left you…" Somehow his apologies about not having been able to protect me had merged with his regrets of months before.
"Very good show."
The strange voice was followed by clapping, and we pulled apart, Tokaki stepping in front of me yet still holding onto my hand. I wiped my eyes with my other hand and looked towards the direction the voice had come from. Up in the trees, a young man with raven black hair and piercing blue eyes gazed down at us.
"Drama, action, romance," he continued, "This would make a hit play."
"Karasuki!" I exclaimed in surprise.
"I see my reputation preceeds me," He turned up a corner of his mouth into half of a smile. "May I ask what it is you've heard about me?"
"That you're a fucking bastard," Tokaki snarled.
Karasuki's smile faltered, and he looked disapproving. "That's not very polite, especially from one of my fellow seishi."
"Don't even compare yourself to us. You have no right to call yourself a seishi," Tokaki replied, and I could hear the hatred in his voice.
"What, just because I don't go following around some silly little girl, doing whatever she says, I'm not good enough?"
"You owe your existence to her," I said quietly.
Karasuki frowned, narrowing his eyes at me. "…Right," he said, as if deciding on something, "You do look like the little miss goody two-shoes type." His eyes slid up and down my body, then he added, "Or a whore."
"Asshole!" Tokaki shouted. "Come down here and say that!"
"No, I don't think so. Unfortunately, it's time for me to go." He jumped down from the tree branch and landed deftly on the ground in front of us. I squeezed Tokaki's hand to stop him from rushing forward, and Karasuki looked amused. "Anyway, I'm sure we'll meet again. After all, I do have something you need, don't I?" He laughed, then turned and started to walk away, but simply vanished after a few steps.
After he was gone, we stood in silence for a long moment, staring at the spot where Karasuki had vanished. Finally, Tokaki mumbled, "That's my trick."
I almost laughed, but given the circumstances, I couldn't find it in me. "Don't worry," I reassured him. "I'm sure he can't fight as good as you."
He looked back and grinned at me. "Thanks. And if it helps, you're not a whore."
I smiled weakly in gratitude. "Just don't let him get you all riled up like that. That's what he wants. We don't know what he can and can't do, so we can't risk anything right now."
"I know. That guy's just so…"
"I know." To tell the truth, Karasuki didn't so much anger me as he confused me. I didn't understand his motives - why would he betray Suzuno? Did he believe in Kutou's ideals? Or did he turn to Kutou just for the sake of being the legendary seishi who didn't follow his Miko? It gave me a headache to think about it. I saw the body of my attacker out of the corner of my eye, and I started to feel sick. Karasuki had almost been a welcome distraction from dealing with that.
"Do you hear something?" I looked back at Tokaki to see he was staring in the direction that Karasuki had just disappeared in.
There was the sound of hooves coming towards us, and when I looked I could make out the figures of two horses, a man on one of them. When he got a bit closer, he called out to us, "Hey, did you guys lose a horse?"
My eyes widened. I knew that voice - it belonged to my sister's husband! A grin broke my face and I ran forward to meet him. I could hear Tokaki calling my name, sounding rather confused, but I didn't stop to explain. "Jin!"
"What? DOULIN?!" Jin stared down at me, then jumped off his horse and swept me into a big bear hug. When he put me down, we both simultaneously asked, "What are you doing here?"
"I was just out hunting," Jin explained. "When this horse showed up out of nowhere. I figured some travellers may be in trouble or something, so I headed back to the road." He grinned again. "How come you didn't write to Lina to tell her you were coming back?"
"What? But we're nowhere near…"
Jin pointed to the south. "Just a couple hours away, actually. There hasn't been much game around home lately, so I had to come out a bit further."
"Um… Subaru?"
"Oh! Tokaki!" I suddenly remembered. Jin instantly looked disapproving, and I realized that Lina had most likely told him everything that I wrote in my letters. "This is my brother-in-law, Jin." Tokaki looked instantly relieved, and I wondered whether he had thought Jin was my old boyfriend or some such thing. "Is it okay if we take a bit of a detour? I'd really like to go home."
When I opened the door, I discovered the answer to my query. Tokaki had apparently been sitting and leaning back against my door, and he fell backwards into me when I swung the door open. I stepped back quickly to avoid having my legs knocked out from under me, and his head landed on my feet.
"Owwwww…" He mumbled, raising a hand to his head, then stopped himself and was quiet.
"What are you--" I started, but also stopped when I realized that he could see right up my skirt. "PERVERT!" I jumped back, my face turning bright red and clamping my legs together.
Tokaki got to his feet quickly, still rubbing the back of his head. "Oh, come on, it's hardly my fault! And besides, it's not like I haven't seen you--"
"Don't even say it," I warned quietly. "…I suppose that's what you were doing outside my room too, huh?"
"What? No!" Now his cheeks turned slightly crimson. "I was-- I was just, you know, in case any of those, uh, Karasuki's men came back, I wanted to make sure that, that, uh…"
I watched him stumble over the words, and my heart pounded. I was thrown off; Tokaki never acted this way. He was always so sure of himself, to the point of being cocky, but now he couldn't even think of a decent excuse. Deciding to put him out of his misery, I finally spoke. "We should probably get going soon."
After breakfast, we headed out of the village. Though there were no visible signs of the fight the night before, the innkeeper's news had spread rather quickly, for we could hear the murmurs among the people in the streets, as well as some curious glances at Tokaki and me. Once the town had vanished into the horizon behind us, we came to a fork in the road.
"Which way?" I asked Tokaki.
He shook his head. "I suck with directions. I'm leaving this one up to you."
I looked both ways. The land was relatively flat, and I could see for miles. The road to the northeast went straight, while the road to the southeast veered off to the south and entered a dense forest. I felt nothing about either roads, nothing that would give me a feeling that one was the direction we should follow. "I don't know. Maybe we should just go back to the capital. It could take weeks, or even months to find Karasuki! We don't even know that he's still in the East anymore!"
"We can't just give up, Subaru." I turned back to look at Tokaki and saw a determined look on his face. Feeling ashamed for even thinking of giving up, I nodded, then pointed to the forest road.
"Good choice," he replied once we had started towards the trees. "…Nice and secluded."
"What?!"
"I mean, it'll be nice to get out of this sun," he explained, but with a suggestive grin on his face.
"Do you EVER think of anything else?"
"Not with those around," he said, gazing at my chest.
I gave him a glare, then kicked at my horse and galloped forward into the woods. It felt strange, but also good, to revert back to the teasing, light-hearted relationship we had before we had slept together and everything had been messed up. Even though his perversion was irritating, it was also a deformed version of flattery, and I felt better about that, especially now that he had seen everything and still said those things. It wasn't perfect, but it was better than just ignoring and avoiding each other.
A rustle in the leaves above my head jerked me out of my thoughts, and I looked up to see a face looking down at me from inside a black hood. I didn't even have time to scream as the figure jumped down on top of me, grabbing my shoulders and pushing me off the horse, towards the foliage on the side of the road. Things seemed to move in slow motion as the black-cloaked figure clamped a hand over my mouth and we hit the ground with a painful thud. The man straddled me, keeping the one hand on my mouth while raising the other to his lips, and whispering "Shh," and grinning down at me with an evil glint in his eyes.
I could hear the horse whinny and then the thudding of its hooves as it ran off, and a sinking feeling came over me. I didn't know how far back Tokaki was; I had run off rather quickly. Tears sprang to my eyes, but I blinked them back, a new determination running through me as I remembered my resolve from the night before to not be useless. Simutaneously I bit down hard on the man's palm and raised my knee hard to connect with his groin.
He grimaced and released me momentarily, but as I scrambled to get away, his hands grabbed me again - this time around the throat. I choked, trying to draw breath, my own hands trying to pull away his arm, but to no avail. "Little bitch," he hissed in my ear. "Is that all you can do? I thought the Byakko Shichiseishi would be slightly more impressive."
The thought reverberated in my mind. He's right, I told myself, you're a Byakko Shichiseishi, and you are not going to die here! I gripped his arm harder, digging my nails into his skin, and pushed the last breath of air out of my lungs to form the words "Omnikartera whamasu."
When his hands didn't lose their grasp immediately, I squeezed my eyes shut. I didn't know what I was trying to do; I had only ever used my powers to heal people before, so I didn't know what I could do to fight off an attacker. I had just started to pray for my life when his hands finally loosened.
Relieved, I fell forward, coughing and gasping for air, and thanking Byakkoseikun. Then the man started screaming. Surprised, I turned to look - for I thought I had just done something to make him let me go, not hurt him. What I saw would haunt me for the rest of my life.
He was aging rapidly. He had been a young man, no more than a few years older than me, but now he appeared to be in his late fifties or sixties. "What are you doing to me?! What's happening?!" He shouted in a gravely voice, looking up at me with horror on his face. He leaned towards me, holding out wrinkled hands to grab me again, but I quickly got to my feet and moved backwards, out of his reach. I couldn't store staring; the same terror that I had seen in his eyes was reflected in mine. His skin now hung off his bones and his voice quieted to a whimper, finally trailing off as he fell face-forward into the dirt.
I continued to stare at the body for a long, silent moment. There was no movement; he wasn't breathing. Slowly, the realization dawned on me: I had killed him. Horrified, I shook my head as if to deny the fact and stepped back further. You killed him, you're a murderer, a murderer, a voice in my head repeated in a taunting tone. I shook my head more vehemently, whispering, "No!" This wasn't real, it couldn't be. It had to be a dream. I wasn't a murderer, I had never even killed a bug or spider before!
"What happened? Subaru, where's your horse?"
I looked up to see Tokaki walking towards me, leading his horse by the reins. I kept shaking my head, echoing my thoughts out loud: "I'm not a murderer!"
"What? Su-" Then he saw the body, and looked back at me with an astonished expression on his face.
"I didn't mean to! I didn't want to hurt him! I didn't know that I could hurt him, I didn't want to kill him, he just wouldn't let go and I had to do something so he wouldn't, so he wouldn't--" I sounded and felt hysterical. I couldn't put all the words together in my head and make them sound right; I just knew that I had to say something so that Tokaki didn't think I was a killer. But you are, my conscience told me. "I'm not, I'm not, I'm not…"
But instead of accusing me, Tokaki appeared in front of me and pulled me into his arms. I started to sob, my tears soaking his shirt, and he only held onto me tighter. "Oh God, Subaru, I'm sorry… I should've been here, I shouldn't have let you go off alone," he said in a broken voice. "You're not a murdered, you did what you had to do, don't even think that you did something wrong."
I didn't say anything. I couldn't forget the man's expression - even when I closed my eyes, the image was burned onto my eyelids. My throat was sore and my head was pounding from when I had fallen off the horse. I couldn't catch my breath and the tears wouldn't stop coming. But still, I felt a bit calmer in Tokaki's arms, like he was the one who could make it stop and make it all better.
"I'm sorry," he repeated, whispering the words in my ear. "I'm sorry. I never wanted you to get hurt. I never meant to hurt you. I never should've let you out of my sight. I never should've left you…" Somehow his apologies about not having been able to protect me had merged with his regrets of months before.
"Very good show."
The strange voice was followed by clapping, and we pulled apart, Tokaki stepping in front of me yet still holding onto my hand. I wiped my eyes with my other hand and looked towards the direction the voice had come from. Up in the trees, a young man with raven black hair and piercing blue eyes gazed down at us.
"Drama, action, romance," he continued, "This would make a hit play."
"Karasuki!" I exclaimed in surprise.
"I see my reputation preceeds me," He turned up a corner of his mouth into half of a smile. "May I ask what it is you've heard about me?"
"That you're a fucking bastard," Tokaki snarled.
Karasuki's smile faltered, and he looked disapproving. "That's not very polite, especially from one of my fellow seishi."
"Don't even compare yourself to us. You have no right to call yourself a seishi," Tokaki replied, and I could hear the hatred in his voice.
"What, just because I don't go following around some silly little girl, doing whatever she says, I'm not good enough?"
"You owe your existence to her," I said quietly.
Karasuki frowned, narrowing his eyes at me. "…Right," he said, as if deciding on something, "You do look like the little miss goody two-shoes type." His eyes slid up and down my body, then he added, "Or a whore."
"Asshole!" Tokaki shouted. "Come down here and say that!"
"No, I don't think so. Unfortunately, it's time for me to go." He jumped down from the tree branch and landed deftly on the ground in front of us. I squeezed Tokaki's hand to stop him from rushing forward, and Karasuki looked amused. "Anyway, I'm sure we'll meet again. After all, I do have something you need, don't I?" He laughed, then turned and started to walk away, but simply vanished after a few steps.
After he was gone, we stood in silence for a long moment, staring at the spot where Karasuki had vanished. Finally, Tokaki mumbled, "That's my trick."
I almost laughed, but given the circumstances, I couldn't find it in me. "Don't worry," I reassured him. "I'm sure he can't fight as good as you."
He looked back and grinned at me. "Thanks. And if it helps, you're not a whore."
I smiled weakly in gratitude. "Just don't let him get you all riled up like that. That's what he wants. We don't know what he can and can't do, so we can't risk anything right now."
"I know. That guy's just so…"
"I know." To tell the truth, Karasuki didn't so much anger me as he confused me. I didn't understand his motives - why would he betray Suzuno? Did he believe in Kutou's ideals? Or did he turn to Kutou just for the sake of being the legendary seishi who didn't follow his Miko? It gave me a headache to think about it. I saw the body of my attacker out of the corner of my eye, and I started to feel sick. Karasuki had almost been a welcome distraction from dealing with that.
"Do you hear something?" I looked back at Tokaki to see he was staring in the direction that Karasuki had just disappeared in.
There was the sound of hooves coming towards us, and when I looked I could make out the figures of two horses, a man on one of them. When he got a bit closer, he called out to us, "Hey, did you guys lose a horse?"
My eyes widened. I knew that voice - it belonged to my sister's husband! A grin broke my face and I ran forward to meet him. I could hear Tokaki calling my name, sounding rather confused, but I didn't stop to explain. "Jin!"
"What? DOULIN?!" Jin stared down at me, then jumped off his horse and swept me into a big bear hug. When he put me down, we both simultaneously asked, "What are you doing here?"
"I was just out hunting," Jin explained. "When this horse showed up out of nowhere. I figured some travellers may be in trouble or something, so I headed back to the road." He grinned again. "How come you didn't write to Lina to tell her you were coming back?"
"What? But we're nowhere near…"
Jin pointed to the south. "Just a couple hours away, actually. There hasn't been much game around home lately, so I had to come out a bit further."
"Um… Subaru?"
"Oh! Tokaki!" I suddenly remembered. Jin instantly looked disapproving, and I realized that Lina had most likely told him everything that I wrote in my letters. "This is my brother-in-law, Jin." Tokaki looked instantly relieved, and I wondered whether he had thought Jin was my old boyfriend or some such thing. "Is it okay if we take a bit of a detour? I'd really like to go home."