Disclaimer: yeah, yeah, yeah. Blah, blah, blah. I don't own the rights to
ANYTHING like my dear Aoshi-sama or the spunky little Misao-chan. No,
Nobuhiro Watsuki owns them and many other respected business-types.
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Tears of Buddha
Chapter 3: Confessions
By Starhopper
Aoshi recognized that face held so still as stone that you thought it might crack, held so high that you knew your neck would snap back and that would be it. He saw it in the mirror everyday. And as he sunk his bare feet into the grass, he cursed its presence more now than ever before.
He stared hard at the closed shoji screen, making educated guesses at what lay behind it, what awaited him. Judging from the speed at which she had moved since huddling against the doorframe, she didn't have the energy to throw a tantru-
He reminded himself that if she wasn't a child anymore, that there wasn't any possible way for her to tear the place apart in a tantrum. No, she was an adult, and an adult would handle this type of situation as any other adult would. Or at least like the adult she had learned it from.
Hold it all in until you're safe, then let it all out.
But he had never truly let it all out yet. The closest he had come were the mass slayings before returning to Kyoto. With every slash and gutting, he could slowly feel his anger recede like the calm tides at the shore. However, it had all come rushing back when he fought the Battousai, and even as he lay on the floor of that library, thinking over all that he had accomplished and lived for, he truly hadn't woken up, as the Battousai had urged him to do.
He couldn't yet, not until the danger had passed, and his murders were atoned for. Then it would be safe to open his eyes, and breathe in the morning after such a long sleep from humanity. As far as his world and glorified involvement in it were concerned, he was still very much asleep. But he knew, that even as he chased nightmares and skewered himself over his own Kodachi, there was someone sitting patiently by his side, waiting for him to wake up. And she was now gone.
After literally pulling himself off the floor, he had crawled to the doorway, watching her drench herself in the rain, stop on the bridge and turn away with a grimace of disgust at her reflection, to finally sink to the floor of her room. It was going to be hard, he knew, but what was coming next had to be done. He had to ask her why. Why did she love a man who was forever asleep, distrusting of reality. She was flesh and blood, real to the touch, but like the flower she had kept alive and nursed to health, he had crushed her.
And now he knew that she lay crushed and crumpled behind that shoji screen, alone and cold, dripping wet from foolishly walking in the rain. She wasn't thinking correctly, opting to be wet over staying dry if it meant not having to show her tears to the other workers at the Aoiya. Illness and a ruined Kimono were the prices she was willing to pay to keep her pain quiet. This thought of hiding Misao-chan's emotions seemed to aggravate him even more, and he let another prayer for atonement slip past his lips. He would have to execute a confrontation with the utmost caution where he would usually be the least cautious. Quick, wary, always moving the eyes, never letting them settle on the object of your adoration, that is what he knew to be the true way of an Oniwaban Okashira.
A lightning bolt spotlighted the slamming of his foot down into the thick mud. Adoration? Aoshi tipped his head back, muttering some prayer that he only half-heard with his conscious soul. Adoration? Misao? That baby he had rocked to sleep, that little girl who had toddled across this very yard into Hennya's arms, that same woman who now cried over her struggles to warm his heart?
What struggles she had faced too. And now this; it would either tear her to shreds or buoy her senseless affections that she held for him.
Of course, he harbored the same affliction.
"Look at what you've done to me," he raised his hands in a beg, a plead, an apology whatever. Yes, just look at what a mental train-wreck he was now that he was standing in a storm of his own turbulent emotions. "It's all you, it's all you,"
How he truly hated her for it. For making him so lost within his own mind when he was already so lost in his dreams. Trade in imagination for reality and he would still be standing in an abyss alone and deep in the throes of nightmares, slicing down visages of both beauty and ugliness without flinching. How could she ever love a man such as he was?
And as much as he hated her with the very venom of his poisoned soul, he loved her. Oh, how he loved her for letting her possess his clay corpse and make it move. How he loved her for loving him, for believing in the goodness that sat in the temple and prayed every day for atonement of his sins. She was his angel of righteousness, blessing him with her very presence. All could be forgiven eventually if such a gilded soul would hang off him.
His feet seemed to move to the bridge, and he secretly hoped that her reflection would still be sprawled across the water's surface. Sadly, it was his own visage that sneered up at him. Passing by it, Aoshi continued on his path to forgiveness. It was never ending, relentlessly drumming against him like the rain. Casting a steely gaze up to the skies, Aoshi took a breath and felt drowned by the world. It was all too much, sleeping in this darkness, sleeping alone in confusion, fighting for balance every second of his life.
With every step, he felt himself loosing grip on what he felt. Sense, perception, the rain. What did he feel? The blood coursing through his veins, the many scars crossing over his body, the water washing over his yukata, the life rushing in and out of his nasal passages, the mud and grass melting under his feet, the passion burning hot in that blood.
His eyes drifted back down to see the shoji door closed in his face. And behind that was the woman he wanted to both take at the sunrise and leave for his storm to caress.
Why did she love him?
It was time to know, time to gather that vital information no matter how far he plunged headfirst when he would most assuredly lose his balance and fall.
The door slid open almost eagerly, wanting to see him find Misao curled in a ball on the floor and wonder just what he was going to do about it. But even to the door, he couldn't answer that question as he watched her for a moment with the part of himself that remembered holding that same delicate form in his arms, lulling her to sleep. She had cried so much that night, during a storm like this.
"Misao-chan," he breathed her name like a gasp of air as he bobbed to the surface of this world that had drowned him.
She shuddered, visibly shaking as she uncoiled herself to kneel in front of him, her face hidden by the raven swath of her hair that was now plastered to her face. From his height he could confirm now that the kimono had been sufficiently ruined by walking in the rain. Traced flowers bled blue into the ivory, the sleeves roiling against the shoulders in a clash of foamy ocean that rocked his heart, threatening to throw him off the side of his single-manned boat.
Taking another step closer, he held himself high, with arms hanging loosely at his sides, and shut the panel alongside a thunderclap. She quaked at the noise and he froze, the Okashira using every method in the book in order to discern her next move. Without moving, Misao drew tighter within herself, an instinctual habit derived when the body felt itself being threatened. Underneath that seemingly cold veneer, the adrenaline was pumping through her system, making ready for the spring that would ensure her survival. Apparently some of that hidden power force had leaked into her lips for they quivered with more than just the biting chill of Fall. She continued to sink within herself, tilting her head back enough to peer up at him through the silken threads of her bangs.
"Aoshi-sama," she rasped, not bothering to cough out the tears that had rolled down her throat. "What," she paused to let her teeth chatter, and upon finding that the personal earthquake wanted to continue down the length of her entire body, took a suffering breath to slow down the inevitable, "do you want with me?"
It was an animal whine that he heard, piteous and at the same time exacting, like her question. She was begging him to end it all, just cock the arrow for her heart and let the bow snap. She was pleading with him to let her understand what was going on inside his head. There was also a hint of shy, underdeveloped coyness in her tone, allowing for him to make the next move. Yes, it was an exceedingly simple question to answer and entirely too complicated for words when it was sliced apart.
"I want," he chose his words carefully so as not to alarm her, though the image of a frightened animal had glossed over her just as a lightning strike had alighted her face, and deepened the shadows of her eyes. Taking another step forward, he came to stand over her. "I want you to answer me a question," he let his tone go soft and comforting, dredging up more memories for him than for her, though it was intended to relax the trembling ninja in the first place. He lifted a hand, slipping his fingers underneath her thick bangs, and swept them back behind her left ear.
Again he couldn't breathe. She was too close, he was too close, he had his hands in her hair. And now he trailed those same fingertips back along the line of her jaw, letting them finally fall away into nothingness. "Nothing more,"
Under his touch, he could feel her relax, a heavy sigh escaping her lips before she pulled her head away just as his thumb curved off her chin. "But there is more,"
Only his ears heard her mumble those words from far away. His fingers though, were under the impression that skin still lingered for them to touch. Crouching there, Aoshi held his hand out to caress a cheek that was no longer within reach. Feeling his eyes widen and brows furrow in what some might call indignation, but his own mind would proclaim distress, he bit down on whatever sweet thought his mind chose to alleviate his panic with, and let his legs give out from under him.
"There is more," she repeated, head hung so low that her shoulder blades protruded out of her back like the shorn wings of some angel. The words still held the whine of the animal, but the creature was slowly and surely becoming more confident in itself. She seemed to test the words before giving them voice, as if knowing they would have some effect upon the archer who threatened her life.
Aoshi closed his eyes in the vain attempt to dissolve that illusion cloaking itself about his Misao-chan, the girl who would outrun an arrow, attack it with her kunai, or throw it off its path by physically kicking it before she would ever let it pierce her heart. And now here she was, facing away from him as she made a run for the one means of escape she had left herself. And he held the bow cocked.
Was he the hunter? And more importantly, was he a hunter who honored the prey or the chase?
Assuming the lotus position, Aoshi fought to regain mental control of the situation. They were both human beings, not an archetypal hunter clad in loincloth and a woodland creature with wide innocent eyes. He tried to picture them as they were now, both soaked to the bone, literally crawling over the wooden floor drenched in their normal clothes. The only thing unnatural about this scene was that Misao was crying on the inside instead of wearing her heart on her Oniwabanshu sleeve.
"Isn't there?"
Grabbing some hair in his hands, Aoshi hoped to yank his brain out by the roots and have it magically congeal into cohesion. Shaking his head, he recalled a day when being around her brought clarity, brought peace. Now, just breathing her same breath called forth the confusion and trumpeted for the chaos to charge ahead into his already warped sense of self. He glanced up through the tangle of hair and fingers and saw Misao as a baby, crawling for the first time. Her chubby little legs worked furiously to drag her small body back around to face him, and a toothless grin signaled her return, pleased at having gone so far in one day. He blinked again and she was a toddler, sitting down on the floor, mimicking his own stare back at him, and getting the desired results. A chuckle escaped from deep inside his throat before the present could snap back at him with the sting of a rubber band.
"Aoshi-sama!"
The years flickered across her features and the once round little face was replaced in shadows of age. Here she was, five now, crying out to him in the middle of the night. Poor thing, she must have had a bad dream.
"Answer me!"
Now this was Misao-chan at six, yelling at the group as they marched off to the meeting that would decide their fate as far as the Meji era and their involvement in it was concerned.
"What do you want with me?"
In one flash of light he was face to face with the Misao of the now, too close, too close . . . so close.
There was nothing to focus on, nothing to clear his mind of her in this room without scrambling out of it. With adrenaline pumping, the roles had been reversed. She was the hunter, holding her tears back in a multi- caliber gatling gun, aimed and ready to fire at the first sign of movement. So he froze.
However, the confusion was more persistent and wormed its way to his lips, growling, "You frustrate me,"
The shock went white across her face, and she leaned back, his breathing slowing down at every inch that she withdrew.
"Frustrate you?"
"Yes," he shook his head, realizing that he still held it in his hands as he frantically threw it about. He was numbed from the floor up. No, he was apart of the floor, a mere floorboard that only she could tread upon and raise the splinters. There was no moving as an inanimate object, that much about balance preached to him to be true and so there was no means of escape for him. He felt himself falling and said, "You, it's only you,"
"Nani?"
Taking a breath, Aoshi loosed his hands from his scalp and stared at the blurry mess his Misao-chan had become and breathed, "You are the only one who possesses me,"
"Wh-What did you say?"
Her tentative words drove the thunder pounding outside into his heart, its power shaking him at the very core of his being. "It's only you," He reached out to her to steady himself, to make it all stop, and found her shoulder to grab a hold of. He felt his eyes tearing, the raindrops driving themselves into his skin like nails. And she would surely be drenched in it, suffer from it when she was this close to the storm. Pulling her clear of the water dripping off his psyche, Aoshi let his hands glide down her back and fold her into a life-saving embrace.
She didn't struggle against him, just lay still, providing him with the warmth that he craved now even more than when he had first felt Kami-sama's tears wash over his face. Moving his head down to her ear, he took a breath and felt her tense.
He pulled her closer, slowly tipping back to lie on the floor with her held against his chest. "You make nightmares blissful dreams," he whispered, allowing her to roll over his stomach and stay close to his right side. "To this man who is asleep, you are the dawn who greets him," Misao rested her cheek on his shoulder, the rest of her body nestled into the crook of his arm, trying to hear his voice, hoarse from the disuse because of silent prayer. "You watch over him like the angel you surely are," He turned his face to face her, "And I ask you this question: why?"
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Tears of Buddha
Chapter 3: Confessions
By Starhopper
Aoshi recognized that face held so still as stone that you thought it might crack, held so high that you knew your neck would snap back and that would be it. He saw it in the mirror everyday. And as he sunk his bare feet into the grass, he cursed its presence more now than ever before.
He stared hard at the closed shoji screen, making educated guesses at what lay behind it, what awaited him. Judging from the speed at which she had moved since huddling against the doorframe, she didn't have the energy to throw a tantru-
He reminded himself that if she wasn't a child anymore, that there wasn't any possible way for her to tear the place apart in a tantrum. No, she was an adult, and an adult would handle this type of situation as any other adult would. Or at least like the adult she had learned it from.
Hold it all in until you're safe, then let it all out.
But he had never truly let it all out yet. The closest he had come were the mass slayings before returning to Kyoto. With every slash and gutting, he could slowly feel his anger recede like the calm tides at the shore. However, it had all come rushing back when he fought the Battousai, and even as he lay on the floor of that library, thinking over all that he had accomplished and lived for, he truly hadn't woken up, as the Battousai had urged him to do.
He couldn't yet, not until the danger had passed, and his murders were atoned for. Then it would be safe to open his eyes, and breathe in the morning after such a long sleep from humanity. As far as his world and glorified involvement in it were concerned, he was still very much asleep. But he knew, that even as he chased nightmares and skewered himself over his own Kodachi, there was someone sitting patiently by his side, waiting for him to wake up. And she was now gone.
After literally pulling himself off the floor, he had crawled to the doorway, watching her drench herself in the rain, stop on the bridge and turn away with a grimace of disgust at her reflection, to finally sink to the floor of her room. It was going to be hard, he knew, but what was coming next had to be done. He had to ask her why. Why did she love a man who was forever asleep, distrusting of reality. She was flesh and blood, real to the touch, but like the flower she had kept alive and nursed to health, he had crushed her.
And now he knew that she lay crushed and crumpled behind that shoji screen, alone and cold, dripping wet from foolishly walking in the rain. She wasn't thinking correctly, opting to be wet over staying dry if it meant not having to show her tears to the other workers at the Aoiya. Illness and a ruined Kimono were the prices she was willing to pay to keep her pain quiet. This thought of hiding Misao-chan's emotions seemed to aggravate him even more, and he let another prayer for atonement slip past his lips. He would have to execute a confrontation with the utmost caution where he would usually be the least cautious. Quick, wary, always moving the eyes, never letting them settle on the object of your adoration, that is what he knew to be the true way of an Oniwaban Okashira.
A lightning bolt spotlighted the slamming of his foot down into the thick mud. Adoration? Aoshi tipped his head back, muttering some prayer that he only half-heard with his conscious soul. Adoration? Misao? That baby he had rocked to sleep, that little girl who had toddled across this very yard into Hennya's arms, that same woman who now cried over her struggles to warm his heart?
What struggles she had faced too. And now this; it would either tear her to shreds or buoy her senseless affections that she held for him.
Of course, he harbored the same affliction.
"Look at what you've done to me," he raised his hands in a beg, a plead, an apology whatever. Yes, just look at what a mental train-wreck he was now that he was standing in a storm of his own turbulent emotions. "It's all you, it's all you,"
How he truly hated her for it. For making him so lost within his own mind when he was already so lost in his dreams. Trade in imagination for reality and he would still be standing in an abyss alone and deep in the throes of nightmares, slicing down visages of both beauty and ugliness without flinching. How could she ever love a man such as he was?
And as much as he hated her with the very venom of his poisoned soul, he loved her. Oh, how he loved her for letting her possess his clay corpse and make it move. How he loved her for loving him, for believing in the goodness that sat in the temple and prayed every day for atonement of his sins. She was his angel of righteousness, blessing him with her very presence. All could be forgiven eventually if such a gilded soul would hang off him.
His feet seemed to move to the bridge, and he secretly hoped that her reflection would still be sprawled across the water's surface. Sadly, it was his own visage that sneered up at him. Passing by it, Aoshi continued on his path to forgiveness. It was never ending, relentlessly drumming against him like the rain. Casting a steely gaze up to the skies, Aoshi took a breath and felt drowned by the world. It was all too much, sleeping in this darkness, sleeping alone in confusion, fighting for balance every second of his life.
With every step, he felt himself loosing grip on what he felt. Sense, perception, the rain. What did he feel? The blood coursing through his veins, the many scars crossing over his body, the water washing over his yukata, the life rushing in and out of his nasal passages, the mud and grass melting under his feet, the passion burning hot in that blood.
His eyes drifted back down to see the shoji door closed in his face. And behind that was the woman he wanted to both take at the sunrise and leave for his storm to caress.
Why did she love him?
It was time to know, time to gather that vital information no matter how far he plunged headfirst when he would most assuredly lose his balance and fall.
The door slid open almost eagerly, wanting to see him find Misao curled in a ball on the floor and wonder just what he was going to do about it. But even to the door, he couldn't answer that question as he watched her for a moment with the part of himself that remembered holding that same delicate form in his arms, lulling her to sleep. She had cried so much that night, during a storm like this.
"Misao-chan," he breathed her name like a gasp of air as he bobbed to the surface of this world that had drowned him.
She shuddered, visibly shaking as she uncoiled herself to kneel in front of him, her face hidden by the raven swath of her hair that was now plastered to her face. From his height he could confirm now that the kimono had been sufficiently ruined by walking in the rain. Traced flowers bled blue into the ivory, the sleeves roiling against the shoulders in a clash of foamy ocean that rocked his heart, threatening to throw him off the side of his single-manned boat.
Taking another step closer, he held himself high, with arms hanging loosely at his sides, and shut the panel alongside a thunderclap. She quaked at the noise and he froze, the Okashira using every method in the book in order to discern her next move. Without moving, Misao drew tighter within herself, an instinctual habit derived when the body felt itself being threatened. Underneath that seemingly cold veneer, the adrenaline was pumping through her system, making ready for the spring that would ensure her survival. Apparently some of that hidden power force had leaked into her lips for they quivered with more than just the biting chill of Fall. She continued to sink within herself, tilting her head back enough to peer up at him through the silken threads of her bangs.
"Aoshi-sama," she rasped, not bothering to cough out the tears that had rolled down her throat. "What," she paused to let her teeth chatter, and upon finding that the personal earthquake wanted to continue down the length of her entire body, took a suffering breath to slow down the inevitable, "do you want with me?"
It was an animal whine that he heard, piteous and at the same time exacting, like her question. She was begging him to end it all, just cock the arrow for her heart and let the bow snap. She was pleading with him to let her understand what was going on inside his head. There was also a hint of shy, underdeveloped coyness in her tone, allowing for him to make the next move. Yes, it was an exceedingly simple question to answer and entirely too complicated for words when it was sliced apart.
"I want," he chose his words carefully so as not to alarm her, though the image of a frightened animal had glossed over her just as a lightning strike had alighted her face, and deepened the shadows of her eyes. Taking another step forward, he came to stand over her. "I want you to answer me a question," he let his tone go soft and comforting, dredging up more memories for him than for her, though it was intended to relax the trembling ninja in the first place. He lifted a hand, slipping his fingers underneath her thick bangs, and swept them back behind her left ear.
Again he couldn't breathe. She was too close, he was too close, he had his hands in her hair. And now he trailed those same fingertips back along the line of her jaw, letting them finally fall away into nothingness. "Nothing more,"
Under his touch, he could feel her relax, a heavy sigh escaping her lips before she pulled her head away just as his thumb curved off her chin. "But there is more,"
Only his ears heard her mumble those words from far away. His fingers though, were under the impression that skin still lingered for them to touch. Crouching there, Aoshi held his hand out to caress a cheek that was no longer within reach. Feeling his eyes widen and brows furrow in what some might call indignation, but his own mind would proclaim distress, he bit down on whatever sweet thought his mind chose to alleviate his panic with, and let his legs give out from under him.
"There is more," she repeated, head hung so low that her shoulder blades protruded out of her back like the shorn wings of some angel. The words still held the whine of the animal, but the creature was slowly and surely becoming more confident in itself. She seemed to test the words before giving them voice, as if knowing they would have some effect upon the archer who threatened her life.
Aoshi closed his eyes in the vain attempt to dissolve that illusion cloaking itself about his Misao-chan, the girl who would outrun an arrow, attack it with her kunai, or throw it off its path by physically kicking it before she would ever let it pierce her heart. And now here she was, facing away from him as she made a run for the one means of escape she had left herself. And he held the bow cocked.
Was he the hunter? And more importantly, was he a hunter who honored the prey or the chase?
Assuming the lotus position, Aoshi fought to regain mental control of the situation. They were both human beings, not an archetypal hunter clad in loincloth and a woodland creature with wide innocent eyes. He tried to picture them as they were now, both soaked to the bone, literally crawling over the wooden floor drenched in their normal clothes. The only thing unnatural about this scene was that Misao was crying on the inside instead of wearing her heart on her Oniwabanshu sleeve.
"Isn't there?"
Grabbing some hair in his hands, Aoshi hoped to yank his brain out by the roots and have it magically congeal into cohesion. Shaking his head, he recalled a day when being around her brought clarity, brought peace. Now, just breathing her same breath called forth the confusion and trumpeted for the chaos to charge ahead into his already warped sense of self. He glanced up through the tangle of hair and fingers and saw Misao as a baby, crawling for the first time. Her chubby little legs worked furiously to drag her small body back around to face him, and a toothless grin signaled her return, pleased at having gone so far in one day. He blinked again and she was a toddler, sitting down on the floor, mimicking his own stare back at him, and getting the desired results. A chuckle escaped from deep inside his throat before the present could snap back at him with the sting of a rubber band.
"Aoshi-sama!"
The years flickered across her features and the once round little face was replaced in shadows of age. Here she was, five now, crying out to him in the middle of the night. Poor thing, she must have had a bad dream.
"Answer me!"
Now this was Misao-chan at six, yelling at the group as they marched off to the meeting that would decide their fate as far as the Meji era and their involvement in it was concerned.
"What do you want with me?"
In one flash of light he was face to face with the Misao of the now, too close, too close . . . so close.
There was nothing to focus on, nothing to clear his mind of her in this room without scrambling out of it. With adrenaline pumping, the roles had been reversed. She was the hunter, holding her tears back in a multi- caliber gatling gun, aimed and ready to fire at the first sign of movement. So he froze.
However, the confusion was more persistent and wormed its way to his lips, growling, "You frustrate me,"
The shock went white across her face, and she leaned back, his breathing slowing down at every inch that she withdrew.
"Frustrate you?"
"Yes," he shook his head, realizing that he still held it in his hands as he frantically threw it about. He was numbed from the floor up. No, he was apart of the floor, a mere floorboard that only she could tread upon and raise the splinters. There was no moving as an inanimate object, that much about balance preached to him to be true and so there was no means of escape for him. He felt himself falling and said, "You, it's only you,"
"Nani?"
Taking a breath, Aoshi loosed his hands from his scalp and stared at the blurry mess his Misao-chan had become and breathed, "You are the only one who possesses me,"
"Wh-What did you say?"
Her tentative words drove the thunder pounding outside into his heart, its power shaking him at the very core of his being. "It's only you," He reached out to her to steady himself, to make it all stop, and found her shoulder to grab a hold of. He felt his eyes tearing, the raindrops driving themselves into his skin like nails. And she would surely be drenched in it, suffer from it when she was this close to the storm. Pulling her clear of the water dripping off his psyche, Aoshi let his hands glide down her back and fold her into a life-saving embrace.
She didn't struggle against him, just lay still, providing him with the warmth that he craved now even more than when he had first felt Kami-sama's tears wash over his face. Moving his head down to her ear, he took a breath and felt her tense.
He pulled her closer, slowly tipping back to lie on the floor with her held against his chest. "You make nightmares blissful dreams," he whispered, allowing her to roll over his stomach and stay close to his right side. "To this man who is asleep, you are the dawn who greets him," Misao rested her cheek on his shoulder, the rest of her body nestled into the crook of his arm, trying to hear his voice, hoarse from the disuse because of silent prayer. "You watch over him like the angel you surely are," He turned his face to face her, "And I ask you this question: why?"