Being Okashira

Chapter Four: The Sounds of the Night


She just walked trying to get away from her thoughts. It was impossible to escape her own mind however and she ended up in the back garden staring at the wall of the dojo blankly. Hannya had been hurt. Soujiro was back at the Aoiya. Kamatari had returned and now there was this new man.

This Shinomori Aoshi.

A man whose very presence caused her heart to beat faster. A man whose touch had brought her to the sudden and ferocious peak of male awareness. Never in her life had she been as awe struck as she had back when he'd caught her. The feel of his hands wrapped so completely around her wrists. The male frame that towered over hers even when kneeling. The man was a virtual giant. Never before had she felt so small and breakable. Held by her wrists down on her knees on the grass - it was utterly beyond words.

He hadn't, she guessed, intended for it to be anything but innocent but oh were her thoughts wandering. She'd been desperately trying to think of other things lately, afraid she would blush in his presence.

The mission was a good distraction and now Hannya...

Her Hannya...

Injured.

She couldn't even bear the knowledge of how badly. That blood on the floor. She felt tears threatening to fill her eyes and bit her lip. She didn't want to cry.

"Okashira?"

She hated it. That awful title. She especially hated it when he said it. There was something about the inflexive tone he used. He made her feel like she didn't deserve it and rightly she didn't feel she did. But she certainly didn't like him pointing it out to her although he hadn't really said anything like that.

"What?" Her voice was weak. The sound disgusted her. She wasn't weak. She could handle this. She could. She tried to tell herself to straighten her shoulders and face him, but she couldn't. Not right now.

Now she just wanted him gone.

"Oi! Misao! Er... Okashira!"

She turned her glittering eyes toward the doorway where Kamatari was waving. "Hannya is awake!"

Awake? Okay? She flew toward the door forgetting about Aoshi in her mad rush to see Hannya.


The Aoiya returned to what he knew to be 'normal pace' within the next week. Kamatari was most often seen in the kitchen with Omasu and Okon or doting over Misao. Soujiro was absent entirely, however, having forfeited his candidacy - with Misao's permission - and having left for a nearby port city.

No one had said anything about his abrupt departure, but Misao had told him it was because Yumi would likely be there. There hadn't been any bitterness in her voice at the admission.

There was another thing about Misao he'd noticed recently. She'd suddenly, and unexplainably, reverted back to calling him Shinomori. He wasn't sure whether he should be uncomfortable with that or not. Was it a bad sign or a good one?

He settled on the former.

She had also stopped humming around him. Now she took nervous glances to see if he was following her and when he was, she frequently glanced at him. It almost always caught his eye given his gaze strayed very little from her.

With Hannya in bed he'd taken to guarding her, not that he'd have been anywhere else. But he and Misao were not confidants the way she was with Hannya.

Even now he followed her. Those around them watched with thinly veiled amusement as he carted along behind her. No one dared to say anything though although he'd learned that in the evening, when he was in his room that Omasu, Okon and Kamatari teased her endlessly about him.

He'd managed just last night to be passing by when Misao threw herself out of one room and directly into him.

He'd been more surprised than anything else suddenly having a girl thrust into his arms. The blush that tinted her cheeks was cute, even more so was the way she tensed at the howling laughter as the three people in the kitchen watched.

He'd set her carefully on her feet and the moment his hands left her she fled up the stairs and never looked back. He pinned a glare on the people in the kitchen and they promptly shut up. Having done so, he inaudibly sighed and tried to remember where he was going before Misao blanked his mind.

He hoped the blush was telling. A sign of her attraction to him - but he could not rule that conclusively. She might merely have been embarrassed.


He stepped into her office directly after her. She kept on, expecting him to follow and expecting him to close the door. He didn't disappoint.

He stood by the doorway as she sat at a table and began some frivolous search. She gave up after a few minutes and instead sat quietly.

The calm atmosphere lasted only a short time as she began fidgeting.

This was not a job for one such as her. Misao was young and carefree. She did not deserve to be bound indoors like this.

He watched her shift and settle and then shift again before he stepped away from the doorway. His movement drew her eye and she immediately stopped everything to watch him as though wary.

He approached slowly only one or two steps from the doorway.

"Are you bored?"

She was so obviously bored. It was the perfect opportunity.

"Perhaps... if you will allow me, Okashira. I can teach you something."

She seemed eager and anxious all at once and looked a bit distrustful. In the end, curiosity won out and she nodded.

He kneeled down on the other side of the small table and reached for a discarded sheet of paper. He worked in silence, folding and unfolding the delicately pressed rice paper.

Silence hung over them with only the jagged sound of paper scraping against paper disturbing the quiet. He dropped a perfectly formed origami swan in his palm as the finished result and watched her eyes widen in delight.

It was almost a child like wonder. Perfect innocence and happiness. She really was quite cute. One would never guess this young girl was the leader of a secret ninja clan.

He'd never guess just from the look of her that she was a ninja at all.

"Wow! You're really good at this!" she exclaimed in happiness. "I wish I could do stuff like that... but Jiya would have a fit."

She pouted and he found the motion drew his attention quite sharply. How old was Misao? He wondered, hadn't he wondered before?

"Misao!"

Just then the door slid open, snapping back into its recessed place in the wall and Jiya filled out the doorway.

She frowned. "What?" she whined, crossing her arms in a huff.

Jiya turned a critical eye on her and she immediately dropped the frown - and then, to both of their surprise, she blushed.

"We just got a message in from Saitou that the Oni One members being held in their prison have escaped. You must not leave the Aoiya, for your own protection."

Aoshi smiled slightly at the tiny female who looked to be puzzled.

"The Oni One group was a cast off faction of a former ninja group that disbanded two years ago. They were being paid by an unknown third party to root out other ninja clans and kill off their leaders. It was discovered some time ago that the Okashira of the Oniwabanshuu was also on their list of targets."

Misao's puzzlement vanished. The sudden and startling idea that someone wanted to kill her seemed to sober her right up. He was regretful to see it, however, as the light happiness in her smile faded away to nothing.

"I see," she replied, voice dropping.

It never ceased to amaze him how she did that. Turned from bubbly, beautiful girl into small, dismal leader in a moment. All the more evidence that she needed him to take over this troublesome job for her - to allow her freedom.

Of course he was not without his own ambition - but it was plainly obvious Misao deserved more than to be saddled with this job.

"Fine," she unhappily agreed.

"I trust you will see to her safety, Aoshi."

Aoshi turned and nodded. Of course he would.

The small figure staring down at the desk so thoughtfully was his future. In more ways than one.

Words couldn't describe it. The feeling fluttering so wildly through him as he stared down at her. His Okashira. The young woman he'd been so stunned to meet, the woman who gave him his orders and to whom his life was dedicated to protecting.

She was the commanding, but hesitant Okashira of the Oniwabanshuu and apparently, was afraid of her own femininity. What would she know of being a woman and handling a man's advances? She had apparently been born and raised in the Oniwabanshuu - a predominately male organization.

He could understand to a point, the poor girl had been forced into her 'Okashira' position even if she did handle it moderately well and was loved. It seemed the young woman who held her head so proudly before her group, was terribly frightened of him.

A future his former commander had often hinted his, Aoshi's, future might involve the 'young beautiful unmarried female Okashira' of their group.


Even if it were not an official order, he knew it was what she wanted. They both knew both him and Hannya. That the Okashira, Makimachi Misao did not want to be alone with him; unfortunately things weren't going her way much lately. She went out of her way to avoid him period, let alone be in direct contact with him, which he made difficult since he often followed her around.

So - how had he managed ending up in her private bed chambers in the middle of the night?

He immediately bowed. "Okashira."

"Aoshi... what are you doing in my room?"

She looked startled, trapped, and frightened. Her dainty little hands clutched at her thin sleeping gown as though she feared the ties on it might unloose themselves and bare her young body before him. He almost grinned. He knew he bothered her, but never quite this much, it was... enlightening.

It also gave him a heady sense of power. He understood why she felt those tiny little strings on her gown weren't very comforting; with the snap of his wrist- he deferred the thought.

"My apologies Okashira, I thought I heard you crying."

It wasn't a total lie, he had thought he heard her crying, only to realize it was the next room over and what he'd heard hadn't been a 'cry' in the traditional teary sense. Of course, it was too late now, he was in her room and worse than that. He'd been caught.

This young woman... he mused staring up into her crystalline blue eyes, she probably had no idea how powerful she made him feel. Here he was, her servant for lack of a better word, and yet he felt like was the one with the power over her rather than the other way around. Just staring at her white fisted hands as she clutched at her gown nervously made him want to rise to his feet and tower over her tiny frame. She was so tiny. So short.

That was another aspect of him that seemed to unnerve her, his height. Without realizing it until he'd seen her slink back slightly, he done just that. He'd risen to his feet, staring down at her.

"You fear me, Okashira?" His voice was low and sounding entirely too seductive.

She cared for them, took them all under her wings like she was a motherly figure, but it was just too much for her.

He'd caught glimpses of a beautiful creature beneath her warm, smiling masks. Every once in a while as he followed her around he'd catch her staring wistfully out a window or something similar. She wished and dreamed.

"Misao..." he daringly stepped forward, whispering her given name and was not disappointed when he watched her bottom lip quiver before it was ruthlessly pinned down by her teeth. He stepped forward again reaching, touching his fingertips to her covered elbow.

He, without thinking, pulled her against him. His arms wrapped around her tiny frame.

He realized in a sudden rush as he pressed her to him she smelled beautifully. Although it hadn't been something he was unaware of before, it was altogether different when you were alone her.

He'd wanted so badly at first to be noticed by the smiling leader, even if she was a female younger in years than himself, only to realize in the coming weeks he'd been more than noticed by the Okashira and that was precisely why she was avoiding him. Or attempting to.

It didn't matter though, as he slipped to the floor gently, cradling her closer, bringing her head closer to his. He inhaled sharply the fragrance of her hair and gentle scent of her skin. She was a marvel, this young woman. She entranced him, she was also his Okashira. No matter how much he happened to be drawn to her, she was his superior; he had no right to be touching her this way. He had no right to be invading her personal space or issues, holding her, or anything else.

Yet he wasn't leaving. He wasn't taking his hands off her, and he should, but she felt so nice. The soft cloth, her warmth seeping into his body, her breath against his neck. Why should he let her go when his body told him to grasp her tighter?

She was calm against him but hadn't moved at all. She lay limply in his arms, head lying against him, face turned away. He couldn't see her face this way.


end Chapter four.