SAKURA TAISEN/WARS and all related characters, names and indicia are TM & (C) SEGA RED and are used here without permission.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This 'flashback' chapter is specifically in answer to one of the four challenges addressed in this story. In the novel, Hiroi states that Maria "sold herself" to the Revolutionaries in order to survive, but does not explain what he means by that - I will try to fill in the blank hopefully at least to the partial satisfaction of the beloved reviewer who requested it!

Rated: PG

"With These Hands"

She didn't plan on packing much. She had travelled lightly all her life and was accustmed to moving quickly and leaving little trace. But she'd grown comfortable over the past years, found a place where she belonged. She did not even want to think about leaving, but what choice did she have? Maria couldn't explain the whole letter to them. They already knew more than the letter's threats permitted anyone to know. If she explained fully, someone could die before she could get there to prevent it. Someone who means far too much to Maria to allow that to happen.

She didn't want to leave, and she didn't want to lie. There would be forgiveness later, perhaps, if they ever discovered the full truth. But for now, she needed to get to the harbour before midnight. A wired message to Paris would be swift, and Maria hoped she could outrun it.

She yanked the drawstring on her duffel and looked out her window into the courtyard of the Imperial Opera Theatre. If she left, the Hanagumi would hate her. If she stayed, she would be granted the reprisal of a nightmare that was suddenly haunting her again.

She promised Ohgami she was no killer, that she would never again kill another human being, that her days as a soldier were over, that her prospects to become an assassin with the New York Mafia were behind her. She proved it by sparing Valentinov's life. But now was one of those times she wished he'd just fall off a cliff and stop tormenting her.

The hospitality of the nearby Russian exiles in Siberia only extended so far. Not because they lacked the generosity or the concern for their fellow exiles, but they simply lacked the means to care for every straggler. Pneumonia had seized and claimed a great many this past winter, including Suma Tachibana and Bryusov Dimitrovich. June brought a modicum of warmth, relief and respite for the survivors, a chance to bury the dead - those which had not been burned for fear of contamination - and a chance for the sun to ease away grief.

June 19, 1913 was a particularly warm day, comparatively. Maria wanted it to be joyful, but her father had died three months ago, and her mother six months before that. She was ten years old today, and alone. She had been sheltered by another family for a short while, but she was learning quickly that they could scarcely manage to care for themselves and their own children, let alone an additional child who did little more than silently carry out whatever chores were necessary and spend evenings in a corner, staring out a window.

Maria Tachibana had not wept. At least, not that anyone had seen.

Her mother's body had been burned, having died at the beginning of a deep freeze. But her father was buried, his passing occurring in a rare thaw that permitted the earth to receive him.

The change in Maria was first noticed as she stood and watched her mother's pyre. The flames reflected in her frozen green eyes, but no tears came. And she was the first to toss a fistful of dirt into her father's shallow grave, the pebbles clattering atop the wooden box that contained the last thing she valued in the world.

The family sheltering her would not turn her out, mercy forbade it. But they could not manage to sustain her, either. In Maria's almost continual silence since her parents' deaths, she became excellent at observation. She could understand what was going on around her, almost as if she was suddenly a new person, as if she had understood immediately that no one would now have responsibility for her other than herself, and she must become instantly aware of her surroundings.

Understanding was the first step. Imagining how to solve the problem was quite another.

In the space of a month's time, Maria had her answer. She was staying with a different family now in an attempt to ease the burden on the first, and her silence had deepened, grown ominous, and become a matter of concern to the adults in her commune.

"She is mad," they deduced, "the poor girl has lost everything. She will not survive the winter."

She stood at her father's gravestone in silence as Autumn sighed its last breath, and snowflakes created a layer atop the icy granite marked with the fallen and disfavoured diplomat's name.

Captain Yuri Nikolayevich's voice startled the girl. "Your father was a great man," he said.

Maria flinched and turned slowly, her lifeless gaze settling on the stranger.

"If you ever wish to learn to live your life with the sort of courage your father had, come and find me."

He tipped his head to her, his darkened glasses obscuring his gaze, and he turned and walked away, his deep, heavy footprints marking a path in the snow that Maria would not follow yet.

As winter began to set in, Maria did not wait to be passed along to another family when the strain on this one became too great. As silently as she had come, she gathered the very few things she could call her own and left. The icy wind did not seem to perturb her, and if she shivered, she forced herself to be calm and the Winter seep into her veins and become part of her.

If she was to survive on her own, she needed to become useful to someone. Some shop, some tradesman, some traveller, someone must need an able-bodied helper. The marketplace was in view before noon of the first day she'd left. She would not be looked for. She would be wished well, but no one could spare the time nor resources to seek a girl not their own who'd wandered off.

The tavern was the third place to decline Maria's offer for help, but managed to donate a heel of bread to her. She remained indoors for as long as she could excuse it, picking slowly at the bread to postpone her return to the oncoming winter outside. A pair of raggedly dressed men sat at a table in the corner, their Ukranian dialects familiar. Their clothing was tattered, but identical. Makeshift uniforms. Soldiers. No, Revolutionaries. Siberia was not far enough away to miss news of the unrest under the Czar's rule, not even for a ten year old girl.

Maria did what she had become expert at in the past year: listened. A small number of the Volga Third Regiment was here, gathering support, under Captain Nikolayevich. That name caught Maria's attention further. Surely the Revolutionaries could spare food and shelter for someone able to carry water and ammunitions. She would ask no pay, but barter herself to the Revolutionaries for her survival. Besides, the Captain had offered her his assistance very recently.

So the cold and disturbingly silent girl followed the Revolutionaries that evening, at a distance enough that they neither noticed nor cared.

A snowy field was dotted with two dozen tents and makeshift structures. Columns of smoke rose from a dozen locations among them. Maria picked the largest tent, a conglomeration of canvas and wood that was nearly a cabin but for its temporary and portable nature, and headed straight toward it, certain to find the Captain inside.

She did not find him. Inside, three unfamiliar faces turned immediately toward her, and two rifles cocked, then immediately lifted up, recognizing a small child, and returned to their posts just outside the tent door. The third, a soldier seated at the table inside, lifted a curious brow. A young man of perhaps no more than fifteen, he donned his most authoritative air and stood. "Who goes there?"

Already remarkably tall, Maria pulled her fur hat from her head slowly, disarraying her short blonde hair, and clutched it in mittened hands. "Maria Tachibana, daughter of Bryusov Dimitrovich, sir."

"What do you want?" the young man persisted, either unimpressed by her father's name, or unaware of what the name meant.

"I am seeking Captain Nikolayevich."

"He isn't here."

"I can see that." Ice-fire flashed in her green eyes.

"What do you want with him?"

"I wish to barter my aid to the Revolution."

"Barter? Your aid?" the soldier looked highly amused. "You're a girl."

"Yes, I am aware of that. I have been one all my life."

The soldier's expression darkened at her sarcasm. "Girls are for mending, cooking and dalliance, not for the Revolution."

"The Captain sent for me himself," Maria's tone sharpened even further at his derision.

At this, the soldier laughed. "Sure he did. And I'm Czar Nicholas."

"Is this the Captain's tent or not?"

"It is. And I am one of his aides. And he is not here." The soldier took an imperious step towards her. "What sort of aid do you think you can offer to the Revolutionaries?"

Maria was fully as tall as the boy, and looked him in the eyes with unrufflable calm. "I am strong and able. I can carry, mend, cook and build... and even fight," she added almost more softly, knowing it was the most ridiculous of her suggestions thusfar.

"And that's all?" the soldier stepped closer again, too close. Maria backed up a step.

"I can do anything a man can do," she said, a slight quaver in her voice, and stepped back again when the soldier advanced.

"A bit more than a man can do, I would say," he pressed forward again and Maria found her back against the center wooden support beam for the tent. He touched her hair and she froze, panic warring with fury. He closed his fingers into the back of her hair and leaned close to her.

"What in the name of God are you doing!" bellowed a voice that made the soldier jump and snap to attention.

Captain Yuri-Mikhail Nikolayevich stood in the flapping tent doorway. He tore his dark glasses from his face and his coal brown eyes burned with rage.

"Captain, it is nothing! Just a girl who is selling herself to the soldiers!" the boy attempted to explain.

"She is what?" Yuri's shock was directed now at Maria.

"I am bartering my services to the Revolutionaries, Captain, accepting your offer... if it still stands."

"Of course it stands, Miss Dimitrovich. Sergeant. Get out."

"But, sir--"

Yuri covered the distance between the door and the soldier in two swift strides, catching him up by a fistful of the back of his coat collar, scruffing him like a disobedient kitten. "This is the daughter of one of the Ukraine's great diplomats. Her father was a great man, outspoken against the Czar, exiled and deceased. She is under my protection. Touch her again and your hand comes off." He tossed the soldier out the tent door into the cold.

The words 'thank you' did not seem sufficient, so Maria let the silence grow, her eyes not quite so frozen as they studied Yuri-Mikhail Nikolayevich. He was seventeen or eighteen, Maria guessed, and something about him made her heart hurt a little less. It was Yuri who broke the silence. "Of course my offer still stands. But your first task is to learn to defend yourself from situations like that one. You will be the only female in my regiment, and I cannot be always at your side. My men are good for the most part, but we are Revolutionaries. We lack the discipline of a sanctioned army. We make up for it in passion, which may be dangerous for you. You were a girl when you came in through that door, but I must make you a soldier as quickly as possible. Will you give all this, Dimitrovich? Does your heart lie where your father's did? Or with your father in his grave?"

She let a long moment of silence pass, allowing the sounds of the wind flapping the canvas and whistling through wooden cracks to penetrate. "My name is Maria Tachibana, and my heart is my own. But my hands are yours to command."

Yuri evaluated that for a moment, then nodded once. "Then we'd best start by putting a rifle in them."

Responses to Reviews:

Uchiha-chan - I'm... speechless. You do me FAR too much honour, and I would be very pleased to contact you regarding your community when I am back in town again (I am out of town on an audition tour at the moment).

Hesquidor - Yes, you're quite right, it irritates me too, I fixed it. Basing her speech on the pattern of her English dub-over actress was a poor choice.

Dillian - Thank you as always ;) Sad, isn't it, that my proudest moment of the past three chapters is a soap clunk? LOL

Kyanite - I am sorry to leave you hanging even longer! I will get you a rope ;) I have hinted here, but I don't plan to reveal the letter's threats for a little while, yet!

Kazuar - sorry look My sincerest apologies, but she has to go! If she doesn't, something far more terrible would happen. Well, perhaps not in your opinion ;)