Part II: A Shrine in Shambles
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Sakura sat on a piece of broken statue, face a canvas of gloom. Hanabi, against the dance of flames in the hearth, beheld the softening light inside her eyes. Buddha statues stood, tall and quiet, round the temple, a sense of eternal goneness upon their features; in the dark that breasted light with courage, their countenances' nature filled Hanabi with no confidence. They sat like this for so long, heeding sounds from outside that filled the air like an invasion. Reapers!
Sakura had left countless seals in her wake. It would take the eyeless beasts hours to locate their scents amidst the tempest of sounds, smells, lights issued forth by the Fuin-Jutsu seals: they were a gift from her mentor when she breathed her last under the mountains' shadow that grew heaviest for her to bear—she perished in Sakura's arms, and Sakura had pressed her face into her breast to let loose cries that banished, for him, a bit of her lust that ran athwart her love for her mentor.
Chakra drained from her corpse and floated, upon wing-less wings, to reach the valley and become him; and Sakura had watched, eyes filling up with tears and adoration, as the last of her went away into the winds with her breaths. Carmilla . . . O', sweet Carmilla. Her heart and body ached for him, and she longed to see the pulchritude of his form come into her vision, and she would pray and she would die—her soul had twisted in ecstasy, heart had resisted against lust in solitude.
"Sakura-San?" Hanabi said, unable to resist the urge to break the girl out of her dreams. The sound of her voice went along the walls as an echo, and then it vanished into the air, softly.
Sakura sat up straight with a jerk and looked at her, her face covered in the thinnest film of gleaming sweat, countenance growing deathly pale in the light. Hanabi pitied her . . .
"Are you a'right?" she asked, and her voice created another soft echo in the quiet hall. Hushes flooded into the temple, only to die away into a comforting silence.
Sakura did not answer, but she nodded. Then she rose up and, with firm steps, walked to the natural basin, which was always kept full by a natural pouring from a stream. She leant over the basin and burst into a sudden flood of tears.
Hanabi rose up, eager to comfort her, but Sakura help up her hand, her palm facing out, and shook it. "I-I'm a'right!" she squeezed out the words between sobs and splashed her face with cold water—repeatedly.
"What happened?" Hanabi asked and approached her, her gait slow and cautious; she did not want to cause her any more distress. Grit and dirt crunched like a film of frozen snow beneath her sandals. This place had fallen to neglect. No monk came to pray here: they had fled to gather at the stairs—Carmilla.
"Everyone's gone!" she said, her voice rough, and a new light flashed from her eyes—more tears that fell thickly down her cheeks in streams. "They came out of nowhere—Reapers! So many of 'em. They got 'em all, and all I could do was watch!" She broke into another pronounced sob that shook her whole body this time and brutally washed her hands begrimed with tar—something like sludge.
Hanabi said nothing. Her gaze wandered the empty hall and the dark windows: the stone-floor was smooth and shimmered with a yellow-vapour light; fog blended with dark in the deep cracks of the valley; from this far, she could barely see a thing.
Sakura turned around, still wringing her hands, face dripping with water. "I loved him—I loved him so much," she said as if she stood in the sacred seclusion of her own chamber, her courage giving way to distress. "All I ever wanted was him, but he hurt me—he never wanted me . . . oh, Kami, why?" She looked up at the ceiling and flowers vanished from her lips that trembled, and her eyes streamed out more sorrow her heart could not bear.
"Sakura-San . . . " Hanabi said, voice softening against the whimpering, a terrible plight falling across her heart. She remembered Hinata's face, lighted by passions, when she would look at her love—his death banished the joy from her heart that shone through her eyes before—always.
"I can't—I-I can't—" she stopped and went on sobbing where she had left off before. "I don't know what to do. I love him—I hate him—I . . . " Then she slumped down to the floor in exhaustion, her spirit battered, and rocked her knees together and apart in convulsive movements that made her shake.
Hanabi went to her and sat down by her side. "Sakura-San, we'll win. Don't worry," she assured her with a smile soft that Sakura's tears stopped. She mopped her face clean with the back of her hand, and thrust her fingers into the hair that had formed thick clumps around her face.
"But the seals . . . ?" Sakura whispered and looked away in a dreamy haze that telegraphed love to her countenance. Sounds from Reaper's throats passed out of hearing when the sun rose. She had fallen very quiet as the light surfed over her face like tides.
"The camp was a distraction to confuse him. The seals are safe with the other monks. They don't want him to become a Kami. They'll help us. We'll seal him when the moon rises. Don't worry," Hanabi said and clamped her hand on her shoulder that shivered beneath her touch.
Sakura looked at her, and Hanabi could see the words shining through her dull-green eyes, but she had closed her lips against their utterance. She gave another silent nod, heed-less of her deep weakness that had carved onto her heart her lust . . .
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In her mind, an eternal gloom rested; and Hanabi followed, slower in her wake, eyes upon the back of her head. She did not, could not fathom her love for the Lord in sleep—a pretty love that flowed from her eyes evermore.
Ah, weeping girl in the grip of gloom
A weaver of thoughts in the loom
Slow love that drips from thy lips
Sweet songs from thy heart's trips
The ghostly child that wails in the vacant womb
The clump of flesh that festers in the tomb
She had not spoken a word; silence rested upon her lips as faithfully as morn. The silver globe had retreated behind the cosmic garment: gold walked into its domain and coloured the tire of ebbing tides. Yellow travelled in her hairs, streaked the pink with a shade sublime, that Hanabi could not tell which colour they possessed.
A new morn broke out, and wind at the mountains' feet caved in and withered away to make way for the sweeter one from Carmilla that sung songs of that hallowed place; and in its sense-less roots was the vacancy filled by this new, name-less love. Ah, what wordless tunes, what wondrous undulations, and Carmilla's wind had become his spirit, sighing with the love that poured in hushed whispers from his lips . . . when the rest of him slept in the lush garth, lusty and young.
They walked in silence and heard whispers, shadows right at their heels; but morning's light was mighty. Reapers were quick to bleed into the open wounds of this earth that accepted their repeated intrusions: they had ravaged this maiden so much, and the seeds of their love had birthed a forest that rose towards the sky in insolent perversions, in a way they had never seen.
Their roots, serpentine and lithe, fed upon the fallen and sprouted flowers that expelled odours sweeter than ambrosia, thicker than blood. Her father, too, had gone deep into the earth. Had he risen as a flower, one of many that adorned boughs in the flush of eternal youth? She felt a throb ring in her heart, and she knew it to be true.
They passed beneath the arch of twisting boughs, walking against the wind that spoke with a different passion in its tongues, as sun approached the sky-cleaving bow: Lord was restless in his sleep. Did he dream, like all Men? The thought slowed her steps to an unhurried pace.
Hanabi had never thought of it much. What were the Lord's dreams to her? Faerie-tales to become tales of yore to frighten young children; but she, the women who walked in front of her, had said that he dreamt of the family he cherished, of the brother he loved, often.
Did he have a heart to dream a dream, to love a love, with blood-roots transporting throbs of his slumbering emotions to every root that shivered and glutted with love? A print of confusion strained Hanabi's brow. Did it matter that the Lord she loathed with all her heart had one of his own, too? It did—it did not. The matter was . . . strange.
As Hanabi walked to the rock-bound lake, fingers curled in rock-tight fists, she thought some more . . . thought of her father who never returned from the ground's grave, thought of the cousin who had perished in war's ashes, thought of the tears that kept her sister's cheeks wet, always.
Hanabi's jaw tightened down and waves went through her skin in pulsating ripples. Zeal of anger, waxing in her flexing muscles, became a zeal for her sword. She would wield it, end him in his cradle borne of mother's lullabies, father's farewells, and brother's love.
She did not let her thoughts linger on him any longer and fixed her eyes upon the cool lake that still yawned with the stirrings of a new day. Wind sent combers rolling their way, and when she looked up, she saw the temple's tapering roof in the fog.
It was quiet here, in this place. Hanabi spoke no words and neither did Sakura. She sat down and made a scoop of her hand and gulped down the clean water. Then she got to her feet and started walking to the trees interlocked in a silent struggle to gain the Lord's blessing—they would only sprout more flowers . . .
When they reached the stairs, the temple loomed tall and silent behind the fog that flowed like waves from the mountains. Stream had burst forth from the crevice in the sacred rock that sat in the garden. The priests had said that the Sage descended upon this place, in garments flowing, radiant and beautiful . . .
Yet that was before they abandoned this place and went scampering to cradle the new Sage in their arms. They had left all the teachings of Ninshū behind. "The Lord has come!" they had chanted in the light of spring's sun that was just as beautiful and divine; and in their arms, they interred him to a lid-less grave till his new birth.
Hanabi emitted a sigh and fog broke away in bits before her face, eyes fixed to the shadows that slanted along the stairs: they were a little thick and . . . sludge-like? Her heart jumped, and a tremble crossed the span of her frame to vibrate in her fingertips. Reapers! She did not look to Sakura, did not waste another breath, and ran to the large wooden door.
A thick odour came to her from inside, and her hand went for her father's sword, her grip tight. She heard Sakura's pounding steps behind her on the rough garden-stones, but she did not have time to look her way. She crashed against the door and it swung to the side and hit the wall with a deafening thud; and what greeted her stopped her heart: priests from west, murdered by Lord's priests!
They lay strewn about in pools of vivid lifeblood, garments smeared red. She could not see their faces in the dim shadows. There stood priests by the bodies, their hands clutching bloodied swords.
They cast one look her way and positioned the swords at their throats and sliced into the jugular veins. Blood went out as feathers into the flooding sunlight that came down glittering from the roof. Passion spread and sprinkled on the white floor, a burst of Higanbana. Then, not a moment later, they thudded to the floor, whispering, eyes going back into their heads in death.
Her eyes darted to the right, and she saw one Reaper go into the ground with the scroll she had come for. This shrine was in shambles, a grave of her allies.
"No!" Hanabi shouted, hand holding the sword's pommel in a tighter grip, tears filling her eyes and spilling over, as though they were cups.
They came for the scroll, and they had taken it; and when she looked to Sakura in desperation, she saw guilt and shame in her gaze . . .
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