A Tale of Misfits: Part II
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Sing—bring—thring—summer slipped into torpor, yawned. Autumn was waking. Hands over eyes, she peeked through, saw yellow in the skies. It did not hurt—a seclusion from sun was coming. At night, thrum of bells increased, and clothed in rain's raiment, the temple was noisy.
Rains were strong this summer and run-off that came down the mountains choked up the catchments. They all rode out, trudging across sludge-filled canals, to meet monks at sturdy gates. A gold sheen existed about the bricked walls and harsh clothing, dirt-encrusted and filthy, snuck into the portraiture of this coarse village where it rained—it always rained.
Soil slaked its thrust: rain kept coming; earth had not a choice but to regurgitate water and mud for the animals. When much of it came back out, it flooded streets, turned everything brown. Wherever they looked, russet glared. Relief was stark on withered features when clouds would break open; and sky sunned over and expanded across flooded plains and beyond.
Flowers grew and nature sighed—content again—for this was a rare blessing; yet the poor set out to seek Fire's planes where forests thrived and streams flowed from mountains tall and kind. Its winds, swinged by summer, gathered the rich flora's scents that typified the craggy landscape that surrounded Leaf.
There on the edge of Fire Country's village stood Yoshiwara—field of rushes—a liminal space between Rain's gloom and Leaf's bloom. Clouds hung deep upon rivers and vales, enveloped Rain. They always did. She liked it here—on the side of Leaf—where Purple dots brightened the dismal place. Rushes tossed about in wind that was sweetened like candies, syrupy sweet, by Nature's empurpled children!
Yoshiwara was a big quarter, spread about on nearly twelve acres of land, surrounded by tall walls: beyond the walls, moat encircled it on three sides and a river's vein on one, a fissure in the land that cracked open into a full rupture as it moved away towards the mountains where sun fell amongst summer's boughs.
Trees that bore flora and fruit bright competed with rushes, weeds, vines that flourished in a more temperate weather. Sun and wind were kind to all; and she was poor and wanted Fire's breeze to embrace her, too: Leaf's Academy had rejected her. The Council's parochial attitudes did not make things easy. They said that her training was insufficient to continue on into the military. The sack on her bag was heavy, soaking in summer's rain that was . . . more pleasant than Rain's.
She stood on the threshold again, her visage all wariness and curious. Beyond the walls lay Rain—still murky. Rains never stopped. By her feet a Lily danced in joy. It had eaten up the chakra of the flowers that clustered about, their withered petals had fallen off and floated away, to places unknown.
Even before she released a long breath, her heart was made. She entered through the front gate on the east side, at the end of a long bridge. Lights fringed quarters, red, yellow, blue—like flowers. The insides, like creamy lilies, flushed with colours, songs and sighs they outpoured onto the three parallel streets. These intersected a central thoroughfare and were divided into five sections. They called it Gocho!
Bordellos, teahouses, shops stood on both sides of the streets, coloured in the air that breasted hostility from shades numerous. It was teeming with people. Through the Tsubone's lattice that sent forth shadow on the bosom of a bird, frozen in an alcove, and air most stale in the compartment, she saw women. There, in the room, circumscribed by fiat and dimness, posed Tsubone, nude or draped in loose hanging garments. Their breasts, ample and ripe; mouths, rouged and tight.
They smiled, laughter trilling, that poured forth from the gaps like loosened tides. Men lay supine, and they bent upon them, mouths encircling stiff organs. Their muscles knotted, expression strained; and they erupted their filth into their orifices. This was . . . strange. She was still thinking when a proprietor found her, a haggard man in good clothes.
He took her to a room full of ornamental things that shone like fingerlings in the stream that ran behind her house; and she told him of her desire to stay here and earn a living. The woman beside him, a mean old crone, said that she was too unsightly to be kept in the Sancha quarters, that she was well-suited for no more than a Hashi's living. It angered her, yet she did not say anything to the woman but to the man that she was with virtue, her chastity intact.
The man looked and asked of her to disrobe; and she did. When the slack garment, made of coarse cotton, slipped away, it revealed the body of a budding girl of eleven, who was a month shy of twelve. Her complexion was ruddy, a rubor about cheeks, created from the close clustering of vivid freckles. Her countenance, rather hollow from hunger, had not been enhanced by the harshly cut crimson coiffure, though her lips, offered above a clean and small chin, were pretty.
Her body, thin and elongated, without a robust hue; shoulders small and compressed; ribs rested closely underneath the taut skin. Her breasts, too small for a man to be enchanted, but her hips, wide, bowl-like. She could tell that he was . . . not fully un-impressed. He asked her to come closer into the lights and spread out her thighs; and when she did, his hand went up between quaking swells tight as ropes, and he stuck a finger up into her channel. The intrusion caused her walls to close in around his digit—it burnt.
He hummed, smiling. She was—young, still blooming, tight—worth something, at least. He told her that she was good enough to be made a Tsubone, for now, that their main proprietor, a former Tayū, would decide her fate upon her return from Leaf. She smiled, cheeks dimpling. Fire country repelled rains—indeed!
World spun and went on outside. Men destroyed thatched houses and erected houses of plank boards along the streets. Noh and Kabuki stages flourished on the side streets and offered dance and music for old and young, priest and Shinobi alike. They came here in large crowds to watch temple and shrine dances, spider dance, lion dance, joruri and many more. Inside, now twelve after bleeding, she put on her own nightly performance.
On the pretext of seeing these gaudy shows, men, ruffian and monk, rutted in the quarters. Her first customer was a clumsy young man of fourteen, a priest. He had come on a boat to watch the Kabuki dance, but he realised that a thief had run away with his gold. Left with only thirty momme, he had no choice but to settle for a Tsubone, though he was happy that he was her first!
Her proprietor charged extra and asked him to be careful for she was delicate and nervous. He sat down by the lantern, a tall fellow, his head shining like polished stone. She knew men enjoyed being taken into the mouth: deeply hungered, she had serviced military-serving Shinobi with her mouth for five momme, sometimes less, from a tender age of seven. The trick was to treat the organ gently than masticating food, like bolus, only bigger and weeping at head. If it was suckled, like an infant suckling at teat, it flowed easily; and they came in Wars to Rain, un-feeling and heart-less. It was best to entice them, not draw their ire . . .
When he loosened his organ from his layered garment's trappings, after undoing his prayer ropes, it was still rising and twitching, beading at the head, its hue shy. She chose to encourage it for she found it to be a convenient size for being taken into the mouth. Slipping it between her lips, she retained it into the mouth, brought it under the action of teeth and tongue—all the while she pleasured the swelling lips between her thighs, grew moist and slimy.
He grew a little harder, longer, thicker, but not enough to cause her discomfort. Then she backed away, lay down in a band of light, spoke scarce a word to him. He lay on top, weight on his elbows and forearms, planted on either side of her head. Still she felt pinned down beneath his bulk whilst he undid her robe from the front and opened it—he left it on, as though to confirm her nakedness.
He lowered his head on the shoulder, rested it there, and unfastened his flowing sun-yellow trousers and slowly rolled them down to his thighs—and then he was clueless whilst he stabbed his impatient and ripened organ here and there at the region where her spread thighs joined together with her genitals, unable to locate her channel. True to his profession, he was more virgin than she!
Taking his penis firmly, she moved down a bit and pulled it downwards till it touched and parted her lips. A little breathless, he sank into her clamping channel, slurring about Kami—and what not. She did not bleed: she had prepared herself well; and though he was not gentle, he was not harsh, either. His thrusts long, quick and erratic, his back clammy, contracting under her palms. She felt full with him, feeling friction and stranger things.
Her little body shook, strands of sweat flying off and winding down around the balls of her shoulders, muscles of her limbs, and at the top of her pink-crested breasts. His hand moved and grasped at her breast, almost pulling it out of her flesh! She was quite small at the top, almost flat.
Lights broke away from fireworks and set upon them in darkness; and he kept grunting, pumping his hips in madness to quench his need. Untired, she had only begun to taste a mechanism called pleasure and he burst open at the tip and filled up her channel and womb. A warm wetness spread into her belly, and when he pulled out, it spread outwards as though an organ was cut open and its coagulating blood was distributed on her thighs. His ejaculation was warm: his organ dripped, thickly glazed. Thankfully, he did not ask of her to take him into her mouth again.
He paid her a little extra—five momme—for her oral technique. She hid away the money, smiled that she would be out of here soon! Yet months passed by in waiting . . . men came and went, but she could not say no—she did not have the luxury. She sat atop fat ones, squeezed her channel, and they gushed faster. They fled after playing—old fuddy-duddies!
When sky changed and took upon Rain's gloom in winter, she went to the woman who ran this place. She stood by her door, hearing her speak to a man in a desperate and angry tongue.
"I loved the innocence in your face—your eyes. Now, you sit around, sour-faced, as though you have smelled a fat man's shit-smeared robes," she spoke, her voice influenced by ire.
"Your language is unnecessarily foul," spoke he, in a voice that was wintery, unchanging.
"I am more cultured in speech than you could ever be," spoke she, her voice whispering.
"Lovely. The glimpse into your culture is inspiring."
"Oh, your imagination and tongue run wild today—humour me," spoke she, laughing. "I have done much for you. Do something for me, too."
Silence. The man said nothing. She watched their shadows on the paper-screen, one tall and lithe and the other less tall and shapely. Wind spoke once, and she heard her speak again, her tone diminishing from emotions: "why do you not keep me as your mistress?"
The man did not speak a word for a moment, which must have felt longer to the woman that awaited his words. "The council will not allow it."
"And you?" she asked, her tone quick, hurt.
He said nothing, and she spoke, her voice wounded, delicate: "you think me dirty, do you not, darling? And what of you? You expel your filth in me—what does that make you? Dirty!"
She pushed him back in anger, yet he did not lose his balance—black figures moving in paper-white. He stepped back, watching. "Why do you quarrel with me? If this arrangement displeases you, I can stop coming," he spoke, his words too honest.
"Ah, and now you hold me by the neck, knowing that I love you, that I cannot live without you—you cruel boy! Leave—get out!" she shouted, and she heard a clatter of ink-bottles; and not a moment later, a man left her room, his gait unaffected by her words, arms white as snow, hair resting on his back like a vertical brush-stroke against the white. She could not see his face . . .
Too curious, she stepped inside and saw the woman: upon herself, she wore a colour that mocked Higanbana, and her lips mocked it more. Her eyes sparkled like fish in Tsukuyomi's reflection, her face crafted after her mother offered up her orison to Kami, hair parted in negligent simplicity over her brow: O', she was beautiful, a dream, tendered of winter's heart, redder than red sasanqua; face teased by moon's visions most careless, not kisses, lovely in the white light. Hanakoto!
And when she looked upon her, heard her name, Karin!, on her lips, she was arrested by her gaze. Karin bowed, told Hanakoto of her woes in Rain, and she was most understanding. She offered Karin sake and a compartment in Sancha quarters, said she was pretty and kind.
Karin was . . . overjoyed; and two years blinked away under twinkling skies and in seasons and storms; they stayed longer whilst their child matured—nurtured him more. Men built more houses by cutting off rushes. From her window, they scattered about like crabs and stood polished, brown mounds amidst the marsh of rushes.
And one autumn, a man came by in night when storm illumed Yoshiwara's walls and waters outside. He was strange, of sickly white, eyes slit-like, tongue long. He hissed, not spoke. He was snake-like—a snake! He asked of her if she was a pure Uzumaki, and she told him that she was pure-blooded from her mother's and father's side.
Then, without laying with her, he offered to take her from this place, to pay her debt in full. A rush of blood to the head—she said, "yes!", and marched out into the willows and hazels of Leaf, never to be the same again . . .
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He walked in the rain-dressed forest, illuminated rainy realms that guided his way. The land went down, and there lay another forest that hid away the men he had come to kill. It was easy business, and his was a history told in mud and rains and hands—water, blue waters as far as the eye could see. When lands forgot her children, it bequeathed love to rejection, life to death. His people died—so did his kin. Alas, life went on—so did his . . . in rains, rains, more rains.
His jargon had been hard to conceal: his teeth chomped away on it with brutality; words rolled off his tongue like water off plates; and, often, he burred his r's in his Hōzuki accent, though he had learnt to soften his tongue amongst foreign men. Many did not enjoy his speech; he could tell.
He remembered his mother's face when he set out, hatchet-like, blue in the hallows of her eyes, seams of her nose and mouth. She had lost the swarthy hue he likened to honey in the last few years—old and battered, she lumbered in the house, tormented him by speaking of his dead brother, father. They were gone; she could not understand—a mad ol' crone!
He went ahead and saw mounds, black as hard dirt, in the clearing. They had built canals into the ground after cutting off trees, in the manner of crabs that dig up deep holes round their bodies. He did not understand the young Uchiha man, in line to become the Head. What did he want with these fools? He was unhappy, displeased with their audacity to stop Leaf's water—after the treaty signing. A negotiation and some gold would have made these men happy, but he wanted to teach the thugs a lesson—of a lifetime.
Rain came: he went. After a hard day at work, they slept in dusk's last glories, their beds dry as summer's reeds. They never saw his blade descend; he was fast like that. One clean downward movement rent them up in two. His steel tore up the guts, crushed spines into splinters. Grunts—just grunts—and they bled out quick on the ground made from smoothed mud. Red spread out on hazel brown, spots of it decorated walls like flowers, turning black as it went into mud. His blade made things messy, but no one had ever survived its edge.
He stepped out, dripping in red and rain; yet one won out, and he forgot their pain. They lay dead in the hut, torn through, mauled by Leaf's savagery. If it were not him, another would have ripped through them, unminding of their plight. He made peace with that, for he was poor; and they, unlucky . . .
He reached Leaf's border, not delighted to find him standing, white in shadow. He gave him gold, never forgetting his promise; and the smell of it made him turn greedier. Though the metal was cold between his fingers, it had a sweet smell, one that pulled in desires on a boy's dreams. He felt that they fled from him into ether's spread, never to be seen again; but his gold awoke in him a taste of things to come, and he wanted more from life, too!
The young Uchiha smiled, beautiful like moon, amused by his desperation; yet he did not speak. Silent—like dreams—he that was shadow became shadow in the forest's night; and he could not help but like the weight of gold in his hands, his heart's joy expanding beyond his control, murdered men forgotten!
In winter, he returned back to his house that was empty and falling in a quiet that was disquieting; dust had disappeared behind white, and droplets hung like stars from the shingled roof, and mist afloat on things he left behind, brushed by winter's disinterest, almost solidifying. A man told him to find her by the tree on the hill off yonder. He remembered seeing one there, tall and crooked against full moons. When he was a child, its broken shadow sneaked into his room, spread its limbs wide out, and terrified him. That was a long time ago, for even fears located burrows to hide inside till they were forgotten.
Rain was deep white, chaste like maidens: it was snowing, ground a garment for virtue. His feet sank in, greying footfalls, eyes taking in purple dots that stood shining in winter's bosom. Earth had risen by the foot of the terror-inviting tree that leant over it, bowing without sun in sight.
Surprised, he looked at the mound, his soft-purple eyes moist centres in the light choked by winter that went down into hollows of his eyes, across the bridge of his nose, along the curve of his thinning lips. Then surprise changed—blood would have frozen if not for the warmth from his heart.
His eyes had gone paler with grief's touch, starred with bristly lashes and dots of ice. Then he grimaced and sank down into the soft snow that slid away from his body, hands on the tree that was less frightening than his boyhood memories.
"Ya bitch!" he choked out, eyes raining without rain. "Ya stupid bitch!" Then his back bowed, purple a haze in his closing eyes . . .
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They said that they hoisted this savage up from the belly of some rust-eaten boat. He was quiet, yet that was not always true. From weepy to angry, he became sentimental rather quickly during forlorn, dreadful, wet days. They called him a madman from caves. He did not care. Their words meant little. When passion wrecked his soul in envy, he did not see friend or foe, he brutalised all into bits, pieces, guts.
He created carnage in the prison. The man who held him behind seal-coated bars feared his metamorphosis, but he feared his constitution more. He wanted to sell him off to a village in Fire, said that he would bring him good money. Yet he preferred to sit in the dark. Idle hands were a Devil's worship; idle mind, its playground. He chose neither: he prayed and prostrated before light, dreaming of Kami who would come unto him—someday.
He set his mind on birds that came from the window—trilling in his ears their songs. They loved him, and he them. In madness which attacked him, he wanted the world to be wet with blood; and being flushed with youth made the passion easy. His heart was cooled by their innocence, their love-filled songs.
Yet one man stole his bird and twisted its wing and made it cry out. It kicked up his sleeping fury, whereupon his body altered its state: a grotesque enlargement of face, limbs, body. Veins fell away—blood thrilled to the lash. He was freed. The brute thought that the prison kept him safe, but he was a fool.
He broke away from walls, broke into his body, wadded up clods of dirt and gut into his mouth. This place—dark vulgarised it: storm freed it. Flashes, only flashes, lashed dark's back and abuse glared white upon its flesh. At last, his heart cooled, and he picked up the bird and went back to the broken prison, his hands cradling the creature whilst it writhed and jumped. He kissed it . . .
Come morning, another prison-keeper appeared: he was young, beautiful, white like Kami. His hair, winter's blessing, and, upon his brow, two red dots existed, like eyes supreme. He said that he was Kimimaro; he told him that he was Jūgo. He took from him the injured bird and made it well by his bones.
He sat behind the bars, his grip becoming a clutch, storm-battered knot of teeth hemmed in by a rough mouth. Jūgo told him that he was never abundant with friends; and Kimimaro told him that he should not forget the recitation of his victims. Had Kimimaro mocked him of his killings? He could not say, for he was a little boy and he loved the divinity in him.
Kami lumbered around with dirty work and tended the lantern and prison himself; and Jūgo watched him like a priest crazed whilst he braced for storms outside. When Kami talked, he listened. He would let him outside prison; and Jūgo would sit down by his feet, grasp at his hips, bury his face into his belly, and weep as though he was a mother he never had.
Then Kami would laugh, and love would spread out across his cheeks, like Autumn night's calling. Radiant his beauty—divine his love—which had but spread coil by coil into his being. He had never loved before—never! And it had gripped him, stolen his soul, swollen his spirit! And years went by under Kami's gaze, and he grew, yet his love stayed the same—pure like Autumn, still like winter.
Jūgo, lost boy from caves, he never wanted to part from Kami's bosom, his Grace; but love, like all things, did not last. Like animals unbound, they came, men from Shadow Village; and they raised swords and struck down the young Kami he loved. He showed them no mercy. A hero in his tale, he slaughtered; not leaving the child Genin amongst them, Jūgo tore open his mouth with claws un-feeling.
Then he sat down, picked up the staring Kami, dug his maw deep into his heart—and he ate it, though he still wept, for Kami's heart had gone cold. Outside, he dug up his beloved's grave, claws on freezing cold. Winter had ruined him and his heart . . .
Now, standing on the fulcrum of sanity, he looked upon Kami—re-born—who stood over him, sky burning overhead. Sun started down, and Kami bedecked himself with hues furious. In this life, he had grown up in fury's belly. Had he come to avenge his previous death? O', joy!
Funny some would say, his eye shade was a curse, but it was true just the same that his love for this divinity was a curse, too. Mouth screaming—inventory of guts—corpses stripped of flesh. This was his welcome to his beloved! You did not live once, but died twice . . .
You came back to me—O', Kami, he whispered, in the deepest love . . .
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EN: Sancha. Tea-House waitresses-cum-courtesans. They began to appear around the last quarter of the seventeenth century. Their prices were from 0.25 to 0.50 ryo. When the Tayū's price was fixed at 90 momme, the Kōshi was 60 momme, and the Sancha, 30 momme.
Tsubone. Low-class prostitutes who operated inside a Tsubone (compartment). They cost 5 momme and 3 momme (less than 0.10 ryo).
Hashi. The lowest class of prostitutes. They cost about 1 momme or 100 mon.
It should be noted that, as decreed by the Bakufu, the official minimum legal age for prostitution was eighteen, but children were offered for sex at any age at the employer's behest. For instance, of the many Tayūs, few were initiated at age thirteen (only two at Yoshiwara). Most new Tayūs were twelve when they were presented to the clients. Though it was rare for girl children in training (who were put into training from ten or eleven years of age) to become pregnant, it did happen. In Yoshiwara, women's productive years were also quite short (retirement by twenty-seven was common); hence, no special consideration was offered to young girls.
Boys were offered no special considerations, as well, and boy acolytes (chigo), as young as seven, engaged in sexual liaisons with priests (a fact that's widely documented by the Jesuit priests that went there from Europe). Many of the boys that offered sexual services in the Bath- and Tea-Houses (prominent places for sexual transactions) usually started around seven. The seventeenth-century work called Shiratama no soshi (The white Ball book) states that a male was considered desirable as a homosexual sex partner from age seven to twenty-five.