We hath returned with yet another chapter. This story is flowing so well. I just can't stop writing. Not an entirely good thing. I've barely managed any painting recently, which is a big nono for someone trying to become professional. So I may have to take a break and just get some artwork done before I write any more chapters.
For now, though, let's just forget that I'm out of control and enjoy this chapter.
Miasma
Here the power is ruthless and the truth is deaf. Here the air is filled with the miasma of sin
- Jean Racine
"Let us go a little farther afield today," Kagewaki suggested as we set out on our usual morning walk. He was wearing the hakama combo with his hair up again. The look suited him.
"As you wish, my Lord." I wasn't exactly going to deny him. The gardens were beautiful, but I'd been walking through them almost every day for weeks. Something a little different definitely wouldn't go amiss.
Kagewaki led us through his own gardens at an amble. "I'm finding that I have more energy nowadays. Who'd have thought that food would have such a big impact on my health?"
"Diet is exceedingly important." You couldn't get far without a good diet. Especially not when you were sick. You have to eat the right foods. "I'm glad you're starting to feel better, my Lord. Soon, I'm sure you'll be running around like any other man." A bit of an exaggeration, perhaps, but it wouldn't be a terrible thing to have him more active. With how much I'd gathered he had spent time in bed until I arrived, I was surprised his muscles hadn't atrophied.
"Let us not be too hasty with possible outcomes yet, miss Nori."
We passed by the familiar scenery, then into new territory. The gardens gave away to open fields filled with men. Men that were sparring. The longing I felt for being able to practise kenjutsu returned with an unpleasant throb. Oh, to do what these men were doing again.
The two of us came to stand next to a man dressed very modestly in pale blue robes.
"General Watanabe," Kagewaki greeted.
The old man grinned. "Kagewaki! Good to see you, boy." Familiar with the Lord, then. As the general of his father's army, it made sense. "Been some time since you've joined us in the training fields. Come to remember the grip of a sword?"
Kagewaki shook his head. "Not I, General. I feel I still hold too ill to be much good to you. I came to introduce Miss Masanori. She has been caring for my health as of late, and is a member of my council. It's she I think you will find interest in. In her village, she practised the method of the sword and has expressed a continued interest in it. I thought perhaps you could take her on as a student during her stay."
What?
The general looked dubious, eyeing me. In my delicate pink kimono, I suppose I didn't look like much.
"My Lord, perhaps she isn't a good fit for our armies? We deal with a particular type of, ah... man."
Oooh, now that rankled something fierce. "I have trained for longer than some of those men in that field have been alive. If the particular type of, ah... men you deal with are inexperienced children and no other, then I have no interest in your teachings." I was not going to deal with being belittled in favour of inexperienced boys because I didn't have a cock. "Thank you for the opportunity, Lord Kagewaki, but I think I'll take my leave."
I was halfway back to the gate that separated the training fields from Kagewaki's gardens when I was halted by the general. "Tomorrow morning, girl. Find yourself some hakama and don't be late. I admire a woman that won't let a man quash her worth. Don't disappoint me."
I turned again and bowed to the General. "Thank you." Then I left. If I stayed now, I'd feel like I cheated myself of a dramatic exit.
Lunch rolled around, and I debated getting up from my place sat on the floor of my room to go on a hunt for something to eat.
My debate was halted when a knock came at the frame of the shoji screen door separating my room from the hallway. The other screen door, leading outside to the gardens, was thrown open and letting the warm air in.
"Hold on!"
Hoisting myself to my feet, I brushed myself of imaginary dirt and opened the door, expecting to see a servant, summoning me to this or that locale to deal with whichever Hitomi man wanted me in the moment. Kagewaki was the usual source of a request, but the elder Hitomi hadn't thrown a death threat at me in a few days, so I wouldn't be surprised if it was for him.
The person that stood at my door wasn't a servant.
Kagewaki stood, holding a bundle of cloth, a patient smile on his face.
"Lord Kagewaki!" He'd never come to my room. In fact, I'd never seen him outside of his chambers in the castle. It was always his chambers or the gardens. I wasn't even aware he knew where my room was. "To what do I owe the visit, Lord Kagewaki?"
"I believed it may have been easier for me to source these than you." He offered the bundle to me. "I didn't account for sword fighting when choosing your kimonos."
I recognised the colours right away. The pale and dark blue of the kendogi and hakama I'd need for tomorrow.
Overwhelmed and clearly not thinking straight, I bypassed the offered clothes and wrapped my arms around Kagewaki's thin frame, burying my face in his shoulder. "I can't thank you enough, Kagewaki."
As smarmy as I had been, hinting that being able to practise was something I was desperate for, he had come through for me and found a way for it to happen. He'd found a way for me to practise. I owed him so much for that. I had no idea how I could possibly repay him.
He froze for a moment, then gently rested a hand on the back of my neck, holding me closer for a moment.
Long enough for me to realise what I had done. I pulled right back and bowed deeply. "Thank you, my Lord." That was a bit less of a faux pas, but the damage had been done.
"Stand. please." He stepped past me into my room, setting the bundle of clothing on top of the chest, adding it to the clothes he'd already gifted me.
"My Lord, is it wise for us to be in my room alone?" In his room, we had the excuse that I was his doctor. We didn't need chaperoning when I was treating him. Still, often enough there was some servant there milling around. Right now we were alone and in my room. If someone saw this, there would be no way to justify it. It was far too intimate a meeting place to be anything innocent or professional. Kagewaki could probably talk himself out of this. He was the Lord. But if someone found us, I'd be thrown right under the Hitomi-shaped bus and likely right into the Lord's sword for daring to get fresh with his son. This was not safe for me.
"Nori, you are so tense. Please, relax."
Nori. Uh oh.
Abort. Abort.
If I could actually run from this situation, I'd be halfway across the castle right now. Something told me, though, that Kagewaki wouldn't let this die.
"Join me," he bid, stepping out onto the veranda and folding himself gracefully into a seated position.
Pressing my lips together, I did as I was bid, making sure to put a very respectable distance between us. I really didn't need to be putting any more ideas into his head. In any other situation, in any other time, I'd probably be pursuing dating him. He was sweet and I did like him, and I just couldn't avoid how hot he really was no matter how I tried. A bit gentle to really be my type, he did have the looks part down pat. If he were a bit rougher, he'd be the ideal man.
But we weren't back home in Tokyo.
We were here in the Warring States, with a massive divide between our classes that just couldn't be looked past. I was no virgin noble lady bred to become a Lord's bride. I couldn't do half of what was expected of me, should the impossibility happen that we did end up in some feudal approximation of dating. Nothing about the situation would work.
And would I want it to, should I let it happen?
Did I want to be Lady Hitomi, stone-faced wife of a feudal lord? Relegated to looking pretty and laying around in my husband's luxury while he ordered wars to be fought in his, our name?
No. No, I didn't want that.
"Lord Kagewaki-"
"Please." His eyes found mine. I turned away. "Nori, I believe we've grown close enough that the Lord title has become stale. Don't you agree?"
Yes. "I am your staff, my Lord." I was a servant. That was all the intimacy I could allow.
"You are my friend," he insisted. "And I believed something more also. Is that not true? Have I misread? The looks, the embrace." He looked like he was doubting himself. That look of doubt just looked wrong on him. Despite his gentle nature, Kagewaki was a rather sure man. His confidence shouldn't be questioned. So when he opened his mouth to further question himself, I took charge of the situation, for better or worse.
I silenced him with my lips. The kiss was firm and desperate. My fingers weaved through his hair, his dug into my hips. He was surprisingly fierce as he kissed, using tongue and teeth in a way I never thought a Noble Lord would know how to. And I wanted to give in. How desperately I wanted to let this happen, to start an affair with the man I could never truly have. A man so sweet that I melted into his gentle hands.
Abruptly I tore myself away.
It was all well and good wanting, but it could never happen.
I had to stop trying to give myself false hope.
"Excuse me, Lord Kagewaki." I left him sat in my room alone, wiping away frustrated tears as I walked away from pretty much everything I wanted.
I was not gentle with the strings as I played.
My tears had long-since dried up, and left in their wake an anger that I just couldn't shift.
Why would this happen to me? Why?! Of all the places I could end up in this bastard time, of all the people I could meet, why did I end up a servant in a warlord's castle, falling for the sweet unattainable Lord's son? I struggled enough making connections as it was. Why would I be put in this situation?
Where was the justice?
Unable to play through my anger, I shoved the koto away and just slumped, burying my face in my hands.
Why?
"You have caused quite a stir today, Masanori."
Naraku stood at the doorway, dressed in his usual pelts, looking smug as one could behind a mask.
"Fuck off, Naraku. I don't have the patience." The last thing I needed right now was to listen to Naraku's smug voice croon about what I'd done to incite ire or admiration or whatever the fuck people were saying about me behind my back. I just didn't want to deal with any of it. I wanted to wallow alone, and he could damn well let me tonight.
That tentative friendship we'd built the last time we'd been in this room together dissolved.
"Such a crude mouth." Despite my cursing, he strode forwards and crouched between me and the koto I'd shoved away.
Warm fingers found my chin, tilting it upwards.
This close I could see his eyes in the depths of the baboon's. They were red. Not the milky pink I'd seen in albinism, but truly red.
He wiped gently at my cheeks. "Such a pretty thing need not cry. You shouldn't be so sad, Masanori."
I shoved him away and stood. "I said fuck off, Naraku," I snarled down at him, still crouched before me and craning his neck to look up. "Leave me alone."
He joined me on his feet, towering over me once again. He, like Kagewaki, stood half a foot taller than I did. "Perhaps not sad. Angry, then. Does the anger burn? The hopeless frustration you find yourself in? What will you do, Masanori?"
I shoved him again. He scarcely managed to avoid the koto as he stepped back to steady himself. The dark chuckle sounding from the baboon's twisted muzzle infuriated me. The punch I sent his way was caught just before my fist collided with his face, and he held my wrist firmly in the air beside his face, keeping it prisoner as I struggled.
"Little Masanori, lost in the anger of a lost love, destined to die. It's oh so sad."
He didn't manage to avoid the other punch I drove into his ribs, grunting loudly and stepping back again. Ambidextrous, bitch. Take that.
Naraku had had enough by then, though. He herded me backwards in a burst of movement, snatching up my other wrist and pinning me against the thin wooden wall of the music room.
The air was hot between us, our pants mingling together in the small gap.
"What roiling anger you have."
"Shut up!"
Naraku must have moved first, releasing me to grab at the sash of my kimono. My own hands found his pelted shoulders, dragging him closer. My kimono fell open under his hands, and pooled at my ankles. My hadajuban followed suit soon after.
"Such decoration!" Fingers teased over the irezumi panels of koi fish on my skin. I had mirroring panels of the carp swimming in waves on my upper arms, and travelling down each side of my body to my knees. I rarely wore shirts who's sleeves didn't pass my elbows, never here, so no one had even seen my tattoos here. I half expected outrage, but Naraku's fingers continued to tease and trace the fish with a gentle touch akin to admiration. "What did you do to deserve these, I wonder?"
"Wouldn't you like to know?" I wasn't used to such a reaction to my tattoos. My family didn't even know I had them. I couldn't bring tot ell my sweet, traditional mother. The partners I'd had over the years since I had gotten them had varying reactions to them, mostly negative. This was the first time I'd seen such genuine admiration for them, besides that one fling I had with an Englishman who had come to work in Tokyo.
"Perhaps I can persuade you to share your story."
There wasn't much of a story to tell. I got them done at nineteen in a stupid rebellious phase. I didn't regret them, but I didn't much love them any more, either. They were just another part of me.
Instead of promising him a story, I worked at dragging his cloak down over his slim shoulders. It pooled at his feet. He wore entirely too many layers under the pelt. I divested him of his haori and slid his kimono shirt off his shoulders, leaving his chest bare besides the long hair that flowed over his shoulders, before reaching for the hideous mask still obscuring his face.
A hand in my hair, yanking my head back roughly, halted my movements.
"Patience," the baboon mask crooned, dark and mocking and sinful.
I'd been right, the day I had met Kagewaki. His voice and Naraku's were just so close. And they did sound good, whispering dark things in my ear, while-
I whimpered, lip caught between my teeth, surrendering to the wandering hand teasing at my flesh.
My surrender only lasted so long before reaching out again, finding the ties of his hakama and loosening them.
We touched and explored each other under the light of the lamp beside us; gentle, rough, sweet, hard. Our bodies moved, sweat slicked between us, noises rang out into the air.
The lamp burned out, but our passions didn't. At some point during the night, he lost the the mask. In the dark, I couldn't see his face, but his lips were hot against mine, my chest, my stomach.
Oh...
More info:
Kendogi - it's the top half of the uniform in kendo practise. Kenjutsu likely has their own version, but there are so many different versions of kenjutsu, and there were even more back in the Sengoku period, that I just didn't want to hazard a guess as to what the uniform's called, so we're going with Kendogi, like it or lump it.
Hadajuban - basically the underwear of the time. It's usually a thin cotton robe that looks an awful lot like a kimono itself. You'll see often at the collar of most kimonos in InuYasha that theres an extra layer there underneath the collar of the top layer? That's a hadajuban. They can be top only, with a skirt for females, or full length robes. They're also called asetori, which translates basically to 'soak up sweat' so you can guess what they're for. They keep the less easy to clean layer (the kimono) clean from skin oils and sweats, a lot like the shift layer used to do under corsets and dresses in ye olden times.
Kagewaki/Nori - I didn't explain this in the last chapter when it was first bought up while Naraku was teasing Nori, but it is pretty important. I'm sure you've heard of honorifics, a suffix added to the end of names in Japan. They're something extremely important for politeness in Japan. There are loads, but the basic ones you'll probably see are Sama, San, Chan, Kun, Sempai, Kohai, and along those lines. Notice that there's pretty much always an English prefix added to any name in this fic. Lord, Miss, etc. That's a vague translation of Japanese suffixes. Here, both Kagewaki and Nori drop the suffixes. That's incredibly intimate. It's reserved for very close friends, family or lovers in Japan. Not something a doctor and their incredibly high up on the social standing patient should be doing.
Irezumi - There's a massive history of tattooing in Japan. For almost all of Japanese history, tattooing someone marked them as a criminal. There were usually specific tattoos done on the forehead or forearm that signified a criminal, particularly around the Warring States era. There have been some fads in Japanese history where decorative tattoos were literally just that, decorative. Men and women had them done. Some even got couples tattoos, that would only look complete and make sense when the couple were holding hands. Totally romantic and something my tattoo-disliking partner won't get done with me (who has eleven tattoos and more to come when I can actually leave the house and get booking more sessions - my next piece is actually going to be a Bankotsu piece on my forearm). The reason that the Japanese today have a particularly negative view of tattooing (literally, I can't even go into most hot springs. It's a bit of a pain) is because in the late 1800's, Japan banned tattooing because, as it began trading more with the West, it wanted us foreigners to view them with respect, and the Japanese thought that tattoos weren't a good representation of them. Of course, a lot of Westerners loved irezumi and a black market for them sprang up. Tattooing was made legal again in Japan in 1948, but the damage was done, and the Japanese still generally have a negative view of tattoos today. Big block of history there, but tattooing is one of my major loves. I've designed tattoos for people before, and have designed all of my own, too. I just love them. But as far as in this fic goes, Naraku, as a product of a bandit himself, would likely have only seen tattoos as negative things, showing the sign of a criminal. Nori's tattoo is a beautiful, but massive munewari soushinbori style piece. The tattoo style that Nori has, though, started happening during the mid edo period when block printing artists started becoming tattooists, so they're a hundred or so years out in the fics current timeline, so Naraku likely sees the amount of ink Nori has and thinks that she's a pretty bad bitch.
Haori - Okay, big pet peeve. A haori is not the general kimono shirt you see most men wearing in InuYasha. Haori's are like overcoats. That purple layer you see on Naraku's costume in the earlier parts of the anime? That's a haori. In fact, that's the haori that Nori is peeling off Naraku in this chapter. That blue layer he wears nearer the end of the anime, when he's all spikes and tentacles? That's a haori. Okay, mini rant over. Haori are not the kimono shirts. Okay? Good.
Review corner:
darkvibeslover - Good to see you back again! I'm glad I've had the time to sit and write so much! Sadly, I'll only really have the time until the end of July, when I should hopefully be free to leave my house again without fear of dying. So enjoy these frequent updates while you can! Right now, while I have a backlog of chapters (six sitting waiting to be posted right now) I'll be updating Miasma every other day or so. I hope you enjoyed the Naraku and Nori relationship development in this chapter. It was so fun to write.
Guest - I'm glad you're enjoying it so far! I hope this lived up to your expectations when it comes to what happens with Nori and Naraku.
Okay, this chapter, my dudes. This chapter was the absolute most fun I've had while writing this story. I love angst, I love sin, and I love illicit frustration/hate-fucking. This chapter hit just about everything it needed to make my soul sing as I wrote. I hope you love this chapter as much as I do, because honestly, I think this is my favourite chapter of any of my stories so far.
I feel sorry for just about everyone in this chapter beside Naraku, who ended up the ultimate winner of this chapter.
I'll see you guys again, after I've posted the new chapter of ITJOTW. At this point it's a race to see which of the two will start with the canon plot first. Will we see Kagome or Sango first? Let's find out.