5.

Snow began to fall late that afternoon, as twilight settled on the mountains. Kotaro had been full of questions, enjoying the chance to actually just be a child, playing with ducks and Tobimaru. With the boy's help, Hira rounded up chickens and ducks, stabled the pony and horse, and prepared the house for the coming weather. He had managed to spear a sizeable trout which Hira promised they could eat for dinner, once he cleaned and got it prepared.

Seeing his reluctance at the task, she slipped a hand inside the sleeve of her robe, producing a kaiken knife. He blinked in surprise that she had it hidden there. Then, in an economy of skill, she unsheathed it and showed him how to clean the fish.

He had been curious about the cemetery. She explained that there were times when a patient simply could not be saved from death. This particular cemetery was more for those who had no one to bury them. Other's who passed beyond her abilities to heal had family who could care for their mortal remains. The goose, somehow or another, had decided that the cemetery was his and the corresponding path in front of it. Hira told the boy that the spirits of the dead had taken over the goose to keep the cemetery, and herself, safe.

"How do you know all this stuff?" he finally asked.

"Oh..." Hira said, "My family had many healers, samurai, and metalsmiths. My female relations learned much from them, as did I. Our job was the defense of the home when the men were away. That didn't stop us from being attacked though. We had to fight for ourselves, and we had to tend to the wounded and sick, both at home and those from the battlefield."

"Where is your family then? Why aren't you with them?"

"I am with them..." Hira said, and nodded towards the cemetery. "This cemetery is not just for the poor and abandoned. My family is all in there."

Kotaro stopped and stared at her a moment. "All of them?" he asked.

Hira nodded. "All of them. You saw that burned out estate on the ride up here, no doubt?" She asked him.

Kotaro nodded.

"That was our ancestral home. I was with my husband and his family when this place was attacked. I returned here to bury my family and then my husband. I chose to stay here, our summer home, and made it mine."

"What about your husband's family? Or your family? Don't you have a son?"

"Eh, boy! You're impertinent aren't you?"

"It's just a question..." the boy muttered.

Hira smiled at him. "There were no children. My husband's family is better left in the past. Come on, you. I have sweet potatoes to go with that fish. How does that sound?"

"Satsumaimo's?!" the boy exclaimed, his face brightening. "Really?"

"Of course, we can even use some of that fish to make up something for Nanashi. He could use it."

"Is he going to be all right?"

"So long as you keep helping me by catching such fine fish, he will be..." Hira said, "It's just going to take some time for him to heal. See that plant over there?" She nodded at the bush in question. "That's shiso, go pick me a few big leaves to wrap this fish in and we can go cook it."

As the boy moved to do her bidding she asked. "Tell me more about how he got his name?"

"Nanashi? He said he'd been found as a baby in a shipwreck. The people who raised him called him that because he didn't have a name." Kotaro plucked off three of the biggest leaves and returned to Hira, who promptly wrapped the fish in them.

"I see. That makes more sense now, doesn't it?"

"I suppose..."

"A baby in a shipwreck wouldn't know his name." Hira replied, picking the fish up and heading for the engawa. "So whoever found him had to give him something."

"Yeah..." Kotaro agreed. "I promised him I'd give him a good strong name."

"Did you now? Seems to me, as well, that Nanashi is destined to have a somewhat adventurous life."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"A baby found in a shipwreck, grows up to be a samurai. He fights in many battles and then becomes a wandering ronin who later gains a boy for a companion. Sounds like the stuff of legends and tales doesn't it?"

"Hey," Kotaro looked as if a light went off inside his head. "You're right... It does sound like a great story!"

"Yes..." Hira encouraged, "And you are one of the main characters in it." As they approached the genkan she said. "Just be quiet going in, Kotaro, Nanashi may still be sleeping."

"I will..." he said as they paused to remove sandals.

He actually didn't rouse until she had the fish grilling over the fire. He was on his back, and didn't feel much like moving. Upon seeing his eyes flutter open, Hira resettled herself by him. Sweat dampened both his temples, and she moistened the rag to mop at his face.

"Think you can sit up?" She asked.

"Maybe a little..." he muttered. She nodded and lent her support. As he winced out loud, reflexively running his hand across his ribs, she resettled the comforter around his shoulders.

"You're fever is up," she said. "That may be a good thing. Means your body is trying to fight back."

Nanashi nodded, reaching up with his other hand to clutch at the blanket. He looked around, seeing Tobimaru, but not Kotaro.

"He's in the toire," she said. "He's had a very busy day."

"Is he behaving himself?"

"Oh yes. Even caught his own dinner. Are you hungry at all?"

"Not really..." He said. "Though some of that tea wouldn't go amiss."

Hira smiled, and fetched the cup. Handing it to him, she said. "I've tried to repair the worst of the rents and tears on your clothes, but I am afraid your juban is a loss. I have an extra. You are more than welcome to it."

"You've repaired my clothes?" he asked, pausing, and looking at her over the top of the cup.

"Of course... I don't just stitch up people."

He stared at her a moment.

Hira shook her head, smiling. "The whole idea behind being a healer is for the patient to leave in a better state then when they came in. I don't just tend to bodies. I tend soul and spirit as well."

"And the clothes?"

"It's all one and the same. Proper clothes, proper rest, proper medicine, proper food."

"You were definitely bushi class..." he commented. "Most apothecaries and village healers just take your money and run."

Hira just huffed at him. "There are those whom I would charge an emporer's ransom for my services. There are others whom I would not. Each situation is unique." She smiled, picked up the small teapot and set it near him. "Let me go get it, its going to be colder tonight."

Entering the storage room, Kotaro was sliding the shoji back over the toire's entrance. He looked up at her.

"Somebody is awake..." She said, nodding her head towards the washitsu. His face lit up and within minutes she could hear him excitedly babbling about his days adventures. She found the clean white under robe, and added another pair of tabi to go with it and returned to the room.

Now that he was sat up, albiet listing somewhat to one side, Nanashi eyed the food on the grates in the irori. Hira set the clothes besides him, smiling at Kotaro's prattling.

"I promised someone some sweet potatoes with dinner." She said to Nanashi then looked at Kotaro. "Will you help him get those on, while I go fetch them?" she indicated the clothes she set down.

"Sure!" Kotaro chirped.

Nanashi glanced at him then looked up at her. "Unbelievable!" He muttered, shaking his head slowly, sipping at the tea. "What happened to the evil little terror I rode in here with?"

"Hey!" Kotaro protested.

Hira giggled, a magical sound, and went around behind the ginkgo fusuma to the cave. "You're not the only patient in this house," Her voice floated back.

"What's that supposed to mean!?" Kotaro asked, as he helped Nanashi get the under robe on.

"Nothing for you to worry about," she said seconds later, emerging from behind the fusuma with two sweet potatoes. She settled on her knees by the irori, slipping the potatoes into the coals of the fire.

"You know..." Nanashi said, as he tucked the robe awkwardly around him. "I think maybe a bowl of that okayu might go down." He fumbled a little, trying to pull the blanket back around his shoulders.

Hira glanced at him, as Kotaro began helping him get the tabi on his feet. "The ginger helps with digestion and honey does wonders for infections." She said as she got a bowl and filled it, then produced a thick ceramic spoon.

Handing it over to him Kotaro replied. "Geez, you really have become a baby! You can't get your clothes on, you can't read or write, and now you're eating baby food!"

Several things happened at once.

Nanashi actually blushed, heaved a sigh, closed his eyes and shook his head.

Hira looked at the boy in astonishment then began laughing. She tried to hide her mirth with her hand and she looked at Nanashi, the light in her eyes dancing with mischief.

"Did he just call you an illiterate baby?" She broke down into fresh giggling.

"That he did..." Nanashi muttered. "I told you he's unbelievable."

"Well!" Kotaro burst out, affronted. "It's the truth!"

"Oh, my dear boy," Hira laughed. "If you believe that I have pigs that fly!"

"It's the truth!" Kotaro exploded. "He can't get his clothes on, he's eating okayu and he can't read or write!"

"He's hurting too much to be able to get his clothes on," she pointed out mirthfully. "And okayu isn't just baby food, its easier to digest. And besides," Hira laughed again. "He's samurai. He's far from illiterate!"

"Uh oh..." Nanashi suddenly muttered, looking at Kotaro who was looking at him with incredulous shock.

Hira, trying to muffle the laughter, looked at them both. "What?" she asked.

"You can read and write?!" Kotaro demanded.

Nanashi had the grace to look abashed as he poked the ceramic spoon into the rice. "'Fraid' so kiddo..."

The boy looked at him in offended horror, his mouth dropping open.

"Oh dear!" Hira said, trying to hide her mirth. "I think someone's just had a rude shock."

"Why you...!" Kotaro started, and stomped his foot. "You've lied to me all this time!?"

"I haven't lied to you," Nanashi pointed out. "You never asked. You just assumed."

At that Hira's laughing began anew.

"That's... that's..." the boy spluttered. "That's just so wrong!"

"Why?" Nanashi asked, spooning some of the okayu up. He'd never had it with just ginger and honey. The taste, however, was beyond delicious and he glanced at Hira, raising an eyebrow.

"I thought you were..." the boy stammered. "I mean, you had me write that note to that old man."

"I didn't make you write it. You volunteered." Nanashi pointed out. "The rest just played out the way it did."

"Which you didn't exactly refute." Hira tossed out, checking on the state of the fish.

"Yeah!" Kotaro pounced.

"No sense in giving everything away," Nanashi replied. "A good thing to learn if you're gonna learn how to use a sword." He managed a few more mouthfuls of food.

"That and knowledge being power. Which is why samurai are never illiterate." Hira added.

Kotaro, still offended, just looked at them both sourly. "He's still eating baby food." He pouted.

"Okayu is easier for the sick and injured to eat," Hira corrected. "And besides, you certainly ate your fair share of it last night."

"I was hungry!" Kotaro protested.

Nanashi managed a pain-filled chuckle. "You better quit while your ahead..." he set the half eaten bowl of food aside, rather near an expectantly waiting Tobimaru.

"Better yet..." Hira said, checking on the state of the fish. "You need to eat some of this while its still hot." She fixed up a plate and handed it over to him.

Reluctantly conceding the argument, he flopped down on the floor and began devouring the fish he'd caught.

With a smile, Hira looked over at Nanashi, who was carefully laying back down again, his energy drained just from the little effort he had managed to spend.

Letting Tobimaru finish off the bowl of okayu, Hira retrieved it asking, "Are you warm enough?"

"Yeah..." Nanashi sigh, pulling the comforter back up. "I'm just damned tired."

"You will be, for a goodly while," She pointed out. "It's going to take some time for you to work your strength back up."

"You don't need to tell me that twice..." he muttered, closing his eyes wearily.

"That should make my job a little easier," Hira said dryly, eliciting a huff and a wince from him.

"So tell me..." Nanashi asked, heaving a sigh as he laid his head back down, glancing over where she sat. "Why do you live so far from the village?"

"It's a mutual arrangement."

A puzzled frown appeared between Nanashi's brows as he focused past her and onto a pine tree covered wall opposite them. "Mutual agreement?" He asked.

"It seems odd." Hira said slowly, poking a knife at one of the sweet potato's. "The village has apothecaries and healers to deal with most everyone. However, if they need something more explicit, they know they can come up here and get treated by me. They leave me in peace. We barter and trade for services and goods. I only have to go into the village three, maybe four, times a year. Otherwise, I stay here and tend to my crops and any patients truly needing my services."

She looked up at Kotaro, holding out a hand for the plate he had cleaned of fish. "Someone deserves a sweet potato for that fish he caught today."

"You mean those guys could have treated him in the village?!" Kotaro exclaimed. "And they sent us all the way up here?!"

"They know when they're in over there heads." Hira smiled at the boy, placing the baked potato on his plate and handing it back. She looked over at Nanashi. "One look at your condition last night and I knew they did the right thing sending you here."

"By the way..." Nanashi asked, breaking his puzzled thoughts away from her answer to his question. "What's with the goose?"

"Gacho?" Hira asked and began to giggle.

"She says he's possessed!" Kotaro butt in.

"Oh really?" Nanashi looked at Hira. "I'm half inclined to believe it..."

"Gacho thinks the cemetery and the pathway in front of it are his," She said, fixing herself up a plate of food. "He doesn't mind me, because he knows where his food comes from. Otherwise, he's my watch dog. Warns me in plenty of time when some one is coming."

"Sort of like someone we know..." Nanashi glanced over at Tobimaru, who was watching Kotaro attack the hot sweet potato with a dog's amazing gift for miming starved pathetic misery.

"That dog is eating better than all of us..." Hira said ruefully then asked. "Are you sure you don't want any of this?" Indicating the food.

"It does smell wonderful..." Nanashi admitted, running his hand up his chest and gazing at the ceiling. "I don't think my stomach is going to agree with it at this point in time." He let his eyes close. His thoughts returned to the question he had asked her.

"The okayu will stay down, I assure you of that." Hira said.

"It's still baby food." Kotaro muttered.

Not opening his eyes, though raising an eyebrow, Nanashi asked, "Can you believe this kid?"

"Seems to me someone just like having the last word..." Hira replied, watching Nanashi smirk.

Clean up didn't take long, Hira insisting that Kotaro help her out, giving Nanashi a little peace. Returning from the cave, he lazily opened his eyes, while the boy told him what was actually behind the enormous ginkgo fusuma. While he did, Hira moved one of the pine panels aside, revealing the extensive shelving system behind it and looked for something specific. She pulled it out, along with two other items and set them on the chabudai.

"I have a little project for you to do young man..." She said, settling on her knees at the low table. The boy joined her seeing a stack of paper cut in squares, a spool of twine and a fat bone needle. Nanashi could see what she up to, smiled and heaved a sigh, letting his eyes drift closed. He felt genuinely awful and a bit relieved to be left alone.

Hira quickly pulled loose a length of the twine, using her teeth to cut it, then knotted it and threaded the needle. Setting it aside, she indicated Kotaro to sit beside her and took up one of the sheets of paper.

"There is an old, old story that says..." she began speaking, folding the paper. "That if one can make a thousand paper cranes, a wish would be granted to them." Deftly she folded, unfolded, then refolded the paper until she produced a paper crane. She held it up and smiled at Kotaro, who was watching her avidly. She then threaded the bird onto the twine.

"Now, pick up a sheet and follow me..." She picked up another piece of paper and within a few minutes had him making his own cranes. She let him thread the birds onto the twine. "Remember now, for a thousand cranes a wish will be granted, all right?"

"All right!" The boy proclaimed and eagerly began to make his own birds. Hira smiled at him, then shifted over to Nanashi.

His eyes fluttered open when she laid the backs of her fingers against his forehead.

"He's a greedy little thing..." he warned in an undertone, "Don't be surprised if he makes two thousand of them. And you might rue what he wishes for."

"Let him be..." Hira smiled. "You're only a child once and it seems to me he hasn't really had a chance to be one. Besides. I need to get some sleep."

Nanashi looked at her, as she made sure he was still clutching the pillow and was warm enough. He slowly shook his head, seeing the weariness on her features. "Of course, " he murmured, "You haven't slept yet."

She smiled slightly, glancing at Kotaro. "This will keep him plenty busy until he gets tired. As for you, you need more sleep than I do, but I have been up nearly two days now."

"My apologies, Hira..." he said.

"Nonsense. I'm only doing what I have been trained to do and I do it well."

"Won't argue with you there."

"I've made sure the fire will be good for the night. There's plenty of water in the pot. Just don't you get it." She said, reaching up and setting her hands on either side of his left arm. Using just her thumbs she slowly, gently, followed pressure points down his bicep, using the shiatsu training to massage the weaker of his arms. "I'll leave the tea and the cup close, so you won't have to wake up the boy, but if you need anything else? Or if something doesn't feel right. You have him come get me. I'm a light sleeper."

"Don't tell me you sleep in that cave he's been talking about..." Nanashi sighed relief at what her thumbs were doing for him arm.

"Oh no!" She smiled at him. "My room is behind the shoji there." She nodded at the panel next to the maple fusuma. "I'm very close. I will probably hear you before anything happens."

"Some day, you've got to tell me how you became a healer to the bushi class..." He murmured as she worked the shiatsu past his elbow and down his forearm. "Then walked away from it."

"Hmmm..." she replied, non-committally. "Although I haven't really walked away from it now have I?" She said as she gently gripped his hand in both of hers. She worked her thumbs, applying steady pressure and studying how very long his fingers were.

"True..." he murmured. "And if you keep this up I'm going to go right back out again."

Hira smirked, reaching over and lifting his more injured right arm. He hissed as she moved it.

"That's the whole intent..." she said, carefully working around the wound in his shoulder. "And don't be such a baby."

Nanashi huffed slightly in amusement. "If you knew what it took to get him out of the mess the Ming created, you'd understand why I'm so damned sore."

"Perhaps," Hira said working down his upper arm. "We can trade stories..."

He cracked his eyes open slightly, studying her face. She looked completely at peace, gently applying the shiatsu massage to his arm. His other arm was utterly relaxed, and warm. Her ministration went far in lulling him into a state of deep drowsiness. Their gazes met...

"Perhaps..." he murmured.

Hira only smiled, finishing off on his right hand. She set it along side his other and rose to her feet.

"Kotaro..." she said to the boy. "I'm leaving you in charge."

Below her, she heard Nanashi huff and mutter, "You'll be sorry..."

Kotaro looked at her surprised, in mid fold of another crane. "What...?"

"I need some sleep. I will be in there," she pointed at the shoji. "He..." she pointed at Nanashi. "Is not to get up, for anything, I'm counting on you to make sure he stays put." Hira hid the smirk that threatened at the groan of dismay from the floor.

"If he should need any water, can you get it for him?"

"Sure!" The boy agreed.

"Good! If something should happen, just come and get me." Hira said, looking down at Nanashi with amusement then she headed for the shoji. "Help yourself to the food in there, Kotaro."

"Thanks!" the boy replied, looking back at his current paper crane then at the firepit.

"Unbelievable..." Nanashi said, looking over at the boy. "You've never thanked me for anything!"

Stepping into her room, Hira slid the shoji back into place and turned, heaving a sigh. Her smile vanished. Like the rest of the house, the bedroom was as austere, and clean as the rest. To her right was her own shikibuton and comforter. The wall opposite her had two tokonomas, specifically elevated sections of the room, one slightly higher than the other. The higher section had a kamidana set up on it. The little Shinto shrine held a few small items about it, a single almost spent candle, and the last of a stick of incense slowly smouldering away.

A long strand of white paper cranes were draped around the little shrine.

Pushing away from the shoji, Hira tugged her hair tie out, her hair flowing in a black curtain around her shoulders. She moved to the shrine and dropped to her knees on the zabuton laying before it. She lowered her forehead to the floor, prostrate, her hands up in supplication. She remained that way for several minutes before eventually sitting back on her haunches and gazing at the kamadana. Her eyes travelled past it and up to an ornate black bracket attached to the wall.

Set upon the brackets were three swords. The smallest, a tanto, on the bottom, followed by a wakizashi, then the longest, a katana, on top. All three were set with the curve of the swords facing up, to protect the razor sharp edges, even in their sheaths.

Hira gazed at them for a long time. Her shoulders slumped, head dropping, black hair spilling all around. Her face reflected a world of sorrow, grief and deep unhappiness.