12. Innocence.
T: warnings and disclaimers remain the same.
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"Yet that is not the only reason that you value him so highly, is it, Sakuraiji-san?" Tsubaki's voice is filled with a confidence which can mean only that she is assured of her facts and yet he does not understand how she has gained such confidence or even what, precisely, her facts are.
It is a frustration that he knows he must, for the moment at least, weather and yet that does not dissuade the tight inadequacy that the feeling has invoked in his heart.
"I value him also as a friend and yet I do not believe that you are alluding to that, are you, Kakyouin-san?"
"I was alluding rather to his involvement in your children's lives."
Sakuraiji-san's smile grow a little surer and she enquires,
"Why do you believe such a thing, Kakyouin-san, when you know well the current state of relations between Kazutaka and Keigo-kun?"
"It is precisely because of the nature of those relations that I believe 'such a thing', Sakuraiji-san, for why else would he have clung so tightly to Tetsua-san even after you had begun to recover?"
"Saki." Sakuraiji-san all but spits the name and, for the longest of moments, he believes that shall prove and end to it. Then, curiosity clear in her voice, Tsubaki enquires,
"You truly believe that to be the case, don't you?"
"Of course, it is what Kazutaka has told me, after all."
"The last remnant of the one known as Saki burned in the flames, Sakuraiji-san." There is nothing other than honest in Tsubaki's eyes and seeing that the confidence drains away from Sakuraiji-san's face.
"What point is there in lying to me about so simple a thing?"
"To keep hidden a secret so very dark and terrible that he can not even discuss it with you."
"A secret that you mean to uncover and then exploit." It is a statement rather than a question, something to which Tsubaki responds with an honest smile and by saying,
"It is for the 'greater good'."
"Even if I believed that the case I could not help you, Kakyouin-san, for I am truly ignorant in this matter."
"I am not here to ask you to 'sell him out', Sakuraiji-san."
"Then why did you come?"
"To hear your side of the story and to ask you one simple question."
"Which is?"
"Where did he meet with Tetsua-san before relations between them became 'strained'?"
"A small building down a side street near the Yasukuni-dori that has likely been demolished in the interim."
"I have a map in my bag, if you would be so kind as to mark the location for me and then we shall let you be."
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"As we've a bit of a walk between here and the place she marked on the map, perhaps you could explain a few things to me…fill in some of the gaps." Hijiri is wearing his usual 'care free' smile as he speaks those words and yet she knows, somehow, that there is more to it…that her actions have unintentionally harmed her partner.
She wishes to apologise for this fact and yet it is now too late to do as such without making the sentiments seem as little more than empty necessity, thus she simply informs him,
"Sakuraiji-san is Muraki's fiancé and they were acquainted with one another long before that attachment was formed, thus the appearance of her name amongst the list of those 'helped' by Tetsua-san was clearly more than simple co-incidence. I have met Sakuraiji-san once before and, on that occasion, she was 'less' than she is now, a recovery that, given the nature of Tetsua-san's powers, also had to be somehow significant. As to the matter or her children…" Her words trail as her mind races ahead of itself and fills again with the many unanswered questions that had been created out of the 'meeting' with Sakuraiji-san.
"Tsubaki-kun?" The faint note of concern in Hijiri's voice brings her back to herself and, smiling just barely, she responds,
"I was just 'thinking things through'," before she informs him, "both of Sakuraiji-san's children were still born, the grief this fact caused her sent Muraki to Tetsua-san to again request the aid of his powers. I assume that this request was, in some manner, unsavoury to the Onmyoji, that, because of that, he refused and thus turned his life into a 'living hell'."
"Is Muraki's reluctance to talk to Sakuraiji-san of that matter truly a thing of significance?"
"Yes, for he has given her every other unsavoury aspect of his tale, has trusted her with even his most abominable sins."
"Why ask her to point us towards their meeting place?"
"A gut feeling."
"One that you trust?"
"Implicitly."
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T: Next chapter wed/thurs. Review?