The Woods Are Dark and Deep

by Blue Jeans

Chapter 5

I was confined to my bed for three days. Sen would not hear of me getting up earlier than that, despite the desperation that grew within me with each passing hour. When I regained consciousness on the evening of the first day after what had happened, Sen had been the one to greet me with a fierce frown and some choice words for my irresponsibility.

"My lady was worried for you," Kimigiku said with her soft, lilting voice. Sen countered that someone obviously needed to be worried for me before she forced some medicine down my throat. After sending Kimigiku to inform Dr. Matsumoto of my condition, she had ordered me back to sleep.

When I woke up again the next morning, she was still there. Kimigiku was nowhere to be seen and we were alone. "Why didn't you wait for me?" Sen finally asked softly in the morning light.

I probably should have. Looking back, I realized it wasn't the most practical move I had ever made. After some rest and knowing the circumstances of my choices, a lot of my earlier decisions had seemed rather foolish.

"I didn't know," I finally admitted. It was true. At the time, I hadn't known that Kaoru would come or that he was even a threat. I had completely forgotten about the girl with the same face as my own... Well, at least I had thought he was a girl at the time. I hadn't even known I had a brother until Kaoru revealed this fact. I didn't know that he would know about the furies nor that he would seek to acquire my father's research.

I had only thought that if I could get to my father's research as quickly as possible, somehow, in some way, I would have a better chance to stop those monsters from ever hurting another person again. Emotionally and physically exhausted, I had not made the best choices. However, I had sent a message to Dr. Matsumoto for a completely different reason, which was how Sen found me as quickly as she had.

Kaoru Nagumo, my brother. Who was he and why was he doing this? There were a lot of things I still wanted to ask him, though I did not know if I could or if he would tell me the truth. Even having only met him briefly, I sensed a deep darkness within him. It was only glimpses, but after he had stabbed me I doubt I was wrong in what I saw. Despite the pain and exhaustion that had impaired much of my judgment, his actions were rather hard to ignore even if his words had been as slippery and as elegant as he had been when he pretended to be a girl.

"Sen," I implored after I rose later on that day, despite her protests. "Could you tell me what you know about the Yukimura family?" My family. My clan. But it was hard to feel that way about people one did not even remember and knew nothing about.

I had already told her what had happened that morning. She knew it was my brother who had attacked me. We were both unsure why he had hurt me as badly as he had, even though it was not a death blow. His motives were so clouded I did not know where to start to figure him out.

He was up to something, but that was as far as we got.

Sen studied me for a long moment and then sighed. "What do you wish to know?"

"I only know we, the Yukimura clan, opposed the Shogun," I said softly. In fact, all I knew about my clan was based entirely on what Kaoru had told me. My father had not lived long enough to pass any information on to me, and I doubted that he was in the right mind to do it when we had met up again.

Sen looked thoughtful, as if choosing her words carefully. "As demons, we have long disassociated themselves with the human world. We had mostly scattered, not wanting to involve ourselves with the quarrels that humans so easily got into. At that time, we still lived in groups, though mostly in secluded areas." Sen touched my hand then and clasped it in her own. I felt her sharing her strength with me. "The Shogunate had located the Yukimura village, your village, Chizuru. They sent an envoy asking for aid for one of their many quarrels. When your family politely refused but showed no aggression, they had thought that was the end of it. But instead, they were attacked. The Shogunate decided to make an example of them... To send a message to all the other clans that no matter how powerful the demons were, in the end, we were not the ones to decide whether or not aid would be provided. The request had never really been a request, instead it was a command and we were expected to follow. Refusing to do so was considered an act of rebellion against the Shogun himself and would be punishable by death. Only three people survived that night... Kodo-san, you and your brother. No one surrendered that night except Kodo-san, Chizuru. Perhaps he did it to spare you and your brother's lives. Perhaps he did it to save his own. Who is to say? Your brother didn't want to be spared though, so he was smuggled away to live with the Nagumo in Tosa where it was deemed that he would have better chances of surviving. Everyone else was killed."

Sen's face was one of both anger and sadness. In it, I had also seen pride. "As you must realize, the Kazama clan went to the Satsuma Domain to ask for help immediately upon hearing about what had happened. They secured their own safety in exchange for a promised debt. They knew the Satsuma clan deeply hated the Shogunate and resented his rule. Others followed suit, seeking help from the Choshu and Tosa Domains, those who also despised the Shogun and his rule, each demon clan promising to help in the future in return for obscurity. My own clan was spared because of our ties with Tamuramaro Sakanoue, which gave us enough time to scatter into hiding as well. In the end, we demons did learn the lesson that humans were indeed too dangerous to trust with anything concerning the knowledge of demons. While we could not wipe their memories of us, we could certainly make it as difficult as possible to locate any one demon much less a group. My clan hid instead of seeking aid, for we no longer wanted to be indebted to humans ever again. We were small enough to do so, but most of the other clans like Kazama-sama's would not have been able to. It was galling though, for we were all certain now that such powers in the hands of humans would one day mean involving ourselves in their wars again."

I remembered then Kazama's utter dislike of humans, even those in the Satsuma clan that he worked for. He had sneered at them, claiming that all they knew was to seek after money, power and fame. Even though I had thought he disregarded the sanctity of life itself at that time, I was realizing slowly now that, in a way, he was probably more angry at how humans disregarded the lives of others, even their own. It must have angered him more to know that demons were being used for such meaningless gains. Our own lives meant nothing to the Shogunate nor those who opposed him. In their eyes, we were only tools for their own ends. He must have been angry for the things I did not know and could not even remember, the tragic history of my own clan. His shock at my alliance with humans, even though the Shinsengumi had been so different, began to make more sense as Sen unfolded the history of the interactions between demons and humans to me.

"It must have been quite a shock to learn you were a demon," Sen finally said when she was done.

I smiled weakly at this. "It was," I admitted. It did not help that it had come from Kazama that I had first learned of this. When Kazama had told me that evening, years ago, I had wanted desperately to reject it. There was no way I was like the cold, demonic killer that I had thought he was. It was even less likely I, in any way, resembled his insane friends. How laughable, looking back, I had been at that time. Granted, it wasn't very funny at all, even if one subscribed to Okita's sense of humor.

"All my life, I had thought I was a human," I admitted quietly. My father had never given me doubt of that. After what Sen had told me, I realized that it was good to hear about such things from a friend and not demonic seeming enemies. Even though I had felt utterly alone, Sen had found me and helped me. Of those that I had met, she probably could understand what I said better than anyone. Unlike those before her, she would try even if she didn't. "When I was little and I would sometimes get hurt from playing too roughly. Father would always reassure me that what I had was a gift." He would always pet my head and gently clean away the blood from already healed cuts and scrapes. Those were the days when his mere presence had the ability to make me feel warm and safe... and loved.

"He told me it was a secret gift though, so I shouldn't tell it to anyone. Over time, I came to fear what others would think of me if they ever discovered my abilities. I never knew that he did it to keep me from being found out by the Shogun... by anyone, really." It had also prevented me from truly making friends with anyone. Always I had felt a need to keep them at arm's length so no hurt could be witnessed when accidents happened. In my mind, back then, I had always assumed that it would be my father and me forever. Living in this world, I had not thought I would have wanted another way of life.

Before the Shinsengumi, before Sen, I had never known anyone I could have called a friend. It did not sadden me then, when I had father. Now, knowing the difference and having lost the only man I had ever called family, I realized how naive I had been.

How ironic. The ones who had ordered the annihilation of my clan ended up being the side I was on in the human war I had involved myself in - against all that the demons have believed in. Even though I would never regret the time I spent with Hijikata and the Shinsengumi, I could not deny the bitterness such a thought left behind. That night, when Kazama had found me helping the Shinsengumi guard the Shogun himself, what thoughts must have ran inside of his head?

Looking back, I could see how my father must not have cared at all that the Shinsengumi, loyalists to the Shogunate, were his test subjects. Their pain must have made him happy, instead. How he must have hated them. Not just because they were humans, but because they were the shogun's own soldiers (or, at least, they had so desperately wanted to be). I did not doubt that anyone could have missed the determination concerning what Kondou and Hijikata wanted. To my father, the Shinsengumi must not have seemed very different from the ones who burned away the childhood I could not remember.

To have the Tokugawa issue the order for such an experiment. It must have destroyed whatever pity my father might have felt as a doctor. While I could not remember the past, there was no doubt Kodo and Kaoru were more than able to. While my father had probably bargained our safety with his cooperation, I had been completely ignorant of his sacrifices.

Sen quietly watched me as I absorbed what she had told me, rewriting the landscape of my own memories with the missing pieces I never knew existed. "I am always the last one to find out," I finally said, unable to hide my bitterness when everything finally clicked. "I am always too late to help and too weak to make a difference. In the end, I am always only a spectator of the horrible things in this world." My father's pain, Kaoru's pain, the pain suffered by the Shinsengumi as a result of the past...

In trying to protect me I was kept in the dark. In the end, my ignorance always caused me to betray someone. Unknowingly, I had surely hurt those I was close to the most.

Why only now do I learn of this? I could do nothing to ease the pain of even a sliver of that horrible history. Why? Only after everything seemed to be over with all the important players, dead, could I come to realize how little I understood. Why had I never managed to learn while they lived what they had gone through alone?

I had hurt too much to realize it then but Sen was suddenly there, holding me close when I had not even seen her move. "Chizuru-chan," she said softly, "It's okay to cry. You don't have to suffer this alone. I am here with you." I dug my forehead into her shoulder, my eyes dry and my breathing becoming painful gasps. But what else was there to say? What gave me the right to cry?

I shook in her embrace, unable and unwilling to shed my selfish tears, and I was guiltily glad that I wasn't alone.

To be continued...