"Hey, isn't that the uncle who is in charge of collecting the rice?" Kikuchiyo bellowed at the cringing Ayamaro. Under other circumstances, the magistrate who was more accustomed to being addressed as "Gozen-sama" would have taken great offense at being so casually called "oji-san", but that was the last thing on Ayamaro's mind at this moment. When Kanbei and Kikuchiyo, samurai whom the governor had once ordered his men to hunt, strode towards to Ayamaro, the portly man shuddered. Kyuuzou took a step closer to the fat blond as if to assure his former lord that no harm would come to him. But Kanbei's eyes fell first on the slender blond, not on Ayamaro. "Well, Kyuuzou-dono, perhaps you and the magistrate would be interested in taking a rest in the inn?" The dark man asked in an unexpectedly solicitous tone.
A hint of a weird smirk lingered on Kanbei's face. Coupled with the vaguely flirtatious gaze directed at Kyuuzou, it proved to be simultaneously disconcerting and annoying to the crimson samurai who was previously unfazed by half a dozen flame-throwing robots. Wordlessly, the slender warrior turned away from Kanbei and rested his eyes on trembling Ayamaro's sweaty face, as if to say, "This decision belongs to Gozen-sama."
The slick Shimada picked up on Kyuuzou's hint. Immediately, he turned to Ayamaro, addressing his former persecutor in a formal manner that was neither too warm nor too cold. "Your Excellency, I see that you have been through some rather traumatic events. Some food and drink would undoubtedly help ease the shock. The House of the Fireflies has an excellent menu, as well as clean beds for the night. If such common lodgings are not below the notice of your Excellency, I am sure the gracious proprietess would be honored by your patronage."
The samurai commander even gave the short fat man a gallant bow, much to the consternation of Kikuchiyo, who scratched his head. "How bizarre! What's gotten into our usually high-and-mighty leader? One would think that he's trying to flatter a potential father-in-law, or something."
Ayamaro cast a doubtful glance at the tall man, then his eyes drifted upward towards the warm, welcoming neon lights brightening the facade of the House of the Fireflies. The Governor felt awkward to be indebted to those he had once persecuted, but he realized that he had nowhere else to go.
--
"Yukino-san, you have guests," Kanbei called out as he reentered the inn with Kikuchiyo and the new arrivals trailing behind him. The lady innkeeper barely showed any surprise at the sight of the magistrate whose police once raided her inn. Within two minutes, Ayamaro was settled into a clean, spacious room brightly lit by white-and-pink lanterns. In silence, Kyuuzou took up his post just outside the room while Kikuchiyo, Masamune and Kanbei took their seats within. Yukino unobtrusively made her exit, reappearing a minute later with a teapot. She poured Ayamaro a cup of tea and then proceeded to serve Kanbei, Masamune, and Kikuchiyo in that order. Last of all, she came to Kyuuzou.
"Tea?" The black-eyed woman asked.
The silent samurai shook his head. Tea on an empty belly would aggravate an eroded stomach lining even further. Kyuuzou had been subsisting on soy protein tablets since he left Kanna.
"What about water?" Yukino suggested. This time, the thin blond nodded.
"I'll be right back." The woman said kindly. Kyuuzou's eyes followed her as she made her way down the hallway. He would have asked Yukino for food too, if his pride allowed him to do so. But the silent samurai steered his thoughts away from his empty stomach, casting his eyes about the warmly lit guest room.
The robot and Masamune remained silently seated in the room while Kanbei made small talk with Ayamaro about the Capital. "A warm up session before the interrogation starts," Kyuuzou smiled wryly. This casual talk went on for a while.
"When's Yukino going to be back with my cup of water?" Kyuuzou wondered. He eyed the water running in the stream cutting through the garden beside him before turning his attention back to Ayamaro and Kanbei. The broad-shouldered dark-haired man happened to be sitting right in front of Kyuuzou, near the entrance of room.
15 minutes passed before Yukino reappeared. But to Kyuuzou, it seemed like a very long time. The woman was carrying a dark lacquer tray on which sat a cup of water and a mouthwatering meal - tempura vegetables, fried shrimp, steamed fish and broiled octopus arranged in a red lacquer box. Kyuuzou's sharp nose had long picked up the aroma of gourmet seafood even before the innkeeper turned the corner into the corridor. "If only that food is for me," Kyuuzou could not help wishing, though he knew better. Of course the delicacies weren't for him. He was just an underling and Ayamaro was the 'honored guest'. It would not be proper for a servant to eat before his lord had eaten.
Yukino quietly handed Kyuuzou the cup of water before walking past him to Ayamaro's table. She set the tray down before the disgraced lord. To Kyuuzou's slight surprised, the former Governor actually thanked her. The lady retreated past Kanbei, once again making her way around Kyuuzou who remained seated in the corridor.
She bent and whispered to the slender young man. "We have prepared a meal for you in the kitchen. If you would like eat, feel free to go there anytime. Ask for Aunty Nanami - the tiny old lady - she'll show you where things are."
Kyuuzou nodded gratefully but remained stationary. Although he had unofficially 'quit' Ayamaro's service, he still felt obligated to wait until the lord dismissed him before taking his own dinner.
Watching Ayamaro slowly pick through the delicious seafood dinner, the crimson samurai applied a fair deal of mental discipline in tuning out the signals from his own empty stomach. Kyuuzou thought it better to focus on something other than the sight of someone eating. The closest thing to him was Shimada, whose broad, sturdy back was silhouetted against the pale green wall panels of the room. The young man allowed his eyes to rest on Kanbei's back for a few moments, and an uninvited thought slipped into his mind, "How would it feel to rest against his back? To lay my head on those strong shoulders? To wrap my arms around him? To -"
"Where did that train of thought come from?" The cold warrior was instantly horrified at himself. "I must be too tired!" Fortunately, Kikuchiyo chose that very moment to jump up and scold Ayamaro loudly about his annoyingly slow eating speed. It was most welcome distraction for Kyuuzou. The haughty samurai felt foolish for conjuring up those strangely intimate visions of Kanbei, a man whom he had not quite decided was a friend or a foe.
Quite deliberately, Kyuuzou banished all images of Kanbei from his head, directing his mind back to a cold, lonely past in which another face - a face of someone who was both friend and foe - hovered before him.
Was it 15 years ago when she, in childish spite, goaded him to hurt himself? It seemed like a distant dream, or perhaps a nightmare. But his heart was beyond caring then, as it was now. She despised him, but he had decided he deserved it - deserved the hate, deserve the hurt - because he despised himself for failing to protect those who loved him. The feel of cold steel cutting into warm flesh actually gave him a temporary relief from his guilt - Heaven had not punished him, so he had to punish himself. He remembered fainting from the pain; when he awoke, he was back in his bed in the dojo. Ayame was kneeling next to him, peering down at him with worried golden eyes. "How are you feeling?" She asked anxiously. "You want tea? Water? Rice? Chamber pot?"
"I guess I get to stay then?" The boy smiled weakly, although he was still in pain.
The dark girl started crying. Kyuuzou never thought he'd live to see that. So the one who was hurt did not shed a tear, and the one who was whole wept.
The boy addressed the older child with some difficulty, trying to keep his mind off the pain "Are you disappointed I'm still here? I didn't know you wanted me gone so badly..."
"I didn't mean what I said! I was just trying to scare you." Her body wracked with sobs.
"Does she really mean what she is saying now?" young Kyuuzou wondered then.
"Did she really mean what she was saying then?" Kyuuzou wondered now.
The crimson samurai suspected Ayame might prefer not 'undo' the change even if she had a choice. She never fully liked boys. Years later, the silent samurai would still sometimes wonder if what Third Sister felt towards the past was guilt and not repentance. But he never gave much room to such thoughts - there was no point in contemplating what may or may not be. Besides, he was content with his state.
But the truth was, Ayame was no longer cruel to him, more or less. In fact, she had appointed herself as his defender, a role she never gave up even when they were in the military. Sometimes Kyuuzou was not sure if he was glad that his senior had switched from being his tormentor to being his protector. For the first two years he served as a soldier during the Great War, he never knew if he survived because of his own skill, or because of Ayame. They would be in the middle of combat when she would yell, "Look out! Arrows!" and pull him to the ground. Or she would fling him out of the way when enemy mecha got ready to fire. Or she would push him aside when a shell exploded nearby. Perhaps that was her way of trying to make it up to him, over and over and over again.
Kyuuzou knew the noble response to Third Sister's interventions should be gratitude. But somehow, he did not feel it. Rather, the younger samurai found Ayame's physical manipulation more than aggravating.
Third Sister had more than a few battle scars - all the way back from the time she was little more than a child and already a killer. And during the Great War, she added a few more scars on his behalf. But Kyuuzou had none. His smooth skin was unmarred. The thought of that filled him with a gnawing anger. "In fact," Kyuuzou thought, "This 'condescending protectiveness' is exactly the kind of behavior male samurai characters apply towards female samurai characters in popular movies and books. And the common masses think that is 'sweet' and 'romantic'. 'Sweet' and 'romantic' my foot! Just do a gender reversal on that behavior and we can see how condescending and annoying it really is!"
To accept Ayame's protection was to acknowledge his inferiority as a fighter. But as long as she stayed around him, Kyuuzou did not have much of a choice in the matter. Fortunately, the crimson-eyed samurai transferred out of Third Sisters's battalion during his third year in service. Kyuuzou could finally prove to himself that he could survive the toughest combat situations on his own.
But strangely enough, it was the memory of Ayame as the smothering-mothering commander that direcyted Kyuuzou's mind back to the present again. He suddenly realized he appreciated Kanbei as a leader. The man cared for his subordinates, but he regarded them highly enough to let them take care of themselves. Kyuuzou noticed how Kanbei let Katsushiro take some hard knocks so the child could know his own limits and test his potential. And the dark commander trusted Kyuuzou enough to give him full autonomy in whatever mission he chose to undertake. No one had ever treated the silent samurai like this.
Sensei, his seniors, and even Mother had all at one point or another expressed indirectly or directly that they wished Kyuuzou was someone that he was not. On the other hand, Kanbei never even hinted that he would like Kyuuzou to conform to a certain mold. That bizarre man seemed to gaze at him with eyes that said that he was perfect and needed no changes. "Kirara is not as tolerant as Kanbei," Kyuuzou noted, his lips twisting slightly to form a vaguely sarcastic smirk. The village priestess had made it clear she would prefer the silent samurai to 'improve his communication skills'.
But Kanbei asked no such thing of him. Never demanded that he eat with the others. Allowed him his solitude. The commander accepted each samurai the way he was. Shimada focused on their strengths, not their weaknesses. It was no wonder all the samurai and villagers respected and loved him. That is, all except for Kyuuzou.
"No, I will not adore him the way everyone else does," the silent samurai told himself. "My heart will not be bought as cheaply. No, it cannot be bought at all, because it isn't for sale to start with."