Straw Sandals
Nakano Yuu lay on the ground, his life's blood quickly draining from the major artery running down his leg. He was bare save for a cloth around his neck. Red stained the sheets and the floor. A maid walked in, carrying a towel. She had expected to see blood, but not the waterfall gushing from Nakano's wounded leg.
She screamed.
She rushed of the room, calling for help.
Yuu looked across the bed. The girl, recently having reached her fifteenth year, was looking out the window. She held the bedspread to her body, blood trickling from her at a much slower pace than Yuu's leg. Her eyes shone with the radiance of thankfulness.
"Ch—Cho…?" Yuu called softly.
Cho leapt of the bed and rushed to the dropped towel. She picked it up and, wiping herself off, went to drop it on her shoulder. She knew he was dying. She was enjoying it. She had seen the Ghost of the Fog cut through the night, bringing his knife down into Nakano's leg. Nakano's mouth had been covered, so he let out a muffled yelp as the pain exploded in his thigh. The Ghost looked at Cho. Cho had wept. Kiku dropped Nakano, knowing he had four minutes to live. He had given him a burden by allowing him to live.
Nakano was falling apart. His family had dispersed. His son-turned-beautiful woman had stopped speaking with him. His contacts with the western world crumbled. Nakano secretly thanked the Ghost for letting him out, despite the riotous agony.
Cho was much smaller than Miho, his last "purchase" had been. She was not more enjoyable. She screamed less, disregarding her size. She was resilient. She wanted to escape this life as soon as possible. She didn't care if she hurt her older sister, Akira, by doing this. She just wanted to return to her home in the mountains, before she was sold.
Nakano could see the torture in her eyes. He had some of the back story from the Mistress Ai. Though it was far from enough to explain why Cho had wept when the Ghost appeared. Perhaps she thought he would attack her next.
"Cho?" Nakano asked, panting now. Sweat glued his sparse tufts of hair to his head. "Am I an evil man?"
"Yes." Cho replied.
"Have I always been?"
"I don't know." She was frank in her certainty that he was dying. She had an alibi. She knew the ghost had killed him and she would never have dreamed of doing it herself. Now, that she could see her violator perish, she felt as if she really could have. Her fingers tingled with bloodlust.
"So… That's it isn't it…" he huffed and it all went black—
But only briefly, for a flash of light burst through the remaining functions of Yuu's brain. He saw an image drifting before him.
A boy struggled through pounding rain. He held a sack to his back, his shoulders hunched forwards. His straw sandals were soggy, splashing water with each step. The boy ducked his head forwards, his straw hat bending in the wind.
Yuu watched as the boy struggled through the seemingly endless road, his knees buckling. The boy must have felt pain like a twisting snake around his heart. He coughed and moaned under the wind's howl. The rain became slanted and nearly as dense as snow. The water splattered against roofs and erupted with a symphony of clatters and clanks as it assaulted the rest of the street.
The boy continued on.
He had important messages in that sack and they would soon become too wet to read. The boy knew this and trying moving behind a building to shield some of the rain from his back. However, it was too late. His clothing stuck to him and his hair was plastered to the side of his head. His fingers bled from holding on to the string. His toes were cramped from clutching the sandals and trying not to the slide.
Still, the boy continued.
Not for much longer—Yuu thought dismally. As he did, the boy crumpled to the ground, his spirit crushed. He fell to the soaked ground, the sack rolling off his back and the straw hat snatched away by the wind. The objects tumbled far away from him. He pressed his face to the ground, wishing to relinquish the pain.
Child, when you wake the rain would have stopped and you'll find yourself in a house. You won't know who the kind stranger was, but you will be grateful for a short while. You are a child and you will soon forget. You will continue to suffer, even though you could have just held an umbrella over your head. Yuu thought brashly.
He wondered why he knew all this.
And then, as thunder struck in the dream and he sunk to death, he understood.
The boy was him. That boy is him. And that boy had no connections whatsoever to the man who would become Nakano Yuu.