Fan Games
He sat alone after his debriefing to Katsura of the suspected betrayal, hoping the freshly brewed summer sake would be enough to drown out the nonsensical laughter and conversations he had the misfortune to overhear; that it would be enough to erase the fact that someone knew of his identity and had relieved him of his duty of assassinations.
"Impossible," he scoffs, "I'm still the best there is." But the words didn't hold as much comfort as they used to, with the rise of recent rogue killings, some of them his own marks as administered by Katsura. No one could be able to replace him. No one knew of him to begin with.
He sighed and threw the sake down his throat, enjoying the pleasurable burn like an ointment for aching muscles. He relaxed with his eyes closed, the liquid courage slowly warming his body and filling him with confidence. He heard the door slide open, but he remained lost in his alcoholic rapture. The sake never tasted this sweet, or maybe he never allowed it to. His eyes half opened as the scent of cherry blossoms filter past him, and a vague flash of colour caught his attention.
He opened one eye to watch her sit, unknown nobility out of place amongst them, in the way she smiled at the waitress, tucked her blue black hair behind her ear and fidgeted with the sleeve of her elegant pink kimono. No…such beauty didn't belong in the terrifying city of Kyoto, among death and misery; amongst people like him. She remained oblivious to his and every other man's obvious ogling, fixated on the silken white fan in front of her.
He watched her as she slowly became conscious of her surroundings, her discomfort becoming more noticeable. Her eyes flitted around the room, and slowly caught his with genuine curiosity at his static pose, and obvious admiration. He could've sworn he saw an undertone that he couldn't decipher but it was gone the next moment, as she hid her eyes behind her uneven fringe.
Her fingertips were steady and sure as she held the sake cup to her mouth and slowly drained it. His amber eyes never relaxed themselves from her, specifically from her lips; violet shaped and red against the flush of her skin. He never released his gaze from the stray drop of sake against her full lower lip, and her tongue that darted out to remove it. She was the attention grabber of the night, yes, the beauty that every man dreams of but could never have, every man's desire.
She looked up from beneath her blue black fringe as if she could read his thoughts, and smiled at him, the red of her lips like blood against the snow. Her eyes glittered in the warm candlelight, yet he could see the smile didn't quite touch her eyes. There was something else… He felt a pang, like he ought to know what misery lay in them, and heard the warning bells in his head, and felt his blood curdling, but attributed it to having drank too much beer. He sighed and relinquished his seat to some other fool in desperate need of her visual cheer.
He slowly trudged up the street, ignoring the sounds of people and their concessions. He hated them in that moment, jealous of enjoyment and happiness, and the ability to look at things with innocent beauty. Beauty….
That smile…. Those lips…. Those eyes…. Those…
Amber eyes…
He had to make sure. It was impossible she could have amber eyes. He ran back to the sake house, to his previous seat, denial ringing throughout his head. It was impossible for her to be the intruder of last night; she was a woman for heaven's sakes!
He looked across her seat and saw that she had vanished. She had however left her fan on the table. He picked it up, unsure of the possibility of these new events but his thoughts were disturbed by the scent.
Blood.
He examined the fan, almost willing it to tell of her whereabouts, to confirm his fears, and received his answer in the dried brown message upon the eaves:
"You're next."
His eyes grew wide, not with the fear of the threat, but with the fact that his identity was indeed known, and the recent killings were a message for him. What disturbed him most though, was that he had let her slip through his fingers, that a woman was responsible for this. A woman..deposed him.
He threw the fan inside his sleeve, almost as if touching it would burn the skin off his fingers, and ran silently in the darkened alleyways to Headquarters, with the moon taunting him with its crystalline beauty.