Chapter 7: Kai's identity
He can't help but look at her out of the corner of his eye, her strange and particular hair, her profile, her little button nose. And, though he's not used to having women around him, he likes her. He likes her quite a bit, actually. Despite being so different from him, so friendly and helpful, he must admit that after two days of knowing her he likes her, quite a bit... quite a lot. He likes her so much that he has begun to resent the walk to the market to buy a map for her.
What will happen to her being alone? The ideas that come to his mind are so terrible that without much thought he understands why she was wearing a girdle when he found her. What would happen if a lowlife found her on the road? He would probably do whatever he wanted with her and she doesn't seem to have the physical strength to resist. They will rob her, rape her, kill her. All these ideas don't leave him alone as he rides his tired old horse with her at his side. He looks at her constantly out of the corner of his eye as atrocious ideas come and go in his mind and, at the same time, he wonders why the fuck he should care what happens with a stranger.
She, on the other hand, doesn't seem too concerned. She goes smiling and hopeful that she will see her brothers again soon. In fact, she spent the whole morning telling him so much about them that even without having seen their faces, he feels like he knows them. Kokichi now knows everything from their worst habits to their virtues.
"I haven't traveled much; it'll be interesting to see a new city. I've only traveled from my hometown to Yokohama and then to my mentor's hometown, Kusakabe-san."
"Mentor?" Kasumi nods.
"He's a shaman," she replies, her head held high as if full of pride. He's a bit of a slacker, though... I don't even know why he's in the teaching anyway. He's lazy and quite fond of smoking, he used to stay asleep until noon, and he doesn't like to cook. He would make me wake him up in the morning, but would scold me when I did. I spent most of my time cleaning his house and preparing food for him. But I had to do it to pay for my stay and his classes. He recruited me when I was little, on one of his trips."
"Are you a shaman?" He asks in surprise, almost ignoring the rest of Kasumi's story.
"Yes... though I've only exorcised small curses. Kusakabe-san said I wasn't ready for something bigger yet, he taught me a defensive technique for the weak... to protect myself if I encountered a higher-level curse. But he told me that I was forbidden to teach it to anyone else. He said it was a technique only taught to followers of Sadatsuna Ashiya."
"And why did he teach it to you?"
Kasumi shrugs her shoulders.
"I don't know, I never asked him. I can show it to you when we get back, though I've never used it in real combat..." she says, beginning to drag out her last words as if she's not entirely sure of what she's said.
Kokichi nods, then falls silent, though he would like, for some reason, to have a topic of conversation to share with her for the rest of the trip. He doesn't know what to say to her, or how to act, so he feels strangely uncomfortable and with a newfound need to fill the silences with words.
He has never been much of a talker because he has never really been interested in what others had to say, but with Kasumi it is different, now he just wants to know a little more about her and on more than one occasion he opens his mouth before thinking of something to say, but there is nothing. He can't find something interesting enough to tell her, and the few stories he has up his sleeve he has no idea how to bring them up. Suddenly he feels that his life is so uninteresting that he's a little embarrassed.
"I-It's a nice day... isn't it?" He says and then regrets it, but she nods enthusiastically.
"I like autumn, the best mushrooms grow this time of year. It's not so cloudy so the sun is quite bright, but it's not as warm as in summer thanks to the cool breeze."
Kokichi smiles as Kasumi doesn't seem to mind that his company is so terse.
"I... like autumn too."
An idea runs through Kasumi's mind and a few words come out of her mouth without thinking about it.
"Shall we play riddles?" She says with the feeling of having lived this moment in another occasion.
"Riddles?" Asks Kokichi and she nods. "Okay..."
"What... what can be touched, but cannot be seen?" Comes out of her mouth without thinking too much, like a reflex.
Kokichi frowns and thinks carefully. What could it be? He wonders about to close his eyes, stretching out his fingers in search of something imaginary. He starts imagining things he can't see, like the wind or the seasons, time, the past, the future, he stirs abstract concepts in his mind, but soon after he realizes that none of them can be felt.
"I don't know."
"A heart," Kasumi answers in a soft tone and wonders where she learned that riddle.
Was it her brothers? her aunt? Was it something Kusakabe told her? No, it's too romantic to have come from her teacher's lips. It must have been someone else. Maybe she heard it from some stranger at Kota-san's inn, when he invited them over for a plate of food. It must have been something she overheard out there that, for some reason her mind brought back to the present.
Not finding the concrete answer leaves her uneasy.
Half a day's journey takes forever when she no longer knows what else to tell Kokichi. Her life suddenly seems particularly boring to her. She has nothing but anecdotes about her brothers and the occasional fishing trip on the river. And she doesn't find it appropriate to tell him about the saddest parts of her life, nor about her aunt Nami's mistreatment, hunger and poverty.
Fortunately for both of them, when they feel that the silence is already becoming a fellow traveler, they see the city of Okaya appear in front of their eyes. It is not as big as the port where Kasumi grew up, the term city is too big for it, and village is too small. However, the market seems to be its biggest attraction. There are cloth and kimono merchants everywhere, grain and seafood vendors, so many items that Kasumi couldn't even list them.
Kokichi notices that Kasumi brings a hand to a lock of hair that falls over her ear insistently. She strokes it and then tightens her hand on it and Kokichi senses that his words were not enough to appease her insecurities.
A couple of people glance sideways at them as they arrive mounted on their horses and gradually all eyes turn to look at her, the girl with the strange hair. Nothing around her catches her attention when Kasumi feels dozens of eyes on her, as if everything starts to become extremely silent. The eyes are so insistent that she ends up lowering her gaze, like she has done something worthy of public condemnation.
"Don't pay attention to them," Kokichi says in a low voice with the same equanimous gesture as always. "It's normal for you to draw their attention because you're not common. Let them be, they'll have to get used to it. Raise your head and don't let them think it affects you. If they think you're weak, they'll watch you with more impunity. I'm sure if you look them in the eye, they'll look away and duck their heads."
Kasumi nods and tries to smile, takes his advice and ignores the stares in her direction, difficult as it may be. But she can't abide by the second piece of advice, she can't look straight into the eyes that inspect her curiously.
As she gets off her horse her blue eyes go straight to the kimonos hanging across the main street and she marvels at their colors. The flowers drawn on the fabric seem beautiful to her, peonies, tulips, cherry blossoms, all finely stamped on cotton and silk fabrics. Kokichi, on the other side, dismounting his tired horse, looks at her out of the corner of his eye for a moment. She seems completely captivated. The truth is that she has always envied women, for being able to wear such colorful and delicate clothes.
"Stay here, I'll get the map. I won't be long," he asks her and she nods with a smile on her face. A smile that she feigns willingly until he disappears among the people and she is left alone among all the stares.
He knows the way perfectly and wanders nonchalantly, with his constant impassive expression. It doesn't take him long to get the map Kasumi needs to return home. After paying for it, he looks at it carefully and, as he walks, traces a line with his index finger following countless miles of road to the port of Yokohama. He sighs, unable to even imagine the countless obstacles Kasumi may encounter after such a long journey. And especially after having witnessed with his own eyes the stares that her mere presence arouses.
Then he looks up and sees something strangely familiar, so much so that he stops to stare at it.
Hanging above a billboard with advertisements from the townspeople, among orders and important notices is a sign with a face drawn on it, with a sum of money so large beneath the face that Kokichi could not spend it even if he lived three lifetimes. An uneasy feeling comes over him as he looks at it with growing curiosity. A frightening certainty fills him; he has seen it before, somewhere.
Suddenly remembering it, he hastily pulls out of his pocket something he found among Kasumi's clothes the day he saved her from death and unfolds it for comparison. The sign she was carrying is blurry, few parts of the notice can be read clearly but, comparing them side by side, he realizes they are the same.
WANTED
GOJO SATORU
DEAD OR ALIVE
Intrigued by this coincidence, he looks at Kasumi across the market with a gloomy thought in mind. The strange conditions in which she appeared, the large horse, the idea she has of returning to Yokohama and now this ominous notice he holds over the palm of his hand. It all gets tangled up, without explanation. Kokichi knows this is part of the puzzle that is Kasumi Miwa.
She, meanwhile, is standing next to a woman who insists that she try on a kimono and she raises her hands in the air trying to tell her that she doesn't have the money for it. Kokichi counts the coins in his pocket without realizing it.
What is he doing? He wonders after seeing the coins on his palm, feeling like an idiot. He puts the coins back in his pocket, but before leaving he takes the notice on the billboard with him.
As he walks to meet her, intrigue gnaws at him. There is something behind Kasumi that even she doesn't understand but hasn't questioned aloud. Her path seems simple, back to her home. But there is much he doesn't understand and the certainty that she was running away from someone else is irrepressible in his mind.
"The map," he tells her, handing it to her once she has moved away from the clothing stall. She thanks him and her eyes seem to sparkle, so much so that Kokichi gets a lump in his throat. I'm going to... buy some supplies. Could you buy some food, please?
Kasumi eagerly takes the money, as if receiving a task was some kind of reward. She takes the reins of both horses and turns around to fulfill his request.
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At the top of the waterfall, he stoically watches the fall. He circles the slope following the current until he reaches the lowest point, where the water violently hits the rocks. A sigh escapes from his throat at not finding a body smashed by the rocks and a sudden fall. At least they didn't die after the first impact, he allows himself to think for a moment.
He looks warily at the speed of the torrent, imagining how much more they could have been swept away by the riverbed. How many miles they could have traveled in a night and half a day. It must be a lot, he assumes.
Satoru climbs on Suguru's loan horse and pulls hard on his reins to beat the time he has lost, keeping his eyes on the river, looking for some sign, anything that might give him a clue to their whereabouts.
As he rides, he wonders if he will find a river fork ahead, if he will have to choose between one stretch or the other, if he will have to guess where the current has decided to take him. But he discovers, many hours later, that the river flows into a huge lake, as big as the entire city of Osaka. He sighs, he doesn't know how long it will take him to go all the way across, but is consoled by noticing a sole-colored object clinging to the intruding root of a tree rising in the middle of the water.
He climbs down from his horse and picks up the buckle of Oguri's saddlebags, a piece of leather spun in reinforced thread. He smiles to himself regaining hope, maybe they made it this far after all. When he gets back on the horse, he realizes that it doesn't want to continue, the animal complains and stays in place, bucking despite Satoru's orders.
"Weak old fart," he says and gets down, " You want to take a rest? Just now? When we finally find a clue...?"
He hadn't noticed until now, but the sun is falling down on the other side of the lake. It seems that the horse is carrying his owner's orders and is demanding that he takes a rest. So, without protesting too much, Satoru improvises a camp on the shore of the lake.
He watches the horse go to sleep after grazing for an hour while he sits watching the sunset wondering if he will find the bodies of Oguri and Kai, or if luck will smile on him as it has done so many times before. With both hands behind his head he lays back on the ground and watches the stars begin to re-emerge behind the night cloak and closes his eyes waiting for the hours to pass faster than usual. He doesn't allow himself to recreate dire scenarios and tries to heed his intuition, even though it has failed him a couple of times in the past. Kai and Oguri are alive, he repeats to himself over and over again as he tries to sleep.
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In the morning, Kasumi gets out of bed faster than Kokichi. She goes out to greet the white horse and adjusts its reins and worn saddle. She looks at the map a thousand times until Kokichi comes out of the hut with pursed lips.
He walks up to her and she smiles at him with more enthusiasm than the days before.
"Good morning, Kokichi-san!" She says to him with a voice full of energy.
"Are you planning to leave today?" He asks, unable to say good morning, and she nods. Uncomfortable, he doesn't know how to let her know his concerns, nor does he feel he has room to do so. He purses his lips and conscientiously avoids her gaze. Her big, captivating blue eyes make him nervous all too easily, especially smiling like that.
"I feel much better now, I think I'm fit to travel. I thank you so much for everything you have done for me... Not only saving my life, I also thank you for offering me your home, your food and your clothes. You have been so good to me that I feel I can never finish repaying you."
"Are you sure...?" He begins with his voice hanging by a thread, but he doesn't know how to articulate what he's thinking and takes it back in mid-sentence. "Are you sure you're feeling okay? I mean... the wound in your head hasn't finished healing and... if you wanted to stay a few more days... I wouldn't mind. You could stay here as long as you need, besides winter is coming and..."
"No, I can't abuse your hospitality. My brothers must be very worried about me. I must return as soon as possible."
"I see..." he says defeated and lowers his head. "Then... here."
Kokichi extends over his hand the same cloth sack he was carrying in the market. Kasumi's puzzled eyes go from the bag to Kokichi's dark eyes that instinctively avert her gaze. Kasumi takes the sack and as she opens it her eyes widen. With one hand she pulls out the red kimono with white flowers inside and is speechless. Suddenly she swallows saliva.
It is the first time someone has given Kasumi such a beautiful gift and the thought of it shakes her heart to tears.
"Thank you," she says, so moved that she would be capable of hugging him, but Kokichi doesn't seem like the kind of person who enjoys that kind of gesture. Although she would like him to.
"It's the one you liked... right?"
Kasumi nods once and several more times. She wipes the corners of her eyes before an embarrassing tear falls down her cheek and he can see it.
"It's beautiful! I love it... Thank you so much Kokichi. I'm going to put it on!... Huh... but, first I should take a bath to get all the ink out of my hair. I'm afraid that if I wear it like this, I might end up staining it. I hope it doesn't look too bad on me, maybe the color of my hair is what will end up ruining it if I think about it."
"Nonsense..." says Kokichi without thinking about it and is unable to control the blush on his cheeks when he sees Miwa's eyes on him. It's cold... so if you're going to bathe in the river do it quickly or you'll end up getting sick.
"Yes, I'll be brief. Thank you very much again Kokichi, thank you for everything. I think... I'll definitely never be able to finish repaying everything you've done for me."
Kokichi nods without saying anything and watches her leave with the kimono in her hands. He sees her out of the corner of his eye and sighs feeling like a coward like never before. What kind of idiot can't put into words something as simple as 'don't go'? It's selfish, inconsiderate, but it's what he really wishes he could say and doesn't simply because he's afraid. And he, until this moment, was a complete stranger to fear. He doesn't know how to act, or what to say, or how, but time is slipping through his fingers and every minute that passes is a minute that she is closer to leaving.
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Maybe he hasn't even slept for two hours, maybe less. His sleep feels caught in the blink of an eye as he gets up and opens the sack Suguru left in his horse's saddlebags. He smiles to himself as he realizes that he sent it with enough provisions to last him a couple of weeks, and a couple of ohagis wrapped in cloth. He tosses them into his mouth without hesitation, their sweet taste spreading across his tongue and he closes his eyes as if he might enjoy it even more. Then he strokes the head of the stubborn horse he borrowed and climbs onto its back while drinking water from a pilgrim's gourd.
He continues his course following the path by the lake for a few hours. He looks carefully at the surroundings hoping to find some other lost object, but there is nothing floating on the lake to catch his attention other than a couple of ducks bathing.
The sun travels with him, his shadow cast to his right until the star is positioned over the crown of his head. He wishes he had something warmer to wear, but regrets remembering that all his things were lost along with Oguri. The autumn chill begins to be felt strongly over the region.
As it advances, the forest around him grows, from counting one or two trees per mile to ten or twenty, then they become countless. Satoru watches the orange leaves fall gently zigzagging in front of his tired eyes. It seems like yesterday he left Shinmachi, and it seems like two days ago he kidnapped Kai. But it's been a little over a month now, and much longer since the emperor's death.
The afternoon advances so slowly, like the pace of his horse's legs, so much so that for an instant he loses hope and sighs wondering if all that he traveled was worth it, or if he should retrace his steps to go in search of the emperor's presumed sons.
"Are you angry with me for following my instinct?" he asks the air.
The horse stops and goes to the lake to drink water. It needs to rest much more often than Oguri, but that is to be expected, it is just a common animal that is not used to anything more than a trip to the market once a month. Oguri has the strength of five of his kind and he had become ill accustomed to it keeping up with him. He never thought he would miss him so much even without being the most careful rider.
Satoru leans against a tree trunk while the horse drinks water and grazes for over twenty minutes that feel like torture to him. But he can do nothing but wait. He looks up at the sky and sees a flock of birds crossing the firmament, perhaps escaping the winter that is beginning to nip at their heels.
"What am I doing?" He wonders, beginning to smile ironically. "Forgive me, Taishō... I know you asked me to look for the children, but I can't go on without knowing if they are alive. It's my fault that... Well, did you want me to be responsible? It's your fault if I think about it. What was it you told me that day? What was it... Respect... Compassion... Righteousness. I'm being compassionate in seeking them out, aren't I? I am applying the rules of the warrior's way. And who can really define what righteousness means. Something that is not bent or twisted, can someone be naturally twisted... upright? I don't think so, then..." He shrugs. "What do you want me to do? Give me a clue, I need some guidance."
He picks up a stone from the ground and waves it over his hand, watching it go back and forth over and over until he ends up throwing it into the lake. The stone skips at least four times before sinking to the bottom of the lake. Then, dissatisfied, he picks up a second stone and shoots it even farther, counts seven jumps and continues. The third stone has a destination, unlike the previous ones. He sees a thicket growing in the middle of the lake and throws the last stone in its direction, so far that a normal human could only reach it with an arrow, shot by a professional archer. He sends it with such force that the water splashes and separates in its passing.
It is fifteen jumps until it hits the thicket. A group of sleeping birds fly off in all directions and a swarm of insects do the same. Satoru sees them in the distance.
"This is so annoying... I could be far away from here or maybe I could have stayed to bother Suguru a little longer... Come on, don't be lazy, move around, you drink so much water that you end up stopping to pee every hour of the day," he says to the horse, with both hands in his pockets, pushing his butt with the tip of his foot.
The horse ignores him, no matter how much Satoru complains and grumbles at him. He returns to the trail and kicks a stone on the path, unable to control the intense boredom. Kai was definitely a good traveling companion.
"You said you were going to help me if I lost my way, you old liar. Did you lose all your power on the other side? Huh?!"
A dragonfly flies in front of him, solitary. The little insect flies up to Satoru's shoulder and he stands completely still, looking at it out of the corner of his eye. After a short rest, it takes flight once more across the narrow path through the forest by the lake.
"Thank you!" He shouts to the sky, using both hands to boost his voice. "That's enough for me..." He turns to the horse that approaches him as slowly as his perished mentor.
Satoru climbs onto his horse and continues through the forest in search of his lost companions. No questions reappear in the darkness of his mind, he just continues on until the horse's gallop becomes faster, beginning to get used to his pace. Satoru smiles, about to congratulate him on his effort when a small flash of energy appears in the distance.
Satoru blocked his eyesight at his short eight years old. When the Gojo Clan first sought him out. One of his father's emissaries mentioned something to him that he could never forget, and that is that he has the strongest cursed energy of any member of the clan to date. But he was reluctant to leave with them that day. His mother had died and now they were telling him about a powerful and wealthy father who never wanted to acknowledge him, despite being the spitting image of him. Being the son of a prostitute in a sleazy brothel was nothing to be proud of for the leader of the Gojo clan, but it was something Satoru didn't care about. It wasn't until his soldiers started wreaking havoc in Hamari's brothel that he decided to leave and seek a life on the streets, away from Osaka.
If the cursed energy inside him was as immense as they claimed, so much so that they never dared to lay a hand on him, he had to make the most of it. He had known for a long time that he could see things that ordinary men could not, but it was not until he met other shamans that he realized he could see much more. Impairing his sight was part of his own training, an impromptu one that helped him hone his supernatural abilities as much as possible. He thus discovered that the cursed energy of each object was unique, unmistakable. Every cursed object, every living thing, even nature had its own energy.
And so, he also memorized each of those energy impressions. The emperor's, Suguru's... and also Kai's.
Hurriedly, he presses his heels against the horse's skin making it neigh, accelerating his agitated pace feeling closer and closer that energy that seems extremely familiar to him. So familiar that he can't be wrong, he never has, ever.
The forest becomes so intense in front of him that he ends up getting off his horse in one leap to walk through it on foot, anxious, holding his breath as he goes. He takes off his glasses without realizing that his heart is beating with the force of a hurricane. With his hands he pushes the weeds that block his path until he reaches the shore of the lake.
His eyes open wide, his pupil fixed on the figure bathing on the other side.
She, naked from head to toe, squeezes her hair tightly until she becomes aware of his presence and looks up.
Both silently look at each other holding their breath.
Satoru looks at her in dismay. He observes her completely, from head to toe, then turns his gaze to her blue eyes, contemplates the shape of her face and her uneven bangs. Puzzled, he can't take his eyes off her.
Satoru looks at her in dismay. He observes her completely, from head to toe, then turns his gaze to her blue eyes, contemplates the shape of her face and her uneven bangs. Puzzled, he cannot take his eyes off her.
Her slender waist, medium breasts, slim, small frame. That... she's definitely a woman.
"Kai?" he asks her quizzically, doubting for a moment his own abilities.
She comes out of her surprise and her ultramarine blue eyes reflect distrust. She reaches for an abandoned garment on the floor and discreetly covers herself.
"What do you want?" she answers him.
Satoru takes a step in her direction and she steps back.
"Kai, is that you...?" he asks again.
"That's not my name. You... mistook me for someone else."
His heart sinks into his chest as he realizes what he has discovered. The revelation hits him like a pile of bricks.
'What do they look like?'
It echoes in his mind; his own voice echoes inside his head as the memory of Taishō comes back to him like a flash of lightning.
'You'll know who they are without much work... The girl has hair the color of the sea. As vibrant as the clearest sky your eyes have ever seen.'
Satoru can barely blink, unable to believe what his eyes have discovered to be true. Taishō's words blend with reality and unveil before him Kai's secret.
"All this time...?" He mutters to himself, disgruntled. "Yes, it is," he then insists, coming out of his reverie. "I can't be wrong. You're Kai... You're... the one I was looking for."
Satoru observes her once more and silently understands the words his mentor told him before dying. In fact, he was right. He had never seen that color in the real world, he has only seen it through his power-lit eyes; it is the same color as the cursed energy.
"What do you want? I don't have anything... Please leave," she implores him with tight lips.
"You are Kai, even if you say you're not, my heart doesn't lie to me."
"Your heart?" She asks in surprise.
"That's right," he says, taking a step closer, "Why are you lying? Kai, it's me!"
He frowns as he sees her back away and cover herself more. Her face unhinged, as if she's looking at a complete stranger. But it can't be possible, she knows him perfectly well. She knows him very well!
"Are you afraid of me?" He asks deeply displeased and the answer of her eyes disconcerts him even more.
"Please..."
"Come here, Kai. Let's talk..." he says, holding out his hand.
Suddenly a wooden figure appears between the two, throwing a punch straight at Satoru's face and he retraces his steps. He looks confused at the object bathed in cursed energy, a wooden puppet in humanoid form, standing in front of him. Satoru jumps as another figure tries to strike at his heels, then another appears swinging a fist straight at his chin and he intercepts it in mid-air to shake it off in a spin, pushing the other two away.
Before he knows it, he is completely surrounded. The puppets hang from the trees around him and are ready to launch themselves in his direction.
One by one, they go after him, forcing him to back away until he loses sight of her. They edge him back to the path until Satoru decides to unsheathe his sword, brandishing it in front of the dolls.
"Show yourself, you coward," he says to the sorcerer hiding in the shadows.
A boy appears, his serious gaze fixed on him. He stands firmly among his puppets and stares defiantly at him. Behind him she hides, dressed in a red kimono. Satoru cannot look away from her puzzled blue eyes even for a moment.
Another time, perhaps Satoru would stop to congratulate him on such an elaborate cursed technique. But now, as he stands between him and Kai, he feels no desire to profess flattering words to him. After such a long time of travel, he can't even be glad that he is alive. Now Kai seems to be another person almost entirely. His tender gaze and warm smile are completely gone.
"Step aside, or I'll do it for you."
He ignores him, turns to Kai and speaks softly.
"Run as far away as you can."
Kai squeezes the stranger's clothes and Satoru's chest fills with a strange feeling that eats away at him. He watches intently her small hands crumpling his linen clothes, her face worried for him.
"I can't leave like this!"
He smiles softly at her, with a goofy gesture that makes him nauseous.
"Go, I'll be fine."
"Hey, don't talk like I'm not even here!" Satoru says to them. "Kai, I've been looking for you. What are you doing? You really don't know who I am? Come on! Stop playing around! I'm starting to get a bit cranky..."
The puppet boy looks at him suspiciously, so much so that he gets the impression that he really knows him. He raises his hand and points in his direction just before a dozen puppets hurl themselves at him, but they are nothing but butter before the edge of his katana. Satoru doesn't need to move too much to dodge them, as if they were mosquitoes. He slices them quickly, although they keep moving when he cuts them at the waist. He mutilates them unceremoniously, but they appear one after another, so annoying, countless, wasting his time as Kai disappears running across the path to a small house not far from his position.
Annoyed at the delay they caused him; he brandishes his sword overloaded with cursed energy and shakes it over his own radius. The cursed energy shoots out like a shockwave pushing them all away. Once free, he runs in her direction in a matter of a blink and grabs Kai by the wrist, leaving the other boy behind.
She turns and looks him in the eye. Now he is absolutely sure that he is her, she is the one he had been looking for all this time and the memories of their first meeting come back to him like a stampede. It all makes so much more sense now.
"I'm sure it's you. I don't have a single doubt."
"Please let me go!"
"Don't you recognize me? It's me! Satoru... Kai, why don't you remember me?"
"My name is Kasumi!"
"Maybe that's your real name, but you're still Kai! What the fuck is wrong with you? Why don't you recognize me?! Look me in the eye and tell me you don't know who I am!"
Her frightened look seems to change for at least a second where she looks him straight in the eyes. As if he is searching for something in the back of her mind, as if she really wants to know who he is. The spark of his memory leaves her paralyzed, confused, as if she can recognize something about him, just one thing, but not him completely. Those eyes she remembers, somehow, she knows she has seen them before, those eyes so unique seem to momentarily trap her in a kind of spell.
Satoru leaps to the side, letting go of Kasumi's wrist as the boy lunges at him with an axe.
Disconsolate, he sees Kai again, now Kasumi. She still hasn't said anything and, in her eyes, he still sees the reflection of distrust. The way she watches him makes his stomach clench and he suddenly feels a growing resentment towards the boy wielding a rusty axe at him.
"Hey! You! What did you do with him?"
"Him?"
Satoru tosses his hair in annoyance.
"Her! What have you done with her? Why doesn't she remember me?"
"What do you want from her? Answer!"
"You're in no condition to ask questions, haven't you figured it out yet?"
"I'm not going to answer anything to a criminal," he answers. "Kasumi..." he says and searches through his clothes, next to his chest, without taking his mean look away from the samurai. "Read it..." he says, handing her the piece of paper he took from the market. "I think you were running away from him. He's a wanted criminal..."
Kasumi carefully spreads out the sheet and immediately recognizes the man who attacked them. Satoru half-understands and their conversation begins to unnerve him, so much so that his energy swirls rumbling inside him. Kokichi notices and feels it to the bone, to the point that his forehead sweats at the mere sight of it.
"Hey, kid. I'm not your biggest fan right now and you're really trying my patience. Let Kai go... Kasumi, wow, that's going to take quite a bit of work..." he says to himself and cocks a wry smile. "Let her go and maybe, just maybe, I'll be merciful to you."
"I don't need your mercy!" he says, raising his axe.
"So, you crave the taste of my sword's edge? Huh? Well, what the heck! If you want to die here and now so badly, I'll do you the favor, though I wouldn't want to kill you in front of her eyes. She's looking at me in a way I don't like very much and I'm afraid that when I cut your head off, she'll start looking at me with hatred instead of fear. Or who knows? Maybe when your head rolls the spell you cast on her will be lifted and she'll see me again like she used to."
"What the fuck are you yapping about? What is it you want from her?!"
"I made a promise that I have to keep. I'll tell you one more time in case it's not clear to you! Step aside, or my sword will do it for you."
Kokichi lunges at Satoru with a piercing scream and Satoru with a simple movement goes around him to hit him in the back. He falls pitifully to the ground, dropping his axe, but when he tries to pick it up Satoru kicks it away from his grasp. The edge of Satoru's katana touches Kokichi's neck and he grits his teeth, glaring spitefully at him.
Satoru is ready to end his life when Kasumi pushes him away and steps between them. Her tear-filled eyes look at him in terror before prostrating herself at his feet.
"I beg you to spare his life!" She cries out to him with such force that it tears her throat. "Please, I beg you! I beg you!" She continues as the first tears fall down her white cheeks. "I will go! I will go with you! But spare him!"
He clenches his hand on the hilt of his sword, unable to continue after hearing Kasumi's plea for mercy. His throat closes up, as he sees from his height Kasumi kneeling at his feet. After hearing her pitiful plea, he remains silent and then lets out a tired sigh from his lungs. He bends down and tries to do something he has done a dozen times before, but when he reaches out his hand to caress the crown of her head, she pulls away from him as if in fear for her life.
Satoru's fingers, extended in the air, retract.
He can't take her away like this. Not for now, at least. Not in this heartbreaking way.
"No, Kasumi. You can't go with him," he tells her, touching her shoulder in such a way that Satoru feels the sudden urge to cut his hands off.
"Don't worry, Kokichi. I'll be fine..."
"You don't know that!"
"Sir, at least..." she says, turning to Satoru. "At least let me say goodbye to him."
Satoru sheathes his sword without saying anything, steps aside and stares at them, expressionless. Kasumi nervously carries Kokichi over her shoulder and slowly walks him into the hut. The blow struck was enough to knock him out momentarily; his body is tremendously weak, even though his cursed energy is so immense.
The samurai watches them warily as they walk away towards the hut, the boy in a cold sweat, holding onto the frame. Satoru would like to listen to their conversation, but makes no effort to approach and simply waits for her to retrace her steps.
They both watch her carefully on her return, and as she does, Satoru suddenly feels like an idiot for not noticing sooner. He wonders if Hamari knew and why she didn't tell him that night in Shinmachi and then wonders why Kai would have kept something like that from him even having risked his life to save him.
"What did that boy do to you?" Satoru asks her in a hoarse voice when she finally stops in front of him.
"He didn't do anything but save my life," Kasumi answers without being able to look up. "I-I'm sure you... are mistaking me for someone else. I'm not who you think I am..."
"No, you're not who you think you are. But... still..." He says, almost regretting what he's about to say, "I can't take you with me, Kasumi... Not now, not like this. Believe me though, I'd like to take you not before I cut that little jerk's head off. I don't know what he did to you or how, maybe it's a spell. But you know me and trust me, you just haven't realized it yet."
She looks at him again, impressed by the softness of his words.
"You have two brothers, although until now I thought you were just their friend, you grew up in Yokohama... You have an aunt who treats you like a dog..." he starts making her open her eyes wide. "You use a cursed technique that your master Kusakabe taught you and the binding vow you use to activate it doesn't allow you to lift your feet off the ground. Besides... You have a scar on your back that starts at your third rib and ends at your dorsal," he says, drawing it in the air with the tip of his finger. "And you have never bathed with a man, except with me," he tells her softly hoping that Kokichi can hear it for some strange reason that he doesn't even ask himself.
Flushed and perplexed, Kasumi looks at him trying her hardest to remember, but to no avail.
"He's trying to trick you! Don't fall into his game!" Kokichi shouts at her, coming out of the hut to then fall on his knees.
How can it be that with a single blow he has affected every part of his body? Kokichi wonders about to hit the ground with his fist.
"Will you shut up! We're having a conversation here!"
"S-Sir..."
"Satoru," he replies softly, crossing his arms. "That's what you used to call me," he lies to her.
"I'm sorry, I don't know how you know these things about me... but I... I can't remember. I'm trying and I don't... I just can't."
"I'll give you some time... What do you say? Anyway, my mission was to take care of you especially. I'd like to take you right now, but I'd already worked too hard to earn your trust to take you with me like this. I couldn't bear for you to resent me for the rest of the trip. Maybe if I give you a couple of days and you try really hard, maybe you'll remember me... Oh, I know," he tells her and takes something out of his pocket. He extends a small book in front of her. Maybe it will help you remember something."
Kasumi takes the book and looks at it before turning her gaze back to him.
Satoru sighs.
"Don't take too long. Or I'll have to take you by force... again."
Hello readers! Thanks to your many comments I took the time to translate it, as it is not that long I was able to translate it in one day. For those of you who read the translated version I hope you won't find too many mistakes.
What did you think of today's chapter? I hope you liked it. Poor Kasumi, everyone is seeing her as God brought her into the world. I wanted Satoru to meet her in such a way that he wouldn't have the slightest doubt that she is a woman. I can't wait to know what you thought of today's chapter! And I'll read you again on Saturday with the continuation. See you on Saturday!