"Come on boys, we need to get moving!"
"Okay, Aigis-neesan!" "Coming!"
Aigis shouldered her two baskets filled with grain while she waited for Kuro and Yuuta to change into clean clothes after their morning lessons. It had rained recently, making the ground muddy, so their daily lessons became messier than usual. Still, she continued the usual tosses and throws into the ground (with Unagiya's permission, because Aigis did not want to risk her wrath of having to do more laundry than usual), because the children needed to learn how to move in different kinds of terrain, not only when the weather was fair.
Kuro and Yuuta ran out of the house two minutes later with uneven footsteps, each carrying one basket of grains – their extra crops from the harvest that survived the winter. The whole town consolidated their extra resources every year so that they could survive through harsher seasons. It had worked, so far. Water was still the most important resource considering that most people did not need to eat, but Shinigami who came through after long missions sometimes bought grains from the town when their own reserves were not enough. It meant that the Unagiya household was exempt from other forms of taxes, which was nice, even though the system was archaic in Aigis's eyes.
She set off at an easy pace as the boys followed her.
"Aigis-neesan, how do you never seem to get dirty from practice?" Kuro asked, a little short on breath as he adjusted his own basket of grains. "It's been eight years, and I've never seen you change out of your clothes after it!"
She gave an easy smile as she helped to balance the baskets on Yuuta's back. "I don't really care about dirty clothes." She said. "Besides, I know how to control my strength so that dirt does not come flying my way."
"Isn't that like magic, Aigis-neechan?" Yuuta asked. He pranced around Kuro and Aigis excitedly, entirely disregarding the substantial weight on his back.
"Well, you all can use reiatsu right?" she replied with a laugh. "That's basically magic, isn't it?"
"But you aren't using reiatsu!" Kuro retorted.
"You can start predicting your environment once you have enough experience." She said patiently.
"How long did that take for you?" Yuuta asked excitedly.
Aigis flicked him on the forehead. "That's like asking a girl how old she is, Yuuta." She chided playfully. "Gentlemen don't ask that question."
Their banter rang loud through the muddy roads, until they reached wet pavement, with a large brick house dominating their path. This was their destination – the village elder's house.
"It sounds…pretty noisy today, doesn't it?" Kuro frowned at the closed wooden door.
Satou Daiki, the village elder, lived by himself. He usually either rested in his own home, or went out to inspect the town. He was a friendly old man who had apparently kept the town running for the past three hundred years. So it was fairly unusual for the house to sound like a party was going on inside unless there was a festival going on. Unless Aigis's memory was bad, there should be no festival today.
"Stay here." She instructed the boys, then walked up and rapped loudly on the wooden door.
"Satou-san? It's the Unagiya household!" Aigis called over the din.
There was some shuffling of feet and cloth, before she heard the distinctly slow taps of the elder walking up to the door. It opened up wide, revealing his smiling face and a whole group of strangers that she was sure did not live in the town.
"Oh my, I forgot you were coming over, Aigis-chan!" Satou apologized. His fine white beard flailed in the wind, and his bald forehead somehow managed to catch sunshine when there was barely any. He shuffled to the side, leaving the door open. "Please come on in. I'm sure you had a long journey."
"Thank you Satou-san," she smiled, picking up her own baskets of food. "But like I've said before, it only takes half an hour to walk here, so it's all right."
"Would you care to stay for some tea and snacks?" He asked.
"No, really, it's all right…" Aigis's voice trailed off.
There were many more people in the room than she had thought. She counted about twenty people crammed into the room, all wearing dirty rags of sorts that looked too thin to provide adequate warmth in the still chilly spring. They were obviously from the lower districts, and she saw a wide range of ages within the people, from young children to people who look even older than Satou. The exception to that was one man wearing a much thicker, cleaner dark blue kimono. He was a tall, wiry man, with piercing eyes and long black hair that he tied back. His hands were tucked into his sleeves, while he sat casually on one of the few available chairs, his katana hanging loosely from his waist. Everyone in the room were staring at them.
Being the center of attention was awkward enough, but at the same time Aigis felt a strange shiver go through her entire body. It was not from coldness – she was dressed warmly enough – but her skin felt weird, with bumps forming along the few bared areas she left uncovered. She glanced briefly at Kuro and Yuuta, who seemed much more interested in the snacks that Satou was offering.
Something triggered her defenses. Her instincts told her to run.
"…you seem busy." Aigis finished lamely.
Satou laughed, a hearty, throaty sound that was always pleasant to hear, and patted her back. "It's never trouble to thank you kids! Come on, you all need some food to sustain yourselves, right?"
Before Aigis could refuse, Kuro and Yuuta had already surged forward, surrounding Satou and begging for snacks. He laughed again and led all three to the back of his house to store their grains and get food. They came out munching on crackers.
"Huh, you guys have reiatsu?"
Aigis looked over. It was the man with the katana who spoke.
"Yes, we do." She said, voice carefully neutral. "Everyone who lives in our household does."
He made a thoughtful, low hum. "I was wondering where all the stocks of food came from, considering that most people living in Rukongai don't have reiatsu."
"Shinigami sometimes pass through the area, so we sell the food to them." Aigis replied. "Though I have to wonder, how did you get here?"
"We walked."
She was momentarily thrown off by the casual remark, then rephrased her question. "Sorry, that was not what I meant. Why did you come here? The road is dangerous with stray Hollows and bandits, so I thought most people would stay within their own towns."
He nodded in understanding. "Ah, that. Well you see…we were ostracized."
Aigis frowned. It could not be due to racism or the likes of something as petty as that due to the wide variety of people in the group, so what caused it?
"Religious reasons." He elaborated.
She did not even know that there were different religions here!
"What kind of religion do you believe in?" Kuro piped up, mouth caked with crumbs from the cracker he was eating.
"A goddess to deliver us to salvation, dear." An old lady said. Her face was full of wrinkles, but she kept up a friendly smile. "Namba-sama guides us on our journey." She nodded towards the man in the blue kimono.
"Just protecting them to the best of my ability." Namba explained. He shifted his legs to a more comfortable position. "I'm a retired Shinigami. My captain said I needed a break, but I couldn't sit still, so here I am."
That explained why he was carrying a katana with him.
"Can I see your sword? Please?" Yuuta stared up at Namba with his best puppy eyes, but Aigis was not getting a child hurt on her watch.
"You're crowding him, Yuuta." Aigis chided as she gently lifted her up by the collar of his kimono and deposited him near the entrance. She bowed slightly towards the large group of people. "Sorry about that. We should really be leaving now, so I hope you all have a good day. Also Satou-san, thank you for the crackers."
They stepped out into sunlight filtering through clouds, and her defenses settled down, skin back to normal. It felt strange, because it was the first time her instincts screamed danger since she arrived at the Unagiya household – there simply were not many threats around here.
She had never felt unsafe within Satou's house, so the logical conclusion was that there was something wrong with the group of refugees. However, their expressions looked far too honest. Aigis considered herself good at judging people – it came with the territory of being a Fool – so the contrasting signals that the refugees sent to her made her head ache.
"Be careful around those people." She warned in a low voice, once they were back on the muddy paths leading back home.
"But they seemed like nice people…" Kuro whined as he wiped stray crumbs off his mouth.
"Trust your big sister on this one, okay?" Aigis pleaded.
Both boys looked rather confused as they nodded, but Aigis smiled to reassure them as much as she could.
"Outsiders?" Unagiya frowned at Aigis, long after the children went to bed.
"I think they're dangerous." She confirmed.
They were seated at the dining table, lit by a single candlelight. The swaying flame cast flickering shadows on the wall, and Unagiya's frown was more prominent than usual with the strong shadows. She shifted slightly from her cross-legged position on the floor, while Aigis sat still seiza style.
"What makes you think so?" Unagiya asked, cradling her slowly cooling tea in her hands.
"A hunch." Aigis replied.
Unagiya crossed her arms in frustration. "That vagueness isn't helping, Aigis." She chided. "Satou-san has kept the peace of this village for three hundred years. His judgement is pretty good, you know."
"I trust his judgement, Unagiya-san." Aigis said firmly. "But something about them feels…wrong. Like they're hiding something dangerous."
"I really doubt a group of refugees can be dangerous." Unagiya said.
"I agree with you," Aigis hesitated on her words. "Just…I kind of wonder where they came from."
"Now that you mention it, they didn't tell you?"
"No, it never came up. All I know is that most of them are from the lower districts."
"Most?"
"Well, there's one man who claims to be a retired Shinigami."
Unagiya paused, humming thoughtfully to herself. "From what I heard, retiring is a pretty new thing in Seireitei. They only let off people who can't fight anymore, or people who asked for it and had a good track record to prove their worth, or those who they don't want…to deal…with…" Her voice trailed off.
For a minute, the night was silent.
"How did you know all that information?" Aigis asked.
"You won't believe how much Shinigami gossip when they think their superiors aren't around." Unagiya muttered.
"He's probably dangerous then." Aigis concluded. "No visible injuries, claimed that he couldn't sit still – this does not sound like a man who willingly retired."
Unagiya leaned back and huffed, then pinched the bridge of her nose. "Fine then. I'll avoid them."
"Just keep an eye out, Unagiya-san." Aigis advised. "Try not to act too differently."
"I'm not a spy, Aigis." Unagiya groused while sipping her tea. "I can't act."
"Trust me," Aigis laughed a little, some of the tension lost. "I can't act either."
A month passed awkwardly, as the town adjusted to more people living there, even temporarily. Water almost ran out at one point, until Satou reduced the daily allowance for each household so the town could tide over the minor drought.
The refugees helped out with the daily running of chores and occasionally helped out at the farm. At night, they stayed in Satou's house. Aigis did not know how they all fit in there, but she did not want to find out. They were mostly friendly people, but conversation with them were short and clipped. They did their work quietly and spent their free time huddled together, as if they were conspiring some sort of unsavoury plan. It was unnerving and prevented the refugees from fully integrating into the town community.
Unagiya and Aigis made sure that at least one of them was in the house at any time to protect the children in case something happened. The children noticed, but Aigis never managed to come up with a good enough excuse on why they could not go out and play as they liked, or stay in the house unsupervised like before.
It felt horrible, to limit what the children could do. The town was supposed to be safe.
Something tugged at the hem of her kimono, snapping Aigis out of her thoughts. Hitomi looked up at her with slightly squinting eyes, shielding them from the glare of the morning sun. It was a fine day for work in the fields.
Unagiya had taken the chance to run some errands within the town, so Aigis stayed behind to look after the children, and keep an eye on whenever any of the refugees came over to help. They have not tried anything overt yet, but considering how badly the refugees were integrating into the community, she worried. She also tried to coax information out of them about their "goddess", but she never managed to find out much, not even the goddess's name.
She pushed her thoughts aside again, and turned her attention to Hitomi.
"Is something wrong, Hitomi?" Aigis asked gently.
Hitomi did not say anything, simply staring straight ahead at the dusty road leading to the town. Aigis followed her gaze.
An old woman walked alone towards their house, still covered in the rags that she arrived with a month ago. Aigis smiled in welcome, while Hitomi darted behind her and hid herself in the larger shadow that Aigis cast, away from the gaze of the old woman. Strands of short, silver hair drifted in the wind, while her gnarled hands barely kept her cloak together. The town had offered the refugees proper clothes at one point, but they refused, stating that their rags were enough. It was a strange thing to reject, considering that they were steadily depleting the water supply and grain stocks of the town.
"Good to see you again, Yoshida-san." Aigis greeted the lady. "How was your trip?"
"As peaceful as ever, dear." Yoshida replied. "It almost feels unreal, like a god had blessed this land."
"I do not think a god had blessed this land." Aigis said respectfully. "It simply is the result of hard work and careful management."
"All the same, you created a masterful piece of work worthy of the gods." Yoshida smiled. It was crooked and full of wrinkles, but the smile felt genuine.
Something about that smile still felt off to Aigis, which unsettled her.
"I never was a part of this." She said. "I only maintained what was already here."
"You give yourself too little credit, dear." Yoshida replied. She then directed a smile and a wave at Hitomi. "And a good day to you too, dear Hitomi-chan."
Aigis barely managed to hear the greeting that Hitomi mumbled out.
"Please forgive her." Aigis placed a hand around Hitomi's back, then faced Yoshida. "She's painfully shy, and it might still be a while before she warms up to you."
"That's fine, Aigis-chan." Yoshida smiled again. "So, is there anything you need help with today?"
"I believe that the weeds need pulling in the fields." Aigis replied. "Do you require a shovel?"
"Thank you for the concern, dear, but this back is still good for a few hours of bending." Yoshida laughed, a high-pitched sound that resembled a screech more than a proper laugh.
Aigis laughed awkwardly with Yoshida, but inwardly she frowned. Yoshida's back was bent enough to show her age. Aigis did not see any possible way for her back to survive pulling weeds for six hours.
Out of concern, she still took out a shovel from their storage, with Hitomi clinging to her kimono the entire time. "Please use this. I would prefer you to not injure yourself unnecessarily."
"You're too kind, dear." Yoshida took the shovel and bowed in thanks, then hobbled away to the fields.
"Come on, Unagiya-san asked you to help out in the fields too, right?" Aigis said as she gently pried Hitomi away from her kimono. "If anything is wrong just come back okay?"
Hitomi looked hesitantly at Yoshida's back, then gave a tiny nod. She took a shovel herself, then walked to the field where Touma and Ryou were working.
There was simply too much to do around the house, and Aigis could not keep an eye on the children all the time. She did however trust Touma to take care of anything minor, and go to her if anything happened.
It was late afternoon when Yoshida hobbled back from the fields with the children in tow. Hitomi was clinging onto Touma, which was to be expected, but the silence between the boys were not.
"Well then, I'll be going on first." Yoshida said cheerfully before Aigis opened her mouth. "I'll see you another day, my dears." She lightly patted the childrens' heads.
Aigis barely restrained herself from slapping the hand away, and even the children seemed to inch away from the old lady. Hitomi outright hid herself behind Aigis, shielding her face with her black bangs.
It did not seem to dampen Yoshida's cheer, and soon enough she was on her way back to town. Aigis rounded on the children once Yoshida's hobbling figure was out of sight.
"Did something happen?" she asked urgently.
The boys looked at each other hesitantly, frowning at the fields and looking everywhere but Hitomi. "I'm…not sure what happened." Touma finally said.
"What do you mean?" Aigis pressed.
"Well…that old hag came to us while we were working." Ryou began slowly.
"I would normally object to the use of the word 'old hag' but continue please." Aigis said.
"She was just rambling about her goddess, you know?" Ryou continued after a brief, fierce frown. "Then Hitomi saw a tattoo on her shoulder while she was talking to us, and she just freaked out and had basically been clinging onto Touma-niichan ever since then."
It was a bare-bones explanation with too many parts missing, but Aigis would have to make do. She bent down and gently swept the bangs out of Hitomi's eyes.
Aigis had not noticed it before, but Hitomi's breaths were coming in short, shallow gasps. Her pupils were dilated, rimmed with tears, and she was shivering all over despite wearing adequately warm clothing.
Without a word, Aigis wrapped Hitomi into a firm hug, gently patting her down her back.
"You are safe here, Hitomi-chan." Aigis tried to use her best soothing voice, hoping that she could calm the girl down before she hurt herself. "I will never let anyone harm you."
The boys looked on with slowly dawning understanding, and they joined in to huddle Hitomi, giving her warmth and soft reassurances until she fell asleep, still clinging onto Aigis's kimono.
"Hey kids! I'm ba- what's going on?" Unagiya's loud greeting was swiftly silenced by the collective glares of Aigis, Ryou and Touma. Megumi and Hiroki both looked perplexed at the odd positions everyone was caught in, while Unagiya's look of confusion was immediately replaced by lines of worry when she spotted Hitomi in the center of their group.
"I'll explain later." Aigis said softly. She lifted Hitomi up into her arms and laid her down in her futon. "Something came up while Yoshida-san was around."
It was after dinner when there was finally enough time to sit down and explain what happened. By the end of it, Unagiya looked about as confused as Aigis when she first saw the boys that afternoon.
"That doesn't explain anything!" Unagiya moaned.
"I don't think we should push Hitomi into explaining what she saw though." Aigis reasoned. "It shook her bad enough to have a panic attack. That is not something you see in children."
"Yeah, I know, but…" Unagiya trailed off, before heaving a loud sigh. "The boys didn't see anything, so what was going on?" She looked ready to slam the dining table.
Touma and Ryou both hung their heads in shame, the shadows of the dimly lit house covering their expressions.
"Uh, not your fault boys." Unagiya placated them when she saw their expression. "You guys did well in the circumstances allowed." She tried for a smile, but it looked strained and a little creepy in the candlelight.
"Food…"
Everyone at the table turned around to the source of the noise. Hitomi walked unsteadily to them, rubbing her eyes. Megumi silently got up from the table and poured a bowl of hot porridge, then laid it down in front of Hitomi when she sat down at her usual seat. The household watched her eat, though she seemed unusually oblivious.
Finally, when the bowl was empty, Unagiya broke the silence. "Are you all right, Hitomi?"
The dam broke.
Hitomi threw herself upon Unagiya, who looked surprised for all of half a second before she hauled the tiny girl into her lap, rubbing her back in much the same way Aigis did that afternoon. The muffled wails and hiccups rang through the house.
"I don't wanna go back to them! Please!" Hitomi cried, her voice high-pitched and broken in a way that hurt to hear.
"Shhh," Unagiya cooed as she continued petting her. "We won't let anyone come and take you away. Don't worry about it. This is your home."
Megumi quietly took the dishes away and washed them, while everyone else silently watched Hitomi cry for the next ten minutes, until she calmed down enough to just sniffle every few seconds. Even Kousuke was quiet, until he tried to help Unagiya by petting Hitomi on her back. She stiffened for a second, but relaxed after she saw who it was. Unagiya released Hitomi gently after she stopped crying, ignoring the large wet stain down the front of her kimono. She kept a hand around Hitomi to support her.
"Did you know these people?" Unagiya asked gently.
Hitomi nodded numbly, still rubbing at her now swollen eyes.
"How did you know them?" Unagiya pressed.
Hitomi sniffled a little, then spoke in her usual soft voice, broken by sniffles and hiccups. "One of them took me in when I was still in the lower districts. He seemed like a nice person, and said he wanted to train my power to be used for good."
Aigis blinked. She did not know that Hitomi had lived with other people before she arrived at the Unagiya household.
"He taught me how to use reiatsu." She continued. "He treated me like his own daughter. But he wouldn't let me do things by myself, and hit me when I tried to sneak out. He didn't let me meet anyone else."
Hitomi was shaking again, and Unagiya brought her closer to her own warmth.
"After a long time, he took me out, saying that he wanted me to meet new people. He took me to a place far away, in a forest. There was a house there, with lots of people inside." Hitomi said. "There was one drawing all over the walls, and the people there had it on their bodies too. They were hitting each other, and there was so much blood. They were laughing, screaming about the world ending, and how they would…" She trailed off, looking smaller and more scared than ever.
"He said he wanted me to be like that. But I didn't want to, so I ran." Hitomi mumbled the last part. "I think the people were crazy enough to not find me even though I heard them looking for me the whole night. I ended up in another district before I came here."
Kousuke was the first to comfort Hitomi after she finished her story, then the other children joined in slowly, all huddled around her to ward off her dark past.
Aigis felt terrible for breaking the moment, but she had to ask. "Was the drawing you saw on Yoshida-san the same one on the walls?"
Hitomi nodded.
"Can you show me? We can do it outside, on the ground."
Normally Aigis would never trust a child to have good enough drawing skills to show what she saw, but Hitomi was gifted in the arts. Aigis was sure that she would be able to make out what Hitomi drew.
Hitomi nodded again silently, and Unagiya hurriedly took a blanket from a futon and wrapped it around Hitomi before she stepped out into the cool night. With a single lantern to light the ground that Aigis held, Hitomi traced out the drawing from her mind with her fingertips.
"It looked like this." She said softly, then withdrew back into her blanket.
Aigis dropped her lantern right on top of the drawing. The candlelight was snuffed out, plunging the immediate surrounding to darkness, but she was too shocked at what she just saw.
It was simple, as far as drawings went. It showed a grinning triangle mask, with two holes and a slit in place of eyes and mouth. The mask was topped with a crown that was twice as big, extending out from a tiny base to a large bowl.
"Wait, Aigis-chan…" Unagiya rounded to her. "Did you recognise the drawing too?"
Aigis barely managed a tiny, jerky nod.
It had been three hundred years since she saw that mask, but that was a memory which could never be deleted.
After all, Nyx took her beloved Makoto.
A/N: I'm alive! 7 chapters in 1 year is pretty bad, but I'm still around! Thank you to everyone who had favourited and followed this story over the year, even though updates are so bad and the chapters aren't long at all...
This chapter fought me most of the way (as expected), especially when I had trouble deciding on where to end this particular chapter. I ended up with what I had above. Next chapter...well, I think you can expect what to happen. As usual, it may take a while, but since the outline of this arc has been mostly set, hopefully it won't take months to finish writing it...
A little update on what I had been doing between the last chapter and now - I attended two anime cons and went cosplaying for the first time! If you saw someone cosplaying as Mash from F/GO at Katsucon or Tora-Con who gave out little postcards, that's me :D I also have another cosplay on the way, but my next con will most likely be in London due to my studies.
As always, I live off comments and constructive criticism, so keep them coming! I especially want to hear about this curve ball that I threw at you guys :3