𝑪𝒉𝒂𝒑𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝟓. 𝑻𝒂𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒏 𝑩𝒓𝒂𝒘𝒍
.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.
Kuroe surfaced out of sleep as if badly drowned: that's to say, not gracefully and not willingly. "Shirae," she mumbled into the darkness. "Shirae, beware of the cat..."
A low chuckle came from somewhere very near her ear. "There are no cats here, Kuroe," said Takamitsu.
Kuroe frowned with the displeasure of a child who had issued a very important warning and seen it dismissed by an adult. She became aware, a moment later, of movement, not walking, well, yes, walking, but through someone else; a steady rise and dip, the rhythm of a body in motion, while hers was merely being dragged along. Kuroe pried one eye open, then the other, then regretted both immediately, and squinted into the dark: the night around them was not completely black, because the blade of Takamitsu's spear cast its own pale light, painted the trunks silver, and turned the road into ribbons of light and shadow. Mist clung low to the ground.
Takamitsu tilted his head a little, sensing movement. "You awake?"
Kuroe managed a weak nod. It took another few breaths for her mind to untangle the arrangement of limbs and cloth. She was on Takamitsu's back, and her legs dangled uselessly at either side of his waist, supported behind the knees by his hands as the road got rough. Her cheek was flattened against the leather of his shoulder guard, and she was certain she had drooled on it. His crimson outer robe had been draped around her, wrapped over her shoulders and legs in an attempt at warmth, but the shivers still shook through her in little ripples. Every bone felt too hot, every patch of skin felt cold, and her thoughts sloshed around loosely in her skull; apparently, the fever made the body stupid. Something tugged at the frayed edge of her white yukata, and Kuroe lowered her eyes; Shirae was walking beside Takamitsu with her white hair still half-destroyed from everything. Her violet eyes lifted toward Kuroe, worried in that very Shirae way. In her hands, she clutched Takamitsu's spear; apparently, she had been assigned the light.
"Kuroe," Shirae said quietly. "How do you feel?"
"Cooked." Kuroe licked cracked lips and asked. "How long?"
"Almost four days," Kaneko answered from behind them. She came up alongside from the dark and laid a cool palm flat against Kuroe's forehead; at once, she clicked her tongue in irritation as she felt the boiling there. "We barely stopped to rest."
"Or eat," Takamitsu added cheerfully.
Kuroe kept her eyes on Shirae. Four days? Four days of road and darkness and fever and whatever scraps of consciousness she had apparently floated through? No wonder her stomach felt both hollow and furious; she had the vague physical memory of being made to sip something bitter once, and perhaps of being held upright against someone's shoulder while doing it, and once, possibly, of waking long enough to hear Takamitsu singing very badly to her about grass spirits. Still, none of the three of them looked as though they had marched for nearly four days. This was not particularly surprising in Takamitsu's and Kaneko's case; Kuroe had already begun to suspect they could walk for a week without sleep, food, or manners. But Shirae?
Kuroe frowned at her. "Shirae," she mumbled, "did you walk for four days too?"
Shirae nodded very proudly.
At once, Kaneko cut in without mercy. "Do not nod like that when you demanded to be carried for most of the route."
Shirae, astonishingly, nodded again, even more proudly.
"Neko-oneesama," Kuroe croaked, scandalized. "You carried Shirae?" The sound Kaneko made was one long, exhausted ugh, and Kuroe's feverish grin widened. "Oh, kami, you did. You actually did! You two are so soft it's disgusting, the worst liars in all of Izumo—"
Takamitsu laughed under her. "Good thing we're not in Izumo anymore, then."
Kuroe blinked. "Uh?" It took a second for the words to crawl through the fever. "You mean—"
He shifted her a little higher on his back as he lengthened his stride. "We're not far from Heijō-kyō, now."
That got her properly awake for three whole seconds. Shirae's eyes widened too. Kuroe turned her head as much as she could and saw that the dark woods around them were changing; the path beneath Takamitsu's feet was no longer merely a path but the beginning of a road, a real one, packed by many feet and scarred with cart-ruts and hoof-marks. Torches had been set at intervals farther ahead, and the dark between the trees looked less like land that had been forced into admitting human passage. Civilization, then.
Kuroe swallowed against the nausea rising again. "There's someone there who can help me?" she asked, because she had no great wish to die of fever just after surviving a serpent, a lake, and a cursed sword.
Takamitsu's tone shifted. "Yes," he said. "There is absolutely someone in Heijō-kyō who can help you."
"Then—"
"But," he interrupted, "we need to make a small detour."
Kuroe stared at the side of his face. "A detour? I am dying. We do not have time for a detour."
"I know," he said, unhelpfully serene. "But try to hold together a little longer, Kuroe. You too, Shirae. We need to meet someone first."
Shirae, still holding the yari and trying not to stumble under its size, asked, "What kind of person?"
"An idiot," said Kaneko flatly.
"A trusted one," corrected Takamitsu. Then he slowed. "Oh. Look. We're here."
Kuroe lifted her head with great effort. Ahead stood a two-story roadside inn, with a timber frame and walls weathered by years of rain. With its tiled lower eaves and deeper roofline above, the whole building leaned as if carrying generations of travelers. But it was alive: candlelight leaked through the cracks in the shutters, and voices rolled from inside in bursts of laughter and argument. At the entrance, carved into the wooden doorboard, was a mon, with wisteria petals curving downward in a circular pattern: Fujiwara clan.
Shirae squinted at the building and edged a little closer to Takamitsu, a hand still gripping the edge of Kuroe's yukata instead of the spear.
Kuroe muttered, "What's the point of stopping at an inn when you said the capital's practically there?"
"Reconnaissance," Takamitsu said, a little darker. "I'm not taking you two into the capital without first knowing the state of things there after the Yamata no Orochi ritual." He kept walking toward the entrance. "Don't worry. It looks like a worn-out inn for travelers and vagrants, but do you see the mon over the door? It's an old Fujiwara storehouse property. Fujiwara no Nakamaro and his family once lived not far from here, and the local people were close to them before... well." Before the rebellion and the disgrace. He threw a reassuring smirk over one shoulder at Kuroe. "Let's say the owner is a very good friend of the taishō of the Radiant Guard. Besides, I was born and raised in this area, along with my younger brothers. I know it too well. There's nothing to fear."
Kuroe hated that she did, in fact, feel reassured. The reassurance lasted exactly until Takamitsu slid open the door and stepped inside, entirely too comfortable entering chaos.
The noise hit at once: the place was a proper travelers' inn of the common sort, with packed earth floor below, low tables scattered under candlelight, and the smell… It suggested that, apparently, too many men had decided that washing was optional. Farmers and wandering laborers hunched over bowls. Two travelers in patched cloaks argued with a shrine-servant, half asleep over his cup. In one corner, someone stood to narrate a feat with absolute conviction.
At another table, one red-faced man was loudly slandering the Fujiwara in general. "They're all the same now," he slurred. "Dogs chasing power at the emperor's court while the provinces rot!"
Another drunk thumped approval into the table, spilling sakè. "Would be better if all the Fujiwara simply killed each other properly and spared the rest of the country the inconvenience! Better for everyone!"
Takamitsu took in the room, and—worse than anger—looked almost satisfied. "Yes," he smiled fondly. "That would probably be better for everyone."
Kuroe rolled her eyes inwardly; what did he find amusing about drunken farmers insulting his clan to his face? Then again, perhaps Takamitsu simply enjoyed any room that had already begun arguing before he entered it. It saved time.
Kaneko, however, smacked the back of his head with a hiss. "Fujiwara no Takamitsu."
Too late; they had already been noticed. One by one, heads turned, then all at once, then the room fell still. Kuroe felt the shift, the drag of attention, and the pause before hostility. To be fair, most of the attention landed on Takamitsu and Kaneko: red and black, yari and tessen, Radiant Guard written all over them; hardly anyone looked twice at her or Shirae except to recognize white robes and go paler. Behind them, Kuroe didn't need to see it to know Kaneko's hand had gone to her tessen.
Takamitsu tilted his head, expression still cheerful, but edged now. "All right, all right," he said, casually shifting a little more in front of Shirae while still carrying Kuroe. "No need to stare. Go on enjoying yourselves!" Then, as if they had not just walked into a room that hated them, he started forward.
Murmurs opened around them:
"The Radiant Guard?"
"Watchdogs."
"Cursed watchdogs."
"What's wrong?" one man called louder after them. "No children left to sacrifice?"
Shirae nearly tripped trying to keep up, one hand on the glowing spear and one still fisted in Kuroe's yukata, doing her best. Kuroe, meanwhile, tried to sink deeper into Takamitsu's shoulder and avoid every eye in the room. To hell with safe places and old family friends; everyone here seemed to hate them on principle. Perhaps Takamitsu was incapable of reading the mood of a room, or perhaps he read it perfectly and chose to ignore it.
"Oh!" another drunk barked, pointing at them. "You two! Careful, little girls, they'll feed you to the monsters!"
Someone else raised a cup in a sloppy hand. "Get out! Monsters! We don't want your kind in this inn!"
Takamitsu put on his most sincere expression of innocence. "Can't do that!" he gasped. "Outside is dark, and that would be dangerous for us. So please bear with us until morning."
"Is that the Bright Spear?" someone muttered. "An idiot, just like they say."
Another hissed back, "Watch your mouth. Idiot or not, he's the sort of idiot who can flatten provinces, and he rips children from their families to feed them to monsters."
Kaneko's shoulders tensed. "Watch your—"
"Neko," Takamitsu called lightly, "no need."
That was all; she swallowed the rest and contented herself with glaring at all of them.
On the other hand, Kuroe, feverish and furious, wanted to headbutt Takamitsu square between the shoulders. How could he just let them say that? These people didn't know him at all. Idiot, idiot, idiot, she began chanting in her head, and from the set of Shirae's mouth when their eyes met briefly, she suspected Shirae was thinking exactly the same thing, just in a quieter voice.
Then a voice cut through the room. "What is this noise? I run an inn, not a pigs' pit!" Warm voice; full voice; a voice that did not need to be loud. "Ah! And who do we have here? If it isn't Fujiwara no Takamitsu!"
The drunks' muttering died away; several of the men who had half-risen with protest in mind abruptly remembered other pressing obligations, like sitting down.
Kuroe craned to see the sturdy, round-bellied woman standing in the doorway to the back rooms. She wore a patched yukata under a stained apron, her sleeves tied up behind her. Her gray-threaded hair was twisted into a tight knot, and her hands were dusted with rice flour. She smiled at Takamitsu the way a grandmother might smile at a beloved rascal grandson; fondly, yes, but with enough severity in her eyes to remind everyone present that she could survive harder things if necessary. She reminded Kuroe of Oba, if Oba had ever been loved properly.
"Takamitsu, you rascal!" the woman scolded. "I've always told you to send word before visiting. If I'd known you were coming, I'd have had proper sakè and fresh rice cakes ready instead of the stale rubbish I feed these bandits!" She gestured toward the drunks, who grumbled but did not dare answer back.
Takamitsu brightened with such immediate, shameless affection that for one second, Kuroe could see the six-year-old he must once have been. He stepped toward her and tipped his chin to Shirae, signaling her to keep close.
Kuroe, possibly because of the fever and possibly because any woman who scolded Takamitsu like he was six deserved loyalty, could not resist opening her mouth. "Oba, I would gladly accept rice cakes even if they're six days old. I'm starving like a bear."
The woman looked her up, then burst out laughing. "Well, well! So Takamitsu has brought guests with spirit!"
Takamitsu jerked his head between Kuroe and Shirae, then to the woman. "Kuroe. Shirae. This is Ume-san. As I told you, an old friend of the Fujiwara. She keeps this place safe and, somehow, keeps everyone in line, me included. You're safe with her."
Kaneko came up alongside them. "Forgive the intrusion, Ume-san. We couldn't send word ahead; the roads are not safe after the ritual. We'd be grateful if you could shelter us for the night. We won't cause trouble." She elbowed Takamitsu in the ribs. "I can guarantee even for this idiot."
Ume laughed so hard she had to hold her stomach. "Kaneko-san, what trouble? With my husband away in the capital tonight, I'm more at ease with the two of you nearby to keep this pack of drunk fools in line!"
Kuroe had the distinct feeling Ume-san needed no guard of any kind, but for once, she kept the thought to herself.
Takamitsu bent to lower Kuroe gently from his back; she set her bare feet on the packed earth floor, and his crimson outer robe slipped down with her, puddling around her ankles. Shirae instantly bent, scooped it up with determination, and draped it back over Kuroe's shoulders with both hands.
"Kuroe," Shirae murmured, absurdly focused, "you need to stay warm."
Kuroe was just opening her mouth to thank her when the room tilted violently, and nausea climbed. Suddenly, her knees gave. At once, Shirae slid under her arm to hold her up, and both Takamitsu and Kaneko reached out at the same time, hands landing on her shoulder and upper arm to steady them both.
They blinked at each other; Takamitsu smirked, guilty, while Kaneko, just a little red around the ears, cleared her throat, pretending nothing had happened. "Ume-san," she said, "these girls have traveled for days. They're hungry and chilled."
"Kuroe is ill. We'll leave for the capital first thing in the morning. Until then..." Takamitsu smiled at Ume. "Can we count on you?"
Ume's whole face softened, disastrously, before she gasped and clasped both floury hands to her cheeks. "Takamitsu!" she cried, stepping in to give him a poke in the side. "Don't tell me—have you finally made Kaneko-san your wife? Are these your little girls?"
"N-not his—" Kaneko started, now fully red.
Kuroe and Shirae, equally flat: "We are not his little girls."
"Right," said Takamitsu quickly, hands up. "Not my wife, not my little girls." He bent toward Ume and spoke low in her ear.
Kuroe could not hear the words, but she did not need to; she saw the moment Ume's face changed, saw the softness sink into sorrow. Her hand rose toward her mouth as her eyes shifted back to Kuroe and Shirae with pity. Kuroe hated pity, so she tried to stand straighter before the floor tilted again, and she failed.
"Oh," Ume said softly, then, louder, with forced cheer that did not fool them. "Well! That is unfortunate. Very unfortunate! Come along, little girls, let this old Ume set you right a little. I've rice sweets left from my grandchildren this morning, and hot tea to warm your bones."
She put both flour-warm hands lightly on their backs and guided them toward the stairs to the upper floor. This was logistically complicated because Kuroe could barely stand, and Shirae had attached herself to Kuroe's side and refused to let go.
Following behind, Kaneko was still throwing suspicious looks down at the common room and asked distractedly, "How are things around the capital, nowadays?"
Ume snorted. "Busy. Portantines, ox-carts, messengers. Important people. I saw some Sagarifuji mon this morning. Umebachi too."
Takamitsu hummed. "We're in for a gathering then." From halfway up the stairs, he leaned to glance back down at the patrons below, the men drinking and glancing up. "Is he already here?"
"Who?" Ume asked, alarmed.
"Oh, you know who I mean," Takamitsu said with a small laugh.
Ume put a hand to her chest. "Kami preserve us. If hewere here, there wouldn't be any sakè left by now."
"Oh," Kaneko said, puzzled. "Not here yet? Is he stuck in the capital traffic?"
"As if," Takamitsu said. "If there's anyone who can move unseen through a crowd, it's that man."
"Your trusted person?" Kuroe asked weakly.
"The idiot?" Shirae added.
Takamitsu looked at them, a bit more serious, and then softened again into that reassuring shape of himself. He folded his arms over the spear and leaned on the railing; only now, up close and still, did the fatigue show slightly in him. "Don't worry about it," he reassured them. "Follow Ume-san. Rest till morning and eat something if you can keep it down. Kaneko and I will be in the room beside yours, if anything happens." He nodded toward two better-kept shōji farther along the corridor. "You're in very good hands."
Ume guided them to one of the rooms as the fever kept tilting the floor under Kuroe's feet. Shirae held more and more of her weight as they went, narrow shoulders, stubborn and steady under the burden. Just before the shōji closed, both girls looked back. Kaneko stood with hands on her hips, muttering something deeply worried and parental at Takamitsu, who had stopped smiling completely, looking down over the common room again, gaze gone distant; at last, the light in the blade of his spear finally dissolved, as if only now was he allowing himself to relax. Only when it was nearly gone did he drag both hands up and rub hard at his reddened eyes, leaving the lids pinker still.
Kuroe saw it; Shirae saw it too. Takamitsu looked up just as the shōji began to close, and the mask returned instantly. He gave them a small smile as he waved them away. Kaneko clicked her tongue and pressed on one temple. Neither Kuroe nor Shirae smiled back as the shōji slid shut between them.
Guard dog, the people downstairs had called them. Monster.
Idiots, all of them.
.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.
"No, not that hard," Kuroe protested weakly, while Ume ignored her.
She was sitting cross-legged on a straw mat, in a room that still smelled of tea, with a single candle that burned in a bronze holder by the wall. She was still wrapped in Takamitsu's crimson robe, too big for her, while Ume attempted to dress her and Shirae in clean grey yukata that were obviously much too large.
"Hold still, little troublemaker. These belonged to my granchildren, once," Ume said, tugging the collar straight on Kuroe. "It's all I have at the moment. Clean, though. Patched, but clean."
Kuroe allowed it because the yukata was soft and not white like the one meant for their sacrifice. Still, she objected to the comb with her whole mouth; since the mouth worked, she saw no reason not to use it. Ume had already finished with Shirae, whose white hair had been dragged into something resembling order through the use of a bamboo. Shirae had survived the experience in silence, but now sat curled in on herself, rubbing at her scalp; for all her mutinous stillness, Kuroe could tell Shirae liked it a little. That was the disgusting thing about warmth and care: it made traitors of everybody.
Then, it was Kuroe's turn. "Ow—ow!—what is that for—are you trying to peel my scalp off? Oba—"
"Hush."
"Ume-obaa—this is torture—"
"Hush!"
"Ouch!"Kuroe yelped and clutched at the mat. "Honestly," she muttered feverishly, "Taka-niichan said you were trustworthy, and yet here you are trying to flay my scalp off!"
Ume laughed with no fear at all of any children's complaints. "Taka-niichan, is it?" she asked, as if this were the funniest thing. "Well, well."
Kuroe, who had not meant to reveal that, went still and guilty for one second. Then, Ume caught hold of the long black lock that fell down the middle of Kuroe's face and tried to brush it back. Kuroe slapped a hand over it at once. "Not this one."
Ume looked at her; Kuroe glared back. After a staring match that took place between an elderly innkeeper and a feverish child with unbrushed hair, Ume sighed. "Very well. Keep your strange little curtain."
Better. Kuroe was not, under any circumstances, explaining the sealed slit of scarred skin in the middle of her forehead; she had no explanation anyway, except I woke up like this.
"There now. Much less likely to be mistaken for a bandit." Ume gave her hair two final, authoritative strokes and then patted the mat before her. "Down you go, now. Let's see what can be done about this fever."
Kuroe, though deeply suspicious, let herself slump down with one enormous sigh and lie flat on the tatami. The floor was cool; it should have felt good, but instead, she still felt as though she were being roasted from the inside. Her eyes burned, and the ceiling beams above her seemed to tilt slowly.
Beside her, Shirae lowered herself too, not because she needed treatment, but because, apparently, if Kuroe was horizontal, then Shirae would be as well. Shoulder to shoulder, touching from sleeve to sleeve, Shirae toyed absently with the rough white ends of her own hair in a motion that felt more like thinking than vanity.
Ume crouched over Kuroe and placed one broad palm flat against the center of her chest. "Hm."
At once, warmth spread through Kuroe, but not the fever-kind or the awful boiling under her skin; this was a pale heat that sank inward. Kuroe blinked and looked down to see a faint bluish light seeping from Ume's palm, then spreading and thinning over Kuroe's chest before sinking in. She felt better; well, not better-better because the room still tilted and her stomach was still mutinous, but the sickness eased, less like being eaten from within.
"Is that cursed energy…?" Kuroe asked at once. If it was, she had never seen it used like that before.
Shirae propped herself up on her elbows at once, curiosity winning over as usual when something actually interesting happened.
Ume nodded. "Cursed energy. Many in the Radiant Guard devote themselves to uses more..." she searched for a word, "loud."
Kuroe thought this was a fair description of Takamitsu and Kaneko.
"There aren't many of us who can use it in gentler ways. Curative ways," Ume went on. "But here in the provinces one must also survive."
"Curative?" Kuroe repeated immediately, interested enough to try sitting up. Her muscles failed, and she made it halfway before collapsing back.
Ume flicked her squarely on the forehead. "Stay down."
"Ow."
"I mean it."
"I also mean it," Kuroe grumbled, rubbing her brow. "I want to learn that too."
Next to her, Shirae nodded with shocking intensity.
Ume looked from one girl to the other and sighed, delighted. "Look at you two. Are you quite sure you aren't Takamitsu's little girls?"
Both of them made the same disgusted noise.
Ume laughed and went back to the glowing work of her hand, though after a moment her expression turned more serious when she took in her hand Kuroe's wrist. Black veins were still visible under her skins, radiating from the hand that had gripped the black tsurugi and drifting up her arm. Kuroe took her time to study it; so, she had not imagined the tsurugi and that thrilling feeling that rippled under her skin.
Ume, on the other hand, wasn't so optimistic about it. "This won't do," she murmured. "I'm skilled, but not thatskilled. And this..." She frowned, feeling for something under Kuroe's ribs or skin or breath. "This is more than just the kind of poisoning you get from being too close to that damned serpent."
"Can you do something for her?" Shirae asked, more alarmed than she probably intended.
Ume considered it. "Oh, I've seen Yamata no Orochi's poison before, plenty of times. But never one quite like this. Not even twelve years ago, when Takamitsu brought Kaneko to me half dead in the middle of the night."
Shirae latched onto the important part. "But you can heal her, right?"
"I can slow it. Keep it from racing all at once." She shook her head. "But heal it? Eh." Another small shrug. "For that, she needs someone more skilled than me. Quickly, too. Hiyori-san, perhaps—"
"Hiyori-san?" Kuroe repeated instantly. That name again. Takamitsu had mentioned a Hiyori-chan once. Talisman-maker, Radiant Guard, important. In the capital. Good. Excellent. Fantastic. She could just reach this Hiyori-san and forget the serpent and the sword entirely. "Then we go to this Hiyori-san right now—"
She tried to get up again, but the room lurched before she made a betrayed noise and grabbed the mat.
Ume put one hand flat on Kuroe's shoulder and returned her to horizontal life with ease. "Hiyori-san is the most talented I know in this kind of cursed energy application, but she won't go anywhere. Wait until morning and trust Takamitsu with the rest."
"Oh, yes," Kuroe muttered. "Trust Taka-niichan, who is relaxing in an inn while I die of cursed fever. Why aren't we leaving at once if the only person who can help me is in the capital?"
"Kuroe's right," Shirae muttered darkly. "We're wasting time."
Ume looked at both of them for a long second in exasperation, then she pushed them both back down by the shoulders, one hand each, as if settling two overly vocal ducklings. "Listen to me, you little girls. For what little my old eyes are worth, I can tell Takamitsu and Kaneko-san are taking your well-being very seriously. If they are not walking you straight into Heijō-kyō this minute, it is only because they mean to keep you safe once you get there."
"Why that?" Shirae asked.
"The relations among the internal Fujiwara houses are... complicated. Especially after the Nanke fell from favor. Takamitsu knows very well what sort of opportunistic creatures might be waiting in the capital, and he does not trust any of them."
Kuroe hummed because something in the way Ume said Takamitsu's name held more than simple acquaintance. Fondness; respect even. Unusual, anyway. "You seem to know him very well," she observed.
Ume brightened at once. "Oh, yes." She folded her arms and sat back on her heels. "Tell me. Do you girls know the story of Fujiwara no Nakamaro's failed rebellion? Of the Nanke?"
Both Kuroe and Shirae nodded. Takamitsu had told them of the power struggle, of the Fujiwara clan infighting, of the Nanke being torn from the inside in a war between brothers while the Hokke rose. Adult things, in short. Still, neither understood where Ume was going with this.
"You see, I once served the Radiant Guard under the man who is now taishō. After the rebellion failed, many Nanke children were left orphaned, on both sides. Children no one particularly wanted. Some were sent away, while some were left to whatever life would do to them. But Takamitsu?" She said, very proud. "Takamitsu was gifted like no one else, and the taishō saw it immediately. That's why he took him in under his wing, like a son. He was just a child, and after the rebellion, he barely spoke; he was all gloomy and thin, no sun. In the rebellion, he lost everyone, his mother, his father, all his younger brothers. It wasn't easy."
Kuroe frowned. Impossible. It was difficult—very difficult—to imagine a version of him small and quiet enough to require rescue. Her mind refused the image outright: Takamitsu gloomy? That was like imagining the sun apologizing for being bright.
Ume, perhaps noticing this, chuckled. "But now, well, you've seen him. Once the unrest settled, I retired from the Radiant Guard and took over this place. Takamitsu lived here for years at the Taishō's request until he enlisted. So yes." She puffed slightly with pride. "One could say I helped raise him."
"So this was originally a Nanke safe house?" Kuroe asked.
Ume's expression saddened a little. "Of course. Fujiwara no Nakamaro's estate stood just behind this forest once. Though now only the ruins remain, his children used to play everywhere through these woods once." She sighed. "Nakamaro was a just and loyal man. We still don't know how he was led into that madness. And his eldest son..." Her eyes went far away. "His eldest son was a golden child. Bright as the sun and gifted in everything beyond reason. He was just a young child, but he was determined to serve the clan and do right by everyone. The sort of person people followed naturally, the sort you couldn't help but believe in."
Unhelpfully, Kuroe's mind supplied Takamitsu at once; she was annoyed by this.
"Everyone loved him, in the Nanke. We all thought he would one day even lead the clan. His future looked bright." Ume went on, half speaking to them, half to herself. "Then what happened, happened, and Nakamaro's whole family was condemned to death. All his children. His eldest son as well. All dead."
After a long moment, Shirae, who had been listening, spoke softly. "He sounds like he was kind and strong."
Ume nodded fondly. "He is."
Kuroe's brow furrowed. "He is?" she repeated. "I thought he was dead."
At that, Ume gave a quick intake of breath, then she waved one hand as if shooing the moment away. "Oh! He was. I mean was." She laughed too quickly. "At my age, the years tangle themselves. Now, enough old ghosts, don't mind me."
Kuroe did mind it, but before she could pry, Ume leaned over and blew out the candle. The room fell into moon-dim shadow. Then, as if ending an interrogation by force, she flung Takamitsu's crimson outer robe over both girls. "Now," she said. "I can't do more than this for you tonight, Kuroe, so you'd better sleep. Tomorrow morning, Takamitsu and Kaneko-san will take you straight to the capital, so you'll need your strength."
And with that, she left. The shōji slid shut behind her, leaving the room quiet except for the muted roar of the inn below and a strip of moonlight on the floor.
Kuroe lay still beneath the robe. She felt better, not healthy, but better. She could have slept, probably should have slept. Unfortunately, her curiosity had no interest in sleeping.
Keeping one eye on the darkness, trying not to disturb Shirae beside her, Kuroe lifted both hands in front of her face, studying her palma and the one where black veins were still visible. For a moment, it looked like black liquid was still moving under her skin, but she focused on the pressing matter. How had Ume done that? How did cursed energy become gentle? What could it cure? A fever, apparently. Could it fix worse things? Could it mend a cut throat? A severed head? Could it heal a sword through the chest? Her mind snagged again on that white space from under the lake, on the black tsurugi through her own sternum and the older Shirae beside the hateful blue-eyed man in white.
Kuroe frowned and pushed cursed energy into her palms, trying to regulate it in a gentler way. What spread out there in the dark was not gentle. A bluish light bloomed between her fingers, but it felt restless, not the least bit inclined to comfort anybody; then, her cursed energy surged violently as if out of control. The black veins rippled and wobbled under her skin, sending a wave of fresh fever all over her body again. Kuroe flinched, squeezing her eyes shut as the pain reached her skull, then the slit on her forehead.
Her mind filled again with the memory of the lake, of the tsurugi, of the feeling of the hilt in her hand—
She groaned, swatting the image away and opening her eyes to glare at her own hands. "Ugh," she muttered, and dropped one arm over her face. "Whatever." First, she'll have whatever was wrong with her fixed. Then, if she could not teach herself, then she would bully Takamitsu into teaching her, or Hiyori-san. Somebody. She had no intention of remaining helpless forever.
Then Shirae moved. Without warning, the other girl rolled toward her and wrapped herself around Kuroe in the dark. Immediately, Kuroe felt warmth again, the same kind of glow Ume had used, clumsier, but it flowed from Shirae's palms, where they clung to Kuroe's side and shoulder.
Kuroe lowered her arm and squinted at her in the dimness. "Really?" she muttered. "You did it on the firsttry?"
Shirae blinked, half drowsy.
"That isn't fair," Kuroe informed her. "Just a few days ago, you wanted to die. Stop being a prodigy at everything, that's greedy."
"Does it help?" Shirae's voice came from somewhere near Kuroe's collarbone.
Kuroe went silent. Annoyingly, it did. Not as well as Ume's, but enough to ease the fresh fever a little more. "A little," she admitted. "But now you're not allowed to complain if you have to sleep like this all night."
"I wasn't complaining," Shirae said, in a mild, offended tone, tightening her hold.
Kuroe huffed. Unbelievable. She did not know what to make of this child who, over the course of mere days, had gone from wanting only to die efficiently to acting as though Kuroe was now the only other person in the world, caring enough to learn healing cursed energy for her, enough to look frightened when Kuroe blinked too slowly. Kuroe did not dislike it, which was perhaps the stranger problem. It also brought her back to the practical issue, of course: tomorrow, they were going to the capital, and according to every adult, it was full of dangerous people, political traps, and Fujiwara opportunists. They were disarmed, and Kuroe was still sick. This was not ideal, but they had each other; that ought to count for something. Kuroe very much wanted it to count for something.
"Shirae," she said after a while.
"What now?"
"Tomorrow we'll be in the capital."
"Hn."
"It will be terrifying and full of people more dangerous than Yamata no Orochi."
Shirae was quiet for long enough that Kuroe thought she had fallen asleep. Then: "Will it?"
"Yes!" Kuroe said firmly. "But you don't need to worry. I promised we'd go see the sea. Until then, I'll protect you from suspicious men with white hair and blue eyes. And from cats." Kuroe had no idea why that mattered, only that it did.
"The sea," Shirae murmured sleepily. "I want to see the sea. Promised?"
"Promised," Kuroe echoed as her own eyes were already sliding shut now. The fever, the warmth from Shirae's hands, the deep ache in her bones, all of it was finally tugging her under.
She did not know how long she slept, but surely not nearly as long as expected, because when a heavy crashfrom downstairs yanked her awake, the world beyond the shōji was still black. Maybe two hours, maybe three. She rubbed at her eyes and tried to sit up, then stopped when she realized Shirae was still attached to her, sleeping hard with one arm thrown across her ribs, her breath slow and even. The warmth had gone; apparently, once asleep, the healing cursed energy had stopped.
Kuroe should have gone back to sleep, really, that would have been sensible, but the noise downstairs was still going on, and her thoughts had begun tangling themselves.
This, she decided, was her moment; Takamitsu had looked tired, so had Kaneko. Shirae was asleep. The chaos below was exactly what she needed if she was going to slip around unnoticed and perhaps find herself a weapon so she could protect Shirae and herself in the capital. So, with extreme care, she untangled herself from Shirae's arms, lowered her head to the mat and tucked Takamitsu's robe more securely over her shoulders.
When Kuroe stood, her knees immediately felt like they were falling, and she caught herself against the wall. Still sick. To be safe, she crouched and practically crawled to the shōji, then slipped out. She closed it behind her with stealth, and only then did she exhale.
The corridor outside was lit in candlelight, and the inn's noise was louder now that it wasn't filtered through paper walls. Kuroe pushed herself upright against the worn timber and stepped toward the stairs, planning to pass the room where Takamitsu and Kaneko were resting without being noticed. She had almost reached the neighboring room when its shōji opened fast and softly.
Kuroe froze flat against the wall as Takamitsu stepped out.
His hair was in complete disarray, and his inner robe hung half-open across his chest. He was absently gathering his hair up with one hand, trying to retie it into a high tail. He stopped mid-motion when he saw her. They stared at each other: suspicion met suspicion. Then, because Kuroe was sick but not dead, she leaned slightly to peer through the still-open gap behind him. Inside, she could make out Kaneko, also in disarray, also… not entirely dressed and mostly asleep under a futon.
Ah. Oh, well. That explained one or two things rather abruptly.
Takamitsu glanced over his shoulder, then slid the shōji closed and put one finger to his lips. "Shh," he whispered. "We don't want to wake her. Otherwise, she'll scold us."
Kuroe blinked at the shut door, then up at him. She narrowed her eyes. "You idiot, Taka-niichan. You should really hurry up and make her your wife."
Takamitsu smirked and folded his arms, looking terribly pleased with himself. "And you," he remarked, "should be asleep."
Kuroe wrinkled her nose. "Can't sleep. Too much noise downstairs."
"Good, then," he said at once, reaching out to wreck her hair because apparently he had decided, despite everything, that they were in fact his little girls. He crouched and turned his back to her, motioning with both hands. "Come up. We're going to talk to our man."
Kuroe considered biting his fingers again, still offended that he would not make Kaneko his wife immediately and stop inconveniencing everybody. But he had already made the error of offering piggyback transport, so of course she climbed on.
He carried her down the stairs while she muttered fiercely in his ear, "You are the biggest idiot in the country. I do hope Neko-oneesama will find an amazing and beautiful husband and leave you sobbing miserably and tragically in a corner forever."
Takamitsu only chuckled, entirely unashamed. "I hope so, too. Neko deserves the best."
Annoyingly, it was probably sincere.
Downstairs, the noise hit them all over again. The inn was somehow louder in the depths of the night than before. Kuroe, from her perch on Takamitsu's back, wondered if the capital was always like this too, restless, wakeful, or whether this was a borderland habit, men staying out late to enjoy a few ungoverned hours beyond the reach of court and all the things adults feared.
Takamitsu stopped in the middle of the room and looked around through the mutters and stares until he spotted someone in one corner. "Ah!"
There, seated cross-legged at a low table, half-curled around a cup of sakè, was a hooded figure in a heavy green cotton cloak. Even from behind, he inspired very little trust in Kuroe; something about the slope of his shoulders suggested trouble.
However, Takamitsu, delighted for reasons Kuroe could not grasp, carried her straight toward him. "Yo!" he called. "Took you long enough!"
The figure tilted his head a little, as if only just hearing him through the fog of drink. Then he lifted one hand and slurred, "Took me long enough? Do you have any idea how hard it is to leave the capital unnoticed these days, you bright idiot? It's a disaster in there—hic."
Kuroe stared. Is he drunk? Had he only just arrived and was already drunk?
The man tugged back his hood. He looked to be somewhere in his mid-thirties, perhaps. He wore an oversized green robe threaded with gold patterns, the sash careless and the sleeves loose, giving him the air of a wandering bard or a vagrant. His auburn hair was tied back badly and escaped in curls, and he had a sparse, lazy beard and brown eyes half-lidded. A sakè cup sat in one hand.
Kuroe disliked him instantly. First: he had called Takamitsua bright idiot, and this was a privilege reserved exclusively for Kaneko and herself. Second: he looked like he had slept in a ditch. Third: Takamitsu seemed delighted to see him.
"Oh, come now," Takamitsu laughed, sliding Kuroe down at the table. "I knew I could count on you."
Kuroe knelt, swaying slightly, and tried not to inhale too deeply in that direction because the man smelled and it was worsening her nausea.
The man leaned his chin into one hand and squinted at Takamitsu through obvious drunkenness. "I am here," he said grandly, gesturing at himself, "only because my beloved Hiyori asked me so sweetly. You know, when both signal talismans burned at once, she panicked."
Takamitsu snorted. "Hiyori-chan panicking? I don't believe it."
"I assure you," the man said, drinking again, "she always panics when you put the Radiant Guard in trouble, even when she refuses to show it. Honestly, Takamitsu—" he pointed at him with the cup "—you should stop giving her reasons to worry, or I truly will shoot you in the head."
Oh. So this drunk knew said Hiyori-san, the only person who could help Kuroe, and was connected to the Radiant Guard. That made her dislike him a little less; still, Kuroe kept glaring. The man noticed; worse, he smiled sidelong at her and gave a little wave as one might to a mildly aggressive child. Kuroe was a child, but that did not mean she enjoyed being treated as one, so she deepened the glare, which only seemed to delight him further.
Takamitsu, predictably, noticed her mood instantly. "Kuroe. This is the person I told you about. Akihiro." Then he lowered his voice. "I know he looks like a drunk troublemaker, but he is also a shōshō of the Radiant Guard. Reliable, when Hiyori-chan asks him to be. You can trust him. If it's true I'm the most attractive man in the capital, it is also true that he is without doubt the best archer."
"Trust him," Kuroe muttered. "As if." If the Radiant Guard included this, then Kuroe had perhaps overestimated them. Also, he had no bow, so his skill as an archer seemed currently theoretical and irrelevant. Takamitsu was such an idiot.
Akihiro chuckled. "And who," he asked, "is this little arrowling?"
Takamitsu glanced at Kuroe and back. "Oh. The Miko of the Moon, from the failed Yamata no Orochi ritual. Kuroe."
Akihiro blinked once. Then he groaned with delight and despair and drank more sakè. "Oh! So it is true, then, the rumors. You really did ruin another ritual!" He looked at Takamitsu over the rim of the cup, deeply entertained. "The taishō is furious, by the way. So furious! Even Hiyori can't soften his temper this time. You are so dead, Takamitsu."
At that, Takamitsu put on the alarmed expression of a man tragically misunderstood by his own drinking companions. He rubbed at the back of his neck and sighed. "Oh, come on. Surely he can't really think this is my fault." He tilted his head, half-pleading with the world. "Both Neko and I were under a Binding Vow. How exactly were we supposed to sabotage the ritual? Honestly, whatever stories reached the capital have certainly been inflated by Hokke patrols, no doubt—"
"Duh," Akihiro said, smirking sideways and very drunk. "I assure you the Hokke are the least of your worries right now."
Takamitsu's smile stayed on; only it went a little tighter at the corners. "Oh?" He tilted his head. "The other big player, then? What was the name again... that newly founded family whispering in the Emperor's ear?"
"Su-ga-wa-ra," Akihiro sang into his cup.
Kuroe looked from one to the other. Politics; she hatedpolitics, mostly because politics was clearly one of those adult things made of inherited grudges, and names everyone expected you to already know, as if it was beaten over the head with family trees. "So?" she cut in, because someone here had to keep priorities and respect the urgency of her black veins situation. "When are you taking me to this Hiyori-san?"
Akihiro pointed the sakè cup at her. "Oh, little arrowling. You will want to be armed before entering the capital. Trust me."
Kuroe straightened as much as her fever permitted. "I amarmed. I have a sword that can cut even Yamata no Orochi!"
Akihiro leaned around her; then the other way; then he actually put one hand above his eyes and squinted into the empty air around her, bending toward her like a conspirator. "Hm," he murmured gravely. "Well, bad news for you. I don't see any sword on you, little one."
Kuroe shoved him away because he smelled like stale sakè. "Unfortunately, it's at the bottom of a lake at the moment," she snapped, "but I assure you—"
"Then it's a useless sword!"
"Like your useless invisible bow, Mister Best Archer in the Capital!" Kuroe fired back, jabbing one finger into his chest.
Akihiro laughed so hard he nearly sloshed sake on himself. Takamitsu, however, pressed a finger to the table with a light tap that somehow sounded like a warning. "Kuroe. Now, why don't you let the adults talk for a moment, hm? Then tomorrow I can take you to the capital and have Hiyori-chan fix you properly."
Kuroe looked at him sidelong. She wanted to point out that neither of the men before her passed any known test for adulthood, because one was a bright idiot and the other was an alcoholic scarecrow. But Takamitsu was smiling at her with that particular expression that strongly implied that if she kept going, he would simply pick her up, carry her upstairs, and possibly tie her to a beam. Tyrant. So Kuroe did the only sensible thing. She stopped listening to them, selectively. She let the adults' conversation slide into the general soup of noise and turned her attention outward, taking stock of the room again. Several farmers and at least two petty officials were still watching them over cups and crooked shoulders, muttering under their breath. Kuroe caught fragments.
"Radiant Guard..."
"Court lapdogs..."
"Province-breakers..."
"Heretics..."
Behind her, Takamitsu was speaking lightly, and Akihiro was speaking drunkenly, and from them too she caught bits and pieces.
"So who's the Sugawara man already there? Sugawara no Furuhito?"
"No, the other. His son, you know, the creepy one."
"But that's a child!"
"And apparently, an important child now."
"And what about the Hokke?"
Akihiro considered for a full second. "Barely visible. The Sugawara speak for supernatural affairs for the Emperor half the time."
At that, Takamitsu let out a low hum, not pleased, exactly, but not alarmed either. "Only the boy, then?" he asked quietly. "Well. They're not being subtle. Both the Hokke and the Sugawara knows that we Nanke are without a lead and both wants the Radiant Guard and spiritual influence for themselves. Those newly founded Sugawara know that we won't sell ourselves to the Hokke."
Akihiro lifted one shoulder. "From what I saw, they're trying to win us over by being friendly and pledging for our cause after the failed ritual. But if it's just the little blue-eyed creep from the Sugawara side?" He swirled the sakè. "You can probably manage that without drawing blood in the halls or bringing shame down on the Taishō. That is, if you can convince the other Shoshō to support your cause."
"Good," said Takamitsu serenly. "If I can keep Kuroe and Shirae out of the wrong hands, maybe I can get them to Hiyori-chan without forcing Taishō to clean up another political corpse."
Kuroe turned her head a little; that, at least, she understood. Not the clan names. Not the court. But keeping them safe without dragging the taishō into trouble, that she understood very well, which made the capital sound worse, frankly. Still, between the fever and the sakè-stink and the political sludge of it all, her mind refused to hold on to most of the names.
Then one single sentence broke through; a minor official, obviously drunk and speaking exactly loudly enough to be heard on purpose, snorted into his cup:
"First that idiot Bright Spear, and now that one? Man. The Radiant Guard has truly fallen low."
Kuroe blinked; of all the insults spoken that night, that one had real hatred in it.
Across the table, Takamitsu and Akihiro both stopped speaking. They did not turn or move, but their expressions flattened in instant unison.
The official, being drunk and therefore stupid in a brave way, mistook the silence for permission; he rose, wobbling slightly, then took one aggressive step toward their table, sloshing sakè over the rim of his cup. "I'm talking to you," he snapped, glaring at both Takamitsu and Akihiro. "Akihiro the Drunken Arrow, right? Maybe if you stopped drinking long enough to remember your own damned name, common people would stop dying in your happy 'incidents,' you you piss-soaked drunken sack of shit."
Akihiro smiled into his cup and drank, without even turning to face the man, "Well, what can I say? I do work very hard to keep my reputation alive." He even winked at Kuroe.
Takamitsu chuckled too. "Though they do have a point," he said mildly. "You should cut back on the sakè."
Kuroe turned and glared at both of them. Why in the nine unpleasant hells did they let people speak to them like that?
The official, irritated by being ignored, stepped closer and closer still, right up behind Takamitsu. Then, in a vulgar move that stole the air out of the room, he tipped his cup and poured the sakè directly over Takamitsu's head. The liquid ran down through his black hair, over his shoulder, along his inner robe.
The official lifted his voice. "You think your rank keeps people away? Look at them!" He gestured with the empty cup, swaying. "They don't lift a finger without the Emperor's orders. The Radiant Guard is nothing but a den of criminals and desperate trash."
Takamitsu did not move through any of it; he stayed there with his head slightly bowed, letting the sakè drip from the tips of his hair. So, Kuroe slammed both hands onto the low table in frustration in his place, hard enough to rattle the cups. She forgot the fever for one whole second, forgot discretion, too. "Taka-niichan! Drunken uncle! Why in all the provinces are you just sitting there letting them talk to you like that? Do you have no dignity?"
"Aah, Kuroe." Akihiro swirled the sakè in his cup thoughtfully. "To what end?" Then, without a shred of defensiveness, he added, "They're right anyway, we're just two idiots serving the Emperor after all."
Takamitsu nodded with maddening serenity, wringing a little sakè from one sleeve. "No need to get so worked up, Kuroe. It would be wrong for the Radiant Guard to resent the civilians it swore to protect—"
"Then it's true," the official spat. "Your current taishō really is the lowest scum in the history of the Radiant Guard if this is what he produced."
At that, Takamitsu froze so visibly that Kuroe felt it happen. The smile remained, but the atmosphere around him was anything but serene. She knew that expression very well; she had seen it in the forest, on the night of the masked assassins. The moment his face stopped being a warm, trusted face and became colder and more efficient than mercy.
"Oh," Kuroe said very softly, shrinking back toward the table.
Across from her, Akihiro winced and looked skyward. "Oh, no," he muttered. "This time he really did overstep."
Just as it couldn't get any worse, from another table, another voice joined in, drunk and emboldened by group stupidity. "The Drunken Arrow, you say? Isn't that the one always near that priestess? Hiyori-something?"
"Priestess?" scoffed another. "As if. There are no priestesses in the Radiant Guard. Don't you know what they call her? The Fallen Priestess. Same sort of filth as the rest of them."
Akihiro's half-drunken, crooked expression flattened too, not in the same way as Takamitsu; his was more ragged, more openly ugly, but close enough that Kuroe suddenly understood something very useful: insult Hiyori, and he stopped being drunk.
The official in front of them, tragically oblivious, kept going. "What? You deaf? Or do you only hear the Emperor's orders, you dogs?"
And the other drunken fool at the far table, now encouraged by survival lasting too long, slurred something about "the Fallen Priestess being nothing but a whore—"
Clank.
Kuroe hadn't even seen Akihiro move. One moment, the sakè cup had been in his hand, the next it had struck the man at the other table cleanly in the back of the head and shattered, splashing sakè and ceramic shards in all directions. Kuroe slowly turned from the fallen cup to Akihiro. He was still facing forward, still half-slouched; she wondered of he had even looked.
"Oh, man," Akihiro simply sighed. "My bad. I thought I heard Hiyori's name fall out of that sewer you call a mouth, and my hand slipped."
Oh-ho. Kuroe, despite experiencing an immediate and fierce surge of fondness for Akihiro, also had a sinking sense that the room had just crossed a threshold and was now headed straight for disaster.
The struck man lurched to his feet, soaked in sakè and rage. "What did you just say, you drunken bastard—!"
Several others rose with him, too many, all drunk and furious, all utterly unaware of how badly they had misjudged the balance of power in the room, between themselves and the two shōshō they were baiting.
Takamitsu stood very slowly, still smiling. It was terrifying. He turned enough to look at the official who had poured sakè on him. "Oh dear," he said lightly, "Surely I must have misheard. For a moment, it sounded like you had a problem with our taishō."
He stepped closer, nose to nose, and suddenly Kuroe, who had been furious on his behalf seconds ago, was now deeply concerned about the other man's continued existence. When she told them to react, she did not mean like this. So, she reached for Takamitsu's sleeve and tugged weakly. "Taka-niichan. Taka-niichan. You said it yourself, didn't you? It would be wrong for the Radiant Guard to resent the civilians it swore to protect—"
"Don't worry, Kuroe," Takamitsu said sweetly, without looking at her. "This will be over before Neko wakes up."
Too late; the official swung a punch telegraphed so obviously that even Kuroe, fever-drunk and militarily illiterate, had enough time to feel embarrassed on his behalf.
Then the room exploded, and the tavern brawl began exactly the way proper tavern brawls did: stupidly, and with a great deal of flying furniture.
Takamitsu tilted his head, and the first punch missed him entirely. He sidestepped another, caught someone's wrist, redirected him into a table, and used the collapse of that table as a shield against a tokkuri thrown from somewhere behind. The tokkuri shattered as Takamitsu smiled through it all with eerie cheer as he twisted the spear in one hand, barely using effort, barely even using proper violence. Just enough cursed energy every now and then to make his outline blur.
Hoping he wouldn't really use the spear on drunken civilians, Kuroe dropped to all fours because this felt prudent during a brawl, and she immediately tried to call for the only competent adults in the building. "Ume-san!" she shouted into the chaos. "Ume-san, where are you?! Neko-onesama?!"
There were only boots, and knees, and flying cups. One whole man tumbling backward over a low table. No Kaneko in sight. No Ume in sight, too; Ume, apparently, had decided the best way to handle grown men destroying her inn was to vanish briefly and perhaps fetch a larger stick. Well, that was unfortunate, because she could think of no one else able to talk some sense into Takamitsu now.
No one except—
Kuroe crawled under the table, emerged on the other side, and almost headbutted Akihiro's knee. Akihiro was still seated—still seated!—with his sakè gourd in one hand, watching the fight like a fully entertained uncle at a festival.
"Oh, now Takamitsu will dodge right," Akihiro said conversationally. "Then he'll feed his cursed technique a little cursed energy and flare a small light to blind the room—aaah, there he goes!" As if on cue, a small burst of light flashed from Takamitsu's spear, and several drunk men yelled and covered their eyes. Akihiro, with unearned generosity, slapped one palm over Kuroe's eyes just in time. "Careful, little arrowling. I'd hate for you to go blind. Honestly, he should show a little more restraint."
Kuroe clawed his wrist down. "Do something! Don't just sit there drinking, intervene! Aren't you a shōshō?!"
Akihiro scratched at his jaw as if troubled by fleas. "Oh, you say that like it's easy! But if Hiyori hears I caused another tavern incident, she'll be angry for days. I hate it when she's angry for days, it makes me feel like an idiot—"
"You idiot, do something!"
Akihiro considered again; as a bench flew over their heads, he forced Kuroe's head to duck, then took her hands, thrusting the sakè cup into them. "There, there. This way, it won't be entirely my fault, right?" Before she could protest, he moved behind her and adjusted her wrist like a teacher. "See? It's simple. You just aim properly and feed a little cursed energy into this stupid cup..."
For some reason, perhaps fever, pheraps the fact her curiosity remained terminal, or that she was powerless against any technique presented as a lesson, Kuroe obeyed. She let her cursed energy flow into the cup and held it despite the fever and the hot wave in the black veins. At least, she thought, if she survived this, she would learn how to throw better. Unfortunately, she realized too late that she had been tricked.
"...aaand throw!" Akihiro said cheerfully, snapping his fingers as he guided her arms into throwing the cup.
The cup left her hands in the same instant; Kuroe felt Akihiro's cursed energy slip over hers; it caught it, seized it, and violently disagreed with its natural trajectory. The cup smashed directly into the forehead of the same official who had tried to hit Takamitsu and was just now winding up for another miserable attempt.
Crack.
Akihiro whistled. "Look at you, you natural talent. That cup was full of your cursed energy by then, you know. Practically a weapon."
Kuroe was almost certain the perfect aim had not been hers at all; she turned to him, outrage building. "Drunken uncle, you did—! Your cursed technique bent the throw, didn't it?"
Takamitsu heard that; he glanced over mid-brawl, frowned, and called over his shoulder, "Akihiro. Do me a favor and leave Kuroe out of this, hm?"
Akihiro raised both hands innocently. "Hey. She threw it. Not my fault—"
"That's your cursed technique," Takamitsu cut in, swatting another man aside with the back of one hand. "The one that makes anything you throw hit its target. Not hers. Don't play dumb."
Kuroe went abruptly silent. Ah. So that was how he had done it. "No, wait," she said, swatting that aside. Anything he throws? Anything? Kami, the implications— "If you can do that with arrows and with cups, then what matters? Weight? Shape? Distance? Does it have to leave your hand first? Or can you infuse the object after release? If you threw a knife—"
Takamitsu sighed at once. "Kuroe."
Kuroe ignored him completely. "—could you guide it around a corner? Or through a crowd? Or make two things hit one point from different angles? And if cursed energy is already in the object, does that make it sharper or only truer? And if I practiced enough, would I need your technique to do it? Or just learn the feeling of the release?"
Akihiro stared at her. "Well," he said. "I suddenly understand why Takamitsu sounds so tired when he says your name."
Kuroe lit up despite herself. Maybe he would explain. Excellent!
Akihiro leaned closer, lazily, conspiratorially. "Heavenly Trajectory. An object wishes to fall, or fly, or miss? I merely load it with enough cursed energy and disagree with its preferences. Cups are stupid but obedient. Arrows are vain and respond beautifully. Knives—mm. Knives think too highly of themselves. I usually must bully them."
Kuroe's eyes widened. That made no sense to her, or maybe it was just a drunkard yapping, which was, frankly, promising. "Can you show me again?" she asked immediately. "If you help me throw something now—"
"No," said Takamitsu, driving an elbow into someone's ribs. Both Kuroe and Akihiro turned toward him. Takamitsu smiled sweetly and repeated, "No."
Kuroe opened her mouth, but Takamitsu silenced her with one lifted finger as Akihiro, wounded, pressed one hand to his chest. "Bright idiot, you crush my mentoring spirit—"
"—You do not have a mentoring spirit," Takamitsu said, ducking another swing. "You have a drinking problem and very good aim—now hurry and come help me."
"Fine. But for the record, if Hiyori asks, you started it, not me." Akihiro sighed with terrible, put-upon sadness and finally stood up exactly like a drunk would, that is: slantwise, loose, one shoulder lower than the other. He stepped onto the table in front of them and hopped down the other side, sakè gourd still in one hand.
What followed was chaos.
Takamitsu moved with as few movements as possible, no wasted swings; a tilt, a shift, one finger in someone's eyes, a knee into someone's ribs, an elbow that somehow deposited a whole grown man across the room without visible effort. Every now and then, he flashed bright enough to blind half the room and repositioned before anyone could curse him properly. Akihiro, meanwhile, looked like a drunk spirit had possessed a bard: he staggered where he meant to go, and ducking looked accidental even when it wasn't. He let men overcommit and then clipped them with table legs, sakè bottles, ceramic cups, the handle of someone else's knife, a ladle he had somehow acquired, all thrown while drinking and without looking and all landing exactly where they would do the most shame. He flicked a bowl over his shoulder without even glancing back, and the bowl hit a charging man directly between the eyes. He did it again with a chopstick. One farmer swung at him, and he swayed, stumbled, then bent backward so far it sailed over him.
Kuroe, meanwhile, tried to crawl away as the room tilted around her with every movement, and nausea climbed thick and mean, but she was making progress—
—until a heavy drunk collapsed right beside her on hands and knees, groaning. He looked up and saw her; his face twisted. "You're with them, aren't you?"
He lunged and caught her hair; Kuroe's vision darkened all the way. The fever surged hot as the black poison from the tsurugi and Yamata no Orochi still somewhere in her blood seemed to wake. In that instant, the world narrowed to his hand and her hatred of it.
She grabbed the broken leg of a table and poured cursed energy into it. Way too much. The wood vibrated in her hands, unstable in a manner that was very wrong and also, horrifyingly, wonderful. A hot hysterical feeling tore through her chest, too close to the way the tsurugi had felt, too close to that same ecstatic wrongness.
As the wood splintered, she swung. The table leg slammed into the man's knee. Once; again; then again; and again.
Again, again, again.
The man groaned but Kuroe could barely hear herself over the blood pounding in her ears; she was vaguely aware of laughing softly, but her vision had gone dark at the edges. The cursed energy in the wood swirled harder with every blow, becoming more like a tantrum. The feeling was magnificent. She wanted to keep going.
Break the knee. Break the shin. Break the whole world—
Takamitsu appeared from one side and drove a knee into the man's face while a tea cup came sailing in—source unknown, probably Akihiro—and cracked him smartly behind the skull.
"Oh, no," Takamitsu informed the falling man with fake calm. "That was a terrible idea."
"Truly awful judgment," Akihiro agreed.
Takamitsu glanced down at Kuroe, and his eyes found the broken table leg in her hands, then the wild black instability crawling through the cursed energy around it, then Kuroe's face, too bright-eyed and too pleased. He studied her for a long moment, narrowing his eyes, then he took the table leg out of her hand and tossed it away with a scowl.
Kuroe's vision slowly returned to normal, along with her heartbeat and breath. Remembering her mission, she did not waste the opening; she scrambled away through a thicket of legs and broken pottery, feeling the nausea rise dangerously again, and managed to snatch up a rusty sickle someone had dropped. Excellent. A weapon. Now I just need to go back to Shirae and—
Before she could do anything with it, she yelped as Takamitsu scooped her up bodily under one arm like a feral cat. He carried her out of the kicking range of three separate men and deposited her in a relatively safer corner against a broken table, hands braced briefly on her shoulders to make sure she stayed upright.
"No rusted weapons, they're dangerous," he said, still in the middle of the brawl. "Now, stay put for once."
She glared at him with fever-bright murder. He ruffled her hair then went back into the fray as she glared murder at his back.
Around her, the tavern continued to burst like overcooked grain. Men and objects flew in equal measure. Apparently, whatever else they were—idiot and drunkard and infuriating adults—insult the wrong names and Takamitsu and Akihiro became exactly what no one sensible wanted in a tavern: two men perfectly willing to win a brawl. Kuroe could only hope Ume would appear soon and restore sanity before somebody got seriously hurt.
With that last thought, and, perhaps, because at least Shirae was upstairs asleep and not part of this idiocy, Kuroe put her cheek against the broken table, closed her eyes for just one moment, and fell asleep.
When she woke, daylight was in the room.
Proper daylight. Morning. Kuroe was still face-down on the remains of a low table. Beside her, Takamitsu had apparently fallen asleep sitting up, one arm draped protectively over her shoulders as if guarding her from further furniture. He looked disgustingly intact, fresh-faced, even. Beautiful in an infuriating way. Across from them, Akihiro had ended up slumped against a wall, snoring into his chest, still in disarray and still somehow uninjured except for his general existence.
Kuroe frowned. How had they slept through—oh. When she raised her head, the tavern was a disaster. Men lay strewn everywhere, groaning, bruised, with black eyes and split lips, lumps on their heads, and expressions of defeat. Tables were broken, ceramic lay in shards across the earthen floor. Someone's sandal hung from a beam. Worse—
Ume stood in the middle of it all with one hand pressed to her forehead. Worse still—
Kaneko stood beside her in full armor, fresh and upright and terrifying, with one eyebrow visibly twitching and her tessen vibrating in her hand.
Oh hell, Kuroe thought. Then she even said it aloud, "Oh hell—"
From behind Kaneko, Shirae leaned just enough to meet Kuroe's gaze. She shook her head once. Do not speak, that tiny motion said. If you value life, do not speak.
Unfortunately, Takamitsu woke at that exact moment. He rubbed his eyes and stretched, then spoke in a bright, pleasant tone as if greeting a perfectly normal morning. "Kuroe. Did you sleep well—" When he looked up and saw Kaneko he froze quickly. "Oh. Neko." He laughed nervously, then he got to his feet all at once, tried to compose himself, and nearly tripped over a broken stool. "Good news!" he blurted. "No Hokke openly active in the capital. Only our taishō, very, very angry at me, not at you, never at you, and that Sugawara child—"
"Fujiwara no Takamitsu," Kaneko said, low and furious. The tessen trembled harder.
Takamitsu flinched and looked down at Kuroe as if hoping, for some unknown reason, that she might save him; Kuroe, feverish and in no state to rescue anyone, only shook her head helplessly until Takamitsu visibly deflated. "Listen, Neko," he said, guilty from the scalp down. "I can explain. For a start, Akihiro began it."
Ignorant of his own betrayal, Akihiro kept snoring peacefully through the accusation as Kaneko stepped forward and her stomp cracked the floorboards. Kuroe, still only halfway awake, thought dimly that if this was how the day to the capital began, then it truly had nowhere to go but up.