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ninoexchange2014-06-20 08:07 pm
nino-mod.livejournal.com) wrote in ninoexchange2014-06-20 08:07 pm
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augustfai (4/8)
For: augustfai
From:astrangerenters
Part 3
It was probably a candle. Maybe an animal had burrowed into the house during the storm and knocked it over while they slept. Or maybe the cookstove in what passed for Nino’s kitchen hadn’t been fully extinguished. After dinner, it might have been forgotten, ignored because they were all frightened. Whatever it was, Nino seemed to wake first, smelling smoke and realizing all too quickly that Tsumi’s attack had spared the shop so that they could all be surprised with this. This was what he got for allowing people into his home, this was what he got for trusting others.
He could hear the others stirring in quick succession after he had, but he ignored it to run for the ladder, already feeling the heat. He climbed, horrified at how bad his luck had suddenly gone. The fire had enveloped most of the kitchen already, was racing up the walls toward the ceiling. The way to the rear of the upper floor was partially blocked, and when Nino hurried over it, he could feel the floor weakening under his feet.
“Get out of here!” Sho was shouting as the smoke poured down from the upper loft to the shop. “Fire. Get out, it’s a fire!”
But Nino pushed forward, holding his shirt over his nose and mouth as best he could, crouching low to the ground to avoid the smoke. His bookshelf hadn’t been touched yet, but the flames were about to lick closer to the futon, to his small cabinet. He shoved the bookshelf over angrily, toppling the books and moving it aside. Bad luck, bad luck, bad luck.
One of the windows broke somewhere near the kitchen, and Nino coughed as the smoke around him grew thicker. It was harder and harder to see, and he tried shoving the bookshelf, fingers tearing at the floorboards. Where was it, where was it, he couldn’t find it. He kept coughing, nearly toppling backwards as he broke his fingernails in the tough wood.
“Where’s Nino?” he thought he heard, or maybe it was just a delusion as the fire grew larger. A candle. The cookstove. A candle or the cookstove, what had it been anyway? He felt a sliver of wood jam right under his fingernail, and he screamed in anger, in pain, trying to find the right floorboard. Where was it?
Something was looming over him then. Was the ceiling going to cave in on his head? But it was Jun, coughing, grabbing hold of him.
“Wait,” Nino shouted, lungs filling with more smoke. “Wait, it’s all here, I need it.”
But Jun wasn’t waiting, grabbing hold by the collar and yanking him away from the floorboards and the money box somewhere underneath.
“Wait!” he pleaded again, coughing, but Jun was half-carrying, half-dragging him back to the ladder, the floor collapsing after them just as they reached it. The collapse sent the ladder out from the landing, Jun holding the both of them against it as it crashed into the opposite wall. They fell several feet, Jun bearing the brunt of it as they hit the floor hard.
He didn’t know who it was from there, dragging him and Jun out of the shop, but soon he was in the wet grass, feeling it soak into the back of his shirt. He was coughing, he was coughing so much, and it hurt. “Wait,” he was begging when he felt the harsh medicinal taste of a potion hit his lips. Someone with gentle hands was cradling him, pouring it into his mouth. The ache in his throat started to ease almost instantly.
“Get back, get them back while it’s still burning!” Ohno was shouting. Ohno, shouting! It must have been really bad, Nino thought, blinking back tears. He’d been so close. The box had been so close, why didn’t Jun let him grab it?
How much money was in the box? How much was gone? In the end, it hadn’t even been Tsumi. It had been one of them, of course it had been one of them.
Just when he was about to try and get up, to stupidly go back, there was a weight on him. Becky, straddling him and shouting in his face. Even as the potions worked their strange magic on what the smoke had done to his lungs, she was on top of him, her fists pounding his chest.
“What’s wrong with you?” she was screaming. “What’s wrong with you?”
Normally Nino would have been thrilled to find a woman in such a position, but she was enraged. He hadn’t even thought her capable, but when he felt her hand slap across his face, he knew she was plenty capable.
“He could have died! You almost killed him! You selfish, selfish…you’re so selfish! Let me go!”
The weight was lifted, and Nino gasped, seeing that Ohno was physically lifting Becky off of him before she did any further damage. He tilted his head, seeing Jun sprawled on his back in the grass beside him, Sho and Keiko beside him uncorking potion after potion in a frenzied rush to heal him. He remembered the sound Jun’s body had made as they hit the floor. Jun, the angry, overprotective guardian, had gone back into the fire to save him, a person who meant nothing to him.
And Nino, obsessed with his money box, had wanted him to wait even longer.
He started to cry then, his whole body convulsing with it. Rage from the loss of the shop, the money. Unadulterated fury at his powerlessness. Tsumi had come to Heiankyo and somehow in the same day, a fire had come to his shop. He looked at Jun, barely moving and his leg seeming to lie at an odd angle. Jun had almost died to save him. And for what? He shouldn’t have bothered, Nino thought. He shouldn’t have wasted the effort on an empty shell like him.
—
It’s the opinion of the priest and nearly a dozen more who examine him that Kazu has stolen his grandmother’s spirit.
Taichi has nearly put Ninomiya Sundries into bankruptcy to buy their silence, even with a pregnant wife at home. It’s something nobody has seen before, that nobody has been known to be capable of before. Or if it had been seen, it was never written down or spoken of. Perhaps the power that Kazu possesses (or the power that possesses Kazu) is so unholy, so evil, that to commit it to paper would only see it manifest in others.
A Sin Eater consumes the sin as part of absolution. But when the Sin Eater had come to the house with his mother, he had searched and searched and found no spirit remaining near his grandmother to absolve. After Kazu had described his trance, how he’d felt his grandmother’s spirit willingly approach him, it is the only conclusion to make. He tricked her somehow, a woman straddling the border between life and death. He stole something that wasn’t his to claim.
And yet, he’d pleaded with the priests, he’d heard her say it. He’d heard his grandmother’s voice in his trance as he’d always heard it in life. “Take it,” she’d said willingly. “Take it.”
She’d given her spirit to him. But how do they know that’s what happened? Because they’ve taken him to Odawara Jingu despite the ban. The same head priest from his childhood was there, fear in his eyes. They killed a small lizard that had been unfortunate enough to have sought shelter in the temple walls that morning. They sliced its belly open right in front of him. They induced a trance. Kazu isn’t sure what happened aside from what they told him. He’d gone painfully into trance, had felt the spirit approach him. Much smaller than his grandmother’s, the spirit that had so easily and willingly wrapped around him.
While he was in trance, however, Kazu’s eyes had gone black again. Spirits absolved by Sin Eaters gently detach from the body, are absorbed. The lizard’s had ripped violently from its body as soon as Kazu’s hand had come close. Instead of being absorbed it had disintegrated, a shower of colored sparks piercing Kazu’s skin like a child holding a small firework. It was harsh, quick. Had it gone to the afterlife? The priests were doubtful. How could it when it had broken apart like that?
When they tell him this, Kazu is ill on the temple floor, trying to make what his grandmother had said somehow match up with the violence he’d clearly inflicted upon her. Why would she have wanted this? How could she?
It’s decided that Kazu will leave Odawara. Taichi’s money cannot buy him much more than it already has. He’s spending his last night under his parents’ roof. A wake has already been held for his grandmother without him, and nobody knows the circumstances surrounding her death aside from his mother, Taichi, and the priests.
His mother has cooked for him one last time, a handful of his favorite dishes, even though she cooked with tears silently running down her face. He’s the cause of her sorrow, Kazu knows. He’s been the cause of it for years. Since he was a child. Since he drove away his father. And now with what he’s done to his grandmother. He eats his meal with a heavy heart, wishing she’d say something, anything. Even if she spat at him and cast him out the door, it would be better than her silence.
He’s decided on his own that he’ll leave when dinner is concluded, that he’ll stay at an inn until he can find a party of travelers and emigrants heading west. He’s almost twenty-two years old, and he’s being exiled. Maybe he ought to go east, he’s thought a few times. He’s more likely to die that way, be less of a nuisance. But yet despite all of that Kazu wants to live. He’s not ready to die. He’s lived too much of his life in a small room with playing cards for friends to die now.
When he finishes his meal, he goes to his bedroom. He’s got a pack together with several changes of clothes, a handful of potions for emergencies, his box of money. He’s spent three long years earning this money, although he’d hoped to be leaving in far different circumstances. He brings the pack into the kitchen, setting it down while he opens the money box, does one final count.
His mother stands by, watching as he counts the coins out loud.
When he finishes, he takes the stacks of coins and divides them up. He saves four gold ryō coins for himself, hopefully enough to buy him a safe place in a traveling caravan, and leaves a dozen more for his mother, forcing them across the table towards her.
“Kazunari,” she finally says, pain evident in every syllable. “I don’t want your money. You worked hard for that.”
“It’s not a matter of wanting,” he insists, pushing the stacks of gold further in her direction. “I’m your son, and I want to take care of you.”
“Taichi-kun…”
“…is not your relation. I am. Take the coins or dump them off at the temple when I’m gone. But they’re not coming with me. They’re for you.”
She leaves the coins where they are, doesn’t insult him by pushing them back. He hoists his pack, having decided that he’s too old to cry about it.
“Be well, Mama.”
She hugs herself, nodding. “Be well.”
He walks away without looking back.
—
He always thought he was safe up here in the hills. There was only smoldering rubble remaining now. He dug through it to find his money box. The fire destroyed the box, and the heat had fused all of the coins together. A lump of gold dirtied with the copper of mon coins. He shoved the ugly thing in his pocket. Maybe it could be melted down by a smith, separated out into its component parts. For now, it was useless to him.
The potions that Keiko had managed to gather together before fleeing the fire (smart girl) had managed to reset Jun’s broken leg, though he’d be limping for a while. They sealed up Sho’s belly, and now they’d stitched bone back together. It was the most valuable thing they had, and yet only six were left. Nino remembered Aiba’s letter, the potions he had promised. Too little, too late.
The fires had gone out in Heiankyo, so there were probably matching mounds of rubble there just like his shop. He’d lost everything. It didn’t much matter what had caused it. The blame fell entirely on Tsumi anyway, the bastard.
Ohno and Sho had headed for the city at first light, still coughing from the fire, to see what could be done, to see if they could even get inside with the Sanjo Ohashi destroyed. Keiko and her bow had gone with them, simply to ensure that someone competent was around to keep them both safe. Sho’s plan to run away, to go on his pilgrimage and damn the consequences, had hit a very big snag. Nino hoped there was no additional sorrow for him and Ohno to find upon reaching the city.
That left him in the cart shed, their only shelter, with a sleeping Jun and a very furious Sin Eater. Water dripped down from where the tree had caved in the ceiling, forcing the three of them into the corner where it was still dry. There were some food stores on Becky’s cart, some clothes and other supplies. It was all that remained to keep six people alive now.
Where would they go? Heiankyo had been devastated, and nobody was going to be selling to outsiders when they had their own people to consider. Prices would skyrocket, and once all of the spirits had been laid to rest, the rebuilding would begin. Sure, the walls had held but Nino estimated by sight that maybe a quarter of the city had flooded. Some had burned. The citizens of the slums who’d lost their homes would be begging for scraps, taking up residence wherever they could find space. Was there room for six more? Nino doubted it. Could they stay at the Sakurai estate? Was there still a Sakurai estate?
Becky mostly ignored him, spending most of her day speaking softly to Jun, who probably couldn’t even hear her. She wiped his brow, sang quiet songs in a sweet, gentle voice that weren’t for Nino to enjoy. Probably the songs from the orphanage, from their island home so far away that they’d never see again.
She was still angry with him, and now that Nino had sort of come to terms with the extent of his stupidity, he found that he couldn’t blame her. Her older brother, not by blood but by a bond even stronger, had nearly been taken from her. They’d come so far, and she’d nearly lost him because some jerk was trying to save his money.
And as for said jerk, he was stuck with these people now and he knew it. They owed him nothing, but without them, Nino knew he was lost. He couldn’t sit around in the rubble of his life waiting for Aiba Masaki to stop being charitable and come rescue him. Nino knew Aiba too well for that. He’d delayed Sho’s pilgrimage, had nearly gotten Becky’s guardian killed. And still they’d pulled him from the house. Still they hadn’t let him burn. They had saved him as though he was one of their own.
Eventually Becky seemed to tire of singing, her voice going from words to only humming before finally stopping. She had rested Jun’s head in her lap, was stroking the dark tendrils of his hair.
“I’m sorry,” Nino said. “I’d understand if that means nothing to you, but I’m sorry all the same.”
She nodded slowly, twisting a lock of Jun’s hair around her finger. It was still strange to see the mighty swordsman look so weak and helpless, lying on the ground. He seemed smaller, all the more human. “I’m sorry for hitting you. I’m sorry about your shop. We’ve brought bad luck with us all the way from Dazaifu.”
“I’ve found that there is no such thing as luck in Wakoku,” he said bitterly. “There’s just shit and even more shit.”
If she was offended by his language, she didn’t say so. “You could say that. But there’s beauty too.”
He stared at her, seeing the softest smile on her face. “Beauty that gets destroyed, over and over. We rebuild only for it to be knocked down. What’s the point, you wonder?”
She shrugged, her long brown hair falling loose around her shoulders, making her look much younger than she was. “I don’t know. But the ocean, the people, the islands, and this land here. We seem to think it’s worth saving, that it’s worth rebuilding again and again. Maybe we’re just stubborn as a species, human beings. But we’ve never given up. No matter how many times Tsumi comes, we keep fighting.”
“Is that why you’re on pilgrimage? As Sho-kun and all you Sin Eaters say, you want to save the world?”
“My dream’s not as lofty as that,” she said, grinning. “My goal is to never give up, no matter what. Defeating Tsumi just happens to be the natural result of that goal. I won’t stop, I can’t stop.”
“You’re weird,” he said bluntly, getting her to laugh again.
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Stop laughing,” Jun interrupted them in an annoyed mumble. “Every time you laugh it hurts, damn it.”
She looked down at her guardian, poking him in the cheek. “Welcome back. I was starting to miss all your complaining!”
Jun didn’t open his eyes, grimacing instead. “Shut up.”
—
Sho, Ohno, and Keiko returned mostly with good news, all things considered. The body count in Heiankyo currently hovered around 1,000 souls lost. Given the population was well over 100,000, it could have been worse. As had been the case in Odawara more than a generation earlier, it was the flooding that had claimed the most lives. Some of the Sin Eaters were forced to go through the streets in small canoes, looking for the signature white glow that signaled a spirit awaiting absolution.
The only reason they’d been let through the gates was because of Sho’s family connections. The Sakurai family and Ohno family had not lost anyone to Tsumi’s wrath, although the typhoon had ripped the roof off of the servants’ quarters on the estate, and Ohno’s father had been trapped under some rubble. He was healing now thanks to the Sakurai family’s potion stores.
Sho’s parents had only waited a few minutes before yelling at their son, a grown man. They’d barely finished embracing him before they started shouting, Ohno reported back, smiling from ear to ear. No matter what Tsumi had just done to Heiankyo, nothing was worse than how Sho had run away from his arranged marriage like a little boy frightened off by a cockroach in his toy box. Arriving with Keiko, an unmarried woman, in tow had set his parents off even more.
And yet they’d allowed him to leave. Even though he still didn’t have the temple’s sanction, his parents had sent him off with their blessing. He’d given an impassioned speech, Keiko told them all, sounding rather impressed, enumerating the reasons why his pilgrimage was necessary. One was that his younger sister was actually the best suited to carry on the family business, which Ohno agreed was true since she was actually a ship’s captain herself and knew the dangers better than anyone sitting at home with a ledger would. Beyond that, Sho had bade his parents to take a look around them. If even Heiankyo was vulnerable, was anywhere in Wakoku safe? The more Sin Eaters on the road, the quicker Tsumi would be defeated. And obviously if someone beat Sho to the punch, he’d be able to come home anyhow.
Embarrassed by Sho’s appearance and altogether pathetic pilgrimage so far (and they inferred how pathetic it was because Sho had been able to get home so quickly), they’d gone out of their way to help him. Though they had to play it a bit conservative with supplies since they were planning to donate a great deal of money to the rebuilding effort, they’d still been quite generous. All three had returned with a pack on their back. Ohno with money and curatives, Keiko and Sho with food and toiletries (Sho’s parents had been extremely appalled by the bit of shaggy growth on Sho’s face after not having shaved in a while).
They spent that evening, all six of them, going through the supplies they had from Becky’s party as well as the items from Sho’s parents. It had been decided now that for safety’s sake, the pilgrimage parties would be combined. After all, their destination was exactly the same. Two Sin Eaters, three guardians, and Nino, who would be towing the cart to allow the guardians to better protect the group along the Tokaido. The money would maybe last all the way to Odawara if they camped outside each night. If they opted for an inn here and there, they could still get to Mikawa comfortably.
And that was where he’d leave them, Nino had decided. It would be one less mouth to feed, one less body to account for. Sure there was safety in numbers, but Nino was no guardian. He’d lost his crossbow in the fire, and he’d never held a sword in his life. Even after he left, Sho and Ohno would be in good hands. Becky, a far more experienced Sin Eater, could teach Sho the tricks of the trade. In return, she wouldn’t have to bear the burden of her powers alone. And Ohno-kun could continue his training with Jun, scary as it was. In exchange, there was one more person standing by to defend the Sin Eaters from attack, one more person to be on watch at night in case any unabsolved were nearby.
All told, it was a rather genius plan, and Nino was surprised more Sin Eaters didn’t team up this way. But then he remembered that most of them were stubborn at heart. Teaming up to them meant weakness. But to two goofy Sin Eaters on unofficial pilgrimages it meant safety, it meant survival. And it probably meant more obnoxious high-fives between Becky and Sho, who seemed equally eager to prove all their doubters wrong.
Jun was sore, barely able to walk. The potions would speed his recovery, though, and in a few days the muddy roads would dry up again, allowing them to pass more quickly. Much as he’d never considered such a thing before, Ninomiya Kazunari was heading off on a Sin Eater’s pilgrimage.
—
By the end of the third day, Nino was deeply regretting having been put in charge of towing their cart. Jun had made it look so easy that first day they’d met, tugging it uphill. It was lightweight wood as far as carts went, a single axle and two wheels and more like a large wheelbarrow than a cart to tow passengers. But with their supplies, with the folded up tents and their packs and their tins of preserved food and all the damn crap Sho’s parents had donated to keep their son looking fresh-faced and pretty, it was a pain in the ass to tug up the hills of the Tokaido and an even bigger pain in the ass going downhill with all its weight threatening to topple Nino over.
They took turns sometimes, with Sho volunteering to give Nino a break, Ohno too. Nino had never trained his body for something like this, and he had no muscles to speak of. But he grew annoyed with their pity, putting on a pair of heavy, sweat-inducing gloves to keep from getting blisters. It was a little slow-going too as they left the relative openness of the road and entered a more forested area.
Tsumi’s typhoon had toppled trees everywhere, many of them blocking or partially blocking the road, leaving a slightly sore Jun and a surprisingly strong Keiko to try and clear a path for the cart. The typhoon had also upset the local wildlife. Even though they stayed on the road, they were a seeming beacon for animals both alive and not so much. A pack of wild boars, all of them very much alive, had come tearing down a ravine dead set on the cart, most likely having smelled their food.
But the guardians were not slouches at protecting them. Keiko’s mastery of the bow left most of them speechless, save for Jun who was too busy barking out orders to Ohno and of course, Becky, who knew how good her “little sister” was already. She got three of the boars in a row, leaving the rest to Jun and his swift slicing motions. Becky stood by like a proud parent as Sho went into trance and sent the animals’ spirits on their merry way. Nino was certain though that they were going to grow sick of eating pork before too long no matter how much they dried it into jerky, fried it up with rice, or got more experimental and tried pickling it with cabbage (a bad idea of Sho’s all around).
Despite the sadness that had characterized much of the journey until then, their camps each night were reminiscent of that first night under the stars when Nino had still had a shop, and Sho had nearly burst from all the fried rice he’d eaten. While Jun and Ohno used the downtime for more training (something Ohno complained about behind Jun’s back with regularity), Keiko set to work. According to Becky, Keiko had never been interested in cooking before, but after one of Jun’s odd pep talks, she’d grown obsessed. She considered it part of her duty as Becky’s guardian, serving her nutritious meals to keep her going, although now she was cooking for six.
Try as he might, Sho’s efforts to aid in Keiko’s cooking were vastly unhelpful. He spilled rice in the grass. When asked to keep an eye on a bubbling pot, he scalded his fingers on it. And even when asked to simply chop up wild vegetables they’d picked along the way, he’d been terrible at it. But it was probably obvious to everyone save for Sho why he kept trying. It had apparently started at his parents’ house when Keiko, a complete stranger, had shown up alongside him and Ohno.
“Who is this?” his parents had demanded. “Did you run away with this girl? Is she pregnant? Are you going to marry her?” All these questions had been lobbed at him rapid fire, and according to Ohno, he’d blushed about it so furiously that Keiko had teased him about it all the way back from Heiankyo. It had been a long time since Sho had had a girlfriend, Ohno whispered to Nino privately, and somehow his parents’ angry questions had stuck with him. He trailed behind her on the road, cheering her on as she defended the group. “Amazing! Wow! You’ve saved us, Keiko-chan!” Again and again until Keiko had finally told him to back off so she didn’t accidentally elbow him in the face when she drew her bowstring back.
Sho, content with his little crush, was looking for ways to prove himself, moving to absolve the creatures Keiko took out and telling Becky he “had it.” For her part, Becky didn’t seem to mind and eventually confessed to Nino that Keiko had always been fairly popular back in Dazaifu and probably liked the attention now that she was far from all her admirers back home. So long as the two of them didn’t start having sex while the rest of them were trying to sleep, Nino had no other opinions on it.
They set up camp for the night, Nino taking his gloves off and flexing his fingers, sighing. All along the Tokaido there were hokora set up, small roadside shrines meant to protect travelers. They’d been used as campsites for centuries by Sin Eater parties and emigrants alike. The shrines were usually carved from one of the rocky outcroppings along the road. Sometimes there were small caves within a few hundred feet, offering some protection from the elements and wild animals. Other times it was nothing more than a clearing, more vulnerable and requiring a night watch performed by the three guardians in shifts. Nino had volunteered for a watch, but Jun had declined with one of his lofty smiles. Jun would probably do two shifts to keep Nino from doing one.
Tonight’s hokora campsite was a cave type, cold and having just been cleared of animal bones and carcasses by Ohno and Jun. It probably hadn’t been used in a while except by a mountain lion or something else Nino hoped wouldn’t come back that night. Nino thought of the last pilgrimage that had passed along this road, Lord Shingo of House Murakami. There was definitely not room in the cave for 17 men unless they maybe slept three to a bedroll, he thought with a grin.
While Sho trailed Keiko outside to the cooking fire like a diligent dog, Ohno and Becky set out the bedrolls while Jun and Nino took a look at their map. The one they’d brought up from Dazaifu was waterlogged, but thankfully Sho’s parents had provided a replacement. Sho himself was actually the best at reading the map and determining the route to take after his many years spent planning his own pilgrimage and in his other scholarly pursuits. But he’d taught Jun a lot already in a manner of days, the two of them having bonded over their shared pilgrimage injuries and more importantly, their mutual need to always be in control of what was happening.
Nino knew the Tokaido mostly in theory. Aiba blabbed about it all the time, whether it was best to take the highroad or the low road at certain points. The low road was the prettier one, closer to the sea and with flatter terrain while the highroad was just that, high. It ribboned in and out of the forests, a much hillier journey and harder on the body (and on the poor person towing the supply cart). But with the low road being low, it meant that creatures hiding in the trees or the brush were more liable to jump out and strike. It also put you right in Tsumi’s line of fire along the shore.
There were two small villages along the low road that might make for decent stopping points, and Nino hadn’t slept outside like this since he’d first journeyed from Odawara almost a decade earlier. He suggested the low road despite the risks, hinting that it would be easier on all of them, especially a certain someone who still favored his left leg. Walking miles and miles every day on it wasn’t going to help him recover either. Jun seemed to hold back an argument, probably knowing all along that the low road was the best option. He merely folded up the map and nodded.
“One more day and we reach the Sekijuku Road.”
—
“Take your time,” Keiko said, patting Becky on the shoulder as they packed up their belongings and got ready to move. Nino’s back was thanking him that they’d spent the money and stayed at an inn in the small village of Tsuchiyama. They were at a turning point in the terrain, leaving the forests and fields of the early Tokaido behind. The Sekijuku Road that led to the temple of the same name, the only occupied area between Tsuchiyama and the small towns on the outskirts of Mikawa, was a stark contrast.
It had been heavily populated once, Sho had explained to them the night before. The region had flourished centuries ago, but they’d gotten arrogant, building right up to the sea without walls. Fishing villages had stretched all along the coast, enjoying the rich waters full of shellfish. Tsumi had attacked with abandon, wiping out villages and killing off so many sea creatures that living there became impossible. Subsequent attacks after the humans had left had washed the land bare. All that remained was barren rock, gray and empty for miles.
It was still vulnerable, a long open stretch with nothing to sustain a traveler. It was necessary even during the Calm to stock up along the way. The temple at the midpoint and its small hamlets surrounding were the only safe places, or at least they had been. Nino remembered Aiba’s letter, the attack on a village not far from the temple. Was he still there? Would they meet again?
Tsuchiyama’s northern exit, despite its location on the low road, was still on higher ground than the Sekijuku Road. The Suzuka Pass out of town was more of a steep drop, a danger for carts and wagons alike. That Aiba led his oxen up and down this path throughout the year no matter the weather suddenly impressed him. Sure Aiba had always complained, but Nino had thought he was exaggerating. He had more respect for his friend now, enduring this journey over and over again.
Jun, Ohno, and Sho together were going to ease the cart down the slope and would turn things back over to Nino once they got on even ground again. That they decided this without even seeking Nino’s opinion only reinforced the idea that they thought he was weak and mostly useless. It was a waste of time to let this hurt his feelings. He’d only hold them back more and more if he complained.
They headed down the main street of town, the other three having already gone on ahead. Becky stood, her back to the Sekijuku Road before them, and seemed to be committing every building and structure in the small town to memory. “Please be careful going down,” Keiko said to her before turning and heading for the pass.
Only Nino remained with her, curious. “What are you looking at?”
She’d finally retired the orange and pineapple yukata in favor of a slightly heavier purple cotton dotted with flower designs. It seemed that the southerners were starting to feel a bit colder, even though to Nino it was still plenty warm and the feeling would increase during the day as they walked under the sunny skies. Becky rubbed her arms for warmth in the slight morning chill.
“This place,” she said simply, and Nino politely looked away as she wiped tears from her eyes.
“Something about it you like?”
She smiled. “Not in particular.”
“Then why?”
She turned to him, and for the first time he really seemed to look. Her eyes were green. Most of the people Nino knew had brown eyes, but she was the first person he’d ever met with green ones. Filled with tears, they stood out all the more. They were beautiful.
“I’m saying goodbye.” She turned away, laughing quietly to lighten the mood. “Come on, the sooner we leave, the sooner you’ll be able to rest again.”
“What are you trying to say?” he teased, trying to cheer her up after her sad admission. It was true, she would never see this place again. Each step forward was a step away from the rest of Wakoku, a land she was mostly seeing for the first and last time as she traveled. “Are you saying I’m lazy? That I require a lot of rest stops?”
She sniffled a bit, still laughing. “You tell me,” she said, boldly reaching for his arm. As they walked, she poked a few times at the palm of his hand, at his short fingers. Her hands were freezing cold, and he wondered if any further shifts in the weather would affect her. “These delicate little hands, towing along that cart. You poor thing.”
He wrenched his hand away, laughing in return. “We haven’t all trained from childhood for a trip like this,” he said. “Just look at Ohno-kun. His katana still makes that scraping noise whenever he pulls it from the scabbard. Screeeeeech.”
“Ah, no, no!” she pleaded with him, pushing his shoulder. “Not that sound! I swear, Jun is going to kill him. ‘The katana is a beautiful sacred weapon!’” she boomed in an oddly accurate imitation of Jun’s voice. “‘If you treat your katana so poorly, it will come back to haunt you later!’”
“‘You’ll ruin the blade!’” Nino continued, dropping his voice low. “‘The tears of the craftsmen, think about their sweat and labor!’”
They were nearly doubled over in laughter when they reached the edge of town, finding Keiko holding a finger to her lips.
“You two,” she chided them, shaking her head and smiling. “He’ll hear you, you know, and he’ll get all huffy. And then he’ll just take it out on Ohno-kun. Be considerate of Ohno-kun’s feelings now.”
Becky linked arms with her little sister, and together they started down the steep path. “Sorry, sorry,” she chuckled, taking one step at a time.
Nino let them go on ahead, turning around to look back at Tsuchiyama, as normal a small town as any. If Nino wanted, he could return here at any time. It was like the view of Heiankyo and the valley that he’d had from his shop. A sight that had grown less than extraordinary with the passage of time. But to Becky, everything was beautiful. Because every view was final.
—
If Nino could live the rest of his life without traveling this stretch of road again, he’d be a happier man. The Sekijuku Road had nothing in its favor. No protection from the sea, the spray of waves crashing against the rock soaked their clothes. By the time the sun had dried them, another wave had crested and drenched them. There were fewer animals, at least, mostly carrion birds in search of what had been left behind in Tsumi’s wake. They traveled north to south in a v formation, floating high above as their noisy calls echoed against the rock walls.
The road was bumpy with no dirt to soften the way, only hard rock that had made everyone’s feet ache, not just Nino’s for once. They were all in rather sour moods when they pulled the cart onto cobblestones at last. Sekijuku Temple was the only structure remaining from one of the destroyed villages, the building remaining mostly because it had been carved out of a rock wall and faced away from the ocean. The cobbled paths leading to and from had come later, the priests gathering up remnants from the other destroyed villages and giving themselves a road.
Sekijuku was more of a rest stop than a town. There was no inn to speak of since only a handful of priests and priestesses lived here to provide help and guidance to Sin Eater parties. They’d be camping out in one of the temple’s spare rooms with none of the comforts an inn might provide. In a Calm, it was apparently a less solemn place, buzzing with a traders’ market and the enthusiasm of emigrants moving on to what they hoped would be a more prosperous life somewhere else in Wakoku. When Tsumi returned, only the most devoted temple dwellers remained out of duty rather than desire.
Sho led the way to the temple, Becky trailing behind. Though they didn’t bear any seal announcing they were traveling on an official pilgrimage, Sho had been betting recklessly the entire way that maybe his family name would be enough to get them rooms and maybe even discounts. He’d gotten lucky once along the low road, finding an inn operated by the mother of one of his sister’s sailors. They’d gotten rooms at half price. But from the stern looking faces of the priests here, Nino suspected that Sho’s name and to a lesser extent Sho’s charm were not going to win them any favors.
While he negotiated in earnest, Becky chiming in with her southern chattiness, Nino and Jun were directed to bring their cart to a storage shed around back of the temple. Ohno and Keiko followed behind, carrying their weapons as well as the short daggers that Sho and Becky carried along the road. Despite the dangers of the Sekijuku Road, the temple itself was extremely conservative. No weapons were allowed inside. They would be locked up for the duration of their visit in a separate crate manned at all hours by a priest or priestess. And if Tsumi struck? They were to stay inside the temple and wait it out. If a party of unabsolved struck? The answer was the same. It was the priests’ duty to protect the grounds, not the travelers’.
Nino hid a smile in the crook of his arm as Jun reluctantly handed over his sword and scabbard. To his credit, the priest bowed to Jun and to the weapon itself as he accepted the katana, holding it properly as he set it down and repeated the process with all the weapons given him. The temple held guardians in high esteem. It was the guardians that had gotten their Sin Eaters this far, and guardians that would guide them further.
When they returned, Sho looked angry and Becky as well. “What, no room?” Keiko asked, frowning.
“Oh there’s room,” Sho said. “But it’s in the basement. All the other rooms are full. Lord Shingo of House Murakami has booked everything else until their departure tomorrow. I don’t know why I ever liked that guy…”
“We’re on a pilgrimage too,” Jun protested, his voice carrying across the temple courtyard. Before he could complain further, Ohno rested a hand on his shoulder to try and calm him. Remarkably, it worked.
Lord Shingo of House Murakami. It seemed that the recovery efforts in the village Aiba had written about had ended, and now Lord Shingo was ready to set off once more.
This time Jun kept his complaints in a quieter tone of voice. “You said it’s a party of men. Why can’t they give up one of their rooms for the women?”
“Oh shut up,” Becky chided him. “I don’t need to sleep on a cloud, Jun-kun. I’m not a princess.”
“I highly doubt this place has fancy mattresses anyhow,” Keiko said with a laugh.
Nino suddenly heard an all too familiar voice from the other side of the courtyard, a husky voice asking the priest where the “basement people” were. He turned, eyes widening as he locked eyes with him.
“Nino!” Aiba Masaki cheered, leaving before the priest could answer his question and running over, waving as though they couldn’t see him. “Ah, and Ohno-kun! Sho-chan!”
But then Aiba’s huge smile seemed to freeze on his face when he saw the others in their party.
Aiba blinked as he skidded to a halt, his shoes scraping against the cobblestones.
“Becky.”
Part 5
augustfaiFrom:
astrangerentersPart 3
It was probably a candle. Maybe an animal had burrowed into the house during the storm and knocked it over while they slept. Or maybe the cookstove in what passed for Nino’s kitchen hadn’t been fully extinguished. After dinner, it might have been forgotten, ignored because they were all frightened. Whatever it was, Nino seemed to wake first, smelling smoke and realizing all too quickly that Tsumi’s attack had spared the shop so that they could all be surprised with this. This was what he got for allowing people into his home, this was what he got for trusting others.
He could hear the others stirring in quick succession after he had, but he ignored it to run for the ladder, already feeling the heat. He climbed, horrified at how bad his luck had suddenly gone. The fire had enveloped most of the kitchen already, was racing up the walls toward the ceiling. The way to the rear of the upper floor was partially blocked, and when Nino hurried over it, he could feel the floor weakening under his feet.
“Get out of here!” Sho was shouting as the smoke poured down from the upper loft to the shop. “Fire. Get out, it’s a fire!”
But Nino pushed forward, holding his shirt over his nose and mouth as best he could, crouching low to the ground to avoid the smoke. His bookshelf hadn’t been touched yet, but the flames were about to lick closer to the futon, to his small cabinet. He shoved the bookshelf over angrily, toppling the books and moving it aside. Bad luck, bad luck, bad luck.
One of the windows broke somewhere near the kitchen, and Nino coughed as the smoke around him grew thicker. It was harder and harder to see, and he tried shoving the bookshelf, fingers tearing at the floorboards. Where was it, where was it, he couldn’t find it. He kept coughing, nearly toppling backwards as he broke his fingernails in the tough wood.
“Where’s Nino?” he thought he heard, or maybe it was just a delusion as the fire grew larger. A candle. The cookstove. A candle or the cookstove, what had it been anyway? He felt a sliver of wood jam right under his fingernail, and he screamed in anger, in pain, trying to find the right floorboard. Where was it?
Something was looming over him then. Was the ceiling going to cave in on his head? But it was Jun, coughing, grabbing hold of him.
“Wait,” Nino shouted, lungs filling with more smoke. “Wait, it’s all here, I need it.”
But Jun wasn’t waiting, grabbing hold by the collar and yanking him away from the floorboards and the money box somewhere underneath.
“Wait!” he pleaded again, coughing, but Jun was half-carrying, half-dragging him back to the ladder, the floor collapsing after them just as they reached it. The collapse sent the ladder out from the landing, Jun holding the both of them against it as it crashed into the opposite wall. They fell several feet, Jun bearing the brunt of it as they hit the floor hard.
He didn’t know who it was from there, dragging him and Jun out of the shop, but soon he was in the wet grass, feeling it soak into the back of his shirt. He was coughing, he was coughing so much, and it hurt. “Wait,” he was begging when he felt the harsh medicinal taste of a potion hit his lips. Someone with gentle hands was cradling him, pouring it into his mouth. The ache in his throat started to ease almost instantly.
“Get back, get them back while it’s still burning!” Ohno was shouting. Ohno, shouting! It must have been really bad, Nino thought, blinking back tears. He’d been so close. The box had been so close, why didn’t Jun let him grab it?
How much money was in the box? How much was gone? In the end, it hadn’t even been Tsumi. It had been one of them, of course it had been one of them.
Just when he was about to try and get up, to stupidly go back, there was a weight on him. Becky, straddling him and shouting in his face. Even as the potions worked their strange magic on what the smoke had done to his lungs, she was on top of him, her fists pounding his chest.
“What’s wrong with you?” she was screaming. “What’s wrong with you?”
Normally Nino would have been thrilled to find a woman in such a position, but she was enraged. He hadn’t even thought her capable, but when he felt her hand slap across his face, he knew she was plenty capable.
“He could have died! You almost killed him! You selfish, selfish…you’re so selfish! Let me go!”
The weight was lifted, and Nino gasped, seeing that Ohno was physically lifting Becky off of him before she did any further damage. He tilted his head, seeing Jun sprawled on his back in the grass beside him, Sho and Keiko beside him uncorking potion after potion in a frenzied rush to heal him. He remembered the sound Jun’s body had made as they hit the floor. Jun, the angry, overprotective guardian, had gone back into the fire to save him, a person who meant nothing to him.
And Nino, obsessed with his money box, had wanted him to wait even longer.
He started to cry then, his whole body convulsing with it. Rage from the loss of the shop, the money. Unadulterated fury at his powerlessness. Tsumi had come to Heiankyo and somehow in the same day, a fire had come to his shop. He looked at Jun, barely moving and his leg seeming to lie at an odd angle. Jun had almost died to save him. And for what? He shouldn’t have bothered, Nino thought. He shouldn’t have wasted the effort on an empty shell like him.
—
It’s the opinion of the priest and nearly a dozen more who examine him that Kazu has stolen his grandmother’s spirit.
Taichi has nearly put Ninomiya Sundries into bankruptcy to buy their silence, even with a pregnant wife at home. It’s something nobody has seen before, that nobody has been known to be capable of before. Or if it had been seen, it was never written down or spoken of. Perhaps the power that Kazu possesses (or the power that possesses Kazu) is so unholy, so evil, that to commit it to paper would only see it manifest in others.
A Sin Eater consumes the sin as part of absolution. But when the Sin Eater had come to the house with his mother, he had searched and searched and found no spirit remaining near his grandmother to absolve. After Kazu had described his trance, how he’d felt his grandmother’s spirit willingly approach him, it is the only conclusion to make. He tricked her somehow, a woman straddling the border between life and death. He stole something that wasn’t his to claim.
And yet, he’d pleaded with the priests, he’d heard her say it. He’d heard his grandmother’s voice in his trance as he’d always heard it in life. “Take it,” she’d said willingly. “Take it.”
She’d given her spirit to him. But how do they know that’s what happened? Because they’ve taken him to Odawara Jingu despite the ban. The same head priest from his childhood was there, fear in his eyes. They killed a small lizard that had been unfortunate enough to have sought shelter in the temple walls that morning. They sliced its belly open right in front of him. They induced a trance. Kazu isn’t sure what happened aside from what they told him. He’d gone painfully into trance, had felt the spirit approach him. Much smaller than his grandmother’s, the spirit that had so easily and willingly wrapped around him.
While he was in trance, however, Kazu’s eyes had gone black again. Spirits absolved by Sin Eaters gently detach from the body, are absorbed. The lizard’s had ripped violently from its body as soon as Kazu’s hand had come close. Instead of being absorbed it had disintegrated, a shower of colored sparks piercing Kazu’s skin like a child holding a small firework. It was harsh, quick. Had it gone to the afterlife? The priests were doubtful. How could it when it had broken apart like that?
When they tell him this, Kazu is ill on the temple floor, trying to make what his grandmother had said somehow match up with the violence he’d clearly inflicted upon her. Why would she have wanted this? How could she?
It’s decided that Kazu will leave Odawara. Taichi’s money cannot buy him much more than it already has. He’s spending his last night under his parents’ roof. A wake has already been held for his grandmother without him, and nobody knows the circumstances surrounding her death aside from his mother, Taichi, and the priests.
His mother has cooked for him one last time, a handful of his favorite dishes, even though she cooked with tears silently running down her face. He’s the cause of her sorrow, Kazu knows. He’s been the cause of it for years. Since he was a child. Since he drove away his father. And now with what he’s done to his grandmother. He eats his meal with a heavy heart, wishing she’d say something, anything. Even if she spat at him and cast him out the door, it would be better than her silence.
He’s decided on his own that he’ll leave when dinner is concluded, that he’ll stay at an inn until he can find a party of travelers and emigrants heading west. He’s almost twenty-two years old, and he’s being exiled. Maybe he ought to go east, he’s thought a few times. He’s more likely to die that way, be less of a nuisance. But yet despite all of that Kazu wants to live. He’s not ready to die. He’s lived too much of his life in a small room with playing cards for friends to die now.
When he finishes his meal, he goes to his bedroom. He’s got a pack together with several changes of clothes, a handful of potions for emergencies, his box of money. He’s spent three long years earning this money, although he’d hoped to be leaving in far different circumstances. He brings the pack into the kitchen, setting it down while he opens the money box, does one final count.
His mother stands by, watching as he counts the coins out loud.
When he finishes, he takes the stacks of coins and divides them up. He saves four gold ryō coins for himself, hopefully enough to buy him a safe place in a traveling caravan, and leaves a dozen more for his mother, forcing them across the table towards her.
“Kazunari,” she finally says, pain evident in every syllable. “I don’t want your money. You worked hard for that.”
“It’s not a matter of wanting,” he insists, pushing the stacks of gold further in her direction. “I’m your son, and I want to take care of you.”
“Taichi-kun…”
“…is not your relation. I am. Take the coins or dump them off at the temple when I’m gone. But they’re not coming with me. They’re for you.”
She leaves the coins where they are, doesn’t insult him by pushing them back. He hoists his pack, having decided that he’s too old to cry about it.
“Be well, Mama.”
She hugs herself, nodding. “Be well.”
He walks away without looking back.
—
He always thought he was safe up here in the hills. There was only smoldering rubble remaining now. He dug through it to find his money box. The fire destroyed the box, and the heat had fused all of the coins together. A lump of gold dirtied with the copper of mon coins. He shoved the ugly thing in his pocket. Maybe it could be melted down by a smith, separated out into its component parts. For now, it was useless to him.
The potions that Keiko had managed to gather together before fleeing the fire (smart girl) had managed to reset Jun’s broken leg, though he’d be limping for a while. They sealed up Sho’s belly, and now they’d stitched bone back together. It was the most valuable thing they had, and yet only six were left. Nino remembered Aiba’s letter, the potions he had promised. Too little, too late.
The fires had gone out in Heiankyo, so there were probably matching mounds of rubble there just like his shop. He’d lost everything. It didn’t much matter what had caused it. The blame fell entirely on Tsumi anyway, the bastard.
Ohno and Sho had headed for the city at first light, still coughing from the fire, to see what could be done, to see if they could even get inside with the Sanjo Ohashi destroyed. Keiko and her bow had gone with them, simply to ensure that someone competent was around to keep them both safe. Sho’s plan to run away, to go on his pilgrimage and damn the consequences, had hit a very big snag. Nino hoped there was no additional sorrow for him and Ohno to find upon reaching the city.
That left him in the cart shed, their only shelter, with a sleeping Jun and a very furious Sin Eater. Water dripped down from where the tree had caved in the ceiling, forcing the three of them into the corner where it was still dry. There were some food stores on Becky’s cart, some clothes and other supplies. It was all that remained to keep six people alive now.
Where would they go? Heiankyo had been devastated, and nobody was going to be selling to outsiders when they had their own people to consider. Prices would skyrocket, and once all of the spirits had been laid to rest, the rebuilding would begin. Sure, the walls had held but Nino estimated by sight that maybe a quarter of the city had flooded. Some had burned. The citizens of the slums who’d lost their homes would be begging for scraps, taking up residence wherever they could find space. Was there room for six more? Nino doubted it. Could they stay at the Sakurai estate? Was there still a Sakurai estate?
Becky mostly ignored him, spending most of her day speaking softly to Jun, who probably couldn’t even hear her. She wiped his brow, sang quiet songs in a sweet, gentle voice that weren’t for Nino to enjoy. Probably the songs from the orphanage, from their island home so far away that they’d never see again.
She was still angry with him, and now that Nino had sort of come to terms with the extent of his stupidity, he found that he couldn’t blame her. Her older brother, not by blood but by a bond even stronger, had nearly been taken from her. They’d come so far, and she’d nearly lost him because some jerk was trying to save his money.
And as for said jerk, he was stuck with these people now and he knew it. They owed him nothing, but without them, Nino knew he was lost. He couldn’t sit around in the rubble of his life waiting for Aiba Masaki to stop being charitable and come rescue him. Nino knew Aiba too well for that. He’d delayed Sho’s pilgrimage, had nearly gotten Becky’s guardian killed. And still they’d pulled him from the house. Still they hadn’t let him burn. They had saved him as though he was one of their own.
Eventually Becky seemed to tire of singing, her voice going from words to only humming before finally stopping. She had rested Jun’s head in her lap, was stroking the dark tendrils of his hair.
“I’m sorry,” Nino said. “I’d understand if that means nothing to you, but I’m sorry all the same.”
She nodded slowly, twisting a lock of Jun’s hair around her finger. It was still strange to see the mighty swordsman look so weak and helpless, lying on the ground. He seemed smaller, all the more human. “I’m sorry for hitting you. I’m sorry about your shop. We’ve brought bad luck with us all the way from Dazaifu.”
“I’ve found that there is no such thing as luck in Wakoku,” he said bitterly. “There’s just shit and even more shit.”
If she was offended by his language, she didn’t say so. “You could say that. But there’s beauty too.”
He stared at her, seeing the softest smile on her face. “Beauty that gets destroyed, over and over. We rebuild only for it to be knocked down. What’s the point, you wonder?”
She shrugged, her long brown hair falling loose around her shoulders, making her look much younger than she was. “I don’t know. But the ocean, the people, the islands, and this land here. We seem to think it’s worth saving, that it’s worth rebuilding again and again. Maybe we’re just stubborn as a species, human beings. But we’ve never given up. No matter how many times Tsumi comes, we keep fighting.”
“Is that why you’re on pilgrimage? As Sho-kun and all you Sin Eaters say, you want to save the world?”
“My dream’s not as lofty as that,” she said, grinning. “My goal is to never give up, no matter what. Defeating Tsumi just happens to be the natural result of that goal. I won’t stop, I can’t stop.”
“You’re weird,” he said bluntly, getting her to laugh again.
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Stop laughing,” Jun interrupted them in an annoyed mumble. “Every time you laugh it hurts, damn it.”
She looked down at her guardian, poking him in the cheek. “Welcome back. I was starting to miss all your complaining!”
Jun didn’t open his eyes, grimacing instead. “Shut up.”
—
Sho, Ohno, and Keiko returned mostly with good news, all things considered. The body count in Heiankyo currently hovered around 1,000 souls lost. Given the population was well over 100,000, it could have been worse. As had been the case in Odawara more than a generation earlier, it was the flooding that had claimed the most lives. Some of the Sin Eaters were forced to go through the streets in small canoes, looking for the signature white glow that signaled a spirit awaiting absolution.
The only reason they’d been let through the gates was because of Sho’s family connections. The Sakurai family and Ohno family had not lost anyone to Tsumi’s wrath, although the typhoon had ripped the roof off of the servants’ quarters on the estate, and Ohno’s father had been trapped under some rubble. He was healing now thanks to the Sakurai family’s potion stores.
Sho’s parents had only waited a few minutes before yelling at their son, a grown man. They’d barely finished embracing him before they started shouting, Ohno reported back, smiling from ear to ear. No matter what Tsumi had just done to Heiankyo, nothing was worse than how Sho had run away from his arranged marriage like a little boy frightened off by a cockroach in his toy box. Arriving with Keiko, an unmarried woman, in tow had set his parents off even more.
And yet they’d allowed him to leave. Even though he still didn’t have the temple’s sanction, his parents had sent him off with their blessing. He’d given an impassioned speech, Keiko told them all, sounding rather impressed, enumerating the reasons why his pilgrimage was necessary. One was that his younger sister was actually the best suited to carry on the family business, which Ohno agreed was true since she was actually a ship’s captain herself and knew the dangers better than anyone sitting at home with a ledger would. Beyond that, Sho had bade his parents to take a look around them. If even Heiankyo was vulnerable, was anywhere in Wakoku safe? The more Sin Eaters on the road, the quicker Tsumi would be defeated. And obviously if someone beat Sho to the punch, he’d be able to come home anyhow.
Embarrassed by Sho’s appearance and altogether pathetic pilgrimage so far (and they inferred how pathetic it was because Sho had been able to get home so quickly), they’d gone out of their way to help him. Though they had to play it a bit conservative with supplies since they were planning to donate a great deal of money to the rebuilding effort, they’d still been quite generous. All three had returned with a pack on their back. Ohno with money and curatives, Keiko and Sho with food and toiletries (Sho’s parents had been extremely appalled by the bit of shaggy growth on Sho’s face after not having shaved in a while).
They spent that evening, all six of them, going through the supplies they had from Becky’s party as well as the items from Sho’s parents. It had been decided now that for safety’s sake, the pilgrimage parties would be combined. After all, their destination was exactly the same. Two Sin Eaters, three guardians, and Nino, who would be towing the cart to allow the guardians to better protect the group along the Tokaido. The money would maybe last all the way to Odawara if they camped outside each night. If they opted for an inn here and there, they could still get to Mikawa comfortably.
And that was where he’d leave them, Nino had decided. It would be one less mouth to feed, one less body to account for. Sure there was safety in numbers, but Nino was no guardian. He’d lost his crossbow in the fire, and he’d never held a sword in his life. Even after he left, Sho and Ohno would be in good hands. Becky, a far more experienced Sin Eater, could teach Sho the tricks of the trade. In return, she wouldn’t have to bear the burden of her powers alone. And Ohno-kun could continue his training with Jun, scary as it was. In exchange, there was one more person standing by to defend the Sin Eaters from attack, one more person to be on watch at night in case any unabsolved were nearby.
All told, it was a rather genius plan, and Nino was surprised more Sin Eaters didn’t team up this way. But then he remembered that most of them were stubborn at heart. Teaming up to them meant weakness. But to two goofy Sin Eaters on unofficial pilgrimages it meant safety, it meant survival. And it probably meant more obnoxious high-fives between Becky and Sho, who seemed equally eager to prove all their doubters wrong.
Jun was sore, barely able to walk. The potions would speed his recovery, though, and in a few days the muddy roads would dry up again, allowing them to pass more quickly. Much as he’d never considered such a thing before, Ninomiya Kazunari was heading off on a Sin Eater’s pilgrimage.
—
By the end of the third day, Nino was deeply regretting having been put in charge of towing their cart. Jun had made it look so easy that first day they’d met, tugging it uphill. It was lightweight wood as far as carts went, a single axle and two wheels and more like a large wheelbarrow than a cart to tow passengers. But with their supplies, with the folded up tents and their packs and their tins of preserved food and all the damn crap Sho’s parents had donated to keep their son looking fresh-faced and pretty, it was a pain in the ass to tug up the hills of the Tokaido and an even bigger pain in the ass going downhill with all its weight threatening to topple Nino over.
They took turns sometimes, with Sho volunteering to give Nino a break, Ohno too. Nino had never trained his body for something like this, and he had no muscles to speak of. But he grew annoyed with their pity, putting on a pair of heavy, sweat-inducing gloves to keep from getting blisters. It was a little slow-going too as they left the relative openness of the road and entered a more forested area.
Tsumi’s typhoon had toppled trees everywhere, many of them blocking or partially blocking the road, leaving a slightly sore Jun and a surprisingly strong Keiko to try and clear a path for the cart. The typhoon had also upset the local wildlife. Even though they stayed on the road, they were a seeming beacon for animals both alive and not so much. A pack of wild boars, all of them very much alive, had come tearing down a ravine dead set on the cart, most likely having smelled their food.
But the guardians were not slouches at protecting them. Keiko’s mastery of the bow left most of them speechless, save for Jun who was too busy barking out orders to Ohno and of course, Becky, who knew how good her “little sister” was already. She got three of the boars in a row, leaving the rest to Jun and his swift slicing motions. Becky stood by like a proud parent as Sho went into trance and sent the animals’ spirits on their merry way. Nino was certain though that they were going to grow sick of eating pork before too long no matter how much they dried it into jerky, fried it up with rice, or got more experimental and tried pickling it with cabbage (a bad idea of Sho’s all around).
Despite the sadness that had characterized much of the journey until then, their camps each night were reminiscent of that first night under the stars when Nino had still had a shop, and Sho had nearly burst from all the fried rice he’d eaten. While Jun and Ohno used the downtime for more training (something Ohno complained about behind Jun’s back with regularity), Keiko set to work. According to Becky, Keiko had never been interested in cooking before, but after one of Jun’s odd pep talks, she’d grown obsessed. She considered it part of her duty as Becky’s guardian, serving her nutritious meals to keep her going, although now she was cooking for six.
Try as he might, Sho’s efforts to aid in Keiko’s cooking were vastly unhelpful. He spilled rice in the grass. When asked to keep an eye on a bubbling pot, he scalded his fingers on it. And even when asked to simply chop up wild vegetables they’d picked along the way, he’d been terrible at it. But it was probably obvious to everyone save for Sho why he kept trying. It had apparently started at his parents’ house when Keiko, a complete stranger, had shown up alongside him and Ohno.
“Who is this?” his parents had demanded. “Did you run away with this girl? Is she pregnant? Are you going to marry her?” All these questions had been lobbed at him rapid fire, and according to Ohno, he’d blushed about it so furiously that Keiko had teased him about it all the way back from Heiankyo. It had been a long time since Sho had had a girlfriend, Ohno whispered to Nino privately, and somehow his parents’ angry questions had stuck with him. He trailed behind her on the road, cheering her on as she defended the group. “Amazing! Wow! You’ve saved us, Keiko-chan!” Again and again until Keiko had finally told him to back off so she didn’t accidentally elbow him in the face when she drew her bowstring back.
Sho, content with his little crush, was looking for ways to prove himself, moving to absolve the creatures Keiko took out and telling Becky he “had it.” For her part, Becky didn’t seem to mind and eventually confessed to Nino that Keiko had always been fairly popular back in Dazaifu and probably liked the attention now that she was far from all her admirers back home. So long as the two of them didn’t start having sex while the rest of them were trying to sleep, Nino had no other opinions on it.
They set up camp for the night, Nino taking his gloves off and flexing his fingers, sighing. All along the Tokaido there were hokora set up, small roadside shrines meant to protect travelers. They’d been used as campsites for centuries by Sin Eater parties and emigrants alike. The shrines were usually carved from one of the rocky outcroppings along the road. Sometimes there were small caves within a few hundred feet, offering some protection from the elements and wild animals. Other times it was nothing more than a clearing, more vulnerable and requiring a night watch performed by the three guardians in shifts. Nino had volunteered for a watch, but Jun had declined with one of his lofty smiles. Jun would probably do two shifts to keep Nino from doing one.
Tonight’s hokora campsite was a cave type, cold and having just been cleared of animal bones and carcasses by Ohno and Jun. It probably hadn’t been used in a while except by a mountain lion or something else Nino hoped wouldn’t come back that night. Nino thought of the last pilgrimage that had passed along this road, Lord Shingo of House Murakami. There was definitely not room in the cave for 17 men unless they maybe slept three to a bedroll, he thought with a grin.
While Sho trailed Keiko outside to the cooking fire like a diligent dog, Ohno and Becky set out the bedrolls while Jun and Nino took a look at their map. The one they’d brought up from Dazaifu was waterlogged, but thankfully Sho’s parents had provided a replacement. Sho himself was actually the best at reading the map and determining the route to take after his many years spent planning his own pilgrimage and in his other scholarly pursuits. But he’d taught Jun a lot already in a manner of days, the two of them having bonded over their shared pilgrimage injuries and more importantly, their mutual need to always be in control of what was happening.
Nino knew the Tokaido mostly in theory. Aiba blabbed about it all the time, whether it was best to take the highroad or the low road at certain points. The low road was the prettier one, closer to the sea and with flatter terrain while the highroad was just that, high. It ribboned in and out of the forests, a much hillier journey and harder on the body (and on the poor person towing the supply cart). But with the low road being low, it meant that creatures hiding in the trees or the brush were more liable to jump out and strike. It also put you right in Tsumi’s line of fire along the shore.
There were two small villages along the low road that might make for decent stopping points, and Nino hadn’t slept outside like this since he’d first journeyed from Odawara almost a decade earlier. He suggested the low road despite the risks, hinting that it would be easier on all of them, especially a certain someone who still favored his left leg. Walking miles and miles every day on it wasn’t going to help him recover either. Jun seemed to hold back an argument, probably knowing all along that the low road was the best option. He merely folded up the map and nodded.
“One more day and we reach the Sekijuku Road.”
—
“Take your time,” Keiko said, patting Becky on the shoulder as they packed up their belongings and got ready to move. Nino’s back was thanking him that they’d spent the money and stayed at an inn in the small village of Tsuchiyama. They were at a turning point in the terrain, leaving the forests and fields of the early Tokaido behind. The Sekijuku Road that led to the temple of the same name, the only occupied area between Tsuchiyama and the small towns on the outskirts of Mikawa, was a stark contrast.
It had been heavily populated once, Sho had explained to them the night before. The region had flourished centuries ago, but they’d gotten arrogant, building right up to the sea without walls. Fishing villages had stretched all along the coast, enjoying the rich waters full of shellfish. Tsumi had attacked with abandon, wiping out villages and killing off so many sea creatures that living there became impossible. Subsequent attacks after the humans had left had washed the land bare. All that remained was barren rock, gray and empty for miles.
It was still vulnerable, a long open stretch with nothing to sustain a traveler. It was necessary even during the Calm to stock up along the way. The temple at the midpoint and its small hamlets surrounding were the only safe places, or at least they had been. Nino remembered Aiba’s letter, the attack on a village not far from the temple. Was he still there? Would they meet again?
Tsuchiyama’s northern exit, despite its location on the low road, was still on higher ground than the Sekijuku Road. The Suzuka Pass out of town was more of a steep drop, a danger for carts and wagons alike. That Aiba led his oxen up and down this path throughout the year no matter the weather suddenly impressed him. Sure Aiba had always complained, but Nino had thought he was exaggerating. He had more respect for his friend now, enduring this journey over and over again.
Jun, Ohno, and Sho together were going to ease the cart down the slope and would turn things back over to Nino once they got on even ground again. That they decided this without even seeking Nino’s opinion only reinforced the idea that they thought he was weak and mostly useless. It was a waste of time to let this hurt his feelings. He’d only hold them back more and more if he complained.
They headed down the main street of town, the other three having already gone on ahead. Becky stood, her back to the Sekijuku Road before them, and seemed to be committing every building and structure in the small town to memory. “Please be careful going down,” Keiko said to her before turning and heading for the pass.
Only Nino remained with her, curious. “What are you looking at?”
She’d finally retired the orange and pineapple yukata in favor of a slightly heavier purple cotton dotted with flower designs. It seemed that the southerners were starting to feel a bit colder, even though to Nino it was still plenty warm and the feeling would increase during the day as they walked under the sunny skies. Becky rubbed her arms for warmth in the slight morning chill.
“This place,” she said simply, and Nino politely looked away as she wiped tears from her eyes.
“Something about it you like?”
She smiled. “Not in particular.”
“Then why?”
She turned to him, and for the first time he really seemed to look. Her eyes were green. Most of the people Nino knew had brown eyes, but she was the first person he’d ever met with green ones. Filled with tears, they stood out all the more. They were beautiful.
“I’m saying goodbye.” She turned away, laughing quietly to lighten the mood. “Come on, the sooner we leave, the sooner you’ll be able to rest again.”
“What are you trying to say?” he teased, trying to cheer her up after her sad admission. It was true, she would never see this place again. Each step forward was a step away from the rest of Wakoku, a land she was mostly seeing for the first and last time as she traveled. “Are you saying I’m lazy? That I require a lot of rest stops?”
She sniffled a bit, still laughing. “You tell me,” she said, boldly reaching for his arm. As they walked, she poked a few times at the palm of his hand, at his short fingers. Her hands were freezing cold, and he wondered if any further shifts in the weather would affect her. “These delicate little hands, towing along that cart. You poor thing.”
He wrenched his hand away, laughing in return. “We haven’t all trained from childhood for a trip like this,” he said. “Just look at Ohno-kun. His katana still makes that scraping noise whenever he pulls it from the scabbard. Screeeeeech.”
“Ah, no, no!” she pleaded with him, pushing his shoulder. “Not that sound! I swear, Jun is going to kill him. ‘The katana is a beautiful sacred weapon!’” she boomed in an oddly accurate imitation of Jun’s voice. “‘If you treat your katana so poorly, it will come back to haunt you later!’”
“‘You’ll ruin the blade!’” Nino continued, dropping his voice low. “‘The tears of the craftsmen, think about their sweat and labor!’”
They were nearly doubled over in laughter when they reached the edge of town, finding Keiko holding a finger to her lips.
“You two,” she chided them, shaking her head and smiling. “He’ll hear you, you know, and he’ll get all huffy. And then he’ll just take it out on Ohno-kun. Be considerate of Ohno-kun’s feelings now.”
Becky linked arms with her little sister, and together they started down the steep path. “Sorry, sorry,” she chuckled, taking one step at a time.
Nino let them go on ahead, turning around to look back at Tsuchiyama, as normal a small town as any. If Nino wanted, he could return here at any time. It was like the view of Heiankyo and the valley that he’d had from his shop. A sight that had grown less than extraordinary with the passage of time. But to Becky, everything was beautiful. Because every view was final.
—
If Nino could live the rest of his life without traveling this stretch of road again, he’d be a happier man. The Sekijuku Road had nothing in its favor. No protection from the sea, the spray of waves crashing against the rock soaked their clothes. By the time the sun had dried them, another wave had crested and drenched them. There were fewer animals, at least, mostly carrion birds in search of what had been left behind in Tsumi’s wake. They traveled north to south in a v formation, floating high above as their noisy calls echoed against the rock walls.
The road was bumpy with no dirt to soften the way, only hard rock that had made everyone’s feet ache, not just Nino’s for once. They were all in rather sour moods when they pulled the cart onto cobblestones at last. Sekijuku Temple was the only structure remaining from one of the destroyed villages, the building remaining mostly because it had been carved out of a rock wall and faced away from the ocean. The cobbled paths leading to and from had come later, the priests gathering up remnants from the other destroyed villages and giving themselves a road.
Sekijuku was more of a rest stop than a town. There was no inn to speak of since only a handful of priests and priestesses lived here to provide help and guidance to Sin Eater parties. They’d be camping out in one of the temple’s spare rooms with none of the comforts an inn might provide. In a Calm, it was apparently a less solemn place, buzzing with a traders’ market and the enthusiasm of emigrants moving on to what they hoped would be a more prosperous life somewhere else in Wakoku. When Tsumi returned, only the most devoted temple dwellers remained out of duty rather than desire.
Sho led the way to the temple, Becky trailing behind. Though they didn’t bear any seal announcing they were traveling on an official pilgrimage, Sho had been betting recklessly the entire way that maybe his family name would be enough to get them rooms and maybe even discounts. He’d gotten lucky once along the low road, finding an inn operated by the mother of one of his sister’s sailors. They’d gotten rooms at half price. But from the stern looking faces of the priests here, Nino suspected that Sho’s name and to a lesser extent Sho’s charm were not going to win them any favors.
While he negotiated in earnest, Becky chiming in with her southern chattiness, Nino and Jun were directed to bring their cart to a storage shed around back of the temple. Ohno and Keiko followed behind, carrying their weapons as well as the short daggers that Sho and Becky carried along the road. Despite the dangers of the Sekijuku Road, the temple itself was extremely conservative. No weapons were allowed inside. They would be locked up for the duration of their visit in a separate crate manned at all hours by a priest or priestess. And if Tsumi struck? They were to stay inside the temple and wait it out. If a party of unabsolved struck? The answer was the same. It was the priests’ duty to protect the grounds, not the travelers’.
Nino hid a smile in the crook of his arm as Jun reluctantly handed over his sword and scabbard. To his credit, the priest bowed to Jun and to the weapon itself as he accepted the katana, holding it properly as he set it down and repeated the process with all the weapons given him. The temple held guardians in high esteem. It was the guardians that had gotten their Sin Eaters this far, and guardians that would guide them further.
When they returned, Sho looked angry and Becky as well. “What, no room?” Keiko asked, frowning.
“Oh there’s room,” Sho said. “But it’s in the basement. All the other rooms are full. Lord Shingo of House Murakami has booked everything else until their departure tomorrow. I don’t know why I ever liked that guy…”
“We’re on a pilgrimage too,” Jun protested, his voice carrying across the temple courtyard. Before he could complain further, Ohno rested a hand on his shoulder to try and calm him. Remarkably, it worked.
Lord Shingo of House Murakami. It seemed that the recovery efforts in the village Aiba had written about had ended, and now Lord Shingo was ready to set off once more.
This time Jun kept his complaints in a quieter tone of voice. “You said it’s a party of men. Why can’t they give up one of their rooms for the women?”
“Oh shut up,” Becky chided him. “I don’t need to sleep on a cloud, Jun-kun. I’m not a princess.”
“I highly doubt this place has fancy mattresses anyhow,” Keiko said with a laugh.
Nino suddenly heard an all too familiar voice from the other side of the courtyard, a husky voice asking the priest where the “basement people” were. He turned, eyes widening as he locked eyes with him.
“Nino!” Aiba Masaki cheered, leaving before the priest could answer his question and running over, waving as though they couldn’t see him. “Ah, and Ohno-kun! Sho-chan!”
But then Aiba’s huge smile seemed to freeze on his face when he saw the others in their party.
Aiba blinked as he skidded to a halt, his shoes scraping against the cobblestones.
“Becky.”
Part 5