fic for augustfai (6/8)

[nino-mod.livejournal.com]

For: augustfai
From: astrangerenters

Part 5


“…this one?”

He sees hesitation in his grandmother’s eyes for a fraction of a second before she’s smiling, clapping. Thumping the table enthusiastically. “That’s right, that’s exactly right! Five of diamonds!”

Kazu looks down at the card on the table, the one she probably hadn’t picked. He’s still teaching himself this new trick, and with only the instruction manual and its rather crude drawings, it’s kind of slow going. The shamisen has proved the easier hobby so far, but it’s the cards that he likes. Shuffling the deck between his fingers, over and over again until he gets faster. Hiding them up his sleeves, doing finger exercises multiple times a day so he can slip them from the deck before anyone would know.

The shamisen can be noisy. He can’t play during shop hours, his father has made that explicitly clear. “I don’t need that racket driving customers away,” he’s said over and over now. And then of course he can’t play when his parents are sleeping so that’s another chunk of time gone. He’s mostly limited to the evening, after dinner and with the door closed so he doesn’t disturb his parents.

But the cards…the cards are quiet. Just like Kazu has to be now, quiet as a mouse, a shadow in the back of their home. Even shuffling the deck isn’t loud enough to disturb the store, so minutes of practice easily become hours. Candles snuff themselves out as he sits in his futon and deals himself hand after hand, making himself smile like a simpleton whenever he manages to pull something off.

Sometimes he hears the other neighborhood boys playing outside. It’s nearly autumn, and the rainy season is finally starting to wane. It means they’re out during the day playing hide and seek, tag, laughing when a game of Daruma-san ga koronda gets out of hand. It means they’re out at night catching fireflies. Has it only been the changing of a season since he was one of them?

Kazu takes the five of diamonds and slips it back into the deck, grinning falsely. “You’re just easy to trick, Grandma. Your eyes aren’t as sharp as mine.”

“The honesty of a child,” she says back, hiding a chuckle behind her hand. “I was sharp as you, in my day.”

She’s the only one who plays along anymore. His parents seem to tense up if he so much as opens his mouth. Are they worried he’ll sprout horns? Are they worried he’ll curse them with a glance?

“But still,” his grandmother continues, “I’m in no mood to be tricked any further tonight…”

He pouts. “But there’s another one I’m learning. I want to show you…”

“So you can gloat over your victory? Fat chance.”

Kazu grins. “Tomorrow then. I’ll practice all night!”

“You’ll sleep tonight instead,” she chides him, reaching quick as lightning to snatch the deck from him before he can react. “A growing boy needs rest.”

A growing boy also needs sunshine and exercise. When they think he’s asleep, Grandma is always saying this to his mother and father. She thinks it’s wrong, keeping him shut up in the house. But Grandma wasn’t there at the temple that day, Kazu thinks. She didn’t see how wrong he is. And she doesn’t know that when he sleeps, he sees things over and over that he wants to forget.

His mother enters the room like a phantom, flitting quickly to her sewing basket in the corner of the room for a spool of thread and leaving as fast as she can. Grandma looks like she wants to say something, but she holds her tongue, tapping the deck of cards against the wooden tabletop absent-mindedly before sliding them back over.

“Well, maybe one more. But this time you won’t catch me off guard.”

His grandmother’s rebellions, small but kind, are all that keep him from running away and never coming back. That and the cards of course.

He shuffles them, never dropping them or making them thump awkwardly as he had when he first started. Once shuffled, he sets the deck down in the middle of the table and smiles.

“Cut the deck please,” he orders her, his hand beneath the table palming an extra ace of hearts. “Whichever way you like.”

—

The first thing he felt when he woke was a few cold fingers stroking his cheeks, a gentle humming coming from above. He opened his eyes, embarrassed to learn he was on the rug-strewn floor of Nagase-san’s inn once more.

“Do you always cry in your sleep, Nino?”

He looked up, blinking. “What?”

Becky was looking down at him with concern in her eyes. His head was in her lap, warm and so comfortable he didn’t want to move. She was scratching her fingers through his hair now, almost as if he was a cat. “You were crying.”

He shut his eyes again. “I get bad dreams sometimes.”

“I’m sorry.”

But then he opened his eyes again, remembering where he was and where he’d been. How he’d yelled at her, how his panic had nearly driven him mad. “How did I get back here? Oh no, what happened? Did I…?”

“Ssh,” she soothed him. “Don’t worry about it. I just flagged someone down and had them get Nagase-san. He carried you back here. I was jealous of you for a moment, he’s such a gentleman.”

“Becky…”

She gave him a tap on the forehead. “I told Jun that you tried to kiss me, so I knocked you out. I didn’t say anything else.”

He looked at her in exasperation. “You’re a bad liar. If I’d done anything close to that, there’d be a stab wound in my gut and an arrow sticking out of my forehead.”

She chuckled quietly. “Okay, fair enough. I said you weren’t feeling well, and you passed out. Probably that you were claustrophobic from being underground. Nobody else knows what happened.”

He frowned. “And they let you stay in here with me alone? Is there a stab wound I’m not feeling right now?”

“Aiba-kun wanted to be with you in here, but I told him the last thing you needed was an obnoxious person hovering around you making needless noise. Jun-kun wasn’t fond of this, but I don’t much care what he thinks, and I told him to go make himself useful with shopping for supplies.” She leaned forward a bit, lowering her voice. “I’m the boss around here, and don’t you forget it.”

This made him grin slightly, but it didn’t last. “I was telling you the truth. I don’t belong with you. I shouldn’t go with you.”

“You kept saying that, sure, but you didn’t offer me a compelling argument. As I said, if you didn’t want to go with us, you wouldn’t have come this far. You’ve never hesitated to be honest and let your feelings be known. The others are staying in the other room tonight, so I’ll listen to anything you want to say. Whatever you tell me I’ll keep to myself, that’s a promise. And when morning comes, if you still want to leave, I suppose there’s nothing I can do to change your mind, but I hope that won’t be the case.”

She helped him to sit up. From the size of the room and the familiar scents, they were in the room Becky and Keiko had been sharing. He moved until he was sitting across from her on the rug, hunching over and rubbing his eyes. “Keiko-chan’s fine with sleeping in the boys’ room? It smells like feet in there.”

“She’ll probably sleep on those cushions she likes downstairs. I think Sho-kun would have a heart attack if she was actually in there with him. It’s going to be strange camping from now on if they don’t figure things out between them.” She shook her head. “Enough about them, enough about any of that. Right now it’s just you and me, and the Nino I saw today upset me. I didn’t know how much you’ve been suffering all this time, and for that I’m so sorry.”

“That’s not your fault. I keep things close.”

“That’s what Aiba-kun has said,” she replied. “When I found you down that tunnel, you were sobbing, curled up like a little kid. You could hardly breathe, and I didn’t know how to help you. With the others, it’s usually pretty obvious when they’re upset. They’ll tell you straight out or you can read it on their faces. But with you, Nino, you’ve always been a bit of a mystery. And that’s fine, I suppose, everyone’s different, but seeing you today, seeing you like that…”

He felt himself going red, ashamed he’d let it get that bad. “I lost control. I let things build up, and I’m sorry you had to see it.”

“Is it written somewhere that we always have to be in control? Where does it say that? Where does it say that if something is wrong, we can’t let those feelings out?”

She was looking at him with such concern that for the first time in ages, he could feel something loosening. The various parts of himself, of his past. The reality of who and what he was, the evil that he’d managed to keep tamped down, that only revealed itself in his nightmares. The years he’d spent alone out of what his parents felt was necessity, and the years he’d spent alone by what he thought was personal choice. For some reason he wanted to share it with her, to take everything and set it at her feet. To let her know the whole of him so she could understand why he couldn’t go with them.

Because if she knew the whole of him, if she knew everything he lacked and everything he was capable of, she’d understand. She’d agree with him and believe that their parting was a blessing.

“It’s a long story.”

She looked unfazed. “I’ll listen.”

There was a pot of tea on the small table in the corner of the room, and he moved to it, finding the tea cold but pouring a cup for each of them anyway. Nino wondered how long they’d been in this room already, how long she’d been sitting there stroking his face. He handed her the cup, trying to keep steady. “I was born in Odawara,” he began, “and when I was 10 years old I went to the temple the same as anybody else.”

He told her.

And as he did, he was astonished when she didn’t shrink away. When she never interrupted. When she cried right along with him. His mother’s shame, his father’s departure, the horrors he’d inflicted upon the dying woman he’d cared for the most. He had no spirit, there was nothing inside him but blood and guts, nothing that could pass on to the next world. Maybe he wasn’t human at all. A mistake with no place in a Sin Eater party. The closer they got to the Nihonbashi, the more dangerous it would become. What if one of them was gravely hurt? Or killed? What if it came so suddenly their spirit was freed and Nino was too close?

The thought of waking up from a black-eyed trance and seeing an empty shell beside him that had once been Jun? Or Sho? Keiko, Ohno-kun, Aiba? What if he stole from Becky everything she’d worked so hard to accomplish? What if he ripped her spirit from her?

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said, shaking in his frustration. “I’ve never wanted to hurt anyone. If anything happened to you, to any of you…if I hurt you and I could have just stayed away…”

She couldn’t bear much more, it seemed, and she moved before he could shove her away. He’d been pacing back and forth, wearing the rug down as he let his frustrations out, and she stopped him cold, throwing her arms around him. Even if her hands were always cold, she was so warm, so real, pressed against him with her head against his shoulder. The girl who was so willing to cross into the land of the dead, to try and save them all with no reward. This silly, selfless girl.

His arms hung limp at his sides, his mouth dry from so much talking. A lifetime’s worth in a matter of hours. “I can’t risk it happening again. I won’t put you or anyone else in danger,” he managed to say, wanting nothing more than to be gone. To find a nice isolated corner of Wakoku and never leave.

“When I asked Keiko and Jun to come with me, I knew what I was asking them,” she said quietly, her voice slightly muffled against his clothes. “I was asking them to leave everything they knew, their lives in Dazaifu. And if they’d said no, I’d have understood why. We know Tsumi better than most down south, we know that almost every day could be our last. But that’s a situation of ‘could be.’ Being a Sin Eater, a guardian, that ‘could be’ morphs into absolute certainty.” She hugged him tighter. “Do I hate myself for what I’ve asked of my best friends? My family? All the time. I tell myself that they could be back home having families, and that my selfishness has prevented that. My selfishness has already killed them. It’s just a matter of where and when. But I keep walking.”

“That’s different, Becky.”

“It’s not. I spend every single day knowing I’m putting them in danger. That today might be the day we slip up, that we lose. But we’re together. Some people say it’s pointless, going on pilgrimage when Tsumi keeps coming back, stronger and sooner than the last time. But isn’t the risk worth it? To buy everyone else a little more time? So what if it’s a year or maybe a couple months? Isn’t that time precious, that time without fear?”

“I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

“Then learn how to defend me,” she whispered. “How to protect Sho-kun too. Get us to the Nihonbashi. Don’t run away and isolate yourself. You have something special about you that nobody’s bothered to understand. Come with us, and maybe you’ll find out.”

Special? It wasn’t exactly the word he’d choose. He finally took hold of her by the shoulders, moved her back from him a little, but found that he couldn’t let go. She stared up at him, her eyes pleading.

“It’s too dangerous.”

“The roads are dangerous,” she said tartly. “Tsumi is dangerous. Sho-kun’s cooking is dangerous. Is there one aspect of this pilgrimage that’s not? What’s one more thing?”

He sighed. “You’re asking me to die for you then?”

“I suppose I am,” she said, a little more hesitant. “It’s a lot to ask, but what kind of life are you living? A life without other people, a life without love?”

“I have…hobbies,” he protested weakly.

“Then just come to the Nihonbashi. You don’t have to go further than that. You don’t have to sacrifice yourself if you don’t want to,” she said. “At least then I’ll know you’re okay, that you’re safe. If you left now, all I’d do is worry about you.”

“Why?” he found himself asking.

After all that, now she couldn’t meet his eyes. “Because…”

“Hey!” There was a knock outside the door, noisy footsteps in the hall. “Hey Becky, we brought back dinner! Crab legs! Still hot, I ran here!”

She pulled away from him, shaking her head. “Every day I ask myself why…”

She moved to the door, opening it to find Aiba there, smiling obliviously with a cafeteria platter piled high with seafood and what looked like some deep fried vegetables. “Nino! You’re awake!”

He cleared his throat, offering a weak wave. “All good here.”

Becky stepped between them, taking the platter. “We’ll take it from here, thank you.”

“Oi!” Aiba complained when she slammed the door in his face. “I was going to have some too!”

She set the thing down on the floor, sighing. Their discussion from earlier appeared to be closed. “You better have an appetite because I can’t finish all this myself.”

—

He woke at some point during the night to find that Becky had left her futon and curled up beside him the way she sometimes did with Keiko when they were on the road. She was shivering. Before he could second guess himself he lifted his blanket, settling it over both of them. Just as he was drifting off again, he felt her move closer, her arm stretching out across him as her shivering stopped.

When he woke for good, she was gone, and Nagase was already in the room, dusting for non-existent cobwebs. “Morning!” Nagase called cheerfully, able to reach the corners of the ceiling without so much as getting on his tiptoes. He probably had to hunch over every waking moment in the tunnels underground.

“Morning.”

“Glad to see you’re doing better,” Nagase said, holding his cloth and nodding. “Happens to a lot of people down here the first time. My answer would be more light, ya know, it gets scary dark down here sometimes. But the more candles you bring down here, the more likely things are to go up in flames, right?”

“Sorry for causing so much trouble.”

“Zero trouble,” Nagase replied. “Aiba-chan was a little shifty the first time he visited too. He said he grew up on an island, right, so sunshine and ocean breezes and all that good stuff. It’s harsh to shut yourself away from it. Even Mr. Tough Guy, what’s his name with the face, he and that short guy went up to the surface for a few hours last night just to get some fresh air.”

Jun and Ohno. Nino was suddenly grateful for Becky’s willingness to cover for him, for the believable lie. “Everybody up already?” he asked.

“The lady Sin Eater said you were not to be disturbed, so I’m probably in violation of that now, sorry. But yeah, they had business in town. I gave ‘em a good shopping list for the Nissaka Plains. Wetter than Tsumi’s asshole right now.”

The Nissaka Plains were known for their thunderstorms and received the most rain in Wakoku. The only alternative was crossing into the mountains and going around it, a treacherous journey that could add weeks or even months to a journey. Most just slogged on through, the Tokaido cutting straight up the middle. Nino only remembered day after day of rain, walking through mud that came up to his knees.

“Last day for the hot springs,” Nagase pointed out. “It’ll be a good memory to get you through Nissaka.”

Nino nodded, leaving the inn behind and finding his way to the springs. As he sat there in the steaming water, strangers going in and out of the various pools and paying him no mind, he knew that he wasn’t going to stay.

He felt lighter that day than he had the entire journey. Lighter than maybe ever before. In telling Becky everything, he’d allowed her to share it. He wasn’t carrying it all by himself now. She knew what brought the nightmares, she knew what made him tick. He’d never told a single person these things. Even his grandmother had never known how angry he’d been, how frightened. And where before he thought it was best to keep these things to himself, he realized that he’d been wrong.

She knew all that about him and despite that, she still wanted his company. She wanted him by her side. And when he’d woken that morning to find her gone, he’d been disappointed. For weeks he’d woken up telling himself that soon he’d be able to wake up alone once more, just as he had all those years in the shop. He’d convinced himself it was for the best. But that morning he’d felt her absence like a blow to the stomach.

And he’d thought of what it would be like to watch them leave. To see one of them tug the cart along, to see the six of them get onto the platform and watch them go off to the surface without him. To watch them leave - Ohno, Sho, Keiko, Jun, Aiba, Becky - and know that he would never see them again. That they would die, together and that he would live, alone.

Despite the bustling marketplace he managed to find Sho exactly where he expected him - at an archery shop. Keiko was enthralled with arrowheads when Nino found him, watching her from the corner of the shop. “Give me my allowance,” he said, trying to sound nonchalant about it. “I want to buy something.”

“Nino!” Sho exclaimed in surprise, patting him on the shoulder. “We thought you were going to sleep so long we’d have to load you up on the cart and push you out of here.”

He rolled his eyes. “Ha ha, very funny. My share of the money please.”

Keiko turned, looking away from the arrowheads and smiling brightly. “My pupil, at last!”

He held up his hands. “No, no, don’t get too excited. I was thinking of something more my style. I want a new crossbow.”

Keiko scowled at him, but he knew she was only joking. Or at least he thought she was joking. “They’re heavier to carry! They take longer to load!”

He gestured to one of the models hanging on the wall. “All I have to do is load it and shoot it. Who needs muscle training and hand training and all that nonsense…”

Her eyes widened. “Nonsense? Sho-kun, did you hear what he just said to me?”

Sho panicked, digging in his coin pouch hastily. “The, uh, the bolts they have here, they uh, they cost less so that means…uh, that means more money you can spend on your own supplies, Keiko-chan…”

She grabbed a large tin of beeswax from one of the shop displays, shoving it at him. “Fine. But crossbow strings have to be waxed more. They bear more weight so they show wear faster.”

“Thank you,” he said, hiding a smile as she pushed him aside and started perusing the crossbow section of the shop.

The shopkeep was raising an eyebrow at them behind the counter, and Sho flashed him an embarrassed smile while Keiko started examining bolts.

“I’m not an expert, of course, but you’ll obviously want ones that cause more damage. Ooh, these come with a poison coating.”

Together, he and Sho simply stood back while Keiko ran herself ragged around the store, ignoring the shopkeep’s suggestions as she took down models from the wall, examined them herself. She pushed them into Nino’s arms, adjusted his stance. “Nope, too heavy,” she grumbled about a hand-crank model, replacing it with a smaller one. “Recurve, you’ll need a recurve…”

“I thought she wasn’t an expert,” he whispered to Sho.

“She could probably kill you with her eyes closed,” Sho mumbled in awe.

“Get you all hot and bothered, Sakurai?”

He was ready to offer up one of his angry “how dare you” looks, but stopped himself. Instead he just chuckled to himself, watching Keiko. “No comment,” he replied, and that served as quite a comment itself.

By the time she had finished shopping on his behalf, Jun and Becky found them. “Figures,” Jun said, seeing Nino’s pending purchases. “I couldn’t imagine you with a blade.”

He brought two fingers to his forehead and offered Jun a salute. “Messy business, swords. And you already have two wonderful students, I wouldn’t dream of interfering.”

While Keiko and Sho paid at the counter, Jun stood between them just to be a jerk. Becky approached, a faint smile on her face. “Has Keiko changed specialties?”

“If you’ll have me, my lady, I bring a brand new crossbow and a decent set of eyes. Truth be told, I think she picked the most expensive crossbow in the shop for me, so if you change your mind and would prefer instead to eat well for the next handful of weeks…”

“Truly?” she asked quietly. “You’ll come?”

He nodded. “Yep.”

“I could kiss you, right here,” she whispered, stomping her feet in excitement. He looked over in surprise, seeing she didn’t necessarily mean it in the romantic sense. But thinking back on the previous night, on how comforted he’d felt with her arms around him, with her curled up beside him, he discovered that he was rather disappointed she hadn’t meant it that way. Which, he knew, was a very dangerous road to travel. But it had been a long time…

He kept his cool, pointing to the side of his mouth. “Why don’t you then?”

Her blush in reply assured him that mutual danger was now in store. As grateful as he was for her support, sharing a room with their emotions high had probably been a bad choice. One ill-advised Sin Eater and guardian romance was underway already in their party. A second would just cause more problems down the road.

And yet…

“Your face is all red, Becky. Was it something I said?”

She gave him a shove without speaking, moving to the counter to nag Jun about something trivial. By the time they returned to the inn, Aiba and Ohno were loading up the cart with sacks of rice and tinned food that would keep for a while. Together they were adjusting a makeshift tarp that would cover the cart, one of Nagase’s suggestions for the Nissaka Plains. There were umbrellas and rain cloaks for everyone, though Nino doubted that Jun would use them. Even in the pouring rain, he’d refuse to let his guard down, to slow his ability to draw his blade if Becky needed him. Nino guessed it would take a day or two before he changed his tune and accepted the rain gear.

Without having to say so, it seemed to be understood among all of them that Nino’s position in the group had changed. Aiba himself volunteered to pull the cart for the first leg of the journey, and Jun took charge setting up a regular rotation among the men. Nagase volunteered the use of several old cushions as targets, and Nino spent the evening with Keiko downstairs practicing with his new weapon. The one from his shop had just been for protection, and he’d never used it properly. In only a matter of hours his skills had improved, and despite having chosen the crossbow over the bow in order to avoid muscle training, the weight of it in his hands was no easy thing. Keiko, triumphant, said he would be working with her rain or shine to strengthen the muscles he needed.

When it came time to sleep, Becky turned up her nose at the room upstairs, coming down to collapse into the pile of cushions, wrapping a blanket around herself. “Nagase-san will be downstairs,” she said. “I feel completely safe. He could take out a brick wall.”

Keiko, finally allowing Nino to stop training, rolled her eyes. “He’s a big soft daifuku,” she protested. “He wouldn’t harm a fly.”

Becky, snuggled under her blanket, merely shrugged. “Got the room to yourself. Why don’t you invite Sho-kun? Or have you already made plans?”

Keiko, alarmed that Nino was overhearing this, turned beet red and rushed upstairs. Becky just laughed. He moved over, nudging her leg through the blanket with his toe.

“Thank you, for yesterday.”

Her eyes were closed, and she yawned, getting comfortable. “And thank you, for changing your mind. We’re better with you than without you.”

“I hope you’re right,” he muttered.

“Sleep,” she chided him. “That’s an order. Jun-kun’s put up with your slacking so far on account of your differing circumstances, but he’ll expect more from you now.”

“Just what I wanted to hear.”

She shook a bit with laughter. That she knew everything about him and wasn’t remotely afraid, that she hadn’t changed toward him at all, was what shocked him the most. “Good night,” he said, turning to head upstairs.

He encountered Sho in the corridor, and neither of them spoke for a moment. Sho stared him down, daring him to say something.

Instead Nino just walked past him, entering the room and shutting the door behind him, listening to Sho’s footsteps move quietly down the hall. His futon, empty for a night, was waiting for him. Though Jun and Aiba were already out, Ohno was waiting for him with a rather wicked look on his face.

“He’s going to be insufferable now,” Ohno whispered. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

—

There was little time for Sho to be insufferable because the Nissaka Plains were a trial of their own.

It had been a rough morning already with their three days’ friend Nagase bursting into tears, one arm around Sho and the other around Becky. “It’ll be you, I know it’ll be you,” he’d been saying, though Nino hadn’t been certain which Sin Eater he’d been referring to. Maybe both, though everyone knew such a thing was impossible.

They’d gotten back to the surface, and already on the horizon there’d been storm clouds. The Tokaido stretched on, unforgiving as ever as the terrain changed from rice fields to long stretches of grass. Heading down a steep slope, their arrival was signaled by a tower that had stood for over a thousand years.

Once the pagoda of a vast temple complex, the caved in roof had somehow been fitted with a large metal pole. A makeshift lightning rod tower, it was the first of many that dotted across the plains, built centuries ago during a Calm to ease travel. It was inevitable that you were going to get wet, but at least it was unlikely you were going to be struck by lightning now. Nino wondered how many people had been zapped before their ancestors had smartened up.

The rain caught up with them maybe a mile into the plains, a heavy drenching rain that made the cart difficult to pull through the mud. By nightfall even Becky was pushing the cart with five of them moving it, Jun up front leading the way and Ohno in back guarding the rear of their little caravan. Nino was soaked from head to toe, and even the rain gear Nagase had provided could hardly keep up. If they’d come without rain gear, they’d have been swept off down a gully by now.

Everyone was unhappy, exchanging sharp little comments here and there, and even the cheerful Aiba was muttering curses under his breath when the cart struck rocks, kicking up mud in his face. From Mikawa onward, nobody was familiar with the route. Of all of them, only Nino had even been on this road before, but he’d traveled during a Calm and in a wagon train.

When lightning struck one of the towers, illuminating the skies for miles around, everyone jumped. Jun would draw his sword, shoving hair out of his face and worrying himself half to death that something was going to take advantage of their fear and attack.

There were a smattering of shops between Mikawa and Odawara, but no villages. It was a vast lawless territory, even in a Calm. Sin Eaters had gone missing here for decades, their bodies lost in the mud. There was a reason that Sin Eaters from Odawara were more likely to make it to the Nihonbashi. They didn’t have to pass through this way. Rumor had it that a Sin Eater from the west often brought a longer Calm - they’d been fighting the whole way and had little patience for anything, Tsumi included, when they finally crossed the Nihonbashi. Who knew how long a Calm a Sin Eater from the southern islands might bring?

Camping was a frightening option out here. Even if you found a dry spot in a cave, in a crumbling structure long abandoned, it was likely to be the territory of some roving gang. Men who’d been unable to find work in the cities or those who had tried to travel and run out of money along the way. They moved across the plains in small groups, stealing or even murdering. They killed one another or they targeted Sin Eaters with few guardians, vulnerable parties turning in circles when the rain muddled their path.

Their goal that day was a shop at a crossroads, the first of three that would hopefully carry them through the plains unscathed. They came up over a hill, finding that the building had been targeted the same as a Sin Eater party. The proprietor had been driven out, and from the bed rolls and food tins that dotted the floor, the shop had been claimed by one of the bandit gangs. Standing there, rain soaking their clothes, Jun kicked at the building in rage.

Becky finally had to drag him away, and the rest they’d been looking forward to was postponed. It was another two hours before they came upon a cave. They didn’t dare light a fire and draw attention to themselves. Shivering, Aiba hammered nails into the cave wall, and they hung clotheslines that Nagase had given them. They stripped down, a blanket hanging over the line separating the women from the men, and they strung up their soaking rain gear, the damp clothes underneath, sitting around in heavy cotton yukatas they didn’t think they’d have to wear until they got further north. At the very least, the tarp on the cart had kept their supplies perfectly dry.

The rear of the cave was warmest, and they had to eat without seeing, shakily passing tins of food among them, foregoing their usual chopsticks in favor of their fingers. Normally one person kept watch but out here there were two. Nino was given the first watch with Sho. They’d be relieved next by Keiko and Ohno, with Jun and Aiba taking the last and most treacherous. The wee hours of the morning when the plains were coated in fog was when bandits were most likely to strike. Nino was unashamed to be given the lightest watch duty. Becky offered herself as a substitute, but Jun stuck her as far back in the cave as she could get, having her guard their potion stash. It was the most valuable thing they had, more than the money Sho’s parents had given them.

They never went to relieve themselves without a partner, a buddy system that Nino didn’t care much for. But then again, the last place Nino wanted to be caught off-guard was when he was squatting over a hole in the muddy ground. They passed their first night in this way, everyone on edge and almost begging for something to attack so they could release their pent-up energy. They slept, five at a time, mostly sitting with their backs to the wall. Nino woke at dawn to see that a shivering Sho had his arm around Keiko, had given her his blanket at some point in the night.

Sho met his eyes with a forlorn look. None of them had expected it to be this bad.

When morning came they started all over. Pushing the cart through the mud, straining to see, hoping that Jun and Sho had read the maps correctly. The rain had lightened, but it still weighed them down, kept their pace slow. Their second stop came earlier than planned because they’d traveled more than they’d wanted to the night before.

It was more a shack than anything, strategically placed within sight of several lightning rod towers. The proprietor was a skinny slip of a man with shifty eyes, as though any moment now someone was going to break his door down and rob him. The fact that they were seven was not lost on him either, and seeing a deadly katana strapped to three waists, he charged them an unseemly amount of money. A sum they’d have protested the night before, but after their frightening time in the cave, they brought out their coin with little complaint.

—

It was dry in the shop, at least, and the shopkeep, Takenaka-san had included the cost of a meal with their room for the night. He’d made a thick, hearty stew, bringing the entire pot into the room at the back of his shop that he’d rented them. They kept up a watch anyhow, if only so nobody would rob the cart overnight. It rested under the eave of Takenaka-san’s roof, dry but vulnerable. As dinner arrived, Ohno was outside and Jun headed out with a bowl for him.

Before Keiko could try it, Becky was snatching a bowl for herself, filling it to the brim. She dug in her spoon, eyes closing in bliss. “This is amazing,” she murmured, though it wasn’t much more than a thick broth with long-canned vegetables mixed in.

Jun returned soon enough with Ohno’s empty bowl, rolling his eyes at how much of the pot was gone already. “How many bowls for you, Sakurai?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

Sho held up three fingers, smiling. Jun shook his head, laughing as he filled up another bowl for Ohno and handed it to him. “You take this out to him before you make yourself sick.” Sho obeyed, getting up and grabbing an umbrella to head out.

Jun sighed heavily as he filled up a bowl for himself, sitting down on the floor beside Becky. “Masaki, you give Ohno-kun two more hours and then you’re up.”

Aiba, licking his spoon in contentment, nodded casually, but Nino could tell he was happy. Not because of the tasty dinner, but because for the first time since he’d joined them, Jun had called him by his first name. Facing this journey together, going through the worst they’d faced so far, was letting Jun know who his real friends were.

Everyone was drowsy by the time Aiba switched places with Ohno, the older guardian falling asleep as soon as his head hit his pillow. Seeing him sleeping there, heavy as a rock, made eyes around the room equally tired. “Tomorrow’s our final push,” Sho said, yawning as he and Jun pored over the map by candlelight. “We should hit Yoshiwara Forest by midday. If the roads through the forest are clear, we hit Hakone in a week. And then from there, another week to Odawara.”

“You make it sound so easy,” Keiko said, pulling her blanket over herself. Everyone settled in, blowing out the candle and falling asleep to the sound of rain hitting the roof.

The attack came in the middle of the night, rocks crashing through the windows as a warning before Aiba stumbled in. It was Becky who screamed first when lightning lit up the sky, revealing the arrow protruding through his shoulder as he tried to warn them.

Jun was on his feet in seconds, his sword out in a few more. Aiba crashed to the floor, shouting that there were “seven, maybe eight, I couldn’t…I couldn’t see…”

Becky lunged for him, keeping him from lying down and lodging the arrow further inside him. Keiko was up too, detangling herself from Sho and their blankets, grabbing her bow. “Nino, come on,” she said hurriedly.

Takenaka-san was apologizing, on his knees on the floor of his shop. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…”

Nino, crossbow in hand and with Ohno behind him, burst out of the shop to see Jun’s sword sliding through someone. It was still dark, and Nino fumbled with a handful of bolts, loading up his crossbow. If he wasn’t careful he might shoot one of his friends. To avoid that, he couldn’t fire until he was absolutely certain. In moments he lost Keiko, seeing her disappear around the rear of the shop in pursuit. Jun was trying to take on three all by himself, Ohno racing forward with a scream that might have frightened off the thunder.

Nino stayed on the porch, guarding the entryway. He couldn’t let them get inside, couldn’t let them come close to Becky or Sho. Ohno’s katana clanged against someone’s dagger while Jun went down to his knees in pain from an arrow in his thigh. All four of them had run outside without any sort of armor or protection. They were fighting for their lives in their pajamas. Nino tightened his grip, trying to breathe. Behind him in the shop, Takenaka was raving and crying, saying the men outside had threatened him.

Ohno’s katana felled another and then another and another, and he stood in front of Jun, protecting him as he tried to get back to his feet. Keiko returned, nocking back another arrow that went straight through the face of the person charging at Jun from another side. A shadow came flying at Nino suddenly, coming down from the roof and swinging under in a last ditch effort to get inside. All Nino could do was react, triggering the crossbow and loosing a bolt straight into the person’s neck.

Ohno guarded the injured Jun while Keiko made another pass of the building, returning with a nod. “That’s it. That’s all of them, I can’t see any others!” She met his eyes, seeing the person at his feet with the bolt protruding from him. “Nino, it’s okay. You got him. Hurry, get Jun-kun inside.”

Jun was furious with pain, and at first he tried to limp back to the shop on his own. It took Nino and Ohno both to get him inside, shoving the hapless Takenaka out of the way. Sho came hurrying in, meeting Keiko halfway.

“Aiba-kun,” she asked, breathing heavily, her hair plastered to her face from the rain. “Is Aiba-kun okay?”

Nino politely looked away as Sho ignored how wet she was, kissing her without any of the hesitation he’d shown before. “Are you okay?” he asked instead, stroking her face.

Keiko shoved him off, half embarrassed and half pleased. “I’m fine, now answer my question.”

“I’ll be okay, thanks for asking, Keiko-chan!” Aiba called faintly from the back room as Becky emerged, hands full of potion vials.

“What on earth happened?” she asked, looking from Jun to Keiko to Nino himself, standing there dripping wet with his crossbow in hand.

“Absolve them first,” Jun grumbled, shoving a fussing Ohno away from him. “You go with her. Make sure we got them all.”

“We got them all,” Keiko protested. “Even Nino got one.”

Jun looked at him in surprise before Sho broke away from Keiko and made him lie down. Becky handed over the potions while Jun complained at Sho’s less-than-tender healing care. She followed Ohno outside into the rain, and Nino watched from the porch, reloading his crossbow to give Ohno backup.

Ohno was never more than a pace away, sword at the ready, as Becky went into trance, consuming the attackers’ sin one after another. Three, four, five, she was incredible. There was a strange beauty, seeing her green eyes vanish and the white take its place. The spirits of the men they’d slain, normal everyday humans, glowed white hot and lit up the night. The person he’d shot soon became the person Nino had slain, its spirit making itself known. As the silken threads of spirit emerged from the dead body, Nino clutched his crossbow tighter, stepped back before it touched him.

But it seemed drawn toward him, the spirit starting to grow, sliding across the floor of the porch as if begging for him to take it. It crawled like vines, wriggling away from the body, stretching its tether. He needed only crouch down. “Take it,” he remembered his grandmother saying. “Take it.”

Then Becky was there, standing between him and the fallen man. Her hands were on his face, and the green he was used to hadn’t returned yet to her eyes. She was still halfway in her trance, but she was able to speak to him. To know that he needed her. “Look at me,” she was saying quietly. “Look at me, Nino.”

He did, even as he felt a strange pull. A need to step forward, a desire to reach out his hand and touch the spirit. “It’s calling to me,” he admitted to her, even as Ohno stood nearby, seeming confused. “I can’t stop. Please…please hurry.”

“It’s okay,” she said, not letting him go. “I trust you. You’re stronger than you know. And we’re stronger with you. I was right about that.”

“Absolve it,” he begged. “Please.”

Her mouth was warm when it found the side of his mouth, kissing quick before she turned, her hands finding the spirit. He heard her gasp when it was gone, when she’d consumed the last of it. Ohno caught her before she fell, and the mysterious feelings Nino had been experiencing vanished. As Ohno helped her inside, Nino took a quick look around the shop. All told, ten attackers had been slain, and in a matter of minutes, Becky had absolved them all without stopping. Ten men that had been intent on killing them all, a dark sin in their final moments. And how much sin had there been before that, dirtying their spirits?

And yet she’d taken them all, rushing to ensure that Nino didn’t reveal his strange power. She’d saved him at risk to herself. He headed back inside, thoroughly shaken. By then the arrow had been removed, and Jun was on the floor, his leg wound already closing with the help of several potions. Aiba, blanket around his shoulders, looked weak but calm in the corner as Keiko ruffled his hair. His quick actions had probably saved them all.

It had fallen to Sho to interrogate Takenaka-san, and there was a rage in him that Nino had not seen in a long time, not since the first arrogant days of his pilgrimage. Ohno stayed in the back room with Becky, who would need plenty of rest before she could move on. A potion couldn’t fix this kind of exhaustion.

Nino could still feel her kiss, the comfort she’d offered even after they’d all been under attack minutes earlier. He felt ashamed for a few moments, but relaxed a little when he realized that he’d done his part to protect her too. The dead man on Takenaka-san’s porch was proof that Nino truly was a guardian now, much as seeing the man die (and by his own hand) was utterly distasteful to him.

Takenaka tearfully admitted that the men who’d attacked the shop were a roving gang who demanded payment on a regular basis. And if he was housing customers, he had been ordered to leave a candle on in his shop window at night. They’d seen it and known to attack. If they hadn’t kept someone outside on watch, it was likely they’d have all been hurt, maybe even killed. Takenaka apologized over and over again. They considered demanding their money back from him, but seeing him there, face covered in snot and begging their forgiveness, they decided not to do anything more. Another gang would surely take this one’s place, and it was better if Takenaka had some money to pay them in the future.

As they headed to sleep again, Jun was standing out on the porch alone, his leg bandaged up and his shoulders drooping in exhaustion. He worked harder than anyone to protect them, but in this battle he hadn’t been the strongest. Nino could tell he was angry with himself. He stepped outside, watching the rain fall.

“You should thank Ohno-san,” Nino said quietly. “He was amazing.”

“He was,” Jun admitted. “Good to know all the time I’ve spent on him hasn’t been a complete waste.”

Nino rolled his eyes. “The first day you started training him you nearly took his head off with a practice sword. And tonight he probably took out four or five men double his size in the blinding rain. Men who knew this terrain, mind you. He did all that while defending you at the same time.”

“What, you want me to bow down and kiss his feet? This is what we do. This is our job,” Jun snapped back, cringing a bit when he shifted his weight a bit.

“He looks up to you. A simple thank you goes a long way. Just a thought.”

With that he left Jun to his self-pity, heading for the back room. Ohno the warrior was already asleep again, and Nino nearly laughed at the sight of him there, on his side with a protective arm thrown over Sho beside him. Keiko was on the other side, curled up and watching Sho sleep. Nino thought of Nagase-san then. House Heiankyo, you look like the luckiest man in Wakoku.

Nino turned, looking for Becky and instead discovering that Aiba was completely out, sprawled across Nino’s futon and offering an irritating wall between where Nino could still fit and where Becky was laying. He sighed to himself, insinuating himself there anyway and giving Aiba a frustrated thump in the side, hearing him snore even louder in response.


Part 7