fic for augustfai (7/8)

[nino-mod.livejournal.com]

For: augustfai
From: astrangerenters

Part 6


The route to Yoshiwara Forest, the final leg of their journey across the plains, took longer than estimated, but at the very least, all they had to contend with was heavy drizzle. They saw no further attacks and all in the party seemed rather happy to have only the mud as their enemy once more. Aiba’s injured shoulder was thankfully his left, leaving his sword arm in good shape. He’d be sore for a while, but it wasn’t anything the potions couldn’t fix. Jun had it a little worse. He’d broken his leg what seemed like ages ago, and now it was his other leg that had been injured. When Sho commented that he ought to have evened out now, Jun had nearly gutted him.

Spirits lifted when they entered the forest, an uphill walk that would lead them to Hakone, a deep blue lake they had to walk around to reach Odawara.

Patrols from the Walled City sometimes reached as far south as Yoshiwara, the stronger Odawara Sin Eaters in training using it as a proving ground. Nino knew that his father had undertaken several trips there prior to Lord Takuya’s pilgrimage. There were still the odd raiders here and there, brave souls who lived among the unabsolved. Unabsolved spirits both human and animal that were killed back in the Nissaka Plains often seemed to find their way to the forest. The plains were mostly barren while the forest granted them cover.

The Tokaido itself was in decent shape for this stretch of the journey despite that. The heavy storms that blanketed the plains behind became a rather gentle rain by the time they reached Yoshiwara. As they moved out of the plains and under the green forest canopy, the rain was more like a mist, leaving dots of moisture in their hair, beads of water on their clothing.

The sounds of life returned. Instead of rumbling thunder there were cicadas, there was birdsong. Even with danger looming in the hills beyond the trail, it was beautiful. Trees that soared tall, their trunks so large that all seven of them could stand around them holding hands and not come close to forming a complete circle. Some were so large Nino suspected even Lord Shingo’s party would be unable to do it.

Because of Odawara’s presence, there would be campsites along the way similar to those they’d encountered back before the Sekijuku Road. Roadside shrines here and there along the way to welcome them, to point the way to shelter. They could build fires, and even with a nightly watch, they could hear someone coming long before they arrived thanks to the crunch of leaves and twigs.

They passed a week this way, each step closer to Hakone lifting their spirits. Getting out of that rain, away from danger at every turn was a true blessing. They had meals together again, real food. Aiba taught them more of his favorite filthy drinking songs, and the only threats they faced were animals, quickly dispatched and easily absolved. With Keiko’s instruction, Nino’s abilities grew sharper. Sometimes she would even stand back, twirling her bow in her hands. “Hmm? I saved that one for you,” she’d say, grinning as he stepped up and took out a rushing creature yards away.

Everyone knew that things were getting serious between Keiko and Sho. The troubles they’d faced in Nissaka only emboldened them now. Keiko’s shyness abated and Sho’s embarrassment eased. They snuck off some nights, just the two of them (but always taking a weapon, of course). It only encouraged Aiba to teach them bawdier songs, and their laughter in the forest was probably audible for miles around.

For once they’d been left alone. Nothing but isolation awaited them past Odawara, so perhaps it was a good thing to have it easy for a while. They’d have to grow serious with each step they took towards the Nihonbashi. As a team, they’d grown stronger. They trusted each other. As the days in Yoshiwara passed, even Jun was easing up. Though he kept up with Aiba and Ohno’s training, it was mostly to refine their skills by now. Jun sometimes let Ohno walk up front, trusting him to guide them and assess troubles ahead. Perhaps Jun had taken Nino’s advice to heart, although if anyone asked him, it was his own idea.

Where before Nino had been eager to avoid entanglements, to try not to lose himself in these friendships, in knowing these people, he finally gave up. He listened to stories of the Dazaifu lagoons, of Sho’s teenaged skirt chasing in Heiankyo (stories that made Keiko roll her eyes). He learned that in his spare time, Ohno liked to draw. He learned that Keiko liked to read. He learned that Jun could tell dirtier jokes than even Aiba. And as the days passed, Nino could look across the campfire and see tears in Becky’s eyes as she remained quiet, simply listening to her friends talk and laugh.

It was Becky he’d spoken to the least since they’d left Nissaka. Since that night at the shop, the night she’d absolved those spirits, he hadn’t been alone with her at all. He fell asleep remembering how she’d held his face in her hands, how she’d kissed him gently and told him she trusted him. How many times had he repeated that scene in his mind, the spirit tempting him and Becky keeping his impulses at bay?

At the start she’d been the girl of oranges and pineapples, the island girl in over her head and stubborn to a fault. The stubbornness remained of course, but she was so much more than that. She was his friend, his secret keeper. She was the one who’d rested his head in her lap in Mikawa and stroked his hair. She was also the one he was fighting for, more passionately than he’d fought for anything in his life. It was her face he saw when he loaded another bolt in his crossbow. Her he needed to protect.

She was going off to die, he knew that. He knew it every single day, and as they found their way east with the map, he started to understand why a young Aiba Masaki had been unable to handle it. Because it wasn’t right, someone so bright and kind dying so other people wouldn’t have to. So that bandits could keep robbing others in the Nissaka Plains. So that rich men in Heiankyo and Odawara could fill their coffers. She’d die so they could live. And it wasn’t fair.

It was a strange thing, being a guardian. Because in the end you were only shielding the Sin Eater so they could die at the proper time, facing Tsumi. How was that protection? How was that guarding them?

He loved her, of that he was rather certain now. And every step forward was going to make it harder. To move forward when he wanted to take her hand and run the other way.

—

Hakone was a deep lake, and despite its natural beauty, ringed by trees and with snow-capped mountains in the distance, the area was unpopulated. It had been different, ages ago. Before Odawara had walls, the city stretched all the way to the lake. But Tsumi grew stronger as the cycle continued. The walls grew, and the people of the east hid themselves inside them.

Cottages and temples abandoned for centuries peppered the lakeshore, most long since reclaimed by nature, vines snaking through them. It was Fujiyama in the distance, the highest peak of all. The flag of Odawara had once been a drawing of the old mountain, the mountain that touched the sky. A few generations back the leadership of Odawara had redesigned the flag, replacing Fujiyama with the great gate at the city’s eastern edge. The gateway to Nihonbashi and the end of the world. The gate that kept them safe from it.

There was a small abandoned village they reached on their third day walking along Hakone’s shore. Already they could see Odawara’s massive walls to the east, rising up and blotting out the beauty surrounding them. Walls Nino hadn’t seen in almost a decade. The village here had a handful of structures in decent shape despite centuries of neglect, most likely used by other travelers. Privacy, after so long a bit of privacy.

Jun had finally given up on the separation of the sexes, Keiko having clearly chosen to follow her heart. She and Sho knew the cost. All Sin Eaters and guardians knew it, and they were lucky in what they’d found together. They’d enjoy it while it lasted. Keiko, bow in hand, brought Sho to one of the structures once they finished dinner, and Nino knew they wouldn’t be out until morning. That left four men and Becky, something that made her crack up a bit in laughter.

There were two buildings, houses once, that were habitable at least for the night. Before Jun could insist upon Becky taking one of them and that he would stand guard outside the entire night, she held out her fist and smiled. “We split them, two and three. We can spread out, relax. Janken then.”

Jun frowned. “I don’t want any of them staying with you alone.” He made a point to stare Nino down the longest.

“Janken, I said,” Becky shot back, patting her obi and reminding them all she was carrying her dagger.

Nino took a look around, reassessed what he knew to be true. Aiba had managed to reestablish friendships with all three of his old “Dazaifu crew,” but as time had gone by, Nino had a feeling that he wasn’t that keen to take it any further with Becky. Ten years was a long time, and the ship had sailed. They’d settled into a routine of teasing that reminded Nino more of friends than old lovers. The fact that that made him intensely happy was not something he cared to share with the rest of the group.

And as for Ohno-kun, quiet and unassuming, Nissaka had made something clear. Nino had seen how Ohno had reacted when the arrow had taken Jun down. There was the rage of battle, the rage to defend a friend, and then there was Ohno Satoshi’s reaction. Even in the dark, even in the rain, he’d stood his ground and had kept everyone away from the wounded Jun at great risk to himself. A guardian shielding a guardian as though he was a Sin Eater. Whether Jun was aware of it or not, Nino couldn’t say. But it was there, a softer, gentler flame than what Sho and Keiko seemed to share.

Nino held out his fist along with the others. “Hurry up already, I’m tired. I’m just happy that Keiko-chan alone is putting up with Sho-kun’s snoring tonight.”

“She’ll send him to another room when she’s done with him,” Aiba said bluntly, and Becky punched him hard in the shoulder that had taken the arrow. He backed off with a laugh even as he winced in pain. “Alright, alright, I know, shut up, Masaki. You don’t have to say it yourself.”

“Are you children finished?” Jun asked.

It took a few rounds but it was split in a manner so ideal that Nino was certain Becky had heard him chanting “Rock rock rock rock rock” in his mind. Aiba, Jun, and Ohno were taking the larger structure next to Keiko and Sho, leaving the smallest for Nino and Becky.

When Jun started to complain, asking for a do-over, Becky ignored him and grabbed her pack from the cart. “You’ve got room in that house, keep the cart in there with you in case it rains. Night.”

Nino said nothing, catching Aiba’s strange attempt at a wink as he grabbed his things from the cart and followed Becky to the old structure.

The door was gone, but whoever had used the place at another time had pushed a large wooden cupboard in front of it. The thing was rotten and stunk, but with Becky’s help they were able to push it into the doorway to hopefully keep animals out. It was a two room place with dirt floors. Nino unfolded one of the rain tarps they’d used to cross Nissaka, setting it down on the floor of the second room, the more private of the two. “Here, you can put your bedroll on this. Better than the dirt.”

“And what about you?” Becky asked, going through her pack and looking for the lighter robe she wore to sleep. “Got another one of those tarps?”

“Well, no,” he said, pointing to the one on the floor. “We only had two and I was smart enough to steal this one before Jun noticed. So here. You won’t get any dirt in your hair.”

She put her hands on her hips. “Just stay in here, will you? Then there’s no dirt in anyone’s hair.”

He rolled his eyes. “But Jun-kun…”

“Is going to spend the rest of the night trying to keep Aiba-kun from narrating what’s going on in Sho-kun and Kei-chan’s place. I think he’s got enough on his plate for now, wouldn’t you agree?”

He leaned forward, grinning. “What do you think’s going on in there anyway?”

Becky groaned. “A long and detailed history of the city of Heiankyo, as explained by Wakoku scholar Sakurai Sho. Why do you care what they’re doing?”

He held up his hands in surrender, going for his bedroll. “Alright, alright, I’m just teasing you. We haven’t gotten to chat much lately, you and me. I was just messing around.”

When they had their bedrolls set up, neat and side by side, she moved to the other room to change. He’d seen her in her cute little pajamas before, but there’d always been someone else close by. At least that had been the case since Mikawa. And thinking about Mikawa was making him all kinds of nervous again.

She came back, snuffing out the lantern they’d lit and curling up in her bedroll. The tarp made a great deal of noise as she shifted around, and he heard her grumble in complaint. “Settle down already,” he teased, “I’m never going to sleep.”

“Your tarp was a stupid idea,” she said in return, rustling it to be annoying now. He snorted in laughter until she finally quieted down.

It was a while before she spoke again. He’d almost given up entirely, assuming that she’d fallen asleep. He heard the tarp rustle. She was probably on her side, leaning on her elbow and looking at his form in the dark. “In Odawara. Are you going to see your mother?”

He froze. All this time with Odawara as the destination, and he hadn’t even given a thought to it. It had been almost ten years, but the city hadn’t been attacked in that time. It was likely his mother was still alive, living in that quiet house behind the shop alone. Was Taichi still looking after her?

“I left willingly,” he said, fingers twisting in his blanket. “It would cause her trouble if I just showed up on her doorstep.”

“You may think that,” Becky said, “but she’s your mother. Don’t you think she’d want to know if you were going off on pilgrimage? That’s different than you working in a shop back west.”

He remembered how despite everything between them, his father had come back to the house for one last meal so he could ask for their prayers. He remembered how his mother had made him dinner the same as she always had when he was a better husband and she was a better wife. It would be strange, going back to that house to tell her the same thing.

“I don’t know,” he mumbled. “I don’t want to hurt her. Not again.”

“I don’t even remember my mother,” Becky said. “I’d give anything to see her. If we cross…” She corrected herself. “When we cross the Nihonbashi, they’ll send word to the cities anyway that you were with me, assuming you come with us. Would you prefer her to find out about you that way?”

“Not really,” he admitted.

“I’ll go with you, if it would be easier.”

He smiled. “This is your pilgrimage. You don’t need to make side trips on a whim for me.”

“We’ll be there for a few days at least, resting up and making sure we have what we need. It’s not an inconvenience. And if it means you can come with us with a clear conscience for the rest of the journey, then I want you to have that opportunity.”

He shook his head, hardly able to hear it. “The world doesn’t deserve it, you know. Someone like you dying for them.”

“Being a decent human being, being a friend, is such a remarkable thing to you? Nino, I’m not a saint. I make mistakes. I have just as many faults as anyone else.”

“It shouldn’t be someone like you. Shouldn’t be someone like Sho that has to face Tsumi. One of those bastards from Nissaka, let’s send one of them off. Nobody would miss them.”

He felt her fingers on his arm. For the first time in a long time, her hand was warm. “Don’t say that. We all go with the hope that this time will be the last time. That nobody else will have to make this journey ever again. It’s about having hope. It’s about having faith in yourself. If we didn’t have that, if we sent a random person or someone we simply don’t like across the Nihonbashi, we’d never win.”

“I don’t like the idea that all seven us will die, and Tsumi will just come back in a year and cancel everything out. You have to see what a joke that is, Becky.”

“Oh I do,” she admitted. “It’s not fair. It’s terrible, but I still have to trust that whatever I do is going to stick. If I give in to doubt, if I assume that it’s an empty sacrifice, I’ll never be able to face Tsumi.”

He was quiet for a moment. “Do you think about it? What it would be like?”

Nobody knew what happened once a Sin Eater crossed the Nihonbashi. For all Nino knew, the Sin Eater sat down to tea with Tsumi and kindly asked him to leave. For all the centuries of speculation, people still didn’t know. Sin Eaters trained, consumed spirits, but what if all of that was wrong?

“Every day,” she told him. “When I first started training, I was overwhelmed with it. Would I be strong enough? What would it be like? I mean, it always comes from the ocean to attack. How do I even find it? What does it look like in Yomi? All sorts of things. Now I think of other things. I pray that my death is quick. I pray that none of you are even nearby when it happens.”

He found her hand, clasping it in his own. He was thrilled when she squeezed back. “I don’t want to think about your death at all. Not when you’re right here, talking to me.”

“Then don’t think about it,” she said simply. “When I’m here, I’m here. Be with me when I’m here. Don’t go away.”

“I won’t,” he said honestly. “It’s funny. Before I couldn’t wait to leave, and now the thought of it makes me ill.”

He moved despite all the warnings in his head cautioning him against it. The tarp made its stupid noise, and he moved until he was leaning over her, feeling her breath on his face in the dark.

Her voice was full of a nervous energy. “Must be my charming personality. I’m amazed I don’t have an entire army of guardians like Lord Shingo has by…”

She let out the softest gasp when he kissed her, his hand slipping along her face until he could stroke her cheek with his thumb. For the first few moments, Nino was worried he’d made a grave miscalculation, feeling her go completely rigid beneath him. He was already trying to keep himself from wondering if she preferred the kisses she’d shared with Aiba so many years ago, if anyone had kissed her since.

He stopped, leaning back the slightest bit. “Sorry…”

“Finally,” she whispered, chuckling nervously.

“Hmm?”

“I’ve been waiting a while now. I knew you wouldn’t disappoint me.”

He let out a little noise of frustration, resting his forehead against hers. “Are you kidding? I’ve wanted to do that since…since…”

“I can guarantee I’ve been waiting longer than you.”

“Try me.”

“I like difficult people. Case in point, Aiba-kun, and…”

“Oh, I don’t need to hear his name right now,” he muttered, twisting a lock of her hair around his finger as he brushed a kiss to her forehead. “Just tell me when.”

“I think I’ve wanted you to kiss me since the day we met. You were so prickly and stubborn, and of course, cute. I’m a Sin Eater too, you can’t say I don’t like a good challenge.”

“You’re lying.”

“I’m not,” she said forcefully. “I may have wanted you to kiss me then, but not the same way as I want you to kiss me now.”

“That makes zero sense.”

“Then don’t worry about it, and just kiss me.”

Now that was something he could do.

—

When they woke, she was in his arms, and he didn’t want to move. He could have easily taken things further, but he’d resisted. He’d kissed her lips, her cheeks, the tip of her nose. Her eyelids left and right. He’d done no more than that, for fear that Jun was outside ready to kill him and for fear that Becky herself wasn’t ready for it yet.

It wasn’t the easiest path, but that was the way things seemed to operate on this pilgrimage. They’d have to be more secretive about it than Sho and Keiko. Jun wouldn’t just let Nino sneak off with her. And at the end of the day, Nino was her guardian. A sworn protector. Her safety was more important than Nino’s desire. Keiko wasn’t actually Sho’s guardian but only served in that capacity because of how their group had come together. It was different for them.

He could hear activity outside, the sound of the cart wheels. They’d probably slept longer than the itinerary-mad Sho and Jun preferred, and he gave Becky a gentle nudge. The green eyes that had captured his attention for so long now opened, snaring him all over again.

“I’d kiss you but my breath is terrible,” he admitted.

“Ah, good morning.” She wrapped herself around him, squeezing him tight as she buried her face against his neck. “I never in a million years thought…never on my pilgrimage…”

Becky had left Dazaifu behind, convinced she’d never experience love again. He could hear it in the sound of her voice, had felt it in the soft way she’d kissed him back during the night, how slowly she’d seemed to savor each one. Nino felt honored that of all the people in Wakoku, she’d chosen to love him.

They dressed quickly, doing so in separate rooms despite the shift in their relationship. When they were ready to move the cupboard from the doorway and go outside, he stopped her, taking her hand. Who knew when he’d get to again? “Whatever makes you happy, ask it of me,” he said honestly. “I’ll do anything.”

“What if I asked you to go outside right now and scream how much you love me, so loud the snow will melt on Fujiyama?”

He raised an eyebrow. “You’d want something like that?”

She blushed. “Would you do it?”

“If that’s what you want…”

He let her go, moving quickly to shift the cupboard, and she squealed in protest, pulling him back. She leaned against him, and she fit so perfectly in his arms. He grinned, kissing the top of her head.

“Change your mind?”

She sounded embarrassed. “Please don’t yell at mountains.”

He tilted her chin up with his fingers, kissing her slowly. It wasn’t something he had much experience with, truth be told. Visits to brothels, the main source of companionship he’d experienced in his life, usually got straight to the point. He was learning how lucky he was to take things at her pace, to feel her lips part softly under his own.

“Let’s go!” Jun was shouting outside, banging on the cart. “While we’re young!”

Becky leaned away first, poking at the mole Nino had on his chin. “He needs a good kiss. Maybe he’d relax.”

“Maybe Ohno-kun would do it. Take one for the team.”

Her eyes widened, and she gave him a shove. “So it’s not just me then! You see it too!”

Impressed by their mutual powers of observation, they got the cupboard out of the way and joined the others. The journey toward Odawara continued. While they traveled, he saw Becky chatting quietly with Keiko, exchanging little girlish giggles. Before too long, Keiko had called him over, sending Ohno to take over cart duty with Aiba. Keiko wrapped an arm around him, holding him close.

“Ninomiya-san.”

“Ah, Keiko-san,” he replied calmly. “Lovely day, isn’t it?”

“I’ve been sworn to secrecy not to inform our good friend Jun that there’s been a development.”

“Oh, is that so?” he answered, feeling her tighten her grip on him. “What development could you be referring to?”

“When I was in Dazaifu, before I took up the bow, I trained in close quarters fighting. Daggers and such.”

“I see.”

“I’m very good with daggers, Ninomiya-san.”

He smiled to stifle his fear. Was it really Jun he needed to be frightened of? “Glad to hear it. Perhaps you ought to let me go before Sho-kun gets the wrong idea?”

“Very good with daggers.” She gave him a kiss on the cheek before releasing him and raising her voice from a whisper. “Hand exercises, now.”

To Nino’s dismay, they were unable to camp so luxuriously the rest of the road to Odawara. All seven of them huddled up in old houses that mostly just kept out the damp and the wildlife. The number of unabsolved creatures dwindled the closer they got to the city, with Sho and Becky having little to do in terms of training themselves. But everyone knew that things would change very soon.

Odawara’s walls were high, but they weren’t so high as Nino remembered them. As a child, they were a constant reminder that the world they lived in wasn’t safe, that those who ventured out did so at great risk. There were two entrances aside from the small gates along the seashore. The Great Western Gate was the one they’d enter first, and the Great Eastern Gate led to the Nihonbashi. The gate in the west of the city saw far more activity, especially in a Calm.

The money remaining to them had dwindled at last, and despite all their efforts to rough it along the way, Nino knew quarters in Odawara would be the most expensive yet. He remembered the prices from a decade back and knew they were probably even higher now. Because of this, he finally made the decision to reveal that he had been born in Odawara, that he knew the city well. Thankfully nobody pressed him for much more than that, and he’d only admitted to leaving town to seek his fortunes elsewhere.

The Great Western Gate was closed on their arrival, and unlike the sighing, lazy fellow they’d met in Mikawa, the men at the gate of Odawara were far more wary of travelers. Upon hearing that there were two Sin Eaters, both on unofficial pilgrimages, the decision was made to inspect them all. It was doubtful Lord Shingo of House Murakami was treated this way. Nino hid his fists behind his back as two of the town guards had Becky stand still and they patted her down, even after she had taken out her dagger and shown it to them.

Everyone received the same undignified treatment, and the cart was thoroughly searched before they were finally granted passes identifying them as outsiders. Nino hadn’t bothered to say he’d been born in Odawara - anyone who left had left for a reason.

Going through the gate was like falling backwards in time. The slope of each roof, the smells of cooking food, the upper city that lay on the hills at the center of town, the safest place and of course where the wealthy lived. It was a sprawling place, and they kept close together, surrounding their cart on all sides as they went up the main thoroughfare that led to Odawara Jingu in the north.

There’d been an inn in his neighborhood as a child, not far from Ninomiya Sundries. He led them there even as each step closer to his childhood home made his heart race faster. Maybe she’d be here on the street, out for a walk. Or maybe Taichi would see him, recognize him. Or any of the others in the neighborhood who might have remembered the little boy who’d been outside one day and was not seen again for years. But it was for the best, and he knew the neighborhood, knew it was safe, and it was going to be the most reasonable price they could get.

Nino went inside with Sho, who seemed a little curious about the inn Nino had chosen, but was for once keeping his questions to himself. The inn was under new management because Nino didn’t recognize the older woman who came to the counter. Businesses in Odawara were transferred down through family lines. Something must have happened to the proprietors if a new family had taken over. The same had happened with Ninomiya Sundries, with Taichi taking over the place that ought to have been Nino’s.

The price for the night was ridiculous. Multiple rooms, one for the ladies and one for the men for two nights, would have eaten up the rest of their money. Money they desperately needed for supplies, for valuable potions. Sho, of course, wasn’t accustomed to an Odawara haggle, and Nino stepped forward, leaning on the counter which was a signal that he was prepared to deal. Odawara traded in more than money, although Nino had no secrets to sell. Instead he decided to piss off Jun.

“I have a sword that was made in Dazaifu. Ever heard of it?”

The woman raised an eyebrow. “That supposed to mean something to me?”

“It should,” Nino said, offering up a lazy smile. “It’s in the south, an island. Not much more than a beach, but the smith there is a craftsman of the highest order, and you can’t get a katana like this anywhere else in Wakoku.”

“This is an inn,” the woman said with a smirk. “What use have I for a sword? I have a husband who can wield a club if need be.”

“It’s a beautiful weapon, well-maintained.” Thanks to Jun, of course. “So it’s not so much to be used as it is to be displayed. The woman who will save the world is in our party, a Sin Eater from Dazaifu, and when she defeats Tsumi, wouldn’t it be amazing if you were the only place in town with a relic she’d blessed?”

The woman’s doubtful expression started slipping. Sho beside him was stepping on his foot, but Nino didn’t much care. He knew Odawara. He knew that everything here was about status. About bragging rights. And even if Becky wasn’t the one to defeat Tsumi, the woman would be foolish not to bet in her favor. The rewards were too good.

“A one-of-a-kind relic from Dazaifu and the seven of us take one of your rooms for two nights. Drop the price you’re charging by, let’s say, forty percent,” Nino offered.

“I want to see the sword,” she said. “And the Sin Eater.”

Though it took some finagling, mostly on Jun’s end, in a few minutes he’d gotten Becky inside and had laid down one of Jun’s swords on the counter top. It wasn’t even a blade he used. It was a backup. While the innkeeper gently slid the katana from the scabbard and called her husband in to check it out, Becky pulled Nino aside.

“How exactly do I bless a sword?”

“You’re the one in possession of a mystical power, how should I know?” he whispered back, earning an elbow in the side. She grumbled under her breath and left him, whispering together with Sho to figure out her best course of action.

The innkeeper’s husband was mightily impressed with the blade, encouraging his wife to make the deal. In the end, Sho, the scholar of Wakoku history and culture, had told Becky to just kiss the sword and hope for the best. She did so, pressing her lips as reverently as she could to the hilt of the blade. Husband and wife both shook her hand, telling her they would pray for her (and for Sho-kun as well, even though he was from Heiankyo and had nothing that unique to offer the place, though they let him kiss the scabbard to hedge their bets).

They’d been given the largest room. It was still a tight fit for seven, but they’d make do as they had all along. What mattered more was using the remainder of their money wisely here in Odawara, their last city. Here they would make their final preparations for the journey. There was no turning back.

—

Their timing could not have been better (or worse, if you were a Sin Eater on an unofficial pilgrimage who was slighted at every turn). That night Odawara was feasting Lord Shingo of House Murakami. He’d be donning his white kimono and slippers and the entire town would come out to cheer for him as he departed for the eastern gate. He wasn’t even a local, but a man showing up with that many guardians had the kind of wealth backing him that Odawara liked to celebrate.

Becky, who had kissed a sword just to get a discount at an inn in the working class part of town, refused to attend the celebration. Sho, who’d been equally slighted, was going to attend and cheer for his friend, much as the circumstances of their pilgrimages differed. Nino had a feeling that Sho’s gesture was mostly a front and that he planned to drown his sorrows and jealousy at the sake house Nino had kindly recommended just off the parade route by the Odawara Jingu. Keiko went with him, and so did Aiba. Ohno was duty-bound to accompany Sho, and somehow convinced Jun to go out with them as well.

That left the pouting Becky and Nino alone for the first time in almost a week. But now that he was in his old neighborhood, Becky’s questions from Hakone had returned. About his mother and if he ought to go see her. When he was a child, his mother had attended all of the Sin Eater celebrations. The Kazuko of twenty years ago would have been standing behind the barriers herself, clapping for Lord Shingo, throwing flowers at his feet. But that woman had slipped away. Nino knew that if Ninomiya Kazuko was anywhere that night, it would be at home.

The last thing he wanted was to disturb her or to cause her pain. He’d done more than his share of that, and in leaving her behind he’d wanted her to have a happier life. But now that he was here, inside the Odawara walls after so long, guilt was settling like a rock in the pit of his stomach. His father had lived apart from them for years, but on his last night, he’d come home. He’d been humble, quiet. Had said “thank you” for every kindness Nino’s mother showed him. He could have ignored them entirely, following his new love and his Sin Eater without looking back.

He looked out from the small window in their room, out across the rooftops. One of those rooftops, Nino knew, was a familiar one. It had a small yard and a wall that a young boy had liked to climb, simply to enjoy the air, to look out at the city walls. And under that rooftop, a woman was probably living alone, cleaning and cooking and minding her business. If she was alive, he wanted to see her. She’d been afraid of him, but he knew she’d never hated him.

Before he realized it, Becky was beside him. “Do you want me to go with you?”

He blinked back some tears. “I’d like that.”

She linked arms with him, and they walked slowly. Everyone was heading in the opposite direction, toward Odawara Jingu and the fireworks that would soon light the skies. Lanterns were strung and lit on every street. Carts were out with steaming food, their proprietors calling out prices and deals. Children holding hands in a long chain darted around them, all running to the parade with their parents hurrying after them. It was an Odawara that Nino remembered, an Odawara that had eventually been cut off to him.

When he saw the sign out front, suspended from the overhang of the roof as it always had, Nino felt like someone was squeezing his heart. More than ten years gone, and Taichi had still left it. Ninomiya Sundries, the sign still read, with “Proprietor: Kokubun Taichi” written in considerably smaller script beneath it. Becky held onto him tight. He’d told her all of this, every little misery and joy that had taken place inside this small building. Now she was seeing it.

The shop was closed up for the night, and Taichi had probably gone home to his family hours before. But if they knocked, he knew his mother would come. When he’d been young and his father had been away, Taichi too, she sometimes opened up and sold things if people were desperate. They stepped up, Nino knocking three times on the wooden sliding door.

It took a few moments, but he soon saw a floating light in the darkened shop. His mother still carried the same lantern with her as she always had. The figure moved slower than the person he remembered, but she was close to sixty now. She was older than the woman he’d left behind. He didn’t know what to say when the door was unlocked, and she slid it open. But he knew it was her. And she knew it was him.

Her hair was fully gray now, and there were wrinkles on her face, lines by her eyes and the corners of her mouth. When Nino was little, he thought his mother was beautiful, and seeing her again, he still believed it to be true. She looked up at him. She’d always been a small woman, and she was shorter than Becky too. She looked at both of them, sizing them up with a nod.

“Are you here to buy?” she asked quietly, the slightest humor in her voice. It had been a long time since he’d heard her sound that way.

“We’re not,” he replied, and she tightened her grip on the lantern at the sound of his voice. At the confirmation that there wasn’t a ghost on her doorstep, but her son in the flesh after so many years.

“Well, then let me make you some tea.”

She stepped aside, and they entered the shop. She locked up and toddled off to the rooms in back. Nino squeezed Becky’s hand. It was small, so much smaller than he remembered. Little had changed. The table, her sewing basket. Everything scrubbed clean, not a speck of dust in sight. He knew that just beyond was his old room, the four walls that had seen hours of card tricks, hours of shamisen. He didn’t want to go in there. This was as far as he cared to go.

She poured the tea, and to break the odd tension, Becky introduced herself. That she was a Sin Eater from Dazaifu, far to the south. That she would be leaving Odawara soon to continue the journey to the Nihonbashi, and that Nino was serving as one of her guardians.

“Nino?” his mother remarked, the corners of her mouth twitching. “Is that what you call yourself now?”

He blushed, fidgeting with his tea cup. “Kazu is something you call a little kid.”

“It is not,” his mother grumbled. “And a grown man going by a nickname isn’t strange? What’s wrong with Kazunari, the name I gave you?”

He chuckled. She was speaking directly to him, everything but meeting his eyes. He hadn’t expected her to change that much.

Becky was smiling. “Ninomiya-san, has he always been this way?”

“Oh yes,” she nodded. “A smart boy with a sharp tongue. Good with sums, good with music. A picky eater.” He could see that she was avoiding the elephant in the room, the sorrows he had caused her. Perhaps it was because she didn’t want Becky to know of it.

So Nino decided to be honest. “Becky knows everything. I’ve told her everything. About me.”

His mother looked up, keeping her eyes trained on Becky. “It doesn’t matter to you, then?”

“It doesn’t.”

She reached out to squeeze Becky’s hand. “Thank you, then. For being strong for him when I couldn’t.”

“Mama…”

“Hold on,” she said. “I’ve been saving something for you.” She slowly got up, walked to her room. When she returned, it was with a money pouch. She untied the strings and upended it over the table. He counted them without blinking, a dozen gold ryō coins.

“This money was for you,” he said quietly.

“And I’ve held them. For eight years, I’ve held onto them. Every day as a reminder of the kindness you’d shown me when I showed you none,” she replied. “I want Becky-san to have them for her pilgrimage.”

“I couldn’t,” Becky interrupted, but already his mother was slipping them back into the pouch.

“I’ve gone eight years without needing to use them, and if the heavens allow, I’ll go another eight. You take these with you, Sin Eater, and you fight hard. Promise me that.”

Becky’s eyes filled with tears, and she could only nod, accepting the money. His mother tidied up the tea cups, getting to her feet. “You’re staying nearby?”

“We are. Tonight and tomorrow.”

“I won’t interrupt your preparations. Please go with my prayers, meaningless as they are.”

Becky walked over and took her hands. “No prayers are meaningless. Thank you for this gift.”

“Please look after my son. He’s a sweet boy.”

“I’m standing right here, Mama,” Nino protested.

“I will,” Becky said, the two women ignoring him for the moment. “I need him.”

Becky headed outside, leaving them alone. He cleared his throat. “Mama, I’m sorry for…”

“We could say we’re sorry for the rest of our lives, Kazu, but it wouldn’t be enough,” she said quietly. “Come here.”

He went to her instantly, and when she embraced him for the first time since he was a little boy, he knew that coming here had been right. He cried without shame, clinging to her in a way she’d never allowed after he’d turned 10 and everything had changed. She cried too, the woman who’d never been so open with her feelings. She’d been alone too long, and so had he.

Nino heard the fireworks outside. Lord Shingo was leaving the temple, and the streets would be full of celebration that night. His mother looked at him, taking his face in her hands, unafraid of what she might find. He knew what it was she saw. Brown eyes, reddened from crying. No trace of the strange darkness that lay inside him, unable to be explained.

“Be well, Kazu,” she said, looking right at him.

“Be well, Mama.”

There was a lot of noise back at the inn. Though their party was loud and raucous, it didn’t seem to matter as all the other rooms were full of celebrating people. Becky and Nino returned, money in hand, to find five drunken friends. Sho and Keiko were behind a screen, kissing and laughing, and hopefully there’d be nothing more than that. Out on the main floor of the room, Jun was surprising them all. His face was flushed, and he was stumbling around with a practice sword, daring Aiba and Ohno to take him on. By the time Nino and Becky had closed the door behind them and locked it for the night, Aiba and Ohno together had gotten Jun around the midsection, tackling him hard to the floor.

While Aiba held Jun still, Ohno climbed on top of him, holding up his arms in victory. Jun didn’t protest one bit when Ohno leaned down and started kissing his neck, Aiba encouraging him all the way. Nino and Becky exchanged a glance. Everyone was going to be impossible to deal with come morning, but there was a happiness here in the room, a togetherness that would carry them through to the Nihonbashi.

He and Becky dragged two of the futons to the one unoccupied corner. Leaning back against the wall, he kept his arm around her and she lay against him, the two of them wondering when Jun was going to realize what was happening and freak out. By now he was on his side, kissing Ohno possessively, Aiba behind him on the other side embracing him, trying to sneak his hands under Jun’s robe.

“I hope they’ll cover themselves with a blanket soon. I don’t need to go blind,” Nino grumbled, hearing Becky chuckle. “Better yet, maybe they’ll pass out and shut the hell up.”

“Masaki has friendly hands. He never tried that with you?”

He gave Becky a dirty look. “I’ve never gotten drunk with him before. And I’m glad now that I never did.”

The noise eventually died down, and Nino fell asleep, knowing this little party would be their last.

—

The money from Nino’s mother was put to good use. They said only that they’d found it in the street, that there’d been no sign of its owner, and that perhaps it was a sign that the pilgrimage was blessed. Nobody bothered to question it - they needed the money so desperately, it almost didn’t matter.

Hangovers had left most of the party in bed until the afternoon, but by dinner, things had grown more solemn. The cart was loaded up, and they knew they wouldn’t sleep in a proper structure until they reached the final temple before the Nihonbashi. It was a journey of perhaps two weeks if they weren’t delayed. Tsumi had gone south once more, raging in the Inland Sea, so it was doubtful he’d pose a threat to them personally or via the weather. It was the unabsolved that awaited them, the spirits of so many Sin Eater parties that had set out before them.

The Tamagawa Plain had once been a long stretch of farmland, green in every direction. Earthquakes had torn the land apart, lifting rock in one direction and revealing a gully in another. That they still called it a “plain” was a holdover from the old maps. The Tokaido narrowed in this direction and often disappeared, mostly because in a Calm nobody used it aside from Sin Eater training parties and the occasional team of land surveyors. The unabsolved ruled the road to the Nihonbashi, and there’d be fighting at every turn. Exhaustion claimed some parties, inexperience the rest.

His father had taken this road. Had he been afraid? Or had he been bold?

They passed through The Great Eastern Gate in near silence. They’d used some of the money to get a new cart, a smaller one with a sturdier axle. As they took to the road, it was only a few miles before the sense of isolation kicked in. Fujiyama was still visible behind them and to the left, other peaks rising up to point the way. Jun, despite his wild night in Odawara, had wasted little time in coordinating their movements and was all business when he gave Ohno orders. Five defenders, Sho with the cart, and Becky with a pack on her back carrying their potions. Ohno and Jun walked in front, Aiba walked alongside the cart, and Nino and Keiko with their longer-range weapons brought up the rear. Using a guardian to pull the cart meant one less person watching for danger, so their tactics needed adjustment. Sho offered no complaints, accepting the task willingly.

It was wide open, a land mostly devoid of trees. The jutting pieces of land, scattered in mile-long rifts, could hide any number of hostiles behind them. But beyond that, they could see anything else coming and could at least prepare. They’d rehearsed formations on the road along Hakone. The Sin Eaters would stay by the cart, hiding under it if necessary. The others formed a circle of protection around it.

Their first day went without a hitch, and the only time swords were drawn was to frighten off a party of deer from their intended campsite. With a jutting earthen wall to their backs, they settled in. It was cooler at night, and they couldn’t avoid a campfire. They reverted to the two-person watch rotation, keeping an extra set of eyes looking out at the night. They slept in heavier tents to stay warm, ate larger meals to keep up their strength.

It continued in this manner the first few days. But soon they knew they were entering lands that the Sin Eater training parties from Odawara rarely reached. These lands were for pilgrimages alone, and the occasional priest heading back west with news of those crossing the Nihonbashi.

It was an astonishingly beautiful place, and each evening Becky watched the sun disappear behind the mountains. So much of Wakoku, so much of the land they called home was never seen by human eyes. They kept to their islands, to their walled cities. Even in a time of Calm, nobody was here to walk this road, to see these sunsets. There was something special about it, a centuries-long shared experience known only to a Sin Eater and his or her guardians.

Many Sin Eaters probably lost their way here, got wrapped up in the beauty of the untouched land. It was then that they were vulnerable.

They were five days in when the attacks began in earnest. Parties of wild boar started sniffing around their camp in the mornings, Jun and Aiba on the watch often waking everyone up with the frightening sound of a squealing boar being gutted. It was black bears before sunset, lumbering down a slope. Keiko and Nino would slow it down, and the swordsmen would finish the job. Sho and Becky took turns sending them to a final rest.

Unabsolved came at any time of day, charging at them with a madness that made Nino ill. What if their party fell out here? Would they become the next group of unabsolved, roaming the land to quench their bloodlust? More and more, Becky was encouraging Sho to help her handle the souls that had once been human. It left him weak, and Becky too if they were forced to consume ten, fifteen, twenty long-departed spirits at a time. Progress slowed, their clothes stained with dried blood becoming stiff and uncomfortable.

The levity that had marked the walk from Yoshiwara and Hakone to Odawara seemed like another world. Instead of words, they used their eyes to talk on most nights, all of them too exhausted to speak. Keiko squeezed shoulders as she passed by with dinner, spooning it out. Jun was a firm look, a swift gesture as he cleaned his katana and helped Aiba and Ohno with theirs. Sho was lost in his maps, all concentration so he could guide them properly.

And Becky was the soft hand in his when he returned from first watch. A kiss, slow and heartfelt when the campfire embers smoldered. Sleeping arrangements were no longer worth commenting on. It was him and Becky in the back of the tent with the potion pack just above their heads, with the gentlest touches, with Nino’s callused fingers slipping under her clothes. He knew her only in the dark and had yet to know all of her. If he was able to wake on his own, without the sound of some creature’s death, he was lucky enough to see the only smiles Becky still seemed to have within her. A sparkle in her green eyes, her fingers tracing his brow, along his cheekbone. Memorizing him the same as the landscapes they’d left behind them.

The journey of two weeks’ time, despite Sho’s expert planning and the group’s best efforts, became three, and then four when the Tokaido itself disappeared into a chasm without warning, requiring a journey several miles out of the way to walk around it. The hearty meals had to be stretched thinner. Their clothes needed patching. The nights were colder. Their injuries became harsher.

Keiko’s bowstring snapped one morning, and an unabsolved that had once been a man ages ago knocked her to the ground and clawed at her face before Aiba could get to her. Even with a healthy amount of potions, a red streak now stretched from nose to chin. “We match now,” Sho said simply, trying to kiss her tears away.

Aiba tripped and fell while lunging for another unabsolved, breaking an ankle. Days later, he was still hobbling, his lip trembling with guilt every time he slowed them down.

Ohno was knocked unconscious, and days later was still suffering from double vision. Jun nearly lost a hand, his sword hand, from a venomous bite while simply sitting on watch. It had turned a sickly green even with potions, and he couldn’t grip his weapon for days, relying on his other, less reliable arm. Finally the infection passed, but his grip was less steady, and his anger burned inside him so hot even Ohno could barely keep him calm.

Nino wasn’t immune either. An allergic reaction to some wild vegetables nearly asphyxiated him one night at dinner, and an unabsolved had knocked him to the ground a few days later, dislocating his shoulder.

They were the walking wounded when they pulled the cart in at the last temple. Kawasaki was the name long since carved into the torii that welcomed them, but few actually used the name. It was the end. Though the Tokaido carried on another ten miles across the Tama River, this was their last opportunity to turn back.

It was a large drafty set of buildings, and only a handful of paid mercenary swordsmen from Odawara guarded the eight priests who lived within its walls. Becky, despite everything, cleaned a smudge of dirt from her chin and marched up to the temple steps proudly, bowing low to the building she’d fought so hard to reach. For the last few nights, they’d expected to arrive and find the almighty Lord Shingo of House Murakami and his legion of guardians had taken up all the rooms, that he’d be the first to cross the Tama River and leave them all to wait him out. After such a long journey, most of them thought taking a break to wait for him would be a blessing in disguise.

What they learned upon their arrival, however, was astonishing.

The head priest of the temple, an old man with a hunched back and sagging skin, informed them that they’d come too late. A week earlier, while their own party struggled to find the Tokaido again after circling around the chasm, Lord Shingo’s guardians had rushed into the temple, all six of them…

“Six?” Sho exclaimed. “He has nearly three times as many companions!”

The priest, not offended by Sho’s interruption, continued. There were only six men that had dragged Lord Shingo’s body with them under the Kawasaki torii, six men who could barely walk themselves. Upon reaching the same chasm, Lord Shingo’s party had gone to the right while Sho had urged them to go left after hours examining his maps. The right path had brought Lord Shingo’s party straight into an ambush a day later. Man after man fell, and Lord Shingo, brave to the very last, had been struck down while carrying the sword of one of his protectors in his hands, charging at his attackers.

“I absolved him myself,” the priest informed them. “He breathed his last right where the young lady is standing. It is regrettable to lose one with such promise.”

Becky, eyes wide in shock, crumpled to her knees, hand touching the stone at her feet. Sho walked away in tears, unable to look at the place where his friend had died. The rest of them stood there in silence, in prayer for the boastful, prideful Sin Eater whose path they’d followed the entire way, the Sin Eater they’d complained about with affectionate laughter. From Sanyo to Odawara, Wakoku had cheered and prayed. They had lavished him with praise, with money and supplies. And in the end, it hadn’t mattered at all. The money, their numbers, the parades.

Sho had brought them left, and Lord Shingo had gone right. And that was all it had taken.


Part 8