Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/1195872.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Major_Character_Death, Rape/Non-Con,
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      炎の蜃気楼[ミラージュ]_|_Honoo_no_Mirage_|_Mirage_of_Blaze
  Relationship:
      Naoe_Nobutsuna/Ougi_Takaya, Naoe_Nobutsuna/Uesugi_Kagetora
  Character:
      Naoe_Nobutsuna, Ougi_Takaya, Uesugi_Kagetora, Kakizaki_Haruie
  Stats:
      Published: 2014-02-17 Chapters: 7/? Words: 30816
****** Pendulum ******
by Amarissia
Summary
     One strikes out, the other lashes back - that has been Naoe's pattern
     with Kagetora for far too long. After four hundred years, can it be
     broken? Yaoi, angst, adult themes. Naoe/Takaya.
***** Simulacrum *****
This is my first Mirage of Blaze fic. I'm used to dealing with Final Fantasy
characters, whose stories are complicated, but not quite on this level, so bear
with me, okay?
Getting this out of the way - there will be some slight changes to the MoB
canon, either because they're necessary or because I don't have the necessary
information. Some historical facts will be utilized, others ignored completely.
My apologies in advance to Kuwabara Mizuna, who rules this crazy world, and to
Japan. Yes, all of it.
The idea behind this fic is that if Naoe had been more upfront with Takaya/
Kagetora about their past prior to episode seven of the anime, and if he had
learned certain key things earlier, things might have turned out very
differently. This will be Naoe/Takatora, it will be yaoi, and if you're meeting
me here for the first time, I will do my best (within the confines of the
story's plot) to scare you away. Those who know me from my FFVII ramblings,
more of the same, but look, this seme's got a built-in Crazy Switch!
I think that's it for now. Feel free to review or ask questions, no
infringement intended, and I do use some Japanese words/terms, but I think only
the ones that you're probably all familiar with.
And now...
PENDULUM
Chapter 1 - Simulacrum
The season had started off well, maybe the first in their four hundred-year
history to ever do so. The summer that descended upon Japan was cooler and
clearer than most, and even the muggiest days were brought a respite with each
brisk evening. After each day of investigating and exorcising, the pair of
Yashashuu would return to their hotel a little or greatly drained. Naoe always
suggested rest, but Takaya often felt an urge to walk in the night air, and the
elder accompanied him with understanding. This was something Kagetora had
always done, and though Takaya still claimed to remember nothing, Naoe could
swear he'd seen flashes of memory light up the boy's amber eyes.
If there had ever been any doubt about Takaya's identity - which there had not
been; Naoe had never been wrong about this - it would be well put to rest by
now. After laying dormant for so long, Kagetora's powers had mostly returned,
and the force and strength of them awed Naoe, just as they had when he'd first
witnessed them. Takaya's only difficulty was in controlling them, in not
allowing his quick anger to...blow up a building? Destroy the whole country?
Naoe didn't want to think of what this new Kagetora might be capable of, this
fiery teenager who only rarely displayed his old coldness. Fortunately, there
were other changes in Kagetora as well.
In the absence of memory, in the need to learn his position over again, Takaya
acknowledged Naoe as a teacher, a superior. He listened to him without hauteur,
without complaint or command. He joked or teased Naoe, unaware that Kagetora
would cringe to witness such informality. Takaya got excited, got angry,
briefly sulked - in short he acted his age, which the young Kagetora, as far as
Naoe could remember, never had. Like a child, even, he called to Naoe to watch
when he was about to do something impressive. He even let Naoe stand behind him
to adjust his stance, a position that Kagetora for some reason had been very
uncomfortable with. There was actually nothing wrong with the way he stood, but
Naoe couldn't help himself. He reveled in this new trust accorded him, as much
as he was pained by how undeserved it was.
All in all, Naoe could not remember a happier or more peaceful time in four
hundred years. Now that Kagetora could use his powers again, the fear of him
being helpless had passed. Naoe found himself praying, when he prayed, that
Takaya would never remember their sordid past, that he would remain what he
was. If Kenshin had not by now wreaked vengeance on him for lusting after his
son, Naoe reasoned, who knows? Maybe he'd even grant the prayer, or send it on
to someone who could.
Takaya stirred a little in the passenger seat, and Naoe looked, but the boy
went still again, cheek nuzzled against the seat's fabric, disarrayed bangs
falling into his eyes. Kagetora had always seemed younger in his sleep, and now
he looked like the kid he was, able to doze off on this long ride because he
knew his guardian was there. Naoe's heart clenched up in a painful glow of
protectiveness. Kagetora had scorned and only coldly tolerated Naoe's position,
and sometimes the look in his eyes said he regarded the whole thing as a
mirthless joke. Naoe, his guardian? Naoe, who he may have respected grudgingly,
but regarded as a threat to him as much as any warlord?
"Mmm...where are we?"
Another glance. Takaya was blinking tiredly at the windshield, clearing his
mind of the haze of sleep. He shifted, turning a little to his
right...instinctively, Naoe tensed, expecting tiger eyes to look down on him in
contempt, or worse, to narrow in accusation.
Cold room, a cold body vacated of soul. Naoe watched the stream of pure light
pour into the new vessel, watched with an unbearable hurt as the woman in those
eyes vanished and a familiar hate filled them.
"...I will never forgive..."
But no, it was Takaya, only Takaya's sometimes-aggressive but essentially
guileless current self looking at him, probably wondering why Naoe had frozen.
"Naoe?"
"Sorry. We are about to enter Uozu City. Did you sleep well, Takaya-san?"
"Oh, right," the boy said absently. "You wanted me to meet someone. Who is it?
Another famous name?"
Some combination of sullenness, sadness and trepidation came over Takaya's face
as he said this, displacing his waking blankness. Naoe took this in with
concern, grateful that he had learned to read his lord's expressions so well.
And struck by a jolt that hit him before, the day Yuiko had nearly pushed Lady
Sanjyo's spirit out of her and Takaya had seen the blaze of it: never in four
hundred years had Kagetora's face looked so much like that of his original
body.
"You'll see when you meet them." Delaying a problem might not be the best
course, but procrastination was hardly the unhealthiest thing about this
relationship. "Why don't we take a break?"
                                   mobmobmob
The isolated, oceanside highway had offered beautiful scenery for many miles,
mountains and villages giving way to a cliff wall on one side, endless, sunlit
blue on the other. Naoe pulled into a rest stop, shook feeling back into his
legs and grabbed his sunglasses. By the time he exited the car, Takaya was
already leaning against the nearby railing, staring out with a searching look
on his face. Naoe fought the urge to touch him and merely stood as close as he
dared. He found he couldn't turn toward the sea or move at all, or do anything
but watch Takaya's face, lose himself in its beauty and confusion.
"This is a famous spot for seeing mirages," he had planned to say; when they
traveled, he always made sure they stopped at places of interest like this. But
the subject brought to Naoe's mind their conversation about kanshousha, about
their practice of ousting the soul from a body and infesting it like a
parasite.
The image of Minako burned behind Naoe's eyes, inciting a quiet shudder of
self-loathing. He had done what he had to to protect Kagetora, would do it
again, but it hadn't been love, it was force and need and a disregard for two
lives who had dared love each other.
Yes, we are parasitic. Nothing so harmless as symbiosis.
"There are so many different colors of ocean." Takaya still sounded distant,
and Naoe wondered if the boy was fully awake. "The blue of it is much darker in
Odawara."
The name brought a chill, a cold foreboding. "Takaya-san...have you ever been
to Odawara?"
Takaya shifted uncomfortably, not a gesture common to Kagetora, but easy enough
to read - he didn't want to answer. He must have been remembering, as Naoe was,
the hospital room, the meditative attempt to retrieve Kagetora's full power,
and Naoe shaking him out of it almost hysterically. Takaya knew Naoe no longer
wanted him to remember, though he felt obligated to encourage it, and therefore
there could only be one reason the boy looked so pained. He was remembering.
"Have you...are you..."
"I keep seeing these flashes," Takaya admitted. "Things like the ocean, a full
moon. Being with someone, riding our horses on the beach. The sound of a
flute."
"You played it."
"What? When?"
"When you were Kagetora-sama, my lord."
Takaya must have sensed the distance in that response, because he scoffed
softly and nudged Naoe, his faint smile bringing back the elder's. "Aren't you
always insisting I still am Kagetora?"
Gods, let him stay like this, I'll do anything. "Indeed you are."
"Did we know each other then?"
It hurt to remember, it always did, but thinking of this longing's beginning
had its own particular sting. "We were acquainted, yes, but we did not know
each other well."
"Then, why - "
"Aw, isn't this nice. The dog and his master are on vacation. What's next, a
game of toss-the-stick?"
Without thinking, Naoe got in front of Takaya, keeping himself between him and
the intruder. Takaya was confused, not unduly alarmed, and maybe he had no need
to be, but Naoe wasn't taking the chance. Kousaka, dressed fashionably and
slightly effeminately as always, quirked an amused smile at Naoe's predictable
possessiveness. He took in the possessor-monk's territorial anger with a soft
laugh, then his eyes flickered over to Takaya, observed him with interest until
Naoe spoke up.
"Kousaka."
"This is Kousaka? The one who went after Yuzuru?" Though Naoe wasn't facing
him, he could feel Takaya's rising anger. The boy was easily provoked, true but
few things aroused his wrath as quickly as threats to Narita-kun.
"It's been quite a while, Kagetora-dono. I see you haven't lost your ability to
glare, at least."
"This is who you wanted me to meet?!"
"Of course not!"
Kousaka continued idly, watching the Yashashuu like they were a private joke he
was enjoying. "I've been wanting to have a long talk with you, Kagetora-dono,
you know, to catch up. Love your new form, by the way. You look almost like
yourself. Have you thought of growing your hair out?"
Takaya was growling softly; Naoe spoke hurriedly. "Why have you come, Kousaka?
To spy on Etchu?"
"'Spy' is such a strong word, Naoe. You wound me." The kanshousha shook his
dark hair with a dramatic sigh. "This area has been causing some commotion,
let's say."
"Who is it? The Oda?"
"More annoying than that."
"Who?"
"Let's not talk here. There's a café just down this road."
                                   mobmobmob
It was harder than Naoe had expected to sit in the booth beside Takaya and not
touch him. He tried to be calm so that that, and his close presence, would
reassure the boy - he knew these things usually did. On the way here he had
quickly explained to Takaya that while Kousaka was definitely no ally, he did
occasionally provide useful information, and so it was worthwhile to hear him
out. But as they sat in the near-empty restaurant sipping iced tea, Takaya's
tension and anger continued to be palpable.
It really didn't help that Kousaka kept smiling at him with that oh-how-
interesting expression.
"The believers from Ikkoushuu have started to move."
Now that Takaya was in grumpy-teenager-mode, Naoe briefly imagined he could
hear the boy's thoughts - Who? Huh? Whatever. He kept from snickering at this
and thus making himself look insane, and solemnly repeated "Ikkoushuu?"
"Did you hear about Akechi Mitsuhide?"
"You mean..."
"Mmm-hmm. The Ikkoushuu and Akechi Mitsuhide have formed an alliance against
the Oda."
Absurdly, Naoe felt another urge to giggle. Takaya was listening but pretending
not to, looking out the window beside him and giving off a stream of adolescent
Don't care don't care don't care vibes. Now that Naoe was temporarily in charge
of this Yashashuu...army...thing, he knew he should discourage childish
behavior. But it was so cute, so un-Kagetora, except the haughtiness of it. A
smile or laugh was coming up; Naoe hid it by taking a long sip from his glass.
Kousaka had gone back to staring at Takaya. "He has no ambition in this life
either, huh, Naoe? I feel like I'm looking at Kenshin of the old days."
That made Takaya turn back to the conversation, narrowing his golden eyes
dangerously in Kousaka's direction. That was very like Kagetora, who had always
been unquestioningly devoted to his adopted father and ready to pounce on
anyone who insulted him. Looking closely, though, Naoe saw a flash of
vulnerability, even fear, that he couldn't quite place.
Kousaka, having no doubt heard that Kagetora didn't have his full powers back
yet, and no doubt remembering Kagetora as a reserved man not given to impulsive
behavior, was obviously not considering two important things. One, that
Kagetora even at low power was a force to reckon with, and two, that right now
Kagetora was a teenager and thus not so good with impulse control.
Continuing with the giddy undercurrent beneath his serious mood, Naoe thought
the spectacle of Kousaka being hurled through the window might be well worth
the hassle of dealing with the restaurant's staff.
"If Kagetora-dono wanted to," Kousaka continued fearlessly, "he could rule this
land under the threat of his exorcising power. But he seems happy in this
comfortable age, surrounding himself with fools. Or is it your old sense of
justice, Kagetora-dono? Daddy must be so proud."
Kagetora, a Kagetora who remembered everything, including how to deal with
Kousaka, would have remained calm and diffused the situation with a cold but
casual insult, to show that he had no intention of being baited. But this was
Kagetora without his centuries of knowledge and experience, a Kagetora working
blind with the little he had relearned and influenced by his current age and
hormones and barely seventeen years of living memory. Takaya pressed his
fingers against the tabletop until all color left them, and continued to glare.
"Oh, how rude of me to speak so familiarly," Kousaka went blithely on, showing
a calculating smile. "I should call him 'Kenshin-kou', shouldn't I? I've always
wanted to ask you, Kagetora - what did he have you call him in bed?"
Naoe was almost relieved. This was an old barb, an insult that had begun in
their original lives out of jealousy among Kenshin's men for the way he favored
an adopted son, a former Hojo, above his Uesugi retainers. Naoe suspected this
rumor had once been hurtful to Kagetora, but for hundreds of years had seen him
dismiss and ignore it without anger. Kagetora knew better, knew the truth. At
least, he used to.
Naoe scowled at Kousaka, then looked to Takaya, prepared for the boy to jump up
and let his fists fly.
This, however, was where things took a turn Naoe hadn't expected.
                                   mobmobmob
The ride to the hotel where Naoe had made reservations was tense, a clearing of
the air following an explosion. It could have been worse, he told himself, in
so many different ways. Kagetora could have lost control of his powers, Takaya
could have fought the arms that physically pulled him back to the car, the
hands attached to those limbs could have touched the boy in the way Naoe
desperately wanted to.
Or Naoe might have laughed out loud at the dumbstruck expression frozen on
Kousaka's face as they left. Clearly he had been as surprised as Naoe to see
the refined, elegant Kagetora - a child born to and adopted by Japan's noblest
families - stand up and furiously shout that he was in no mood to sit there and
be insulted by "Takeda Shingen's butt-boy".
Fortunately, Naoe's old retainer-instincts and the people skills he'd gained as
a handsome man and a monk kicked in, and in seconds he had thrown a handful of
bills on the table, apologized smoothly to the staff and hustled his lord
toward the exit. Takaya struggled in his light grip, but only half-heartedly,
seeming momentarily deflated by his outburst or the jibe that had prompted it.
Naoe watched his charge with concern as he drove, giving Takaya time to cool
down and wondering exactly what was wrong so he would know exactly what to say.
"I thought you wanted me to meet someone." Low voice, strained but devoid of
anger. A jolt of strong desire to hold the boy told Naoe that Takaya was sad as
well, about something or everything.
"There is no hurry. I believe we should rest and leave that to tomorrow
evening."
"I'm fine," Takaya said quietly, but didn't argue further.
"We've been busy, an early night will refresh us. Takaya-san - "
"Why do you do that?"
"Do what?"
"You always address me with an honorific, even though I don't do that for you.
You'll make people think I'm even less polite than I really am." Takaya
smirked, never having much cared if strangers thought him rude. "Can't you just
use my name?"
"...no, my lord." Formality in speech toward one of higher station was an old,
ingrained habit. His constant use of "-san" was about as casual as Naoe could
be. "I apologize."
Takaya looked pained again, as though the apology had hurt him, before his
expression hardened into something closer to cool anger. Closer to Kagetora.
"You weren't on my side."
Ouch. To think that such a sullen, childish remark could wound a grown man.
"It's not that, Takaya-san. I merely thought it would be unwise to make a scene
in that - "
"No. The Otate No Ran. You weren't on my side." Takaya's voice had gone cooler,
away from anger and toward the chilly emotional void Kagetora so often spoke
from.
"No...I wasn't. But that was four hundred years ago."
Takaya turned toward the window, leaving his face visible only in profile and
his accusing eyes mercifully obscured by shadow. "Then why you?"
They had entered the hotel's parking lot, and the question didn't seem to be
directed to Naoe, so for the moment, he decided to leave it. Neither said
anything more than was necessary while they ate a quick dinner in the
restaurant adjoining the lobby, and Takaya steadfastly refused to meet Naoe's
eyes. Once back in their two-bedroom suite, the boy was about to hurry into the
privacy of his own space when Naoe got between him and the door, not trusting
himself to detain Takaya by touch. The elder meant to plead for more open
communication or gently express worry, but what came out was:
"When did you remember I was not on your side, Kagetora-sama?"
Takaya was looking past him, eyes fixed on something. "I didn't."
Naoe followed his gaze to a small table in the corner of the shared sitting
room, and immediately understood. Left on it was a book he'd noticed Takaya
carrying for the past week or so; unusual, because Takaya was no bookworm, nor
was he at all dutiful when it came to homework. Naoe moved closer, picked up
the volume and silently read the title. Blood And Soil: The Warring Clans of
the Sengoku. Aha. He'd known Takaya had done a little research into his own
past not long after they reunited, and apparently he was doing so again.
Flipping through the glossy pages, Naoe felt nostalgia wash over him, like an
old man perusing his high school yearbook. Familiar names that looked odd in
modern print, familiar faces distorted by the perceptions and limits of long-
dead artists. Foes who had risked all to seek world conquest, pitifully reduced
to dates and battles memorized by schoolchildren. The Oda, the Hojo, the
Takeda. There, reprinted for all to see, was the famous love letter from
Shingen to a young and jealous Kousaka, a reassurance of devotion in the
warlord's typical flat style. Naoe almost laughed.
We believed we would make history. Live forever. These men who would be giants
are only names now.
"I thought it was odd that you would remember that, of all things," Naoe
admitted, pointing to the letter, indicating the relationship between Shingen
and Kousaka. "This book probably also told you, if you didn't remember, that
such things were common then. Same-sex relationships had none of the stigma
they..."
Takaya had flinched, and Naoe, distracted by this, trailed off slowly. Could
that be what was bothering the boy, something that small and unrelated to him?
Kagetora's amnesia meant he had been more affected, more shaped by the present
than the other kanshousha, who had long breezed through history with their
personalities already formed and intact. Included in that was a view of
sexuality that did not divide people into the overly rigid categories of gay
and straight; Takaya didn't have this. Or rather he did, but didn't remember he
did. Still, Kagetora, homophobic? That wasn't right, wasn't it.
But...Naoe thought back to his early years of service to Kagetora, the way the
younger had gotten furious whenever Naoe touched him, hated Naoe even standing
behind him. Back then, Naoe had attributed this to an intelligent mistrust of a
former enemy, and it had dissipated over time. Never gotten good, never become
closeness, but Kagetora had learned to trust him, at least to a point. Besides,
it wasn't just Naoe; Kagetora had never seemed comfortable with anyone...except
Minako. And Haruie. Come to think of it, Kagetora had become much warmer to
Haruie when she began to reincarnate as a female.
Well, it was like that with all of us, women were a refuge from war. But is it
more than that? What am I missing?
"Do you find such things offensive, Kagetora-sama?" he heard himself ask
coolly, indicating the reprinted letter again.
"What? Homosexuality? No." Takaya smirked, but it was tense, guarded.
"Something you wanna tell me, Naoe?"
Yes. No. Yes.
"No. Takaya-san, please tell me what's bothering you. I would like to help."
The teenager studied him, weighing Naoe's words and sincerity and gentle gaze
against his own trepidation. Kagetora's wariness and Takaya's need for guidance
were fighting almost visibly in those dark golden eyes, and the resigned look
of trust that broke through declared Takaya the victor. He took the book and
sat down on one of the couches, indicating the place beside him - not too
close, however - and Naoe took it with a smile. This was Kagetora, all right.
Only he could defeat himself.
"Has this book been prompting your flashes of memory, Takaya-san?"
"Other way around, mostly. I was hoping it would help me understand the stuff
I've seen. It hasn't, really."
"Ah. History doesn't record the things that matter most."
"You should write one about the Yami Sengoku," Takaya said with a derisive
laugh. "People might believe a monk."
"Perhaps if Kagetora-sama gave me a good review."
"Yeah, right. 'This guy is a slacker monk, don't listen to a word he says.'"
Joking, they were laughing and joking together. As Naoe flipped the pages and
Takaya unconsciously edged closer to him, he felt like he was filled up inside
with warm light, happy, grateful, praying this ease of togetherness would never
end. A full-page illustration of Lord Kenshin caught his eye, a rather good
one, and Naoe stopped. Takaya stiffened, the warm light rushed away, and the
moment snapped like a twig under too much weight.
"What's wrong?" Naoe knew that Takaya responded to his gentlest voice even when
Kagetora wouldn't. "Can you remember Kenshin-kou at all?"
The boy had closed his eyes, and now he nodded. "A little."
Was this fear? Though a man renowned for his compassion and justice, Kenshin
had been, Naoe recalled, very intimidating to his foes and those experiencing
his powerful charisma for the first time. From what Naoe remembered of Kagetora
in their original lives, there had been love and trust between the warlord and
his adopted son, and as general of the Uesugi Underworld Army, Kagetora had
continued to revere his father. But the duty Kenshin had placed on his
shoulders was a heavy burden. If Takaya was resenting that, Naoe couldn't blame
him.
"What do you remember?"
"Feeling..." Reluctance. Takaya didn't want to talk about this, and was plainly
only doing so because he wanted the reassurance of his retainer's presence and
knowledge. Naoe wanted very badly to hold him, and might have tried had he not
kept speaking. "Feeling safe."
Oh...then why...
"I keep seeing his face reflected in a pond, obscured by falling leaves. He
laughs softly. It's quiet and peaceful, with young trees and flowers all
around."
"That was Lord Kenshin's private garden, his favorite spot for meditation. You
were one of the few who didn't require permission to enter it."
Takaya looked at him, quietly with those strange, remarkable eyes. For what? He
couldn't bring himself to say whatever it was out loud.
"Takaya-san..."
"I remember the garden at night, too. Looking at the stars' reflection in the
water, the light of torches, and someone else was with me." Takaya paused here,
and the waves of pain coming off him nearly broke Naoe's composure. "Bigger
than me, with shorter hair. He had a wide face, and he would have looked like a
thug except for his eyes. They were always looking far away, like they saw
something I couldn't."
It was a weak description, but Naoe knew immediately who it was. Four hundred
years of devotion to Kagetora had made old loyalties irrelevant, but that
didn't mean he could recall them, him, without feeling a faint sting.
"That was Kagekatsu-dono. Your adoptive brother."
"But...he was my friend." Just when Naoe thought the boy might accept an arm
around him, Takaya abruptly stood and walked a few steps away. "I remember! We
used to talk all night about fighting side by side, protecting Echigo together,
bringing peace to the whole country like Father - "
Takaya's fists clenched. His head bowed to stare at the carpet. Naoe wondered
if this sad, godlike soul would ever stop breaking his heart. He had asked
himself this question many times over four hundred years.
"It was my fault," Naoe blurted out. "I served Kagekatsu, I urged him to fight
you whenever his heart made him waver. He was being told by all his advisors
that he had to defeat you or the land would be torn apart by civil war." What
are you doing, Naoe?! Risking his hatred for a lord you served only out of
duty? Or seeking the punishment you deserve for other crimes? "I'm so sorry,
Kagetora-sama."
Takaya shook his head, put up his hands for silence, everything but scream that
he didn't want to hear any more, but Naoe couldn't stop.
"Lord Kenshin ordered me to stand by Kagekatsu, and I had to obey, though I
would've given anything, broken any other oath, to be with you instead. I
couldn't leave him, I couldn't end it until one of you either surrendered
or..." He choked up and Takaya was looking frightened, but Naoe went on
expelling the poison from his soul. "When I learned of your death I raced into
battle to find my own, I wandered in torment as an onryou and now I will spend
eternity suffering as much as you want me to to pay for what I did. Hate me as
you always have, rather than let bitterness taint what you feel for your
family. Kagekatsu did love you, and Lord Kenshin - "
"Will you stop talking about Kenshin?!" Takaya shouted.
A vase perched on a nearby ornamental table exploded, shattering in pieces that
clattered to the floor. One shard hit Takaya's hand and left a thin, bloody
cut. Takaya, who was standing with trembling fists and closed eyes, didn't
flinch or seem to notice at all. He didn't stir until Naoe hurried to him and
took his arm.
"Don't - !"
"You are hurt, my lord, please allow me to see to it."
With a forlorn, exhausted expression, Takaya let himself be led like a child to
the bathroom, and sat on the edge of the bathtub while Naoe carefully cleaned
the small wound. He gently dabbed it with sterilized cotton until the bleeding
stopped, and then continued to gently hold Takaya's hand, lightly keeping it at
rest on his own. Takaya's smaller fingers tightened around it slowly, and
looking up Naoe saw that it had likely been done unconsciously, as Takaya was
looking distantly at the floor.
Naoe wasn't sure what he'd rather believe - that Kagetora was letting slip a
feeling of warmth toward him, or that Takaya was reaching out to him in spite
of Kagetora's hatred.
"Are you all right?"
"Did you hover over Kagetora like this?" the boy murmured.
You are Kagetora. "As much as he would let me," Naoe admitted.
"I'm not made of glass, Naoe." It was strange, like Kagetora was speaking as
both his past and current selves, in a cool commanding voice (so
unintentionally seductive) and one that was similar but filled with feeling.
"I know."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't worry about it, I will take care of it. I apologize if I upset you,
Takaya-san."
Reminded of Naoe's outburst, Takaya withdrew his hand. At least he didn't yank
it back. Tension had always filled the space between Kagetora and his retainer,
but Naoe didn't want that with Takaya. Spilling his guts was risky, he had just
seen proof of that, but maybe his revelations would prompt the boy to make some
of his own.
"When I was young in this body, learning again how to properly use my powers, I
caused a lot of damage to my family's temple. And unlike you, I at least had
all my memories."
A moment of uncertain eye contact, only a moment, but enough to encourage Naoe.
"I thought I would never see you again. I thought you were gone forever, and
I..."
He choked up here, stopping short of the pain that delving into his memories of
Minako would cause. Takaya seized his hand and he allowed it, unwilling to pull
away even when Takaya pushed up his sleeve and traced the scars on his wrist.
"So you wanted to die?" The boy's voice was tinged with righteous anger.
"You're still such a samurai that failing at something has to be paid for with
death? What, didn't you have the right tools for seppuku?"
"Takaya-san..." This is not Kagetora's jealous possession of his guard
dog...what is it? "I had lost you. I felt I couldn't face - "
"Kenshin?" Takaya dropped his hand and stalked out of sight.
Living without you. Putting that aside for now, concentrating on the tension
the boy put into such a familiar name, Naoe followed him back to the sitting
room. Takaya was standing near the couch, staring down at it in silence, as
though waiting for him.
"Takaya-san, did you remember something about Lord Kenshin that upset you?"
"No." His eyes were locked on the discarded book; Naoe followed their gaze.
"Was it something you read?"
Abruptly, his movements less graceful than usual, Takaya snatched up the book.
He harshly flipped through the pages till he reached close to the center,
thrust it at Naoe and moved a little distance to turn around. Naoe scanned the
lines of text, feeling certain he'd know the cause of Takaya's anxiety when he
saw it, and he did.
Almost halfway down the left-hand page was a paragraph discussing the
historical assumption - shared by many reputable scholars - that Kenshin had
been homosexual. True, from what Naoe recalled; Kenshin had been very discreet,
but he'd been known to have lovers, none of them female. Some well-known names
were listed, those believed to have been involved with the lord in that way.
Naoe Kanetsugu, the spirited young man not known well to Naoe Nobutsuna but
related to him by marriage. Kagekatsu, Kenshin's elder adopted heir, his nephew
by blood in a time and place that didn't condemn such a thing. And of course,
Naoe was unsurprised to see, Kagetora, born Hojo Ujihide but adopted by Kenshin
and by all accounts loved dearly by him.
"Takaya-san." Naoe looked up and saw that the boy was silently trembling, fists
clenched and for once not because he wanted to fight, more like he was
struggling to keep a grip on something. "Takaya-san?"
Is this what's wrong?
"Takaya-san, please talk to me. Let me help."
"It's not true, right?" The words came up too fast to have been entirely
willing. "Right, Naoe?"
The most honest answer would have been that Naoe couldn't know for sure, but he
thought he had read Kenshin's feelings toward Kagetora correctly, and of course
Kagetora taking part in such a thing with a lord he revered was unthinkable.
There was also Takaya's desperate voice, the plea in his eyes. Naoe couldn't
not comfort him.
"Of course it's not true. I believe Kanetsugu was involved intimately with Lord
Kenshin, but certainly not you," Naoe said reassuringly. "I never saw anything
between the two of you that intimated more than a familial relationship."
As he spoke, Takaya turned to face away from him and nodded slowly. Naoe
couldn't see his expression, but picked up on the way the boy's shoulders
untensed, and the relieved exhalation of breath. Naoe's feet were moving him
before he realized he was doing it. He reached for Takaya, arms stretching out
in desire to hold him but falling before contact could be made. He had so many
memories of trying to touch Kagetora to ease his distress, and being refused.
"Takaya-san, is that what has been upsetting you? It's...it's all right. Do not
let the mistake of a few historians pollute your feelings for Lord Kenshin. I
know you don't remember much, but I promise you, his love for you was that of a
proud father. It still is."
The words came out just as Naoe had planned - minimal desperation, maximum kind
authority. He knew Kagetora had always been too complex to be completely
reassured by anyone's certainty but his own, but Takaya, his gentler self,
should have been disarmed by this. Embarrassed, maybe, and choosing to hide it
behind indifference or aggression, but he should have continued to relax. He
shouldn't be shrinking into himself where he stood, struck by some other pain
the moment one hurt had been healed.
Takaya should never look so vulnerable and sad, like a precious flower wilting.
Like Kagetora had occasionally been, and hated Naoe for seeing him like that,
but there was no genuine hatred to be sensed from Takaya. Only loneliness, and
more than that, a knowing that not only was he apart from other people, but
that he always would be.
The boy looked so small and cold that even the fire of anger would be better.
Naoe realized, as he closed the space between them and wrapped his arms around
Takaya, that the progress he thought they had made these past months was the
real mirage. Kagetora - who had been damaged somehow before the first time Naoe
ever got lost in his eyes - had a will stronger than any other soul he'd ever
known.
In the end Kagetora would overwhelm Takaya, and Naoe would return to his
rightful place in the lord's universe, the poison-green star of loathing and
bitterness and every bad feeling that had ever existed between them.
To be continued.
***** Ad Infinitum *****
PENDULUM
Chapter 2 - Ad Infinitum
The relief that Naoe's answer gave Takaya was short-lived. No sooner than his
breathing had begun to calm and slow than the man was coming closer. Takaya
could always sense when someone was behind him and he hated the feeling of it;
he had always preferred to sit in the back of classrooms for this reason as
much as for his slacker attitude toward school.
It's just Naoe, he told himself angrily, but it wasn't getting through. This
aggravating, irrational fear was as bad as the unexplored, embarrassing part of
him that constantly wanted Naoe close. It was a game of tug-of-war and he was
pulling and being pulled from both ends, mentally edging closer to the monk and
at the same time leaping away. Fuck, I'm such a girl. No wonder Naoe treats me
like one.
Warm arms embraced him from behind, gently holding Takaya's back to a broad
chest. Game over, the rope snapped near one end and the players have fallen
down. The not-real game set off a not-real alarm in Takaya's head, warning
bells that weren't there and had no sound, merely symbolized the rush of vague
panic that shot through him. The voice, too, must be imaginary, the faint one
that sounded like his own and whispered "Not safe, get away". It was nothing,
he'd heard this strange conscience a few times before, the part of him that
didn't like to be touched, especially not from behind.
"Takaya-san?" Worry. Naoe must have felt him shaking. "Are you all right?"
"Yeah, I'm fine."
Takaya couldn't think what else to say. He wasn't sure he could add 'Now get
the hell off me', either as an order or a joke. Politeness had never been one
of Takaya's virtues, but he...welll...he liked Naoe, even aside from the
stupid-girl part of him that hated when Naoe was away. And then there was the
odd way he often caught the guy looking at him, as though Naoe was both
expecting and dreading him to do something.
"I'm sorry I didn't realize your distress sooner, Takaya-san. I wish I could
have addressed it more promptly."
Man, I wish he'd quit this whole master-servant thing. When Naoe treated him
formally like this, it felt to Takaya like they were playing a game only Naoe
knew the rules of. Is this normal retainer behavior, anyway? Hugging?
It felt good, though, if he ignored the ominous, dark place the voice came out
of. It was how good it felt that made Takaya begin to shift, the warmth that
couldn't compete against embarrassment and the ego of a seventeen-year-old boy.
Naoe let go of him slowly, his reluctance palpable, and stepped back so Takaya
could turn. The dark place didn't fade away, it never did completely around
Naoe, but at least it shut up.
"I'm relieved that you have recovered fond memories of Lord Kenshin, Takaya-
san."
"You talk like you expect me to hate the guy or something." Hate Kenshin? It
struck Takaya as something he could never do, no matter what. That unnerved him
a little, as though he'd fallen into a trap Kagetora had set.
"No, my lord...it's just that Lord Kenshin was the one who charged you to first
perform kanshou and lead the Uesugi underworld army. It would not be
unreasonable to resent a man who put such a burden on your shoulders."
"Why did he choose me?"
The vulnerability of the question and how small Takaya looked banished the rise
of bitterness that Naoe himself felt toward his old lord. "He never told me
why. But I think it was because he had such faith in your strength and your
heart."
"Why you?"
"My lord?" He asked that before.
"Why did Kenshin choose you to work with me? I mean, you were my enemy, right?
You served Kagekatsu."
To punish me. To reward me. To apologize for setting me against you in the war.
Because he trusted me. Because he wanted to trust me and never did. I don't
know. Men can't understand the gods, and Kenshin was half one, even while he
lived.
What Naoe said, though, somewhat lamely, was "He never told me that either."
"You didn't ask?" Takaya laughed a little. "Why you were being assigned to
guard someone you hated?"
"Kagetora-sama, I never hated you."
Shit, why does he have to look so sad? "It would be okay if you had," Takaya
said casually, shrugging it off in a clumsy effort to comfort. "It's in the
past."
"I could never hate you." The same conviction, the same quiet intensity. It was
ironic that Naoe, who had rightfully died centuries ago, seemed more alive than
anyone he had ever known.
"I'm...not mad at you about back then. I mean, I don't remember much, so..."
Naoe was smiling at him again, which made the boy relax a bit. "Anyway, it all
seems so petty now. All that fighting for honor and power."
"Perhaps that is why Lord Kenshin chose you. Because he knew you have no
ambition to rule and so would not use your powers for personal gain."
Takaya scowled, reminded of the day's earlier encounter. "Next time I see that
Kousaka guy I'm gonna beat his face in, so don't try to stop me."
"Is that an order from Kagetora?"
"I don't know. The whole thing's so damn confusing." Takaya plopped unelegantly
back onto the couch. He repressed a smile when Naoe came closer, and a frown
when the man sat on the couch's far end, instead of directly beside him. "It's
not for you?"
"Why would it be? I remember all four hundred years of our history together.
You are beside me as you always have been. All that's changed is - "
"Me," Takaya said glumly.
"Not really. Actually..." Naoe smiled with some feeling Takaya couldn't
identify, except that it looked sad. "...without your memories, you are more
like you were when we first met."
"Is that good?" Is that what you want me to be? Just tell me.
"I'm enjoying it."
Naoe smiled again, and Takaya realized that Naoe had not called him anything
within the last few minutes, not 'Takaya' and not 'Kagetora' either. It was a
strange relief, as though both names represented a wall between them. The
teenager wondered briefly if he should ask Naoe to continue this practice. Nah,
probably doesn't realize he's doing it. If I bring it up he'll just jump back
into the 'Kagetora-sama' thing.
"So, I liked you when we first met? We got along okay?"
"I don't know what your impression of me was, Takaya-san," Naoe said with a
slightly tenser voice, and Takaya mentally cursed at himself. "We knew each
other only formally...it was a different time."
"I guess that explains the way you act. So, it was some sort of formal
introduction, with a lot of bowing and bullshit?"
Naoe couldn't help but smile; how this new Kagetora would have scandalized the
old. "Something like that," he answered vaguely.
"So...why did my death bother you so much? You said...Naoe?"
The man had turned away, looking straight ahead to the wall with his arms tense
on his lap. Naoe's eyes, the strange dark violet that Takaya snuck shy peeks
at, were alive with some subtle internal movement, like something in them was
overflowing or blooming.
"Naoe? If there's something you don't wanna talk about, just tell me. But if I
did something wrong I - "
"You have done nothing, Kagetora-sama." Spoken gently, but the switch of names
didn't evade Takaya's attention. If Takaya brought out this care and
indulgence, then Kagetora made Naoe walk on eggshells. "I am sometimes
distracted by memories, that's all. As I told you, it was my urging that
hardened Kagekatsu's heart against you. I was one of the fools who feared you
might betray us because you came to us as an outsider."
"But didn't I? Didn't I call the Hojo for help, or something? The book said - "
"Kagekatsu's faction began it, my lord. It must have been painful for you, to
be looked on with suspicion so soon after the blow of Kenshin's death." You
secluded yourself more than ever before, I had to mourn so far away from you,
and for what? All this hurt, for what? "You must have felt betrayed."
"Naoe, I forgive you, you know that, right?"
"You alone I will never forgive..."
Naoe shut his eyes. "Perhaps you should not be so hasty, until you remember."
"Didn't Kagetora forgive you? After four hundred years?"
"There are things Kagetora will never absolve me of."
"What did you do?"
A much more recent memory assaulted Naoe's senses. Learning that Kokuryou, who
had been tutoring Takaya in his absence, was injured, and his wife dead. Naoe
had rushed at dangerous speeds to the hospital, checked perfunctorily on the
old monk, thinking only of Kagetora, how he must be blaming and loathing
himself for this. Narita-kun worriedly guarding an isolated door, polite Yuzuru
who willingly told him what had happened, and how Kagetora was dealing with it.
"He shut himself in this room and says he won't come out until he recovers his
memory and gets back all his power. He said he's going to use meditation, but
I'm still - Naoe-san? Naoe-san?"
He nearly broke the door down, stumbled in over the tatami floor, ungraceful
and animal before the vision of Takaya seated in the center, beautiful and
pained, unseeing expression. An angel tormented by everything earthly and
awful, fighting against his older and stubborn self. He was shaking, eyebrows
furrowed, struggling it seemed in vain, but Kagetora didn't accept defeat even
from himself. Before there was time to consider or judge, Naoe was flying at
him, leaving behind the alarm of the kind boy and the nurse who'd joined him.
"Kagetora-sama! No!" It was risky and foolish to shout that name, more so to
choose the part of this creature who was least likely to listen to him. But
Takaya was a recent gift, it was Kagetora who carried Naoe's guilt and only
Kagetora who could ease it. Naoe shook the boy, more harshly than he ever would
have knowingly. "Kagetora-sama, please stop this, please! Kagetora-sama!"
Takaya's head first lolled back, then lifted heavily. He came to life in Naoe's
hands from dead weight; that, and the way his eyes fluttered open with such
difficulty told Naoe that he had been very deeply under. He braced himself for
the old predator glare, for a just and deserved hatred, but the tiger was still
sleeping. The gold that struggled to focus on him was confused and pained, but
only sixteen years old.
"Naoe? Naoe, I couldn't get past it! I know where the memories are but a wall
blocked me from it, and it became a door when I got close enough but he
wouldn't let me near it! No matter what I said, no matter how hard I tried, I
couldn't open it!"
Takaya was gripping his suit jacket; Naoe tried to cover the accusing hold with
an embrace. He wanted to say that everything was all right, that he'd make sure
it always would be, but Takaya wouldn't stop looking at him, wounding him with
that pleading gaze. And Naoe couldn't turn away, not after he'd hurt him so
much, loved him so long.
"What did you do to Kagetora?"
"Naoe?"
The voice from the present was faint, overpowered by the past. Naoe was back in
that empty room, kneeling on the soft mats, holding Kagetora more closely than
he'd ever been permitted to. Two arms weren't enough to enclose him the way
Naoe wanted to, to hide and protect him, but they hugged the boy to his chest
and surrounded him with warmth and desperately pet his hair, trying to make the
head rest on his shoulder. Miraculously, more than Naoe deserved, Takaya let
their bodies rest together like this, but he kept his head up, mouth unmuffled
by expensive suit fabric and free to whisper something that would have
shattered even a whole and innocent heart.
"Naoe?"
"Naoe, what did you do to me?"
"Naoe?"
It was scaring Takaya to see Naoe covering his eyes like that, such a sad,
weary, adult gesture. Even scarier was Naoe not answering him. Always, no
matter how haunted the elder had looked, once prompted by Takaya he would smile
and shake it off. "I'm sorry," Naoe finally whispered, but not with a
dismissive laugh, and his eyes remained hidden. "I'm so sorry."
"But...you don't want me to know for what?" Takaya tried to piece together the
little he knew of Naoe and the less he knew of Kagetora into some kind of
coherent answer, and succeeded only in uncovering a nameless sadness that felt
much older than himself. "Whatever you did, it's over. Can't be all that
important if I forgot it, right?"
Naoe was looking at him now, and on the surface, his expression was pensive and
gentle and torn, the things he always was. Beneath this was weariness and
suspicion, love and want, guilt and even a little pity. This Kagetora had no
idea of how he'd been wronged, how justified he was to despise and mistrust.
Takaya was a faerie tale tower imprisoning him, where he slept and dreamed of a
naive self that had to pain him to witness. More than a kiss had exiled
Kagetora to this enchanted sleep. What kind of hurt would it require to wake
him, and how could it be prevented?
Takaya made a surprised noise as he was hugged. It hadn't been done fast enough
to really frighten him; it was the tightness of this hold, the memory it
brought up of Naoe's behavior at the hospital that he had never explained. Naoe
held him like he feared Takaya would pull away, and not just because he was a
not-very-tactile teenaged boy. Why? What the hell does he feel so awful about?
"Naoe, I do trust you," the boy heard himself try. "I really do."
"You alone I will never forgive for all eternity."
                                   mobmobmob
"I have to tell him. I can't do this."
"What? Slow down." Haruie's voice always went higher when she was worried; Naoe
could hear it through the crackle her cell phone made. "Are you still in Uozu?
What happened?"
"Yes. Nothing yet. Kousaka showed up to give warnings, provoked Kagetora into
nearly attacking him, so I put off our visit to the castle. We stayed here at
the hotel and talked." Naoe's hand felt sweaty on the receiver; in the dark of
the room he imagined the wetness was blood. "He joked with me, laughed even.
Gods, I think he was trying to cheer me up."
"I guess I can see why that would freak you out. Where is he?"
"Asleep. I think he's doing that for me too, to give me space. I think he
actually likes having me close by."
"He does. You make him feel safe."
"That's why I have to tell him!" Naoe kept his yell in a whisper, though he was
in his own bedroom, alone. "It's a lie, I'm lying to him, letting him think I'm
safe!"
"You are. He trusts you."
"He doesn't remember Minako."
"I do, and I trust you."
"May I ask why?"
"Because you hate yourself for that," she said simply. "You won't do it again.
And there's no one in her place now."
"It wasn't her I wanted. It was him. I..." Naoe had to clutch the phone tight
to keep his grip on it. He had never spoken about the Minako incident in any
kind of detail. "I told her why, she knew, and she forgave me. He hasn't, he
keeps trying, but he can't absolve a sin he can't remember. I pretended she was
him, Haruie, but I was brutal to her, because she wasn't."
"Naoe."
"He has no idea what's wrong, and yet he keeps trying to make it right. I can't
bear the trust in his eyes, knowing he'll hate me again as soon as he
remembers."
"So you want to tell him?" Haruie sounded confused, but Naoe wondered if she
really was or if she was using a technique she picked up in psychology class.
"To make that happen sooner? Why not enjoy what you have now and in the
meantime hope that Kagetora, when he remembers, really will forgive you?"
"Because he won't. And because I loathe myself even more when he's not here to
do it for me."
Haruie sighed. "What about couples' counseling? It's in vogue."
Just the sort of half-serious, impossible thing she always suggested. "Right. I
should drag a minor unrelated to me to the office of a complete stranger and
confess my sins while Kagetora-sama sits there and denies knowing me at all,
which he would do."
"Why not? You might feel better."
"I would prefer not to be arrested for corrupting a minor or some such
nonsense."
"Hmm," Haruie mused, not without a certain mischief, "just like Socrates."
"Socrates was at least permitted to die."
"Oh, Naoe."
Damn, he hadn't meant to sadden her. Haruie had suffered from their drama and
idiocy enough already. "I'm sorry. I should not be laying this on you."
"I always want you to confide in me. I just wish I could do more."
"You are invaluable to us both," Naoe said gently. "And Kagetora-sama trusts
you as much as I do. When he returns to himself and pushes me away, you can
serve as the link between us again, if you're willing. You can protect him
whenever he won't allow me to."
"Of course I will."
"You are a source of tremendous comfort and support for him, you always have
been. More than he has ever let on, I suspect."
Haruie laughed, a bubbly and unmanly sound. Whatever maleness was left in her
spirit only came out when she drank. "I know, I know my place in this
craziness, Naoe. You and Kagetora are the crazy stars and I'm the sturdy, crazy
stage, or maybe a crazy basement underneath it."
"And Nagahide?"
"He's the sane one. Sane enough to try not to care about us, at least, although
he fails miserably at it." She laughed again. "He would have been happier with
a smaller part."
Wouldn't we all. "Thank you for listening, Haruie."
"What are you going to do?" She heard nothing but his slow, sad breathing.
After a few moments she took pity, whispered "Good luck" and hung up.
                                   mobmobmob
The following day passed in tension. Maybe in an effort to shorten it, both
possessors rose late in the morning, and though they spoke to each other in
their normal way, the change in the air was unmistakable. Naoe responded to
each of Takaya's questioning or worried glances with a reassuring smile, but it
didn't seem to ease the boy's concern much, if at all.
After breakfast, Naoe suggested that they enjoy the area's sights, since they
were free until dark. Takaya agreed without enthusiasm and followed the elder
to the car, into souvenir shops, through well-tended parks, not paying any
genuine attention to anything but the man at his side. Naoe tried to distract
him with talk of anything but themselves, and with eager offers to buy him
everything they saw, all of which were politely declined.
This isn't a school trip, Naoe. And you can't go all weird and glomp me like
you did last night and then act like everything's fine.
"It must be weird for you."
"What's that, Takaya-san?"
"You remember hundreds of years ago. Everything must look really different."
"Oh. Yes," Naoe said with a soft, distracted chuckle. "Back then, few or none
of us could imagine the machines and structures of today. Nobunaga was quite
obsessed with the advance of technology from other lands, but not even he, I
imagine..."
"Maybe he'll get distracted by video games or something, and give up the whole
conquer-Japan thing."
Naoe laughed, not used to Kagetora so readily making jokes. "Or aerospace
technology. Nobunaga in space."
"Or anime. Nobunaga the otaku, conquering conventions."
They snickered at this together as they walked the inhabited streets, relieved
by the release of tension it provided, appreciating one another with powerful
warmth in this moment. Takaya felt lighter to see the shadow leave Naoe's face,
though he knew it probably wouldn't be gone for long.
"The people were different too, right?"
"No, actually. I am sometimes struck by how much the same people remain."
"Doesn't seem very similar in historical dramas."
"Styles of dress change, of course," Naoe said with a smile. "But human
motivations, hopes, failings, feelings...they don't change. We always long for
more than we have. We always hurt each other."
Takaya looked at the ground pensively. They halted a few steps later in front
of a stand offering glass prisms for sale in various shapes and sizes, admiring
- as many people were - the mass of tiny rainbows they made under the afternoon
sun. The middle-aged man hawking them seemed momentarily caught up in the
beauty of his own wares, and paused his practiced sales speech to enjoy the
sight with everyone else.
As yet unaware of the slowly gathering crowd, Takaya stared in wonder at the
shifting arcs of red, green, blue, yellow, purple, and the orange that made him
think of Naoe's blaze, the light that swirled around him when they performed
exorcisms.
He spoke suddenly, with a hardness that startled the monk. "They're mirages.
The colors aren't really there. Just a trick."
"Takaya-san?"
"Like us. You pretend to be a monk, I pretend to be a high school student. We
fool everyone. We lie."
Naoe looked at him lovingly, but Takaya's eyes were locked on the prisms. "We
act according to our nature. We do this for our mission. And if we didn't
survive, the warlords would destroy this country in a fight for domination. And
after Japan, the world."
The dark amber of the boy's eyes caught the reflected light and glowed golden.
As Naoe marvelled at them, at how they had not changed in four hundred years,
Takaya continued to stare. He wanted to turn to Naoe's comforting presence, but
he felt glued in place. Naoe's voice was becoming muffled and everything was
going faintly dim. A wave of something was rising up inside him, about to sweep
him over.
"Your existence is essential, Kagetora-sama, for me, for everyone. It is...it
is all right for you to be alive."
He was somewhere else, someone else, but himself. Another sunny day, the smell
and rustle of flowers and trees all around, and he was small, chasing
something. The bright colors that the prisms made came together and formed a
butterfly, flitting on the breeze just out of reach of his little fingers.
A hand blocked the sun, caged the butterfly and slowly descended to offer it to
him. The hand was like his, the face too, but the fingers most of all. Time
shifted, he was taller, it was early morning as he limped into the garden, and
he wanted to die.
"Takaya-san!"
Naoe was growing alarmed, speaking sharply to the boy out of fear. A tall,
burly man behind Takaya noticed what was going on and gently clasped his hands
on the boy's shoulders.
"You okay, kid?"
It all happened faster than Naoe could act to prevent it, but he had no way of
knowing how much Kagetora might react to anything, he never had. As a rule,
Kagetora's behavior was subdued, except in battle. There was no fight here and
no enemy that Naoe could see, but of course a man's personal demons have no
visible shape, often not even to himself.
"Get the fuck off me!" Takaya snapped, but his eyes showed the terror his voice
wouldn't. "Don't fucking touch me!"
The stranger jumped back before Takaya could push him, wide-eyed and
apologetic. A rare, welcome exception, when most men either reacted to Kagetora
with lust or violence.
"Sorry, kid. Calm down, I was just - "
Takaya was growling, and Kagetora's tiger-stare was both hypnotizing and
scaring the man. And naturally, the crowd around them was murmuring. Naoe,
relying once again on his charm and his retainer-instincts, grabbed Takaya's
arm and maneuvered them away, flashing a smile and calling out apologies.
Takaya fought the gentle grip but without enthusiasm, and didn't jerk out of it
until they had reached a less crowded street and an isolated spot.
"Takaya-san, what happened?"
"...sorry about..." he muttered, not sounding sorry at all.
"It's all right. What was it? A...memory?"
Try not to sound too thrilled, Naoe. "I don't know. I was a kid, in a garden,
chasing a butterfly. Nothing important."
"You were very upset." Naoe didn't mention 'afraid', but it was obvious he'd
seen that too.
"That guy startled me, that's all." The boy scowled and clenched his fists.
"Asshole."
"He meant well."
"I know, I just...fuck," Takaya swore, aiming a kick at the sidewalk and
scattering a few pebbles. "I just fuckin' hate it when people are behind me, it
drives me crazy."
"I know. You've always disliked that." Takaya glanced at him; Naoe wasn't sure
if he'd ask, but answered anyway. "I don't know why. I don't know if you ever
knew why. We all have our quirks."
"What about you?"
"I don't know. I lack the proper perspective to judge, perhaps." Naoe smiled
thinly. "When you remember, you can tell me all that is unpleasant about
myself."
There was a faint sting in those words, which Naoe only caught and kicked
himself for when Takaya winced.
"Naoe..."
"We've been out in the sun, no doubt that added to your distraction. There's a
stand just there, I'll purchase cold drinks and we'll take a rest."
Takaya thanked him for the soda and took a long swallow of it, mainly to
placate Naoe. The elder led the way to a shaded bench and Takaya dutifully sat,
though he felt too jumpy to relax. Rather than look at Naoe, he let his eyes
wander, and they continually drifted back to a distant patch of woods, where he
thought he could see a hint of stone through and above the trees.
"You keep looking that way."
"I do?" He notices more about me than I do. "Is that significant?"
"Uozu Castle is just beyond those woods. That is our destination for tonight,"
Naoe said. "Does it sound familiar?"
"I probably read something about it, but no. Guess I forgot. Wait, I thought
you wanted me to meet someone."
"Indeed."
"So...there are people lurking around an old ruin like that?"
"I never said they were living people, Kagetora-sama."
"Let me guess, we have zombies on our side too." Takaya smirked. "My life's
turned into a bizarre dream. I keep thinking I'm gonna wake up."
Naoe's kind smile faltered at that, and neither of them spoke again for a long
time.
                                   mobmobmob
It wasn't yet very late, but there were few cars on the road, even in this
tourist season. As Naoe drove, as he parked the car, as he led the way back to
their hotel suite, he kept replaying over and over the meeting that had become
a ritual each time Kagetora took a new body. Naoe had never before this life
needed to explain who the thirteen Uesugi generals were, and the tragedy of
their mass suicide which just a little more time could have prevented. He
hadn't been sure how Takaya would behave, if he would become overwhelmed, or
sullen to hide his fear.
The honorable dead had shown no surprise at Kagetora's youth (he had met them
young before), or his need to be told who they were, or the strength that
hardened his eyes when he stepped forward and swore to never abandon them. The
same words he used every time, the same confidence mingled with childish
stubbornness. It was Kagetora, true, but it was also Takaya accepting his duty,
even if only for now, and Naoe could not recall ever having been more proud of
him. He wanted to say this to the boy, but Takaya had become distant and
absorbed in his secret thoughts. His silence was resolute, and Naoe let him
have it.
So it startled the elder when they entered the shared main room and Takaya
abruptly said "I don't get Kenshin at all."
"Takaya-san?"
"He wants us to exorcise the spirits of the Sengoku because their presence
among the living is dangerous and unnatural, right?"
"Yes," Naoe said, guessing this was a trap of sorts but willing to fall into
it.
"But he's the one making spirits remain in this world! If other possessors are
breaking the laws of nature, that means we are too."
"This is a confused, inconstant, contradictory world, Kagetora-sama," Naoe said
softly, busying himself pouring them some water. "It always has been."
"That's not an answer," Takaya scoffed. "You're satisfied with that?"
"I am satisfied with this. This existence. I think I told you that I originally
died with so many regrets that I became an onryou, spectrally wandering the
shadows of this country, taking my grief out on the living. If Lord Kenshin
hadn't summoned me, I might still be lost in that darkness. And..."
"And?"
Naoe smiled at the window he was facing, so the boy could see its reflection.
"If I didn't perform kanshou, I never would have gotten the opportunity to
begin to understand you. I would have ended my life as your enemy four hundred
years ago. I am grateful to Lord Kenshin for choosing me as your guardian, and
letting me be by your side."
Takaya shifted in his seat and looked away, feeling awkward. "Whenever I talk
to you, you throw me off."
"How so?"
Well, for one thing, you say stuff that I think you're only supposed to use on
women. "You say we were enemies, but you never hated me. You served Kagekatsu,
but you said that after my death, you wanted to die too. You say you hardly
knew Kagetora back then, but you willingly stayed by him for four hundred years
even though he was a jerk to you."
"What? Who told you - "
"Before we left Matsumoto, Chiaki said I was a lot nicer to you than I used to
be and I should keep it up. I'm not nice, so Kagetora must have been a complete
- "
"Nagahide is..." Naoe couldn't think of an appropriate word, but his
disapproving tone said enough. "Kagetora was burdened by a heavier
responsibility than the rest of us, and wounded by the suffering of the war.
And I'm sure you had other regrets as well. Even when we first met, before the
trouble began, I thought you seemed sad."
"When I look at you, I feel this...coldness and anger and..." Contempt betrayal
how dare you, you alone I will never... "It's old and it's not mine. I know
Kagetora was unfair to you."
"No more than I was to him."
"You still haven't answered me. Why would you die for someone you barely knew,
and then agree to spend eternity with him?"
"Takaya-san." A hint of wariness. "Must everyone who cares for you have a
reason for doing so?"
The simple question hit a little deeper than the boy was prepared to admit, so
he covered it with brattiness. "Yeah."
"What about Yuzuru-san?"
"He's got an angle. I just haven't figured it out yet."
Naoe laughed quietly, not fooled for a moment. "You have always found it so
easy to care for people, yet you remain suspicious of others' love for you."
"Sometimes that's smart."
"And at other times, unnecessary."
"Naoe, answer the question. Why?"
A short silence, a search for a vague enough truth. "Because I wanted to
protect you."
"Protect Kagetora, you mean."
"You are Kagetora-sama."
"Yeah," Takaya sighed. "I think I'm starting to realize that."
To be continued.
***** No Happy Medium *****
PENDULUM
Chapter 3 - No Happy Medium
Our first meeting was not the stuff of dramas and destiny.
In fact, I hardly realized anything had happened to me, or was going to. I was
merely one in a line of less important lords that Kenshin guided you past, so
many introductions that I was sure you'd remember none of our names. The rest
were staring at you, the way everyone stared, but my mind was on the campaign
we'd just finished and the next we were to begin. It wasn't until we had
exchanged automatic pleasantries and you were turning away that it occurred to
me - numbly and coldly as everything did then - that you were the single most
beautiful thing I had ever seen.
Between that day and the next time we met, I tried to forget you. The other
lords, used to my silences, didn't wonder why I didn't join in their
discussions of you, their thinly-disguised want. I remained aloof, going among
Kagekatsu's men to avoid yours, not joining in the speculation of why Kenshin
had become so fond of you so quickly. Some days I managed not to think of you
at all.
Then the memory would rise up without warning, prompted by a glimmer of light
on water or the colors of sunset on a cherry tree. I never looked at or sought
out beautiful things before. You had changed me already, with no effort you had
imposed your will on my soul, and there began the anger in me that has
persisted ever since.
Even if I was capable of such a feeling in that life, I was not in love with
you. You were not a living, breathing, flawed thing like me to whom any part of
me could reach out. Every step, every breath, every movement of your hands,
every brilliant suggestion you offered at strategy meetings was a testament to
your perfection and my inadequacy. I became more a miser than ever before,
sneaking glimpses of you when I needed to and hoarding them like gold that
enriched and poisoned me at the same time. Even when I didn't think of you, I
could feel your very existence eating away at me. I did not value my life and
sanity until you came along and threatened them both.
Had you been someone else, someone beneath me, I could have taken you and hoped
that would end this madness. I could have made you into something I could
desire without wounding my stubborn pride. I wanted to, I wanted to throw you
onto the ground and see if there was something human beneath your exquisite
shell, and I wonder now if I refrained because of my devotion to Lord Kenshin,
as I thought then. Or if it was the sadness in your strange eyes that kept me
back. Or because you frightened me, even then.
I died without touching you as I wanted to, and I have lived for four centuries
the same way. When Lord Kenshin called upon me and I recovered the self buried
by an onryou, I accepted his charge without question or hesitation. I thought I
had repressed you deep enough beneath guilt and betrayal and death to void your
power over me forever. I thought it was only your physical perfection that had
snared me. Then I went to you to swear my allegiance, and I realized nothing
had changed. Even with your new body as a cloak, I could see only you, your
soul blazing brightly, the one lovely thing in an ugly world.
Through my growing obsession, my desire tangled with fury, I only wanted to be
near you. I lived in the shadow of a light that daily blinded me.
The pleasant, distant, sad young man I'd barely known was gone. Over time I
felt his loss as though I'd put the sword to your throat myself, which I might
as well have done. For years, you showed me no feeling but the duty of a lord
to his subordinates, and a growing, slowly growing, trust. If you needed time
to believe that I stopped being your enemy, I understand that. As time went on,
you began to let your walls slip down every now and then, only to me. When I
was harsh with you in response, you shut me out and pressed on with our work.
When I tried to touch you, to comfort, save for a few precious occasions, you
pushed me away and looked at me to ask how I, a lesser being, could dare to
think you would be sullied by me.
There was no right thing to do, no forgiveness, no way to heal or open your
heart. But most of the time you tolerated me, and occasionally you showed
appreciation, even kindness. I learned not to trust these moments of feigned
humanity, to believe you only ever drew my chain closer to hit me with it. Yet
somehow, I remained mesmerized by your beauty and strength. I loved and love
you enough to not only accept the pain but to desire it.
I asked for these chains. I wanted to be bound. I would rather suffer than be
away from you, than let anyone else be as close to you. For so long, I at least
could tell myself that I knew you better than any other, that you showed your
weakness only to me, even if you hated me for seeing it. Then she came, a being
innocent of our world and its darkness, kind-hearted as I was jealous, gentle
as I couldn't be if I was going to keep you strong. I hated her. I hated that
you put her safety above your own. I hate what my anger led me to do, and that
I wonder at times if you knew beforehand what would happen. If you were
punishing me again.
Then I lost you. I became Tachibana Yoshiaki. I forced myself to exist without
you. The scars on my wrists remain as evidence of how unwilling I was, for a
long time. As I grew up, the people around me thought I must have let go of
whatever I had grieved for. Only Irobe, at the end of his life previous to the
current, saw the truth - that I still hoped I would find you again. I could not
exist any other way. I did my work and longed for you every day, and then
suddenly, there you were. Unmistakably you, but so different. I wonder if
Takaya is what Kagetora would have been if your first life had not caused you
so much grief.
I love you. I love you more in one day than I could hate you in four hundred
years. I love your cold true self and I love the insecure boy your amnesia has
placed in my care. I will hold on to you no matter how much you push me away. I
will remind you of my sins or you'll remember, and while you hate me, I will
love you still. And when you give me those anxious looks, when you wonder who
or what is causing me pain, I will try to be only reassuring, to remember that
you don't know our terrible truths.
You are the one who is hurting me. I would have it no other way.
                                 mobmobmobmob
"You realize school starts the day after tomorrow, right? How long do you plan
on keeping me hostage in this sight-seeing adventure?"
Takaya's voice was light, a vocal smirk, he was seemingly unaware that Naoe
would like to keep him forever, exclusively. The elder gave him a smile that
hid the impulse.
"I'll take you back to Matsumoto tomorrow. Until then, I believe our time would
be well spent patrolling for signs of trouble."
"You're expecting to find some?" Naoe had mentioned something about this,
Takaya remembered, but it had been hours ago, too early to sink in properly.
"The recent activity of the Yami Sengoku has caused disruptions all over.
Spirits that were at rest are rising up and becoming a threat. We should always
eliminate them as quickly as possible, before they have a chance to grow strong
or fall under the control of one of our enemies."
The car windows were half-down, the air rushing in cool for the season, the
dying summer. The vacationing crowds had thinned and left the beaches and
tourist spots mostly empty, leaving the locals to get back into their usual
routine. As he looked out the window and saw the car pass by these people,
Takaya wondered what it would be like to be one of them. Strange, now, to think
how he had taken normality for granted.
"And if Kousaka's information is correct, as it usually is, we must be wary of
Ikkoushuu as well."
"The religious fanatics, right?"
"Yes. They were wiped out by the Oda, and it is their hatred for Nobunaga that
led them to become onryou."
"If we're both enemies of Nobunaga, why do they have a problem with us?"
It was a question Kagetora would never need to ask; the innocence of it stung
Naoe's soul with warmth. "Whether we have foes in common or not, we - you,
especially - remain the greatest threat to all the warlords vying for
dominance."
"You're really sure about me being Kagetora?"
"Very sure."
"Great," Takaya said softly to his reflection.
"You will never need to fight alone, Kagetora-sama," Naoe said, trying to look
straight ahead at the road. Though I know you would. "I will always be at your
side."
"Did Kagetora thank you for that?"
"Yes...not often in words, but yes." You are Kagetora-sama.
Takaya shifted in the comfortable leather seat, dug his fingers into his legs
through the jeans, and glanced quickly at him several times. The boy seemed to
be working up to looking at him, and Naoe gave him as much attention as he
could without crashing the car. He didn't feel the approach of Kagetora's cool
contempt, only Takaya's nervousness. It was still strange - Kagetora had been
uneasy whenever Naoe had the upper hand or witnessed him in weakness, whereas
Takaya seemed content to let Naoe lead. Perhaps he was only nervous because all
of this was still new to him, or he was still perceptive enough to sense the
chaos in Naoe's heart.
"Thank you, Naoe."
Kagetora's voice, Kagetora's rare kindness, drawn out by Takaya's
vulnerability. Naoe's hands gripped the wheel tighter to keep them from
shaking. I want to hold him, I want to touch him, I don't want to scare him or
make him remember his hatred.
"Takaya-san - "
Before the voice had a chance to choose between confession and consolation,
Takaya suddenly sat straight up and jerked to face the window. They were
passing a park, an idyllic late afternoon scene of children playing and parents
watching. Nothing could possibly look more innocent and peaceful, but Takaya
was Kagetora, and Naoe trusted Kagetora's senses. He stopped the car and
watched him with concern, and spoke gently to the boy's agitation.
"What is it?"
"I don't know. It feels like..." Takaya looked back at Naoe over his shoulder.
"Like the onryou we exorcised at the castle. Do you feel it?"
He did, now. "One of them may have wandered into this vicinity. But there's
more to the energy...more than one."
"More than one of them?"
"No, the other energy is fainter. The warrior onryou must have encountered
another. This is dangerous, the second spirit may have been induced to join the
first, or merely to cause mischief among the living. Either way..." Naoe turned
off the engine. "We must get rid of them both, or the people here will be at
risk."
"Will they even show themselves now, with people around?"
"We'll wait for nightfall. It will give us a chance to survey the area."
It was jarring to walk out of a conversation about ghosts and exorcism into a
playground full of sun and laughter; easy to forget either of these worlds
existed while immersed in the other. There were four or five kids, a girl and
the rest boys, dashing energetically from the spiral slide to the sandbox to
the jungle gym and back again, enacting a game that seemed to have no fixed
rules. The young flock of mothers on the other side of the play area observed
the strange man and teenager suspiciously for a few moments, then seemed to be
satisfied, returning to their chatter and periodic warnings to their children.
Naoe smiled at the woman who stared at him the longest, and she blushed and
quickly pretended to look for something in her purse. Takaya rolled his eyes,
plopped onto the middle of a set of three swings and gestured to the one on his
right. Naoe needed a few awkward seconds to get comfortable on the unfamiliar
seat, then found Takaya smirking at him.
Mocking. He chose this spot on purpose to make me feel inferior. Even as he
thought it, Naoe knew that was unfair. Even Kagetora had rarely been as cruel
as Naoe's paranoia had made him in his mind, and this was Takaya. Takaya didn't
remember his reasons for wanting to hurt Naoe, and besides, he was smiling now,
secretively but not in an unkind way.
"Been awhile, huh?"
Naoe couldn't help but smile. "I think I was in one of these once, when I was
very small."
"Just once?"
"This life is the first I entered as an infant in a long time."
"But just once, in this whole life?"
Takaya sounded amazed, as though he could not conceive of an existence that
didn't include at least a few happy years of innocence, in which life and death
were unconsidered, abstract things, only words, and all that mattered were days
like this one, how many hours of play could be fit into them. Kanshousha didn't
have that relief; even as babies, they remembered.
Takaya's amnesia was further proof of Kagetora's uniqueness, and where Naoe
would usually feel bitter about his own perceived inferiority, he instead felt
older, wiser, indulgent. He had loved Kagetora's hidden naiveté, and loved that
Takaya couldn't hide it anymore.
"I was not a happy child. Not what anyone would call normal."
"Oh, right. You never forgot all this Yami Sengoku stuff." Takaya looked down
at the sand he was dragging his heels through. "Was that when...you know?" he
asked, gesturing to his wrists.
"Yes. It began when I was seven. Eventually, my father removed me from school
and decided I would begin training to become a monk."
"And that...helped?"
No. "So it would seem. Also, I never entirely gave up hope that I might find
you again."
"What if you hadn't? What would you have done?" It might have been his
imagination, but he thought Takaya sounded slightly sulky.
"Lived as long as I could bear to. Tried to fulfill the mission Lord Kenshin
gave us." Naoe smiled, tightly and bitterly, at the sun just beginning to set.
"Becoming a monk didn't help. Existence with attachment is suffering. I knew
that so well already."
"Naoe," Takaya said quietly, confused but trying to understand. Naoe didn't
want to enlighten him and he didn't want pity, he wanted to wound Kagetora for
wounding him, push back when pushed, as had always been their way, their war of
subtlety. For Takaya's sake, he softened the blow, made his words hurt instead
of hurting.
"It was attachment that kept me bound to this life. This attachment I'll never
be free of."
"Yoshiaki, I know you won't tell me what it is you're grieving for enough to
want to hurt yourself, and I won't make you. But please, if you can't live for
my sake, for your mother's and your brothers', live for the hope that someday
you'll find the person you're missing. If your bond is that strong, you'll find
them again, but for that chance, you must live."
"It's such a cruelty, I think, that life doesn't end, just keeps repeating
itself. When I was Naoe Nobutsuna, I didn't entirely believe in reincarnation,
I didn't want to after seeing so much war and suffering. When you accept that
death doesn't end your existence, you lose the comforting thought that death
ends all cares. All attachments."
What attachment? Takaya didn't say it, but his confusion was heavy in the air
between them. "You're still Naoe, aren't you?"
To his relief, Naoe smiled, albeit strangely. "And you are still you, still
with me. I apologize, Takaya-san. I should be watching for the onryou, not
rambling thoughts that make little sense even to me."
"It's okay. It's worth it to see you sitting in a swing." The boy smirked.
"Would you believe I lied about sensing something here, I just wanted a reason
to make you sit there?"
Naoe laughed, feeling forgiven - just for the moment, but he could hardly hope
for more than that. "How very juvenile, Takaya-san. Perhaps this setting is
making you nostalgic?"
"How can you feel nostalgic if you've never been happy?"
The voice was Takaya's, but so melancholy that it might have been Kagetora's.
It was growing slowly darker, the shadows stretching ominously. The mothers
were calling their children, gathering them up to go home. Naoe noticed this
absently, his attention on Takaya, on not allowing himself to struggle off this
wobbly seat and hug and kiss him until they both stopped hurting.
"I mean, my family used to be happy, but I don't know. I always felt like
something was..." Missing. "...wrong."
"Takaya-san..."
"I feel something like nostalgia, though, when I'm with you guys. And at the
castle, when I saw the thirteen generals. Like I was close to remembering,
but..."
Naoe broke in quickly, before either of them could dwell on the hospital room,
the trance blocked by Kagetora's wall. "They bothered you, didn't they?"
"We should exorcise them and let them go on, all the spirits working for us,"
Takaya said shortly. "It's unfair. The war they fought is long over...or should
be, at least."
Still feeling others' pain so acutely. Don't you have enough of your own?
Haven't you always, more than you would ever confide in me?
"They were charged to remain in this world, as we were, true. But I believe
they do wish to help. Otherwise they could have asked you for release long
ago."
"And I could let them go, if they did?"
"Yes. You did so for Haruie, two centuries ago." Naoe nodded at Takaya's
surprise. "That was her first life as a female. She fell in love with a young
man, and wanted to stay with him. He died shortly thereafter, and ever since,
Haruie has not been as carefree as before."
"That's hard to believe," Takaya said with a frown. Ayako seemed plenty
carefree to him, too much so at times.
"Even though we are still the same people, it has been four hundred years. Some
change is inevitable, for you, for me..."
"What was he like?" Takaya asked quietly.
"Kagetora?"
"No...Naoe. What were you like before I made you this way?"
"Takaya-san...you didn't - "
The street lamps surrounding the playground blinked off in unison, and at the
same time the air went so cold that every exhaled breath emerged as a cloud of
mist. The light of stars and waxing moon above was just enough for them to be
able to see each other as they leaped up, and the broad black figure in the
distance. Armed, unafraid, approaching. As onryou did, it had fed on the power
of the others it encountered, both strengthened and strengthening by this.
"Takaya-san."
"I'm ready."
A blast of light large enough to target them both burst toward them; Naoe
quickly shielded them with a goshinheki barrier while Takaya fired back. The
onryou vanished to dodge the blow, but rematerialized closer. It was angry and
powerful, engorged by the negative energy it had absorbed in its wanderings,
and eager to fight them. It shot another blast that shook the wispy golden
threads of the protective shield, almost enough to blow them apart.
Naoe reinforced it and gestured for Takaya to get down, but the boy stepped
closer and put his hands together. The aura around him blazed like a blue
inferno; even in his current state, Kagetora was more powerful than Naoe could
ever hope to be.
"BAI!"
The warrior howled in protest but froze. Naoe quickly got to his feet and
synchronized his voice with Kagetora's in the chant so familiar to both of
them. Bishamonten's presence descended behind them, closer to Kagetora as
always, dark and almost frightening even as an ally, even after all these
years. The war god's sword materialized in Kagetora's hand, and in moments, it
was over.
Naoe tensed, about to run to his lord in case the fight had taken too much out
of him; Takaya was still learning, after all, how to control how much power he
expended. A mischievous, echoing giggle sounded all around them, halting both
possessors as they reacted, Takaya with shock, Naoe with a surge of quiet
panic. A child. Nothing else could laugh like that.
The sword had disappeared, Takaya stood like a statue with hands curled around
nothing, showing no sign that he was about to take on a new opponent. Naoe
quickly sensed where the spirit's energy was strongest and put himself between
Takaya and that spot. "It's all right," he whispered, and got no answer.
Wispy threads of matter gathered and clung to the onryou, forming the
deceptively short stature of a child, a little boy who had lived ten years at
the most. He was a fairly new ghost, judging by his modern clothes, but his
energy was similar to the other's. They must have spent enough time together to
amplify each other's power and rage, and when the child opened his mouth to
scream, he confirmed this.
"You killed my friend!" The voice couldn't be heard by any normal humans, but
it was enough to make the Yashashuu wince and the tree branches rattle wildly.
"You killed my friend like the bad people killed me!"
Naoe knew from experience that while sad onryou could sometimes be persuaded to
pass on, the angry ones could not - feelings of vengeance were too strong an
anchor to this world. All that could be done for these creatures was exorcism,
forcing them to the place where they could undergo spiritual cleansing and have
their earthly attachments wiped away.
What I would have welcomed when I was an onryou myself, if not for him. As he
shielded them, as he began the chant, Naoe felt Takaya fall to his knees behind
him. Kagetora had not reacted this strongly to the exorcism of a child since
their first, was this another of his protective walls Takaya had broken down?
Naoe resisted the impulse to hold him and focused on the onryou, who for all
its strength had little control or knowledge of how to fight.
"Nomaku Samanda Bodanan Baishiramandaya Sowaka..."
"I want my mommy and daddy!" the wispy thing shrieked, uprooting a large chunk
of earth and hurling it over their heads. Naoe could hear Takaya's heavy,
panicked breathing.
"Then be still and I'll send you to them. Namu Tobatsu Bishamonten, demons be
gone! Lend us thy power!"
"NO! WAAAAAAH!" The ghost wept or appeared to, and stamped his little spectral
feet. "Don't let him, make him stop!"
Takaya let out an anguished moan, one that sounded more like Kagetora. He had
lost control, his power was bleeding into the air.
"Choubuku!"
The force of the exorcism pushed the child off the ground, and against the
darkening sky he began to fade, first screaming in protest, then whimpering
softly. As soon as he was sure the onryou was finished, Naoe whipped around and
dropped to a crouch, put his arms around Takaya who was shivering from the warm
energy escaping him. Naoe tried to enclose him in a tight hug, thinking he
could either stop the rapid loss of strength or at least calm the boy. But
Takaya had strength left, enough to shove the surprised monk off of him.
"Don't touch me. Don't. Touch. Me." He was leaning forward, palms braced
against the cool grass, staring at the place the onryou had been with wild
eyes, as though he were still seeing something there.
"Kagetora-sama..." It was Kagetora, not Takaya. They were the same in every way
that mattered, but only Kagetora remembered his first reason for hating Naoe,
the one Naoe had thought they resolved. Only Kagetora would know why the sight
of a dead child would upset him so much. "Kagetora-sama, I had no part in your
son's death, I swear."
"Shut up, shut up..." The voice was furious but pained, groaning as though in
agony. The boy's fingers gripped the grass hard enough to tear it, he couldn't
move them even when Naoe touched him again.
"Kagetora-sama, please believe me. When you sent your son away to safety, I had
no idea, and my men who killed him were acting without my knowledge. Had they
come back to me alive, I would have slain them myself for their cruelty! Please
- "
"Stop touching me."
"Kagetora-sama - "
"It's an order!" the boy bellowed. The glow of his tiger eyes and the hot
energy burning his hands made Naoe edge back. "You - "
"Please calm down, at this rate you'll lose consciousness."
"I will never..." Kagetora's snarling face went cold and serious, a perfect
marble mask that defied his growing weakness. "You alone I will never forgive."
"I'm sorry," Naoe whispered. "For everything."
"...Naoe?" Confusion and vulnerability, the signs of Takaya that Kagetora had
been loathe to show. Kagetora was retreating or being buried beneath amnesia
again, and Takaya didn't understand why he was shaking with rage and cold. "Why
- "
"Takaya-san..."
The boy slumped down onto the ground and went still. Naoe pulled off his
jacket, lifted Takaya up to wrap it around him, and reminded himself that this
was nothing that had not happened before, he merely had to keep Kagetora warm
and let him rest and he would be fine. Hadn't he once appreciated such times,
after all? Only then had he been able to hold him without protest, only then
was his control pushed to its absolute limit.
Takaya-san is different, Takaya-san is innocent of Kagetora's cruelty. He's the
same, but so different. I can't fight him the same way. I don't want to fight
him. I want this to end, before I lose more of my sanity to this longing.
Before I hurt him any more.
He would carry Kagetora to the car and drive back to the hotel, care for him
until he woke with what looked like devotion, what was really an obsession that
centuries had taught him to cloak and cover. Naoe would do this because he had
a duty to Kenshin and to his own selfish heart, but first he allowed himself an
indulgence, a minute of clasping Takaya to his chest and pushing his own body
heat into the pallid white skin. This time he didn't think of the hospital and
attempt at meditation, but an evening thirty years earlier, cradling a cold
body before forcing Kagetora into another and proving every moment of his
distrust valid.
Four hundred years of memory, each moment one kind of pain or another. Naoe
embraced Kagetora with desperation and abandon, as he had once the razor blade
his small hand guided to a vein.
To be continued.
***** Asylum *****
PENDULUM
Chapter 4 - Asylum
I know you're there, Naoe. In four hundred years, I've never seen you sleep.
When I rise, you are alert already and anticipating me; when I close my eyes,
you are still awake, hovering from a distance or nearby. As you're doing now.
Wondering, no doubt, who will be waking up, Takaya or Kagetora.
You need not worry, for now. Soon I will draw back behind the wall, to the
darkness and the black sky made bloody by a red moon. I won't let Takaya know
what this means, I won't let him past the wall which he knows is really a door.
And I won't allow you to know, Naoe. There are some things that should be kept
locked up forever, no matter how much they hurt the heart to hold.
I'm not like you. I can't carry my pain in plain sight every moment, or walk
beside it like a shadow. You know it's there, of course, though you can't know
its name or true nature. You saw it in me that day in the garden, didn't you?
Your staring was unlike everyone else's. You escaped the spell I seemed to cast
on them, only to be snared by my sadness and held by my power. If I lost this
this power...if you ever knew how weak I truly am...
I will not let you go. I will never forgive you. These are the chains I have
bound you with, that you have worn because they are all that links you to me.
You call them guilt instead of anger, devotion instead of cowardice, even love
instead of obsession with my supposed superior strength. Whatever you name this
leash, no matter; I will never loosen it. I will never tell you that you are
strong enough to break it on your own, and that the thought of you doing so, of
leaving, terrifies me more than the past and the future put together.
I never claimed to be a kind man. Search your long memory for any such promise,
Naoe. You know you won't find it. I don't have the largeness of heart I so
admired in Father. I can't forgive you for my death, my son, my refuge that you
murdered and wrapped around me like a shield. I can't. But Takaya...perhaps
Takaya can, this self of mine who was able to meet you unhaunted by our pasts.
I put this reckless, ignorant boy forth as a white flag, Naoe, an offer to end
our war at last. If you can meet me halfway. If you can keep from hurting me
again.
We are the same, this boy and I, merely existing in different places; like the
head of a swimmer above water while the body floats languidly under the
surface. Beneath the absence of memory, memory remains. I remember everything.
The red moon bleeding out onto the sand, yes, but also that afternoon in
Father's garden, when I was homesick and wary and yet somehow soothed by your
presence. We were the only two people in the world for a few moments, and when
you froze in the act of reaching out, you wiped away everything I thought I
knew about myself. Because, in that hesitant and hopeful moment, Iwanted you to
touch me.
I hate you. I more than hate you. Before I could figure out what that 'more'
is, the wars of the living divided us. Now the battles of the dead have brought
us together, and still, I don't know for sure. I want to understand. I want to
end this circle of hurt, and if burying my memories and weakening myself is the
only way, I will do it. But I don't know how long I can keep it up. It's your
turn now, to continue the cycle or help me break it.
Naoe. I'm giving you this one chance.
                                   mobmobmob
Takaya awoke to near-darkness, and found it a relief. He couldn't remember what
he'd been dreaming of, only vague blurs and flashes, but it must have been
terrible, if the sob that lurched out of his throat was any indication. The
first thing in his line of sight was a familiar black-sleeved arm, its hand
clutching the bed linen beside him so tightly it shook...then Naoe was quietly
moving. The nearby lamp was switched on, Takaya blinked until the soft golden
light didn't hurt, and looked tiredly at Naoe's weary, worried expression.
"Takaya-san?"
"What...happened?"
"You expended too much energy and passed out. It is nearly midnight. You should
return to sleep if you can, or can I get you something?"
"Water." By the time Naoe had filled a glass and returned, Takaya had managed
to sit up against the headboard. "Thank you," the boy croaked, pausing to
drink. "Something happened to me, didn't it?"
"Takaya-san."
"I feel so sad." The half-empty glass trembled; Naoe put it down for him. "I
feel so sad and I don't even know why. I think I was dreaming, but it's so..."
Naoe sat motionless, as though the whispering voice were restraining him.
Takaya lifted his hands, turned them over and stared down, searching for
something in the lines that were thought to show a man's fate.
"Fingers, like mine but small. That made me happy, but I can't remember why, or
who..."
"Kagetora had a young son," Naoe said, in a voice that was barely there. "He
was said to look much like you."
"Oh...right. He was killed by Kagekatsu's men."
"It was a mistake, a cruel act of overzealous soldiers. Kagekatsu would never
have ordered such a thing. Nor would I."
"Shit. The only good thing to come out of that life."
"That's not true. You came out of it."
"Death doesn't end all cares, huh?" It was meant to be casual but came out
unsteady. "He died four hundred years ago and I barely remember, but...fuck,
how many lifetimes will it take to not feel like it just happened?"
"It will fade again...and return again, but it won't always be so sharp."
"Yeah, it's fading..." Takaya laughed shortly, an hysterical burst. "You all
must hate me, for being able to forget."
"Of course we don't."
Naoe handed him a tissue. The wetness gathering like dew on his lashes hadn't
become tears yet, but Takaya rubbed his eyes dry, accepting that Naoe seemed to
know what he was feeling, often before he did himself. Crumpling the tissue
when he finished, the teenager splayed his fingers out over his lap again,
flashing on a pair of hands that were a little paler and softer, the fingers a
bit longer.
"These aren't my hands."
You always say that. Every time Kagetora took on a new adult body, he became
depressed for a while, staring at his hands, needing to be coaxed to eat and
concentrate on anything but his new and unfamiliar skin. Nagahide had never had
much patience with this and would generally either explode or stalk off. Irobe
would try, in his distant, paternal way, to ease Kagetora's tension with
kindness; Haruie would do the same with bawdy songs and unbelievable stories.
No one knew how to help him, so it became a ritual, Kagetora hovering in a kind
of near-death at the beginning of each new life. Naoe had learned to merely
stay near him and wait for the shock to pass.
"Kagetora-sama."
"Something was bloody."
"Your hands?"
Takaya finally looked up from staring at them, holding four-hundred years of
pain in his amber eyes. "No, the sky. The sand."
Naoe wasn't sure what that might signify, but he wanted that haunted sound out
of the boy's voice, as he had always hated it in Kagetora's. "Sometimes dreams
are just dreams."
"I...I don't remember what I said, but I yelled at you, didn't I?"
"Don't worry about that. It's not important now."
"Why won't you tell me?" The boy's voice was wavering. Each had their own way
of keeping or feigning calm - Takaya pretending to be a punk, Kagetora wearing
an emotionless mask - and neither had recovered it yet. "I'm hurting you, I
keep doing something wrong and I can't change until you tell me what it is."
"I don't want you to change." The half-lie came out strangely, both soothing
and snapping. "You don't have to do anything. You can't do anything."
Takaya slumped back at that, sank into the pillow against the headboard. To
avoid the hurt expression on his face, Naoe looked at the boy's arms, laying
limply beside him with fingers curled stiffly upward. The delicate blue lines
of Takaya's veins were clearly visible in the lamplight, a reminder of life's
fragility that Naoe didn't need, and from there it was easy to let his eyes
wander over all the little skin that was exposed. So smooth, too perfect for a
teenager, fair but sun-touched, vital and healthy and here, not the same as
Kagetora's inhumanly flawless white marble, a cool statue with cold eyes.
Not the same, but Naoe wanted this body as much as he had every other of
Kagetora's, even more. Caution and the boy's pain were keeping Naoe's lust
dampened just enough, but not for much longer. The creature was unmatchable
power and exquisite vulnerability together, it dared Naoe to tame it and would
never let him, it boiled his blood and broke his heart. Naoe wanted to take him
by force and make him scream; he wanted to cradle and protect him. These
opposing impulses had torn at Naoe for centuries; they might never stop, even
if he were somehow granted the miracle of what he wanted.
"You think I can't do anything."
Takaya. The sullen one, the child, who resented having been forced into
leadership and yet treated as a kid, as he had every right to. Still, his
frustration mildly irritated Naoe, increased his own. What are you so tense
about? You think your ignorant attempts to pity me mean anything? You don't
know true longing, Kagetora-sama. That's a part of me that no self of yours
could ever comprehend.
"You're wasting both words and effort." Sharpness, more than he had ever used
with Takaya. Kenshin had told him to be hard on Kagetora if that was what it
took to keep him alive, and years had taught Naoe it could cut through
Kagetora's self-destructive moods like a knife. "You've never tried to
understand me, why start now?"
"What did I do to you?"
"What did you do to Kagetora?"
"You say you don't hate me, but that's obviously a lie," Takaya said bitterly.
"One second you're the nicest guy ever, the next you clam up and refuse to tell
me what I've done to piss you off. What am I supposed to do?"
"Naoe, what did you do to me?"
"Don't provoke me, Takaya-san. I told you, you don't have to do anything."
"Stop fuckin' lying to me! You want me to do something, I know you do,
sometimes you look at me like - "
Like a bird of prey regards the salmon it's about to pluck from the river.
Didn't you tell me that once, in all your haughty innocence, long ago, when you
were still pretending you didn't know what I wanted?
" - you're waiting for me to do it, but how can I if you won't tell me what it
is?"
"You are being irresponsible." Naoe crept further onto the bed, climbed onto
his knees on top of the mattress, and Takaya drew back, though not in fear. Not
yet. "You are heedlessly offering something you know you'll never let me have."
"I don't know, because you won't - "
"You do. Somewhere, beneath the amnesia you've used to hide from me, you know."
Clutching the bedclothes in fists tight enough to rip them, Naoe drew himself
up to his full kneeling height, loomed over the boy who was finally shrinking
and intimidated. "You know, because as much as we've both tried to deny it,
Takaya-san, you are Kagetora-sama. You can never be anything else. You know I
am not your satisfied retainer, or mentor, or substitute father. You know."
"Even if Kagetora understands what you mean, I don't," Takaya said coldly. "Why
don't you just say it? Obviously you won't be satisfied until you do, so just
tell me what I've done to piss you off!"
"Don't..." Naoe was warning or begging or both; there was no answer in his wild
eyes, or handsome face distorted by pain. He bent closer to Takaya, until their
faces were inches apart, and his trembling shook the mattress and both of them.
"You don't want honesty from me, Kagetora-sama, you never did. You want me to
serve in silence, to need you, worship you, envy you and want you, and all the
while to suffer, because devotion without suffering means nothing to you."
"What the hell are you talking - "
"Four hundred years on your leash. It's enough to turn any dog mad."
"Naoe."
He was frightened and no longer bothering to hide it, but it wasn't enough, it
was too much, it was too late. Naoe gripped his arms with cool hands, crazed
like a man possessed by a feverless delirium, pushed the boy back against the
headboard and leaned in, intending to trap the maddening mouth with his own.
Takaya had no hope of winning by strength and he knew it; instead he moved to
the right and ripped himself out of Naoe's grip, stumbling back in panic until
he hit the wall.
Naoe's large form cast an ominous shadow in the dim light, and his arms hung
outward from his body as he approached, more like a humanoid beast than a
human. The figure spread itself out to surround Takaya, and before the boy
could recover enough to fight, his arms were gripped and his gasps were being
swallowed by a hot, insistent mouth. Even had he not frozen in terror, Takaya
couldn't have turned away; Naoe's face was pressing so hard into his that the
back of his head painfully ground against the wall.
A strange peace had swept through Naoe - vindictive, triumphant, unlike
meditation or even unrequited love. This was nothing pure, merely a sating of
desires that had gnawed at him for four centuries. Kagetora's lips were softer
and sweeter than any woman's, and their stillness made them easy to pry open
and force his tongue inside to sweep and taste and claim every inch of the warm
cavern. Not unexpectedly, Takaya didn't respond, so even though he knew this
was far from permission, he allowed himself a minute of selfishly taking, of
fucking Takaya's mouth and trying to make the limp tongue rub against his own.
Where was Kagetora's anger? His cold glare, his tiger-eyes that could make an
inferior feel like the most worthless thing in existence? Kagetora's behavior
toward Naoe and practice of ignoring his feelings had made it clear that he
didn't want Naoe touching him. He was buried beneath Takaya, guarding the door
and guarding himself, but he was there, he could unleash his powers and rip
Naoe or the whole room apart if he chose to. Where was he?
Not angry enough yet to discipline your depraved servant, my lord? It was still
Takaya he pressed himself to, fear and inexperienced youth and oddly dormant
hormones, and Naoe knew that if he drew back now, he would be faced with a look
of betrayal he couldn't yet stomach. So he made his movements more gentle,
kissed the boy with tenderness and left off gripping his arms to lightly grasp
his chin. Naoe's other hand tiptoed down the heaving chest, from T-shirt to
jeans, and settled between Takaya's legs to knead the disappointing softness
beneath the denim.
The shift came then, subtle - a drop in temperature, a haughtier posture, a
fear repressed more skillfully - but there was no doubt, Kagetora had emerged.
Naoe allowed himself to be shoved back without a fight, losing physical contact
but remaining near. Flame-colored eyes burned a stare of contempt into him, and
strangely, Naoe found himself relieved.
"There you are."
"And you, expressing your supposed love in just the way I expected," Kagetora
murmured. Naoe grabbed his arms again, firmly but not painfully, not nearly as
tight as Kagetora squeezed his wrists. "Do you think you're the first? The
first to hate me because I refused you?"
"I don't hate you," Naoe said, but the growl could not have been laced with
more venom.
"What do you call this, then?" Kagetora asked, indicating his body that had
been forced into this vulnerable position. "And what you did to her?"
"Shut up!"
"You don't want Takaya to remember. I know."
"You are Takaya-san."
"Yes. And that's why you want to hurt him."
"I don't! I..." Naoe let go to gently place his hands on the boy's cheeks, and
Kagetora let him. "I love you."
"What you want from me has nothing to do with love. You want to humiliate
something more powerful than yourself, force me to prove your own strength."
Kagetora leaned forward until his nose touched Naoe's, allowing the surprised
man to caress his hair and face but dodging an attempted kiss to whisper in his
ear "I will never let you."
Kagetora's eyes fell shut, and he slowly sat back. Naoe held him by the arm and
the nape of his neck and eased him back carefully against the wall. His racing
mind and wandering eyes had only a second to flicker over Kagetora's parted
pink lips and want to taste them again before the tired eyes opened. Dark
amber, painfully young, bewildered and terrified.
Only a Takaya frightened beyond ego and pride would make such a small-animal
noise and scramble toward the corner to get away. Naoe put his hands up in
surrender, his anger gone the moment Kagetora retreated, and shuffled a little
closer on his knees, humming soothing noises and trying to speak an apology
with his loving gaze.
"Takaya-san, I'm so..."
"You..." The boy clearly had no idea what Kagetora had said and heard, but he
touched his wet lips, felt the ghost of another mouth on them. "This is what
you...all this time?"
He couldn't honestly deny that. "I would never hurt you. I didn't mean to hurt
you."
He reached for Takaya, who shrank back and curled against the wall. Naoe
couldn't blame the boy - he had hurt him, obviously, and they both knew he
would again - but he felt a desperate and terrible sadness to see Kagetora like
this. It was worse than his rare moments of rage, worse than his coldness,
worse even than the contempt and rejection.
"Why are you so afraid?" Naoe said it quietly, in wonder almost, slowly rising
to his feet and dropping back down when he realized his height would further
intimidate. "You're Kagetora, why are you afraid of anything?"
Takaya was holding his knees to his chest, looking at him with numb, weary,
softening horror. But his voice, though wavering, had heat to it, had life and
the anger that helped to fuel it. "I don't know you, I can't trust you..."
"You do, and you can. You just don't remember. Takaya-san..." Now would be the
time for a responsible retainer to feel crippled by shame, but the sadness was
heavier, the love wider. They dwarfed the lesser emotions. "Takaya-san,
this...what I have done is not usual with us, I swear to you. I lost control
for a few moments and that is inexcusable, but it will not happen again. I
humbly apologize."
He bowed long and low, feeling the weight of probing eyes the entire time.
Takaya did not speak or move until he looked up again.
"Why?"
"I have no excuse, Kagetora-sama."
"Kagetora," Takaya murmured. "What was he to you?"
"My lord, the one I have vowed to protect - "
"What did you want him to be?"
Naoe let a long, painful silence precede his answer. "I...I am not sure I've
ever known for certain."
He's crazy. They're all crazy and they've dragged me into their insanity. Fuck
this shit, fuck this exorcism thing, I should leave now, he lied to me, he just
wants... Takaya closed his eyes, listening as his own inner voice became
Kagetora's. He just wants what everyone else always did. What does that mean,
Kagetora? What did Naoe do to you? What did you do to him to make me so sad I
can't even hate him for this?
"Takaya-san." He didn't open his eyes, but felt Naoe hovering, his presence
tainted but somehow still comforting. "I am going to my room now. I will not
return to this room until eight a.m., at which time I will drive you back to
Matsumoto. I won't touch you again, and when we return...I will try to respect
whatever decisions you make. Please rest now. Call me if you require anything."
He's pretending everything's fine. Am I supposed to do the same, Naoe? Because
I can't do anything else, right? I can't fix something you won't let me
understand. What drove us to this? What don't you want me to remember? From
beneath those thoughts, another briefly surfaced, bringing with it a perplexing
blend of nausea, curiosity and fear. Why don't I want you to leave me, even
now?
Naoe had risen and moved to the door almost silently, but even without the
faint rustle of his suit, Takaya would have sensed him go, like a passing
whirlwind in the leaves. Just as the door shut, the teenager opened his eyes,
and saw his own arm stretched out toward the place Naoe had been, fingers
straining to touch...what? Why?
What do you want from me? What do I want from you?
Takaya pulled himself onto the disarrayed bed and curled into a limp ball,
pressing his face into the darkness of a pillow and hoping not to dream of a
bloody sky. Behind his dry eyes, the questions continued to pound, a headache
that had been building for centuries.
To be continued.
***** Credo Quia Absurdum *****
PENDULUM
Chapter 5 - Credo Quia Absurdum
The air was so still indoors, stuffy. Too many men strategizing and poking fun
at each other over a long war council meeting, too many egos in one room. Most
of them remained in their places when a break was called for, to continue
interrupted stories and arguments, or complain about the decisions that had
been made. My head was so full of questions about border patrols and troop
deployment that I hardly knew where my feet took me. Instinctively I gravitated
toward the fresh air of the cool spring day, and took the first exit I found.
I recognized Lord Kenshin's garden at once, his private place for communing
with the gods which only the invited may enter. Had I not sensed a powerful
presence and thought it must be the lord himself, I would have left at once.
Even then, it seems, every instinct, every path led me to you.
I knew you the moment you came into sight, though you were seated at the edge
of the koi pond facing away from me. It was like a painting, the clear sky
reflected by water, the sakura tree overhanging, and you in the center of the
scene, the center of the world. I was used to only mercifully brief glimpses of
you, in armor coming from or going to training, dressed plainly for war
councils. When you turned to face me then, shifting so your fine blue robes
brushed the grass and your long hair fell behind your shoulder, I literally
couldn't breathe for a few seconds. I had been trying to forget the perfect
beauty of your face. I had almost succeeded. In that moment, I knew I'd never
want to.
"Naoe-dono?" Your voice was not afraid, but slightly tense, unmatched to its
peaceful surroundings.
Quickly I bowed low, and forced air into my burning lungs. "Please excuse my
rude intrusion, Kagetora-dono. I had thought I would find Lord Kenshin here. I
will not disturb you any further."
"You are not disturbing me."
You said it strangely, as though the realization stunned you. But I was too
deliriously happy to care as you gestured to the grass beside you. As I sat,
four or five birds flew from the ground in front of your lap up to the tree,
and I realized you had been feeding them. Many warriors with the kind of
reputation you were gaining would not have let themselves be seen doing such a
thing; it filled me with warmth. You were looking out pensively into the space
between us and the far wall of the garden, but you must have noticed I couldn't
tear my gaze from you, and at length you looked back to me. I had never been so
close to your eyes before, and neither pride nor propriety could break my
fascination with their amber color.
"I can see why Lord Kenshin is so fond of this place," I said to cover my awe.
"The troubles of the world seem not to touch it."
You looked down, and I wondered if I had saddened you. The Hojo had lately
broken the treaty you had been sent as a hostage under, and Kenshin's decision
not to let you go back to them had stirred further jealousy among many Uesugi
allies. The Hojo's hostage had returned, a loud-mouthed young man called
Kakizaki Haruie, full of unflattering things to say about his handsome but cold
captors. Many laughed along with him. I only found myself relieved that Kenshin
genuinely loved you, and would not give you back to such people.
"This garden reminds me of my eldest brother's," you said quietly. "I used to
seek the solace of its beauty whenever I was troubled."
"Are you homesick, my lord?"
You didn't answer, perhaps politely disregarding the inappropriate question.
Kenshin's adoption had made you an Uesugi. Echigo was your home, the lord your
father, Kagekatsu your brother. I thought of him then, the other Uesugi heir
just about your age. Kagekatsu had a simple face, good-natured when he smiled,
like a child's, though something darker when he was serious. Your face, even in
youth, was deceptively adult, too pretty to be a child's. I knew such beauty
was dangerous to a man's reason, knew it in theory before you showed me in
practice, but like a siren's song of the Greeks' tales, you lured me in until I
could hardly remember myself.
"How goes the council, Naoe-dono?"
"The usual, my lord, age and prudence struggling against the ambitions of the
young. I had thought I might see you there."
Again, I was skirting the line of propriety, but you didn't seem offended. "I
gave my suggestions to Father privately before the meeting began. I think some
of the attendees would be distracted by their dislike of me, were I present."
"They don'tdislikeyou, Kagetora-dono, they - "
I stopped short, unwilling to say something that would likely offend you at
last. You turned from the glare of sunlight on the water again, and your eyes
were golden in the afternoon glow. Your gaze was calm and even, but
effortlessly intense, making me feel as though a dangerous predator was
stripping my soul layer by layer. Tiger's eyes. Kenshin had chosen your name
with the precision I had come to expect from him.
"I am accustomed to it, Naoe-dono."
You smiled bitterly, as though we shared a sad secret. I found myself wishing
desperately, even angrily, that I were the superior so I could dare comfort
you, hypocrite though I was, hating their desire for you when I was no
different. You were always stronger than I, in every respect, but I wanted to
shield and protect you, and that want has never gone away.
"Perhaps..." You still faced me, but your eyes flickered away. "Perhaps I am a
bit homesick."
Four hundred years later, I still don't know what happened. Some wall inside
me, built rigidly over many years of serving and commanding and knowing my
place, crumbled just for a few world-stilling seconds, long enough for my cold
heart to thaw enough to break - for the first time, but not the last. In those
moments, you were a human like me, fragile as I have rarely seen you, a soul
and a heart that was not only tormenting me, but tormented yourself.
There has not been a moment since, even in our angriest and most brutal times
together, that I have not ached to hold you. Of its own accord, my hand rose
through the heavy air, slowly reaching across infinity to cup your cheek. You
watched my face with slightly widened eyes, probably wondering if I would
actually dare to touch you, and I thought I sensed you breathe in
apprehensively. I was inches away, trembling toward your warmth, when Lord
Kenshin called from behind us and snapped me back to myself.
"Ah, Naoe, there you are."
Once your unwitting spell was broken, I could feel the lord's presence. It was
like heat weighing down the air, a thrumming of atmosphere similar to the
excitement of battle. As he approached us, though, it was with his usual
infectious serenity. Kenshin was devoted to a god of war and has become
something of one himself, but I have never known a man who loved peace more.
I bowed low. "Forgive my intrusion, my lord. I entered thinking I would find
you."
"There is nothing to forgive, my friend. Kagetora, are you well?"
"Yes, Father. Naoe-dono and I were admiring the beauty of the day."
I got the impression that exchange was Kenshin's cloaked way of asking if I had
made any inappropriate advances, but I didn't mind. Such a precaution was
surely necessary. I knew at least two samurai had been banished or demoted for
improper conduct toward you, and knowing you, I'm sure there were more that you
didn't report. I let my inevitable flare of wounded pride pass, and noticed in
passing that your presence felt very like Kenshin's. So much so that, had I not
known better, I might have thought you were parent and child by blood and not
choice.
"If you don't mind losing your companion for a time, Kagetora, Naoe and I will
return to the council."
"Of course, Father." You couldn't see, because you were bowing, but I was
touched by the love in Kenshin's eyes. Yes, even cold I.
"If you will excuse me, Kagetora-dono."
You did nothing for a moment, long enough for me to feel the sting of my
inferior position, then nodded. My hands shook as I walked away; briefly I
wanted to shake you and frighten you until I felt my hurt recede, Even through
this, the longing for you never diminished. Kenshin's calm voice penetrated my
confusion, and soothed me as we went side by side.
"I must thank you," he said quietly.
A flare of fear, as though it had been an accusation. "M-My lord?"
"I caught a smile on Kagetora's face, when first you two came into my sight. He
does not smile much, except with Kagekatsu. I wonder if he is truly as content
here as he insists to me. Perhaps I was selfish to keep him..."
"Kagetora-dono regards you very highly, my lord." He was speaking to me as a
friend, but I still made my words cautious. The habit of one who has always
served. "I don't believe anyone would prefer the Hojo, even one born to them."
"Ah," Kenshin chuckled softly, pausing to pass his hand over a ceremonial
container of water and bow to the nearby statue of Bishamonten, "fate may
determine family as much as blood. It is true...but not any less an excuse, for
all that. I am glad Kagetora chose to stay with us. I only wish I could
penetrate, or even understand, the deep sadness in him."
Kenshin walked on, and I followed, knowing his confiding in me had finished and
we would return to business, as though he had not been confessing to me such
personal concerns. As I passed the Bishamonten, I thought the sun must be
tricking me, though I know better now. Its stone eyes, which should have been
fixed in my direction, seemed to be staring straight at you.
                                   mobmobmob
Cloaked in the familiar smells and sounds of his family's temple, Tachibana
Yoshiaki sat in the center of a tatami floor, motionless save for the slow
rocking of his breathing. Despite the determined, furrowed expression of peace
on his face, Naoe's trance was light, his attempt at emptiness thwarted by
mindfulness. He was never at rest, never could be as long as he and Kagetora
existed, but the recent incident with Takaya had disturbed his soul even
further. Naoe's thoughts wandered in circles of self-pity and frustration,
returning again and again to his earliest Buddhist lessons, the many truths of
suffering. Suffering, life's only constant.
Birth is suffering.
And by the gods, it had been. The only mercy of the first trauma of life was
that it was quickly forgotten. But for Yashashuu, particularly those who had
rarely incarnated so young, the birth experience was a re-awakening after nine
months of blissful void. Even in infancy, Kenshin's charge could not be
forgotten, nor could their past selves, the pain and fleeting joys of each one.
Still, centuries later, women were the only refuge from war...as Minako had
been Kagetora's from Naoe.
Aging is suffering.
The memories would be dim for a while, pushed half aside in the false happiness
of a new family and the need to relearn how to be human. For young Tachibana
Yoshiaki, the absence of Kagetora had been a dull, accepted pain for a few hazy
years. Around age six, it had turned sharp as a knife. As a razor blade, while
blood soaked the tatami mats.
Dying is suffering.
Death, death, death was all around them, the unhappy dead, the angry dead,
those who should have passed long ago but lived on. Dying was supposed to lead
to peace, to the soul's cleansing and rebirth without attachment. Instead life
followed death too quickly, and the pain of each was never wiped away.
Sorrow, distress, pain, grief and despair are suffering...
How well Naoe knew each, how much they colored every year and day he'd spent at
Kagetora's side...
To not get what one desires is suffering...
Naoe felt burned all over his body, shamed at feeling such intense lust in this
holy place. He was a monk, expected to show restraint and discipline in all his
emotions. But Takaya had been right, after all, to say he was only pretending,
that they both were. Takaya. Kagetora. Takaya. Kagetora. Had Naoe been a fool
to see a line between them, when none existed?
Existence with attachment is suffering.
The thought echoed like a shout in a cathedral, disrupting the chant Naoe had
been softly repeating. He couldn't keep this up, couldn't strive for the calm
of emptiness when his heart was so full. Switching to an easier mantra, Naoe
lost himself in the focus of love, attachment's kinder name.
                                   mobmobmob
"Thank you for coming, Neesan."
"For ditching class, you mean. Speaking of school, shouldn't you be there?"
"This is more important."
Haruie couldn't argue that. If this was about Naoe, as she was sure it was,
then it was Uesugi Yashashuu business. And their long work took priority over
the motions of their individual lives. Kadowaki Ayako dropped her helmet
carelessly to the grass and sat down on the only occupied bench in the whole
park. It was possible that Kagetora's dark mood, powerful as he was, was the
reason for this emptiness.
"What did Naoe do?"
"Were you expecting him to do something?" Takaya asked, in a slightly sulky
manner only teenagers could pull off.
"Honestly? With the amount of strain he's been under, yes, I've been fearing
it. Don't tell me he's finally cracked."
Takaya couldn't bring himself to say what Naoe had done, not yet, maybe never.
"Define 'cracked'."
"You like making this difficult, don't you?" Haruie genuinely loved Takaya, he
was a Kagetora she could finally mother and tease and scold. "Okay, I don't
have a doll for you to show me on...so I'll just ask. Did Naoe crack and
finally touch your no-no place?"
Takaya had a brief but strong impulse to shake her; thankfully that was washed
away by humiliation. "He tried to, at least. How did you know?"
"You really have no ability to tell when someone's attracted to you, you never
have. That worries me, you know."
"So, Naoe is...attracted to me." It made sense in light of his behavior, but
still, the words stuck uncomfortably in Takaya's throat.
"Oh, it's much more serious than that. Terminal, in fact."
"What?"
Her face went serious, a smile retreating behind shadow. "Naoe has been in love
with you since our mission began, maybe earlier."
Takaya clutched the bench beneath him hard, and continued to do so though it
stung his fingers. He was wound so tightly by a rush of anxiety and fear that
he nearly jumped when Ayako patted his shoulder.
"Did Kagetora know?"
"Yeah. For the most part, he tolerates it. I don't think you were ever
comfortable with it, though."
"Naoe said...that what happened wasn't usual with us."
"He's right. As far as I know, he's never tried to put the moves on you
before." She tossed her hair and pouted, though the flippant gesture seemed
forced. "You know Naoe, he prides himself on being the perfect, proper
retainer."
"Kagetora was okay with this?"
"Not okay, no, he just knew Naoe couldn't help it." Ayako nudged him with her
elbow. "And I know it's easier for you to think of Kagetora as someone else,
but eventually you need to accept that you are him. He is you. You're seeing a
distinction that isn't there."
"I don't remember Kagetora. Only flashes, anyway."
"Yeah." Ayako leaned forward, palms flat on the bench, and looked sadly at the
grass below them. "No one blames you for that, you know. We get frustrated
sometimes, but we understand."
"Neesan, do you know why Kagetora blocked his memories?"
Ayako was quiet for a long moment. The breeze blew her long, curly hair into
her face; she shook it away. Somewhere out of sight there was the faint sound
of a child's laugh, and she briefly pat Takaya's hand. It took him a moment to
realize why she was comforting him.
"I don't know if it's really my place..."
"I can't ask Naoe."
"Okay," she sighed. "It was in our last lives before these. The battle between
us and Nobunaga had become more brutal than ever. As always, we looked to you
to guide us, and between the pressure that put on you and what you demanded of
yourself...looking back, something was bound to break, somewhere."
"What happened?"
"I don't know many details. Irobe and I were away from you and Naoe a lot, not
that either of us thought that was a very good idea. A woman's family was
killed in the crossfire between us and the Oda, and you took her under your
protection."
"A woman?" A flash of unfamiliar skin came to Takaya, but no more than that.
"Does the name Minako mean anything to you?"
Dark almond eyes, sadness above a saintly smile. Steady acceptance in a world
of chaos.
"I...don't know."
"Well...you loved her, and she loved you. We had never seen this before, and
Naoe...he didn't take to it very well."
Takaya's throat ached suddenly, he had to force words through its dryness.
"What did he do to her?"
"We didn't know until afterwards...much later, when Naoe confessed. I don't
think Minako was ever planning to tell you."
"Haruie."
"He raped her," Ayako said, in a strangely even voice. "He was so jealous of
her...and you asked him to guard her."
Naoe, I wanted to show you I trust you. Only that.
Takaya ignored Kagetora's whisper and said "Go on."
"She became pregnant. Naoe said she had forgiven him and, I don't know, I guess
she was planning to pretend the baby was yours."
"It couldn't have been," Takaya blurted without thinking. "I never slept with
her."
"What? Why?"
Why, indeed, Kagetora murmured from the back of his mind, but would say no
more.
"Neesan, what happened to her?"
"Nobunaga attacked. Your body was killed trying to shield Minako and Naoe, and
Naoe...did what he had to do. It was terrible, but I think any of us would have
done the same, if we'd had the power Kenshin gave Naoe."
"What did he do?"
"Naoe, what did you do to me?"
"He forced your soul into Minako's body." Ayako's shoulders slumped. "Which
forced her soul out."
"He killed her."
"It didn't matter. Both Naoe's body and Minako's were also killed. Naoe was
reborn with his guilt, and we lost track of you until this current life."
"It does matter," Takaya insisted, but without much heat. He was still stunned
by what he'd heard and couldn't summon up much of a feeling of connection to
the pale woman of his memories. She had been beautiful and she had been a
comfort, but the emotion was as distant as the memory. Even so, Takaya couldn't
bring himself to say her name.
"She didn't deserve what happened to her. Any of it. Even if Naoe felt guilty
afterward - "
"He did. He does."
"Then that's it? That's why Kagetora hates Naoe? No...there's something else.
Something Kagetora won't let me know."
"I don't know what to tell you, Takaya. Kagetora was always distant with Naoe
and things never seemed happy between you, but I always assumed it was because
his feelings made you uncomfortable."
"They do...but why?"
Ayako recognized that the question was directed to himself and not to her, and
only "Hmm"ed quietly. In the strange comfort Haruie's presence had become to
him, Takaya put the question to himself, to the Kagetora he only reluctantly
acknowledged. An image of the locked door answered him, the same place that had
blocked his meditation, that blocked every effort to find the source of his and
Naoe's dissension. That Naoe's supposed love for him would make Takaya feel
awkward was understandable, but the feeling it stirred deep in the pit of his
turning stomach was much more like terror. Irrational, wordless terror.
But why? I felt this way as Kagetora, I know, because this feeling was in me
before Naoe ever touched me.
"Neesan...Naoe said it would never happen again."
"Then it probably won't. Not for another few centuries, at least."
"And he's okay with that? With loving someone who treats him like Kagetora
does?"
Ayako's brown eyes went slightly wider. "Takaya-kun...you feel sorry for him?"
Who wouldn't? Kagetora, that's who.
"No! I mean, he lied to me!" Takaya said it to cover the hint of pity he was
feeling, but there was real anger in his words. "He made me believe I could
trust him, and...it's just..."
"He would give his life for you, you know."
"I wouldn't ask him to. Him or anyone else."
"You never did understand how important you are to us."
"Kagetora, you mean."
Ayako looked sad for a moment, then covered it with a smile, and lightly
slapped Takaya's head. "You are Kagetora, dummy. You know, I should be furious
with you for daring to forget me. I mean, just look at me."
"I need to find out why."
"Why I'm so gorgeous?"
"Why Kagetora won't let me remember. What he's trying to forget."
"When we found you," Ayako said with a nod, "I wondered if it was more than
Minako that made you seal your memories. Any clues?"
"Flashes." It was hard to talk about even this, something so vague. "A beach,
dark water at night. A red moon. Does that mean anything to you?"
"No...but then if Kagetora won't even remember it, it's probably something he
didn't talk about."
"So I'm on my own, then."
"Don't be such an angsty teenager." She satisfied herself with lightly elbowing
him this time. "There's a certain person of our acquaintance who prompts more
of your memory flashes than the rest of us, and who also happens to know you
better than anyone else."
"Naoe." The name came out in a pained exhalation.
"Sorry, sweetie. But all roads seem to lead to him."
To be continued.
***** Equilibrium *****
PENDULUM
Chapter 6 - Equilibrium
Takaya was dreaming. He knew this because Naoe was with him, but did not answer
him. The dream is always the same, though he has never had it before. It
belongs to Kagetora, has to, because the moon overhead is bloody red, the stars
like flickering candles. It is night, then it's day, and another familiar
place. The grounds of Kenshin's castle on a drowsy, early summer day, and while
Kagetora remembers, Takaya explores.
Kagetora is sparring with another young man, taller and broader with a
pleasant, youthful face. They use long wooden swords, and Kagekatsu is favored
by brute strength, able to hit and block with such force that he is hard to
contain. Kagetora favors dodging, which he does gracefully, and sneaks past the
other boy's defense to land some good, stinging blows.
"Keep your feet moving, Kiheiji!" Kenshin calls from where he sits watching
beneath a tree, the only one who ever uses Kagekatsu's old name. Naoe is with
him, watching also, though his eyes are not focused on the fight, on anything
but Kagetora.
"Your sons fight well," he forces past the lump in his throat.
Kenshin smiles. "If only we had a world where such skills are unnecessary. As
it is, I am both proud and sad to see them show such skill."
"Peace will surely prevail, my lord."
"In their lifetime if not mine, I hope."
Kagetora lands a blow on Kagekatsu's shoulder, and the taller boy grimaces, but
calls out "Good one!" As the sun sets behind them, lighting up the trees until
they seem to be ablaze, Kagekatsu goes in for a disarming move but is checked
by Kagetora's speed and accuracy. A few moments more, and Kagekatsu's weapon
flies out of his hands and falls into the grass. The two boys bow to each
other, and Kenshin and Naoe applaud. The boys then turn to bow to their
spectators, the light is caught in Kagetora's amber eyes, and Naoe hastily
loosens his collar.
"Naoe, will you take some water to my sons?"
"Certainly, my lord."
Naoe obeyed, and Takaya stood alone next to Kenshin, unable to take his eyes
off the peacefully smiling man. He didn't look like a war god, hardly even a
warrior unless you noticed his steely resolve. But he was familiar to Takaya,
everything about him was, and he felt a deep desire to please this man, to make
him proud. It occurred to Takaya that this was how he'd once felt about his own
father, and how he'd been feeling toward Naoe.
Suddenly, so suddenly that he gasped and jumped back, Kenshin turned and looked
directly at him. "Kagetora," he said, with what even hard-hearted Takaya
recognized as love.
"F-Father?"
"The past is dead, my son. Let it go. Let it sleep."
Just as abruptly, Takaya was somewhere else. There was fire everywhere, the
sound of ripping earth and frightened shouting. He was on the ground, cradling
Naoe's body as life seeped out of it, and as the seconds passed, the
realization of what was happening made the flames and the chaos worse. He was
doing it, he knew, but all his numbed attention was on Naoe, and the fact that
he was leaving. His greatest nightmare, Naoe gone for good.
"Before this happens, my son. Let it go."
                                   mobmobmob
Takaya awoke gasping, flying into a sitting position on his bed, and realized
that someone was knocking loudly at his door, that was what had woken him up.
"Niichan! Are you still asleep? Dinner is ready."
Miya, of course. Takaya tried to keep his voice calm as he called back.
"Coming!"
Just a dream, it was just a dream.
But it wasn't fading the way dreams do. Takaya could almost still smell the
warmth of the day, the grass and the dirt. Most of all, Kenshin, who had called
him Kagetora with such affection. Could it have really been Kenshin, talking
through the dream? Takaya knew Kenshin had given the Yashashuu their mission;
he wasn't sure whther the man had any continuing contact with them. It was one
of those things he had always meant to ask Naoe.
Naoe...
The last bit of the dream was the most vivid. It felt like he really had been
there, wherever there was. His eyes still stung from the smoke and the heat,
and he could feel Naoe's limp body as easily as he felt the mattress beneath
him. Naoe dying, Naoe dead. Gone forever, never to call him "Takaya-san" in
that gentle voice, or wrap his arms around him like the wings of a great bird.
Stop it, stop it.
Takaya was trembling, and gripped his knees with his hands in an effort to
stop. It had been a dream, but so had his son, those familiar small hands. So
had Kagetora's red moon and rocky beach, whatever the significance of them was.
In a world of Possessors and onryou, dreams were more than the idle daydreaming
of a body at rest. And there were Kenshin's words to consider.
He said to let the past go, before Naoe dies. But what past? What Naoe did or
what I can't remember?
"Father," Takaya said quietly to the room, the first time he'd used the word in
a long time. As he had expected, no response.
"Niichan? Did you go back to sleep?" Miya seemed pleased when he opened the
door. "I tried making hamburgers, so you have to tell me if they're any good."
Oh, yes. Miya's latest craze was experimenting with American food. After his
first mouthful, Takaya told her they were great, and didn't even have to lie.
That made Miya happy. She was a strange girl, Takaya thought, so content being
domestic and having someone to look after. Takaya sometimes tried to talk to
his sister about what she wanted to be, envisioning her as a strong
businesswoman, but Miya would only say that she wanted to marry and have
children. Takaya sometimes wondered if Miya missed the family they had been, if
she wanted to recreate it in a new one.
"Did I tell you Dad's up for a promotion?"
Takaya hummed noncommitally. The man sent money to his kids each month and for
the most part stayed away. Takaya was happy with this arrangement, but worried
for Miya, who still inexplicably loved their father.
"How was school?"
Miya grinned. "I got an A on my Home Ec project. The teacher says I can try a
more difficult pattern next time."
"Great. And you're still staying away from that delinquent Ushiro, right?"
"Ushiro is a gentleman once you get to know him." Miya pouted. "He doesn't cut
class or anything. But thanks to you, he's afraid to come near me!"
"Well, good. No sister of mine is dating a guy with a tattoo."
"It's of his mother's initials! You really are way too old-fashioned, Niichan,"
Miya complained, picking delicately at her rice. " I don't try to pick your
friends for you."
"Yeah, but you like Yuzuru."
"Yes, I think he's a good influence. But what about Naoe-san?"
Takaya briefly froze mid-swallow. He tried to keep the Kagetora part of himself
far away from Miya, and she had only met his comrades once or twice, usually
just before or after missions. To hear her bring the subject up, especially
just after that nightmare, made Takaya's stomach twist.
"I mean, he's obviously a gentleman, anyone can see that," Miya continued. "And
he's sweet and totally gorgeous, but he's so much older than us! You told me
you had to interview him for a school project, so why are you still hanging
around with him?"
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.
"He's...cool to be around. And he's a monk, so he's helping me meditate and
learn to control my anger. We get along well."
Miya wasn't buying it. "You barely get along with anyone. And I've never heard
you admit to having an anger problem."
"See, I'm getting better already."
"Niichan." She looked suddenly frightened. "Tell me what's going on. You're not
sick, are you?"
DAMMIT.
"No, I swear, I'm fine, it's nothing like that," he said earnestly.
"Then what? Where do you constantly sneak off to with Naoe-san and Ayako-san?"
Miya wiped her face roughly, and her eyes narrowed into a determined, dark
stare. "You can trust me. And if you don't tell me, I'll follow you every time
you go until I find out what you're doing."
She would, too. FUCK.
"We go to different places. Ruins, shrines, and castles mostly."
"But why?"
"Miya...what if I told you that I was someone else before I became your
brother?"
"Like a past life? We all have those."
"What if...I'm still the person I used to be, and I took over this body before
it was born?"
"I don't understand, Niichan."
Slowly, painfully, with plates of food growing cold between them, Takaya laid
it all out for her. Kagetora's early life in Sengoku-era Japan, his death,
Kenshin's mission. The feudal underworld and the growing threat of the Oda.
Even Yuzuru's possession by Takeda Shingen and the dozens of onryou samurai
he'd exorcised. Miya let him speak, nodding now and then but never
interrupting. When he seemed to be done, she put her hand over his.
"You're not playing a joke?" He had never heard her sound so serious.
"I wish I was."
"Then I believe you."
"How? I can barely believe it."
Miya shrugged. "It makes a weird kind of sense. Anyway, I know you wouldn't lie
to me."
"I don't want you to be part of this, Miya. I want you kept completely out of
it."
"So I can't help you?"
"No," Takaya said honestly. "You'd be a liability. A distraction."
"My protective big brother."
A shadow crossed Takaya's face. "You realize what this means. I took Ougi
Takaya's body from him. I'm not your real brother."
The girl was quiet for a few moments. "Do you remember what Mom used to write
on the back of pictures of us?"
He didn't like talking about their mother and she knew it; this must be leading
to something. Anyway, he did remember.
"Yeah. She wrote 'Mii-chan and Nii-chan'."
"You're the big brother who's always been with me. You're the one I love and
trust."
Just like Yuzuru said. Miya's smile and sincerity were like a bandage around
his sore, tired heart. But there was a tear or two beneath her eyes.
"This means you're in danger, doesn't it, Niichan?"
"Just a little," Takaya lied, "but that's why I have the others. Naoe
especially."
"I already liked Naoe-san, but know that I know he protects you, I'd like to
kiss him."
Naoe is mine! And a good kisser. What the hell am I thinking?
"So you actually knew Kenshin?" Miya asked, having brightened up visibly. "What
was he like?"
"Just like you'd expect. Very kind, always smiling."
"Wow." Miya's expression turned thoughtful. "So, Uesugi Kagetora? The one from
the painting?"
"What?"
"Honestly, Niichan, do you ever pay attention to news?" Miya pulled a newspaper
out of a pile of mail and tossed it to him. "An old scroll painting from the
sixteenth century was just loaned to the Matsumoto historical society. It's a
huge deal because they think it may be the only depiction of Uesugi Kagetora in
existence."
Takaya scanned the article, which confirmed what Miya said. Nearby, Miya began
to gather the dinner dishes, and when Takaya started to help, she shook her
head and smiled.
"You know cleaning relaxes me, Niichan. I need to take some time and figure out
how to accept this."
As she went into the kitchen, Takaya thought, Let me know, Miya, if you figure
out how.
                                   mobmobmob
The wind picked up as Tachibana Yoshiaki left his family temple, sending newly
fallen leaves scattering and braches overhead rattling. Naoe thought it was
good; maybe it would wash away the smell of incense from his robes. His mother
was always complaining about that. She was a kind woman, and Naoe was always
good to his host's parents. It was the least he could do, he figured, in
payment for the life he'd stolen.
He stopped in the genkan, putting on house slippers automatically, something
he'd done thousands of times. He went straight to the kitchen, thinking of
coffee, and found his elder brother Teruhiro sitting at the table, drinking a
cup of his own.
"Yoshiaki. Busy at the temple today?"
"Counseling a mother who just lost her daughter. What brings you here, Niisan?"
"Father and I had a meeting today with some associates," Teruhiro said,
referring to the family real estate business. "I didn't feel like driving back
yet."
"Really?"
"No. Actually, I was hoping I could talk to you."
"About what?" The voice was polite, but Naoe's guard was up.
"How are you doing, Yoshiaki?"
"Fine. Nothing is wrong."
"Mother said you continue to disappear from time to time, mostly to Matsumoto."
Naoe smiled thinly. "I'm a monk. I go where I am called to."
"She also said you've been in a pretty good mood lately. You smile while on the
phone, and before you run off."
"Is that strange?"
"Enough for me to do a little investigating. Your young friend who calls
sometimes, what's his name? Takaya, isn't it?"
"Yes." Naoe didn't show it, but he was nervous.
"Is he part of your monk duties?"
Excellent, a chance for an excuse. "In a manner of speaking. The boy doesn't
get on with his father, so I've taken up the role of mentor to him."
Teruhiro smiled, and took a long sip from his mug. "I'm sometimes surprised how
well you turned out, Yoshiaki. We were so worried about you when you were
small. And I was afraid you'd become a womanizer, what with all that attention
from grieving widows. What was the name of that teacher you had, the one who
said she'd wait for you to grow up?"
"Sato-sensei." Pre-school was a long time ago, but not so much for a Possessor.
"Right. Yoshiaki, what is the boy to you?"
"What?" The question had come out of nowhere.
"I'm not trying to embarrass you, little brother. I only mean that...well, he
is a minor and you should be...careful."
"Niisan, you think there is something going on between Takaya-san and myself?"
Naoe wanted to laugh hysterically. This was funnier than anything Kousaka had
ever done, and sadder.
"Well, you're always so happy when he calls. You haven't had a call from a
woman in months, and you're constantly in and around Matsumoto. So you're
spending a lot of time with the kid."
"I'm not always with him when I travel."
"Not always, you say, so that means you are with him much of the time."
"Gods," Naoe groaned softly, with a faint wince.
"Yoshiaki, the last thing I want is to upset you. I just think being involved
with someone so young is dangerous."
"Takaya-san and I are not involved, Niisan. I will swear it on anything you
like."
Teruhiro put his hands up in surrender. "Okay, I believe you. And I'm
relieved."
"I'm glad we resolved this." Naoe exhaled deeply. "What brought this on,
Niisan?"
"It's...it's hard to explain. You know I'm not gay, right?"
Naoe nodded;Teruhiro was happily married. But he felt a twinge of anger about
what he suspected might be coming.
"It's the oddest thing." Teruhiro looked disturbed. He was an intensely
practical man, not prone to talking about feelings. "There's something strange
about that boy, something...strangely sexual. That sounds terrible, I know."
Naoe shook his head. It was how men usually reacted to Kagetora, the nicer
ones, that is.
"I'm not saying I'm attracted to him or anything," Teruhiro added hastily.
"There's just...something there."
"I understand. But Niisan, you got this impression over the phone? You've never
met Takaya-san."
Teruhiro smiled guiltily. "Actually, I have. He showed up about half an hour
ago. He's with Mother in the living room."
"WHAT?"
                                   mobmobmob
Naoe hurried into the room, robes fluttering with his movements. Takaya stood
when he entered, forcing a smile but not quite looking his way. Tachibana
Sachiko looked warmly at her son and quickly closed the photo album on her lap.
"Don't be angry, Yoshiaki, he only wanted to see what you looked like as a
child. I didn't show him any embarrassing ones."
"I appreciate that, Mother," Naoe said dryly. "Takaya-san. I wasn't expecting
you."
"I know. I was hoping I could talk to you."
"Mother, would you mind?"
"Of course, of course." Sachiko stood up and, smiling, pat Takaya's shoulder.
"Nice to have met you, dear."
"The honor is mine, Sachiko-san."
They were alone for a long few moments before either spoke. Naoe couldn't take
his eyes off Takaya, amazed to find him here, relieved that the boy seemed
okay. More than okay, he seemed calm, and completely unafraid. It was more than
Naoe had expected or thought he deserved.
"Your parents are nice," Takaya said at last, then smiled briefly. "They must
have really been hurt by your suicide attempts."
"Looking back, I don't think any of them were serious."
"Really?"
"If I died and was reborn as a normal person, I would have no memory of you.
And I don't want to exist in any world without you."
"Careful where you say that. I think your brother suspects we're - "
"I talked to him. Everything is all right."
"Naoe the perfect retainer, setting everything to rights. I knew you were that
type from the day we met. Met again, I mean."
Naoe offered a weak smile. "I've often wondered what you were thinking that
day, when I told you about myself, and Kenshin, and Kagetora."
"I was thinking 'Back away slowly from the crazy'." Takaya shifted a little
where he stood. "And I was thinking I could trust you, for a reason I didn't
understand."
"You can trust me, Takaya-san. My behavior was inexcusable, but..."
"Haruie told me it's been building up a long time. That your...restraint was
bound to break at some point."
"That's no excuse."
"No, it isn't."
"I apologize, Kagetora-sama. It will not happen again."
It would, they both knew it would, but what was the use of speaking it aloud?
Naoe needed something he could not have, Takaya wanted a peace that could never
be between them. Maybe there was some middle ground to be found, miserable, but
better than nothing.
"I forgive you, Naoe. For this one time. I want us to move past it."
"There are some sins you cannot forgive. Sins I do not dare ask absolution
for."
"Like Minako?"
The name seemed to suck all the air out of the room. Naoe's face drained of
color so fast that Takaya though the might faint, and he swayed on his feet in
those bright, unfamiliar robes.
"You...you've remembered Minako?"
"No. Haruie told me. Naoe...why did you do that to her?"
Naoe desperately looked like he'd rather be anywhere else. "No answer I give
could justify my actions."
"I know. I just want to know."
Asked so simply, Naoe could do nothing but answer honestly. "You sent me from
your side, endangering yourself, to protect her. She had you and I didn't, I
never would. She was kind and gentle and everything I am not. I wanted to hurt
her, and I did. She forgave me afterward, but I will never forgive myself."
"Naoe." Takaya looked at him with a pleading expression. "Can't we stop this?
Stop hurting each other?"
"I don't know, Takaya-san. You will always be superior to me. I feel I will
always resent it."
"Why can't we be equals?"
"Because we aren't. Because we just can't."
Frustrated, Takaya exhaled long and deeply. " I don't want it to be like this.
I hurt you, you hurt me, and so on, and so on, until we die or the world ends.
What can I do, Naoe?"
"We can only fulfill our mission as best we can. All other concerns are
secondary."
"Spoken like a true samurai."
"Kagetora-sama. I know you don't want to hear it and don't believe me anyway,
but you need to know. I do love you. I always will. If you can bear it, I wish
to remain by your side."
"What about you?" Takaya asked sadly. "Won't it hurt you to be near me?"
"I don't remember a time when it didn't."
"Then - "
"I wanted these chains, Takaya-san. I would rather be bound to you than be
free."
"You're not just a slacker monk, then, you're a masochist," Takaya joked,
trying to cover up how relieved he was. "Well, if you can keep your hands to
yourself, I'll need your help."
"My help?"
"Yeah, your help figuring out these memories of mine. I mean, you are okay with
me remembering now, right? Now that I know about Minako?"
"Yes. I agree, regaining your repressed memories will return to you the full
force of your powers. You will need to be at your strongest when we confront
the Oda."
"And I have more memory flashes around you than not, so you're the perfect
person to help me."
"What did you have in mind?" Naoe asked.
"Have you heard about the painting of Kagetora?"
"Yes. I was planning to go see it. I can take you with me tomorrow, if you
like, after school. My family has done business with the Matsumoto historical
society, I may be able to get us a private viewing."
"I can go instead of school, it'll be fine."
Naoe smiled wryly. "My family believes I am mentoring you. Ditching school may
blow our cover. We will go after school. I'll pick you up."
"Oh, fine. Naoe?"
"Yes?"
"Do you know if something...bad ever happened to Kagetora? Something he'd hide
even from me?"
Naoe, all seriousness now, considered for a moment. " I know Kagetora-sama was
hurt by his constant status as a hostage, until his adoption by Kenshin. I know
Kagekatsu's betrayal wounded him deeply."
"There's something even worse, something he only lets me have glimpses of. I
guess he never told you."
The thought of that clearly troubled Naoe. "If it is something he keeps from
you, Takaya-san, he may never have told anyone. But whatever it is, I will help
you find it. For my peace as well as yours."
"You should wear your monk robes more often, Naoe. They make you seem so much
more trustworthy."
They smiled at each other in the quiet, airy room. They knew there was no
getting back to the innocence of what Naoe and Takaya were starting to become,
but neither minded. The truth illuminates as much as it destroys, and what's
left is what human beings have to work with. Naoe, freed from the shackles of
the kind mentor, stepped with ease back into his role as long-suffering
retainer. It would have surprised Takaya to know what a relief this was.
To be continued.
***** Spectrum *****
PENDULUM
Chapter 7 - Spectrum
School, as usual, was a boring blur for Takaya. Yuzuru met him in the genkan,
where the students exchanged their shoes for slippers, and asked how he was.
"Just tired. Naoe dragged me around to do exorcisms all summer. What about
you?"
"Mostly I studied." Typical Yuzuru. "Morino-san wants to take us to the local
pool, but I said we should wait until you came back. You are okay, aren't you,
Takaya? You seem distracted."
"Nah, just annoyed that we have a whole 'nother school year to get through."
"Only one more. Think of it that way. Then we get to start our lives as
adults."
Takaya said nothing. His impression was that Kanshousha didn't last very long
in adult bodies. What did Takaya have to look forward to? An endless life of
putting on and taking off new bodies like clothes? An eternity of exorcisms and
Underworld politics until some miraculous peace broke out among the warring
clans. Right, like that'd ever happen.
"Takaya?" Yuzuru sounded worried, so Takaya laughed.
"We're quite a pair, aren't we? The ghost hunter and the future dentist."
"You could go to college too, you know. You can work it in between exorcisms,
can't you?" Yuzuru said seriously. "When you do actually come to school, your
grades are high enough. Think about it."
"I will."
"You're Takaya too, you know," Yuzuru said softly. "Not just Kagetora. Takaya's
life matters."
"You're worried I'm gonna get so into Kagetora, that Takaya will be lost?"
Yuzuru nodded with a solemnity that was strong even for him. "It's probably
what I fear the very most."
                                   mobmobmob
"So there you are, faker."
Takaya hummed noncommittally.
"Sensei asked me to go to the nurse's office and check on you, and what a
surprise, you're up here."
"It's quiet, or was, until you brought your big mouth."
Takaya was lying on the warm concrete of the high school's roof, eyes closed,
like someone working on his tan. Chiaki strode over to his classmate, stopping
a few steps away.
"I hear you're trying to recover your memories."
"Did Naoe tell you that?" Takaya asked, feeling suddenly uneasy.
"Haruie. She also said you took the news about Minako pretty well."
"I am mad about what Naoe did. It just all seems so distant."
"What would you have done, I sometimes wonder, if you had survived in Minako's
body? Abort the baby, keep it?"
"I honestly don't know." Takaya exhaled slowly. "Chiaki. How did I behave
toward Naoe? Before?"
Chiaki flopped down to a sitting position and scoffed. "I'm not saying you're
the boss from hell or anything. You're a good leader who looks out for your
subordinates. That said..."
"Yeah?"
"You were always harder on Naoe than the rest of us. What the rest of us got
off light for, he was punished more severely."
"What kind of punishment?" Takaya asked, though he already knew.
"Being sent away from your side," Chiaki said coolly. "The worst thing you
could possibly do to him. And that's not all. Now and then you would thank him
for something or even say a kind word, but then you'd immediately close
yourself off from him. You wouldn't even let him touch you, like he wasn't
worthy of the honor."
"That's not why!"
"Really? Enlighten me."
"I...I don't remember."
"Convenient," Chiaki said, rolling his eyes. "He's in love with you, you
treated him like any other half-trusted vassal."
"I do trust Naoe!"
"Oh? Do you care about him?"
Yes! "Naoe is a loyal subordinate who has performed his duties, for the most
part, well."
"What if he wanted to leave you?"
"Naoe would never leave me."
"But if he did? If he couldn't take this one-sided love another moment, would
you let him go?"
"No!" Takaya found himself answering from the heart. "He's my dog, mine to
command, mine!"
"Still such a spoiled brat. Do you know your Sophocles, Kagetora?"
"My what?"
"'You are hard when you should yield, pitiless when you should show mercy. Such
natures deserve the pain they bear.'"
With that, Chiaki re-entered the building, leaving Kagetora to ponder the words
left hanging in the air.
                                   mobmobmob
Japanese History was one of the classes Takaya had come to hate the least. It
focused heavily on the Sengoku era, and he'd found himself passing tests with
ease, thanks to knowledge he had gained and remembered. Today Tudo-sensei was
drilling the class in preparation for an upcoming test. After Morino correctly
identified a flag symbol used by the Takeda, the teacher asked which god Lord
Kenshin was most devoted to.
Kagetora raised his hand without thinking about it, surprising both classmates
and the teacher, who called on him.
"Bishamonten, the war god."
"Very good, Ougi. Now let's turn our attention to the Oda..."
At this point, Takaya lost interest in the game, and scribbled a note to Chiaki
which he quickly passed up. It read "Did something bad ever happen to Kagetora?
Like something he wouldn't have talked about?" The response was no help. "If
something did, I doubt he would have told me."
Fair enough, but another dead end. Takaya looked at the clock, wondering why
the day seemed to go so slowly. It was warm for a September day, and the breeze
let in through the open windows still held some of the sleepy scent of summer.
Takaya put his head down on his arm and let himself drift...
                                   mobmobmob
The moon was full, the night air cool. Kagetora lounged with ease in the short
tree; he was good at climbing, at most things he tried. He was feeling
comfortable in his own body, not a feeling he was used to, and realized it was
the nearby flute music that was making him feel safe. The music, and the
presence of the person playing it.
Familiar features, soft gaze, hands like his own. Takaya groped for a name and
found Ujiteru, Kageotra's older brother by blood. This was Odawara by night,
the nearby sea a dark mass beneath the sky, a spot on the beach they came to
often to practice their swords or to relax. The sound of the flute stopped
before Kagetora was ready for it to, and he had to remind himself he was safe
here.
(Safe from what, Takaya asked, and received no answer.)
"In all our time together, I've taught you as much as I can. I hope you will
remember it," Ujiteru said, and he seemed to blink away a tear. "It's not
certain that we will ever see each other again."
"Of course we will, Ani-ue. I'll help forge a real peace that lasts between the
Hojo and the Uesugi, and I'll come home again."
Ujiteru smiled, a touch indulgently. He took an identical flute out of his
sleeve and passed it up to the younger boy.
"Take this with you, Saburo. You've learned to play it well, and the sound of
it will comfort you whenever you miss home."
"Yes, Ani-ue. Don't worry about me. Whether the Uesugi are kind or cruel, I
will go to them. I will fulfill my duty as a member of the Hojo clan. I will
make you and Father proud."
Another smile. "We are already proud. You've recovered from whatever was
troubling you a few months ago, and you've grown well. Father's love has made
us strong, we brothers, and it will keep you strong when you go to the Uesugi."
"Yes, Ani-ue."
"Don't worry too much. Kenshin is said to be kind."
"Maybe he'll give me a new name, as Shingen-kou did," Kagetora said, his eyes
bright with mischief.
"You will always be Saburo to me."
(Takaya? Ougi-kun?)
"Saburo." Ujiteru seemed troubled now. "Don't be too easy on your new family.
If anyone ever tries anything...inappropriate, say no and fight them off. Send
for me, I'll come get you."
It did no good before, Kagetora whispered, but the voices from somewhere were
drowning him out. (Takaya! Ougi-kun, wake up!)
Then someone touched his back, and he began to scream.
                                   mobmobmob
The world was all white for a while, the darkness inside his eyelids bright
like a post-photo flash. Beneath him was a firm softness, like a bed but much
more like a sturdy cot, and someone was brushing his hair back from his
forehead. Only one person would dare to do something so patronizing.
"Naoe," Takaya said, and opened his eyes. "How do you always wake up before
me?"
There was the loyalest of retainers, of course, hovering over him, and Naoe let
out a sigh of relief.
"Takaya-san, you had us worried."
"Takaya? Are you okay?" Yuzuru, from a polite distance.
"I wasn't worried." Chiaki, the smug bastard, from across the infirmary.
"What happened to me?"
Naoe looked concerned, even more than usual. "We were hoping you could tell
us."
Yuzuru stepped closer. "It looked like you fell asleep on your desk, but then
you fell onto the floor, just collapsed like all the life drained out of you,
and when I tried to shake you you started screaming and thrashing. Then you
just went limp. We carried you here about an hour ago."
"Pain in our collective asses, as usual," Chiaki drawled.
Takaya ignored him, and spoke to Naoe. "How did you find out?"
"The school called me, said you should take the day off. I am your emergency
contact."
"You're my WHAT?"
"I thought it most appropriate."
Takaya looked like he might start to yell, so everyone was relieved when Nurse
Ogawa, a pretty lady in her thirties, came over and asked Takaya if he was
feeling better.
"I'm okay, as long as I don't have to go back to class."
She clucked at him for that. "You must have fallen asleep and had a bad dream.
You can go, but Tachibana-san, make sure he rests and gets plenty of liquids."
Naoe bowed. "I promise, he will be looked after carefully," he said gravely.
"Thank you for your medical expertise, madame."
Nurse Ogawa turned pink and excused herself, while Takaya rolled his eyes and
struggled to a sitting position. Naoe tried to help him, and stood dutifully by
when he was waved away. Takaya's head swam for a bit, and he felt like he was
riding the spinning teacups at an amusement park. Slowly, it passed, and he
focused on what was around him. The stiffness of white cotton sheets. The
antiseptic white light of the room. Naoe, standing ever ready to assist. Takaya
felt a rush of pity for the man, and covered it with a grim smile.
"Okay, let's go check out that damn picture."
"Takaya-san, in light of what has happened, perhaps it would be more prudent to
save that trip for when you are feeling better," Naoe said, diplomatic as
usual.
"I'm fine, I'm not even dizzy anymore. Besides, we're following my memories,
right? Gotta keep doing stuff that'll prompt them."
"What did you remember?" Naoe asked, very softly.
"I was in Odawara, the night before I left for Echigo. My older brother gave me
a flute and told me he'd come save me if I needed him."
"Ujiteru?" Chiaki nodded. "He tried to. He couldn't get to you, but he tried.
Which just further convinced everyone that you were looking out for Hojo
interests the whole time."
"I wasn't," Takaya mumbled. "I liked being an Uesugi."
"You are an Uesugi," Naoe said firmly.
The words set a warm glow blazing in Takaya's stomach, and when he spoke again,
his voice was stronger.
"I don't know if it has to do with anything, but Ujiteru said I had gotten over
something that recently bothered me. And...I get the impression that he didn't
know what really happened."
"Then what happened?" Chiaki asked bluntly.
"I don't know."
"We will figure it out," Naoe said, offering a hand to Takaya and helping him
stand. "We will pursue your memories without fail, the dark moments as well as
the bright."
"I get the feeling there's more dark than light."
"There's good in every life," Yuzuru said sincerely. "Wasn't the memory of your
brother good?"
"Yeah...but sad. He didn't want me to leave, even fought with Father over it.
Ujimasa-ani was glad to see me gone, though." Takaya blinked. "Where the fuck
did all that come from?"
Yuzuru looked unhappy, and excused himself to get Takaya's homework. Takaya
watched him go, feeling depressed.
"Narita-kun thinks Kagetora will eventually overwhelm Takaya," Chiaki said to
the ceiling, speaking what they were all thinking. "The sooner the better, in
my opinion, this squad needs its leader back, but Narita-kun values Takaya
more."
"He and my sister alone," the boy scoffed.
Naoe looked surprised. "I value Takaya-san very highly."
"Because I'm Kagetora."
"Once, perhaps. Now, I think I value Kagetora-sama more than ever because he is
Takaya-san."
"Good grief," Chiaki groaned. "You're not gonna tell us this unhealthy love of
yours makes you better or happier than you'd otherwise be."
"I do say so. Despite all I've done, I am a better person for loving Kagetora-
sama. The world is brighter, the air is clearer."
Takaya groaned into his open palm. Chiaki smirked, strolled to the door and
turned to look over his shoulder.
"Yeah, you've gotta tell me sometime, Naoe," he said, "about the clarity that
comes with psychotic jealousy."
                                   mobmobmob
Takaya dozed during the brief car ride to the Matsumoto historical society,
located just next to Matsumoto Castle, and only awoke when he heard the
driver's side door open. Naoe opened the passenger's side door before Takaya
could get to it, and the boy rolled his eyes as he stumbled out.
"Love or no, don't treat me like a girl."
"Of course, my lord."
There was a glint of amusement in Naoe's eyes that Takaya considered beating
out of him, but he decided to save that for another time. He was careful to get
to the building's door before Naoe did, and waited impatiently while Naoe
explained their presence to the director. The historical society didn't open
for another hour, but a select few were being allowed a private viewing of
their new acquisition, and Naoe's charm or connections or both won the man
over. He introduced himself as Hirada Toushiro, and encouraged them both to ask
if they had any questions.
Takaya didn't really listen as Hirada explained that the scroll painting was
dated circa 1568, and though its painter was unknown, it was rather different
than most from that period, leading to speculation that the artist was
influenced by western painting styles. It was realistic as opposed to
stylistic, and though they couldn't be certain of course, there was a good
chance that the representation was very like the subject. The painting was on
loan from a pair of wealthy brothers, who had gotten it from a dealer in the
antiquities market, and it was a wonderful window to the past...
Blah, blah, Takaya thought. He felt a strange dread, as though the picture
itself were something dangerous to him, but told himself to stop being dumb.
Maybe it'll prompt a memory, and I need my memories.
The room they were directed to was nearly devoid of life, containing only two
men in suits who were talking softly to each other. Against the walls were
paintings and display cases that held old documents, weapons and battle
accessories. A full suit of armor on a mannequin stood in one corner. The
scroll painting they had come to see had pride of place on the far, otherwise
vacant wall.
Takaya's sense of dread continued to climb as they approached, and he continued
to scold himself silently. When he finally looked up he almost immediately
breathed a sigh of relief. Sure, the figure was handsome enough, he supposed,
but hardly worth all the fuss people always made. The image had flowing black
hair and amber-colored eyes, and was wearing a blue kimono that Takaya thought
he recognized. He turned to face Naoe, and found the elder man transfixed.
"Naoe? Hellooo?"
Naoe turned to him and smiled weakly. "Sorry, my lord, I was...distracted. Do
you understand now?"
"Understand?"
"Why people behaved the way they did."
"No. He doesn't look so special to me."
Naoe looked surprised, then abruptly not. "It's probably because you look so
much like him. You can't see yourself the way the rest of us do. Kagetora had
many troubles because of his looks."
"Hey, I got a right to walk around nude and not be groped," Takaya grumbled,
getting a flash from Kagetora that confirmed what Naoe said. People - men - had
constantly stared, and often tried to touch.
"I agree, my lord."
"Hah. You just want me to walk around naked."
Naoe laughed, and returned his attention to the painting. Leaving Naoe to ogle
the image of his former self, Takaya wandered over to a row of display cases
and explored. Many of the items were on loan from bigger museums, part of the
society's Sengoku exhibition. There was a sword said to belong to Oda Nobunaga,
and a letter written by Kagekatsu to one of his generals, and a small idol of
Bishamonten that supposedly had belonged to Kenshin. Takaya wished he could
take it out, hold it and see if any flashes came of the man.
The memories that had to do with Kenshin were safe ones, wholly unlike the
feeling of dread that was coiled in the pit of Takaya's stomach. Was it the
proximity of the painting that chilled him, or Naoe's staring at it? He felt
that the answer was no, and yet, what else could it be?
Takaya bumped into someone as he moved back, and clamped down against the
impulse to run from touch. "Sorry, excuse me."
"Entirely my fault. Gods...Saburo?"
No one outside their circle of Kanshousha and enemies could have known that
name. Takaya looked up, feeling frozen, and found an extremely kind face
looking down at him. It was one of the men in suits, and after a few seconds of
silent staring, the uneasy feeling was gone from Takaya completely. He
recognized the soul behind the face, felt sure of who it was beyond any
certainty he'd ever felt before.
"Ujiteru...ani?"
The man's face lit up. "Saburo, I knew you'd know me."
Suddenly, the man's arms were around him, and though his presence brought a
peaceful feeling, Takaya still felt the same panic he dealt with wihen anyone
touched him intimately. In no time, however, they were being pulled apart, half
by Naoe and half by the other suited man, who looked at Takaya with surprise
but hissed to his companion that they mustn't draw attention. Takaya,
meanwhile, was being bodily shielded by Naoe.
"Are you all right, Takaya-san?"
"Yeah...Naoe, that's - "
"Takaya is your name now?" Ujiteru said happily. "Mine is Takada Hiro, and this
is my brother Takashi. Do you recognize him, Saburo?"
He did, and felt nothing but a creeping dread to look at his current body and
remember a cold, stern face. "Ujimasa-ani."
"I knew you'd know us, and I knew I'd find you! Saburo, I was worried about you
all this time." Ujiteru seemed to notice Naoe for the first time, and frowned.
"I must say, after all I've heard, I'm surprised you're still keeping the same
company. Naoe Nobutsuna, isn't it?"
Takaya hurriedly spoke before Naoe could. "Yes, this is Naoe. We're working out
our differences. What are you doing here?"
"Oh, we're the ones lending the painting to this establishment."
"I meant - "
"He means, why have you returned to the world of the living?" Naoe nearly
growled.
"Why should we not?" Ujimasa answered sharply. "The Hojo have as much right to
rule Japan as any other family taking part in the fuedal underworld."
"We are again enemies, then."
"Of course we're not!" Ujiteru said, still looking at Takaya. "Saburo, all this
time we've been waiting for you to come home. We've missed you so much."
"Takaya-san, I believe we should go."
"Yeah, I need some air." He felt like he was choking.
As Naoe steered him toward the exit, Ujiteru pressed a business card into
Takaya's hand.
"Saburo, think about it! We're waiting for you! Father is waiting for you!"
                                   mobmobmob
Once outside, Takaya put his head against the car and forced himself to breathe
deeply until the choking feeling went away. Naoe took a bottle of water from
the trunk and handed it to him, and Takaya drained it in one gulp.
"Fuck," he said, too unsteady to say anything else.
"So the Hojo join the feudal underworld. We have yet another enemy to defeat."
Naoe looked concerned. "Are you all right, Takaya-san?"
"Yeah, just...wow."
"It must be startling to encounter your former brothers as you did."
"Yeah..."
"Any memory flashes?"
"Just ones that have come before. And fuck, they're so different. As soon as I
recognized Ujiteru-ani I felt safe, like I used to whenever I was with him, but
Ujimasa-ani...he gave me the creeps."
"I hope, Takaya-san..."
"What?"
Naoe looked like he didn't want to say what he was about to say. "That they
will not sway your feelings of loyalty to us."
Takaya was silent. He had, after all, felt such peace looking into Ujiteru's
eyes, and what he had said about going home, about Kagetora's father waiting
for him...it did strike a few pangs of what must be homesickness in Takaya. In
Kagetora. But they were the same, weren't they?
"I apologize, Kagetora-sama, I should not think such a thing."
Naoe sounded genuinely sorry. Takaya shook his head.
"It's okay. Take me somewhere I can collapse, and we'll call it even."
To be continued.
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