These Cuts Of Mine

one: though her voice would be merry

i.

Not all the memories of the time they spent raising Misao are good. Even years later, Aoshi shies away from a few. He's buried this one under other unpleasant memories, but recent events have him re-examining it:

When Misao was seven, she cried in her sleep. It happened sometimes; he recalls his stomach clenching at the sight, but he doesn't recall being surprised.

She woke shaking and gasping.

Though she turned to Hannya for comfort, it was Shikijou who gave her answers. He took her a little away from the rest of them. It gave at least the illusion of privacy, though they could all still hear the conversation.

"It's been years," she said. "I thought it was over!"

"It's never over."

"But it ended years ago!"

"That doesn't make it over."

Aoshi remembers drifting silently, then, flitting between trees until he could see her. If he couldn't bear being the one to teach her this, he would at least see it done. Or so he told himself.

He watched Shikijou stretch to pluck a leaf from a short tree. The leaf was bright green with spring. In a few months's time, she would be eight.

Shikijou passed the leaf to her. She accepted it with both hands, her head tilted, her brows furrowed in a confused pout.

Shikijou waited a few moments. For all his muscles, for all his weight, he struck fast. Just seconds after she'd accepted the odd gift, he painstakingly ripped a piece of the leaf away.

Misao blinked. She looked down to the ragged scrap of green left in her hand, then back up at Shikijou's closed fist.

"Why did you do that?"

Shikijou held his fist at an angle. After a moment, he opened his fingers, let the leaf fall. Rather than flutter to the ground, the leaf sailed away on a breeze.

"When you see things, like what you saw with your parents, it takes a piece of you."

"And you can't ever get the piece back, so it's never over?"

Looking back, Aoshi sees that moment as a touchstone for all the others. It's the moment she first began to understand.

In the moment, though, in the moment that reassures him of what he protects, and torments him for what he failed, he only wanted to turn back time.

He still wants to turn back time.

ii.

This soon after sunset, when long shadows obscure the city and vermin - human or otherwise - skulk about, the streets look empty. He turns a corner cautiously, approaching the Shirobeko from the opposite direction of the shrine, and sees a scrap of purple and blue.

He shifts his gaze in that direction, automatically seeking the color of the Oniwabanshuu. He catches only the darting flicker of a long, long braid.

He follows without a second thought.

She traces her way through Kyoto unerringly, with neither delays nor side-trips. She keeps her pace steady; soon enough, she pauses in front of the Aoi-ya.

Aoshi stops a few paces behind.

She stands still a while with her head tilted back. Even from his distance, he can tell that she's drinking in the sight of the Aoi-ya.

Seconds pass by, lengthen into minutes. And then she moves forward. He watches her spider-crawl the Aoi-ya walls, her motions certain and economical.

He wants to ask what she's doing, why she's doing it. But he's not sure she could explain. He's not sure he would understand if she did.

So he watches her pull a broken shingle from the roof. He traces her path with his eyes as she descends. A mixture of regret, of sorrow, of pride tightens the inside of his chest as he follows her back to the Shirobeko.

It's not difficult to slide her door open without her hearing.

She wraps the tile in a length of stained, tattered cloth. It's barely more than a bundle of rags.

But Aoshi's seen too much, been Oniwabanshuu too long, not to recognize a blood-stained uniform.

He closes her door in the same instant she closes the chest. He has trespassed. Whatever his intentions, this was a betrayal of trust.

He cycles through the possible meanings, the possible origins, of that ruined uniform on the way back to his room. He doesn't like anything he comes up with.

iii.

The dissatisfaction at invading Misao's privacy lingers sour. He contemplates apologizing, but cannot convince himself to acknowledge the possibilities circling in his head. And he knows: if he apologizes, he'll ask. If he asks, she'll tell him - whether or not she's ready.

He will not hurt her in that way. He doesn't ask. He doesn't apologize.

But still, the worries and the regrets stay with him.

They only worsen when she brings him bedding for his futon. She squeaks, blushes, as he takes what will be his bed from her hand. It would amuse him, would warm him low and smooth, if he wasn't simultaneously seeing her wrap a broken shingle in a ruined uniform and collapse to her knees after he nearly killed Okina.

She turns to go and he lets her.

Almost.

He says her name, softly. But she immediately snaps into a half-turn, looks up at him with a fragile expression; he's suddenly struck by the image of jerking a dog's leash.

"Aoshi-sama?"

"The roof tile. Why keep it?"

It's not until she smiles at him, open and free as she's always been, that the worry rests.

"I learned things and met people worth remembering."

The stone knot of new sins eases.

iv.

Aoshi knows something is wrong when she's so tired she's all but stumbling and tries to tell him that she can keep going. Misao trembles as they enter the town's only inn, and his certainty only grows. Dread writhes in his stomach.

He isn't sure what to expect, so he stops trying to plan for possibilities and just starts planning contingencies. The gruffly well-intended condescension of the innkeep manages to startle him nonetheless.

"Good for you, travelling with a bit more protection these days."

She needed it? Of course she needed it; she's young, she's female, she was unaccompanied. But the way the old woman says it -

He writes it off as an old woman's bitterness at her children.

Until, in the midst of her chatter, she adds, "My only girl wasn't quite so lucky as yours here."

His breath freezes in his lungs for an instant. He wants to demand she explain herself. Instead he only turns to watch her closely.

"She died three years ago. And then I met yours about a year after that. Nice child. It's always the nice ones, really."

Aoshi begins fitting pieces together: Misao hates this town. Misao was here two years ago. Misao is lucky to be alive. Misao has a bloodstained tatter of a uniform hidden away in her room.

He doesn't like where those pieces lead him. The old woman warns Misao to stay off the streets and that's just another piece, clicking into awful place inside his head. He clenches his hands into fists, then relaxes when Misao turns to look at him.

His anger is not for her. He will not frighten her with it.

He never wants her to be afraid again.

v.

Even with his heart still in his chest and every muscle aching to destroy whatever has left Misao so afraid of this place, he doesn't ask. If he asks, she'll tell him.

If his suspicions are right, she needs privacy. She needs space.

He'll give it to her.

Through the night, they fight over the shutter, though they never exchange words about it. It's a hot, sticky night. He wants the shutter open to let the breeze in, to better hear the town's traffic. For some reason, she wants it closed.

She closes it once he's laid out the futons, then picks her way through perfect darkness across the room. She must be navigating by ear; she never brushes against him, never missteps.

He opens it a crack after her breathing has evened into sleep.

He wakes, covered in a layer of sweat. He frowns as he rises from bed. His yukata sticks to his skin; he has to shrug his shoulders more than once to dislodge it.

He cracks the window again. In the hazy moonlight, the town looks peaceful. Just a sleepy, foggy village in summer. Nothing threatening here.

Misao stirs in her sleep. The sound of her movement draws his attention. She whimpers low in her throat and he's all but riveted. She never was a neat sleeper, and tonight's no exception. At some point, she cast aside her blankets, and now tosses and turns on a sparse futon.

She kicks out in her sleep. It's a harsh, fast jerk of her right leg. It's clearly not a normal aimless sleep-motion; her kick has purpose, even if that purpose only exists in her dream.

Despite whatever purpose it served her, it parts her yukata. Fabric slides along her legs with a whispering sound.

Aoshi's eyes trace the line of her ankle, the curve and swell of her calf, the smooth expanse of her thigh. When she moves again, he tries to tear his gaze away. He should return to bed. He should stop stealing glances of -

Is that a shadow, or is that...?

A scar, he realizes. A blade scar: one medium-long, mostly straight line, thick at one end but gradually thinning. It starts on the very inside of her right thigh and stops halfway down.

Someone stuck a knife in her thigh and dragged it down. He's seen too much not to know.

He crosses the room, sorts through her blankets until he finds the thinnest. She stirs without waking as he spreads the sheet over her.

Before he returns to bed, he closes the shutter.

v.

Aoshi wakes early, even by his usual standards. Fragments of last night's nightmares rattle around his thoughts, shifting like ice floes, crashing against each other. Each fragmented image is uniquely horrifying.

He forces himself to breathe slowly, deeply. His lungs ache for more air, even though he knows he's getting plenty. It's a strangling feeling inside his chest.

So he closes his eyes and examines each image, as dispassionately as he can, to determine what disturbs him and set it aside. Omasu, gagged, with candlewax dripping along her legs, eyes wide and face pale from the pain. Shikijou, his arms bearing so many cuts from the battle that the skin hangs like ribbons. Shiro and Kuro, each bent to one knee, each bound to the decapitated and maggoty corpse of an informant.

Hyottoko retching into a barrel after a mishap with an oil refil, his eyes wide in fear and horror and, yes, the burning.

Hannya, pale and cold and still, but clearly satisfied with his death.

Okon, eyes glazed, face battered, blood dripping between her thighs, breathing hitched from broken ribs, found with her legs forced apart.

Disturbing as each is, the nightmares aren't new. He's been dreaming horrors for years.

He opens his eyes again, rolls enough to nudge the window shutter with his foot. It opens easily. Pre-dawn light begins to seep into the room.

He rolls back, half-heartedly re-adjusts his blankets as he turns to face Misao. Her sleep has finally eased. She rests peacefully, her breathing smooth and even, her face relaxed.

Tonight was her debut in the theater of his nightmares. He closes his eyes, tries to examine the fragments objectively. But the conjectures his mind created are torturous. He cannot think of her writhing to escape some faceless captor's grasp without his stomach churning. The image of a knife plunging into her thigh, dragging along her skin while blood wells to follow, leaves him light-headed with despair, lights fury in his chest, makes his hands shake with the desire to kill.

He opens his eyes to watch her sleep. A smile begins to curl along her lips, curving teasingly, and he wonders what she sees. He focuses on her smile, times his breaths to match hers.

The tightness in his chest, the ache of strangulation, finally subsides.

He watches her wake, too. Her eyes drift open, blink a few times. She yawns, lifting a hand to half-cover her mouth.

He halfway mourns the loss of her sleeping smile, but she smiles when she sees him, and it's a full one. Beshimi once remarked that Misao could pour a year's worth of joy into a second's curve of her mouth.

Aoshi fully agrees.

Now that she's awake, he should start the day. He sits up, shakes his head as if that will cast aside the remains of the night.

He can pinpoint the exact instant she realizes he's awake: her eyes widen, her smile disappears as her lips part in surprise. She begins to blush.

"Were you... waiting for me to wake up?" Her voice is tentative, almost shy.

"No," he tells her. He looks at her a moment, considers telling her that he enjoys watching her sleep. He discards the thought quickly. If she blushes any fiercer than she is now, she'll pass out.

She turns her back to him without saying anything else.

He blinks at the abruptness of it, then realizes what she was expecting. He can't help but wonder if she's turning because she thinks he wants her to, or because she doesn't want to see.

He weighs possibilities, reads the taut line of her body. She's tense, stiff, but not trembling, not giving any of her usual fear tells.

It's the absence of fear that decides him.

He wants to tell her that there's no shame in attraction, that whatever has happened leaves no sin on her shoulders. But he can't find the right words - if there even are right words - and it's not his to speak of. Not until she's comfortable enough to tell him.

He steps around her, shrugs into his undershirt, then the outer gi of his uniform.

He turns his head just barely enough to see her in the corner of his eye as he gathers their bags. Her eyes are wide, her lips parted, a faint blush creeping over her cheeks.

He shuts the shoji door, leans his back against the wall beside it, and waits.

She emerges quickly, in uniform and with her yukata folded in neat corners. A moment passes as she packs it away, and then they descend the stairs.

Now that she's closer to him, is awake and moving, she seems more relaxed.

"You must have been up early, Aoshi-sama. Did you not sleep well?"

"Well enough," he says.

She looks up at him for a moment. Her eyes are sorrowful, but the gentle curve to her lips makes the expression tender rather than pitying. "The usual nightmares, huh?"

"Aa," he says. No need to inform her that she's the newest addition.

She seems sad a moment. Almost wistful. But then a mischievous smile lights her face. "Well, it's morning now. I'm sure the sunlight will chase all that away."

He almost says 'for a while,' but thinks better of it. Instead, he pauses on the stairs, cycling through variant phrasings. At least he settles on, "Misao, are you taking ill?"

She stares at him. "Uhm, no, Aoshi-sama?"

"Ah. I'd assumed, when you kept closing the shutter..." He let the sentence trail off.

She flushes, waves two hands in front of her face. "No, no, it's nothing like that! I just never sleep with the shutter open. I don't even do it at home."

The knot of unease returns, distinct like the gap where a roof ends and the twenty-foot leap begins. Or at least distinct as the difference between tile and nothingness, after that first fatal misstep off the roof has been taken.

That knot only grows when they enter the main courtyard. They stop on the engawa to pull on their shoes, and all the while Misao's eyes flick first from the doctor speaking with the okami to a young man speaking with a middle-aged woman. He notes a mild physical resemblance in their faces and a stronger one in the way both men stand.

A doctor and his son? He recalls the size of the scar on her leg, the length, and the knot tightens, burns cold dread in the pit of his stomach. He thinks of the same hands that wounded her stitching her back together and he's not cold anymore. Fury boils a fever through his veins.

The doctor must catch sight of her. He breaks away from his conversation with the okami and moves toward them. His mouth curls into something like a smile, but the smile is edged. It's not a greeting; it's a threat.

"Misao-chan," he says.

She stiffens at the sound of his voice. Aoshi's gaze flicks down briefly, and he suppresses a frown when he realizes that she's looking past the doctor at his son.

The doctor laughs. The jovial sound seems calculated to show good humor while allowing him to take up more space. "I must say I didn't expect to see you back in this town, Misao-chan."

More pieces click together: an intimidation tactic. The unfrinedly smile, the laugh, the use of the diminutive - it's all an act performed to frighten Misao.

Whether Misao has been assaulted or not, whether it was the doctor or his son, the doctor knows. Knows, and is using it to -

Combat reflexes make him tense nearly invisibly, ready to attack without telegraphing intent. Anger spurs him to make the tension visible, to bristle as he places himself between Misao and the doctor.

"Just passing through, Tanaka-sensei," she tells him without looking up.

The very idea of Misao becoming meek is like being plunged into icy water: so cold that he burns inside, and outside, and every breath shudders. But the actual sight of Misao unable to meet someone's eyes unbalances him, unhinges him, makes his fists ache with desires he doesn't want to name.

Though her voice would be merry, 'tis sighing all the day,
Oh, hard times, come again no more.
-Stephen C. Foster, "Hard Times, Come Again No More"