Ice

I thought I wasn’t going to be able to see you tonight!” Okon materialized out of the shadows and flowed into Aoshi’s arms, her lips sweet and yielding on his.

He let himself sink into her sweetness. She felt so wonderful, firm and soft at once, rounded where he was flat and hard, pressed against him with the little wriggle that made him feel like he was on fire. Her hair smelled like flowers.

“I have a lot more to do now that the Okashira’s so ill,” he explained. “But I’ll always find time to see you, Okon.”

“Aoshi,” she sighed. “What’s going to happen to us? The Okashira’s dying… gossip in the Great Interior says the Shogun’s considering surrender… are we going to be disbanded?”

Would that be so bad? Just a peaceful, ordinary life with Okon… keep an inn or something… no spying, no fighting… but… “I wouldn’t worry, Okon. No matter who rules, Shogun or Emperor, they’ll still need guards and spies. Now with the foreigners coming in, there’s never been a greater need for onmitsu. Who knows?” He gave her another kiss. ”Maybe someday we’ll go to the foreigners’ countries ourselves. Would you like that? Get on one of those huge ships and sail away?”

She snuggled closer. “I’d like anyplace if you were there, Aoshi… what the –?!” Okon grabbed at the ends of her suddenly-untied sash. A giggle floated back on the night air, and Aoshi thought he saw the end of a braid whisk around the corner. “Why, that little weasel!”

The evening breeze was cool on his chest. She’d gotten both of them! Aoshi reached back to retie his own sash. “Misao’s getting good, isn’t she?”

“She only does stuff like that when we’re together,” Okon fumed. “Honestly, I swear she’s jealous!”

“She’s only a little girl, Okon. How can a child be jealous?”

“She may be a little girl, but when it comes to you she has a woman’s heart. She adores you, and I don’t think you realize just how possessive little girls can be.”

“Aa, but I do know about big girls…”

“How are you feeling, old friend?” Okina dropped to his knees beside the Okashira’s futon.

The old man opened his eyes.“I was thinking about when we were young, when Madoka was alive. We had some times, didn’t we?”

“That we did. Are you still in pain? Do you want anything?”

“No, the pain’s gone. Even that yabu-isha thinks it won’t be long now, and I’m looking forward to seeing Madoka again. I just wanted to talk with you one last time… to make sure the Oniwabanshuu are in good hands.”

Okina was silent for a long moment. “Ano… I don’t think mine are the best hands, Okashira.”

“You’re the best, the most experienced.”

“My experience is all in the past. Japan is changing, and the Oniwabanshuu need to change with it. We have new challenges now, the foreigners, the outside world, maybe a new kind of government. We need a fresh perspective, and younger eyes than mine.”

The old Okashira’s mouth twitched. “Who are you thinking of?”

“Shinomori-kun.”

“He’s a boy!”

“That wasn’t what you said two years ago, when an Ishin assassin tried to sneak into the palace and that boy not only caught the fellow, but turned him. Shinomori’s got a real gift for leadership; he’s already recruited our strongest team. And I don’t think his youth is that much of a disadvantage. This is a time for the young. You’ve had my reports of what’s been happening in Kyoto, but you haven’t seen. The leaders who are probably going to rule the new era are young men. The next Emperor won’t be any older than Shinomori. Okashira, if you choose me my first act will be to step down and name him in my place.”

The old man closed his eyes and sighed. “Aa, but what will the responsibility do to him? He’s already such a serious young fellow. To burden him with leading the Oniwabanshuu into the new era…”

“Now, now. I’m not retiring, after all. I’ll still be around to advise him. And he has those four recruits of his – Shikijou’s a smart enough fellow, and that Hannya may look like a nightmare, but he’s got his head on right – and then, have you noticed what’s going on between him and Okon-chan?”

“Okon? I’d had hopes for him and Misao, eventually… but I guess you can’t expect a fellow his age to wait for a little girl to grow up, na?”

He stopped speaking then and closed his eyes. Okina listened to the harsh breaths, the silences between growing imperceptibly longer. The lamp cast flickering shadows over the walls. They looked almost like the shadows of a young man, and a young woman with him… eventually the breathing stopped altogether. Okina slid the fusuma aside and motioned to one of the trainees, a young girl called Omasu.

“Bring me Shinomori-kun.”

Okashira.

The word sliced into Aoshi’s belly and closed freezing talons around his guts. In the quiet of his favorite refuge, a tiny and seldom-used chashitsu, he folded himself into zazen and tried to empty his mind, tried to find the quiet place within himself where he could no longer hear the clamoring voices in his head, where he could no longer feel the fear.

He’d known there would be a change of leadership; Makimachi’s illness had been growing steadily worse for months. But he’d assumed, as probably all the Oniwabanshuu had, that Okina would be their next leader. Even though he had an idea that he was being groomed for the post, he’d assumed he would have years to grow into it. Years in the field, years to gain experience and earn the respect of the men he would have to lead. Men who had never worked with him, who didn’t know him, who were going to resent taking orders from a fifteen-year-old boy.

But now…

Now he was the one they would look to. He was the one who was going to have to reshape the Oniwabanshuu to meet the demands of the new era, to gain information about the foreigners and their countries’ real aims, to survive under a new and unfamiliar form of government. He was the one who had to choose who would undertake what mission. He was the one who would send men out to kill… and to die.

He was terrified.

He concentrated on emptying his mind, focused on his breathing. Slowly, his spirit calmed. He embraced the ice clenching his guts and felt it spread through his entire being, lending crystalline purity to his thoughts. He wrapped himself in detachment, allowing no emotion to taint the clarity of his thinking. Alone… isolated… self-sufficient…

The fear faded, and only confidence remained.

A rush of footsteps and breathing, and then Okon was beside him, her arms around him and her lips searching for his, warm and flower-scented. ”Aoshi! I just heard! Are they really naming you as Okashira?”

“Aa.”

“That’s wonderful!” She hugged him again, almost knocking him over in her enthusiasm.

“Okon… please stop it.”

She stopped. “Aoshi? What’s wrong?”

“I… the Okashira can’t have favorites, Okon.”

She drew back as if he had struck her. “What do you mean?”

Emotions were trying to well up under the icy armor. They hurt. He pushed them down. Center. Breathe. ”If you’re the best person for a mission, I’ll have to send you. No matter what. Even if it means you have to pillow with the target… even if it means you could be killed… I’ll have to send you. That’s why I can’t… let you mean any more to me than anyone else.”

“But… Madoka Makimachi went on missions after she was married…”

“Not after Makimachi-san became Okashira, she didn’t,” Aoshi retorted. ”And we don’t have enough women in the field as it is. Please, Okon, this is the way it has to be. Don’t make it any harder.”

“Fine.” She stood up, fists clenched at her sides, eyes burning. ”If that’s the way it has to be, then I am… at your disposal. Okashira.” She put all the venom she could muster into the honorific.

Aoshi watched her stalk away. “Okon…” I know I made the right decision. So why does it hurt so much? He returned to his meditations, seeking the calm place inside him again, wrapping himself in crystalline, icy, perfect, logical clarity…

“Aoshi-niichan! Aoshi-niichan!”

“Now, Misao, what did I tell you? Aoshi is Okashira now, you need to be more respectful.”

The little girl didn’t notice the poisonous edge in Okon’s voice. “Aoshi-sama! Hannya taught me a kata, for real! Wanna see how good I can do it?” Without waiting for permission, Misao went into the simple moves of the Oniwabanshuu kempo style’s most basic kata. She finished the form and stared at Aoshi, begging for his approval.

“I’m sorry, Misao, I didn’t see. Could you do it again? Slower, please?”

She nodded, executed a hasty bow, and began again.

“Turn your foot out more, it will make the pivot easier. And you need to stop the block a little sooner, it’s your middle you’re trying to protect.”

“Did I do it right that time, Aoshi-sama? Did I?”

“Much better. Keep practicing, Misao-chan.” He couldn’t help smiling in spite of his resolve to keep an impassive face, the little girl’s enthusiasm was so contagious. It made him feel warm and happy inside, as she always did – even more so, after the encounter with Okon.

Okon. The smile settled back into impassivity, the warmth in his heart faded to cold, dead ashes. That’s why I can’t let you mean any more to me than anyone else. It had been simple with Okon.

It wouldn’t be as simple with Misao. He knew that as surely as he knew the sun would rise in the morning.

Could I ever do it? Would I ever be able to order Misao on a mission, knowing she might be hurt? Killed? Knowing she might have to…

It was within his power to forbid her training, to send her away, out of the clan, to be raised by ordinary people, to grow up as an ordinary girl. But he couldn’t do that either.

A bakemono ate my parents… I want to be strong so’s I can kill the bakemono myself. He couldn’t deny her that.

The era was changing. Maybe… just maybe… by the time she grew up, there would be no need. No need to send her out to dirty her soul or her hands… no need for the Oniwabanshuu.

He watched the eager little girl practice her kata, and hoped she would never need it.

NOTES, EXPLANATIONS ETC.

Having presupposed an Aoshi/Okon relationship, I sort of had to write something about it. It just sort of came to me while I was working on some other stuff that Aoshi and Okon, being more or less of an age, might have had something going as teenagers. Even Tsurara-san has hormones. (After Fox and Sakka, all I can say is wow does he ever have hormones!) Call it a sort of transition between Bakemono and Teruterubouzu. Canon doesn’t name Misao’s grandparents; I called her grandmother Madoka because every Madoka I’ve ever seen was hell on wheels.

Yabu-isha: literally, “thicket-doctor.” A hedge-doctor or quack. In actual fact, the Okashira would probably have been treated by the best physician in Edo – but there’s not much even the best doctor can do for old age, and well, Makimachi-san sort of came out as an opinionated old coot.

Great Interior: the women’s quarters of the Shogun’s palace. The impending changes would have been the subject of a great deal of rumor.

Chashitsu: A building or room used for tea ceremonies. What I have in mind is a small pavilion in a garden, not in terribly good repair because it is so seldom used.

Bakemono: ghost or demon. See my previous fic of that title.