Removed – Chapter 22

The next morning, I wake up, get dressed, grab my bag, and go to the kitchen to have breakfast. Once again, Aunt Lomo is alone at the table. Huh.

“Where’s Aunt Kimie? Still in bed?” I load up a bowl of rice and grab some cold miso soup from the fridge. Mmmm, nothing like a good breakfast to start the day.

“No, sweetie. Strangest thing. Kimie was up again early and left five minutes ago while you were in the bathroom.”

I stop stock-still, chopsticks paused in mid-air.

“She was mumbling about getting something done. You know how incoherent she can be in the mornings.”

Yes, and for Aunt Kimie to want to wake up and leave several mornings in a row before eight, she must have something pressing to do, like stopping me from continuing to work with Sakai. Stopping me completely from going to Ku 6 ever again. Stopping me from seeing Jiro.

“Uh, I’ve gotta go.” I drop my bowl on the counter with a clang, the chopsticks bouncing off into the sink.

“Oi! Sanaa, be careful,” Aunt Lomo’s cries are muffled as I beat a hasty retreat from the apartment, sprint down the stairs, and burst onto the streets of Ku 9.

If I’m quick enough… if I run flat out, I might catch Aunt Kimie before she makes it to the dōjō. What is she going to say to Sakai? Would she expressly forbid me from ever seeing him again? I can’t let her do that. She owes me as much of an explanation about my life as Sakai does.

The dōjō is on the other side of our neighborhood. Why does it have to be so far away? Aunt Kimie probably took a bicycle taxi. She’s way ahead of me by now.

Too many people are on the street this morning. I sprint three blocks and turn onto the main boulevard and some crazy person is trying to hold up a produce delivery. I nearly punch him when he finally gets out of the way. He’s lucky there are too many witnesses. I have eight more blocks to go on this street before I turn the corner, and I run them as fast as I can. I’m dodging in and out of people and almost knock over a little girl who steps in front of me. Sorry!

When I turn the corner, I finally get so impatient I shove past everyone and run up the last two blocks. The dōjō entrance is right in front of me, so I sprint full-out to the door and up the stairs. The sound of a heated argument inside brings me up short outside the dōjō door. Ouch! Oh my gods, my body hurts. Damn Jiro and his furious sword fighting workouts.

I will my breath to calm and my heartbeat to slow down — which is incredibly hard to do — until I’m able to listen in. If I can’t stop Aunt Kimie right away, I’m going to eavesdrop until I can figure out what’s happening.

“What is going on with Sanaa?” Aunt Kimie pleads. “She hasn’t been going to work. I’ve tried to surprise and meet her a dozen times in the past few months. Now I follow her around, and I see her come here in the morning… to meet you. You! Of all people, Mark Sakai. I told you to stay away. We had an agreement.”

“Kimie, please. The colonization is beginning early, and I had to act fast…”

“I’m so scared for her. They’ll find her. We tried to hide. We moved wards three times!”

“There is no place you could go where they would not find you. Junko knew that. She always knew Sanaa would be pulled into this someday. She was prepared to raise her straight into it.”

“Don’t you dare talk about my sister like you knew her. She loved Max. She chose to be with him, not you.”

My heart quickens again.

“What happened between me and Junko and Max is none of your business!”

I’ve never heard Sakai yell like this. He’s usually so expressionless, ruling by quiet fear and judicious use of eyebrows, not by screaming.

Silence permeates the room, and I can hear my own heartbeat and ragged breathing. Do I go in now?

“Kimie, she preserved the line. She followed the law. She kept the line intact for Sanaa. She told me to make sure Sanaa understood her heritage and her rights. She trusted both you and me, but I should never have let her grow up anywhere but Ku 6. That was a mistake.”

What the hell is Sakai talking about? Law? What is this?

Aunt Kimie must be stunned into silence because Sakai continues at a lower volume. “She never married him. Just like your mother never married and her mother and her mother. Did you really think Junko did that because she didn’t want Sanaa to continue the line after she was gone? She loved Max, much to my dismay, but she loved her people more than any one man.”

“People. Those people would hunt Sanaa down and kill her to be rid of the line once and for all,” Aunt Kimie says.

“We won’t let that happen. Sakai clan has always protected the Kiku, and we will continue to do it until the end of time.”

Again, the talk of kiku. My Japanese is good, as good as any born in Nishikyō, but maybe this is a term or thing I’m just unfamiliar with. I’m tempted to get out my tablet and conduct a search, but Aunt Kimie starts back up again.

“She’s just a child — a smart and capable child — but still. How?” Though Aunt Kimie might be crying, I’m offended. A child? I’m twenty years old. There are other girls my age getting married and having babies. “No, no. I must move her farther away. We’ll hide out in Ku 10 if we have to…”

Oh no, this cannot go any further. Without thinking, I burst through the doors, and both Sakai and Aunt Kimie whirl around to see me seething with anger.

“Sanaa, you’re late… by about five minutes.” Sakai’s foot taps as he crosses his arms. I was expected.

“We’re not going anywhere, Aunt Kimie, and I am not a child anymore.”

“Sanaa…”

“No! I’ve been living in the shadows of secrets and lies now for too long. I thought my life was normal. But it turns out it is very far from that, and all because both of you have been hiding information from me. I demand… no. I deserve to know what’s going on.”

They both love me, but they each have conflicting ideas of how I should live my life. Jiro’s words echo in my head. When did it stop being my life to live?

“This has been the most confusing year ever, and you both are not making it any easier. I essentially gave up the job I wanted to do since I was a little girl because I had no choice. I’m convinced it was the right thing to do even though Mark still refuses to tell me everything.” I turn my hardest stare on Sakai.

“He’s told you nothing? Nothing of our family?” Shock tinges the edges of Aunt Kimie’s voice.

“No.”

“Nothing about your parents’ deaths?” she asks.

“No.”

“What have you been doing all of this time?”

“Watching the clans in Ku 6. Learning all the key players. Training.”

Aunt Kimie narrows her eyes at me. Oops, she’s not happy about the training.

“Iaido,” I squeak out.

“Who?” She turns on Sakai. “Who has been teaching her sword fighting? Mark, it’s worse than I thought. You? Your brother?”

“My youngest nephew, and he’s quite capable.”

“Jiro,” she says, nodding, and I’m shocked into silence. She knows them all. “This explains a lot.” Aunt Kimie sighs. She seems smaller all of a sudden. Beaten. “Mark, this is way out of my hands now. How could you do this without asking me?”

“Would you have said yes?” he asks.

Aunt Kimie shakes her head and picks up her bag. “No, but having a choice is better than no choice at all. Tell her. Tell her everything. Stop lying to her. I was wrong. She’s a woman now. She deserves the truth.” She turns and leaves the room without another word, not even looking at me.

As soon as Aunt Kimie is gone, I burst into tears. I can barely look at Sakai, and I’m afraid I’m going to lash out at him again if I do. But as quickly as the murderous feelings arise, they are replaced just as hastily by regrets. My actions have brought this on, and I’ve disappointed Sakai in a significant way. Before yesterday, he wasn’t prepared to tell me anything for quite some time. Now I’ve forced him to.

He takes a big breath and sighs before enveloping me in a hug. We’ve had physical closeness on a few occasions but something about this makes me cry even harder. I love him, as much as I love Aunt Kimie or Lomo. I feel like an ass when I remember the way I goaded him in the beginning.

“I’m so sorry, Mark. I tried to keep the secret, and it must have been my own actions that gave me away.”

“No, no. This was bound to happen.”

His chest shakes, and when I pull back to look at him, he’s laughing, but his face is still clouded by sadness.

“Kimie,” he sighs. “She does not let go of an idea once she has it in her head. Tenacious to the last.” He gives my shoulders a small squeeze. “When we first met, I was worried being only half-Japanese would make you less resilient somehow, but I was wrong. You have your father’s fire, too. He was a good man. Though I wanted your mother for myself, I was relieved she’d chosen someone smart and strong.”

He turns to grab his bag.

“Sanaa, I have hidden you for most of your life. I have given you every ounce of protection I could, but someday, someone was going to figure out all my deceptions. I had no idea you would look so much like your mother, and it would give us away. I have many important things to show you, and there are things only Kimie can tell you. But you have studied the clans for a reason. You know the history of Old Japan?”

“Yes, mainly Heian period to the Environmental Decline.” I twist my hands together in fear, wanting to go back in time and not know anything.

“We can never beat the clans. They will always rise and fall. They will always fight each other for the opportunity to rule.”

The history of Old Japan was a long and turbulent one. Though my strengths have been in numbers and math, I’m also good with dates and names. History is my second love after the sciences, and I’ve read numerous books on the old civilizations including a few on Japan.

Sakai puts his hand on my back and leads me to the door. “For centuries, the clans in Japan enacted one war after another, taking hostages, doing battle on the field, killing thousands. There were the samurai, the nobles, the peasants, the outcasts, and the caste system. But that all came to an end after the Tokugawa Shōgunate, remember?”

“Yes, they ceased fighting and united under the Emperor, and he ruled until World War Two.”

“That’s right. Well, it’s time for unification to come again.”