Reunited – Chapter 30

There’s not much I can tell about my trip across the continent. I wake up from a drugged sleep, my body flung over a horse I’m sure I’ve been on for hours on end. My ribs and pelvis are bruised and so painful I can barely breathe. My hands are bound in front of me and sting when I move them. I pass out and wake blindfolded in some sort of large container box. I’m in this cramped space for a few hours during which I can hear an echo around me, the smell of wet metal is so strong I want to puke, and I can tell by shuffling noises and harsh whispers I’m surrounded by other people.

When I’m moved from the container, I’m commanded to sit on horseback blindfolded while someone sits behind me. I think I’m riding with Kazuo. His voice sounds familiar. He keeps one arm around my waist the whole time, and from the strength of his grip, I think he’s been awake for longer than we were told. I wonder where Sachi is.

After an hour we arrive at a camp. Voices swim all around me, speaking the mix of English and Japanese I was used to in Nishikyō. Horses whinny and dogs bark; the clanking sounds of metal pots are on my left and men talking on my right. A few people applaud as I ride past. My stomach sinks, and I break into a sweat. They laugh as I sit up straighter.

“Trying to be brave, Sanaa?” Kazuo whispers in my ear. I’m sure it’s him now. I don’t answer. “Fine. Don’t talk to me.”

“Why should I talk to you?”

He squeezes me around my waist and laughs. I don’t like the way his fingers curl over my side.

“I’m getting ready to lay my money on the table, but I’m undecided,” he says at my ear.

What?

“Well, she’s finally here. I didn’t expect you to take so long to give up, Sanaa. You waited till the last minute.” I’m not sure who this is, but the voice belongs to a woman. Not Sachi. Her voice was low and rumbling last time we sparred except for her high-pitched cackle. This woman’s voice is familiar, though.

Kazuo brings the horse to a halt. I wonder when he learned to ride a horse.

“Sanaa, put your hands here.” He takes my hands and places them on the saddle. “Hold on until I tell you how to get off.” His breath tickles my ear, and his warm hands land on my hips to keep me in place. He’s being awfully touchy and kind for a hired assassin.

“She looks like a tiny child all blindfolded.” The woman snickers and a blush starts on my neck. “Getting angry, Sanaa?”

I ignore her and wait with my hands on the saddle. Kazuo slides off behind me, takes my hands off, and then pulls me down, my hands in one of his and his arm around my waist. I weigh nothing to him, and I groan as my feet hit the ground. My body is a wreck.

“Wait a minute, this is it? Where are the other hostages?” she asks.

“No other hostages. Just Sanaa,” Kazuo replies.

“You were supposed to grab her family, too!”

“It wasn’t possible.”

A short scuffle erupts during which I’m jostled around, and I crouch down to get out of the way. Eventually Kazuo growls, “Don’t touch me.”

He’s angry, and I hope he doesn’t take it out on me.

Kazuo leads me forward. I try to walk and not trip. Wet grass brushes just above my ankles against my Nishikyō gray pants, and they grow damp and stick to my legs. I was kidnapped in the pants, an undershirt, and a bra, but at some point, someone slipped a larger shirt on me. Around me are hushed voices, murmuring so low I can’t hear what they say. A breeze kicks up, and I hear the sharp snap of fabric in the wind.

Another few steps and Kazuo stops, lets go of my hands, and puts his hand on my shoulder, pushing down. “Seiza,” he directs, right in my ear. I collapse down on my knees in the wet grass and wait. The blindfold is plucked from my face and bright light streams into my eyes. They water and burn while I blink my vision into focus.

I’m in a field of grass surrounded by an encasement. I think these fabric walls are called jinmaku, literally ‘battle curtains,’ and they fence me in on all sides. They’re three meters tall, bright maroon with a large, white Taira butterfly kamon printed on each panel. Directly in front of me, sitting on a small folding stool is Tomio Miura, head of clan Taira. I haven’t seen him since my time in Nishikyō before the earthquake and fight that sent me to the hospital, then the desert. He’s thinner and so is his hair, silver gray now when it used to be black, and tied up at the back of his head. His face is sharp, angles at the chin and cheeks that weren’t present before hibernation, and he’s wearing a black kimono with his family butterfly crest stitched over the left breast.

Emiko Matsuda, the old head of the Department of Colonization and wife to my old enemy, Tadao, stands next to him in a red kimono, her long graying hair in a strict bun at her neck. She laughs and now I place her as the voice of the woman who greeted me when Kazuo rode up.

“Sanaa Itami,” Miura growls. He snaps a closed fan on his knee before smirking at me. “Your time has come. Are you going to command me to bow now?”

Looking around the tent, I identify a few of Miura’s top men who I know by sight but not by name, Nobu and Yukio Yamamoto which must mean Risa is here too. When I turn, she’s standing next to Sachi Uchiyama and two other women in their twenties I can only guess are Miura’s daughters, Naomi and Yuka. I know them by name and not sight. My time in theater 3B in Ku 1 could have been more thorough.

I glance to my right, see Minamoto, and my heart up and dies. How did this traitorous man give genes to one of the nicest and most loyal guys I know? Kentaro must have been raised entirely by his mother. And he’s not here, I don’t think. Did he find his father yesterday?

“If you’d like to bow,” I counter, “I’d be more than happy to watch.”

“How about you bow to me?” His smile is small, but his laugh betrays how ecstatic he is to have me on my knees.

I roll my eyes and bow forward, placing my bound hands in front of me, and then sit up.

“How does it feel, Sanaa Itami, to be next in line for the throne and then have to bow to me?”

“Bowing costs me nothing. It only means something to men like you.”

“Men like me?”

“Men with small dicks and even smaller brains.” The words are out of my mouth before I can check myself. Emiko jumps forward and smacks me straight across the face even though several people around me titter and laugh. My cheek stings; my eyes water. I throw my hair back and look him in the eyes again.

“She has a smart mouth. We should gag her.” Emiko steps to Miura’s side. I can hardly believe this is the same woman who sat in Robert Starr’s office and told me not to worry when my job was taken away, the day I was instructed to meet up with Sakai for the first time. She’s not the same person anymore, or maybe she was never sympathetic to begin with.

“Don’t bother.” Miura turns to one of the men by his side. “Bring in the boy and his mother.”

The jinmaku open and two men escort in Kohaku and Hiro. Their hands are bound behind their backs, and besides looking completely distressed, they’re in good health. Good. I did the right thing.

Kohaku makes brief eye contact with me. Her eyes are red and her face pale. Hiro immediately jumps forward, struggling against the guard holding him.

“Sanaa! You brought this on yourself! This is what happens when girls carry swords!”

Sachi and Risa laugh, and I sigh and close my eyes. Shut up, Hiro. You’re making this worse.

“Miss Itami, you gave yourself up for people who despise you. How does that make you feel?”

“I believe the deal was that I give myself up and you let them go.”

“I made no such bargain.” He smiles at me, and I groan inside. Two-faced lying bastard.

My entire lower body is now wet from sitting in this grass, and I have to pee. I’m losing my concentration because I’m so uncomfortable. Make this quick, Sanaa.

“Why am I not surprised, Miura? You have no honor. These people don’t even know who I am. It’s to your advantage to let them go.”

Miura leans forward and lets the fan dangle between his shins, tapping one and then the other, back and forth. “The boy knows who you are.”

“Do you think I go around telling the native population who I really am? I was happy to live in anonymity and would have forever if this hadn’t happened.” This is true. The truer I am with my negotiations, the better this will go for me. I’m still a terrible liar.

“I cannot allow you to rule here, Sanaa Itami. I find your entire bloodline to be repulsive and a threat to my family. You have two choices. Listen well.”

Miura turns around and a man steps forward, placing something in his hand. He gets up from his chair and stands in front of me, bending over and setting a dagger on the ground in front of me.

“You may either take your own life or you can hand yourself over to Fujiwara. We’ll be meeting him in three days time and he has interesting ideas of what he’d like to do with you. Once he heard about your… family… his eyes lit up. I suspect he either wants to kill you with his own hands or breed more of you. It’s hard to say. He’s a little psychotic.”

“Sounds familiar,” I chirp. “Sure you’re not related?”

This time he steps forward and strikes me across the other side of my face, and the pain is blinding. I want to cry and feel the tears jump to my eyes before I can stop them, but I let the dragon heaving in my chest loose instead. I lift my hands to my cheek and my fingers come away bloody. Miura is wearing a ring with diamonds in it, probably for this very reason.

“Look at big, bad Miura striking a girl who is unable to defend herself. You’re a model for your whole clan.” I stare up into his eyes, defiant. Go ahead and strike me again, Miura. From the way your daughters gasped behind me, I suspect you’re not winning over the crowd right now.

He hates me. He doesn’t blink, but his chest pumps air in and out at a clipped rate. I’m pissing him off.

Kohaku and Hiro stare at me wide-eyed. I can’t even guess what they may be thinking.

“What will you do with them?” I jerk my chin at Kohaku and Hiro, and they freeze.

“I’m holding onto them. You need proper motivation to make the right decision.”

Three days. I have three days before Fujiwara. I can hold them off for three days. I’m strong. I can do it. It’ll be enough time to decide whether or not I will be rescued by Sakai and Jiro.

“Kazuo, take her back to her tent. Risa, you’re to watch after her and get her ready to move again. We’re leaving in four hours.”

Leaving? I look around frantically as everyone starts moving. Kohaku and Hiro are picked up and ushered out. Emiko, Nobu, and Yukio all walk past me, staring down their noses at me and the dagger. “Do it,” Nobu whispers, eyeing the knife, then she smiles and walks off. With me dead, she thinks she can get Jiro for Risa, and the thought of that makes me sick. Not that he would ever touch her, much less look at her. At least I know that much.

Kazuo lifts me to my feet from under my armpits and touches my face, showing me my blood on his fingertip. “You should be more careful.”

“Where would that get me?”

He shrugs his shoulders. He knows it’ll get me nowhere.

“We’re moving?” I ask, watching everyone retreat.

“We’ll be moving a lot, for reasons you can probably guess.”

“Stop talking to her.” Risa grabs my upper arm and jerks me away from Kazuo. I glance back at Kazuo. He’s staring at my blood on his finger before he draws a handkerchief from his pocket and wipes it off. Sachi stalks up to him and starts talking at him, a furious tone in her voice, though I can’t hear what she’s saying. He blinks sullenly but doesn’t respond.

Kazuo never cut his hair after hibernation. It hangs in a ponytail off the bottom side of his neck, and his body is built up. He’s wearing casual pants (good for riding), boots, and a button-down shirt. Sachi cut her hair in a bob, higher in back than the front. Her skinny body juts out at all angles and reminds me of how I was after my stay in the desert. Certainly nothing like I am now.

“Come on!” Risa hauls me towards a tent outside the jinmaku. Inside, the grass is tamped down by large rugs and a bowl sits on a stand for washing next to a chamber pot. “There will always be guards outside so don’t try anything.”

“I have to pee, Risa, and I’m soaking wet. I’m also bleeding.” I touch my face again, and my fingers come away bloody, but I turn my left hand over and see my ring. No one took it away from me, so I clench my hand and let it drop. I don’t want to call attention to it.

“I don’t care.” The tent is dark, only a little light filtering in through the cracks along the seams, and even though I can barely see her, Risa’s contempt is palpable from two meters away. But if there’s anyone here I can push around it’s her, so I’m going to.

“Risa, find me some clean pants and help me undress so I can pee or I’m going to come over there and pee on you.” I hold back a laugh because the thought is hilarious. “This is your tent, right?” I look around and find a trunk in the corner. The lid is open and contained within are her photos and the paper cranes that used to hang in her apartment in Nishikyō. “I’d hate to pee all over your rug.”

“Ugh. Fine.” She stomps over to me and unknots the binds holding my two hands together. I strip off my pants, go to the chamber pot and pee while she rummages through her trunk for another pair of pants and a long sleeved shirt. “I’m going to hang up your pants to dry off, and you can put them back on next time you need to change.”

I don’t answer. I finish and peel off the shirt pressing it to my cheek while I wait in my underwear. Risa hands me the clothes and narrows her eyes at me and my broken body. “Sanaa…” She starts but stops, chewing her lip in that whole pretty-girl ruse she always had.

“What?”

“Nothing. Get dressed.”

I pull on the dry clothes and repress a sigh of relief, picking up the shirt and pressing it to my face again. “I’m hungry and tired.”

“I’ll find you food, and you’ll have to sleep on the rug.” She points at the floor. Fine. I can sleep on the rug. “I’m going to retie your hands now.”

While she’s this close to me, I have the urge to smack her and try to escape but I know I wouldn’t make it far. “Don’t you miss Nishikyō, Risa?”

“No. And stop talking or I’ll have you gagged. I can’t stand the sound of your voice.” She finishes and slaps my hands down. “You ruined my life. I’m glad yours will be over soon. Lay down. I’ll send in a guard to watch you while you sleep, and I’ll be back with food later.”

I ruined Risa’s life? Funny. I thought she ruined it for herself.