Reunited – Chapter 40

Jiro sets me down, and I hug Sakai next. Mark. I love him, too. He picks me up, and I feel like a little kid hanging off of her father after he’s come home from a day at work, so happy to be held by him again.

“I nearly died when we returned to the estate, and you were already gone.”

“But you accomplished your mission?”

He nods his head. “Arata’s the best kind of ally we could hope for.”

“Good. I’d hate for that trip to be a big waste.”

“He happily bombed the castle and worked with us to get you out of there.”

“And Kazuo?” I whisper in his ear.

“I don’t know what happened, what you did to him, but he’s inside. We’re treating him well, but he’s under guard at all times.”

I need to deal with him next. Lucy and Helena are in Yamato with Miko and Yoichi but everyone else is here. Beni and Mariko both hug me and cry. I’m grateful when Mariko strokes my hair and thanks the gods I’m all right. I cry into Oyama’s belly and beg him to feed me.

“Please make me a huge meal, Oyama. I’m dying of hunger.”

He looks down at me sweetly, strokes his large hand across my cheek, and pats my back. “Sanaa, you don’t look well.”

“I’m not.” Though my tone is serious, my smile is oceans wide. I take Jiro’s hand and breathe deeply for strength. “I’ve been sick when I don’t eat for the past four days, and… I think the birth control implant failed in the most spectacular way.”

Mariko laughs and clamps her hand over her mouth for a moment. “You most certainly are pregnant, Sanaa. Gods, we’ve all completely ignored the signs for weeks now.” Her eyes blur with tears before she closes them. “I’m going to be a grandmother… twice.”

It’s comforting that she’s happy about this.

“Pregnant?” Jiro asks, his eyes round, and I nod at him. It’s what we’ve wanted since we’ve woken up, and now it’s happening without any prior planning. He pulls me to him and squeezes me again.

“I’m pretty sure. Fucking Risa pointed it out.” Everyone leans away from my profanity (Kentaro laughs), but she’ll never be known as anything else to me now. “I never saw the signs because I thought the implant was working. I figured this was how I look after hibernation. I didn’t realize this is how I look pregnant.”

Sakai starts to laugh, first covering his mouth with his fist before coughing. “No one expected a baby boom this quickly.”

“I have pregnancy tests in my kit,” Mariko says, squeezing my shoulder. “Cathy dropped them off at the house when she came by. She said the hospital has been overwhelmed with women coming in to be scanned to see if they’re pregnant. So they made these old-fashioned tests. So strange.”

“I hate to break up this reunion,” Koga says, stepping into our little circle. “But the soldiers on the road were moving up the roadblock a kilometer every hour or so. They’ll be here in Inabe soon. No time to rest.”

“Okay. Here’s what we do,” Sakai says, taking over. “Mariko and Beni, get us packed up. Kentaro and Usagi, you’ll escort Kazuo. Oyama, get some food for Sanaa. Jiro, you stay here with her. I’ll go inside, settle our bill with the inn, and we’ll leave in ten minutes.”

“Where are we going?”

“Takayama. It’s our fallback position. Arata Sasaki said he’d be there by this afternoon. From here it’s too long of a walk, so we’ll take the shuttle but the landing field we’ve chosen is an hour’s walk from here to be safe.”

Everyone moves, and I sit down with Jiro while Kentaro and Usagi tie up the horses in front of us. Kagemusha looks for me as I sit down, his head bobbing at my hand, and I stroke his nose for a moment.

“The horses are beautiful.” Jiro puts his arm around my waist, and I lean my head on his shoulder.

“They are. This is Kagemusha, and that’s Yojimbo.”

He laughs and shakes his head. “Great names. This one likes you, I can tell.”

“I want to keep him.” I turn on my biggest, roundest, most needy puppy dog eyes (I learned this from Kumo), and Jiro melts into a puddle. “His sister stables are here and in Takayama.”

“Of course you want to keep him, and every wife-of-mine-mother-of-my-children-deity-turned-future-empress should have a beautiful horse.” He kisses me on the forehead, and his fingers lightly graze my swollen cheek with the gash on it. His eyebrows knit together as I wince in pain and pull away. I shake my head. No time to assess my injuries. “The man who owns this inn owns the entire town. Let’s go talk to him. We’ll hire a hand and buy Kagemusha.”

Now I have a dog, a cat, and a horse. I hope they all get along with the baby.

I eat and walk at the same time, my legs carrying me the distance from Inabe up into the forest surrounding the mountains and towards the shuttle’s landing field. I can’t believe I’m still upright. I only got about three or four hours of sleep last night after escaping the castle and the city, and I’ve been sick. But as long as I keep my belly full, I seem to be functional. I wonder if I’ll gain a significant amount of weight being pregnant. I doubt it, but I eat a ham sandwich in record time, and I doubt my doubts. Oyama sees me without food and passes back cheese and another bottle of water.

“You have to stay hydrated, Sanaa.”

Yes, Oyama.

Sakai and Jiro walk on either side of me, and Kentaro, Kazuo, and Usagi are behind us. Kazuo is comfortable around us, a lot less tense than he was in Miura’s traveling camp. The change is remarkable, but is he getting close to me so he can turn around and slit my throat? That’s my biggest worry, that I’m reading him wrong. Minamoto betrayed me. Kazuo could too.

I debrief Sakai and Jiro on the way to the shuttle. I tell them about the constant blindfolding while looking back at Kazuo (he shrugs in response… just following orders), Risa and her attempts to belittle me, Miura’s demands that I kill myself or give myself over to Fujiwara, Kohaku’s death.

When I talk about her, when I even think about her, cold and lifeless, staring up into the blue sky, I detach. I float above the scene and watch myself hold Hiro’s eyes so he doesn’t witness his own mother die. I watch myself fall forward and grab fistfuls of grass as Miura’s daughters scream behind me. I don’t even remember myself screaming. I just don’t remember. I wonder where Hiro is? Did he make it back to his father? I fear they may be in danger again now that I’m free.

I leave out any talk of the castle and neither of them ask me about it. I know those questions are coming next but not now.

The shuttle ride is only twenty minutes, and we land in another field in a valley between two mountain ranges. The sun hangs bloated with spring heat overhead. This time of day is scorching but it must be cooler and darker here in the early mornings and late afternoons with the mountains shielding this area.

After another thirty minutes of walking through a mountain pass and the woods, we come upon a clearing and beautiful Takayama is below us.

Buildings straddle both sides of a river that winds down from the North, straight through town and then back into the mountains. I assume it goes out to sea from here between Izumo and Yamato. Streets meander throughout the town, up and down hills and over impressive stone bridges stretching across the river in three places. All of the buildings bear the same style as those in Yamato, white-washed and cream stucco walls, dark wood windows, porches, and balconies, and clay tiled roofs. A large theater dominates the center of town with three stacked pagoda rooftops and red lanterns hanging around it.

“Wow. I love it already.”

“It’s a great town,” Sakai says, coming up next to me and shielding his eyes from the sun. “Arata and his wife live north of the river. We have a house not far from them up on the hill there.” He points to a series of grassy hills on the northern edge of town before the mountains again. “Come. It’s another long walk. Sorry. You look like you’re ready to lay down and die.”

“I am. I need a few hours’ rest before doing anything else.”

We make it to the outskirts of town before I feel nauseous again. This time food is not going to help. I should have eaten well before my head started to spin. The world blurs in a smear of green, brown, and blue. I’m so disoriented, I stumble. One ham sandwich and cheese can’t make up for the days of starvation. I head directly for a bush and lose everything I have in my stomach. This time Jiro is here to hold my hair. I may need to wear it up or in a ponytail for the foreseeable future, or cut it off again. I think I want to get rid of my hair.

Jiro’s lips pull back on one side, and he wipes off my forehead with one hand while I moan. “I don’t like this at all. You were already skinny to begin with. I don’t know much about being pregnant, but I’m pretty sure you have to eat and gain weight.”

“I’ve been starving for days now.” I’m crying again because I’m so miserably sick, tired, and hurting and can’t believe all that’s happened to me. I just want to be magically transported straight into bed with Jiro next to me. I want to tell him everything and how much I missed him.

“I had to beg fucking Risa to give me food. Kazuo was the only person who cared if I was fed or not.” I wave my arm at Kazuo who kept walking with Usagi and Kentaro, none of them wanting to hover over me while I’m puking in the bushes. “The man who once fought me sword-to-sword and tried to poison me.”

Jiro turns, and pushing his hair behind his ears, watches Kazuo’s retreating back. He’s silent, weighing everything Kazuo has done right against everything he’s done wrong. Another wave of sickness comes over me so I crunch down in a ball, trying to stop it.

“Sanaa, drink some water,” Mariko says, handing me the water bottle. I take a few, reluctant sips, and hope I can keep it down. “You’ll become dehydrated if you don’t drink more, then we will have to take you to the hospital.” I reopen the bottle and down half of it. Mariko nods her head in approval.

“It’s not far now,” Jiro whispers, his lips at my ear before he kisses my cheek. “Why don’t you ride on my back? Just tell me if you need to puke… well in advance, please.” I gratefully wrap my arms around his neck and allow him to carry me to the house on the hill.