For Nobara

Chapter 9: Hyо̄ (Flashback Chapter)

"This is already strenuous enough for her, Heika-sama, the amount of drugs in her system..." The doctor looked torn, his wrinkled face almost paper white and ashen. "Anymore than this and she could..."

He hesitated.

He didn't have to finish, but still it almost sounded like the weight of what he meant was heavy on him, even though the child he had tended to already knew that his judgement was something everybody would have wanted.

It was an opportunity, an escape that the Heika should have taken. He should have let her die when they first took her, and yet why didn't he?

"Why are you going through such lengths for her, Heika-sama...?"

But the person he spoke to, however many years younger, had very cold eyes. The doctor couldn't possibly know what he was thinking, but the young Heika made him uncomfortable and wary with just a glance.

He was only a boy, but the play of power behind the throne made his gray eyes seem no younger than he looked. That was why the doctor didn't understand it—how the Heika would allow the possibility of the people tearing him to pieces just for catering a horned child within the castle walls.

Didn't he understand it?

The late Eighth Heika had already cemented it, built from the long history of prejudice against horned children since the founding of Koori.

He made weapons out of what was feared, until they weren't children anymore but Koori's tools of war that would carry the country to greater heights.

"I mean no disrespect, but... you cannot overwrite what has been written and set in stone long ago, Heika-sama," the doctor said carefully, trying to reason and hoping to be understood. "So please, think of your people... or at least, of your mother."

But the mention of that made all the difference.

"My mother...?" His gray eyes almost glowered and the doctor flinched, more so at the sudden cynical smile the boy chose to wear. "You're awfully talkative today."

It was rare to hear contempt from the young master, so the moment the doctor recognized it, he quickly bowed his head to show his submission.

"That was impertinent of me. F...Forgive me..." He felt the atmosphere crushing instantly, but surprisingly the heat of the Heika's cold gaze left him sooner than he thought. When he raised his eyes, he realized it was because the child had woken to their voices and that the Heika had turned his attention for her.

The doctor swallowed thickly, unable to look at her as if flustered. Something dwelled in his chest that, for a moment, felt like he had wronged her somehow.

"Ma... Master..."

"Yori," the young master answered softly, as if the person the doctor spoke to seconds before didn't even exist. "It's Yori..."

And perhaps the Heika already knew what the doctor was thinking at that moment, when he saw the subtle meaning in his expression at the display before him. But the boy needed only to glance at him for the white-robed man to realize his presence was no longer needed.

So the doctor bowed quickly and, without another word, dismissed himself in a hurry. His own thoughts about the child had perturbed him too, how he couldn't shake away the image of that man when he looked at her, or how her gaze strangely reminded him of her mother too.