Inheritance

Leaves in the Wind, Part One

Tsuchi Kin wiped her damp forehead with the hem of a grey sleeve, slightly coarse from the wear and tear of time and labour. The location they had chosen for the orphanage stood high on a cliffside plateau, the walls of which rose up beyond ground level. It crafted a neat basin, invisible from the ground, filled with its own small forest and wells of spring water rising from beneath.

It was the perfect place to disappear, and the perfect place to help others disappear, too.

Quick footsteps drew her eyes up from the loose earth holding well grown potato plants. They belonged to a small, honey-eyed girl wearing a simple navy cotton dress, with a beaming smile and a basket full of berries and nuts.

"Inori-chan," Kin said, smiling back.

"Emi-sama!" Inori cried Kin's pseudonym happily as she came close, and held up the basket for Kin to inspect. "Look! Me and Daiki-kun gathered lots today!"

Kin stood, leaning to the side to crack her back, before reaching out and tussling the girls mess of brunette hair. The movement uncovered the small, ivory-white horn protruding from the girl's skull for only a moment, but it was enough to send a flush of white hot fury rushing through her.

She forced the smile to stay on her face, and gave the girls head a gentle pat. "Great work, Inori-chan. Why don't you take them into the kitchen and get your hands washed so we can start to prepare food?"

Inori's face twisted as though she'd swallowed something particularly bitter. "Do I have to, Emi-sama?"

Kin raised an eyebrow. Outright refusal was unlike her. "You don't have to, but it's not like you to not want to help."

"I don't mind helping!" The girl insisted loudly, before putting her hands behind her back and kicking idly at the dirt with her head down. "It's just...She's back. And she smells funny. Again."

Kin blinked, brain slow to kick into gear as she processed what the girl had said. She's back. Anko.

Her feet were moving before her mind caught up, immediately into a mad dash across their slapdash little farmland area, and past a half-dozen waving and giggling children. Ahead, stood their pride and joy. A log cabin buried between the trees, two stories high and large enough to hold dozens more children comfortably than they already did, with a broad thatched roof and grey stone chimney that was already billowing smoke for their return.

On the doorstep, Daiki leant on the door frame with folded arms, and a deep scowl writ large across his scar-lined face. At thirteen, he was the oldest of those they'd taken in, and had appointed himself as something of Kin's second in command, and the designated protector of the other children.

"She's inside," he huffed, obviously annoyed, but keeping a lid on his tempter so as not to offend Kin. "I don't understand why we have to put up with her. All she does is eat too much of our food and frighten the others."

Kin sighed. "I understand your frustrations Daiki-kun, but she's stronger than any of us. Besides, she's the best warning we'll get if he's not really dead."

Daiki flinched, but made a visible attempt to suppress his discomfort. "Her word is the only thing that says he isn't, and I can't for the life of me see why you would trust that. She's probably only saying that to freeload from us."

Kin smile grew wry. "We're all victims of him, one way or the other—her included. You don't have to trust her though, you just have to trust me. Do you trust me, Daiki-kun?"

The younger boy flushed and looked away, but managed to mumble an "obviously."

"Good man, now why don't you round up the others and get them ready for bed? It'll be dark soon, and we don't want anybody outside when that sun sets."