キスして、壊す、愛する
the waning moon. It was a thin, pale yellow crescent hanging in the sky. It hardly looked capable of lighting up the world the way it could when it grew up into a full moon.
Much like young Pai, in fact. She didn't look the sort capable of hurting a fly, yet her memories showed her to be a ruthless killer, with a strange, massive power swirling restlessly inside her, waiting to be acknowledged, waiting to do what it thought it was meant to, like a confused child that had been taught all the wrong things and only wanted to be loved.
[kill?]
But unlike many who shared her fate – or at least what Misao had glimpsed in her memories of those others cursed to a fate like hers – Pai had shown herself to be remorseful of her crimes. Unfortunately, that didn't negate any of what she'd done in the name of protecting the boy she called Rikuto.
She wondered if Pai was looking up at the moon as well. After she fainted, Shin, without a word, had picked her up and taken her to the royal court physician. She knew Kouta wanted to go with them, she could see it in her son's eyes, but he'd stayed behind because he knew that, for the day at least, his duties called for him to remain by his father's side.
It was two hours later that the physician's apprentice reported to them that Pai was fine, and had suffered only an intense dizzy spell. Nevertheless, the physician himself had prescribed her some medicine to take to help ease the strange fatigue Pai was suffering; something Misao knew was thanks to using her power to demonstrate what it was So Fu had in their possession.
For the rest of the day, the council debated and argued fretfully over the young girl's unbelievable claims. After everything they'd seen, not to mention reports they poured over that correlated with Pai's stories, as well as Shin's testimony when Kouta drew him away from the unconscious Pai's side long enough for him to give it before he went right back to her, no one could deny the truth in her words.
No real conclusion or agreement on the next course of action had been met. Misao knew that the next few council sessions would be long and tense as they attempted to figure out what to do. It had been the same in the weeks following the Kitsune's attack, as the Tengu tried to recover whilst mourning the deaths of so many.
The two Heirs who'd been present at the meeting had quietly left the same day, most likely to report to their respective Kings what had transpired. She knew Kurama had made a smart move – albeit admittedly risky – by letting them be in the Main Hall while Pai talked. He'd played a gamble by letting them in, because now when news of So Fu leaked to the other Clans and Pai's ties to the Tengu were made known, no one could accuse Kurama of trying to twist the situation to his benefit by keeping the other Kings out of the loop.
Except for the Kitsune King. Kagetora.
She tapped her long fingernail on the wooden frame she leaned her elbows on, a small frown on her face. Seiren, Heir of the Kitsune, barely reacted to Pai's tale, except when she used her power – and while everyone else was shocked by it, he'd looked like he knew it, like he'd seen it before. In fact, he looked like he knew about everything she was going to say before she did.
Reading minds was not something Kitsune could do, not even ninetailed Kitsune...which left there to be only one possible conclusion; Kagetora, in all likelihood, already knew about So Fu.
And what with how old she suspected him to be – far more than the thousand years most thought because of his nine tails – she didn't think it too out of the realm of possibility that he did know about what was going on. When they did happen to be in the same room, she and Kurama watched the Kitsune closely and noted that he didn't even try to hide that he was older than the mountains. It was just those around him who never really paid attention.
A gust of wind brushed her long, dark hair over her shoulders as she pondered over everything that was slowly unravelling around them. She was dressed in a thin, silk night dress, sleeveless and hugging her body in ways that accentuated her lithe, shapely beauty. Even dressed as such, the cold did not touch her. It never did.
Behind her, she listened to Kurama moving about the room as he flicked the switches to turn off the lights. He walked languidly about the room, and though he was relaxed, his movements were like that of a lion; smooth, purposeful, controlled. In moments, their room was embraced in darkness, the only lights coming from outside their door where guards stood posted to attention, and from the main village outside.
She closed her eyes when Kurama knelt behind her, his arm coming around in front of her as he pressed a gentle kiss to her bare shoulder. She leaned back against his firmly muscled bare chest, taking comfort in his touch.
"You're still thinking about her," he noted quietly.
Misao didn't try to deny it. Her husband always knew when something troubled her. "It is a terrible burden she carries on her shoulders." More so than she knew how to convey in words.
"So you believe her?" he asked, pulling some of her loose hair away from her shoulder to kiss her neck. He murmured against her skin, "Without a shadow of doubt, you believe what she's saying?"
Misao shifted slightly so that she was looking at him. He kept his arms around her, holding her to him. He took a few strands of her long hair and twirled them around his finger, and she closed her eyes contentedly as she curled against his side. Without her needing to say anything, he already knew that all she needed now was his reassuring touch and love.
It saddened her that hundreds of years ruling the Clan had jaded him so. It took a lot more than a single person's account to make him believe something, even if he'd seen the power that one person wielded, the power that one person claimed an assassin's organization had at their behest. Of course he would hesitate now.
After the chaos and despair of the Kitsune's attack ten years ago, losing his brother to it, as well as Shin's father – Kurama's closest friend – she could understand why he didn't want Pai's story to be true. Another war wasn't something he wanted. It wasn't something any Hengen wanted; the fierce desire to avoid war was why the Territory Treaties had lasted so long as they had, save for a few minor skirmishes – like the one that took her nephew's life too early, Shin's childhood friend.
"I don't just believe what she said," she reached up and trailed her fingers along his jaw. "I saw it. Everything she can remember, I saw it. How can you still be wary of this, Kurama?" she admonished.
"Did you notice the way her aura changed?" he questioned, recalling the dulling in the girl's eyes, the way everything about her seemed to flatten out to a mere whisper of the person she was.
Misao nodded. "I did. But you saw what she can do. She wasn't lying."
His incredible golden eyes, inherited by his son, flickered as he watched her. He was discomfited by the sorrow ebbing from his beloved wife, where she was usually a bundle of joy and happiness he needed in his life.
"It's not that I doubt her," he admitted, pursing his lips as he scowled.
Much as he didn't want it to be true, he knew that the girl wasn't lying. Not after she showed her power, despite how visibly weakened she was afterward. Not after he went through missing person's reports that only grew year by year. Not when he talked with Kouta again about everything that had transpired in the year Pai had begun living at Ayashi House, including what Shiori told them – via video call – of the memory she'd seen in Pai's subconscious, of the white-haired girl being tortured for killing someone in the So Fu hierarchy, her previous 'handler'.
He could still remember the look in Shiori's eyes when she told them of it, the way her lower lip trembled, eyes glistening with tears over the fate her best friend had suffered for so long, tears she didn't let fall in front of a King. Kurama wasn't a man to openly show affection, but at the scared and worried look in Shiori's eyes, he'd acted on the instinctual urge to assure her that Pai wouldn't be harmed during her stay in Kyoto – something Kouta had told him everyone at Ayashi House was worried about.
He would have been vaguely offended at the insinuation that he would act so prejudiced, if not for the fact that he had indeed considered imprisoning Pai for the threat she potentially posed.
"Then what is it?" Misao asked, catching the look in his eyes.
He shook his head contritely. "I don't trust her."
Misao cocked a brow. "Our son trusts her."
"He's not King yet, is he?" he countered. Kouta still had a long way to go before he took his father's place as Sojobo. "What if she did all she says, killed Hengen, of her own free will? That is not something she's likely to admit to a court full of Hengen, is it." It was the one major reason he couldn't bring himself to fully trust the strange girl.
"She didn't do it willingly, Kurama." Misao frowned at him, rising so that they sat face to face. "You know that."
"Didn't she, though? She made no mention of whether or not her family was used to coerce her into committing such deeds."
Misao shook her head. The boy in Pai's memories, Rikuto, one who shared an unusual likeness to her, was the reason Pai had done something that ate away at her for the sake of protecting him. But that particular memory was bleary to Misao, clouded from her ability to see what hid in the shadows of one's mind.
Still, as far as she could tell, Rikuto wasn't the reason why Pai did what she did. Not until a while later. What Misao did know, though, was that it had something to do with Pai's sister. Midori. Somehow, the green-eyed girl was involved in it. More than Pai seemed to want to – or was ready to – consider.
However it came to be, all the pain and suffering...it all started with Midori.
She lifted a hand to the back of her neck. "So Fu implant devices called 'kill-chips' here. If she did not obey their orders, they would have activated it and blown her to pieces. That girl is suffering because of what she was forced to do. She bears incredible guilt and pain for it all," her frown deepened as she ended in a low voice, "So much so that I worry for her."
That surprised him.
Kurama cast a wary look at her, consternated. Misao had already told him about Pai's deteriorating condition; about the conversation she and Shin had had with a woman named Aihara Rukia, who also claimed to be Hanyou. That was yet another thing that Kurama wondered after. What kind of Hanyou was Pai? But now, he got the feeling that Misao was not referring to that.
"You're worried about her? Why?"
"Because..." she trailed off hesitantly, unsure of how to say it.
Kurama's concern ratcheted up a notch. Misao was never at a loss for words. She always knew what to say, and when to say it. It was a skill she'd worked hard to perfect when their betrothal was announced, against the wishes of Kurama's own father, who'd wanted Kurama to marry for political advantage rather than wed a former Daitengu's daughter.
What had Misao seen in Pai's memories that could leave her like this? Not only did Misao see the memories of those she kissed, she felt their emotions in those memories. What was in those memories that Misao fretted over?
He took hold of her chin and made her look up at him. "Tell me, Misao. Why are you worried?"
"I felt it, Kurama," she whispered. Tears pricked her eyes as she recalled the overflowing pain locked inside the small white-haired girl who was so comically surprised when Misao kissed her. "Her guilt for what she did is driving her to the edge. The fact that she is not already mad speaks to her strength. She's a child, Kurama, she's so very young, and I worry about what will happen to her after she remembers everything."
Kurama didn't say anything. Misao would never lie to him. If Pai really did bear such guilt for what she did, then it meant nothing of what she said could be discounted. He made a mental note to comb through every word of her account again, to make sure he didn't miss anything. He needed to look into her claim of being Hanyou, as well.
That had been the least shocking part of everything she'd said, even with her display. He knew Hanyou existed, but he'd never met one before. He only knew of them from Kobayashi Hiro, Daichi's grandfather and Kanou's later mentor.
Hanyou tended to stick to the shadows, where they wouldn't be judged, ostracised, and persecuted for being two halves of opposing worlds. He had no idea what they could do, and do something they surely could, if So Fu used them as their foot soldiers. That was a certainty.
If So Fu were who he suspected they were, and even then they still needed Hanyou to use as their soldiers, it meant that Hanyou were in a league of their own. One he would have to take into serious consideration, with everything that had come to light.
Last time an Ayakashi King discredited the power of a new species that arose to challenge them thousands of years ago, it resulted in a bloody war that continued to hold tensions across the two kinds of supernatural. Oni may have once been human, but they no longer held any of the weakness that came with humanity once they crawled their way out of the Hells. Much as he detested the loathsome Oni, he couldn't deny that it took considerable strength to survive the cruel place that birthed them.
Misao leaned into him, and he wrapped her in his arms as she rested her head on his chest, her arms around his waist. "I am glad Shin-kun is with her."
A faint smile ticked his lips when he recalled the territorial manner in which the Daitengu hovered around Pai the entire time. Court formality dictated that any Daitengu in the Main Hall with the Sojobo during formal events – even so much as a short meeting with all councilmen and women present – stood beside Kouta, the Heir. That was how things were run for millennia, for as long as there were Daitengu to serve their respective Sojobo and Heir.
Even Pai, ignorant to the working mechanisms of Tengu court, was able to tell as much. She'd looked petrified that Kurama would strike her down for Shin refusing to leave her side. That had amused him. He would have smiled, maybe laughed, but he hadn't – maintaining that fearsome Sojobo image took some discipline. That amusement vanished the instant Shin growled – growled – at Misao after the girl fainted.
He could understand wanting to protect his beloved. He would tear the world to pieces if any harm were to befall Misao, especially after she'd nearly died in the Kitsune's attack trying to protect his brother. But there were lines one could not cross. Shin was still Daitengu; he had to tread carefully lest he insult his King.
The problem now was, despite being Daitengu, Shin wasn't exactly Tengu anymore. He was Kamigami. That changed things. It complicated matters, blurring the clearly defined lines to something neither King nor Daitengu was entirely sure of anymore, a fact neither party was particularly inclined to address.
"What do you mean?" he asked, feigning ignorance to see what Misao thought of Shin's relationship with Pai.
Many knew of how pinpoint Misao's judgement of people could be. If she deemed something worthy, it was for a good reason. Likewise, if she thought something was a lost cause, it was always better to cut ties sooner than later.
He wanted to know what she thought of the young couple's relationship so that he could figure out how to handle any potential fallout. If Pai were an ordinary girl, he wouldn't have to worry. Even if Shin chose to be with a human, it wouldn't make much of a difference, so long as he could continue on his Daitengu duties.
But Pai wasn't normal. Shin wasn't, either.
"If it's him, he may be able to protect her from her own memories." Her arms tightened around him. "He might be the only one who can."
"Such responsibility would be considered a burden by many," he commented.
Misao chuckled. "I doubt he would have it any other way."