polite gratitude, Takayuki-san steered the conversation into another direction. “I did what I believed was right, Kosamechan.” The shattering of ceramic rang through the room, the only visible sign to his rage. “How dare call me that?” Takayuki-san, with sadness and pity lining his eyes, continued. “It was never meant to happen like that.” A strained laugh, low and sneering, escaped Gisei’s lips, his hand clenching around the shattered saucer. “Never meant to happen like that? You murdered my father, took my mother, left me there, and I‘m supposed to let it go?” “We returned for you, Kosame-chan. That was the plan. You disappeared; we couldn’t find you and we searched everywhere.” Takayuki-san explained, looking into his sake cup. “Mana-chan died six years ago, never knowing what became of you.” “So sorry to hear that; I never received my invitation to her tsuya.” Gisei waved off the news without a second thought. She was dead to him long before her true passing. Takayuki-san tossed back the rest of his sake, and refused the offer for a refill. He contemplated the younger man sitting before him; Gisei knew what he was seeing. Still a child in his eyes, but in the gear of a killer. A deadly weapon laid on his lap like a cat, and looking back at him with the familiar face of a child that he thought lost forever. “Your father was not a good man, Kosame-chan.” “This coming from you?” Gisei quipped, before dropping the chips of ceramic onto the tray and wiping his hand free of blood. “No one is a good man these days, Takayuki-san.” “I was his friend,” Takayuki-san admitted. “I was no saint myself, but I loved your mother. Your father only took her into his harem because she was an offering from a fellow lord from the west. The one thing that kept her alive there is that she was the only one who bore him a son.” Gisei shifted his weight, his legs tingling after sitting on them for so long. “You’re not going to say I’m your son and my mother kept it secret from my father, are you?” It was a wonder that sarcasm wasn’t dripping out of his mouth. Takayuki-san gave a weary smile, and shook his head. “No, Yuzuki-san was your father, but you were your mother’s child. I loved you as if you were my own.” “Mana-chan’s father was a wealthy lord, and Yuzuki-san murdered him to 32 gain control over his land and riches. However, Mana-chan did not mention she had an elder brother who was heir. Manachan feared for her life, and the only way I could protect her-” “Was to murder my father.” Gisei finished, picking up the tokkuri and took a swig straight from the flask. “How... unoriginal, Takayuki-san.” Takayuki-san sighed, folding his hands in his lap. “Mana-chan was against the idea at first, despite the threat to her life. She didn’t want to leave you behind, but it would have been difficult to take the both of you with me immediately. As Yuzuki-san’s best friend, I would have been sent a message to take you into my care. You had more protection in the world than your mother would have. She would have been given to another lord closer than I was, or perhaps even killed or kidnapped.” Takayuki took a moment to collect himself, and then continued in a tone that only came when one was fighting back tears. “But no message ever came, nothing beyond news of Yuzuki-san’s death. Your mother and I became frantic. We looked for you, Kosame-chan.” “Are you seriously telling me you expected me to await the return of my father’s betrayers? How stupid did you think I was?” Gisei restrained himself from breaking the flask by slamming it onto the tray. “Kosame-chan-” Gisei snapped his strange eyes up to meet Takayuki-san’s old gaze. “I was there, Takayuki-san. I saw you murder my father, and I saw my mother watch. I watched you kiss her and lead her away. All I knew was that the man I called father, the woman I called mother, and the one I trusted and loved like an uncle, was all a lie. My father cared for me. I was his son. My mother scolded me for manners, and to be proud because of who I was, and then she’d slip off with you or other ladies of father’s court for the rest of the time. You didn’t just betray my father, Takayuki-san. You betrayed me.” Takayuki-san’s shoulders slumped with the weight that his sin was greater than he thought it was. “They were hard times, Kosame-chan.” wGisei knew, of course. The son of a dead lord had little chance of survival in the world of his father’s enemies. His scars were proof of that. He killed his first man when he was eleven, and it was either fight or become a slave, or worse, to the drunken ronin. Traveler
“You and Mana-chan were my reason to fight for a better world. It wasn’t meant to be this way.” Takayuki-san spoke, more to himself, but it brought the assassin from his darker thoughts. Gisei sat unwavering. “Your time is up.” A quirky smile and a dying laugh was Takayuki-san’s immediate response. “Very well, I will not fight you. For all my deeds, I need only to answer to two people for my crimes. Yokochan and you.” He straightened in his seat as Gisei rose, sword <strong>Glendale</strong> <strong>Community</strong> <strong>College</strong> The Novelist by Martine Cloud Stoneware & Porcelain 2nd Place 33
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