“Takaya-san is missing?!” Naoe roared into the public telephone in the lobby of the inn. “What do you mean you don’t know where he is, Haruie? What happened to him?!”
It was that night. He had been staying since the previous night at Maiko’s inn on the banks of Lake Chuuzenji
.
Ayako, now at home in Yokohama, sounded like she was having a rough time of it. Naoe had called her to ask for help with the search for the ‘Tsutsuga Mirrors,’ only to be walloped with the news of the events at Nerima Castle culminating with Takaya’s angry departure, capped by the fact that he had not yet returned to Matsumoto. “How could you let him go off by himself? And you just left him there? Were you out of your minds?! I can’t believe you went home without him!” Naoe raged, so shocked that he was unaware of the violence in his own raised voice.
“You don’t have to be that mad at me about it! If you want to blame anyone, you should blame yourself!” Ayako finally retorted as Naoe’s blindness to his own short-comings and the torrent of blame finally drove her to the snapping point. “Why weren’t you there? It’s your duty to be at Kagetora’s side!”
Naoe’s eyes widened as the words slammed into him.
“I don’t know what happened, but you’re supposed to be with him no matter what! What the hell are you doing in Nikkou when he’s falling apart? You’re the one who should be protecting him, so stop taking my head off about it!”
“...”
Naoe’s brows creased silently at Ayako’s outburst. Ayako was far more sympathetic to Naoe’s feelings than Chiaki and had always been concerned for him. Impatient though she was with his agonizing, she had always pushed back the things she wanted to say precisely because she understood it.
But Naoe’s incriminations had suddenly struck her as so terribly and mind-bogglingly self-centered that she could no longer take them lying down.
“At least you have Kagetora! No matter what, at least the person most precious to you is here with you! You’re such a gutless coward! Whatever happens, you want to be with him until the end, don’t you?!”
“Haruie...”
“Just stop all your stupid, meaninglessly obsessing! You love Kagetora, don’t you?! Love him like you’ll never love anyone else? So stop telling yourself that he can’t love you back! You’ve got a chance, at least! So don’t you dare leave him again! Just go and be with him every minute, every second!” Ayako yelled at the top of her lungs before breaking off with what sounded like a sob.
“Why are you crying? Haruie...”
“I...I don’t know! Because you’re so pathetically spineless that it makes me miserable! I’ve been waiting for two hundred years! And even if I were to see him again, I don’t even know for sure that I’ll recognize him! You’ve got so much, and you don’t even realize it! You don’t know how lucky you are!”
“...”
Ayako was thinking of her own lover from two hundred years ago. Bewildered by her weeping, Naoe soothed, “It’s all right. I understand.”
“No, you don’t understand! You don’t understand anything at all! A least you have the person you love here with you! That’s happiness enough! You have no idea!” she sobbed, half hysterical.
To anyone else it might have sounded like they were having a lovers’ quarrel, Naoe thought with a wry smile. “It’s all right...I’m sorry to have worried you.”
“If you really mean that, then go find Kagetora. No matter what he says, Kagetora is waiting for you—waiting for you to go to him. Even back then, I know he must have... If he didn’t need you, then things with Minako wouldn’t have turned out the way they did...”
The smile abruptly vanished from Naoe’s face as it darkened. His eyes fell.
“If only that were true.”
“Don’t leave him. Don’t ever leave him again. For your own sake.”
(My sake...?) Naoe murmured soundlessly in self-mocking. That was absurd. Being with him led to nothing but pain. To be unable to leave the one who was his Absolute...the one who was dictator to him alone...was agony.
(Am I not going to make an end of it?) he muttered to himself as if to convince himself.
He would put an end to this life lived across four hundred years. This war would wipe everything clean. He fought it not for tomorrow, but to end it all.
He had decided that the destruction of the «Yami-Sengoku» would be his own ending. It would be the day he parted from Kagetora, the day ‘Naoe Nobutsuna’ ceased to exist. He would finally escape the agony of loving but a single person. For if he could not escape from him, then there was nothing left but to abandon himself.
(The day I part from everything...)
Until the «Yami-Sengoku» was destroyed... He would allow himself to live on. He had borne the pain for this long; how hard could it be to carry it for a little while longer? He would wipe his past clean, purge it of his feelings, of Minako, of his sins toward Kagetora, of everything...
From his insensate dictator —
(I will release myself...)
“Naoe? Naoe, what’s wrong?”
Ayako’s voice, suddenly filled with worry, brought him back to himself. A cold smile curved the corners of Naoe’s lips.
“Nothing...”
Then, telling Ayako that he would contact Takaya’s family, they concluded the rest of their business and ended the call. Ayako remained blissfully unaware of the conclusion he had drawn; his mask was not so easily pierced by anyone.
Replacing the receiver in its cradle, Naoe turned to find that Maiko had come up behind him unawares.
“Asaoka-san...”
“You were...speaking to a woman just now, weren’t you?”
Naoe regarded her a little warily. For just a moment, something ugly seemed to have twisted her sweet face beyond recognition. But Maiko had realized it too, and an instant later was herself once more.
“Dinner is ready. I came to let you know, but you weren’t in your room... Should you be moving about?”
“The pain is manageable. I seem to be all right now.”
Maiko looked apologetic. The wound from the tsutsuga had turned out to be deeper and more serious than they’d thought, and even though he had received treatment for it at the hospital, it had generated a fever which had prevented Naoe from returning home. As a result, he had spent the night at the inn owned by Maiko’s family. When the fever continued unabated the next day,Katakura Kojuurou had gone out to investigate in his place and returned with a detailed report of his findings.
The situation was worsening by the day. A second face had been discovered that morning in the leftmost of the sacred trees at Futarasan Shrine. It looked almost exactly like Shinya’s and belonged to the man who had fallen into Kegon Falls yesterday: another of the tsutsuga’s victims.
As if that were not bad enough, a great number of other faces were appearing in cedar trees all across Mt. Nikkou, albeit with less life-like distinctness.
Upon learning the news from Kousaka, Kojuurou had visited Futarasan Shrine a second time and probed deeper into the background of the man who had fallen victim to the tsutsuga atKegon Falls. Naoe had intended to join him in the investigation, but at Maiko and Kojuurou’s insistence had been forced to remain behind to recuperate at the inn.
“I cannot impose on you any longer—I will set out tomorrow morning. There is still the matter of your brother, and I cannot sleep soundly while it remains unresolved.”
“Please don’t push yourself so hard!” Maiko pleaded. “You were wounded so badly for my...for my brother’s sake, and I really don’t know what I can do to make it up to you. If you’re hurt even more and the damage becomes irreversible, I don’t know what I—”
“It is not so serious as you make it sound.”
“No!” Maiko exclaimed—and hesitated. Then she looked up at Naoe with resolve.
“Tachibana-san, if anything should happen to you, I...! I...”
“...”
The solemnity of her gaze conveyed her feelings quite clearly to Naoe.
“Asaoka-san...”
She was without question an attractive woman. To be the recipient of such a look from a woman as beautiful as she would doubtlessly have stirred many a man’s heart, prior interest or no, Naoe thought, smiling a little. And in truth, he was no different. If he knew her feelings to be true, he would take her into his arms this instant... that is—
(If he had not already taken up residence inside my heart...)
Maiko was unaware of the true nature of that faint smile. All she knew was that she wanted to touch the secret fire blazing beneath his cool exterior—a fire she had not yet glimpsed, but which something like woman’s intuition insisted must exist.
“...Thank you,” he answered, smiling at her. And though Maiko would have willingly let herself be scorched by the touch of his true self, she knew that countless others had seen this gentle smile, that he would show this same kindness to anyone. He would wear it for faceless multitudes.
It did not belong to anyone, least of all her.
“...I know.” Maiko looked down, hiding her face from him, struggling to hold back the surge of tears. “I know, but I...”
“...”
Though there was bewilderment in Naoe’s expression as he looked down at Maiko, his tone was gentle. “It seems I am destined to make you cry.”
I wouldn’t dispute that, Maiko thought as she sobbed. And perhaps she might even have hoped that her tears would soften his heart towards her, even a little.
Naoe was fully aware of Maiko as a ‘woman,’ but he also knew how genuine her feelings for him were, and he had no wish to use her simply as the means to lessen his pain for an hour.
Though Maiko might have been willing to offer herself to him even knowing he would see her as nothing more than a moment’s respite, Naoe managed to dredge up a more fatherly tenderness to resist the temptation to deal her such a wound.
“She must be an amazing person...” Maiko murmured haltingly. “That you would cherish her so... What is she like?” Wiping at her tears, Maiko finally smiled.
Naoe returned her smile. “If you were to meet, I think you would understand without my needing to explain,” Naoe replied, and then looked down, a loneliness creeping into his expression that roused Maiko’s protective instincts.
"Ah. It must be someone strong-willed and resolute, overbearing and cold, yet with a deep vulnerability and beauty that draws you in and refuses to let go.
“...”
“And...your love is unrequited, isn’t it?”
Naoe gave her a startled look. A woman’s intuition was truly a force to be reckoned with. It was enough to make him suspect that Shinya’s precognitive abilities were not the only supernatural talents in the family.
Kagetora’s razor-edged gaze flashed across the back of his mind.
“Subtle and cunning,” he murmured, smiling again. “Too devious to defy.”
Maiko gave him a motherly look. “Shall I bring your dinner to your room?” She was back to her normal self. “There was a call from Katakura-san earlier. He is at Nikkou Station and should be back shortly. Do you want to eat now?”
“No, I’ll wait. It’s a bit lonely, isn’t it, to dine by yourself?”
Maiko wanted to join them, but thinking that they might wish to talk privately about their work, withheld the request. “I need to help with the serving,” she said instead, and left for the kitchen. “See you in a bit.”
Looking after her, Naoe took a packet of cigarettes from his pocket. He lifted one to his lips and lit it, then leaned back against the wall and smiled again.
(Unrequited love, huh?)
If the bindings of obedience and loyalty was ‘love,’ then he supposed one could call it that. But it was not unrequited, for it was a ‘love’ that did not seek reciprocation.
(It is nothing but a twisted desire for possession.)
He wanted to grasp, to hold—not to be loved in return. It was merely the desire to declare ownership, to monopolize. Having deluded himself into thinking that the chains of absolute obedience was ‘love,’ he now begged to be bound and eagerly awaited the lash and the bait. And perhaps this was the source of his desire for the submission of the one who held absolute power over him, the lust for conquest and the need to rule over his master in return.
What part of that could be called love?
It was not how one loved another person. To be loved was not something he had a right to hope for. He doubted its very existence.
(It is nothing more than a perversion of power against power.)
He no longer knew what love was. It might even be that because he thought what he felt for Kagetora might be love, he had forbidden himself from doing anything to make Kagetora his.
Even if by the smallest chance it could be love, it could never bring them together except in body.
These desires were the product of a twisted mind.
No more than delusion, illusion, counterfeit reality.
(That is the reality...)
He extinguished the cigarette and headed up the stairs to his room. The old western-style inn had a beautiful red-carpeted staircase of wood that connected the lobby to the second floor.
At the top hung an old mirror. Naoe gave his revoltingly servile reflection a mocking glance. At that moment—
Feeling as if something were calling out to him, he lifted his eyes to the mirror again to see a silhouette suddenly appear behind him.
(Wh...?) He spun...and saw no one. He jerked back to the mirror.
And gasped.
(It can’t be...!)
He couldn’t quite believe his own eyes. For there, standing behind him in the mirror, was Takaya. He clutched at it reflexively.
“Takaya-san!”
He strained toward Takaya before turning again to search the empty landing. He neither saw nor sensed anyone. Naoe’s stunned gaze turned again to the mirror. It was not an illusion. Takaya was there—there inside the mirror.
“Takaya-san! How...?!”
I see my brother reflected within the mirror...!
He recalled Maiko’s words. Was this what she had meant? But why? Why was Takaya...?!
“Kagetora-sama!” Naoe shouted at the image of his lord within the mirror. “What happened? Why are you in there?”
Takaya did not respond, only stared fixedly at him. He reached out, but could only touch his own reflection’s hand; he could not reach Takaya.
“What happened?! Kagetora-sama!”
He drove his fist with all his might into the mirror. It cracked, a long fissure splintering its surface directly over Takaya’s heart. He jerked back. And vivid images suddenly filled his vision.
(...!)
There were no accompanying words, only scenes flashing from Takaya’s mind into his. Dumbfounded, Naoe pressed a hand against his mouth.
(Kagetora-sama...)
He vision filled with the image of Takaya with blood flowing out of torn skin, and his breath stopped. He stood frozen in place, staring at Takaya within the mirror.
(It can’t be...)
The blood drained out of his face and all capacity for speech was lost to him as he stood there helplessly, face to face with his entrapped lord.
TO BE CONTINUED
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