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Soroi wasn’t her father.
That title belonged to Soichiro Kiryuin, who Satsuki remembered more from his absence than his presence, the void that drove her every move for so many years. It wasn’t exactly mourning, but it was hard to call it vengeance sometimes when she never saw his body, only carried the knowledge that he was never coming home until a purple scissor blade, still dripping with red, was laid at Ragyo’s feet while Satsuki watched, rage brewing in her breast. Nui’s laugh had rattled the china and crystal, climbing so high in that pale, artificial throat that Satsuki expected everything to shatter. Now she was gone, now Ragyo was gone, but Ryuko lived and the lines that constituted family had been casually flipped on their head.
No one had ever written a manual on how to react when it turned out that your sister wasn’t dead all long, or devised a method to reaffirm the bonds of blood when both of you wanted to forget that your mother was one and the same. Ryuko had shared memories of an Isshin Matoi, but it wasn’t the man Satsuki knew, who always wore clean white suits and revealed the true horror of Ragyo’s motives in the same calm voice he used for bedtime stories. It wasn’t the man who vanished, leaving her in that gilded cage called a mansion with only cups of bitter tea for comfort.
“Miss Satsuki?”
She blinked, realizing belatedly that Soroi had been trying to get her attention for at least a minute by standing up from the blanket they shared, and she had been staring past him and over the jagged white edge of Mt. Hakusan. It was the second peak the two of them had mastered in as many days; the third would be Tateyama, finishing their trek of the Holy Mountains in what may have been a record time.
According to the map Satsuki had perused in the stall at the bottom, the trail they chose was meant to take at least a couple of days by virtue of the rough terrain, but she and Soroi had scaled most of it by the time the sun reached its zenith, leaving hours to spare for them to reach the top and descend.
“Yes, Soroi? I’m sorry, I was lost in thought.”
“There’s no need to apologize.” Wrinkles tightened around either side of his mouth as he smiled. “I believe, however, that it may begin to rain soon. It would be a shame not to see the view from Gozengamine when it’s clear.”
Satsuki tilted her head towards the sky, taking in the grey clouds that were starting to gather in the distance. The air was already cool and thin; Hakusan’s peaks almost never lost their snow, and Gozengamine was the highest out of all of them. Visitors to the shrine would have a roof to duck their heads under, but they wouldn’t, left to the mercy of the open wind with damp earth and white ichige underfoot. Strange to think that somewhere up above, beyond breath and atmosphere, Ragyo had torn her own heart out and crushed it.
“It would be.” Satsuki answered softly, reaching down for her empty cup and saucer.
She marveled at Soroi’s ability to fit an entire tea service into his old woven pack, even if the water had been stored in a steel thermos to preserve its heat as they climbed. The portable stove they brought as a backup had turned out to be unnecessary, but Satsuki refused to take a trip without all possibilities accounted for, and gladly bore the weight of it in her own pack to ensure neither of them suffered cold tea with the energy bars Soroi had made from scratch. Dried fruit and the smallest hint of chocolate made the latter particularly enjoyable, sweetness eased from the mouth by sips of bitter, familiar red.
With both of them holding opposite sides of the blanket, they had quickly snapped it against the air, letting the few brambles that stuck to the bottom of the material be carried away by the wind. Satsuki took a step forward, the blanket going slack as it was folded in half. She tucked the edges under Soroi’s fingers so it didn’t fall back open, letting go so he could roll it up and slip the bundle under the straps of her pack. As soon as their gear was secure, she pulled the zipper of her jacket back up to her throat; after sitting for so long, the heat of exertion had faded, and the day would only grow colder as the sun made its way towards the horizon.
“Are you ready?” Satsuki asked, tapping her walking stick against the ground. Carved from ebony, dense and black, there were moments when its surface reminded her of Bakuzan, but the steel tip was barely sharp enough to break the earth. Blunt, nearly useless in a fight.
Soroi nodded. His own walking stick was a length of knobbly oak, polished free of splinters but still left with knots and twists. Iori had given it to him as a birthday present a few months before, along with a wry comment that none of them were getting as much exercise as they used to. “By your leave, Miss Satsuki.”
The trail was barely visible, far enough off the beaten path that direction was only given by the occasional wayward footprint and small, purposefully stacked piles of rocks. Satsuki felt a faint ache radiate up her calves as the angle of the mountain grew steeper; their climb yesterday had been strenuous too, but afterwards sleep came almost effortlessly, without a single nightmare to interrupt the peace. She hadn’t slept so well in — her brow knit, heavy with contemplation — quite a while, however long it had been.
Soroi was a few steps behind her, although his pace was certainly no less energetic. Near the bottom of the mountain they had been able to walk side by side, but the closer they were to reaching the peak, the more the trail narrowed, and a poorly timed trip or jutting elbow held the risk of sending one or both of them careening down into jagged stones, if not falling far enough to break their necks. Satsuki dragged her boots on the end of each step, keeping one of her hands flush against Hakusan’s smooth stone face until the path grew wider again and they could put some distance between themselves and the far edge.
“Up there.” Soroi gestured, Satsuki’s eyes following his direction to a wooden signpost above them about thirty more feet, labeling the top of the peak.
There was a much more obviously traveled path coming from the other side of the mountain, but it was surprisingly absent of tourists. By the time she was standing in front of the sign, there was perfect silence surrounding them, the emptiness that came from standing above everything else in view. Satsuki used to find the feeling powerful, remembering when she looked down on everyone who dared come near, but looking at the soft patches of snow near their feet, ones that had stubbornly lived past winter, she was humbled.
“It’s remarkable,” Satsuki said, taking a few steps forward to fully appreciate the view below them. Stunning was a better word, perhaps.
Soroi was quiet for a long moment, although she didn’t try and prompt a response. Silence wasn’t oppressive in his presence, simply familiar, the state they returned to when things were going as they should. He was a constant, a fixed point, and Satsuki couldn’t say that about almost anyone or anything else. She had offered him full retirement and a house of his own as soon as everyone had recovered from fighting the Life Fibers, but he had refused as politely as possible, and deep down, she wasn’t sure what she would have done if he had said yes.
“Do you know why I wanted you to come up here?” Soroi asked, leaning against his walking stick.
Satsuki’s eyes flickered towards him. She had been staring at an empty nest in a tree below, trying to make out what sort of bird it belonged to. “You implied I wasn’t getting enough sun.”
He let out a low chuckle and gave a small bow of his head. “Was I really so rude?”
“No, of course not.” Satsuki said.
Despite the floor-to-ceiling windows that lined the walls of Kiryuin Manor, she had demanded the curtains be closed as soon as the house was in order. There were weeks of chaos in which everyone was mostly grateful to be alive, boundaries fluctuating as the last of COVERS and Honnoji Academy finished crumbling from their perches and fell to the bottom of the sea. When they were redrawn — friend, Elite, sister — Satsuki found herself lost in the middle. She hadn’t planned for a future after Ragyo’s death; it would have distracted her from victory.
Ryuko and Mako had invited her out with them several times, trying to coax her from her shell, but there was only so much she could stand to relearn at once when her body was still tensed for another sudden impact, for Ryuko to decide that Matoi was meant to be severed from Kiryuin forever. Satsuki wouldn’t have blamed her; they were cut from different cloth, even if life had eventually dyed them with the same colors.
She stuck to routine inside the manor, the basics; eating, showering — although the grand bath had been drained completely, never to be filled again — and sleeping whenever her body would permit her unconsciousness. Trying to find a new normal without forcing herself into a particular box had resulted in a purgatory she wasn’t sure how to escape.
Then Soroi had come to her, pouring the first cup of tea to start the morning, another day where she couldn’t decide which direction to move in. Satsuki had never feared failure before, nor considered weakness as anything but a trait that belonged to other people, but the goal to which she devoted herself for over thirteen years was gone. Having overcome the impossible, the vast possibility of everything else was somehow crushing. She welcomed the harsh taste on her tongue as soon as he handed her the cup, expecting the silence to last until lunch, or perhaps even later, but he had asked permission to speak honestly and Satsuki granted it without a second thought.
“You said, ‘even an eagle will feel like a sparrow if she stays in the dark long enough.’” Satsuki blinked as she dismissed the memory, looking back over to the nest before a very faint smile tugged at her lips. “The prefectural bird here is the golden eagle.”
“So it is.” Soroi moved to sit down on one of the rocky outcroppings and Satsuki joined him, the pack she carried suddenly feeling like it was made of lead. “I had hoped we would see one on the trek up the mountain.”
“There’s an egg, at least,” Satsuki pointed to the rounded white shell peaking out from gathered twigs and branches, “its mother will return if we wait long enough.”
Realizing what she had just said, she bit down on her lip, cursing that the ability to strategize before she spoke seemed to be slipping away by the day. Orders were far easier than conversation, necessitating direction from one plan to the next, instead of whatever ‘small talk’ was supposed to be. Even Ryuko had playfully chastised her for managing to slurp her ramen quietly when they had gone to a small restaurant together. Eh, nee-san, you look like one of those competitive eaters that meditate over their food before they fuckin’ demolish it. Take a breath, huh?
Satsuki did take a breath, letting the cold air of the peak fill her lungs, but the tension that had turned her spine to steel didn’t relent so easily.
“I have watched you grow from a girl who had to hold her teacup in both hands to a woman who could balance it on a single fingertip, if she so chose.” Soroi began, shifting his dark eyes from the nest towards her. “You endured not only the burden of your secrets, of the plans you were setting into motion, but unimaginable cruelty. Cruelty and the resounding silence from everyone around you.”
“Soroi.” Satsuki’s jaw clenched.
“You do not have to speak of it. I know that you believe sharing those horrors will despoil the ears of everyone who hears the truth.” Soroi set his walking stick against the outcropping, dry palms pressing together in his lap. “Yet Ragyo also claimed the word purity for herself, didn’t she?”
Hearing him say her mother’s name without any honorific was bizarre on its own, but the word he emphasized felt like a punch to the gut. Satsuki often thought of Junketsu, especially when she saw Ryuko fiddling with the hem of a shirt or wiping a stain from her jacket, as if the younger girl was expecting the fabric to gripe at her for using too much hot sauce. She had been grateful when the kamui was absorbed by Senketsu, stripped from her in an instant, liberating where Ragyo’s theft had been agonizing, but there was a note of loss too. Feral as it was, a wild creature that rebelled at even the thought of being tamed, she had forced Junketsu in the direction of her will, just like she had tried to do with Ryuko. Just as Ragyo had done with them both.
“Everyone looks at me differently.” Satsuki said, swallowing past a hard knot in her throat. “The Elites visit me like a deposed emperor, unsure if I have truly forsaken the right to rule. Gamagoori hasn’t changed much, I suppose, but Sanageyama can’t seem to decide if I’m his superior or a friend. Inumuta just tugs his collar and frowns like he does with data he’s yet to decipher.”
Soroi smiled a little. “Your four ronin. Not nearly as catchy, I must say.”
“No, not nearly.” Satsuki shook her head. “I can’t even be sure what they know and what they’ve guessed. They saw me hanging in the cell and Nonon had a blanket ready to cover me when they brought the helicopter. Perhaps I’m fooling myself and the blanks are easily filled.”
“And what of Miss Jakuzure?” Soroi asked.
“She knew.” Satsuki went quiet, glancing down at her boots and thinking of the flesh underneath. The false toenails were long gone and so was the defense they offered. “When I was fifteen, she came over to celebrate my birthday a day early. Ragyo didn’t know we were going to have any visitors, so she…joined me in the bath. There was a mark on my neck I didn’t notice when I went to greet Nonon and she saw Ragyo touching up her lipstick in the mirror, her hair also wet.”
Soroi’s frown set lines deep into his face. “Did she say anything to you?”
“Thankfully, no.” There had been a tincture of venom every time Nonon had to utter the word Auntie ever since, though, so subtle as to be missed by anyone who wasn’t listening for it. “Respect bade her to allow me to keep my pride and dignity over comfort. It was what I needed then, to be bolstered instead of allowed to falter, even for a moment. She made the right choice.”
“I made that choice as well, but I failed you. Every day for years, I failed you, because I could not stop her from hurting you.” Soroi’s tone was grave, hands going still in his lap.
“It didn’t matter.” Satsuki felt her shoulders slump even as she said the words. “Ragyo wouldn’t have trusted me enough to share everything I needed to know if she didn’t believe she controlled me utterly. Soichiro made it clear that she couldn’t suspect a thing.”
“With all due respect to your father, he laid a great weight upon you at a very young age and granted you nearly nothing in return. Miss Matoi didn’t even know who you were until it was nearly too late. He set the two of you at odds and while it may have turned out well in the end, you were still punished for his mistakes. You bore it with infinite grace, but your strength does not absolve him of his sins.”
“What about my sins, Soroi?” Her hands tightened into fists. “I look at Ryuko and wonder how close is too close. Mako climbs on her like a tree, but I count the seconds that pass when she hugs me. What if I—”
“You would never.” In eighteen years, Soroi had never once interrupted her, and she fell silent in shock. “I may not have been able to shield you from your mother or take your father’s work from your hands, but I know without question that you are still kindhearted, Satsuki, and you would never inflict such a thing on Miss Matoi.”
It had taken weeks after their victory to convince him to stop calling her ojousama, insisting that even if he served in the manor that she didn’t want to hold such sharp authority over his head. Hearing her name completely bare of deference, set free of the chains of command, Satsuki was startled by the sensation of tears trickling down her face. The reaction was instantaneous, followed by a sob that burned in her throat as she tried to withhold the sound. Her nails bit into her palms, body trembling, but the seal of her restraint was broken and the crying refused to stop.
Soroi’s hand touched her shoulder as lightly as possible, asking permission without requiring her to utter the words. Satsuki managed a nod, her next sob muffled against the front of his jacket as one arm encircled her back. It was a loose enough embrace that she could slip free at any moment, with no fear of rejection or recoil. She cried until her lungs hurt and her face was swollen, tongue thick with salt and bile, leaning her weight entirely against him. Soroi was steady, more implacable than the mountain underneath their feet.
“I’m sorry, Satsuki.” The words were barely a whisper over the top of her hair.
It was difficult to swallow, her voice raw, but that had never been enough to stop her before. “I’m the one that should be asking forgiveness.”
“Not here. Not from me.” He said, and even without looking, Satsuki sensed his small smile. “Your friends, your sister, they have already forgiven you. They care for you. The fact that you fear wounding that trust proves you are nothing like your mother was. I will say it to my last breath if that’s what it takes for you to believe it.”
She sniffled as she straightened up, making a mental reminder that to see his coat dry-cleaned personally. “Thank you, Soroi.”
“There’s another mountain to climb tomorrow, you know.” He arched a brow, thick and gray. “I still expect us to take the hardest trail.”
Satsuki brusquely wiped away the remnants of the tears, a bit embarrassed when she found a folded handkerchief pressed gently into her palm. Soroi was always prepared too. “Anything less would insult us both.”
The descent was easier, not so much retracing their old steps but reaffirming the right ones. Silence filled the space between them again, as simple as breathing, cold air soothing the worst of the ache the crying left between her temples. When the rain began to fall from the sky, Satsuki welcomed the scent of blooming flowers it brought in its wake, urging the purple and white petals near their feet to turn up towards the clouds. They could talk more tomorrow, honor old scars without shame. Maybe, soon, she could do the same with Ryuko.
Soroi wasn’t her father, but walking beside him, she found that she wasn’t in need of one.
—
On a journey, ill;
my dream goes wandering
over withered fields.
—Basho