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Crickets have an odd ability to get anywhere. Even in a big city like Gion, a place filled with all sorts of people and businesses, not to mention the huge gate and wall that encapsulates it all, the tiny bugs still managed to wiggle their way inside. And, if you could wait until the right time of night, or perhaps Kiryu should say the morning seeing that it was probably around four, you could hear them crystal clear. Without all the distractions of the people moaning and laughing, carrying on and on about all the stuff they wanted to do here in one of Japan’s most notable red-light districts.
Without might have been too strong of a word, Kiryu realized, but to someone who’d been living here for four years and gotten used to all the people noises, even if only a few were talking instead of hundreds, it felt like complete silence.
And it was very quiet tonight, or else the kakemawari wouldn’t have been able to hear the crickets. Even with all of his doors and windows open, the faint noises of a few late night party goers were barely noticeable under the low hum of the bitter heat and the chirps of various little bugs. It was relaxing, to say the least.
Kiryu didn’t like to leave his windows open at night, let alone his doors, but on a scorching evening like this, he was too hot to care. Not like anyone was going to steal from him anyways. Kiryu was a tall, intimidating man who had beat off random street punks like it was no problem, not to mention how bored he seemed while doing it. No one wanted to mess with him, and that extended to everything he owned. Stealing from him could mean many things, and Kiryu let the townspeople come up with those on their own. Much more scary than anything I could tell them, he’d decided.
And, just to add another layer of threat to any would-be robbers, Kiryu had company over this night. Company of the notorious leader of a gang of thieves who chose to live in a cave pretty close to the town . How such a location provided apt symbolism for the group being more ruthless and animalistic then they were, Kiryu had seen them up close and personal and had been told plenty times by their boss Shishido that he didn’t want the damn job in the first place, wasn’t lost on anyone on the outside. No, it was a perfect hideout for intimidation and people were scared of them.
Perhaps Kiryu shouldn’t have let Shishido come over. Because when people saw them around town and in the House of the Dragon together, the kakemawari could only imagine what they were thinking .
The townspeople were probably more scared and angry with him than ever before.
Not like Kiryu really cared.
He had little to no love for this town. This stain, that he was only a little embarrassed to enjoy, on Japan’s map, a place that sold women like cattle and alcohol like water. He couldn’t care less about if they hated or loved him. He came here simply to get away from the past.
And he wasn’t even able to do that.
It was funny, in a sad sense, that years ago Kiryu had watched his friend fall to his death and had his wife die in his arms, and had come here to try and make amends, only to be told to go get a trinket back from some criminals and end up at who’s door?
The last time Kiryu had seen Majima, he was using a different name.
Back then, what was now Kiryu was instead Musashi. Not a jack-of-all-trades who did nothing but lounge around and occasionally work, but a swordsman, one who was in the military and had killed someone for the first time.
Back then, Shishido wasn’t Shishido. He was Majima, another swordsman who’d joined the military, a man who’d not only lost an eye protecting Musashi from their superior's blade. He had lost his life as well , or so Kiryu had thought. The sight of him falling into that cavern was something that hadn’t left Kiryu for all five years it had been since then.
It was heart wrenching in a way Kiryu was unsure how to describe, watching someone you had come to care about falling to their doom , all because you were too slow to save them .
But then, who would have guessed that five years later, an innocent job for Kiryu to re-steal an item in return for information would end up in the two reuniting in some form.
Majima might have died that day, a broken body at the bottom of some canyon, but from his death, there came Shishido. And he held some faint memories of Kiryu, albeit the Kiryu who had stopped existing four years ago.
If he hadn’t, then he probably wouldn’t have been sleeping by the dragon’s side right now.
Maybe sleeping by his side was a bit of an understatement. To be honest, it was more of a situation where Shishido was sleeping on Kiryu’s side, because over the course of the night, the thief master had wiggled and rolled his way into an odd position.
It had started off as a mutual agreement, with more vocality from Shishido’s side, that it was around two in the morning and that both men were getting tired. Shishido, who Kiryu had long suspected slept on the ground in that cave of his, simply flopped down on the tatami floor and sighed , content . Kiryu stared at him for a moment or two, not so subitally thinking about how his friend really had become someone else, before following suit, expecting to move in a minute or two.
That was until Shishido rolled over.
It had to have been about an hour later, probably bordering on unconsciousness, the reluctant thief flipped over and half on top of Kiryu, who simply lay there stunned. He could feel Shishido’s fingers against his specially made kimono and the parts of his chest it didn’t cover, flexing in and out ever so slightly, and he could just barely see Shishido’s head as it lay awkwardly between the kakemawari’s shoulder and his chest . The way each strained breath Kiryu let in and out ruffled the thief’s greasy, black hair.
Kiryu should have rolled him back off and said something, but for some reason he just knew that he couldn’t. Part of his mind was telling him that moving the thief was a bad choice, one that he would regret in the near future, but he couldn’t for the life of him figure out why.
Kiryu hadn’t slept with anyone in a long time, be it in a romantic way or otherwise. He hadn’t had anyone around to do that with, preferring to keep to himself. That was partially for his image as a tough guy, and partially so that he wouldn’t get attached to anyone new. Anyone else he could lose.
He’d forgotten what it felt like to have someone by your side. And being the emotional brick wall that he was, even now that he remembered, he still found it hard to explain. But if he had to, then Kiryu would tell you it felt warm.
Having someone to be around, and be comfortable in an intimate situation with you felt warm.
Not warm as in a physical heat, like the one that had laid its claws upon this town tonight and made Kiryu sweat even in his relatively loose dragon kimono. It was a warm feeling inside, one that flowed through your blood and made your mind run a little bit faster.
It was a warm feeling that he hadn’t had since Ukiyo was still around.
Even though it was four years ago, and only lasted for one, Kiryu could clearly recall many nights just like this, one’s where he and Ukiyo would leave the windows and doors open after some small talk about how hot it was, before heading off to bed. Laying there, listening to the frogs in the rice fields and Ukiyo’s breathing as Kiryu slowly fell asleep. There was no moaning or yelling in that town, no businesses that sold women and kids as items. It was always quiet at night there, and Kiryu liked it that way, not only for its relaxation value. He loved it because his wife was there.
Ukiyo was always a beautiful lady, more gorgeous than anyone Kiryu had seen before. And, not only was she pretty, she was also a hard worker, someone who believed in him. No one could ask for a better wife. And the best part?
She loved him.
She loved him, the man who’d only come to her house to deliver the news that her brother was unfortunately no longer alive and that he was sorry. Knowing deep down that Majima’s death was his fault. But she still loved him.
And it made Kiryu wonder, on those nights when Ukiyo had already drifted off and the animals outside sang, how could anyone love a man like him?
In Gion, outside of Kiryu’s reminiscing, the kakemawari inhaled shakily and sighed, ending his thoughts. He wasn’t very interested in going down that rabbit hole tonight. It would probably just hurt.
In response, Shishido curled himself slightly more inwards, his fingers gripping the fabric of Kiryu’s kimono as firmly as a half asleep man could .
It gave Kiryu pause for a moment, thinking for a moment about why Shishido had suddenly become distressed and if he was awake or not, before he nodded off that line of thinking too, letting it fade into the sounds of crickets and a bar owner trying to kick out the last of his patrons. It didn’t matter either way did it?
Kiryu’s right arm lifted itself and laid across Shishido’s shoulders, squeezing his left one.
The thief relaxed.
And suddenly, Kiryu was reminded of another thing he had yet to confront. A separate but similar issue that the kakemawari didn’t exactly feel like diving into. Perhaps because he wasn’t ready to face the reality of it.
Kiryu had always considered himself an expert at putting the things he wanted to behind him. His wife was stabbed with his own short sword and he had to hold her as she died.
He could have saved her.
He should have saved her.
But he didn’t.
Musashi, as he was still going by at the time, was a big bad samurai, one who had gone to war for the offer of a high up position in security staff of the ruling party at the time, and had killed many strangers just for a chance at that job.
And yet, he couldn’t even kill the man who’d killed his wife. He couldn’t stop her from dying.
He failed her.
And he failed her brother. He couldn’t keep his silent promise that he made even after all was said and done and Majima was laying at the bottom of the cavern that Musashi was on his knees crying in front of. His promise that he would at the very least protect his sister, no matter how short the time that the two men knew each other was.
He had failed Majima in other ways too, if he was being honest.
Musashi told Majima that they were going to make it. They were going to walk into the Omi province and he was going to see his sister again. He told his one eyed and delirious from blood loss friend as they walked that Musashi wouldn’t let him die. And each time he said it, Majima would simply smile sadly, before dropping it after a couple of moments, probably when he thought Musashi wasn’t looking. The latter liked to think that he was getting through to Majima, that each time he said it again and again it brought the ex-samurai hope.
But Musashi couldn’t protect him either.
No, it was the opposite way around.
Forget watching your wife get stabbed with your own blade and being powerless to stop it, imagine watching as the person you swore to bring home as you dragged him along, his legs unable to move, stood up and sacrificed himself for you.
Musashi didn’t get to hold Majima as he died, to hear those last thoughts of his. To try and bring a little bit of reprieve to the situation, if just for the person dying's sake. He had to watch as the person he told was going to go home killed himself for a stranger he’d met a week ago.
Majima left his sister to Musashi. That was his last spoken word.
Majima trusted Musashi. The look in his eye as he fell to his death just before the disappeared into the fog and the fog regurgitated a sickening crack told Musashi that it was ok. That he was going to be fine. That Musashi was going to be fine.
But Musashi knew that Majima was wrong.
It wasn’t fine.
No matter how the small break he’d had from having to think all of those horrible things about himself had made it seem, he was still a failure in the end, wasn’t he?
Something like these two events should leave a lasting impression on someone, and it obviously had on Kiryu, or else he wouldn’t be remembering them with such vitriol. But he’d found in the last four years, if he just pushed it back down inside, it didn’t hurt as much. If he could just force himself to forget, to black it out until it was nothing more than a faint reminder of something he’d once gone through or perhaps an allegory he was told once a long time ago, then he wouldn’t have to deal with it. He wouldn’t get distracted and dragged down into a depression again, not like he ever had any time to be depressed or grieve.
Memories honored silently were just as good as those honored with as much passion and dedication put behind them as the honorer could, weren’t they?
And besides, hadn’t it been Ukiyo’s last wish for him to live his life even if she was no longer around. She’d pestered him for days before the unfortunate encounter happened to go out there and be a swordsman again. She’d even tied the little bell charms to his sword, begging him to protect those that couldn’t protect themselves. She wanted him to be a more honorable version of what her adopted brother once was.
Kiryu would have claimed that he was living his life like she asked, if that claim wasn’t so objectively wrong. Anyone with context and knowledge of the situation would point out that Kiryu was, in fact, not living like his wife had asked him to.
He was using his wife’s words as an excuse, and he knew it.
He knew because every time he thought about her and what she’d said, it made him want to vomit.
He was being a coward.
He’d been a coward for the past four years.
He was running.
Back in reality , Kiryu let his head fall to his right, staring at some pots he had set up against the wall, absentmindedly letting his fingers rub in and out on Shishido’s shoulder.
The thief wiggled around a little and let his own fingers fall flat on Kiryu’s chest.
A crowd of about four walked out of that bar across the street, probably the ones that the owner had long been trying to oust, complaining and conversing about various things. Mostly the hottest girls in town and how they should try them out tomorrow. The crickets joined the conversation with their own two cents, just in a language that none but their own kind could understand.
Gion was a dirty city. Saying otherwise would have been nothing but a lie. It was a gross place for nasty people to get their fill of whatever degenerate stuff they liked. It was a place that exploited those who had gone through hell and back and had no choice but to come here and work for a living. Work in jobs that everyone considered lowly. They were treated like items, stuff to be used and thrown away.
Gion was a place that plenty of people wished that they could visit , but never wanted to stay.
And it was where Kiryu had ended up.
It was ironic, wasn’t it?
That Kiryu was now living here . A man who had so long ago and under a different name swore to a family he had married into and watched the destruction of that he was going to be a better person. For the sake of Japan, he’d done it.
He’d done it because Majima told him not to kill people, showed him what it could do to a person and why he should avoid it at all costs.
He’d done it because Ukiyo asked him so many times to become a swordsman, even letting it be the last thing she wished as she died.
And Kiryu had nothing to show for it. He had failed to do what he told them he would, just like he failed to save their lives.
But, that didn’t mean he didn’t have a good starting point.
Kiryu wasn’t sure what he had done to get on the side of good graces, but whatever it was had decided to give him another chance.
And that chance was laying right beside him.
Somehow, as he had mentioned before, Majima hadn’t really died that day. He’d simply been reborn as another man, one who could remember nothing about Musashi and his own past, simply content to live life to its fullest in the moment.
When Kiryu had first realized that Shishido was essentially a new man, one who just happened to have Majima’s face, it hurt. Stung at his heart and made him want to cry, just a little bit. But, as time went on, Kiryu started to not mind at all. He was just happy, happy to have someone familiar back in his life, happy that Majima was still alive if not his old self.
It meant he could make up for his failures.
The Majima family bloodline… or better yet, the Shirai family bloodline hadn’t ended four or five years ago, and mark his words, it wasn’t going to end now.
Kiryu would make sure of it.
What Musashi had failed to do and left at the gates of Gion, Kiryu would take up and complete them. He would keep Shishido alive if it was the last thing he did, and he would rescue that girl Yoshino like he told her he would. They would be his starting point to becoming a hero, someone people could look up to.
And maybe, one day he could take back the name Miyamoto Musashi without any shame.
Kiryu lifted his head from where it had lulled to the right and found himself staring at the ceiling again. In the distance, that group of four seemed to have entered a hotel and finally shut up, the crickets growing quieter to mourn the loss of the conversation they had been adding to with their own flair . Barely realizing it, Kiryu let his right hand run down Shishido’s arm, waiting to see if the thief moved in response. When he didn’t, Kiryu wasn’t surprised at all. He’d finally fallen completely asleep, no more twitching and finger movements.
The kakemawari pulled the thief closer with his one arm, letting his own head sink into the thief’s hair.
Kiryu was going to protect Shishido no matter the cost. It didn’t matter if it killed him, or if people hated him for it. He had only one goal in his mind, and that was to make sure that the criminal made it out of this alive.
And tonight was a good step in that direction, even if it was perhaps more self serving than anything.
Because it was a hot night in Gion and even though all of the windows and doors of the House of the Dragon were open, no one dared to come inside.
Kiryu was a scary man, and so god help him if he lost Shishido again.
The crickets seemed to agree.