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Inazuma is furious. It’s storming something awful right now; thick clouds opening up to dump icy rain like knives down Wanderer’s back. He supposes it’s what he deserves for visiting the cursed place, even if by the Lesser Lord’s orders. Now, pitifully, he finds himself sheltered in the embrace of his mother. Well not really, just underneath the eaves of one of her shrines.
It’s off the beaten path, dilapidated; moldy rafters and onikabuto bitten wood framed by decaying ceramic tiles, but the porch is sturdy and covered and there’s no other signs of civilization for miles.
He’s looking for something. Buer hasn’t told him what it is, and he’s not quite sure that she knows herself, she’d only said that he’d know it when he sees it. He’s not certain if the little all-knowing-god was being purposefully cryptic or if she’d given him all she’d known. It would be unlike her to keep something vital from him.
He lingered in Inazuma city proper like a ghost for as long as he could bear before he turned his search to the wilds. He’d spent days trudging through waterlogged forests and mud-filled rice patties. He must be disgusting, caked in dried soil. At least he doesn’t smell. Puppets don’t sweat.
Wanderer wouldn’t consider himself lucky in any sense of the word. His life has been a series of misfortunes upon misfortunes— a seed of misery planted long ago that curls over his past like creeping ivy. Not that he can’t attribute some of it, well most of it, to himself and his actions.
After all, he is nothing but his own undoing.
And it truly is just his luck that the rain picked up the second he made for Araumi’s broad foothills. The manifestation of his mother’s rage bearing down on him and any other poor souls caught in the downpour. Sometimes he wonders if she knows he’s here.
He’s not alone. Well he no longer is. As usual, the peace is short-lived. From the edge of the road, far enough away that Wanderer almost can’t make him out, a stranger approaches.
Surely the lone traveler will just pass him by.
The stranger winds around the broken bend in the path and suddenly his countenance is clear. A Kaedehara, laughably unmistakeable, Maple-red streak in his hair shining like blood in the sunset.
Strangely enough, Wanderer feels something that he hasn’t for a very long time: something cold brewing in the pit of his stomach. A sick sort of apprehension that if he didn’t know any better he’d call dread. One of his mother’s ofuda detaches from the rafters and drifts down into his face. He resists the urge to tear it to shreds.
“Hello there,” and the other man is close, too close. It takes a second too long for Wanderer to register that he’s been snuck up on. “May I join you?”
He doesn’t reply. Simply turns his head away from the other man, because, really ? Who does he think he is? If he ignores him, maybe he’ll go away. If he ignores all of this, maybe it’ll go away.
Some good that’s ever done him.
It’s what he does with most of his problems. It never works, only allows them to grow larger. Large enough to become ghastly creatures that follow him like shadowy wraiths; creatures that Buer longs for him to face. This problem doesn’t seem to want to go away either; because the Kaedehara sits himself next to Wanderer. Plopping down on the same bench that Wanderer has been calling home for the past couple of hours.
He makes almost no sound as he does it, and Wanderer’s guard immediately flys up because something isn’t quite right with this man. Now that he thinks about it, the man’s footfalls had barely made a sound as he’d crept up the path.
“What do you want?” He hisses. It doesn’t come out with the bite he’d intended, but it should be enough to send the man running for the hills.
“A conversation.” The man smiles brilliantly and for a moment, Wanderer feels as though he could get lost in it because in it he sees him. He snaps back to reality because he knows he’d be getting lost in something that once and never was.
“Why? You don’t know me.” He says coolly. His voice carries the icy edge he’s known for, yet the stranger seems unperturbed. If anything, the other man shuffles closer to Wanderer. He’s soaked through, drenched clothing clinging to him like moth to flame, hair plastered to his head. The crimson streak in it is on full display and Wanderer has the urge to brush it away to reveal his eyes.
The rain has stopped now, and the edge of the forest is peaceful in the setting sun; air thick with wood musk, petrichor, and no-see-ums. Wanderer bats one of the creatures away as it threatens to settle on his eyelashes.
“I suppose not, but I want to.” Their shoulders are almost touching, and for some reason Wanderer doesn’t seem to mind. He makes no move to reduce their proximity and ignores the way his skin buzzes at the almost touch.
Wanderer balks. “What could possibly make you want to do that?” He’s getting annoyed, and is starting to consider turning the man into a deep red stain on the grass.
“Because you’re like me. A soul adrift.” The man makes a vague gesture towards the setting sun, like that has any semblance of meaning. The rain has stopped and it truly is almost nightfall now, only a sliver of daylight remaining. It paints the two men in pinks and purples, and Wanderer finds it woefully impressionistic. The rain has stopped so why is he still here?
“What makes you say that? You know nothing about me.” Wanderer spits, a little bit nasty and a little bit cruel, and with a little bit of a sliver of who he used to be shining through the cracks in his porcelain facade.
“I heard it on the wind.” The stranger muses, almost to himself. Quiet enough for it to be a secret between him, Wanderer, and the whispering copse of trees surrounding them. “Do you want to know what it said?”
Wanderer remains silent.
“Half to whole, two wandering souls, flames alight” Kaedehara smiles like he knows something that Wanderer doesn’t, and Wanderer wants to wipe the grin from his face. Another, more traitorous part of him wants to keep it for himself.
“You think yourself a poet?”
“I’ve been called one before.” There’s an uptick at the corner of the other man’s mouth, his grin turning more to a soft smirk and it’s driving Wanderer mad.
“Flowery words will get you nowhere Kaedehara.” Or everywhere.
“Ah, so you know me? Or of me perhaps?”
Would it be fair to say that he does? In reality he knows nothing of this man, other than his family line and its demise. In this reality he had no hand in it, yet the World Tree never fully forgets. No one is ever truly free from sin. He can’t wash the blood from his hands.
“Something like that.” Wanderer sighs, there will be no getting rid of him now. He settles in for a longer confrontation than he initially anticipated.
“I must say I didn’t expect that. Stranger you are full of surprises.” The man smiles warmly at him. Freak . “Call me Kazuha.” He inclines his head politely.
Have you heard? Of Kaedehara Kazuha? He who blocked the Muso no Hitotachi? Did you know Kuni?
“Wanderer,” he replies tersely then attempts to look away. However, he’s finding it increasingly difficult to do so. Two glittering crystalflies manifest above him and drop fairy dust into his hair. Wanderer swats at them but they make no move to fly away. One settling on his shoulder and the other on his thigh. He sighs.
“Oh?” Says Kazuha, he’s smiling again. “They seem to be fond of you.”
“So what if they are?” He’d always attracted them: crystalflies. From the moment he’d awoken he’d found them following him, fluttering their gossamer wings after him like some sort of opaline shadow. A long time ago someone had told him it meant he had a good heart. What a joke. They’re more of a nuisance than anything else, in theory he could crush them and steal their diamond hearts, but what use is money for someone like him?
“It’s rare. It tells me what kind of person you are.” Not a person. Wanderer wants to correct, but another part of him so dearly wishes he was.
For a moment, he finds himself trapped in the past.
It’s warm, it’s always so warm near the furnace. He’s always liked it, watching the blacksmiths turn iron and sweat into enchanted blades. Sometimes he thinks he’d like to be a blade, forged in steel by the hands of his creator, certain of his purpose. Instead, he is carved from soft sacred wood, with no purpose at all— only a hole where his heart should be.
Niwa is there, as he always is. Kabukimono sticks to his side like sapwood glue, and Niwa makes no moves to discourage it. Kabukimono watches as the other man hammers away at the steel he’s using to forge a new blade. The sound is soothing, Kabukimono thinks he could almost fall asleep.
“Niwa, Sir, may I ask you something?” The hammer falls for a final time and Niwa sets his work aside.
“I’ve told you not to call me that, Kabukimono.” Niwa’s face is pulled into a frown, but his eyes are warm, alight with mirth. “We’re equals, you and me.”
“Equals?” Kabukimono turns the word over in his mind. That doesn’t make sense. Not at all. Because how can anything about them be equal? Niwa is real, flesh and blood. Kabukimono is not real and never will be.
“Of course.” Niwas expression is open and expectant, and Kabukimono remembers he is supposed to be asking a question.
“When you speak of me, do you refer to me as a person?” Niwa stares him down critically and the puppet wonders if he’s overstepped. Did he make him mad? But Niwa’s face breaks into a smile once more and it’s like the sun.
“How else would I?”
Kazuha makes no attempt to leave, no matter the fact that the rain has stopped, no matter the fact that Wanderer is terrible company, and despite himself, Wanderer makes no attempt to banish the man. Instead, they sit, the quickly waning sunset framing their faces as the sun dips below the horizon of the false sky.
Have you heard? The stars in the sky are fake. Kuni did you know?
And maybe it’s fate that when the sun finally sets, Kazuha turns to face him and brushes a stray strand of hair from his cheek.
“Apologies,” His face is flushed, a pretty pink dusting over his cheeks. “I wanted to see your face.” Something new starts to pool in Wanderer’s stomach, a sort of warmth he’s sure he’s never felt before. Kazuha is inching closer by the second. Their shoulders are fully touching, thighs pressed up against each other, and Wanderer thinks that if Kaedehara gets any closer to him, then he’d be in his lap.
There’s a heavy silence that settles like a weight over the two of them. It’s not awkward, but the air is charged with something that Wanderer cannot quite place. He may not command thunder anymore, but right now it's as if electricity jumps between the two of them. The rafters creak overhead and for a moment Wanderer fears the ceiling may cave it. Maybe it already has, because the sky is falling and he doesn’t know if he should pick it back up.
“You’re very beautiful,” says Kazuha, he runs a hand through his hair and Wanderer realizes that he must be nervous. His cheeks are even more flushed, peachy pink giving way to scarlet red. Wanderer finds it endearing.
“So I’ve been told.” He replies, Kazuha breaks into startled laughter. It’s dark now, no light save for that of the moon and the candles dotting the altar. In the candlelight, Kazuha seems to glow. Wanderer wants.
“Tell me if I’m overstepping.” And then the man with the red streak in his hair is kissing him. And it's the way he presses their lips together like a promise, a prayer in two breaths. The way he withdraws and there’s poetry on Kaedehara’s lips. And all of a sudden, despite himself, Wanderer feels very lucky after all.
It’s novel. It had never been like this with Niwa, they’d never done anything like this, hadn’t needed to. But this; this is a new kind of intimacy. It’s different, sets a fire in his very bone, a sojourn into warm, dreamlike, affection that Wanderer had never once felt himself capable of; nor thought himself worthy of.
Because who could feel for a puppet who in turn feels nothing at all?
That’s not right. Nahida would say. I think you feel more than any of us could ever imagine. Are you listening Kuni?
And just like that, it ends. Kazuha pulls away, but the fire remains. The candle is still lit— rebel flame dancing in the moonlight.
“I feel like I’ve been waiting centuries to do that. Is that odd?” Kazuha smiles at him, and it’s the same sun. And Wanderer doesn’t know how to tell him that it’s not just odd, it’s the strangest thing in the world, and also not at all. A beautiful paradox of knowing more than someone but also nothing at the same time.
Because when he looks at him, he sees Niwa, and that terrifies him. It’s a stark reminder of who he is, and what he did and who he hurt; even if in this life, it never really happened. Kazuha is here now, and Niwa is gone, lost to a past of bloodshed, betrayal, and half-formed memories. What once was has been consumed by fire. Selfishly, Wanderer thinks he would burn it all down again just to see him one more time.