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The air was frigid and Atsu was able to feel the earth beneath her feet hard and unyielding as she positioned herself, katana firmly grasped and wrists aligned. It would probably create little friction where the snow had melted, but be deadly slippery where spots of leaves and ice leaked through her vision. Colors that felt a wound against her irises as she breathed in, as calmly as possible, as silently as possible. She was ready. Needed to be.
The wind was harsh, cold, her vision slightly blurred by the ever-falling snow and the fog that the wolfsbane and incense had created around the cemetery made the grasp around the katana's hilt a reminder on how she needed to focus less on the ground beneath her and more on the woman that stood in front of her. The one that had done nothing to save her mother, her mind relentlessly whispered with the echoes of a Ghost that had splattered enough red at the other side of Ezo to know that her name would forever be tied to death and loss.
She had accepted for that to be her legacy, she thought as she felt Oyuki's eyes on her; contemplative and sad. She had accepted for graves to sprout wherever she was as proof of her own pain. At least, Atsu thought whilst pressing her lips together, battling the first soft echo at the edge of her consciousness of how the wolfsbane was taking effect, she had thought she had accepted for that to be her fate. The fate of someone that would never, could never, change the night in where she had been killed, had seen and believed her family annihilated. Change, at the end of it all, of what she had transformed into.
Oyuki kept on eyeing her, serene but pained, back straight, posture almost delicate if it had not been for the kusarigama on her hands. And Atsu wanted to focus solely on that, on the dangling of the chain, on the fundo at the end of it. On how she would move across the clearing, closing the distance that separated them both and let the leaves rustle beneath her as she claimed the prize of the Kitsune's blood. Any time now she would move.
In a second. Two.
The air, however, kept its stillness as the seconds stretched, as her grasp on the katana did not falter but her muscles contracted, nervous.
Oyuki tilted her head, lowering her stance enough for the center of her gravity to change. Atsu felt her eyes traveling down as she tried to follow the older woman's movements. Pragmatism won the battle. Studying one's enemy helped.
She had vowed for revenge, had claimed how she would turn the woman's body in front of her into nothing but a shadow of what had plagued her mind for the last three lustrum. She needed to move.
Her legs, however, betrayed her.
Oyuki ended up moving first, low, to the ground, chain slipping between her fingers as she allowed the sickle to move first, grazing the frozen ground and Atsu felt her body move in tandem as if responding to a silent command that had not truly been uttered; as if a permission had been granted in a way that her bite onto the inside of her mouth. She felt open, far too open, as if the movements she had cultivated over the years were rusty and childlike; a wooden katana that would do nothing against the icy grin of the shinobi's poison.
She was able to hear it, she thought, the roaring fire that had circled their ginko tree like a halo: the inferno that had been created around what had been a haven. She wondered, briefly, as she crossed the distance just as Oyuki moved close enough for her breathing to be felt, for her senses to pick on the way the older woman's nerves seeped through the apparent composure, if she was the only one feeling the burning leaves floating around them as bit by bit, every part of her Home had been transformed into a grave. She knew the image to be a mirage. She knew she was standing miles away from the tree.
Yet, when the katana struck, she saw the shilouette of a mask and the abscence of those eyes that had felt gentle in a way that made her skin blister with something different than the hunger and pain she had allowed herself to simmer in for so long.
She was unsure, she admitted as she roared, Oyuki's voice echoing, reminding her to breathe, to control it. She had been doubtful ever since leaving her brother behind, the pain of a life lived under a different curse marring the way he moved; a different way, a painful reminder of how she would never get to know who Jubei might have turned into if the Six had not visited them. And yet, her brother had claimed for a clear head, for time. For hope and order and things that Atsu wanted to rebel against.
Rebeling felt good. Appropriate. Anger felt right. Warm.
Trusting felt difficult. Slippery. An open hole onto uncertain ground.
The earth beneath her gave away as she slipped to her left, katana rising and falling, chain meeting blade, the tree burning, image blinking and transforming the charred red to purest white, dots of yellow the leaves that emitted the scent of rotting nature. The kind of one she had gotten to grow up with. Before. Before everything.
She had trusted. She had wanted to. She had searched for Oyuki time and time again, asking for information but willing to know more, to hover closer to a different source of light. One that would titillate rather than devour her memories whole.
She was slipping. The idea made her breathe harder, clench her jaw. She had requested for the spirit of the Onryō to embrace her, for nothing else to come out of her heart, for blood spilled and wounds suffered to not halt her. Her body had responded, her dreams filled with nightmares and screams of bodies that would dissolve as soon as she reached for them.
And yet. Jubei had not disappeared when they had recognized each other, the way his eyes had looked at her a painful reminder, however, that they had missed each other's change. A lesson that, if anything, would take years to unlearn as Atsu wondered if the look others inflicted on her, fear of what she was capable of doing, disgust at the stench of death that seemed to follow her, need for the way she moved her weapons, would ever not make her pause for the slightlest beat: she had requested for the Onryō's spirit. A mortal, however, would never truly be a concept for too long before the heart longed for something else.
And yet, Oyuki had never stared at her in the same way. If anything, resolution had been reflected back ever since she had asked for her name and whilst she had not asked, had not pried, she could have. Should have. An understanding that had frozen her back when she had, finally, stood in front of the new Kitsune and her had mocked her, requesting for the one single thing Atsu had realized, had filled her with fear.
The blade kept on hitting metal, her muscles screamed as her mind swam and she felt tears beginning to run.
She should have known. The idea kept on echoing inside her head when they both had escaped the lair, when Oyuki had finally allowed herself to move as she truly knew. She herself had pointed it out time and time again: how much the older woman knew. How helpful she was.
"Do you know how to use the bow"
Had she not enjoyed the company, her mind had whispered with the poison and antidote both paralyizing her, the fire roaring, with Oyuki's back moving away, with rage biting her ankles like a rabid, hungry wold. Had she not allowed her mouth to curve and her lips to smirk, and her eyes to follow when the shamisen had been played. "The songbird of Ezo": the title she had not quite thought twice about the moment she had first heard it but had made her think of fluttering feathers and razor-like notes the moment she had heard the first note, had turned and allowed for her mind to still.
As if, she now thought, a frozen lake.
She heard the whistling sound of the kusarigama, not truly touching her but a warning and the mask's image disappeared only to leave Oyuki's face, lips parted as she jumped sideways, close enough for Atsu's mind to halfway form the idea that if she deposed her katana and extended her hand, her fingers would be able to graze the clothes she wore, the slight opening at her chest where fabric peeked.
She had mumbled about the tight kimono, had not quite expected to revel into the way the other woman had tightened the clothes once more, eyes roaming her body, lingering. "Any looser, and they'll want more than sake."
Atsu had not replied to that, but the thought of the banter had been present as the wind had howled and the lake groaned under the weight of the ice it contained.
She ought to have seen how the calluses on Oyuki's fingertips were telling enough, that spoke of something beyond the mere shamisen's use. She ought to have seen the way the older woman looked around them when they traveled through the wildnerness, how she moved and talked, how secrets were as important as silence to her.
Atsu had not wanted to follow the carefully left crumbs and she wondered if Oyuki had even been aware she had been leaving them in the first place. Not like it mattered.
A third time, a fourth. The fire kept on roaring, the tree kept on burning, the image of the Kitsune overlapped Oyuki's.
"I chose to save you"
Had she? Would have Atsu done the same herself?
(Yes, she would have. Still would. Would she?)
Atsu could feel her lungs closing in, sucking onto the air that surrounded her, the scent of the posion filling her up, inyecting itself into her muscles.
"Resist, Atsu. Fight it."
A plea, one that did little to stop the metallic aftertaste of blood that did its best to rush as she powered her body forward, her need for revenge.
A blink, a second longer and the cemetery was back, covered in snow and glimmering leaves, a yellow frame of soft light that fluttered as the notes of a faraway song grew stronger, strumming her heart ever forward.
And Atsu wanted to follow what the music and the notes promised her. A lull, a stasis. Despite the anger and the ire as well as the shame that had forced her to spit when she had realized that the woman that had accompanied her was the one she would eventually murder. She had believed to have something beyond the need to kill. A different kind of something she had found in Jubei: perfectly poised Jubei.
Change. That was what she had seen when staring into Oyuki's eyes.
"Fight it."
"I can't"
She had believed she would be able to change. She had considered the possibility of something different happening, of one of the monsters that had transformed her life to be different.
Was she wrong? Would she be wrong? What would it mean to consider that Oyuki was more than just the Kitsune. What would her mother think?
The shamisen's song grew stronger as the fire's crackle echoed just behind. A once again forked path. One that made her nostrils burn with the scent of marred flesh, the scent of metal, of treating oils and warm hands. Of how those tools she revered had been transformed as well within the memory of another.
"Saito branded you." A simple sentence, perhaps but not as simple on its execution. She wondered how much had Oyuki wanted to scream then. How much had she herself wanted to when she had realized that she needed to decide, as she had done, what to do with the promise she had been so sure about.
Was her resolution changing? What would become of the Onryō if she did?
The shamisen's music called for her, the crescendo of the notes overpowering, the shilouette of her mother, and the assuredness of how her feet had carried her back when she had been a child flashing back beneath her eyelids.
She had wanted to be able to turn back time, to protect.
A feint, the blade, a yelp.
Oyuki knelt in front of her, her hands extended towards her weapon, mentally calculating if she would be fast enough. Atsu knew that she would. Probably. Maybe.
Would she?
Her breathing was laboured and her chest hurt, the wind had made the gas retreat over the tombs, the yellow and white muddled where their feet had tumbled. She was vaguely aware as well of the slight discomfort of where her armour dig onto her muscles, the way her right forearm had managed to absorb the majority of the strain that came from battling against sickle and chain.
Oyuki looked like a bird, one about to fly away, to open wings and let the wind carry her. The image did not sit well with Atsu, the epithet, however, ringing ever true.
Blood dusted the underside of Oyuki's clothes, dropplets that might have been caused by either of them; Atsu did not truly feel her body behind her the metal she wore and she suspected it was the same for Oyuki but her eyes did not stop until she saw the small cuts of where the tip of the katana must have sliced and nicked. She had the medicine to treat some of those. Suspected Oyuki had the rest.
The cold was causing the blood to congeal already though, and as Oyuki moved to position her knees and her body weight against them, she allowed for her eyes to move back, to where they were met with a far too deep gentleness, a big enough understanding that made her tremble.
"Atsu"
She had heard commoners speak the Onryō's title like a prayer. Oyuki said her real name in a way that made it feel even more revered. More powerful.
A rush of blood and the image of the silent smile she had seen in Oyuki's eyes, the way she had felt her body wish for closeness, the way she had imagined, in a stupid, childish perhaps dream to show the older woman around her Home. To get to see her Home change. To see seasons and a time beyond the Six.
"I will never forgive the Kitsune." She saw as Oyuki's head fell. Her lips felt like venom and yet a whisper, a wheeze of painful loss.
She would never be able to forgive the mask. She knew as much.
"But the innkeeper's daughter?" Her hand grasped the katana ever so gently as she positioned the flat end of it against the bloodied clothes, the rush she felt as Oyuki's breath halted for a moment, as if forgetting how to draw the air around them void of fire or incense, full of the promise of yet more snow, enough to keep eyes trained onto the blade as she moved it back and up, towards the shash at her waist, towards the name she had not-so-long-ago written with the pure need for a corpse.
How many more corpses would haunt the one beneath the mask though. Monstruous was the adjective she had used when describing the six. Monstruos would be the one used for herself by those that warned of evil spirits to kids trying their best to live in a place about to disappear beneath the sound of soldiers sent by men powerful enough to believe themselves gods as opposed to parasites. She had found comfort on the term, had found solace in the idea of the mask being one and the same.
Yet, she thought as Oyuki looked back at her, waiting; how much did she want to get to see who the other was, truly was, beneath the title? "I might forgive her."
(I might learn how to love her.)