The Witness of Usehjiki

Nine

TRIGGER WARNING for blood and gore. 

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Once, when Osa was a junior student at Hosten Military Secondary School in Usobo, she'd gotten caught up in a scheme to expel the reigning school prefect. She hadn't been a part of it. She'd just been the ignorant, innocent junior girl who was sent on an errand that ended with her in possession of damning evidence. Eventually, she'd been cast away for three days in the shed. Which was code for a cube-like space underneath the mock-ammunitions shed.

Unlike Ifiso who'd grown wider than her sisters and Toso who'd grown tall, before the rest of them caught up to her, Osa was the oldest, but the smallest of the three of them. So, while she'd spent those three days, curved into a ball and aching from head to toe, she'd been incredibly grateful that none of her bigger sisters were foolish enough to get thrown in the shed.

Sitting in the room that was meant to be hers in the Izeh mansion, Osa couldn't help wishing that, at least, one of her sisters could switch places with her. She was the one who'd been fated to die. As the oldest, she wasn't supposed to outlive them and mourn them.

She wiped tears from her eyes and stared up at the open window. What was she supposed to do now? Everyone she loved was gone.

Osa shuffled back on her butt as the door opened and Enechi entered the room, fuming in anger. Her hands were cuffed to a chain that was tightly wound around her waist and connected to another pair of cuffs that held her legs together. Even if she wanted to, there was hardly anything she could do against the tiny terror that was Enechi.

"You're refusing to eat," he said as the scared attendant who'd been trying to feed Osa a few minutes ago hid behind him. Osa had bitten the girl's fingers till she bled. The girl screamed and ran from the room, the first chance she got.

"You can't force me to do this," Osa said. "The ritual of the keys requires my consent. And I refuse."

His anger slowly slipped from his face as he strolled into the room and squatted in front of her.

"You're the only Oseki alive. You have no cousins. No uncles. No aunts."

"Exactly," Osa said, trying not to scream at the thought of her sisters and her mother. "I'm the only Oseki who can give you what you want. So maybe take off the cuffs and let me decide what I want to do."

"Why would I do that?" he smiled at her. "When I hold your life in my hands."

"You can't do anything to me."

"Thanks to you freeing the witness and rendering the keys powerless, the divinity is gone." He smiled. "I can kill you now."

Osa laughed.

"You think I need the protection of the keys?"

"From me, yes you do."

"Take one more step," she urged. "Let's find out."

Still smiling, he took a step closer. He was within reach. Osa could force her leg out through the restraints of the chain and sipe his legs out from under him. But then he took another step, bringing himself even closer.

This time, Osa didn't hesitate, she reached up to punch him but the next thing she knew, she was sitting back on the floor, perplexed as to how she'd gotten there.

"How foolish do you think I am?" he asked. "After your sister assaulted me and stole my key, I had the tota in my employ install a totem against physical violence." He shrugged, showing her the tattoo on his lower arm. "I mean, I'm pretty much protected against everything else, but it's been a while since someone punched me and I hated the feeling."