Siinji - Or, Ankūro and the City of the Golden Boughs

27

27

All doors open wide,
If the correct keys are used.
Some do not need keys.
- Momiji.

Tuccé had none of his belligerence. He no longer tried to belittle his captors, only sitting in a sullen silence as the first signs of sunlight peeked over the edge of the hole atop the bubble surrounding the derelict city of the ancient Kannai. Yurivno felt pity for him, but it did not stop her from remembering his words.

He could have continued to say he could not have saved her father. Yurivno would have had no way of knowing if he told the truth, or not. Instead, he had confessed to her that he did not even try to save her father. She would have still doubted him, she believed, but she could not have accused him. They were becoming friends, were friends. Now, that friendship teetered upon a precipice of distrust far greater than had he simply lied.

She ran her fingers through her long fur, in all the places she could reach without taking off her clothes. She had no time and nowhere to groom herself properly, not here, and she caught several knots forming. She felt filthy and longed for the hot springs they had visited while staying at Tanou's home.

Upon waking, she noticed the guards had swapped shifts, during the night, allowing the others to rest and gain some respite from Ankūro's taunting. That only meant the old woman had new toys to play with. By the time the old woman decided to make her move, if she intended making a move at all, Yurivno expected all the regular soldiers to collapse in fits of terror.

Not so the Na-oi Sansui. They still sat in the golden boughs of the trees, bows at the ready, as though they had no need of sleep or rest of any kind. Akemio sat on his haunches, leaning his back against a nearby, listing tree trunk, the Kinishima sword in his hands. The point of the sword had scoured a hole in the ground before him, his fingers spinning the blade around and around as he watched Ankūro.

Sakicho also continued to stare at the old woman. Like a rock, he didn't seem to have moved at all, during the night. Still standing, legs apart, arms crossed over his chest. Yurivno wondered if that permanent scowl had given the boy a headache, he had worn it for so long. The two warriors, Akemio and Sakicho, both feared Ankūro. Both wanted her dead.

The old woman, of course, did not care. As Yurivno had opened her eyes, she had found the old woman performing exercises, as though it were no different a day, no different a place than any other. Bending her knees, rolling her hips, windmilling her arms, Yurivno would find her comical, had she not seen the old woman tear through seasoned warriors as though they had only that day picked up weapons.

"Good sleep?" Ankūro bent double, touching the ground before her toes. Her age and appearance belied her flexibility, her strength. Her large backside in the air, the old woman grunted and bent back the other way, glaring at the guards from an upside-down perspective.

"Not at all." She pulled her tail to her front and began running her fingers through the fur, catching knots as she did so. "I just want to get this over with."

"Soon, all will end." The old woman gave a thin smile, then began hacking and coughing. Hitting her chest with her fist, she made a hawking sound and then spat to the side. The phlegm landed atop one of the guards' shoes.

That had sounded ominous and Yurivno couldn't help but think of the prospect of unleashing something terrible upon the world, should they breach this door, and whatever other defences lay ahead of them. She looked towards the altar to see Drellis, already stood before it, examining the surface once again.

Leaving the despondent Tuccé and the unconcerned Ankūro, Yurivno moved towards Drellis. She did not know how much longer she would have to persuade him against this course of action. She wasn't even sure she could. If she had noticed nothing else about the man, she had come to recognise the single-minded drive he exhibited about this search.