Kaguta - Or, Ankūro - The Warrior, The Thief and The Killer

42

In the coming chase,
warriors travel fleeting,
Aching for the end.
- Bushubō.

They could not keep up the pace of the chase for too long, through fear of breaking their horses. Saiban continued to drift between a shade from full strength and debilitated weariness, almost falling from his horse more than once. They needed to rest and the rain, that had not stopped since the great storm, made their passage even more treacherous. The road had turned into a quagmire, the signs of the war party passing this way as obvious as though they could see them ahead.

Kō couldn't see the trailing procession, however. It still remained out of sight and she began to wonder whether they would ever catch them in time. The Princess, Imēo, stood beside her horse as it took hesitating drinks from the swollen stream they had found, so different from the impassive-featured royal they had first met within her palace within the Imperial Palace grounds.

She gazed about her in wonder, as though seeing the landscape for the first time, freed from her shackles of propriety, formality and tradition. It seemed to Kō that Imēo had little time to be the young girl that she was. Bordering upon womanhood without ever living a normal life. She smiled at everything, even the wrecked landscape devastated by first the drought, then the storm, and now the incessant pattering of the rainy season downpours, that switched from fine, soddening showers to heavy, beating deluges.

"Your Imperial ... Imēo. May I ask a question?" Kō had already checked upon Saiban and Dojūru, both having suffered in the fight as she had. Now, she checked the Princess. "You have seen much this day, yet you appear unperturbed. There is no shame in feeling overwhelmed. How do you feel?"

"I have no time to feel." The smile remained, but Kō sensed a sadness within the Princess. "We are ... I was taught from the moment I could talk to hide whatever feelings I had. Feelings, expressions, thoughts, were inappropriate to express. We, my brother and I, cannot show human frailties. They show weakness. They break down the walls between us and our subjects. We are the Divines made flesh, or so it is said. Here, I am free. If only for the moment."

"Many people died. Your servants and guards, even the enemy. That must have affected you." Kō's hand fell to the Kinishima sword in her belt, comforting her at the thought of what had occurred. She still felt every death in her heart, though she tried not to. "Divine or not, you are still only a child, forgive me. I worry not only for your physical well-being, but that of your mind and soul."

Imēo did not reply immediately. Instead, she looked around, stroking the neck of her horse as she looked toward the lands that could become hers should the Yāttō follow through with his plan. Then she looked to Dojūru and Saiban. As though awakening from a dream, the Princess shook her head, the smile returning to her face.

"We ... I have to be fine. I cannot be anything else." With her free hand, Imēo wiped the rainwater from her face, though more took its place. "The Sansui, Dojūru. He understands duty. In the old tongue, there was a word. 'Orui'. It meant many things that the common tongue cannot express. Duty. Burden. Debt. Expectation. Tradition. The way things are. The way things should be. Other meanings all wrapped up in that one, little word. I am fine because Orui. I endure because Orui. So?"

Kō had heard of the word, of course, but even for the nobility, the word had become less relevant. Many things were once forgiven due to Orui, many debts accepted due to Orui. The Princess, it seemed, took the meaning of Orui as something she had to suffer. That Orui decided her thoughts, her feelings and her actions. Kō had never placed much stock in that phrase, even when she embraced her nobility.

It meant even less to her now, but, as she thought about it, it appeared Orui dictated her actions even now. She felt a great burden in keeping the Princess alive, a duty to keep the Imperial line, the legacy that that held, intact and strong. The Shēsō had said that line had broken many times in the past. Kaguta had survived that. It would survive the Yāttō taking the crown. That didn't mean Kō would not do anything in her power to stop that happening. The Yāttō, after all, now sat upon her list, not the Emperor or the Princess. The two burdens had become intertwined.