Himitsu (Book One of the Kakureta Hana series)

IV: Shi

I make a point to sit between Hikaru and Jun at every possible moment while we travel back to the Fujioka clan. She shoots me a venomous look every time that I do it, but my pride still stings from her rejection (and I still do not trust the shinobi).

Saiko seems surprised when I tell him that we will be sharing a tent on the way back. I trust that Rika will ensure Jun doesn't sneak off to the tent that Hikaru makes a point of putting far away from the rest of us.

Emi has ventured in the opposite direction to keep an eye on the Amachi clan. Masumo, Saiko, and she all suspect a traitor among our ranks that is connected to whoever Hikaru is informing, but none of them will tell me who it is they all have an eye on.

Masumo and Akio, the dark man that had Suzume enthralled by his stories, were returning Tadashi to wherever he was spending his time. The morning we all left, I had met the three of them by the river to share the note I had extracted from the messenger.

Something was different about all three of them that morning. Despite the belief that I had that Akio would be near death's doors, he had seemed hale. Masumo had been missing part of the last two fingers on his left hand, and I knew that hadn't been the case the day before even though they looked months old. Emi had merely looked a few months older.

After she had examined the note, she had stared at me with a peculiar look in her eye and asked if Hikaru had seemed familiar to me. When I had shaken my head no, she had merely sighed and handed the note back to me.

Now, I study Hikaru with a critical eye, noting that Saiko is doing the same. A fine scar cuts across his face beginning at his left temple and stopping just short of the slope of his nose. He is slightly shorter than Jun with a slight limp.

Something does seem recognizable in my mind, but I cannot quite identify it. My thoughts are scattered when Jun sits next to him, leaning her head comfortably against his shoulder.

A growl escapes my throat before I can stop it. Saiko, sensing trouble, stands and announces, "Ryuu and I are going to go find some more wood for the fire."

Without a protest, I get up and follow him towards the edge of the grove of trees. As soon as we are screened by the trees, the shinobi crosses his arms and glares at me.

"Have you still not figured it out, General Igarashi?"

"Figured out what exactly?" I retort. "The fact that Jun is falling in love with someone who is trying to send a letter to an unknown person? A letter, might I mention, that explicitly stated that he suspected the fact that the Amachi lord was actually female?"

He releases a breath through clenched teeth and mutters angrily, "No. Hikaru came to us about three months ago with a badly injured leg, a broken hand, multiple broken ribs, and a barely-healed scar. He is short, wiry, and half-blind in his left eye.

"This is not the first time either one of us has encountered him, but the first time I met him, he was a shinobi for hire. Since then, he has clearly formed an alliance with several powerful allies against you."

I run through his description, trying desperately to match the face to a memory. At long last, it falls into place, and I lunge back towards the fire.

Saiko hurls me to the ground mid-stride and pins my body to the ground as I thrash beneath him. I growl, "Let me go, shinobi. I'm going to tear every limb from the body of that heartless baka yarō like I should have."

He lets me hiss a few more insults at the man I now realize was Raiden's champion.  If I had known that he would lure Jun into his trap mere months later, I would have ensured that he had never left that bloody battlefield.