Henan province, Gi encampment
Seven months and one week after the prophesied arrival of the Messenger of Heaven
As she walked back to her camp with Kakouton and Kakouen by her side after her disastrous confrontation with Haru, the sinister, thirsty smile on Sousou's face caused everyone to give the three of them a wide berth in the Gi camp. Outside of Sousou's personal tent, Kakouton and Kakouen stopped following her, allowing Sousou to go in and change alone.
"That man is too dangerous to allow near Lady Karin, Shuuran," Kakouton said, lowering her voice to a whisper as she spoke to Kakouen. "We can't do anything about him now, but once this anti-Toutaku thing is over and done with, I'm absolutely going to kill him."
Kakouen sighed and brushed the large, sky-blue forelock of her short hair out of her face. Despite the calm in her amber eyes, she was no less discomfited by the strange scene that they'd just gotten away from. Nevertheless, if she didn't act as the cool counterpoint to her sister's worries and impulsive behaviors, Kakouton was likely to do something really stupid, like try to sneak back into the Zhuo camp and satisfy her desire to both protect Sousou and assuage her jealousy by killing Haru. "Are you saying that you don't trust Lady Karin to know her own strength in matters like this? Have faith."
Kakouton's eyes narrowed. "You saw those flames, didn't you?" She hissed. "They were black as coal and made my skin crawl just looking at them. We absolutely cannot let Lady Karin be hurt or even killed by that man. Shuuran. If I die trying to kill him, you have to do it. Lady Karin is the only one fit to rule this land, and if she gets killed by that bastard..."
Kakouton was cut off when Sousou's voice came from the tent. "Shunran, Shuuran. Come here now."
Immediately, the Kakou sisters walked into the tent together. Sousou was sitting on a firm bedroll that was fully unrolled, and smiled warmly at her two generals when they came inside. "I want you two to find out what's going on with dinner; if it's prepared, have it sent to me immediately. Make sure that our spies join up with the other camps' own before the hour is out. I don't intend to be encamped here longer than we need to be; we need to conserve supplies for the march on Sishui Pass, and their information will dictate how long we stay here."
"As you wish, Lady Karin," Kakouton said.
"Make sure that the men are also given standing orders to avoid antagonizing the soldiers from Zhuo, as well. Any man found violating that decision will be beaten for insubordination."
Kakouton and Kakouen reflexively exchanged glances at that specific order, but even though they only moved their eyes and not their heads, Sousou saw it anyway and her eyes narrowed while her smile fell. "Is there a problem with what I just said?"
"Not at all, Lady Karin," Kakouton replied quickly.
Sousou's expression grew tighter as she stood up and walked towards the Kakou sisters. Once she was within arm's reach, she stroked Kakouton's jaw with her fingers, and put on a cool smile. "You're angry and afraid, Shunran. I can see it in your eyes. Do you really hate Haru that much?"
Despite herself, Kakouton blushed, frowning angrily, and Kakouen smiled, shaking her head. Shunran, you let Lady Karin in too easily.
"I do," Kakouton whispered at last, drawing her eyebrows together and looking away from Sousou with shame written all over her face. "I have hated him since I heard of him, and what he said and nearly did to you today was absolutely unforgivable. And I'm ashamed that I let him scare me… his eye and those strange flames overwhelmed me."
"Look at me, Shunran," Sousou whispered. When Kakouton did so, she saw that Sousou was completely solemn now, no longer in a mood to tease or to scold. "There's no shame in feeling those emotions. But you have to control and confront them." The cold smile returned to her face. "I, too, was afraid of Haru, afraid of his presence. But I will overcome that fear, and break him. You have to overcome it as well, and I know you can."
Kakouton simply nodded, completely transfixed by Sousou's words. Satisfied by this, Sousou patted Kakouton's cheek, then stepped back. "Now, go and do as I ordered you. The men may not have been planning on it to begin with, but it's important that they know not to do anything that Haru might perceive as an offense. This alliance must hold until after Toutaku's defeat and our safe return to Gi."
Kakouton was immediately all business once again, and nodded sharply, as did Kakouen. "Yes, Lady Karin!"
Once the Kakou sisters made their exit, Sousou pressed her fingers to her mouth and smiled once again, recalling the bestial look on Haru's face with a shiver of fear and excitement. "Yes. You're the first man that I have feared in a long time, Haru of Zhuo, and the first man that I have ever wanted to make mine. I never thought I could find such beautiful wrath or possessiveness in such an ugly man."
A soft, throaty laugh bubbled out of her mouth.
Henan province, Zhuo encampment
In the Zhuo camp, the atmosphere was still disturbed. The men whispered and talked to themselves, while Kan'u, Chouhi, and Shoukatsuryou hovered uncertainly around Haru's tent. Eventually, though, it was Chouhi of all people that gradually made her way to the entrance of the tent, marching straight and fearless. She stopped just short of actually going inside, though, and paused for a minute, then nodded. "Big bro! Can I come in?" she shouted.
No reply came, and after a few moments more, Chouhi poked her head inside, ignoring the queasiness in her gut. The tent, with its openings near the top, was not anywhere near completely dark, so she could see Haru sitting on his bedroll with his head down and his elbows on his knees, with his hands knitted together. Blood-Scythe was lying on the ground at the center of the tent. Haru's lack of movement gave Chouhi enough courage to slowly step inside and walk over to where he was sitting. He seemed to not notice her, but when she tried to sit down next to him on his right side, he wordlessly shuffled over to allow her space. With a confused, petulant frown, Chouhi leaned forward slightly and looked at Haru. "Big bro, what happened out there with Sousou? Your arm… your eye… they were really scary."
Haru didn't answer, but after a moment, raised his head. Chouhi could see that his right eye was half open, as if he were falling asleep. Soon enough, though, it turned toward her, a dull, bored red. After taking in her concern, he finally spoke. "Where are Aisha and Shuri?"
Seeing that his eye was normal gave Chouhi the ease of mind to relax a little more. "They're outside. They want to know what happened, too, but everyone's too scared to come in." She puffed her chest out, and both she and her tiger hairpin bore a proud smile. "Everyone except me, of course."
Something about the way Chouhi said that caused a short bark of laughter to come out of Haru's mouth, and Chouhi jumped at how loud and sharp it sounded. A bitter smirk passed across his lips, and he shook his head. "You're a brave girl, Rinrin." He let out a breath through his nose, causing his narrow nostrils to flare slightly. "Find Aisha and Shuri, and bring them inside."
Chouhi nodded, got up and left the tent. Not long afterward, she came back in with Kan'u and Shoukatsuryou behind her. Haru lifted his head again and looked in their direction, noting that Kan'u and Shoukatsuryou didn't seem nearly as frightened anymore. "I owe you all an explanation about what happened out there. Sit down."
Chouhi immediately sat down next to Haru again, and Kan'u, a slight blush coloring her cheeks, took Haru's other side. Shoukatsuryou pouted for a moment, then sat down in front of Haru, rearranging her skirt so that she wasn't crushing it too badly.
"Lord Haru, are you sure you want to talk about this now?" Kan'u asked, her voice soft. "You seem very tired and very upset. It can wait if it must."
Haru shook his head. "I wanna get it out of the way now, while I'm still in the mood for it. Shuri has heard part of this story already, but since I haven't told you, let me give you a little back story."
With that introduction, Haru proceeded to summarize the story he had told Houtou and Shoukatsuryou about the Black Beast and the Six Heroes, and explained what the NOL was again. When he mentioned the Black Beast itself, Kan'u looked extremely queasy, while Chouhi just gaped in shock, and possibly a little confusion. Shoukatsuryou clasped her hands together and shook her head, noting that Haru now seemed far more affected by the story than before, particularly when he stressed how in many ways, the NOL acted the way that Toutaku was acting in Luoyang. The parallels to Toutaku's complete usurpation became frighteningly clear to the three girls when he mentioned the Ikaruga Civil War, wherein the NOL had taken drastic steps to completely wipe out the eponymous rebel federation and barely left anyone alive to talk about it.
Then, Haru got to the part of the story that was a bit more personal.
"When I was a kid," Haru said, "me and my two sisters Maru and Naru all lived in a church with a woman by the name of Celica. We called her 'Sister' or 'The Sister', and she was… kind of like a priestess, I guess." A smile had been working its way onto his face, but it faded as he kept talking. "Maru started to get really sick, and Naru began to get really clingy with me because I was spending a lot of time trying to help the Sister take care of Maru."
Something in his voice cracked.
"Then, one day… I came back from an errand in the town nearby, and the church was on fire. I went inside and found Naru standing in front of the Sister's dead body with a sword that had a blade like frozen ice, and a man, I think, standing behind her." He shook his head slowly. "I don't remember much of what I heard, but what I do know is that Naru cut off my right arm, and left me there to die. I haven't seen Maru since that day."
The girls gaped at Haru in horror, then stared at his arm. Before anyone spoke, though, he held up his left hand. "Yeah, I know. I'm getting to that part. Anyway, when I woke up, that was the first time I met my master Jubei and this annoying little shrimp named Rachel. By then, my arm was like this." He pushed up his sleeve, exposing the dark bandages that covered his arm. "Master called it 'the Azure Grimoire', and said that it would give me tremendous power. It's basically a more powerful version of the weapons that were used to destroy the Black Beast, maybe the most powerful one of its kind." He shook his head. "Ever since I came here, though, it hasn't been working right. In fact, what happened with Sousou was the most it's worked since I showed up. And even after that it started to hurt a hell of a lot, like it was gonna explode or something. It looks like if I get too angry, it starts to go out of control, but that never happened while I was using it against the Library."
Shoukatsuryou's eyes narrowed as she connected the dots, and Kan'u looked over at her in confusion. Chouhi, though couldn't help but reach out and poke Haru's right arm. When he felt it, Haru squawked in surprise and gently slugged Chouhi in the shoulder. "Cut that out! Don't poke at it!"
Chouhi completely ignored him and kept poking, muttering, "It feels normal." Haru swatted at her hand a few times until she finally stopped and pulled away with a pout.
"Heaven is a terrible, yet wondrous place," Kan'u murmured. "It was devastated by a great monster, and yet your people rebuilt high in the mountains. You lost an arm, and yet it was replaced with this Azure Grimoire. But even after fighting against the Black Beast, there was still no peace in the world." She slowly reached a hand out toward Haru, and he didn't move when she gently, almost hesitantly, rubbed the back of his left hand. Why would your sister do such a thing to you?"
"I think it might've been that other guy at the church that had something to do with it," Haru said, scowling at mention of Naru, "but I have no way to be sure. I couldn't see shit aside from a fuzzy outline. I don't even know where Naru got that goddamn sword in the first place."
When Kan'u's voice trailed off, Shoukatsuryou's picked up. "Lord Haru, you mentioned earlier that you were using the Grimoire against the Library. You told me once that they did something very wrong to you and your family. Do you think that they might have somehow been responsible for the fire?"
To Haru's credit, he managed to keep his face from completely shutting down, but the thinning of his lips made his response to that clear enough. "I think they were. Master told me that the Azure Grimoire was being kept in the church, and one of the Library's goals is to 'regulate' weapons like it. So if they decided that they wanted to take it, then..."
The implications of that were not lost on even Chouhi, whose blank expression grew into an angry frown. However, no one said anything else after that, and Haru took the opportunity to stand up. "So, story time's over. Keep this to yourselves. If the soldiers ask you any questions, tell them that it was just my divine wrath made manifest or something." He snorted, but the normal force that he put into the action was absent. "If that bitch Sousou tries anything with you all, tell me. I'll knock her head right off her shoulders."
At mention of Sousou, Kan'u remembered how fiercely Haru had defended her during the confrontation, and how he seemed to make a point of insisting that Kan'u was not a possession—neither his nor Sousou's. Before Kan'u could ask Haru why he'd gotten so upset, though, he was already walking out of the tent, and showed no signs of turning around. Kan'u quickly moved to follow, but Shoukatsuryou stood up and blocked her way with a small frown. "Aisha, I think Lord Haru needs a little space. I don't think he really wanted to tell us that story, and he probably needs some time to clear his head."
"I have a question I need to ask him," Kan'u replied hotly. She tried to step around Shoukatsuryou, but the smaller girl kept blocking her way every time. "It's only a small thing, Shuri. Let me by!"
"I think Shuri's right, sis," Chouhi said, jumping up from Haru's bedroll. "Big bro looked really mad about something. If you go and bother him now, I think he'll only feel worse. Leave him alone for now."
Kan'u pressed her lips together in frustration, but could tell that neither Chouhi nor Shoukatsuryou would budge on this, and after listening to Haru's long and rather depressing story, she didn't have the energy to try and win an argument with either of them. The question of why he had defended her so fiercely would have to remain unanswered for another day.