Kainushi
"Grandfather really kept you
in his sleeve?"
"Hanh?"
"You
know- what that guy said. 'Back when Ryou was raising you from a sprat in his
sleeve.'"
"If you
believe everything *he* says, you're in trouble."
I almost
said But I saw you. You were small and you hid in his sleeve. Only
I'm not sure that I actually did.
"But
*did* he keep you in his sleeve?"
Aoarashi
grunted and skewered a chunk of boiled potato on his chopstick, spattering the
soup as he pulled it from the pan.
"I'll
take that as a yes," I suggested.
"You're
wrong. Mostly it was the inside fold of his haori."
"Must
have been uncomfortable?"
"Not
specially."
"I
meant for him. A small youma wriggling around his chest like that."
Aoarashi
gave me one of his sour looks. "Put Oguro or Ojiro inside your shirt and
see how much space they take up." Oguro and Ojiro, pecking at a piece of
fish paste, blinked in alarm.
"No thank you." I took a
slice of daikon for myself and waved it a bit to cool it. "So how do you
raise a youma anyway?"
"Feed
it, obviously." Aoarashi was trying to get hold of a piece of tofu that
kept sliding out of his chopsticks. "Damn these things anyway- OW!!!"
He sucked his fingers.
"What
you get for sticking your dirty hand in there. The rest of us have to eat what's
in that broth, you know."
"Go
have dinner with your mother then, and leave this for me."
"I'm
supposed to stay and see you don't set the house on fire. Here." I flipped
the tofu into his bowl and followed it with some fish tubes and shiitake.
"Eat hearty."
"Mrgrm."
"So you
put a youma in your breast pocket and feed it on mh, other youma? That you
catch for it, like flies for a pet frog..."
"Keep
your insults to yourself."
"I'll
explain similes to you some other time. And then it gets bigger. But that's
gotta be a problem. How do you tame it? Stop it from biting your fingers, so to
speak."
"How'd
you tame them?" He gestured with his chopsticks at the birds, who
looked affronted at the verb.
"I
don't think I did," I said to mollify them. "They offered to become
my servants off their own bat."
"Better
than being eaten."
"I
never threatened to feed them to you if they didn't."
"No,
they thought you'd eat them yourself."
I glanced at them in surprise;
they avoided my eye. "Me? But I'm not a youkai."
"So
what? The strong eat the weak. That's how it works."
"Not
among humans."
"How
would they know that? They'd never lived with you. Strong youkai eat weak
humans, so why wouldn't a strong human eat a weak youkai?"
"Mh."
That put another face on things. "And here I thought it was my masterful
personality that did it."
"With
help from yours truly, don't forget."
"It's
not like I'm allowed to." He considered taking offence at that for maybe
ten seconds before his attention went back to the oden pot.
I contemplated Oguro and Ojiru,
still pecking little pieces out of the kamaboko. In the sunlight they were just
a pair of ordinary birds.
"So I
could raise these guys if I wanted to? Grow them into something bigger and
stronger?"-- and marginally more useful in the daylight hours. Well, and
the night ones too. They're a lot prettier than the bald horned things my uncle
Kai likes to keep around him, but face it, they aren't good for much in the
magic line.
"Them?"
Aoarashi looked dubious. "Mh. You wouldn't want to. A youkai has to stay
close to its master, next to his heart, if you're going to make it especially
your own--"
That did it.
Oguro jumped on one of my shoulders and Ojiro on the other and they started
wheedling in stereo:
"Please,
young master! Think how magnificent I'd become under your tutelage--"
"Ohh
*yes*, young master! Consider how useful I'll be to you when my powers are
greater--"
"Ahh,
how dearly I long to become a great demon bird!"
"Ohh,
if I were only as sapient as Aoarashi-dono!"
They were all but batting their
eyelashes at me, if they'd had eyelashes to bat.
"And they don't get
along," Aoarashi pointed out. "It'd have to be one or the
other--"
"Me,
young master! Pick me!"
"No,
pick me! You know you favour me over him!"
"He
does not! Young master, I'm already stronger than he is, pick me--"
"You
are not either! What airs! Young master, don't listen to a word he says--"
"Quiet!!"
I batted them off me and they fluttered hastily back onto the table.
"Waste
of time, you ask me," Aoarashi mumbled, around a mouthful of fried tofu.
"Nothing there to work with in the first place." He swallowed.
"On either side."
"I beg
your pardon?"
"Simple
fact. Kagyuu's grandson or not, you don't have the right kind of soul to bring
a youma into full power. Those two are about the best you could hope for.
Small. Limited."
"Maybe
I don't have Grandfather's powers, but I *can* do things if I put my mind to
it."
"Not
powers. You don't have his soul. Anyone feeding on you isn't likely to
turn into much."
"Feeding
on me?"
"You
never listen to what I say. You raise a youma by feeding it. If you only give
it sprats, you'll only get a sprat. For something large and magnificent like me
you have to give it some of your soul."
It was a
second before I found my voice. "Grandfather did *that* to you? He gave
you pieces of his *soul*?!"
"Of
course. How do you think I came to know him as well as I did?" He smiled
reminiscently. "And he was *good*- strong, full-bodied, heady..."
I couldn't
answer. My grandfather died prematurely aged: the doctors said he had the body
of a man twenty years older than he was. I knew magic saps you. I didn't know
that--
"Do you
see any difference," I said, and I was surprised how level my voice still
sounded, "between yourself and a vampire?"
He blinked.
"I don't drink blood?"
"You
drank my grandfather's life!"
"Hanh.
He gave me his life to drink."
"Grandfather-
when he was a young man he took crazy risks." If that was Grandfather I'd
actually met in my dream. "He couldn't have known what they'd cost
him."
"How
much of a fool do you think Kagyuu was?" Aoarashi looked indignant on my
grandfather's behalf. "He knew how weak your kind is. Half his family was
dead by the time he was your age. So of course he took risks. Why not, when he
was going to die anyway?"
"He
didn't have to-- I mean, there's no need to just throw your life away. Not when
there are people who'll miss you."
"But there wasn't anyone to
miss him." He could have been talking about the weather. Just a fact.
"So he
got himself a dragon instead. I guess a youkai can't understand how sad that
is."
"What's sad about it? Kagyuu was bold enough to
go after what he wanted and as a result he had a dragon by his side all his
life. It's you who doesn't understand. You're the kind to be satisfied with a
pair of pigeons." He pulled a bright pink piece of kamaboko from the pot
as the birds shrieked their outrage.
"Aoarashi-dono,
unkind!"
"Aoarashi-dono,
unfair!"
"Aoarashi-dono,
incorrect!"
"Stuff it," he told them,
not especially angry. Well, no. They're just birds and they make a lot of
noise. Nothing for him to get angry about. I was the one whose insides were
shaking.
"Grandfather may have got
what he wanted but he paid for it. Not just with his life but with the
happiness of the people who loved and depended on him. He must have
regretted that when he got older and had children." And grandchildren, but
I wasn't going to say that bit.
Aoarashi made a tchah sound.
"Kagyuu wasn't one for regrets: he had too much sense. Yes, he took risks.
He thought the risks worth taking. He knew there'd be a price. He never
complained about paying it. Why do you think he had so much power over youkai? It's
because he had the kind of soul we youkai understand."
"Or think you do."
"I have
my reasons for that," he said, smug.
I was going
to say something but stopped as the light finally dawned.
"So,"
I said after a minute, "which are you, my father or my grandfather?"
"Bhnh?"
"Oguro,"
I said, "suppose I offered you a human body to live in. Would you accept?
Would you like to live among humans- ordinary head-blind humans like my
grandmother? Walking on two legs, stuck to the earth, no more sitting in
treetops-- sound like a good life to you?"
"Young
master?" He was round-eyed, appalled.
"What
about you, Ojiro? Would you jump at the chance to be like us? You could eat
human food and talk to us about baseball and politics. And catch a few of our
sicknesses, and lose a few of your senses over time-" I nodded at
Aoarashi's glasses: he was looking dangerous.
"You
deign to jest with your servant," Ojiro said faintly.
"Mh."
I got some octopus for myself. "So," I said to Aoarashi, "did *you*
think the risk worth taking, back when you were a sprat and an onmyouji offered
you a bit of his soul?"
He'd stopped
eating entirely. "Yes," he said. "I did."
"And
you don't mind that you lost a little of your youkai nature every time you
accepted?
"I
didn't lose that much," he said. The birds edged away cautiously.
"Are *you* calculating the risks just now? You're not the master whose
mind I shared for the few moments of his life. Stick your neck out too far and
someone will bite it through."
I gave him a
small smile. "No, I'm not your master. I'm the grandson he ordered you to
protect as long as I live: and you'll do exactly that because you don't have
any choice in the matter."
There was a
silence. Then Aoarashi smiled back, broadly. He picked a fat fish ball from the
nabe pan and shoved it in his mouth.
"Not
bad," he said, chewing. "Not bad. Keep it up, boy. You'll be worthy
of Kagyuu yet."
mjj
june '07