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Post by Utaku Hisui on Apr 4, 2018 17:32:23 GMT -5
Sweet, bright Mako. The words bring Hisui close to tears. The girl made it so hard to say what she came there to say. She wanted to let the girl believe this, to just think that she and Fuyuko were going to climb a mountain and come back with tattoos. But Hisui's honest nature made even little comforting lies impossible.
"I wish I could tell you that was the case. I wish I could lie to you to make this easier." Her lip quivers, trembles. She is losing her resolve as she watches Mako's face. "But it isn't."
"Myself, Fuyuko, and Tani-chan are all part of a group that are being sent there to deliver a letter, witness a duel against a crime lord, and…have to fight our way out if the crime lord loses."
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Post by Otomo Mako on Apr 4, 2018 23:10:51 GMT -5
"I..." All of the brightness suddenly got destroyed, blacked out by a void that she couldn't even expect. Her expression wasn't sad, it was just.. not there. There's nothing, a blankness as she shifts to just numbness, listening to her Sui-nee and not understanding any of it. And then she starts to just... softly laugh, like it was all a joke. She stopped holding onto Hisui, and she just fell back on the couch they were sitting on, laying to look up at the roof.
"So two of the people I'm closest with now, and someone who I'm quickly becoming quite close to. Are all going off? To fight a crime lord in the Dragon lands. Despite none of them being Dragons. Okay. Yeah." SHe laughs some more, just... quietly laughing to herself.
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Post by Utaku Hisui on Apr 4, 2018 23:28:08 GMT -5
Hisui hears something crack. Except it's not a sound. Not really. It was something inside her, something that had cracked when she broke the news of the Salty Goblin to Fuyuko. It cracked when she told Aiko about how it ended with Eun-soo. It cracked when Mako left abruptly days ago. If she could hear it, feel it, she could only imagine how much louder it rang in Mako's ears. The laughter just made things so much worse.
She shifts and places Mako's head on her lap. A hand runs over those pink strands, a small comfort that probably wasn't even noticed. She wanted Mako to know what was happening, to not be kept in the dark. To be prepared.
The words that come next are laced with bitter resentment, with a serene fury unlike anything Mako may have thought possible for Hisui. "A Crane crime lord. Because this is about that pointless blood feud that should never have happened. A pointless lie meant to ruin Mirumoto and Kakita alike. It's as ridiculous as it sounds."
A fist clenches, possibly out of Mako's line of sight.
"I don't want to do this. I don't want to be there. None of us do. We'd all rather not be involved in this, because this is so much bigger than us. But Duty calls, and I need to answer." She closes her eyes, holding back. "And I wanted you to know, in case I don't come back. That I didn't just leave you."
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Post by Otomo Mako on Apr 4, 2018 23:44:34 GMT -5
One. Two. Three. She's laid in Hisui's lap, her hair is pet by a hand that she would normally coo for, but instead she just quietly has to stop herself from laughing, as she listens in further, not seeing the clenched fists, but hearing that resentment, that hate, "Why." She said it simply, as she looked up at Hisui.
"Why do you have to care about their feud?" She asked it in a bitter tone, quiet, speaking with these little tiny bits of poison to her words, all on her own, "Why does it have to be you three? Why can't those families deal with it? Only one of you is even Kakita... and..." She held her breath, she needed to stop herself from crying, from breaking something, from raging, "You aren't even Dragon or Crane. Why does it have to be you?"
She held her breath for a long moment, "Why can't it be people I don't know?"
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Post by Utaku Hisui on Apr 4, 2018 23:57:27 GMT -5
"Because of a monster that wants to end us all," she says. Operational security be damned. Mako would know the full truth of the situation, because Hisui would hide nothing from her. Her children both knew. So would her little sister. "Because by coincidence or some cruel joke of Fate, the three of us, Kakita Tsuki, Mirumoto Aiko, and Mirumoto Noboru are the only ones who know that the Shadow Dragon is responsible. And we need to find proof of its involvement before we bring it to the attention of the proper authorities. Proof we can only get by going to the Dragon provinces."
"Because we know, it is we who must act." Even if this entire mess is the fault of the Thunders. "I...I brought Akodo Ichiro along. He doesn't know the whole truth, but I thought he might help make sure your Tani-chan comes back to you."
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Post by Otomo Mako on Apr 6, 2018 11:41:28 GMT -5
Mako's stomach churned. The denial turned to fear as more was revealed. She was no master of conspiracy or historical dark threats, and yet even she had been told tales and heard the legends. And she felt like she might hurl, there in the lap. It wasn't just a crime boss then. This was a big deal, a heroic deal, something massive and important and probably deadly.
And she couldn't help at all. A courtier was rarely the hero of these stories. Indeed, they were often forgotten even when they could do things. But what could she do. Nothing at all, so she just had to wait. Watch these important people as they planned to March to a potential death. Unable to stop them. "Why... why can't some other person be the hero. Why can't they call on the Thunders or..." she bit her tongue and felt the tears in her eyes.
"Please don't die." Her voice was that of a child, unsure, insecure, meek.
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Post by Utaku Hisui on Apr 6, 2018 12:01:37 GMT -5
"I'll make sure your Tani-chan comes back to you," she repeats.
She will not lie. She knows the odds of her coming back are slim. She has an idea of the skills of those coming with her. Of the tactical applications thereof. In that group, an old and injured Battle Maiden without her horse was the least likely to survive. Two Cranes blessed by Gaki-do. A talented young Akodo. A Kakita gifted by the kami. A Dragon Thunder. All had better odds of survival than she did.
Her eyes close. In a breath, Mako would feel little drops fall from the Utaku's face. She doesn't want to die. Not when a beautiful life still awaits her, asking to be lived and enjoyed. It wasn't fair. A less honorable Hisui would have walked away, but she wasn't that woman. Like Fuyuko, she would answer as Honor demanded.
"If I don't come back, you'll need crystal. As much as you can get. For yourself and your brother and sisters."
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Post by Otomo Mako on Apr 6, 2018 12:16:55 GMT -5
Mako could feel those tears, those little fearful tears that went falling from Hisui, and she couldn't hold back her own waterworks. It was too much. The more that Hisui spoke, the harder it was to be strong. To be mature. She wanted to be weak and vulnerable, to break apart and never get back together. But all she let herself do was cry, the tears running down her face, staining her cheeks with their salt.
"I don't want Tani back. I want you. I want her. I want Yuko. I want all of you. I don't want just one." Her words were muffled into Hisui, as she clung to the woman, "I want you all to come back so I can keep saying you are my family. I want to forget my real family and think only of you when people ask about my family. I don't want to lose you." Her words were so broken, sobbing them into Hisui, "I love you." The dam was broken.
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Post by Utaku Hisui on Apr 6, 2018 12:45:17 GMT -5
If Mako was crying and Hisui was crying, this was never going to end. One of them had to find the resolve to stop, and the Utaku called up every bit of strength in her to do so. She held back her own tears, forced herself to speak evenly. To dwell on the cold logistics of the mission. That was a comfort, wasn't it?
To think only of how to get there. A flight was faster. But it cost more. Fuyuko didn't like to fly. And yet there she was, preparing to climb up the mountains of the Dragon. Hisui pictured Mako at the summit, waiting for one of them – any of them – to come back down. Suddenly, it was very easy to cry again.
I love you. The words hurt, because she knew could never say them back and mean them in the right way.
She replies at last. "I don't want to go. I don't want to die. But being who I am, what I am, means sometimes, I don't get to keep what I want."
"I want to stay here, to teach increasingly confused students in my enigmas class and watch my singing class get smaller every week. I want to stay here and be surprised by you. To laugh with Akane-chan and talk about manga and plays with Aiko-chan. I want to sneak up to the roof of the dorm and sing. I want to give advice to students. I want to stay in bed with the woman I love and smell peaches in her hair." She looks away, hiding her anger. Her wrath. "I don't want to clean up someone else's mess."
"But I have to." She looks to Mako again, pleading. Begging. "So please. Let me go."
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Post by Otomo Mako on Apr 6, 2018 14:21:28 GMT -5
No matter how hard you wish on it, you cannot change what something is. Iron will never become gold just because you wish it would. Steel will never become rock. The gods are the only ones who can alter such things in such ways, and Mako was no god. So how could she expect an Utaku not to be an Utaku. She adored the battle maidens even before she had met one, raised on stories of her extended family past the Ide side. Her mother had loved a battle maiden, Mako was sure now, looking back on the stories she was told when young, the focus, thinking of those gazes.
How could you not love them. They were honorable, compassionate, beautiful, gregarious. They stood so high and yet were among the most compassionate of samurai, never letting it get to their head, always modest of their own importance, working towards their duty and maintaining their honor, sacrificing themselves for the good of others at times. All of these traits that Mako could see in Hisui, that proved to be things Mako fell in love with. And that she now hated, as she lay there crying.
She couldn't make Hisui less of a battle maiden any more than she could make Uetani's sword into ice. Such things don't work like that, they exist as what they are. Mako knew she could cry and beg, but in the end all it would do is hurt Hisui. Make it harder for her to go. Make her hesitate at a crucial moment at worst. So, still crying, she said. "I'll be strong while you are gone. I'd you don't come back..." Her voice cracked, a sob, "I will make sure Shiki and Akiha are safe. I will comfort them, and support them. So you won't have to worry." Her voice was fading more and more each time she spoke, like it might wink out. "I'll make sure Tani is happy and she still has a family in me and them..."
"I don't want you to go. But I can't stop you and have you still love yourself, can I?"
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