A Flower On the West Wind, chapter 4

One of my greatest regrets (during, you know, the few seconds I spent doing something other than working, eating or sleeping) was that I'd never gotten to finish and post the last chapter of this, especially after telling everyone to wait for it.

So here it is.

If you've never read any of A Flower On the West Wind before, or just wish to refresh your memory, here are some links:
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three

And, of course, this one...

Chapter Four

"Wake up, Yusuke!" Mayuko said, hitting him with a pillow.

"...mmmf? What?" Yusuke said, sitting up bleary-eyed. Mayuko took the opportunity and whacked him across the head with the pillow again.

"It is morning, Yusuke. And we have very little time to look around before we leave."

It had been two months since they'd left Senita, and the ship Shimazu was using for his trip across the Sea of Fallen Stars was currently docked in the city of Selgaunt, in Sembia. The trip along the Golden Way had been uneventful and quick, as well. Shimazu knew this route well and had paid handsome sums to ensure that his caravan could change horses at every major city, meaning that he could go on with very little time spent resting. It was expensive, but paid off fivefold when they reached Waterdeep months ahead of other merchants and sold their goods at vastly inflated prices.

The natural consequence was that they didn't stay in any one city for long. Oftentimes, it was just long enough to replenish supplies, bathe, and spend one night - and then they were off again. They stopped even less often now, sailing across the Sea of Fallen Stars. Before the trip had started, Mayuko had been glad that it would be so quick, and that she would get to see the lands of the West soon. Now, though, she found herself often wishing that it would take more time.

They had only docked the previous day, but Shimazu was ready to move out again in the afternoon. And Mayuko wanted a good look around Selgaunt before they left.

Yusuke, however, did not share her enthusiasm. "I...I am not feeling well today, Mayuko-chan," he said miserably. "I fear my good health suffers slightly this morning." He did look rather pale.

"It cannot possibly be that bad," Mayuko said. "You were perfectly fine yesterday."

Yusuke nodded weakly. "So I was. But really, Mayuko-chan...I am not feeling well at all...I should probably get more sleep." He raked a hand through his short black hair, and let it come to rest on the back of his head. "And my head is not being particularly...cooperative, either."

"But you'll miss Selgaunt..."

"Ah, and well I know it. Thankfully, though, Selgaunt is hardly Waterdeep. I will not be missing...that much. Except for your company, of course..."

"All right. I can certainly wait here until you feel better," she said with an encouraging smile.

He shook his head. "No, I do not wish to hold you back. It is entirely possible that I will not feel better today, and as you said there is not much time to spend exploring. Go without me. I will find you later if I feel better."

Mayuko hesitated, and Yusuke spoke up again. "I know you shall miss my illuminating wit, and be completely lost and in total despair because of my absence, but..."

"Do you ever stop?" Mayuko laughed.

"Not if I can help it," Yusuke returned with a wan smile. "In any case, watching me sleep will probably not be very interesting. Get going."

"Find me if you feel better," Mayuko said as she left the room.

"I seem to recall having already said...," Yusuke began.

"Excuse me?" Mayuko asked in a sweetly menacing tone.

He picked up the hint immediately. "Ah...yes, of course, Mayuko-chan. Whatever you say."

"That is what I wanted to hear." And she headed out to the streets.

Sembia was a nation of merchants, a place where trade was a way of life, and Selgaunt was one of its largest port cities. The variety and quantity of things on sale at the open-air markets was stunning. Mayuko wandered around for a few hours, looking at a few items, but not seriously.

Then something caught her eye. A finely bound set of quill pens, in the Western style, sold together with a Western journal. Yusuke would love it. After all, he had said so many times how he intended to make his career as a scholar in the West, do something no Kozakuran had done before. She bought it quickly, and decided to hurry back to the ship instead of spending more time wandering. Mayuko wasn't interested in anything else, anyway. Nothing aside from Yusuke's reaction. He might try and refuse the gift, but it was her turn now, and she'd make him take it.

Yusuke was talking to someone. She was fairly sure of it, anyway. Even though she was still one deck above Yusuke's room, she could just barely hear the sounds. But who would he want to talk to, at this time? He was sick. He should be getting his sleep.

Mayuko shrugged. Whatever it was, it probably would be over quickly. But it had spoiled her plan to wake him up and surprise him with her present.

She thought for a few seconds. Not spoiled entirely. She would just have to be...very quiet. Drawing on all the lessons Hideoshi had taught her, she silently ghosted up to the doorway. The conversation was still going on, and out of nothing but boredom she started listening.

"...not very happy, Kazuhiro. As a loyal son I'm sure you understand that," an older male voice was saying.

Who's Kazuhiro? Mayuko wondered.

"I know," Yusuke replied in a submissive tone she'd never heard from him before. "I simply haven't found the opportunity yet."

Opportunity to do what?

"Be honest, Kazuhiro. You delay overmuch. You have not spent enough time trying to create opportunities."

"As you say," Yusuke replied, still submissive.

"You are running out of time. Once you reach Waterdeep, it will be nearly impossible. We wanted it over with by the time you arrived on the Sea of Fallen Stars, Kazuhiro."

"It will be done...soon."

Mayuko still didn't understand. Why was Yusuke responding to the name Kazuhiro? And what was...whatever it was?

"You have told me soon for the last three weeks, Kazuhiro. No more delays. She dies in the next week, is that understood? You are ordered to do this."

"There are difficulties in making it work so quickly," Yusuke objected, but Mayuko didn't hear it. She could think of no one else that Yusuke - or was it Kazuhiro, really? - could be talking about. He had been sent to kill her. She fought against that conclusion - after all, he'd had ample opportunity. This could all be a massive misunderstanding...but the instincts Hideoshi had bred into her told her otherwise. She slipped away, still silent, running back to her cabin.

In her cabin she threw open the massive trunk that had contained her personal belongings. Pawing past the few things that were inside, she reached down to its bottom and searched for the hidden latch with trembling fingers.

She noticed the trembling, and made herself sit back, closing her eyes, taking several deep breaths to calm herself. When she opened her eyes again, she reached in with rock-steady fingers, finding the latch immediately and triggering it. Then, there was a soft click, and the drawer concealed in the false bottom slid out of the side.

She lifted out the folded stealth-suit - but there wouldn't be enough time for that. It was set aside. With quick, sure motions, she scooped out shuriken and concealed them in her garments. She left the ninja-to inside. To use that would be to risk too much. Instead, she took out the sheathed katana. Carrying that, she returned as quickly as she could.

Yusuke was just finishing up. "Yes. I understand."

"Do not fail us, Kazuhiro. You know what the consequences will be. I shall check again in ten days, and she must be dead by that time."

There was silence for a minute or two. Whatever magical device which had been used to make the connection back to Kozakura had evidently finished its function for now. Leaning her katana against the doorframe outside the room, Mayuko took a deep breath and stepped in, making a very obvious scuff on the floor.

Yusuke was in the process of draping a cloth over a crystal pyramid set on the small writing desk in his spacious cabin. His bunk, pressed up against the left side of the wall, was still dishevelled, as if he'd just gotten out. At the sound of Mayuko's foot, his head snapped around and he immediately moved himself between the pyramid and Mayuko. "Ah, Mayuko-chan...what brings you back so quickly?"

Mayuko wasted no time at all. "Who are you, Yusuke? Or should I say, Kazuhiro?"

"I do not know what you are talking about!" Yusuke protested with an innocent expression on his face.

"I heard it all," she said in a quiet voice.

"There was nothing to hear," he said in an easy, friendly tone that Mayuko now knew to be false. He turned around and gestured at the pyramid. "Is this not an interesting gift Shimazu-san sent me? Why, it-"

In mid-sentence, and without even a tensing of his shoulders to give out any warning, Yusuke spun, drawing his wakhizashi, turning, and striking all in the same fluid motion. It was blindingly fast - but Mayuko had seen it coming, and her blade was out in an instant, slapping his aside. She whirled to bring her blade slashing in toward his face - and he dodged, ducking and then backflipping out of the way to leap gracefully on to his desk. Mayuko's left hand was already in her hair, tying her long ponytail into a less cumbersome knot, acknowledging that the fight would not be short.

Their eyes met, and held, for a long moment. Then, Yusuke came off the desk in a flashing spin, blade aimed at Mayuko's neck. Her blade deflected his and countered - then his came up to deflect her counter and reverse it - then hers came up to do the same to his. Both had been trained by master ninja, and the ringing impacts of steel-on-steel sounded quickly, like a child's rattle, in the small room.

Yusuke stepped back for space, but in that short time Mayuko flipped her wakhizashi over to her left hand and brought it down, snaring Yusuke's blade and locking both blades out of the fighting. She stepped in, open hand striking with deadly force, but Yusuke met her hand with his own. Four quick block-and-counter sequences took place, then both launched palm strikes. With a sharp cracking slap, the hands met and drove each of them back a step, which enabled Yusuke to free his blade. Mayuko stepped back, exchanging her sword back to her good hand, and they went at each other once more.

There were tears running down both of their faces, now, but neither hesitated. Hesitation would have meant death. Yusuke was the more experienced, Mayuko was slightly faster. The match was extremely even.

Steel grated on steel as the flats of two wakhizashi clashed between the two. Then Yusuke leapt backward, kicked off the wall, and launched a high jump-kick. Mayuko had had the same idea, however. Their feet collided in the middle of the room and both used the other to push off into sideways rolls. Halfway through Yusuke's roll, a silvery streak flew from his hand - and was intercepted by an answering shuriken from Mayuko's side. One spun up to embed itself in the ceiling, one skidded on to the floor and into a corner. Both landed on their feet, two more shuriken flew from each of their fingers, and both times they collided and deflected harmlessly away. They'd each taken a step every time they threw one, and so they smoothly moved into follow-up sword strikes.

Mayuko knew she was losing. Gradually, marginally...but she was losing. Yusuke's greater experience would eventually mean that she would make the one fatal mistake, and her superior speed couldn't save her from everything.

Mere moments after the thought crossed her mind, she made her first mistake. It was not immediately fatal, but it may well have been in any even fight. Yusuke was pressing again, raining attacks in from the sides and from above, and she failed to recover from a counter quickly enough to turn her blade so that she deflected Yusuke's attack with its flat. Instead, her blade met his edge-on-edge. Even as she saw it, she knew that she had just made a critical error.

Any good swordsman anywhere will instruct his students never to block edge-on-edge. One of the reasons is because it completely ruins the edges of both blades, but more so for the blocker. In extreme cases, the blocker may even lose the entire blade.

Unfortunately, this was an extreme case. Yusuke's blade, with all of his weight and force behind it, sheared through Mayuko's, forcing her to twist aside at the last second. She threw herself into a somersault immediately, landing on the bunk on the other side of the room, ready to dodge again. Yusuke, however, had not pursued.

Instead, he looked up at her with pleading eyes. "Mayuko-chan...."

"Don't call me that." She watched him intently, just in case he was talking as a distraction. She nervously fingered the hilt in her right hand. Not a blade, now, but Hideoshi had taught her not to throw away anything that might be potentially useful.

"I...I never wanted any of this to happen. I swear it, Mayuko-chan." He sounded sincere, but he always had in the past, hadn't he?

"What didn't you want to happen?" she asked him coolly.

"This. All this," he said, waving at the room with his free hand.

Mayuko spat derisively. "You came on board just so you could kill me."

"Yes," he admitted miserably. "I was told that...that Hideoshi's secrets were not to escape the Konishi clan, and that...that a daughter of a minor house was carrying them away to the West. And I had to...eliminate her. You. I was...ready to do my duty." He swallowed uncomfortably. "My name...my real name - is Konishi Kazuhiro."

Mayuko nodded, having suspected as much already. Konishi, he was, trained from birth to kill. But...there was something she did not understand. "You...you told the man that you had no opportunities to kill me. You could have killed me a million times, Yusu- Kazuhiro."

"Yes...yes, I could have...but I did not want to. That is what I meant, Mayuko-chan. That is what I never wanted. I wanted you to be a target...just a target...and not a friend. I was supposed to befriend you just...just to have an opportunity to kill you. It was not...not supposed to be like this."

"I'm your friend, am I? And friends try to kill each other? And they lie to each other? Perhaps so, since I never have had any friends before. Because, as strange as it may seem, I did not lie to you."

Kazuhiro flinched from the anger and emotional pain in her voice as if it was a physical force. "I...I had hoped so. I....to tell you truly...I never had any friends, either. It is...a lonely existence, to be a member of the Konishi clan. To hide yourself from everything and everyone." Tears glittered in his eyes.

Mayuko relaxed slightly. Not because she thought he wasn't going to kill her, but because there wasn't much point in tensing up for an attack that wasn't coming any time soon. Kazuhiro let the tip of his blade drop to the floor as he continued.

"But I let you see...me. I enjoy shogi, go, intelligent conversations, and poetry - even if I am terrible at it. To be liked for oneself is a wondrous thing," he said.

Mayuko felt a twinge in her heart as his words brought up memories of how happy she was with him as a friend. Concentrate, she told herself. Remember, he's trying to kill you.

"One has no friends in the Konishi clan. You are taught early to never have friends. You are taught that the only important thing is to kill. I never thought friends were important...until I met you. Such irony. I am trained all my life to kill...and now, killing you is the thing I wish least to do." He laughed bitterly, shaking his head. "I wonder...is this a test of loyalty? Did they do this, knowing that...knowing that I would have to choose?"

"You have to choose?" Mayuko asked cynically.

"I...I know how you must be feeling right now, Mayuko-chan-"

"Don't call me that!" she snapped irritably.

"I understand what you are feeling...," he said, tentatively. "I have hurt you and...I am sorry. Please believe me when I say that I would never willingly harm you. I...I love you, Mayuko-chan..."

Despite herself, Mayuko's heart warmed. "And...and I love you too...at least, I thought I did...."

Kazuhiro looked even more miserable at that. He leaned back against a wall. "I...I was afraid of that, Mayuko-chan..."

"Yusuke," Mayuko said, deliberately using the name she had known him by. "You don't have to do this...," she said, holding out her hand.

His hand reached out, and his fingers brushed over hers, lovingly, gently. But then, they drew back. "You...you did not hear it all. If I do not do this, the clan will eliminate the members of my immediate family. My father, my mother, my two brothers and my sister are all as good as dead if I should falter in this task...and I must make a choice. An enchantment binds me to the Konishi wu jen. I cannot run. I love you...but who am I to pronounce death sentence on my family? They never loved me," he admitted. "But am I to kill them for it?"

Then, Mayuko understood the choice before him. He was well and truly trapped. Either way, he would end up killing someone. And with that realization, the tears came. Mayuko would never know who started, but in an instant both of them were sobbing, Kazuhiro clinging to the doorframe and Mayuko slumped over the desk. They wept for themselves, for each other, and for the future together that could never be.

At last, Mayuko sniffled away her last tears and Kazuhiro's sleeve was so soaked that it could hold not a single tear more. They turned to face each other again. "I...I will not have you kill your family, either," Mayuko said, struggling to keep her voice steady. "Do...do your duty...."

Kazuhiro looked at the wakhizashi in his hand as if it were a live snake. Slowly, reluctantly, he raised it to a guard position. Just as slowly, he took steps forward, closing in on the desk upon which Mayuko crouched.

Just as he had crossed half the room, Mayuko's hands whipped out in blurring motions, one hurling the hilt of her wakhizashi, the other throwing her last shuriken. Kazuhiro saw both projectiles coming and ducked under and around the hilt, then spun forward and knocked the shuriken out of the air with his blade.

And then collapsed backward with an audible thump as the crystal pyramid slammed into his midsection, knocking the air out of him. What he had not seen was Mayuko's foot behind the pyramid. She did not watch to see how her kick had worked, though - she was already somersaulting through the air, and she landed lightly behind him, making straight for the door. Kazuhiro recovered, raised his blade, turned and pursued.

Mayuko reached the doorframe, conscious of Kazuhiro chasing her. But escape had not been her intention. Her hand closed around the hilt of the katana she had left there, and it came flashing out in a brilliant arc of silvered steel. Taking the blade in both hands, she spun and knocked the incoming attack down, to the left, half-crouching. Then she sprang out of the crouch, bringing the katana up in a single powerful slash.

The sharp blade made little sound as it parted cloth and flesh alike. The only sound was the sudden exhalation of Kazuhiro's breath as he suddenly stumbled backward, a bright red cut crossing his torso. He stumbled back one more step, then fell on to his back, breathing shallowly. Mayuko dropped the katana and ran to his side.

The cut was fatal. Both of them knew it. Its deepness was only masked by the blood welling up around it, which concealed the pale white of bone.

"So...I...do not have to...make a choice...after all...," Kazuhiro gasped. "Thank...you...Mayuko-chan...."

"But...I...I just killed you!" she wailed. She had not thought that there were any more tears left for her to cry, but there were, and they came now.

"Shhh...shhh," Kazuhiro said. "Do not...cry...my exotic flower." A trembling hand reached up to caress the jade blossom that he had bought for her in Taitung. Her hand came up and clasped over his, holding it tightly. "Promise me...promise me that you will...forget me," Kazuhiro urged.

"Forget you?" She didn't understand.

"Forget...me," Kazuhiro said firmly, though his strength was ebbing rapidly. "Don't let this...hurt you. You have a long life...to live...live it...without my shadow..."

"I...I promise," Mayuko said, though she had no idea how she would do it.

"Good...." Kazuhiro gasped again, a fine mist of blood spraying into the air. But he smiled. "Then there is...only one last thing..."

His hand weakly pushed at the back of her neck. She allowed herself to be drawn down, and they kissed, for the first and for the last time.

When the kiss ended, he was dead.

The crystal pyramid, lying on the floor forgotten, flickered to life. A face peered out of it. "So. The boy is dead. I always knew he was weak."

Mayuko turned narrowed eyes towards it. "Konishi Ieyasu," she said. It was not a question.

"Yes," the head of the Konishi ninja family said. "I suppose I must congratulate you. Hideoshi trained you well, I see. We will let you live, but you will never return to Kara-Tur."

"You will suffer for this, Konishi Ieyasu," she said, pointing an accusing finger at the crystal pyramid.

"Spare me," Ieyasu said in a bored tone. "You shall not return to Kara-Tur. Your family's lives are at stake."

"You are skilled in threatening families, I see."

"Naturally. We are ninja, after all. But this is not up for negotiation. You may stay alive - as long as you stay in the West. Return, and you and all your family will die. Those are our terms. And that is all you need to hear." And with a snap and a sudden crack, the pyramid crumbled into tiny fragments.

One day, I will have revenge, she thought murderously. One day, Konishi Ieyasu. I will have revenge. For Kazuhiro. For myself. For everything. She touched the flower at her neck. One day....

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