Abstinence Education

This is a short one... well, not actually a short one, but part of a long one! In other words, it's another double chapter, and this time the two sections are going to be posted several days apart, since I am still tinkering with the second half and I'm about to be interrupted by houseguests and graduations and a birthday party. Whee. It's not been a well-organized month. But this chunk of text has been ready to go for quite a while, and I could really use SOME sense of accomplishment right now. :D So here you are.

Shadow and substance: crossing over into the twilight zone...

The characters and universe of Blade of the Immortal/Mugen no Junin are copyright by Hiroaki Samura and do not belong to me. Not one sen will come into my hands in consequence of this story.

Warnings for sex in various forms, including quasi-incestuous themes and a sixteen-year-old female paired with an adult male. Violence and dismemberment are legally required in any BotI fic... along with the occasional shellfish-toxin poisoning.


Abstinence Education
by Madame Manga

Part Forty-Four [1/2]


“You feeling a little warmer now?”

Rin couldn’t speak to answer him; Manji hadn’t forgotten?

No... of course he hadn’t forgotten how sick she was. He probably realized it much more clearly than she did. She felt drowsy and dizzy, her bodyguard’s voice echoing from far away. But he was very near. He couldn’t have been closer.

Rin murmured and tried to push her head into Manji’s chest where she lay pillowed; her neck moved only slightly. She couldn’t sense the folds of his clothing against her cheek nor the clasp of his arms around her, though she felt his warmth all along her body. Still his warmth...

“Sorry, Rin. I’d’ve built a fire even with the damn hunters watching, but I couldn’t leave you all by yourself to fetch the wood... you were shaking so bad. You ain’t mad at me?”

Mad at him for holding her? To chase away the cold? Rin couldn’t imagine why that would make her angry. The icy crackle as her muscles froze — she had thought she must be dying. Though Manji had kept assuring her that she would be all right, he never would have said otherwise even if he’d thought so. Crouching over her while she whimpered, briskly chafing her shivering limbs and chiding her fears away.

After a few interminable minutes of panic, the iciness faded into numb paralysis. She wasn’t dying after all, though she could barely twitch. Oddly, Rin felt more comfortable than she had in days; she drifted in dreamy helplessness like an infant’s, and she couldn’t muster more than vague puzzlement at anything Manji said. She breathed his familiar scent, and images stirred and took firmer shapes in her wandering mind. Angry?

Oh... that. He’d embraced her before, hadn’t he? Before the sun had gone down. Before she had suffered a cut from a poisoned arrowhead, a dreamy memory now. As if she hovered high in the air, watching a man and a girl clutched together, kissing mouth to mouth. She felt a flush of greater heat along her cheeks and chest, though at such distance that didn’t upset her. Frantic, abandoned... if that arrow’s emergence hadn’t interrupted them, they wouldn’t have stopped at all. But then, without his pain eroding his resistance, they might not have lost control in the first place.

Now he cradled her like a child, and enveloped her in his concern. Which warmed her even more than the heat of his flesh...

“Freakin’ hunters — and I thought that arrow was causing ME some problems — shee-it. Rin... I was kinda harsh on you. Sorry.” Manji paused as if he expected her to comment. “But... aw, crap. No news there.” He sighed and paused again; she had the impression he thought it necessary to keep the one-sided conversation going, but didn’t want to venture too far on that particular subject. “...At least it’s not raining, hnn?”

Manji reached up and adjusted the reeking horse blankets he’d tented over both of them. She sensed vague pressures and shifts of gravity from his movements, though not the nuances of contact on her numb skin. “Well, gotta deal with what we’ve gotta deal with. You’re about as limp as a wilted flower, kid... and I’m not letting you out of my sight. Not for one instant until you’re better.” He took a deep breath and patted her head. “Still hearing me, aren’t you? Don’t you worry.”

Rin murmured again. Hadn’t he nursed her through illness before? Though perhaps a bounty hunter’s vile poison was a little more cause for concern than a tantrum and an upset stomach, she wasn’t worried. Nothing about their situation seemed like a crisis, not when her brain felt almost as stunned and prostrate as her body, but she’d never doubted that her bodyguard would take good care of her. She wished she could tell him so.

“This knock-out crap wasn’t meant to kill anybody, see? Bounty hunters are bastards — but they generally want to nab the quarry alive.” Manji sounded very sure about that; his certainty supported her. “So the poison’ll start wearing off pretty soon. Gotta be a couple hours short of midnight now... I can’t see much of the sky from here, but the moon set more than an hour ago. By the time morning light comes, you’ll be fine. Understand?” Manji hitched her body a little way upwards along his and settled her head between his jaw and collarbone. His voice thickened. “No longer than that, I promise. Go to sleep if you want... little woman. I’ll keep you warm all night — if... if I got to.”

Rin heard the tight, liquid sound of his throat contracting in a hard swallow.

She smiled a little, all that she could manage — Manji wasn’t exactly gritting his teeth against an unpleasant task, even if he had been fighting his carnal urges before he’d been forced into this position. When there wasn’t any question of her responding to his touch, their intimacy felt almost innocent.

Almost... because although she was reasonably sure Manji hadn’t put his hands anywhere that a brother wouldn’t, his chest vibrated a little and she felt a greater warmth near the crown of her head, as if he had his nose on her scalp again. Inhaling, exhaling... what was it about a woman’s smell that he liked so much? She didn’t know exactly, but she didn’t really mind him doing that... it felt nice. Comforting, like his own smell. The very roughness of his breathing seemed to prove something...

Her drugged thoughts melted into smooth, sugary fantasies; her bodyguard adored her without reservation, longed to make her his wife, begged for her love with vows and tears. He’d take care of her forever: strike down their enemies and warm her futon with equal facility. And give her children, a whole happy houseful...

Rin almost giggled at the idea — now where had that come from? Manji, an attentive husband and father? Squalling brats sitting on his knee while he puffed his pipe and sharpened his blades and swore like a bandit? Her head certainly wasn’t fitting on straight right now, though she rather enjoyed the sensation.

Manji gave a faint groan and shifted to curl his body deeper under the blankets with her, his heartbeat a distant throb beside her ear. Rin’s awareness slowly turned and rotated until she lost all sensation of weight and position. Suspended in space, almost like floating in the womb... she slipped gradually into dreaming. Nothing bad could happen in the entire world, not once she was wholly his... and in the life remaining to her, she never meant to stir from his arms again.

“Open your eyes. Okay? Stay awake...”

She didn’t want to open her eyes. She wanted to sleep.

“Rin, wake up! Can you still hear me?”

Harsh voice, urging at her like a fire gong. Manji’s voice — it was he who kept shouting. Why wouldn’t he let her sleep? Stupid, trying to wake her in the middle of the night for nothing. She felt so tired, she wanted to die.

“Open your eyes. Do it — show me you can.”

Only halfway, because her lids felt far too heavy to raise. They fluttered sluggishly open; the gray light stabbed through the trees above her. It hurt, like sand in her eyes. She squeezed them shut.

“Dammit, Rin! Keep ‘em open.” The voice cracked with urgency. “Listen to me. Do what I tell you!”

She blinked once, then again.

“Good. Now stay awake. Keep listening to me...” She made a protesting sigh in the back of her throat. “Rin. I know it’s hard... dawn’s coming, but if you fall back asleep now.... you’re feeling colder — ” He broke off. “Keep breathing good and deep. You’ll be okay.”

She couldn’t. Breathe deep, that was. Her chest felt compressed, as if someone lay on her full-weight and pinned her to the ground. But Manji wasn’t lying on her. Propping her up, patting her numb cheek; she glimpsed his hand moving between her and the gritty light when she fluttered her lids again. A blurry glare around his spiky topknot — she couldn’t see his face.

His outline faded as her eyelids closed to soothing darkness. He shook her, setting off a sick wave of dizziness. “Rin!”

Stop bothering me, you jerk, she thought. Put me down. Just go away...

“RIN!”

Hammering her ears — she hated it — hated him — why wouldn’t he shut up and leave her alone? Dizziness took her, though Manji said her name over and over. He was losing his voice, perhaps — his calls grew fainter as the dizziness whirled her deeper. With relief she turned away from him and into the soft, cool blackness beyond. Eventually she couldn’t hear him at all.

“Let me through. That’s all I’m asking, see? She’s just a girl...”

Loud, agitated voices in response, none very close. Her own slow, labored breathing almost drowned them out. It hurt every time she drew air.

“Put down that fucking pigsticker or I’ll shove it through both your fucking earholes. Let me past the gate!”

More voices, though the only one she understood came from right above her. Murk swirled in her mind — what was going on? Where were they, and why was everyone shouting so much?

“Look at her face, dammit! It’s not a trick — You want to arrest me? You’re welcome to try... once I get her to a doctor’s house. That’s all I — shit!” Manji rasped in a deep breath and exploded in a roar. “HEY, ASSHOLE! Aim that at ME — and this time, don't miss!”

A man screamed. Hard jolting, the sound of hoofbeats. Steel, and a gurgling cry almost in her ear. Hot metallic stink of blood... on her face? It burned in her mouth; she could not spit it out.

Whose wound? She felt nothing. A flash of clarity with the taste of blood: on horseback, supported across her bodyguard’s lap, surrounded by armed men. One of them had just taken Manji’s blade in the throat?

Or her bodyguard might have been run through while he tried to shield her from a spear. Had he been hurt badly enough to be captured? She seemed to slip and shift and be roughly seized again, cramping her chest so tightly she could no longer breathe at all. Dark red swirled under her lids, which she could not open. She slipped again and wasn’t caught. Fell without finding the ground, and the screams cut off in mid-howl.

Her body lay wrapped in a thick blanket of numbness, seeming to touch nothing. Almost as if she floated on water, though at the same time her limbs seemed carved of stone. She could barely breathe, was barely aware of her slow and thickened heartbeat. Her blood ran sluggishly, her mouth tasted bitter, and her thoughts moved just as slowly. Mind dim and confused, not sure of where or when or even who. A faint ember at her core remained, but it could not warm her.

Not floating, then... sinking.

Slowly she descended into ever deeper waters as if she were drowning without a struggle. Each slight breath came burdened with crushing pressure. She could feel no motion of her own chest, and her eyelids would not even flicker. A faint shimmer of light blinked in and out on the rim of consciousness, as if her eyelashes trembled from involuntary motion, or someone shook her in a steady rhythm. As if someone carried her while he walked with heavy tread, perhaps, supporting her neck since she lacked the strength even to hold up her head. The light and the rhythm were the only confirmations that she was not entirely dispossessed of her body. That she wasn’t dead.

In this utter disorientation of non-feeling, a few impressions filtered through; maybe not every faculty had gone completely numb. She reached for those impressions, tried to hold them and bring them into focus. She picked out a faint scent, a fresh sharpness... of pines. Must and cold of wet earth, the animal reek of horses. The odors of her surroundings brought her a little way up from her immersion and slightly eased her breathing. With concentration on the tale the air told came awareness of another living being in her constricted world...

Of a man.

Sweaty and tired, the fiber of his clothes damp, his salty breath tinged with stale tobacco. He seemed very close, though her sense of his presence came and went.

A sharp crack in her ear, like sticks breaking. Grating pop and strike, several times repeated. Sounds echoed and overlapped each other with queer reverberations. Lighting a fire? Her sense of time seemed distorted; she thought she might have been entirely unconscious for short periods, or even a long while. She had no way to know.

No sensation of outside cold, nor of heat. Who was with her? She couldn’t connect this person with any name or face, though a pleasant feeling curled through her because he was near. She smelled wood smoke and the steam of wet cloth. She tried to speak, and a small sigh formed from a sluggish breath.

“Rin?”

Tobacco again, suddenly very strong as if his face were nearly touching hers. She had no other way of sensing his nearness except that all light had vanished from the fringe of her lids. He cast a deep shadow over her, but his voice sounded clearer than anything else she had heard. “Rin!”

That could be her name, Rin. It sounded familiar, and he seemed very sure of it. He sounded impatient, maybe angry. He was always getting angry... she knew that somehow. So she must know him. She could smell him waiting for a response, but she didn’t try very hard to give him one. Why should he be angry with her? She hadn’t done anything. Couldn’t do anything — breathing was difficult enough. A vague pressure on her face.

“Dammit, you’re so cold...”

She felt the tension in that voice, and at her core she realized the man wasn’t truly angry. He sounded angry because he didn’t like how he felt and he didn’t want to feel it and had no idea what to do other than shout at it and try to scare it away.

He was frightened. Why?

“Little woman... make a sound, anything... tell me you’re still alive.” The pressure moved to her chest and his voice muffled. “C’mon, heartbeat. Talk to me...”

She tried again to speak, and dimly she realized again that her numb body would obey no command. Perhaps she should be frightened too?

The man’s smell faded and returned. She heard muttering and rustling, and she scented water. Her head was raised, which set off a wave of disorienting sensation. She seemed to tumble end over end and spin faster and faster as if she had gone over a waterfall. Her mind whirled and shuddered, trapped in the deep and turbulent pool under the pounding water. He might be lifting her, trying to make her drink — but he mustn’t, she couldn’t swallow, couldn’t even feel the spout at her lips, she would drown in his clumsy solicitude...

Gradually she sensed coolness in her throat and the spinning slowly subsided. Damp grassiness and a hint of mud on her tongue, and a slight salty-sourness she couldn’t immediately identify. River water, a bamboo container... and the man nursing her by hand. Drop by drop, his wetted fingertip moistening her mouth. If her lips moved to sip the water from his skin, she couldn’t tell.

A brighter edge of light showed for a moment and she heard him breathing — maybe he had laid her on her back to face the sky. “Damn, hungry... we still got some of ol’ Anotsu’s grub, for all the good it’ll — Rin, I’m sorry.”

Rin? Was that her name? She wanted to ask who Anotsu was, but could not summon even a murmur.

“I tried my best to get you to a doctor... but they’ve posted those damn notices everywhere I go. Me and this face. Not like I care if some freakin’ spearchucker of a village sentry tries to take me, but while I’ve got you on my hands... little broken-necked bird — ” He choked to a halt.

Her caretaker sounded contradictory to her, rough and ill-spoken as a laborer but as forceful as a person of rank. And another element under the force and the roughness? A weight of duty, a kind of tenderness.

Towards her, anyway... as if she were every care he had.

Her heart quickened a little — she pitied the strange man’s grief, though it embarrassed her as well. It sounded like she had caused him a great deal of trouble. Could she do anything to soothe him in return? Piece by piece, she searched for and gathered her elusive strength. She could save just a wisp of movement from the labor of each indrawn breath...

Somewhere near, the earth gave out a dull thump like the pound of a fist. “What the hell’s left to do, huh? Am I supposed to pray an’ knock my forehead? Make bargains, like I ever kept a promise in my life?” Her caretaker laughed with a creaking sound. “Pray... right! There’s no god that’ll accept my soul for collateral — it’s claimed already. Got a hundred creditors banging on my door...”

Nothing he said made much sense to her, though she felt that it should have, and she was a little ashamed of having forgotten why.

“Got to work it off, piece by piece. Until it’s all done and I’ve left nothing out. Not a single hair. Look a mother in the eye who’s lost a child — tell that bastard he's run up a blood debt, just like — no, that's one brand I ain't gonna take! Never in this life..." His exhaled breath shivered, though she heard the fire's snapping and a substantial crunch of settling coals. "Face to face... dammit, that’s gonna hurt worse than losing an arm." A mirthless chuckle. "But it’s gotta be worth something... to them.”

That made even less sense, though she understood he had to pay something back. He owed money? Who were his creditors?

“They crowd around me at midnight, y’know... a hundred of them, and more. Armless and legless and headless... stinking and dead... and hungry. They hiss their hate in my ears and they tell me every punishment I know I deserve.”

Not money, then...

“I can’t sleep when it’s like that.. or else they crawl into my nightmares.” She heard a stick break with a loud crack. “What’s the difference? I stare right through ‘em until the sun comes up and I hear every word they say. Who am I to complain? I killed ‘em, after all. They’re souls suffering unavenged because of me. It’s their right to gnaw me down to the bones and chew on my...” He groaned. “Oh, I got mine, and it’s no one’s fault but my own. I eat my punishments until I choke... unless you’re there.”

She? Perhaps she had once known something about ghosts, but what it was she couldn’t remember.

He heaved up a strange, almost hysterical laugh. “You, Rin-chan! You hug me and you laugh at me, so happy to be with this bloody-handed bastard... you don’t even know your own power. I watch you dreaming... with that beautiful smile, like a bodhisattva in a shrine, like you're feeling a little preview of paradise... heh... and there’s no ghost in hell who can even peek into the room. They’ve got no claim on your soul.”

His voice had gone irregular, choppy. “But they ain’t the worst, those hungry ghosts... it’s her. My little sister — she comes and sits with me and takes my arm, and she smiles at me and her face is empty, she’s never remembered how I wrecked her life and she doesn’t blame me at all, and it’s worse than their hate and hunger. It’s... worse... If I can’t see your face instead of... damn it...”

He caught a low moan in his teeth, as if he refused to weep. “No! That ain’t right — I can’t cheat that way out of my debts. If I’d made you all mine, stained you as black... who knows? Maybe they’d claim you too.”

His voice fractured. “And if... if you crossed over to them... if I saw y-your face among the dead...” He was sobbing outright now. “Haunting my nightmares... forever after. Those big eyes full of hurt — I’d go crazy-bad again... beast in a human shape. Sweet girl, you’re the only one I’ve got. To defend me... ”

Defend him...? Such a strong man, when she was so weak?

He fell silent but for the deep wet rasp of his breathing. Gradually it changed to another irregular rhythm; low in his chest, he was chuckling. He cleared his nose with a sloppy honk and blew out an exasperated huff. “Aw... shit. Listen to this unhinged moron, wouldja? Some bushi you are.”

A sword scraped from the sheath. “Fine. Pray, then. Make some stupid promises.” She heard more scraping sounds, clangs of steel thrown to earth. “I won’t do her any wrong — I’ll slice it off myself to make damn sure. Won’t even think it, not ever. I’ll shave my fucking head and chuck every blade I own into the river —

“Gaahahaa...!” He let out a raucous guffaw that startled her. “As if! I ain’t got the strength to give up my sword... any of ‘em. I’ve already done her as much wrong as I could...”

Wrong... this faithful guardian?

“I always knew... that little woman wasn’t for me. Not... me. But even though I never could’ve been — how the hell did I ever believe... that I had the courage to rip out my own guts? Fucking... coward.”

She wanted so much to open her eyes for him, see his face, hear her name in his mouth again. Maybe he’d tell her his name too, and why he took such care of her. He didn’t always swear like that, did he? If he wanted, perhaps he could speak gently...

After many slow inhalations, she managed another faint sigh, but all unknowing he muttered over her. “Who gives a damn if yer insides ripped themselves out instead? Why didn’t you do your freakin’ job and keep her safe? Hah? Worse than that dribbling brat of a hatamoto — you were supposed to take care of your little sister, you fucking cunt-licker. Not sit on your useless ass and watch her die!”

He struggled with a groan, almost weeping again. “Wake... up. Please...”

She grasped at his desperation like an extended hand. To live, to wake. For this man, nameless and faceless as he was, she thought she could attempt the greatest task. She had forgotten everything but how much she must have cared for him; if only she could speak it aloud, he could remember it forever. Would she have another chance? But already exhausted by the unheard whisper, she slipped once more into darkness.


Continued... [in a few days]