Chapter 17: 15 : Yuzuha and Rouhong

Long ago, a girl with short brown hair was ordered to climb to the last floor of a tall tower that was secluded from the world. Her naked feet slowly moved in the cold mud that was produced from a week of constant rain, even now it was still raining. It was hard for this girl to move and the chains restricting her limbs made it worse. They clink and clang, burdening not only her body with their heavy weight but also her mind which recalled a past without them.

She needed to carry a heavy box by herself, and the steps were bound to be many. Once at the top, she was required to open the box and fetch a letter that told her next orders. She hated her current life and when she needed to clean the gore from the tall walls stealing her freedom, she would wonder if joining all the broken and rotting bodies below would bring her happiness. After all, the smiles of those she had watched jump were all so peaceful.

“Who goes there!” said a guard in front of the tall tower. His rusted armor and dark eyes glistening in his visor made for a terrifying sight. The things that were inside that one armor, she had seen many of them, broken and destroyed, but even if the things she saw were at their weakest, she preferred looking at them wearing their broken armor.

The girl, in turn, lifted her box just a little higher so that the man/thing could notice it. The movement of lifting it was painful as the box threatened to fall with how slippery the rain made it. She had no choice but to hold it in an uncomfortable way that made the sides dig into her skin.

“Haaa. You’re the one they sent, right?”

The girl only responded with a nod and replaced her box in a more comfortable position.

“Very well, go ahead inside… I’m not allowed to help you, but you can use the other floors to rest if you want. They’re just storage.”

The guard opened the heavy door with difficulty and held it open until the girl went inside. He only closed it only when she was far enough that she couldn’t escape or be crushed by the heavy door.

The door groaned in pain at the lack of oil in its rusty joints and closed with a loud thud making the stone floor tremble a bit. To the left of the girl stood a room filled with large stone boxes containing parts to repair the tower. Forward was a small path where stairs of unequal height curved around the inner wall of the tower. The corridor was dark without any light and moss grew on the rarely walked upon stones which made the climb dangerous for the girl whose hands were busy with a heavy box.

Every so often, there would be some steps that were built way too high for the young girl. To move forward, she needed to lift the heavy box above her shoulder just to then set it on the next step, and doing so made her thin limbs tremble from the pain.

She had to rest at the mid-point of her climb after slipping on a stone that was wet because of an opening in the wall that was letting both air and rain inside. She had twisted her ankle badly, but it was still usable.

Finally, the wooden door at the top of the tower was within her reach. She placed the heavy box in front, her arms thanking her with pain after using all her strength. She predicted that it wouldn’t be the last time she was forced to carry large and heavy boxes like this one between the tower’s floors. But what worried her was that she had no way to escape if something was to happen. The few openings in the wall weren’t even large enough for her to fit an arm inside and the main door could only be opened by someone on the outside. Maybe she was being punished… It wouldn’t be the first time for this young amnesiac slave captured after a war that she had no memory of.

The girl took a keychain that was tied around her neck and slowly unlocked the door. In total, there were five locks, each requiring a different key. The door was heavy, and she was barely able to push it open as it scraped on the floor because it caught humidity and expanded slightly.

Pushing the box inside, the first thing she saw was a bed next to a window with metal bars. Sadly, the bars didn’t look to be rusted: a rare sight in this world… This also meant she wouldn’t be able to simply break them to escape this place, once and for all…

To her surprise, there was someone in the bed who had turned to look at her. It was another girl around her age. Her skin was as white as snow with beads of sweat pouring from it. This girl which might have just been woken up had tired blue eyes filled with worry at the sight of this unknown intruder.

The girl who had just entered the room didn’t dare spend too long observing the room and opened the box she had carried. There were a lot of things packed neatly inside but she only cared about an envelope she was tasked with reading.

“W-w-why?... Why are you here? What – cough cough cough –” The girl in the bed, starting to panic because of someone breaking into her room, tried to ask what was going on but a dry cough ravaged her body and left her breathing with difficulty.

The girl in chains only lifted the envelope so that the other person could see what she was doing. She followed by opening it and slowly reading the letter inside. A frown and a deep sigh. The girl walked toward the bed with the letter that she then handed to the blue-eyed girl.

“Take,” said the chained girl.

“Wh-wh-what do you wan—”

“—Read.”

“To read this?”

“Mm! Read.”

“…”

“…”

“I… I can’t”

“…”

“Huum…”

“Read?”

“I said I can’t!”

This girl’s eyes were filled with red lines and her pupils were changing size repeatedly. She slowly lifted her hand and touched the chained girl’s cheek in an attempt to ‘see’ where the other person was.

“!!!”

“Ouch!”

The blue-eyed girl’s hand was swatted instantly by the chained girl as she backed away until her back was in contact with the box.

“Sorry,” said ‘blue-eyes’. “I should have asked before touching you.”

“…”

“Sorry…”

“…”

“Could you perhaps read this for me?”

“Eyes?”

“They don’t work well today for some reason… I can’t really see you that well.”

“…”

‘Chained-girl’ moved back to the side of the bed where she sat. She then forcefully took the other girl’s hand and plopped it on her face.

“Good?” She then pushed back the hand the very next moment, not understanding the reason the other girl wanted to touch her face.

“Is that all you’ll allow me to ‘see’?”

“Mm.”

“…Can you at least—”

“— Tsuki,” said the chained girl as she began to read the letter to the other girl.

“Is that you—”

“—Take care of Alice. One month. Food, cloth, other, in box. If something bad happens, scream for guards. Others will visit at times… Now, your part: For Alice. This girl, Tsuki, -me- will take care of you… New…essu…esspu… New something on you. Need…Chapelron?” Tsuki, the one reading, seemed to have some difficulty with words she wasn’t used to seeing. It was still an impressive feat for this girl to read so much since she was illiterate not long ago and was still learning to read.

“I think it’s supposed to be a ‘chaperon’.”

“???” Tsuki tilted her head, still not understanding the meaning of this word.

“Someone that takes care of others.”

“…”

“I think the letter is saying that doctors will come to visit, and I’ll need someone to watch over my health while they are gone. It’s only a guess and all. Is there anything else?”

“hmmm… It says: She won’t leave your side fo…” At this point, Tsuki began to read silently. Her voice was barely a murmur that wasn’t loud enough for Alice to hear and before she could ask the girl to speak louder, the other girl started to cry which slowly picked in intensity.

“Wha-! Is there something wrong?! Are you ok?!” Alice tried her best to calm this girl stuck in chains, but her attempt proved to be ineffective with the only cure being the crying girl’s tired mind and body taking her to the world of dreams.

The first meeting of this duo was simply a happenstance that led to the development of a strong bond between two girls cursed by fate.

She won’t leave your side for some time and thus won’t be required to do anything dangerous. I want you to take care of her and protect her if you can. I wasn’t able to protect her as much as I would have liked, and it pained me to see how she is now. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to really protect you two, but as I promised you, I’ll do my best to be a better person…

Kanga.

❀

 

“HEY!! Hongy-gongy! The girl’s waking up.”

“Ya trying to start a fight with that name or what?”

Tsuki could hear the muttered voice of two people bickering as she woke up in an unknown bed. Her head was still muddy, and her limbs felt weighted down by heavy chains. Well in truth, she did have her left hand chained to the unknown woman who was responsible for Tsuki being found. At that time, her fear caused Tsuki to lose consciousness.

“Have you rested well, my heart?” said the lady that Tsuki was linked to with a chain.

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“!!” Tsuki tried to back away from this person but as a reaction, the chain became taut and pulled the lady’s hand in a sort of reaching motion toward Tsuki.

"Oh my! So forc—”

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!”

Stress, hunger, tiredness, fear, pain, sadness… Tsuki was feeling a lot of negative emotions and with how her senses could be affected by them, what she saw wasn’t just the fair hand of a maiden. The thing she saw couldn’t be described with words, not that its form was complex or manyfold, but that it was so sudden, like a spider just above someone who had just woken up. Maybe what she saw could be described as a bounding snake, but even this attempt to define it was lacking as the original wasn’t limited by reason.

Tsuki reacted by pulling her dear knife since it was only her left hand that was bound and following this movement, tried to deal a deep diagonal cut at the thing she was scared of.

“Wh-what?”

“Watch out!”

Rouhong, who was also in the room, swiftly caught Tsuki’s wrist with one hand while the other pushed her head on the bed, effectively disarming her and threatening to break her arm if she dared do anything else.

“Are you ok Yuzuha?!” said Rouhong.

“Ara? Did you finally decide to become my knight in sn—”

“—Yuzuha! Did she hurt you or not?”

“…”

“Yes? OR no?”

“I don’t SEE what you’re talking about Hong-hong.”

“She tried to cut you! I know you understand that. So, stop messing around!”

“…”

“She’s dangerous!”

“And a kid.”

The two adults turned silent as neither would try to understand the other. The conversation wasn’t going anywhere unless one of them was ready to make some concession. Seeing the woman not even moving and with an unshakable conviction forced Rouhong to ask the reason behind Yuzuha’s actions.

“I didn’t ask you anything when you said you had ‘accidentally’ chained yourself with this stranger. But everything you’ve been doing since seeing her can’t be normal. You never acted like that. If you don’t want to tell me your reasons, then so be it. But understand that I can’t just let her go like that.”

“You smell awful today, Rouhong…”

“…”

“…A little bird told me that someone loved by both the sea and the wild could help me.”

“And what haven’t you learned of your family's past? ‘A fool blinded by hope is no better than someone hunting a nem-wer by hand’. You, believing in any and all readers of fate, will be the thing to kill you!”

“You have the gull of calling me a blind fool… Say whatever you want, I’m leaving. I had to calm your neighbors when you started shouting. The walls are thin… They should be worried about me not leaving… Don’t you think?”

“You set me up, didn’t you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Please, let her go.”

“…”

“Rouhong!”

“Then tell me what your little show was all about. You didn’t need to do anything of the sort.”

“Only if you promise to help me.”

Rouhong slowly released the girl and observed her for any dangerous movements she would do. Tsuki didn’t move, petrified of the man who had just released her. The time the two others wasted bickering had allowed Tsuki to mostly come back to her senses. Her vision wasn’t fully what it should be, but it was something she did understand at the very least. By removing the details that didn’t fit the situation, she was able to get a gist of what was happening. She lost consciousness and the lady who spotted her was protecting her for some reason. But that was about it. A room, a bed, an obvious door, a chain, a woman, and a man. She considered everything else she was seeing as false. What they looked like, she didn’t know yet. Maybe the bloodied chest she saw before having her senses stripped was also false. She could only let fate guide her in this false world. A fate she shared with someone else in this instant by a chain she had long wanted to forget the coldness.

“Yuzuha…” said Rouhong while pinching the bridge of his nose. “Please just leave. I’ll forget what I saw today. I have no reason to help you since I don’t even know your goal. I also don’t like how it seems you’re trying to manipulate me… Just go…”

Rouhong left before Yuzuha could say anything. The wood that made the back store flooring groaned until a door was opened and loudly closed. He had left his own store to breathe some fresh air and left the two girls alone inside.

The words: ‘I’m sorry and thank you’ were stuck in Yuzuha’s throat. Now unable to say them and unsure if she would have another chance to do so. She tried to act playful and interesting for this man but in retrospect, she, herself, found her actions strange. Even if she acted forward and pushy, she lamented how she always took the side path to reach her goals.

Yuzuha looked at the girl that was still trembling at her side. Not that she could see her with her eyes that had never seen the light of day. What she could perceive was the calm smell of the forest that was accompanying her every movement. Mixed with the inoffensive smell of ferns and the dancing odors from the last flowers of the year was a whiff of a protective saltiness like the sea. If she could have simply seen the heterochromatic eyes of the girl, Yuzuha wouldn’t have needed to parse the girl’s smell which was in truth, mostly nasty since she couldn’t clean herself well in the forest, with only water and lacking any kind of soap…

“The name’s Yuzuha! What’s yours, little girl?”

Tsuki tried to look up at this stranger that was only now addressing her as she should have done. For a moment, she could see a well-dressed girl in their mid-20 with shiny and straight blond hair reaching their lower back. It was only for a moment before her eyes were captured by other things that shouldn’t and couldn’t exist. Tsuki tried to return a smile toward this blind woman; something she regretted internally as her shaking eyes and her forced smile that wasn’t aimed at the other person would have revealed she wasn’t quite all right. Luckily, Yuzuha couldn’t see any of that and simply waited for the girl.

“Tsuki…” her voice trembled but it wasn’t something that was out of the ordinary after everything that happened.

“Ha, Tsuki! That’s a cute name!”

“…”

“Hum Hum. A-ny-way! I want you to meet a friend of mine.”

“…”

“He won’t eat you.”

“…”

“He’s friendly…”

“…”

Surely, basically kidnapping someone and asking them to do something shouldn’t make them happy.

“Why?” asked Tsuki in a low voice.

“Well… Someone had a dream of some kind and said that a person with your description was coming to this vill—”

“—Where?!” Tsuki rebounded with hope thinking that Yuu was responsible for informing them that she was going to this village.

“Huh?!”

“Let’s go! Your friend!”

“Wait wait! First, you need to clean yourself. I can’t let you meet grandpa like that.”

“But…”

“No 'but'! I’ll get the bath ready for you.”

“…”

“The scary man won’t come until late at night. It’s fine using his bath.”

“…” Tsuki could feel the chain at her wrist, even if she wasn’t able to really see its form, and Yuzuha pulled a few times trying to coax the girl to move from the bed.

“Let’s go. If you take too long, the big bad bald man is going to eat you!”

“!!”

A simple threat but it allowed Tsuki to move. When she placed her first foot on the ground, it was as if she had no problem with her vision prior as she was now seeing everything as they truly were. She preferred not to dwell on the reason behind this change and began following the lady whose satin-like hair was something Tsuki admired silently from behind.

❀

I miss the day we would rest by the lone tree close to home.
Without saying a thing, with our heads in the shade, all the words could be communicated.
You would rest your head atop my lap and your breathing was as calm as the rustling of leaves.
How do I miss those days… Our days of sweet nothing…

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