Alone

Chapter Eleven: Fearful for Love

Slowly, Ayame, Katsu, and the guard walked down the mansion's hallways. “This place seems far more ominous than it did the night I saved Akira,” she thought, as they entered the last hallway leading to Raiden's cell. With every step, the hallway became darker. Lower and lower they went with each passing moment. The stairs soon led them to a large, splintered door. Two guards stood at the entrance, heavily armed, as though the man inside were a wild beast.

The guards stood at attention when Katsu reached the bottom, but then their eyes shifted when they saw Ayame standing at the top of the stairs. Their gazes caused a shiver to slide down her back. Slowly Ayame stepped wearily down the stairs, fearing they would disappear at any moment from beneath her. The darkness closed in around her and the sound of her beating heart rang in her ears.

Fear had finally taken her hand, leading her down this dark path. Reaching the bottom, Katsu took her hand, pulling her toward the door. With every step, she felt like her heart would break and her energy fading. The willpower she once had was forsaking her. It was as though Katsu, through his touch, was stealing it away. Her legs started to shake as the door was pushed open.

Upon opening the heavy wooden door, the shadowed light from the hallway revealed a horrible picture of defeat. There Raiden was kneeling on the ground with chains wrapped around his ankles and wrists, his head bowed, hair falling over his shoulders and covering his face. She felt her knees hit the ground as she pulled her hand from Katsu’s grasp to cover her mouth. Tears trickled down her cheeks as she saw the dirt and blood staining his skin and clothing, as well as on the floor.

Katsu slowly walked toward Raiden and took the whip from the guard's hand as he passed by. He lifted his hand and let the whip c***k down on Raiden’s back, causing a deafening, almost inhuman bellow. Again Katsu lifted his hand to bring the whip down. But before he could, Ayame wrapped her arms around him, forcing Katsu to stop. Instead of fighting with her, he let the whip clatter to the ground and walked out of the cell, leaving Ayame and Raiden alone.

She gingerly rose and made her way over to Raide. Her legs shook as she moved. Lowering herself, she placed her hand on Raiden's face. Slowly she stood and went behind him, taking the ribbon from her hair. Placing it between her lips she began to comb through his hair with her fingers. Finally, she was able to pull his hair back and tie it up. She knelt down to see his face. Then she ripped a piece from the bottom of her dress and began to wipe away the blood and dirt. Finally, she got to her feet and slowly went to the door, knocked on it, and waited for a response.

“Do you need something?” a guard asked from the other side, his voice bored.

“Can you get me a pail of warm water please?” She asked sweetly, praying silently for her tone to appeal to the guard.

“I will see what I can do.” She listened as his footsteps echoed in the hallway. A few moments later, the guard was again at the door.

“The water will be along in a few moments.”

“Thank you so much.” She smiled faintly before going to sit at Raiden's side, placing her hand on his forehead to make sure he wasn’t burning up. To her dismay, it felt as though he was ill, but she knew she couldn't do much more than clean him up. “How can I help him? He has done so much for me, but I can't seem to do anything right for him. I just don't know what to do...,” her thoughts were interrupted by knocking at the door. She opened it and took the water from a servant. She nodded her thanks to the servant.

She went back to Raiden, knelt down, took the scrap of cloth she had torn from her own dress, and dipped it into the warm water. Teary-eyed, she cleaned the blood and dirt from his face more thoroughly, finding cuts underneath that had become infected. She continued to clean his wounds. She wanted to do more for him, but she didn’t have the things she needed. All the while he didn’t make a sound. His sight never left the ground.

“Raiden? Can you hear me?” she whispered, placing her hand on his cheek. “Please answer me... I just want to hear your voice.” She waited for him to say something, or even to make a sound, but he remained silent in the darkness.

“Raiden please, please Raiden, say something!” Still, her voice stayed at a whisper, but fear had broken through and tears had started down her cheeks. Slowly she pulled his shirt up, beginning to clean his back with the water while it was still warm. “I'm so sorry. All those marks on your back are my fault. If I wasn't here, none of this would have ever happened.” She spoke softly as she washed him, trying not to go too deep into his wounds. “I never should have come here. I know it really wasn't my choice, but there had to have been a way for me to have escaped from here and this would have never happened.” She watched as the water turned red and her tears dropped onto his back. “I would have been happy to have died back in the fire with my family...”

“No!” he said in a low raspy voice, interrupting her. “This is not your fault. Whether you were here or not, this outcome was assured.”

“But Raiden...”

“Please Ayame, I beg of you not to blame yourself.” His breathing became heavy. “In the end, this was my fault. It has all been my fault.” His voice pained as he spoke.

“I don't understand. How could this possibly be your fault?” She moved around to his chest after drying his back with the bottom of her dress.

“It's my fault because I was an assassin for Master Tadashi. Then I started to refuse to kill. I told him I couldn't do it anymore because it was killing me inside. He wouldn’t hear of it. Since I was his weapon, he wanted me to be sharpened. But I became dull to stop the pain.” He coughed as he finished his explanation.

“You were an assassin?” She could feel her hands shaking as she cleaned his chest and knew he felt it too. “No, you couldn't have been an assassin. It's just not possible.”

“I’m sorry. Before you came here, I was the best of the best. That was the only thing I was good at. The only thing I lived to do.” He tried taking a deep breath but ended up coughing up blood as he gasped to fill his lungs with air. After a few moments, he was able to breathe more easily and drew in a deep breath as though he were going to tell a story, a painful one, “Are you willing to listen to what I have to say? It's a long story and we may not have another chance to speak like this.” His emerald grew sad.

“If you are willing to, I’ll listen.” She tried to smile but failed.

“It all started when I was six years old. I had lost my family to bandits who were looking for money we didn't have. We were a poor family, and where we lived many people died because of the thieves and bandits roaming the countryside. My family became their victims, but my brother and I escaped into the mountains. There we lived and trained our minds and bodies at a temple we had come across. For five years we were happy again. We had found peace and a new family that cared for us. That peace didn’t last past my eleventh birthday. My brother, Daichi, was taken from me. The monks said it was for the best. We were separated and I no longer see him.

After that, I was confined to staying there for another two years, waiting for an opportunity to escape and find Daichi. But it never came. I waited and trained every day, trying to become strong enough to take down those who took my brother. One day, out of nowhere, a girl showed up at the steps of the temple. She said she was sent on a mission to find a boy with extraordinary abilities. Without a second thought, the monks at the temple offered my services. She brought me here and they tested me to see my skills, figuring that with another two years of training, I would become one of the best assassins.

At this point, I had no choice but to train, to become stronger, faster, and more agile than ever before. I had nothing left to live for. Slowly they were breaking me. Soon I felt nothing. I had no emotions. Then they assigned me to kill families in Kyoto that held any political power or owed money to Master Tadashi...” He stopped with another coughing fit.

As he paused, he took the chance to look at Ayame, who now sat on the floor just staring at him without a sound coming through her lips. However, tears were running down her cheeks, telling him she had finally figured it out. “Ayame, I never knew it was your family. I did the very thing that had happened to me, which I had sworn I would never do.” He stopped, thinking she would yell and scream at him, but not a word came from her. “Ayame, I never wanted to kill anyone. And when I saw you at your Master's house, I heard all the screams of everyone I had ever murdered. That's when I decided to put down my sword for good.” He had taken his eyes away from hers now. He was too ashamed to look at her.

“Raiden?” Her voice shook. “Who are you now?” She moved toward him to look into his eyes with her pure violet ones.

“I'm not an assassin, not now, not anymore. I want to be...” He stopped himself from continuing.

“Raiden, I don't know what to say. I mean, I found the man who killed my family, yet I don't know what to feel or what to think.” She couldn't even try to smile at that point. It was far past the point of smiling to make things better.

“Can you ever forgive me for what I’ve done to you? I have left you without a family in this...”

“Stop it!” she snapped. “I don't care that you murdered my family. I mean I do care, but I also know my parents knew it was going to happen. That's why I was able to get away because they knew.” She sobbed, stopping to take a deep breath to calm her aching heart. “Raiden, my parents were ready to die. But I know my little sister didn't understand any of it. It’s okay. I know this was for the best, all things considered, because if my sister and I had made it out alive, we would have been separated. I have no doubt about it. I have seen it too many times to count. So I believe it’s better this way because this way she endured less pain.” Raiden's eyes were wide as though he couldn’t comprehend what she was saying.

“I don’t understand. How did your parents know?”

“I had gone into their room and found a letter from one of their friends telling them what was to come. I also happened to overhear them late one night talking about what they were going to do. They had never planned to run. Instead, they started to stay home more with us and do more things with us. We became a better family in those last few months than we had ever been before. They were making it so that when they died they had spent all the time they had left with us, cherishing every moment.

I also heard them say they wanted me to get away. They had a reason. But when they said it their voices became quiet and I couldn’t hear what it was. It troubled me for nights. Soon I came to the understanding they were right. There was no way an assassin would let two people from the same household escape, and my parents had chosen me. It was an easy option because I was twelve and my sister was only two. She wouldn't have been able to make it on her own. In the end, it was better she died with my parents, with her family, rather than alone.” Her head began to pound as all the pain came back, all the memories and fears. She felt all she was doing was babbling. But all her words, no matter how jumbled, seemed to be her true feelings.

“I still can't understand how you can forgive me so easily. I took your whole world from you.” He bowed his head in shame.

“But you opened up a new world for me to see.”

“The world I opened is one of blood, pain, and suffering.”

“Not all of it. You've shown me things I never would have seen.” She placed her hand under his chin to lift his gaze to meet hers.

“What have I shown you that is so amazing you would forgive a murderer?”

“I don't think I can answer that question in a way you can understand.”

“Try, for my sake.”

“Alright, I’ll try. You showed me new happiness. How to find it in all shapes and sizes, and accept what life throws at me no matter what. How important life really is, and how one person can take it away. But the same person can give you a new life and a new happiness.” At this point, Ayame couldn't help but laugh lightly and faintly smile up at him.

“Are you saying that because of me you found something important?”

“Yes, you helped me find myself. I thought when my family died I had died along with them, but you brought me back to life. Somehow you gave me a reason to breathe and keep on living.” She answered him. She thought about all her travels and how she found small joys even working as a servant at her Master's house.

“How can I give anyone a reason for living?”

“Because you are important to me now. And if you died, then I would really be completely alone in this world.”

“If I died, then it would atone for the lives I have stolen.”

“If you died you would disgrace the lives you stole. You need to keep on living to repay your debt to them.”

“How can I live, when all I can do well is take lives?”

“You’ll just have to find something you can do even better.”

“I don’t understand. Why do you care so much for this murderer?”

“That's an easy answer...” She paused, searching for the right words, “because I might have fallen in love with that murderer. I don't care about what you’ve done. No matter how many times you say you’re sorry, or even if I killed you, it will never bring back my family.” He stared at her speechless. “My mother used to say if you hold onto anger then it will consume you. I don’t want to lose myself for revenge. I hope this can make you feel more at ease.” She smiled sweetly, trying to make him feel better.