Maiko

Another spring day came without fanfare for Maiko. Her routine had become monotonous by now. Wake up before the Sun. A simple porridge for breakfast. And then it was out to the fields to plant the rice. It was still early in the season, and much of her day was spent on this. She would need to have the seeds ready to transplant next month, after all.

It was generous to describe the house she lived in as a house. It was more like a hut. The largest of the huts in her little village, mind, but that wasn’t saying much. As she stepped out into her day, a familiar sound of a fox’s scream caught her attention. Walking next to her almost like a soldier was a small orange fox. She screamed up at Maiko again, who let out a small chuckle as she knelt down to pet her.

Maiko had found the fox a year ago on the edge of the nearby woods, half dead with an arrow in her flank. In hindsight, she wasn’t quite sure why she saved the fox that day, but she brought her home and nursed the poor thing back to health. Since then, the fox has visited her every morning, screaming until she is pet and following Maiko through her morning chores. The fox always left by mid day, and always returned the next morning.

Quietly, it was a routine that Maiko had grown to greatly enjoy. She hadn’t named the fox, of course. Doing so would probably have made her want to claim her as a pet, which she didn’t want for herself or the wild animal. She couldn’t quite help but wonder if the fox thought the same way. She shook her head a moment later. She was a fox. Just an animal. She probably just thought that Maiko might feed her again if she kept stopping by.

Maiko picked up a wicker basket and set it on her back, smiling down to her fox friend. “Another busy morning, eh?” The fox let out one of its cute screams in reply, and she couldn’t help but giggle. It was almost as if she understood what Maiko was saying. This was, of course, patently ridiculous. She was a fox.

Still, she did appreciate the company. As she walked through the village, she waved to several of the villagers. As usual, she was ignored. Maiko let out a sigh. It had been three years since she arrived at the village, and in that time nothing could happen that could put anyone ill at ease. And yet, outside her fox friend and Daisuke the Rice Farmer, no one seemed to give her the time of day.

Daisuke always told her that they simply had issues with outsiders. She couldn’t argue with his logic, but couldn’t agree with it either. If, after three years, they still hadn’t come to even say hello? At some point something was fundamentally wrong. It was probably their fault in some form. Ever since they started visiting the house, any chance she ever had for a social life with normal people seemed to evaporate.

She knocked on the door to Daisuke’s hut and waited for a familiar voice. She never had to wait long. “Come on in!” She stepped inside and let out another sigh.

Daisuke was an older man, easily sixty summers or older. She often caught him in some strange situation, and today’s apparent escapade of him with his foot caught in a hole in the floorboards was certainly no different. “Oh, hello, Maiko-san!” Despite being stuck, his voice expressed no distress.

Maiko let out a chuckle as she approached him, lifting the piece of wood that had caught his foot. As he lifted the appendage up, she shook her head at him. “Daisuke-sama, when will you let me fix your hut? At this rate, it is not likely to survive the next heavy rain.”

The old man let out a laugh. “Please, Maiko-san, you already do so much for me. If I asked you to fix the house on top of what you do, I am afraid I would never be able to pay off my debt to you!”

“That you and yours have so kindly taken me in is an obligation I can never repay,” she assured. “Please, allow me to share in the kindness that you have shown me.”

“Well… if you insist! But only as you can. Besides, I need you fit and right for the growing season.”

The two laughed and made their way out to the fields. The rice wouldn’t be ready to be transplanted to the paddies for another few weeks, but even so there was plenty of work to be done in the early spring thaws. Being younger and far more fit, Maiko busied herself with preparing the grounds for the planting. It was muddy, dirty work. But far more rewarding to her than her previous occupation.

Her fox friend followed her into the paddy, as she always did. She bounced around, making Maiko laugh with her antics as she rolled and jumped and danced. No matter how lonely she started to feel, somehow this fox always made her feel better.

As she always did, the fox darted back into the woods around midday. Maiko stopped long enough to wave at the creature, and her heart stabbed briefly, already missing her company. It probably wasn’t the best sign that her best friend was a woodland scavenger, but it also wasn’t worth it to dwell on that particular fact.

Stolen story; please report.

As the day started turning to evening, Maiko finished her field work for the day. Before she left, she made sure to check Daisuke’s roof and make sure it would stand up to a sudden rain. Once she was satisfied that the seasonal weather wasn’t likely to drown her one human friend, she climbed down and started making her way home.

There were a couple of things… off about her home as she arrived there. She chose, however, to outwardly ignore that feeling. Instead, she walked into the house as if nothing had happened. She approached her kitchen first, pulling two cups out of a simple cabinet before she set her stove alight. “Am I making one or two cups?” She asked the air calmly.

There was an eerie breath of silence. Before finally she heard a masculine voice respond. “What gave me away? I thought I was entirely undetectable.”

“You forgot to close the window,” she explains calmly, recognizing the voice. “And whatever spell you’ve cast failed to disguise your shadow.” She collected water from her bucket and poured it into a kettle, before setting it so that it could boil. “One cup or two?”

“Two. I think it would be nice to catch up, Maiko-chan, don’t you?” The room seemed to lighten, and sitting at the small table was a singular figure dressed in a fine blue traveling kimono. His hawkish face smiled cheerfully at her, as if greeting an old friend.

Maiko let out a noise of disgust. “What is there to catch up on? If you are here to kill me, wouldn’t it be faster to get it over with, rather than playing with your food?” Her hand slid into the drawer next to the stove. She always kept a tanto expecting this to happen. Knowing she likely never could truly escape her past.

“You misunderstand me, Maiko-chan,” the man said with a sickeningly sweet tone. She hated that about him. No matter what, he always disguised his intentions with honeyed words. “It is my intention to give you a perfect opportunity to leave this place. I can’t do that if you’re dead.”

“Oh bullshit,” she scowled at him. With a flash of steel, the tanto slipped out of the door and was thrown directly at the man’s heart. It passed through as if he wasn’t even there, clattering on the ground behind him. He was using Air magic to project himself away from where he was actually sitting. Of course. “I see you were expecting this to go poorly, Masashi-san. You can leave out the front door now.”

A barking laugh escaped his voice. “Maiko-chan, please. Why so hostile? After all I have done for you, is this really how we must meet each other?”

The water began to whistle in the breath between words. Maiko scowled, but poured the hot water into a teapot, then dropped a set of leaves into it. She quietly cursed herself for not bringing poison with her, even if she suspected he had a countermeasure for that as well. Masashi was nothing if not overly prepared. She carried the pot and cups to the table and sat. “What do you want?”

“Really? No opportunity to catch up? It has been three years after all.”

“I’m not interested in catching up with you. I am interested in getting you out of my house. So tell me what it is you want so I can say no and you can leave.”

“So hasty,” he shakes his head, then in a haze of smoke he fades only to appear sitting a mere foot to the right of where she threw her tanto. She cursed inwardly. It was a favorite trick, and she forgot it.

“But I will get to the point.” He sipped the tea. “Oh. Sencha. For someone so disinterested in working with me, you do remember my favorite blend.”

“Get to the point?” She snaps. He truly did grate on her last nerve, and three years had not alleviated the headache he was capable of causing.

“Fine.” He pouted, as if somehow he was the wronged party here. “A storm is coming. There is soon to be a need for blades, and those with the skill to wield them. You are the finest assassin I ever trained, Maiko-chan. I have need of the skills that you can provide me.”

“A storm?” She had to admit her interest was piqued. “An outside threat? Invaders from the North?”

“Would that I could say,” he shook his head. “But I am afraid that there are matters of… operational security that keep me from speaking the details out loud. Suffice to say, your services will be needed in Kōtei no kyūsoku.”

An eyebrow raised. “So something bad is going to happen, but you refuse to speak of the bad thing that might be happening. You need the services of an assassin in the Resting place of the Emperor. And you need it bad enough that instead of going through your network of one hundred assassins, you come seeking the one who spurned you. Just what game are you playing, Masashi-san?”

“I am afraid I must keep my cards close to the chest, Maiko-san. Events are in motion that will change Seifu’s destiny forever. And you are destined to play a role in the events to come. I come to you because your stepping away from me proves a very important fact to me.”

“And that is?”

“You value the peace of this land every bit as much as I do.”

She considers his words for a long moment. Her tea did a great job allowing her to think, using a sip to keep her mind from racing in too many different directions. When she finally came to a decision, she looked at him seriously. “There’s just one problem with this plan of yours.”

“Oh? What is that?”

“I will not kill for you again, Masashi-san.”

“Oh, is that all?” He laughed the most annoying laugh she’d heard from him so far. “Dear Maiko-chan. I do not need you to kill for me. I need you to save a single life.”

Her eyebrows raised in shock. But before she could respond, he stood up. “If you are interested, come to Kōtei no kyūsoku in five days. All will be revealed in time.”

She stands up, anger twisting her features. “I should kill you where you stand.”

“If you do that, you will doom us all.” He walked out the door, confident that she would not strike back at him.

She hated herself for proving him right.