Friday, April 29, 2005

For those of you keeping score, this starts at the end of deep wounds.

Winds of Change: For a Friend
*episode 1*

For eight days, Naraku indulges in his favorite hobby, torture. Kagura is subjected to hours of pain, indignity, and torment at the hands of a sociopath. However, this is clearly only a recreation; he comes twice a day, clearly as a diversion from some work he is tending to. After each session, Kohaku is sent to care for her, so that she will be ready when Naraku next desires her. This is not the lifeless gola who slaughters villages, and betrays friends; this is the boy he was before. He has no memories of his life before Naraku, or of the atrocities he has committed, or even of the other times he has come to her. But, he has his human heart. Every time he comes into the chamber and finds a woman, demon or no, broken, mutilated, and lying naked on the floor in a pool of her own blood, tears come to his eyes. He tends her wounds, knowing that her demonic body will heal quickly; but not quickly enough. When the bones are set, the burns are treated, the cuts are patched, and he has washed the blood away, he wraps her in a blanket and holds her. He sings a lullaby, he doesn’t know where he heard it, or even that he knew any songs. But it is written on his heart, and as he holds her, the words come to his mouth; and he cries. Kagura has never had anyone to cry for her, and as she lies there in his arms, she is content. The pain withdraws and she never wants his song to end. Then Naraku comes, and the look on his face, tells her that he has given her this comfort, just so that he can take it away. The boy prostrates himself before the demon, begging, not that she be spared, but that she just be given a few more minutes of rest. Then he offers to take her place, knowing full well that his body will break much more quickly then hers and that even a shard of the jewel will not preserve his life through 5 minutes of what Kagura has endured. Finally, he prepares to attack Naraku, barehanded. Naraku says, “Kohaku.” Not a request; not an order; merely a statement of inevitable fact. Something in the boy dies; his face loses its emotion, the passion in his eyes dissolves, and his tears end. “Yes master Naraku.” he says. Without looking back, he leaves, and the cycle begins again. Then, at the end of the eighth day, the beast fails to return. The sun sets and rises and Naraku does not come. The two sit in silence. Neither one has a life to tell the other about; no fond memories to share. They sit together against a wall, and Kagura rests her head on Kohaku’s shoulder and goes to sleep. In time, looming forms begin to walk the corridor outside the torture chamber. Ogres, at once clearly Naraku’s creation, yet seeming to lack the care and craftsmanship one usually sees in Naraku’s incarnations. They have no way of knowing how many there are, but by the end of the day, there are at least dozens, just in that one section of the castle. Clearly, Naraku is amassing an army; hoping to achieve by quantity what he failed to achieve by quality. As night draws on, it becomes apparent that Naraku has lost interest in his plaything, or that something serious has occurred which requires his full attention. Kagura wakes up in the middle of the night and looks at the face of the sleeping mortal; and she has never seen anything so beautiful; and in that beauty she finds her salvation.
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