Welcome Back, Old Friend

Who is this old crone? 

His attention lingered on the old woman's keen gaze; the way her eyes tracked across the length of him as though she were following a target's movements. Whomever she was, her age had yet to addle her mind. Yet, all she did was stare at him with a well-pleased smile settled upon her lips. The wrinkles lining her mouth deepened with apparent amusement, and the crow's feet perched at the rising outer corner of her eyes sunk deeper when her eyelids shuttered.

So, she would refuse to tell him anything at all, would she? 

He relented on attempting to coax an answer from her dutiful quiet and sought the rest of her being instead. From what he could tell, she was at least in the twilight years of her life with the setting sun at her back. Nevertheless, she did not shrink away from his presence nor flinch at the suddenness of his voice. Her hands folded upon her lap and rested in the  voluminous cradle of her scarlet hakama, wrists draped in white from the billowing sleeves of the robe cinched around her frame. Dark hair was pulled back from her scalp and tied in a neat ponytail which hung loose against her back and pooled on the floor at her feet. Ashen grey feathered her temples and though her face bore the marks of time, the vibrancy of her spiritual energy simmered around her in a hazy fog.  

There was no doubt she was a great warrior in her youth, and age had not tempered her prowess in the slightest. Nor did she feel the need to hide her apparent strength from his sight.

Such blatant familiarity..

Wait, could it be?

".. Kozue?"

The old woman  — no, Kozue, for now he heard the familiar ring of her joy when she laughed and wondered how it was that he could have forgotten it before. 

"It's good to hear you still remember me," Kozue said, her gaze softened with an unnamed thing he couldn't quite draw a name to. It's swept away from his sight when her eyelids closed gently as she leaned into a nearly reverent bow. 

It was odd to witness. Kozue, as a young woman, was different than this elder. A prideful headstrong woman lauded as the great beauty of her generation who showed obeisance to no man nor god. Her voice was a silvery upset, capable of tearing apart arguments with shrewd wit and silencing rooms with a breath. She was one without parallel, and thus, no one was bold or foolish enough to impersonate her. Therefore, there was no other recourse than to believe this elder was the Kozue he remembered. 

Time had changed her. While her voice still resonated, its richness was low and mellowed in a way he had never heard before. The inherent beauty once coveted still lingered throughout being from the graceful rise of her shoulders to the neatness of her folded hands. Evening light diffused through the sliding door's rice paper screens, and bent across the back of her head like a vermillion crown. 

He gazed upon her in awe, then muttered, "You've gotten older." 

Kozue's shoulders tensed for a split second. If his attention hadn't been focused solely upon her being, he might have missed the way they trembled faintly before she raised her head. 

"Living will do that to mortals, it seems.," Kozue said one she refocused upon him. Everything from the tuck of her thinned lips to the arched brow and shuttered eyelids, were enough to sweep all of his doubts away.

Perhaps time could not change all things. 

"Granny, who're you talking to?"

A small, panicked voice cut through the room and drew their attention to the little girl tucked in Kozue's shadow. He had almost forgotten she was present with how quiet she'd been. For good reason, it seemed, for fear impressed itself into the wideness of the girl's brown round eyes. She clutched desperately at Kozue's sleeve, leaning further into her space as though to shield her. He could feel the restless disquiet within her spirit permeate the room's tranquility but her eyes would not follow him as Kozue's did. No matter how he shifted his energy or condensed it into one space, the girl's eyes did not waver from the pedestal in which he sat.

She cannot hear nor see me, he thought with waning interest. What use was there in placing his concerns within a child who had no second sight? 

To his confusion, Kozue thought differently. She cupped the girl's cheek as if she were made of glass and swept her thumb in a gentle roll beneath one teary eye. 

"Be at ease child," Kozue whispered to her, "I am well." 

The girl laid her small hand on the back of Kozue's. While her fear dissipated gradually, the uncertainty in the glances stolen in his direction told the true depths of her feelings. He chuckled, deep and resounding when Kozue withdrew from her and fixed him with a curious eye. 

"The girl believes you have gone senile," he explained.

Kozue stared at him in dismay, then glanced at her young charge who skittishly faltered between looking between them. "My, it has been some time since I've been on the receiving end of such looks."

Her eyes drifted toward him with an unspoken question, and if he'd been in possession of an actual face, his nose would have likely turned up from disgust. "Absolutely not, I've no intention of showing off for a child."

Kozue huffed. "Considering how long you've slept, I will overlook your disrespect," she said, looking down to the girl who watched her nervously now. "She is no mere child, but the third daughter of the Amanogawa Clan, Yua."

Now, he studied the girl a little closer. The last he'd recalled, the daughters of the Amanogawa Clan were fully-grown women, but this child could be no older than six suns. Instead of pressing further into Kozue's shadow, a bit of gentle coaxing led the girl to sit upright in a smaller replication of a proper stance. Seeming to realize she could not see something Kozue clearly had, the girl stared straight ahead whilst struggling to keep a composed expression with her hands clasped tightly in her lap. 

He imagined what she was thinking. 

After all, in the little room he'd been sequestered in, there was nothing more than an altar where his body rested. He'd been laid across a bed crafted from iron and inlayed with the motif of swirling clouds and fully-bloomed chrysanthemums which arose to curl gently around him. Though he couldn't feel it, the length of him glowed with the angled sunlight drifting from blade to the curve of his hilt where a pair of golden bells hung from a fluttering red tassel. He'd seen scores of visitors who would kneel before the altar as if they were within the presence of a god. 

Yet, this child stared at him with the hopefulness that her punishment would end soon. To her, he was merely an ornamental sword she'd been tasked with bearing witness to.

Utterly blind that he could see her as well. 

"I can't sense any spirit energy from her," he stated dryly, a curl of satisfaction would have twisted cruelly within his heart if he still had one that beat. "So, the Amanogawa sired another failure—"

"Shizukesa-sama..." Kozue cut him off, warningly. Her tone was that of a general speaking to one who'd disobeyed an order of some kind, and the girl looked up to her in alarm.

"G-Granny, what's wrong?"

Kozue's stare bore into him and he stared back, unfazed. After a moment of tense silence, Kozue's voice sweetened with care but her words were silk wrapped around steel.

"It's nothing, child. Some blades merely have sharper mouths than they should."

Is that what she thought of him?  

"Did it—" The girl caught herself, flickering eyes darting toward him before returning to Kozue, "Uhm, he say something bad?"

Kozue nodded. "Yes," she said, her eyes falling upon him again but this time bearing a mistiness to them, "and quite thoughtless."

He sniffed, turning his focus away from them. 

"He was assessing the depth of your hara, and was utterly taken aback." 

What? 

He turned his attention back to Kozue, astonished. Why would she blatantly lie about something so obvious? The girl clearly had little spiritual energy to be recognized and she couldn't even hear him nor feel there was something there within his body. Had she actually lost her senses? 

"Really?!"

The girl's gasping cheer took him aback, and he groaned wearily. 

"Yes, it was absolutely terrible," he muttered. 

Kozue smiled as if she heard nothing, and said, "Mm, Shizukesa-sama believed with training and time, your hara will strengthen."

"What?" He hissed aloud, glaring at Kozue with as much ferocity as he could muster. 

She didn't notice, or perhaps she pretended not to, instead smiling gently at the little girl with a fondness which gave him pause. 

"Be diligent in your efforts, okay?" Kozue stroked the top of the girl's head with a little smile. "Shizukesa-sama looks forward to you reaching your potential."

The girl's eyes shone, her nervousness and even the fear she'd held had vanished to parts unknown. Now, she smiled broadly and looked to him with her hands clenched tightly at her stomach. A pink flush had risen onto her cheeks as she cried, "Yes! I'll work hard, Shizukesa-sama!"

He blinked slowly, wondering just what happened and what understanding those two came up with on their own.

What have I awoken to?