Inquisitors, Part 1

  
 
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Chapter 3
"Wow, this is great!" exclaimed Kamui as the group left the Kyuden Shiba on horseback, ready to return to their own homes in Kyuden Isawa. "Who`d have thought we`d all be in the same group!"
"Please keep your voice down, Kamui," whispered Nozu. Despite his denial at being Kamui`s closest friend, Kuriko quickly noticed that Nozu never addressed the young tensai as "san" or "sama". It was always, simply, Kamui.
"There`s no need," protested the young man, red eyes dancing. "We`re out of the city now, I could dance around if I so wished!"
"Please don`t," said Negio in a serious tone. "There are still many people on the road, and we have an image to protect."
"Oh, right. ...So, Kuriko, you live in Kyuden Isawa too? Well, of course you do, since that`s where tensai study, right? But I mean, is that where your family is?"
"Ha ha ha, my my, Kamui, aren`t you curious!" said Kuriko, amused.
"More like he never shuts up," adds Negio, but not in a reprimanding tone. He almost sounded as though he was teasing the young man.
"Yes, I admit, I do have a slight problem with talking too much. Sensei calls me Chatterbox, and when he says that, I know he wants me to shut up..." Kamui chuckled uneasily. "If you ever want me to stop talking, just ask me to stop, okay? I won`t take offense."
"I`ll keep that in mind," Kuriko said with a smile. "As for your questions, yes, my family lives in Kyuden Isawa. My Father is retired as a monk now, although he used to be an Air Tensai of high repute, himself. As for my Mother..." A darker, almost sad look came over the beautiful woman`s eyes, making her seem like a wilting flower. "...She is a Courtier of moderate influence in the city`s Courts."
"For a minute there, I thought she was dead!" said Kamui, relieved. "Why the sad face?"
Kuriko simply looked away, unwilling to speak of family matters in front of someone she just met.
"Oh, sorry. Sensitive subject, eh? Well, let`s talk about someone else, then! Negio, there," began Kamui as the leader turned his head to glare at him, "is firstborn in a large family of Tensai. His Mother and Father are both teachers at the Castle, Air and Water I believe. He has two younger sisters, one of which is a First Rank Earth Tensai, and the other is a Void shugenja. Can you believe that? Void shugenjas are rare! And instead of being a Fire Tensai, the only missing piece of the puzzle, he chose to follow the way of Bushido, and joined the Shiba school."
"I never should have told you any of this, you loud-mouth..." Negio continued to mutter curses to himself.
"Despite all that, however, his family still adores him!" continued Kamui. "They support his decision, and everything! I`m so jealous. I wish I had a family like that." The man`s red eyes glazed over with a sad, wistful haze.
"You never knew your family? At all?" asked Kuriko, knowing that even though it was a rather personal question, Kamui was most likely going to answer it.
"No, never. As far as I remember, I grew up in a monastery, picked on by the other orphans for being so different. Some of them even called me an Oni." He smiled sadly, trying to mask the pain. "Tsuke-sama was the only person to ever think I had potential to be anything. Even the monks used to perform strange tests on me, to make sure I wasn`t tainted, or otherwise related to spirits. Tsuke-sama is the closest thing I have to a family. He`s like a Father to me."
"What a sad life," sighed Kuriko, feeling sorry for the boy. No wonder he spoke so much, now. He must have been so different when he was little.
"Oh, don`t feel sorry for me," replied Kamui with a bright smile, his sunny demeanor returning. "What`s important is that now, I have my Sensei, I have good friends," he glanced at Nozu and Negio, who both rolled their eyes in their usual way, "and a good, honorable position in the clan. The only thing missing is a Family of my own, but that`ll come, some day."
"Oh, are you betrothed?" asks Kuriko.
"No, not yet. Sensei-sama said he would look into it for me, since I had no parents to find me a wife."
"Wow, the Master of Fire himself to find you a wife," Kuriko approved with a nod. "You are one lucky man! He will most assuredly find you a perfect mate."
"I hope so!" answered Kamui with a smile. "What about you, are you betrothed?"
"Yes. Long ago, my Mother promised me to a Crane Courtier`s son, as part of a political bargain. I`m set to marry in a year or two, as a matter of fact." The young Air Tensai didn`t seem too pleased as she said this, which puzzled Negio. It prompted the usually silent bushi to ask a question.
"Aren`t you happy? A wedding into the Crane clan would be a great thing, isn`t it?"
"Usually yes, but I wanted to one day be Master of Air. I would rather remain a Phoenix, than marry into the Crane."
"Ah, I see."
"What about you, Negio-sama? Are you to be married?"
With a nostalgic smile, the first time Kuriko ever saw the man show any tender feeling, Negio nodded. "I am to marry not long from now, actually. In a few months. My fiancee is the daughter of our neighbors; she and I have grown up together. She is very dear to me," he admitted.
"Oh, oh, tell her what Kisami does!" prodded Kamui, leaning forward in his saddle eagerly.
Negio sighed, but was obviously proud to tell Kuriko about it nonetheless.
"Kisami ? that`s her name, Asako Kisami ? is a Henshin."
"Truly? A Henshin!" Kuriko repeated, awed. Rare were the people who had the natural abilities required to undertake this path in life, in which magic was cast by asking riddles to the spirits in exchange for power. Henshins were so good at riddles that they could make spirits think, even sometimes win against them! Their magic was truly of a rare sort. Rumor had it that, when a Henshin reached Fifth Rank, they would reach enlightenment and no longer be subject to the ravages of time. They would be Immortal.
"Yes, a Second Rank already, at that," Negio added proudly.
"Well! You must be proud indeed!"
"I have had a fortunate life, yes. Much unlike Kamui."
Kuriko noted with a smile that Negio didn`t use "san" or "sama" when speaking of the young Fire Tensai. Apparently, even though they would never admit it, both men truly were Kamui`s friends. His manner was very charming. Thinking back on their meeting in the court, Kuriko remembered something.
"I had wanted to ask you, Kamui-san, what gift it was that Shiba Ujimitsu-sama spoke of when he looked at you so directly. Also, Negio had mentioned something about it, before..."
"Ahh, the Gift. Yes, well, it`s hardly a secret. As a matter of fact, I could have been a Void shugenja myself, because of that gift. I have a touch of the void inside me, much deeper than normal people. It gives me visions. I see things that aren`t there, I sometimes hear people`s voices. It would have been a curse only, except that once, when I was small, I fell into a cave on one of the many occasions when I ran away from the monastery. In that cave, I met..." He continued in hushed tones, "I met Isawa`s Last Wish."
Kuriko, entranced by the story, gasped at this but said nothing, letting the man continue.
"I spoke with the Last Wish, and she spoke to me in return... I don`t remember what we spoke of, but it was the very next day that Tsuke came to get me. And ever since then, I`ve been able to... know things. I need only choose a specific subject, meditate on it for approximately two hours, and if I succeeded in reaching that deep void within me, I will know.
"Well that, and I also sometimes see prophecies. But that one is very very rare. It only happened once, thus far."
Kuriko stared. "You`re a Prophet?" she asked, incredulous.
"Well, a very minor one. Maybe I`ll get better when I get older," he added as an afterthought, as if this was the first time this ever occurred to him.
"You`ll also get crazier," interjected Nozu with a mean chuckle. "Prophets always go quite mad."
"Maybe I will go mad, but then you`ll be stuck as bodyguard to a mad prophet!" retorted Kamui just as meanly, his smile taking away the sting in his words. "I`ll be sure to keep you around until that happens!"
"Oh, kamis have pity on me," Nozu muttered into his mask.