#( SETSUNA ) ┈┈ WITH THE PAST SITTING WARM ON HER KNEE | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

unlockthelore · 4 years

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On a chilly night, Hisui recollects, and tries not to freeze when he puts his thoughts into words.

From the series Yashahime Route on Ao3. For more updates, follow the yashahime route tag on this blog.

Hisui smothered a yawn behind the seam of his lips as he listened to the frog’s croaking near the stream’s bank. Moonlight glistened over rolling waters and bathed the sloping hillside in its luminescence.

As minutes ticked by, he wondered why he hadn’t descended into sleep alongside the others near the campfire. Its copper glow barely visible over the knoll, but the tendrils of smoke curled to the starry night sky bespoke of warmth.

Hisui sighed, rubbing the underside of his arms to ward off the chill.

Cold threatened to slip into the crevices of his uniform but he hunched his shoulders, allowing the breeze to nip at his nape and ears. Hisui almost wanted to say that this was ridiculous. Any troublesome soul that aught to come their way would be foolish in thinking any of them to be an easy mark.

Nearly everyone in their group were armed to the teeth, almost literally. However, he couldn’t win an argument against his partner and resigned himself to a sleepless watch amidst the night’s gelid ambience.

Drawing his knees to his chest, Hisui braced his arms around them and gazed tiredly at the dense stretch of forest beyond. His thoughts wandering blithely to his mother’s gentle hands cupping his jaw as she warned him of the forests outside of their home. With a brazen attitude attested to the follies of youth, he proclaimed that he was unafraid.

Yet now, as he sat on the incline and studied the rustling leaves and shifting grass dancing to the wind - he knew it was not fear but caution his mother tried to impart.

He allowed his eyes to drift shut and imagined her hands on his face once more. This time, he was much older and could almost look her in the eye at his full height. Her smile warmed his chest and led him to try and stand taller and straighter.

Brown eyes, rounded with concern, as she glanced over him then tipped his head up further. Her lips, soft and warm in their caress, were sweeter than any words she could give him. They pressed gently to his brow then the swell of his cheek before ending at the tip of his nose.

Pressure built behind his eyes but he blinked it away, looking up to her as she held him. Her warnings weren’t voiced but Hisui needn’t hear them to know they were implied. What he wanted to hear from her, he wasn’t sure. His mother could have spoken a thousand words but if she had told him goodbye, he wasn’t sure how he would’ve taken it.

Nevertheless, the time for their privacy had come to a close. Once they’d stepped out of the safety of her quarters, they slipped into their roles as seamlessly as they’d done for the past four years.

She was no longer his mother, but the chieftain of the slayers, and Hisui was but another in her ranks. He didn’t mind as he wandered through the throng of slayers preparing for their own missions while they awaited word from their leader. Brief glances were tossed in his direction but upon noticing who it was, Hisui was quickly disregarded. It didn’t matter. He did his duty and followed orders just as they did. Even if their whispers showed skepticism.

Somewhere amidst the noise, his uncle found him and clapped a hand against his shoulder. The scar across his nose seemed shallower in the lantern’s warm orange light.

“Take care on your mission,” he said. “Stick to the trails as we know them and keep a watch throughout the night.”

The look on Hisui’s face must have given away his displeasure at the idea of a nightly watch. His uncle shook his head, a deep sonorous chuckle parting his lips with a smile that made the shadows around his eyes vanish and his face that much younger. Hisui heard his uncle had been a gentle boy in his youth, and that experience changed him irreversibly, but it was in his smile that Hisui felt he glimpsed the boy his uncle had been.

“I’ve already relayed the same to Setsuna,” warned his uncle as his laughter died, and any argument Hisui might have had was lost. “She may not seem like it, but I’m sure she’s nervous…”

Hisui couldn’t blame her if she was. They were often paired with Moroha when her wanderings with Shippō returned her to the slayer compound. To have the rambunctious girl in their midst was nothing new. However it was her companion, a young woman bearing a familiar face and name, that set them all on edge. It’d been ten years since Hisui laid eyes on Towa and she was scarcely anything like the girl she’d been. Foolishly perhaps, Hisui hoped it’d been the changes in her demeanor that left Setsuna puzzled to their connection. Alas they quickly found she truly didn’t remember her at all.

No amount of reminiscence and correlation to their appearance would sway Setsuna in her belief. In her eyes, she had no sister.

Disheartenment Hisui felt was mirrored on Towa’s face as Setsuna bared coarse words upon her head during their initial meeting. Still, emboldened by courage, love, or yearning to remain at her sister’s side - Towa refused to leave. It took a miracle for the two sisters not to come to blows, and Moroha’s assurances that she would bring Towa with her on her next journey to the village left Hisui with a sense of camaraderie and foreboding.

Now, the moment that was nigh upon them and he stared up at the lone figure of Setsuna standing beneath the stone and wood archway forming the village’s entrance. Her silhouette, untouched by warm pools of orange light and avoided by the slayers milling about, strengthened his resolve before his uncle imparted it upon his head.

With a firm squeeze to his shoulder, Kohaku said, “Look after her, Hisui.”

Those words reverberated in his ear and their echo whispered to him on the winds. Gradually, Hisui opened his eyes as he heard the quiet sshk-sshk sifting through the grass. His gaze cut right. The silhouette he’d regarded in his memories came into view as Setsuna wandered down the incline. She showed little sign of trouble with keeping her footing, her head held high and gaze focused somewhere amidst the skyline. Fur curled around her right arm flowed behind her in twin tails, almost ethereal in the moonlight.

Hisui sighed. He would have almost expected her to be a little less put together. When he’d left their campfire to sit by the bank, she had been leant against one of the trees still dressed in her uniform with Kanemitsu no Tomae laid across her lap as she dragged a whetstone along the pole arm’s blade. How the others had gotten to sleep with the grating drag of the stone across the curved edge was beyond him. Although, he’d hoped that she had gotten some sleep herself.

“Coming to watch the stars with me?” Hisui asked, not minding the cool sidelong glance she gives him. “Or relieve me of my duty?”

It must have been the latter because she stands beside him, a few paces between them, and moves no further. Stretching out his legs and arching his back as he lifted his arms above his head, Hisui sighed. The cold had already sept into his bones and they ached. Nothing new in the way of things but he couldn’t wait to curl up by the fire himself. Without a word exchanged between them in parting, he stood and turned to walk up the embankment.

Only a few steps were taken before he glanced over his shoulder, taking in the rigid line of her shoulder and her straightened posture. She was unyielding unlike the wind she commanded. A faint reminder of the yōkai in his memories who was as resolute as he was strong. No, Setsuna bore a stark resemblance to his wife. Though she didn’t smile as her mother did or dance beneath shady groves where a cool breeze played wantonly, her presence was comforting just as hers had been.

It wasn’t right to leave her alone.

His pinky twitched as the ghostly impression of another looping with it returned, pressure as they swung in the sticky heat of a summer night. Towa’s eyes bore into his own that night when they were barely more than four years old and she made him swear.

We’ll protect our home.

Four words she meant but when she looked away, her eyes were on Setsuna. Home, though she said, Hisui knew then what she meant.

If anything happens, you’ll protect Setsuna.

Hisui set one foot in front of the other so he didn’t slip as he tread, but instead of retreating toward the campfire, he walked back to Setsuna’s side. Violet eyes shifted toward him and her brow quirked. Hisui could imagine what sight he made shivering from the cold. If he had fur warm as hers and a resilience to showing his woes, then perhaps he’d appear as confident as well. Setsuna seemed to wait for something, whether it was for him to speak or otherwise - he didn’t know. But quietly, she returned to her silent vigil and Hisui shuddered at her side until the winds ceased their howling.

“Did you need something?” Setsuna asked, startling the croaking frog to leap from its perch on one of the bank’s smoothed boulders.

Hisui rubbed his hands up his arms then down, brushing his thumb against one of his mala’s smooth beads. “No, just enjoying the night.”

Setsuna hummed, and he knew his flimsy excuse didn’t convince her.

“I was only thinking…” Hisui trailed off as he felt his ears growing warm when she glanced toward him. “Its odd.”

She regarded him in silence then closed her eyes, her arms folded loosely across her chest and chin slightly tucked. An opening if he’d ever seen one. Glancing over her, Hisui wondered how long she had slept. Since they joined again with Towa and Moroha, she had been on alert, putting every bit of distance she could between herself and Towa while simultaneously keeping an eye on her. Setsuna didn’t trust her at all, and the strain it put on her wasn’t visible to anyone who didn’t know her beneath the armor.

Hisui doubted she even slept during his watch. She hardly slept in the village as it was. Preferring to exhaust herself with every training regimen imaginable until her body was rendered unable to go on, and sleep was the only recourse.

“It’s been the two of us for awhile now, hasn’t it?” asked Hisui, lowering his hands to his sides as he turned his gaze northward. It wouldn’t bode well if she caught him studying her after all. The lingering silence rolled in his direction was enough to spur him into talking though. “Moroha leaves often, and we only see Takechiyo when there’s a profit to be made. Training, missions, traveling, it’s just been… us.”

Hisui snuck a glance at her and started when he incidentally met Setsuna’s gaze. Her face, impeccably neutral as it always was, somehow radiated an intense inquisitiveness while giving nothing away. Hisui wisely kept mention of Towa out of the spiel despite desperately wanting to speak of her. It was only right. However, he knew Setsuna wouldn’t take kindly to it and the tension between the sisters seemed to be something that only occasional intervention, time, and their own relinquishment of pride could ease.

“Do you miss it?”

Hisui blinked, caught off guard. “What?”

“When it was only us,” elaborated Setsuna. Her voice was quietened with an emotion Hisui couldn’t put to name, and though her expression didn’t change, Hisui felt a shift in the mood. As if there was an air of unease and doubt cast over them.

Hisui stared at her, then muttered softly. “Do you?”

Setsuna seemed shocked by the question and only the briefest widen of her eyes showed it. Then, her face returned to its neutrality and she turned her head away. Hisui felt his heart pounding and a twist in his gut. When she said nothing, and the wind’s howling filled the silence, his stomach fluttered and a slight smile formed on his lips.

“I was happy when it was only us,” he admitted, unsure if the slight twitch in her shoulders was from surprise or the cold. “And if we went back to that, I would still be happy..”

The years he spent by her side weren’t unhappy ones. Riddled with worry, guilt, unease, and hardships but there were moments of happiness which made up for all the ones devoid of it. Hisui thought to Towa and their promise and his smile fell.

If he protected Setsuna as he promised he would have, then would she have never lost her memories? Setsuna was extremely reticent about her feelings toward the void in her mind and Hisui neglected to push her toward seeking them out. He’d hoped with time, and perhaps new experiences, the old would return and they would gain answers of what happened that night.

Ten years passed, and while he hadn’t lost hope, his focus had shifted from rebuilding Setsuna’s past to helping her build a future. A focus that’d been shattered with the reappearance of her sister — and the start of a journey he was unsure they would ever be the same from.

Hisui closed his eyes, the weight piled upon his chest lifting as he muttered, “But I’d worry.”

Once those words were set free from his lips, Hisui found there was nowhere else he could redirect the conversation. Setsuna eyed him. Her dark hair curling against her cheek where it escaped from her ponytail, the single strip of red catching his eye. He wanted to curl his fingers in it, brush his thumb against the red strands, just as he’d seen her mother do to them years prior.

It always seemed to bring them comfort then. Setsuna, moreso than Towa. There were few of his memories which were crystal clear but he did remember Setsuna curled on her mother’s lap while she combed her fingers through her hair. A pang of hurt and yearning coursed through Hisui as he met her eyes. She couldn’t remember. The presence her mother had, her father’s adoration for them - she could remember none of it.

Hisui refused to let the stinging heat behind his eyes give way to tears, blinking slowly. “If Towa and the others can find a way to give back what you lost, then…”

Pain flickered in Setsuna’s eyes for a split second and she tore her gaze away from him. “I don’t need them,” she said and he could see the beginnings of her shifting.

“I do…” Hisui demanded, feeling as if the breath had been punched out of his chest. “If what lies at the end of this will keep you from harm, then I need them…”

Setsuna would never allow herself to seem as if she were running, and Hisui wasn’t sure what he would say if he let her go now. How couldn’t she understand? They stood there in the moment. Setsuna’s eyes closed, and Hisui looking down at her nervous and incensed. How could he make her understand?

Finally, Setsuna exhaled a sigh through her nose. “I don’t need you to care for me.”

Hisui felt a pang of hurt in his chest and for a moment, it was difficult to breathe. “I know you don’t…” he muttered softly, his right hand shifting to reaching out to her while the fingers of his left toyed with his mala. When he grasped one of the hanging beads, he pulled his hand back and let it fall to his side. “I chose to.”

Throughout it all, he knew that he could leave her side at any time. Perhaps he would have been in his right to. He was a young boy who didn’t know the gravitas of what was going on. However, every time he thought of going somewhere else, he would stop and wait for her.

Always looking to see if she were at his side.

Hisui tucked his chin and sighed, quelling his nerves with a few gulps of air. Slowly he crouched down in the grass then took up another seated position with his knees raised and arms resting atop of them. They said nothing to one another for awhile and Hisui couldn’t bring himself to look in Setsuna’s direction, unsure of what effect his words would have. A shree-shree of a cricket’s chirping filled the quiet and Hisui allowed it to lull him lightly, filling the fog in his mind.

He wasn’t sure when his eyes slipped shut but the next brush of cold nipping at his ears didn’t bite at his hands or his arms and legs. Hisui opened his eyes and started, staring down at the fur wrapped around his shoulders. Twin tails of it wound around him like intersecting blankets, covered the length of his torso and up to his knees where they hung near his hands. Furtively, Hisui glanced to his side where Setsuna sat with her arms folded. The length of her fur extended to where it wrapped around her back.

As if sensing him staring, she opened her eyes and looked at him pointedly. “Rest.”

Hisui smiled faintly, tilting his head. “You haven’t slept at all.”

“I don’t require as much sleep as you do,” she retorted, the quiet implication of the difference in their nature lingering in the open air.

It didn’t bother Hisui at all. Hanyō or not, Setsuna would always be Setsuna. “If you rest for my sake, then I will for yours,” he offered, shuffling slightly in the fur to make himself comfortable. He knew she wouldn’t like him lying on it though he wasn’t sure how well he’d fare sitting up.

The twin tails constricted around him and a flash of panic burned hot in Hisui’s chest as he was pulled to one side. His head resting flush against the pauldron of Setsuna’s armor, her hair tickling his forehead as she turned her head away.

“Sleep,” she commanded and Hisui could have sworn he heard the request beneath the firmness of her tone.

Hisui smiled and closed his eyes, rubbing his cheek against her shoulder lightly then settling with a sigh.

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