• Her

    Back when the ninja was a name of disgrace, a dowry was necessary to marry off a daughter, and a girl of fourteen was sure to have a husband, the story of a young girl started to appear in the mouths of children. It was said that she was poor and worked in rice fields but every man in town had come to love her. They loathed any man lucky enough to talk to her, as they were all in love with her sheer beauty and pleasant company. Offers of marriage came to her as often as the rising sun and her parents’ rejection came as often as the setting sun. She knew they would choose a man who could care for her and take her family out of the unceasing poverty. She could not be with her love who worked in the fields with her. She hoped to fall in love with the man she would marry so her heart would weep no longer.
    On a clear summer morning her parents decided she was too old and had to be married by the next season. At the announcement men were drawn like bees to the most fragrant of flowers. She wished to leave it all behind and run away with her love, but decided to stay with her family and save them from that ugly place they had lived in for far too long. Takaji a man of great wealth, power, and pure physical strength proposed and while she was off speaking to her love, Aoi, of how she longed to be with him, her parents were arranging her marriage. When she returned to her home her sorrow increased as she found out that in two days she would be living with Takaji and in a month they would be married. She rushed to Aoi hoping he would understand and find someone else, someone more worthy to be his wife. Aoi simply couldn’t, he must have her, she was all he had ever wanted and yet he knew he couldn’t so he set to work with a plan, an ingenious plan that would make her his forever. After a month she finally married Takaji and was already bearing his child, though she did not know it. With this she accepted that Aoi was gone from her life and wished him well.
    Aoi had finally covered all the angles of his plan, or so he thought. He summoned her to the mountain where they would look upon the village and wonder what would happen next in this ever-changing world of ours. She appeared questioning why here of all places, he had chosen it because it was romantic, soft, and flat, and it laid her eyes upon a mat and sake waiting for her. She believed it was simply a get together between friends. Aoi discussed small things not important enough to really need to be said here. When she became suspicious she realized that he wanted something else, but was too intoxicated to do anything about it. He decided he had come this far and wasn’t going to allow morality to interfere. After an hour his deed was done. He was hoping she would become pregnant, and her husband would no longer want her if her children were not Takaji's. He left her there, crying himself for the misdeeds he had done, thinking himself a disgrace to man. She was cold, naked and longing for the days when she loved him with her heart and soul. After pulling her kimono onto her bruised body, she returned to her husband, debating in her head if she should tell him.
    When she reached her home she stopped at the door and cried until she could cry no more and when she was done she entered. Acting on impulse she told Takaji everything, even about the meaningless chitchat. She pleaded for forgiveness and after he thought things through he spoke once and only once saying, “I will forgive you but never can I forgive him” without consulting her he went to Aoi’s hut and waited.
    She knew she couldn’t stop Takaji so she prayed for Aoi and his soul. She thought that if she wanted something with her heart and soul it would happen, even if it was just for a moment. Over the next day she said to herself “Run away and never come back, I love you and don’t want you to get hurt, forget about me and RUN AWAY”. She wished for only this one thing, she needed nothing more in life. For three days and two nights she hoped for Takaji’s mercy and dreaded Aoi’s actual fate. In the hands of Takaji Aoi had no chance of survival. On the fourth day Aoi arrived at Takaji's house battered from hiding, now willing to accept his fate, and to go down loving her. Without Aoi ever seeing Takagi’s katana move, his life was over. He felt a deep hole in his chest, with the two fingers on his hand not broken in his journey he touched his wound. The only thing he regretted now was doing such an awful thing to the woman he would always love, even in death. Aoi continued to hope to see her in the after life but he knew that where he went she would not follow.
    She was the one called Ai.