The morning light had barely had a chance to warm the town.
Akuru slowly set towards the gate. It was a deliberate pace, every step weighed against his ribcage. The bandages beneath his haori still carried the faint scent of the herbs from the apothecary, a herbal fragrance of drying plants and heated alcohol. Huginn rode along the top of his head with an air of irritation; his ride was rather bumpy.
As he was reaching the edge of the town, he saw the fisherman whom he had spent an afternoon with. He had a smile on his face, one you would find on a man who knew more than he should. He looked like he was going fishing. It was early morning, so it made sense to get started early; hopefully, after his fight with the demon, the fish would have returned to the river.
"You leaving?" called the fisherman.
He adjusted the supplies he had wrapped up in a cloth with a slight bow.
"Yes. I need to head out."
The fisherman's roughened hands stopped on the net on his shoulder. The fisherman set down the net and ambled over, his heavy boots thumping on the dirt road as if he had all the time in the world. The fisherman's face, up close, was lined with the effects of salt and sun, his fingers with the quickness that speaks of a life that calculates in fish catches, not hours.
"Listen," he said, and for a single beat, Akuru tensed in preparation for some weighty query. But in a gesture that surprised him, the man cupped his palm against Akuru's bound shoulder.
"Thank you."
Akuru blinked.
"For last night. Whatever you did in that river-" the fisherman's tone changed, becoming serious, "-you protected this part of the shore. The fishers were scared away, their nets empty. You prevented whatever was in that water from hurting the lives of those men and me."
Akuru laughed, but there was no amusement in the sound, only a quick, wheezing breath.
"No problem. Just taking care of business."
The fisherman's gaze met his, bright and honest.
"You don't get enough credit, kid. I hope it doesn't weigh down on you. Let it be known, I'll remember you. Take a fish when I clean them, lad. On the house."
Akuru's throat choked. He bowed to the man in earnest.
"Thank you, sir. I appreciate that... My name is Kobayashi Akuru. I'd thought I'd let you know before I go."
The fisherman smiled this time with the pride you'd have for your own kid.
"Kobayashi Akuru, huh, good name, it fits. The names Happu Konno."
They spoke of small things, things that mattered in that instant. A delicacy of morning air, where the best eel might be had when the seasons were right, whether the tide would be generous with the nets, and the conversation wove the moment into the fabric of the everyday. It grounded Akuru on a simpler plane, and this everyday chatter calmed the shake in his chest as if a hand on a shoulder. He had worried that he would have to explain everything, but the fisherman clearly knew that some things were best unasked.
The sun beat hotter as he made his way down the road that had originally led him to the town, step by step, out of the town. He stopped once on the hill to look back.
He was proud.
* * *
It was the evening of the next day, as Akuru arrived at a Wisteria House.
The house from the roadway was a page from a story.
Wisterias climbed the worn eaves, entwining themselves into the lattice of the gate, which depicted a wisteria crest. Paper lanterns hung from the eaves, swaying in lazy arcs; the soft glow mingled with the final golden light of day. The household was not showy, but a realm of quiet opulence, with the accumulated practices of centuries: clean-swept gravel, box hedges clipped to precise shapes, a pond of koi fish that swam like living syllables alongside stones on its edge.
At the gate, he met with someone.
A woman of middle age, whose hair had been gathered back into neat, pin-through-the-lines on her face. Hints of gray could be seen at the roots, but Akuru wouldn't dare mention them. The kimono she wore was a deep shade of indigo, with a white apron that came barely to her hips. Her bow had all the seriousness of a woman accustomed to giving commands as well as bestowing tenderness.
"You look as if you came from a storm," she said, her tone constrained enough to make him feel noticed but not mortified. "What brings you here?"
This was normal trained behavior; he doubted she couldn't already tell he was worse for wear, he dipped into a classical bow.
"Kobayashi Akuru of the Corps. I requested a stay earlier via headquarters. I need some help healing."
Her gaze flicked briefly to the bandages on his side, and then to Huginn, who still sat on his head, cocked at the household servants like a small military commander. The matron smiled, a small, private smile.
"Yes, we have received your message. The house has a bed for the weary. Come in. Leave your arms at the gate; our house is a refuge, not a battlefield."
They brought him inside through a passage that had wood that smelled of lacquer and the coolness of an evening garden. In the main hall, an elderly man, and two women who flowed like gentle air, nodded in his direction with the easy, practiced politeness of hosts. There were servants, a cluster of them, who hurried with a warmth that suggested efficiency, a small but crucial detail. The house radiated old kindness, the sort that places a soothing effect on anyone who enters.
Finally, they entered a small room which had been allotted to him, a small, comfortably furnished room that the house maintained for slayers. It had fine lien curtains, a low wooden table with a bowl of hot water, a pot of tea steeping on a brazier, and a tatami floor with the characteristic scent of drying straw and incense. Healers were already sitting in the room waiting for him.
"Will you lie down?" asked the older woman, who Akuru had found out was known as the matron.
A pair of expert hands undid his bandages. Akuru's ribs protested the movement.
Breathe. Exhale.
He let himself drop back on the futon. Warm hands untwisted the bandages. Unfurling of cloth, and the gentle shuffle of fabric against flesh filled the room.
"Tell me everything," the healer said, with a tone that was too gentle to belong to a command, "How it feels, what's been bothering you."
He mentioned everything; hiding information from a healer was the height of stupidity. Every inhalation caused a small ache; his legs shook; his ribs; the stabbing flash when he'd twisted a particular way; and the pain in his knee whenever he place weight on it. He also told them about the way the world had tilted as he flew into a pier. And how much his body pained him as he stood upright after it. He didn't prattle on; he had no use for heroic detail.
The healer had already set things in order when he concluded.
"She'll bind you," said the matron, "We'll set the bone if necessary. We'll also make a poultice, see? And keep you on soup. Rest and keep movement to a low."
This was a rural practice but it was effective. Akuru had no complaints.
They worked with a silent choreography. An attendant boiled soup, a comforting gruel of rice and barley; another heated stones until they were glowing hot and wrapped them in linen to make poultices. The healer opened a small leather box from a drawer and revealed its contents to Akuru.
Tiny glass vials of liquid that sparkled like crystal, alcohol for purification, strips of hemp for splinting.
There was a pouch of dried herbs below all of that that smelled pungently, even stung pleasantly on the nose: ginger root, arnica, crushed comfrey, plantain leaves, herbs known for centuries to reduce pain and swellings.
"Two types of treatment here," she said, working on him. "One that is ancient, the old bone mending, the poultices, the things that make a body rest quiet while it heals itself. And the other is nice and simple, running water, warm cloths, letting the lungs breathe. Both are going to be used."
He was thankful that she was explaining everything to him. Even if he didn't know half the things they were doing to him.
She didn't speak of the modern antiseptics that had begun to seep into the cities. It didn't matter what they used, so long as they were meticulous. The bandages were unpacked, the wounds rinsed with warm water and a splash of sake, antiseptic and drying, respectively.
Before the poultice was laid on top of the bruised spots, a paste of heated comfrey and smashed ginger, bound in linen and laid on with enough force to encourage the circulation but not enough to cause pain. For his ribbing, they bound strips of hemp cloth to his chest, a supportive chest bandage, strong enough to keep his ribs from sawing together but not rigid enough to impede his breathing, thus preventing pneumonia.
A man checked him for broken ribs. No broken ribs lodged in vital organs, no catastrophic displacement. He was lucky.
"Binding," said the man in a matter-of-fact tone, "and patience. We will move them slowly throughout the week."
He had a gruff kindness that carried the weight of experience behind it.
That night, he slept with the taste of soup and liniment in his mouth, but when he woke the next morning, he listened to footsteps trooping about the house, a different sort of bustle from what he had experienced at the market. There was a sense of time in the house that made minutes bloom, rather than rush, and the Wisteria family offered that to him freely.
* * *
The week that ensued could only be described as comforting.
Every morning brought a ritual. Warm water to warm his throat, the first dressing change, a cooling touch to the bruising, his own breathing tracked by the healer so she could measure his depth of inhalation without taxing his sore stitches.
He would then rest through the hottest part of the daylight hours, and then he would join the carers in quiet work that entailed minimal exertion.
Sorting packets of dried herbs, stringing laundry inside the inner courtyard, carving small wooden talismans. It seemed inconsequential. But the movement alleviated his frozen shoulders, kept his blood flowing, and distracted him from his thoughts.
The cook at the house thrived on preparing meals that were mini-celebrations themselves. Each bowl offered a savory, warm, and very fluid meal.
From miso soup with soft tofu and wakame, to rice with mountain vegetables and small bits of pickled plum, when the appetites waned. Fish, grilled but in judicious quantities, too much would never do. Accompanying the meals was ginger tea.
In the afternoons, he used muslin poultices and cold compresses, which relieved the hot iron agony. The healer kneaded around his rib cage, never pounding, never on the bone, to relax the muscles knotted by defense. His fingers trailed along his back and shoulder blades, releasing mountain ranges of tension. After his breathing calmed, she introduced him to controlled breathing drills, inhaling for four, holding for a count, exhaling for six. He worked on these in a sitting position in the garden, surrounded by wisteria vines, in a purple rain every day.
Breathing displaced the pain.
There were, of course, conversations. The Wisteria family didn't consider him just a soldier, but also a visitor who had emerged from a bad storm. They listened to his brief tales of adventure with mild curiosity, but did not pry. They spoke of their own stories when they were young, of a wisteria vine that had been planted by a relative who thought it warded off bad dreams, and of the quiet happiness that came from being allowed to serve another human being.
On the fifth day, Akuru came close to having a fever, a light tint that troubled the healer for a morning. They limited his movements, cooled him with compresses on his forehead, and changed his poultices more frequently. The application of the house's clean dressings and the vigilance of the healer averted it. For most of that day, he lay very still, listening to the sounds of the house around him. The scratching of charcoal on a stove, the distant giggling of maids, and the loudest of them all, Huginn's call on the veranda rail as he slept lightly.
The days went on. He worked on the breathing exercises with ease, and slowly they became second nature. He had learned slightly from his father, but he had learnt the majority of it on his own. Having people go through some exercise while he was injured was somewhat eye-opening; it showcased that he could take his breathing further. Akuru was slowly building himself to Total Concentration: Constant Breathing. He was confident he would get it down by the time he was fully healthy. But until then, he would just keep trying.
A week condensed inside itself, like a page from a book. On the seventh morning, the man who had looked over his bones arrived with a smile that unraveled something in Akuru's chest.
"You can walk in the garden without issue now," he said. "Stride, don't run."
Akuru went outside, the world smelled fresh, a wisteria grape fragrance mixed with the cool grit beneath his sandals. He walked to the koi pond, and he knelt, watching his own reflection shift beneath the surface of the fish. Huginn jumped to a rock beside him, ruffling his feathers.
His body felt normal.
Normalcy was nice.
Before he left the house, the matron called him to the main hall, and she hung a small wisteria charm in his hand, a braided ribbon with a tassel that was the color of twilight.
"A small thing," she said, "For safe passage."
"You've fixed more than my health," he said, bowing his head in a deep thank you, "You've given me a week that felt like a clean shore."
She smiled with a gentleness that could only arise from a true, pure heart.
"Come back in better weather."
On his last morning, he was assisted in rebinding his bandages with clean linen and a gentle treatment for his wounds. The man who helped heal his bones slapped his shoulder in a way that verged on the affectionate. The healer pushed a small pouch of dried ginger into his palm.
"When you travel, drink warm tea in the morning. Eat slowly," he said, "Breathe long."
Akuru bowed to each of them, to the matron, the man, and the child-faced maid who had instructed him on how to whittle a small wooden frog.
The wisteria vine hung from the gate, a purple curtain. The morning had that pale, washed clarity that happens after rain. Huginn fluttered from the group, landing on Akuru's shoulder. The claws of the small bird were cool against his skin.
He tucked the small wisteria charm into his clothes. It was a memory from those who had waited and assisted a young man in the process of rebuilding a broken body.
He glanced back, the house behind him in a swath of purple. He bowed once more and set out on the road. The Wisteria vines hung like a benediction on him. The sun rose a little earlier, as if to meet him halfway. He walked with the even pacing of a man who had been restored to himself, who breathed longer, who moved with deliberateness, who carried with him the gentle weight of a week that had schooled him in the shape of patience.
He was finally healthy.