Bringing my two hands into a tight embrace, I blew a stuttering breath hoping it might seep some warmth onto my shivering fingers and paling knuckles. Alas, the breath turned into a sigh of frustration as the wind howling around me refused to indulge this simple act, freezing the air coming out of my mouth and leaving my poor hands bruised blue with coldness, almost half frozen for now and almost certainly completely frozen if not rotting off by the end of that stormy night.
The air traveled with the chillness of a snow gnawing a mountain, striking my face with the sharpness of the snow tigers found there. It tweaked my thin limbs and bit onto my flesh till I could feel my toes ready to fall off with every next step I was bound to take. My scarf could not protect my face, neither could my thin kimono and the shawl I threw over it in haste. I looked up at the dim sky, immersing in a deeper bluer color, wishing to conceal the heavens and their blessings above. The air was carrying an impending message from the previous nights, warning Tokyo's skies of a snowy storm and by extension, warning me to go back home, cook a hot meal, and surrender myself to the thickest cover I could get my hands on.
But it was not the loud foreboding growls of the wind that deafened my ears to this warning, it was my own stubbornness.
I did not take note of that message and kept dragging my tired feet on the empty streets, and surely, to my luck, the messenger did not delay any longer and what had started as whimsical snowflakes quickly turned into heavy snowballs hammering my shoulders and infusing much unneeded chillness and coldness into my bones. My raised black hair was quickly dyed by the flakes transparent colors, melting against my scalp and sending unforgivable shivers from the tip of my head down to the sore ends of my toes. A full scale attack from a single winter storm against a seventeen years old girl. However, I still did not stop and went on, not heading the sign that I should stop whatever foolish endeavor I was stubbornly headed into and return home. I was already blinded to logic by rage, so why not blind myself deliberately to these natural signs judging the fate of my mission prior to accomplishing it?
My heart was blinded by rage, let the snow blind my sight as well, not that it will change my determination.
I kept walking between the lightened off houses of Kyoto until I reached that one particular house encompassing this night's journey's destination, the wrong doing of his residents the fuel behind this journey in the first place.
I took a deep breath. Throughout my aggressive steps I held not a single shard of regret or doubt, but as I arrived my feet started to tense on their own…but if you asked me if these feelings emerging right now, right at the door, were fair I would say no! They were just as unfair as the circumstances that led me to this situation and decision in the first place!
I was not a thief, I was raised well! The residents of that house simply owned me money that they refused to pay! Thinking of the hard work I had put for mister Isawa's sake to be as cared for and as comfortable as a dying man could be, then not getting paid by his family because he died was ridiculous! The money hidden there was mine! I had never planned on taking what was more than mine… this was not a theft despite all the surrounding evidences suggestion… I was simply taking my fee… what was mine… my lawful right!
The targeted house laid in front of me and the time was most convenient, for in such a stormy night people preferred to go to bed and warp themselves within each other's embrace under thick duvets. All while the storm's roars would devour any voice made by mistake. So, in conclusion, I was ought to feel lucky considering the circumstances of that night suitable if not even favorable.
For the first time since I had taken this decision; to handle the matter with my own hands and deliver justice by own will, I rubbed my hands enthusiastically before hissing from the bruising friction. Time had come to bear the fruit of my hobby of climbing our garden's trees and walls in my childhood.
I put my leg on the outside wall and lifted myself to climb it. My heart was racing but my mind was set. Nothing could stop at this crucial moment; not the merciless wind, not the cruel weather, not the disappointed eyes of the gods themselves.
"Who goes there? Stop whatever you're trying to do!"
A thunderous voice ripped through the stormy wind, landing in my ears heavier than the thuds of lighting, and my limbs went boneless as if stuck by one. Luck had obviously stopped smiling at me. Only the determined rush of footsteps brought some strength into my numbing body as my mind awakened with the alarming danger I was about to face.
I slipped down fast like a street cat with no fangs to show or claws to bare, one that could only run as it arched its back pathetically. I did not even meow in pain when my ankle twisted beneath my frenzy run.
"Seize him now!"
The commanding voice ordered, and I could hear three men's footsteps dashing after me as if I was the most dangerous criminal treading on the soil of Nippon. My just heist had come to a disastrous end by own hands. Stupidly, being an experienced thief, and being for the first time at the end of the hunt, I ran back to my house, the only place I could relate to safety at that perilous moment. I thoroughly believed its walls would shield me from the world, its small garden would shelter me from snow and swords alike, the covers of my bed would conceal me from any harm but I had only brought said harm on myself as led my chasers directly to where I resided, only realizing this mistake as I reached to the door.
"Idiot!"
I muttered cursing myself, turning at the last moment despite the pain in my ankle to change directions and seek refuge somewhere else but my eyes were greeted by the splendid flash of silver, a long shaft cutting my attempted escape short and ending it.
The brilliance of that steel almost blinded my eyes, it had not touched me, merely blocked my way, and my heart was beating against my cage as if it had been already plucked. I shielded my face with my hands reflexively and fell down tripped by the relentless snow splashing a small avalanche around me and directly into the face of the man who ended in the chase in seconds.
I thought to myself that this was my chance to escape, his followers, the other three men, had yet to catch up to him, but a sharp pain shot through my back from the harsh fall and I screamed like an five – year old child. The pain in
my ankle I could tolerate, but the pain of the back was something completely different.
"So there you're, you little thief!"
Although I had been reprimanding myself and having doubts about my "role" in this mission that I had taken upon myself, hearing someone else so did not understand my circumstances accusing me of theft while gritting his teeth angrily and delightfully at capturing me, hearing this stirred a frustrated rage within my heart. I clutched the shawl around my shoulders tightly like it was the thread that will ravel the truth about me, and I opened my mouth to protest, but instantly sealed my lips shut.
My eyes widened with fear, my eyelashes trembled with fright instead of cold this time, and the blood in my veins froze at the sight of haori fluttering in the air in front of me.
Luck had not only stopped smiling at me, it had screwed me completely.
Light blue and white. The shinsingumi's uniform.