[D11, ME](Soyokaze's Forge) What next? (Expecting)

[Asahina Soyokaze]

"Never but this makes things difficult, I have made things difficult. I did walk into his trap but I did so on purpose, I knew what I was doing. The challenge to our happiness enraged me, I felt like Isawa Asahina-no-shiriyo, out for vengeance. I wanted to hurt him, not physically, never that but his pride, his ego. The Crane invented dueling and we are it's masters, and if a young imperial were a top young duelist someone at the academy would have know of him, there was no chance he could win a duel against Reina-sama and I was counting on that. I tried, I tried to flatter him i tried to apologize but his demands were just to great. Now I have stained my honor, Reina's honor, disappointed you and he still gets his way. But allowing the duel to happen would have been worse, i would have won but everyone else would have suffered and I still would have disappointed you. Once i started speaking to him there was no road that didn't lead to you being hurt and upset. I keep hurting you and I hate myself for it."

[Kaito Oubaihime]

"I was angry. I was hurt not because of the duel but that you didn't put your trust in me." Then she looked at his eyes. "I can't stay angry long, not with you nor Murato san."

[Asahina Soyokaze]

"I though we could keep it quiet, I didn't want you to ever have to know about it, to spare you, I was wrong. Despite your constant reassurances I don't feel worthy of you, worthy of happiness. I thought that if I was man enough to handle this without needing your help or inflicting this pain on you I MIGHT be a little more worthy. I do feel jealousy towards Murato and the more i talk to him the greater that grows as does my respect for him and my understanding of why you love him. Every day I wonder if this is the day where you decide I am not worth it and settle on him and every day I do something that pushes that very possibility into reality. I don't know how you have put up with me this long. When my mother was still with us she said I was too compassionate for my own good but I am nothing compared to you because you have found something redeeming in this one when he can't see it himself. I wonder to myself if I have somehow tricked you. But when I sat in that dojo I finally understood that I was being ruled by my past, by my father."

[Kaito Oubaihime]

The girl caressed his cheek. "Don't live in the shadows of your wounds." The Kaito smile. "Let me heal them... I may not be a shugenja but allow me to heal them."

[Asahina Soyokaze]

"These scars run deep, are you sure?"

[Kaito Oubaihime]

"I am ready." She caress his cheek

[Asahina Soyokaze]

He poured them both some tea, it was still very hot but he needed something wet. "I am the second son of a lord of the Asahina family. My father is very proud of our heritage and maintaining it is of utmost importance to him." He visibly swallowed before continuing. "I was born without the gift of speaking to the kami. My father is a shugenja, my mother was a shugenja, my older brother and 4 younger siblings are all shugenja, I am not. This makes me failure."

He took a sip of tea and continued. "The first of many failures. If I had become a courtier perhaps it wouldn't have been so bad, perhaps if I had learned the sword and gone to The Wall my father could have at least respected me; instead I am an artisan, and my father detests art. Officially I am a Bladesmith, this was his choosing as he would not permit me to become a true artist even if he knew the Kakita would teach me the arts anyway. After my mother passed 4 years ago his mood got worse and he found me a new sensei who was just as unforgiving as he to complete my tutelage."

He started to rub his back, unconsciously. "May father is not a typical Asahina despite his love of tradition. He does not seek war but he is...strict. He does not accept failure and as I said, I am a failure. For a long time accepted this, I am weak, I often struggle to hide and control my emotions and he hates that. i was taught that above all my emotional weaknesses there was one that absolutely would not be accepted, LOVE. You see, love isn't real it was invented by playwrights and other artists so show the weakness of man and the importance of duty. I suspect now that he loved someone and lost them, unable to marry them but given his status the only way I can that happening is if he wanted a mirror he couldn't have. Either way love is false and anyone claiming to be in love is a dishonorable liar. This was my life for 16 years, then I met you and you shattered those lies but i still walk over the shards of that life and they cut me with every step.

I worry that the scars on my back will disgust you. I fear that I will never trust myself. I worry that I will not be wed to you. i worry that I will be wed to no one here, to another Crane and I will have to return to my home with yet another failure on my name." he paused.

If you tell her she will think you are trying to manipulating her, they all will.

"I was given an order from my lord, return with an out of clan marriage or regret it." a sigh. "I didn't want to tell you that, I didn't want you to think this was all a show to save myself, for you to take pity on me."

[Kaito Oubaihime]

"Soyo kun..." The Kaito looked again in his eyes. "You are not a blade, you are a ningen... even if you forge the most amazing nemuranai your father will still think of you as what you are not." The priestess smiled. "Stop pounding yourself with that hammer. I admire you not pity you." Bai placed a kiss on his forehead. "I am the owner of my heart and you a feather that is helping this one's wings to get better." She moved her shoulder as if she was trying to accommodate her wings. "I want to show you my wings and embrace you with them."

[Asahina Soyokaze]

"I want that more than i want to take my next breath, I want to see you fly. But I worry that the weight of emotions on you is weighting you down, you are so compassionate, you take on others burdens and that has to weigh on your soul, but it's the weight of your experiences that worries me more."

Yuzu's demands be damned he placed a hand on her cheek and held her gaze as he spoke.

"You are so hesitant to speak about your life and your past when I asked and you never really asked me about my history. I thought it was a sign that you favored Murato more, I just assumed that you were telling him things about you that I didn't know, wasn't worthy of knowing. But when he told me that you had never asked him about his scars, I was confused; I am confused. I know you carry a burden, you almost spoke of it once but I didn't want to pressure you into talking about it but I meant it when I said I am here for you. You cannot keep taking on other peoples burdens without releasing your own and I would listen as would Murato. You have two men who are madly deeply in love with you, we would help you carry that weight you just need to share with us."

[Kaito Oubaihime]

"Soyo kun unlike many here... I have lived a pampered life." The young woman sighed. "You have spoken to Raizo san, he had probably told you about how many I have treated in the temple. I told him this morning of my scars. They are not physical scars Soyo kun." She turned away. "Kitsu san never asked me about my family or my background... you did. You know more than him about that." She took a breath.

She looked at her hands. "There is blood on these hands... the same hands that heal people... same hands that battle Emma-O... the same hands that grant Jurojin's blessings." Her eyes started to get wet. "I don't like to talk about the many I have killed out of compassion.... because... because I could see... I could see... that is what they wanted. They wouldn't warranted the life that would be if kept alive." A sniffle. "You are right... I suffer the pain of sending a daisho to lords because Emma-O had told me to let them go with them. Because I can't save them all... All I can do is see them slip away slowly to Meido as I make them go to sleep."A sigh "When I had to defend the temple from the bandits and my arrow went trough the head of a misunderstood man. That is what my life is... a struggle between life and death but not my onw." a laboured sigh "That is the weight I bear."