“SHE HAS ENOUGH kisō to be Kisōshi,” Yuki said, as she wiped the blood from the baby's tiny, mewling face. The wrinkled creature's cries filled the small room, along with the tang of blood and afterbirth.
Suzumi nodded. “And a fire kisō at that.”
“I hate this,” Yuki whispered. “The mother dead from blood loss, no one to mourn her loss, and now this?”
Suzumi slapped the younger josanpu and took the baby from her.
“I'm not risking my life just because you've grown wistful,” she said, as she stepped toward the basin with the newborn.
Yuki grimaced, but didn't move to stop the older woman.
“I wasn't suggesting anything... only... it's so sad.”
Suzumi grunted.
“Sad? Sad would be what anyone will do to us if they hear you talking like that. And in the middle of Rōjū City no less. Now let's get this over with and be gone from here. Ieda-san is likely to give birth at any moment and I want to go check on her. She, at least, is unlikely to spawn anything that I'll be forced to drown. The woman hasn't an ounce of kisō in her body.”
Suzumi paused when she noticed the silence behind her. Yuki normally took any excuse to laugh at Ieda-san. When she turned she felt a hand clamp over her mouth and cold steel press against her throat.
“Careful now. Don't drop her,” the man before her, covered in grey and almost invisible in the dimly lit room, whispered as he carefully uncovered her mouth. “No screaming,” he added, as he moved his hand to support the tiny infant that Suzumi had been about to submerge.
Suzumi was surprised by the care with which he handled the child. It contrasted strangely with the collapsed form of Yuki that she could see behind him. The young woman's throat was slashed, her blood cooling on the floor. That scene instead matched the pressure of the knife held to her own throat and the chilling hatred she could see reflected in the man's eyes.
“The babe's mother lies dead beyond those curtains, and you plan to drown my only child.... Hasn't there been enough death for one night?” he asked, as he cradled the newborn against his chest.
Suzumi whispered, afraid that a full speaking voice might break whatever compulsion had kept the man from killing her until now.
“They won't let her live, Dono,” she whispered. “The Rōjū will never let her live. Death is the only way out.”
“I suppose you are right,” the man said. And Suzumi felt the blade slide across her throat before she felt her life's blood spill out and leave her.
The last thing she heard before blackness took her was the sound of a man's voice over the soft crying of a new babe.
“I will never let them take you, my darling Kusuko-chan."
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