Chapter Text
A guard cast the girl’s nude body carelessly into the room that had been her prison for over four years. Bloody stripes crisscrossed her back and haunches from the lashing she received from the master, and the bruises and burns that covered her abdomen, arms and legs indicated to the guard that the master’s favored bodyguard had been present during the punishment. The guard looked down at the girl with a contemptuous smirk.
“What a lucky girl you are, Katsumi. Just look at all the attention you’ve been given from the master, ne?” the guard crooned, kneeling down. He ran a finger along her jawline before dropping it to her throat and then across her collarbone. Katsu flinched at his touch but glared up at him in defiance.
“Don’t call me that.”
“Katsumi? But that’s your name, pretty one.” The guard’s voice lowered and his eyes darkened as he continued to look over her body. “Such a pretty little thing when you’re angry....Katsumi.”
“She is a tainted one, Matsuda,” a voice ordered angrily from the door. “Step away. You know the rules.”
Matsuda jolted in surprise and scrambled away from the girl. He turned to face the speaker.
“Konoguchi! I wasn’t going to take her. I only wanted to scare her a bit. You understand, right? No need to bring it up to the master, eh?”
“Get out,” Konoguchi demanded, stepping aside. Matsuda quickly obeyed and Konoguchi turned his attention to the girl.
“On your stomach,” he ordered and Katsu did as she was told without hesitation.
Katsu’s entire body ached. Her muscles were beginning to stiffen and she found it difficult to move, but nobody dared go against Konoguchi. She watched as he carried in a bucket of water and a large jug of sake. She knew what was coming, but could do nothing to stop it. Konoguchi doused her with the cold water, washing away much of the blood. The iciness of the water caused Katsu to jump, but she held herself as still as possible. Konoguchi next uncorked the sake and trickled a small stream of the alcohol over her back. She cried out in pain as the liquid burned into her open wounds. She tried to crawl forward to get away, but Konoguchi placed a foot on the small of her back and pressed down.
“We aren’t done yet, tainted one,” he whispered, his voice like ice.
He moved his foot and poured more sake over Katsu’s body. It seeped into the deep lacerations and washed over the welts and burns with searing heat. Her body jerked spasmodically and she pressed her lips together to keep from crying out again. She was well aware of Konoguchi’s predilection for hearing her screams. He always sought out new ways to hurt her, just to be able to hear them. She fought to deny him any satisfaction this time, but try as she might, she could not suppress her groans. She heard his breath hitch with each sound that escaped her and it both repulsed and terrified her.
Katsu let her mind wander, focused on the parts of her body that did not hurt, slowed her breathing and escaped from the present. A wave of anger washed over her and that fury helped to refocus her mind. She gritted her teeth and pushed the pain away. Her groans ceased. Her thoughts drifted, as it often did, to why she was punished by the master. She was never able to pinpoint an exact reason, other than that she was ‘tainted’. She had ‘bad blood’. She accepted that, since it was obvious in the way that she looked. She was different. She didn’t belong. She withstood the master’s lashings to atone for her ‘wrongness’, in the hope that it would fix whatever was wrong with her. But Konoguchi’s form of discipline was far more frightening to Katsu. His reasonings for the mistreatment weren’t the same as the master’s and Katsu couldn’t understand them. She was suddenly brought out of her musings when, having emptied the jug of sake, Konoguchi kicked her in the stomach. She curled up and crossed her arms over her abdomen. Fighting back the nausea, she struggled to catch her breath.
“Never deny me my pleasures, Katsumi,” Konoguchi snarled as he gathered his items. He left the room without a backward glance. Her last thought, as her consciousness slipped away, was of freedom.
Her first chance to escape presented itself only days later. Though she was still healing from the master’s most recent lashing, Katsu Matsumori leaped at that chance. She had considered making the attempt many times before, but fear had always stopped her. However, with Konoguchi’s growing cruelty and Matsuda’s new form of attention, Katsu knew she had no other choice. She bolstered her courage, finally coming to the realization that, for her, death was far better than life as she knew it. An attempted escape was worth the risk.
Her room was situated at the back of the compound, with no windows and a single door which opened onto a long, inner corridor. Typically, Katsu could hear men passing along the walkway throughout the day and she would listen carefully to their chatter. She had learned early on that she was non-existent to these men. They forget that she was there, much to her benefit. She had learned a lot about who and what these men were -or, at least as much of it as she could understand.
The master and his men were part of an extremist group called sonnō jōi. Katsu wasn’t sure exactly what it was that they did, but she thought it had to be bad. She knew they were hateful, hurtful people. And she knew that the master had a powerful enemy; a Shogunate sponsored policing force called the Shinsengumi. From what Katsu could gather, they were a group of ronin who lived in a small village outside of Kyoto called Mibu. The master’s men whispered about them in the halls, and even the usually tight-lipped Konoguchi had commented on the “bakufu’s mangy wolves”.
Katsu didn’t have much of a plan of escape. She only knew that once she got away from the compound, she had to keep going until she was no long in Chōshu. The master had eyes everywhere and Katsu knew she wouldn’t be safe until she was far from his reach...and Konoguchi’s. She thought that the Shinsengumi would be her greatest hope. She would head toward Kyoto when she escaped and seek out the notorious “Wolves of Mibu”.
The sound of footsteps outside her door roused Katsu from her thoughts. She didn’t have much of a plan for escape, but she knew that if she were going to do it, it had to be now. She waited by the door, sitting with her back against the wall. She slumped down to feign sleep, and a moment later, Matsuda entered her room with a bowl of broth. He set the food down and turned to inspect her. Grinning, the guard reached down to grab Katsu’s ankles, prepared to drag her to the center of the room. To his surprise, Katsu attacked. She brought her left foot straight up, driving it into the man’s groin with all her might.
Matsuda dropped to his knees, the color draining from his face. He groaned and clutched his stomach, trying not to retch. Katsu took advantage of his momentary vulnerability and leaped forward, ignoring her own pain in order to gain her freedom. She fumbled to release the short sword at Matsuda’s hip, and finally jerked it free from his obi, scabbard and all. She raised it above her head and slammed it down on the back of Matsuda’s neck. He pitched forward, unconscious, and Katsu stood transfixed as she looked down at him. For the briefest of moments, she wondered what it might feel like to simply slide the man’s blade across his throat. Emotions....anger, fear, repulsion...nearly overwhelmed her and Katsu turned away from the guard, ashamed of even considering taking his life. She was not a killer; at least not yet, and not of a defenseless man.
She took a deep breath and shook her head to clear it. Quickly, she knelt beside Matsuda, stripped him of his outer clothing, and donned them herself. They were far too large, but she adjusted the ties as best she could, securing them in place. It felt odd to her to be wearing them; she had not been allowed clothing since the day she was captured. She looked down at the small pile of weapons she had removed from Matsuda as she disrobed him. She left the katana where it lay. She was too small to draw the long weapon properly, and it would be too heavy for to swing effectively. She tucked the shorter wakizashi and tanto into the obi around her waist. The several throwing daggers were tucked into special pockets sewn into the hakamashita she had taken from Matsuda.
Once they were all in place, Katsu moved to the door and listened for any noise from the other side. Hearing nothing, she opened the door and peered down the corridor. As expected, there was nobody in sight. She slipped into the hall and sped along the wall. She reached the corridor’s three-way intersection without incident, but just before she stepped around the corner, she heard voices approaching. She stopped in her tracks, her heart leaping into her throat. She searched frantically for a place to hide and saw a closed door off to her left. She dashed toward it, and slid inside, shutting the door behind her. She took a deep breath and tried to calm her jagged nerves, hoping against hope that whoever was coming her way bypassed this room.
She took a furtive glance around to ensure that she was alone. The only light in the room came from a single window set in the far wall. There were two large pieces of furniture in the room; a desk at its center, littered with stacks of papers, and a table in the corner which held a daisho stand with two swords. Katsu stared at the swords in shock. She moved away from the door, her eyes never leaving the weapons as she crossed the room toward them. For a moment, Katsu forgot about the men in the hallway. She forgot about escaping. She forgot about everything but those swords.
She stopped beside the table and lifted the katana from the stand. It was heavy...far too heavy for her, but she didn’t care. She ran her fingers over the hilt as tears stung her eyes. She brushed them away angrily. These swords...they were her father’s. She would have recognized them anywhere. But why did the master have them? Memories came flooding in, assailing her mind; her father lifting her high into the air until she squealed with joy and fear intermingled; her father’s face, full of love and tenderness; her father’s face, full of anger and fear...shouting for Katsu to run and hide. She squeezed her eyes shut, fighting to block out the horror of those darker visions. Her father was dead. He had died that day, while she hid away, crying and frightened. She gasped at the vividness of the flashback. She felt so confused. Her father had died years ago, long before she was captured and brought here by the master. So how had her father’s swords ended up here? It made no sense.
A noise caught her attention, snapping her back to the present. She ducked down, waiting with bated breath to see if she had been discovered. After several long minutes, she allowed a small sigh of relief to escape. She stood, regaining some of her equilibrium. She made a swift decision. She would take her father’s swords with her. She removed Matsuda’s wakizashi and set it aside, replacing it with her father’s kodachi. His katana, far too long for Katsu to wear on her hip, was strapped to her back and tied securely. She kept Matsuda’s tanto and the kunai.
She turned toward the door, ready to leave, but her eyes fell upon the papers on the desk. She paused, her every instinct telling her that the documents there might be important to the master. She moved closer and scanned through them, but they made no sense to her. Unable to read the words, she shuffled through them at random, grabbing different pages. Near the bottom of the stack, she found a hand-drawn map. She pulled it out and studied it. It wasn’t of a place she recognized, but she tucked it and the few other sheets she grabbed into her hakamashita. Satisfied with her decision, she crept to the door and listened intently for any sound from the other side. Hearing nothing, she cautiously slid open the door and moved swiftly into the corridor. She fled down the hallway to the outside door, slid it open and disappeared into the darkness.