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Asebi leant against the lip of the well and peered down. Well, more like hung over the lip, feet and tail dangling; she didn’t seem to be getting taller or less scrawny in any hurry. It was dark, but she could just about make out the black, still water, even in the night. She had better eyes than anyone.
She listened to the sloshing and echoing for a bit, imagined what sound it would make if she fell down. Pondered whether anyone would care.
And around her, the night made quiet, pleasing noises that stroked some part in her head just right. The part that everyone here said was wrong and ugly.
Out of habit, and because the dangling was annoying, she climbed onto the edge and crouched down to peer into the waters. Her tail swished around, and she let her ears keep moving too, to make sure nobody would creep up on her.
Somebody would probably have told her off and said it was dangerous, but most of those people were sleeping right now – and she wouldn’t have cared anyway. And she knew where the guards were – and where the ninjas she wasn’t even supposed to know about were. Nobody watches an old well in the corner of the yard.
This was all for her, this moment. And that’s good, because it was important. She was here for a burial, after all.
She held out her clawed hand. Two sharp little white things in it. Her last milk teeth. All kid teeth gone, all adult teeth now, except for the last one which was just an empty gap for now. The latest, last one. She’d kept the other for a while, since it seemed stupid to throw them out one by one.
It was a hassle to creep out like this anyway. She’d torn her shirt, crawling out from under the building where their sleeping quarters were. She’d get yelled at for that too, tomorrow.
She felt for the spot where the gap in her teeth was with her little raspy tongue. Soon, it too would have an adult tooth. The gap was still tasting a bit like blood, from when Tade had just grabbed her in one of those bearhugs and swung her around all happy until she got smashed into the nearest wall, face-first. Knocked the last wobbly tooth right out. Idiot.
She’d bitten the oni in the nose for that, shown her she already had an almost full set of big, strong teeth. Then she’d gotten shouted at for that. Tade always cried over everything. Nobody cared if Asebi’s nose had also been all bloody. Or if she got a tooth or two knocked out.
She’d had to spend so long looking for it afterwards, too, combing through the damn tatamis.
So here were the teeth. And here was some water. You were supposed to throw these into a river, for good luck and all. She’d heard the “young masters” talking about that once. About how when the last teeth fell out, you threw them in a river and that was, like, a whole thing about how you were leaving childhood. Growing up.
Seemed stupid, but what did she know. Very little, she had to admit. And given how she seemed to be in no hurry to grow bigger, she’d take any help she could get.
But there were no rivers on the estate, and running away had become so much of a hassle that she wasn’t about to do it for two dropped teeth.
She felt around her neck. Not that the fingers could actually feel the marks there. The ones the hag had put there, the curse. Like she really needed another curse making her life even crappier.
Now running away actually managed to have gotten scary enough that she wasn’t about to do it for two measly teeth, no matter how adult it would make her. The stupid well would have to do.
She crouched and peered down again. A small stone from the edge fell down and made a little splash. It was deep enough that they’d never find her teeth. They’d stay good and sunk, at least.
Good. She didn’t need anyone digging up this childhood.
Water was water, and maybe there was a river underground or something. She didn’t know, nobody told her anything. All she knew was that she’d just lost her last baby teeth. And even though nobody told her anything, that felt like it was maybe a bit important. Important enough to sneak out of the sleeping quarters. And now she’d do this right.
Better make it count, anyway, since she’d be getting crap for this too; Tade had woken up and whined when she’d snuck out. Asebi had managed to poke her in the face until she shut up, but she’d probably tattle on her as soon as she found an adult in the morning. And then cry about it too.
Asebi squatted low and dangled her arms between her knees, shaking the teeth in her fist. So. All her milk teeth were now out, and she was… how many years? She had no idea. According to the hag and all, probably somewhere between ten and thirteen. Big numbers that meant nothing to her. Probably more years than she had fingers, anyway.
As far as she cared, there was exactly one age she tracked, and right now that was two years. Her thumb and pointing finger. Two years since…
… Since she’d been carried here and told her name was Asebi. She tried to avoid even thinking about what had been before those two years.
She failed, and it made her shiver badly enough that she had to actually grab onto the edge to not fall down into the deep, dark water below.
She shook her head. That didn’t matter. Didn’t matter anymore. She didn’t even have any of the teeth from back then anymore. She’d drown these last two and the cage would go with them. New teeth, new me.
Asebi brought her fist back up and stared at the teeth for a bit. The last ones. Maybe that meant she was no longer a kid. She didn’t know what being a kid meant, really. Being small? Weak? She couldn’t hope to grow up quicker.
Couldn’t hope to get farther away from all that. Get big and strong enough that she’d kill anyone who wanted to ever… ever do any of that again.
Well. Here goes. Let’s get big and strong.
She finally just tilted the hand. Brushed with the other when the teeth clung on for a bit. And there they went. Even her cat eyes couldn’t follow the little specks. Even her cat ears couldn’t make out any real noise when they finally hit the water. But there they went.
She waited for a bit, tried to figure if anything was changing.
If this was supposed to make her feel different, it wasn’t working. She didn’t suddenly feel like a different her, like she had left anything behind or gotten anything new. She didn’t feel any bigger or stronger.
The only big thing about her was still just her tail, which seemed to have figured it needed to get there quicker than the rest of her. Always in the way now…
What a rip. Not that she’d actually had any hopes for some teeth in a well making her life any better. But maybe… just maybe it would have been nice if it had. She didn’t seem to have many other things she could even hope would do that.
And there she huddled, then, a curse around her neck (and another all in her), and a scrawny little body and a long tail everyone stepped on, and nothing to look forward to tomorrow, except getting more crap for sneaking out and tearing up her shirt.
Maybe it was good nobody was around. They said ninjas were never supposed to show any weakness at all. They said they’d train all the weakness out of her too. Make sure she would never crack under anything.
She was pretty sure the little salty drops that drip-dripped from her and went after the teeth were showing some weakness. Maybe it was good they were getting thrown away, too.
She stared down for a bit more. Then she wiped her face and looked around.
It was quiet here. Peaceful. No people, no one yelling at her to do something, no one to stare or call her a bakemono. No one to make her go through training until she’d fall down from exhaustion, and then tell her how weak she was for that, too. Just the darkness, and her.
And the other one, always with her. In her. It liked the darkness too.
Somewhere, far away beyond the estate, a nightjar kept calling out. A part of her itched to run after the noise. To get out of here, pounce over the wall and tear off. Either to look at it or to hunt it, she didn’t care which. She didn’t think so far ahead. She just knew what she felt.
She tensed, all ready to take off… and huffed, before just slumping back down. She already knew it’d do no good. Just more grief for her. She didn’t get to decide where she went and when. She was a ninja and… a slave. And neither had any say in any of that.
Or she could do it, really could, but there was always a price. And she didn’t really want to get roped to a pole again until they figured she was hungry and sorry enough… and then some more, to make sure she was actually both and wasn’t pretending because she was actually just hungry.
The pain-in-the-neck curse had killed off any little dreams she had had of actually getting out of here, anyway. Maybe that’s why the hag put it there in the first place. She was getting too quick and too good to catch. Now they didn’t even need to put anyone on her heels if she fled, anymore; they could just come and pick up the body later. If they even cared.
And, since she couldn’t do much anything like that anymore… soon she’d have to crawl back inside the sleeping quarters through the floorboards and wake up to another day of… all that crap. The crap that was her life.
She looked down at the water one last time and frowned at this whole thing. So, there went Asebi’s childhood. Now it’d be Asebi’s adulthood, she supposed. More of the same crap, being who everyone else wanted her to be, being what and who suited them. It’d be just the same as before. Just less baby teeth.
Though… did it really need to be?
Looking down into the water, a thought managed to crawl its way into Asebi’s head. That was a bit rare. They didn’t keep her around to think, and they usually told her her thoughts were stupid anyway.
Having, like, an actual idea that wasn’t just how to mess with things they told her to do or wanted her to be was not something she really tried to do. But sometimes she did. Like now.
… Though she supposed this was kind of like really messing with it. But usually, her messing was just hiding from chores or breaking something or fooling. This felt more like… an actual thing. A whole thought process. With a point, even.
Though she had to really squint and try to get all the way to the point.
Her head felt irritated already, and the other part of her told her that she should stop, it wasn’t good or nice for her. She should just go to sleep. She pushed that aside and thought about this a bit more, really hard.
Why would it be Asebi’s adulthood?
She was Asebi just because they wanted her to have a flower name like the others. That’s what they had said. Back two years ago when the ugly big man had dragged her here, that’s what they told her. She was Asebi. She’d do Asebi things. Asebi was what they wanted her to be. And they had all the say in who Asebi was.
She hadn’t really thought about it much. She hadn’t had any other names, at least any she remembered. She’d been called things, sure, but no names before Asebi. And up until now, it was just how things were.
But… it really was just something the hag, and all the others, put on her, wasn’t it? Asebi was just what they’d decided. And it was just a word. A sound. One they used to tell her who she was.
Couldn’t there just be another? They’d just said it was her. They didn’t know any better than anyone else. They always thought they did, but she knew they were full of crap anyway.
Maybe… even if it didn’t feel like she was suddenly a big and strong grown-up, maybe she could have her adulthood? Couldn’t she just pick whatever and have just as much say which one she was? It’s not like they could make her stop thinking that, anyway. They’d tried to get her to stop thinking things many times. Never worked, no matter how much they made it hurt.
They’d probably still call her Asebi, they wouldn’t care, but she could just fake it. She could be someone who didn’t actually be like they wanted. She was trying hard already, anyway – and getting chewed out for it all the time, too.
Somehow the thought seemed really sweet, now that her head was getting used to something this big trying to settle inside it. The ways in which she usually messed with all of them never did all that much except got back to bite her when they caught her. This really seemed like a really good way to mess with them. Something they couldn’t put away.
Asebi pushed her feet out from under herself and sat down on the lip of the wellhead, swung her legs around. It seemed like she’d need to think some more.
So… who would she be then if she was somebody other than their Asebi-creature? She didn’t want to not have a name… not again. She needed a new name before she could stop being Asebi.
If she didn’t have a name at all she’d just be what she was, before Asebi. A freak. A bakemono, a cat. And that was worse than Asebi.
She didn’t really know a lot of names. They were all either flower names she or the others had, or they were boy names the brothers had. She didn’t want any flowers anymore, and she didn’t want a boy name. And all the names she knew were their names, anyway – names they kept giving things.
She looked around, knocking her heels against the well’s side. Some more dust and little bits of rock tumbled into the water below. Stupid old thing was falling apart…
There was a pine tree outside the wall, she could see it from here. She’d climbed it sometimes and thrown sticks at the idiots when they hollered at her. Was that good? Pine? Matsu? That sounded like a boy name too.
She went through a couple of things around. She didn’t want to be a rock either. Iwa was short and weak. All the things around were short and weak… like her. No, if she wanted to ever get big and strong, it needed to be a name like that. An adult name to grow into. She needed something big that they couldn’t ignore. Something that was nice and strong and fun to say. Cool like her.
Some other stupid things. She didn’t want to be a roof or a wall or a garden path either. All the things here were weak, or made her mad, or were just wrong.
Did it have to even be something that meant something? That didn’t seem to be making any of the girls any better for it. Would it be better if she just… made a name?
Asebi made sounds with her mouth. Felt what would fit into it nicely. Many sounds. If someone had seen her now, maybe they’d thought she’d gone insane. Babbling weird sounds on the verge of jumping into a well.
Funny. The hag wouldn’t probably even be surprised if that happened.
After a good while, she landed on some sounds that seemed to agree with her, felt nice to push out. And out of those, she finally pulled a name that sounded good: Izutsumi.
She thought about it. She quietly formed it with her mouth, and sounded it out.
“I-zu-tsu-mi.”
“I-zutsumi.”
“Izutsumi.”
That felt pretty fun to say. She could just punch out each sound all nice and strong. That was pretty long too. You can’t ignore something so long.
She said it a few more times and looked back down into the water. Maybe this wasn’t so pointless, after all. Even if the stone she was sitting on was wobbling under her, and this whole well honestly seemed like an old piece of crap.
Just right for her childhood, then.
The well had taken her teeth and her childhood, but it felt like it was giving her something in return, too. And you know, she would take it. She was going to take it, and nobody would be able to do anything about it.
So. That was her. She would be that. She would be Izutsumi. And… nobody had any ideas about what Izutsumi was like. Plenty of ideas about what Asebi should be and do, but she’d never heard any about Izutsumi.
She had dibs on Izutsumi. She could decide all of that. She could say exactly what Izutsumi should be like. She had herself, all for herself. She could be just as big and strong as she wanted, and they couldn’t tell her she wasn’t. She…
… She could even be someone who didn’t have to put up with all this crap and hold it all in so hard it felt like it’d stay down there somewhere forever. Maybe… she could even be someone who didn’t hurt so much when she messed up and the stick came. Someone too strong for that, too.
Someone too strong to get hurt for any reason. And there were many. Too many to count with her fingers.
They’d just think they were beating Asebi again. But Asebi wouldn’t really be anyone anymore. She’d let that nobody take it all. Izutsumi didn’t need to take any crap. Izutsumi didn’t feel bad. Izutsumi was big and strong, and they could never ignore her, either.
Asebi sat on the edge of the well. Looked down once more. Maybe she had one more thing to throw down.
“Asebi”, she hissed, down into the dark waters. Really worked it in her mouth. Gathered it with all the bile and spittle she could.
The way she literally spat the word down, she almost felt like she could hear it hitting the water.
“Izutsumi”, she mumbled as she breathed in. Really took in those words with the air. All inside herself. Imagined the air filling her with a new name. All inside her so nobody could ever get to it or take it out of her.
She repeated it some more times. Worked out all the Asebi she could, sucked it out of herself. And then she sucked Izutsumi in. Until she could actually believe it.
There really was an Izutsumi in her now, and no Asebis. She was Izutsumi. She wasn’t the kid anymore. It felt just a bit too important to keep all quiet and reserved. That was for the other idiots anyway. She did what she wanted. And now she wanted to hear who she was, and tell it too. Just a bit.
“Izutsumi…”, she muttered. Felt it come out just right. Strong.
“Izutsumi”, she repeated, and picked her feet back under her so she could stand on the edge and really get it out.
“Izutsumi!” she growled, louder than she should have, probably. And then she really took a breath. Braced for the real one. Let them hear, she didn’t care.
“Izu…” was just about all she got out before the wobbly stone under her bare feet finally gave up and a good chunk of the lip collapsed down into the well, old mortar and rocks tumbling down.
The proclamation turned into a yowl, and Izutsumi scrambled to get back. She kicked off just in time to land hard, down on the ground. She flinched from the way she dropped square on her tail – and at least as much from the huge splash the big rocks made.
She stared at it for just a bit. Then she let out a snort. Yeah. Big and strong!
Then her ears alerted her to hurried slapping of sandals. Some guard probably, coming to see what the heck was happening.
She got up and decided to finish this whole thing elsewhere, at some other time. She scampered before the light even came out from behind a corner. Izutsumi was never here at all.
Izutsumi went back to bed. Crawled in through the foundation, and found the small spot with the loose planks, and pushed until they gave enough to let her scrawny little body in through the floor. She walked right over Tade, who woke up and whined some more, and told her that some girl named Asebi would get everyone mad again for going around like this.
Stupid Tade. There wasn’t anyone named Asebi here. Izutsumi laughed at her and poked her in the face some more and went to bed.
And down in the well, some girl named Asebi slowly sank to the bottom, into black waters, never to be seen again.
And next morning, Izutsumi woke up, and that was that. Maybe nobody else cared, but that was now her. She wasn’t their Asebi anymore. She was Izutsumi.
When they asked her what the hells she had been doing last night, and why the well had collapsed, she told them, all honest, that it had been some other girl. And that that girl had obviously fallen into the well and drowned, too. There had been a big splash.
Her name had probably been Asebi. She wouldn’t know about any of that, of course. She was Izutsumi.
They didn’t exactly appreciate it. And they had painful ways to show it, too. Didn’t matter. She was still Izutsumi and would always be.
And when it got hard and it hurt, then and later, she could always say that. Out loud, sometimes. They never liked it, and that made it just better because she didn’t want them liking it. She wanted them to hate it. She wanted to be something that would mess with them just by being.
Or if it was too much of a hassle, she could say it in her head. It was enough that she knew that there wasn’t an Asebi here anymore. Nobody here who was actually supposed to give a crap about what the hag, or anyone else, thought about her.
Maybe her face looked the same to all the idiots here, but inside, it was all Izutsumi. She could pretend she was still Asebi, but she knew the truth.
Asebi had drowned in the black waters down below. She’d pushed her in along with the teeth.
She was Izutsumi. She wasn’t Asebi, the slave they thought they were ordering around. Asebi wasn’t her name anymore, it wasn’t her. She just put on the Asebi mask so when she got all the crap for something, they’d put it towards Asebi, not Izutsumi. Asebi could always take all the crap for her.
And that was good, because Asebi’s life never seemed to get any easier. Just full of crap.
And whenever it seemed like Asebi was getting all that crap or it felt like Asebi’s life just sucked too much, or it seemed like it’d be really scary and sad to be Asebi, she just needed to remember that she was not Asebi at all. It was just a mask. Not her life.
She was Izutsumi. Izutsumi was too tough to get scared and they always said they were doing it all to Asebi, anyway.
It was Asebi getting roped to poles while Izutsumi could just sit by and watch.
It was Asebi getting put through all the hell they did to make her into a ninja.
It was Asebi getting punished for showing how much it hurt to have to go through that hell.
It was even Asebi who got sent out to put a knife into a fat man’s eye one night, when it was time to see if all that hell had actually paid off at all. And Asebi did it the other times, too – many times, since Asebi turned out to be pretty good at it.
(And it was Asebi who got an arrow in the shoulder when she messed up once and had to fake drowning and drag herself back home half-dead.)
And all of that meant nothing to her, because she was Izutsumi.
She was Izutsumi, and she was a real person, never a slave. Never a freak. Never bought from a cage and hauled away to do what was told. Never put through all this hell so she could be good at making things dead for them.
Nobody would ever get to tell her what Izutsumi was like. She was Izutsumi, and she would always have the only say in that.
And if it seemed to just make the people telling her otherwise angrier and got her more crap, then that just meant it must have been right. If it wasn’t, they could have just ignored it. Can’t ignore something strong and big like that.
She was Izutsumi. She was a person. A big, strong person. And she would not be ignored. She’d make sure.
“My name is Izutsumi. Don’t you forget it.”