Chapter Eight

Bonding

(Part 2 of 2)

 

The morning didn't promise anything good either.

"I will be your teacher of Binding," an unfamiliar round-faced, plump woman in teacher's grey robes told them. She made a slow twirl in the center of one of the many courtyards as though showing off, and Nekohiko didn't like that. A lot of people in the Shrine were too flashy and boisterous for the life he'd been used to. He didn't yet know how to properly react.

It was early morning, and this was the first class for the Shrine novices. The woman had told them her name, of course, but Nekohiko didn't care to remember it. He was sleepy, and he was bored. His ears only perked up when the woman said 'Binding'.

Finally. The sole reason he was here. To learn to be strong and to defend himself and his people. Though Saho, Kusaki, and Hachiro might be far away from him now, he already anticipated their eventual reunion. They wouldn't have to abandon him once he grew strong enough to be a help rather than a burden.

"Different Binder clans promote different techniques and methods for studying Spirit Binding, but their differences are only important when you reach truly high levels." The woman stopped twirling, but her long sleeves continued their sway. She waved her arms, pointing by turns at different sections of the courtyard where children huddled on the tiles in groups they felt were most natural to them. "Towa, Hira, Nagare, Utsuro, and Hisome are all great families, and they follow great ancient traditions, but..."

Nekohiko stiffened, confused as to why this woman all of sudden started talking about Five Great Lords and their families?

"...they all serve the Emperor," the teacher ended, eyes glinting with a wise, self-satisfied smile. "And the Emperor ties all the teachings together. He is the greatest Binding Master in the world, bound by fate to all of us. Like we are -- to him. So his is the first Binding method we are going to learn, and the same method will also be the last you'll be taught before you graduate. It's both the easiest and the most difficult method."

Uncalled, the pride swelled inside Nekohiko, and his lips almost twitched up.

Everyone sat up straighter as though expecting that the learning would start now, any second, but no such luck. The woman raised a finger in the most affected way. "And to start our first lesson -- you all have to mix among each other. To bond. Yes, yes, all of you." She clapped and gestured to everyone. "Stand up, then mingle up, and then sit back down. And I want to see no factions emerging. Understood?"

A displeased tide of whining broke out in an instant. Most kids suppressed their urge to speak their minds up, but almost everyone started throwing suspicious glances all around them.

"Come on, come on," the teacher shooed them. "Every year, this happens. You all want to sit and talk solely to the people of your own Great Lord, which is natural. So there always form five distinct groups among you little ones! However, the will of the Emperor is that we all mix and fuse together into a united Empire, not break apart into factions! School and childhood are the best time for establishing bonds you'll carry through life. So, why not begin right this second?"

Malarkey.

Since Nekohiko hadn't bothered to join any factions in the first place, he didn't need to move now. He watched the others wander aimlessly around picking a spot not too far away from their friends, even if they had to sit among strangers for the time being. The girls around Sakami of House Hisome were one such obvious faction, but there were many others.

All this commotion only made him drowsier and more irritated after the sleepless night.

"Do you belong to Hira?" Abihiko, the boy with the bright, loud voice sat only a few kids away from Nekohiko. His face still bore marks of yesterday's small fight among the boys. He turned left and right, sticking his fingers into faces of those who were further away. "I'm from under Hira family. And you? You?"

"I'm from Hira, too," a girl next to Nekohiko said.

Abihiko frowned and waved her off. "Then move. You're too close to me."

"Why should I move? You move," the girl hissed back after only a second of shock.

"I'm Lord Okinaga's very own ward. His only ward, actually." Abihiko had the most conceited expression on his face. "Are you sure you want me as your enemy?"

All of the girl's arguments withered soon after, and she scooted away, timid. The round-faced woman teacher had already begun showing everyone a box with items they would need for their first Binding lesson, but Nekohiko couldn't hear her with how noisy this Abihiko boy was.

"Psst! Psst! Kitten!" The boy grinned when Nekohiko shot him an apathetic look. "And you are--? Which Lordship do you belong to?"

Incidentally, the small mountain hut in which Nekohiko and his guardians had lived was in Tanzawa. Which was part of Hira family's domain. But there was no way in hell he'd budge from his seat because of that.

Nekohiko turned back to the teacher, frosty-faced.

"...these two leaves are dead matter so that it's easier for you to fuse them," the teacher was saying. Nekohiko picked the two brittle laurel leaves from the box he had before him as every other pupil did. He lifted the leaves to his eyes exactly how the teacher was showing. The woman raised her voice, explaining. "Dead or mineralized matter is called the Third-Force of Binding and is the easiest to master. All you need is a little concept-thinking and some empirical knowledge of how such matter is built, and -- woooo."

Easy as that, the two leaves phased through one another in her fingers and got stuck together in a perfect cross-shaped single leaf. Its planes and surface smooth and uninterrupted, as though it hadn't been made from two separate leaves a second ago. Nekohiko didn't even see how exactly it happened, but this act looked so simple. Even insultingly so.

The teacher beamed, shaking the fused leaf in her hand above her head so that everyone could see it. "It's all about the experimentation and practice," she told those few who already began smashing their leaves together to no avail. "Just keep trying, even if it looks ugly and wrong at first. And by the end of the week, we'll see that every single one of you can do it."

By the end of the week?

Nekohiko was appalled at such a slow and ineffective learning approach, but nobody else seemed surprised or angered, so he knew enough not to go against the grain. Just sitting down quietly and ignoring everyone around him had been, so far, the most efficient way for him to survive the Izumo School.

The blazing sun wheeled up the skies through hours, and the day grew hot and heavy with humidity. Cicadas twanged, and the air curled from all the heat. By now, the kids had already begun melting down in frustration since almost all of them couldn't do a damn thing to those nasty leaves other than crumble them.

Nekohiko was one of them. It'd be embarrassing already that he, the true Emperor of this land, the Great Uniter of all the Bonds that held his Empire together, couldn't fuse two meager laurel leaves together. But to be such a loser, and also have to sit in the presence of a few kids who were already finished?

Shame and futility had never felt so painful.

The girl that Nekohiko had pushed yesterday -- Sakami -- was the second person who was done with her leafwork after only a dozen minutes of trying. She immediately agreed to leave the courtyard so as not to distract or stress others out by her presence. As Sakami came over to the teacher with her cross-fused leaf, the teacher patted her on the head, then politely turned to the rest of the gathering.

"Don't be disheartened, everyone. Little Sakami here is naturally gifted, being the niece of Great Lady Takarashi of Hisome family. Of course, she has a head start compared to the rest of you. But let it not deter you from trying, and trying, and trying some more! All right?"

Great Lady Takarashi's niece, Nekohiko noted as he watched Sakami slowly make her way out of the courtyard. So not a direct descendant of the current Great Lady of the Mists. Only a niece... therefore not as important.

He shook his head, refusing the urge to overthink. He had work to do. He had to prove what he was worth.

The child who'd finished their task third was a boy from some other noble family, but a family obviously not on the same level as Sakami's. He also left once he was done. No, it was the child who'd finished first, and only after half a minute of trying -- who had announced his success so loudly and so annoyingly to the whole courtyard, that the birds on the surrounding roofs flapped their wings up in fright.

Abihiko.

"Maiden Kumikata! Done!" he'd waved his leaf at the teacher, then skipped through the seats to stick the leaf directly into Kumikata's nose. "What do I get for finishing first?"

"You get a few hours of free time while everyone else doesn't." Kumikata had squinted at him delightedly, then reached a hand to pat him on his head like she would a friendly dog. Nekohiko shuddered from the mere idea of a stranger touching him so personally, but Abihiko didn't seem to find the gesture unpleasant. He even leaned into that touch, clearly enjoying the attention. Kumikata tousled his hair that was gathered in a long, thick ponytail at the crown of Abihiko's head and tied with a bright-red ribbon to match the boy's thin lips. Then the teacher gently pushed him toward the exit from the courtyard. "Now go, go. This place will surely bore you, and you might start distracting others if you stay."

"Nuh-hm." He shook his head. "I'd rather stay. I promise-promise I won't distract anyone. I'll be quiet as a mouse."

Kumikata tsked. "What if you stress them out by your mere presence?"

Abihiko had already turned back to his seat on the tiled ground and only turned to Kumikata long enough to smirk. "Yeah. That's the entire point."

And stress everyone out was exactly what he did! He lounged in his seat, craned his neck to peep into others' work, made various ambiguous sounds as though commenting on the Binding approaches of those around him -- sighs, hums, surprised "oooh?"s, disappointed "awww"s. Teacher Kumikata was only cursorily interested in what was going on in the yard, so she didn't pay attention to individual pupils. To her, it sure appeared as though everyone struggling on the first day was the norm, and therefore she didn't need to participate.

Nekohiko sweated and shook from intense concentration, both on the fusing, and on keeping himself awake when he was so terribly, awfully tired. Abihiko's incessant fidgeting was grinding all of Nekohiko's already-low patience into dust. And yet, he persevered, if only because he refused to show his weaknesses to others.

He was the Emperor. For crying out loud! This was not only the easiest form of Binding imaginable -- this was his family's own teaching! He had no time to waste on anything that wasn't these two ugly, disagreeable leaves in his hands.

After Abihiko had exhausted his repertoire of vague noises, he suddenly decided to start tutoring those next to him on how to understand Binding faster. At first only two kids, but soon almost everyone nearby was psst-ing at him and throwing him helpless looks. "Help?" they mouthed, and Abihiko crawled through the seats to get to them. Fifteen minutes to half-an-hour later, the person he helped would actually manage to finish their task. Albeit their leaves looked more like twisted beef jerky or dry bark, but they were nonetheless cross-shaped, so Kumikata accepted those.

"Abihiko, me next," the boy who sat a few rows in front begged.

Nekohiko peeked that way, finding that boy oddly familiar. His face bore a fresh bruise on his jaw and a scabbed cut over his lip, mirroring the one Abihiko wore as well. Was that the same boy who had fought with Abihiko yesterday "to the death"? Koki, was his name?

Abihiko and Koki didn't act like they remembered they were supposed to be enemies. The two of them giggled and cuddled close together as Abihiko taught the boy Binding. If anything, this was the last straw to Nekohiko's seething, overtired, and dizzy mind.

"Stop it," he said, abrupt. "You two are too loud."

Both boys turned over their shoulders, sizing Nekohiko up and down, but he already directed his gaze back to his leaves. Let them stare all they want; they'd get nothing from him.

"Do you need help, too?"

Nekohiko slowly raised his eyes at Abihiko's smiling face directly in front of him. Abihiko had squatted close by, peering with a grimace at Nekohiko's futile attempts to Bind.

"That's not good at all," Abihiko laughed, then reached out to take Nekohiko's leaves. "Let me show yo--"

"You are annoying. Please go away," Nekohiko whispered, curling down onto his leaves.

"Abiii, you still haven't helped me!" Koki reminded him from his seat.

Without another word, as though he hadn't been interested in helping Nekohiko in the first place, Abihiko got to his feet and sprang back to Koki. What an airheaded person, Nekohiko thought. He should be careful with people of this sort. They were just the worst.

It took Abihiko quite a lot of time to help Koki. Explaining over and over again to the boy seemed so intense, that Abihiko had long stopped making dumb noises or slacking off. Kumikata stood up to call everyone to take a break and go have lunch in the Shrine School canteen, and Koki barely slipped in with his abomination of a leaf to show her before she shooed everyone out of the courtyard.

Not everyone, though. Nekohiko panted and blinked sweat out of his eyes, but he didn't move even when Kumikata tried to tackle him. "They'll eat everything, and only scraps will be left," she told him almost in a sing-song as though speaking to a toddler. "Sweetie, your resolve is commendable, but it isn't the only way to improve. You'll only get weaker if you don't eat, and your Binding will suffer from an even greater hit to your concentration..."

Nekohiko didn't budge.

"I do it now."

"You don't have to. You can do it later, in the evening, or even tomorrow when you're rested and fed. No need to torture yourself."

She talked a lot, but Nekohiko tuned her out until all she could do was leave with a "Suit yourself" sigh on her lips.

The air in the tiled courtyard baked in the heat, and though Kumikata had placed a large bamboo hat on top of Nekohiko's head, the swelter and sun's glare still got to him. Dizzy, he glanced around to find a shadow nearby. When he doddered up to his feet, he was so woozy he was afraid he would fall any second.

And he was livid with humiliation and loathing and budding tears. How... how come this was so hard? So impossible to him? Was he such a huge failure that even his guardians knew, and had gotten rid of him in time?

Damn it.

"So how about that offer of help from earlier, Kitten?"

Abihiko's bell-like voice wafted all the way from the garden gates. He carried a fluffy-looking bun in his hand, clearly just from the canteen, and sunk his teeth into it as he walked. By turns, he tossed the bun in the air and caught it like a ball. Nekohiko's stomach growled from the sight, but he ignored that too.

Abihiko stopped by the edge of the yard, chewing his bread as he regarded Nekohiko with an amused glint to his eye. "Kumikata came back alone so I absolutely had to see it with my own eyes. Aren't you a stubborn little creature, Kitten. Are you really still stuck here with that dummy trick?"

Nekohiko trudged on to the nearest building and the shade it gave, but Abihiko pelted over to stand before him, his empty palm outstretched.

"Hand me the leaves, dummy," he said. "I'll do it. You're too painful to watch."

Nekohiko gave him a detour, but Abihiko sidestepped to keep in his way.

"Come on, Kitten, I don't mind helping. I'm a generous person, you see." And as he said that, he suddenly realized something. He had already dug his teeth into his bun again but then took it out of his mouth pensively. "Um," he said. "You haven't eaten yet, too, right? You can eat my bun while I help you Bind. Here."

And the bun, with the still-fresh imprint of teeth on it and a faint gleam of what had to be... this annoying boy's saliva -- was offered to Nekohiko, stuck right into his face.

Nekohiko had never been so insulted in his life. Did this Abihiko think he ate leftovers others gave him? Did he also believe Nekohiko needed help, to begin with? That he was so pathetic he couldn't manage Binding on his own?

He was hungry, though. But that only made it so much worse.

"No, thank you," Nekohiko said, bitter. "Leave me alone."

"Ah, come on, Neko!"

And without waiting a single moment more, Abihiko grabbed Nekohiko's hand that held the leaves.

Everything -- the sweat, the heat, the tiredness, the hunger, the continuous aggravation from others, the Shrine School itself, and the fact that he was, apparently, a failure -- all at once, it crushed him. Above all, why did everyone here constantly touch him, and grab him, without permission?

Nekohiko's fingers twisted out of Abihiko's hold like a whip, so disturbed he felt. Yet with the force of this movement, he hadn't accounted for Abihiko's face leaning closer to peer at the leaves.

And so, Nekohiko ended up backhanding the other boy across his face. His hit carried almost no power, with how dizzy Nekohiko was, but Abihiko must have not expected to be struck in response to a genuine offer of help. He recoiled, more from surprise than from pain. The bun dropped to the ground, bouncing off Nekohiko's feet.

Abihiko cradled his cheek in his palm, his eyes huge and his red mouth open as he stared at Nekohiko.

"Don't touch me. Ever!" Nekohiko cried and wanted to keep moving.

"Are you insane?"

Nekohiko ignored him.

"You actually are feebleminded, aren't you?" Instantly outraged, Abihiko grabbed hold of Nekohiko's collar and jerked it back so hard Nekohiko choked. "Do you want the entire Hira Lordship as your enemy to add to the Hisome's you've already offended, or what!"

Nekohiko flew backward into the other boy, and, growling and reaching out to bite, wanted to counterattack. But the footsteps of several grown-ups already pounded toward them. And even before those adults came, Nekohiko wasn't any good match for Abihiko's furious assault.

In the midst of it, Nekohiko remembered how quickly Koki and Abihiko had bonded over a fight, but this thought only infuriated him more. He couldn't say why. When he couldn't land a hit, he bit and pulled Abihiko's hair.

"Just so you know, I could fuse dead leaves since I was four years old!" Abihiko screamed at him as two sets of Shrine adepts were pulling the two apart and trying to block the boys' direct line of sight of each other with their bodies. "I guess you actually aren't any better than a dumb kitten! Pity no one drowned you in a bag when they had a chance!"

Nekohiko could only roar back. He wasn't as good with verbal insults yet, so no words came to him in time. Only screams of rage.

The worst thing was -- because Abihiko had stopped struggling the moment adults caught him and only flung insults at Nekohiko from afar, he was let free almost immediately afterward. But Nekohiko kept fighting his captors, more so because he hated -- he loathed -- their hands making contact with his bare skin on his face, wrists, and ankles. He couldn't bear it and he wanted to wriggle out if only to not be touched by all these strangers over and over.

All the same. His resistance had one very obvious conclusion to it. The Head Priest's wooden dummies and their shackling embrace for hours.

The only type of bonding Nekohiko was seemingly fated to have in here.