The Time of the Wolf and the Moon

“That will be quite enough,” the Grandmaster interrupted finally, trying to ignore the way that ice and fire now focused on him hard enough to make him wonder if it was possible to get chill-burns through glares alone. “This is a sanctuary,” he reminded them sharply. “Let us keep it as such, if you please. This means-” he interrupted quickly before Rodessa could open her mouth to speak, or Mizuki could set her jaw in that mulish way she did when she was silently objecting “That one of you will stay here, and the other goes for a walk to find calm.”

“I am staying,” Mizuki stated, closing her eyes as if dismissing Rodessa then and there.

“Ha!” Rodessa snorted, tossing her hair. “Anywhere away from Cranky McNoTits is heaven to me! Didn’t even wanna be here no way.”

It was almost amusing that, despite their rampant hate, the fact they could both simultaneously let out a loud “Hmph!” and whip away from each other. Almost comical, in fact. Even so, Mizuki retained her uncaring ice until Rodessa had long moved out of both visual and hearing range.

Finally-

“How insufferable…”

The master raised his brows to look at his young student. Despite the lingering headache, it was...interesting to see someone get under the younger’s skin in such a way. Mizuki was similar to her namesake, cool and distant as the moon itself. No one before had ever reached her in such a way. For better or worse…well, that remained to be seen.

“Quite so,” he said finally, deciding not to voice his true thoughts on the matter. “The both of you are. My poor head hasn’t stopped aching in days…”

“Master…”

Yes...even under the cool disapproval of his student, the Grandmaster had a feeling that, chaotic as the two reluctant partners were, they were surely the harbingers of change in the future to come. Whether they all survived the fall out...well, one thing at a time.

Taking a deep breath, Mizuki laid out her protest as calmly and logically as possible.

“Master,” she repeated, “It was never my intention to cause problems for you. However, it is not I who is being stubborn.” Her eyes narrowed, icey distaste painting her features. “That woman…” she pursed her lips against the far more biting comment of ‘if you can call that thing a woman’. She wanted to give a logical argument. Bringing personal feelings into the matter would just have her teacher think it was mere childishness, not the result of careful consideration. “..is not human. It is my job as a Demon Hunter of the Masuyo clan to hunt youkai. How can you expect me to work alongside one, especially a youkai that’s-”

“Ah, so you were able to disern that from your spiritual sense alone,” The master hummed, a note of approval in his eyes as he adjusted his glasses and leaned back in his chair. “As your master, it does me proud to know that my student is growing so quickly at such a rare trait. You have come a long way since you came here.”

The almost familiar feeling of twisting, crushing, heartache clenched at her chest at the mere reminder of that day. However, with practiced ease she iced her heart, instead pinning her master with a rapor gaze at his attempt to change the subject.

“As much as I appreciate the praise, Master, it does not change the fact that I-”

“She is not Youkai.”

That stopped Mizuki short. Eyeing her master, she frowned. Not Youkai? Yet he had indicated that he agreed with what she had sensed. She considered it a moment. Perhaps the one called Rodessa wasn’t a Youkai, but she was certainly not human, either, no matter what kind of lies the...woman herself spouted.

...It changed nothing. That woman was an existence that Mizuki Masuyo could never be compatible with. Not after that…

The Grandmaster leaned forwards again, steepling his long fingers under his chin and giving his students a long, assessing stare, noting the deadened eyes and the near mulish set to her jaw.

“Still,” he said finally. “Whether she is or is not, what is wrong with being the partner of an existence different from your own?”

Under the wide sleeves her temple uniform, Mizuki’s hands clenched, even if the rest of her was as if carved from marble.

That you can ask such a thing...Her mind ached in tandem with her chest, even as she forced it under yet more layers of ice. When you know very well why…

But that was emotion. Emotion had no place in the heart of the one who abandoned her rights as a woman. Thus, emotion was discarded to the icy depths of her frozen soul.

“It is when she denies that very thing,” Mizuki stated instead. “That you would pick her-”

“And yet you yourself-”

“Master,” the ice in her voice was scathing, “I ask that you please stop-”

“Interrupting?”

Nails digging into the palms of her hands to prevent herself from simply leaving the master to his childish games. She wasn’t here to be played with. Obviously he had something that he felt like he had to tell her and was going to be obstinate about it until she closed her mouth and listened, no matter how wrong the master was in this instance. She already had a feeling she knew what he wanted to say and all she could do was harden her soul and fortify it more against the storm that his words were sure to inflict.

Seeing that she was going to allow him to speak, the master continued.

“Your brother had no qualms about working with others, be they human or youkai,” he spoke almost gently, as if tiptoeing around a landmine. Speaking of Masahiro to the man’s younger sister was oftentimes a double edged sword, especially when touching on such a subject. He could see the hardness enter her gaze and quickly pressed on before she would clam up completely. “Though there were some that he could not see eye to eye with, there were still aspects that he could respect, be they the ideals they strived for or the abilities they possessed.”

And see why it got him…

Mizuki killed the thought almost faster than it could form.

“Perhaps that may be the case,” Mizuki intoned, tone as dead as her gaze, “However, while you ask that I emulate such acts, that does not excuse the fact that there is nothing I respect from her. Her ‘ideals’? All those amount to is that she rejects our existence, our lives and the reality of the world. Even when provided the truth, she emulates the actions of an ostrich and buries her head into the sand to deny it further. How am I to find respect or even trust my back to one who would deny the truth of her very existence?”

“Hm...perhaps,” the man hummed mildly, “However, there are always more than one side to any tale. What say you if she were herself unaware of her nature?”

Unaware of her nature? Brow furrowing in confusion, she let her hands relax under her sleeves, wondering what the priest meant by such a thing.

“Tell me,” The Grandmaster continued. “You have been in her presence for almost a week now. What is it that you have sensed?”

This felt like it was a lesson wrapped up in a riddle all at once. She could already feel the beginnings of a headache. However, she was somewhat used to the man’s manner after being his student for so long. Pushing away the innate inner flinch at being once again subjected to such a teaching style, she considered exactly what he meant in his words. More often than not, there was usually a lot more to garner from what he did not say than what he did. He was asking what she had sensed in the woman. This could have meant purely her spirituakl sense, but senses were not purely revolving around a single one. Humans as a whole had five, and some, like her, had a sixth. Meaning that he wanted to know what she had picked up with all her senses.

True, her actions in her mundaine senses had screamed one in denial, but that was only because her spiritual sense was so strong. That is, strong enough to pick out something that likely should not have been sens-

...Wait…but that was impossible…

“How…” she whispered, her fingers curling against her lips as her mind raced. “How can she not know…? Its inherently a part of oneself…”

That would be like…cutting away the very core of your being. True, Mizuki locked tight within herself the weak, pitiful self she had once been, but she had never denied that that had once been her. That self had a responsibility for the events that had transpired and denying that would have been like denying her brother his actions. Mizuki locked that girl away, but she was still a part of herself. If what the master was implying was correct, it was that the despicable, so called ‘partner’ of hers had somehow not only locked down a core part of herself, but had somehow forgotten about it, or rejected it to the point she had convinced herself that that part of her didn’t exist at all.

On the one hand, that just dropped her opinion that bit more, but on the other, a tiny hint of pity. Though only because not following through with the clan law of deposing of such a being was probably even more of a cruelty than putting such a cursed life out of its own misery.

The master eyed Mizuki a little longer, allowing her to think even as he took a sip from his coffee. His expression was somewhat unreadable. Even Mizuki wasn’t sure what he was thinking, if her assumption was even correct or if he approved or disapproved of her conclusions. Instead, when he finally spoke, it was less confirmation a more a hypothetical question.

“Imagine, if you would, a child with immense power,” The priest said, slowly, “A power untamed and, if left in such a way, could cause a slow, painful and lingering death...what would you do if you came across such a being?”

What would she do? Well, clan law stated…No, no, that wasn’t what he asked. He specifically asked what she, Mizuki, would do if she came across such a cursed existence. Which...well, wasn’t entirely exempt from the laws of her family, of course. Especially when she had abandoned what was once Mizuki in order to act in her brother’s stead.

However, that also meant that there was no straight forward answer to such a question, either. The question, hypothetical as it was, was too vague. The circumstances of the hypothetical could change many of the decisions that would affect the eventual choice.

For example, was the power, currently untamed, able to be tamed eventually? As a young child, Mizuki’s own powers had slipped her control often until her brother’s gentle guiding hand had tutored her into reigning in her gifts. From what she heard, Masahiro had once been far worse in his own control, his own spiritual power immense as a child, yet he had eventually learned control.

Similarly, if the power itself was killing the child...how much time would she have to figure out if the child was too much of a threat? If it could be saved? If it was kinder just to end it before it would have to suffer a painful, meaningless demise at the hands of its own power? Where was the child even located? If it was close to civilization and about to detonate like a bomb, the choice would be different from if the child was located somewhere remote.

For Mizuki, the choice in such events would be far more simple. If ending the life of one person meant saving a village, a town or a city, even if the target was an otherwise innocent child….she would harden her heart and do so.

That was what it meant to be a demon hunter.

As if reading her mind, the master hummed thoughtfully. “So you would kill a Child of Two...interesting.”

“If its a threat to the whole, whether it’s a child of two or not is irrelive-” She cut herself off, mind rewinding back to what the master had actually said. In the hypothetical, the man had never stated that the child was a Child of Two, only that it had uncontrollable power. The Children of Two were in theory taboo - crossbreeds between two beings, the result of which was often terrifyingly powerful as a result. There had been examples of such beings throughout history over the planet - Hanyou, Nephillim, The end result of Succubi or Inccubi’s trysts with human victims, the dallances of the gods with mortals...no matter the circumstance, the child born would often dwarf the power of those that kept to their own kind. And those were merely ones that had been bred with a human. However, there were whispers of far worse chimeric existences, where a mystic creature had bred with another mystic creature to create something akin to nightmares. Not always in appearances, but in terms of pure unadulterated power that could be likened to natural disasters - uncontrolled extinction level disasters just waiting for the trigger to make them explode…

Her stomach dropped into frozen dread. If what the master had been hinting from his hypothetical was true, then…

“Are you trying to tell me…” Mizuki managed, trying to ignore the threadiness to her stony facade, “That Miss Hunter is a-”

“I merely stated an example,” Her teacher responded calmly. “Miss Hunter is, for the most part, what she believes. It is the way she has lived until this moment. Thanks in part to Madam Povell’s reports, I have taken the opportunity to observe our fiery friend in order to judge her person and her abilities. She does have some skill, of that there is no doubt.”

Mizuki just returned his look flatly. She was not going to simply wave aside what the Priest had said. He had made a point to specifically mention the Children of Two, after giving an example, which had lead directly from a discussion of Rodessa’s very nature. She was not going to simply believe that none of it was related. All it told her was that whatever ability she had as a Child of Two (likely a supernatural parent and a human, considering he had stated she was mostly human, though that was merely a guess) was likely sealed or repressed somehow and allowed Rodessa to life as a human, unaware of her status as a taboo being. It also told her that her master had kept an eye on her.

All it meant to Mizuki was that she would have just one more reason to sleep with one eye open, if only for the day that whatever held her in check broke. And when it did, she would do her duty. Whether the priest liked it or not.

However, saying so would only turn this into a circular argument. The man was a priest, not a hunter. As such, there would always be a core part of their ideals that would clash.

Instead, she simply hummed. “Given that she is a self-repressed naysayer, I doubt this.”

“Oh?” The priest’s eyes seemed to shine with that look that spoke of obstinance and childish argumentativeness that set her teeth on edge. “So you resent the critic?”

“No, I-”

“Then you resent the skeptic?” he interrupted before she could even tell him her reasons.

“No,” she said, tone sharp. “If you would not interrupt and let me explain myself-”

“Then,” the man interrupted her anyway (for a moment, Mizuki saw blue white behind her eyes, bit she reigned it in because Masuyo do not lash out in temper!) “it is because you do not wish to train her, because everyone who steps through those stone doors should be at the same level as yourself when you arrived that fateful night?”

Did he honestly think her that arrogant? Did he honestly think her that petty? Did he honestly think that she would think such a thing considering her own state when she had stepped through those doors the first time-

Mizuki caught those emotions and threw them into the abyss of her soul, along with everything else and slammed the door shut so hard that it felt as though she had emptied herself of everything that made her a person. She just felt numb. But better to feel numb than break the oaths that her brother had held so dear in her pain.

“It doesn’t matter what I say,” the hunter intoned emotionlessly. “You will believe what you will about me. Such is human nature. You would ask of me to trust one who knows nothing of herself, to trust a lie to watch my back as a partner. One who is also does not believe in the danger around herself, something which everyone else who walks through those stone gates is aware of-”

“She did not grow up in that environment,” the priest reasoned kindly, even if he seemed saddened by the loss of the human Mizuki from the demon hunter’s gaze, no matter how shielded it was before. “Similarly, she was not exposed to that. The only monsters she had to hunt was the monster that is ‘human’. All I ask of you is patience...although that would be like asking for blood from a stone at this point, would it not, my dear?”

The joke fell flat. Honestly, Mizuki didn’t even feel angry at the job, good natured as it might have been. She just felt tired. Yet again, he sidestepped the main issue.

Because there is no solution to it. Not without setting off the bomb that was Rodessa’s probable nature.

And yet, for reasons he was refusing to even hint about, never mind share, Mizuki was being given no choice but to allow the cold asp warmth against her breast, just waiting for it to warm just enough to strike her with deadly poison.

Ask me to turn Jyuzumaru against myself next time, rather than give me a timed death sentence…

The hint of a joking smile on the priest’s lips faded at Mizuki’s stoicism. Somewhat chilled by this aspect of his student’s nature (she hadn’t acted this cold since those early days she was in the temple), the Grandmaster tried to reason with her further, rather than attempt further levity.

“Still, it should be noted that she has improved in recent weeks. While I’m not saying that it is up to full standard of our trainees as of yet, I will still give credit to the both of you where it is due, both in your patience until now - or at least the act of such - and the improvement of Miss Hunter’s mindset, however slow the change. At the very least, having a suitable sempai to follow as an example, it is possible for her to learn from that alone. Moreover, due to the differences between yourselves, it is possible that she might pick up where you lack and vice versa. A balance between two opposing forces. Yin and Yang, the black wolf and the cold moon. Yes, in terms of your abilities, a true balance to create an invaluable team.”

“If that is what you desire, master,” Mizuki stated, more ice than breath in her words, enough to let the man know that his words had been heard, acknowledged, and discarded, having ever even glimpsed her heart, never mind touched it. That she was following his order by words if not by actions despite of this just seemed to twist the icy dagger in the man’s chest just that bit more. “Then that is how it will be until her actions destroy us both. I do hope that the blood on your hands will be worth your words then, master.”

Said master pursed his lips at the retort. On the one hand, yes, he understood why Mizuki’s stance was as it was. Her upbringing before coming to the temple, no matter how similar the goals, was still different. Furthermore, the girl had far too many traumatising experiences without the balance of the supportive aspects that had allowed others such as himself and even her older brother to have allies with those who were not human. Her view was very much black and white and drowning in such guilt it was like a living monster in her own soul. That in mind, her wariness over one who is unaware of her own inner demons even as they knocked upon the door, when Mizuki herself had long stared into the gaping abyss in herself...Yes, he could see why she thought such a way.

Yet it was, in its own way, a poison in her very soul. Thus, if he had to open the wounds a little to allow the poison to seep out, then he will do so. However, it was not his path to walk. He could only open the door for her and show her the way. It would be up to her if she would be able to walk the road she was shown.

Still, for all her pain, he was still her master.

“Student,” he said with calm authority, yet a short flare of his own power to remind her of her place. Or, perhaps, to smash the wall of ice before it froze her very being.

Cowed a little, Mizuki lowered her fractured gaze and bowed demurely.

“I apologize for speaking out of turn,” she whispered. “I will...reflect…”

Glad to hear the girl under the marble facade once again, even if it did hurt his heart to hear her sound so defeated, the master reigned in his power once more and nodded, his gaze gentle.

“The please, do so. Get something to eat and meditate for a while. We will continue this another time.”

“Yes, master”

[END]