The Grass Cutter Sword: A Young Adult Romantic Fantasy (The Healer Series Book 3) Read online

  Katsu swallowed the guilt and grief his actions had caused, attempting to hold back his own devastation at the loss of Edana. This wasn’t about him or the realization of what he’d lost. This was about what Musubi had longed for since the beginning of his creation. A soul mate, someone to love, someone who could love him in return, and his friend now believed that love to be lost forever. It wasn’t something Musubi would soon recover from.

  Neither of them would.

  “I didn’t know she intended to take her own life when I told her the truth. Musubi, please, I didn’t realize she had actually——”

  “What? Fallen in love with you? Why not, when so many have before? When so many other human women have watched you walk away from them with their hearts broken and their own worst fears suddenly realized. To ruin countless women who will never be accepted by another man or even open to accepting one themselves.” Musubi broke a fist through a massive rock beside him, his anger a foreign emotion Katsu had never before witnessed. “What made you think Edana would be any less devastated by your deceit? These women have never been fickle of heart, Katsu. That role has always been played by you.”

  Katsu shut his eyes as the truth of Musubi’s words began to sink in and take root within his conscience. He was right, of course. His behavior with human women had been less than stellar, rebelling against the idea of being shackled to The Healer for the rest of his existence. He had taken his love life in his own hands and made of it what he would for as long as the fates might permit.

  He had the sure knowledge that for better or worse he would never be alone once he united himself with The Healer. The gift of a soul mate had not been something he fully appreciated until seated there, watching Musubi rock Edana back and forth in his arms, knowing that the god of love and marriage would have given up far more than his own immortality to experience, for even a brief moment, that overwhelming feeling of love.

  To love and be loved in return. It was all Musubi had ever wanted.

  And Katsu had stolen it from him. At least, he thought he had. But Musubi had never come right out and said that he loved the girl. Not even when Katsu had attempted to dissuade him from his foolhardy plans.

  “I didn’t know…I…I simply didn’’t believe her when she professed her love for me.”

  The words did little to comfort his old friend as he held Edana and glared daggers of hatred at Katsu. He felt a sudden jealousy take hold as he watched the woman he loved being held in the arms of another. He knew it was foolish to react that way, recognizing he was nowhere near worthy to claim her as his own. He still couldn’t fully comprehend the level of attachment he held for a woman who was now dead because of his duplicitous behavior, yet he wanted to prove a point in order to make his original intentions justifiable in some way.

  “Did you really love her, Musubi, or was she simply a woman without a soul mate?”

  Musubi’s eyes darkened. “How could you possibly suggest such a thing?” he spat out. “I never before dreamed I could care for a person the way I did for Edana. I loved her, Katsu.”

  As did I.

  The thought surprised Katsu due to its strength and intensity. As he sorrowfully watched his best friend cradle Edana’s limp form, all of his good intentions shriveled and died. Nothing could ever justify his actions, and no amount of excruciating regret would ever bring her back.

  * * *

  Amatsu Mikaboshi - The Day of The Healer’s Birth

  Amatsu paced back and forth amongst his several followers, seeking a way to punish one or possibly all of them for the now obvious mistake he had made three centuries ago. That the fault lay solely in his corner did little to dissuade him from abusing whomever he might choose.

  “Tell me again,” he said, his voice deceptively pleasant and calm. “Tell me exactly what transpired the moment The Healer was born.””

  Quaking on bended knee, the nekomata kept his head down and gazed upon the blackness of the stone floor.

  “The moment Empress Chinatsu delivered The Healer into the world of the living, pressure built within the room housing The Black Blossom. It compressed the air and space within the chamber, and then it exploded outward, shaking the entire room and knocking me to the floor. When I collected myself and checked for damages, I noticed its petals had whitened along the edges.””

  “And everything you have done to blacken it has failed?”

  The nekomata hesitated before answering. Admitting any type of failure invited repercussions of the worst kind.

  “The blossom refuses to welcome the darkness it lost. Even now, the white tips of the petals are gaining ground.” Amatsu stared at the top of his minion’s head, fuming at the only possible conclusion this new development signified.

  “The prophecy is flawed.” He let out a rueful chuckle, mentally berating himself for never once considering that the translated prophecy might hold grievous errors, the kind of errors capable of negating thousands of years worth of planning. But shouldn’’t he have foreseen such a possibility? Wasn’t it just like his Parents to have allowed the prophecy to be flawed in the first place? What better way to thwart the thwarter than dangle a distraction, a red herring, and watch him hang himself with it?

  He didn’t consciously remember taking hold of his minion’s head or realize the pain his hands inflicted until the nekomata’s shrill cries finally penetrated his embittered musings. It hardly encouraged him to let go of the vile creature. It wasn’t as if the nekomata could be killed with his bare hands, but the pain he inflicted certainly allowed him to channel the fury coiled within.

  Eventually, he let go, surveying the slumped nekomata in disgust and then promptly forgetting him. The blossom he stored within his keep stood as sentry, a type of barometer attached to Musubi’s heart and ki. Since his ability to keep tabs on the god of love and marriage remained virtually impossible, he had created his own fail-safe to ensure the darkness within Musubi’’s heart remained intact. He’d doubted the necessity of it, fully believing that nothing short of Musubi’s soul mate might be capable of saving him once the darkness became firmly rooted within his ki. After all, only one kami in the history of creation had been allotted a soul mate, and anyone who understood the prophecy believed that kami to be Katsu.

  As had he.

  If the princess happened upon Musubi before her marriage to Katsu, the inevitability of their union was certain. Amatsu had no idea what a union with The Healer and the god of love and marriage might do for the veil, but he determined one thing: the princess and Musubi could never come to know one another.

  His anger spiked anew at this disturbing development. He had counted on Musubi’s part in all of this. Severing The Healer from her soul mate had been vital, the only thing capable of making the prophecy null and void. Afterward, the only other weapon he possessed, and a highly effective one at that, was time. Time used to sufficiently erode and weaken the veil’’s impermeable wall, and with The Healer his prisoner, and Musubi on the path to becoming a nekomata, he could begin his grand reentry into the world of the living with his arsenal fully loaded.

  Only one course of action made sense at this point, now that his meticulous planning had failed. He spoke to all of the nekomata assembled.

  “We must capture The Healer before her eighteenth birthday.” Eager eyes followed him as he moved across the floor. “My power to send any of you through the veil is extremely limited, and the longest you may remain in the world of the living in your current form is one year, possibly two, before you must return to the underworld or risk disintegrating within the world of the living. You all understand the risks involved? There is no guarantee I will have the power to bring you back.”

  In truth, Amatsu held no concern for their plight and loathed the idea of wasting an ounce of power returning them to the underworld before the laws that governed life and death eventually righted the wrongs of their presence in the land of the living. If they disintegrated within a year or two it mattered very little
in the grand scheme of things.

  “She must be captured and brought back here where she will never be capable of joining with her true soul mate.”

  “Forgive me, sire, but why not kill her when the opportunity presents itself?” The nekomata groveling at his masters feet hunched his shoulders.

  Amatsu studied his grotesque follower with disdain. He longed for the moment when he might finally surround himself with beauty instead of death and the constant reminder of his own failures.

  “The Healer can be killed with our weapons, it is true, but I have recently made a few startling discoveries concerning the properties held within The Healer’s blood and the role The Grass Cutter Sword plays in all of this. If we kill her, the powers of The Grass Cutter Sword will ensure her eventual return. She will be reborn anywhere at any given time. No, it is better to keep her alive, for we know where she is, but more importantly, we know who she is. At this point she is more useful to me alive. We require an army of kami for the war we plan against Heaven and Earth, but we need a way for all of you to return to the land of the living with your original forms intact.”

  Without Musubi’s dark heart and connections, another kami’s participation was necessary to carry out this new twist to his plan. His thoughts immediately turned to that arrogant upstart, Fukurokuju.

  The kami had always thirsted for power and position, willingly aiding him in Heaven when war broke out and then changing sides last minute, abandoning Amatsu to this hellish existence. Amatsu intended to make him pay for that stinging betrayal by helping him build up an army. Fukurokuju would realize only too late that the kami army he built belonged to his former ally. Amatsu rubbed his smooth palms together in anticipation of the look on that simpering kami’’s face when he finally discovered the deceit. It would take great planning and several nekomata to pull something like this off. The veil’s walls needed to weaken considerably in order for them to get through, but he had plans for that as well.

  After all, if The Healer had the power to strengthen the veil, she must also possess the power to weaken it, cripple it even. He could use that to his advantage when the time came.

  “What about the dissenters?” the nekomata before him asked. “What if some of them cross over when we do and kill The Healer before we can capture her?””

  Amatsu nearly cursed at this, but held his anger in check. Several nekomata wanted The Healer to die as soon as possible. They believed it would somehow end their own miserable existence. A group of misguided zealots hiding within the ranks of his loyal subjects.

  “If they are located, kill them immediately. Your survival depends upon The Healer’s blood and her inability to form a union with her soul mate, and if her soul mate truly is Musubi, then we have more than just one kami to deal with.””

  He bade them all leave for now. Multiple variables needed to be thought through. Details that couldn’t be left out and possible contingencies to his planning that couldn’t be overlooked were at the forefront of his mind. He had eighteen years to get it right. He felt confident The Healer and a full kami army would be available to him long before the end of those eighteen years arrived.

  Chapter One

  Mikomi: 1000 A.D.

  “I wish you had not become involved in this mess, Mikomi.” Daiki took a long swig of tea and swallowed. He forcibly set his cup down upon the table. Droplets of herbal tea sprang forth, discoloring the grain of the table’s wood. “I warned you of the dangers involved by forming an alliance with the rebels.”

  “If your father discovers the part you play in this it will go badly for you,” Hatsumi said. She cradled her son in her arms, and my heart squeezed in satisfaction. Her maternal instincts played in sharp contrast to those of the woman who gave birth to me nearly eighteen years before.

  A little over five months had passed since Akane, the commander for the rebel insurgents, came to my room and requested I aid her and the rebels with my gift for healing. I had been eager to join their cause and give the rebels any leverage I could against my tyrannical father, the emperor of Kagami. My role soon expanded from that of healer to spy as I discovered more information vital to the survival of the rebel army, including the knowledge that my father planned to raise a kami army with his own blood, intending to have dominion over not only the empire of Kagami, but the whole of Japan and eventually the world.

  I secretly fought alongside the rebels, hoping to find out anything that might enable us to weaken my father’s forces so we could eventually lure him from the palace and take him into captivity, and I did it without my betrothed’s knowledge.

  Masaru Katsu.

  Yet another problem requiring a solution. Several months ago my father had forced me to heal my mother, causing irreparably damage to my ki. My worrisome discussion with Kenji in regards to Katsu’s inability to heal my ki had forced both Kenji and myself to scour ancient scrolls in search of some hint as to the identity of my true soul mate and where I might find him. Though this particular mystery was probably the most important item to solve, I balked at the task, falling more in love with an altogether different warrior, a man I simply had no right to be with.

  Musubi was my teacher and nothing more, though I desperately wished to change those circumstances. I was betrothed to Katsu through some ghastly prophetic error, had fallen in love with Musubi, a samurai insurgent, and now I faced a choice between pursuing a relationship with him and risking the safety of our world or searching out and joining with my soul mate whoever and wherever he might be.

  Discovering who my true soul mate was and overthrowing the emperor before he succeeded in creating his kami army were made even more impossible due to the constant interference of my intended, Katsu.

  He had become obsessed with my health and well-being. I was never allowed to exert myself, barely allowed a walk in the gardens, and my father, stymied by my fiancé’s interference at every turn, continued to employ other nefarious avenues to force me into another healing. He secretly desired more bondings of kami blood to take place and remained ignorant of the fact that I had found a way to circumvent the bondings. His moods had grown worse due to the false intelligence he believed he had received in regards to the location of the rebels’ base.

  Thank the gods I had succeeded in warning Musubi of the impending ambush the emperor originally planned for their camp.

  The only thing Katsu allowed me to do was sit and meditate in an attempt to sense the veil that surrounded me. All I truly sensed was a mounting frustration toward my prison within a prison. If I had felt stifled before, it was nothing compared to the smothering worry I received from the warrior god. Every now and then, when he determined that I had sufficiently rested, he did his best to connect with me and heal my ki, failing miserably, of course, and growing more desperate for answers with each floundering attempt.

  It pained me to witness and experience his frustration and worry, and the kisses he employed in order to facilitate a healing merely confused me as to my situation. They were methodical, almost clinical in nature, and I hardly felt cherished or loved when accepting them.

  I’m not sure why it bothered me so. I didn’t love him, but I cared for him deeply, and keeping so many secrets from him was liable to backfire, wounding him in the long run. I hated the idea of causing him pain despite the rightness of my decisions. Katsu was undeserving of such treatment.

  With how obsessed he had become about my well-being, my educational outings were no longer allowed, forcing me to sneak out at night to train with Musubi. Our training location changed frequently to avoid discovery through routine behavior. We rarely met in the same area more than once, and the ruins of Yanbaru were used purely for emergencies. We hadn’t had any of those yet, thankfully.

  I didn’t know how much longer I could withhold the truth of our situation from Katsu. He wasn’t my soul mate, but if I shared with him that shocking truth, where would that leave us? Would he hold any kind of affection for me? Would I be cast aside for someone else? W
as that even possible, despite our inability to join together?

  I seemed to do nothing these days, save clumsily navigate the murky waters of my life without a way to guide myself or keep myself afloat.

  I was never sure when Katsu might pay me a surprise visit. Even now, my very presence at Daiki’s establishment involved a terrible risk, though risks to my safety had never stopped me from visiting the tavern whenever my surrogate father needed me.

  And here I sat, with Daiki and Hatsumi, hoping to drown my troubles by thinking of someone else’s needs. A little girl, sick with fever, wasn’t recovering. Though it proved more challenging than usual to sneak away during broad daylight rather than late in the evening, the little girl was not expected to last much longer, and Daiki never asked me to come during the day unless circumstance deemed it necessary.

  Once I arrived, Daiki rushed me into the back room and presented me to a little girl no more than three years of age. The sweat lining her brow and the dark circles under her eyes gave me cause to assume the worst. I feared touching her. She appeared so fragile.

  I instructed the sobbing mother to leave the room as her open-ended grief gnawed at my concentration and threatened to pull it apart. Considering the state of my own ki, a lack of concentration would render my ministrations virtually useless, and the little girl’s illness held no interest in waiting for me to catch up. After connecting to her, blessed relief caused my tense muscle to slightly relax, assured she was meant to live a long and full life. Her body simply didn’t have what it needed to fight the fever. Her poor constitution was due in large part to the abysmal situation of the villagers and my father’s epic failure to provide for his subjects.

  Taking care of the fever should have been easy enough, but I found it just as difficult to help her as I had Kenji. My ability to attend to anyone had become a slow, agonizing process, requiring an extended time of recovery after the fact; an alarming handicap I wasn’t accustomed to.