Kuroba Asashin's Arc

Chapter 15 of 44

Kuroba carried Jackie inside himself. The healing had closed the worst of it, but the boy's shoulder still hung wrong and his breath came shallow. Kuroba laid him on the mat in the back hall and stood up too fast. His own thigh burned where the lava blade had opened it. Tish waited in the doorway with the cloth still in her hand. Her heels were off. Her feet were bare on the boards. Kuroba looked at her, then at Jackie. "Sit with him," he said. "Clean the face. Keep the shoulder still. I need to walk the wall." Tish knelt by the mat. She wet the cloth in the basin and worked the blood out of Jackie's beard. She did the nose last because she knew it would hurt. Jackie's good eye opened. The mechanical one clicked and found her. "You shouldn't be in here," he said. His voice was thick. "He told you to stay clear of me." Tish kept cleaning. "He told me to sit with you." Jackie closed his eye. "I was watching the ridge wrong. I heard the dog stop and I still walked slow." He swallowed. "I've been a distraction. To the training. To you. That's why I couldn't hold the guard." Tish set the cloth down. "You held long enough for him to come out." "That's not holding." "It is today." She checked the bolt on the shoulder plate and found the metal split at the seam. She could not fix it. She could only pack cloth under the edge so it stopped grinding bone. Jackie watched her hands. "Why are you being kind," he said. Tish did not look up. "Because I was scared on the porch and you were on the stones." She tied the cloth off. "And because I'm tired of standing at rails." She sat back on her heels. Jackie reached up with his good hand and touched her wrist. She did not pull away. She leaned down and kissed him once, careful of the broken nose. Then she lay down beside him on the mat, on the side away from the ruined shoulder, and put her hand flat on his chest to feel it rise. Kuroba walked the wall until the moon was over the roof. He checked the gate, the well, the stone path where Jackie had fallen. He came back through the hall near dawn and stopped at the door of the back room. Tish was asleep against Jackie's good side. Jackie was awake, watching the ceiling, one hand on her shoulder. He turned his head when he felt Kuroba there. He did not speak. Kuroba looked at the two of them for a long moment. Then he pulled the door shut and left them. The rule he had set at the wash house was done. Whatever came next through the gate, it would find a different house.