It is our last day with the shinobi when I feel someone watching me as I sit in the garden.  The early days of summer have arrived, and in my misery, I have taken to wandering the land around the village.

"Your father was miserable when he came to me with a wailing three-week-old babe strapped to his back and a limp pouch of coins," my observer says suddenly before taking a seat next to me.  "He wouldn't let me say anything until he had told me the whole story, and then he stood there all hunched up like he expected me to turn him away."

Emi gently touches a low-hanging branch of the cherry tree above us.  "Your mother had broken him into so many pieces that it took all of his discipline to pull himself together long enough to take care of you.  I was his last hope of finding her at that point.  He had searched everywhere he could think of for your mother."

"He should have just let her go the first time she ran from him," I mutter, staring at the stream running past the borders of the garden.  "It would have been better for both of them."

"Nobuo knew that she would not return to him; he merely wanted to make sure that she was all right wherever she was.  He begged me desperately, apologizing over and over for his dwindled funds.  I didn't care about the money; it was the nature of the request that made me pause.

"However, he finally took you off his back and held you out to me. 'Please,' he whispered, 'I just want to know that my son's mother is alive.  I do not expect you to do anything but find her for me.'  I took you in my arms and told him that I would do it, that I didn't need payment."

The shinobi looks towards me, but I refuse to meet her eyes.  "I traveled as a healer to the one place your father vowed he would never go: the Aikawa clan.  That's where I found your mother, sick and wan.  Many a person who had seen your father's misery, the way you wailed for a mother that wasn't there, would have said she was being dealt the hand she had played.

"However, I saw a woman, who had been broken apart and put back together wrong.  I spent a month tending to her before she finally told me about her father's cruelty, about how by the time she was twelve, she had been passed among all the clan's men.  She spoke of running away at thirteen and starving on the streets of a village before she turned to the only skill she knew: selling herself."

She carefully picks a blossom from the tree.  "One day, the general, who had destroyed her clan months after she had left, came to this village and met her.  Falling in love, he stole her away, only to gamble her away two months later when he fell in debt.

"Your father won her, and he, too, fell in love with the fifteen-year-old.  Rather than take her to the house he shared with his wife, he set her up with a small home of her own and vowed she would be cared for the rest of her life and that he would not touch her while he was married."

"Then his first wife died, he tried to get my mother to marry him, she refused him, and four years later, they had me," I interrupt.  "I know that part of the story.  My mother never loved my father like he did, and he paid for that love for the rest of his life."

The garden falls silent except for the sound of birds and the running of the stream.  Finally Emi says, "Igarashi Ryuu, that was never true.  Your mother loved him as much as he loved her.  However, the life she had lived taught her to be wary of love.  It had taught her a warped, blurred version of real love.

"She ran that day because she was afraid of accepting the truth.  She loved your father, and she loves you.  Even now, she regrets that she was too much of a coward to return to your father, to tell him that she loved him too, before he died," the shinobi tells me before pressing the blossom into my hand.  "It is not too late for you, Ryuu.  Continue to fight for Jun, continue to fall deeper in love with her, but do not push her too far too fast.  Her father had ingrained deep within her that she was worthless because of the fact that she was female.  Love can change that, but it must be the soft flame of a candle, not the hot raging flame of a wildfire."

Emi stands and places a finger under my chin.  "Love is never easy, never has been.  It can hit you in a split second, but it must be tended like a garden in order to flourish over a lifetime.  It changes often, but the roots of love remain the same, no matter the circumstances.  Fight the battles within yourself, the ones that tell you that your mother left because you were unlovable, and then fight for Jun."

She looks ready to say more, but a child's shout splinters the relative calm and causes Emi to leap to her feet.  "Emi!  Sensei!"  A little girl comes barreling towards us, her face tight with concern.  "Masumo sent me to find you.  Akio is back, and he is hurt!"

The shinobi goes so pale that I fear that she's become a spirit.  Carefully, she bends down to the girl's level and whispers, "Does anyone else know of Akio's return besides the four of us?  It's important, little sparrow; you must tell me."

The young one shakes her head slowly, brown eyes glistening with tears.  "No one else, I swear.  Is he going to die, Emi?  I don't want him to die.  Oji Akio always brings us the best gifts and tells the most wonderful stories."

Emi mutters something in her ear, and the girl screws her eyes shut for a moment before dashing off the way she had come.  The woman straightens, looking towards me.  "I must go see to this new problem.  Ryuu, think about what I have told you.  It is not an easy path that either of you travel right now."

She takes a step back towards the village but halts for a moment.  "And, Ryuu, keep an eye on Hikaru.  While Jun may not see beyond his polished facade, I fear that his intentions towards her are not for her good."

Her words startle me; by the time I regain my tongue, Emi is already gone.  I had known that Jun had met Hikaru, yet something about her warning implies that something more was going on with the two of them. Perhaps I had been sinking too deeply into the sting of my wounded pride to notice the danger that lurked beyond the door.

Anger propels me to my feet swiftly.  Just at the edge of the garden, I happen to see Hikaru handing a thick missile to a man on horseback.  The moment he disappears back into the house he lives in, I muster a measure of calm I didn't know I had and stride up to the messenger.

His face tightens in fright, but I merely say, "Do you mind my walking with you a ways?"

My hand on the bridle of his mount convinces him to allow my request, and we set off at a light pace.  I slide a glance towards where the shinobi vanished and see no sign of him.

"Where is the message you accept from that man?" I hiss when we reach the outskirts of the village.  "You know the rules that have been set in place here.  No news leaves unless it has been approved by Emi or Masumo."

The man pales and stammers, "I wasn't aware that he had not spoken to them first.  I am only paid to deliver the message, not ask questions."

"I want to see what the scarred man gave you," I demand, holding out my free hand while tightening my grip on the bridle.  "Else I will make sure that they hear of this incident.  You would not want to make the shinobi angry enough to want to kill you."

Hand quivering, he withdraws the missile that Hikaru gave him and says, "This group may be an honest bunch compared in others in their trade, but there is something unnatural about them.  Every morning at dawn, husband and wife gather at the river with that group of strays they've collected and speak and sing in a tongue I have never heard.  Sometimes, they're joined by a man as dark as midnight and broad as a grown tree."

He looks at me carefully.  "We locals have all heard the tales.  We all have dealings with them, but they are not ones we wish to linger overly long in our presence.  Leave while you still can."

Without another word, he kicks his mount into action and leaves me standing there with the letter in my hand and more questions than I want.

I slip my finger beneath the seal and quickly scan the contents.  How many of these condemning messages has that sneaky rat sent out already?

Crumbling the message in my fist, I wish that I could destroy Hikaru as easily.  The destruction he may have brought down upon us cannot be traced to the receiver as there are no clue as to their identity, and it had not crossed my mind to ask the messenger where he was going.

The door to Emi and Masumo's house is guarded by the girl that had run into the garden earlier.  At the sight of me, she leaps up and takes my hand.

"You're that general that Sensei was talking to earlier.  What is it like being a samurai and going into battle?  Masumo and Emi say I can't go on a mission until I'm at least fourteen, but it's so dull here sometimes," she says, words gushing from her like sake at a victory feast.

"Can I speak to Emi?" I ask before watching her entire body droop in disappointment.  She walks back to the door and seats herself, crossing her arms with a glare.

"They said I wasn't supposed to let anyone in," the girl states.  "Not even a general like you is allowed in even if I felt like letting you in.  Outsiders aren't usually here when Oji Akio is here because he does not really belong here."

I can hear the hurt echoing in her voice and realize that my mistake in not answering her question.  This village is all she probably knew, and I doubt that anyone from outside ever took the time to talk to her.

Carefully, I lower myself onto the ground across from her.  "Well, I suppose if I cannot speak to Emi, I shall speak with you instead.  What is your name, little one?"

Her face instantly brightens, and before I know it, she has nearly sat on top of me.  "I am Suzume, but Emi calls me little sparrow.  How many battles have you been in?  What is your name?"

"I am Ryuu," I tell her, noticing a gap where a tooth once was in her smile.  "And I have been in seventeen battles, though all of them are not suitable tales for a young lady such as yourself."

"Can I tell you a secret, Ryuu?  You cannot tell anyone else, not even your horse."

I nod slightly, which she takes as an invitation to wrap her arms about my neck and lean close to my ear.  "The lady that you came with, the one that was dressed like a man, is in love with Hikaru.  I don't really like him though, and he told Emi that he was going to travel with you tomorrow.  He keeps sending bad messages about us to the villages nearby, and the people are afraid to talk to us now."

The jumbled mess of information comes out much the same as every other word I had heard Suzume utter, but it has the most impact on me.

But, really, Jun in love with that shifty Hikaru?  Our days here have barely numbered a month, and I have never known Amachi Junichi to hurl headlong into something so life-altering.  Especially so soon after she had rejected me, someone she had known her whole life.

"I have a note that Hikaru tried to send," I say once my mind has moved past its stunned state.  "That is what I wished to talk to Emi about."

The girl scrunches up her face in thought and conflict.  "I really cannot let you in right now.  But Emi and Masumo will be at the river at dawn tomorrow.  If you wish to speak to her, that would be the best time to catch her."

"My thanks, Suzume.  To express my appreciation, I would like to answer some more of your questions.  Think of it as a way to add to your collection of secrets."

Surprising, she does not release her hold on my neck.  Instead, the little one nestles closer into my chest and stares up at me with adoring eyes.  "Oji Akio tells me the best information, but maybe yours will be even better."

And, for a brief while, I am able to forget the wounds that Emi's tale had ripped wide open and the bitter taste of betrayal in my mouth.  All that matters is the strange bond that I have formed with a little sparrow, too eager to spread her wings to fly into a chaotic world.