The Trilogy Outtakes

BLACK AND BLUE

This outtake is directly after an earlier outtake chapter entitled RECKONINGS: RIRIKA and situated somewhere after "No Stone Unturned" of "YES, ITS US!" (The KiraSayaRiri Trilogy is "IS IT REALLY YOU?", "BEHIND CLOSED DOORS", & "YES, ITS US!") It also helps to read the bedfellows to the trilogy and outtakes namely THE FALL OF TARTARIA and SEVEN DEADLY KIRASAYA SINS.

Written with Tori Amos' "Sleeps With Butterflies" 

    Grandma Momobami was inhaling from her oxygen mask when Sayaka was instructed to enter her room. She brought with her a tray of warm sake as the elder matriarch had requested it earlier. The elder Momobami coughed heavily from her bed with the raspy gurgling sound of thick phlegm at the back of her throat. Sayaka kneeled before her along with her nurse and their Bami physician. The shishi-odoshi from the pond in the courtyard outside made a loud sound. Outside the shoji screen, a commotion could be heard as the househelp hurried to repair all the damaged structures that Kirari and Ririka had made because the fight had turned boorishly physical as well as emotional.

    "I wish to speak with Lady Sayaka alone. Please come back after an hour," the elder matriarch spoke after removing her oxygen mask. The physician and the nurse left the room, "So, pure one. We meet again." 

    Sayaka still had her head pressed against the tatami mat as she replied, "I am happy to see you again, obachan, though I wish you were in better health." 

    "As it turns out, there is something you can do about that but we will speak of it much later. Your resemblance to my great grandmother is so uncanny. Down to the dark-violet hair. But then again, why am I not surprised," the room was filled with labored laughter as their grandmother chuckled amidst the stubborn and sticky phlegm at the back of her throat, "Pour me some sake, my dear?" 

    Sayaka lifted her head and crawled on her knees to the tray and made preparations to pour the contents of the warm sake jar into the elegant choko. She offered it to the matriarch with outstretched hands and her head bowed. 

    "Come closer, pure one, and I may need assistance to drink," the elder Momobami requested in the softest voice she could muster and Sayaka helped her to drink from the cup as Kirari and Ririka's surviving grandmother sipped from it with her head slightly bent, "Yes, you are just as beautiful as my great grandmother." 

    "If I may ask, obachan...why do I look like your great grandmother?" 

    "Because the Momobami's and the Igarashi's have been tied together by fate in a love story that goes all the way back to the beginning from when the earlier Bami's were giants." 

    Sayaka looked absolutely stunned. She wondered now if the elder matriarch was entering the earlier stages of senility given her age but then decided against it as her blue-grey eyes looked absolutely clear and forthright. 

     "I'm sure you have a lot of questions, pure one, so let me explain further. When we Bami's reach 44 years of age, we hand down a scroll that contains the genealogies of both Momobami's and Igarashi's. No doubt, your own grandmother will hand the same scroll to your own mother soon. Last I spoke with her was at your wedding with 'Rari and 'Ika and she has yet to reach the age of 42, am I correct?" 

    "Yes, obachan." 

    "She still has quite some years to go before your own grandmother can impart to her what I'm about to tell you." 

    "Why then, if this is true, that the Momobami's and Igarashi's are not...connected socially?" 

    "Pure one, this is done for the protection of your bloodline, not ours. We Bami's are land-dwellers. But you, my dear, come from the sea."