The Heavens Are Not Blind

Part2- Chapter6

Megumi froze.

Despite the fact that she had been firm from the very beginning on her belief that Shin Sagara and her Sanosuke were one and the same, having it confirmed by Sakura still shook her senses a little.  

            Both of them stayed silent for a while, Megumi dumbfounded and gazing at Sakura with her mouth slightly agape while Sakura nodded her head again and again at Megumi, tight lipped, as if to say, “Really, Megumi, isn’t it obvious?”

            “But . . . how?” Megumi finally managed to say.

            Sakura fidgeted a little on her seat and wrung a lock of her hair around her finger, clearly uncomfortable to be in the position she was at at the moment, “I have never been much of a story teller, Megumi, but I’ll try my best, okay?”

            Megumi nodded and waited for Sakura to begin.

            Sakura drew in a heavy sounding breath and embarked on her tale, “After you left, my brother went back to his usual day to day life.  He looked fine and all, as though your leaving didn’t hurt him a bit, but he never smiled or laughed or joked again. He was always quiet. He won’t talk unless you ask him a question or speak to him first. But most of the time he’d just nod or shake his head and if he didn’t have anything necessary to do, he’d lock up himself in his room and either stare at the wall or sleep. Sometimes, Katsu would drag him out of the house and try to bring him to the game house or something but nii-chan would shake him off and say, ‘I’m tired, Katsu, just some other time,’” Sakura shrugged her pointy little shoulders, “And what’s worse was, he went back to street fighting again. Kenkaya Zanza came back.”

            Megumi could only gape at Sakura. Kenkaya Zanza came back, Megumi felt as though a fist was shoved into her chest that squeezed and mashed her lungs. Sano’s pain was her pain and it was slowly killing her to know that Sano suffered more than she did.

Her vision started to haze beneath the heavy pools of her tears. She blinked them away and focused on Sakura’s story instead.

            “Every night, he’d go out and drink and gamble and pick a fight with any bystander. One time, there was this one guy who really pissed him off and . . . well, the guy came out of the hospital after a month, with a half healing cracked skull and permanently broken leg.”

            Megumi winced.

            “Fighting was nii-chan’s only outlet for his pain; it made him forget; it made him numb. Megumi, my brother was physically alive, but emotionally, he was shattered and inside, he was slowly dying.

            “And then . . .” Sakura trailed off. She bit her lip and looked down at her folded hands on her lap, looking as though it was paining her to carry on.

             “And then what, Sakura?” said Megumi expectantly.

            Sakura stared through the window, at the now crimson streaked azure sky and opened and closed her mouth. Megumi waited patiently, though her veins were tingling with anticipation. “And then, on the 23rd of August, 1868, the battle of Aizu began,” she said, turning back to look at Megumi with a solemn expression on her face, “It was your father’s decision to remain loyal to the Tokugawa shogun that sealed the fate of the entire city of Aizu.

            “And though the whole of Aizu was fighting a lost cause, we stood firm and loyal to the Tokugawa shogunate just like your father.  Even the women and children fought during the revolution.