smiled. «Green complements your eyes.»
«Thank you?» Kara never knew how to react to compliments, especially those coming from a woman.
«You still haven’t told me your name, but I need some way to call you…»
Kara took a few moments to think, and decided to tell Ayame a name that fit the circumstances. She had used this name many times before.
«Mariko. Call me Mariko.» Kara replied.
«Very well, Mariko. Follow me. We have a meal prepared for you.»
Ayame led Kara through the maze again and showed her the vast kitchens of the castle. She said that Kara can come any time and even cook her own meals if she wishes – only, to the extent of not having any knives.
«If you need anything cut, ask one of the cooks or servants.» Ayame added and when Kara looked at the people working in the kitchen, they bowed to her.
Kara nodded and Ayame offered her a bowl of rice, topped with some meat and vegetables.
As she ate, Ayame kept talking – she told about all the possible ceremonial habits of the people inhabiting the castle and asked of Kara to uphold these traditions. Finding everything very similar to what Kara knew about ancient Japan, she agreed to try her best.
Her initial concern was to keep everyone thinking she is compliant to at least some extent. Perhaps, when they will feel less threatened by her – she will be able to escape.
After the meal, Ayame showed Kara some parts of the castle, except for the parts Kara was interested in. She was denied access to the training halls, as well as rooms where guards were staying between their shifts.
Seeing the amount of people and guards in the castle, Kara knew that escaping it unnoticed will be close to impossible. Though, it didn’t mean that she will not try.
But first – she needed to learn about where the guards are and where the doors that were leading outside were located. Every detail could help her find a way to run.
Very soon she understood that with all the guards following her at all times – including the hidden shinobi she barely noticed at all – running was turning to something out of her reach.
With each passing day Kara felt more and more depressed. Her captors were strict, numerous and the shinobi were almost always very well hidden.
There were, however, times that she found herself at ease, but only for a little while. For instance, the castle had an amazing library with loads of scrolls and books from all over. She found books from her home world and started reading them at first. Then she turned to books from other realms – fortunately, the librarians kept the books well-organized. But there were books she couldn’t read – for instance, there was a closed off part of the library, where librarians wouldn’t let her go.
One of them even told her that even if she did – she wouldn’t be able to read those texts, as they were written in a language she could not know as it was native to the Dark Realm.
The other thing that kept Kara a little bit sane – was cooking her own meals. Though not allowed a knife, she utilized her hands for the purpose. Instead of cutting tomatoes – she tore them apart making them mashed. Instead of dicing onions and garlic – she broke them into pieces. And when she was in need of meat – she asked for a slice from the cooks. But she never allowed them to cut it up for her. Instead, she softened the meat by beating it with her fists before frying it in the pan.
This unusual way of preparing a meal was very strange to the cooks – as well as for the shinobi that followed Kara everywhere. Most of the time – when she was cooking something, everyone would look closely at the way she did everything and sometimes she would catch curious looks and even some kind of respect.
One day after preparing a meal, Kara took the bowl and walked to one of the few windows that she was allowed to look through. It led to an inner court where various people waited to be received by the shogun.
Kara stood there, slowly eating her food, when suddenly someone grabbed her hand and jerked it outside together with the bowl of food in it.
Hitting the window frame with her shoulder, the young woman grunted from the sheer force she was pulled by someone.
«Ah, my fair lady! We are starving!» she heard and a man in tattered clothes appeared. He was holding her hand very tightly, not allowing her to pull it back. The second man was greedily eating from the bowl.
«Let me go!» Kara hissed at them, hanging on with her free hand on the frame.
Before the men could say anything else, Kara noticed a black shadow run up and a katana fly through the window to one of the men’s throats.
Kara felt the bowl snatched from her fingers, and her hand being released at once. She pulled her hurting arm inside and ran off, feeling the overwhelming pain in her shoulder. She knew exactly what kind of pain it was – the shoulder was dislocated.
«Shit!» she hissed to herself, cradling the arm.
This meant only one thing – she needed to fix it as soon as possible. She felt her shinobi protector touch her back, but threw his hand off.
«Don’t touch me!» she screamed in both – pain and anger.
She stepped up to a pillar and pushed the joint back into the socket, feeling the pain wash over her in waves that made her eyes see darkness.
When she finished, she stepped away, still cradling her arm not to stress the shoulder more. The shinobi tried approaching again, but Kara was so hurt and irritated that she screamed at him again:
«Leave me alone!»
And then she ran off to where she usually stayed only at night – in the cellar, behind the bars of her cage. All she wanted at that moment – was to be left alone. She stayed in the corner for hours – unbothered by anyone, until she finally dozed off into sleep.
But her sleep didn’t last long.
She awakened to a brutal kick in her stomach. When she looked up, trying to catch her breath – she noticed one of the samurai she saw in her first few days. Incapacitated, she was unable to fight off the other two men, who caught her arms and quickly tied them to one of the bars of the cage.
They were talking – but she didn’t understand a word they said. She did understand, however, what was about to happen. Her shoulder was very painful and she was tied, but she still had her legs free, so she started kicking and hitting her attackers. Angry and growling, she tried as best as she could to throw off the men who started tearing apart her haori.
She couldn’t care less if they wanted to rape her just for the sake of it or to get revenge on her for killing their friends and comrades. All she cared about is not letting them do it at all.
But it was an extremely difficult task, since she was hurt and tied. And with each hit she took from her attackers, she was feeling less and less capable of fighting. Feeling her strength leaving her, Kara screamed in anger.
And that’s when the man who was on top of her flew back and crashed into a pile of boxes near the
