Sins of the Daughter
The kitsune knelt, her head bowed. Before her was unrolled the silk she kept her surgical instruments in, small sharp knives, bamboo tubes, and other things of less certian use laid out before her.
Numbly, she reached out and picked up a scalpel.
"What are you doing, Rei?" Setto's transluscent hands stroked the side of her face. "Love, Rei, don't do this. You are what you are. Don't let my father win."
Her voice was nearly expressionless, her hand steady. "Husband, I know you mean well. But shut up." His eyes widened in shock, but he fell silent. The rest, too, obeyed; their muttering and worrying fell still, though they still fluttered around her head.
Reiko pulled up the sleeve of her kimono, rolling it so it would stay in place. And slowly, so slowly, she set the edge of the knife against her skin.
A little pressure, and a slow pull towards her heart, and a long, shallow cut opened in her forearm. She shuddered, and dropped the scalpel, watching her arm bleed. Drops of blood pattered on the wooden floor.
The tears that had not come before finally came to her eyes, sobs rising into her throat. She wept, kneeling there, arm held out before her, her tears mixing with the puddle of her blood. She cried like an inconsolable child, her entire body shaking, the pain radiating up her forearm into her shoulder.
Finally, the storm passed. The cut on her arm slowed its bleeding, and she ran out of tears, though she could still feel the terrible guilt pushing down on her, a burden she knew now that she'd never be free of. We are not meant to feel guilt, and yet I am. We are not meant to bear the consequences of our actions, and yet I do. What have you done to me, Demonbane? Why not just kill me, and end it for both of us? Because the kami know I have not the courage to end it myself. Not yet.
She wrapped the cut with practiced hands. Left to heal on its own for a few days, it would leave a silver scar on her pale arm. She rolled down the sleeve of her kimono. With luck, none of the others would see the bandage to wonder at how she'd managed to cut herself. The scalpel was cleaned and placed back into the roll, the blood was cleaned up with a swipe of a cloth stolen for just this purpose. And she stood, and wiped her face, drying the tears still on it.
She looked down at the scarlet sleeve of her kimono, and murmured, "That's one, father. That's one."