Memoirs of the In-Between

By Kasey Martin

Yuzuki Kobayashi was an assassin for a regent empress, along with her entire family. When her father betrays them, though, and puts the entire country at stake for a civil war, Yuzuki sacrifices herself to save them. She had thought that death was the end of her journey. Much to her dismay, there is life after death, however, and as she awakens in this new world she must learn to adapt. She finds that life was never as she knew it, and when an evil from her past threatens to tear her newfound peace apart, she must battle against it with everything she has. She learns about love, friendship, loss, and hope and discovers what it means to have purpose and something to protect.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 19, 2020
• ISBN: 9781644622469

Book preview

Chapter 1

It started on my ninth birthday, the sorrowful part of my tale. I had spent many years already training, making my young body strong, tuning my will to be harder than metal, and fine-tuning my reflexes so I was agile as cat. In my family, upon reaching the age of nine, it was time to prove our worth by making our first kill. My mark was not a victim of Suiko but one of our own. We were paid mercenaries, so it was not just the empress who hired us on. We also had a few rivals of our own. I was given a relatively easy task for my first job. It was the eldest son of a rival clan, older than I was by several years. It was simple, and I completed the job in under an hour—something my family had been most impressed with. It went exactly as planned: infiltrate the grounds, hide in the dark, and shoot the lethal blow dart. My aim was flawless. I remember that it was a night with no moon, and even the stars refused to shine.

I remember crying in my older sister Tomoya’s arms hysterically for hours afterward, and her sympathetic voice stating in a gentle tone that perhaps my mind was strong, but my heart as soft as the petals of a flower. I did not like my family trade to say the least. For a long time after every mark I would cry, sometimes to my sister, and sometimes to my dear friend Yuki. Yuki was also a servant to Empress Suiko; she was one of the few people who could speak with dragons safely.

Before I continue, I suppose a little information would help you understand. Suiko had a few dragons she could use if we ever went to war—and it was due to my friend and her alliance with the dragons. Not only was Yuki gifted with dragon speech, but she was also blessed with the gift of premonition.

Like my story, the tale of the dragons is a tragic one. I only got to see one in my lifetime, and she was Yuki’s spirit sister. I remember that day like one remembers a vivid dream for a long time after they wake. The dragon’s magic had put me in a haze, but by sheer willpower I stayed awake. The mere presence of a dragon could render most individual’s unconscious for days. She had been gold, brilliant and painful to look at when the sun hit her, with sea green spikes down her backside from her head to the tip of her tail. She had been warm to touch.

Because I find it interesting, I will share with you how dragon speakers existed. I also want to honor my old friend by sharing a bit of her story. Those who had the gift of dragon speech were able to exist because they were born with the blessing of the dragons. This is where a dragon shares their energy with a child as they are born, and only a few hundred people around the globe received such a high honor. More specifically, stillborn children whom the dragons deemed worth saving and whose spirit still lingered around the mother or its corpse. This was a delicate process and had to be done within minutes of birth. When the dragon gives the child its life force to bring the child’s body back to life, they both become bound by spirit—and often relate to each other as siblings. But it was not just the strength of one dragon that the child inherited, but also the universal strength of all. Dragons all shared a singular energy among them, and it came from all things. With that energy, they could use the magic of the earth, fire, sky, or water.

It is with this magic that the child is blessed with, and it is that magic that Yuki received her premonitions. It is with this magic that all magic flowed between the hearts of dragons and their human companions, giving each a bond and incomparable strength, love, and wisdom to the smallest child that the eldest of elders would envy. It is why there was only one great war between dragons—and it ended in eternal peace among the dragons themselves.

I often wished I had been a dragon speaker instead of an assassin. I was so envious of beautiful Yuki, but I loved her with all my heart. It seemed as if she were an older sister to me, and she kept me grounded as if I were her own younger sister. Her spirit was as strong as a dragon itself, but her heart and touch were as soft as the petals of a sakura flower. It was unfortunate that as time went on, dragons died off more and more. The more they had died, the more Yuki’s energy withered away, because the universal strength of the dragons was dissipating. Humans had gotten the idea that the heart of the dragon, if ingested, could give them magic of the dragon or eternal youth. This was not exactly wrong, but only the treasured dragon speakers had that right—and they did not need to kill a dragon for such gifts. Yuki was eighty-seven when I first met her, but she looked no older than a young teenager, the way a young girl looks at the age of fourteen. As time went on, I looked older than her, and she remained my friend throughout my years.

Time went on, and I stopped crying after every mark and became a quiet shell of a person that moved and functioned as if I were some futuristic machine. My existence was one of sorrow and regret. But as years went by and I only became deadlier, I lost track of myself, and only Yuki and her spirit sister could give me glimpses of what I used to be as a small girl, of what I could have been as a functioning person. For me, life seemed to pass by with no meaning. Yuzuki Kobayashi had no future and no present except but death, and soon I forgot I had a past. I stopped feeling, and soon I had exceeded the skills of death and fighting far beyond even my older brother. By the time I was twenty-one years old, I had killed over one hundred people. I often wondered if I still had a soul, if I was an actual person. Does one’s soul disappear after you’ve committed so much evil? Even if it wasn’t by choice to kill—even if death was an order by someone who had the power to demand you to kill their enemies? Suiko was a kind and fair Empress. I realize this now, but at the time I was simply another dog of the Imperial Army. I followed orders and killed who I was told to kill.

The only one who made me feel like an actual entity was Yuki. She would enchant me with tales of the dragons and educated me about them. It was my time with her that reminded me that somewhere within myself I still had a heart and I was still a human. It was that time with her that I faintly recognized that I did exist, in some way, to someone as more than a handy assassin. Our friendship was the one warm thing in my heart, and I still think to this day, it is what kept me as human as I could be. To dwell upon anything else but her would break me—this I knew. Once haunted by the faces of my victims, I grew cold—and eventually I cared for nothing but the love of my siblings and Yuki.

One day, Yuki sought me out, her pretty face that looked so young crumpled in worry. I tried to comfort her, but it was no use, and it took a very long time to get her calm enough to speak to me. And when she did speak, my body went numb. Sometimes, when a person says something, you just know there is nothing else; you cannot dispute it. This was one of those times, and my body tingled as I listened to her soft musical voice. Yuzuki-chan, she said softly. I had a most horrid vision. I pray that it was only a nightmare, but I fear not. This vision I dare not tell Suiko-sama, for I fear for your life. She whispered into my ears a story of horror, of a betrayal more blasphemous than speaking ill of the gods. She whispered to me a secret that would get my whole family killed. I had grown to be most trusting Yuki’s sacred gift of premonition. Her words were golden, and we were still alive today; they would still be. Needless to say, because of my absolute faith in her, when she whispered such a horrible tale to me, so quiet so that no one would hear, I was determined to find the truth. She continued to pray it was only a nightmare—but deep inside my guts in the place where instinct speaks to you, I knew it was no such thing. I knew that it was far more than a terrifying dream.

That night, when my parents were in the palace, attending a party that Suiko was holding, I had broken into my father’s most private office and began to snoop around. It took an hour, sifting carefully through papers, putting everything back as it had been. I knew not what I was looking for exactly, but in the end after much anxiety and impatience I found a letter to my father, and with this piece of parchment ended my blind search. I stared in horror at the kanji on the paper. I can still envision and recite the words as if it were yesterday.

Kobayashi-sama,

Thank you for your most helpful contribution in our campaign against Suiko-sama. With the information you provided us, our infiltration of the palace grounds should be as simple as chewing rice. With this letter, I have enclosed the payment you required. I doubted your hefty price at first, but now I see it was very much well warranted.

There was no name on the letter, no specific named price, but it was evidence enough. My father was selling information against the empress to someone who wanted to hurt her or worse. How Father could do such a thing after being in Suiko’s service for so long, I still do not understand. My father’s position was not low, and our family lived very well. We had servants of our own, and we lived lavishly inside the palace grounds. We had a large house and many items of gold and silver, and Suiko spoiled us with royal dinners often.

My mind went numb and panic set in. In all my knowledge to blend, to fight, to infiltrate, to hurt and kill…nothing I knew applied to this. My father was betraying my empress…and I wanted to protect her. Not once before had I ever felt this way, and it was new, and it took me a few minutes to digest and understand what the urge was. I came to the conclusion rather quickly however. I had to protect Empress Suiko, no matter what. I subconsciously knew that not just her life was at stake, but also the soldiers that would die during the attack on the palace, and after that, what would happen to the people? Who were these people, and would they be fair and kind to the people of Japan? I was not going to just wait and find out. I was not sure what to do, so I went to my older sister and showed her the letter, and we agreed to go to the head of our family—Mother.

In public, Father was the Kobayashi clan’s voice, head, and representative, but it was Oka-san that made our decisions and ultimately ruled the family. An old saying I once heard stated that a person’s head must have a strong neck to turn it. If my father was the head of the family in public, then Mother was for sure the neck of our clan. So my sister and I approached her the next day and showed her the letter.

The events after that erupted into a firestorm of blood, anger, and hatred. Mother had taken the letter and a blade and confronted my father. My sister and I cowered in the family room as much screaming ensued. Our house, which was so usually eerily quiet, was bursting with the harsh voices of my parents. It was certainly unusual. For assassins to raise their voice, something must be terribly off. Why else would we break away the habits of silence, ingrained in us from childhood? It seemed to go on for hours, but eventually our father would burst from his office, approaching me and Tomoya.

Who invaded my office? How dare you— he screamed in a guttural voice while his hand raised toward us, and I could hear my mother coming down the hall. We were a family of assassins, but Mother had always been nurturing, a wise teacher and she loved us. Our father had been known for his temper…something that went hand in hand with his daily bottles of sake, and until we had grown old and trained enough to hold our own against him, Mother had protected us against his drunk and blind rage. She did so now again, though Tomoya and I could have easily defended ourselves. She grabbed our father from behind and spun him down, slamming him into the ground. The motion was so quick, I could barely registered what happened.

Who are you to speak to them like that? she snarled. How dare you, when you put all our family at risk?

My father lost his mind in that moment; his hand went up and punched my mother. It was something all the women in our family had inherited from her, her small frame and strong body. We were all solid, but our bodies weighed nothing to the large men in our family. Our mother, who had been caught off guard, went flying into the wall and slumped over. A blow like that, her breathe must have been ripped from her lungs.

My father silently got up, savagery and coldness filled his expression, and then I made the mistake of blinking. He was by us then, his blade slicing the throat of my sister. I remember silently watching her body fall, feeling her warm blood splash across my face. I was in complete shock; my mind was refusing to process what my eyes were taking in. The seconds that ticked by felt like hours to me as my brain fully grasped the situation. Then I did something I’d never done before during all of even the brutal training my father made us endure: I cried out.

My elder brother, Yuske, came in at the noise. The sound of my sister’s body hitting the floor made his almond eyes jerk toward her twitching body, the sounds of her throat trying to take in air making the heavy moment sound even worse. For a split second, the noises of my suffocating sister—who wasn’t bleeding fast enough to die quickly was the only thing I could hear. She was choking and suffocating on her own blood. And the blood flooded the room like an opened dam. We were warriors—and only during the nighttime did we ever put down our multiple weapons and blades. Yuske drew his tachi and lunged informally at our father, his anger being screamed as he clumsily jabbed the blade outward. Anger was the ripple the disturbed the pond…it was one of the first lessons. You never fight with anger.

I turned at that point and ran. I don’t know why, but I remember somehow knowing that I was not going to make it out. I grabbed the letter out of my mother’s hand as I ran, and went into a closet, shaking. I could see the shadow of my brother falling, the shadow of the arching blood splashing out from within his body. I could have run out of the house, but I stayed rooted, eyes staring at the crimson of my siblings spreading across our dark wooden floors.

It was at that point that my mother, whom I could see, got up shakily and drew her blade. Her screams of anguish at the sight of my siblings still haunt my dreams. There was a brief battle between them, but in the end, I watched as the katana of my father impaled my mother through her stomach, and he let her body fall off his blade coldly.

I edged further into the closet, unable to control the loud sobs that ripped from my chest in heaved breaths. I had a tantō equipped to my waist. My left hand wrapped around the handle of that precious blade. I could see him walking toward the closet I was in…his blade dragging on the ground carelessly, an odd demented smile on his face. It was strange to see him smile in the first place, but that cold smile made my body clench in a strange fear. It was as if it were not my father, and I could think of only one word to describe this strange look upon my father’s face: demon.

I think I did wonder what kind of demon had control of him as he drew closer. I had time to briefly think about my cowardice. If I had stayed to help my brother fight the demon man, would my mother and brother have lived? Would we have only lost my sister? I thought of Tomoya then. I felt cold rage grip me as I pictured the look on her surprised face and became aware once again of her blood growing sticky on my face and the sounds of my mother trying to crawl toward him, screaming weakly: Don’t touch her! Don’t you dare touch her! Run, my daughter! Run!

The calm that overcame me then could easily be described as the eerie stillness in the air right before the dawning of huge storms. If I were the ocean, I wouldn’t have a single wave lap at the shore of the land I surrounded…Perhaps I would die. No…I knew I would die. But that was what must have been done. For all the evils in the world, he would never see it coming. Complete the mission at all costs.

My mission now was to kill the demon man who put an end to the Kobayashi legacy—and to die along with him, leaving that cruel, blood-filled legend to die in the blood it had built itself in.

When he reached the closet, he reached his hand to me as if he were offering me a gentle guiding step. I took his hand, stepping out, as he stepped in. I could feel the bite of his cold steel slicing through the soft skin of my stomach, but I could also feel the flash of my blade, sinking deep into his jugular at the same time. The familiar pressure of soft flesh under my sharp blade reassured me as my belly burned and I screamed out in agony as his blade pierced through the back of my body as well. He had stabbed me all the way through. I yanked my blade to the left, ripping his throat open with an angry hiss of vengeance.

He had not been expecting my blade. This is why I choose the smaller blade; I knew an expected katana would do no good. It’s what I was best at, but a smaller, less-noticeable blade would be more effective. I knew I was going to die, and I had quietly and quickly come to terms with that. His eyes glazed over as I watched, and he fell, letting go of his blade as he did so. I leaned against the wall and stumbled a little way. I made it to the room with my mother and siblings and fell. I could do nothing but sob in agony, as I pulled the blade from my intestines and threw it aside. It hurt as much pulling the blade out as it did to be stabbed by it. I knew by how weak I was already feeling that I was losing to much blood for any hope, and I stared up at the ceiling, crying in pain and in remorse. I was on my back on the ground when the door flew open, and Yuki, imperial guards, and the empress herself came in. Suiko ran to my mother, and Yuki ran to me.

Yuzuki-chan, she said softly, tears welling up in her brown eyes. I saw it too late. I couldn’t speak, but I had enough strength to reach up and place the letter in her hands. Yuki took the letter and hugged me, crying as she held me. When she took it, I faintly recognize her eyes glaze over as they do when she is seeing into the distant world. It was only a few heartbeats before she blinked, and she let out a choked cry and hugged me to her, my blood ruining her pretty purple silk kimono. I can see you have saved us all, Yuzu-chan, she whispered to me. You saved her life…you saved my life too. Hundreds upon hundreds would have died…in one day you have saved as many as you have killed. She smiled at me even as hot tears fell from her cheeks and landed upon my face. I love you, Yuzu-chan…Sleep with peace for me. In that instant, my life suddenly felt as if it had meaning, and I could feel how proud of me Yuki was.

I died there in her arms, my world slowly fading away. As I died for the first time since my ninth birthday, I felt wild, intense, and immeasurable joy. Peace settled through me, her words repeating in my head as I lay in her arms, her tears washing my sins away. I was not only feeling my fierce happiness because my miserable life was over but because Yuki said something so meaningful that it filled me with the type of joy that makes a person cry…Tears did leak from me, but they were not of sorrow or pain, and in fact the pain was the first thing I stopped feeling. Eventually numbness spread through my body from the wound. I could only look up at Yuki, my dearest friend, as I vaguely realized she had tried to save me. As she held on to me, I forced my tears to stop, and soon I came to the idea that I was smiling at her.

I pray that she knew my smile meant I was finally at peace with myself. My vision faded slowly as my heart slowed, and eventually my world went black, and nothingness reigned for a while. I am confident that the invasion was stopped, and Suiko reigned until she died of natural causes. I died by my father’s blade, but I died for a different purpose than what I lived for. I died to protect my empress, and as my life faded away, I realized why I had hated life so much. I had always wanted to protect life, instead of taking it away. And that is why I felt such inconceivable joy as my suddenly meaningful life slipped away. As darkness fell upon my vision, everyone around me turned into orbs of light before fading away. I had saved many orbs of light that day; I had found myself along the way. I felt I could truly die in peace…because Yuki said I could.

Chapter 2

When you’re alive, you have no idea what happens to you when you die. It had been one of my many thoughts and regrets. We were paid to kill, not paid to understand why the targets were marked in the first place. I always wondered what happened to people when they died. I sent so many people to their afterlives, that it seemed like a fair question. I had no idea what I believed, and to be frank I was too scared to think too deeply on it. Only when my worst guilt, fresh after a job well done, did I dare to venture into that dark corner of my mind. I eventually had convinced myself that nothing happened. There was no heaven, there were no gods, there was nothing but a deep dark sleep that you never wake up from.

Because I had told myself that death was just a peaceful black sleep, I had begun to believe it, as it seemed like the safest belief to have. There was no disappointment in your slumber of there not being a heaven, and it was a lot less horrible a thought than the one where I would go to a place where I suffered all the pain I brought upon my victims for all eternity. Surprisingly enough I found that, for a while, my death was a quiet, peaceful sleep. There was no dream, only faint awareness of the world being black and peaceful. But as I slumbered, things began to creep into my consciousness. I was not sure how I felt about that; it did not register in my mind what the noises and sensations could possibly mean. I was in a hypnotic state of rest, and as I felt quite reluctant to leave such a state of existence after so long of living miserably, nor did I want my rest disturbed after finally finding that peace and self-actualization I had so longed for.

Time seemed to drag on and on, and minutes blurred into hours, and it felt like years I had been sleeping. It eventually occurred to me that the noises and sensations I was semi aware of were actually voices that spoke to one another softly and hands that touched my body. I was almost horrified when I noticed this. Did I not die? Must I wake to find myself continuing to be a death bringer to all those that threatened the empress? I sat very still and listened to these gentle voices. They faded in and out as I dipped back and forth between deep unconsciousness and gentle sleep. A little girl’s voice sometimes murmuring, or playfully having conversations with me.

I hope you get better soon, lady. You’ve been asleep for a long time. I remembered her talking to me softly once, saying kind things. You were having a bad dream, huh? It’s okay. I have them too sometimes. No more crying, I will keep you safe. Before a pretty lullaby put me back into a deep sleep. Another time a conversation she had with herself: My goodness, your hair is so pretty! ‘Why, thank you, yours is too!’ Oh, thank you! Will you help me braid it? ‘Sure! I like to braid.’ I vaguely remember thinking that she must have been playing with her dolls near me before a voice asked her sharply: Why do you insist on playing with the comatose woman?

Because, what if when she wakes up she doesn’t play with me? Or she doesn’t like me? Or she thinks my voice is too squeaky? This way she might hear me, and like me before she wakes up! At that time I’d drifted back into the deep blackness. Then came the time when things were clearer, my understanding of the words stuck, and this feeling of awareness was different. More defined.

She still isn’t awake? a male voice asked. It sounded like an elderly man, one who knew many things and told many stories. He sounded grandfatherly. I was confused; I knew no one with that voice that belonged to my family, nor had I ever met someone with such a voice at the palace. I would remember such a voice. It sang of mischief and a hint of senile grumpiness, and yet wisdom and kindness. I thought this was an odd observation at the time, but I didn’t have time to ponder which elements in his voice made me think of all these things at once for a new voice chimed in. The voice of the little girl who’d been talking to me for what must have been days.

Not yet, Grampy. She sounded young, and innocent, and entirely too cheerful to be speaking about a dead woman. This I realized with dread, but I knew this was no one I knew either. There were many palace children, but I had not talked to many. If I were still in the palace grounds, they would not be permitted to stare at a woman who had been wounded in such a manner, unless I had been sleeping for a very long time and I was almost fully recovered—gods forbid the noble children get a good dose of real life. But how could this be? I was certain I had died! I grew frustrated and began to try and open my eyes.

Well, we will have to continue to wait then I suppose. I wish she would hurry up. We found her nearly three weeks ago. Who needs that much sleep? Then again, I remember when I came to this place…they said I had slept for a month and a half. The grandfatherly voice prattled, a strange banging noise filling my ears as he spoke. He sounded dangerously close to venturing near what I call an elderly reverie.

Oh gosh…I hope it doesn’t take that long. I think it will happen very soon. She seems so strong! I bet the spirit warriors will come for her when she does awaken. After all, you suspect she arrived here in a strange manner. The same way you did, right? The young voice sounded closer to me now, and I felt a small hand touch my forehead and my body reacted in a surprise flinch. Grampy! She’s moved! The young voice practically shrieked in my ear. I struggled to open my eyes, and I will admit, it took a while. It was as if my body wanted to refuse my silent commands to obey me. When my eyes began to see again, I was looking up at the face of an old man, with a long white beard that seemed to be even longer than his long snow-white hair. His face was so wrinkled you almost could not make out his eyes, but I could see they were a bright blue. Beside him was a young girl with dark-brown hair and sparkling eyes that looked as if the earth moved inside her. I stared at them for a moment, shocked, and they stared at me. Who the hell were these people?

I could not speak, though I tried. The only thing that came out was a strange moaning sound, as if the ability to formulate words had been strangled from me. The little girl smiled brightly at me, a smile that was so big I thought her face would rip if she continued on. The grandfather chuckled at me, which earned him a fierce glare. I did not understand where there was any humor in my situation, and much to my frustration and ire, he moved from a small chuckle to a loud guffaw when he caught my angry look in his direction.

You should know that glaring at people when you’re so weak and vulnerable is not very intimidating. Ah, young people these days. Simply astounding, he said, turning away. His back was straight for such an old body, but he still walked with a long stick. My eyes took in the stick out of instinct, picking out the details of the potential weapon. It was quite beautiful. There were dragons burnt into the light white wood, and a yellow jewel as big as my fist sat on top. I caught myself taking in breath, wondering if he was a dragon speaker and vaguely reminded more of a pole-arm weapon then a walking stick. Alice. Come get the poor woman some stew. The old man chuckled as he sat down in an old rickety wooden rocking chair across the room from me.

Immediately the small girl went whirling into action, dashing about the room of what seemed to be a wooden cottage in a frenzy. She made me dizzy, so I closed my eyes until a small hand touched my cheek again. When I reluctantly opened them again, Alice was standing next to me, holding a large bowl of steaming food. In that moment, it smelled divine, and my body shuddered with a hunger so sharp I felt sick to my stomach. Needless to say, I didn’t complain or try to struggle when she fed it to me, one bite at a time. The whole time, she hummed what sounded like a lullaby, and as I ate and listened to the little girl’s sweet voice, I began to feel stronger. I watched the girl as she fed me and decided she was so cute it was absurd. She was so little and innocent, and she reminded me of Yuki and the sakura flower petals of the palace gardens. But the little girl also reminded me of trees and vines, while Yuki had made me think of sky and wind. It was strange. I suppose it was the innocence and nurture she poured into those moments when she fed me carefully, as if I were as innocent as she was.

When I was done staring at the little girl’s dark curls and the contours of