Page 89 of A Soul to Touch

“Me too,” she humourlessly laughed. “He was an Elder. He would have fought you to the death, as I would have, and then neither of us would be here.”

His head tilted as he leaned it forward. “You are an Elder too? Could you explain what this means?”

Her jaw clenched before she turned her gaze skyward. “I never made it to being an Elder, that takes years of experience. I became a Master – a position just below that.”

“So you are still a strong Demonslayer.”

The praise in his voice nettled at her. She bristled, her ire prickly.

“I’m not a Demonslayer anymore, Faunus. That’s why I’m here and not at Hawthorne Keep.”

“You aren’t? But isn’t that what you wanted?” His tone gave her the impression that he thought she’d left willingly.

“It was,” she growled. “But I broke a rule and was kicked from it.”

“What did you do?”

Mayumi glared at an oncoming cloud, hoping it didn’t plan to start storming again. She was tired of the snow, and it was only mid-winter.

“Do you know what a woman has to do to become an official member and rise from a navy rank Novice to a green Apprentice?”

“Of course not.”

She lowered her head and then gave him a spiteful smirk.

“Women bleed, usually once a month. The price for a woman to go up in rank is to have a complete hysterectomy. They cut us open and remove all our reproductive organs. Our uterus’, our ovaries, everything. It’s to ensure we won’t be a liability to our teams when we are out in the field. Otherwise, we’d be nothing but Demon bait, getting our teammates killed.”

“I... was not aware that was something you had done.”

She saw a flicker of blue in his orbs, but whatever the emotion was, he snuffed it quickly.

“I didn’t. That’s the point.” Her head thudded as she leaned it back once more. “My father was able to pull some strings and have it fabricated to seem like I went through with the procedure. One of the reasons he was unhappy with me joining the guild was that I couldn’t continue the family line if I did the surgery. He was the one who told me I should lie, but I had to keep it a secret. For eleven years, I kept that secret. Then, one day, my stupid period came a week early, and I got half my team slaughtered while we were hunting a particularly strong Demon who lingered in the mines. I watched men die because I brought three Demons upon us. I’d been caught trying to hide that I was bleeding, unprepared for it, and that person reported me in outrage because they’d had their hand bitten off and lost their friend.”

He said nothing for a short while, eventually bringing his hand forward to hold the side of his snout in thought while looking out into the forest.

She was sure this was a lot to take in.

It had been a lot for her to process.

“No one knows the truth,” she continued, weirdly uncomfortable with the silence. “It was announced that I was honourably discharged, and I was given a large sum of money to keep my mouth shut. I can’t wear my uniform except around my home, and I report anything I see that might be of use to them – although that is more of a choice than a requirement. They offered to let me go through with the surgery if I wanted to stay, but I declined it.”

“Why?”

She’d been asked that very question when she’d told them no.

Mayumi stood and walked to the side of the spring water bath. On the edge was a glass vial of liquid soap made from goat’s milk and lavender. Holding the cylindrical vial upside down, she poured a few drops into her palm and started washing her arms.

They were having a bath, so she might as well start properly washing her body while they were talking. It appeared he was too uncomfortable to care that she was completely naked before him. Then again, he’d probably gotten used to her body in the last twenty-four hours of delightfully humping it.

“It’s my body,” she started, watching the soap lather over her flesh. “I didn’t want to change it just because the Demons came. Why should I have to suffer that? Most Demonslayers don’t even make it past thirty, and many women grow ill and weak in their later years because changing their bodies like that has terrible side effects. I should be allowed to make the choice if I want children and not have that choice taken away from me because of some human-eating vermin.”

She was surprised when his orbs turned bright yellow. “Does that mean you wish for younglings? Children...”

Mayumi lifted her shoulders in a shrug before lathering her chest. “I don’t know. I’m not particularly fond of bringing a life into this dying world.”

“The world is not dying,” he said. “There is much life.”

He gestured to the trees and their surroundings.

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