It begins…

[Juubei]

Sakura puts her palm flat on the door as her father goes to open it, tipping her head back to meet his surprised gaze. "Let's not," she says, then more forcefully, "let's go home, daddy."

Trying his best to suppress an amused chuckle, Kakei Mamoru squats down beside his daughter, looking her in the eyes as he speaks. "Don't you want to see your mother, Sakura? And I hear that there's someone who's very eager to see you." Sakura's only response is to blow a very loud, unladylike raspberry and bury her face in her father's neck as he picks her up. No, she's changed her mind, she wanted a baby sister, not a brother, and now she's decided she doesn't want either. She's the baby of the family, and now here comes someone else to steal her parents' attention and their love away from her. She just knows he's going to be horrible and smelly and noisy, and she isn't going to like him, she won't like him, and she and her father and mother should just go home together now, just the three of them, forget about the baby and--

All unknowing of her thoughts, her father swings open the heavy door with its good solid creak and steps through. He sets her down again and crosses the distance to the bed with smooth strides, placing a proud hand on his wife's shoulder with a smile, then glancing back to see what the little girl will do.

As for Sakura herself, she remains standing where she is, shrinking back against the door slightly as if to melt through it and escape into the brilliant August sunshine outside. Then her mother calls her name softly and she looks up, the dam breaks and she runs to the bed, practically flinging herself on the woman sitting there, who hugs her back with her free arm. Sakura steadfastly ignores the small bundle held gently in the other.

A sleepy sound from said bundle causes her mother to relax the hug slightly, her hand moving to smooth back satin locks from Sakura's face. "Sakura-chan, look who this is," she says, directing her daughter's attention where it really doesn't want to go. "Hello oneechan, my name is Juubei." She uses the tips of her fingers to move the baby's head in an approximation of a bow. "Yoroshiku ne."

As Sakura watches, the movement causes the baby to wake up from his half-doze and he makes some snuffly whimpering noises before deciding not to cry and opens his eyes instead. He seems to be looking directly at her, and she whispers, too fascinated to remember her previous resentment, "look, mother… he's got such blue eyes."

"See how small he is?" her mother asks gently. "He's going to need someone to look out for him, to teach him about the world." The baby slowly blinks in agreement, his fuzzy unfocused gaze not shifting from his sister who in turn watches him, captivated by his quiet presence.

Hesitantly she raises her hand and waves to him, and the little face snuggled amongst the fluffy blankets is suddenly lost in a huge toothless yawn. Sakura giggles, and that gives her the confidence to slowly stretch out her hand and place it on his head, surprised at how warm he is. No, maybe he isn't so bad after all.

"…Hello, little Juubei," she says, as her parents' eyes meet above her head and they exchange fond smiles, "don't worry, I'm going to take good care of you."

No, he's not so bad.

[Toshiki]

Yuko holds the sleeping baby loosely in her arms as she glares through the grime on the window glass and out onto the filthy grey city stretching as far as the eye can see: gloomy, oppressive. A thin poisonous-looking sleet spatters against the panes and lashes the ugly buildings around the shelter. It matches her mood quite well. In the distance thunder grumbles around the corners of the sky, then is quiet again. Even the heavens don't think Tokyo is worth the effort to get together a really good storm and blast it off the face of the earth.

Pity.

Forgotten in her lap, the unnamed baby shifts slightly in his sleep, then settles down again.

Yuko continues to stare at the city – pouring her rage and despair into Tokyo is probably better than focusing it at the only other target to hand…

Oh hell, he's blonde. That isn't the sort of thing most mothers think on their first sight of their child, but compared to that, the question of how many fingers and toes he might have and all the rest of that crap had been secondary considerations. Trust the kid to not even look Japanese.

Oh, she knows all the names they have for girls that hang round the foreign soldiers when they come into the city; a fair amount of them have stuck to her, and a fair amount she's picked up and slung right back at her tormentors. It's not like she gives a damn, anyway.

But now what? She can't go home to her parents with a little half-gaijin kid… if he'd had the decency to look even slightly Japanese she could have given it a shot, but not now. Not like this. She remembers the last time she'd spoken to Luke, just over six months before: making extra effort in her pronunciation over the crackly reception of the phone, she'd gathered up her courage and told him. There had been a long pause, and he'd said something she hadn't understood. The line had gone dead.

After that, he hadn't answered his phone. She'd called him every day, written him letter after letter in her careful English handwriting. Eventually she'd gotten up the courage, hitchhiked to the air base at Yokota, been stopped at the gates. Oh, didn't she know? The lieutenant had been transferred home just last week, sorry, no, she couldn't have his home address, that was classified, goodbye.

That cheap prick, she thinks, unconsciously tightening her grasp on the boy until her nails dig deep into his delicate skin and he wakes and starts wailing as loud as his unpractised lungs will let him, hands bunching into fists by his face.

Alerted by sounds that are definitely not the cries of a hungry or tired baby, one of the shelter workers appears in the half-open doorway and stands against the frame, watching disapprovingly. This one is less than 24 hours old and she's already seen his mother drop him on the floor twice, once directly on his head, and now this. Some people really don't deserve to have children, she thinks, looking squarely at the livid red crescents the mother's nails have left on her baby's skin as his screaming goes up another notch while Yuko gives an exasperated groan and clumsily tries to get him to shut up. The worker refrains from taking the woman by the shoulders and giving her a good shake, settling for scooping up the baby and calming him herself, sighing. Sometimes Christian duty can be a hard thing to do.

[Kadsuki]

"He really shouldn't be sleeping right now." Tsukihiko inclines his head fractionally towards his wife, trying to whisper without moving his lips. It's harder than it looks.

"What do you expect?" Karin murmurs back, "babies will be babies… I'll wake him if you like, but he'll be perfectly justified in crying if I do." She leans closer for a moment, not having the use of her arms; close enough so they can feel one another's warmth through the layered kimono they both wear. "It's not as if he's missing much, anyway."

"No, just his introduction to the world." Tradition is heavy here; its weight can be felt in the timbers of the manor, in the way the light falls through the half-open paper screens, in the way the echoes of far-off rooms sneak up on unsuspecting ears. It's a particular taste the air has, not dust or staleness of any kind, just the feel of long years piled up in the corners of rooms and flung over furniture as though waiting for a maid to pick them up and shake them out. Five centuries' worth of Fuuchouin feet have walked the long dark hallways, darted from sun-speckled patch to sun-speckled patch on the terraces, danced barefoot to the sounds of koto and shamisen in the gardens. If you could see this web of tradition floating through the estate, it would be golden, nebulous, throwing out its silken threads to glitter in the newly reborn sun. Yes, the year has come around again, old to new, and this time, as so many before, it has brought a shining new strand to be woven into the tapestry of the Fuuchouin line.

It is upon this new addition that the weight of tradition settles today, wrapping around him as snugly as the embroidered peach-coloured kimono – far too grand and expensive for such a small baby, really – that he has been dressed in for the ceremony: the ceremony to which he is happily oblivious as he sleeps in his mother's arms.

At the head of the long chamber the current head of the clan, the baby's grandfather, reads aloud from one of the two great chronicles of Japanese history, recounting the victories and losses of old, the loyalty, bravery and honour that have come down from those times, the tales of this nation surrounded by water that is the baby's heritage and contains all the lessons he needs to learn. Some family members play soft chords on koto, or ring small bronze bells at predetermined points in the narrative; others feed the small incense burners scattered around the room, and the scents of exotic Chinese spices blend and dance in the air.

Finally the recitation comes to an end, and the baby's parents bring him down the long aisle between the offerings of flowers and rice cakes that have been given as prayer for the child's learning and his health. Together, they kneel before the old man, and Karin bows her head and presents her son.

The Fuuchouin chief takes the small boy in his arms, raising an eyebrow to see his grandson's slumbering face, then fixes his bright eyes upon Tsukihiko. There is an unspoken communication between father and son, Tsukihiko colouring slightly, embarrassed; the old man looking very much as though he would like to shake his head in amused exasperation if not for the formality of the occasion. Addressing the baby as if he were awake, he continues reciting the blessings that have been pronounced at the naming of each Fuuchouin child for as long as the clan has existed, split off from the Imperial line some five hundred years before in the declining years of the Muromachi age.

"As the bells of Gion ring out the impermanence of all things; as the river's current, never ceasing, shall never bring around the same water again, the world shows us its fleeting nature from one moment to the next. The blossoms scatter from the cherry trees, the moon dies and is reborn, the old wither and their descendents spring up like new shoots in spring.

'The threads in the weave needs must change, yet the pattern remains constant. Thus does the line continue, from age to age, from generation to generation, bound together through the ties of honour, of loyalty, as the children look back to the lessons of their ancestors and learn what they may.

'Then, Fuuchouin-no-Kadsuki, son and heir of this proud Fuuchouin clan, this is the duty with which thy ancestors charge thee.

'Protect thy home, protect thy kin, protect thy allies; these things above all else.

'Stay true to the blood that runs in thy veins, uphold the ideals of thy clan, never forget the nobility inherent in thy name.

'For without these things we are as leaves in the wind; a Fuuchouin who does not heed this is swept away like a passing dream on a night in spring. The flower withers and falls, the winter comes, the moon is eclipsed by the darkness.

'For all else in this world of illusion is dust."