Opening notes

This fic will feature an OC (of sorts): Nobutada Oda, Nobunaga's oldest son and heir. He did not show up in Ninja Love, but he did historically exist. In case you didn't know, barring the ninja princess and Oriku and/or some other minor faceless people, all the characters in Ninja Love are real people from history.

My designs for Nobutada and Nobukatsu can be seen in the cover image and my profile.

For this fic's purposes, the ninja princess's name is "Akane", because that's what the default name given to me in Gree. Any historical events that was not from the original game will be explained at the end of the chapter.

Word of warning: This is mostly about the princess playing detective of sorts, so you won't see much of the ninjas.

"Hoot."

I felt tickling on my neck and a fluffy head suddenly poked out of my collar.

"Ssh, Hosuke, you can't be seen!"

I hastily pushed the owl back inside my kimono, looking around to make sure no one had seen. Fortunately there wasn't anyone near me in the courtyard. I sighed and quietly went back to sweeping.

Some time ago Yagyu managed to discover that Nobunaga has started to use the Hachisuka ninjas as his body doubles. That meant trouble. The Hachisuka were masters of disguise. It would be even harder to find the real Nobunaga and every failed assassination attempt would bring even more trouble to the ninjas.

When Hanzo had decided to send spies to the places Nobunaga frequents, I had offered myself to go too. He had strongly objected at first, but finally relented. With Yagyu's help, I had managed to enter Azuchi castle as a maid.

Kotaro had lent me Hosuke to send messages with. It had been a week since I had anything substantial to report back to Hanzo and I don't blame the owl for feeling a little restless. I was beginning to feel worried myself too. The last time I heard of anything about Nobunaga was that he went for an inspection to Gifu last week. I told Hanzo that, and later I heard that it was another double. The other servants and guard don't seem to know the difference between the real and fake Nobunaga. Maybe this is useless after all?

Just then, I heard a huge commotion from the direction of the main gates.

An army? I wonder what's going on.

I'd have to find out later. It could be important.

Yes, it definitely was something important, judging by the way the head maid was yelling about absolutely everything possible.

My sweeping duty had been cut short when a samurai ordered me to help the preparation for "the celebration party" and then ran off without further explanation.

I didn't know what he meant, so I had gone to find the head maid, only to be greeted by her screaming at me to go help clean the celebration room.

"Hey, so what is going on?" I asked a fellow maid who was wiping the floor very energetically beside me.

She turned to me, looking confused. Then she brightened. "Oh, that's right, you're new!" she said.

I nodded, waiting for her to continue.

"Lord Nobutada's army won the battle with the Takedas," the maid explained excitedly. "They have been fighting for a few years now, and they've won! We're celebrating their victory."

"Nobutada?" I asked. I didn't recognize the name.

"He's lord Nobunaga's oldest son and successor," she replied.

"Oh." I didn't know that. For some reason I was under the impression that Nobukatsu was Nobunaga's only son.

Not knowing what else to say, I awkwardly went back to wiping the floor.

Then a thought crossed my mind.

Would the real Nobunaga show up in the celebration or would it be another double?

I didn't know how much Nobunaga cared about this battle or his son, so I wouldn't put it past him to send a double for the celebration. Although now that I think of it, I probably wouldn't know how to tell the difference myself anyway. I should tell Hanzo about this later. He could send someone to check.

Then I membered that the maid I talked to earlier seemed very excited about this celebration. I decided to ask her some more. Maybe there was something I could find out.

"Hey, if you don't mind me asking, is this a very important thing?" I asked her, "You look so happy."

"Oh yes!" she answered, "My husband and son were in lord Nobutada's army. They—" Her voice broke and she choked a sob.

"Ah, I'm so sorry!" I hurriedly said, alarmed.

She shook her head and wiped her eyes. "No, it's fine; they both came home safely," she continued, smiling, "I'm sorry. I'm just so glad they're okay."

"Ah, that's wonderful," I said awkwardly. Inside, my heart was sinking.

That's right... The samurai – they're ordinary people too.

Back in Iga, among all the ninjas, it was so easy to think of all Nobunaga's samurai as "the bad guys". Even all the while in the castle I couldn't stop thinking of them as bad guys. It didn't help that some of them weren't very nice to me. I never stopped to think that they are still regular people. They had mothers and fathers and wives and kids who would be sad and miss them if they die.

I swallowed. Whatever would happen to the families of the samurai when the ninjas defeat Nobunaga? The children who lost their parents... like me? Would other people take care of them like grandpa did to me?

All of a sudden I felt sick. I realized that if the ninjas are going to go on a war against Nobunaga's army, a lot of innocent people were going to be hurt. Could I prevent the war from happening?

Then I remembered my mission.

That's right! If we can kill Nobunaga quietly, then maybe war will not break out!

I felt determination run through me. I would work my hardest to find the real Nobunaga and end this.

I was a little surprised to see so many people when I entered the celebration hall. I wasn't sure why I expected less people, but I did.

As I walked in line with the other maids to deliver the food tray, I sneaked a glance at the three men seated on the dais at the head of the room.

In the middle sat Nobunaga – or his double – looking very out of place among the other well-dressed party attendants in his dishevelled clothes. I briefly averted my eyes.

Does this man ever dress properly?

In the few times I've caught a glimpse of him, his kimono was always worn loosely with one sleeve hanging free, and I think I've only seen him not barefoot once. Today was no different. I sighed, wondering if the messy clothes meant that this was the double again, though I couldn't think of any reason why the double would choose to dress weirdly like that.

To his right was his son Nobukatsu. I have only met him once, but that smug face of his was hard to forget. It was on my second day at the castle. He ordered me to bring him tea, changed his mind, somehow expected me to know that without telling me anything, and then yelled at me for not bringing him sake. I never saw him again since and I was glad.

That meant the man on Nobunaga's left to be Nobutada. It wasn't hard to see that he was Nobunaga's son. Nobutada was the spitting image of his father, so much that if I didn't know better I could've sworn they were twins. Well, other than the fact that Nobutada was obviously younger. There was, however, something about him that made him seem different from his father and brother beside him, and it wasn't the fact that he was the only one among them who has short hair. I couldn't put a finger on what it was, so I decided to think about it later.

I placed the tray I was carrying in front of the intended guest, bowed, and followed the other maids out of the hall. Once outside, I let out a huge sigh of relief. I didn't realize that I was so tense back there.

Suddenly, I heard someone say, "Don't worry, the rest of the party will be easier."

I turned to the voice and saw that it was the maid who was behind me in the line earlier.

"I was nervous when I first served in a party too," she continued.

I nodded. She must have assumed I was worried about the party. Maybe she was right.

She smiled and patted my shoulder. "It's going to be fine. Come on, let's prepare for the next course."

End Notes:

1) The battle in question is the Battle of Tenmokuzan, the Takeda clan's last stand against Nobunaga. Nobutada was one of the generals leading the Oda clan's troops. I believe historically Nobunaga himself was there too, but let's ignore that for the sake of fanfiction.

2) Minor detail, but there's a reason why Nobutada sits on Nobunaga's left. In old Japanese tradition, the left signifies higher rank. Pointless detail and trivia, but hey.

3) The party's meal is in the kaiseki style, which was how food was normally served in that era. The rest of the party is pretty much nonsense, based on tidbits I gathered from movies and dramas and manga and anime set in the time period. I didn't care to do more in-depth research because who the heck cares about accuracy in fanfiction when so much of history has been thrown out the window in the original game anyway? From what I gather, the food is served in courses. The person will receive a tray with the first course on it, and when the next course comes the old plates were replaced with new food, but the tray stays.