a/n: It's pretty unfinished.
Stockholm Syndrome
How can I decide what's right?
When you're clouding up my mind
I can't win your losing fight
All the time
No can I ever own what's mine
When you're always taking sides
But you won't take away my pride
No, not this time
Not this time
- Paramore, "Decode"
i.
A story, in a few short sentences:
A spaceship destroys the palace that she and Shigeshige once lived in. The flames flicker to a grungy smoke that smarts her eyes as Nobume escorts her down to the ground, tears swallowed by the lump that overwhelms any aches in her legs and arms.
There are only a few minutes before the spaceship, full of artillery and deadly efficiency, moves on to the Amanto embassies, while two other smaller ships fly directly to the Edo Terminal and drop bombs for each terminal.
The news report estimates that a few hundred thousand people are dead. The Shinsengumi issue an emergency evacuation notice; the remaining civilians try to escape.
But it is futile. All over Japan - in Choshu, Kyoto, in the mid-sized cities - there's been a general state of alarm. Out of nowhere, the rampage is very well organized, very immune to any sort of defense.
Rumors collect - the end of the world, some say.
On top of the Kiheitai's spaceship, Takasugi allows himself one indulgent smile.
ii.
Tokugawa Soyo writes him a letter from the bomb shelters, asking him on behalf of the people to stop the raids. It's no use, someone said, but she stamps the latter anyway with her royal seal.
He responds her by arresting and detaining her. Nobume escorts Soyo, for she is on the side of the Mimawarigumi, who has pledged their loyalty before the fruit of destruction came forward.
Takasugi Shinsuke is shorter than she expects. Nobume unties her blindfold and Soyo blinks once before resuming her cool, collected facade.
The fate of her country doesn't rest on her shoulders, but her brother has deemed himself helpless, unable to do anything for his people. Soyo is the one who decides to take action, because she understands intimately that her position means nothing save for a nostalgic symbol that now has been rendered irrelevant.
The man responsible for the destruction of a world is sitting next to the windowsill, plucking a sad lonely song on a shamisen. The cool wind blows into the room, spartan in decor save for a lacquered tray with two bottles of warm sake sitting in the night air.
He is handsome - delicately so in a way that she can't explain, with his slender frame and inky black hair.
The song ends and he turns his head to fixate his one eye on her. She nearly gasps, for there is something intense and painful about him, but then she remembers this is no place for a girl her age to be.
She came dressed in nothing more elaborate than a commoner's kimono, with beige and gray patterns, and it feels forced - as if he can see past the facade. From the day she was born, it'd been hammered into her head that she belonged to higher places. Destined, indeed, to wed into nobler families, destined to be trapped into a tower that was built on the blood of innocent people...
You've set me free, only to be imprisoned once more.
He places his pipe in his mouth, inhales-exhales-releases. The smoke fades quickly, like memories of a happier dream.
"How old are you?" he finally asks, and his voice is strangely beautiful, low and hypnotic.
"Sixteen," Soyo says.
"I see." His eye flickers expectantly. "I usually don't meet girls your age," he says, and his laugh sends a shiver down her spine. "Especially not the Princess of Japan."
"That title means nothing now," the girl said, eyes lowered to the ground.
"You're right, it doesn't. Never has."
He pours her a cup of sake and smiles at her the way conquerors do at the oppressed. "Drink," he says, and she lifts the cup to her mouth.
It occurs to her that he might have poisoned the sake as well but it is too late. The warm buzz hits the back of her throat.
She waits, anxiously, for more side effects. But there are none - Takasugi himself is pouring a drink and he sips it delicately rather than all at once.
"Why did you write the letter?"
"I just wanted to know why you would wish destruction. I have many people dear to me who live in Edo."
"Retribution," he said evenly. "Do you understand any of that?"
"No."
It's over. The world is destroyed and he's accomplished everything that he wants to achieve. What else is left?
"I came to offer my hand in marriage and the seat of the Shogun if you stop the destruction," she said, her green eyes as turbulent as a storm.
"And what if I refuse?"
"Then I shall resign and wait until you kill me."
"A position of nobility doesn't interest me, Princess. Neither does martyrdom suit you."
"Aren't you satisfied yet? Millions are dead." Her tone is bitter. "Aren't you happy?"
"You're in no position to decide whether I am satisfied or not," he said, and he leans towards her and grips her chin with surprising firmness.
"The only thing keeping you alive right now is that you're too young to understand anything," Takasugi said, with a savage vindictiveness that is terrifying and stunning at the same time. She stops breathing.
He let her go abruptly. "Leave now," he commands. Soyo murmurs a formal goodbye and Nobume carries her away to her cell.
iii.
"I think I made him angry," she said to Bansai, who visits her prison cell once every so often. In her spare time (which is copious), she writes Takasugi letters, always asking him to stop destroying the livelihoods of so many citizens, even though it is futile. She is but a simple girl. He is a well calculated machine of algorithms and an unquenchable thirst of revenge. The kindness of Soyo is outweighed substantially by his cruelty.
"Shinsuke never really stops being angry," he says. "If he did, we wouldn't have gotten this far."
Down below the sky there are constant bombings and raids. She tries not to cry at it all, tries not to wonder what happened to Kagura and all those wonderful people down below that haven't been arrested or detained.
"How did you meet him?"
"Same as everyone else. He comes to you if he can be bothered."
None of her letters instigate a reply from Takasugi, so she sends him a poem out of boredom.
Though I go to you
ceaselessly along dream paths,
the sum of those trysts
is less than a single glimpse
granted in the waking world.
In less than a day he sends back a reply.
Our life in this world -
to what shall I compare it?
It is like an echo
resounding through the mountains
and off into the empty sky.
She reads the letter and puts it away. A minute later she reads it again.
Takasugi Shinsuke's handwriting is neat and elegant. A symptom of a psychopath, she decides promptly, and folds the letter in eighths and keeps it in her pocket like some odd good luck charm. She imagined that once upon a time, he held a beautiful soul, but had gone corrupt, rotten - spoiled in a way.
Soyo shook her head - was she truly romanticizing such a man? This man, who had destroyed thousand-year-old temples, innocent people and homes, and the livelihoods of the citizens?
She can feel her mind decaying in a place like this. Everyone ogles at her like a zoo animal. The slip of paper reminds her there is a semblance of normality in the twisted cage that she lives in, no matter how insane Takasugi may appear to be.
iv.
Her next visitor is Kijima, a blond surly example of a girl on the spaceship. She's brash, a little rude, and tough. Not unlike Kagura.
"You better watch your back, Princess," she spits out with half a smirk at the same time. "You can try to seduce Shinsuke-sama all you want, but it won't work. I've tried for years."
"I - I never intended to," Soyo stutters, embarrassed. "Besides, I'm in prison. What can I do?"
"Don't you tempt him into thinking that he'll surrender on your terms. Because that won't happen. Me and Shinsuke, we've gone back for years." Her hand cocks arrogantly on her side, but beyond that, there's a radiance and confidence to be admired.
"I wish I were you," Soyo admits.
Kijima is so unused to the gentility of female company, and thusly taken aback. "I - ! It's been a long time since anyone's told me something like that."
"Well it's true," Soyo says. "I can't even walk around here freely. I'm was a prisoner then and now, only in different cages."
"Man, and here I thought it'd be rad to be a princess. Don't you noblewomen get to eat foie gras every day back when you lived in that palace?"
"No, not exactly... Though I don't even like foie gras."
"Spoken as a true noble!" Kijima laughs and suddenly the world is less lonely with two girls on the spaceship. "Speaking of which, why are you on this ship?"
"Nobume-san arrested me," Soyo said. She is still a little heartbroken over that betrayal.
"Oh I see." Kijima looks at her thoughtfully. "Y'know, Shinsuke-sama killed your uncle. Did anyone else tell you?"
" ... He deserved it," Soyo said, after taking it in. "He cut off the arms of my caretaker."
"Wow, no one told me you were a sadist, Princess." Kijima eyed the girl more cautiously now. "Maybe Shinsuke was right to lock you up."
"Don't be silly," Soyo said. "Everyone here - they're much tougher. Stronger. What can a someone like me do?"
There's a thoughtfulness in Kijima's eyes that betray her cause. Meeting Soyo has made her ambiguous - she isn't the enemy of Kiheitai, whose orders are to slaughter all compatriots and allies of the Bakufu. Neither is she entirely sheltered, she has accepted defeat and is compliant to all of the orders on ship.
If anyone had told her that the young woman before her was the sister of the Shogun, Kijima wouldn't have believed them. She wore regular clothes and her hair was a little unkempt with nothing to show that she was of noble blood.
"Hey - " and here, Soyo seemed a little embarrassed, " - Do you think I could get a shower? I figure since you were a girl, you'd know the better places..."
Her cell had a bathroom and a sink but not much in the way of body cleansing.
"Let me ask him about it," Kijima said. "I know there are other cells that are a bit more... well, luxurious."
The next day the blonde girl handcuffs Soyo and leads her to a higher cabin in the spaceship.
"We usually save these rooms for Amanto businessmen," the blond says. "You've been behaving pretty well, so he shrugged me off and said I could do whatever."
"I appreciate that, Kijima-san."
"Call me Matako," the woman said, flashing her an impish grin.
"O - Okay, Matako." The only other people she's called by their first name was her brother, Maizou, and Kagura - and there is a sudden warmth in her chest that conveniently ignores the fact that Kijima Matako faithfully serves a man Soyo has every reason to hate.
The room has carpet, a nice window to look at the stars outside, and a soft futon made of goose feathers. It's not anywhere nice as the bedroom she used to have, but that past is long gone.
"I'll be locking the door," Matako said, after unlocking the cuffs from Soyo's wrists. "There's a button next to your bed - if you need anything, someone will get it for you provided you're not asking for machine guns or anything to kill yourself."
"Make no mistake though," the woman added. "You screw up in anyway, you're going down to the dungeons. And trust me, you really don't wanna be in the company of filthy, dirty aliens."
Soyo nodded. The door clicked with a jiggle to signal the lock.
So, a new upgrade, new freedom. It feels like she'll be here forever, but as long as they keep bringing her books to read and more paper to write on, she won't die of boredom if people keep visiting her.
She bites on her fountain pen, and decides to write another letter to Takasugi to thank him.
v.
Shinsuke still hasn't killed her - whether it's out of amusement or plans to use Soyo as a hostage, he doesn't know.
"That girl is too kind," Bansai mused as he slit open the letter. For weeks now, he's been reading them and discarding the ones that he knows Shinsuke will react badly to; Tokugawa Soyo is a brave soul for attempting to engage in contact with someone who has imprisoned her. So far, the poem is the only one he's felt is fine to send to the commander. A poem was harmless enough; in fact Shinsuke was so amused that upon receiving it had quoted another poet.
"So the little girl is well-educated," he said, removing the pipe from his mouth and chuckling softly. "She's in the wrong place here..."
Her melody was sweet and lovely, like one would expect of a princess. The girl was passionate about saving her country the way that Takasugi Shinsuke was about destroying it.
If Bansai hadn't met Shinsuke first, he wouldn't have minded being her vessel, despite the complacency of a rotten nation. She was idealistic and naive, with too much faith in people. She still wrote letters asking Shinsuke to spare the mountains and the valleys of Japan.
Now, how does a sheltered girl like that even know the existence of such places? he wondered. They hadn't finished the raid on Choshu yet, as there were some factions that had put up a strong resistance, but still...
It was common knowledge that the people of Edo loved the girl, most of all the Shogun who held affection for his little sister. And now he could see why, with her good-hearted naivety. Tokugawa Soyo was special, so beautifully rare.
On a ship full of cynics, debauchery, and good-for-nothings, she still hasn't seen things that make men like him and Shinsuke turn their backs on the world. Still doesn't understand why they want to see the world burn.
He read the latest letter. It is a letter of appreciation, for Takasugi had allowed more or less for her to move into a room that isn't a prison cell anymore.
Bansai doesn't know whether to laugh or cry.
vi.
"Henpeita-san, will you indulge a girl and tell me why Takasugi wants to destroy the world?"
"My dear, you are too old for my taste," he says but it isn't without malice or anything hostile. "Though you are very lovely. Very, very lovely."
The girl beams as if she has been handed a million dollars. "Will you tell me more if I add "-sama" to the end of your name?"
"As a matter of fact I will," he said, and he unlocked her door. "Don't worry, I'm not a barbarian, just a feminist."
Soyo laughed. "If you say so, Henpeita-sama."
She offered him a chair while she sat on the bed.
"My dear, there are simply things in this world that I and Takasugi - alongside with the Kiheitai - would like to change."
"Such as ...?"
"Personally, I would have liked to have rebuilt Japan from scratch, but it doesn't seem likely these days." The man sighed. "Takasugi is a good man, though his fiery rage causes him to obliterate things that he considers inferior of his interest."
Soyo was intelligent enough to keep her mouth shut regarding Takasugi, so she did.
Instead she decided to change tactics. "Henpeita-sama, is not changing the world in a more humane way more noble and befitting of a samurai?"
"My dear, that wouldn't change anything."
"You wouldn't know that - "
"Tokugawa-san."
"Forgive my transgression," she said softly.
"No offense taken," the older man said, though both of them knew this was simply said for cordiality.
Uneasily, he began to speak again. "I was one of the very few who disagreed with the way that the Amanto took over Edo. Unfortunately, the men under Sadasada's command decided to wipe out those who shared my ideology. I suppose they don't teach you things like the Kansai Purge, do they..."
"No," said Soyo, eyes widening. "Not at all."
"You were barely alive back then. I shouldn't blame this on you so much as your uncle but... I can't say the same for - "
"Takechi." A cold and irritable voice interrupted their conversation. "What did I tell you about fraternizing with the prisoners?"
To her silent horror Takasugi Shinsuke stood outside her door.
"My apologies," Henpeita said, though his expression clearly said he was not sorry at all. "'Til next time, I suppose."
He quickly trotted out of Soyo's room, and got away before any more trouble could come before the two of them. Soyo wasn't sure of what to say to Takasugi that would pardon Henpeita.
Turned out she didn't need to. "You were foolish to allow him to enter your room," he said.
"H-he said I was too old for him."
"And you believed him?"
"Yes."
He snorted. "You really are as naive as the rumors go."
"I suppose so... but I don't think that's a bad thing.
"Oh?"
"Yes. I think the unhappiest people in the world at the ones who know the most."
There was a moment when he breathed out smoke, a pungent but oddly appealing smell for Soyo, who rarely smelled anything other than the incense burned in her room.
"There is a certain beauty in knowing the abyss," he said finally. His sole eye locked onto hers and she swallowed nervously. Would this be the day she angered him once more?
Her fears were unfounded, again. "Have a good night, Princess."
"Good night," she said.
She can still feel the ghost of his hand gripping her cheek. He is volatile, this man. One moment she can believe that he wants to kill her, to rejoice over her dead body, and another moment she can see that he is simply another man.
Takasugi Shinsuke, exactly what kind of person are you?
To be continued...