Disclaimer: Me no own anything. Death to Mary-Sue.
Chapter One: Find Me a Husband
"...prospective bride from the Cherry Blossom Teahouse, seventeen of age, seeks compatible match for marriage...is demure, faithful, attractive...who isn't these days? ...like a cherry blossom in the bloom...more like cow manure to me... Great devotion to domestic tasks...caring for children...oh give me a break!...family of noble lineage and WEALTH...for inquiry, contact Madame Chikiyo Matsuda. Women nowadays have absolutely neither dignity nor self-respect! They have no qualms about putting themselves up for sale like cattle in the market..."
Nose wrinked in disgust, Yumi tosses the newspaper onto the table with angry dignity.
"If you don't like the ads, why do you read them everyday?" Soujiro inquires with great curiosity.
"Well...I may not like the ads, but I detest the rest of the paper, which is all propaganda about what a glorious institution the Meiji government is. "Enlightenment" my foot..." Yumi trails off and hastens to Shishio's side as he comes into the room, in all of his bandaging glory. Unfortunately, Kamatari beats her to it.
"Shishio-sama, have I told you that you're the sexiest man alive?"
"Hands off, you...you...freak!" Yumi fumes, ready to tear Kamatari's hand off of the socket.
Soujiro looks amused, smiling a jaded smile. Shishio shows no interest in the catfight and settles himself in the leather bound couch while Houji talks enthusiastically about a new strategy that he claims to have a solid chance in boosting the progress of Shishio's domination campaign.
After a not so lengthy discussion, Shishio turns to Soujiro and utters an earth-shattering command:
"Soujiro, you're getting married."
His smile evidently twitches.
"For no reason at all?"
"Yes. Actually, I'm thinking that it's time we all get settled down and raise a big happy family. Most kids get married when they're ten years younger than you. How long are you gonna keep me waiting for grandkids, boy?"
His smile violently twitches. Marriage? Big happy family? Grandkids? Has the deadly summer heat gotten to Shishio's head?
"Come now, Shishio-sama, you've teased him enough." says Yumi.
"Poor kid looks like he's lost his marbles or something." Chou chimes in.
"Sou, you should see the look on your face now. It's priceless." Kamatari adds in his share of comments.
Houji decides to step in and clears up the cloud of confusion, lest Soujirou have his third mental breakdown of the week.
"The marriage is only a part of your next assignment. Your alliance with the daughter of the Cherry Blossoms Teahouse's owner will allow for infiltration into the Teahouse, which is really a ninja head quarter disguises as a brothel..."
"How original!" Kamatari cuts in.
"Then, you will have the opportunity to take over the ninja group by assassinating its leader, leaving the most extensive spy network in the city at our...err...Shishio-sama's disposal."
"Why don't you just let me kill off the ninja leader in the first place? Wouldn't that be less cumbersome?" Soujiro asks innocently.
Houji looks flustered that his ingenious plan is slighted.
"No! That'd be too easy! Where's all the excitement? The possibilities of drama, angst, romance, death and unrequited love? Don't you ever read? That's what happens in the novels all the time..." Everyone begins to edge away from the raving Houji.
"You mean the erotic novels you been stealing out of my room?" Kamatari cuts him off a second time; his tone sounds cold and threatening.
"Eerr...that is entirely explainable..." Now Houji begins to edge away from Kamatari's scythe.
Annoyed with the absurd antics of his subordinates, Shishio gives a great "AHEM" and asks Yumi to get Soujiro groomed and polished and arrange a meeting with the matchmaker and the bride.
Thus, Soujirou is to be married without any regard to his consent. This is no serious matter though, since he is underage, Shishio has taken the liberty to give his parental consent.
Oniko bows as deeply as her injured neck would allowed before her mother who is flipping through porn magazines and chuckling with licentious delight. This will be the last time Oniko asks her mother for any favor, except for giving birth to her, be it a favor at all.
"Mama, I...have...a request..."
"Before you badger me with your silly girl problems, answer this: did you kill Achi like I told you too?"
"No, Mama. I didn't kill...Achi...like...you..told...me to."
"You idiot!"
Oniko's mother tosses the porn magazine ruthlessly at her daughter's face. Oniko shudders profusely at what her virgin eyes have just been exposed to. She never thought that post-menstrual ladies could be so...dirty.
"What...I mean...is...I...did...kill...Achi, but not...like...you...told me to."
"How so?"
"You...told...me...to cut...off his...head, but I...stabbed...his... heel...instead."
"Why?"
"The...man's right...foot...was...crushing...my windpipe...his left foot...was...about..to make a...pancake...out of...my face...I had to ...stab his heel...after which...he...collapsed...with...an aweful...roar...and...died...from...herrmohage..."
"Why didn't you tell me so?"
"But, Mama, I...did...tell...you...so...just...now...The man's...right..."
Oniko's mother throws another porn booklet at her daughter's face to shut her up. After the foolish girl had recovered from a massive nosebleed, the choleric woman proceeds:
"Now, what favor did you intend to ask of me?"
"I want...to get married."
-Speak up! Even a rat farts louder than you speak!
Oniko'd obey her Mama like the subservient daughter that she is, except that her windpipe is severely damaged from the enemy's crushing it. All she could do is wheezing feebly while pointing at the stiff cast enclosing her neck.
"Oh, that explains why you were making those annoying pauses in between. Now, repeat what you tried to request of me."
"I...want...to get married."
"What for? Then, you have kids! Don't make that mistake like I did with your fatheaded father!"
"So I...won't have to...work for you...anymore."
"What's wrong with assassinating depraved politicians and aiding your own mother in her glorious campaign to world domination?"
Again, Oniko points emphatically to her neckcast. Her face is bright red either from fever or exasperation. Or both. She continues to wheeze:
"The rules...say...only singles...can..serve...in...your cohort."
The mother nods solemnly in acknowledgement.
"That is true. But..."
Oniko gazes at her mother with the desperate look of a rat begging the cat to spare its pitiful life. There are so much distress, despair, and depression in her eyes, they'd implode any moment.
"...who would marry you?"
The mother chortles with all the wickedness a 50 years old retired courtesan is capable of.
Enraged with utter fury, Oniko jumps to her feet and snatches the porn booklet out of her mother's clutch and shreds it to little pieces and spits on the guy's naked half ass. She looks at her indignant mother squarely in the eye and declares as loudly as her windpipe-crushed, wheezy voice could manage:
"I can...find...a...husband...and...I...will!"
The room becomes eerily still. Both mother and daughter can hear their own heartbeats. Out of the blue, an invisible rat farted.
Five moments of quietness later.
The mother offers her daughter a cordial look.
"Sorry sweetie. But the rat is still louder than you."
In spite of that, this is the first time in her pitifully obedient life that Oniko asserts herself to the tyrannical mother that she fears more than the boogeyman. She feels like a big shot. No, she IS a big shot. Her self-esteem is at a high point that it's never dreamed of before. Oniko wishes that she had had the courage to stand up to her mother earlier--much, much earlier, like the time when her mother gives her a sword to play with and tells her to cut people up as a game... But there's a first time for everything, Oniko comforts herself. If she'd persevere, someday she might get herself out of this hellhole and even lead a normal life.
"A normal life...What are you, a retard?"
Squinty-Eyed girl--a young courtesan/assassin in the cohort--laughs with contempt when Oniko tells her of her marriage plans. The girl exhales little puffs from her nostrils before passing on the opium pipe to her friend, High-Cheekbone girl.
High-Cheekbone girl looks at Oniko with dreamy, langurous eyes:
"Oniko-chaaaan...Don't talk of such dreadful thing! We have such a sheltered life here under Madam's wings. Where else can you find food, clothes, and pipe served on a silver platter? If you want a man, you could always ask for Madam's permission to take a lover..."
"Don't even talk to me about men. I'm so sick of all the perverts squirming around this place like maggots!"
Greatly annoyed, Oniko turns on her heels and stomps away.
Behind her back, High-Cheekbone girl calls out in a lazy voice:
"Don't be foolish. It's a cold, cruel world out there, Oniko-chaaaannn..."
What do these potheads know, thinks Oniko. They have been so brain-washed by her mother that they can't even tell a chicken from a peacock anymore. This brothel is the only life they know of, without it, they feel deprived.
It's scary what the wicked woman is capable of with a little opium and a lot of conditioning.
Nontheless, it's about time somebody stands up to her.
You coward, chides a harsh voice in her head. It's just a broken neck. Need I remind you that the greatest honor a warrior can hope for is dying for the master? Do you forget the meaning of loyalty? You're lucky you aren't yet compelled to commit suicide just for thinking of treason alone. Loyalty, Oniko, loyalty, loya...
To hell with loyalty. What good is honor if all that's left of me is a screwed-up, mangled, bludgeoned piece of mince meat? There's no happiness in dying. I'd die before I'd let her drag me into another death mission. Oh, isn't that ironic?
Having made up her mind for real this time, Oniko gathers the meager savings that she accumulates over the years through selling her shares of opium to the other girls and visits Madame Chikiyo Matsuda, the most sought-after local matchmaker.
edited July 25th, 2007