Kamaza Chikage's eyes shot open and he rose from his futon covered in cold sweat, the images of the past dancing freely in his mind. Panting as he remembered the sight of his dead father, and the resulting anger, fear and trauma that led him to take his father's fallen katana to exact vengeance upon his uncle, he threw away his blanket and decided to exit his room to have a breath of the cool, night air.
The moon was full that night, glowing amber, surrounded by uncounted stars. Autumn was kind to Kagoshima, the seat of his family's influence and power, a bastion of safety to all those of his race in the surrounding regions. Ever since he was a boy, he had guarded his family as its head, thrust into a position of great power and responsibility at such a tender age. Now a man grown, his cares and worries did not end one bit. In fact, he sensed that they would grow, in an ever-increasing pace.
"Nightmares again, Kazama?" a deep voice intruded his thoughts. He looked towards his right, and found Amagiri Kyuuju, the third son of the Amagiri clan's head, sworn to his service ever since he took his late father's position as the head of his family. The two of them had trained and studied together ever since. Although on paper, Amagiri would be his lackey in every meaning of the word, but they regarded one another as brothers in arms, although they rarely showed it on their faces.
Kazama harrumphed. "I still cannot shake off that habit of having them," he replied. Amagiri had been one of the few who knew that he had those nightmares because of their close relationship. A long time ago, he had found them to be a source of terror, and now, he had learned not to fear them, but he found them to a source of weakness. Every time he had those nightmares, he had felt utter regret that he could not reach his father in time, even though he knew that it was high time for him to move on from the past.
"You must learn not to abide by them," Amagiri advised him, crossing his arms as he leaned against the balcony. "How long has it been since your late father passed on?"
"Sixty years," Kazama answered. Sixty years was roughly an entire lifetime of a human in that age, and he was barely considered a man grown. The Oni lived lives far longer than that of humans, but there was a time when the Oni were not wholly ageless. Assimilation with humans had thinned out their powers and their life-spans, but since the coming of the Tokugawa Era, following the madness and the chaos of the Battle of Sekigahara, the Oni Council had commanded the leaders of each Oni clan to distance themselves from humankind, and their blood began to run pure again. Sons and daughters lived longer than their parents, and now, those of his generation were expect to live for several centuries at most.
In those sixty years, Kazama Chikage had proven himself to be one of the most successful clan-leaders in recent times. With the increasing rebelliousness of humans that governed the Satsuma-han, he took a risk of cultivating silk in his family's lands, to be traded with the foreign ships that secretly docked in the ports of Kagoshima Bay, which in turn gave his family monetary access to items like medicine, and better crops to grow for themselves apart from the agricultural goods like giant radishes, tea, various oranges and rice-liquors. The Kazama family's village had become something like a self-sufficient establishment, a mystery to the denizens of the capital of the Satsuma-han, but also a boon to its economy. Hana, his illustrious grandmother, had seen to it that her grandson would become not only a formidable warrior, but also an ingenious administrator and steward of the activities of his clan, because they were the heads of the Oni in the western regions of Japan, having the allegiances of the Amagiri and Shiranui clans, although they all had equal voices on the Oni Council.
Yet… he knew that all those achievements would be for naught, if not for a certain red mark on the list of expectations placed upon him. Already a man in the eyes of his people, and already able to ensure the security of his clan and lands, he still had one goal to accomplish. He would have to secure a wife, and if possible, a strong heir. His grandmother would prefer a girl-child and a boy for great-grandchildren, in that particular order. Nothing short of a pure-blooded Oni female would do for his choice, and due to the lack in number of Oni females to start with, his quest for a fitting wife tarried ever longer without bearing fruit.
He had seen no need for a wife, because for sixty years he had led his family through a tumultuous time, having survived in-fighting from within his clan. When his late father was the head of the family, the administration of the clan was split with his uncle, and with the outcome of such an arrangement, he was not ready to delegate anything to anyone else, nor was he willing to put his life and the fate of his clan on the line. He would only give such duties to those he trusted with his life, and currently, he would only task Amagiri to the more… logistical sides of his duties.
"So, you have finally tired of handling everything by yourself, and finally want to find a wife?" Amagiri asked. Those sixty years did not come easily for Kazama. Between weapons training, learning to govern a large village of close relatives in various holdings, and becoming politically savvy in the affairs of the Oni Council, there was not a moment when Kazama Chikage (and to some degree, Amagiri himself) had any opportunity to rest.
"The old goats only claim that I am overworking myself, they have no proof," Kazama answered, massaging his templers, as if he was nursing a headache. Despite the seemingly disrespectful pronoun he used for the elders of his clan, comprising of the five oldest and most venerable individuals bearing the Kazama surname, including his grandmother, who had watched over the clan for more than a full century, Kazama had no qualms putting them on the high pedestal all Oni elders were placed upon. If they could survive through the ages in such a chaotic world, they would certainly not to be trifled with. Looking towards the east, where the first light of dawn could already be seen from the seaward horizon, he exhaled a deep, labored breath. "They have chosen the daughter of the Yukimura clan for me."
Amagiri furrowed his eyebrow. "Is she not just a child?" he asked Kazama. A few years ago, the Yukimura clan, another clan on the Oni Council, of great and proud lineage, disseminated news of great happiness. A set of twins were born to the clan-leader, Chizo, a famed Oni-healer, and one benevolent to humans, and more importantly, the set of twins were fraternal. The older had been a boy, and the younger, a girl. Both were given names befitting of clan-leaders, signifying that they would both be trained to hold their father's office one day.
"Child or not, it's just a formality," Kazama said. Such was the tedium and irony of the Oni race. Too preoccupied with their own rituals and social structures, they would keep to the ways prescribed to their ancestors despite their great personal freedoms, because it was the only form of comfort for them, a diminishing race fighting to survive. There was completely nothing to stop him from taking any woman he wanted to as a wife, but Kazama knew that it was better that he took a female who had the same pure Oni blood as he did, for Oni married for life. It would be counter-productive if he married a woman only to have her die halfway through his lifetime, and he would be forced to take up all the work again. Of course, if the girl were to have chosen another in the future, she would be free to cancel the engagement. Kazama would just have to pursue her to the ends of the earth in order to achieve his goals.
The home of the Yukimura clan was deep in the mountains of Japan's eastern plains. Their territory was not as wide as that of the Kazama's beachfront lands, but they guarded several sacred rivers blessed by whatever deity that watched over their race, and the waters of those rivers were said to be able to cure every sickness known to the world. So clean and pure were the waters of the Yukimura village that they glittered in the sunlight… or so the legends ran.
Kazama was acquainted well with Yukimura Chizo, who was slightly older than he was. There was many a time when he had written to Yukimura, asking advice that only those of their station could answer. The only difference between them, was that Yukimura was a known sympathizer of humans. The humans who lived nearby the Yukimura village went there in droves to learn the secrets of their medicine, but were granted nothing. Instead, Yukimura ensured that the Oni under his command would never turn a human down in need. Kazama, on the other hand, was content to let them rot as they so deserved, being the monstrous, destructive people they were. There could not be two more different individuals.
"We leave for the Yukimura village this afternoon," Kazama told Amagiri. A ship had already been prepared to bring the elders of not only the Kazama clan but also the Amagiri elders, who would act as witnesses for the groom. The royal clan, the descendants of Suzuka Gozen, would do the same for the Yukimura family. The very fact that he had no hand in the preparations of the journey towards the Yukimura lands spoke volumes that his clan elders never wanted to give him a choice in any of the arrangements made.
"You seem unwilling to get on with it," Amagiri commented, noticing a slightly more pronounced scowl on Kazama's face. However, this would not be the first time he was forced to secede to his family's wishes. The elders of his clan were a wily, sneaky bunch, knowing that he would refuse any suggestion or opinion they had.
"It is unnecessary," he replied and turned back towards his room. He needed to pack for the journey as well, and luckily for him, his grandmother was often very approving of the wardrobe that he had chosen for himself. He would be wearing the colors of his family, gold, red and black to the betrothal ceremony, and would have to coordinate his clothes according to those colors.
It did not take him too long to pack what he needed, from his clothes, to several books that would keep him company during the seawards journey to Edo, and then towards the Yukimura lands on foot. His preferred subjects had been history and politics, because they told him much of the folly of humans, necessary tales of cautions, written by masters from Japan and China, as well as several translated volumes from Western thinkers. The more he read, the more he realized that humans were born on this earth to devour one another, and they left the world in ruins in the wake of their greed. He remembered that his grandfather had made it his life's work to heal the land of the hurts sustained during the Battle of Sekigahara, fought in the year 1600, but the shocks made onto Nature took even longer to recover. Seedlings became weak as the result of hastening the harvests to feed the many soldiers needed on both sides, the human blood that stained the soil during and after the battle… Sekigahara had been such a small area in Japan, yet… the effects sustained by that small plot of land that barely held any life reverberated all through the nation, and the humans were still blind to their folly…
Even now as he and his family were moving towards a new age of stability, he had heard news of a new shadow that would soon pour over their nation. The presence of foreign ships had been a sight of normal occurrence in Kagoshima and in Hagi, but those ships were trading ships, bringing goods into the Japanese black-market, because Japan's doors were still closed to foreigners. Things were different in Edo, however. The foreign ships that were spotted at the eastern coasts of the country were ships of military nature. Strange flags, those belonging to faraway countries from the West each marked the ship's masters, for whatever reason they were there. He knew that he would have to act quickly, and that merely finding an excellent wife and siring strong heirs would not be enough to defend his family, and perhaps, even his people in the longer run.
"What should I do, Otou-sama?" he asked the lone rose-plant he had tended to in gardens of the Kazama manor, just a few moments after he had finished packing. The rose was not a plant native of Japan. It had been given to his mother by a travelling Chinese Oni trader, who had been a guest at the manor due to his breeding, as a token of thanks for their hospitality. His mother had loved it so much that she had it planted right away, and when she had passed in childbirth, his father had taken care of it in her memory. He had always associated that rose as his father's love for his mother, and revered it as if it was his father. "Can you see the storm-clouds gathering over our heads wherever you are now?"
Of course, the rose did not reply. Its red petals merely stared blankly at him. The result would be the same if he asked his father's tombstone instead.
"Please tell me that your silence means that I should find my own way, and that you want to rest in the netherworld with Oka-sama…" he scowled sarcastically. To his surprise, a gust of wind blew around him, making the plant's stems sway back and forth, making it look as if the rose was nodding its little head in answer. "Hmph, suit yourself," he replied himself, and went on his way.
If he tarried any longer, his grandmother would not forgive him at all.
HAN: If you read my Hakuouki fics, particularly The Quest, you'll realize that the Kazama Manor is still the one on Kagoshima's beachfront, and not the one on Sakurajima. I would expect that moving and uprooting a large village like the Kazama village would be a logistical nightmare and would take some time to complete, heh heh! I actually wanted to use Kazama's given name in this fanfic, but for some reason... the thought did not stick at all. Oh, and by the way, is there actually ANY real reference as to where the Yukimura lands are exactly?
Elonore: I thank you for being around to read this one as well! Heh heh heh, I think that there would be slightly more Kazama/Chizuru moments in this one, although they would be less of a lovey-dovey nature, and more of the kind we see in Sekkaroku. ^_^ I hope you enjoyed this chapter as well!
OnikuShita: Poor, poor Chikage has been quite neglected by the community, so I decided to give him a little justice! I hope he had more material to play with from the anime and the games, though.
Rei Eiein: Well, there must always be a root for his personality ^_^ He's definitely a bastard for a reason!