Fortune converts everything to the advantage of her favorites. – Francois de la Rochefoucauld

Ch3: Baffling Movements

It might take an army two weeks to cross Zui and reach Bun, but for one man flying above the clouds on a kijuu it took only 6 hours. The Imperial forces had withdrawn into their camps, with soldiers huddled together outside tents haphazardly all over the place. It was a strange sight to see in Gyousou's carefully disciplined military, and proof the chain of command was in disarray. But Gyousou was not dead. The rebels were nowhere in sight, and it took him an additional two hours to locate the man he'd left in charge of the rebellion hiding in the mountain passes. The sight of him still alive and hiding made Asen livid.

"You call this an assassination! What happened!"

The man looked confounded and frustrated, "He vanished, mid-battle."

"Vanished? What do you mean vanished?!"

The man replied angrily, "I mean vanished, as in one second he's standing there and the next he's not standing there."

"YOU LET HIM SLIP AWAY!"

"NO!" the man stamped his foot angrily. "He didn't go anywhere, just disappeared into thin air! I was one of the ones fighting him myself at the time, and he was just about to chop my head off when suddenly he wasn't. "

"You stinking liar…"

"It's true! It was at the appointed time, with the sun blazing directly overhead, and suddenly he's gone in broad daylight! If I wanted to lie I would make up a more believable one!"

The appointed time. The reason he had chafed at Taiki's delay in breaking his promise was the executions were meant to be simultaneous, to throw the court into confusion. Taiki had just sent his shirei away in time for when Gyousou's assassination was scheduled. They had both disappeared at the same time.

Asen pointed his sword at the man's throat. "What happened when he disappeared?"

"Nothing!"

"Nothing? No red sky, or trembling earth, or high winds?"

"No, he just wasn't standing there anymore."

Are the two disappearances unrelated after all? "Are you holding back any information, because if you are…"

The man panicked. "I'm not! I've told you everything! I don't know anything else!"

"I see." Asen swung his arm, and the man's body and head fell to the ground separately. "Then you're of no more use to me."

He surveyed the land before him, weighing his options. Coming to a decision, he lit the signal to alert his commander of his presence, and an hour and a half later the man appeared before him.

The commander bowed. "Please excuse my tardiness, Sougen was hard to slip away from unnoticed. General, you summoned me?"

"This man," Asen indicated the decapitated corpse of the rebel leader, "informed me that Gyousou vanished into thin air, and that's all the rebels know. Have the leaders of Gyousou's armies any additional information?"

The commander shook his head, just as confounded as the dead man had been. "Whatever happened, none of us were informed of it beforehand. I followed your orders and commanded those I trusted to let the rebels slip through to the king and reduce the Imperial forces in the heat of battle, but just as the rebels and my soldiers had the king cut off from all the others he vanished. The whole fight was thrown into confusion, which let me further reduce Sougen's forces without anyone realizing, and both sides withdrew. Sougen's taken charge and spread men out all over the countryside to locate Gyousou, but no one has yet. He's even sent a pigeon to Kouki with the tidings. Your orders?"

Asen's chest was filled with searing disappointment; this rendezvous was less fruitful than he would have believed possible. If he had the time he would have stayed himself to search, but if he wanted to be able to manipulate the ministers he needed to arrive around the same time as the pigeon.

"My orders are as follows: Don't reveal yourselves. If anyone finds out what we've done, we'll be done. Stay with the army under Sougen and monitor all communications that arrive to him. Make sure you are the first to hear about it if Gyousou's located, before Sougen himself. Don't let the news reach anyone else, especially Sougen, and report to me right away. If you can keep on subtly decreasing the numbers of those who aren't loyal to us, that would be perfect."

His commander smiled grimly. "With all the chaos no one will think anything of it if troops scattered willy-nilly searching are 'killed by rebels'."

"Put those you trust at the forefront of the search, and check all the mountains and caves around here. If he's hiding, those are the perfect places. I'll come right away if you call, so don't try to take him on yourselves unless you have no choice. We can't let him vanish a second time. And be discreet. No one must suspect you."

"Understood." The man bowed, and took his leave.

Asen saddled his kijuu, still exhausted from the ride there, and flew back to Kouki. Since all his plans had turned to ash around him, he needed to at least use the power of the government to hunt down his enemy.