Dear Chikage,
I hope that my daughter has been kind enough to be your host once you've arrived in Kyoto. She can be stubborn at times, but the girl has the best interests of our people in her heart. I beg you to have mercy on her with that sharp tongue of yours.
Now, let us get to business. I have been to the north with Hana-baa's clansmen, and I have heard some startling rumors. They seem to suspect that the massacre of the Yukimura clan did not happen due to the malice and cruelty of the humans alone. There were defenses in that village that only someone in the family could have disabled… My daughter told me that you have encountered the survivor of the massacre, and I plead you to seek him out and bring him to me at the Sumiya within a fortnight. This is a matter of utter brevity and I want this rumor quashed with all haste.
Senya.
The message from Senya was short and to the point. The Princess of the Yase clan could be strict and stern when needed to be, and such troubling tidings would have definitely unsettled her, and of course, most of the Oni Council, evidently showing that no Oni clan would ever be the same again following the disaster that befell their brothers and sisters of the Yukimura clan. It proved that his instincts were right, that he should retrieve Yukimura Koudou all the sooner.
Thus, once again, from the lodgings of the Satsuma-han in Kyoto, Kazama and Amagiri set out to Mibu village, where Koudou had been first sighted. They would have to start somewhere, whether or not he was really based there. They had a written order for this search from Senya, and was akin to a warrant in human-terms. He would ensure that Yukimura Koudou has his audience with Senya as soon as possible.
"We will enter Mibu village at night," Kazama told Amagiri, knowing full-well that two Oni walking around in daylight would be suspicious for such a suburban setting, particularly due to their coloring, what with them being newcomers to the capital. Nighttime was also when the wolves of Mibu were on the prowl in the heart of the city, which also meant that they would have to avoid those beasts at any cost. There were… disturbing rumors that the Shinsen-Gumi had burnt down inns that turned them down, citing that they had the right to do so, because they were samurai working for the Bakufu. Such entitlement was foolhardy, and utterly stupid, in Kazama's opinion, but they did not make the Shinsen-Gumi any less dangerous.
"As you wish," Amagiri replied. Nighttime would be the time when people involve themselves with suspicious activities go about, thinking that the cover of darkness would aid them. Kazama would be right in choosing the time for their operation. "What will you do when you find Yukimura Koudou?"
"I will do what I am told to do," Kazama answered. "I will bring him to face Senya-dono, and have him answer her suspicions."
Amagiri pursed his lips and furrowed his brow. It was a sign that his mind was unsettled. "Her suspicions are valid, but is it wise for us to use such force on one that has been through the pain of his family?" he asked Kazama. "Perhaps he avoided our kind to forget his sorrow?"
"Then there is all the more reason for us to find him," Kazama said. "It's been ten years, and we should show our concern towards him. After all, our families have long been allies." He would never forget the counsel and advice Yukimura Chizou had given to him, and that reason alone was enough for him to act on this matter, whether or not he had orders from Senya.
Mibu village at night was a lovely, serene sight. The houses were not as large and luxurious as the ones within Kyoto city. They were smaller, understated. However, as they got closer to the center of the village, they began to hear eerie sounds. They were that of men screaming in pain, their voices unintelligible most of the time.
"What was that?" Amagiri asked, stopping once another blood-curdling wail.
Kazama looked around their surroundings, and tried to find the source of the noise. His eyes turned amber as he used his Oni powers to aid him. However, the closer he felt he had gotten to the origin, the stronger the presence that was cancelling out his effort grew. It was as if someone was hiding something, and would do anything to hide it. It was a counter-productive effort, of course, because he could sense the direction from whence the resistance came, and would also lead him to what he wanted to find.
"That one," he said, pointing towards the house with no lanterns hanging at all. But all of the sudden, the screaming stopped. Quiet reigned over the village, and it was obvious that they were being watched, and their presence was already known. Since the trap had already been sprung, they might as well investigate it thoroughly.
With the speed of their people, they went into the house, and found Yukimura Koudou standing in the courtyard, looking utterly surprised to see them. However, he regained his composure quickly enough, and gave adequate greetings to Kazama and Amagiri. "It is my pleasure to meet you, Kazama Chikage, leader of the Western Oni," he said to Kazama, while bowed graciously to Amagiri.
"The pleasure is mine," Kazama replied gruffly. "Yukimura Koudou, you are expected to be at the Sumiya two weeks from tonight. Your presence is ordered by Senya-dono." There should be no mention of who Senya was. All the Oni knew who their Princess was, and they were expected to follow her orders to the letter.
"The Princess is worried," Amagiri added to soften the aggressive tone of Kazama's words. "She wants to meet with the last survivor of the Yukimura clan, to see if you need anything."
Koudou did not seem to want to move at all. "She has never sought me out before. What use am I to her now?" he asked suspiciously. "I am sure that if the Princess of the Yase clan wish to learn something, she would have had the information at her fingertips by the time she's thought about it." His words were bitter. He was smiling kindly, almost joking as he said them, but Kazama could sense the irony behind them without even trying.
"You seem to have the answers that she seeks," Kazama replied nonchalantly. "In any case, you know better than to shirk from her summons."
The reach of the Yase-hime was far and wide if she wanted it to be, but his ability to avoid them was greater still. For ten years, they could only gather rumors of him, and nothing more. It made Senya all the more suspicious, particularly following the pieces of evidence they had gathered from the site of the Yukimura massacre, as well as from what she had heard from the northern clans, it would only be natural for Senya to want to speak to Koudou about the fate of his family.
"Know not that you do not have a choice in this," Amagiri told Koudou sternly. "You will answer Senya-hime's call willingly or you can do so in chains."
"Hmph," Koudou replied. "And you would be the ones who would chain me?" he asked them, eyes darting between Kazama's cold, hard gaze, and Amagiri's neutral ones. Then, to their surprise, he sighed. "What kind of subject would I be if I did not meet our ruler, the head of the Oni Council?" His smile was a strange one now, one that reeked of false kindliness. Perhaps this was the mask he wore for his patients in Edo?
"Senya-dono would be waiting for you at the Sumiya two weeks from tonight," Kazama told Koudou. "Do not think that you can hide from us, or the Yase Clan once you have taken up residence in Kyoto. Nothing escapes our sight."
Koudou bowed his head in deference. "I will be there, as expected of me," he said. Hopefully he could be expected to hold true to his promise.
With their work done, Kazama and Amagiri disappeared into the dark of the night, they had more work to do.
Two Weeks Later
Being a member of the Oni Council meant that Kazama was also expected to attened Koudou's audience with Senya. Thus, there he was, seated to her right, arms crossed, and a bottle of sake right in front of him. There was a great silence in the room, one that he felt was stifling as Senya and Koudou stared one another down. Neither among the two spoke first, and he was in no position to utter the first word. Of course, Koudou had properly paid his respects to Senya as befitting her status, but other than that, no word was said between them at all.
Senya was studying this strange subject of hers. She was trying to understand his psyche. In fact, his silence spoke more words to her than his defiance. It made her realize that there was something that he had feared more than her. "You can speak openly here, Koudou," she told him in the kindest manner possible. "You do not need to fear any retribution nor punishment."
Those words seemed to have moved Koudou somewhat. He bowed his head low, and he said, "Forgive me, hime-sama, I am have only a tiny drop of Oni blood, and all connection I have with my clan is my surname. I do not know what is expected of me." What he said was true. The Oni might have been a culture that valued their traditions and customs, but these were only enforced upon their rulers, the immediate families of the clans in the Oni Council, while those from the branches were given no great expectation in their rites and rituals. "I thank Kazama-sama for reminding me of my duties."
Kazama nodded cautiously towards Koudou's acknowledgement, and continued his silence. He, like Senya, was still keen on observing his behavior. He could have been from a minor position in the Yukimura clan, but they could easily sense that he was something more than that.
"You are forgiven," Senya proclaimed. "Now, you must tell me what happened to your village ten years ago. We have no eyewitness account of the massacre, and we want to know how better to defend our lands and people from this tragedy." Her pink eyes were filled with seriousness, her voice motherly, but firm. She had wanted to solve the mystery of the destruction of the Yukimura clan once and for all, and she would not allow Koudou to leave until she had her answers.
"They came in the night," Koudou answered, eyes cast down. Kazama thought it to be a ploy, so that they could not read his expression, but within seconds he held his head up again. "They brought cannons with them, and blasted the walls of our village down. When the walls crumbled, and when we tried to escape, they rained fiery arrows upon us. They burned everything down."
Senya sighed. "What of Chizo and his family?" she asked him. Among the heads of the leading Oni clans, Senya was similar in age with Yukimura Chizo, as was Amagiri Kazutarou. Therefore, the fellowship between the three of them would be the same as that between Kazama, Amagiri Kyuuju and Shiranui Kyo. It was how the children from the clans of the Oni Council were raised. She could not count the amount of tears that she had cried upon the knowledge that Chizo had fallen, with his beautiful wife, Natsuko, the fates of their children unknown.
"Chizo-sama watched Natsuko-sama being burnt alive, while a human stabbed him in the neck," Koudou said. "I chanced upon this gruesome sight as I was escaping the carnage," Koudou replied. His face was now blank, as was his voice. "The boy, Kaoru, was taken by the Nagumo clan, I heard. I have no knowledge of the girl."
The Nagumo clan was once a clan of Hageru Oni. They were outcasts that returned into the fold of polite Oni society because the Oni Council did not believe that children should be punished for the sins of their fathers. It was quite the revelation, not owing to the fact that the new leader of the Nagumo clan was also named Kaoru. A boy with feminine features. Senya was sure that Kazama had not met the boy before.
"How would you know so much detail, if you were escaping the village when it was burning down?" Kazama enquired further. He found it strange, that a minor son of the clan was able to come by such important information. He also remembered that Senya had brought up the fact that the defenses of the Yukimura village could only be disabled by someone from the family, and that fact alone was enough to rouse suspicion that Koudou was the one who betrayed his own clan.
Koudou looked deep into Kazama's ruby eyes. "Kazama-sama, I remember clearly that my quarters in the village were at the southern end of the village, and the only way out was in the north. Would it not make sense that I should pass by the center of the village, where the patriarch of our clan resides?" He then continued without even taking a breath. "I remember the fear that coursed through my veins when I saw Natsuko-sama bound and gagged, and the leader of the humans shouting and cursing at Chizo-sama to surrender. Our family is one of peace, but we have our backbones as well. Chizo-sama did nothing, and could only kneel and watch his beloved wife being burnt alive before they killed him…"
There was no way Koudou's words did not influence Kazama in any way. Chizo had been like a brother to him, and when he inherited the mantle of clan-leadership from his father, Chizo had personally made the journey to Kagoshima to help him through his mourning, and aided him in accepting the reins of leadership. To an even lesser degree, the brothers would be brought even closer with the promise of marriage between him and Chizo's daughter, whose fate they still did not know. Kazama could only steel himself, as Chizo had taught him so many years ago, and waited for Koudou to reveal more.
"What of the defenses of the village?" Senya demanded. "The walls of the Yukimura village are not so weak that they cannot withstand cannon fire." She was sure that there was no way that mere human weaponry could be used to destroy the Yukimura walls. She had personally seen to how they had worked many years before the massacre. Like the Kazama clan who used certain sons and daughters who would maintain a web of illusions around the outer perimeters of their village, the Yukimura clan had a somewhat similar strategy. Their healers were not only able to use their Ki to heal injuries, but there were those in the clan who were able to draw Ki from the earth itself to strengthen the walls of the village. These clan-members worked from an area hidden from view and knowledge to all outsiders, and Senya was the only outsider privy to such knowledge due to her position. That was why she had all the reason to suspect the circumstances of Koudou's survival.
Kazama Chikage was no fool. He completely understood what Senya had meant to imply upon hearing her words. "Senya-dono means to ask where you were when you, as a member of the clan, should have gone to your village's defenses," Kazama reinterpreted her words.
"As I have told you, hime-sama, I have little to no ability to wield the powers of our people," Koudou defended. "I can't even conjure a puff of smoke if I wanted to. What use am I to the defenses?"
Sadly, that was the hard truth of the matter. Without proof to incriminate Koudou, Senya could not do anything else but to claim him innocent of the massacre of his clan. However, there was something else that Kazama had reported to her. He and Amagiri had heard strange, pained wailing in his dwelling in Mibu village. She would investigate this matter as well.
"What of the wailing Chikage and Kyuuju heard in your house?" she asked firmly. "How would you explain that?"
"When I escaped the tragedy of my family with the skin on my back, the Bakufu had heard of my expertise in Western medicine and…" Koudou fell short, and refused to continue. Clearly, he still did not trust Senya to protect him from any spies of the Bakufu. "It is classified information, I cannot…"
"Very well then, Koudou. Go in peace," Senya finally said, relenting. "You may leave now."
Kazama harrumphed the moment Koudou exited the room. "That was utterly unproductive," he growled. "Senya-dono, you should have used more… force on him."
"If he would not reveal anything under peaceful terms, he would not reveal them under duress and torture as well," Senya reasoned. Decades ago, Kazama would have had Koudou in chains and on a rack to get him to talk, but he was wise enough to realize the futility of violence. "I want you to find out what he is hiding from us. But do not let it distract you from your other missions."
Kazama nodded. "I will," he said with a bow. "I will take my leave now."
Senya did not stop him. He would become increasingly busy as the conflict starts to boil over. "Chikage. Koudou made no mention that Yukimura Chizuru is dead. Perhaps one day you will find her?"
"Senya-dono, as it is, marriage is not my greatest concern," Kazama told her. "Even if Yukimura Kaoru is now Nagumo Kaoru, I won't believe that she is alive until I see her, and I think that it's highly unlikely for that to happen."
"Do not discount every possibility so quickly, Chikage," Senya warned him with a twinkle in her eye. "If little Chizuru is not found, then you would have to marry my daughter, Sen, instead."
Kazama pretended that he did not hear Senya's last sentence and left the room as well, disappearing into the seas of patrons of the Sumiya, and into the Kyoto night.
HAN: So, this is how Kazama and Koudou become truly acquainted with one another. It seems to be that it's fitting that Koudou does not mention anything about Chizuru to Senya and Kazama because he has plans for the girl. As for whether or not he is a traitor, it doesn't really matter because the fate of the Yukimura clan was not revisited at all in Hakuouki. Kazama only tells Chizuru how they were destroyed in the games and in the anime, and that's it. I hope you do forgive my two-month absence. Life in general caught on and I was unable to find time to sneak in a chapter. But here is the latest one, and I hope that you find it enjoyable!
NeutralEvilz: Naw, I love you too! The reason I chose to write a Kazama-centric fic was actually due to his route in the games. There, Kazama is not really a villain, and he himself is a victim of circumstance. It was clear that he was in the Satsuma-han because of some form of debt his clan has to the Satsuma government. The Japanese historical details are here to anchor this fic, so that I would have more things to write about other than Amagiri frowning, Kazama strutting around like a peacock and maybe Kaoru being a brat, heh heh!
AnnaChan310 and Ohmissmac: Thank you! May you like this one as well!
SakuraAkatsukiTaichi: Hmmm, I would actually think that reading the Quest first would make the experience of reading this better. Well, it's all up to you!
LeaWolfsfeld: Yes, the boys of the Shinsen-Gumi get to have all the attention, don't they? Otomate seriously needs a spin-off dealing with the Oni in Hakuouki, something more related to the Bakumatsu, as opposed to Toki No Kizuna (which deals with the ancestors of the Oni characters in Hakuouki) that's based on the timeline of the Battle of Sekigahara.
