Chapter Ten: River's Pheonix

A knock at my door.

I tightened my robe and the scarf Nagamasa left on my neck when I turned to it. "Who's there?" I demanded, a tone as cold as ice. After all, I was on the top floor, no one else was here unless they needed to see me.

And for what did someone need to see me?

Holding my composure, it was Keiji behind the door. "May I come in?" Before I could reply, the door slid open, and Keiji walked in. "Didn't I say I didn't want to see you again?" I snapped. He walked past me and towards the wall, his eyes moving up and down. "Do you need a window here? Maybe bring some color in here."

"One candle is enough." I replied, in a modest tone.

He sighed.

"Miya, you know what I'm here for."

"Enlighten me."

Our eyes met.

"I'm a jackass." he sighed.

I said nothing, and allowed him to continue.

"A fool. I've always been. But this is more serious than ever. This wasn't how I envisioned our friendship to go, and I don't know why I felt this was ok. You're hurting, you're confused. With everything that's happening...and all I've been doing was taking advantage of you."

My expression softened.

"Fucking hell. What I mean to say, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for hurting you. I value you, honestly. All the battles we've fought together, side by side, every time you screamed and I held you long into the night, you're my friend, and I feel like a complete asshole. If you hated me, I wouldn't sto-"

"Keiji."

He looked up at me.

"That's enough. I don't need you to apologise anymore."

He mouthed why, but I continued. "Because I don't want to remember. I don't want to see you, to know you as the guy in my bed, I want to know you as the crazy fucker by my side in battle. Remember, you knock them down, and I slice the guts. Aren't we a team? Let's make memories of that.."

He smiled.

"I'd like that. Very much. Things have been peaceful lately, but surely not boring." "I'm sure I'm not helping." I said. He shrugged. "I wouldn't have you any other way."

"Now." he began, and I looked at him again,

"What do we do about Takakage?"

A knock on Takakage's door.

He didn't want to answer.

Because he knew who was behind it. He knew Oda Nobunaga was back there. Not ready to kill him, no, but something more. Perhaps he would have preferred death. Anything to keep him away from the Demon King.

He could still feel those pulsating fingers around his neck. The stoppage of his blood. The numbness in his body. The coldness, the unrelenting terror..

There was a reason why Oda Nobunaga was so feared, and he experienced it first-hand. Never more did he fear anything, or anyone.

The knock again. Louder this time.

He wanted to shout a refusal.

But before he could, the door was slashed open. The remains, kicked down.

Takakage screamed and dodged the flying wooden pieces, and in walked, more like stomped in, was he.

The Demon King.

Oda Nobunaga.

He was frozen on the floor, the Demon's gaze glaring at him. Right into his soul. A cold shiver stuck on him. A look so mesmerizing, so terrifying, so seductive.

His knees were buckling, he almost fell.

He did fall.

But before he could hit the floor, Nobunaga ran, no, floated to the boy's side, and embraced him.

A cold, dark embrace.

An embrace in the fires of hell.

Takakage was nearly dipped to the floor, in the Demon's arms. His eyes never leaving his. Dare he say...Demons could be so...beautiful.

Suddenly, the embrace was warm.

He didn't know what to do with his arms. Nobunaga's, however, were around that lithe waist. His eyes, drinking in his frame, undressing him with those frigid orbs.

Then he realized.

His blue kimono!

"Put your arms around me, boy."

His voice; low and sensual.

Takakage lost his mind. Suddenly, his arms were around the Demon's neck. The two were embracing. This was nothing like when he held the Princess in his arms. Nothing like Mouri Motonari's embrace. Nor sitting in Kikkawa Motoharu's.

This was...

"Do you hold my daughter like this?"

Takakage froze again. Suddenly those warm flames were ice pricks, piercing into his flesh.

"She's beautiful. The most beautiful woman in the world."

Takakage felt like he was going to throw up. Adopted or not, a father shouldn't speak this way about his daughter.

And yet..

"You're handsome."

He licked his lips, looking at the boy like caught prey.

"Milky sweet skin, light hair, thin, nice muscles. So cute."

Finally, Takakage found his voice.

"What are you...getting at...My Lord..?"

"It's no wonder...everyone loves my daughter. I wish...I want to kill Honda Tadakatsu."

Takakage gasped.

Then Nobunaga released him.

"So you know.."

"And she told you?"

"She did."

The two looked at each other. Suddenly, Takakage felt cold again. As if he wanted the Demon to hold him again. "The man who stole my baby's innocence. The man who broke her heart. I feel a failure of a father if I cannot slice his head." he replied.

"Because you know what is at stake." Takakage said. Nobunaga nodded. "In the East, The Hojo, the Takeda, the remnants of the Imagawa, and the Tokugawa fight. With how close we are to Shinano, if I were to look into domestic disputes, we would be in danger. My hands are tied..."

"It's not like you to think so rationally..." Takakage said, before gasping,"Ah! F-forgive me, my lord." "Speak." Nobunaga said.

"Don't you usually just attack until everything is stripped bare?" he asked. Nobunaga smiled, yet his smile was chilling. Like a knife in the boy's heart.

"Yes. And yet, I understand what is at stake. To move forward...but.."

"To keep moving. Like an everflowing stream."

"To have the support of one of the two rivers of the Mouri...do you miss them?"

"Every day."

Nobunaga nodded. Then he walked past the boy, and sat down on his bed. He looked around, his eyes taking in, examining every bit of the room that I had designed for Takakage, right down to the comfortable bed, and the bookcase beside it.

"She made this room."

"Yes. Her and Master Keiji."

Suddenly, Nobunaga's eyes crashed onto his, and he gasped, recoiling as if struck.

"Maeda. He's a walking dead man."

Takakage was silent.

"I see the way he looks at her. They work well in battle. This was my fault. I let her on the battlefield so long as I knew Keiji would take care of her. I knew Miya didn't need it; hell, she's a barbarian warrior from the Nordic Lands..if anything, she was probably better than him...but I couldn't live with myself if something happened. I allowed Keiji to protect her, but I didn't think he'd lust after her."

"She's beautiful, and exotic. No one else in this land has hair so red...eyes so orange...skin so pale. And those muscles. Scarier than most men I've met. She's loud and boisterous. Like a demon herself. And yet, so lovely...I love my daughter. So much. And that's why I can't let anyone near her. I want to rip out the eyes of every man that looks at her. Pluck out the fingers of any man that would dare touch her. I want to kill Tadakatsu, I want to crush him beneath my hand, to feel his life fleeing into nothingness."

"When you become a father, I hope you feel the same way.."

Takakage took a deep breath.

A father...sure, Takakage was getting older. But that didn't mean...no, he could be honest with this man. If Oda Nobunaga was being so open and honest with him, then..

"I cannot." he suddenly said.

Slamming his hand over his mouth as soon as he spoke, as soon as Nobunaga looked at him.

"I mean...I cannot be a father." he said, looking away, shaking his head.

Nobunaga's expression softened.

He approached Takakage, and suddenly placed his hand on Takakage's cheek, cradling it. Takakage looked up, losing his breath at their closeness. "I...I am sterile. I was sick as a child...my...I never fully recovered from that."

"I am sorry." Nobunaga said. "My wife is barren...this is why we adopted Miya."

Takakage felt a small smirk tugging at the corner of his lips, thankful for the change in discussion. "Can you...tell me the story of how you adopted Princess Miya?"

Nobunaga smiled. "Gladly."

The Demon left his side, and the two went to sit by Takakage's bed. Sitting beside each other, this could not be any more awkward. And yet..

"Miya was from the Nordic Lands. Very far, distant, and very cold. I don't know much about her life there, other than it was desolate, barren, and cold. She was a barbaric warrior that everyone was afraid of. A true terror, who protected her clan as the right-hand to her leader. I was unable to pinpoint exactly where in the North she was from, and her accent was so distinct when we first met, no one could understand her."

He smiled.

"We first met when I pulled her out of a box."

Takakage froze, his eyes grew wide.

"Portuguese traders came to my castle back in Owari. They carried in a box full of matchlock guns. Then, I heard a sneeze. I approached the box with a raised eyebrow. Everyone looked on with curiosity. I opened the box, and there I saw her. Scantily clad, hair as red as blood, eyes as orange as fire, she looked like the fiery pits of hell itself. I grabbed that hair and pulled her out of the box. She screamed at the top of her lungs. Shrieking, speaking her language. And then.."

Nobunaga smiled, turning his neck, moving his hair, so Takakage could see three scared slashes on his neck, just below his ear.

"She slashed me. Her nails dug so far into my skin, I bled so much. The scars are permanent. And that's when I fell in love."

Takakage's eyes examined the scars with a heavy heart beat. How terrifying...

"The only person to ever scar the Demon. I knew she had to be mine." he said, his finger tracing the scars, thrice across the flesh. "What made you decide to make her your daughter? Had you not thought of marrying her?" Takakage asked.

"There was no attraction to her...and she was so young. She is eighteen. I saw the way she looked at me. The terror in her eyes said that she needed someone. Not to bed her, but to love her. I was childless, I wanted her at my side. And so I adopted her. The first word I taught her was daddy. Imagine, the tears in my eyes when she said it for the first time."

He smiled again, touching his scars.

"I love her so much. She's my everything. That is why I'm willing to do anything for her. And this is also why I can't. If I kill Tadakatsu, I'd put her in so much more danger. But I don't, I'm a bad father. If I do, I'm a bad father."

"I didn't know Demons could love."

Nobunaga chuckled.

"You are young still..."

"I'm twenty-five." *

"A child."

"If you say so."

"Just say 'yes', Takakage."

"Yes, my lord."

"You're a good son to Motonari. And I can see why Miya finds you so easy to speak to. Continue to be good to her..." he said, rising from the bed.

He stopped, looking at the door, and suddenly, Takakage felt a chilling breeze hit the room.

"I cannot believe the things I've said to you. How easily you stripped me down..."

Takakage was frozen to the bedsheets.

"If any words leave this room, that head will leave your shoulders."

And with that, he left, leaving Takakage alone to ponder everything that had just transpired. Looking down at his hands, and the power they held. "I..stripped down the Demon...to see the human inside. Why me? Why was I the one to have that conversation with him? And why did I tell him about me...my biggest held secret.."

His sterility...it was why Motonari didn't make him the heir to the Mouri, and why he was put on the throne of a smaller, nominal clan.

His greatest failure.

The heir's name was Takamoto.

Mouri Takamoto, the oldest of the Three Arrows. He was well into his thirties and had a child; Terumoto. A young, rambunctious little thing. Takakage tried to be strict with him, while Motoharu, the middle child, had allowed him to run free.

"Running free..."

He smiled, but it was as fake as it could be.

Looking up at the ceiling, in a room he didn't belong in, in a clan he didn't belong in

I wanted to amuse myself.

Kicho and Aunt Oichi fought.

First it was about how bad Kicho looked in the morning, before she applied her makeup. Then it was about Aunt Oichi being a boring coward. Then it was about the hair, and those ugly clothes.

I stood in the corner with my arms crossed. Kicho was on top of Oichi, pulling at her hair, her ample breasts in the younger's face, while Aunt Oichi was flustered, face as red as my hair. It made me laugh.

And suddenly, the ladies stopped.

Both women looked at me with hopeful eyes, I had to turn from their shiny eyes. As if they forgotten what they had fought over, both women surrounded me, and I turned and fled. "I almost had her." Nouhime said. "Sister...for us to be like children. Is that what makes her happy?" Oichi said.

Nouhime simply shrugged. "I'll never get in her head...I am concerned, however."

As I fled from the room, I charged headfirst into Uncle Nagamasa. He fell to the floor, slamming into the wood, and I gasped, holding my hands to my mouth in shock. "Uncle Nagamasa!" I shouted.

"Lord Nagamasa!" Oichi yelled, running from the room. Finding me hovering over the fallen Uncle Nagamasa, Aunt Oichi ran up to us and shouted,"What happened? What did you do?!"

Her voice was shaking, accusatory.

Suddenly, the lighthearted feeling in the air was gone.

We were all frozen, until Nagamasa took my outstretched hand, and I helped him up. "You sure are strong, Princess." he said, rustling my hair. I mildly blushed under his touch. "It was merely an accident. We were both running and we ran into each other." he added. Aunt Oichi looked over in relief, latching herself to him as she dragged him away from me. Uncle Nagamasa looked over his shoulder at me, his eyes saying something I couldn't read.

"There's nothing to be envious about, ya know..." Kicho muttered as she appeared beside me. I wanted to leave, but something made me stay. "I heard that." I said. "Good. Then you know that Oichi has nothing to worry about, and neither do you. Surely, you can do better than him." Kicho said. "Nagamasa isn't my type." I snapped. "Oh? And who is? Of course...Tadakatsu. Or maybe...Keiji?" she asked.

"Don't you dare." I growled.

"So it's Takakage?" she asked.

I froze.

She smirked. Like a viper catching its prey. "Of course not. Don't be ridiculous. He's not interested in me." I said, walking away from her.

When I meant to say that I wasn't interested in him..

"That tone sure sounded sadder than it should have been.." she said, placing her finger to her lip in thought.

As I walked away, I couldn't get the thought of her out of my head. We had actually talked. And somehow, I didn't dislike it. It was...strangely comfortable.

That didn't mean I wanted to be friends.

And she said...that Takakage...and I?

What a crazy idea.

He, a rat of the Mouri, and I, a Princess of the Oda. There was no way, I didn't want...he never showed any signs...sure, he cared, but...once everything was resolved, once I felt that I was finally ok, would he walk away? Am I nothing but a project to him?

The idea bothered me. It lingered inside.

What if i was nothing but a project, and once he felt we had made enough progress...he would..

I didn't want that.

But I know better.

He'll be my true enemy someday.

Nothing lasts forever, as they say, 'Yesterday's friend is today's enemy.', if Takakage were to become my enemy, I'd have to kill him. I would kill him, I couldn't insult him, not the construct we've built.

Quietly, I walked to the dojo, and grabbed my twin sai, pouring out all my frustrations on those poor little sand bags. A few week ago, Maeda Toshiie and I drew happy faces on them. Today, I stabbed through that face.

Asai Nagamasa was watching me the whole time.

And when I was done with the sandmen, I spun and flung a sai at him, barely missing his cheek.

"A true daughter of the Demon." he said with a smile, pulling the sai off the wall. He walked to me and handed it back. "Do you have your weapon?" I asked. "No. But I can-" he said, before I said,"Pick up that sword over there. Ranmaru brought it here. He said he got it from this wandering swordsman named Yagyu Munenori. I can't say I'm too fond of that guy. He's too flirty with Ran and he's like...our little brother."

"Yagyu Munenori? Never heard of him." Nagamasa replied, grabbing the sword. As I expected, it was really long, and Nagamasa nearly fell carrying it. "Uh...maybe we should try something shorter." I said, cringing. "No! I can fight with this. Let me!"he yelled, standing up. Even though the weapon was twice his size, he took it out of the holder, or tried, suddenly finding out that it was only a scabbard.

"What the heck?" he asked, looking at the weapon in curiosity. "Oh right...Munenori has this 'no kill' philosophy...guess that's that." I said with a sigh, putting my weapons away. "Well...wanna do something else?" he asked, as I toweled myself off. I raised my eyebrow.

"Race you around the castle?" he asked. "We're not children." I snapped, crossing my arms.

Keiji walked in.

"Do we have to be?" he asked.

Toshiie walked in.

"Don't be riduc-"

Hanbei walked in.

"I'm being completely honest."

Kanbei walked in.

"Idiotic. No wonder Aunt Oichi thinks you're the greatest thing on this earth."

At that, Nagamasa smiled. "And she is my world."

Ranmaru walked in, bowing.

"Princess, Lord Nobunaga would like to speak with you. Lord Nagamasa, if you'll excuse us." he said, once he rose. "Ranmaru? Is everything ok?" I asked, as the six of us left. Curiously, Nagamasa looked on, watching us leave.

He followed.

The six of us walked, standing upright, with me in the middle, flanked by the greatest of the Oda heroes, and their strategists.

The mood in the strategy room was palpable.

Father was flanked by both Hideyoshi, and now Takakage. Our eyes met. We haven't seen each other since the incident after the party. When I was covered in blood, when he saved me, when he got himself caught. Now to see him standing by his side...

"My love." Father said, taking my hand. Kicho watched us with her ever shining eyes.

"Father." I said simply. Mitsuhide watched our every move, taking his place beside me. Nobunaga looked at him. I could feel the daggers sinking into him. If Mitsuhide felt them, he didn't say.

The room was quiet when he took his place.

There was a chill in the air. The room felt smaller than before.

Nagamasa looked on from behind the door, disallowing himself to be seen.

On one side of the room, there was Keiji, Toshiie, Katsuie, and Nagahide. On the other side, Takigawa Kazumasu, who I had recently discovered was Keiji's father-go figure, Hanbei, Kanbei, and Ujisato. I hated that man so much...I could see his eyes looking at me, up and down, all over my body.

I growled. At a time like this...

As if she could feel my tension, Kicho looked at us, her eyes glaring at him, causing a chill to run down his spine.

We readied ourselves for Father's next words. Hideyoshi looked panicked. His panic reflected off his beautiful wife, Nene, who sat beside Kicho. Takakage also wore a mask of concern. If my father was, he didn't show it. No, his eyes only showed joy, pleasure.

He took a deep breath, closing his eyes, as if trying to figure out how to say what he wanted to say.

A man who was usually so eloquent with his words, and now..

"I will keep this brief, soldiers of hell..."

Then he smiled. A lecherous, desirable smile.

And then, he laughed. His laugh resonating through us, sending a chill through the room.

"The Asakura have begun their march."

*Takakage appears young in the game. When I began writing this story, I did not take into account how old he really is. He is as young as he appears in game in this story, so I figured 25 would be a good medium. I did the math with him, he should actually be 40+ here by now. He's probably the 5th-6th oldest character in the cast as of now. But for consistency's sake, we're going with 25.