Synopsis: Night brings strange thoughts to human hearts. Hyogo dreams of revenge against his enemies, while Kyuuzou tries to make sense of her own reactions to Kanbei.

--

Night came. Neither Kirara's band nor those who hunted them slept well, though the places they slept in could not be any more different.

After being attacked twice over the course of two days, Kirara's band was in a heightened state of vigilance. Kanbei and Gorobei shared sentry duty during the night. The other members of the band had volunteered to join the watch rotation so that the two old samurai could get more sleep, but Kanbei did not trust that any of them could detect the approach of a skilled intruder until it was too late.

So it fell to Kanbei and Gorobei to take turns staying awake while their companions rested in an uneasy slumber on the hard, un-matted floor of Masamune's workshop.

At 3am, Gorobei rose to take over Kanbei's watch.

"Please take a rest now, Sir Kanbei," Katayama made his way over to Shimada, who sat in watchful silence next to the entrance of Masamune's workshop.

"Thank you you, Sir Gorobei," The dark-haired samurai whispered to his friend, careful not to rouse the sleepers. "I suspect that Ayamaro's forces may attack us again soon. Kirara and Katsushiro, if left to roam the streets by themselves, will not be able to fend off an assault. I will fold them into my team starting tomorrow. You can team up with Rikichi as before."

"Understood," Gorobei answered in a low voice. He cast a glance at the two young people, each asleep at opposite ends of the room. "Maybe I can take Katsushiro into my team so as to ease the burden on Kanbei-dono."

The other ronin smiled. "I appreciate Gorobei-dono's kind offer, but I think Katsushiro is best motivated to work when he is on the same team with Kirara. And I feel I have a duty to personally protect the maiden, since she took a risk by putting her trust in me. So, Katsunoji belongs with her, on my team."

"Young love," Gorobei grinned. "It is always interesting to watch it unfold."

The two middle-aged men shared a moment of quiet laughter. Once, they too were as young as Katsushiro, unquestioningly open to life and to love, but those days were long gone. Gorobei could remember those times like it was yesterday, but Kanbei could barely remember. The young lad he had once been was now a complete stranger.

"But one is never too old to fall in love," Gorobei suddenly said with a cryptic smile. "Is it not so?"

The only answer from the other samurai was an equally cryptic smile.

--

Hyogo, still stewing in resentment over the perceived disrespect from Seishiro, went to bed nursing thoughts of revenge – revenge against Seishiro, whose face he happily slapped repeatedly in his dreams, and revenge against Kanbei and Gorobei, whose faces he had never seen. All he knew of their appearance was what Hook told him. Two tall, dark-skinned men, one with long dark wavy hair, the other with short, silver hair. Judging by their complexion, the two ronin probably came from the West or the North of the Empire. They should be easy to spot in Kougakyo. In his dreams, he tracked them through the streets of desert city, but never could find them.

The samurai woke up after a full night of rest between his favorite embroidered floral silk sheets. But strangely, Kurata Hyogo still felt tired and irritated.

--

After Kyuuzou lost her warrant for eliminating Kanbei to Hyogo, the woman warrior was transferred back to guarding Ayamaro. The lord, despite a poor mood brought on by the pressures of the envoy's visit, did not rebuke her directly for her failure. He simply gave a bitter sigh and remarked in an irritated tone. "The ronin problem is proving more stubborn than I expected. I hope Hyogo can finish this troublesome business without bringing too much attention to himself. I would rather not have the Envoy hear any more of this matter."

Kyuuzou bowed her head. She knew she should feel grateful for the governor's seeming magnanimity towards her failure – there were certainly far more vicious and unreasonable lords who subjected retainers to worse consequences than just an unpleasant tone of voice. But at the same time, she resented the fact that Hyogo had been given what was once hers – the right to challenge Kanbei.

Ayamaro, having no engagements for the night, retired early.

After ensuring that his lordship's rooms were secure, Kyuuzou and a lower-ranking palace guard took their posts outside the Governor's bedchamber. The guardsman, familiar with Kyuuzou's taciturn reputation, did not attempt conversation.

Kyuuzou could hear the lord tossing and turning in his bed. Ayamaro was not sleeping well, if he was sleeping at all. It had been whispered around the palace that the visiting Envoy Kagemitsu was the sort who would take bribes from a city governor and still bring an unfavorable report of the unfortunate governor back to court. Ayamaro had no reliable way of staying on Kagemitsu's right side.

Another pair of palace guards came to relieve Kyuuzou and her fellow guard of their shift an hour before midnight. The woman returned to her rooms to rest, but when she lay her head down on her box pillow and closed her eyes, she found her mind turning to the events of the last afternoon.

"Why did I let that man go free?" Kyuuzou asked herself. "Why? I always finish what I start. What made this case different?"

Breathing deeply to clear her mind, she waited for insight. A slow realization came upon her: ironically, it was because she herself was obsessed with completing any task she started, no matter how big or how small, that she could feel a strange empathy for Kanbei.

The man asked her for a reprieve so that he could finish something. She could understand the drive of one who was determined to complete a task that he had set his heart on.

"But is that reason enough to turn from the assignment that was given to me?"

Kyuuzou did not think so. Then a teasing inner voice whispered. "You had no other choice. You couldn't have defeated him even if you wanted to... It was not that you did not want to finish your job. You simply did not have the ability to finish it."

That thought was not new to her mind; she felt a sharp anger at its return. But she simply acknowledged that she was angry, and focused her mind on why. Pride, ego – flaws common to all humans, but more pronounced in some. Those were easy reasons to see.

And Kanbei, with his annoyingly knowing brown eyes, had probably already seen them in her and manipulated them to his advantage.

When the ronin suavely alluded her superiority in skill and asked her to let him go, Kyuuzou had looked upon him with amused scorn. They both knew that he had no need to beg for her mercy. Though haughty, Kyuuzou was not one to allow her arrogance to color her assessment of her own abilities. Much as she hated to admit it, Kanbei's fighting skills were in some ways superior to hers, and she knew that he was the one who had spared her life earlier in the duel. But the man chose to pretend to be the loser. Why? Was he condescending to save face for her?

The idea both offended and flattered the woman. Turning on her side in bed, she wrapped her arms around her torso and descended into sleep with the face of the handsome dark man drifting in and out of her mind.

--

At the first light of dawn, Kirara and Rikichi quietly rose to prepare breakfast for the watchful Gorobei and their still-sleeping companions. The farmers had nothing to put in the pot except the rice they brought from the village, but no one had complained about this rather limited and unbalanced diet. It tasted better than the grass-and-millet gruel (which lately had more grass than millet in it) that was the common fare in their village. The headman said a traveling physician once told him that millet had higher protein content than rice. The doctor believed the supposedly inferior gruel they consumed in times of rice shortage was nutritionally superior to rice. But none of the villagers took the word of the headman seriously, not because they doubted the elder's character, but because some of the farmers didn't even know what the word 'protein' meant. And perhaps the headman just made up the story about the doctor so that the villagers would feel better about what they had to eat, now that the bandits had taken their good rice.

Because rice was what the wealthier people ate, it must be the best grain, or so they thought.

"Today, we will split into two teams for our samurai search," Kanbei announced after breakfast. "Gorobei and Rikichi in one team, and the rest of us in the second team."

Katsushiro and Kirara, puzzled by the change, exchanged uneasy glances, silently wondering. "We worked in three teams the day before. Why are we reorganized into only two teams now? This doesn't seem efficient."

But Kirara did not challenge the old samurai's decision.

"Honorable Kanbei must have his reasons," she thought, casting her trusting eyes on the tall dark man.

--

Assistant Magistrate Seishiro arrived at work on time, just as he did on most mornings. But this day, he found Hyogo waiting outside his office, arms crossed, leaning against the wall.

"Where are my Yakans?" The samurai did not bother with the greetings and formalized small talk that customarily preceded a business discussion between social equals.

"I haven't heard back from the captain of Armored Police yet." Seishiro sat down on the steps leading up to his raised workspace, taking his own sweet time in removing his shoes. "I sent his office a personnel request right after you left yesterday. It was already pretty late in the day by then. He might not have had the chance to review our request. He'll probably give my office an answer by the end of today."

"By the end of today? Incompetence!" Hyogo glared haughtily down at the seated bureaucrat.

"If it's really that urgent, perhaps Hyogo-dono can approach Captain Toshi directly," Seishiro said in the detachedly helpful tone of one who was doing his job, nothing more.

"YES! It's THAT urgent!" Hyogo, annoyed at what he thought was the nonchalant attitude of the judicial official, spun on his heel and left, making a mental note to make a bad report of Seishiro before Ayamaro when the opportunity presented itself.

Without a second look at the departing samurai, Seishiro took his seat at his work desk and opened the new case files that his secretary had printed out for his review. There were murders, drug trafficking, aggravated assaults and child kidnappings – the whole gamut. It was going to be a long day at work.

--

Watching yet another wandering warrior refuse Kirara's request, Kanbei sighed. It seems that his new "one-on-one" interview strategy was not working any better than the "two-on-one" method they used yesterday. Kirara, Katsushiro, and everyone else in his party took turns approaching samurai on the street, but each request was turned down.

Shimada wondered if Katayama and Rikichi were having better luck.

But when the two men met with the main group to exchange status reports at midday, Kanbei came to know that Rikichi and Gorobei had not gained any new recruits either.

"Say," Gorobei suggested. "I can venture into the rougher parts of town for the rest of the afternoon. The districts of the "untouchables", maybe? The kind of ronin who chooses to roam that manner of environment might be of a different mind than those we have met so far. Who knows? I might have some luck there."

Kanbei considered the idea. He nodded. "Very well, please go ahead."

Turning to Rikichi, Gorobei said. "You can choose to come with me, or you can stay with Kanbei's team. I enjoy your company, but I won't take offense if you follow Kanbei for the rest of today."

The samurai's tone was amiable and understanding. Rikichi hesitated. He liked being teamed with Gorobei, but the farmer was not keen on entering the "outcast" districts inhabited by "untouchables" whose occupations involved contact with blood and corpses. These people of the class of "much filth" were perpetually in a ritually unclean state.

"I think I'll follow Kanbei for the rest of today," The farmer, half-embarrassed, responded in an apologetic voice.

"See you in the evening," Katayama waved goodbye to the group. Then the tall ronin began making his way alone towards the lower levels of the city.

"Good luck," Kanbei silently wished his friend success. "I hope you find what we have been seeking."

--

"Only two Yakans?" Hyogo exclaimed disappointedly at the Captain Toshi of the armored police.

The captain was not too pleased at having his morning troop training session interrupted by Hyogo's unannounced visit to the police officers' training courtyard. But since the Honorable Kurata Hyogo was the bodyguard of Governor Ayamaro, the policeman had to give the samurai some "face."

"Yakan operators Takemaru and Kunichiyo will be waiting for you outside Garage 2 at 8am tomorrow." Toshi bowed slightly.

Hyogo noticed that the bow wasn't quite low enough, and that Toshi had made no attempt to defend his decision. Either Toshi was being deliberately rude, or he was simply being what he was – a boorish commoner with no proper training in etiquette, or so Hyogo thought.

"Whatever the case, this so-called police captain is still a cad", the samurai mentally commented.

"Tomorrow?" Hyogo queried the man. "Don't you have anything available sooner?"

"I'm afraid not," answered the armored police captain. "I did not have the chance to review Assistant Magistrate Seishiro's request until you brought it to my attention. I have given your personnel loan a high priority, but even so, it takes some time to rearrange the duty rosters of our Yakan operators so as to free up two men for your use. Tomorrow is the best we can do."

"I've heard of this Toshi fellow," Hyogo thought. "He was not born a samurai. He was a peasant who got drafted into the ranks of the foot soldiers during the war – mind you, a conscript, not a volunteer. Somehow, this fellow gained command of a squad, and later got promoted to 'squire' status, only to get laid off by his clan when the clan surrendered. The most he did during the war was lead a Yakan squad. But after he came into Ayamaro's service he was made a company commander. That only happened because Toshi had no competition. Eight years ago, he was about the only one in Ayamaro's service who knew how to pilot a Yakan. Now he acts like he's a big deal, which he is NOT."

Toshi could not read Hyogo's thoughts, but the man of lower birth was perceptive enough to say, "I'm very sorry for the delay, Hyogo-dono. Please let us know if we can help you in any other way."

In other words, Toshi was not changing his mind. But along with his apology, he gave a deeper bow to Hyogo.

"Does he not know, I want the Yakans, and I want them NOW?!!! He sees fit to make me wait, and for such a stupid reason," Hyogo thought scornfully. "He's not a warrior, he's more like a paper-pushing bureaucrat. And he probably isn't even qualified to be that. I'll bet that former peasant is only semi-literate, or more likely, worse than that."

But there was little that Hyogo could do about the situation.

"8am is too late," The queenly samurai told Toshi in a curt tone. "Tell your Yakan operators to be ready by 6:30am tomorrow."

"As you wish, Sir Hyogo," the captain bowed.

--

News:

- This fic might have to move into the M-rating in the next chapter or the one after that. When that happens, it won't appear any more under 's default K-T filter. Be sure to look for it under the M filter going forward ;-) Or more conveniently, just put an alert on the story if you're interested.

Inspirations:

The millet vs rice issue came from 7 Samurai, in which the peasants ate millet while saving the rice for the samurai. But the film scholar in the video commentary remarked that millet didn't necessarily taste worse than rice like the characters claimed. It was only the social association of rice with wealth and millet with poverty that made people of the era see millet as "horrible" food.

Notes:

Seishiro and the other minor OCs in Ayamaro's employ are all of commoner birth, so they do not have surnames. In this ficverse, Kyuuzou doesn't have a surname either. But Hyogo has the surname of Kurata.

- Lower samurai (kachi) are sometimes translated as 'squires' and higher samurai (kyunin) as "knights". As for whether foot soldiers (ashigaru) were considered 'samurai', I think it probably depended on the time period. According to Ratti/Westbrook's Secrets of the Samurai, the ashigaru, a "mixed" group that included both people born into the samurai clan as well as commoner conscripts or volunteers during the Civil War era, eventually came to be fully identified with the samurai class.

- In samurai movies such as When the Last Sword is Drawn and Gohatto, other samurai characters apparently regarded people born into the ashigaru rank, or even lower ranks, as "samurai".

But I'm no expert on the topic, so don't take my word for it ;-)