Her 'husband' was a dead man walking.
Nakagawa Norimoto was either seventy or something around there, was bulkier than muscle would've accounted for. The loose jowls alone showed some kind of consumption issue in his life, the clothing already slightly stained with sweat even if there was enough of a wind to ensure anyone sensibly dressed would be comfortable if slightly chilled.
Not athletic, more inclined to send people and then yet more people to solve his issues, had more money than sense if he wanted a kunoichi bride from the looks of things.
Terazawa was twelve, not even halfway to thirteen, and the man was eyeing her with interest.
Not anything she recognized from this lifetime, but certainly something she recalled from Erin's. Interest in the carnal sort, even if she was underdeveloped and with the body of a preteen child still.
Heart attack she decided firmly as her 'lady's tutor' introduced the two of them. She had also better start early with the saw palmetto extract however limited her supply, because with a nobleman taking a 'no' or even respecting the whole 'not until married' thing might not be in his character.
She should have at least six or so months, to 'learn the ropes as a noblewoman' before she became his lady wife. She rather intended to use them to learn the lay of the land and find natural poisons to augment her few Sekanji toxins she smuggled from home.
Momo deserved something shiny and utterly priceless for being such a good little sister.
Also to learn how to evade what security Lord Nakagawa's samurai could put forth.
Tera had known in a sort of absent way there were samurai. If they corresponded with the 'samurai' she recalled from another world and lifetime entirely was a question still, but they were armored figures placed all around the courtyard she was led into and utterly unhappy with her very presence from the scowls and feel both.
With her 'lady's tutor' properly infuriated by absentmindedness to help along Momo's little 'gift' pumping through the horse-faced woman's blood, Tera turned back to the man who thought himself more than a match for a kunoichi bride. Her left hand fan snapped open in her hand, hiding the nasty smirk that creeped across her face as the warriors startled and the elderly 'husband-to-be' blinked in confusion.
"Nakagawa-sama… a pleasure." To kill you she finished in her head, which made her statement utterly true. Having a chakra sense just enabled the sisters to have figured out how to lie without actually lying.
With chakra being in existence, it was entirely possible a variation was used by these samurai. Best to be careful before she fatally fumbled something important.
The utterly sickening greasy smile that crossed the elderly man's face nearly took her aback, wondering if he thought her that thick or if no one ever told him doing that made him appear like some kind of baby-eating pedophile.
Oh, wait. He was at least half of that.
Tera fanned herself with the disguised weapon thoughtfully as he lavished praise on the very tired seeming woman that 'taught' her, considering what a easily led man like him could be twisted to.
She had a few months, she promised Momo so. This was also an engraved invitation to gather up a few of the possible Earth-only herbs that wouldn't grow anywhere else in the Elemental Countries, with the added possibility of meeting actual shinobi clans from this part of the world.
Passing that up just because she couldn't stand the lord and master of this part of the country would be just… silly.
Confusingly, she felt rather… underdressed without the black grease concealing the marked skin around her eyes. It was a ponder to occupy her mind with while more flowery speeches that welcomed her arrival and more old men praised her 'delicate beauty', with a few thrown in congratulating her intended husband.
…'delicate beauty' was probably the nobles' way of calling her slightly better than plain, or something just a touch less masculine than expected.
She had a month or so to get used to the exposed feeling, and maybe a few days should be spent to be sure that she loathed her 'husband' before she offed him.
Tera's blade-capped war fan twitched as a thick-finger hand latched onto her bare forearm to draw her closer to her 'intended', but she really wasn't all that surprised as she had kept a good chunk of her senses open and searching for anything with more chakra than the samurai she could see. Tracking Nakagawa's movements before he touched her was really child's play.
Literally child's play, she helped Momo developed her slightly less sensitive chakra senses while she was blindfolded and Tera held a stick to smack against her shoulders.
"Terazawa-sama?" Handmaiden number two quietly asked, actually meeting the copper eyes that flicked her way head on. "Are you not tired? We traveled far today."
Hardly. Nakagawa sent a coach for her, and the women had rode in that while the various men marched along in it's wake. Sitting long periods did not bother Tera all that much, patience was very much a shinobi virtue she honed making poisons or raising her own little sister. Staring enough to unnerve the two she rather disliked had kept her entertained for the trip, and probably would have done so even if the trip took even longer.
"I am fine, for now." Allowed the younger girl just as softly, returning her gaze to the people now boasting of what fabulous wedding gift they would present the 'couple'. "If that is a request to get inside so you may sit…?"
"I-I, wouldn't dream of asking such a thing!" Squeakily, amusingly enough, the poor girl got even more red in the face when her outburst attracted a lot of attention her way.
"Nakagawa-sama, I simply must inquire if we could retreat inside?" Tera inserted into the silence before anyone could say something about her favored little plaything reacting as she wanted, lazily wafting the fan a few more times before snapping it shut and tucking it quickly up a sleeve. "Preferably, somewhere where we may avail ourselves to tea or other cooler liquids?"
On closer inspection, he did have the ruddy complexion alcoholism could impart. She was utterly unsurprised when her suggestion earned a lot of favor from the men, and then her eyes caught on the women standing demurely silent in the background.
The 'noblewomen' of Earth, or rather this tiny slice of it still near Grass enough there was some vegetation but also starting to show the rocky spikes that likely categorized the landscape farther north.
The Sekanji poison mistress had spent a few hours here or there watching the plant life dying off the further into the country they traveled. Possibly, in her one and only interaction with an Earth shinobi, that had been the bone of contention she had been attacked over.
The Land of Earth probably had limited greenery, so what there was here was likely jealously guarded. Even if it was poisonous.
Contemplating the plant life here seemed to be more important to her than gauging her 'peers', apparently.
(ooo000ooo)
Her to-be husband had very loyal retainers.
Not two seconds into her 'personal refreshing' time, after that utterly nauseating display of overt wealth and henpecking broke up as other nobles left to return to their little plots of land before forcing an invitation for dinner out of Nakagawa, she had been faced off with two wives of his people.
Apparently the old grouchy male had been perfectly aware the elder of the Sekanji sisters was entirely willing to murder off his lord and master, hence why he seriously disapproved of her very existence. His wife seemed to share his sentiments entirely.
The other woman was the wife of one of his highly trusted samurai, who probably knew perfectly well shinobi and samurai tended to be eternally at odds but decided to try to get to know her anyways.
Tera fanned herself with the right fan this time, contemplating the intrusion to 'her' rooms and if she felt anything that would derail her plans.
"I promised my little sister to genuinely give this a try." She informed both older women as handmaiden number two fussed about with transferring her apparently pitiful collection of kimonos and yukatas into the wardrobe from the traveling chest that was also a gift from her husband. "Of course… this was before that 'lady's tutor' was sent and insulted my deceased mother's things."
Samurai wife winced, stone-face's wife breathed in deeply.
"As I do not like to lie, especially to her, I will at least try for a month." Tera half-closed the fan, giving the illusion that she was confessing something to the other women. "I might actually spend closer to three trying to see if this marriage would work, this is the farthest into the Land of Earth I have ever been. I will admit to some curiosity how things are done this far from my native lands."
It was an interesting thought to nibble at, her mother did it herself when she married her worthless father.
Even if it was a case of 'better this evil than the unknown', and appearance aside, if Nakagawa could inspire loyalty to the point unarmed wives of his very concerned retainers would confront a kunoichi bride… he might not be entirely worthless.
She was still going to start him on the saw palmetto extract the moment she could.
Snapping the fan fully open again, and considering the two of them over it, Tera tried to figure out which would be the 'weak link'. The one that expressed interest in getting to know her, which could be a feint of it's own, or the disproving one?
It was probably a weakness of her own to rely on chakra senses while interacting with others, but it was a good judge of who lied to her face and if something was going to come to blows. Moreso, for catching who was guiltily nervous around her and who just loathed her presence.
The friendly one was entirely guilty, that could have any number of reasons why behind it. From her samurai husband specifically telling her not to confront the poison mistress, to expressing interest when there was none, or just for feeling uneasy in the face of a preteen girl.
Stone-face was more at ease in Tera's company, disproving for sure but not in a hostile manner as her husband was.
Well, anyway it fell into place… she had a month to get the patterns down and engineer the poison she wanted to feed her husband before he could try to bed her.
Even while doing all that, she could still learn a few new tricks.
(ooo000ooo)
Nakagawa had a greenhouse garden built for her.
Terazawa actually faltered at that, the utterly extravagant walls of paned glass and the sheets that plated the sloping simple 'v' roof that stood in the rear yard of his manor house. It was removed from the harsh Earth ground by flagstone and hard bricks, raised a full half foot up in consequence. Inside was a steamy-feeling wonderland of colorful flowers and bristling green brush, water channels threading between boxes of dark earth, and a head gardener.
Gazing around blankly at the 'gift' in the strong early morning light, the Sekanji kunoichi seriously wondered if she could steal the entire building. Momomi probably wouldn't mind helping her all that much, even if she couldn't move the greenhouse successfully via her earth affinity.
They could just take the plants, and some seeds… maybe a cutting or two to replant elsewhere.
Ironically, she couldn't even identify half of the plants. The few she could that she had never before seen in life were from sketches and documentation written in scrolls by long since dead Sekanji poison masters. What she could see were all exotic, likely imports from either the smaller countries around Earth or specifically hunted for him through specialized merchants.
...now if only she could be assured her little poisoning people habit, people like her to-be husband, wouldn't put off the servants and retainers here it might even be perfect.
Likely, the nobleman only ordered 'pretty flowers'. Unaware most of the more colorful plants were also toxic in their own special ways.
"Pretty, aren't they?" Boomed out Norimoto cheerfully, that still nasty smile on his tanned features as he confirmed her thoughts on his motives.
"...pretty indeed, Nakagawa-sama." Tera started fanning herself again, fingertips itching for her tools.
The carefully thinned beeswax she used to protect her fingertips from the wolfsbane when she went to pick more, the leather gloves used to protect the hands when concentrating the toxins her family use in their craft, perhaps even her paper and charcoal to sketch and write her observation of each plant before taking cuttings to experiment with.
She just needed a poison lab, or just even old cooking pots and a room to store the more volatile concoctions within as they dried, and she could be then described as something approaching content.
A beefy hand wrapped around her thin shoulders, causing another inadvertent twitch of that disguised war fan. "Know the use of any of these?"
"Several." Confirmed the poison mistress dryly, keeping herself from shuddering or shrugging him off through sheer force of will. "Anthurium, the waxy bright flower with the one wide red petal in the front row, two boxes over. The sap is used to make an irritant to blind the eyes, enough could cause permanent blindness."
Gratifying, the overly stifling hand was removed from her person.
"The purplish flowered bush plant three rows away in the same column is called autumn crocus, which nearly matches cyanide poisoning in effect when administered in certain amounts… however, used limitedly it can also be used to treat gout and some chest pains." Tera eyed the wealth of plant life contained with the glass walls, slightly put out this wouldn't be available to her in her aims of painlessly ridding herself of the man. "My family is ironically very good at healing with plants as much as we are capable of killing with them, Nakagawa-sama."
A boisterous laugh about rattled the panes of glass out of their settings and nearly had her cringing as it echoed in the enclosed space. "I will remember that, little Terazawa."
Her fingers twitched on the wooden grip of her mother's fan, irked more he was referring to her so familiarly when they really had yet to know one another for an entire day.
"Come now, it's time for breakfast. You can play with the flowers as much as you'd like once we're married, my dear."
...bribery?
Interesting.
What kept her from killing him the moment the vows were taken?
Tera wasn't shallow enough to be tempted in the least. She'd likely take some hours each night carefully extracting what she would need to replant the exotic flowers and bushes elsewhere, as well as taking down some descriptions and sketches to fold the seeds into.
Perhaps the work of a few months, if he was going to try to 'control' her access to the plants in the daylight.
She had yet to see if she could walk on glass as well as she taught herself to stand on bark, wood, or water.
(Robbing the greenhouse of its seeds was the work of several weeks, as most were flowering out of confusion for the tropical climate in thin mountain air, but it didn't take as long as Terazawa had assumed it would. Norimoto did try to limit her access, but the utter failure to set limits on his kunoichi bride in respects to his gift seemed to please him more than displease. The sketches she defied him for, as well as the descriptions of each plant as they flowered, were all inspected by various suspicious samurai at least three times before she got them to her rooms. Tera always smirked at them while they all but shook out the papers in hopes of catching whatever poison she might've snuck away with. The plants that made up part of her wedding gift weren't the ones they should've been wary of.)