"No."
"Terazawa-sama-"
"I am not a noblewoman, I am kunoichi." She pointed out softly to the group of people that had confronted her before her departure, the tips of her bladed war fan glinting in the light now she had finally removed the caps that disguised it as a bladed weapon and not just a tool of chakra manipulation. "I will be returning to a very hard life, one of which would not require retainers."
Handmaiden number two and her new scribe both looked alarmed.
Rolling her eyes, Terazawa flicked the fan so a gust smacked into their faces in reprimand before returning it to shield her face. "Yura-chan and Ikeda-san are the only ones I am prepared to make exceptions for."
If her family protested… then they could go away. She had afforded the meat, grains, and vegetables to feed herself and her baby sister on her lonesome once before. Going back to that would likely be easier now she was a 'woman'.
Laughable, as she wasn't even thirteen, but this society was horribly backwards sometimes.
Going alone, with her two tagalongs, would be possibly harder until she found them a base of operations they would be safe within.
With their utterly normal self-defense skills… and no or little intent on either's behalf to improve that…
...even back in the Sekanji compound, they were hurting for just hands to help.
Forcing down the grimace, Tera turned back to the group and narrowly inspected each of them standing before her and if they could meet her 'ninja-scary' eyes.
...they would piss themselves if they ever came face-to-face with an Uchiha, a Hyūga, a Yamanaka, or just about anyone else that could go 'crazy-eyed'. Thankfully, those were mostly Land of Fire shinobi clans and therefore some time away if they survived that long.
"If you wish to marry well, you will need a staff." Insisted handmaiden number one, who was not coming with even if Tera had to murder her to ensure it. "All noblewomen-"
"I don't intend to ever get married." Announced the kunoichi as if that wasn't the opposite of what good, decent women did in this day and age. "I am a Sekanji poison mistress. I kill people for a living, I study poisons that might just cripple my ability to bear children, I fight. A husband might just object to all that, and I have a different duty to fulfil to my family now my marriage has fallen apart."
It would likely be what she was returning to, as they had finally done away with gender segregation due to poor numbers.
"If any of you are hoping I am your way into a proper position in another court, please leave." Tera glared at handmaiden number one until she very rapidly walked away. "As for the rest of you…"
...who hadn't walked off on her yet. There remained eight other stubborn individuals still standing there asking her to take them with her. To a shinobi lifestyle, to hardships and murder and even more unspeakable terrors for well-bred manor dwellers.
Fanning the weapon a few times as she thought, glancing from face to face, Tera pondered the implications.
Rather younger faces, even if her now safely deceased husband had been around the upper edge of sixty and possibly older than that. Second or third generation servants, possibly fourth, who didn't know of another way to live because this manor was all they knew.
Rokkaku had gotten a return runner a few days ago, a new noble family would be moving in and the nobleman would be taking over as the new Lord of Nawagaka. Who already had a staff of people he would be bringing with him, as did his wife and each of their three sons.
The samurai might stay to guard him and his people, move on and become ronin, or take their lives to follow their master into death. It really depended on the relationship Norimoto had with them and what their expectations were for life after his demise.
It couldn't have been that unexpected, aside the whole murder bit. The man had been nearly a geriatric, a surprisingly robust one going to seed but elderly enough to count anyways. There likely were a lot of plans his people had for life after his death being carried out right now.
Tera would like to leave before the new Lord Nawagaka moved in and pondered marrying her off to one of his sons to firm up his hold on his new lands. She might not be a native, but there was what her marriage was to cement to take into account and the fact her very existence meant at least one kind of ninja would be interested in helping out with a bit of covert action on 'her' behalf.
Killing a single nobleman who was already ancient and came with convenient blame-target already embedded in his retinue was one thing, especially as she had several months of cushion time to plan in, the son of a nobleman who would be very unamused as well as more cautious of sabotage was another.
Especially as her thirteenth birthday was approaching rapidly. She hadn't known she was born in the waning days of summer, August fourth to be specific, until her birthday actually became relevant.
It had taken Tera nearly three months to plot out this one death in a safe manner. Especially to the point she wasn't being run out in disgrace or attacked. Even if it was her fault he died when he did.
"A ninja's life is not a particularly kind one, nor forgiving." She informed the group blandly, taking the steps needed to leave the manor home of a Earth noble for the last time. "I will not accept more than I must, that kind of burden will be deadly to me. However..."
A pause, and she gave each of the eight she hadn't intended to ever see again a once-over.
"...I will not restrict where you may roam."
If they followed her home, they could learn a few new trades and shore up the tattered remains of her family.
Tera took the last three steps out of the ornate and overly indulgent manor home, however cushioned and decadent it was it was still a prison to her, stopped dead in the grand and main marble entrance as she stared at what waited for her there with the carriage that would be taking three heavy chests of her things back to Grass with her.
Rokkaku was given an entirely deadpan staredown of his own.
"You are doing this to annoy me, correct?"
The elderly samurai gave her a smile that wasn't particularly nice looking. "They are unmarried, the only or last sons alive of old brothers in arms, nowhere else for them to go as the new lord will be bringing his own to replace us. You are the last living remnant we have of Norimoto-sama, his wish was to marry and continue his line through you. Part of that-"
"You will be waiting very, very long time for me to ever consider it."
"Then we will be with you a very, very long time, Terazawa-sama."
A delicately plucked eyebrow, which she was never suffering through again, rose up and likely pulled oddly at the freshly made grease-based paint that coated the skin around her coppery eyes and hid the purple crests that were the mark of her family line. "...'we', Rokkaku-sama?"
(ooo000ooo)
"They followed me home." Terazawa announced as flatly as humanly possible, ignoring the purpling rage on her father's dirt streaked and still black grease marked face in favor of focusing more on the utterly bemused one on her uncle's. "I am keeping them."
Momomi bit her lower lip to hide her expression, whipping out her preteen-sized war fans to hide the expression until she could recover her mental balance and keep a straight face.
Rokkaku looked fairly bemused himself at the miniature of his new 'Terazawa-sama'. The rest of them behind him were either trying to be as straight-faced as their 'lady', failing utterly and a few cracking sheepish or not smiles, or just panting as they recovered from the slog out of the Land of Earth into Grass.
"The former Nawagaka-sama suffered a fatal heart-attack, the cause was the toxin extracted from the seeds of a yew bush more commonly found in the Land of Waterfall or Rice, or possibly the very northern parts of Fire, the assassin was killed in revenge by a few of his now deceased samurai." Tera reported, still with that utterly flat tone as if she was talking about the weather and not murder she had a large hand in.
She had spoken to the nearly twenty-strong entourage about some of the inner workings of shinobi families, how tone and expression was flattened out to prevent unsightly connections or easily accomplished sabotage, so they wouldn't become alarmed or overly defensive about how the 'whys' and 'hows' came about in a conversation between two or more ninja.
Also because she really did kill Norimoto but telling any of her new samurai that probably wouldn't end well.
Momo probably would be the only one to know that for the rest of her life. At least until her samurai finally died off, or wandered to a new master.
They had to get bored of being the exception to the rule of utter dislike between shinobi and samurai sometime, right?
"Is that how you came into this…" Her uncle trailed off, examining the people gathered at her back standing in the yard of the Sekanji family compound. "...pack of people?"
He probably had a word that was more insulting in mind, but currently his eyes was on the score of samurai that likely would try to cheerfully gut him for any slights against her 'honor'.
Tera might actually grow to like her new retinue.
Eventually.
It really depended on how willing they were to let her go off on her own.
...or if they wouldn't mind being the sisters' punching bag to develop actual battle-worthy skills on.
"As I said, lord uncle, they followed me home." Fanning the wind user's weapon in front of her face a few times just to see if her father's head really would explode if she gave it enough time, her coppery eyes touched on the only identical set she knew of briefly before returning to bore into flat black. "They are aware we all pull our weight here, and that for the time being they will not be trusted with much. Aside that, I brought back some Earth-native poisons and my refunded dowry."
Her uncle spent a moment contemplating things. "...I suppose we could use some guards. The west side of the compound is yours then, be sure to start pulling your weight again so they will be fed."
Likely, he was wondering who else he could marry her off to now. Even one dead husband to her name was one too many for most that would toy with the idea of taking a kunoichi wife.
About twenty-some more mouths to feed was no small thing, especially as from the look of things the state of the family had fallen even farther in the months she had been gone as the strain of so few working shinobi took it's price from them. However, those behind her were adult hands to help balance out the riot of children and to take on the guarding and poison making that would otherwise eat into the man hours of their few shinobi.
A few more women apparently had given birth while she was away, and a suspicious number of them had purple crests.
Tera smile blandly, snapping her fan closed and leading her new people to where they could settle in.
'So they will be' meant there wasn't enough food for them all right now.
"Care to go hunting with me, Momo-chan?" Inquired the elder of the sisters thoughtfully as they watched people pour into formerly abandoned single or double room huts. "I think… we might actually need a deer or something."
"Or several boars. Maybe even a full horse." Agreed her brat of a little sister pleasantly, ignoring the spectacle of former manor dwellers taking in their reduced living situation as optimistically as they could. "Do you suppose your manly samurai can hunt their own dinner, or should we gather enough for them as well?"
"That will not be necessary, Terazawa-sama." Rokkaku muttered tiredly as he leaned his heavily armored form up against the compound wall three steps away from her side. "We can hunt for ourselves."
Most of her 'staff' had been scandalized when she opted to pace the carriage instead of ride within in, but by the second day on the road that scandalized emotion turned into something resembling desperate gratefulness. It was either pile their worldly possessions, earned in a manor house that never required moving vast distances, on their own shoulders... or stack it in the carriage.
The elderly samurai she inherited had caught up on day three of the trek, puffing under his armor and the beginning summer sun. He claimed all he wanted to take with him was his armor and sword, but she was suspicious he had cut down his belongings to the very little he could travel so far with and simply made due with it.
Had she said something of intending to not ride in the carriage as well, he might have more keepsakes and she did slightly regret the unintentional sacrifice she had caused him.
That he followed her anyways, without anything else to his name, was actually slightly… touching.
"Just for today, Rokkaku-sama." Refuted the poison mistress gently, honor might be a strange beast to her but if it made him happy she could learn to deal with it. "So you and your men can ensure the rest of our people are protected and guarded from possibly surprised shinobi returning home while I am gone."
Before he could muster enough mental energy to formulate an effective protest, Tera snapped open her fan and smile slyly from behind it at him.
"Besides which, one of you needs to return my dowry to my lord uncle… and there is the inspecting the compound's wall and perimeter for organizing patrols and guard positions, taking down any urgent request my retainers require in the coming days, getting to know the ladies of the family left by sight, impressing that being samurai is not a weakness to the shinobi trainees, and other general fussy things I will likely have no idea is required but you do."
Rokkaku eyed her sourly, or as close as he was able to do both exhausted and still struggling with some remains of grief he had yet to deal with pitted against the 'respect' and 'honor' he had for her. "That, Terazawa-sama, is a low blow."
"Kunoichi," dismissed the preteen delightedly, turning on a heel and not needing to look to know that her sister followed while he remained where he was, "thank you kindly for taking care of all that for me, samurai-sama. I really do not deserve your presence or service."
Tera glanced to the side at her little sister when she giggled for the teasing.
"How ever did you end up with samurai-sama and the rest, big sister?" Momo asked mischievously, a wicked smirk on her painfully missed features turned up so they could clearly see one another.
"That, naughty little sister, is a long story."
"I do not believe I am the one that has been naughty…"
"...perhaps."
(The infusion of unskilled but able hands were what really saved the Sekanji clan in the end. The lighter workload needed to maintain and guard the compound as well as the offset of the crush of newborn children to take care of enabled more of the few shinobi they had left to take better and longer jobs that paid better, the mothers even eventually had the time to return to poison making they were being taught to do as that art would be kept in the Sekanji clan by order of the family's head. With samurai guards posted on the walls and both sisters returning to hunting or selling the herbs and toxins, not to mention Terazawa's returned dowry which was repurposed into buying food stores, the clan's strained position slid just under the notice of rogue shinobi trying to hunt down those that killed their clans or roaming ronin who held a grudge against any ninja that might've done the same to their former lords. Poison users, an entire family of them, in dire straits would've been a ripe target for either group.)