Summary: As the chaotic era of warring states escalates, a reincarnator finds herself entangled in political alliances and conflicts that will determine the course of history in the Greater Continent.
A/N:
Komorebi is a uniquely Japanese term that doesn't have a direct translation. It refers to the special kind of beauty when sunlight filters through the leaves of a tree.
In the long-running series of, When Will This Author Update Existing Fics, I present another brainchild. This one is inspired by Nobunaga Concerto. Why am I not updating existing fics like The Bartender or AUP? Because my nonlinear brain has me writing 10 fics at the same time!
Writing is suffering.
Enjoy!
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"Oichi-sama!" Sanjuro cried. "Please return to the castle immediately!"
"I don't want to!" Oichi stomped her foot.
Sanjuro cut off her escape when she moved. He was near tears. "You haven't finished your studies! At such a critical time as now, when His Grace is still deciding between you or your younger brother as the next clan head…."
"I finished all my studies!" Oichi vehemently corrected. "War, literature, economics — anything that follows is just busy work. Don't stop me!" She slapped away the arm that would have clotheslined her feint.
"All nobles in the estate learn song, dance, and calligraphy, Oichi-sama! The last needs the most work from you!"
"My penmanship is fine at 'legible!'"
Sanjuro and two other samurai danced in front of Oichi in a comedic enactment of kabbadi before her patience snapped.
"Fine!" Oichi threw her hands in the air and turned away, but then darted between the samurai the instant they relaxed.
They immediately pounced on her.
"Father. I, your son Ken'ichi, have tirelessly finished my tasks of today so that I may come and see your delightful face—"
"I'm here!"
A room full of heads turned to the recently-opened doorway, where Oichi's lifelong retainers fussed over their ward and upon attention abruptly bowed as deeply as respect and apologies could allow. They shuffled sideways still bowed until they were level with Ken'ichi's retainers, then sat down with crossed legs. Oichi was in contrast the opposite of primness, with her outermost robe hanging on her like a coat and not tied like the yukata it was supposed to complete, and she ambled to a seat next to her brother before plopping down.
"I didn't know you were here, Dad," Oichi greeted.
Ken'ichi hissed. "Show some respect!"
The clan head looked tired. He was also just getting old.
"Father's direction for the council room was announced an hour ago," Ken'ichi continued. "I wonder, sweet sister, how you could have missed the news that your studies would be moved from this room to another, if you had been in the grounds at the time. Although," Ken'ichi eagerly turned back to the clan head, "if Elder Sister was neglecting her duties, Father, she must naturally have good reasons for it."
Oichi still smelled like fresh grass from outside the castle grounds.
When Ken'ichi opened his mouth yet again, Lord Kaki looked even more tired. He waved his hand, and Ken'ichi's jaw snapped shut.
A samurai turned in his seat at the head's right to face the rest of the room. "His Grace has an announcement for his retainers…and close kin." He awkwardly tossed a glance at Ken'ichi and Oichi's unplanned presence, and the siblings' retainers behind them. "Lord Tanaka has invited the Kaki clan to his summer estate so he may hear the status of trade personally."
"I would be most honoured to speak of trade with Tanaka-dono," Ken'ichi expectantly said with flourish.
Oichi wrinkled her nose. "Trade?"
"His Grace leaves tomorrow morning for the meeting," the samurai finished. Though this signalled the end of the announcement, no one left the room.
"Dad, you can't be serious," Oichi said. "The only 'trade' a neighbour like the Tanaka clan can talk about with you is the route that goes around our mountain into their land. If he wants an update, he can come here himself. We're not on his call."
"The appointment is already made," Ken'ichi glared at Oichi, "and only fools would turn down an opportunity to cooperate with their neighbours."
"Rolling over now would set a precedent," Oichi refuted. "Honourable lords raise arms when they want land, not play chicken like Lord Tanaka."
"That's not how one uses the saying!"
"You're being played, Dad."
The clan head sighed. For the first time that meeting, he spoke. "I leave tomorrow for the Tanaka summer estate. You two shall accompany me."
"Thank you, Father." Ken'ichi bowed his head once. "However if Elder Sister stands so against it, perhaps she may watch the castle in our absence?"
"Think again, Ken'ichi." Oichi stretched the kink in her neck. "We'd insult Tanaka and ourselves if Dad brought his second child but not his first to a meeting of ostensible equals."
"We have many sisters, Elder Sister," Ken'ichi refuted, "it would not be remiss to bring just Father's 'sole son,' as opposed to Father's 'second child.'"
Sanjuro and the retainers behind him clenched their fists but remained silent.
"Brother dear," Oichi sighed, "how grave an insult do you aim to deliver to Lord Tanaka? Should Father bring his child who governs wetlands and not his child who governs borders, then Father intends to not speak of trade at all."
Ken'ichi's face flushed red with embarrassment and frustration.
"If that is all," Oichi said as she stood up and rolled her shoulders.
"Dismissed." The clan head meekly nodded, and everyone departed from the council room. None of the retainers spared a glance at the fact that the clan head had been released from his own meeting by his daughter. So often was it an occurrence. The clan head had strong seed and a weak spine.
"Oichi-sama really put Ken'ichi-sama in his place," Sanjuro and the retainers gossiped behind their ward.
"What's his problem, anyway?" Oichi huffed. "I just want to be his sister."
"You are an obstacle to Ken'ichi-sama's ambitions," Sanjuro reminded.
"As much as I love having siblings, I wouldn't trust Ken with a horse stable."
"Then express your desire for succession!" the retainers declared. "His Grace would surely listen!"
"But then Ken would surely not see me as a sibling," Oichi grumbled. "And why are you three following me so closely!?"
The three samurai blinked.
"Oichi-sama should always have escorts."
"Oichi-sama might bail on the meeting with Lord Tanaka."
"Oichi-sama will run the first chance she gets."
"What's with this declining faith!?" Oichi cried. "I swear on my honour, I will see and be dressed appropriately before Tanaka-dono."
At this, the samurai sagged in relief.
"My lord!" Sanjuro wept. "What are you wearing!?"
"I'm not in front of Tanaka-dono yet."
Oichi had even discarded her outermost robe, clad only in her undergarments. So they were called, but they were merely cotton-white to the peasants' dull brown everyday wear. Her entourage had frozen in their path for the Tanaka summer estate due to Oichi's leap out of her mobile while the clan head, Ken'ichi, and their respective entourages still trod on. Oichi was currently dodging her three retainers and going so far as to put the servants carrying her mobile in the way.
"Please dress appropriately, Oichi-sama!" Sanjuro insisted. "We are nearly upon Tanaka land!"
"Formal clothes are so restricting - and I hear there are ranches here," Oichi exclaimed, darting sideways before running off for the fields. "I'm gonna see one!"
"Oichi-sama!"
Oichi had no illusions on her expected lifespan.
The Kaki clan ruled over one of the most fertile but smallest lands, sharing borders with six other territories. This meant high trade and high risk of invasion, and with landlords sparking conflict and forging alliances left and right, Kaki's small nation played the risky role of a buffer. The world of samurai and ninja meant strict societal expectations for rank and gender, and though Oichi's exponential rate of learning decreed her a genius by even highbrows, her modern thinking and unsubmissive spirit didn't liken her to the traditional court.
Kaki's status as the neutral hillbillies of the Greater Continent meant that her lord father could appoint by merit and none of the other clans would bat an eye, but the fact that he hadn't announced his only son Ken'ichi as his successor even well past Ken'ichi's thirteenth year stirred up gossip. Moreso that the clan head had allowed Oichi to hold lands vital to the clan. It meant either of two unfortunate truths: that her father couldn't stand to see the incompetent Ken'ichi succeed him, or that half of her father's officials couldn't. The conflicting opinions of His Grace's advisors could easily inspire this tense limbo.
Her lord father was a pushover.
In the off chance she did succeed him, the same officials who surrounded him would then surround her, and in these times, "officials" were typically synonymous with "samurai." In the Naruto world, samurai could slice a ninja's fingers off before he could make even one hand sign. Sanjuro and Oichi's other two retainers were already capable of chakra-assisted iai.
Honestly, the only reason samurai served landlords like Lord Kaki were because of their honour. Among Oichi's lessons were claims that the samurai families who served the Kaki had done so since before chakra's conception, lending to a sense of pride in the retainers who possessed such rich history, and the Kaki clan who had lead them.
Oichi and her entourage arrived late to the Tanaka estate, with horse hair still fluttering off the mobile and Oichi's cheeks pinkish with exertion. When she stepped into the more informal council room compared to that which could be found in a lord's main estate, Oichi's hair was recently-brushed and her brightly-coloured robes were tied neatly around her. Like a sham, she demurely shuffled as if floating on her feet and took a seat between her brother and father on one row, Tanaka's retainers on another facing them, and Lord Tanaka on a dais at the end of both rows.
Ken'ichi dipped his head to Tanaka. "I am pleased to spend as much time with you as possible, Tanaka-dono." So he ingratiated, but his moment was cut short by a powerful sneeze. Ken'ichi sniffed and glared Oichi's way in search of possible horse hairs.
Their father looked tired.
Tanaka dismissed the sneeze and went on with the so-called chat, going so far as to call in food and drink to enforce the casualness of the occasion. Partway into the meal, Tanaka leaned in to Lord Kaki.
"The seasons have been kind to you, Kaki-dono," Tanaka commented, "but my scholars say that this year's winter will be a nasty one. For the sake of your survival, I'm willing to negotiate a portion of my mines' ores to you, with which you may smith finer farming tools. You shall stock up more easily this way, and be able to impart some fruits to me."
The Kaki clan head hummed thoughtfully.
"Tanaka-dono," Oichi leaned over without prompting, "you prosper well with your mines, and us Kaki with our trade. As your dear neighbour, I've the right of mind to inform you that we already have access to fine and more affordable tools through our regular merchants. May I ask after your unprecedented concern?"
"It will be a rough winter."
"Rough for who, I wonder." Oichi leaned back.
"Kaki Oichi-dono…!" Tanaka began.
"You lack exposure to trade, Tanaka-dono," Oichi crudely replied. "Your speech shows it. Who threatens your land now?"
"No one," Tanaka denied.
"Then who are those new blades for?" Oichi gestured to the kunai and tanto visible on Tanaka's retainers.
The Kaki clan was small. That was why their retainers were only the honourable samurai…
And not the purchasable shinobi.
Tanaka fidgeted.
"Perhaps," Lord Kaki mumbled, "I should not have come today."
"You are without honour!" Oichi spat at Tanaka, rising.
The instant she did, all the ninja across her loosened their swords of scabbards and slipped out kunai with blinding speed, but did not attack her.
If they wanted her dead, she would have already been bleeding out of her throat.
The once casual air thickened into lead with Oichi's rage, and Tanaka's shinobi followed Oichi's movements with unblinking eyes while the Kaki samurai in the open antechamber gripped their sheathed swords. If either side's wards were threatened, it came down to speed: in the shinobi who were closer to the lords, or the samurai who could kill with one draw.
Afterwards, however, would be a matter of numbers, and Tanaka's shinobi retainers far outnumbered Kaki's. Even should Tanaka die first, the ninja would deliver a vengeful bloodbath upon the Kaki and their retainers as was contracted of them.
"If you wish to raise arms against the Kaki," Oichi continued to Tanaka, "then deliver a letter of war, and not invite us to dine with you! Your shinobi's personal conflicts have caused our bordering farmlands grief before, but the shinobi are without honour. You as a lord should have known better, dunderhead!"
"D-Dunder…!"
"This tactic of yours to acquire Kaki land amounts to robbery rather than conquest!"
"Enough!" Ken'ichi declared, standing up as well. "Kill these two, and be done with it!"
Oichi turned to her brother in shock.
"Why stop at two?" Tanaka challenged. His shinobi had eyes on Ken'ichi as well.
"B-But our agreement-"
"Why, Ken…?"
"Don't look at me like that, Elder Sister," Ken'ichi scoffed. "I've said several times that I'd kill you. You were the fool who never took me seriously. Tanaka-dono-"
Oichi threw a punch, and all retainers jerked in aborted motion.
Ken'ichi cradled his jaw, his eyes the size of dinner plates and even Lord Tanaka stunned to silence.
Oichi grabbed Ken'ichi by the collar. "You would throw away the lives of our retainers and your family for fortune!? How can you discard life so thoughtlessly!?"
The source of Oichi's anger shocked Ken'ichi, who barked out laughter. "You are the disappointment, Elder Sister. You and father were worth nothing to me the moment I decided to become clan head! And retainers?" He guffawed. "Mere pawns! Whatever their excuse, shinobi or samurai, they'll do what Father, Tanaka, you, or I tell them! No one weeps when they die, because they're born to be used!" He sighed. "Go ahead and kill me. I deserve death for my failure."
Oichi had been wrong. She had thought her younger siblings had shared at least a little of her modern sentiments. She had thought the sting of reincarnation could be curbed with effort.
She was alone.
"You're perfect for this era," Oichi bitterly admitted. "A true Oda Nobunaga, but even then, no one will understand the reference. I hate this. I hate your thinking. There's always someone who weeps when another person dies."
Ken'ichi blinked rapidly, startled.
"How many retainers have fathers, mothers, sisters, or brothers, Ken? They have precious people who will miss them when they die. You have these people, too."
"E-Elder Sister…."
"Tanaka-dono." Oichi turned. "Take me as your hostage, and let my family and retainers leave this place alive. We shall not speak of this near-bloody meal you orchestrated, and surrender our lands to you. This way, you will have both our farmlands and your honour."
"Oichi-sama!" Sanjuro fiercely objected, and even Lord Kaki's retainers rose their voices.
Ken'ichi's retainers looked down with silence and guilt. The entire Kaki clan had been moved by Oichi's words.
"Done." Tanaka nodded.
"Tanaka-dono." Lord Kaki rose, to everyone's further surprise. "If I surrender my lands to you, you need not one of my daughters. I shall be your hostage."
"Even better," Tanaka agreed, finding his cheer.
"Father!" Oichi exclaimed.
"Musashi," Lord Kaki grunted, and his senior retainer stepped forward. "Escort Oichi personally."
Half of Lord Kaki's retainers blinked away wetness in their eyes. Musashi bowed deeply. "Understood."
Before Oichi could resist, a pommel struck her head.
When she awoke, a large chunk of the Kaki retainers were gone. Blood marked the remaining samurai's armour, and everyone, including the senior samurai, was kneeling before her in the Kaki council room.
"Oichi-sama," Musashi solemnly declared. "My lord decreed you to succeed him upon his death. You are Lord Kaki, now."
No.
She had already lost family once.
"My brother…?"
"Ken'ichi-sama and his retainers rebelled the moment we stepped foot back on Kaki land," another retainer answered.
Oichi gulped. "Oh." Hence the blood. And if she was clan head, that meant her father hadn't survived being a hostage for long.
Her family had killed each other.
"Your Grace!" A retainer hastily arrived and kneeled at the doorway. "Lord Tanaka has gathered 2,000 men and is leading them this way!"
"Your Grace!" Another samurai arrived. "Kaki Kentarou-sama has gathered 700 men and is leading them this way!"
"What for!?" Oichi cried.
"Kentarou-sama claims that his brother, the previous clan head, had taken his claim of land during a conflict thirty years ago! He demands for you as the new clan head to give it back!"
Old people and their grudges! Oichi barked at the messenger, "Tell Uncle Kentarou that he can keep his men and his land to himself, darn it!"
"Your Grace, that land has been the main family's for thirty years now-"
"I'm clan head, and I say give it to him!" Oichi's head was spinning, possibly from the strike to her temple. Right. "We're gonna fight Lord Tanaka and his men. Let's go!"
"Yes, sir!"
To their credit, once decisions were made, Kaki samurai took orders without question.
;
A/N: I've only known samurai to call the clan head of the land they live in as "tono," which has been translated by others as "my lord" or "feudal lord." Since there are many lords - not just landlords - in this fic and I think best without having to worry about tracking who's who, I've decided to address landlords - in speech - as "His/Her Grace"; otherwise, they're referred to by name or position.
This is your warning that this fic has as many imperfect English translations as I could fit in it. There are suffixes, but it pains me to see them in any abundance and used incorrectly, so don't expect a lot. I do welcome corrections to anything I use that's Japanese because I'm obviously not a native.
I've also decided to make names and countries easy to remember, and named the country that the landlord owns after the landlord's clan, i.e. Lord Kaki is the landlord of Kaki. I try to distinguish which I'm referring to when I write "Kaki" anywhere in this fic.
As always, thanks for clicking on this fic and giving it a chance!
Things I use interchangeably:
Shinobi = Ninja
Landlord = Daimyo
Retainers = The closest servants to a ward - usually samurai from my understanding of feudal Japan, but I've taken liberties since this is Naruto. Retainers for a landlord are simultaneously political advisors, bodyguards, generals over a portion of the army, and the heads of their own clans. I've made the portion of the army that retainers command to usually consist of their own clan members, mixed with the common folk of their land.