This is really the start of the meat of the plot. We're still pre-episode 24 right now, and will be for a little while, but we're on the buildup to it now. You'll see what I mean as you read. More exciting: we get all that lovely Naraku goodness... badness? going on in this chapter. I'm loving it so much. Naraku is a grade-A character.

So onwards!

Miasma

Here the power is ruthless and the truth is deaf. Here the air is filled with the miasma of sin
- Jean Racine

I sipped my tea, keeping my eyes on the masked man before me. Something about him set me on edge. He felt wrong. Like there was something thrumming just beneath that pelt that made me uneasy.

He was staring back. I couldn't see his eyes in the shadow of the baboon's own, but I could feel them on me, like they pierced me. How could one man have such a piercing gaze, without even being able to see his eyes?

"You gave me a lot to consider when last we spoke by the ponds. Do you remember, miss Nori?" Kagewaki's voice cut the tension. Both Naraku and I turned to the young man.

"Of course, my Lord." The chatter down at the pond had been light, but the start of our conversation had been deep and had amounted to a very pussyfooted version of me telling him to man the fuck up and stop hiding behind his illness. Not my finest hour, as far as eloquence and bedside manner was concerned, but clearly it had reached him if that was the first conversation of the evening.

Go me?

"I talked with my father that evening. I believe it's time I start choosing which battles to fight over which not to. I requested duties in his court. He has granted me control of a small regiment and advised I bring together a handful of people offer me counsel. Naraku has been on my father's council for some time and has agreed to join mine now. I would like to request you also join. You've offered me much personal counsel in your short time here and I would like that to continue."

I stared down into my teacup.

He wanted me, a doctor, to be on what was essentially a war council.

What to do?

I'd sworn on the Physician's Oath as a doctor, of course, and when the oath had been updated just a few years ago, I'd sworn again. I'd sworn to look after people, care for the sick and healthy alike. There had been times I'd gone against the oath. More than once in surgery, I'd had the opportunity to fix a mangled body, but leave the patient with no quality of life. A difficult decision to make, but one I had made anyway, was to give that patient peace.

There was still mornings I woke in a cold sweat, remembering the chaos around me as I let a patient die.

Trauma surgery was a dangerous game for sticking to the oath.

But there was a difference between letting a man who had no quality of life die peacefully and sending hundreds of men to their death in a senseless war.

I didn't even really know the date. I knew I was in the Warring States era, but I couldn't tell you if we were in 1467 or 1567. We could be weeks away from Oda Nobunaga sending this country into peace. We could equally be years away from it. In either option, I wasn't sure that would have any bearing on the Hitomi men sending their soldiers to war. I couldn't just tell them I was from the future and knew how the history of the country played out. I'd be condemned as a witch, or laughed out of the castle.

But speaking in Kagewaki's ear, I could have some influence. Suggest more peaceful options. Find a way to tone down the bloodshed. I knew life wasn't so simple as just not sending those men out to die. I couldn't kid myself with childish innocence. I could try to find a way to make things even slightly better, though.

"Miss Masanori?"

I jolted out of introspection and blinked up at Naraku, who'd been the one to call me out of my stupor.

I floundered for a moment before clearing my throat. "I'll give you the best counsel I can, my Lord."

Supreme excellence consists of breaking the enemies resistance without fighting.

Let Sun Tzu be my guide.

I'd need all the guidance I could get.

Kagewaki offered me a small smile. "Excellent. For now, then, the two of you shall be my council. I hope you will guide me well. Now, our first order of business is this..."

What was I doing?

"Naraku, could you walk miss Nori to her chambers, please?" Kagewaki prompted a couple hours later. He looked about as tired as I was, ready to drop into his futon any minute.

Naraku stood. "Of course, my Lord."

I inhaled a sharp breath. Beneath the pelt, there was a pink glow coming from his chest that had been hidden by the table until he'd stood. It was exactly the same as the glow from that shard of gemstone I had found in that jug back home. I couldn't mistake that glow.

"Miss Nori, are you okay?"

I shook my head and forced a smile. "I'm fine, my Lord. Just tired. It has been a long day."

"So it has. Go rest. Tomorrow you can have some more time to rest before we have breakfast."

"Thank you, my Lord."

What was that glow? Naraku must know, if he has the same shard. From the look of the glow, he had more than one. It was more intense even than the glow from mine, which was still in my bag back in my room and had kept me awake some nights with how intense the glow was. It was like some kind of freaky magical nightlight that just didn't turn off.

After quick mutters of parting, I headed to the door, followed after by Naraku. We fell into step side-by-side as we walked towards my room. The hours I'd spent in his presence hadn't done much to alleviate the strange feeling I got from him. He was smart, though. That much I would readily admit. He hadn't been foolhardy with Kagewaki's men in the tactics we'd discussed. He was smart, informed, and controlled.

I'd be impressed by him if this feeling didn't bother me so much.

"They talk about you."

"What?"

"The Hitomi men. Young Kagewaki and his father. They've both spoken about you to me."

"And?" What did I care? I knew the elder Hitomi talked about me well enough. Bitching about me would probably be a better evaluation. There was always something he wasn't happy with about me. If he made sure I knew about it, I wasn't surprised he'd make sure the rest of the world did, too. And Kagewaki? I was one of the few people he regularly had contact with. I wasn't surprised at all that he talked about me. I was usually the most exciting thing in his day.

"You don't want to know what they say about you? Young Lord Kagewaki is quite taken with you."

I shrugged. "Honestly, Naraku, I couldn't care less what they have to say about me when I'm not there. If they've got something important to say to me, they'll say it to my face." Anything else, I just didn't have the energy to deal with. What-ifs were so not my thing. I tried to keep what-ifs and anxious thoughts out of my head, and I didn't need someone trying to plant them there.

He gave a quiet chuckle. "You're a rather unusual woman, miss Masanori."

Compared to the women he'd probably met in this time period, I would probably seem like an alien if he really knew me. "Perhaps. Or perhaps you haven't met the right women." I slid open my door and stepped through, turning to face him. "Good night, Naraku."

I closed the door in his face before he could offer me the same.

There was something about him that was different, and I wasn't sure I liked it.

Fear of the unknown.

"Do you enjoy music, Lord Kagewaki?" I hadn't asked him before, and I was quite curious about the answer.

He hummed. "I've been known to sing on occasion, but I've never played an instrument. And you?"

"I play the koto when I can." He frowned, turning away. "You don't like the koto?" I dont know why that disappointed me so much.

"No," was his quiet answer. "My mother used to play."

His mother who wasn't present in a time where medicine was a game of praying to a higher power and wishing for miracles. Three guesses as to what had happened there. I apologised in a whisper, half wishing I hadn't even asked at all.

"How is it you travel, are learned with a sword and play an instrument? Do you not rest?"

I laughed. Hard. It took a little while for me to calm down enough to actually speak. "I haven't rested since I was fifteen." At fifteen both kenjutsu and koto were strong hobbies that I refused to give up, and I was determined to be the best academic I could possibly be. As soon as I had entered high school, I hit the books hard and didn't surface again until I'd graduated Todai. Every year I was top of my class. Every year I was exalted for my smarts and determination. Every year people wondered how I did it.

It was all I did, was the answer to that. Every day was the same. I would wake, practise kenjutsu, go to school, practise the koto, then study until I passed out.

Day in day out.

I made a lot of sacrifices. I didn't get a boyfriend until college. I still only had a couple of friends.

I'd accomplished so much. I had so many titles and awards attached to my name. I'd made my family proud. I was proud of myself for managing all I had in just twenty-eight years.

"And you're happy, with so much responsibility?"

Was I happy?

How could such a simple question make you freeze up so much?

Was I happy?

I was proud. But that wasn't the same, was it?

I'd lived a very lonely life. I'd excluded myself from my peers in high school, so much so that they had, in turn, started excluding me the few times I had reached out to them. Todo had been the popular twin. He had the friends and the social life and the fun hobbies. My only real friend had been him growing up. Botan and Ayumi were both so much younger than me that they were only babies when I was going through all of that high school drama. It wasn't until college, when people had ignored my need to study and dragged me out forcefully, that I'd started actually being social with people outside my family.

That had been fun, but for a while I had struggled to be social alone. It wasn't until I became a doctor that I really developed a healthy social life and experienced life. But there were still obligations and reasons to keep to myself.

It made getting out there difficult. I got in my own way a lot.

So was I happy?

"I think... I'm starting to be." I hadn't been so relaxed and stress-free as I had been living in the castle. Even with the threat of death over my head every moment, the pace was slower here, and I could relax more. The relaxing atmosphere had led me to enjoy the little things. Being able to play the koto more often, being able to sit and just talk like this. Not having the stress of surgery every day.

Going home to no one was still a big issue I struggled with. I had no one to share my nights with. A bed felt cold when you laid in it alone.

But overall, I felt a lot happier in myself here than I had back home.

Once again I found myself in the music room, knelt before the koto.

I hummed along with the song as I plucked away at the strings. At times Tomo and I had tried to get creative with playing the instrument. Sometimes we challenged each other to come up with koto covers for songs we came across. Some of those were easier than others. Tomo had an affinity for anime theme songs in his work. When Botan and Ayumi had come to us with their new anime obsession, Tomo was usually the one to come up with his rendition of the themes. He was deemed the cool brother.

I preferred something a little further afield. My English wasn't perfect, but I had always loved English rock and punk music. Translating them to something familiar to me was a challenge that just made me feel closer to the songs I enjoyed.

One particular song was something I could play without the notes I had made all those years ago, I had played it so often. It bought with it a lot of familiarity.

Welcome to the jungle, we got fun and games

The lyrics came into my mind easily as the song played out in the room.

If I never made it home, this would be what I missed most besides my family. Being able to listen to the music I so loved. The music was four hundred years from creation here. I'd likely never hear it again.

The thought just made me play harder, trying to drown out the thoughts with the music. The koto didn't have such a heavy baseline as the original, but it did its job well enough.

"I've never heard someone play the koto so vigorously."

I jumped half a mile. One of the strings gave an awful echoing sound when one of the fingerpicks caught in it yanked at it as I moved. I pressed my hands onto the vibrating strings to halt the awful sound. "Naraku. What are you doing here so late?" It was dark, probably well after midnight. I thought the castle would be dead at this time.

He was stood at the doorway, still wearing that hideous baboon mask and pelt.

"I couldn't find sleep, so I thought a walk would clear my mind. I came to investigate when I heard the sound. I haven't heard music in the castle before tonight." He stepped further into the room, approaching me at a crawl.

He still had the shards with him. They glowed so brightly under his robes.

What were they?

I played when I didn't want to think. "I play when I can't sleep." In this part of the castle, there was only Kagewaki and I. No one would be disturbed when I couldn't sleep. It was perfect, really. If the music room was anywhere else in the castle, I'd have probably hesitated.

"You play well, though I've never heard such a song before."

And you probably won't again in your lifetime, Naraku. "It's something from my village. We have a lot of music that sounds like this. It's familiar, reminds me of home."

He was looming above me now, the koto between us. "Do you miss it? Home?" From this angle I could see his chin and lips under the baboon's muzzle.

I sat back on my feet so I could look up at him without craning my head too much. "I suppose I do."

"Do you have any plans to return home? Perhaps for a visit?"

I shook my head. "I won't be allowed to leave until the young Lord is healthy again. I'm here for the foreseeable future yet." I'd be here for months, maybe even years if this diet treatment didn't work out well. And when I was allowed to leave, what would I do? I had no idea how to even get home. When this was over, I would just continue on with my plan to travel and care for people for money and avoid war wherever I could. It's all I could do.

"And if you could leave?" He crouched.

We ended up face-to-face, in a silent staring competition. This close, I could see the gleam of his eyes in the low light of the lantern beside me, but I couldn't make out the colour.

"I would stay. It's my duty to care for Kagewaki until he is healthy again."

His head tilted. "Kagewaki?" he repeated in a croon. "Are you sweet on the young Lord, miss Nori?"

My cheeks flushed. I'd addressed him so familiarly. Sometimes I'd felt like it, dropping the Lord title while speaking to him. It felt nice, having that sort of familiarity with someone. It wasn't something I had in this place yet. "That's Miss Masanori to you, Naraku." Kagewaki, I felt close with; Naraku, I didn't. Naraku wouldn't be the one I let speak to me so familiarly first in this place.

"Ah, I have offended." He leaned forwards some. I could smell the fur of the pelts, he was so close. It was a musky, damp smell. This pelt spent a lot of time outdoors. "Have no fear, Masanori." No miss, damn him. "He shall not hear of your budding affections from me."

"At what cost?" It felt like he was building up for a demand. What could he want from me?

"Why, nothing. Think of it as an act of good faith between colleagues. We shall be working together under the young Lord, after all. It's best we have a good relationship. Don't you agree?"

Perhaps I couldn't read him as well as I thought. Was that weird feeling I kept having while he was around wrong? Really, he'd been nothing but amiable to me since we'd met. He was even a little charming in his own right.

"I suppose I do. Well then, Naraku, thank you. Would you like to sit and listen to me play? I'm still not ready for bed."

His answer was merely to sit from his crouch, raising one leg so he could lay his wrist atop it in a casual stance.

So I played and he listened.

It was... nice. A calm way to spend a sleepless night. No talking, just music and company.

Every now and again I looked up at him through my lashes.

What an interesting man he was.

Bumf:

Oath - As a doctor, Nori would have sworn on the Physician's Oath, also known as the Hippocratic Oath, when she graduated medical school. You know "First, do no harm..." Except, you know, that phrasing actually never appears in the Physician's oath. Anyway. The oath gets pretty regularly revised. It was revised in 1948 after the world war, 1968, 1983, 1994, 05, 06 and 17. This story takes place in 1997, so Nori would have become a doctor in 93 and originally sworn on the 83 amendments, then sworn again on the 94 revision.

Welcome to the Jungle - is, of course, the absolute banger of a song from Guns'n'Roses. It's a song I'll never get tired of hearing. There are actually some amazing covers of this song done on the koto over on youtube if you wanna check them out. English music is pretty popular in Japan, even if they don't understand it. A lot of Japanese people like British culture, music, the language, etc etc. I got a fair bit of attention when I attended an anime convention over there a few years ago.

This chapter was fun, and writing more Naraku was also fun. He really is quite a charming man on the surface, and writing that is pretty fun. I tend to err towards quite rough, coarse characters so writing someone that is actually charming is quite an experience. Don't you worry though, it won't last forever, but I'll have fun with charming Naraku while I can. He's someone I'm thoroughly enjoying writing, and I think him and Nori bounce off each other quite well. He's going to have to learn to manipulate her, and it won't be too easy for him, cause where's the fun in making it easy for him? Nori will be a big challenge for him.