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Chapter 16: Sacrifice
Mitsunari sips sake from black ceramic. The ambient glow from lanterns bathe the chamber scarlet while wisps of incense ghost across tatami mats.
Below on the streets wander a company of four, zigzagging past painted women from the dream world. Across from them a hoard of men meander before a house where impeccably dressed women sat perched like birds in a cage.
Such a place…
A place where men across the social hierarchy came to imbibe and indulge.
…Lord Hideyoshi would have razed to the ground!
A place, Mitsunari knew, the Code of Bushido would never condone but-
"…we have confirmation they will be there in three days time, Mitsunari-sama."
He takes another sip of his chilled sake as the doors slide open. Enters an older woman, clad in an ornate green kimono with blood red maple.
Debauchery. Avaraice. Dishonor.
This is the place he seeks. He had known it from the glow of her eyes at the clattering ryo moments ago- a look that squelched all questions regarding his position and weapon possession.
Outside a corpulent man missteps and tumbles down the stairs, dragging the woman by his side with a ensuing cry. The tinkering laughter at inebriated misfortune from bystanders reaches his ears, but the lines on his expression remain hard.
Hn.
His scout had better be right.
"My Lord, I presume the accommodations are to your liking?" Spoken like a true Madam with her head slightly inclined; lip half hitched.
"You have what I seek," he repeats from earlier, without sparing her a glance. Feigned respect is not worth a second look, or a first for that matter.
She smiles despite the slight. "Of course, I have summoned the finest for you, my Lord."
He bats not an eye when the Oiran appears before him. The name he barely makes over scandalous secrets and fornications of filthy patrons down the hall. Nothing of importance. Yet.
The older woman begs her pardon and exits.
"Good evening my Lord," her voice deep, sultry like smoldering ashes, "I am honored you have summoned me."
The Ishida General casts her a glance, seeing everything AND nothing money cannot buy.
Judging from her attire she ranked highest of the women here. The most regal of all imprisoned birds in this wretched town. A consort fit for an emperor. Rich crimson wraps around alabaster skin, and with a face rumor to be sculpted by the gods themselves, even Mitsunari's glare lingers.
He meets her eyes. Slanted ebony radiates confidence, self-entitlement. One would be a fool to deny her beauty.
He takes a final sip of rice wine, matching her eyes with his steel ones. Dark eyes notorious for enchanting men, lesser known for consuming them.
The General of the Ishida army returns to nurse his sake.
He had seen enough.
Her robes, flamboyant.
Her hairpiece, cumbersome and impractical.
Her perfume suffocating.
"Your name." Because he deign to give his.
Those eyes confident they are, hang hollow with an eternal emptiness he had never seen in a woman. Granted the females in his life are few, but theirs were different, theirs held…
He finds himself gazing upon the ethereal glow of lanterns by the window.
…Warmth? He looks away, and despite the nonsense, mental images blur of a lowly peasant by muddy rivers, with a smile that would shame the sun.
"The Beauty of the East whom men travel across the land to find, my Lord," she drawls between soft, sumptuous scarlet lips, "is I."
He finds it unnerving that men would brave the elements to catch a glimpse of her - a cold calamity behind piquant porcelain, a desolate wretch underneath layers of silk and seduction.
"Ah." Mitsunari had half a mind to refute her claim, but then he heard it.
Evanescing whispers beyond the sliding of shoji doors, masked by obsequious squeals. Information worth the weight in gold he paid here to sully himself.
A smirk as an idea coalesces.
"My spirits run low," he begins, picking up the cup she just filled. He turns the cup in his fingers with practiced ease. "Humor me."
"My Lord, I'm fear humor is not my forte," she drawls with a beguiling pucker of rogue. "However, I am well versed in rhetoric and military history."
"Is that so?" A quirk of his eyebrow.
"Of course, My lord." Her smile, high and proud.
He downed his rice wine in one go. As if an evening of fornication and deception was not enough, he had to entertain the company of a flamboyant braggart.
No matter.
"If it is as you say," he pours sake, but not into his cup, "then riddle me this…"
"Wrong again," Mitsunari replies, arms crossed as she downs her penalty drink. Her last cup- he was sure.
"M-m-my Lord," she slurs, falling back on her rump, "how unfair!"
He gives her a look, but decides drunks are not worth the effort. Mitsunari unwinds his legs to rise, but she scrambles towards him.
"Don't goooo," she murmurs, burying herself in his purple robes. "Stay with me."
He shoots her silvers of cold steel, reigning in reflexes ingrained since his training days.
"Stay," she pouts, her eyes with smeared kohl, "with the most beautiful woman of Japan….just one night."
The wrinkle in his expression takes a turn for the worse and it's not from the sake gone foul.
"Kirei?"
The silver-haired samurai repeats the word as she curls against him. The phrase as foreign to him as the endless, Western world, and even as he attempts to wrestle logic from it, his mind conjures nothing to his dismay, but brown eyes and bright smiles.
He scoffs in the backdrop of her soft snores before rolling her aside none too gently with a final shove.
With the stealth of shinobi, he slinks across the room. Gone are the swoons, squeals and fawning giggles. Voices grow hushed on the other side of glazed shoji doors, but he hears.
"Three crates of new prototypes on the northern harbor by next moon. They will be equipped with extra rounds. More fire, less loading."
The grip on his o-dachi had never been so strong.
"Lord Gamo will be pleased. This war will be ours."
In the blink of an eye, silver arcs across the walls.
So engrossed in their scheme, the men were oblivious to the partitions sliding diagonally off each other until candles were wiped by shockwaves.
So little he thinks of their wide-eyed expressions as he approaches, because rats of the Gamo Empire had but one outcome.
So swift heads flew that the only words to escape were but two before said projectiles met ground.
"…hail Gamo…"
Ting!
She barely has time to register the clatter of needle on the sake tray before sprinting out into the corridor. Her face grown pale much to the horror of clueless servants overlooking the terrace, but the sake preparation, the danger, everything- she had to tell them!
Ran rounds the corner-
"Mitsunari, what happened last night- those men were innocent!"
W-what?
Her mad dash grinds to a halt at the boom of Ieyasu's voice. The anger barely contained by paper thin partition sends chills down her spine. Her alabaster countenance drains to ghastly pallor by the unfathomable implications his words.
"There is no innocence among arquebus smugglers, and Gamo trash," the sullen warrior scoffs, "only death."
D-Death? What had Mitsunari-dono done?!
She shakes her head.
Kami, what did she hear?
Her ears, certainly they lie!
Surely, it isn't true!
She feels the suspicion like arrows of ice, spearing her heart, freezing her limbs, threatening to steal whatever warmth she has left.
Mitsunari could not have ….
"Allegations those maybe, but last night was neither the time nor place to exact your vengeance."
"Such a place would not exist under Toyotomi rule! Hideyoshi-sama would never allow it!"
"Hideyoshi-sama, would have you follow orders," the Tokugawa heir counters, his voice even and smooth, matched only by the steel in the other.
Silence, as Ran waits with bated breath outside. She never felt so cold, and it had little to do with the premature demise of leaves carried by a dry wind.
She hears Ieyasu sigh. "If there is no alibi,…"
A gasp escapes her cold lips. The inevitable fate even she knew…
"…the penalty is death."
And then it happened in the blink of an eye.
Before she could speak, the door flies open.
Before she could see, eyes of both men are upon her.
Before anything, words leave her lips. Unchecked. Unfiltered.
"Mitsunari-dono is innocent!"
Her hands and knees slam on the tatami mat. Her heart hammering like the hooves of warhorses against cold, dead earth. Her mind blinded by the thought of Ishida Mitsunari on execution platform.
"Ran…" Ieyasu meets her wet eyes with his wild ones.
"You! Meddlesome pleasant! This has nothing to do with you! Leave at once!" The Ishida General barks, staring daggers upon her small but upright shoulders.
Ieyasu exhales nasally, arms crossed.
"Speak."
"He….he…."
"Go on."
Her mind races, unaware the heart had decided her fate long before the doors were thrown open. Eyes blur from the promise of perdition but she forces them shut. He cannot be on that platform and there is only one way.
"Last night, Mitsunari-dono was not there," she prostrates before them, "he was with me. The entire night."
If her hands were not planted on the ground she would reach for the non-existent omamori in her robes.
Mother…
If her heart were not so heavy, she would tell her mother she had never imagined jeopardizing herself for a man she still believes to be rude, arrogant, and cold.
…to save him …
If her mind was not so blurred by images of blood and execution, she would see the effect of her words on the future- like ink on paper, scars on flesh.
….I can be brave.
The boom of his weapon against the bamboo mat as he stalks over to her.
"How dare you-"
Ieyasu steps between the two. "Mitsunari-dono," he intervenes, with narrowed eyes few have seen.
If Mitsunari's weapon were not crafted from the highest grade of steel, it might have cracked in his grip. He met the young heir's gaze.
"Leave." The yellow of his eyes, a fierce blaze that can melt steel. "Now."
A small eternity later, she hears the Ishida general exit, the shoji shouldering the brunt of his wrath.
"Ran," Ieyasu's voice rang out, firm but decibels softer than before, "raise your head."
As her forehead leaves the floor there is nothing more she wishes than to stay buried forever in the layers of her robes. Her eyes fixed on the ground.
"You are aware the implications of your words." A statement, not a question, and of course she knows. Mortifying, immoral, offensive and above all, irrevocable.
"Forgive me Ieyasu-dono." Eyes still cast on the floor, eyelashes dewed with the disgrace she must have bought upon the Tokugawa heir. Ran did not think she had more than one life to live, and if punished, she knew even the nine lives of a cat would not suffice. Still, her heart hammers for a different cause.
Ieyasu stares at her huddled form with quirked eyebrows.
Why?
Irascible, insulting, intimidating, inconsiderate, and impossible. They were facts, not hearsay or opinions or even impressions of the young Ishida General. She knows. He knows. Everyone. And yet…
Ieyasu releases a sigh at the sight of her sobbing shoulders.
"My words from before, do not fret," he began, throat suddenly dry and neck taut, "it was an attempt to thwart the council's expectations of an arranged marriage."
"…" Her eyes glued to the straw mat in unrelenting mortification. The kimono laid derelict in the farthest corner of her chambers because she could not bear to look upon it anymore.
"I did not want to marry a princess of whom I have never met and do not know." He clears his throat. "But your words, Ran, will affect your future. You grasp the implications –"
Her eyes shoot up, dark, wide and firm, behind damp lashes. The Toyotomi heir is at a loss for words. The unsullied radiance of her complexion framed by strands of sleek ebony. As he neared her, he catches the scent of irises she frequently tasked herself with at the garden. He knows of her smile, infectious yet soft. Every man knows; except the most oblivious one of them all.
"Ieyasu-dono, I have no reservations," her voice, quiet determination.
Of course people will talk.
Immoral.
Shameful.
Harlot.
Wench.
She will NEVER marry.
But even so…
"My words are final. Ieyasu-dono please adjudge where I have erred without impunity." She resigns to prostration again.
"These are words from your heart?" His voice taut like steel wires.
"Forgive me Ieyasu-dono, they are," she whispers between her arms and the tatami mat.
"Ran," his throat suddenly dry again, and fingers churning into a fist. "Rise."
She gets up but avoids his eyes. A whispered apology. She did not dare forgiveness.
Ieyasu sighs, rubbing the back of his neck and forcing a handsome smile. There is no why or how with bonds, huh? While the elders, deep-seated in their ways, may never understand the irony and fate of bonds, Ieyasu has faith the newer generation will. He almost laughs. How else could he AND her connect with the most atrocious embodiment of man?
"It is evident bond you share with Mitsunari is one of great strength. If this country is to one day be united, then it is my duty to preserve these bonds we forge for the happiness and harmony of future generations."
"Your gift," she crouches, subtlety all but forgotten, "I cannot acce-"
"The gift," he meets her eyes with his bright ones, "is yours to keep. I see the path you have chosen and though trials are sure to await you, for now worry no more on my behalf. Take your leave. I shall speak with Mitsunari. Go on."
He turns heel, rallying himself to quell the anger of a thousand men.
"Matte, Ieyasu-dono," she reaches for his arm, recalling the matter that led her here, "please you must know…"
"Where is she?" General of the Ishida army barks, stalking into the main chambers where Ieyasu sat sipping tea. He had returned after a stomp through the main barracks, sparring with his lieutenants, all of who now sport various injuries.
"Who?" He feigns ignorance, setting his ceramic cup besides the sake set.
Mitsunari flashes a glare.
"Mitsunari-dono," Ieyasu beckons his comrade to sit, "there are more pressing matters we are to-"
"The impudent peasant, bring her here," he growls, standing across Ieyasu with a small tea table between them. "She will know the consequences of-"
"I will NOT have you bring harm to her so long as she remains on Tokugawa grounds." The Light of the East meets his gaze with a firm one, a sinuous arm on polished wood.
He curses under his breath. Foolish Ieyasu to protect the perjurious peasant. Had he gone mad, unable to distinguish truth from lies?
"She spouts falsities, lies!" He rages, fingers crunching into a fist. "This woman-"
"Do you intend to kill her?" Ieyasu counters with the same fiery blaze in his eyes that match Mitsunari's cold steel.
Hn.
His glare drops with a sneer.
Heaven forbid she was born a man, then there would be no such mercy. For all her wrong, Mitsunari knew he could not bring her to justice the same way he could to any man who defies him. Perhaps it may not align with what Lord Hideyoshi would do, but bringing a sword to the weak, especially women and children- that was not the samurai way and even in heated rage, he knew this to be true beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Surely, his late lord would agree, but even then…
"Her lies and deception," he intones with solemnity after a moment's silence, "must be punished."
"She did so to save you," Ieyasu replies, a palm tucked under his chin with that placid expression Mitsunari so loathed about the Tokugawa heir. "The bond she had with you, saved your life."
Tsch. Bonds? Saving? He asked for no such thing! Does the entirety of mankind fail to understand him? Repercussions were but an afterthought when he decided to slaughter the rats, as is the fate of all who collude with the Gamo. He would openly accept execution than hide behind pitiful lies of a peasant. Lord Hideyoshi would undoubtedly agree.
"I had not asked her to," he scowls, reflexively reaching for the sake bottle as Ieyasu's eyes grow wide, "how dare she use underhanded, unworthy-"
"Mitsunari!" The Tokugawa heir strikes it from Mitsunari's grip. The container hurled across the chamber, spewing into shards as it meets ground.
"Nani?" His flat reply. Had his rival lost it as well?
No sooner had he made his remark did the puddle begin to mist, scalding the straw mat deep into the underlying infrastructure.
"The Gamo clan sends their regards," Ieyasu says dryly, reseating himself. "A 'peace-offering' according to the porter."
Mitsunari mutters under his breath, something of death, something of rats.
"As luck would have it, I was alerted of this treachery," the dark-haired warrior continued, weaving a thin, black needle between his fingers, "and if it were not for a certain…'peasant', perhaps you and I would be joining Lord Hideyoshi in the afterlife sooner than anticipated. As show of my gratitude, I will dismiss the massacre last night to belligerent ronins. We will speak no more of this matter. The Gamo are growing ever more brave and encroaching on lands far from their empire. We must stop them from repeating the terrors of the Oda Nobunaga regime."
Hn. He stood to leave.
"Mitsunari, you will bring her no harm," Ieyasu repeats, getting to his feet. "She saved our lives. Yours twice. Although you may not believe in bonds, you will one day know of its influence and power."
"Your inane beliefs are commendable. Say what you will, I do not wish to rule. I pursue only vengeance for Lord Hideyoshi and death to all those who defile his memory."
With that, Mitsunari walks out. No time for sentiment and no time for absurdities.
He rounds a corner towards his chambers, intent on meditating for the remainder of the day when he encounters the last person he wishes to see.
"Mitsunari-dono!" She bows deep and meets his eyes. "Please allow me to explain-"
A hand held out. "Enough," he bellows. "Have you not spewed enough repulsive lies for a lifetime?"
"Please, I could not idle while you-"
"Your misdeeds have no merit. I shall never forgive you!"
"What transpired last night is punishable by death. Mitsunari-dono, you are to me-"
"What I have done is none of your concern! Time and time again, you meddle in my affairs and now concoct a vile fabrication of your own accord! Have you no shame?"
She felt a lump in her throat and her voice grew small. Her eyes so blurry she did not trust herself to look at him anymore.
"Forgive me, I did not wish you harm. I had to act."
And she did, by relinquishing the most important thing she could have held on to as a woman of her time.
"Did I seek your assistance?" He sneers sharp rhetoric. "Your reckless actions Ieyasu may overlook but I shall not forgive! A treacherous nuisance you are! Leave! Be gone! Never to appear in my sight again!"
He brushes past her and stalks ahead. A sensation below his ribcage coiling underneath the surface and despite the constant affirmation that this is what Hideyoshi-sama would have done, it stabs daggers in him just as her silhouette falls behind the dying, amber day.
NOTE: I live! Although my family has not been too well, hence my absence. Thrown into fray was also a lot of self-doubt- no one's voice is louder than your own I suppose. During the time, I have read, re-read, edited and revised this chapter countless times. It's difficult to imagine and write when there's so much on my shoulders. But it's done. Please let me know how it went. I fear I'm quite rusty and out of it, but I DO wish to continue. So critique, criticize, call me out, but the tale will go on!
xionNight: mitsunari does- but does he know? haha :Tcdaqtcherry:Funny you should say, if I were her I would KEEP it!
happily insane: not yet... but stayed tuned ;)
No One Important: You left me holiday greetings! *LE GASP* warm all over! Thank you for your reading and concern ^_^
AriaTheScarletRose: a bit longer this time, is okay? =D
Blue Hydrangea: now that you mention, it does seem funny... hehe
Konoha'sYellowFlash: oh gosh, another eternity you had to wait. I'll try to update ASAP. I love Ieyasu too but =P oh wells. He will find another?
CrimsonLotus: astute! I was just waiting for someone to point it out!
CIoud-09: hope you have your answer, dear :)
CoffeeTea07: yup, that sounds like Ieyasu. I still adore him, abrupt or not. I think it's fair to reply back if someone took the time to review. Just a small, tiny ty :)
Sailor-Levi: Oh that Mitsunari- he's no good for her *bawls*
anon52: it's here :D
Lux Caelum: Mitsunari BEEN need to step up his game. Regarding Shima-san, I will have to see because there are few works in the pipeline for future as of now...
Megohime of Mutsu: Date's wife- it's an honor again. Mitsunari needs...to grow up. He's so stressful haha. Let's see what we can do for him here. Please don't cry this chapter too hime. T^T
suzu84: my reaction exactly! What did you think of Mitsunari this chapter? Oh no he didn't?! Oh yes he did!
Tl-258: thank you! is your title after a calculator by any chance? :D
no-password oops: omgsosorry! This story is too small for someone larger than life like Masamune. perhaps he will have his own...
SilverstarlightXD: thank you! Glad you like Ran- when I first created her I thought she was such a scaredy cat hehe
reader: aww, it's here now. no worries.