Chapter 19: Loss
Hello everyone, sorry I've been away so long. The summer went by with a whirlwind of activities and now it's fall! This chapter is especially long so hopefully it makes up for my extended absence, but truth be told I've re-written it countless times. There was always something missing each time, but now I think it's the best I can possibly craft it to be. This chapter, everyone loses. Last chapter was tearful but hopefully this one not so...much? Let me know what you think. As always, I reply to your reviews at the end. Have fun!
Chapter 19: Loss
A warm wind whistles, ushering a flurry of sakura across the land below. Above, perched on the cliff, irises continue to sway under kind sunbeams. In the distant, sparrows sing. Ran continues to look on, not the least fazed by the arrival of spring's beauty.
"So you are here," the village elder notes, shuffling towards the cliff with gentle knocking of his staff against the earth, "again."
"Ah." She mumbles, on the ground with knees to her chest, absorbed in mountains and valleys lying beyond the reaches of her hamlet.
"My child, I am on my way to a game of shoji, care to join this old man?" He chuckled.
She shook her head.
"Would you care for green tea after?"
Again she shakes her head.
"Calligraphy then, that has always been your favorite! The children need a teacher-"
"Oji-san," her voice hoarse from disuse, "is there anyone ill or injured in need of my help?"
It was the elder's turn to sigh. "Ran, you know all is well, Shimamoto-machi has never seen illness because of your guidance."
Your expertise is no longer required. You are not needed!
She closes her eyes. "If needed, I will be here."
It was the elder's turn to shake his head. "Must you come here everyday? Dawn to dusk this way- almost a moon, my child! They say you neither drink nor eat. Perch yourself here everyday, seeking his return? Don't be a fool! You will not find him."
"Oji-san I have begged you-"
He slammed his staff into the ground with a strength belying his age. "You will not know of General Mitsunari's whereabouts! It is forbidden to disclose to you under penalty of death, nor will you find traces of his army overlooking these valleys. This is a wasted endeavor of yours."
She shrank at the first scolding in her life by the man who raised like his own granddaughter.
The village elder catches his breath in a moment of silence. "Enough my child, come home. Your safety was the general's most ardent wish." He reaches his hand out to her.
"Oji-san," she looks out into the horizon again, "what kind of man was my father?"
I could never have such a power hungry, cruel, murderous tyrant for a father!
Because between the hearsay from evanescent whispers at the marketplace and slanted scrolls written by victors, truth may have been martyred for mayhem instead.
You know nothing of Lord Hideyoshi!
He looked taken aback, but regained his composure. Paper cannot conceal a fire; it was only a matter of time.
"Ran, your father was a powerful, ambitious man," he began, stroking his beard, "one of the many proud Japanese men with a dream to unify the country against foreigners and their wicked influences. Your father was devoted to securing the fate of this nation."
"He was not an evil man?"
The old man chuckles. "Who pray tell in this sengoku jidai, is not evil? Lords invade land, send men off to their deaths, seek revenge, and kill in the name of one entity or another. Have all my teachings been for naught, my child?"
Her grip tightens on the kanazashi between her fingers, gems from iris petals gossamer as it catches rays of the sun. Her gaze lifts towards the horizon.
"I…I wish to be alone, oji-san."
With a final sigh, the village elder stalks off. He gives her a final glance. Spring arrives and spring shall go. The irises bloom, they shall wither, and at this rate, she will too.
"He is your father," the old man turns to leave, "no matter the man he is in this sengoku jidai, a father is all he should be to you."
The thoughts of her gentle mother who fell in love with a man Ran never had the fortune of knowing.
"Anata no chichiue."
My father. The realization is a rock in her throat.
"Is that not enough?" She hears his voice echo as footsteps fade.
Ran remained silent as he retreated down the spiral path to the village. Below, she hears children playing Lord and samurai. Of course in this era, who is there better to be? Peasants and farmers subjugated by the aristocracy, falling prey to the strong and savage? Of course, everyone sought strength, fought for freedom, strived for harmony, and battled for a tomorrow without war. Yet...
The silence stretches as clouds blot out the sun. A cold wind picks up, ruffling the sleeves of her grey, working kimono. She brings the hairpiece closer to her.
"I have never thought myself a princess," Ran mutters to herself. A sharp gale cuts her way, slashing irises clean off their stems, and a shadow envelops her small frame.
"Oh, but you are."
Mitsunari bolted up the spiral path, heart hammering hard in his chest. When his second in command interrupted his meditation, Mitsunari dreaded to uncover the reason why. Shima Sakon is agile, loyal, but he was often too busy frequenting the red light district to bother delivering a message. Unless…
The Minister of Misfortune feels the sting of ash in his eyes and nostrils. He wasn't far, but still could view nothing but the uphill dirt path against grey skies.
Almost a month, he spent dividing his men to take down various Gamo squadrons in the eastern provinces. The rat's men were few and a far, laying waste to every village and field in their path. Their small numbers, destructive weaponry and a total disregard for life echoes a terrible shade of the Oda Nobunaga empire. He intended to quell the attacks in the provinces before leading the bulk of his army to raid the rat's castle up north, eradicating the source of infestation once and for all afterwards. Hideyoshi-sama would have done that. He reaches the top of the steep hill overlooking Shimamoto-machi.
But what would Lord Hideyoshi do now?
His heels dug into the ground as the village came into view. A wild conflagration, smothered in swirls of smoke and ash that continue to reign despite the pattering of cold rain. Everything ripped. Razed. Ruined. Mitsunari hears the clatter of his own sword against the dead, moist earth.
"Mitsunari- sama, there's been an attack on the Shimamoto-machi."
He whispers a name no one but himself could hear.
"This is such a beautiful place. Thank you for bringing me here."
The pain in his chest is worst than any wound received in all his years of battle. No longer the confident warrior, but a slender young man with knobby knees, he stumbles forward until there's a crunching beneath his feet.
He falls to his knees to pick up the pieces, wrapping them in his gloved hand, deaf to the words of Shima Sakon tailing behind him.
"Your orders, General Ishida."
Ran could hear the door grinding open against the weight of two grunting soldiers. A fiery glow ensues, illuminating the chamber that housed massive wooden crates; one of which she sits on.
"I have a surprise for you," her captor drawls, slinking in to the room. Ran remains passive, fixated on the moonlight filtering in through a barred window high above. "Two in fact."
One of the guards places a tray before her.
"I am not hungry, Ayaka," Ran replies, forgoing honorifics.
"Do you not find the food edible? Your village's finest delicacies! You must miss them!" The older woman mocks. "Or do you not find the accommodations to your liking, Hime-sama?"
"I am not a princess," she says evenly, her eyes long dried out of tears, "you should have killed me."
The woman wraps a finger around her crimson locks. "Kill you? You speak of death so lightly for a woman so removed from war. Hime-sama, you know nothing of death."
"…"
"But die you will, Princess," she continues, "when the Minister of Misfortune arrives."
Ran flinches, if only slightly. "I am not afraid," she insists with a stony gaze, "but he will not be here."
"They call you the Southern Flower," the shinobi seizes Ran by the chin and cracks a smile, "I can see why, and even an imbecile knows what will transpire if such a precious flower is stolen from the Minister of Misfortune. Have faith in your heroic general. He will come, and he will die. A man that will bleed for you, will certainly not hesitate to die for you."
Her cackle bounces off the walls, drawing goosebumps on Ran's skin.
"You are wrong. Mitsunari-sama will do no such thing," she repeats.
She smiles at her. The younger woman's eyes are swollen, but still a pretty sight. "Hush now, don't be so pessimistic. Your hero will arrive- valiantly smashing through this prison armed with the sharpest of steel, donning the brightest of armor to whisk you away-"
"I have never dreamed of such things," Ran insists, balling her fists, "I am no one to - "
Ran feels the immediate burning on her cheek.
"Your days are numbered princess," Ayaka spat, hand still raised in mid-air, "it would be wise to spend them fantasizing the possible instead of dreading the inevitable. Lord Gamo will end the Toyotomi line and I will exact the justice due for my fallen brothers in arms. It will happen."
"You're wrong," she denies, wringing her hands, despite the sting on her face, "your plans for vengeance will fail."
The shinobi sneers. "Speaks the complacent princess from her throne."
"It is the truth," she replies, suddenly wrenched forward by the collar of her kimono against the shinobi.
"You know nothing of hatred, vengeance," the older woman snarls, their faces inches from one another, "nothing of loss."
"I do," Ran insists, her eyes with a lucid sharpness to them, "a father I have never known, a mother I will never see again and a home with many I care for which I will forever grieve. Everyone has lost someone important to them."
"Che," she cusses, shoving the younger woman away. "Yet you don't wish death upon me? I who destroyed your home?"
Her hand balls into a fist. "At first I did. I cried, wishing the massacre had not happen, wishing I had the strength to protect my home, but I did not and I never will. But revenge will not bring them back," Ran continues, her hand falling limp to her side, "nor will it bring them peace. None of them will want to see me become a murderer. Become you."
A kunai flies, missing Ran's face by a hair's breadth. "Enough! You speak such lofty words of peace and forgiveness, but what of my brothers cut down by your hero? I hear them, their terrible cries for justice. They plague my existence bemoaning a debt in blood."
Ran feels a warmth trickle down her cheek. "...the cries you hear…is it their voice, or is it yours?"
A curse under the female shinobi's breath. Impudent brat. "Mitsunari will die, as he should have when I first poisoned him if not for your meddlesome intervention."
Ran stops her self from looking over. There's a moment of silence as she takes a deep breath. "You cannot hurt him. No one can."
Her emerald eyes shoot her a glare and her expression curls into a smirk. "Hime-sama, have you any idea what Lord Gamo's castle habors? Do you know why it takes two men to open the door?"
She remains silent.
Ayaka whirls a kunai around her fingertips and with a flick of a wrist sends a crate lid topping over. "Take a look."
Ran swallows, approaching the musty crates she had been sitting on for last few days. She catches silvers of ebony and unmistakable odor of sulfur.
"This is…" she gasps.
Again, Ayaka's crackle echoes off the chamber walls. "What you see now is but a fraction left in stock. The rest is set to welcome Mitsunari and his army. The age of the samurai and his pathetic sword is over. One by one they will succumb to iron age of firearms. Lord Gamo has campaigned heavily across the lands, amassing gold to trade for iron with the western world. Your chambers, this door, are fruits of his labor. Do you not feel privileged to be staying in the first iron chamber of Japan?"
She sank to her knees. The crate alone must have one hundred, and there were crates packed to the ceiling, a fraction of this must be... "All of this…how…"
The shinobi gave her one final smirk. "Don't dwell on the matter, focus on surviving until your hero arrives. It won't do to die before then," she taunts, turning to leave, "or else his death won't be as swift as your fellow villagers, hime. That is not a threat, it's a promise, Hime-sama."
Masahide sips his tea from the corner of his shed, taking a break from the recent state of events that transpired. He had little ties with Shimamoto-machi, but rumors of the slaughter made his tea tasteless. On the counter across from him, his latest and finest piece cloaked in black.
There's a pounding of hooves outside and the swordsmith nods absently.
All these years, the brat would storm in touting a bag of gold, demanding of his services. Sometimes a silent exchange, but more often than not a sparring session. He sighs, today would be neither.
"The sword needs to be sharpened posthaste," the pale youth demands, to which the elderly man merely nods.
"And what will you do Sakichi?" He quirks an eyebrow at him. "Storm the Gamo stronghold with your army, overwhelm his arquebus-wielding warriors and end this madness?"
Without blinking. "Of course, there is no other option."
The swordsmith crackles a smile knowingly. Any other warrior would hesitate to consider the dangers, the doubt, the fear and at least, the plan, but not him. Such was a brat with a pure heart. The course of action will always be so clear.
"Very well, consider it done," Masahide clears his throat, gesturing to the counter, "this is yours as well. You'd do well to use it if you wish to return. The dangers of arquebus far exceed the samurai blade."
"Hn," he scoffs, reaching for the usual bag of gold coins, but the swordsmith tells him to stay his hand.
"No amount of gold will suffice for my labor," Masahide says with a shake of his head.
Mitsunari scowls. "Then what will?"
He grins. Perhaps the rumors have reached the brat? It was worth a try.
Rubbing his chin, the elderly man tells the General: "Bring me the southern flower."
XionNight: Men like Mitsunari only have one thing in their mental arsenal when it comes to women: denial. xD
CoolCat0720: nooo don't die, there's so much left of the story to read.
Gekou no Netsu: oh Shima Sakon! such a pretty boy! he will be back. I did see Judge End.
Konoha'sYellowFlash: no come back, they are not star-crossed lovers! I promise. hehe
Megohime of Mutsu: no more TT_TT. things will get better.
FrostWingedButterfly: Mitsunari "messed up". but he will "fix" this. Not me, he will.
Lonely-soul101: thank you for your review. hopefully you like this chapter :)
MagatsuIza: no the story continues. Mitsunari needs to rectify EVERYTHING, including being a brute to Ran.