Chapter 8: What's in a Name?
She was doing her best to pull him into bed, an futile attempt that would have amused him had the younger Lord Hinogawa not insulted him so previously.
"Kakashi-san, you're making this hard."
He tried to extricate his arms, but she was like an octopus, switching to clinging to whichever hand he used to push her away. She giggled the whole time.
He finally grabbed her wrists and pushed. She couldn't help but fall back on to the bedspread, pinned underneath him.
"Kakashiiiii," she sang. "Kakashiii, you've finally decided to join me in bed tonight?"
He looked down at her, wondering. Did the Hokage want her dead? Did some other noble? Was she in danger, or was she the danger?
It was the perfect time to ask.
"What's your plan?"
She drew herself up short and stopped giggling abruptly. She hiccuped once.
"Plan?"
"Plan. Plot. Scheme." He pulled back, standing again. He stuffed his hands in his pockets. "What are you trying to do here? With your brothers?" With me?
There were no more giggles. She sat up, as if sobered by the bluntness of the question. But she answered. She had to.
"I thought little Naruto already knew the plan. Did he not tell you?"
Kakashi twitched a hidden lip to the side. He'd figured Toru was being a little too loose-lipped.
Lady Hinogawa continued, eyes glittering . "The plan, is for me to rule this kingdom right." Her drunk demeanor slipped back into place, and she reached her arms out to him. "You're still very far away, Kakashi-san. How are you so disinterested?"
"I don't sleep with murderers." A lie, but the implication was necessary.
"You think I killed Kiyomasa?" She looked at him, eyes almost pleading. "What would be the point? What would I get from being the cause of Kiyo's sad, pathetic death?"
"A lot." A betrothed on the throne, if Kawaru had his way.
She shook her head.
"Oh no..no, no, no. Don't treat me like everyone else does, Kakashi. Don't treat me like an idiot." She spread her arms wide. "What would be the point in killing Kiyomasa when I'd need to stand in line to do it?"
"You'd get to marry Hiroyuki."
She laughed, high and cruel. "That's just something for my fool brother to chase so he keeps out of my way." She threw herself back on the covers.
"You're expecting me to believe you're working to free your slaves purely out of the goodness of your heart?"
"Is that so hard to believe?"
"Seems like there's a lot of evidence pointing towards you seizing a lot of power very quickly."
"Power, as the daimyo's wife?" She blew a raspberry. The truth serum from Hiroyuki had her in an almost childlike state. "There's no power in that. Eat, drink, pop out a baby. No, I stay the lady Hinogawa. There's no other version of me. Speaking of babies..."
Scratch the almost childlike state, she was starting to slip out of her clothes now. He grabbed her wrists and yanked her into a sitting position. She looked delighted at the manhandling. He had to keep her on topic. There was no telling how long the serum would last.
"Then what's the sneaking and plotting and hiring ninja?"
Her wrists hung limply from his grasp. She sighed, trying to rub her cheek against the hands that were holding her wrists so roughly. "Must we talk of such things? Now?"
He shook her. "Now."
She reined herself in visibly and sat back. She surveyed him briefly, resignedly, then started talking. "I'm the only person seeing the future clearly. There's chaos up ahead, Kakashi, and depending on what we do now, the Hinogawas rise even higher or go under."
Jackpot.
"The issue with people," she continued. "Is that they don't take action when they need to. It's not enough to know it's coming. They need to be staring it in the face before they act."
"Not you, though?"
"It's a foolish way to act when you know what's coming. I choose my own time, make my own place. I'm not rushing to stockpile food after the famine hits, or waiting for the house to burn down before buying a fire extinguisher... I'm planning ahead. So while this may look like an unnecessary project for you, Kakashi-san, it's a matter of survival."
"Survival seems like an exaggeration."
She raised an eyebrow in challenge. "Do you know how many slaves there are in Fire Country?"
He raised a shoulder, shrugging.
"There's one for every third Fire citizen." She was spitting numbers now. "Do you know how many soldiers we have? Less than a million. That's one for every thirtieth Fire citizen."
She flapped a hand. "That's discounting ninja, of course. You keep your numbers very secret, don't you. And besides, the Hokage doesn't support slavery and wouldn't help us keep them. I hear Naruto didn't know they existed." The wry tone in her voice stood in stark contrast to the picture she made with her face flushed with alcohol and her clothing undone.
"They're going to run to Earth. Then they're going to return bristling with fury and weaponry to strike us down. I don't need to see the future to know that that's the condition Earth will put on their freedom. We're balancing on a precipice in history, Kakashi. We're the only major country to hold slaves and with Earth starting to move, I can't imagine that state of affairs continuing."
"Do you know who owns the most slaves in Fire country, Kakashi? Take two guesses, though you shouldn't need the second."
He nodded in understanding. The Hinogawas owned the most of everything in Fire Country, and that subset had to include slaves. She continued.
"The longer we wait, the more slaves Earth collects, and the worse the odds in case of war. Water may stand with us, but Lightning has always been deeply against slavery. Earth wouldn't need an excuse to declare war the moment they finish their preparations. When the revolution comes, the Hinogawas go, and when we fall, it means so much more than just me or my brothers dying. What of the samurai that will be torn to shreds in the event of a loss, the villages that will be razed as collateral damage?"
She gestured to the room and its various objects, all the surfaces emblazoned with the Hinogawa crest.
"Do you know what it feels like to have your name mean something?"
She looked at him, eyes searching for something in the ninja's inscrutable face.
"People identify themselves as mine, places identify themselves as mine. My name is painted across plaques and poems and books, books that hold much more power than any of your ninja scrolls. Do you know what that means I have to be?"
Her eyes blazed with conviction. "I need to know everything, I need to plan for everything. Because my household line cannot end with me, and my people cannot die with my name emblazoned over their chests. If that means I need to rearrange the entire top of Fire country, so be it. I'm prepared."
He sat and looked down at the woman who was almost wrapped around him,. This mad woman who truly believed she could mold the world to her will. Who was, despite her denials, still the most likely person to have ordered the assassination of Kiyomasa. Who was, because of these words, surely too dangerous to allow to live.
Why did he see a rather sexy version of Obito?
No, she wasn't laying her life down for her friends, it didn't seem like she had any friends in any shape or form. But he could see Obito in the responsibility she shouldered as she worked in the shadows to save her people. The eye watered a little. Irritated by the headband, no doubt. He suddenly felt very tired. The only sleep he'd had the past 48 hours had been earlier that afternoon when he'd been able to grab an hour or so of a nap before the dance lessons.
She continued speaking. "Think about it, you could do so much for this country, if you worked with me. I was thrilled to get you. The master of a thousand jutsu. You can use them all. Stopping the coming war is simple. Get rid of the hot heads at court and free the slaves. But did you know? The Hinogawa estates take up a third of Fire Country and the vast majority of our produce comes from slave labor."
Roses bloomed in her cheeks, as if the fire with which she spoke about this were rising within her.
"None of the other land owners have the resources to set up as large a system, but no doubt a considerable amount of theirs is as well. When you remove the slaves from the system..." She shook her head, looking off to the side for a moment before meeting his eyes again.
"I've been managing our estates for seven years now. My father was senile for the last four. I know better than anyone what precisely makes Fire Country the richest and most powerful in the world and it's not our samurai, or our nobles, or even Konoha. It's what we export to Wind and Water and Lightning. Do you think potatoes grow in sand, Kakashi? Earth is our only competitor. There's no point in freeing the slaves if Earth just gets comparatively more powerful and strikes when we're weakened."
She pulled close to him, making some hairs on his skin rise at the contact. "But Konoha's children are just in school for a few years before they awaken their chakra. We can't grow more farmers to take the place of the slaves, but we can develop the farmers we have to be more than enough to replace them. Think about it. "
A vision of a field filled with bustling Narutos flashed in his mind's eye.
"What's best, you're already a teacher. You'd just be spreading your bounty out to some more students. When Fire nation succeeds, Konoha succeeds. I will be in power, Kakashi-san, I can fix things."
Her fingers trailed about his chest, playing with the zipper on his flak jacket. He watched her impassively, willing it so that his quickened pulse was the only hint of a reaction.
"You go to waste in Konoha being sent on assassination missions. In my hands, you could be the most useful tool in correcting the wrongs of Fire Country."
She teased his zipper down, whispering into his ear. "There are a million ways to make you Hokage this instant."
The treasonous words made it easier for him to pull away enough to look her in the face.
"Hokage. Your puppet, you mean." Undeterred by the bluntness in the words, she brushed his bangs out of his face familiarly. Their breaths were intermingling now.
"I'd of course handle the political dealings of Konoha. Doesn't that make sense? Does it make sense for the Hokage to waste his talents running the day to day of a village? To have two militaries, one country?" The hand ran through his hair then trailed down his jawline, sliding along the smooth fabric of his mask. Nylon, produced in Fire Country. Likely by slave labor.
"Be my consort, Kakashi-san. Come out of the shadows and join the ninja world with ours."
She slipped a finger under the mask to tug it down for a kiss.
She tumbled to the bed, unconscious.
Sakura whirled guiltily to see a very disheveled-looking sensei at the bedroom door.
"Sensei!"
He strode over to her, straightening his jacket but looking no less rumpled. His mask was askew. Sakura's gaze skittered sideways from the sight, knowing the Lady Hinogawa must have gotten very intimate with her sensei's bare face.
"You're not a very good spy if you end up getting caught."
He saw what she was halfway through copying on to her exploding tag. He abruptly ripped it up.
"Good impulse, bad execution. Never write on fuuinjutsu, you can blow yourself and everyone else involved up." He flipped his headband up to scan the page. "Remind me to teach you a copy technique sometime."
"Copy...?" She asked. He pulled his headband down again.
"Ah... not copy as in my kind of copy. Copy as in transfer what's on a page on to another page. Very useful on these types of missions."
She nodded, swept up a little by his pace. He was moving faster than usual, all decisive movement where he'd usually flow languidly. He placed the document back on the desk where Sakura had found it, half under the book that had drawn her attention in the first place. Sakura wasn't surprised at this point. Kakashi-sensei had probably processed where every fly had taken a shit the moment he'd stepped in the room carrying Lady Hinogawa. His fingers trailed the cover briefly. Sakura wondered if he was going to take and flip it open out of force of habit.
Then she remembered how their chakras had been intermingled, and blushed redder than she'd ever had in her long career as a habitual blusher. He probably didn't need the book now.
"Naruto and Sasuke must be waiting. Let's go."
"Hai!"
Sakura followed Kakashi-sensei out of the quarters to see the very bored other half of Team 7 keeping a scandalized-looking Kimiko company. The girl paled when she saw Kakashi-sensei emerge, and darted back in to the quarters. A shriek was heard briefly after.
"Great, you're here and we can go sleep." Naruto cricked a neck.
"No. All three of you have guard duty over Lady Hinogawa tonight." Their sensei's voice was firm, and lower than usual. And a little strangled sounding.
"What? But we can do shifts!" Naruto protested.
"All three of you." That voice left no hope of appeal. "Don't come back to the rooms tonight, under threat of horrific mental scarring."
He disappeared, leaving Team 7 to look at each other in consternation.
The next day saw Lady Hinogawa sitting bolt upright in bed as memories of the previous night flooded back to her, face burning red in mortification and horror. She'd laid it on too thick, laid it on too fast for the Copy Nin to possibly think of accepting her offer.
How could she have been so stupid? Holding her aching head, her mind raced through the events of the night, only for it to come to a screeching halt at the wine mixers she'd shared with the new crown prince. Something had been in that, something designed to drag information out of her.
Her concerns over recruiting the Copy Nin to her cause fell by the wayside as she absorbed the implications of the new crown prince's actions.
She'd thought him an idiot, a fool that the daimyo and various powers in court could move as they willed. But he'd survived in court, and while he had never held any power to speak of, with Kiyo's death, he surely would now, and knowing that, he had targeted her with such a serum. What possible motive did he have for...?
Blood running colder by the moment, she called for Kimiko. This warranted a visit to the new Lord of the Hinogawa house.
Kakashi had always slept lightly, and the return of his students to their quarters was more than enough to rouse him. He stretched lithely and waited.
Unexpectedly, they didn't burst through the doors in a boisterous hurricane of action. They waited outside his door; he could practically hear Naruto giggling. Sakura had clearly told them a salacious version of the previous night's events.
He slid open the doors, silver eyebrow pre-cocked.
"How nice of you to respect my privacy for once, what's the occasion?"
"Sakura said you had a really interesting night, sensei~" The leering grin on Naruto's face couldn't have been bigger.
"I see Sakura has probably been getting into reading materials that she shouldn't have." So had the lady, if that Icha Icha on Lady Hinogawa's table was any indication.
Sasuke crossed his arms triumphantly. "Told you."
Naruto pushed his sensei's hand off and patted down his hair in the pretense of having an order to his hairstyle to speak of. "Well, Kimiko's kicking up a whole hullabaloo about it right now, so how was I to know?"
Kakashi's hand paused. "Is she saying that?"
"She said something like-hey sensei!" Kakashi was already gone.
Upon her arrival at the new Lord Hinogawa's chambers, Lady Hinogawa stopped.
Hayao was already in audience with her brother, and from what was audible through the screen doors, it did not seem to be going well.
"Hayao. Get out of my sight. I'm not here for you."
She pressed closer to the wall, glad that guards were banished from the innermost chambers and were not present to witness her snooping.
Hayao's voice was as urgent as Kawagu's was coldly indifferent.
"Kawagu-sama, if you insist on staying in the capital-"
"You know you have no influence on me. You cannot sway me."
"The estate needs a lord, Kawagu-sama. If you won't return home to rule, at least send Kawaru-sama home to act in your place."
"You'd like that, wouldn't you."
The silhouette that was Hayao stilled.
"What do you mean?"
Silence. Then mocking laughter.
"Oh, Hayao. I know. Did you think we didn't?" She knew his eyes, the light blue that differed so from the other Hinogawa siblings, would be flashing their icy disapproval. "We all knew. He didn't even blame you. it was my mother that seduced you anyway. She and that kunoichi slut."
"I have no idea, what..."
Lady Hinogawa held her breath. Would he say it aloud?
"Keep pretending if you must. But I am the Lord Hinogawa now, and I can speak freely. And I say this. When my mother passes, you die with her." The silhouette of Kawagu drew closer to Hayao's.
"You dare lay claim to the Hinogawa name? This house will never fall into the hands of your bastards. Never. Not in name, not in power. Not while I have breath."
Only ragged breathing now. Kawane felt an icy vise grip her heart. Kawagu spoke again.
"You are wise to stay silent. Leave me, retainer."
Lady Hinogawa fled around the corner, where she stayed until Hayao's heavy footfalls faded away.
She'd known, of course.
Perhaps it'd been ridiculous to hope that Kawagu, straight-forward, honorable, simple Kawagu, had turned a deaf ear to the whispers that followed the younger Hinogawas, as had their, his, father.
But then again, his father had been blinded by love, for his beautiful wife and for his truest companion Hayao. Too blind to see the truth reflected in the darkness of his younger children's eyes.
It seemed that would come to an end with Kawagu.
She gathered herself. There was work to do. There had been room once in her utopia for all three Hinogawan siblings to rule together. The moment she'd learned of Kiyo's death, she'd known the sword would swing next to Kawagu, had known and prepared to preserve his life. No more. She entered the room now, gazing at him as coolly as if she were cocooned in the frozen knot inside her that had formed the moment she'd heard him speak the word bastard.
"Kawane!" The man that greeted her was the picture of a loving brother. The frozen Lady Hinogawa thawed a little at the expression she knew to be a mask, wishing she could have believed this was genuine care from the man she'd grown up calling brother. He clasped her hands, holding them to his heart.
"I did not expect you this morning, " He pressed a kiss to her knuckles. "Is something the matter?"
"I have an audience with the daimyo later, on our house's affairs. And yesterday night..."
Her half-brother's eyes sharpened as she told him of Hiro's serum. She concluded.
"Brother, tell me now if there is anything for me to be concerned with."
He shook his head, clearly still processing.
"Brother, I would be a fool not to know what you feel must be done regarding Earth, but I need to know now if you are acting upon them. If any of them concern the estate, and I misstep, it's both our heads."
"Sister, I would never presume to act against the daimyo."
She drew closer, hoping that she still knew enough of her brother to use him properly, praying that the reason the daimyo held an eye on her was because of Kawagu, and not her own actions.
"All of Takihishi will stand with you in the coming war, brother, I'll see to that."
Her eyes met his meaningfully, brown to a blue that was carefully void of emotion.
"There is no coming war, sister."
She moved to exit, seeing she would get no information from him. His last words held her up.
"But in the fullness of time, sister, we will extract our payment from Earth, and all who opposed us."
She kept her gaze straight ahead, almost not believing his audacity in speaking those words aloud in the palace. But they were both dead already if anyone had overheard, so she met him with a reply.
"I believe it, Kawagu."
She left.
A/N:
Little tidbit:
Kawa = River
This Kawa is actually the same as gawa as in Hinogawa (日の川 )= River of the sun. You'll note that the song Kimiko played for Kawane in the Child of Omelas Chapter was a veiled reference to this. Hino Kawa is actually a river in Japan too, spelled 日野川. I think this literally means Sunfield River or river of the sunny field.
Kawagu (川 口) means mouth of the river, the place where the river meets the ocean. Definitely the mouthiest of the Hinogawa siblings.
Kawaru (more accurately, Kawa-ryu) (川 流) means flow of the river. The word Kawaru (spelled differently of course) also means change.
Kawane (川音 ) means sound of the river.
Kawamaru I'm p sure just means river boi. River boi of the Sun river. Kawaru is not a naming kind of guy.
Middle school Chinese paid off, I guess, if only to help me decode Japanese kanji.
tl;dr: Earth isn't actually getting slaves for its mines, they're buying the most aggressive slaves to add to its standing army to send against Fire. She's been striking those slave trains on the way so they don't get to the border and actually join since using abolition as an excuse, Earth is looking to break the peace accords and declare war on Fire.
She's trying to set up a chakra training school as soon as possible so that using elemental techniques, Fire can reduce their reliance on the slaves they have so that she could eventually forcibly induce the daimyo to release the slaves and avoid the war altogether.
