Ryoko and [Y/N] made their way toward the engawa. When they reached the wrap around walkway the two women stopped to take in the early morning glow on the remaining flowers in the garden. [Y/N] glanced at Ryoko, watching as the elder woman stared at the storage house where Shuzu was being held. [Y/N] couldn't read her expression, it was masked perfectly with impassiveness.

"Lady Shimada…" [Y/N] blinked, watching as Ryoko raised her brows and looked down to her with a gentle smile. "If its not to bold to ask…did you ever…" Her gaze floated toward the storage house as she tried to delicately pick her words.

"Love him?" Ryoko asked with a chuckle. "I did…when I was a hatchling. Like I told you, I was a lot like you when I was young. I did not like anyone telling me what to do and telling me that I 'couldn't' do things. Shuzu was a lot like Hanzo in his youth. He was the only man who could keep up with me, and could hope to try and tame me." Her eyes slowly drifted away, not to the storeroom but the sky, her smile slowly faded and the tenseness around her eyes softened. "We didn't like each other at first, but once we started spending time with one another, we began to see the good in each other. Or so I believed."

"Like Hanzo and I." [Y/N] smiled, "When we first met, I found him infuriating." This spurred some chuckling from Ryoko who continued to listen. "Then we had that accident and I saw a different side of him."

"Accident?" Ryoko's eyes widened in fear and concern. "What accident? Why didn't anyone tell us?" [Y/N] covered her mouth with one of her hands and looked down, "How long ago was this? Tell me [Y/N]."

"It was ages ago my lady," [Y/N] showed her the hand that Hanzo had injured, "I was reading in the garden but Hanzo had disappeared. He wanted to play a prank on me, to scare me. So, he shot an arrow where I had been sitting but I went back to get a scroll. I caught the arrow, but it scratched my hand and caused it to bleed." Ryoko took her hand and turned it over, making a small noise when [Y/N] pointed out the thin pink scar on her hand from the arrows path. "It was the first time that Hanzo called me by my first name informally. He was worried he had hurt me badly, and kept demanding I show him the wound. He tended to it himself and wrapped it with a ribbon from his hair. I told my father I had been practicing with a kunai and cut myself when we returned home."

"I had heard your father mention that you had been put through some training." Ryoko let go of her hand and turned away from the garden, following along the walkway toward another part of the house. "It will prove useful, should you keep it sharp. Skills are like blades, if not properly cared for, kept in use, they will rust and ruin. Dull and fade."

[Y/N] kept up, walking along at a steady pace. The morning air was crisp and cool, she found it refreshing as she glanced over her shoulder to Hanzo's part of the estate. She thought back to her lessons: the brutal exercises, the seemingly endless hours spent in pain, learning to tolerate and harness her bodies abilities. She thought of the scars on her back, the tears she had cried, and the blood she had shed both on purpose and from failed lessons. She felt the memory of triumph, the thrill of forcing her enemy to submit, the jolt of energy that came with the danger. [Y/N] clenched her hands and looked up to Ryoko, squaring her shoulders. "Although Harashi-sensei has died, I want to continue training. I must find a teacher willing—"

"No need my dear," Ryoko purred as she turned to face her future-daughter-in-law, "You can pick up your training under Genji's teacher." Her smile slowly faded, "It truly was a loss your Lord father and teacher were killed. They could have been valuable assets. Men who have stepped down from the head of families still have more outside power than women married to the current head of the clan." Her dark eyes glinted as she looked toward the walls that surrounded the estate, "You can't manipulate dead men as much as the living ones." She sighed as she rubbed her eyes with one of her hands, pinching the skin above her nose. "Come, lets head to the kitchens and see about breakfast and something to drink, then we can get our day going properly."

"Mistress." A voice from a closed door on [Y/N]'s left startled her, making her jump and put distance between her and the sliding door. It was a female servant, plainly dressed in a grey colored servant's clothes, "We have received a letter."

"From what family?" Ryoko asked, raising a brow as she held out her hand. The servant shuffled forward and presented the letter before bowing and returning to her place in the doorway.

"Kobayashi, mistress."

Ryoko groaned, rolling her eyes and shaking her head. "A festering sore on top of a headache—problems seem to keep piling up." She opened the letter and began scanning the page, her face scrunching up—her pretty mask of impassive confidence distorted into a war-mask of rage and hatred. She growled angrily and clenched the letter in her hand. "Ready the guest rooms, the Kobayashi women will be here before tomorrow is done."

"Lady Ryoko?" [Y/N] asked, watching as the maid nodded and closed the door—dismissed with orders.

"We must move on hatchling," Ryoko was still growling, her hands still clenched at her sides. "I had hoped for more time to breathe but it seems we will not have time for rest. We must keep moving. Tell me, do you know of the Kobayashi clan?" Without waiting for [Y/N] to answer, Ryoko spun on her heel and stormed down the walkway the way she came, heading back toward her room on the inside of the house.

"Kobayashi…" [Y/N] walked behind Ryoko, eyes scanning the floor as her mind raced in thought. "They are a family a little higher standing than mine was," [Y/N] glanced up, the ridged muscles in her mentors shoulders struck a chord of fear in her. "Their trades are in military forces and they own several businesses of various types. Restaurants, hot springs, bath houses…brothels and the like. Good for money laundering, running up debts to those who can't pay and gaining soldiers by offering to pay off their debts through servitude to the military or to families willing to buy them in exchange for paying off their debt to the family and become the new debt in which the people owe."

"What else?" Ryoko snapped, turning sharply to re-enter the house and storm down the hall.

"The head of the clan is Masahiro. The wife's name is Ayame, they have one child—the heir to the clan. They are considered social butterflies, the lot of them. They often hold parties in their home, and have been called brazen by other more cautious members of the spiral."

"Male or female?" Ryoko didn't stop at her own room, instead she barreled past; servants scrambled to get out of the way and bow their heads in respect as Ryoko snapped her fingers, waving her index finger for them to follow her into the tea room where she and [Y/N] had spent most of the night in.

"The heir is female, her name is Tora, she's around my age." [Y/N] told her, speeding up so not to be lost in the growing number of servants tagging along now. "Why would they decide to make such a visit? I know sometimes meetings between families who do business together isn't unusual, but you told the other servant girl that it would be the women who were coming. Will Lord Kobayashi not be joining them?"

"I will explain myself only once," Ryoko told her curtly as she stopped outside the closed doors to the tea room, waiting for the servant to open them for her, "I will tell everyone at once." She stalked into the room, taking her place at the table with an angry grunt as everyone filed in behind her. [Y/N] placed herself to the left side of the table while the servants kneeled or stood by the doors. "The Kobayashi women have taken offense that I had refused to visit their home at their invitation and have not invited them as an apology and have had the brilliant idea to invite themselves to our home as guests to make up for this faux pau." Her words dripped with anger and venom as she spoke, a vein in her neck jerking with the intense pulse. "They will be here before the day is out tomorrow so we must prepare for high status guests. I want the guest rooms cleaned to perfection and the bath house scrubbed so clean I see myself in the wood and stones." The servants bowed in response but didn't leave. Ryoko opened her mouth to speak again but hesitated, her dark eyes landing on [Y/N], making her slightly flinch in response. "You will be taking the mantle before long. You take over, tell me hatchling, what else is needed to set the house in order for guests?"

[Y/N] paniced for a moment, her mother usually took care of matters of the home and guest tending. She had not been formally taught how to prepare a whole house for guests. "I suppose once the guest rooms are cleaned they should be prepped with fresh bedding and linen, candles and house-shoes so that they Kobayashi women want for naught. Then, once the bath house has been scrubbed clean, it would be the restroom, tea rooms and the hallways next to be cleaned— more places guests will be spending parts of their time." She watched as Ryoko's head tilted ever-so-slightly in approval and she began to speak more loudly, "Then the food storage should be tallied, restocked and prepped for larger meals. There will be three more mouths to feed and the Kobayashi clan is used to higher standards.

"Once that is done, the garden and outside areas around the gates should be cleared of debris caused by weather or what have you, it will be some of the first sights the guests see and we wouldn't want them to think the Shimada clan has gone slack…or suffered in circumstance to allow their house to fall away from routine."

"Good, little hatchling." Ryoko smiled, "You continue to impress me." She waved her hand and took the attention of the servants, "That is enough chores for now, see to these tasks and report back when they are done." She waved her hand again and dismissed everyone, watching as they left quietly and quickly to avoid setting her on edge again. "However," She spoke a moment after the door slid closed. "There is a problem you didn't address to them and I want to know your reasoning."

"Shuzu in the storehouse." [Y/N] did not waste time in answering, it as been a thunderous thought that refused to silence itself since the letter had first been read, but she knew there would be time to sort him out when her and her mother-in-law were alone. The less who were informed on Shuzu's predicament the better. "We can't leave him there obviously, the Kobayashi women will wonder where the Lord has gone, but we can't allow him to roam freely, even under threat of punishment. He is sly and could try to put himself back into a position of power, to betray you Lady Ryoko and drive Hanzo and I apart."

"Indeed. I wouldn't dare turn him loose, not even without guests in the house. Though I do trust the servants to not disobey me when I tell them to disregard him, I do not put it past him to sneak some word out to someone else in an attempt to save himself. Although all of his hired swords were dealt with, he may have a third party where he hires his mercenaries. We can't take a chance on him getting word to them that he needs reinforcements under the guise of servants or…"

[Y/N] watched as a familiar look passed over Ryoko's face. The wrinkle of pure hatred around her eyes, the pinch of skin above her nose raising and the grit of her teeth—[Y/N] now understood where Hanzo's anger flares came from and which parent he took after. It didn't take long for the same spark of anger to ignite in her own belly, "Guests."

"It seems Shuzu has released snakes into our beautiful little garden hatchling." Ryoko growled through her clenched teeth. "And his plan is a lot more complicated than I gave him credit for." She jumped to her feet, knocking the table with her knee hard, but ignoring the pain as she went for the door, not waiting for the servant to open it at a decent speed, rather she threw it open and bolted down the hall; not bothering to see if [Y/N] was following, or if the young female servant had recovered from the shock.

[Y/N] followed as quick as she could, her bare feet thumping against the hardwood, feeling the exciting rush of adrenaline streak through her system and awaken each sense until her body hummed. The anger in her stomach was growing with each footfall, her thoughts racing.

This bastard took my family into his home, treated me like a daughter, and I fell for it. I let him puppeteer me like a doll on strings. He's paired with another powerful house to wed Hanzo to another woman and thinks I will roll over and show my belly like a lame dog!

Her thoughts became angry shouts, her anger pushing her into a blind rage as she and Ryoko thundered their way to the garden and down the stone path to the storehouse. The guards, seeing the angry looks on the women's faces, knew better than to ask and flung the doors open long before they reached them—turning their backs and shutting their ears with their hands as they rushed inside. [Y/N] held just enough sense to whirl around and slam the doors shut as Ryoko found Shuzu cowering behind an unmarked crate. He yelped and cowered as the woman grabbed him by the scruff of his neck like an animal and guided him to the hay pile where he made his bed.

"THE KOBAYASHI'S?" She snarled, teeth bared and face flushed with fury. "You sold your sons to the KOBAYASHI'S?"

"I-I-I-" Shuzu couldn't get more out as he shook with fear, his eyes lowered to the dirt floor as [Y/N] whirled on him and glared.

"You would see us all to our deathbeds you ignorant worm!" Ryoko snarled, grabbing him by his hair and pulling his head back to reveal his throat. "Do you realize what you have done?"

"Try—try—" Shuzu sputtered, putting his hands together in prayer as he clenched his eyes shut. "Fur-fur-further—"

"Silence!" Ryoko growled shaking him by the hair on his head, making him whimper and shake. "You got the sell swords from the Kobayashi clan, plotting with them to do in the [L/N] clan in an attempt to gain the most of their assets to share with the Kobayashi when Hanzo married Tora—was that your stupid little scheme?" When the man only offered whimpers she shook him hard, "Answer!"

"Yes!" Shuzu panted, trying to find his strength and courage, swallowing with difficulty with his head tilted back so far. "I was try-trying to life the clan—with the clothing trade and medical fields the [L/N] clan possessed we could have taken the fields and left the clothing to the Kobayashi's we could have had a better arrangement—the Shimada clan could have grown in size and be double what we are now with them as allies!"

"Then why would you not simply offer Genji up in marriage to Tora?" [Y/N] growled hatefully, her pulse pounding like war drums in her ears. "Genji is the more sociable of the two brothers, he would have been a perfect fit for the Kobayashi girl." She walked forward, resisting the urge to lay harm to his face with her nails. She wanted to drag them down his face, to bring blood to match the blood he had spilt from her family. She wanted to gouge out his eyes and listen to him howl, but a higher understanding stilled her hands by her sides as Ryoko tilted his head so he could see her and answer her demands.

"Why would I do that when I could have lifted my clan higher?" Shuzu growled back, pulling against Ryoko's hold like a dog at the end of its chain. "Why settle for two clans' earnings when I could have easily acquired three? Eliminate some competition, lift the house, have it all?"

[Y/N] narrowed her [e/c] eyes at him, "No…no that's giving too much credit to you…You're too short sighted to have thought that far…" She muttered, her anger and lust for blood shifting focus. "This was their idea—wasn't it? The Kobayashi clan…" [Y/N] reached out and grabbed Shuzu's kimono and bent down to his face, pressing her nose against his. "Tora…she wants Hanzo…is that it? She wouldn't settle for Genji, she wanted the eldest Shimada son. To the wife to the head of the clan—second brother is second best and therefore a loss to her. Can't have her socialite status muddied with second choice of a husband. Why be a commoner when you could be an empress?"

Shuzu was perfectly still in the women's dual grip, but a shift in his pupils gave [Y/N] all the proof she wanted and needed to let him go and step away. [Y/N] could feel the world itself shifting under her feet, the figures of Ryoko—standing shocked and livid, and Shuzu still on his knees, held in place by his hair—seemed very far away to her. The pounding of her heart in her ears drowned out even her own foot falls as she turned and made her way to the door of the storehouse. There were muffed voices, but she could not tell with certainty if they were from Ryoko or Shuzu—perhaps it was one of the guards calling after her as she pushed open the storehouse door and walked away. She stopped in the center of the garden and looked into the empty space that was the sky.

I should be panicking. She told herself, I should be alit with anger. I should want their blood to spill, their clan to pay for their sneaky deals. But she felt the emptiness around her, and she knew exactly what she wanted. She wanted to be sitting on the engawa with Hanzo. To be having tea and snacks as they watched Genji practice his sword play in the garden—begging for their attention to the new move he had yet to master. To see Hanzo smile warmly at her and to know peace that felt as if it had abandoned her long ago. Since the day they discovered her mother murdered in her own tea-room, she had not known true peace—since that day her life had been slowly spiraling out of control. Everything she had thought she knew had been wrong. Her feelings for Hanzo, about the approaching marriage, the Shimada parents. Everything had been turned on its head and spun backwards.

Time was as lost to her as sound and sight, she didn't know how long she had been standing there before someone touched her arm gently. She flinched only slightly, turning to see Hanzo staring at her with worry, words still warm on his lips—words that had been lost to the wind on her.

"What?" [Y/N] asked, blinking back into her proper mind-set. "I'm sorry Hanzo, what did you say?"

"You had me worried," He said softly, putting his large hands on her shoulders and staring at her face, taking in her features slowly. "You were just standing here, the guards say you walked like you were possessed…and you didn't hear me when I called to you."

"Lost to thought," She mumbled, her mind clearing a bit as the sense of dread receded. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to frighten you—have you been awake long?"

"A while, looking for you!" Hanzo gave her a grim frown, his brow knitting not in anger but concern. "You slipped away from bed and I was afraid Fath-Shuzu had something happen to you while I slept, I've been running through my rooms looking for you. Has he hurt you? What has you so troubled."

"Visitors." She said softly, putting one hand on his, looking down to his sandaled feet—realizing then that hers were bare and the cold was seeping into her toes with the absence of her inner heat. "The women of the Kobayashi clan are coming to visit your estate."

"And?" Hanzo raised a brow, confused as to how this was cause for alarm.

[Y/N] opened her mouth to explain the situation in full to him, and then stopped. If she told Hanzo the truth of the events about to unfold in his lap, he may try to get revenge on her behalf—since the Kobayashi Lord would not be with the women, he wouldn't do anything to harm them—and instead target the wrong person.

"I worry if they find out about father," [Y/N] wiped at her eyes, although they were dry and tilted her head down, not wanting to Hanzo to see she was only pretending to be forlorn. She buried herself against his chest and squeezed him tightly. "There are so many people who would keep us apart Hanzo, and I fear it greatly." She shivered in the cold and was grateful when he wrapped his arms around her firecly and squeezed back, trying to warm her and comfort her.

"They will not, and even if they should try—they'll have my arrows to answer to and Genji's blades. He loves you as much as I do and does not wish to see you removed from our world. He was the one to wake me—"

"Hanzo—I haven't—YOU FOUND HER!" Genji's voice startled both the youths into looking toward the main house as Genji stood under the shelter of the engawa and put his hand over his heart. "Thank the gods, we were afraid you had slipped off into the night or worse—were taken!"

"I'm fine," [Y/N] mustered a soft chuckle before a sniff, the chill slipping past her kimono and into her bones. "Just cold I'm afraid."

"Let's get you inside by a fire," Hanzo said quietly, rubbing her shoulders in an attempt to warm her further, "You'll catch your death out here in those thin clothes. You should change and get warmed up."

"A fire sounds nice," [Y/N] admitted, wrapping her arms around herself and turning toward the main house when she was struck with half a thought. As Hanzo stepped around her she pulled on his sleeve, "My dragon?" She caught the shade in his cheeks as he blushed, fighting for control of his emotions before he looked back at her. "Would you mind if we took tea in the room where father was killed? I…I want to face my emotions about it before…before the guests arrive. It would not due for me to cry like a punished child when we go back into the room. If I should be overcome, let it be now, before I make a fool of myself."

"As you wish," Hanzo nodded, hearing the hurt tone to her words and nodding to Genji. As the boys walked toward the servants quarters, [Y/N] made her way to the room that had been given to her during her stay with the Shimada's. It had been the same during the turns of the season and she had come to know it well. Closing the door to her room she listened intensely, weighing the thought that had occurred to her, only half thought through. A fire.

She chose her kimono carefully, one of brilliant red, gold and white, showcasing flowers along the sleeves and bottom of the kimono, the obi was meant to look like a rising sun. She called for servants and asked if the tearoom had been made up. The servant girls head bobbed silently as she tied the obi quickly at [Y/N]'s request. "I would like to hurry back to Hanzo's side." She explained as the two women finished helping her dress. When they left [Y/N] gripped her hands together tightly before leaving her room herself, going quietly down the hall. Her soft footfalls such a contrast to her earlier heated pursuit of answers, left her heart fluttering as though she were walking on the tips of blades, danger only one slip up away.

A chill passed through her when she came to a stop. The tea room door was in front of her now, closed as it had been since the day of the attack. Shuzu had seen to it that, past the cleaning of the room, it had gone untouched and sealed from tampering. Ryoko had echoed the command, but the plan forming in [Y/N]'s head called for use of the room, and it called for her emotions to be held in check. She pushed the door to the side and fought the tears as they welled up in her eyes, the thunderous pounds of her heart—like someone beating her with a stone. It was almost exactly as it had been that day, the table was set for tea to be made, candles were lit in the corners of the room to give light but the opposite side of the room was closed off from the engawa to keep out the chill of cold weather.

[Y/N] made her way slowly, each step measured and forced as she crept closer to the table. The cushions were still set in the same arrangement, with an extra pillow on one corner for her to sit next to Hanzo. She looked up to the ceiling, feeling eyes on her as she remembered bodies tumbling down from the ceiling. A dull ache in her side from the knife wound she had gained during the skirmish. She remembered how Hanzo had comforted her, held her hand and talked her through the pain. How defensive he got of her to his father, going as far as to challenge his rule and commands.

It's my turn to defend you, my dragon. [Y/N] thought to herself as she turned around in the room, looking at all the corners before walking toward one of the candle holders. And I will draw my last breath before I let someone take you from me.