Chapter 6: Tsuruhime Ohori and Japan
"You want help assembling an army to attack the Ouchi?" He asked, staring into his steaming cup of tea.
Tsuruhime nodded. "Yes. The people respect you, they'll listen to you." She prayed that her story would convince him to help.
Japan didn't usually like to interfere but sometimes his people would come to him for help and, then, it was so hard to turn them away. He loved his people; enough to tell them who he really was. He wanted to help defend Tsuruhime's island but, at the same time, he didn't. If he got involved in either side, he was helping hurt his people.
"I'll tell you what to do but no more than that." Japan finally compromised.
Tsuruhime smiled and eagerly waited for Japan to continue.
"When he comes back, attack him on his boat. That's all I will tell you." Japan finished, already feeling a sliver of regret for interfering this much.
Tsuruhime stood up from their position at the chabudai (or in simpler terms, a tea table). She slightly bowed. "Thank you so much for your advice." She paused for just a moment. "And the tea too." She thought it would be rude to not thank him for the tea, even though she didn't drink much of it.
Japan gave her one his small smiles while silently watching her leave. Hopefully, not too much damage would occur and the guilt would stay away.
The time between then and the Ouchi's return were spent training and planning. But, even with this preparation, Tsuruhime was nervous the day of the attack.
It was night when she planned to strike. The Ouchi were partying, completely oblivious to Tsuruhime. Japan watched the scene from a distance, half wanting her to be successful, half wanting her to fail.
Quietly and quickly, Tsuruhime climbed the sides of the ship. The party came to a halt once she was noticed.
Japan watched as the grenades she threw lit up and exploded, illuminating the black sky. But, past the pain of his people fighting each other, he was proud of Tsuruhime. It wasn't often he met a woman like her.
After the battle (almost a one sided battle, really), Tsuruhime went to see Japan again. "We won. Thank you, Japan, your advice helped me and motivated the people."
"It's good to hear that. Would you like some tea?" He started pouring two tea into two cups without waiting for an answer.
"Yes, I would." She gently took the cup and smiled.
A/N: I haven't wrote Japan a lot before so I hope I did it well. As usual, not everything in historically accurate. I actually wanted to do Tsuruhime since I started this but the words wouldn't come so I ended up doing several princesses before her. There also might be some exaggeration on the grenade part; I'm just not familiar with those.
I'm not completely happy with this but I really needed to write it after so long of it collecting dust in the word processor.