a/n: It seems like my ninja brainrot is not going away anytime!
A Marked Liaison
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The moonlight glinted from Tsukuyo's crescent hairpin, the only indication that she was there in the room. Shrouded in the darkness, one could barely hear anything above the sound of the tea whisk scratching against the surface of a ceramic bowl.
She waited patiently for it to stop. For her to break the silence first would have been construed as... amateur.
And she was nothing if not professional.
In the shadows, she could easily picture the scene ahead of her. For a puppet, possessing enough dexterity in order to perform a tea ceremony demonstrated elegance of the ninja arts. It was a level of refinement that she could only hope to achieve one day, if she was lucky enough to live for a long time.
Still, those observations were frivolous at best. She doubted that her master would have been flattered to hear such things.
And so, Tsukuyo gently emptied her thoughts from her mind, choosing instead to focus on her breath, and waited for her master to speak.
Finally, a soft voice interrupted her meditative stance. "I've always admired how quiet you were, Tsukuyo."
"Thank you, Shishou."
The bowl was passed to her. "Drink. It'll make it easier for me to tell you what I'm about to say."
Tsukuyo obediently lifted the bowl to her lips, and took a careful sip.
Bitter. As it always had been.
Cordialities exchanged, she set the bowl back onto the ground.
"The Bakufu is losing the war against the Amanto," her master said quietly. "They might be trying their best to suppress the news, but us shinobi know better than that."
Tsukuyo blinked.
This was news to her.
Two years of constant warfare hadn't dampened the samurai's spirits any. Working together against a common enemy, the warring states had finally acheived an artificial semblance of unity. Grudges had been set aside in order to fight beings that seemingly had no rhyme or reason to their actions.
Some daimyos had stayed neutral in the beginning, but left on their own, they had quickly found their lands destroyed.
Although the enemy's technology had been superior, humans had been quick to adapt. The Amanto had made the mistake of not taking them seriously during the first year of invasion, and in the interim, the nation's brightest had been able to reverse engineer such weapons using an energy source that had previously been underutilized.
The Amanto called it Altana. The monks who had worshipped such paranormal sightings called it Ryuumyakyu.
Perhaps two years had finally taken their toll, Tsukuyo mused.
Not that it wasn't an entirely terrifying possibility to think about. To be potentially colonized, permanently, was...
Disconcerting, at best.
Momochi lifted her own bowl of nin-cha, taking a careful sip before continuing. "But, there is someone who is willing to turn rank. Someone who might turn the tide of war."
Against her own will, Tsukuyo's voice leapt ahead of her normally poised demeanor. "Who?"
"Someone who doesn't believe in the war he's fighting for. I believe he is a highly ranked general. Part of the Tenshoin Naraku."
So that left three options. Tsukuyo's mind whirled, leaping ahead to a conclusion she wasn't entirely sure she was ready for. The three generals were infamous, spawning monstrous legends that struck fear into the samurai's heart. It was common knowledge that if one was to see any of the three onto the battleground, the order was to retreat.
If it was Takasugi Shinsuke...
No. It couldn't be.
He had effectively snuck into the Shogun's palace in the dead of night without catching the notice of the palace guards, and lopped off Sadasada's head. Had stuck it onto a pike in clear view of the Princess's tower, where none of the officials could miss the gory display the next morning. They had known who the culprit was, though. Takasugi had painted the walls with the most beautiful calligraphy of his name, dipped in Sadasada's blood as a declaration of the Naraku's intent to align with the Amanto.
Once the Bakufu had gotten over the shock, the Oniwabanshuu had effectively replaced the bodyguards in the palace.
It couldn't be Katsura Kotarou, either.
The rumors had said he was a master strategist, preferring to work behind the scenes of every successful attempt to conquer and hold the Ryuumyakyu leylines. He'd been the architect of so many deaths. A nihilist to the core, he had once belonged to a prestigious family of samurai. Knowing the strategies that the samurai would use at the beginning of the war, he had effectively turned their playbook against them to devastating loss.
It would be impossible for him to turn his back now. She couldn't see the motive for him to support the people he had already betrayed.
And then...
That left Sakata Gintoki.
He was more phantom, rather than anything close to resembling a human. The very few civilians who had witnessed him on the battleground reported of his deadliness, a fearsome ability to completely destroy platoons of soldiers - with or without Amanto technology.
He killed efficiently, seemingly able to go on for days at a time without stopping. A death reaper who left no one behind, he was exacting in his brutality.
They called him a demon. Red eyes. Silver hair.
The Shiroyasha.
Once in a blue moon, he would appear by himself on the battleground. The first time the Jouishishi had encountered him, they had scoffed at the folly of such tactics. They initially had thought it was a joke.
One massacre later, no one would make that mistake ever again.
No one really knew what sort of person he was.
He simply killed as long as he wanted to, and then would vanish for months at a time. It was an excellent tactic to inspire terror from the opposition. Used sparingly, he had the power to disrupt months-long stalemates, if deemed necessary from the Amanto. His presence was akin to a bomb, capable of leveling anyone foolish enough to get in his way.
If he was the one turning rogue...
It was simply too incredible to imagine. Tsukuyo couldn't possibly attribute any of those three thinking of the Joui cause as a worthy reason to jump ship.
"The heads of the Hattori clan believes the offer made is legitimate. The feathers left behind have matched their forensic analysis of Takasugi Shinsuke's crow."
"So which general is it?" Tsukuyo asked.
"They blinded the messenger before he had the chance to figure who it was."
As expected of a former assassination group. They had been more lethal and potent than even the best ninja from Iga.
Now the question was...
Why her?
Her rank was a chunin. Although highly classified information was commonly exchanged in her line of work, Tsukuyo doubted she had the skill to assassinate any of the three Wings of the Naraku.
"He asked for a neutral third party," Momochi said softly. "Someone who could be stationed in Yoshiwara. Someone who could... blend in."
Tsukuyo eyes widened in terror.
No.
Never.
The last time she had been there...
She couldn't go back.
It would risk everything that she had fought for. Had sacrificed, in order to protect...
"You'll have full protection of the Oniwaban," Momochi said, clearly anticipating her objections. "You're the only one in this village who has both the skill to pass as a courtesan and to make sure the information is relayed to the correct parties."
"Shishou, I - "
"All you have to do is to pass information to the Jouishishi without being caught," she said. "If you turn this down, no one else could fulfill this assignment. Not to the point that you could, anyway."
Tsukuyo swallowed.
"And if I refuse?"
Momochi shrugged, to her surprise. "Well, us nin will adapt. Whatever the world will become as the Amanto conquers all, they will surely find a need for us, the same as the Naraku have done in their five hundred years of existence. As a general rule of thumb, we benefit from war, not peace."
It was the nonchalance in her voice that forced Tsukuyo into reconsidering it.
A certain disregard for human life put her at odds with the majority of the village. She hadn't been raised here from birth.
It was taken as a matter of fact that if you were ready to take away one's life, you had to be ready to lose yours, too. But Tsukuyo had never fully been able to internalize the message. The part inside of her that believed in the best of humanity hadn't disappeared, even with her current occupation.
She had begun to realize that this was a rare opportunity.
What Momochi offered here was a chance to save the lives of soldiers. And possibly civilians, too, especially in a war of attrition.
Instead of committing acts of arson, counterintelligence, and assassination...
She would be useful.
She would be spying on the enemy.
Instead of being commissioned by a clan of samurai or a powerful daimyo, she'd essentially be working for the Bakufu.
Momochi looked at her carefully. Their eyes had already adjusted to the darkness of night. All ninjas were accustomed to working in the shadows, and Tsukuyo was no exception.
"You still have a few days to make up your mind," she said. "I would think it through, because we don't know how reactive this person will be. You could easily lose your life, if he turned out... displeased."
Tsukuyo nodded.
"Mission details?" she asked. It wouldn't hurt to receive more information before making a final decision. If she was the only candidate for the job, then she'd be able to access to the mission details before taking it on board.
Momochi passed her a scroll. "Report back to me tomorrow. I'd like to know your thoughts, whether you decline or not."
"Yes, Shishou."
"And, Tsukuyo?"
"Yes?"
"I would advise you not to tell anyone about this - not until the war is over."
-x-
The house that she lived in was full of traps, just like the vast majority of shinobi who had settled down in the Mie prefecture. The further away they lived from the village, the more prone they were to being attacked by the enemy. Located almost five hundred kilometers from Edo, the nation's capital, it was surrounded by high cliffs, dangerous mountain paths, and enough checkpoints were strategically placed that outsiders could never infiltrate without express permission from any of the three clan heads.
It was considered fortunate that there weren't any visible craters of Ryuumyakyu located anywhere near the prefecture. In the past two years, the Amanto had simply ignored the village as it wasn't relevant to their goals of resource acquisition.
Tsukuyo bypassed the traps with a practiced ease and once she had finished lighting up a small fire in her kitchen, she placed a small pot of barley to boil. The sunrise was beginning to peek through in the small window.
She would have to be prepared. That much was clear.
Her master hadn't mentioned anything about seducing the target, but that had been more of a matter of convincing Tsukuyo to undertake the mission in the first place. Omitting crucial details was an occupational hazard. To anticipate pitfalls was the duty of any shinobi worth their salt.
As a kunoichi, using her feminine wiles was something she would be expected to do if the occasion called for it.
Her jawline tightened.
Tsukuyo had been on missions before where she had lured in targets with her beauty. Certainly, she wasn't above making her job easier.
But privately, she felt neutral about her appearance. It had taken her away from the one she wanted to stay next to.
A rose with thorns, they'd once described her...
Tsukuyo took a deep breath, and banished that train of thought - at this point, it would distract her from her task. She unfurled the scroll carefully.
Intel of the Three Wings was exceptionally rare to come by. Although the Oniwaban had been dispatched as intelligence agents, they couldn't get close enough to them to kill them.
As of lately, the organization been targeting villages. But instead of raiding them, the Naraku was trying to spread their own war propaganda. That the Bakufu didn't have the nation's best interest at heart.
It was certainly a new tactic, a far cry from their strategy in the beginning. Tsukuyo wondered idly what would have happened if they had done that in the first place. To instigate a civil war would have divided the people more effectively than staging an all-out bombardment.
No matter.
Giving the scroll a cursory glance, she saw that there was an opportunity to pose as an assistant to a high-ranking courtesan. The courtesan aforementioned apparently had ties to the commander of the Jouishishi army.
Interesting.
Tsukuyo unfurled more of the scroll.
The pot of barley was beginning to boil over. She paused, slipping a protective mitt over her hand before gracefully removing the lid, allowing the water to simmer down.
Turning back to the text, she continued to read.
It was going to be a long morning.
-x-
The next night, she had returned, but her master wasn't there. It was the same time as before.
As always, Tsukuyo waited. To be a shinobi was to live in the shadows. It was a far cry of where she'd come from, once accustomed to bathing in the endless sunlight. She composed herself, sitting in a seiza position with her back straightened and her heels propped up.
A few minutes later, Momochi slid open the shoji and sat on the cushion across from her student.
"I apologize for my tardiness," she said curtly. "I had a meeting to attend to, and it went over longer than I expected."
Tsukuyo nodded.
In addition to managing the village, Momochi was also responsible for collecting mission reports, corroborating information with the other clan leaders, and managing the affairs of the village. Although they were self-sufficient, living so deep in the mountains, some semblance of keeping order had to be done.
No daimyo or lord had been able to invade this part of the nation for centuries, and even after Tokugawa Ieyasu had taken Iga nin under his wings, the village was as well preserved as it had been before. While the topography of the village was part of the reason why, the people also were fiercely independent of their own way of life.
"I suppose there's no beating around the bush," Momochi said. "What do you think, Tsukuyo?"
Tsukuyo took in a deep breath, knowing she was on the precipice of changing the course of her fate.
"I accept this mission, Shishou."
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- tbc
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