A/N: Intended to be read after chapter 66.
"And though I am gone,
Just ash in the wind,
One life surrendered so yours can begin,
Courage my children,
This is your song,
I am the earth I will make you strong,"
-The Heritors of Arcadia, Bonnie Gordon
No matter how lightly or heavily he stepped, the third stair always creaked.
"What will you do?" Kanae asked. The stair didn't creak as she followed him down, but then she was a kunoichi, no matter how much her borrowed clothes reminded him of Tsumugi.
"I don't know."
It still smelled faintly like wheat. Ren made out the scuffs on the floor where stools and buckets were, once, and vaguely heard the monotonous clatter of seeds falling into them.
He'd only been pulling grains from wheat heads for an hour and his hands ached. If Kanae hadn't come to get him he'd still be there, listening to the sounds of shifting, feet tapping, and Rini half-teaching him how to separate the seeds without making a mess, half-scolding him for having soft, scholarly hands.
Ren stepped to the bottom. A wall made of stone cut the room in half. Behind it was were the wheat itself used to be stored in baskets until the fields were fully cut, away from the rains, insects, or bacteria.
He knew, unwillingly, that a termite infestation fifty years ago had led to a much nastier infestation back when the walls were made of wood.
Had it not been for the Aburame, most, if not all, of the homes originally built by Hashirama Senju would've fallen to them, too.
Ren had more knowledge of farming-related history than he knew what to do with.
Kanae stayed soundless, no matter how much he strained to hear her, but he faintly heard muffled sounds on the other side of the wall, a one-sided conversation.
The sturdy-looking door in the middle was stone too, and must've taken years to repay, but there hadn't been another infestation that needed the help of the Aburame since.
It dragged a little as he pulled it open, but then he had scholarly hands.
He heard Ohta before he saw him, "Why do you have to be so stubborn, old man?"
Light came in from a small window at the back of the room, near the ceiling, just enough to keep crops from chilling, but not enough for them to shrivel under the heat.
Ren looked at the particles of dust visible in the light, then at Ohta, who stood from where he'd been crouched with a begruntled greeting of, Hey, Chief, Ms. Kanae. Ren's eyes swept over a small bowl filled with untouched pieces of pork, and finally to his father.
Tanaka Abhuraya sat with his back to Ren, dressed in the ratty remains of a kimono and hakama with a silk obi tied stubbornly above his waist. His left wrist was bound with rope, and the other end of it was tied around a chunk of old stone in a corner of the room.
It was all that stopped him from fleeing, because this was never meant to be a prison.
His father had refused to eat for the last two days, but it was only today, the third day that he hadn't caved in and took the excess from what Ohta and his father cooked that morning, that Ren gave him his attention.
Even years after tempers had cooled and people began to forgive, not everyone agreed with what he'd done with his father, and most wanted nothing to do with him.
Ren couldn't blame them.
His father was thinner than he remembered him being when he last visited the week before, but he'd always been a small man.
Ren hadn't met the grandfather he was named after, but his height came from him.
"Nothing? Still?" Kanae asked.
Ohta crossed his arms as he turned to them, "Here's hoping Rie takes me in for the night. I don't want to be the one to tell dad the pork went cold again."
"Thought she was still hosting Shinnai?"
He shook his head, "Old man Kaemon's taking responsibility. Something about not having enough room."
"And you want to stay there?"
"For a night. Just until someone else tells dad."
His father lifted his head as they spoke, turning only enough to glance back at him over his shoulder, and Ren saw an afterimage of himself, younger, weaker, his own hakama abandoned on the floor as he knelt in front of his father with his back to him, his hands held out to either side to protect him.
He saw a fool.
His father stared at the wall as Ren approached, refusing to acknowledge him further, even as he sat. Ren caught the ghostly image of Konan standing in the doorway as he lowered himself in the present, white slips of paper falling around her, staring at his afterimage with wide eyes.
She came expecting a fight and found him instead.
"You have to eat, Father," Ren said, and the conversations around him quieted.
His father moved his head slightly, as if following the sound, but didn't look at him again. "It's become clear to me that you've made your choice," he eventually said. "Leave me to make mine."
He'd always been a determined, stubborn man.
Ren looked up, briefly, at the dust floating in the light again. "A man dying of thirst should not question who above him offers him water, but should save and collect it, out of sight, until the day the noblemen come to him, thirsty," he recited.
How many times had his father tried to convince him to change his mind, first with reason, and then with threats? How many times had he come down here, knowing his father wouldn't hear him? How long had he kept him bound only because he didn't know what to do with him otherwise?
What son could admit to wanting their father dead, if he loved him?
His father didn't look away from the wall.
"Abhuraya was once a name I bore with pride," his father finally said. "It wasn't a long and prestigious line of nobles that we came from, but a nameless, clanless man born in a filthy river. Your great-grandfather. He was no ninja, but he had ambition. He swore to better himself, no matter the cost. He pushed aside his own brothers when they weighed him down, and only he, of a hundred men who fought for names and titles, earned the favor of the Daimyo. I never thought it would be my own son who would make me feel shame in that name."
Ren sat back but didn't speak. He'd heard a variation of it before. An angry scolding he didn't heed, words spoken heavy with disappointment, a desperate, trembling lecture, and now, an empty lesson.
"It may be tomorrow that Lord Aoki discovers what you've been doing, or years," he continued, and Ren heard no emotion in his voice. "I'll honor grandfather's pride in the only way left to me, before you have it trampled."
Was it so bad to let himself be scolded if it meant his father would speak to him? Was it so bad when he knew he'd never hear his voice again?
Ren hadn't known what he'd say or do when he confronted his father, but there were thoughts. The thought to use reason; the thought to tell his father that no matter how many times he starved himself, it wouldn't change his mind or his actions; the thought to force him to eat, like a boy shaking awake a thing already dead.
He looked at his father's back and he saw his afterimage shoved against the floor, a hand that tried to make signs wrenched behind his back, and Konan, faintly, pinning him with her knee, two fingers pointed at his father's back as he attempted to flee through a passage beneath a mat.
The abandonment of family for one's pride was the great lesson of his great-grandfather. Ren knew who his father was, and it was a man who not only clung to the pride of his family name, but that of a nobleman who once had a seat at the Daimyo's table. He was a man who feared and cowed to the power of those above him and would never see Ren as anything but his greatest humiliation.
Ren knew, then, that he would do nothing.
They were two stubborn fools, whose minds would not change.
Ren pushed himself up, legs aching, and turned away. He stood there for a second, he and his father's backs to each other, like his father might choose to say something.
Ohta watched him like he might need to step in if Ren stumbled, but he didn't.
Ren waited an extra second, but his father didn't. In a different life he would've bowed and wished his father well.
In this life, Ren turned and left the cell without a glance back.
.
.
.
Ren wasn't surprised when Kanae came to him the morning after his visit to his father, right after sunrise.
He stood in the cell and took in the frayed, cut end of the rope on the floor and wondered whether his father had used his teeth, or chipped off a piece of stone to saw it off. His eyes drifted to the shimmer of glass and blood on the ground, then the broken window. He saw more blood on his father's still, pale knuckles, and acknowledged the length of his father's obi that hung down from the window.
His father's feet didn't touch the ground and the obi strained unnaturally against his neck.
"Ren—" Kanae said, faltering, and then falling silent. She'd warned him against seeing this. She'd checked on his father when she'd woken, an hour ago or so.
Ren looked back down at his feet. He felt empty.
He bowed low to his father, and then he left the room again.
誇り
"It's quaint, isn't it?"
Bashira looked to Baron Miyashita as they walked past a freshly painted fence. Crude carvings of foxes or women enfolded in wings had been tied with bits of string by small, childish hands and hung from posts. Some had white smears on them, and the hands that put them there before the adults around them could finish applying a second coat of paint to the fence would too.
She saw his thoughts in his eyes as he looked at them, what a quaint little town.
Miyashita's smile for her was faint. "Not many have a gaze quite so sharp, Lady Bashira."
"Ms. Bashira," Bashira demurred.
Politics, she often found, was a dance between two people where both wanted to lead but couldn't, or wouldn't, fearing stepping on the other's toes. One was always the leader, and the other was the one who pretended to be led.
She'd come upon Miyashita earlier, at her home-turned-inn, peering at the lilies that grew in the shadows of the house.
Their actual inn had been out of the question, as it was only a shell, and shaping up to be larger than intended.
She suspected the ninja the Fox-Kissed sent to assist them were in no rush to leave, and so did not rush to complete their work, but no one as far as she knew minded them.
They had not been prepared to host Baron Miyashita or his retinue, and the offer for them to use her home had been made hastily, with only the thought that it was the only home that was often empty.
Ren thought Miyashita would've been offended when Bashira related the story later, but their guest had only smiled and shaken his head at her offer.
"He said they'd host me, but there'd been no mention of an inn."
It'd been an amused mutter she'd barely caught, and Miyashita hadn't explained himself as he turned and ordered his men and women to leave their non-essentials behind in the carriage.
Their blades, apparently, were deemed essential.
The brief, hastily written note that had accompanied them had earned a rare laugh from Ren.
Forgive me. Please host Baron Miyashita of Iron as best you can.
Bashira raised her sleeve to hide her mouth, because the memory made her want to smile.
She had never quite learned to control her mouth as well as her eyes.
Miyashita noticed, of course, but he would not find the cause within her gaze. Still, she lowered her eyes from his, as was proper.
"What does the fox represent?" Miyashita asked, though his eyes wanted to ask something different.
"The Great God Inari's most sacred animal is the fox," she answered.
"And the winged woman?"
Bashira glanced at a carving less crude than the others as they neared the bottom of the path of a woman with her head tucked against her knees, wings pulled around her like she was resting them. "A messenger, who came to us in the form of a woman, with others. The others are important to us, as well, but she—"
Her breath caught as she remembered what it had been like to look upon her for the first time.
She'd been made to sit up as the Fox-Kissed checked her spine, ensuring it would hold her weight after all her body had been through. She had been conscious for little of it, but she remembered opening her eyes and feeling briefly, poignantly alive.
Her gaze had found itself on the window, and she'd seen a blue-haired angel standing on the roof across from their house with her paper wings held open. They'd nearly dwarfed her. It was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen, and the memory had stayed with her, even as a sense of heaviness forced her eyes closed again.
"She left an impression on all of us," Bashira said. It left distaste in her mouth, because it wasn't adequate enough to explain why they'd memorialized her, but the right words didn't appear.
Miyashita looked curiously back at the fence. "If she inspires such devotion, she must be an impressive ninja."
It wasn't something outsiders could understand, and so she didn't correct him.
The shops and restaurants were all open, and she saw a few unfamiliar faces milling between them. Not ninja, but clients looking to hire them, weary and wanting a quick meal on their way to Konohagakure.
She saw Ohta sweeping up outside his father's shop, and Shinnai, dressed in borrowed clothes, kneeling, surrounded by children.
They knew he came from the land the Fox-Kissed hailed from, and because he was younger and friendlier-faced than Kanae, he was accosted often to tell stories of them after he finished working.
Ren was likely inside with Ohta's father, Uta, being made to help prepare meat or pork, despite his utter lack of ability to cook.
Bashira had done nothing to stop Uta from using his much bigger size to bully Ren into leaving the palace and his work, but then she'd hinted that Ren wasn't doing well after his father's passing in the first place.
How could she possibly know that Ohta, having overheard their conversation, would go on to pester his father into doing something about it?
Miyashita watched everyone and everything with open interest.
"Have you ever had lavender bread, Baron Miyashita?" Bashira asked.
"I'm curious," Miyashita began. "Of the point of this. Your town is pretty enough, but I'd think someone like you, Ms. Bashira, would have better things to do than to entertain me."
Bashira paused in front of the door of a small bakery. "To leave a foreign diplomat in the hands of someone unprepared would make us bad hosts, and if nothing else we have the image of those who sent you to us to protect."
"And so you'd give up your home, your resources to keep us and our horses fed, and give up more still to ensure we do not go hungry before we get home for nothing in return?" Miyashita asked.
What did they want?
They had no need for trade and nothing to trade for. Ren was well-liked by Lord Aoki for his old party tricks, and so that meant they had the might of Konohagakure, if need be. Most would say that was more than enough.
Most did not know that the Fox-Kissed hailed from Amegakure, or that they were ninja at all.
No matter how well-liked Ren was, Lord Aoki would feel nothing short of betrayal if it were to come out that not only had they been aided by Amegakure to put Ren in power, but Ren was still aiding them now with Lord Aoki's own funds.
At best they would all be exiled and made to leave their homes, because Suisai was still on Fire land. At worst, Lord Aoki would use Konohagakure as his sword to make an example of them as traitors and thieves.
The Fox-Kissed would defend them, she was sure of it, but it wasn't about whether they would, so much as if they could be reached in time by message or had the means to travel fast enough to save even a child from Lord Aoki's anger.
It would be quite simple to say yes to Baron Miyashita and it be the truth, because they owed a debt they had not yet repaid.
But, but if Konohagakure did turn on them, Bashira thought the weight of a name might make Lord Aoki pause, make him verify and delay until he was sure they truly had no other allies.
A name like Baron Miyashita of Iron.
But using a man's name without his permission was the quickest way to make an enemy out of Baron Miyashita, and one didn't ask to put a powerful foreigner in the position of negotiating on their behalf, bringing attention to his home, or simply letting them use his name and allowing the consequences to play out, in public.
"I must insist on the bread, Baron Miyashita," Bashira said lightly.
Miyashita searched her gaze for a few seconds, then smiled faintly again. "I've never met a woman more difficult to read in my life."
"Then you haven't met many women," Bashira told him. "But you're still young."
Miyashita blinked twice, stunned. His mouth opened, closed, and Bashira went inside while he was collecting himself.
There were a few plastic chairs, two tables, and a brown counter near the back with black trays on top filled with biscuits, bagels, and breads with purple frosting on top.
And there was Tsumugi, behind the counter. "Bashira," she greeted softly, dipping her head.
Bashira gazed at her and said nothing. They were similar in that they had both lost their husbands, had inherited their responsibilities, and couldn't quite forgive themselves.
She, for encouraging her daughter to be a brave fool and her late husband to be an even braver fool, and Tsumugi, for choosing Abhuraya and his pride over them all.
Bashira had forgiven her for it, briefly, but the dislike had never completely faded, like the wireworms that kept appearing in the fields, year after year, no matter how many of them were dug out.
But then it was easier to blame the living than the dead, or the untouchable Daimyo.
Who would be alive if they, as a whole, had stood up to Abhuraya at the start, before the death and starvation and betrayal? Who would still be alive now if they had not had to prove their worth to the Daimyo again?
But the path beyond that thought was like digging up wireworms, circular and repetitive. And one didn't bring up old grudges in front of honored guests, not when Uta was bullying Ren, and Rini, for all her capabilities, had not had the time to prepare any soup Bashira thought Miyashita might like.
Bashira turned as Miyashita finally came in. "Tsumugi's lavender bread is highly praised by visitors and regulars alike. It's charmed even the messengers His Honorable Lord Aoki sent to represent his interests."
.
.
.
Bashira held the tip of a match to the top of a candle wick, waiting for the wispy flame to catch on it before she pulled the match away and shook the flame out.
The only light in the room came from the candle and brightened the curtain she'd pulled over the window.
She'd smoothed out the cushions and realigned the rugs after the samurai left, and she thought that Haruto would have liked that the house had looked lived-in, even if only for a few days.
She'd made Miyashita pause when she'd asked to use his name, and the female samurai with him had spoken to her for the first time with a simple, "You're bold."
Miyashita had ultimately denied her request, but she'd had his interest throughout her explanation, and he'd never sounded or looked disapproving.
If they met again perhaps...
Bashira returned her attention to the candle, watching the flame eat greedily at the wick for a few seconds, and then she dipped her head.
"Keep watch over Hanako for me, husband."
A/N: 誇り- Pride
beatus homo qui invenit sapientiam - blessed is the man who finds wisdom