Somehow I knew it would be you who betrayed me, Kaya.

From Mitsuhide's townhouse in Sakai to a pirate ship in the middle of the Japan sea in one day. Basically, I had traded one 'prison' for another.

Unsure of my allegiance, Motonari had taken away my dagger, scooped me up with Mitsuhide, and brought me on board his ship. I owed my captivity to the fact that I was considered less of a threat on board this ship as opposed to being left in Sakai as a potential witness. 'Kaya' was a loose end, able to tell Oda forces what had happened. Or tell them that he was using one of the Nanban carracks, rather than one of his clan's warships.

As I was led to my quarters, I'd heard Motonari tell his men to chain Mitsuhide up in the brig.

At least I was being spared incarceration with a man who probably hated me right now. I was given a room with a bed – a European bed, not a futon. There was even a porthole, possibly big enough for me to wiggle through, but when I looked out, all I saw was ocean, so it was pointless to try to escape.

Somehow I knew it would be you who betrayed me, Kaya.

'Yeah, well, don't threaten to kill a kid then, dude. Our contract didn't say anything about murder, especially of a civilian. You should know me better than that. I risked my life for Hiko once already. Of course I would do it again.'

Unfortunately the imaginary Mitsuhide in my head didn't have that teasing grin or those wicked sideways glances. No. Instead, I had his last words to me on endless repeat.

Somehow I knew it would be you who betrayed me, Kaya.

That look on his face. It had been pure ice. Lord help me if he ever escaped from the brig, because I'd probably be near the top of his hit list. With a bullet, as they say.

Ugh. I paced the smallish room, wondering what I should do next. Would Motonari set me free once we reached our next destination? Otherwise, would I be held with Mitsuhide and his friends? Maybe I could convince the pirate to drop me off somewhere.

Where would I go though? Mai and Hideyoshi were still the only link (tenuous as it was) I had to Aki. If he had also somehow gotten swept up in this, then I was better off sticking with Motonari and his crew. At least if he was being held captive with them, I would complete the finding part of my mission and move on somehow to the rescue aspect. In that, I could be making headway toward my goal.

Somehow I knew it would be you who betrayed me, Kaya.

Kaya. Guess I was demoted from "Brat." I shook my head, trying to rid the echo of his voice from it, and the bellflowers on my hairsticks tickled the top of my earlobe.

Somehow I knew it would be you who betrayed me, Kaya.

…Kaya.

Kaya.

Wait…

Son of a bi-

There was an abrupt knock on the door. "You better be decent wench, I'm coming in."

Wench? Really?

That was the only warning I got before the door swung open and Motonari strode in. He'd traded his merchant silks for captain's gear, and the ingratiating smile for a fierce scowl.

I shrank back against the wall, doing my best to look terrified. Instinct told me was that I would be safest if Motonari continued to view me as a concubine Mitsuhide purchased at the slave market. If he didn't see me as a threat, I would have more options. And more freedom.

He didn't say anything else, and I slid down the wall and covered my face with my arms as if I expected him to beat me.

"Quit cowering." Motonari sounded more annoyed than angry. "I ain't planning to hit ye… as long as you behave."

'Kaya' continued to act terrified, shrinking into a fetal ball.

"Can't believe you were brave enough to save Hiko twice, and now ye can barely look at me." He dragged a chair from the center of the room, turned it backward and straddled it.

Hm. Might have overplayed that a bit.

"It was instinct. I had a brother. Hiko reminds me of him." Or well, what I remember of Toshiie at that age.

"Humph. Yeah. The kid has a way, don't he?" He ran a gloved hand through his hair. "Where did ye come from?"

Figuring that he didn't mean to go over the weeks I was playing house with Mitsuhide, I gave him an edited summary of Kaya's backstory. That I had been a housemaid to a Daimyo, who was killed by the Oda (added that bit in on a hunch) and after their castle burned to the ground, I had been taken by ronin and sold in the slave market.

Motonari nodded along as if none of it was a surprise to him. And it likely wasn't. We had made sure to broadcast Kaya's invented backstory around Sakai. Motonari was probably checking to confirm whether or not my story would stay consistent. "And now? Ye want to get revenge on the Oda?" He didn't ask it as if he was offering me a part in one of his plots. More like he was trying to figure things out. Figure me out – figure out whether I was useful or dangerous.

"I just want to go home! To my village. Away from all these people." I put a bit of a sob into my voice. What an orphaned village girl would do was a bigger question, but Kaya likely hadn't thought that far in advance. Kaya was a simple peasant turned servant turned reluctant concubine. Revenge wasn't in her vocabulary.

"Ye sure about that? What If I gave you a sword, held Mitsuhide down, and told you to gut him like a fish? He's Oda's left hand man. You'd have revenge on the whole pack of em." There was a look in his eye that told me he'd be happy to watch if I were to do it.

I shuddered and hid my face, pretending to be overcome at the very idea of it. There had been times over the past month, where I would have happily stabbed Mitsuhide… but I would have given him a fighting chance first.

"Could ye do it if I said it was him or you?" He scratched at his wrist in the area between the glove and his flesh.

What is this? Philosophy Power Hour? I didn't know what he was looking for. Too bloodthirsty and he'd look at me with suspicion. Too weak and he'd likely pitch me overboard. I added a whimper to my voice. "I don't know! I've never lifted a sword… but I'm not useless! I can scrub floors, or clean everyone's rooms or swab decks or whatever you call it here."

He drew his sword and I shrank back but all he did with it was poke at the kimono I was wearing until it snagged and tore. "Those ain't the clothes of a servant. You'd get them dirty. Be a fine sight, seeing you scrubbing in silk."

Finishing the job his knife started, I yanked at the cloth until it tore past my knees. "He made me wear it. I don't care if I get it dirty."

"Show me your hands." At Motonari's order, I extended my hands toward him, too surprised to do anything else. He quickly pulled his own gloved hand out of my reach. From that short distance, he looked at my hands, which were indeed still rough and calloused in spite of Sho's best efforts. "Ah. Ye really aren't a stranger to hard work."

"I said I wasn't. Who would lie about being a housemaid?" Well, I probably would have lied if I'd needed to, but of course I really had been a maid, though not as recently as 'Kaya' had been.

"Never you mind." Motonari stood up and headed for the door. Apparently he had decided I was neither useful, nor interesting.

"Wait!"

With a look of impatience, he turned back to me. "What?"

"Um. About the floor scrubbing thing. Where are the cleaning supplies?" Kaya was determined to be useful. I was determined to get on deck and figure out just how big his crew was and where we were.

"I'll send someone to you. When I get time." He turned, then again paused and turned back. "How come you haven't asked about your former master?"

"Kyub -um, Mitsuhide? I don't care how he is." As long as he's not dead, folded spindled or mutilated. Since Montanari had said he would be used as bait, Mitsuhide was still alive, but not likely comfortable. "As long as he can't get to me, I don't care."

Motonari didn't respond to that, and left me alone to continue to stare at the walls. Or pace. Or whatever. He hadn't locked me in this time (I checked) but perhaps that too was a test of some sort.

So I stayed put a little while longer, organizing my thoughts, plotting, until an old man named Hiroyoshi came by and brought me outside. Rather than scrub (swab?) the deck, I was instead given the task of repairing the sails. It was a dull, mindless, and never ending chore, and I stabbed myself with the thick needle far too many times.

Also, unfortunately, it required me to stay in one place in the corner of the ship, rather than explore. It would have been good to know exactly where everything was located on board, exactly how many men Motornari had working for him, and how many weapons they had. Still, even by sitting quietly in place and doing my best to memorize faces, I was able to get a rough head count of about seventy crew members. I rounded that upward to a hundred, just to be safe.

I spent four days in this fashion. Aside from Hiroyoshi, no one approached me. Possibly Motonari told them all to leave me alone. Possibly he had just told them all I was boring. I would get up, and stretch my legs once or twice, each time simply walking over to one side or the other. We were not terribly far out to sea, and on some occasions, I spotted strip of land off the right side, but whether it was the Japanese mainland or a smaller island, I couldn't say. Once there was a bit of a flurry because a sailor spotted a ship some distance behind us, but that apparently turned out to be a merchant vessel.

At night, I would retire to my own quarters, and Hiroyoshi would drop off a tray of food. He was a friendly sort, and to be honest, had I not been trying to keep up my scared villager act, I might have enjoyed chatting with him. As it was, I limited myself to a grateful smile and a thank-you, then listened quietly to his tales of the sea.

Each night I also made sure I established a pattern of coming up on deck after the moonrise, to stroll along the deck and look up at the sky. The first time I did this, Motonari stopped me to ask, "Where do ya think yer goin?"

I shrank back in 'fear,' but pointed to the sky and the reflection of the three quarter moon over calm waters. "It's pretty. I like to look at night."

"Yer daft, woman." He shook his head, then took a moment to look as well. For one long pause we were both staring out at the ocean, before he shook his head again and retreated to his quarters.

And thus on the fourth night, Kaya, whose pattern was now established to be a night time stroller and stargazer, strolled right down to the brig, where Mitsuhide was being held. The few sailors who were on deck paid no attention to me at all. As I had told Mitsuhide weeks ago, I had perfected the art of being invisible in plain sight.

In his cell, Mitsuhide appeared to be unconscious. I heard a very soft whir of his even breathing. Alright, correction, asleep, not comatose. Though there were a couple of bruises on his face, it didn't look like he was being abused in the brig. Likely those were from the moment he had arranged for us to be captured. He even appeared to be sleeping comfortably, especially given he was sleeping on the floor and his hands were manacled together.

"Psst. Mitsuhide. Wake up." I kept my voice low. There weren't any guards to the brig as the crew wasn't large enough to give anyone a wasteful task like watching the door, but I wasn't sure of the acoustics in here. The last thing we needed was for our conversation to carry to the upper deck.

His eyes opened instantly, as most people in this era slept lightly and Mitsuhide was no exception. "Dear me, it appears I overestimated your abilities. I expected you yesterday."

"I needed to establish that I was boring and no threat." I pulled one of the bellflower lock picks out of what was now an extremely lopsided hairdo. "This was followed by an extra day because, seriously, you couldn't have warned me you were going to do that?"

He sat up, rolled his shoulders a bit, causing the top of his kimono to slip down, revealing that lean muscular body – and a few more bruises. "You appeared to figure it out quickly enough." The look he gave me was one of approval, and for a moment I wanted to bathe in that.

I got to work on the lock on the cell. It was a simple keyed lock, and it would take very little dexterity to force it open. "And what if Motonari decided to leave me in Sakai? Then what would you have done?"

He paused… long enough for me to realize. "You were expecting him to leave me in Sakai."

He'd… planned to leave me behind. That… almost hurt more than him saying I had betrayed him.

"I thought it the most likely scenario, yes. However I was equally confident that if he determined you were too much of a threat to leave behind, that you would decode my statement." He held his manacled hands out in front of him. "And so you have."

So basically… I'm Plan B.

"What if he decided I was too much of a threat to leave alive?" Motonari seemed all too volatile. He was definitely capable of killing me if he thought I was a risk.

"Kyubei and Goro – the man who followed us from the machiya – were hiding and would have pulled you out before it came to that." The smile was familiar and teasing, but there was a look in his eyes that I could not interpret. He nodded when the lock clicked open. "Good work. When this is all concluded, you should have a new job skill as a sneak thief."

I wasn't ready to think that far ahead. Let's just get past this 'held captive on a pirate ship' thing before I update my resume.

I hurried over to him, and knelt. "Hold out your hands."

The positioning of the chain and its short length meant that I needed to twine myself between him and the wall until our bodies touched. This too was keyed lock, but whoever had created it had set the pins at a trickier angle than the one at the door. I mentally swore at the lock maker when my hands slipped for the third time, and the pick pinged to the floor. I caught it before it could disappear between the cracks in the floor boards.

Unsecured by the hair stick/ lock pick, a piece of my hair unspooled and covered my eyes. Fine. I didn't actually need to see to do this, I could unlock it by feel. All those nights of blindfolded lock picking were paying off.

Perhaps understanding that this was a situation where I needed total focus, Mitsuhide stayed (for once) quiet, and in fact, appeared to be regulating his breathing so that I could concentrate. Even so, I was hyper alert to the feeling of his exhale against my neck, and the constant thrum of his heartbeat at my back. It was steady. Calm. Unworried.

Right. If he was calm, I could be too. What was required was the type of focus that I used in archery, to shut out all distractions, whether it be of Mitsuhide's attractive presence or the persistent worry that all this would be for naught and Motonari's guards would raise the alarm any moment.

The world shrunk to the lock, to the positioning of the pin and the balance between force and persuasion.

And his heartbeat.

After a couple tense minutes passed, the bolt slid free, and I pulled the manacles off his wrists. Underneath, his skin was raw and red, slightly swollen, and without thinking, I took his hands and tried to massage them to bring back the circulation. As always, his fingers were cool.

Mitsuhide watched me without comment, but when I stopped he gave my hands a squeeze.

"What do we do now?" I gave him a quick summary of the number of men and what I had observed of their schedule.

To my surprise, he put the manacles back on, replaced the padlock, but left it unbolted. To anyone looking, it would appear that he was still shackled to the wall. "It's not time yet."

Time for what? I didn't bother to ask, I knew he wouldn't tell me. "And here you complained I ignored you for an extra day."

"I need you to do two things. Take my sash-" he nodded at the bright blue fabric encircling his waist. "Climb the rigging and tie it up under the flag."

Climb the rigging?

Prior to my accident, I wouldn't have thought twice about it. I might have even done it for fun. But now… The thought of the vertigo brought on a wave of anticipatory nausea.

Mitsuhide picked up my hands and squeezed them again, as he fixed an intent amber gaze on me. "You can do this. I imagine you could do it in your sleep."

I could. I could do it. Not just because I didn't want to let him down. No. It was because I wanted myself back, to be me again, the kind of girl who would scamper easily through the rigging of a sailing ship. And because his confidence in me gave me strength.

I took a deep breath, then nodded.

"There's the fierce brat who threatened to stab me in my sleep." He patted my head. It was a bit patronizing, but since he had been in prison for the past few day, I allowed it.

"What's the other thing?" Steal a weapon? Poison the crew?

He leaned forward and brushed his lips over my forehead, a kiss so brief that I could have imagined it. Then he took the lock pick from me, and tucked it into his hakama. "Lock the door on the way out."