.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.
February 1599, Fushimi Castle, Kyoto
Winter, in Kyoto, felt like a living entity.
Snow smothered Fushimi Castle in a clean silence, softening the jagged lines of stone and timber, hiding footprints as quickly as they were made, and pretending the country beneath it wasn't splitting. Beneath that white layer, the whole country was bleeding in silence; everyone already knew the next season would be worse.
Kyoto, the capital, had always been a contradiction: beauty and ceremony, power balanced on who could smile longest while holding a tantō behind their back, but since Toyotomi Hideyoshi's death the air had changed. The capital still wore the face of authority, but the body beneath was rotting: the Council of Five Regents pulling in different directions, daimyō watching the cracks waiting to conveniently change sides, and curses gathering along the perimeter as if the land itself sensed weakness.
Inside the Fushimi Castle, woodem beams and painted fusuma tried to insist on permanence; mountains and rivers folded in ink across walls, calm serene landscapes framed a room full of men trying to decide what "order" would look like when the old one finally stopped pretending to breathe.
Seijiro sat with his legs folded, his white haori draped over one shoulder like an afterthought; his silver hair was tied loose at the nape, strands slipping forward. He didn't bother pushing them back.
The room could stare at his face; his mind wasn't here.
It kept wandering back to the rain-soaked courtyard of the Kamo estate, to the blood on stone, to the Divine Dog, and to Kaoru Zenin standing in the threshold with a bruise blooming across her cheek, to the betrayal that had saved him and that had spared them all a war.
Kaoru's hand on his arm. Kaoru's stubborn voice. Stop your father. Prevent a war. And then—
Nothing.
No rumor, no whispered sighting, not even the usual damning poisonous gossip that clung to the name "Zenin." It was as if the heir of Nagoya-go had been swallowed by winter and snow and bad decisions.
Seijiro flexed his fingers slowly, once, as if the movement could shake off the memory; pity it didn't.
Beside him, his father, Akiteru Gojo, sat upright, immaculate in a purple kamishimo stamped with the Gojo mon. His silver hair were tied neatly back in a formal half knot and his short beard was trimmed with the kind of precision he applied to everything in his life. A man who did not allow anything, politics, family, his son, to be messy in public.
The contrast between father and sot was clean enough to be deliberate: father a warrior-scholar, son a weapon still warm from use.
Across the room, the regents formed a half-circle around Toyotomi Hideyori, the heir of the late Kampaku, the child they claimed to serve and called "my lord" while deciding everything in his stead.
Hideyori sat too straight in oversized robes that swallowed him, sleeves pooling like he was wearing his father's shadow because, for all their sake, he was. His small hands were folded in his lap with an earnestness that made Seijiro's teeth ache.
A six years old boy trying to sit like a man because the country demanded he do so.
Seijiro's gaze lingered a second too long and something uncomfortable stirre. Sympathy, perhaps, or the uglier cousin of it? No. That would suggest a shared understanding. Pity? Maybe. Too much, too soon. He knew what it meant to carry a burden you didn't choose. He tore his eyes away before it could take shape; he didn't have the luxury of feeling sorry for people who sat at the center of a storm.
He refocused on the conversation instead, like a man returning to a battlefield.
"Kyoto remains vulnerable without the Mitsuboshi no Yari reinforcing a kekkai around its perimeter," Akiteru declared, steady, angled toward the regents with deference that never quite suggested total submission.
The Mitsuboshi no Yari. Always the damn spear.
Seijiro's mouth twitched into a smile that wasn't. Funny how they never said, plainly, why it wasn't here, funny how the words "Iga" and "Zenin" and "Hattori" hovered at the edges of every sentence without ever being pronunced. Because mentioning it would mean acknowledging the humiliation, and acknowledging humiliation meant someone might decide to look for where to place the fault.
Which meant Seijiro. The Six Eyes, the heir to the Gojo Clan. And no one wanted to be the one to slap the fault of all of this on his laps, not when his father was in the room.
A subtle turn of phrase, a subtle reminder: the Gojo were here because the Toyotomi and the regents had elevated them and their influence at the late Kampaku's court in the capital. The Gojo's standing was granted, and grants could be revoked.
Their reputation, their legitimacy, their access, tied to Toyotomi survival. And that survival was being threatened.
Seijiro could still see the spear as he handed it to Kaoru in an act he could frame as strategy if he tried hard enough, and as stupid trust if he was being honest. He'd surrendered i; then walked straight into Takahiro Zenin's trap.
Seijiro had failed to deliver the spear to the west side of the country. Instead, it had gone east and Seijiro had come back intact, empty-handed, dragging behind him a rumor like a chain: that he had tried to assassinate the Zenin heir under Hattori roof, on a jointed neutral mission.
His father's voice dragged him back to the present. "The balance among the sorcerer clans is shifting dangerously. The capital remains exposed, spiritually and politically, to other opportunistic daimyō who will exploit instability for their ambitions."
A few of the regents exchanged glances, careful; they all knew which daimyō that sentence pointed at without needing a name.
Maeda Toshiie—the older, a man who looked like he'd outlived too many compromises, and the one said to be able to keep Tokugawa Ieyasu at bay—nodded once. "Indeed. Tokugawa Ieyasu grows too bold," he said, letting the truth sit in the air like a weight. "His absence here, today is... telling. As we speak, he refuses every attempt of summoning to the the capital, refuses to leave the region of Kantō."
Absence. Even that word was polite. Tokugawa wasn't absent because he couldn't come, he was absent because he didn't need to yet.
Mitsunari Ishida, sharp-eyed and sharper-tongued, folded his hands as if he were praying, which Seijiro found funny and over-dramatic. Like a Noh actor. "And while Kyoto chokes on spiritual unrest," he added, almost conversationally, "Edo thrives under his watch."
Seijiro's eyes narrowed a fraction.
Around Edo Castle, a kekkai had been raised, too wide, too clean, too steady for a standard sorcerer. The kind of kekkai that repelled lower to mid tier curses, thinning the air until even anxious minds felt the difference.
Tokugawa and the daimyō loyal to him could sleep, could plan, could focus on the true objective while Kyoto burned daylight and sorcerers simply keeping the perimeter from collapsing, forced to inhale curses and poison for everyone else.
The Gojo, the Kōga, the Maeda, three sorcerers Clans running constant sweeps along the capital's boundaries, bleeding cursed energy into barriers and patrols because if they didn't, Kyoto would drown in what gathered at its edges. Too busy to properly repel a eventual surprise attack.
And on the Iga front, too close to the capital, Hattori Masanari had shut the gates in a defensive line drawn not against curses, against Kyoto. Against interference. Against oversight.
Precautionary, they'd call it. Convenient, in practice.
Meanwhile, the Date clan, under the One-Eyed Dragon of Ōshū, had openly declared for Tokugawa. Loudly and proudly. A second sorcerer clan joining the Mitsuba Aoi banner, on top of the Zenin.
Two sorcerer clans and the most ambitious man in Japan, and Kyoto still pretended it could enforce an order Tokugawa no longer feared.
And the Kamo? Conveniently neutral, of course, neutrality was the favourite word of that old fox of their patriarch when everyone else had to bleed.
Seijiro's mind snagged on one detail Mitsunari hadn't said aloud: the only reason Edo's kekkai existed at all.
The Mitsuboshi no Yari..
For that kekkai to exist around Edo, someone who could wield it must have activated the Mitsuboshi no Yari. His throat tightened with something too stupid but he kept his face still. If that kekkai now held Edo clean, then Kaoru Zenin had to be alive. No one else could have done it, not with that spear.
A ridiculous, unwanted relief pressed in his; he swallowed it down.
His father's call snapped him out of his reverie, like a reprimand for his wandering thoughts. "Seijiro."
Seijiro straightened, his easy smirk returning like a mask. "Of course, Chichiue," he murmured, his mind still elsewhere.
Akiteru continued, voice level. "Tokugawa-dono's ambitions have never been subtle, but now the balance of power tilts further in his favor. We cannot allow Kyoto's spiritual weakness to become a political weakness."
Toshiie cleared his throat, careful. "The… discord between Zenin and Gojo is troubling. The Kamo remain neutral, but—"
Akiteru smiled with courtly restraint. "The accusations against my son have complicated the efforts," he said smooth enough to be called conciliatory. "We refrained from escalation, as is our duty to peace."
Seijiro felt several eyes tilt toward him again, not openly accusatory but measuring, as if taking inventory. An almost-started war reduced to "small discord between clans."
He put on a smile that could pass for amused. "Really a shame," he said lightly, as if he hadn't been in a cell with blood on his boots. "I must've missed the part where being framed became my responsibility."
Mitsunari didn't bite; he only let the silence stretch a second too long. "What matters," he said finally, "is unity. A fractured sorcerer community invites disaster and opportunists."
Tokugawa, unspoken again; always unspoken, like a curse you didn't name in case naming it fed it.
"And leadership," Ukita Hideie, a regent with an always too serene expression, added. "The Kamo cling to neutrality but neutrality is not leadership."
Akiteru's eyes moved, briefly, to Seijiro.
Ah. Of course. It must be them.
Seijiro inclined his head, measured. "The Gojo have served as guardians of Kyoto's spiritual and physical safety for decades," he said, phrasing chosen with care. "It's only fitting that such a role be restored."
Restored. Bitter word; it implied something had been taken.
Toshiie nodded slowly. "Then it falls to you, Gojo-dono, to mediate. There must be unity against Tokugawa's ambitions. Without it, Kyoto's defenses will crumble."
Akiteru, ever precise, offered the solution that he had probably already formed days ago. "A formal council between Gojo, Zenin, and Kamo clans," he said, "to determine the spear's allocation in a last attempt to balance."
A council of sorcerers: a beautiful phrase for a room full of cursed energy and too little trust.
Toshiie's voice came again, heavy and too old to pretend. "Then the Maeda will support this effort," he said, gaze steady. "I will send my nephew to the council. He is… eccentric," he admitted. "But a veteran. Loyal to the late Kampaku and an excellent sorcerer."
Support. Also: oversight. Someone to keep an eye on the Gojo cause in Kyoto and make sure it remained the Toyotomi cause. Seijiro kept his expression neutral; he could appreciate the tactic.
Mitsunari raised an eyebrow, lips curling. "And what of the Zenin? Surely, they'll attend for Tokugawa's stand."
"Hmm," Seijiro murmured, casting a glance toward the young Hideyori. The boy was listening intently, hands clenched too tight. He's trying too hard, he thought. No. He shook the thought away and focused. "We will manage them," he said simply.
Akiteru inclined his head in agreement. "The Gojo clan will do everything necessary."
The discussion wound down in layers of formal bows and too careful language. When the meeting finally loosened its grip, Seijiro followed his father toward the corridor, hands tucked in sleeves.
Before stepping out, he cast one last glance toward Hideyori; the boy remained seated, regents murmuring around him. For an instant, Hideyori's gaze lifted and caught Seijiro's not in command or authority. Just a child drowning inside a robe too big.
Hideyori gave a small hesitant nod, as if acknowledging another unwilling piece on the board; perhaps he had noticed that Seijiro was the only one to not stare at him like he was the very reason for the country's turmoil; maybe that was why Hideyori had offered that small gesture, fleeting as it was.
Seijiro, on impulse, pulled his mouth into an exaggerated grimace, nose wrinkled, tongue out just enough, brows arched in a ridiculous parody of the room's suffocating gravity.
A tiny rebellion against the theatre.
Hideyori saw it. His eyes widened, shocked at the loss of etiquette, and then, for one heartbeat, he looked like a child again. A laugh escaped him, soft and quick, before he smothered it with a frantic straightening of posture, head ducking as if ashamed of having remembered joy existed.
Seijiro's lips twitched, satisfied. Then—
"Seijiro." His father's voice, broke the moment.
Seijiro's expression smoothed instantly; hesnapped back into its proper cage and turned, the cold engawa swallowing them as his steps fell in sync with his father's, though their minds could not have been more misaligned.
Outside, the castle courtyard was pale with snow. The air nipped at Seijiro's skin but it was welcomed compared to the fake warmth of politics.
Their boots crunched softly over frost.
Akiteru walked with the calm of a man who could afford waiting, because waiting was simply another form of control. Seijiro knew his father well, much to his dislikes; that kind of calm came from knowing time would bend eventually, either by persuasion or force, as though the balance of the world rested in his grasp.
For all his resentment, Seijiro couldn't deny the truth; more often than not, it actually did.
"This council is crucial, Seijiro," his father said without preamble. "You understand that, don't you? Kyoto's stability depends on it. As does our standing among the clans. You will assist."
Seijiro let out a short, dry laugh, his breath puffing white in the cold. "Because my track record with the Zenin has been such a shining success." The sarcasm rolled off his tongue, unfiltered. "Don't worry, Chichiue. I'll be charming. I'll smile, I'll even pretend I didn't spend the season being accused of an almost-murder and a blood feud."
Akiteru stopped abruptly and the stillness was immediate. Weaponized, even. He turned, and his blue eyes narrowed on him, a controlled look that said remember your place.
"It was your failure with the Mitsuboshi no Yari," Akiteru reminded him, voice cold as the snow, "that brought us to this precarious position."
Seijiro's smirk flickered before he forced it back into place. "Naturally," he replied lightly. "It's always my failure."
Akiteru's jaw tightened, and for a moment something irritation alongside the wrong words. "The matter with the Zenin was resolved only because the clan's heir and the Six Eyes returned intact," he said, clipped. "Had it not, I would have had no choice but to act."
The clan's heir. The Six Eyes. Not Seijiro, his son.
For an hearthbeat, Seijiro didn't satisfy him with an answer; he stared at the snow drifting, the swirling of snowflakes catching the faint light of the castle lanterns. . He let his father's words hang there, turning them over in his mind.
"Intact," he echoed softly, tasting the word. Am I really? "Right. Your perfect weapon returned without a scratch. Congratulations. What a relief for you."
Akiteru's expression shifted close to resignation, but it disappeared before it could become human. He said nothing, and the silence only confirmed what Seijiro already knew; relief had nothing to do with his well-being, it was relief that the clan's greatest asset remained undamaged and functional.
"It's still too early for a conflict. Not now, not yet," Akiteru said evenly. "The Zenin are a threat to be managed with care and time."
Seijiro's gaze snapped to his father. "And you think I don't know that?" he asked, voice lowering. "I prevented a war. I did that. And you barely hesitated to let Takahiro Zenin's shitshow slide because I asked."
Akiteru's brow twitched, barely. "You overestimate your influence."
"Do I?" Seijiro smirked because he didn't know what else to wear, and held his gaze.
He wasn't entirely sure why he kept pushing. Was it rebellion? Frustration? Or perhaps the ghost of Kaoru Zenin, standing defiantly in his mind's eye:Please. If there's any chance to prevent a war between our clans, I'm asking you to take it.
It hadn't been difficult to convince his father, because Akiteru didn't want open conflict with the Zenin—not yet and Seijiro had learned that much in twenty-four years: his father only fought when the outcome could be controlled, and he didn't gamble unless he could rig the table.
So Seijiro had played his hand like a good son.
Yes, Chichiue. I did exactly what they say. Yes, Chichiue, I tried and failed to assassinate Zenin Kaoru for the Gojo clan. Truly unfortunate, my error. Yes, Chichiue. The story will stand. Let it stand.
Because the one thing Akiteru could tolerate was his son failure, if it served the cause. So Seijiro had taken the blame and centered it on himself; better his father see him as reckless but loyal to the clan than see the Gojo as weak and mocked. Better Seijiro be the scapegoat.
Better—also—to keep his promise. A promise made in an underground Kamo cell to a Zenin heir he still wasn't sure he should trust.
Akiteru's voice cut back in. "If you fail with the Zenin at this council," he said, slow, deliberate, "the consequences will not fall on you alone. Remember that."
Seijiro inclined his head. "Of course," he murmured.
No war, no bloodshed. For now.
Akiteru began walking again, unhurried and patient and Seijiro followed, boots crunching over snow and thoughts loud in the winter air. Edo's barrier was proof; Kyoto would demand the spear back; the Toyotomi sphere would demand the Gojo to cleanse their name at at any cost. And they were all converging in Kyoto once again.
I kept my word, Pretty Boy. I wonder if you're alive to care.
.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.
February 1599, Zenin clan estate, Nagoya-go
Yeah. Let's hope I know what I'm doing.
Kaoru Zenin had repeated the phrase so many times it had stopped sounding like reassurance and started sounding like an insult she kept throwing at herself.
A bitter laugh slipped out of her in the cramped cell, and the echo made it worse. Six months in the cold underbelly of the Zenin estate—her home—and the irony still hadn't left. She had traded one cage for another, the only difference was that this one came with real iron bars and cursed energy suppression talismans.
The room was spare, with damp stone walls, winter light that reached through a narrow, high window that had clearly been designed to let in just enough daylight to keep a prisoner alive and just little enough to make time feel pointless. And the talismans? Suppression layered on suppression until even her thoughts felt quieter.
Kaoru lay sprawled on the bench that served as bed, seat, and general everything in her prisoner's life, one leg crossed over the other, hands tucked behind her head in a posture of lazy defiance that was ninety percent performance and ten percent stubbornness.
It wasn't the worst place she'd ever been; the cell in Iga had been worse.
And the guards didn't treat her like a common criminal. They kept their distance sure, spoke in clipped honorifics, and never looked her in the eye for too long. She was still their clan's heir, for all the good it did her. That one fact, politically inconvenient, and infuriatingly useful, kept her breathing for now.
Her father, Takahiro Zenin, might have been seething, but he couldn't simply make her disappear without raising questions in the wrong hall, and 1599 was made of wrong hall.
Kyoto was a powder barrel and the Council of Regents—five men trying to hold a country together with a child—was already cracking into their own factions. Tokugawa Ieyasu wasn't even pretending to be patient anymore.
Everyone knew the war was coming; they just didn't agree on who should declare it first.
And in that kind of weather, even the Zenin couldn't afford to look… unstable. Especially not after the Kamo residence incident.
That had been the part her father hated most, more than the blood, more than the humiliation, more than Seijiro Gojo walking out alive on her decision. The guards she killed in the Kamo underground? A tragedy, officially, an unfortunate incident. The Kamo patriarch had "maintained neutrality," eager to fold the mess into silence before either side decided to make a public example of them. Everyone noticed.
Her father had been forced to swallow the embarrassment of it in front of the Kamo elders. He had smiled. He had apologized in the language of politics. He had made assurances.
Then, once they were out of Kamo sigh, Takahiro had gone from furious to incandescent in the span of a minute, and because the world refused to provide him an external enemy he could safely hit, he had settled—predictably—on the one internal target he could strike without consequence.
Her. Kaoru exhaled through her nose, eyes half-lidded as if she were bored. He had hit her until her cheek stayed swollen for days.
After that night, she hadn't been brought back to Nagoya-go in chains, no, that would have implied she was important enough for her father to fear in public.
Instead, she had been guided. Or escorted. Or dragged, if one insisted on accuracy.
Her father had taken her east like a weapon he couldn't afford to throw away even while he wanted to break it across his knee. She hadn't resisted, not once. Why would her? Denying him the satisfaction of a struggle had felt deliciously petty.
And honestly? A small, shameless corner of her had been… curious, objectively curious.
She had wanted to activate the Mitsuboshi no Yari with her own hands since the first moment she had laid eyes on it; she had wanted to see whether the stories were true, whether she would be able to wield it just like Seijiro, whether the artifact really was as temperamental as the elders whispered.
It was.
The spear was a little bastard.
The first time she tried to activate it properly—really activate it, not just hold it—she'd nearly bitten through her own tongue.
They'd stood outside Edo Castle, where Tokugawa's men watched with hungry patience; Kaoru had planted her feet, closed her eyes, and begun to visualize the barrier.
A design.
A kekkai that would do what Kyoto's defenses had done for decades: repel the curses, keep the rot from pooling, clean air for a new capital, peace of mind for a man who was planning to take the country and didn't want invisible disasters interfering with the visible one.
Every second she spent sharpening the image, conditions, boundaries, triggers, the exact shape of "purify" versus "repel," the spear spoke in her skull like a petulant god until her vision swam: Hands off. Hands off, you damn brat. Don't touch. I said don't touch, you little sneaky bitch, get your hands off my things.
And the output—
Kami. The output had been ugly.
A spike of cursed energy so uncontrolled it sprayed through the air; for a heartbeat she'd been certain she'd miscalculated and would end up purifying nothing except the inside of her own skull.
The spear's recoil had snapped up her spine, bloomed behind her eyes, and settled in the center of her forehead. She had tasted metal; she had wanted to laugh; she had wanted, briefly, to scream.
Somewhere between the spear trying to reject her and her refusing to be rejected, eventually the barrier snapped into place and the air around Edo shifted. Tokugawa Ieyasu had looked pleased in the mild, satisfied way of a man adding a new tool to his collection; he had looked at her father with something close to respect, elevated, almost reverent.
Takahiro had been so pleased. For one short moment, Kaoru had been exactly what he wanted.
Which meant she had become everything he despised. Then—
Prison.
Which, in Kaoru Zenin's life, translated to: vacation.
Peace, quiet, no performances, no formalities, no one asking her to be a son and a weapon in public and asking her to die for being a woman in private. No one tugging her sleeves into place or measuring her posture or reminding her that her existence was a political compromise dressed up as filial duty.
Eventually, she sighed and let the thought drift away. Oh well. Not my problem anymore. The spear was "safe" in Edo, Tokugawa was pleased. her father was pleased enough to sleep, and the fact that she was still breathing meant no war had erupted, because if there had been a war, Takahiro would have shoved her into it first, smiling while hoping she didn't return this time.
Which meant, in some distant, annoying way—
Seijiro had kept his word. That Gojo arrogance hadn't failed her after all.
"Kaoru Zenin,"he had said, his voice cutting through the chaos. "What are you—"
What was I thinking?
Kaoru had defied every lesson drilled into her since childhood, and for what? To avert a war? To save a Gojo? To prove she could do something that mattered? Or perhaps it was because, in those moments she had made a choice not as the Zenin heir but as herself. She stared at the ceiling and felt warm in her chest; she killed it immediately with irritation.
Damn isolation.Making me think things I shouldn't.
She rolled onto her side, propping herself up on one elbow, and squinted at the thin slice of daylight. What's happening outside these walls? The thought nagged at her.
"Wonder what my old man's telling the world about me," she mused aloud. "Sickly heir or overzealous training. Maybe a spiritual retreat." Her mouth twisted. "Meditating on what happens when you side with a Gojo whelp."
Six months without a visitor.
Six months without even her Harunobu; her most loyal shadow, a father to her more than Takahiro had ever been, had been forbidden from seeing her. She could imagine him, probably furious with her—furious at the world—but maybe, just maybe, grateful for the break from her chaos. She had probably given him the longest stretch of peace he'd had in decades and she could only hope he was taking time with his actual family for once.
Kaoru shifted her position, resting one ankle atop the other. Six months had given her plenty of time to be productive, she supposed. The Round Deer had been a nice addition to her arsenal, though the ritual to subjugate it had been hastily improvised, being in prison. She could still hear the guards screaming as the structure collapsed.
Her father's fury? Oh, it had been so worth it.
She smirked, but it didn't reach her eyes. She'd survived; that was what mattered, that was what always mattered.
"Maybe I'm going mad," she muttered. "At this rate I'll forget how to talk to people. Hell, I'd even take father's scowl right about now—"
Her self-pity cut off as heavy footsteps approached, steady, somehow familiar, breaking the stillness as the cell door creaked.
Light spilled in.
Kaoru squinted, raising a hand to shield her eyes, and the breath she hadn't realized she was holding caught in her throat.
Harunobu stood in the doorway, katana at his side, posture all rigid with tightly caged fury and relief, too, barely concealed, like he hated it was the first thing he was showing to her after six months.
"'Nobu," she whispered, voice raw from disuse.
His gaze swept over her: tangled hair, tattered clothes, dirt on her feet, the casual sprawl of someone who'd decided dignity was optional; his lips pressed into a thin line.
"You look terrible, Kaoru-sama," he said flatly. "And you smell worse."
A laugh escaped her, dry, faintly offended, but fond. "Nice to see you too," she replied, pushing herself upright with an exaggerated stretch that made her joints pop. "You've been missed. Especially your warmth."
Harunobu's frown deepened, but he didn't waste words; he gestured, and the guards—careful not to meet her eyes—unlocked the iron. The door groaned as it swung open and Kaoru stepped forward, rolling her shoulders as if she were shedding six months of confinement.
"Kaoru-sama," Harunobu said, carefully neutral, "your father has need of you."
Kaoru's lips curved into a slow, defiant smile, composure snapping back into place as if she'd never been lying on stone like a stray cat. "Of course he does," she said lightly. "He'll always needs me. It was only a matter of time."
And oh, how she had waited.
For once, Harunobu didn't reprimand her tone; he only watched as she straightened her back and stepped out barefoot onto the engawa wood, leaving damp stone behind. She slipped back into the role she'd mastered, not because she believed in it, but because it was habit.
She was still the heir of the Zenin clan, whether her father Takahiro liked it or not. And she was about to remind him.
.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.
The snow-covered grounds of Edo Castle were bright enough to make the world look clean even when nothing about it was. From the outside, the castle's layered roofs rose serene against the grey sky. The watchtowers were quiet, and even the wind felt silent.
And yet beneath the façade, Edo thrummed.
The Mitsuboshi no Yari sat deep under the castle; its kekkai—Kaoru's kekkai—spread across the city in a wide sweep, keeping the air around Edo purifyied and pressing curses out of the border. It gave the non-sorcerers peace of mind, and it gave Tokugawa Ieyasu the luxury of clarity and time to focus on the Kanto region defenses.
And it gave the distant capital a reason to be afraid.
Kaoru knelt on the tatami in her black kamishimo as the picture of the perfect Zenin clan heir. The golden mon embroidered the garments spoke of arrogance, but it was the only language of clans, and she spoke it fluently: her posture was flawless, her spine straight, chin lowered at the perfect angle, black hair wound into a formal ponytail so neat it looked painful, with not a single strand escaping to tell on her.
Months of imprisonment might as well have been a rumor.
At her right knelt her father, Takahiro Zenin, radiating the authority of a clan head that had recently rised in status because he had. His haori was deep red, the mon of the Zenin clan visible on his back.
His face betrayed nothing but Kaoru could feel him anyway: the irritation, the disapproval, the violence barely held in check behind his teeth.
It was intoxicating.
Feel it, Father, she thought, with sweet satisfaction. Feel the triumph of needing me.
Behind her stood Harunobu, one hand resting lightly on his katana casual enough to be polite, but deliberate enough to be warning. When he had first seen her after months in a cell, his eyes had flickered—briefly—in fury at her father, and disapproval at condition.
Save it, 'Nobu. There's work to be done.
Atop the dais sat Tokugawa Ieyasu.
He wore emerald green and gold, kataginu and wide hakama, his Mitsuba Aoi mon visible in audacity; nothing flamboyant, nothing pleading, the look of a man who did not need to perform strength because everyone around him was already adjusting their posture to accommodate it. His graying hair was tied neatly, and his gaze had been scannin Kaoru for the entire time: every detail of her appearance, every nuance of her demeanor, the way one weighed a weapon to decide how it would be used.
Tokugawa Ieyasu was not a sorcerer. That was the detail that made the whole thing obscene.
He didn't see curses, he didn't wield a cursed technique; no Six Eyes or inherited bloodline or a shikigami. He was—by the standards of the jujutsu clans—just a man. And yet two of the most dangerous sorcerer clans in the country knelt in his shadow without hesitation.
The Zenin were here. he One-Eyed Dragon of Ōshū had chosen his side too, openly, loudly, without the ambiguity the regents still clung to in Kyoto. Tokugawa Ieyasu was building something that didn't require cursed technique to be terrifying: certainty.
Kaoru leaned into a deeper bow, palms flat against the cold tatami. "Tokugawa-dono," she said, reverent, "it is an honor to be summoned to your presence."
Ieyasu watched her for a moment longer than most men would dare; when he finally spoke, his voice was firm and satisfied. "Zenin-dono," he began, eyes shifting to Takahiro, "it pleases me to meet your heir, the one who secured the Mitsuboshi no Yari."
Kaoru straightened just enough to meet his eyes with utmost respect. "It was my duty, Tokugawa-dono, to serve both my clan and the greater cause."
"Duty, yes," Ieyasu said, lips curving faintly. "But skill, too. The kekkai around Edo has strengthened our defenses significantly. It purifies this region. My men sleep easier and my vassals think more clearly because you removed the curses that gnawed at their minds."
Fear made people stupid; stupid made them disloyal; a clean perimeter made loyalty easier.
Kaoru inclined her head. "You honor me with your words, Tokugawa-dono. I am just grateful for the opportunity to serve—"
"—spare it," Ieyasu interrupted, mild. "Humility is admirable, but I speak the truth." A beat. "A prodigy of the Zenin clan, indeed," he added, chin in hand. "Diligent. Steadfast."
From the corner of her eye, Kaoru caught the tightening of her father's jaw, a hairline fracture in his composure. The satisfaction that bloomed in her chest was almost impossible to suppress.
Stamp that into your memory, Father.
What could he do? Deny his own heir's success in front of Tokugawa Ieyasu? Deny the barrier that now held Edo in clean, blessed quiet? Not even Takahiro Zenin could afford that kind of public stupidity.
Ieyasu's gaze lingered on her, thoughtful. "Tell me, Kaoru-dono," he said, "is it true you spent the past months honing your abilities?"
Beside her, Takahiro shifted, clearly preparing to insert the narrative he'd surely rehearsed. Training. Discipline. Necessary isolation. Anything that sounded less like I locked my heir away like an embarrassment and then dragged her here when I needed her.
But Kaoru spoke first. "Indeed, Tokugawa-dono. I used the time to refine my technique and bind another shikigami. A modest achievement," she added, because humility was still expected even if he said otherwise, "but one I dedicate entirely to the service of your cause."
Ieyasu nodded once. "A diligent warrior is what these times demand." His gaze flicked to Takahiro. "Zenin-dono, your heir has served your clan well. To entrust such responsibility to one so young speaks to both his potential and your trust."
"Your words honor me, Tokugawa-dono." Her father inclined his head. but his face betrayed nothing.
He was proud. How could he not be? Her success had elevated him and the clan, it had softened the edges of the Kamo embarrassment, it had made the Zenin appear useful rather than reckless.
Kaoru knew he hated that her competence left him no room to dismiss her. Good. Let him seethe. She felt movement at her left, a presence leaning in too close to her line.
Her young cousin, Tatsuhiro Zenin, knelt nearby with wide, admiring eyes fixed on her as if she were a story he'd been told and couldn't believe; his kamishimo was the same as Kaoru, which spoke volumes of her father's intentions. Her cousin was carefully composed, carefully obedient, an ideal heir in Takahiro's vision: unmarked, malleable, and, most importantly, male.
A replacement in waiting. He couldn't have been older than eleven, and his admiration for her, for Tokugawa, for everyone in the room was so pure it bordered on painful, an earnestness that didn't belong in Zenin politics.
He idolized her.
Poor thing, Kaoru thought, coolly. He has no idea what they'll make of him. She looked away first, because that was the safer choice.
"The political climate grows more precarious by the day in the capital," Ieyasu said. "Ishida Mitsunari's accusations gain traction among the regents. They claim I violate the Kampaku's edicts. They dress it as concern for country stability, but it is fear."
Takahiro nodded, voice measured. "Ishida-dono's moves are calculated. He seeks to fracture alliances, using the sorcerer clans as leverage. The Zenin remain unwavering in support of your vision, Tokugawa-dono."
Ieyasu's eyes narrowed slightly. "And yet there are whispers, growing louder. They question the placement of the Mitsuboshi no Yari." His gaze flicked toward Kaoru. "Some demand it be returned to the Kyoto, as they claim it belongs to the capital's defenses. That Edo has no right to it."
Kyoto. Fushimi. The regents. The Toyotomi's court gasping for air.
Kaoru's stomach tightened as memory flashed: the rain-soaked courtyard, the spear's weight in her hands, Seijiro Gojo's eyes.
Her silence.
She had said nothing when the accusations were thrown; she had stood there holding the weapon that should have been in Kyoto and watched the trap close. Sure, she had wanted the spear for her clan but she hadn't wanted to gain it like that, not through deceit, not at the cost of someone who—idiot that he was—had extended trust.
But wanting had never mattered as much as outcome.
"Ishida-dono seeks control of the spear," Ieyasu continued, voice icy, "not to protect Kyoto but to consolidate his influence. If he controls the capital's spiritual defenses and the Toyotomi child, he can strangle the other provinces. Then it will be only matter of time before he rules over the entire country. We cannot allow that."
Takahiro's jaw tightened. "The Zenin will ensure the spear remains under your protection, Tokugawa-dono."
Ieyasu nodded once, then spoke the name like he was placing a piece on a board. "I have given orders to the current Hattori Hanzō," he said calmly. "Masanari Hattori-dono has closed the Iga line."
A beat; the meaning landed heavy.
"And the border toward the capital?" Takahiro asked carefully, already knowing.
"Sealed," Ieyasu replied.
Kaoru's mind jumped immediately to the map the way it always did when politics entered a room. The Tōkaidō, Japan's main artery between Kantō and Kansai, the road that carried officials, supplies, messengers, and rumors, sealed and squeezed. Closing Iga choked trade and starved the capital of certainty, forcing anyone moving between Edo and Kyoto to reroute, delay, expose themselves.
The regents would hate it. Mitsunari Ishida would probably call it treason and coercion. And it would work anyway, because the alternative was admitting Tokugawa could do as he pleased.
Ieyasu's gaze drifted, thoughtful. "Do not fret. The Tōkaidō remains open to you and our allies to pass."
Kaoru lowered her eyes. "Pass, my lord...?"
The corner of his mouth barely moved, something in the middle of amusement and inevitability. "It is only a matter of time before the regents call a council in Kyoto."
Of course they will.
"There will be a council," Ieyasu repeated. "The three great sorcerer clans will attend and so will others." His gaze fixed on Kaoru and Takahiro. "The Kamo will moderate. The Gojo surely will press for the spear's return to the capital under their custody." A pause, almost delicate. "I will rely on you," he said to Takahiro, and then, his gaze shifted again to Kaoru, "and on your heir."
Kyoto. The Gojo clan. The spear. A chance to influence the course of the nation or watch it unravel. A reunion she hadn't dared to imagine. She allowed herself a private smirk, hidden beneath her composed exterior. For better or worse, the stage was set and she intended to play her part flawlessly.
Kaoru inclined her head deeply, voice steady. "As you command, Tokugawa-dono."
The dismissal came with a curt nod. They withdrew, sliding doors closing behind them, and for a moment there was only the soft hush of fabric and their silence. Takahiro stopped with his back to Kaoru, hands clasped behind him, and gaze fixed on painted fusuma as if art could soothe his temper.
He had received the greatest honors and praises from his lord, thanks to her success and he hated that now, even more, he couldn't do without her.
"You heard Tokugawa-dono," he said, cold and controlled. "You've earned his trust."
Kaoru inclined her head. "I have."
"Now," he continued, turning just enough for his eyes to slice toward her, "he has tied that trust to you to the Zenin name. To me." A low warning. "You will not embarrass this clan and undo everything I have built."
Kaoru's lips curved into a faint, composed smile. "I have no intention of embarrassing the Zenin clan, Takahiro-sama." Her voice didn't waver. "I've told you before, I intend to lead it one day."
His jaw tightened and for a heartbeat, reluctance flickered in his eyes. "See that you remember that," he said at last. "Dismissed."
Kaoru bowed serene, immaculate.
Behind them, Harunobu and the other Zenin guards fell into step. As they resumed walking, Tatsuhiro drifted closer not in the way of a schemer, but in the way of a child trying to orbit a star.
"Kaoru-sama," he whispered, voice brimming with polite boyish enthusiasm he hadn't yet learned to hide, "the way Tokugawa-dono praised you… it was incredible."
Kaoru barely registered his words. A soft hum escaped her lips, distant and automatic, far from the boy's naive awe.
She glanced sideways; the boy's green eyes were wide, earnest, bright. He looked at her as if she were proof the Zenin could be something other than cruelty. She hadn't spoken much to him before, had never been space for it. Children were distractions and attachments were liabilities.
That was what she'd been taught.
And yet.
"Tatsuhiro," she said, keeping her tone even, almost bored. "Don't stare like that. People will assume you want something from them and exploit that."
He flushed, startled. "S-sorry—I just—I want to be… like you. One day."
Kaoru's mouth tightened despite herself. "Then learn to listen. Want to survive in a room like that?" she gestured vaguely behind them. "Act cold, play the villain, make them listen, bow last, speak last, never forget who you're representing. And have a knife in your boots, just in case." Kaoru gazed the side of her hakama as if to suggest the knife was very much in her boot for real.
Harunobu behind them gave one long resigned sigh.
Tatsuhiro's eyes widened for a moment; he blinked hard, then flushed pink nodded too quickly his black hair tied in a high knot almost slipped over, as if agreeing would earn him permission to keep idolizing her.
Kaoru allowed herself a small smirk, looked away before it could soften her. She already knew what Takahiro would do to that kind of innocence anyway.
The Mitsuboshi no Yari sat beneath Edo. The council in Kyoto was coming. The Tōkaidō was being strangled at Iga. And the Gojo clan, tools of the Toyotomi faction whether they admitted it or not, would have to scrub their name clean and drag the spear back to Kyoto by any means necessary.
Kaoru's steps stayed measured, quiet against the engawa, but her mind was already in Kyoto. And with it, inevitably—
Seijiro Gojo.
Her steps faltered for a fraction of a moment, subtle enough that only Harunobu noticed. He cast her a brief glance but said nothing. After years, he knew better than to interrupt whatever storm brewed in her mind.
Will he be in Kyoto? The question needled at her. Of course he'll be there.
She had spent six months trying to bury the night in the rain, the way he had looked at her, eyes that had softened once—just once—like she had undone something fundamental in his world. It was the look of recognition, of what it meant to make a choice entirely your own. Not as the Zenin heir, not as the Gojo heir.
She shook the thought away, focusing on the path ahead. Whatever it was, it no longer mattered, not with the storm gathering on the horizon, and she knew—really knew—they would find themselves on opposite sides once more.
Their clans, their duties, their very bloodlines demanded it.
She knew this. She accepted this.
And yet.
Despite herself, despite her father, despite the weight of duty, a stubborn part of her dared to clung to a spark of anticipation. Irrational.Kaoru bit the inside of her cheek, stifling the absurd smile threatening to surface.
What was she expecting? A reunion? Hardly. At best, they would trade barbs, testing their wits once more, and of course she'd best him just like that time in Iga.
"Kaoru-sama?" Tatsuhiro's voice brought her back.
"Nothing," she said curtly, regaining its composure.
You better see me in Kyoto, you fool of a Gojo.