“What?!?”
Kunihiko’s reaction had been a very angry one, his
face contorted in some semblance of having been betrayed. But he was not the only one who felt that
way with regard to Maruka’s obvious desertion of her duty to the Imperial
Family. All those in the conference
room virtually seethed with rage at such a mockery of the oath every ningyô had
sworn on the day of her investiture. It
was a mockery of everything that had ever come to pass.
However,
if anyone was truly angry, it had to be Murasaki. Kunihiko slid a sidelong glance at the young lady and saw that
she’d turned a fearful shade of red. He
began to feel more than a little sorry for Maruka if she ever dared to cross
his fiancée’s path – but, hey! Why
should he feel sorry for her, the little traitor! At any rate, Murasaki was gripping the edge of the conference
table so hard that her knuckles turned white.
Her fiancé knew that she was fully armed beneath her clothes and he was
mentally praying that she could keep her cool until such time that he could get
her somewhere safe so she could vent out her rage without damage to either
lives or property.
“Since
when did you find out about this?”, Kunihiko pressed on.
“Around
a week after Murasaki’s investiture”, Akira replied as he was waved back to his
seat.
“I
take it you’ve disowned the little bitch?”
Yasuhiro raised an inquisitive eyebrow at the frowning Kenichi.
“We
did”, Kenichi nodded. But, “Not before she
disowned us first!”
The
entire assemblage listened in stunned silence as the tearful Kenichi related
the events. He was but in his late
forties, quite a bit younger than the rest of the Grand Dukes, but they noted
that his solidly black hair seemed to be shot with silver and he was querulous
when he moved. He shook so badly that
Akira would’ve had to help him to his feet if the emperor had not signaled him
to remain in his place.
“What
happened, your Grace?” both Emperor and ningyô demanded of the visibly shaken
Grand Duke of Osaka.
“After
the investiture, Maruka and I had a major falling-out.” Kenichi folded his hands before him on the
table. He sounded weary. “I’d scolded her after she and Sora Ang
showed up rather late and were both improperly dressed.” His eyes had a rather faraway look about
them and his voice broke. “My own
daughter shouted back at me for what I’d said – can you imagine that? She said that she was taught by her master
that there were some things that had to disappear with the passage of time.”
“Like
archaic traditions”, Akira chimed in for his father. “The Prince Ang always said that you didn’t need stuff like
protocol and basic etiquette.”
“Yet
your sister herself said that she was well-versed in Imperial Court protocol”,
Mamoru murmured.
“When
did she say that?” a wide-eyed Kenichi demanded, half-rising from his seat.
“A
bit before the investiture ceremony.
She was sitting with Prince Fumihiko, Prince Haruhiko, Aoi-ningyô, and
her master. Aoi snapped that it was a
ningyô’s duty to remind her master about certain rules and regulations which
had to be followed given certain circumstances. She made a pretty snide remark about Maruka being unschooled in
protocol.”
“I
take it she said she was aware of all the conventions?”, Akira asked. He sniffed contemptuously. “That’s what she always says, but
I’ve never seen her wear her hakama after she was invested, I’ve never seen her
take an active interest in state matters, nor have I ever observed her
following traditional customs during holidays!”
“Then
we can safely conclude that Maruka’s but a part of an even larger conspiracy”,
Nozomu Taira chimed in. He looked
thoughtful as the others murmured about how vast the scheme probably was. Finally, he spoke again. “Has anyone begun to question the prowler
they found near the Princes’ Sanctuary as yet?”
“He
won’t talk”, Mamoru grunted sourly, slouching back in his chair.
“Is
that so? Then maybe you should get a
couple of more efficient interrogators.”
“Masahiko’s
on it.”
“He’s
what?” Yoshiyuki turned on his
eldest son in consternation. “You let
your milksop of a brother handle the interrogation? Mamoru, I thought better of you!”
“It
was the best I could do on short notice!”, Mamoru protested. “I went to Nikko with His Majesty, Murasaki
can’t leave him, and the younger boys filled in for her while she was
away. You couldn’t have possibly
expected me to drag Masakazu out of the seminary just to play bully, did you?”
“Better
Masakazu than Masahiko”, Murasaki murmured regretfully. “I’m sure the Father-rector would’ve
understood.”
“But
even Masahiko can’t do a better job even if we bullied him at this point.” Kunihiko was somber as he spoke, thinking of
his injured sister. “He’s at Rei’s
bedside – we’d be lucky if we pried him out of there.” Grimly, he regarded Yasuhiro and
Yoshiyuki. “I’m afraid I don’t have
much of a choice, milords. I need the
toughest-looking men on my interrogation team – and I really don’t care if they
scare our suspects out of their minds so as long as we get a valid confession
from them and put our enemies out into the open.” He sighed and sat back, lips pursed into a very thin line. Then, “Milord Fujiwara?”
“Sire?”
“Ask
the rector at St. Francis Xavier’s to excuse Masakazu for a week or so. Tell Masami that he will be joining his
brother on the team.”
“As
you wish, Majesty.” The look on
Yoshiyuki’s face, however, spoke volumes.
The stern-faced Masakazu could be both cold and cutting as an
interrogator and he couldn’t even begin to think of the implications the
presence of the hulking Masami would have on the suspect. Nevertheless… “It will be done, sire.”
“Thank
you.” Kunihiko nodded his way. He then
looked at his uncle and cousin. “Uncle
Yasuhiro, I want you to get Tomokazu here as soon as possible.”
Everyone
looked horrified. “Surely you won’t go
that far!”, Yasuhiro exclaimed in wide-eyed alarm. His second son Tomokazu was an agent of the
Imperial Intelligence Service and was feared for his brutality as both
interrogator and executioner.
“I have
to go that far, Uncle.”
Kunihiko was calm as he sat up in his place. “The security of our nation is at stake and I’d rather start
apprehending traitors before they wreak any more havoc.”
Before
anyone could say anything, a messenger entered and murmured something to
Murasaki. The girl’s eyes widened and
she murmured a reply, prompting the messenger to exit posthaste. When he’d gone, Murasaki rose to her feet
and addressed them. “Your Majesty and milords,
I’ve been advised of the arrival of the Princess Saavedra and her family. I have asked Midori-ningyô to join us as
soon as they’re settled in.”
“You
don’t have to wait, of course.” They
turned to see Midori leaning in the doorway with Fumi standing beside her. To Kunihiko’s bewilderment, the Urushihara
ningyô’s left arm was in a sling. “We
followed the messenger in.”
Hiroyuki
jumped to his feet when he saw the sling.
“What happened to you?”, he demanded, alarmed by the injury.
“I’m
okay, Daddy”, Midori assured her father as she made her bows to the emperor and
his ningyô. Solicitously, Fumi held a
chair out for her before taking a seat himself. “It’s just a sprain; occupational hazard, you understand.”
“Occupational
hazard?” The words made Kunihiko turn
to his doppelganger cousin sharply.
“What happened?”
“Someone
tried to kill me the day before your father was killed.” Fumi’s thin face was grim and drawn as he
spoke. “I was on my way home from
school when this bunch of jerks in archaic duds tried to drive a knife into
me. Midori-chan was fast enough to
dispatch them.” He jerked a thumb in
the direction of the door. “We dragged
one of `em with us; he’s in cold storage along with that bozo you guys caught
in the Fukiage-no-niwa.” Savagely, he
added, “Hope you guys have some pretty savage dudes on your interrogation team;
otherwise, I’d take things into my own hands.”
“What
would you do that for?”, Kunihiko asked, his curiosity piqued.
“Because
one of `em twisted Midori’s arm when he tried to run away!”, Fumi sizzled
angrily. He punched his hand into his
palm furiously. “Nobody – and I mean nobody
– hurts my Midori and gets away with it!”
Murasaki
raised an eyebrow and patted her master’s shoulder. “Darling, you really should take a cue from Fumi-chan here”, she
said.
Kunihiko
managed a smile. “Did you honestly
think I wouldn’t feel the same if you got hurt? Why, I’d die first before I let you get
hurt.!”
“Darling,
I’d rather you didn’t.”
The calm expression on the face of Emperor Junichi
was ironic given the fact that the circumstances of his death had been so
brutal.
Kunihiko
stood over his father’s bier in the anteroom where he lay in state. There was a sense of failure he felt as he
saw that calm face. He felt tears
stinging his eyes again as he adjusted the cloth-of-gold that covered his
father from the neck down, fixed the white kimono they’d dressed him in.
But
he did not break down: the time for that had passed now. He had to be strong. His mother needed him. He had to avenge his father’s death and his
sister’s injury. He had to offer
consolation to his father’s sisters – well, two of them, anyway – and their
sons whose lives, as Fumi had said, were also in danger. He could not break down: his people would
feel lost without a leader. He bore the
responsibility as best as he could, nevertheless. He was the father of a nation, though it would probably be quite
some time before he became a father himself.
For them, he had to be strong.
“Now,
who could’ve wanted your dad snuffed out”, Fumi asked his cousin as he entered
the anteroom. “The Faction of the
Scarlet-and-Gold says you guys found a lead in Nikko.”
“In
a manner of speaking”, Kunihiko agreed.
He studied his cousin. Pushing
sixteen come December – they shared a birthday – Fumi, like Mitsuru Fujiwara,
was already growing taller than the Emperor.
Kunihiko was definitely sure that he did not want to have either boy
risk his life in his service. He would
rather that no one else died. He sighed
and set a hand on Fumi’s thin shoulder.
“You’re growing up, Fumi. I’d
rather you didn’t have to play kagemusha anymore.”
“Mitsuru
says you told him the same thing”, Fumi replied. The boy drew himself up to his full height and sighed. Lowering his gaze, he spoke in a voice
filled with determination. “But hear me
out, your Majesty: I may only be sixteen but I’ve been leading most of the
court on for several years now.”
“Wh-what
do you mean?”, Kunihiko stammered, bewildered by his cousin’s sudden
seriousness. However, the tone the
youth used betrayed something that he should’ve known ages ago. The young Emperor’s eyes widened when he
realized what Fumi was driving at. “Fumihiko
Andrew Saavedra!”, he exclaimed, gripping him by the shoulders. “You haven’t!”
“It’s
true”, the boy admitted shamefacedly.
“I’d been meaning to tell you sooner but…”
“What’s
this?”, Murasaki demanded as she entered the room. Midori followed close behind, an odd smirk playing on her lips.
“My
master has been training as a Chrysanthemum Guardian”, Midori replied. The look her cousin shot her was at once
both understanding and bewildered. A
Chrysanthemum Guardian was the male counterpart of a ningyô and was a
position accorded to an emperor’s younger sons (at least the ones down the line
of succession) or the Imperial nephews who chose to serve a ruling sovereign or
his impending successor. Sometimes, the
sons of the Grand Dukes also opted to serve in such a capacity. Indeed, more often than not, Chrysanthemum
Guardians had been kagemusha themselves. Accordingly, they were educated like ningyô. “He got his degree from UP around the same
time I got mine”, Midori now admitted proudly.
“He just goes to school as a front.”
“Do
your parents know about this?”, Kunihiko demanded.
“Of
course they do!”, Fumi protested indignantly.
“Otherwise, they wouldn’t have let me be one in the first place!”
“I’m
sure your mother would’ve understood, but what about your father?”
“My
dad used to be an InterPol covert agent, niisama. He taught Mid and me everything we know
about hand-to-hand combat.”
The
young emperor shook his head in disbelief.
What a day it was! First, the
trip to Nikko. Then came Rei’s injury
followed harrowingly by his father’s assassination. The council meeting. Now
this. Honestly, it was enough to make
his head spin.
Murasaki
was quick to notice that. “It all came
at you so fast”, she murmured apologetically.
“I
can handle it, dear.” Kunihiko was
quick to reassure her with a lopsided grin.
But he was tired and was thankful that his ningyô worried about
him. He wasn’t sure what he would have
done without her. Flounder most
probably!, he thought wryly. In
truth, he would rather have gone to bed and cried himself to sleep. However, he now had duties to perform; this
was no time to turn his back on his job.
He took one final, loving look at his father’s serene face and bowed in most
profound respect to the body on the bier.
“I will not fail you, my father”, he intoned, his voice barely above a
whisper. “And I promise: I will avenge you.” Upon rising, he turned to the others. “I shall take first watch tonight”, he said.
“I
will join you, Master”, Murasaki replied with a deep bow. “Custom dictates that there should be five
people present at each watch.”
“In
which case”, Fumi joined in, “we will join you, too. But who’ll be the fifth member of the watch?”
“I
will”, a voice at the door replied.
When they looked in that direction, they were stunned when they saw who
it was.
It
was Empress Dowager Naoko – and she was clad in the hakama of the Taira ningyô.
Meanwhile, Yoshiyuki and Hiroyuki were discussing the
assassination over tea and cakes in one of the smaller gathering rooms of the
main Palace.
Normally,
the Grand Duke Fujiwara merely sipped his tea and did not partake of the other
refreshments set before them while his rotund-faced brother-in-law consumed
them with good appetite. Today,
however, the cakes remained untouched for the Grand Duke Urushihara was angered
that his beloved youngest child and only daughter had been hurt in the line of
duty. Yoshiyuki silently sympathized
with him: what if it had happened to his own daughter?
Yoshiyuki
solemnly smoothed his palm over his bare scalp, muttering a short expletive
about having gone bald so early as he did.
Pressing his glasses to his nose, he regarded his brother-in-law
somewhat dismally.
“Two
assassinations in our lifetime”, he sighed.
“Both of which were said to have been plotted by one and the same
person.”
“Princess
Satsuki”, Hiroyuki agreed. “That
murderous whore…”
“Murderous
only begins to describe her, Hiro. She
has a sadistic bent: remember the chambermaid whom she beat up years ago?”
“Oh,
do I ever! The little bitch was cackling
with glee as she went after that poor girl with a cane. Good thing Fujiko tripped her up before she
could go any further.” His lips twisted
into a frown, he wondered aloud, “I wonder if Fumihiko knows that his mother
was the original ningyô-hime?”
“I
suppose he knows. If he doesn’t, then
he’s as blind as a bat.”
“That’s
a nice way of describing my incipient son-in-law”, Hiroyuki chuckled, their
gloom lifted somewhat. More seriously,
“Yoshiyuki, that boy trained to be a Chrysanthemum Guardian – right under our
noses, too!”
“I’m
not surprised”, Yoshiyuki said, refilling his teacup. “Kagemusha almost always choose to serve as Chrysanthemum
Guardians.”
“I
take it Mitsuru has chosen to be one?”
“Yes.”
Hiroyuki
managed to smile. “That’s good”, he
nodded.
“Yes,
but I worry, nevertheless. To be kagemusha
is dangerous enough; to be a Guardian is like jumping from the frying pan and
into the fire.” Yoshiyuki took another
sip of tea. “You cannot accuse either
boy of being a coward, though.” He eyed
his companion curiously. “What about
your boys? Aren’t any of them going to
serve as Guardians?”
“Shinya
is”, Hiroyuki replied, finally taking a cake from the dish before them. “Yôji will be taking over FlashPro and
Yuiichiro will be assisting him.”
“I
understand that Yasuhiro’s Tomokazu and Kenichi’s Akira will also be invested
as guardians.”
Hiroyuki
shuddered. “I dread seeing
Tomokazu, Yoshi!” he exclaimed. “I have
nothing against the boy, but looking at him is like looking at Godzilla! He’s intimidating – odd, considering how
gentle Yasuhiro and his wife look.”
“True,
but then you remember that Yasuhiro is the Empress Dowager’s brother- and his
sister is anything but gentle.”
A
courtier quietly slid open the shoji to advise them of Masakazu’s arrival. The young man entered the room clad in his
customary cassock, his uniform at St. Francis Xavier’s. He bowed respectfully to his father and
uncle before taking his place at the table with them.
“I
take it that you want me to go on interrogation duty?”, the young man asked as
his father poured him tea.
“Yes”,
his father replied, handing him a cup.
“By the way, who told you?”
“Mitsuru
met me at the Palace entrance and said so.”
He narrowed his eyes inquisitively.
“Is it true that Tomokazu Taira will be joining me?”
“Do
you mind?”
“No,
of course not!” A broad grin appeared
on Masakazu’s stern face. “Tomo-san and
I have been friends for ages. I haven’t
seen him in years, but I’m sure we’ll have a grand time.”
Yoshiyuki
and Hiroyuki nearly choked at that. The
implications of that flippant remark were far too horrendous to even speak of.
“I can’t read this!”
Kunihiko
shook the speech that had been prepared for his address to the nation in
Masahiko’s face in a fit of temper.
Murasaki had warned her brother that the Emperor would not take too
kindly to the overly highfalutin rhetoric; Kunihiko may have been an artist,
but he called a spade a spade when he had to.
Given the present crisis, he had to.
“What
were you thinking?”, he demanded of his incipient brother-in-law as the latter
stood sheepishly before the Imperial desk in the makeshift office that had been
set up. “This isn’t me – hell,
Masahiko, this isn’t even what my father was!”
“I
just thought we could smooth things over with a bit of sophistry”, Masahiko
mumbled nervously.
“The
point here, Masahiko, is that we can’t use sophistry at this point in
time. We cannot soft-pedal the
situation we’ve got right now – do I make myself clear, Masahiko?”
“Yes,
your Majesty”, came the humiliated reply.
“For
God’s sake, can’t I get a better speechwriter?”, Kunihiko griped to no
one in particular as he sat behind his desk.
He waved both Murasaki and Masahiko to nearby chairs. “No offense, Masahiko, but you’re better off
as a diplomat”, he grumbled. However,
he also noted in passing that his ningyô’s face looked bothered. “Is anything wrong, Murasaki-chan?”
“I
am not sure…” Murasaki had a feeling of
foreboding as they entered the room earlier and she had not relaxed one
bit. “I just…”
Suddenly, she leapt across the desk to shield her
master. Masahiko was just as quick to
get down on the floor. Before Kunihiko
could even exclaim anything, a shuriken sailed out of Murasaki’s sleeve –
hitting the dark-veiled spy who’d been cunningly hidden in a nearby cupboard.
“How
did you know…“, Kunihiko managed to stammer, but both his companions were too
busy to explain. Murasaki quickly
pounced like a hungry cat, immediately disarming the spy with a few well-aimed
moves. The normally languid Masahiko
suddenly turned sharp and was quick to tie the spy onto a nearby chair with
Rei’s favorite ribbon that, for some reason, he’d always kept with him.
“I
hope Rei-chan doesn’t mind”, Masahiko murmured absently. “It was all I had on me.”
“I’m
sure she won’t”, Kunihiko assured him.
He was anything but sympathetic towards the now-trussed up
would-have-been-assassin. He roughly
tilted up the masked face to meet his angry gaze. At first, the man’s eyes were flinty, even defiant. But he crumbled under the pressure of the
young emperor’s anger and was soon shaking like jelly on the seat he’d been
tied into. Kunihiko felt some modicum
of satisfaction at seeing the felon cringe.
“In the meantime, we may as well hand this one over to the boys along
with the rest of the fools in the dungeon.”
By the “boys”, he meant Masakazu and Tomokazu; the Fujiwara siblings’
answering grins were savage, almost feral in their savageness. “I am sure they’ll be able to squeeze a bit
of juice out of this plum – quite a bit, I’m sure…”
Before
any of them could move, the door burst open and a shaken Mitsuru came wheezing
in.
“What
is it?”, Kunihiko demanded of him.
“He’s
here”, Mitsuru gasped. He was pointing
a shaking finger out the door. “Your
cousin – really big guy – haven’t seen him in years!” His tremulous, frantic gestures did not seem
to make any sense until the wide-eyed boy yelped, “It’s Tomokazu; he’s here and
he’s coming this way!”
As
if on cue, a monstrous shadow appeared over Mitsuru who immediately scampered
behind his sister. At first, Masahiko
and Kunihiko didn’t move. But when a
frighteningly deep voice bellowed a greeting, Masahiko fled with a yelp behind
the twins, leaving Emperor and Imperial Ningyô to greet the massive new
arrival.
Tomokazu
Taira – all six feet and God-only-knew-how-many-more inches of him, broad in
the shoulder, and built like a house – seemed to make everything in the room
shrink just by coming in. Right behind
him, the ascetic-looking Masakazu followed, leafing over one of the reports he’d
been given. They were the same age and
had been very good friends since they were children – they still were despite
the apparent incompatibility of their occupations: Tomokazu doomed to a life
fraught with danger as an Imperial spy and Masakazu fated to be a man of peace
who served God.
“Cousin
Kuni.” Tomokazu bowed deeply before his
cousin before shaking his thin hand. “You
have my condolences – I wish I’d been here to stop it.”
“Cousin
Tomo.” Kunihiko patted his cousin’s
huge paw of a hand reassuringly. “You
needn’t worry yourself over what’s happened.
What’s done is done.”
“I
take it that coward trussed up like a roasting fowl’s one of those bastards?” Menacingly, Tomokazu approached the chair-bound
captive. The latter’s eyes went wide in
horror and he struggled to get away. “Well,
there’s a few things we do to people like you, boy…”
The
last thing the captive would-be-assailant saw was Tomokazu’s big hands reaching
for something out of one of his pockets – something big. He never found out exactly what was pulled
out of them; he passed out from sheer fright.
“Yeesh,
he’s out cold!” Mitsuru shook the
unconscious man when the chair toppled to the floor.
“I seriously
wonder why”, Tomokazu rumbled, poker-faced as the menacing object he was
pulling out turned out to be a digital album containing footage from the
holiday he and his family took in the French Riviera. “I was only going to show you where Megumi and I took little
Sophie last summer!”, he exclaimed plaintively, passing the album around.
“You’re
actually related to this guy, Kuni?”, Masahiko murmured in disbelief.
Kunihiko
shrugged. “Guess so”, he admitted,
grinning faintly. “You have to admit he
does have a certain effect on people, though.”
“Amen!”,
Masakazu chimed in fervently. “And
amen!”
Chapter Eight: The
Family Reunion
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