Chapter 522:
Shift
The two looked between each other, taken off guard about the request that Aya gave them. This went against what they had built up in their mind. They didn’t know how the young brother even worked into Aya’s plan, it seemed a little out of place.
Akira Matsushina had no claims or even desire to lead the clan from what they knew of him. He remained present in the council of Lords, but did very little besides showing that he existed. There was very little remarkable about man. A man of few ambitions, which within the court didn’t serve well for advancement or notoriety. For anyone worried about the security of their position, he was about as good as one could ask for as a sibling, someone you didn’t have to kill, exile or otherwise ensure wouldn’t be a threat to your rule.
Despite any of those facts about the man, the one thing that they did know was that the Lord cared about him quite a lot. Family was important to him, which was why the man sat in the council at all. Killing the younger brother would be extremely risky and immediately trigger retribution from the Lord.
Once the shock of what Aya said passed for Saki, she thought about it more clearly. “Who are you framing for it?” It was the only logical conclusion that she could come to for such an act.
“Lord Kumasaka.”
That was the answer that they were expecting. It arrived more roundabout, but in the end it made a lot more sense now that this was what Aya’s plan turned out to be. “How are you going to frame him?”
“I’m going to leak the evidence to one of the other Lords, who will bring it to light. They’ll use it to secure their position of power and remove another.”
“Isn’t there a risk that they’ll kill or exile everyone in the house?”
“I’ll see to it that the entire house is killed.” The coldness that she stated that fact still unnerved them even though it shouldn’t. They had already started to see what sort of woman she was, so seeing to the murder of an entire family shouldn’t have surprised them, but it felt like a human reaction. For that, they were glad they could still feel that way.
It was a sign, to them at least.
“And yourself and us?”
“I’m already close with Lord Matsushina.” Yuki and Saki understood a moment later what she implied with that. They didn’t know when and how long that had been happening. Considering how she entered the court it wasn’t surprising, but she worked more than they realized.
Saki held her hand to the hilt of her blades knowing what job they had soon. “Everything is handled then. Do you know where I’ll find the younger brother?”
“My former employment.”
“Your former employment…”
“Yes, he’ll be alone. He’s not so cautious like our Lord as to bring guards into such a house.”
Yuki immediately reached out to grab Saki’s right hand for support. He knew how she had to be feeling even with all of the brave fronts that she put up for him. She could handle a lot of things Yuki knew, but this was a very different sort of thing.
“I’ll leave the how to you, just make sure you're not discovered obviously.”
Saki’s tension released a little as it felt like Aya understood and gave her out. The implication by her was clear just from the tone in her words, but it wasn’t an order. “Yes, Mistress. I’ll see to it.” It felt like there was still a test that she was given. The manner in which she handled the assassination weighed as important as the actual deed itself. She had to be useful to Aya otherwise she would be cast aside like Kumasaka was.
This was a very dangerous woman.
Chapter 522 – Unseen Fact
After Saki left, Yuki remained behind with Aya. Most of the tension had disappeared, though a little remained with Yuki. He oddly didn’t get any of that feeling from Aya, as though she just expected everything to go as planned. But he couldn’t help but feel like there would be some sort of complication. Even if Saki completed her task with the assassination, it felt like there were too many variables that she couldn’t control.
Feeling a little more at ease with Aya, he stepped forward. “I’m curious. Why did you assign that mission to Michiko?”
“Because you couldn’t do it.”
He immediately protested that declaration without even thinking about it. “You think I can’t be stealthy?”
“No, you don’t have the will to kill in cold blood someone that’s not able to fight back.”
“Now wait a minute!” Yuki walked up to Aya staring straight in her face. ‘This woman doesn’t know Saki like I do! She’s my childhood friend, my best friend! That’s not who Saki is. She doesn’t know Saki, how dare she make assumptions.’ He completely forgot about all of the other parts of Aya that terrified him or even about status. Yuki glared down at her displaying an unseen degree of resolve for Aya, one that might have been normal to see from Yuki (considering that he is or was the main character such levels of resolve are quite normal for him).
Seeing such a sight from Yuki made Aya’s face glow with excitement and a smile curled up on her lips. If Yuki hadn’t been fueled by his defense of his best friend, he might have actually been unnerved by how much she seemed to be enjoying what she was seeing from him. She looked genuinely excited again. “So you can make expressions like that. You do have a strength buried in there.”
“What? Of course I do! I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t.”
“No, every time I’ve seen you’ve been just doing what was necessary, but not committed to the duty.”
She broke through a little bit of that defense of Yuki as confusion settled in over his face. “That doesn’t make any sense. You’re only interested in people that have value to you. But you took us both.”
“Good to see you’re observant. But yes, your sister was the one that I wanted more. Though you did leave me a little curious.”
“And what was that?”
“You could still do everything that you were doing and do it well despite that. You both stick out, even though you try to do your best to fit in. There’s something out of place about the two of you, but your sister’s more committed to do whatever it takes to actually sell that to the others. You however seem to have a personal code, a line that you use to hold yourself back. One that makes you not belong here.”
The accuracy of her observation made him swallow roughly. ‘I just sort of figured as long as we didn’t do something clearly breaking with the world setting, the rest would just go ignored. But she might end up figuring out too much…’ He sort of doubted that she would ever get to a conclusion that was close to accurate. Her discovering some sort of self-awareness as a completely fictional creation within the mind of a teenage girl trying to solve her multiple-personality disorder seemed too far-fetched to be likely. It did re-enforce that he needed to commit to be more with the world setting as much as it went against his personal morals.
Yuki spoke with a terse tone, “But now that’s not the case? You can use me in your plans then.”
“You won’t have to worry about having your sister kill you.”
“You really are a heartless woman.”
“Thank the world.”
“And what might you plan to do with me? You clearly don’t see me as your assassin.”
“No, the shadows are not where you belong. When you’re motivated you’ve got the charisma to make others follow you.”
“Isn’t that your job?”
“Slightly different job. I’m the King, which makes you the Gold General.”
“Shogi, hmm?”
“You two seem to enjoy it.”
“You want me to lead your soldiers into battle.”
“That’ll be perfect for one like you.”
“But you don’t have any soldiers.”
“Not yet. You’re the first.”
“An army of one,” he muttered. Yuki wasn’t sure what he thought of the situation. Everything that she dropped on him felt a little concerning. Especially that she considered having Saki kill him, even though he knew that she would never be able to carry out that order. This woman was far darker than he anticipated. Something twisted her in this world. ‘Hopefully I live long enough to know what caused her to turn out like this…’
“Don’t forget that war is coming. You won’t be alone for long. So you’re going to want to have a little more remarkable personality if you’re going to be remembered by the men.”
“Remarkable personality?”
“You’re invisible.”
‘I think that’s the first time anyone has called me that…’ He would have laughed about the obvious irony if he had the option to do so. As a bodyguard though, being invisible came as a compliment. He didn’t want to stand out since he had other duties to attend to that didn’t involve being the center of attention.
However, as Yuki thought about it and the plans that she had for him, what she was saying made sense. If she wanted him to lead her armies he couldn’t just look like a normal soldier. How he should express himself wasn’t something that he could be certain about. But it did give him plenty to think about. “I’ll work on correcting that. I’ve never led soldiers before so it’ll be a learning experience.”
“See that you do.”
He walked away from Aya resolving sort of something that he hadn’t known that needed to be resolved. When he remembered what it was originally about, he turned to look back at Aya as she returned to her work. Recalling what she said about Saki troubled him more than he wanted as his mind thought about it.
Something that he had to admit about Aya was that she was remarkable about reading and understanding people. He couldn’t deny that fact. And that made the comment about Saki even worse in his eyes. ‘Does she really have that look in her eyes? I thought I knew Saki better than anyone else… Do I not?’
Deep into the night with lanterns keeping the city lit, Saki scurried around in the shadows dressed completely black and covered with a mask. She hid every part of her that she could and kept nothing that would get caught. Her attire was form fitting, but easy to move in. The mission was important and she couldn’t allow for any possible error to happen. There were no retries.
Hiding in the shadows of a tall sakura tree, she looked across the busy night street of the city as the brightly colored building that rose above the surrounding one or two story buildings. The reds and oranges made it jump out from the rest of the mundane shops and buildings making it easy for people to find it.
As Aya’s former place of work, the night life was busy making the job more difficult than she would have liked. Even more she had no information on the room that the man stayed at, something that Aya didn’t provide her, likely as another test.
Saki double checked her mask to make sure that it was secure over face. ‘Time to become a murderer once again…’
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