Planning Against Fate

Seiji looked more bothered by her statement than Nerine, though she always remained in better control of her emotions than Seiji ever did. But even Seiji appeared more restrained than she expected. ‘He really has changed to some degree. I guess maturity did something for him. Didn’t expect that…’

He looked over at Nerine with a look that Saki knew all too well. It was that same familiar silent conversation that she had with Yuki all the time. They were probably deciding on how much they wanted to tell her.

“Those close to Komagata want to fight pretty badly. So we’ve known war’s probably going to break out soon. I think all that they’re waiting for at this point is a trigger point.”

“Aya,” she muttered.

“Who?”

“The woman that we serve on the other side and most likely the third personality that Yumi has to confront.”

He leaned forward with interest. “So you’ve found them? We’ve been looking here, but never found anyone that fits besides Aya.”

It was now Saki that leaned forward, curious about what Seiji dropped casually. “You know Aya too?”

“Possibly, I don’t know if it’s the same person.”

“White hair, deep blue eyes, an intensity and command with just a look. Exceedingly confident and assured.”

“That’s exactly the same woman. So she fled across the border?”

“Fled? Seems you know some details about Aya’s history. She doesn’t talk about herself at all. So we know next to nothing about her.”

“Aya Izumi, from the former Izumi Clan and a rather prominent member of the court of Komagata.”

“Former and fled, what happened here?”

It had been a while since Aya left and the tragedy that occurred. Seiji had to think back to it, since Yori was mostly involved in the matter rather than them. “It was something like five years ago? Nerine’s spy network learned of a plan to destroy the Izumi Clan. We were unfortunately too late in discovering it and stopping it.”

“I’ve a feeling that it was supposed to happen. What do you know about the events?”

“We were able to learn that it was orchestrated by Lord Hirohata. See Aya and Yori were in the running for a spot in the court of Lord Komagata once they became of age. They were already getting special tutoring, but the one that earned the favor the Lord would get the personal advisors and tutors to aid them making it a guarantee that they would be close to the Lord.

“Aya was smart, unnaturally so and that made her stand out amongst her peers. In the end, it came down to the two of them. Aya had a curious interest in Yori, maybe because he didn’t treat her like the others, because she loved him. I honestly don’t know what was going on in her head back then. Yori was, well you saw him after we cleared the second world. He was like that for a while until Aya woke him up.

“He recognized her as the one Yumi would be after a while. Apparently, he had a bit of a brief history with this personality back in the real world. And that was enough to motivate him. He became focused and determined at that point. For him, it was a point of pride to defeat her, even if he didn’t always want to admit to that motive.

“The two got pretty close. Most likely, they would have been rivals or friends, something more than passing strangers had his parents not gotten involved. Even with Yori applying himself now to try to learn and get stronger to defeat her, he couldn’t beat her. That worried his parents with the coming date for the Lord to make the decision. So they saw to it that Aya would be eliminated.

“We learned about it soon enough to reach Aya, but the attack had already happened by that point. Aya was saved from death, but her entire family and clan was wiped out that night. Yori and Aya went into hiding for a bit while we tried to find a way to resolve this so Aya didn’t have to die.”

Seiji paused for a moment after going over all of the details. Even talking about it began to stir up the memories of the day. “We weren’t able to do anything about what happened. Yori tried his best, but Aya left while he was away. After that, we never saw or heard from her again.”

He looked over to Nerine. “Nerine’s network even lost track of her. All we knew was that she left the region. We knew that she’d be back. She made that pretty clear to Yori.”

It all started to fit into place for Saki. Not everything was solved, but it painted a much clearer picture of Aya than she ever had and likely would have ever gotten from her. “Suddenly some things start lining up. To pick up from where you lost her, she ended up in the domain of Lord Matsushina, given what you said about events here I don’t think it was just happenstance. If she’s out for revenge, then he’s the best place for her to be.”

“The coming war…”

“Correct. Yuki and I found her in a brothel where she charmed our Lord. Even in our first meeting, we could tell there was something unique about her. It was a little more to convince Yumi of that, but she came around.

“After that, she worked quickly to become the mistress of our Lord, which got her into a home and with some effort the court. She rapidly made a name for herself as his assistant until even the Matsushina was listening to her advice.

“Where we’re at now. She had Lord Kumasaka, who we served directly, killed and got promoted directly to being the military strategist for Matsushina. All three of us serve Aya as she makes plans to see that the war with Komagata occurs.

“I’m on a mission sent by her to gather information for the war. In a month’s time, Yuki will be leading the troops straight here under Aya’s banner. Yumi’s trying to become her right hand in her rise to power to stay close. We don’t know, like always, what the objective is, so all we can do is be ready and do what she needs.”

“War is coming and our friends too,” Seiji muttered letting it all soak in. The grim note of the situation made things rough to think about. This was not the sort of future he imagined.

Chapter 530 – Planning Against Fate

With his arms crossed, he looked between the two women unsettled by the news. “I thought we had moved past the factions and sides when we stopped Takako.”

It wasn’t something that Saki had initially considered, but the analogy looked pretty fair. “I don’t like it either. Until today, I figure this war would go off fairly smoothly with little issue. Aya being who she is.”

“Unfortunately, you may still be correct about that assessment. If battle lines are playing out as they are now, there’s no one on this side that will be able to stand up against Aya. Plus, we can’t have Aya die.”

“I don’t really like the scenario she’s placing us in.”

“It’s not like she knows we’re friends.”

“I know. But I’m not going to lead us to a war that’ll see you die, even if it is just temporary.”

Breaking her silence, Nerine spoke, “There’s another option. If Aya is the side we should be on, we can defect to ensure our survival.”

“And watch everyone you’ve known for the last fifteen years just die?”

“Hey, we just got the bad flip and besides it’s all just a simulation anyway, right? I don’t have any attachments.”

It was a clear lie on his face, but she let him have it. She knew more than any of them that Seiji had a more emotional connection with people than the rest. Even if they weren’t real, he would still do everything to see that they could be saved. That was just the sort of man that he was.

Saki pondered the options that they had. Preventing the war from happening was impossible. It was going to happen eventually and trying to steer Aya way from it would be pointless. Now that she understood the motivations, Saki knew how focused she would be on this. They needed another approach. “There’s the other problem of convincing Aya to take you in. She doesn’t exactly give straightforward tests.”

“Yeah, we’ve seen how she can be.”

As Saki thought about the possibilities against Nerine’s suggestion, her mind came to an idea. “Maybe there’s something to what Nerine’s said.”

“How so?”

“The goal’s to get you over to our side and in a way that works for Aya. The war’s coming as we already agreed and they won’t stand a chance against Aya. My suggestion is that during the fighting Yuki and I have you captured and then from there we can have you change your allegiance. We’ll need to work on some sort of reason that she’ll believe, but I think that might be the most natural way to get you in.

“Plus, with you being here during the fighting, you can help to minimize the damage to the city and people. I don’t think she has plans to raze the city. And Matsushina I think wants to conquer, not destroy. A functioning city should be more useful to them than one razed by marauding soldiers.”

“Which means we’ll need to work on plans on how to carry that out. How long will you be here, Saki?”

“A month. I won’t let you carry the weight of sheltering me during that time. For now, I’m still technically an enemy.”

“Don’t be a stranger.”

“I can’t make regular visits otherwise it’ll be suspicious. Be careful and pick a time to meet when there are decisions made.”

“Yeah I know. We’re playing a dangerous game here. I’ve done a lot of growing since the last time we met.” He flashed her a smile to encourage her.

Saki returned his smile. It was strange to see, but he was right. She could see and tell from their conversation that Seiji had changed quite a bit and matured. There was part of them that remained unchanged, what made up his core beliefs and being, but a lot of refinement and smoothing out of the corners did a lot to him. Maybe this would come to benefit more than just Yumi in the end.

Standing up from the table, she looked back towards the city through the window. “Thanks for everything. I should resume my mission.” She started to walk away from her friends.

“What about the names, history, we know a lot about things around here to speed up your work. Probably be safer too.”

“Thanks, but it’ll be alright. I should be able to pick up what you know without too much trouble. The information I’m going to need would put you at risk.”

“Betraying Komagata, losing while protecting everyone. We’re already going to be risking a lot.”

“So no need to risk more, especially before the war has even begun. Be safe and stay vigilant.”

“Saki!”

“I’m Michiko Koiso here, Yuki is Juro Koiso, my brother, and Yumi is Yoshiko Kaoin. So you can find us.”

“Hajime Nagahama and Hotaru Shinozaki. Yori is Norio Hirohata. You be safe too.”

“You know I don’t take risks like you and Yuki,” she said with a smirk before exiting the room and soon the mansion. Their encounter outside hopefully was smoothed over well enough. It was odd for a commoner to be leaving a Lord’s home, but she had been invited. Most likely no one was watching her anyway.

Back out in the city, things looked to be back to normal. The excitement was briefly lived and shouldn’t have caused too much to the normal routine she prayed. Focus on the mission returned to her mind and planning for the next step. ‘I’ve got the rest of the Lords to investigate and one to kill still. Hopefully this doesn’t cause too much trouble for them…a struggle to save our friends…’