Reunion Under Moon

“I thought that might be the case.” The last time that they met, Seiji said nothing about what he did or how his family fit into the structure. Based on his capabilities, she made the correct assumption he was a soldier and likely in charge, being that he was a Lord or son of one.

Saki leaned forward on the table ready to hear it all. “Fill me in.”

“The Nagahama Clan is known for their dojo and training of soldiers. Naturally, we don’t train everyone, but the elite soldiers and commanders all come from here. My father runs the dojo and trains the new soldiers. While he was head of the Clan, he was the General for Komagata. But I’ve taken over most of the responsibilities of the Clan now.

“Since we haven’t had any battles to fight, he had remained the General in name only, though he no doubt would have gone onto the battlefield and gotten himself killed regardless of that. Once I was of age, I defeated him in battle for his approval as head. I now run the day to day affairs of the family and left him the teacher of the dojo until he’s too old for that as well.

“Even being the head, I wasn’t made the General due to my lack of real battle experience. It was expected though that I would be once war broke out. So it was really only a matter of time before it happened. With Yori now in charge of the strategy, he didn’t waste any time convincing the Lord to make me the General.

“Yori wanted someone that he could work with and trust. A little ironic considering who it was coming from, but I accepted. There wasn’t much I could do anyway. I figured being in charge would give me more latitude when fighting started to save those that I could.

“That’s the situation.”

“Thanks. That helps a lot.” It really impressed her seeing how far Seiji had come from who she knew him as. They all did some growing. Even Yuki seemed more restrained, though she thought that might be caused by having to be “in character” as it were. Time would only tell once they left.

“I think you’re right about it being a help. It should actually make things easier to keep people safe if the worst happens. And that should give you some greater value to Aya in keeping you alive. I just hope her revenge doesn’t spread to everyone in the court.”

“If the worst happens, I know you and Yuki will see Yumi through to the end.”

“I’m not writing you off just yet. For now, we focus on the now and keeping all of us alive.”

Chapter 532 – Reunion Under Moon

Saki stood up starting to pace. It was a little problematic trying to think about the current situation that she had put themselves in thanks to Aya’s orders. She didn’t blame Aya for it since she knew it would have consequences. Living with the consequences was part of life. The only saving grace in this world was that the consequences were short lived.

Though their personal relationships were anything but. All of the troubles that they had with Yori thus far wouldn’t disappear with the world. If they didn’t find a way to build a bridge it could mean things getting far worse. Often it felt like it was something Yori needed to do and they could or should do nothing. Other days, she felt it was all their fault. She didn’t know the answer to it. Part of her hoped someone else solved the problem for her.

But he was a friend like anyone, she couldn’t abandon him, even if he wanted to do the same to them. “Any ideas on how we save Yori?”

“Short of knocking him out and dragging him out?”

“Yes…”

“I haven’t come up with anything with success. I’m also concerned how Aya would feel if we did, since we don’t know what her end game is in all of this.”

“I can’t go back until I finish here. So we won’t really know anything that we can act on with a well developed plan.”

“Am I hearing Saki saying that we should do this by ear?”

She paused in her pacing and smirked back at him. “We’ve got little choice I think. There’s just too much that we don’t know. Keep him safe in this war, Seiji.”

“I promise.”

“Go easy on Yuki if you find him on the battlefield.”

“He’s not slacking on his training over there is he?”

“I wouldn’t say that, but someone seems to have gotten a little over zealous.”

Seiji playfully flexed his arm for her. “Don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ll be convincing, don’t worry.”

A smile came over her as she thought about them all meeting again for the first time in more than a decade. She only wished that it was in their own body rather than the ones given to them. A reunion would be very welcome. But at the very least, once things ended here they should be returning to the real world if Yumi was correct. “Be safe.”

With the departure, Saki returned to her mission. It went about as expected for her. The remaining time was spent sneaking into the Lords estates and doing recon on the surrounding lands. She guessed that Yumi had more information, but it could help improve the accuracy.

While she had been unable to complete all of the mission objectives to Aya’s request she felt that she achieved a satisfactory level. It would be more than enough for Aya to wage her war. This sort of information would speed up the war with any luck and make it a cleaner end. She just didn’t know how Yori would handle things.

The introduction of him into the stage of the war added a new variable. She couldn’t be sure what sort of challenge he would present to Aya. They had a history and went head to head in the past. Aya was a special sort of talent that couldn’t be defined. Could that even compare to Yori?

It was thoughts like these that followed her back home. By the time she made it back none of them had any better answers. The only bright side was that it made the trip back feel quick. She had to leave it up to Aya.

The city hadn’t really changed as much as she thought it might. There were more soldiers stationed outside in camps. Anyone with spies that could slip through the border likely knew an attack was coming. It was hard to hide an army of this size. Troop movements would be where the most important intelligence came from soon.

Within the city there were more guards and some signs of fortifications, but it seemed to generally feel like they didn’t expect the war to come to their door. It wasn’t like they knew Aya was some sort of super genius or destined to win because she was the main character of the story. But they must have had confidence in the Lord to not get them involved with the conflict.

Saki hoped that held.

Once she delivered the info to Aya with her approval, Saki returned back to her friends. The details that she omitted from Aya, she came to deliver to them. Yuki greeted with a welcoming hug before letting her sit down.

“So how was the trip?”

“More productive than expected. I found Seiji, Nerine and Yori.”

Yuki and Yumi immediately came to attention and sat down at the table with her. Their level of interest grew with the thought of their friends having been found. Neither of them had any expectation of finding them conveniently in the city that Saki visited. But they couldn’t be happier to know they were still alive in the world.

“How are they doing?”

“They’re doing quite well for themselves. Seiji’s a Lord, Nerine’s a spy working for him and Yori’s the military advisor to Komagata.”

“Wow, Seiji’s a Lord, I never would have imagined. But wait, Saki if they’re…”

“Yes, it means we’re going to be confronting them in the coming war.”

“I’m not fighting my friends. I already went through that once, I’m not doing that again!”

“I understand how you feel. I’m not thrilled about this either.”

Yumi leaned in, putting her hand on Yuki’s. “It’s not the same situation. We’re in control. So it’s not like we’re going to be fighting each other. But we’re not going to be able to escape this either. We have to keep moving forward with the plan.”

There still remained a lot of convincing that Yuki required, a pat on the hand and a few words weren’t going to be enough. He went through it before and had to see his friends fighting trying to kill each other. That wasn’t something that he wanted to see happen again. “What? You saying that we can just ignore each other in the middle of a battle. Those are going to be times where you don’t have time to think about what’s happening. Making a mistake is going to get you killed.”

“No, Yuki, you're going to have to face this is the reality right now. This literally isn’t the same thing. We’re not being brain washed or controlled. We are still in control. You don’t even have to be on the same battlefield or nearby.”

“Because that’ll actually happen. You heard Saki, Seiji’s a Lord. He’s going to be on the field and probably pretty easy to spot like me. It’s going to be expected that we fight.”

“And he’ll probably kick your butt.”

“Saki…I’m not that bad.”

“You haven’t seen him like I did. He’s still got the same flaw, but he’s pretty ridiculously strong.”

“Seiji I assume knows about this, Saki?”

“He does. He’ll play along. We just need to come up with a plan for how we’ll deal with it. The biggest issue right now is getting them on our side once the war is over.”

“You’re assuming she won’t just kill our friends. They’re important figures.”

“And that’s why I’m talking to you about this. We need to sort out what our plan is going to be.” Saki turned more to Yumi. A lot about what they could do in the war relied on her and the planning with Aya. “You’re going to need to explain however much about the war strategy that you know. We need to focus on saving our friends once this war ends.”