Bloody Forecast

The decision made Seiji pick up his head as this was a surprise for him. ‘This is happening sooner than Yumi expected. I guess the kid whined enough…can’t really predict emotions.’

“But Father, he already failed.”

“Enough! I made my decision. You’re my sons cease disgracing this clan and hall with your bickering. Solve this together.” He stood up looming his presence over the entire court bringing silence to everyone, even the whispers. The old man might have been aged, but he hadn’t lost any of his presence.

Seiji watched the two sons stew in their emotions. They glared at each other. ‘Things are about to get bloody…I feel bad for the men that have to deal with these two fools…’ This was supposed to have happened later when they had a little more control over the court. It worried him that things moved to this stage. ‘I hope Yumi’s plan isn’t thrown off by this…’

Chapter 544 – Bloody Forecast

“That’s about what I figured was going to happen,” she replied.

The unflappable response confused him a little. “But this is way too fast, Yumi. It’s like we’ve stepped on a roller coaster now.”

“We were on it long ago, Seiji. We’ve just finally started coming down.”

“And you’re not surprised by any of this? What about the plan?”

“It updates. As I learned more about the sons from you, I had a pretty good feeling that this would happen.”

“And you didn’t tell me?”

“What’s it going to change? And it wasn’t a certainty.” Seiji could only nod quietly to her answer. It was a fair, if not frustrating response to his fears. “We always planned to pit the two against each other. Breaking the family ties and making the sons both untrustworthy and unreliable was always the goal. The only point is to have the old man hand you his army. We’re nearly there. We might wrap up here sooner than expected.”

Seiji could see where she was coming from. The plan as she explained it to him, did outline these things happening. So he could see how she found the results a positive direction for them. “You didn’t see how the brothers were looking at each other. The old man’s basically pitted them against each other with the victory to the one that brings back Komagata’s head to him.”

Nothing about how this was going would end peacefully. Before they stepped into the stage, Kichiro would have taken over in a few years after the old man died and at best Masahiro would always be a frustrated brother that wanted more, but not enough to actually make anything out of it. Thanks to the meddling that Yumi and Nerine had done, Masahiro was more emboldened that he could beat his brother. Their fake intelligence already had the eldest running circles in the mountains and bits being fed to the youngest, it would be all out war before long.

He blinked for a moment and looked up at Yumi, still unchanged to anything that he said. “You planned this the whole time, didn’t you Yumi? You needed them to go to war with each other over succession to the throne.”

“The fast way to take over is to make both candidates illegitimate in the eyes of the rest of the Lords. We’ll keep them from doing too much harm to things, but they’ll exhaust themselves on each other and the patience of their father. And you’ll make the perfect replacement for them that even the other Lords will support you. More than half of them already want you at this point over the sons.

“Even before you came, neither one was looked upon too favorably. The eldest was considered a safe and somewhat competent bet, but they felt certain he’d lead them into some war that he couldn’t handle. He thinks bigger than he actually is and the youngest is too inexperienced to be able to do anything. He’s more bark than bite.

“We had to balance the scales or the eldest would completely dominate this coming fight.”

“People are going to die in this war you’ve started, Yumi. I thought you were going to take a different path than Aya, that’s what you promised.”

“We agreed that my path wasn’t going to be bloodless. I’m picking the one that’s going to involve the least amount of lives. Aya heartlessly marches over the world. I’m going to march over this world of hers and take it all from her, but people are going to die. Though only those that need to. People aren’t just going to surrender what they have.”

Seiji firmed his lip wanting to say something, but felt like he would come out like a hypocrite after what he said before. Death was a common thing in this world, like many worlds, but he didn’t like needless sacrifice and death. A death with no point wasn’t worth it. And he could see that Yumi was taking that path, the one that he wanted. ‘I guess she’s got more resolve than me…’

Pushed into the corner by her, he found out how much his words meant. Seiji crossed his arms looking inward on himself. All he could do was sigh in the end and accept the reality that she laid out for him. “You’re right…I guess I still find any death bothersome.”

“I’m glad you do. It means you’re still human.” He glanced up at her when she said that feeling like there was something else that she was saying. Seiji couldn’t say anything to her. The look she gave him told him more than she could have with words.

‘…Yumi…’

With the matter resolved, Yumi turned back to the desk to pick up a few papers. “Since this has happened, we’ll need to move forward to the next stage, Seiji. I’ll pass it along to Nerine. We’re going to be taking a more active role now.”

Having to pack away what he saw to the back of his mind, he recovered himself and approached her. Picking up the papers, he saw a lot of names and backgrounds. This was the part that he didn’t look forward to. “You know this isn’t what I’m great at.”

“I know, but you’ve got to do it. These are the remaining key figures I need to secure support for. Once we have them everything will be in place. Everyone likes you a lot, so it shouldn’t be too hard.”

“How long do you think we have?”

“Nerine’s false information will only hold up for so long. Though Komagata is also moving around as well. So unless he does something really stupid, which Nerine will hopefully be able to stop, we have a month to lock in the rest of these supporters before this war gets too out of hand.”

He looked over the names more closely. These were all members within the inner circle and long standing supporters of the clan. They wouldn’t be easy to win over. A couple he knew didn’t like him, seeing him as an upstart that was doing things for political gains, which they weren’t wrong about, but they didn’t know the whole story. “That’s more time than I thought, but not a lot of time to finish.”

“To make matters worse for you, there’s a good chance Nakanoi will request you at some point before then to start to settle matters between his sons. This is going to be a clean takeover, Seiji. We want their army, so that’ll be your chance to protect the men.”

“This is a dangerous dance.”

“You knew it was.”

There was nothing new about what he said and he knew it. Repeating himself just sort of made him feel a little better like he was reminding himself more than her. “I’ll do everything that I can. I just don’t see how we’re getting the whole territory without the entire clan being dead. Even disgraced, they’re the rightful heirs.”

“You can’t really do much if you have no army or supporters. Aya’d rather just have them all dead. And there is a real risk that they will try to kill each other. So that’s why you’re going to be there to stop them from going that far.”

He shook his head thinking about the situation that he found himself in. “I’m younger than either of them and I’m the one that has to do the babysitting. This doesn’t make any sense.”

“Blame the upbringing. The old man should have raised them better.”

“Perhaps. I think he was off fighting a good bit of their childhood.”

“It works out in our favor. The next time’s going to be much harder. We’re cutting our teeth on these people. It won’t be so well set up.”

“True.” Seiji rolled up the papers and tucked them away in his robe for later. “Well I have a lot of work to do. Sorry for the trouble, Yumi.”

“You’re a good man, Seiji.”

He wanted to say it back to her, but felt that she would deny it. ‘Ever since Atlantis, she’s changed so much. She’s grown, but hurts herself more than she needs. I wonder if this whole world is just her subconscious fulfilling her need for punishment.’ Any answer would sadly not change things for her right now and it wasn’t like Yumi knew or could admit to anything. ‘We just have to watch over her…’

Seiji walked out of the room and returned to the estate with more trouble facing him when he returned. In a way, he sort of expected this to happen. So it wasn’t really much of a surprise. Though it was far sooner than he figured it would take place. There was a certain amount of pride involved.

But the stakes were higher now with the changing situation. And that threat and unease make it pretty clear that any advantage would be needed. Yumi wanted the scales balanced after all. So there was no questioning it.

Standing outside his small hut of an office, compared to the rest of the Lords, was the youngest brother, Masahiro. Seiji would have figured the man didn’t have the courage or even awareness to see that he needed help. In a way he wanted to just tell him to go get his nose bloodied first. But it was the opportunity that Yumi wanted for them. And he could keep things in check for now. “Lord Nakanoi, I don’t believe we had an appointment. I’m sorry I made you wait outside.”

“Yes.” It amused Seiji that the man actually stopped his words before he ruined his chance. Perhaps the younger brother had a bit of smarts about him after all. “This was unplanned. Sorry for the inconvenience. I would have sent a messenger ahead, but time is of the essence.”

Seiji slid open the door and invited him in. “Please.” He kept the papers hidden on his person rather than remove them as the young heir stepped inside. As a simple room, there was little more than a few arms and his battle gear present. The training gear he borrowed from the barracks.

It felt a little weird to be in such a position of power for Seiji as he went over to his desk. He pulled on a few things to make it seem like he had matters to attend to at the same time. “What does my Lord need?”

“I want you to lead my men.”