.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.
The great hall of the Kamo Clan's estate was dripping in tension, the kind that didn't explode only because everyone present was too educated, too wealthy, and too terrified of looking vulgar to actually start a fight under a neutral and diplomatic Clan's roof beams.
So the tension simmered instead.
A slow, vicious ember of a week-long debate. Seven days of bows that were words, compliments that were poison, and arguments that always circled to the same points, almost as if all the presents were all too bored to finish their job; the council had achieved exactly nothing, unless one counted collective exhaustion as an actual progress.
Seijiro sat on his zabuton in a perfect seiza for once, legs folded beneath him. Deceptive ease; deceptive, because inside, oh inside, he felt like a trapped animal. To his left, Kaoru sat in a perfect seiza, too, but that was no news since she always sat like that. Still, quiet, straight-backed, hands neatly composed in her lap, dressed in her black kamishimo with the Zenin mons.
For how much Seijiro tried, besides the perfect and composed Zenin heir he felt... eh. His gaze flicked toward the way she angled her profile just so, as if she knew she had the room by the throat and didn't need to squeeze to prove it. He inhaled slowly, flexing his fingers against his knee in irritation as he tried to sit straighter; a week. A week of this.
The seating arrangement that had been a spectacle since the first day—Gojo heir and Zenin heir sitting within each other's breathing distance like it didn't violate six hundred years of bad blood and worse traditions—had now become his undoing.
Every night, after the long day council, they slipped away; every night, away from the Kamo estate's chokehold, away from their fathers' eyes, away from the performance, they'd stolen hours of freedom. It wasn't camaraderie, but surely it was something easier than their clan's blood feud and the prospect of war. At least, wandering through the capital's nightlife didn't demand for them to be monsters with noble surnames.
And then daylight came. And then Kaoru turned into this.
As if to make a point, Kaoru's voice cut through the hall, measured and still somehow louder than any other men in the hall. She never raised her voice; maybe that was the trick, not that Seijiro could relate.
"Our clan's position remains unchanged," she said with the smallest lift of her chin, asking, no, commanding for attention. "The Mitsuboshi no Yari has been placed under Edo, where it fortifies Tengen-sama's already existing barrier and serves its intended function: the containment and eradication of cursed spirits. It is not a piece in political maneuvering; to suggest otherwise is to conflate two matters that, as we know, should remain distinct."
Seijiro resisted the urge to groan aloud; he exhaled through his nose instead, the closest thing he could afford to a tantrum in front of the Zenin heir, twelve clan heads and a regent's worth of egos. Even he had to admit it, the argument was solid, damn solid, and clean, structured, impossible to dismiss without sounding like an idiot.
And, tragically, Kaoru knew it damn well.
Kaoru continued, unhurried. "Moving the spear to the capital would be a step backward, undermining the progress we've made. Furthermore, Ishida Mitsunari-dono's motivations remain unclear, and strengthening his influence over the young Toyotomi Hideyori-dono through the spear's power could lead to a far more devastating conflict than the one we seek to prevent."
This again. Damn him.
There was a very specific kind of suffering reserved for this: sitting in a council chamber he didn't even respect, watching his rival dismantle the room and worse the Gojo clan and the entire Toyotomi cause, with an ease that bordered on cruelty. Seijiro had expected to hold his own; he'd expected the familiar Gojo-Zenin back-and-forth, the usual intellectual fencing match where everyone pretended it wasn't about pride.
He had not expected Kaoru to walk in and set the entire debate on fire while smiling politely. She wasn't just competent, she was devastating with words. Was she just that naturally good, or had she spent her six months of isolation practicing rhetoric against prison walls? Knowing her—yes. Absolutely yes. She would cultivate her mind in captivity out of pure rebellion; six months ago, she'd already been formidable, now she was a natural disaster.
When someone tried to interrupt, she simply… waited, patient, with a faint curve at the corner of her lips, until they ran out of oxygen and dignity and shut up. It was infuriating, not because she was winning, though she was, undeniably.
But because she was enjoying it. Seijiro wasn't.
For the past week, Seijiro had come to know another Kaor, a Kaoru who could be fun, flustered, who laughed—laughed, against her own will—when pushed exactly right, a Kaoru who had an unforgivable softness for kushiyaki, and—
Kaoru turned her head just slightly, as if she felt his gaze and met his eyes. A fraction of a pause, the smallest flicker of recognition. Seijiro narrowed his eyes, and her lips curled smugly, subtle enough to be deniable, blatant enough to be a crime, as if saying, Yes, I know you're suffering. Yes, I'm enjoying it. No, I won't apologize.
Seijiro's left eyelid twitched violently. Oh, this absolute bastard. He tilted his head, scowling in a very petulant way. Collaboration, he thought bitterly; they had promised they'd work toward peace between their clans, not this public execution of every argument that left his mouth and didn't align with her logic.
Kaoru didn't look away. Seijiro held her gaze like it was a battlefield, and blinking would be defeat.
The standoff stretched—utterly personal—until the Kamo Patriarch cleared his throat and broke it. "Zenin-sama raises an interesting point," he said, mustaches stroking as if he were the one thinking, not the one being led by Kaorus' rhetoric. "The preservation of our purpose as sorcerers should remain paramount, and the placement of the spear in Edo does align with this goal."
Great. Seijiro clenched his jaw. Kaoru had done it; she had turned the neutral and pacifist moderator of the council into her cursed echo.
To the Kamo Patriarch's right, Takahiro Zenin gave an almost imperceptible nod, eyes half-lidded in indifference that was really not; not a glance toward his heir, not a sign of acknowledgment.
Seijiro felt his irritation spike, so immediate it startled him. Of course. Your heir carries the entire argument, and you don't even offer him the courtesy of looking at him—
He caught himself on the thought.
Him. Right. Kaoru-sama. Zenin heir. Not my problem if his father's acknowledging his successes, not my—he forced the line back into place, because the alternative was too strange to examine in the middle of a national sorcerers council.
No, his problem was that the Gojo faction was losing the debate, and Kaoru Zenin was the one holding the blade to their throat. From among the clan heads, he spotted his father. Akiteru Gojo, looking straight at him. Seijiro didn't need the Six Eyes to see what lay beneath his expression: displeasure, disappointment, and a silent command that was less a request and more a heavy expectation.
Fix this.
How? Seijiro wanted to scream. Instead, he held his father's gaze for a heartbeat before looking away, biting the inside of his cheek to keep from rolling his eyes. Yes, Chichiue. I'll just wrestle the Zenin heir's brain into submission. Easy.
He exhaled, turned back toward Kaoru, leaning in slightly over her shoulder with a smirk to feed the room the narrative that he was just teasing his rival in public, dropping his voice so only she could hear. "Kaoru-sama," he muttered, "this isn't exactly the collaboration I had in mind."
Kaoru didn't so much as glance at him. "You should focus on the debate, Seijiro-sama," she replied smoothly and—yes—infuriatingly amused.
Seijiro's mouth twitched. You little—
He tried to re-enter the conversation properly because he wasn't incompetent. He was clever when he wanted to; he was Seijiro Gojo, and he didn't lose debates; he usually made people regret starting them. So he spoke, laying out the Gojo position with elegant logic. He even landed a point, saw a few heads tilt, a few murmurs shift.
And then Kaoru responded; she took his argument, turned it gently in her mind, then explained exactly why his premise was flawed, why his conclusion was premature, and why the Gojo proposal, while admirable, ignored the practical reality of the Kanto's current vulnerability and the Toyotomi regency's fracturing authority.
She made him look as if he were trying to play shogi without knowing the rules.
Seijiro felt his eye twitch again, then a quiet snicker cut through the tension at his side; Masanari Hattori, of course. Seated on Kaoru's other side, the older sorcerer leaned forward slightly, sakazuki balanced between his fingers, scowl in full force and directed straight at him, the scowl of a man who hated disasters when they were happening in front of his eyes. "Did the two of you have a little spat last night?" he growled, voice low and perfectly timed to be maximal damage.
Seijiro's jaw tightened. Kaoru didn't react—she didn't move—but Seijiro caught the minute shift in her breathing and the tension in her jaw. There: a crack, finally a proof she was human and that she wasn't enjoying this that much, at least.
Of course, Masanari knew about their night escapades in the capital. Masanari always knew. The man had the uncanny ability to know exactly what he wasn't supposed to.
Seijiro shot him a look flat enough to silently order him to shut up.
Masanari only returned a deadpan gaze, apparently delighted by being hated. "Touchy," he murmured, and took a sip.
Seijiro forced his shoulders to relax, slowly, as the council dragged itself back into its tedious back-and-forth. Right, there was still a debate to endure and a rival to outmaneuver. If only he'd stop being so damn infuriatingly competent, he thought, stifling the urge to smirk and wishing she'd turn instead that cunning intellect toward something more productive, like getting them both the hell out of the meeting.
And yet, despite himself, he glanced at Kaoru again. Just once. A part of him wondered what it would be like if they were truly on the same side just once, not just in stolen nights playing rebellious children behind their father's back, not just over ridiculous truce-toasts, but there, in the light of the day, where it actually mattered. The thought that they might one day stand on opposite sides of something bigger, worse, and more permanent than a council left a bitter taste in his mouth.
The tension was suddenly interrupted by the scrape of a shoji sliding open.
A Gojo retainer entered briskly, urgent but respectful enough to bow low to the gathered leaders; the hall's low murmurs died at once, and every eye turned.
Seijiro's gaze tracked the man as he approached the Clan Head, his father, and whispered something he couldn't catch; Akiteru's face remained emotionless, giving away no reaction, but Seijiro, with his Six Eyes, could see the small spike in his cursed energy, the twitch of the invisible limbs at his back rising like snakes sensing danger. He knew that expression on his father's face: it wasn't calm so much as controlled. Urgency never walked into a hall like that carrying good news; it walked in carrying problems.
"Forgive the interruption," Akiteru said at last, standing smooth, his voice drifting across the hall as if the first drop of cold before a storm. He paused just long enough for everyone to lean in without realizing they'd done it, because he knew how to manipulate a room when he wanted. He scanned all the presents as if to gauge just how much of an opportunity he could carve from them. "It seems we have an urgent and unforeseen situation at Fushimi Castle."
Seijiro felt his teeth press together. Oh. Here we go.
"With the absence of the Mitsuboshi no Yari," Akiteru went on, more pointed, "cursed spirits have grown more brazen near the capital. And now, a high-levelcurse has been detected near the Toyotomi residence, attempting to breach Fushimi Castle." And there it was, his way of phrasing: This wouldn't be happening if the spear were where it belonged. He didn't even pretend this was a neutral statement. "Our assistance has been requested," he finished with a courteous tone, "to eliminate it before it poses further danger."
There was a long silence made of exchanged glances, wary ones, skeptical ones, offended ones; the hall didn't speak, but it responded all the same. Akiteru's little message landed exactly where it was meant to land. And then, Seijiro felt it: his father's gaze landed on him. A brief glance exchanged between them, so quick that anyone else missed it.
You know what to do, said the expression on Akiteru's face.
Seijiro sighed inwardly. Of course, it's me. Why would I expect a moment's rest? Why would he waste an opportunity to turn his son into a public demonstration of power?
Still, if Hideyori was in danger, of course, Seijiro was going; he didn't need his father telling him to do so.
Unfolding himself with casual grace, Seijiro rose to his feet slower than necessary as a petty defiance dressed up as manners; he bowed exaggeratedly to the gathered clan leaders, provocative in the way he straightened. "Well," he said lightly, "it seems I have little choice but to take my leave from this enlightening council."
He gave them a heartbeat long enough time to assume he'd play nice, then he delivered the final blow. "After all," he added, voice gaining a cutting edge, "we wouldn't want a six-year-old child to die at the hands of a cursed spirit simply because we, a room full of powerful Clan leaders and sorcerers, can't decide where to place a damn spear."
The silence that followed was embarrassing. Across the hall, various noble jaws tightened, brows furrowed; someone shifted like they wanted to stand up and be offended properly. Akiteru's gaze narrowed a fraction in his direction, but Seijiro had expected that much. There. Now I feel better. Let them stew, let them choke on the fact that they're useless.
And then he felt it, Kaoru's gaze, assessing and calculating, in that calm way of hers that made Seijiro feel pinned to a board. His eyes met hers, and he recognized the frustration there, because Kaoru had very little patience for this political theater, too, and she was far better than he was at hiding the fact that it disgusted her.
That brief, silent acknowledgment might have been the end of it, but then she moved.
Kaoru rose from her zabuton, no hurry but no hesitation, and gave the hall a bow that was fluid and exact. When she spoke, her voice carried her usual hidden authority, as if she were merely informing them of her decision, not asking permission for it. "If I may," she said. "Permit the Zenin clan to contribute to this operation." No trembling humility. "As a demonstration of our goodwill. The spear may reside in Edo, but that does not make us blind, nor indifferent, to the troubles that afflict the capital."
Her eyes slid back to him, and Seijiro's chest tightened, annoyingly physical. It was one thing for Kaoru to argue rings around him in the council chamber; another to spar with him under lantern light and pretend it was just rivalry.
This? This was stepping beside him, where everyone could see.
Oh. Their fathers would hate it so much. A slow, amused smirk curled at the corner of Seijiro's mouth before he could stop it. Well played, Pretty Boy. He didn't know whether to be impressed or exasperated... or both, which was, apparently, the right answer.
The Kamo Patriarch was the first to react; he clapped his hands together, delighted, too delighted, as his expression hovered somewhere between genuine satisfaction and the shining hunger of a man who loved turning crises into theatre. "Perhaps this small crisis was exactly what we needed in these long days of council!" he chirped aloud. "A chance for our young heirs to work together once again and show us all the unity between clans that eludes us here."
Unity. The word settled strangely between Seijiro and Kaoru.
Takahiro Zenin, seated with his arms folded, gave the smallest nod toward his heir in silent approval, as if Kaoru's declaration had been entirely expected or maybe exactly what he expected of her. Seijiro glanced at his father, but Akiteru's expression betrayed nothing as the air between the Gojo and Zenin clan heads tensed. One seated, one still standing; two men trading a long, calculating look, each weighing motives and liability, and for a second, Seijiro feared his father might reach out with his invisible limbs and tear Takahiro Zenin's heart out before the council.
After a tense moment, they both inclined their heads slightly, and Akiteru returned to his seat and gestured subtly to Seijiro, not even bothering to hide the message in the motion. Overshadow the Zenin heir. Or better yet, make sure he doesn't come back at all.
Seijiro, naturally, ignored it. Not happening, Chichiue.
"The situation is as follows," Akiteru stated, turning back to the room. "A high-level cursed spirit was detected attempting to breach Fushimi Castle's outer walls, but has since disappeared within its grounds after killing the guards. The young Hideyori-dono is under the protection of several sorcerers, but the cursed spirit must be located and eliminated before it poses a real threat." His gaze landed firmly—unmistakably—on Seijiro and Kaoru. "You will find Toyotomi guards awaiting you outside the castle to escort you."
There it was: a test, a trap, a spectacle. Take your pick.
Standing side by side, Kaoru and Seijiro bowed once more, their movements nearly mirrored and too synchronized for comfort. When they straightened, their eyes met and the thought struck Seijiro with unusual clarity: We're doing this because we want to. Not because they had to or because their fathers demanded it, and not because a council needed a pretty story.
Because they chose it.
As they turned to leave, the Kamo patriarch's voice followed them out, too pleased with his own script. "Good luck, young heirs! The future of our country rests on your capable shoulders!"
Seijiro didn't roll his eyes, but it was a real effort. He stepped into the crisp winter air, breath drifting pale in the cold as he exhaled and shoved his hands into his sleeves. "Well, well, well. Kaoru-sama," he drawled. "You do realize the success of this little collaboration might determine the later outcome of the council, right?" He tilted his head, as if considering the comedy of it. "Shall we dazzle them with our unparalleled unity as we did in Iga?"
Kaoru's mouth curved, betraying the amusement. "Then try not to embarrass yourself, Seijiro-sama."
For a moment, Seijiro forgot to be irritated; he huffed a real, genuine laugh. "Oh, Kami. Talk some sense into me, Pretty Boy." He glanced at her again, catching how the cold had kissed the edges of her cheeks pink, infuriatingly… human. "Because I might actually be starting to enjoy this."
.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.
The Fushimi castle loomed with its layered roofs buried under snow. Even from the approach road, it carried the weight of the entire country's future, of the Toyotomi bloodline's pride, of Tokugawa Ieyasu's pressure rising from the north. Guards moved along the outside walls in hurried patrols, and their murmurs drifted down in short, clipped calls. The gates opened as Kaoru and Seijiro arrived, their horses' hooves crunching over frost-laden stone.
Kaoru dismounted first, boots landing with a thud, her gaze already sweeping the geometry of a place designed to endure sieges and outlast legacies; she'd never been here. It was grand, certainly, but it didn't feel like power.
It felt like a gilded cage under attack; probably it was.
Harunobu had been left behind, much to his visible disgust, but the Toyotomi guards had made it non-negotiable; too many Zenin armed sorcerers inside the perimeter read like an insult and a provocation, aspark in a room already looking for a pretence to start a war. Neither side wanted to be the one firing the first arrow.
From the corner of her eye, she caught Seijiro dismounting, brisk and impatient, and with fat snowflakes clinging to the silver strands of his hair; he shook them loose, then muttered something about the cold, tugging his cloak tighter, nose red. Kaoru exhaled, half-amused, half-irritated because he was a petulant child when he wanted to, then reached up and undid her stiff formal topknot. Black hair spilled down before she gathered it into a high, more practical ponytail. They were still dressed in formal kamishimo, elegant, authoritative, and utterly ridiculous for the work they'd come to do, so she could at least make do with her hair.
Seijiro returned from a brief exchange with the guards; his attention hardened into place, probably his Six Eyes that skimmed the castle grounds.
Kaoru saw the not very subtle crease between his brows. "Notice anything unusual?" she asked, adjusting the katana at her hip.
Seijiro didn't answer immediately, gaze still tracking something unseen; his eyes then narrowed. "Not exactly." A pause. "I don't see any cursed spirits, in fact. Just sorcerers. And that's the suspicious part."
Kaoru tapped a finger against her chin, not looking at the castle, looking at him. "So we're dealing with a cursed spirit that can conceal itself even from your Six Eyes?"
"That would be troublesome," he muttered, focus tightening on the main keep. "Could be anywhere now. Could be..."
He trailed off, lifting his gaze toward the heart of the castle, toward where the child, Toyotomi Hideyori, would be.
Kaoru caught the faint twitch at the corner of his mouth, the fraction of a second of doubt he buried under his usual arrogance; she had spent her entire life reading people who lied, and she knew the difference between concern as a tactic and real concern. The concern currently sitting on Seijiro's face wasn't his father's brand of calculation. It was… more irritation at fate mixed with an older-brother-like protective instinct, the kind of worry that came from imagining a small body on a cold floor.
Seijiro Gojo, heir of the Gojo clan, is soft and concerned about a child.
It was not a thought she expected to have, but surely one she couldn't unsee now. "You're worried about the young Toyotomi-dono," Kaoru said, eyeing him quietly.
Seijiro's focus broke, head snapping toward her as if she'd stepped on his foot. "Is it that...obvious?"
Kaoru studied him, then the castle looming ahead. "You can go," she said, tone even, leaving no room for performance. "Check on Toyotomi-dono, make sure everything is secure and he's safe and sound."
For once, Seijiro had nothing ready; his brows lifted a fraction, surprised she'd actually proposed it, surprised she'd given him permission without making him beg or make a scene for it.
"I'll start searching the outside perimeter," Kaoru continued before he could argue with her as her hands moved in a quick hand sign. Her shadow gathered at her feet as liquid ink, and twin plumes swirled at her sides as the Divine Dogs materialized. The white one stayed close, ears perked, body pressed to her leg, while the black one shot forward immediately, already hunting for the cursed spirit.
Seijiro exhaled, rolling his eyes, unable to quickly smother the relief that crossed his face; even if he would never admit it, it was obvious he would have hated the idea of leaving Hideyori unaccounted for. "Tch." He shook his head like this was all deeply irritating. "Pretty boy, the reports said it's a high-level curse. You sure you can—"
Kaoru raised an unimpressed brow. "We're probably the strongest sorcerers alive, Seijiro-sama, you said so yourself. A little trust in your rival wouldn't kill you."
He studied her with a small hesitation because the comfort her confidence gave him was new and unsettling; leaving her in charge of anything should have annoyed him, but it didn't. "Fine," he said at last with great dramatics. He tipped his head in mock salute and turned on his heel. "Count on you, then, Pretty Boy. Try not to die."
Surprised, Kaoru watched him disappear toward the interior halls, swallowed by snowfall and distance. She'd expected an argument, some quip about not taking orders from a Zenin, maybe even a refusal, but none came. He had trusted her with that. She let out a slow breath that curled in a white cloud in the air, and lowered her gaze.
Harunobu was not here; her shadow, her certainty, the one person she could always rely on. The only person she ever trusted. Or at least… he had been. She shoved the unwelcome thought back down where inconvenient truths belonged as the grip on her katana hilt tightened.
This wasn't the time; there was still a cursed spirit to track. So, she signaled the white Divine Dog and turned toward the perimeter as snow crunched beneath her boots.
The outer grounds of Fushimi Castle stretched over and over, meticulously planned, the stronghold of current power; watchtowers rose above the perimeter, thatched roofs coated in snow, narrow cobbled paths wound between the keep, outbuildings, and gardens now stripped bare in winter. Kaoru moved with guarded steps as the white Divine Dog padded beside her without a sound, ears twitching as it scanned the air for any cursed energy. She passed smaller structures, service quarters, icehouses, and storage rooms; so far, nothing.
Kaoru exhaled softly and glanced down. "Anything?"
The Divine Dog's ears pricked, but it remained silent, fur blending almost seamlessly with the snow on the ground.
Her path led toward a small cluster of detached older buildings at the far end. Icehouses, the kind of places that no one visited during winter, because it was pointless. It was there that the Divine Dog stiffened; its hackles rose, and a low growl vibrated through.
Kaoru narrowed her eyes at the building. There you are. Her free hand brushed lightly along the shikigami's back. Even without seeing it, Kaoru felt the charge skating over her skin; the cursed energy in the air around the building was like a low static presence, so subtle that it was almost missed, like the quiet before a lightning strike. Strange. Not the thick, telltale stink of a cursed spirit. running wild as the report suggested.
More like something trying not to be noticed.
Her eyes fixed on one of the wooden structures and its door hung slightly ajar, frame sagging as if something had enter in a hurry.
Kaoru's muscles tensed as she took a careful step forward, knelt briefly, and pressed her palm to the Divine Dog's shadowy-white back. "Calm," she murmured, though her own nerves were coiled. Her other hand slid to the katana. She pressed her shoulder against the wall beside the door and listened.
Silence.
The white Divine Dog bristled at her side. Kaoru drew a slow breath and formed a quick hand seal; her shadow stretched too long across the ground, seeping into gaps between floorboards and inside the building. Her Divine Dog vanished into that shadow with it, slipping through and silently entering the bulding.
Then, in a single motion, as the Divine Dog emerged inside for a stealth attack, Kaoru kicked the door open—
—and the world lit with lightning. All hell broke loose.
Before she could even register the shape of the supposed cursed spirit inside, lightning erupted through the structure in purple-white, violent, obscene waves. A blinding flash swallowed the small building whole, and the thunder-crack that followed rang in her ears and punched the air so hard it felt like being struck.
Kaoru staggered back, boots sliding in the snow as debris exploded outward, trying to shield her eyes, her ears, her everything.
The Divine Dog barely had time to react; the surge of cursed energy hit it straight and square in its wild dance; the shikigami yelped, thrown backward, skidding across the snow and leaking cursed energy and blood from a wide injury in its right flank. Its form wobbled unsteadily as it struggled to remain manifested. Kaoru, recovering fast, clicked her tongue and slammed her hand down, snapping the shikigami back into shadow before it could be destroyed for good.
The building sagged under the lightning assault, one side collapsing entirely; from the debris shot a figure, small and fast, a blue-white smear of motion streaking through the cold. Up close, it really looked like a lightning bolt freed from the sky by an angry kami.
Kaoru moved before her mind finished naming the threat; her katana cut up to the air to intercept the cursed spirit, but she was too slow, or maybe it was too fast. The figure blurred past her in a blur, kicking up snow and splinters and sparks, heading straight for the main entrance of the castle.
"What the—?" Kaoru hissed, already launching after it.
What the hell is this cursed spirit? It's a damn storm.
Her feet pounded; she sank into the nearest wall's shadow and reappeared further ahead, cutting the distance in heartbeats to reach the fleeting figure that was already far ahead. Still not enough.
The thing moved erratically like a wild animal, humanoid, bare feet barely touching the ground before it launched again, never looking behind, faster, faster, faster. Kaoru caught glimpses as she chased: a mess of cyan hair in disarray, a small frame too fast and too feral. Each step left the smell of ozone and a crackle of white-blue, lightning-like, cursed energy, raw, volatile, and unrefined. Sparks danced across its frame with every movement in little arcs from fingertips to stone walls as it brushed past them.
A beast in human form that moved like it had lived its whole life running. From what? Kaoru's grip tightened; later, questions later. First: stop it before it reaches the keep.
She brought her hands together in a quick motion, balancing her katana between them. "Great Serpent."
Shadow erupted beneath her and coiled up into a massive snake, ink-black against the snow-white world; it shot forward with terrifying speed, jaws widening to snap around the fleeting figure's legs. For a fraction, Kaoru actually thought she had it; then the figure's head snapped back, cyan eyes wide; it twisted mid-air, bending at an impossible angle as its foot struck the shikigami's body, releasing a small discharge of lightnings on the impact point.
The shikigami convulsed, hissing as smoke rose from the impact point, its form distorting between existence and nothingness before collapsing back into shadow.
Kaoru cursed under her breath because that damn thing had already threatened to destroy two of her shikigami and move again. The figure launched toward the main gates, reaching the guards, punching and kicking wildly between the guards' yelling, as a violent pulse of lightning exploded outward.
Armored men crumpled, and bodies jerked. Then, steel clattered against stone as the current ran telltale through limbs.
Tch.
Kaoru had assumed it was a cursed spirit, but now? Now she wasn't so sure. Whatever it was, it couldn't be allowed inside Fushimi Castle. She launched forward, diving into shadow again, bending space with it until she re-emerged directly in front of the small figure.
Its reaction was immediate: it skidded to a halt, bare feet scraping frost, shoulders bunched tight like a cornered animal, cursed energy spiking around it volatile and uncontrolled.
Panting, Kaoru formed a hand sign before it could bolt again; she wouldn't let it slip past her twice. "Got you," she murmured.
Above her, the sky seemed to split as Nue materialized with massive wings unfurling, beating once, twice, scattering snow in a gust; lightning gathered across its wings, condensing around them until the air tasted like burnt.
Nue screeched and dove, sending a violent wave of lightning down toward the figure. It should have ended there; Kaoru was sure of that. That kind of discharge should have cooked anything it touched, especially a cursed spirit like that. And yet—
The figure didn't even flinch; the lightning slammed into its body, and instead of tearing through it, it crackled across its skin then sank into it, absorbed and welcomed, as if it belonged to that figure in the first place.
Kaoru's heart skipped. What—?
After a long moment of disbelief in which even the figure stood still blinking down at its hands, it looked up slowly... and grinned bright with the ugly delight of something that had just discovered it could bite back and bite hard.
Something in Kaoru's instincts shifted; her stance—so precise a moment ago—faltered for the smallest fraction of a breath, because that... that wasn't a cursed spirit's grin.
That was human. A boy, an actual human boy.
Too thin and too small, as if starved for days, maybe weeks. His clothes were a dirt and frayed tatters, a robe that was maybe a yukata, a long ago, not thick enough for winter, that hung off him reaching the knees. Bare feet on snow, red from too much cold. His cyan hair stuck up in chaotic spikes as if permanently charged by the cursed energy boiling from him, and his eyes—cyan like his hair—were too awake and locked on her.
A stray animal with its back to a wall, a boy no older than ten or eleven, even if it was hard to guess, given his conditions. And still impossibly dangerous.
Oh, shit.
Kaoru hesitated, and the hesitation cost her immediately because just like that, the boy moved impossibly fast; in a blur, he was in front of her, jumping high above her head. She barely got her forearm up before the first strike landed, a downward kick aimed at her head. The boy's heel collided with the force of thunder, and a charge of lightning resonated through her bones, up her arm, across her ribs, lighting every nerve with white static.
Her vision smeared for a split second as the world went white at the edges. Then the second strike came, a small fist aimed straight for her ribs. Kaoru pivoted on instinct, caught his wrist mid-air but the contact only detonated another jolt up her arm, forcing her fingers open; she released him almost immediately as her muscles lagged under the residual shock.
Damn this thunderbrat.
She stepped back, recalibrating, shaking sensation into her hand again while her nerves hissed. The boy didn't hesitate; he launched forward again, fists tight, movements wild and desperate, all jagged angles and survival and no training, just instinct.
Kaoru didn't strike. She could have; she should have. Her grip tightened around the katana hilt anyway, the muscle memory of a hundred fights urging her to do what was safe, to do something: put him down, end him before he lands another hit.
But up close, she saw too clearly how pale he was under the grim and dirt, how his lips were cracked and dried with blood; the ragged yukata couldn't hide how he shook in his small fists even as he attacked; he trembled not from fear, not from uncertainty but... from cold.
And when he finally spoke, the voice that came out of him was so, so quiet it almost didn't belong to the violent, crackling thing in front of her, stating a fact so basic it felt obscene in the middle of a battlefield: "-too cold, too cold, too cold-"
Kaoru froze, katana half-drawn. The boy looked up at her, all angry cyan eyes and exhaustion but not pleading, as if he had learned already that nothing in the world could be obtained with pleading.
Too cold? Kaoru let out a slow breath, and in that breath, her grip loosened without her permission. "…I know. It's cold outside, isn't it?" she murmured.
Eyes widening like a stray cat sensing the exact moment your hand softens, the boy bolted.
Kaoru swore under her breath, instincts snapping back into place with a jolt of panic, but before she could fully push herself into motion, he twisted on his heel, kicking up a spray of snow, and launched past her, slipping through the narrow gap between the castle doors and vanishing inside.
She just stood there, blinking for an instant too long, the cold biting her face. Then her mind caught up with her body.
The heavy doors of the gates had barely begun to settle before Kaoru shoved them open again, striking the wooden floor of the inner engawa as she darted inside after him. Warmth hit her, oil lamps, bodies, enclosed air, and the sudden shift in temperature was almost disorienting; she ignored it. Her eyes scanned the engawa, her ears strained for hurried footfalls, and she could still feel that static electric tang he left behind.
He wasn't a threat to Toyotomi Hideyori as the report suggested. He hadn't angled toward the inner chambers with that intent; he hadn't been hunting. He'd been fleeing, no—worse—he'd been looking for shelter.
To get inside, to escape the cold.
Kaoru forced her legs faster, slipping through the engawa she didn't know, following the static; if he wanted warmth, he'd avoid the main halls, he'd find somewhere small, somewhere quiet, somewhere that smelled like people and heat rather than soldiers and ceremony, and that place was in fact...
...Exactly Hideyori's personal quarters.
Exactly where Seijiro was.
Kaoru's stomach twisted hard. You're a fool, Kaoru. A fool for hesitating. A fool for letting softness get you.
Because now, the boy was inside Fushimi Castle, scared and on the run, and if he stumbled too close to Hideyori's quarters, then Seijiro—damn him—would not ask questions if Hideyori's safety was even a fraction at risk.
Kaoru needed to reach Seijiro first.
He's just a kid. A stupid, feral, half-starved kid who probably grew up in one of the capital's poorer districts, in the shadow of palaces he'd never be allowed to step inside, with the luck—or misfortune, really—to be born with an unstable and erratic cursed energy.
It's not your problem, Kaoru. Find Seijiro before the boy does.
.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.
Hideyori-dono's eyes were too big and full fo wonder for the world he'd been forced to inherit. "Really?" he whispered, as if being too loud might summon one of his strict regent out of thin air. "A river of white rabbits?"
Seijiro almost laughed, not at the boy, never at the boy, but at the cruelty of the contrast; here was the last Toyotomi heir, a child sat on the top of a country before he could learn to write his name, trained to smile like an obedient mask and speak like a decree… and underneath all of it he was still just—
—a kid. A kid who wanted to see a stupid, impossible stream of conjured soft rabbits.
"Absolutely," Seijiro said, leaning against a pillar like this was a tavern and not the political heart of the country. Arms crossed, tone light, smirk easy. "Once we've dealt with the cursed spirit, I'm sure Zenin-sama will be delighted to show you." He even put on a show for it, an exaggerated flourish of hand seals, a ridiculous "Puff!" with his mouth. "Dozens of soft, fluffy rabbits everywhere! You'll see, you'll be tripping over them."
Hideyori's expression cracked, his wonder slipped through and Seijiro saw what the world kept trying to suffocate out of him. Then Hideyori remembered he was supposed to be a ruler. He straightened, smoothed his face back into practiced neutrality so fast it almost hurt to watch, his still immature cursed energy curling inward and collapsing. A child pretending to be sovereign.
"Gojo-sama," the child began carefully, testing his own curiosity as his little brow furrowed. "But the Zenin clan is…"
He didn't finish.
But the Zenin are with Tokugawa-dono. But the Zenin are supposed to be our enemy. But if I trust wrong, I die young.
Right. Hideyori wasn't just a child; he was a legacy balanced on a knife-edge, already taught that alliances could kill if done wrong. Seijiro watched him for a long moment, smirk fading into a more resigned one.
He crouched down, lowering himself to Hideyori's eye level, not as a retainer before a sovereign but more like an older brother who'd seen a smaller brother's fear and decided that it wasn't going to win tonight. "You don't need to worry, Toyotomi-dono," he said, reassuring. "Kaoru Zenin is noble of heart. He came here to make sure you stay safe." A beat, then, because Seijiro Gojo always had to turn things into a vow he could bite down on—"That, I can promise."
Hideyori blinked at him, startled by the certainty, and slowly, the tension bled out of his small shoulders. For one miraculous moment, everything was still... And then the castle shook.
A boom echoed from outside, deep and violent, rattling supporting beams and sending dust shivering down from the rafters. Hideyori flinched, hands tightening in the folds of his sleeves, head snapping toward the sound like a startled bird, instintivly reaching for Seijiro.
Seijiro was already on his feet, Six Eyes snapping into focus and vision cutting through walls and corridors, catching the collision of two kind of cursed energy.
Kaoru's. And the other...
His brow furrowed; the other signature wasn't stable, but surged in ugly uncontrolled bursts like a storm too close to the ground. Something about it scraped at his instincts.
"G-Gojo-sama?" Hideyori's voice came careful, trying to be brave and failing in that painfully honest way only children can.
Seijiro looked down, slapped a lazy grin onto his face. "Nothing to worry about," he assured smoothly. "Zenin-sama just got a little… enthusiastic." He made it sound almost fond, which was ridiculous. "I'll go check on him."
Hideyori didn't look convinced but he nodded anyway because he'd been trained to always nod at men like Seijiro who served his cause.
Seijiro turned, addressing the retainers outside the room. "Stay here, eyes on Toyotomi-dono," he ordered, then slid the shoji shut behind him.
The instant it closed, his mask dropped. The lazy arrogance evaporated, and his pace gained, jaw set. Against his will, he moved like the weapon his father wanted him to be, tracking the fluctuating signature of cursed energy clashing with Kaoru's and then fleeting inside the castle.
Pretty boy, he thought grimly, what the hell did you find?
It wasn't Kaoru's strength he doubted, Kaoru could outfight most men in the country while half asleep, and that was the problem; why hadn't she done so already?. Whatever she had met, it didn't feel like a normal curse.
The hum of voices ahead snapped him out of his thoughts. Seijiro slowed instantly, pressed himself to the wall, and listened out of habit.
"…if this cursed spirit happens to accidentally reach him, it could be… convenient," came Ishida Mitsunari's voice, the tone of a man discussing rice quotas instead of murder of their regent-child. "A tragedy, of course, but one that leaves us no choice but to act in right. With the young Toyotomi gone, we'd be forced to confront Tokugawa-dono openly."
Seijiro went completely still; his nails bit into his palms, his jaw tightened so hard it ached. The meaning was brutally clear.
It wasn't political strategy, it was plain treachery.
For a heartbeat, the calm veneer Seijiro always wore so well threatened to splinter. Mitsunari was willing to let a six-year-old die because it would be useful, convenient. A catalyst for their great cause against the Tokugawa faction's rise. He took one slow breath, then another, because if he didn't, he would step into that corridor and remove Mitsunari's head with his hands and okay, maybe that was not convenient for any of them.
He was still weighing how much blood he was willing to spill inside Fushimi Castle, and how much of a headache it would turn out for his father when movement snapped at the edge of his vision, fast and uncontrolled.
That cursed spirit? No-Kaoru.
She skidded into view; his usually composed rival was looking wrecked. Her kamishimo was dusted and torn, her blackhair slipping out of its ponytail, and there were dark smudges on her cheekbones. Kaoru Zenin did not look like this unless something had gone wrong in a way that didn't fit her logic.
She opened her mouth—
—and Seijiro's mind jumped three steps ahead at once: Mitsunari's men closing, their footsteps too loud, the wrong timing, the wrong place, the wrong air.
Not the time.
Seijiro lunged, grabbed a fistful of Kaoru's torn kamishimo at the chest, fingers curling into fabric just below her collarbone, and yanked her toward the nearest door with a too-violent shove; he hadn't meant to shove her so hard, but he didn't have time to be gentle about it.
"Wha—?!"
Kaoru's protest strangled into a single syllable as Seijiro slid the shoji open and hauled her into a dusty archive, the kind nobody entered unless ordered. The shoji shut behind them with a very soft click that still sounded deafening in his skull.
Then, silence, or more… contained danger.
Kaoru, her back pressed to the closed shoji, blinked, breathless and disoriented.
Seijiro didn't let go of her kamishimo; his grip stayed tight, knuckles pressed against the cloth over her chest, pinning her too close, too forceful against the shoji. It was suffocating, or maybe that was just his rapidly deteriorating self-control.
Kaoru glared up at him out of habit, caged by his body in a space really too small; she should have been furious, no, she was furious. Seijiro Gojo had grabbed her like a street thug and shoved her into an archive like she was inconvenient.
Outside, Mitsunari's voice drifted past the paper-thin shoji in careful fragments: accident… necessary… leadership… catalyst—words chosen to sound reasonable, to sound inevitable, a speech rehearsed too many times in a mirror.
Seijiro's fingers curled unconsciously harder in Kaoru's clothing because he needed to hold himself, to stop himself from tearing the shoji open and driving a fist into Mitsunari's mouth until the man forgot how to speak for good.
He leaned just above Kaoru's head, eyes locked on the shoji behind her, Six Eyes locked on the men behind it, willing the entourage to keep moving past them without noticing. His usual smirk was gone; his constant barbs, gone too; he barely registered Kaoru at all, too focused on the fact that Mitsunari had just signed his own death warrant in his opinione, and meanwhile...
Meanwhile, Kaoru was experiencing her own private hell.
"Seijiro-sama," she started, voice urgent. "There's a boy—"
"Quiet," he hissed, cutting her off, and his hand tightened on her clothing again without thinking.
Kaoru glared up at his face, swallowed; his hair had fallen messily across his forehead, a furrow between his brows, no arrogance there. It felt like a threat. This was serious Seijiro, cold and terrifyingly competent, the kind she had seen in Iga. And... so dangerously close.
She followed his focus, listened harder, caught enough of Mitsunari's murmurs to understand why Seijiro had dragged her in here and was acting like that, but she couldn't ignore the other problem.
The hand.
His hand braced against her chest where he had gripped her, knuckles pressed in the fabric of her kamishimo just below her collarbone, tightening, shifting as he held her in place. Kaoru's breath hitched as horror dawned in slow motion.
Maybe it had been the chase. Maybe it had been the fight. Maybe it had been the abrupt yank. Maybe it had just been her bad karma. But somewhere in that chaos, something had slipped, and the careful bindings she relied on, the wrapped cloth that kept her disguise intact and her breast hidden flat, had loosened in the worst possible way, and now she was hyperaware of the pressure of his hand against a place he absolutely should not be pressing against.
Oh no.
This wasn't how Seijiro was supposed to find out, if he was ever supposed to find out.
Kaoru sucked in a sharp breath, eyes darting in rising panic to his hand and back to his face; how dare he radiate this much focus and intensity now, of all times? Her cheeks burned hot under her skin, her entire body locked in the impossible instinct: don't move, don't breathe, don't exist, let it pass.
Outside, Mitsunari's voice slid through the corridor again, slowly fading away. "The country needs leadership, true leadership. An accident, you understand, a necessary catalyst."
Seijiro clicked his tongue, unconsciously pressing her, grip tightening, and Kaoru squeezed her eyes shut, willing herself not to react. Then it happened: pinned and furious, trying not to panic, Kaoru went very, very still, too still and finally...
Seijiro noticed it; he noticed the sudden intake of breath, the tension radiating from her, and under his grip. What the hell, Pretty Boy. Can't you just stay still and quiet for a second—
His mind screamed in alarm as his fingers tightened reflexively, pressing her harder into the wall to keep her silent, to keep her hidden, and something… gave. Soft. Not fabric soft, not armor. Just soft. The muscle memory of a thousand training sessions screamed at him that this was not the flat, hard plane of a man's chest.
Seijiro's world ground to a halt; Mitsunari was still speaking outside, the country's future was still balancing on that act, but inside that archive, inside Seijiro Gojo's skull, everything came apart in slow, agonizing increments.
His mind began compartmentalizing, trying to make sense of it all. It started as an itch of wrongness; layers of cloth? No. It's beneath it. Injury? Unlikely. His gaze slowly and horrifyingly slid down without permission, like a man connecting dots he wished he hadn't. His hand pressed against her again, testing the sensation, the soft resistance under his grip sent a new ripple of confusion across his expression.
Soft?
Kaoru's breath came in shallow, frantic bursts, chin trembling in contained fury and humiliation as she mentally begged him with sheer force of will not to think, not to connect the dots, not to be brilliant right now. But Seijiro's eyes flicked from his hand to her face, and their eyes met.
Both Seijiro and Kaoru felt the exact moment they both realized they were completely, utterly fucked. Everything about it was wrong, every memory of their fights, their bickering, their stolen nights outside the council, every exchange built on the unshakable assumption that Kaoru Zenin was... a man.
And yet. And. Yet.
Seijiro's throat went dry as Mitsunari's voice became muffled, distant, drowned out by the rush of blood in his ears; he stared down at Kaoru, face blank in disbelief, and his hand—traitor that it was—pressed and tested again, as if confirming would make it less real.
Still soft; still very much not the chest of a man.
Kaoru inhaled, eyes narrowing in warning, and he saw it, the quick succession of insult and emotions on her face behind her deadly glare. It snapped him back, indignation clawing up his throat in equal measure. He wanted to scream and smash his head against a pillar, but he couldn't let it out, not with Mitsunari on the other side of the door.
But he was staring; still staring; still—Kami, he really needed to stop—touching her.
He exhaled slowly, dropped his head a fraction, close enough that loose strands of his hair brushed her forehead, and in a voice barely above a whisper, and he didn't recognize as his, he muttered the only sensible thing that came to mind. "Oh Kami. I'm an idiot."
And judging by the way Kaoru's fingers twitched at her sides, he was about to die for it.