WAP chapter 13: the daimyo and the ruler of hell

CHAPTER 13

A door flew open and hit the wall with a thunk.

Nobility scattered like a flock of crows, shrieking away from the men in armor that poured into the chamber.  A woman fainted dramatically in the confusion and fell down the dais in a cloud of silks. Aiko counted six men who might be samurai or might just be some kind of bodyguards. Either way, she wasn’t that concerned.

Aiko stayed perfectly still. She pretty much had to. If she moved, her head was going to fall off. She blinked at them over the top of her fan. “Mayumi-san,” she murmured.

The Inuzuka took a step forward, bristling up protectively. The samurai spilling into the room gave a visible startle at the sight of four shinobi, but they were too loyal to do anything but attack.

Aiko felt warmth gathering in her fingertips and swelling in her chest. As subtly as she could, she laid the fingertips of her left hand against her neck to hold her head in place.

The other Inuzuka threw themselves into the chaos with whooping. She couldn’t help the smile that quirked her lips up.

‘Love their style. You can’t deny that the Inuzuka have a certain vivacity. Most people would not want to fist fight their Daimyo’s guards.’

Someone cleared their throat.

“Yes?”

An Uchiha who was a dead ringer for Sasuke sidled into her view. He had a single line of confusion pressed in between his brows. “Excuse me for the intrusion,” he said politely.

There was a crash as a burly Inuzuka liberated a man from his sword and then sent the poor bastard flying through a screen door.

The Uchiha didn’t even look. He was just staring down at her earnestly. “It’s no trouble,” Aiko said. She gifted him with a smile and repressed the internal scream that came from looking at him. He was a walking ghost of someone who wasn’t born yet. “Uchiha-san?” He was nearly as tall as Sasuke, even, which… didn’t make much sense. He was at least 170 cm, which she kind of hated, if she was being honest. She slowly lifted her heels off the ground in order to get that much taller.

‘He is surprisingly tall for this generation. The Uchiha clan must have a good handle on nutrition. We’re at least 30 years off of the post-founding increase in height.’

“I’m honored,” he said, and gave a bow. Someone shrieked behind them. There was no indication that he noticed. “I was sent to speak with you on behalf of my clan.” He blinked the most ridiculously long, sooty lashes at her. “Oh!” He startled as if he suddenly heard something, but it was apparently that he remembered what he’d come for. The next words out of his mouth were, “I have a gift.”

Aiko tried to tilt her head to the side in bemusement and had to catch it from falling off her neck. The Uchiha didn’t notice because he was too busy scrabbling to open his bag. Triumphantly, he withdrew a large bottle of sake.

“I brought this as a token,” he announced proudly.

‘Oh, he’s an idiot,’ Aiko thought. ‘I love him.’

That helped shift something into place in her mind. She lowered back down from her heels, the need to posture gone.  He wasn’t Sasuke. Sasuke would have asked her what the fuck she was doing and … he would probably be brawling, if she was honest. Hmm. Speaking of.

“Could you protect this one?” Aiko asked, affecting a courtly speech pattern. She ever so slightly tilted her face and widened her eyes in the way that she knew made her look even younger and more appealing. She knew the image that she made with her exotic looks and extravagant clothing. The only patch in the illusion was her hair, but she couldn’t do anything about it at the moment.

He melted. “Of course, priestess.” His voice got huskier and his back straightened. Wow, a total sucker.

‘Wish I had a brush,’ Aiko thought. She could feel that it had gotten loose and mussed, with flyaways around her face. And there was probably a lot of blood in it. And…

With sinking horror, Aiko realized that her hair was very light on her back. Of course it was. Kakuzu had cut her head off. He’d.. he’d cut her hair off at the same level. Betrayed, she shot him a wide-eyed look.

He was already staring at her.

“Kakuzu-san,” she said, and couldn’t quite keep the disapproval out of her voice.

He ducked his head but his eyes were wide.

Oh. His eyes. They weren’t what she remembered. They were a very normal-looking dark brown.

‘...He hasn’t stolen the kinjutsu from his village yet,’ she realized. ‘He hasn’t done anything to become immortal.’

How odd.

“Priestess,” he rasped. He seemed to be in some kind of shock.

‘...Baby’s first encounter with immortality,’ Aiko thought, and had to work to keep a giggle off of her face.

“Izanami-no-mikoto does not begrudge this trespass,” Aiko said soothingly. From the way he jerked, he hadn’t quite gotten around to that worry yet. “Repent, and there will be no retribution.”

She lowkey hoped he didn’t try anything. She didn’t want to fight without a head.

…She probably wouldn’t have to. The Uchiha took a protective step in front of her. “Priestess, this is the man who attacked you?”

Aiko hummed. “I think that he will not do it again,” she lied optimistically. She looked back to the head of the room, where the Daimyo was trying to leave. “Daimyo!” she raised her voice. He wheeled to stare at her.

The room went very still.

Wow, dramatic. Aiko sidestepped the Uchiha and Kakuzu to take slow and deliberate steps toward the Daimyo. He was staring at her now with a white face. She could see him trembling.

The other worldly feeling was building in her chest and spilling out. She could see the importance of the moment hanging like dust motes in the air. She didn’t quite realize that Izanami was in her body until her voice came out in two notes.

“You have committed sacrilege and shamed your family.”

She let her hand fall from her neck. She knew it had healed. There was no way that her body could be any less than a perfect vessel with this much holy power riding in it.

It felt very different from being possessed by the god of death. Aiko knew that she was the one choosing the words. She also felt an internal heat that rose as the room watched her with baited breath.

Aiko wasn’t a stranger to power. She was powerful, she had been since she was a teenager. This was different. There was something heady in the air, like breathing in scented smoke and swaying with the patterns it made.

He stared at her, mortal and pitiful.

“Your greed and perfidy are unworthy,” Aiko said, and she knew that her voice was ringing with assurance. She was a young god. She could not be wrong. “You sent your loyal subjects to die in a perverse attempt to undermine the authority of your betters. Your soul will have no solace.” She smiled at him, unkind. He took a step back. “Izanami-no-Mikoto, the mother Goddess of all and the ruler of the Land of the Dead has decreed it. You are damned,” she said crisply, and a hole opened up at his feet.

The room filled with screams. Black smoke billowed outward, and it stank of centuries of rot. It was a hateful smell that carried with it the wailing of the dead below.

Aiko caught one last look of the man’s fearful eyes. Then she raised a hand and pointed at him with the fan.

An Oni lunged upward to loom behind the poor doomed bastard. Her blue-tinted skin looked altogether unnatural in the light of day. She was clad only in fur.

The Daimyo started screaming for real now, high and fearful. He fell on his ass and began scrabbling. The Oni lazily reached out and grabbed his ankle. She lifted until he was hanging upside down, swaying violently. His robes flipped over his face and slightly muffled the sound.

The crowd was dead silent. If any guards were left to fight, there weren’t moving now. No one seemed to be breathing.

“Suffer,” Aiko said, and nodded goodbye.

The Oni leapt back down into Hell. The pit slammed shut again, leaving only ruined tatami and shattered wood that revealed the dirt below.

Satisfaction curled into her stomach.

Aiko smiled and looked around the room from under her lashes. “Kneel,” she said, and the nobility did it.

She was hit by an intoxicating wave of - of worship. That’s what it was, she realized. Her eyes slid closer to shut. She was drowning in the feeling. She could feel their faith. She had gone and brought religion to this crowd of grasping courtiers. This was the food and fuel that Izanami-no-Mikoto needed in order to climb out of the dead lands for good and take her revenge on her sleeping husband, the snake who had left her there.

…They would need a new Daimyo, wouldn’t they?

Aiko’s education vaguely resurfaced. The Daimyo she had just deposed was the grandfather of the one that she had known in her time. She knew a few of these people, by name if not by face. Some of them would be influential.

“I return to my shrine,” Aiko said into the quiet room. It was a deathly stillness. She cast a warm look around the room. “You will come to swear your piety and consult about how this institution might be reformed.”

She didn’t wait for a response.

“You may bow,” Mayumi said sharply.

Anyone who wasn’t already touching their forehead to the ground went there. She noted that at least a couple of the guards were still alive and felt a spark of approval.

She turned on her heel and gave a nod before stepping back into the carry box. She slid the little wooden door shut and was thoroughly unsurprised to feel it lift as her four attendants picked it up.

Aiko smirked in the darkness. She closed her eyes and reached out, taking all four of the shinobi into her awareness. There was a fifth hand on the box that she didn’t expect. For no particular reason, she reached out and included Kakuzu as well when she wrapped them up in her hiraishin and took the whole affair back to her shrine.

‘That one is going into the history book,’ Aiko thought, and felt quite pleased with herself.