Reclaimed – Chapter 26

I leave the steaming tea where it is on the mat in front of me and refuse a bowl of rice porridge for breakfast. Oyama always tried to get me to eat rice porridge, and I just didn’t like the texture. Plus, without him here, I’m wary of ingesting anything for fear they’ll poison me before I can even negotiate. Oyama. Remember, Sanaa. Whatever happens here is for everyone else’s betterment.

I take a moment to catalog my surroundings, like a fugitive ready to flee at a moment’s notice because that’s what I am here. The house we’re in is made of bamboo, pressed into long, warm boards. Painted scrolls hang from walls between shoji-screen windows. The meeting room is six tatami mats big, with patchwork cloth plush pillows laid out to sit on. Shiro Koga sits behind a long, low table, his eyes skirting from me to the kitchen beyond a sliding door to my right. The room is alive with young kids, teenagers, boys and girls, chopping vegetables and stirring pots.

“Not hungry, Miss Itami?” Koga asks, stroking his full beard. His wife, a lovely but quiet woman, bows and exits to the kitchen. Four other men sit seiza behind him — a five to two advantage.

“I ate before we broke camp this morning, but thank you for your hospitality. You have a beautiful home and so many people here helping out.”

“It’s part of our lifestyle to train young men how to care for themselves. They all must learn to cook and keep house should they ever be on a mission and unable to get a woman to do those things.”

My lip twitches. “I’m a horrible cook. I’m good at rice and a few other things, but that’s about it. This is an excellent skill to teach your kids.” A young man, maybe about sixteen, enters the room with a tray and sets plates of pickles, rice, and cooked egg omelet on the table for Koga. He glances at me so I smile at him. His cheeks flush before he leaves and closes the door behind him.

I clear my throat, ready to open my mouth and begin negotiations when Koga leans towards Jiro.

“Are you sure you want her leading the conversation? If you like, we can talk this out, man to man.”

I cannot even believe he just said that, right in front of me. Ginza, who the Koga reluctantly let sit next to me, snickers, a dry little fox laugh, before he mutters, “Crazy man,” under his breath. Himitsu, sitting on my shoulder, puffs up and flaps his wings, his sign of distress.

“Excuse me? Are you fucking serious?” I lean forward my finger pointed straight at Koga. “You people here have a lot of nerve subjugating women and making them less valuable for no other reason than they’re female. You will talk to me.”

Jiro’s hand on my back steadies me, but the men behind Koga laugh. “That one’s lost his balls,” one whispers to another. Jiro’s hand stiffens.

“My balls are just where they should be.” The amount of malice in Jiro’s voice douses me like an icy bucket of water. I wait a moment before looking at him as the room silences. He has reached a scary level of intended hostility, his eyes narrowed and jaw set. Koga’s men are quiet, their eyes trained on Jiro’s hands. He could easily jump up and slay them all now before they even blinked.

“Your man is quite good. An excellent choice of mates,” Ginza purrs, before curling into a ball and laying his head upon his tail. I’m glad I pass approval with the foxes, at the very least.

Himitsu diminishes to a tiny owl again. “Watch out for these ones? They are more animal than me. No dogs or cats here. They forbid animals?”

Koga focuses on Ginza and Himitsu, his lip curling and veins popping on his arms. I’m pretty sure Himi’s question is a statement. There are no animals here as far as I can tell, and I’d bet Kazenoho they shot down the bird earlier because it was spying on them. My heart aches for the person he was paired with.

I reach into my bag and pull out my tablet, navigating to the photos.

“Recognize this man? If not, I do. He’s one of yours, Yoshi, the man who lent me water on the way to Inabe after I broke out of Fujiwara’s castle.”

Koga leans forward to examine the photos I took of Yoshi before we left. Yoshi’s hands are bound but he’s clothed and sitting on a bed at the estate. I tap on the video I took of him. “Koga, I beg your forgiveness. Please allow me to come home to my wife and children.” I turn off the tablet and set it aside as the men behind Koga grumble. Koga’s wife in the doorway begins to cry.

“Yoshi is no longer one of us. His life means little to me. You may do with him as you will.” Koga sits up straighter even as his wife sobs and falls to her knees.

“How can you say that about your own brother?” she asks, brushing the tears from her eyes and bowing her head to the floor. Her deference needles at me. If I were in her situation, I would probably kick Koga and demand Yoshi’s return. But it’s not my place to make others behave in a manner I approve of, even at my higher station.

“Brother-in-law. He’s your stupid brother, not mine.”

“Ugh. I hate you.” Koga’s wife jumps to her feet, throws her handkerchief on the floor, and stalks out the kitchen door, slamming it behind her. All the men startle. They seem more afraid of her than they are of Koga.

“Do you want him back or what? I don’t care if he lives or dies, but if he has a family here, they might want him back, no matter how stupid he is.”

One of the men behind Koga pokes him in the ribs.

“Fine. You can return him to us. I may kill him anyway for going against my orders. Miss Itami, I did not direct anyone to attack you or your new town in Ōmi, much less band together with someone as dishonorable as Taira Clan. Are we through here?”

I was certain he would fight me about taking back the traitor because he doesn’t want to owe me anything. I could remind him I have shuttles and his whole village is in danger of burning to the ground, but I want his partnership under good circumstances. Not that I believe he would kowtow to us anyway. He’d probably stand outside, his middle fingers in the air, as I dropped fire bombs over this entire bamboo forest.

I drum my fingers on my knee. “So, who do you consider to be honorable enough to band together with? Perhaps we can make a deal?”

He smirks, but I detect a glimmer of greed in his eyes. “You would never agree to my terms.”

I spread out my hands. “Let’s hear them. I have nothing left to lose.”

Koga’s stare is hard on me before turning to Jiro as well. My upper lip breaks into a sweat as a cold wash of tingles settles on my scalp. Maybe I spoke too soon? Is he going to ask for Jiro? Why would he even want him? It’s not like there’s a chance in hell I would ever agree to give up my beloved, and he must know that after watching me fly into Jiro’s arms when I was rescued. I swallow, wishing I could drink the tea in front of me.

“We would offer our support in taking down Fujiwara and anything else you need done in furtherance of that main goal, if, and only if, the next emperor on the Chrysanthemum Throne is trained here, in the old ways, as a ninja.” His lips purse as if he’s swallowed a lemon. “And certainly not you. We want one of our own on the throne. Someone who will listen to our issues and take the ninja way of life mainstream.”

“You cannot elect an emperor. It is handed down by bloodline only.”

“You are pregnant, are you not?”

My stomach threatens to eject what little I’ve had to eat as a trickle of sweat runs down my spine. I clear my throat and glance at Jiro. He’s pale and his hand wraps around my upper arm.

“I am not. I miscarried several weeks ago.”

Koga waves his hand. “No matter. You will be pregnant before long with a son.”

A heavy smile stretches across Koga’s face as the room grows silent again. Ginza’s head pops up and he begins to pace from the door to me and back again.

“I… I…” Shit. This is not what I expected. I could agree to a lot of things — food, shelter, weapons — but not this.

“Sanaa, can we talk outside for a moment?” Jiro breaks my stunned, whirling thoughts, pulling me up off the ground. Himitsu launches from my shoulder and heads out in front of us, landing on a rafter in the porch as Jiro guides me straight out of the house. “We should do this,” he whispers, leaning into my ear.

“Are you insane? Give them my baby? Sure, Jiro. Why not? When I’ve lost almost everyone in my life already, I should definitely give up my own kid.” Sarcasm is my only defense.

“She’s right,” Ginza says. “These people are ruthless. They would kill your child if he didn’t conform to their ways.”

“Listen to me,” Jiro says, grasping both my shoulders. I open my mouth to relay Ginza’s advice. “No. Just listen. It’s the ultimate poker play. We compromise. If we have a son, he grows up with us until he’s, I don’t know, in his teens, and then he comes to Koga until he’s twenty and can take the throne. A few years. It’ll be nothing. And who’s to say you’ll even have a son? This is a win-win situation. We’ll get cooperation now for something that may not even happen. And if it did, we’d have a lot to gain by training our son in the old ways.”

Jiro stares off into the ninja village, his eyes searching the houses around us. A woman hangs out laundry while kids run around the backyard. Two buildings over, the crack of wooden weapons bounces off the walls of an open-door dōjō. Two men fight with shinobijō, alternately stopping to speak or instruct one another.

I bite my lip and glance around. “This is risky and my instincts tell me this is a very bad idea. Didn’t you tell me I should trust my own instincts?”

We both stop talking. There’s not much to be said when all roads are at a dead end.

“Put your money on the table,” Jiro whispers. He bends over and kisses me, his lips soft and sweet before they’re hard and urgent. I grasp the front of his shirt in both hands and try to transport myself to our first kiss — the one we shared behind Izakaya Tanaka in Nishikyō, before I was an empress, before my life became twisted and surreal. I remember telling Jiro how much I wanted a family, how I longed to have children and give myself the family I was always denied. I pull back from his lips and run my fingers through his hair, the white streak as bright as it ever was.

“I just…” I sigh, defeated. “I chose sides weeks ago — Oda and Rokkaku over Fujiwara and Koga. We don’t need Koga.”

“With them on our side, we could defeat Fujiwara right in his home. We wouldn’t even have to wait for him on the battlefield. No one said it would be easy,” he says, touching his nose to mine.

I keep my eyes closed and lean my forehead onto his. “I said it would be easy, remember? Weren’t we going to end the bloodline anyway? Get married and stop this stupid charade of leadership by royalty?”

Jiro shakes his head, sadness shadowing his face in darkness. “You know that’s not an option anymore.”

The future is in my blood or my children. There are no documents or denials that can erase it now.

“‘Do what’s best for the colonization or die trying,’ remember that?” Jiro squeezes my hand.

“I do.” I glance down at silent Ginza and at Himitsu in the rafters.

I will turn the implant back on. It’ll break Jiro’s heart to never have kids, but I’m loathe to let some asshole man like Koga dictate my future. My children would never belong to me anyway; they would belong to the people.

We return to the house, and I take my place again across from the table.

“Here is what I’m prepared to offer. My first-born son, heir to the throne, can become your student at the age of sixteen until he becomes emperor at the age of twenty.”

Koga raises his eyebrows, victory dancing across his cheeks and eyes. I garner all my strength not to hurl myself at him and choke him to death with my bare hands.

“What if I have a daughter first?” I ask, blatantly providing falsehood as a negotiation tactic. I wonder if I would have to ruin my daughter’s life like mine was ruined not too long ago, not that I’m going to have kids anyway.

“Women have no value to me as fighters. You will have a son, and we will make him ours at any age.”

“Sixteen,” I stress, my blood running hot and fast. I’m not a fighter because I’m a woman? I’ll show him. “He will be raised to fight with a sword. I’m sure you will not be disappointed.”

Koga hums for a moment, looking between Jiro and me. We sit as still as possible, not giving away any ambivalence, though my heart is racing and my brain is screaming at me that this is the wrong thing to do. Wrong, wrong, wrong. So many things could go wrong with this.

“Fine. Sixteen. We will draw up the papers now and sign them before lunch. I expect your blood on the document, nothing less.”

And just like that, I sell my soul for an army.