Released – Chapter 6

Walking back into Sakai building, I immediately feel like I’m back at home. Home. This place was only my home for four days before I was swept away, but it’s now more familiar to me than my old apartment in Ku 9 I shared with my aunts. The lobby is quiet, only one guard at the long rounded desk to the right, and another guard enjoying a cup of tea while sitting on the plush black couches in the open atrium to the left. They both stand and bow, and I do my best to smile and nod back.

Sakai leaves me and Jiro at the door to our apartment. Ahhh, I missed this place so much. I walk in and am overcome by the smell of home. The house in the desert smelled sterile, as if no one had ever lived or breathed in the rooms. This place smells like me, my aunts, Jiro.

Jiro heads straight for the bedroom to unpack his bag, and I walk around the main space and get a sense of it again: Jiro’s drawing on the wall, my blanket on the couch, a glass left out on the coffee table, the small, square ceramic salt and pepper shakers my aunts gifted me when I moved here sitting on the kitchen table, my coffeemaker on the counter, Jiro’s jar of tea. In the bedroom, I find him lying on the bed with his arm flung across his face.

“Tired?” It’s four o’clock in the afternoon, but my body thinks it’s one in the morning. I slept on the flight, so I’m in fairly good shape, but my internal clock is going to be confused for a few days. Jiro is down for the count, though.

“Yes, very.”

“You should take a nap, get up and have dinner, and then we’ll both go back to bed.” I pull the blanket out from beneath him and cover him up. “Go to sleep. I’ll wake you in two hours.”

I turn out the lights in the bedroom and make my way to the couch after pouring a glass of water and grabbing some salted soy beans from the fridge. First off, I get caught up on messages from Miko, Helena, my aunts, Chad, and a few other co-workers wondering why I had suddenly dropped off the map after the earthquake.

I read through all of my favorite fiction updates online until it’s time to wake up Jiro. He was so exhausted I have to pull him from the bed. Out in the kitchen, I make him tea while he yawns and scratches his head. In the refrigerator, a container of tofu teriyaki sits with a little note from Oyama, “Welcome home.”

“You must have authorized someone else on this apartment’s occupancy list while we were gone,” I say, setting a plate of food in front of Jiro.

“Beni. Of course, I trust Oyama and Usagi, but Beni said she’d take care of the place for us.”

“Good. I trust them all, too, but Beni is my jihi. I have to put my whole trust in her like I do you.”

Jiro nods, bobbing his head from side to side. “Tomorrow we need to start training again. It’s already late May, and you should learn as much as possible before the end of the year. I had the luxury of training while you were away, though it wasn’t half as much fun without you.” He smiles at me across the table. “We’ll stick with sword fighting for a week or two until you build up some stamina again — I’m sure it’ll come back to you quickly — then we’ll work on the ninjutsu.”

A small squeal escapes me, and I jig a little dance in my chair that makes him laugh. I am stupidly excited about learning how to be a ninja.

Jiro must have been hungry because he eats half of his dinner all at once. “Now, I know you said you wanted to learn everything…”

I nod my head vigorously at him, and he laughs again. He’s coming out of his sleep stupor.

“But, in general, that’s not how training works. Each ninja learns techniques that will make him into the perfect spy. By teaching each ninja differently, no two are alike and therefore they are unpredictable. So ninjutsu schooling is not rigid like sword fighting is.”

“Okay, so no kata.”

“No kata. No forms. No set lesson plan. Each person is evaluated to see what his natural strengths are and then those strengths are enhanced. Certainly, a ninja may learn several different skills but rarely does any one person know them all.” He takes a sip of tea, and I wait anxiously, barely able to sit still. “I, obviously, have trained in many fighting techniques, stealth, climbing, and disguise. Sakai… um, Mark, has trained also in stealth and fighting, but his main strength is deception which I think you will have to learn even if you think you’ll never be good at it.”

“Deception? In what way?” I set my chopsticks down and lean forward.

“Yes, for example, when Mark was younger, he was always the one who eavesdropped on meetings or gathered information from people. He was an adept spy. He was good at changing his personality (still is) and disguising himself so he could infiltrate the other clans. He used to do this to Taira and Minamoto and a few other families until he came of age to re-form Sakai clan. Before Mark, Sakai clan had no standing, Now he uses his skills to negotiate and handle disputes between the clans and our own family.”

I’m imagining Sakai as a young man, much like Jiro, doing all of these things while studying hydroponics and going out on dates. How the hell did he do all of that and not get caught?

“What do you think my strengths are?”

“Well, I’ve been thinking about our previous training sessions,” he says, pushing his empty bowl away from him and taking another sip of tea, “and it’s safe to say you’re excellent at handling a weapon.”

Looking over at Kazenoho and Oninoten on the couch, I have an incredible amount of love for two inanimate objects. Jiro follows my eyes to our swords and smiles at me. I think he feels the same way about Oninoten.

“But as an empress, you will not be able to carry Kazenoho at all public appearances. When we’re out in small groups, at meetings, and so forth, you can have it on you. If you cannot carry your sword, I can for you. For safety’s sake, I think you will need to learn another weapon as well. One not as noticeable that you can have on you at all times. You have a wakizashi as well, and we’ll use that more too. As a short sword, the blade can be wedged in cracks of buildings or walls to give you a foothold or slipped into windows or doors to pry them open. You’re so small, Sanaa, I think you’d be an excellent climber. I’ll also teach you how to walk or step in different situations so you make no noise, but we’ll probably save those skills for Yūsei.”

My heart pounds in my chest I’m so excited. A blush is rising up to my cheeks, and Jiro is smiling at it.

“I love your blush response but you will need to work with Sakai on repressing that. It completely gives you away.”

“Hmph.”

I rise from the table to pour us each some water and find a bottle of saké in the fridge. Even better. I set the saké on the table with two cups and Jiro doesn’t object. Being tired and jet-lagged, we’ll need to sleep the whole night if we’re to get back on schedule by tomorrow. A little saké will help.

“When we were in your storage area in Ku 9, I noticed other weapons in the same bin with the katanas we should retrieve. There were shuriken and other short knives I think you could work with, and I wonder how well you’d do with a shinobijō. So we’ll get you one of those too but someone else will have to teach you. In fact —”

I pour us each more saké. “What’s a shinobijō?”

He laughs as he lifts his cup. “Sorry. I sometimes forget you didn’t grow up in this world. It’s a stick or a staff. They come in two lengths, short or long, one-point-three meters or one-point-eight meters. I think the shorter version would be best for you. The shinobi version has weapons built into each end. On one end is a blade and the other has this ball and chain, but they’re made in several different fashions now. You can use the staff to fight and disarm people, use it to climb. The newer ones are hollow and have some bend to it. I’ve never been very good with the staff, but maybe you would be.”

Hmmm, sounds dangerous. I’m intrigued.

“Sanaa, this meeting with Minamoto you’re going to have soon…” His voice trails off, and he taps his fingers on the table before draining his sake.

I stop a swear. “I completely forgot. What should I do? I have no idea what I could offer Minamoto instead of bringing his son in as a consort.”

Reaching across the table, our hands meet, and I place my head down on my arm. This is such a ridiculous decision, and I’m going to be put in this situation over and over again. I’m sure of it.

“Well, I know Kentaro Minamoto. We grew up together.”

“Really? I never saw Kentaro Minamoto on surveillance, and I certainly never saw you two together.”

“Well, there’s a good reason for that. Minamoto’s desire for Kentaro to be your consort will die once Kentaro gets a good look at you. He likes blondes. I hate to admit it, but he stole the girl I proposed to, not that I care about that now.”

I pull my hand away from Jiro, press my forehead into the table, and groan.

“I forgot about the fiancée.”

“We were never engaged,” he insists. “She didn’t accept my proposal because she was sleeping with Kentaro behind my back.”

I chance to look up, and Jiro is focused on the cup on the table.

“I’m sorry.” I don’t like to see him hurting, for any reason, even this.

“Don’t apologize,” he says, his head snapping to me. “Never apologize for my stupid mistakes. Ever. Obviously, she wasn’t the right girl for me. Kentaro did me a favor.”

“Well…” I pull my confidence back in. She cheated on him? What a mistake. “You’re mine now.”

He smiles at me again, the sadness and tension melted away. “You have no idea how happy I am to hear that.” With a huge breath of relief, he looks at me steadily for a moment. “I think you should offer to take Kentaro into your entourage.”

I blink at him, dumbfounded. “Jiro…”

“You don’t have to, but if you brought him into the clan, let him stay close to you, Minamoto would consider that advantageous. Kentaro would be privy to information, a somewhat insider spy. We could choose what he would know or not know. He could even relay false information back to Minamoto.”

This seems like an idea Sakai would approve of, but the situation is complicated by this history between Jiro and Kentaro. Will they be openly hostile to each other? Kentaro’s presence will disrupt a delicate balance we’re trying to keep around here.

“I see your point,” I say, slowly, “but I don’t want some strange guy around here all the time. How could you even want that?”

“I don’t. In fact, I want you all to myself. I don’t even want to share you with Mark or Miko or your aunts, but I do because I know it’s what I have to do. I have your heart.”

“You do. It’s yours.”

“And you have mine,” he says.

My heart is breaking into tiny pieces. I want to claim Jiro, and for him to claim me, putting to rest anyone else’s ideas on my availability. When I found out all of this imperial nonsense, I felt it didn’t matter I couldn’t get married.

But now I want to.