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“Fuck,” Motochika says, more to the bowl of sake than to Keiji. This is probably why, after he finishes drinking all the remaining sake in the bowl, he says it again. “Fuck.”
Now, Maeda Keiji is no stranger to the kind of troubles that drive a man to mutter obscenities into lacquered bowls, and offers Motochika the same consolation he’d give anyone else at the start. “I hear you,” he says, patting up and down Motochika’s spine like he’s coaxing the words out.
Communication is at the heart of every man’s love troubles. It’s a fact.
“I mean,” Motochika goes on, “I’ve tried everything to get through to him! Is he just not...you know, into this? I shelled Itsukushima, he just stood there. I tried shelling his people but he doesn’t care about his people, and that pisses me off like you wouldn’t believe. I tried facing him in single combat and it was going well until Kanbe piggybacked on me--and you know, Motonari treated Kanbe just the same. Kanbe!” He slams the now empty sake bowl onto the table loud enough to rattle the rest of the wine service. “He barely knows Kanbe. Kanbe just dragged himself up the hull this year! I’ve been working on this rivalry for almost a decade!”
Keiji nods considerately and reaches for more sake to pour. Clearly this is a five-bowl problem. “So you’re trying to make Motonari hate you?”
“Tch. At this point I’m convinced he doesn’t know what hate is.”
“You could try love,” Keiji says once he’s finished pouring. “Maybe he doesn’t hate you enough because he respects you too much.”
Motochika doesn’t drink. In fact, he glares at Keiji like Keiji’s speaking Dutch.
“This is Mori Motonari we’re talking about,” Motochika says. “Respect is a dirty word.”
“Are you trying to get him to respect you?” Keiji asks. As long as Motochika’s waiting to drink, he’ll pour another bowl for himself too. “Seems to me that bombing Itsukushima isn’t the way to get him to do it.”
Motochika chuckles and raises his bowl. “You’re right,” he says, “I need to think bigger.”
Keiji drinks his sake, purses his lips a little too much to work around the pleasant burn. “If you want to make a grand gesture that’ll get his attention, think of the things he cares about! I mean, yeah, it’s Motonari, but he does care about a some things.”
“Yeah,” Motochika says, “the sun, the sun, and the sun.” He drinks, then chokes when laughter starts while he’s mid-gulp. “I have to take out his Solar Nexus!”
“That’s great,” Keiji’s about to say, but that’s more instinct and sake than anything else. “Wait, what?”
“You’re the best at this, Keiji!” Motochika toasts, then drops his bowl back onto the table with undeniable vigor. “He’ll have to hate me if I ruin that. And I’ve got the blueprints for the perfect siege engine! I’ll get started right now.”
Well, Keiji was right that this was a five-bowl problem. But he’s not sure what he solved.
He’ll think about it after bowl number six.
***
“So what brings you to Oshu?” Kojuro asks, once he’s handed off the reins of Keiji’s horse to the nearest stablehand.
“Oh, you know,” Keiji says, “just passing through on my way to Echigo. And I figured I’d check up on the One-Eyed Dragon.”
Kojuro scoffs, the way that most people would smile. “I warn you, Lord Masamune isn’t in the best mood.”
“Aw. So I’ll try and cheer him up a little. Got any idea what’s bothering him?”
“He just returned from Kai.”
Oh, love troubles then! “My specialty,” Keiji says with a little bow. Yumekichi does the same, then hops down onto the porch of the main house and scuttles off. “Mind if I--”
“You know your way around,” Kojuro says. “Just be careful.”
“That bad, huh.”
Kojuro gives him a look that makes the silliness of that question immediately clear.
“Right. All tiptoes!”
He finds Masamune in one of the central courtyards, shadowboxing--though it can’t precisely be called shadowboxing if you’re doing it with six swords. Shadow-slicing, maybe, and between the speed of his strikes and the spit on his bared teeth those shadows are nothing but shadowy ribbons now.
“Need a hand?” Keiji asks, and uncouples his sword from his back.
Masamune smirks, though Keiji knows that tinge of bitterness when he sees it. “Why the hell not,” he says. “If Sanada Yumikura can do it, so can I.”
Wait. “If Yukimura can what?”
Masamune hacks another invisible mook into invisible chunks. “He swore to hunt down Ieyasu.” And another. “He swore he’d never ally with Ieyasu.” And another--no, that’s Crazy Stream, that’s about forty mooks. “And he’s got the nerve to say he doesn’t know what he’s doing.”
“Man,” Keiji whistles. “That’s rough. And you and Ieyasu are so close--”
“That son of a bitch is trying to move in on my rivalry!” Wow. If there had been a soldier standing there he’d be fried like a lightning tree about now. “Red says it’s just platonic. I call bullshit. Sanada Yukimura wouldn’t know platonic if it bit him on the ass.”
“So just talk to Ieyasu,” Keiji says. He leans on his sword, as long as he’s not using it. Besides, Masamune’s tearing up the field out there. “Ieyasu loves to talk, and he doesn’t lie. I’m sure he can explain everything.”
Masamune sheaths his swords three at a time--somehow--and keeps his back to Keiji. “You don’t get it, do you.”
“Well, I might not, but if two close friends are fighting and you’re stuck in the middle, I know a little about--”
“Nice try, Maeda Keiji.” Masamune turns around, stalks past Keiji into the house. “This ain’t about friends.”
***
“I had no idea Masamune was angry with me,” Ieyasu says, kicking his heel absently against the cliffside.
Mikatagahara isn’t exactly on the way to Echigo, so Keiji had to come up with an excuse. Then again, it might have been easier to find Ieyasu afield, because he’s always afield these days. Keiji’s got to say, he has some respect for the Tokugawa mission, but it smacks of saying one thing and doing another and he’d rather not get involved just yet.
“Yeah,” Keiji says. “Surprised me too. Especially when he started getting into why.”
“Oh? He told you?”
“He thinks you’re moving in on the Tiger of Kai.”
Ieyasu looks about five years younger when his eyes go that wide. “He--truly? Oh, no wonder! Honestly, I can understand his concern, but I would never take his cherished rival from him. And certainly not Yukimura. I like Yukimura. I wish he liked me.”
“So Masamune’s not teed off at you for fighting with Yukimura?”
“No, he is.” Ieyasu smiles. “But I’m not certain you understand why.”
“At this point, I’m not sure about anything,” Keiji admits.
“Masamune thinks I am trying to usurp his place in Yukimura’s heart. I would never. The bonds between cherished rivals are some of the strongest of all. I wouldn’t take something like that from as dear a friend as Masamune.”
“So Masamune hates Yukimura, and that’s important to you?” This stacks up with what Motochika was going on about back in Shikoku, and trying to get Motonari to hate him more, but it’s still...weird.
“It’s important, but I wouldn’t call it hatred. Neither would you, to look at Masamune and Yukimura. They’re competitive, and they’re irreconcilable, but the bond between them is one of mutual respect and admiration, and inspiration to be better warriors. To be frank, I envy them that. Their bond may even be stronger than the one between Lord Kenshin and Lord Shingen.”
“Huh.” Keiji thinks about it a minute, fidgets with the flower in his hair. The wind up here is pretty strong. Some petals might be missing. “I thought what Lord Kenshin and Lord Shingen had was special.”
“It is,” Ieyasu agrees. “So why shouldn’t Yukimura and Masamune emulate it?”
“So this whole rivalry thing is going around.”
“Yes, and I’m glad of it. As Lord Shingen himself would say, these are troubled times. We must forge what bonds we can while remaining true to ourselves!”
Keiji grits his teeth. Not that Ieyasu’s being true to himself these days, but, again, it’s not Keiji’s place to say. “And just about everyone’s got a rival now, huh.”
“Indeed. Or are trying to forge that bond, at least. Some are more successful than others. But those who do find their rivals are truly blessed. Tadakatsu visited his rival when we mounted the southern campaign.”
“Wait, Tadakatsu?”
“Indeed. He and Yoshihiro had a magnificent fight and then went fishing.”
“--Fishing?”
“Tadakatsu was somewhat rusty, but he’ll do better next time.”
“Fishing,” Keiji repeats. “I can see it.”
“Good. Yukimura and Masamune are the same. They fight, and there is no clear victor, but they have other pursuits that they mutually enjoy and they take pleasure in that competition as well.”
“I know. I’ve been to Kai when both of them are there.” He thought it was a little more straightforward than that, but then, oh Lord Masamune, the fire of my soul is bursting forth, I feel as though I shall burn from the inside out can be taken multiple ways now that Keiji thinks about it.
Ieyasu smiles brightly and stands up from the cliffside to stretch. The setting sun glints off his knuckles. He probably planned that. Sometimes Keiji wonders if Hidey--no, not going there. “I will apologize to Masamune when I see him in Oshu,” Ieyasu says. “I’m sure that Yukimura is only enacting Lord Shingen’s will in opposing me and that he means nothing by it, and Masamune has no reason to be jealous. Thank you for telling me, Keiji.”
“Sure.” Keiji scratches the back of his neck. “Anything in the name of peace.”
“Speaking of peace,” Ieyasu says, and oh no, now we’re getting into politics and Keiji’s not sure he can handle this right now, “are you here as an envoy of Lord Kenshin, or--”
At the base of the cliffs, a bloodcurdling scream rings out and echoes on the rock face. “IIIIEEEEYAAAASUUUUUUUU!”
“--I must leave,” Ieyasu says, backpedaling from the cliff’s edge. “I apologize.”
Right. “Cherished rival?”
“Perhaps someday,” Ieyasu says, with an almost embarrassed cast across his cheeks. “How is my hair?”
“Pointy,” Keiji says.
***
“Indeed,” Yukimura says--well, shouts, “I consider it the most fortunate meeting of my life!”
“But you’re friends,” Keiji says.
“We are more than that, Lord Keiji! Lord Masamune is my most--”
“--cherished rival, yeah, I know. Sorry.” Keiji grimaces, and Yumekichi chirps,bows his head in a more thorough apology than Keiji can muster just now. “But why don’t you talk this rivalry out?”
“We have,” Yukimura says. His voice doesn’t get any softer when he’s confused. His throat must go through as much training as the rest of his body. Keiji imagines Lord Shingen, demanding that the boy drown out the very thunder so that his voice may be heard over the clanging of the armies of Takeda. It’s way too easy to picture. “Lord Masamune and I have discussed how well-matched our spirits are, and neither of us desires anything more than to strengthen those spirits until one day, one of us emerges victorious!”
Keiji blinks. “But you’re friends.”
“Yes! Precisely!”
“You like spending time together.”
“It is my greatest pleasure! And I hope that Lord Masamune feels the same.”
“You have sex really loudly.”
“Yes! Indeed!” Yukimura doesn’t even blush at the thought. Wow, he’s much less awkward about sex than he was when he hadn’t had it yet. “It is another battlefield, and I strive to overcome him there as well.”
“So you think about sex like fighting?”
“...you mean, it’s not?”
If Keiji could see his own face right now, that look Kojuro gives--the your idiocy is lethal to yourself and those around you look--would be reflected back at him.
Yukimura doesn’t seem to be seeing it, though. “I can imagine that, were I to take a wife as you suggest, Lord Keiji, it would be ungentlemanly to think of it as fighting, because to fight with one’s wife is truly dishonorable! --Not that I intend to disparage Lord Toshiie and Lady Matsu.”
“They don’t fight in bed,” Keiji says. “At least, I hope not.”
“I am grateful for the assurance. But with my treasured rival, it would be just as dishonorable to expect him not to fight me when we are also making love! Lord Masamune is my cherished rival! I have lain with others, and I have fought with others, but not at the same time! It is a privilege he showed me, and one we cannot share!”
Keiji doesn’t know which is more disturbing: how frankly Yukimura is discussing sex (only because he’s Yukimura), or that he is discussing how precious it is to beat the crap out of his best friend while they are having sex.
Yumekichi chirrs, sidles over to Yukimura and sits on his thigh. Yukimura pets the monkey on the head with a fond, fetching smile.
Keiji gives up. “You know,” he starts, “when I passed through Oshu a few weeks ago, Masamune seemed to have called your...uh, I guess it still counts as fidelity--into question.”
“He what?”
“He thinks Ieyasu’s putting the moves on you. I mean. In the rival sense, I guess.”
“I would never allow such a thing!” Yukimura swings his balled fists at the floor for emphasis, thankfully missing Yumekichi. “I merely dislike Ieyasu! I don’t hold the same fond feelings for him within my soul! Lord Masamune is my only cherished rival, the only one who ignites this passion within me and the only man upon this earth with whom I wish to share it!”
“You could tell Masamune that,” Keiji says. “I think he’d appreciate it.”
“Very well! Then I will make for Oshu at once, and express my intentions!” Yukimura springs to his feet--Yumekichi jumps off his thigh and lands on Keiji’s ponytail--and makes for the door, goodbyes and thank-yous on his lips, audible all the way from here to the stables and, possibly, to the edge of Takeda territory.
“Phew,” Sasuke says, emerging from the shadows in a coil of smoke. “I owe you one.”
“Sometimes it takes an outsider, I guess,” Keiji sighs.
“Yeah, and thanks for sending him to Oshu instead of sending Masamune here,” Sasuke adds, perching on one leg like a crane. “I could use the sleep.”
In which case, Keiji will avoid Oshu on the way back to Echigo. Kojuro’s not going to be pleased with the noise either. “Sasuke,” Keiji says, “do you get this whole rivalry thing?”
Sasuke shrugs. “I think Kasuga might be into it, and I’d go there if she let me, but mostly I just want to touch her tits.”
“I can appreciate that,” Keiji says.
“And maybe turn a waterwheel in there,” Sasuke adds. “You know, get between ‘em and--”
“Keep trying,” Keiji says. “Love will find a way!”
“I sure hope so.”
***
“Fuck,” Motochika says, and then again, “fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.”
“Big bro!” several crew members wail, in various stages of grief.
“I missed something,” Keiji says.
“Not your fault,” Motochika says, waving a brimming bowl of sake in one hand. Looks like he’s already decided this was a five-bowl problem. Maybe an eight-bowl problem. “Not your fault, Keiji. It almost worked. I broke the nexus. He’s still an unfeeling bastard. Can’t expect--” he hiccups. “--any more from Mori Motonari. Well Mori Motonari can kiss my broadside!”
“Big bro!” the crew wails, or cheers, or both.
Motochika joins those cheers by downing whatever is left in this bowl. Streams of sake trickle down his jaw. He hasn’t shaved in a couple of days. “I mean, what do I have to do, block out the damn sun?”
Cicadas chirp. Engines whirl. The sea churns, and the tide washes up and down the shore.
“That’s right,” Motochika says a moment later, grinning as bright and mad as the moon. He whirls his anchor off his back and throws the sake bowl down to the sand. “All right, you sons of bitches! Everyone, follow me to the workroom! We’re gonna block out the sun!”
“Big bro!” everyone cheers.
“Holy shit,” Keiji says. “What did I do?”
***
It is a long ride from Shikoku to Kawanakajima; long, but peaceful. The boat ride was pleasant enough, partly since the Chosokabe pirates were occupied building things, and now Keiji rides north through the changing climate, through fields whose battles are over at least for now. Grass grows, and flowers bloom, and a cool autumn wind blows from the east--
--carrying screams of “IIIEEEYAAASUUUUUU!” with it.
Keiji tugs on the reins too fast for his horse’s taste. No, there’s no mistaking it. No one else in Japan, except Yukimura, has a set of lungs that powerful. And Yukimura would never sound so...sultrily hateful.
A few minutes later, when Keiji has gotten his horse to a trot again, an engine rumbles, and a red and gold and silver spark appears on the eastern horizon. Sure enough, Tadakatsu flies by, and swoops overhead, landing with Ieyasu a short way up the road.
“Keiji,” Ieyasu says, a little breathless and distressed. “How wonderful to see you again!”
He pulls down his hood. There are hickeys on his jaw. And claw marks on his stomach. And his rope-belt is only half-knotted and dangling shapelessly at his side. And his hair is less pointy.
“Evening,” Keiji says. “I guess I shouldn’t ask if you’re okay.”
“Never better!” Ieyasu tilts back his head and laughs, far deeper than he has any right to. “I thought you had gone back to Echigo.”
“Going to Kawanakajima now,” Keiji says. “Is it safe?”
Ieyasu smiles. “Yes. I assure you that the grudge Mitsunari bears is for me alone. You’ll be fine if you run across him.”
“That’s good to know.” And really damn awkward.
“Tadakatsu and I will escort you, if you like. I have business in the area as well.”
“No, I think I can stick it alone, heh heh, don’t worry about me!”
“All right. Perhaps it is best if we paid another visit to the south, then.”
Keiji nods. “Fishing?”
Tadakatsu turns a few gears, loudly, and extends his arms. Nets protrude from them, large enough to capture a whole school of fish.
“He will not be outdone this time,” Ieyasu translates.
“Right,” Keiji says.
***
“Keiji,” Kenshin says, over a steaming kettle of strong tea, “surely it is not as unimaginable as that.”
“It’s not that it’s unimaginable,” Keiji says, and then thanks Kenshin once the tea is poured. “I can imagine it well enough. I mean, you and Lord Shingen--he’s hanging in there, by the way, and sends his regards--you and Lord Shingen are one in a million. I thought what you two have is kind of tragic, actually. You’re friends. You’d be friends even if you weren’t rivals. And it’s kind of unfortunate that you have to be rivals, because your people depend on you and want to be different. It doesn’t mean you have to fight, right?”
“Keiji, we fight because we want to.” Kenshin lifts the teacup, takes a long slow sip. “And thank you for bearing the news.”
“Of course.”
“Shingen and I have immense respect for one another,” Kenshin explains, glancing out at the drift of mountain snow. “When we were young, we showed it by not holding back, by trusting each other to fight with everything. It is vulnerable, Keiji, as vulnerable as making love. To fight as Shingen and I do is to let one another into our hearts.”
“But couldn’t you do that as lovers?”
Kenshin’s smile is taut and enigmatic, a curve of lips and eyebrows and only the faintest flash of teeth. “I suppose we could, if not for our people. Shingen’s commitment to the people of Kai is the same as mine to Echigo. My people want to prosper, the same as his. Second, Shingen and I wish to fight. We love to match ourselves against one another, in battle and in duels. We wouldn’t continue to do it if we didn’t enjoy it. And third, I am going to win. I, and the people of Echigo, will conquer all of Japan. And Shingen will resist, because he too believes that he will be a conqueror. But when, after the last battle, he kneels before me and cannot fight anymore, he will look upon all I have wrought and have no regrets. And neither shall I, should his wishes come to pass--though I can assure you, they will not.”
Keiji grits his teeth and sips his tea. “So that’s how it is, huh.”
“Indeed. And it is unfortunate for you, not for us. Perhaps if Hideyoshi had not been killed the way he was, you and he would have come to know the same.”
The tea sticks in Keiji’s throat and he comes up coughing steam. “H--Hideyoshi?!”
“Am I wrong?”
“I think so, uh, with all due respect, Lord Kenshin. Hideyoshi and I were friends! Just friends! I mean, I disagreed with him, and the way things turned out, but I don’t want to fight him. I didn’t want to fight him. I wanted to stop him and for things to go back to the way they were.”
“And he wanted the opposite,” Kenshin says. “I see. Though it is true that a rivalry could have grown, if it’s not what both of you desire, it would bear no fruit at all.”
“Right,” Keiji says, and sets his teacup down.
“So,” Kenshin says, and refills the cup, “I want you to pay a visit to the Saika faction for me and enlist their aid.”
“Of course! Glad to be of service!” And it will be good to not think about rivals and their drama for a good long while.
***
Saika Magoichi has the most fabulous ass in all of Japan.
Also, her guns are amazing.
And accurate.
And she commands her men with such ease and economy and wow did she just shoot the flower out of Keiji’s hair and and yeah. Yeah.
Maeda Keiji is in love.
***
“You’ve gotta invade her land,” Masamune says. “I’ll even lend you a couple of my men since you haven’t got any of your own. Take her stronghold, fight her for it, and bam. Party time.”
“But I don’t want to invade her land,” Keiji says.
“Indeed not!” Yukimura says. “Lord Keiji, you must issue her an honorable challenge to single combat!”
“Look, I don’t want to fight her at all,” Keiji says.
Motochika nods, pumps his fist in the air. “Not yet anyway. You should take your own advice. Go after what she cares about. Money, right? Money and her social standing. Get together a corps of your own and steal her jobs until she’s poor, then she’ll have to fight you!”
“Guys. Guys, I don’t want to fight her.”
All three of them give Keiji the Kojuro look. (Masamune’s one-eyed version is better than Motochika’s, probably because he’s got years of experience.)
“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Masamune says.
“I mean it!” Keiji sweeps out his hands to emphasize the point. “I just want to have sex with her. And protect her and serve her and support her ideals and make her happy.”
...he’s speaking Dutch again, isn’t he. Maybe Portuguese. Maybe he shouldn’t have passed through Hetsugigawa on the way home. His name might be something like Maeda Coffeepot without him even knowing it.
“That’s fucked up,” Masamune says.
***
A scream rings through the moonless night.
”IIIIIIEEEEEYAAAAASUUUUUUUUUU!”
It startles the fish out of Tadakatsu’s net.
“Bad luck,” Yoshihiro says.
Tadakatsu grinds his gears and produces a manual fishing pole.
“That’s better,” Yoshihiro says. “No cheating this time!”
“Why is this my life?” Keiji groans into the nearest geyser.