WAP 57

“My name is Fujisawa.” He introduced himself brusquely. “The workers who you had a mob remove from my company were there on two-year contracts, paid upfront to their heads of household,” he said promptly. He had the professionalism not to look outwardly angry about it. “My required silk production has not changed, I have already paid for the labor costs, and now I have no workers. How do we solve this?”

‘Fucking hell. The kids weren’t kidnapped. The parents sold them into work and then used me to renege on the deal.’

She stared bleakly at the man. It was close, but it wasn’t quite right. She put the right pieces together a moment later.

‘Matsuda-sensei… I don’t think he knew. I think his concern was genuine. Oh, of course. The parents didn’t admit that they had sold their children’s labor because it was embarrassing. They may have intended to renege, but they might also have felt they couldn’t admit to the lie.’

“Was it you who attempted to petition Minister Tani for mediation?” Aiko asked.

He looked a little surprised that she knew. “Yes, but I was turned away, despite the fact that my contracts are with his family.”

This was a mess. Aiko looked at the situation grimly. For a moment, she thought about getting out of it by taking the stance that the parents couldn’t sell their children’s labor, but of course they could. That was their social right. It was normal and accepted, even though it was more socially acceptable to have them labor for your family. And it wasn’t like Aiko could sniff at child labor, given that she had been a child soldier.

She had fucked this up. But so had the man who turned down a meeting from the luxury goods provider living in a privileges area by his castle.

‘It’s definitely not the real Minister. He would have considered this man more pressing than entertaining shinobi guests. He knows where his money comes from and wouldn’t endanger it. The imposter… He probably didn’t want to risk making a mistake with shinobi around, so he thought to delay the problem. But Fujisawa can’t afford to wait around to see if Tani calls him back.’

“Would you escort me back to the castle?” Aiko asked. She ignored his original question. She didn’t know how this was going to be solved but it wouldn’t be out of her pockets. “It seems we have much to discuss.”

‘Mito is not going to find out,’ Aiko decided. ‘She thought I was wrong to interfere. I can’t stand to see that woman any smugger than usual.’

He assented. They walked through the town together and Aiko watched the people around them for reactions. 

People clearly noticed and wondered why they were together. They fielded a lot of glances. One woman saw them, halted, and turned around to walk down an alley.

Fujisawa snorted. “Kurusawa-san,” he said, quiet and dry. “Her daughter was in my care for 6 months.”

Aiko winced. Wow, she had fucked up.

‘This is what happens when you act like Naruto,’ she thought miserably. ‘You see an injustice and you act without enough information, and now you’ve made a bigger mess. This is why shinobi aren’t meant to be heroes.’

He was graceful enough to make his way through town with dignity, greeting those who looked at him and not confronting anyone who snubbed him. Aiko did her best to help him socially by keeping her expression pleasant.

It would be confusing for people to see them together. It might help repair the damage she had done to his reputation. 

The performance ended when they reached the town limits. Fujisawa sighed heavily and took a few moments to gather his thoughts. “This is unacceptable,” he said.

Aiko inclined her head. “I was misled and the situation is now troublesome. I will help you to find a solution.” She looked at his profile for a moment.

‘He clearly has more contact with the nobility than any other peasants around here. He might know enough to help me.’

“It must have been a surprise to be turned away by the Minister,” Aiko said finally. “You must have met him many times.”

“No, not at all,” Fujisawa admitted easily. “I have never seen his grace before. Ever since the couple returned from the capital, I have received guidance from the mountain goddess within the walls. But it is inappropriate to be anything less than formal when there are guests in the household, so the retainers would not allow me to meet with her.”

‘Senhime?’

Aiko frowned. That couldn’t be right. This was Tani’s ancestral holding. She had married in. Why would he have handed off management for it immediately? What kind of moron was that disinterested in his main source of income? Scandalized, she managed to ask, “Before that, who was your contact?”

Fujisawa gave her a bemused look. “The previous Lord Tani was Minster Tani’s father. He was a hands-on sort who met with my Father. Unfortunately, he died before I became the manager of the silk farm. Before the family returned, I sold my wares to traveling merchants directly.”

Aiko took a moment to let that information settle into place. 

‘Senhime is the brains of the operation. I knew it already, but that’s a strong indicator. It explains why I didn’t like Mito’s analysis of the family as disenfranchised. I thought they seemed well-off, hardly living in the poor country exile this was meant to be. Senhime restored the family’s financial position. If she was born a noblewoman in the capital she probably wants to return. That means being rich enough that her husband’s gaffes don’t come up again.’

Something stank here about this narrative. She sensed it but couldn’t see what it was. 

“Can you tell me about them?” Aiko kept it vague. “Anything that you know.”

“The couple and their household?” He seemed surprised by the request but amenable enough. He spent a few moments in thought before he began listing oddities. “They never take visitors. Twice, Tani relatives came to stay, and they were turned away. That was years ago, but of course no one has come since.”

What the fuck.

“That’s interesting,” Aiko managed. That was not the impression she had gotten from Senhime, but what had the lady actually said? Had she specified that turning away visitors was recent or had Aiko merely assumed?

He shot her an amused look. “There was a scandal when they originally arrived,” Fujisawa added. “They lost a member of their party on the trip from the capital.”

“Someone died?” Aiko asked sharply. If Tani had been murdered then, some retainer could have dressed in his clothes. That would be a very good reason to turn away Tani relatives.

He shook his head. “Not as I hear it. Some lady in waiting disappeared, gone to elope with her lover rather than endure a country home.”

The theory was discarded. She relaxed. “Aa,” Aiko said, prompting more.

‘For a moment I thought that Senhime was wrong and the switch happened then. Lots of noble couples barely meet before wedding, and might not even socialize outside of the bedroom. It’s very likely that she barely knew him. But that also doesn’t make sense with her story– she noticed odd behavior recently. If the impersonator got rid of Tani back then, it doesn’t fit. If she was going to notice anything at all, it would have been years ago.’

The missing lady was irrelevant, then. 

Fujisawa hummed and took a moment to rub at his face, thinking. “I heard that the lady has been craving different foods,” he offered. 

Aiko carefully didn’t react, because that was hardly a shock but it was gauche to announce other people’s pregnancies. She kept her reaction casual. “How so?”

“The lord has been out hunting in the woods around here.” Fujisawa spread an arm out. “Deer. Boar. It’s not a good place for it,” he said mildly. “Footing isn’t good for a horse. Too uneven. It’s a good way to break your neck.” He seemed bemused by the whole concept.

…It did seem like a lot of effort for an imposter to go to, but that might have been Senhime’s attempt to get him to show interest in her. He might have gone along with it because he didn’t know it was a large ask.

“That’s interesting,” Aiko told Fujisawa honestly. “Thank you for your insight.” She folded her hands into her sleeves. “I will speak with Lady Senhime as soon as I can, and I will contact you tonight.” She bowed to seal the promise. 

He seemed relieved. “I look forward to hearing from you.” His lips twitched. “I believe you know where to find me.”

Aiko didn’t look in the direction of his business, where she had recently led a mob of angry villagers. “I can find you,” she agreed serenely. “Have a pleasant afternoon.” With that she left him at the intersection and ascended the final half-kilometer pathway to the castle grounds.

It was as eerily empty as before. The outer grounds still housed samurai households and merchants, the teahouses and bathhouses and other entertainment for the nobility. But the actual grounds themselves were underpopulated.

‘It would have always been kinder to have the staff inside in the heat of the day, but I don’t think this is a decision for human welfare.’ Aiko shook her head slightly and went inside the final boundary. 

No gardeners, few guards. How many Hyuuga had been inside? Aiko forced down a laugh. It was absurd in the literal sense. For a hilarious moment she wondered if the current Minister was actually a Hyuuga– but no, that was beneath them.

The thought of him peeling off his fine silks and sneaking away in the night had Aiko wheezing. She had to veer out of the main hallway to find a dark corner to giggle in. Once she had managed to compose herself she went to the guest rooms. She had to hope that Narahime had left a message for her.

The rooms were silent. There was a letter on the table addressed to her. Aiko picked it up with one hand and peered around before reading it. The only person she found was a Senju bodyguard, one of the grim-faced men who had not been introduced to her. He saw her, grunted, and looked away.

‘Maybe I embarrassed him that day I borrowed Tobirama to help Hana.’

Whatever. She sat down and opened her letter. It was from Narahime– an invitation to have a little poetry competition in the afternoon.

Perfect. 

She took the time to bother the Senju, rapping on the door with her knuckles. “The men are hunting with Minister Tani?” Aiko confirmed. He nodded resentfully. He very obviously did not want to interact with her, but tough shit. “Mito-sama is with Senhime-sama?” 

He eked out a begrudging affirmation. He still did not look at her.

“Where are the Uchiha ladies?”

The man outright scoffed. “Ladies,” he repeated scornfully. “Those women are none of my concern.”

Her eyebrows shot way up her forehead in a way that anyone with sense would recognize meant Aiko was pissed the fuck off. This man didn’t react. 

…Because he wasn’t looking at her.

‘Well, I hate him,’ Aiko decided. She left without shutting the door, just to tick him off. She had vague plans of finding Kiroyama-san or Kaede, but they must have had the same plan. Chiaki slipped into sight from the end of the hallway and called Aiko’s name.

She stopped and waited for the other woman to catch up. “Did you have a good morning?” Aiko asked.

Chiaki hummed in the back of her throat. “It has been very interesting,” she said with deliberate vagueness. “I was approached by the head cook.” She shot Aiko a knowing glance. “She asked to be taught a fire starting jutsu, and wished to see water ninjutsu to fill a pot.”

Aiko took a moment to appreciate that problem-solving acumen. “How entertaining,” she said. “Did you humor her?”

“I cannot teach civilians Uchiha techniques,” Chiaki said dryly. “But I did demonstrate on every oven. “Perhaps you would like to help with the pots.”

Aiko shrugged and turned towards the kitchens. “Why not,” she said. It was easy for her. “What an entertaining and inexplicable request. Speaking of which, I need to meet with Senhime as soon as possible.”

“Inexplicable,” Chiaki repeated, in a tone that mostly meant, ‘it’s suspicious.’ She kept pace with Aiko. She veered close enough that Aiko looked over and up at her, registering the height difference and actually thinking about it for the first time. 

Chiaki was probably about as tall as Terumi Mei would be, nearly 175 cm. She was probably about as tall as Izuna, in fact, and had a similarly slim and strong build. If you put them both in armor, you might not know who was which. The Uchiha probably did that, in fact. That was probably why they didn’t have the same uneven population as the Senju– both their men and women died in battle, not just men.

She took a moment to wonder at that– Aiko was used to being on the lower end of female height in her time, but the average woman was a lot shorter in the warring states era. The Uchiha women all towered over the Uzumaki and Senju women in their party. Was it Uchiha genetics that had brought Konoha up? The idea tickled her. She couldn’t help but smile. 

‘It’s probably just that they feed their girls better than other groups,’ Aiko admitted internally. Senhime and Narahime were also a bit taller than the peasant and Uzumaki women, actually. Yes, it was just about food. If you didn’t encourage them to limit their food intake, women would just wind up a bit taller on average. 

‘The Uchiha are just less misogynistic than other groups. Or maybe misogynistic in a different way, I’m not sure which. They’ve clearly got at least three tracks for women– civilian, shinobi, and home guard. Oh. Shit, is that the basis for the Uchiha police force?’

That was a very interesting line of thought. It made a lot of sense– it could have been a compromise with the backwards sensibilities of the other clans in the village.

“Here we are.” 

Aiko tore herself out of her thoughts to thank Chiaki for her guidance. 

“Oh, it’s you.” The cook dropped her long chopsticks when Aiko came in. Sweaty hair was escaping the cloth tied over her hair. The Hyuuga who had told Aiko to meet his clan head was in the kitchen as well, apparently conscripted to help with lunch. He glanced over at her and then back to his work.

Maybe her work? Aiko blinked. It was definitely the same person, but they had feminine clothing now. They might be disguised as a woman, or they might have been disguised as a man before. She weighed it all for a moment, trying to remember how tall Hyuuga Karin had been to make a population-relevant comparison before she realized that, actually, she didn’t care about the gender identity of a random Hyuuga. It wasn’t relevant to her personal journey. 

She nodded at them and turned back to the cook. The stoves were full of wood that had probably taken hours to gather. Hmm. Aiko felt a little guilty that she hadn’t known to make some for the staff. But Hashirama could have done it as well.

“Please fill this with fresh water,” the cook directed. “And heat it to boiling, quickly? This root must be boiled before we can fry it to serve.” She gestured at a basket of gathered vegetable matter.

Chiaki glanced over. “Yes, it’s poisonous if you skip that,” she agreed. “Yes, I’ll heat it.” 

Aiko could do it all herself, but she kept that quiet and pointedly used hand signs to cast a water jutsu. It took less than a minute to fill all the pots, eliminating labor that would have taken a civilian hours to walk water up a mountain. Chiaki watched closely. But she didn’t comment, only heated it to boiling.

The cook said a quiet prayer. “You have my sincerest thanks,” she said, relieved. “Thank you.” 

“It’s no trouble,” Aiko assured her.