WAP ch 11

CHAPTER 11

‘I must have lost my mind.’ She should have felt panicked, or been in disbelief that the Priestess could survive a beheading. Instead all Mayumi felt was fierce determination and a cruel amusement.

The Daimyo had chosen very poorly.

‘There is no way for this to end that does not involve the Daimyo’s death. She won’t suffer this insult.’

It had been a very long time since Mayumi had followed someone else’s orders, but there was no other way to describe what she did. She helped the female acolyte who was not heavily pregnant back to the shrine and searched out the seals that the Priestess described. Mayumi began unsealing them. The opulence took her breath away. Seal after seal revealed yards of gleaming silk, of fine cotton, of jewelry and bells and finery that the Daimyo’s wife didn’t own. She ran a hand over the exorbitant display in disbelief. The making was so fine. It had been made by human hands?

In the small quiet part of her heart, Mayumi felt something shift. The ridiculous question that she’d been weighing was answered. Was Aiko-sama a shinobi or a goddess? Both, she felt. No human had belongings like this. It was unthinkable. Perhaps the goddess was a rejected patron of the Uzumaki, cast from the ocean upwind and inland. It would explain her fine, foreign features, the way she spoke, and the eerie perfection of her work in contrast with the heat of her personality. She had snarled when Mayumi had hinted at an association with that clan, but her seals had that characteristic look.

“What’s this?” the acolyte sounded overwhelmed at the items that Mayumi was sorting and collecting into a pile.

Mayumi glanced down at the accessory. “A hiōgi,” she explained without feeling. “A large fan, used for hiding one’s face. Court ladies are not allowed to look at men.”

The girl made a strange expression and carefully opened it, comparing the size to her head.

Mayumi selected an outfit, choosing 10 layers for junihitoe that matched the season. The girl ran off with her burden. Dressing the Priestess in the woods.. It seemed like something from a tale.

‘Will anyone believe me?’

She went to her clan compound quickly, full of determination.

It would be hard to explain. It would be difficult to believe if you had not seen the Priestess. Mayumi had told people, of course, but it was different to see her.

She blew through the gates, ignoring the curiosity on her guards’ faces. Marumaru raised his great shaggy head to watch her pass and blinked away the sleep in the elder’s eyes. She gave him a respectful nod but kept moving, to the shed where her clan stored something they needed only rarely for travel to the Capital and when they wed someone of high status outside of the clan.

Mayumi threw open the door and blew away dust, letting the daylight shine fiercely on the wooden box that laid on two long, thick poles.

Her husband sidled up to her shoulder and laid a chin on her shoulder. “Are you making a trip?” He asked, amused. He nipped at her ear before she could answer.

She swatted him away with a hand. “I’m not going to be the one riding in it,” she said. “I’m lending it out.” She looked at her husband and wondered if she should try to prepare him. “To the Priestess.”

Ude blew air at her. “You need people to carry? Is she going to apologize to the Daimyo?”

His voice was much more serious than she usually liked. He liked the priestess too. She never would have gone to meet Aiko-sama if her husband hadn’t told her that she was interesting.

Mayumi nodded. And then she laughed at the second part of the question. “She won’t be apologizing.” There was no way to adequately explain the dark amusement in her voice. She rolled the door the rest of the way open and then gestured to the clan members who had come to put their noses into her affairs. “I’ll need help, but only to the downstream village. You can decide to come home or continue on from there.”

It would be a lot faster to go with 4 shinobi attendants than with her and the 3 acolytes, but there was only so much that Mayumi could ask of her people.

Her husband nodded his agreement, solid as ever. He barely glanced at the nosy bastards as he placed himself at one of the four ends of the carrying poles. “Kibana, Tsume, Hira,” he barked out. “You have free time.”

Mayumi had intended to carry a corner herself, however… She nodded and tapped her fingers against his shoulder in thanks. If 4 came with, there were better odds of enough clansmen agreeing to go on the Capital. She knew she could count on her husband. So she only needed two of the other three to hold their steel when they saw the Priestess’s state.

The travel to the bloody clearing was quick. She could tell when her clansmen caught wind of the blood. Mayumi met their eyes steadily and continued on. It stank. It was a body’s lifeblood. Never mind that that she didn’t have her head, it was a miracle that the Priestess could move after losing all of that. The male acolyte had been tasked with winding clean bandages around the stump of her neck to stem the loss, but it was still horrific.

She held up a hand to order her people to stop. “Wait,” Mayumi ordered. “I need to check if she’s decent.” She strode ahead to see how well peasants had done with dressing a Priestess in the robes of a princess.

The fundamentals were fine. Mayumi used her hands to smooth the back to fall more elegantly over the thin cord of an obi that this fashion called for. Aiko-sama truly looked like a spirit.

“You can come,” she called out.

It took mere seconds for her nosy bastards to trip into the clearing and lay eyes on the Priestess.

Mayumi knew her face was hard as she made the introductions.

Hira’s honest face dropped in shock. Kibana raised her hands to dispel a genjutsu, eyes wide in wonder. Tsume cursed, which rather ruined the dignity. Mayumi knew she scowled terribly at them. At least the Priestess couldn't hear it.

Ude’s face was impassive. Even she couldn’t read it.

“Will they help?” The pregnant acolyte asked, face guarded. She had gone to clean her face and hands in the river, but her clothes were ruined with blood.

Mayumi raised a hand palm upwards in a silent question. “If they do not, we four will carry her.”

All four of her people zeroed in on the enormous belly of the girl who’d asked and then to Mayumi’s face in exasperated disbelief.

She didn’t back down. It would be terrible to bring these civilians to the capital, of course. Aiko-sama undoubtedly had bloody intentions. But she didn’t serve their innocence. “You don’t have to help,” Mayumi repeated. She took the Priestess by the hand and led her to the transport box. The elegance with which she managed to walk without a head was truly otherworldly. She folded herself in, which was a difficult test of agility for anyone wearing so many layers.

“I don’t want to waste much time. I’m fairly certain that if you go, you’ll get to see a goddess strike down the Daimyo.” Mayumi raised an eyebrow and laid her hand on the door. “Will you come?”

There was a weighty silence as her clansmen considered what they had seen. Mayumi cleared her voice. “Will you come?” she repeated. She didn’t turn to see what they felt. She was afraid of what they would think.

“Where are we going?” said a new voice.

Mayumi went still. Carefully, controlled, she reached inside and urgently tapped on the Priestess’s hand, leading it to open the fan. It snapped open and the Priestess lifted it to cover where her face should be. Only then did Mayumi turn to see the interloper.

Her lips opened to snarl, and then she straightened them to a smile as she pretended not to recognize that the young man in front of her with a large bottle of alcohol was a godsdamned Uchiha. “We are taking the Priestess to the Daimyo,” she said, thinking furiously.

‘He’s distinctive. Memorable. More memorable than my people.’

It might not hurt to have another clan to blame for what may happen at that Daimyo’s court.

He made a polite sound and looked at the assembled group. 3 civilians and 5 shinobi. The calculation happened quickly in his dark eyes. His horrible little face smoothed out into a police facade that she knew and hated. “What a coincidence,” he said mildly. “I came to speak with her.”

The heavily pregnant acolyte turned red with fury.

“She will not speak with anyone else until after she has spoken with the Daimyo,” Mayumi said. She slid the door shut, protecting the Priestess from being seen. She made it sound a little mystical and less factual. “Carry her and she might see you in good favor.”

The bastard eyed all of them, false cheer still on his face like an idiot. “I would be delighted to,” he said. The lie couldn’t be heard. He offered his sake to the woman who seemed to somehow hate him on a personal level. “Would you take my present to the Priestess’s home?”

She stepped forward stiffly and accepted it. No one mentioned the blood on her front.

“Are we all going?” the Uchiha asked, no doubt wanting better odds in case it came to a fight.

“We only need four,” Mayumi said mildly. “Myself, of course.”

“And myself,” her husband stepped in quickly.

Hira and Kibana opened their mouths, but Tsume beat them to claiming the last spot.

“Lovely,” said the Uchiha, either not noticing or not commenting on a whole human’s lifeblood on the ground of the clearing. “Shall we be off, then?”