CHAPTER 26
The Uchiha arrived first, but they didn’t do it like any well-adjusted ninja Aiko had ever heard of. Clanking heralded their arrival. The sounds of men marching in heavy metal armor echoed through the maze of trees when they were at least a kilometer away.
Aiko tried not to let her judgment show on her face as the standard bearer came into view.
His face was mostly hidden, but he stopped in his tracks for a second when he saw her.
She crossed her arms. The...
2023-10-24 21:01:01 +0000 UTC
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CHAPTER 21
The siblings found the buffet in short order and started to fill up the tiny paper plates. Between the three of them, it was like a flock of crows had descended. Two women with superpowered appetites and a teenage boy could do real damage to a hotel spread.
Of fucking course she got a call from work first thing after they sat down.
‘It’s Saturday morning. What is wrong with him? Does the government not know about the 5 day workweek yet?’
Ji Mi...
2023-10-22 21:01:01 +0000 UTC
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The Uchiha arrived first, but they didn’t do it like any well-adjusted ninja Aiko had ever heard of. Clanking heralded their arrival. The sounds of men marching in heavy metal armor echoed through the maze of trees when they were at least a kilometer away.
Aiko tried not to let her judgment show on her face as the standard bearer came into view.
His face was mostly hidden, but he stopped in his tracks for a second when he saw her.
She crossed her arms. Then she uncrossed t...
2023-10-17 20:59:00 +0000 UTC
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CHAPTER 37
Vivian watched the Queen Presumptive from beneath her lashes as the other woman concentrated on her calligraphy. Vivian kept her hands neatly in her lap. Perfect in discipline and patience, she did not move an unnecessary muscle as she waited for the royal orders that would get her out of camp and her decoys into different keeps on military lockdown for the war.
“May I enter?” came from the entrance of the tent.
She didn’t turn to look. Vivan focused on the ...
2023-10-15 19:00:01 +0000 UTC
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CHAPTER 25
“Priestess,” Hana said slowly, “He cannot be that frightening.”
“You have described a strange person, but not a dangerous person,” Fumiko added. She looked up from her needlework project for a moment to cast a tired look at all the people gathered in the shrine.
“I could kill him if it makes you feel better.”
Aiko pointed at Kakuzu with her hand. “There’s something to that idea,” she said. Although something about the idea of sendi...
2023-10-10 21:59:01 +0000 UTC
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CHAPTER 20
Min Joon didn’t have much packing to do, since he hadn’t brought anything but his school bag when he’d fled with Issa. He basically had to grab his new toothbrush and razor from the bathroom. He followed Ji Min and Ari around the apartment like a little ghost. At one point he drifted off to watch Ari as Ji Min ruthlessly tossed her dressers for a functional wardrobe and anything she might want to pawn.
That was when Issa sidled over and asked, sotto voice, “Do y...
2023-10-08 22:00:01 +0000 UTC
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“Priestess,” Hana said slowly, “He cannot be that frightening.”
“You have described a strange person, but not a dangerous person,” Fumiko added. She looked up from her needlework project for a moment to cast a tired look at all the people gathered in the shrine.
“I could kill him if it makes you feel better.”
Aiko pointed at Kakuzu with her hand. “There’s something to that idea,” she said. Although something about the idea of sending Kakuzu to assassina...
2023-10-03 21:59:00 +0000 UTC
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CHAPTER 36
“Where are we going?” rang in Kian’s ear more than it really deserved to. The prince’s voice was grating. He couldn’t stand to be quiet for a few minutes, could he?
Kian forced down the urge to outright growl. He stared forward for another few seconds, buying time to choke down his temper. His voice was as mild as manners when he said, "We are going to retrieve something from Hartsbluff."
‘I will not let him know that he vexes me. This spoiled brat...
2023-10-02 03:59:01 +0000 UTC
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CHAPTER 24
“Priestess,” he said, and she shut her mouth. “I am very interested in peace with the Uchiha. I want that to work. I am disinterested in the waste of life and effort that is involved in conflict. However, it is difficult to end the course that we are now on. I can affect it, but I alone cannot order a stop to something that my clan believes to be necessary.”
Aiko nodded her understanding. She didn’t speak, waiting for him to go on.
He leaned in towards h...
2023-09-26 19:00:02 +0000 UTC
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They played a few rounds together. Ji Min meant to relax, but she couldn’t stop checking over her family and making sure that they were really there in the room. Ari tolerated it patiently, although she gave Ji Min a pointed look every time that she caught Ji Min at it.
Min Joon got squirrely from the cumulative attention. Eventually, he put down his controller at the end of a round and cleared his throat.
All three women looked at him immediately. It made Ji Min feel a little b...
2023-09-25 01:00:01 +0000 UTC
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Oh. Aiko resisted the desire to cross her arms. It would look too defensive. “I better appreciate your concerns,” she said slowly. “I imagine that taking my word for the matter would not satisfy your clan.”
“A lack of trust in you is not the issue, Priestess,” he reassured, without actually claiming that anyone trusted her. Because of course they didn’t. She was best known for her ambiguously defined role in the Daimyo dropping dead and his court being too scared to claim ...
2023-09-19 21:59:01 +0000 UTC
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CHAPTER 35
“I didn’t expect to see you back so soon.” Duke Harrod offered his stepson a smile. He was sitting at some old desk, lovingly maintained and high quality.
Kian inclined his head. He knew bait when he heard it.
Without his payoff, the Duke prodded a little harder. His eyes were warm and amused when he said, without any particular inflection, “I had thought that the Princess would keep you by her side for longer. She seems fond of you.”
“Not any fo...
2023-09-17 22:07:01 +0000 UTC
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She hated to have the thought because it was a lazy comparison, but Hashirama reminded her of a tree. He was absolutely huge. And his hair was quite brown, too, which added to the general impression of the man as he stood straight and still in his dark brown formal clothes and watched her impassively.
'Why does the guy named 'pillar' have the exact build of one? He could quit the Shinobi thing and professionally hold up ceilings.'
She had been led to the middle of the Sen...
2023-09-12 20:00:01 +0000 UTC
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CHAPTER 18
The next thing that Ji Min did of any note that Friday was her long-awaited meeting with the other cat burglar. She had a thrill in her chest as she made her way across town that it was finally happening. She stashed all of her luggage in a train station locker and made the final leg on foot.
She felt vaguely guilty for being so excited. She should resent the detour. It was the only errand standing in the way of her going home.
'But she paid for my hotel,...
2023-09-10 21:02:01 +0000 UTC
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She hated to think it because it was a lazy comparison, but Hashirama reminded her of a tree. He was absolutely huge.
'Why does the guy named 'pillar' have the exact build of one? He could quit the Shinobi thing and professionally hold up ceilings.'
She had been led to the middle of the Senju compound. The streets were eerily empty. She could only assume that people had been told to go indoors to avoid her. The clan head was the only person waiting outside for her.
Aik...
2023-09-06 09:00:02 +0000 UTC
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CHAPTER 34
Rose was going to go on ahead and assume that things were going to go well with Kian and Marcel. Why shouldn’t they? She bustled out of her tent en route to the three remaining prisoners. She had to see them for herself. She needed to know that she hadn’t lost control of her leverage over Marcel and the witnesses to her treason.
‘I should have checked on them earlier. What if Father gave orders that were already acted on? They could be miles away by now. They ...
2023-09-03 23:00:01 +0000 UTC
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CHAPTER 22
As soon as Madara was out of earshot, Izuna dropped part of the cheerful facade. "You wish to prevent the battle?" He was serious, but his eyes were soft. All his focus was on her. It was a heady feeling.
She stopped walking to give him her full attention. "I should try," she said.
Izuna's eyes softened. "It's admirable. But they will not listen to reason." He reached out towards her sleeve and then pulled his hand back before he could touch her.
Aiko follow...
2023-08-30 00:00:01 +0000 UTC
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CHAPTER 17
It was dark by the time that she ditched the car at the rental agency, one of those short winter days that always tugged her mood down. The walk back to the hotel was much slower than she'd taken it in the morning.
Ji Min felt tired. Not physically tired, but worn out in a way she couldn't put a finger on.
There was so much to do.
She used the walk to sort out her thoughts and priorities. She absolutely needed to have a call with her siblings tonight, if the...
2023-08-27 21:59:01 +0000 UTC
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As soon as Madara was out of earshot, Izuna dropped part of the cheerful façade. "You wish to prevent the battle?" He was serious, but his eyes were soft. All his focus was on her. It was a heady feeling.
She stopped walking to give him her full attention. "I should try," she said.
Izuna's eyes softened. "It's admirable. But they will not listen to reason." He reached out towards her sleeve and then pulled his hand back before he could touch her.
Aiko followed the m...
2023-08-22 22:00:02 +0000 UTC
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2023-08-22 08:43:39 +0000 UTC
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CHAPTER 33
It boiled his blood to see the city in the hands of invaders. Marcel gritted his teeth through the feeling. That square? He'd played there often as a child, when he'd been traveling away from the capital city. It was now smoking.
He forced himself to look at it directly. They'd dug a ditch, filled it with bodies, and alighted them.
"Savages," he thought, sick with fury. They could have been sent to their homes, or the locals could have been allowed to bury their o...
2023-08-20 22:03:00 +0000 UTC
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CHAPTER 21
She did, in fact, want to wait inside. It was yet another balmy summer day and getting out of sunlight would help a lot. Cicadas screamed from the garden. Aiko glanced out and caught a glimpse of one ghostly shell on a tree trunk.
Madara came back to the room on silent, bare feet. "Barley tea," he said. It wasn't an offer or an explanation.
She hadn't heard the sound of china being put down, but there was a cup when she turned her head back to the table. "Than...
2023-08-17 08:00:51 +0000 UTC
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CHAPTER 16
She hit the call button and then hit end immediately when her brain caught up with her hand. She typed up, "I'm here. Call or text? What do you need?"
"A ride. Don't call."
Ji Min felt her whole body tense. If Min Joon couldn't call- who was he around? Why couldn't he talk freely in front of them?
'If this is one of Dad's creeper work friends, I'm going to kill them,' Ji Min decided. 'All three. Mom, Dad, the shithead.' It wasn't anger. It was a co...
2023-08-13 23:00:04 +0000 UTC
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CHAPTER 21
She did, in fact, want to wait inside. It was yet another balmy summer day and getting out of sunlight would help a lot. Cicadas screamed from the garden. Aiko glanced out and caught a glimpse of one ghostly shell on a tree trunk.
Madara came back to the room on silent, bare feet. "Barley tea," he said. It wasn't an offer or an explanation.
She hadn't heard the sound of china being put down, but there was a cup when she turned her head back to the table. "Than...
2023-08-09 02:37:18 +0000 UTC
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Ji Min tossed her sweat towel into the plastic laundry bag on the bathroom floor and stripped out of her workout clothes where she stood. She peeled off her pedometer and absently checked the time again. It was just after 6:00.
Still plenty of time, then.
She took her time in the shower, enjoying the scents of her lemon soap and berry hair care set before she had to leave the steam. She gathered the rest of her dirty laundry after she dried her hair and dressed, thinkin...
2023-08-06 23:00:02 +0000 UTC
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Ji Min twisted the shower water off and stepped onto the white hotel rug around 8 pm. The room was overfull of citrus scented steam. The mirror was a foggy smear on the wall and when she moved, her reflection looked like a ghost.
She pulled on the hotel robe and did some skincare, hair still protected in a plastic cap from the water. Her music was playing faintly from the desk. Ji Min sang along under her breath, swaying and dancing a little in place. When she was done she saun...
2023-08-01 00:50:34 +0000 UTC
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By Wednesday morning she was sick of the hotel breakfast. It felt a little lonely to start off without Alex.
'That's pathetic,' she scolded herself, yanking on a hooded sweatshirt. 'I've always gone alone before. I don't need a buddy to hold my hand.'
Irritation with her own neediness left a bad taste in her mouth as she left the hotel on a meandering route towards the conference center. She found a coffee shop to wash it away and got in a long line. She killed t...
2023-07-16 19:00:02 +0000 UTC
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It took about a day for Aiko to regret what she’d done. It hadn’t even been like her. Why had she been so- so imperious and offended?
(She knew. She knew the answer, and it scared her.)
But there was nothing to do about it now. The only thing she could do was decided if she wanted to involve herself.
Objectively speaking, the Senju were the aggressors in this situation. The Uchiha were defending themselves against a spurious accusation.
‘But I really only kno...
2023-07-11 19:59:01 +0000 UTC
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TUESDAY pt 2
She left the room at speed before Hammer could come over to bother her again. That meant leaving Alex in the dust as well. She checked her phone in a corner and found a plaintive message from him asking where she was. Once they coordinated a meet-up, they walked off to get lunch together just outside of the conference center.
She was ravenous after the morning workout. They wound up at a window seat at a bustling Korean restaurant.
“I saw that laser...
2023-07-09 19:00:03 +0000 UTC
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“137 new followers,” Ji Min read off her screen, bemused that they just kept coming this morning. “84 notifications.” Her actual account only had like 400 followers, mostly people she actually knew. It was so weird.
She dismissed the notifications before shoving the phone back into her pocket. She brushed out her hair and pulled it back tightly so that she could put on a layer of moisturizer and then sunscreen. While it dried, she pulled on jeans and picked out a sleeve...
2023-07-03 00:00:01 +0000 UTC
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