29

Chapter 29: Twenty-NineNotes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

A/N: chapter warnings located in the end-notes

TWENTY-NINE:

Sansa knew she was beautiful. Fine bone structure, a deceptively delicate-looking build, skin smoother than silk and fair as fresh-fallen snow, eyes the deep blue of the ocean's depth and deep red hair, now long enough to brush against the wings of her shoulder-bones. But Sansa knew better then to ever think that beauty was a gift; in her first life, all her beauty had ever gotten her was sold from man to man and raped by a monster.

In this life, as she sat demurely in seiza across from Kaeru– or rather, as the mission had dictated, from her mistress the beautiful "O-matsu-san", a chûsan oiran, the second highest-ranking oiran there was, so expensive to hire it required the connections, influence and a magnitude of wealth that only nobility, state officials and the wealthiest, most elite of shinobi and samurai could afford– her beauty was just as much a curse as the last.

As a kamuro, "Sakiko-chan" was meant to attend her "older sister" O-matsu-san when she appeared in public, to run errands for her and attend her needs when she met with her clients. While O-matsu-san's clients might talk to her, to try and trick her into telling them how O-matsu-san felt about them or passing on love letters, such games were known to the kamuro, who were trained to answer with child-like innocence and in such a manner that led men to believe the courtesans were in love with them. Sansa had no issues with any of these duties.

What she did have issues with was how men seemed to believe that because she was a kamuro and she was beautiful, they had the right to touch her, to put their hands on her and imply foul things in playful voices, some looking at her with the same lust in their eyes that they looked at the oiran. And even though Sansa was capable of breaking them now, her body honed to a fine weapon she was well-capable of wielding to deadly effect, unless given orders otherwise, she had to act as a real kamuro would.

She had to act as Sansa Stark once had; a sweet little lady, soft, helpless, a pretty little doll for men to play with as they pleased, to break as they pleased. For hadn't that been what her lady mother, her septa, even Cersei had taught her? That it was her duty to serve men, to be pleasing in her appearance and manner for their own sake? Had not the praise given to her in childhood for her beauty, her skill at learning to manage a household, her piousness, her talent for embroidery, had it not all been for her future duties as a wife?

You are so lovely, sweetling, so talented; you could make any Lord very happy, her lady mother would always say, as if it was the highest of praise. Silly little Sansa, naïve young Sansa, filled with her Southern dreams of chivalrous knights and golden princes, had always been delighted by such praise.

Sansa now wondered– and what of my happiness, mother?

But those were not the thoughts of a sweet, pretty doll, they were not the thoughts Sakiko-chan would have, and Sansa let herself sink deeply into Sakiko-chan, into the little girl who would be cosseted yet not sheltered, who knew what her future held yet idolised her "older sisters". Sakiko-chan was soft, shy and already so lovely; Sakiko-chan had dreams of one day being a Yobidashi chûsan, the highest-ranking of all oiran. Sakiko-chan had never so much as witnessed death.

As Hitotsuyanagi no Kurō Ryūshirō (who she privately referred to as Ryūshirō for simplicity's sake), the son of a wealthy noble with a cock more upright then his morals, let his hand run along the curve of her spine, Sakiko-chan tilted her head in a manner that would be seductive if she weren't a child– though it seemed to be working for him– and watched from under her eyelashes. She let herself lean slightly into his touch, as if unconsciously, tucking her chin shyly as his smile widened.

"May I help you, danna-sama*?" she asked, soft and sweet, her face as serene as the still waters of a pond.

"I'm sure you can," Ryūshirō smiled. "Have you any sponsors for your Mizuage yet, lovely girl?"

A Mizuage was the ceremony undergone by kamuro as part of their coming of age ceremony and graduation. The kamuro would be sponsored by a patron, who through his sponsorship would gain the exclusive privilege of being the oiran's first customer. While there were official minimum ages for a Mizuage, unofficially, and for the right price, children were offered at practically any age the employer desired.

Sansa Stark would respond to Ryūshirō's foul, insinuating question with dark thoughts of the poisoned pins in her hair and how Ryūshirō's face would turn as purple as Joffrey's as he choked silently for air that would never come. Sakiko-chan merely blushed fetchingly, one dainty hand pressing to a pink cheek.

"I'm afraid," O-matsu-san said as she rose, the silver of the kanzashi decorating her elaborately styled hair chiming softly, "Sakiko-chan is too young for Mizuage. Sakiko-chan, you are dismissed." O-matsu-san gestured with a graceful hand to the finely-painted folding screen in the corner of the room. Sakiko-chan rose, bowing to Ryūshirō before gracefully making her way over to the screen in her high geta and disappearing behind it.

Sakiko-chan waited patiently for the relations between her mistress and client to conclude and the soft murmur of voices between them to fade out as the noble left before sliding back, Sansa moving back into the forefront of her own mind as she re-emerged from the screen.

"Well done," Kaeru's blank tones sounded strange coming from O-matsu-san's red-painted lips. "You attracted his attention well– he remained distracted throughout our encounter, repeatedly glancing towards the folding screen. I mentioned that you would be running errands all day tomorrow. I expect he will send his men to fetch you."

Sansa nodded.

"And when he does," Kaeru continued, "you will be taken past any shinobi or samurai guards, into the walls of his family's shōen. There you will complete the mission. Do you understand?"

"Yes," Sansa said. "I do."

~

Dressed in a pink and white kimono embroidered with ornate red blossoms and fastened by a red obi and her red hair decorated with pink and white ribbons and silver kanzashi that chimed with every skipping step, Sakiko-chan darted to and fro around the market with a number of other brightly dressed girls, carrying orders to merchants, calling on vendors, delivering gifts and even buying sneaky snacks to share with her sisters as they giggled together, exchanging hushed whispers about the clients they had seen their "older sisters" with.

Sakiko-chan didn't notice the men approaching the market, Sakiko-chan didn't purposefully wander away from the other kamuro, too close to the seedier street corners where foolish men may feel more confident to act, and Sakiko-chan certainly didn't force herself not to let her fingers flutter towards her poisoned hairpins when the men were looming over her. "Danna-sama?" she asked prettily, blinking in confusion up at Ryūshirō, flanked as he was by his two guards, little better then hired sell-swords in their leather armour.

Ryūshirō smiled at her. It was almost kind, if it wasn't for the hungry excitement. "Let's not make a scene," he said. "Come with me now and there'll be no trouble at all. You can go home to your older sister at the end of the day. I'll even make sure to pay you for your time."

Sakiko-chan chewed on her lip nervously, quite 'unaware' of how the motion attracted Ryūshirō's attention. "But," she said hesitantly, "O-matsu-san said–"

"It doesn't matter what she said," Ryūshirō interrupted. "She's not here now, is she?"

"…no," Sakiko-chan said softly, fearfully, looking up at Ryūshirō under her eyelashes. "…she isn't."

"Are you going to be a good girl, Sakiko-chan?" Ryūshirō cooed, holding out a hand and Sakiko-chan sniffed, nodding timidly and placing her small, dainty hand in his.

~

The shōen of the Hitotsuyanagi family was impressive to behold. Before the last century, when the Hidden Villages had been formed and the daimyos had found themselves with the resource of an established military force in place of scattered clans tearing at each other's throats, the shōen had been estates that existed free from interference of the shogun or the daimyos he had appointed. They had had no say or control of what occurred within the shōen's boundaries; shōen had been exempt from taxation, entirely autonomous and self-sufficient, with a working class who lived on the estate to work the fields, raise the livestock and serve the noble family.

With the increased military power behind the daimyos, however, the threat of the autonomous estates that undermined the daimyos– and through the daimyos, the shogun's– political and economic power were quickly brought to heel. The threat of an army of shinobi did what the threat of an army of samurai warriors could not. Shinobi were feared in the Elemental Nations. Despite what her initial years in Konoha had led Sansa to believe, they were far from the dominant population of the country, yet they had a power over the civilians they were so vastly outnumbered by due to the sheer factor of fear.

Even before the Hidden Villages had been built, the abilities of shinobi had been known and feared. Older estates, like the Hitotsuyanagi family's shōen, were very difficult for even shinobi to infiltrate– through either force or by stealth– because the shōen had been built with shinobi infiltrators in mind– though not for an army of shinobi who weren't so much infiltrating as they were threatening to tear the shōen down around the noble. In the end, only one family had had to be made an example of for the rest of the nobles to surrender their autonomy and submit themselves to their local daimyo's rule, so as to keep their titles, lands and lives in tact.

It remained, however, that the easiest way to gain entrance to a shōen, particularly one as old as the Hitotsuyanagi family's, was to be invited inside and that wasn't easy, particularly the main house of the estate. Lord Hitotsuyanagi's third son, however, had a certain proclivity that the Lord paid handsomely to keep hidden from better society– a proclivity for younger girls.

That was where Sakiko-chan came in.

It was easy to get inside the shōen without notice when it was one of the Lord's sons who was oh-so conveniently smuggling her inside through the family's secret passages, taking care to keep her hidden from the guards and his father's men. Lord Hitotsuyanagi may pay to hide Ryūshirō's predilections from the upper echelons of the daimyo's court to save the family the embarrassment, but he in no other manner endorsed his son's behaviour and the last thing Ryūshirō wanted was for his father to catch him with a clearly underage girl– and a kamuro at that.

Sakiko-chan didn't know any of this, of course. Sakiko-chan was frightened and unsure and simply did whatever it was she was told to. Sakiko-chan just wanted to go back to O-matsu-san and had to blink back tears which glistened as she looked up at Ryūshirō, so terrified and achingly vulnerable.

Ryūshirō set his guards to wait outside his door the moment they arrived at his wing of rooms, gently guiding Sakiko-chan through to the bedroom as if he were a gentleman. Sakiko-chan didn't react as she was pushed back onto the bed, her hands coming back to brace herself. And when Ryūshirō leaned down to kiss her, she simply slid the hairpin she'd finally pulled free from her hair into his neck.

The poison acted quickly.

Sansa moved to roll them over, sitting on Ryūshirō's chest and pressing her hand over his mouth to keep him silent, just in case. The location she'd inserted the hairpin should have paralysed him, but she'd rather be too cautious and alive then not cautious enough and dead.

She could have just knocked him out, or paralysed him. It would have been just as simple and Ryūshirō wasn't even her mission. She just… well, she just honestly couldn't bear to let him live. His greedy hands, his hungry eyes, his arrogance and entitlement in assuming he could just take and take and take and nobody, certainly no helpless, afraid little girl, could stop him– well, someone would have killed him sooner or later. It was just a shame she didn't have a pack of hounds around. Or proper access to her chakra, so she could summon her wolves– it would be the least of what he deserved, to be torn about by fang and claw. Poison just felt too quick.

After Ryūshirō stopped breathing and his heart stopped beating, Sansa took a moment to look around the bedroom. Her nose wrinkled. All the mosaic dragons on the walls with their golden accents were just so… tasteless. Ostentatious displays of wealth were obnoxious, and so very Lannister. Though perhaps the fact they were dragons had her biased.

Leaving Ryūshirō on the bed, turning his body so it faced away from the door and pulling the bed covers up so that at a glance it would look as if he were sleeping, Sansa pulled the kanzashi from her hair and removed the outer layer of her kimono. Hidden underneath was a plain yukata, one in the same style as worn by the servants of the Hitotsuyanagi family, complete with the Hitotsuyanagi family crest.

Steeling herself for the biggest risk of the mission so far, Sansa lightly gripped a poisoned senbon-turned-hairpin in each hand as she approached the only exit to the room, the door with two guards outside. Pausing, she listened for their breathing, for the footsteps of anyone close by, and satisfied that they were alone, she knocked softly on the door.

"Guards-san?" she asked, timid and sweet.

There was a short pause and then the door opened. Sansa didn't hesitate to strike, not when hesitation would mean discovery, failure, death. The guard who opened the door received a 'hairpin' to the neck, the thin sliver of metal sinking deep. The poison would kill him in moments, Sansa knew; already, he had fallen to his knees, and her attention had moved passed him, to the other, now more immediate threat. The second guard had been shielded by the first guard, obstructed from her reach– if he was smart, he would have run for help. But he didn't see a threat, probably didn't even realise the reason the first guard had collapsed. He just saw a delicate little girl and he didn't even bother to pull out the sword on his back as he lunged for her, reaching with his big, thick fingers.

The armor he wore was inconvenient, but the guard's neck was unprotected and Kaeru had trained Sansa to be lethal with her senbon, dancing out of reach even as she flicked her wrist, letting the 'hairpin' fly with deadly accuracy. The guard didn't even have time to stagger; Sansa's aim was true and he immediately dropped to the floor, paralysed, even as the poison coating the senbon entered his bloodstream.

Moving swiftly, Sansa dragged him into the room then dragged his now-deceased fellow guard in too. The poison on the senbon would have him dead within a minute, so Sansa didn't bother killing him, just left the poison to do its work. In all, it had taken her less than a minute to deal with both guards.

Smiling down at the man who had helped Ryūshirō abduct her from the streets and take her back here to rape, Sansa stepped over the guard with a purposeful dismissal and left the bedroom.

The Root mission briefing only had a vague idea of the layout of the Hitotsuyanagi family's shōen. They knew enough to know that Ryūshirō's quarters were located on the East wing and Lord Hitotsuyanagi's study– her target– was located in the West. With her head down, Sansa walked through the corridors, making sure to project enough confidence that no one looking at her would doubt she belonged.

Lord Hitotsuyanagi's study was off-limits for the household staff. There was a guard at the door, but a single senbon coated with a rare non-lethal poison that caused short-term memory loss that Kaeru had actually harvested in Kiri from a breed of shellfish ensured both unconsciousness and a confusion upon waking on the guard's part about how he came to be unconscious– and, should he report the incident to Lord Hitotsuyanagi, any investigation should lead first to Kiri.

Sliding soundlessly into the study, Sansa couldn't help her grimace of disgust. Ryūshirō had apparently inherited his… ostentatiousness from his father. All of the study was decorated with luxuries that screamed expense and there was actual real gold inlaid in Lord Hitotsuyanagi's desk– that was, in Sansa's firm opinion, easily reaching Lannister levels of obnoxious. It horrified her Northern sensibilities– even in the most frivolous, Southron dreams of her naïve youth she could never have dreamt of such wastefulness.

Nevertheless, she wasn't there to critique the décor– she was there for Lord Hitotsuyanagi's inkan; the seal he used for printing stamps and impressions. Inkan were used to mark authorship and prove identity. They could be used on anything from documents and contracts to works of art and proof of authenticity. More common inkan were made of wood, while the more important people had inkan made of precious materals such as jade.

If Danzo got his hands on Lord Hitotsuyanagi's inkan, there was an awful lot of manoeuvring he would be capable of. He could use it to forge letters and official documents supposedly written by Lord Hitotsuyanagi. He could convince traditional allies of the lord to cut ties, stop trade and more. He could even use it to 'redirect' funds from the Lord's bank accounts. The possibilities stretched out dauntingly before Sansa and she could only wonder of Danzo's purpose, what it was that he plotted.

It was a cunning move, she could admit, one made more impressive by the fact that Lord Hitotsuyanagi would not openly be able to admit to his inkan being stolen. An inkan was a legitimising device of rule; for high lords, daimyos and shogun, inkan could become objects of great rivalry and armed conflict as the lordships and regimes which possessed the inkan were often regarded as legitimate. For fear of his rivals encroaching on his power, so long as Danzo moved subtly Lord Hitotsuyanagi would likely choose to stay silent while hiring investigators to find and return his inkan– by which time any trace of Sansa would be long gone.

The kimono and kanzashi she'd left in Ryūshirō's room, along with the two dead guards and Ryūshirō himself, would lead investigators back to the capital's Yūkaku, perhaps even to the brothel where O-matsu-san and Sakiko-chan had been employed. But that was the point, because that was where Kaeru's part of the mission came in– while Sansa was stealing the Hitotsuyanagi family's inkan, it was Kaeru's job to be leaving false trails that would lead the theft back to Kirigakure, easily the most politically unsettled of the countries that made up the Elemental Nations.

The assassination of the previous Water Daimyo and his entire family by a Kirigakure shinobi had caused a gaping distance to form between the daimyo and the Hidden Village, despite Hoshigaki Kisame having gone missing-nin when the assassination took place. It was that distance and lack of oversight from the daimyo that had largely enabled civil war to break out in Kiri, with the Mizukage sending out killing squads to wipe out kekkei genkai users– a daimyo would usually act to bring such a situation under control, but the Water Daimyo had pointedly separated himself and his court from Kiri and because of his decision, Kiri's streets ran red.

Lord Hitotsuyanagi would be reluctant to send his retainers to the blood-drenched lands of Kirigakure to regain his lost inkan and any ability to investigate the theft would become increasingly difficult, as Kiri's governance did not encourage 'loose lips'. The investigation would be stalled for months, if not longer.

Of course, first Sansa had to actually steal the inkan. Methodically searching the office, it didn't take her long to locate the secret sealed drawer in Lord Hitotsuyanagi's desk that was the likely location of his inkan. The seals protecting it were ridiculously basic– or at least, they were for someone who was being trained in the sealing arts by an Uzushio seals mistress– and it didn't matter that Sansa couldn't access her chakra, she didn't need it– all she needed was a brush, some ink and a few drops of her blood to adjust the seals so they would 'recognise' her as blood family and allow her to access the contents of the drawer.

Sansa wasn't even surprised at this point to see that Lord Hitotsuyanagi's inkan was made of pure gold with friezes of sinuous, winding dragons carved into its handle. It was sizeable, about two inches by two inches, and ideally Sansa would be able to seal it into a scroll– though that would require chakra, of which hers was still sealed. As it was, she tucked it under her yukata, holding it to her body under her armpit as she left the office, a brief glance back revealing the guard was still unconscious but breathing normally.

The shōen was designed to keep people out, not keep them in, not unless the shōen was on lockdown– which Sansa was acutely aware it could go into anytime, should any of the bodies she'd left behind or the missing inkan be discovered, and thus couldn't help her tension, though she kept it hidden under false masks of tranquility as she approached one of the servant gates. The guards paid little attention to one small girl mumbling about running chores for her kaa-san in town and let her pass through without incident as they focused the weight of their suspicions on those entering.

And so Sansa disappeared into the streets of the capital where Kaeru was waiting, another mission successfully completed.

~

Shin was the one Sansa went to after giving her verbal mission report to Danzo. It was night, and Sansa easily walked past the guards that patrolled the Root base, the pair never giving her a second glance, and slipped into the bunk-room that once had housed her, Serena, Shin and Koi, and now housed Shin and Koi and a new partner set, both of them aged six name-days; Ookami and Hitsuji, wolf-mask and sheep-mask.

Sansa was honestly disgusted at herself, that she'd never noticed the symbolism of the masks they'd been given. Shin and Koi were bear-and-fish. This new set of partners was wolf-and-sheep. She and Serena had been fox-and-rabbit. There was no subtly at all present, no attempts to hide that one day they would fight to kill. Only the depravity of it had prevented Sansa from making the connection. 

Shin didn't even twitch as she slid under his blanket beside him, using a senbon to pick the lock of the shackles binding his wrists to the headboard so that he could instead move to wrap his arms around her.

In the comforting embrace of the darkness and Shin both, Sansa finally let herself fall apart in the aftermath of the mission, her body trembling so badly it felt as if she must surely be making the entire bunk shake. Shin pulled her to him, let her bury her face in the vulnerable curve of his neck, the site where Sansa had dealt three killing blows in her last mission.

The fact Shin would still willingly expose such a vulnerable target to her, the show of his trust, his faith, in her despite knowing her speciality, knowing the sharp teeth she hid behind her soft lips, eased Sansa's trembling in part. Shin's scent, his arms around her, the feeling of safety she knew was a lie but felt anyway, hidden in the darkness and curled up with one of her Pack, helped ease the rest of the trembling.

"I had to let him touch me," she finally whispered to Shin, unable to keep the anguish from her voice. "Not anywhere intimate, not truly, but I can still feel his hands on me…" the soft keen escaped her, the memory of Ryūshirō's hand on her back, of the way his eyes hungrily ate her, and Shin's grip tightened, his smaller, protextive sweeping over her, nails digging into her slightly, as if attempting to erase what they could of the memories of that creeping, invasive touch.

"Is he dead?" Shin asked, a tight fury in his young voice.

"He is," Sansa confirmed. Danzo had arched an eyebrow at that as she had given her report, but otherwise hadn't commented on her acting outside of the immediate mission parameters, or on the manner in which she had strayed from her usual pattern of subduing where she could and killing as only the last possible resort.

"Good," Shin said darkly, and he spent the remainder of the night piecing Sansa back together until morning came, and with it Kaeru's announcement of another mission having being assigned, just as there always was. 

~

* Danna = wealthy patron 

A/N: If you're at all interested in more information on oiran, kamuro and the lives of Japanese courtesans throughout the Edo period, a good resource is 'Yoshiwara: The Glittering World of the Japanese Courtesan' by Ceceilia Segawa Seigle

Notes:

Chapter warnings: mentions of pedophilia. Sansa pretends to be a kamuro (apprentice oiran - prostitute) to gain the interest of a noble with an in interest in younger girls. Nothing explicit and no actual sex happens, but Sansa is put in uncomfortable situations which may be considered triggering