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"Won't you have a drink?" Kenji asked, not for the first time.
When Yuna circled the pagoda's perimeter, she found him sitting on the edge of the podium next to the steps, legs swinging off the sides. "Don't you have someone to scam?" Yuna asked, but she came to a halt and leaned against the red door, folding her arms.
"Yes," Kenji said. He twisted around to face her, drawing his legs up. "You. My clever plan to get you to rest." He held a sake bottle up to her, inviting, and gave her his best merchant smile. "It'll make you sleepy!"
"I don't need sleep," Yuna said, and wisps of cold breath escaped with the words. The lake was frozen over into shining blue-white, painfully bright to the eye, and the forest beyond was just as empty as the achingly clear blue sky, though the defenders of Jogaku Temple kept a vigilant watch. The distant thunk of arrows hitting targets echoed beyond the pagoda, Daikoku's voice calling out orders. Yuna's watch had begun in the early hours, around the time that Jin should have been back. He wasn't back.
Kenji sighed and muttered, "You two are a perfect match, eh?" just loud enough to hear, as he popped open the bottle and took a swig himself.
"You want to say that again?" Yuna asked.
"Not at all," Kenji said, after another large gulp. But his smile was a little less ingratiating, a little more strained, and he hesitated a little too long, before he spoke again. "I'm sure things are fine. Our Ghost is strong. Unkillable, almost! Have you seen him?"
Yuna scowled out at the shimmering temple lake, at the swirling, snowy eddies of wind skating the frozen surface. That wasn't what she was worried about, though lately she'd grown more and more concerned, with every risk taken. Jin was too much a samurai still. "If he gets himself captured..."
Kenji took another sip, this one long and thoughtful. Yuna could feel his eyes on her, though she didn't meet his gaze. She watched, eyes on the distant trees. A sliver of green clung to their branches, stubborn underneath the snow. "You worry when it's to do with the jitō," Kenji observed, setting the bottle down beside him on the red-painted planks. "Even more than when he's out there fighting Mongols."
But the blue of the sky hurt up here in the north, and finally Yuna dropped her eyes to the frosty stone steps, the unlit tōrō flanking them. "He's stupid, where his uncle's concerned," she said frankly, and her insides churned with unpleasant possibility. It warmed her more than her layers, made her itch with the burning need to grab a horse and follow. "Makes bad decisions. He told me he let his uncle arrest him to protect me." And left her to hunt the Khan alone.
"Is that so hard to believe?" Kenji asked, and he wagged a finger at Yuna when she scoffed. "That men keep throwing themselves at your feet? We've all seen Takeshi. And ah, women too, let's not forget! That one girl, in Furuta. She was nice." Kenji gave her a cheeky, encouraging grin. He'd always had irritating ways of attempting to lift spirits, but Yuna couldn't find it in herself to rouse much annoyance, today. "You have an effect on people, our handsome samurai included."
Yuna met his gaze squarely. "Are you trying to tell me something, Kenji?"
Kenji chuckled and gave her a mocking little bow of his head. "We both know my purview is a different brew of sake," he said, but he sobered a moment later, as his eyes flicked to the lake, the forest beyond. Watching, too, and a restless stray hand contemplated picking up the bottle again. "How long are you going to wait out here?"
As long as it takes, Yuna wanted to say. Worry wound within her, tight as a knot. Used to be, it was centered on Taka, but it hadn't unwound with his death. No, instead it had wrapped itself tightly around Jin, and Yuna was well aware of the danger in that. What was she thinking, attaching so much of her heart to someone like the Ghost? It would only lead to pain, one day.
And yet... he wouldn't run. He wouldn't walk away. She admired it, even as she wanted him to. But there was nothing for her to run to, anymore. She didn't know if she wanted to, either.
"I'll come inside eventually," Yuna said. There could be any number of reasons why Jin had yet to return, and it had only been the better part of a day. He was, at the very least, cautious when traveling, and perhaps he'd only gone slower than usual to avoid being seen, when they didn't yet know what his uncle wanted. And yet Yuna's head was full of dark thoughts: if the samurai took him, if they made for the mainland, if Yuna found out too late and tried to give chase when they were already gone... she shook her head, as if that would dislodge her worries. "Happy?"
"No," Kenji said. "Your bad mood is like a storm. Makes my bones ache." He exhaled theatrically and made a great show of settling in, scooping the bottle up once more and leaning back on a hand. "I suppose I have nothing better to do, so..."
Yuna waited until he was comfortable, then said, "You'd best get some more sake, then."
"Good thing I always carry extra," Kenji said, reaching to his belt for another. He held it up to her, giving it a shake.
Yuna arched her brows at him. "You think that's going to be enough?"
Kenji's hand drooped, and he deposited both bottles on the podium. "Oh, you demand so much of me," he groaned and made an even greater show of getting to his feet. "I'll just go all the way back to my cart, shall I? All the way to the other side of the temple. By the time I get back, it'll be summer."
"Better start walking," Yuna said, and her mouth twitched in a smile, as Kenji gave her a dismissive wave and hopped off of the podium. When he was gone, Yuna contemplated the uncorked bottle he'd left behind, then scooped it up and took a sip, her eyes returning to scour the gleaming lake and the empty trees beyond.
Yuna slept eventually, though it was well into the night before she finally slipped away. Her dreams were fractured and strange, full of dark clouds and bodies, Taka's and then Jin's, and the iron tang of blood coating her hands as she cut into the Black Wolf. She came to with a start, a rush of sick fervor gripping her chest and sending her upright, and it took her several moments of breathing deeply to remember that she was on a mat in her corner of the temple's main hall, behind the altar.
She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes, as if she could scrub away everything that lay behind them. The dreams were fast fading from her thoughts, but some things were etched too permanently into her memory, and nighttime often cast a merciless light on them. The dull seed of a headache behind her eyes didn't help, either. Why did she always let Kenji talk her into drinking?
Yuna took a few more breaths and thought about Taka's body only long enough to tie her hair back and tuck the memories away behind thoughts of the present, behind immediate problems that required her attention. Jin hadn't returned, or someone would have woken her. More refugees and supporters had come to Jogaku Temple, even in the wake of the Khan's death, and it would soon be a drain on their provisions.
She could do nothing about the former right now, unless she undertook a journey herself, but the latter... well, she'd wasted enough time worrying yesterday. Best to start somewhere and distract herself.
As it turned out, Yuna didn't have to go far.
The piercing sunlight startled her, as she emerged from the main hall. It wasn't just the remnants of drink, though she rubbed at the aching knot between her eyes and groaned. Everything was harsher up here, the sun too much when it showed its face, and Yuna eyed its position in the sky and winced. How had she managed to sleep this long?
Things that she would rather forget still lingered behind her eyelids, and so Yuna forewent food and went to find Kenji. She heard him before she saw him, out near the frozen stream in the outer temple grounds, friendly and cajoling in the manner of a deal being struck.
"--will feed us nicely!" Kenji was saying to a man with a cart. The man had a merchant's look to him, if his cart was anything to go by, and it was loaded with food, mostly, though Yuna spied other necessities tucked away between the crates and sacks. The man bobbed his head as Kenji spoke. "And when we sail, we will remember your generosity."
"What's going on here?" Yuna asked, suspicious.
Kenji jumped, and the man turned a beaming, inquisitive face towards Yuna. Kenji edged sideways and a few steps back, out of the man's direct view, nearly slipping on the frozen ground as he did so. Regaining his balance, he wagged his eyebrows in Yuna's direction several times, though Yuna couldn't begin to figure out what it was supposed to mean.
"Offerings to help the Ghost!" Kenji said, a little too fast, and he gestured to Yuna as he addressed the man once more. "This is his second in command. She will make sure that your gifts are put to good use."
The man's eyes widened, before he bowed to Yuna. "I hope this will help, my lady," he said, and Yuna swallowed back a laugh. "May Raijin grant you fury and good winds on your journey."
Yuna stared at him. Perhaps she hadn't quite shaken off the sake yet. "Journey?" she asked, while Kenji's eyebrows fluttered impressively fast.
"Yes, to the Mongol homeland!" the man said, enthused. "I would join your army if I was a fighter. But I'm afraid I'd only be a danger to those around me."
Already, the sun beat down upon the ice, casting off slanting light that skewered Yuna's thoughts every time she so much as glanced in the direction of the lake. It did little to warm the air, however, and Yuna felt colder still, as the words sank in. "You're mistaken," she said, and behind the man, Kenji's shoulders sagged. Yuna was going to give him a tongue lashing like never before, if he'd spun that tale. "We have no plans to go anywhere, and we aren't an army. Our only concern is getting rid of the Mongols still here."
The man blinked at her. "But I heard stories. Everyone was saying the Ghost would sail to strike the Mongols at their heart." He looked beyond Yuna, towards the clanking, thudding sound of archers and warriors who congregated in the outer grounds for their daily practice. "You look like an army."
"And that's all it is," Yuna said, firm. "Stories." She'd heard quite a few across the island and started some herself. But this... "You're welcome to help our efforts anyway. The Mongols aren't gone, and we could use the supplies."
"Of course," the man said, bobbing his head again, though he looked rather disappointed. "That's why I'm here. To help the Ghost."
After the man's cart had been unloaded, Yuna thanked him and sent him on his way with a complimentary bottle of Kenji's sake. The provisions were stacked within the inner temple grounds, near the gift altar. It was an impressive amount of stock, and before the man departed, Yuna made sure that he hadn't bled himself dry. It certainly solved a few problems, at least for now, and Yuna considered it, as she surveyed the crates and sacks.
Rumors and stories could be useful, she thought. They could also be dangerous.
After that, she rounded on Kenji. He stood among the crates, wringing his hands as she approached. "He showed up talking about armies and Mongolian steppes!" Kenji said hastily, before Yuna could get a word in. His breath huffed petulantly out of him, misty wisps on the cold air. "What was the harm in letting him believe that? I was afraid he'd take it all back, if I told him the truth. And we need this. Kamiagata will need all the help it can get, until the thaw."
There wasn't a settlement or camp nearby that wasn't struggling, caught between winter and the invasion. They might be able to spare some extra with this stock, to distribute to those who needed it most badly. "Some stories are better put to rest," Yuna said.
Kenji raised his hands to the heavens. "So you can tell people that Lord Sakai is a spirit," he said, grumpy, and he let his arms flop down, "but when I tell a lie, oh no, Kenji, that's a bad idea."
Yuna leveled an unsympathetic look at him. "If people believe we have an army here," she said, "we'll find a real army of samurai at our door, soon enough."
Yarikawa had repelled Mongols, but not samurai. It was different, when your enemy came from the same soil, and it wasn't something that Yuna wanted to bring on these people's heads. Not when she'd found herself responsible for them. It was one thing, to start a rumor to give people hope. It was another, to have many under the same banner, enough that others were beginning to view it as an army. Bad enough they had defectors and once-rebels already.
Even a simple rumor had spiraled out of control.
Kenji went still at her words. "Ah," he said, swallowing. "I... didn't think of that." This time, it was his gaze that he lifted to the heavens, as if beseeching something there, before he dropped down to sit on one of the crates, hanging his head. "Why is this so hard?" he groaned, scuffing at the snow beneath his shoes.
"Less hard, when you use your head," Yuna said dryly, but then she softened. "We'll need to see what we can spare. And who needs it most. I'll handle things here, but for the rest of Kamiagata..." She let her voice trail away pointedly.
Kenji took a deep breath, as if steadying himself. He straightened and offered her a firm dip of his head. "I have a few places in mind." His voice turned sour. "If that doesn't go wrong too."
He had a head for that, knowing where need was greatest and how much it would take to address it. It came with a merchant's territory, particularly one who employed less savory means on the side. A simple matter to use those skills to address real need, instead of selling and bartering. "I don't think it will," Yuna said. "Who's better at distribution than a sake merchant?"
A thoughtful look crossed Kenji's face. "No one," he said, puffing his chest, and Yuna smiled. "I'll get it where it needs to go... my lady."
Yuna offered him a rude gesture in return.
It would come down to what they could do without. It wouldn't be much, but maybe enough to see some families taken care of for some time. Yuna wondered if more would come flowing in eventually. If people believed that an army lay here, if their fervor for the Ghost led them here... what else would they bring with them?
It only deepened the pounding behind her eyes. So Yuna gave herself a shake and turned her attention to the crates around her, helping Kenji and a few volunteers to sort through them, to distract from thoughts of what might be brewing out there on the island, and from the gaping absences at her side.
Jin returned that afternoon, and something in Yuna unwound, though only until she saw his face. She'd kept herself busy with sorting their provisions, and then with crafting a gift for Jin that she hadn't yet finished, and Kenji had stocked his cart with what they could afford to part from, to take out into the rest of Kamiagata tomorrow. Still, it was a lurching relief to hear Daikoku's voice in the distance raised in greeting, and if Yuna hurried to the outer temple grounds, Kenji was right on her heels.
The sky was as clear as it had been yesterday, and Yuna had to blink to let her eyes adjust to the bright white gleam of the lake. When her vision steadied, she frowned. Jin had dismounted and was handing the reins of his horse to Daikoku, and there was a cut under his eye, long and bright and red. He sported injuries more often than not, but it hadn't been there before. He moved stiffly, too, and the look on his face was detached, even as he thanked Daikoku.
"Welcome back, my lord!" Kenji said.
But Kenji's smile lost some of its luster, when it took Jin a long moment to react. He turned slowly, and his eyes sought Kenji out, as if he had only just noticed that others were nearby. "Thank you, Kenji," he said, quiet and distracted. His eyes flicked to Yuna, searching for something she couldn't identify. Whatever it was, it wasn't good.
"How did it go?" Yuna asked, grim.
Jin shook his head. "Not here."
He walked past them without another word, and Yuna exchanged a worried glance with Kenji, whose smile fell away.
There were people by the fires and the statue, so Jin led them to the temple's highest level and the small cemetery there. The monuments were half-visible under old snow, and Jin stopped beyond them, in a corner formed by natural stone terrace and red temple wall, shadowed by bamboo and snow-laden eaves. He put his back to the corner, and Yuna recognized the instinct, knew it intimately. It was why they were here in Jogaku Temple, after all. It was defensible, protected.
It didn't make her feel better about the look on his face or the injury there.
Jin went to speak, then stopped. He had to try again, mustering himself once more. "Clan Sakai has been disbanded," he began, distant and flat. "I'm not samurai anymore."
He was better off away from it, Yuna thought. Away from that which expected him to die meaninglessly and serve unquestioningly. But her heart twisted with a shared grief all the same, because it had been important to him, once. Because she knew what it was like to have those family ties severed.
"I'm sorry..." Kenji began, hesitant.
But Jin shook his head. "It doesn't matter," he said, and Yuna didn't quite believe him. "I knew this would happen. And Clan Sakai lives as long as I do." A quiet ferocity lay underneath the words, even as Jin's countenance grew only more strained. That wasn't all, then.
"What else?" Yuna asked, soft.
The thing that mattered more, she supposed, because Jin could hardly speak. His jaw worked, like he had to chew the words free. "The shogun has ordered my death," he finally managed, and his face twisted with the effort to compose himself. "And my uncle... obeys his lord's orders."
The bamboo above them rustled, and flurries of snow danced at their feet, tumbling through the leafy overgrowth snarled across the stone. Kenji gaped, and Yuna tried to imagine it. Tried to picture Taka turning a blade on her. She couldn't, not when he'd been so gentle and chided her with such love. Not when the image of his body was affixed so vividly in her thoughts, because he'd refused to turn a blade on anyone except their enemy.
"We fought," Jin added, weary, and Yuna's eyes traced the reddened cut under his eye. "I won."
Yuna wanted to usher him to the fire and make him sit down and rest. Instead she asked, "Did you kill him?"
Jin sank back against the stone terrace, bracing himself, as if his own weight had become a burden. "I couldn't," he said, staring hollowly down at the ground, and a strange relief shot through Yuna, even though she wanted to take a blade to Shimura herself, now, for daring to raise a hand against his nephew. "He asked me for a warrior's death, but I..." Jin's eyes slid closed. "I won't be beholden to tradition anymore."
Yuna had no family left. This invasion, this bitter struggle to fight back, had taken the only family she had from her. She had no love for Shimura, but Jin did, and Yuna couldn't imagine it either, turning a blade on Taka. Let that stupid old man live with the knowledge of what he'd tried, then, and take his own damn life, if he wanted to die that badly. "Good," she said. Jin's eyes shifted up to meet hers once again, and Yuna longed to close the gap. She didn't. "But he doesn't deserve you."
Whatever Jin had been searching for in her, he seemed to have found something close to it, at least. He let out a slow breath and straightened his shoulders, relaxing like the gradual thaw of ice. He offered her a wordless, uncertain smile, bright and painful to look at like the icy lake under the cloudless sky. Yuna found herself wishing she could discover some way to fix it there and make it warmer.
Kenji stood there aimlessly beside Yuna, unsure and fidgeting, as if Jogaku's frigid air had frozen speech at the tip of his tongue. Until at last he reached to his belt and pulled out one of his extra bottles. "Would this help?" he asked, cringing his way through the question like he knew how woefully insufficient it was.
"Kenji's been handing out sake since you left," Yuna said, a corner of her mouth curving up. "I think it's how he copes."
Kenji scoffed and gestured wildly at her with the bottle. "As if this one wasn't pacing enough to bring the pagoda down on our heads," he said. "Though if we're keeping score, my lord, I must have made a hundred offerings for your safe return. No-- a thousand!"
No longer did Jin's face seem so distant and dull. His smile lingered at the edges. "I'm not a lord anymore."
"Eh." Kenji waved the bottle around some more. "I'm used to it." He offered his best merchant beam and extended the bottle. "For the scion of Clan Sakai? It's free, and there's more where that came from."
Jin accepted the bottle with a nod of gratitude, though his hand fell to his side without opening it, and another troubled look settled on his face, wiping away the faint humor. "I can't stay here," he said. "Anyone found in my company would be considered a conspirator. I can't risk that." He glanced between them, searching for something else now. The wind whistled through the grave markers, cold and low. The shadow of the eaves fell across his face. "Word is starting to spread. People think we're raising an army here."
"Word's reached us too," Yuna said, her concerns mirrored in Jin. "That'll become a monster if we let it."
"Then we won't let it," Jin said, fingers tight around the bottle.
Kenji was back to fidgeting. "But where will you go, my lord?" he asked. Yuna had a few suggestions already brewing in her thoughts, safe corners of Tsushima where Jin could lay low. "If you're in need of lodgings, I happen to have some empty sake barrels on hand. They're very roomy."
Jin huffed. "I'd rather risk the open," he said, a flash of humor returning, if only for a moment. "And I have a place in mind. Near Omi Monastery."
There were many safe and hidden corners across Tsushima. They could serve as places for their refugees and warriors to go, should too much scrutiny be turned towards Jogaku, should they end up tainted by association. They'd be better served by moving someplace where it was easier to grow things, anyway, and so the thought of uprooting their fragile existence here had crossed Yuna's mind before today. Living on the move had been the only constant in her life, alongside Taka, and now Taka was gone.
This, at least, was not new territory.
"We can start spreading some rumors of our own," Yuna said, examining the possibilities and problems that now lay at their feet. "The more they contradict each other, the better." She turned to Kenji and folded her arms. It wasn't the wisest option, maybe, but Kenji was an old hand at selling lies, and Yuna could give him a few. "Nothing that will bring samurai down on our heads, if you can manage that."
It took Kenji a moment to catch up. "Ah!" he said, drawing himself up. "Yes, I can do that! I can start tomorrow." He grinned at Jin. "We've received some supplies to spread to the people."
"No deals with people best left alone?" Jin asked, dry.
"None," Kenji promised.
Yuna snorted. An odd sort of comfort had settled in her, now that the possibilities had turned from waiting and sheltering in place to relocating, to navigating shadows and fringes. That was what Yuna knew. That was where she'd learned to think and plan, and logistics came easily. "Jin will need some," Yuna said. "We'll need to recount. And we can discuss this where it's warm."
She didn't give Jin any room to protest, to insist that he had to leave now. There was still a hollow look in his eyes, and Yuna knew of no balm for betrayal that came from one's kin. But he was here and alive and free, and there were still things to fight for, and Yuna herded them back down to the temple's lowest level, to the fire crackling near the gift altar under the shelter of the great tree, which held on to faint whispers of green as stubbornly as the surrounding forests did.
And as the fire's small but steady warmth seeped through their layers, a spark of something less haunted flared to life in Jin's eyes, the same thing that animated Kenji's voice, the same thing that burned dimmed but unextinguished at Yuna's core, as she turned her thoughts to what she did best.