Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Ishidoro lanterns began to flicker on as Ark’s fading red sun dipped below the edge of the palace, casting a long, heavy shadow across its lotus pool. The lone figure that sat next to one such lantern blinked. She hadn't meant to stay in meditation so long, but her mind had been heavy as of late. Staring into those ripples while counting the soft clacks of the single shishi odoshi at the far end of the pool was one of the few things that truly calmed her. Moving for the first time in hours, she winced as her joints hissed, cold and stiff with disuse.

The water too was cold. Icy even. It was only just starting to inch towards spring, when the sakura blossoms were finally beginning to bloom and the snow was little more than crystalline frost. Even so, the pool was still crusted with ice that she mindlessly poked her fingers through, irritated that it wasn't warm enough for peaches yet. Peach sake would have been a wonderful drink right about now.

Had Father been home today she would have risen from her mediations early, eager for sparring practice or a calligraphy lesson. But he was not. He was away on yet another diplomatic mission. Without her. Always without her. Many times she'd ask why and his answers, while often cryptic, made sense.

Enemies were enemies and one did not want to show the enemy one's family, even the ones that could and should be negotiated with. Once she had asked him how she could tell if an enemy was to be negotiated with. That had been a mistake. The lesson that day lasted until the following morning. She knew then to never ask a question she did not want an honest answer to.

But she was not a child anymore! Not a woman, per say. Not yet. Certainly not a little girl to be comforted and coddled. She was the Lotus Princess, the inheritor of Ark itself. She was Blossom, the Daishogun's daughter and one day she would be as loved and feared as him!

One day.

That day felt an eternity away. An eternity she had to endure alone. No mother. No siblings. Sometimes Grandfather would rescue her from the palace for a day or two, but Father would always find them. She remembered one day in particular, after a nasty fight between him and her father over just such a thing. Kibaomaru had taken her aside, behind the palace and between the stables. He'd gripped her by the shoulders, in one of his strange moods, and told her with absolutely no hesitation or remorse, "He cannot keep you trapped behind these walls forever, Blossom. Remember that. You'll never be free if you don't."

She did remember and still she wasn't free. Maybe Grandfather had been drunk, or merely senile. Who knew? But between him and her own father, sometimes she wished she'd gone away with Kibaomaru. It was a nasty, hurtful thought and Blossom had to shake her head to dislodge it.

The motion unbalanced her however, and she went plopping noisily into the icy pool. Lotus blossoms scattered. Toads croaked and went leaping from their hiding spots among the rocks. The shishi odoshi was out of sync. Blossom was pissed. There was no point in getting out immediately, her humiliation witnessed only by the toads and the smattering of flickering ishidoro lanterns. All of the ones in the garden were lit now. A collection of golden stars set in the sky of the karesansui, the rock garden, with Blossom spoiling the image of the emerging moon reflected in its pool.

The Daishogun sighed. He left the lanterns up on the rampart where he stood, deliberately unlit, so he could watch over his daughter in meditation. He'd grown concerned when she hadn't returned earlier that evening and found her still sitting quietly by her favorite spot. She was like that for hours, up until now. He'd seen her tumble into the pool but he would never dare speak of it.

Even so this wasn't the first time Blossom had become unsettled enough to lose focus. He told himself many, many times that she would be ready when she was ready, but it was always one step forward two steps back. He cursed his father silently, knowing he probably put more nonsense into her head. Perhaps if her mother was still around, he wouldn't need to be so strict. Maybe if he let Kibaomaru train her for a while, she would settle...

"So many what ifs." He whispered, hiding the lower half of his face with his signature sensu fan. "Maybe Father is right though. She just turned twenty..." The leader of Ark shook his head. "Ah, where did the time go? It seems only yesterday when she saw her first crane dance, or tried mochi for the first time..."

He banished those thoughts with the snap of his fan, shutting it closed. Blossom finally stirred, picking herself up and slogging out of the water like an agitated tigress. Of course she had neglected to bring her winter kimono. She grumbled and the Daishogun vanished before his daughter could lay eyes on him, moonlight catching on the rampart where he'd been standing moments before. She was no mood to deal with him regardless, trailing water and pond silt. It was going to be a long, frustrating night.

Blossom woke the next morning, still chilly despite a boiling hot soak the night before. Her kind could not get ill per say, but ice be cursed if being cold did not make her feel slow and sloppy. Regardless, she rose early like she always did. Just before dawn, when the horizon was still crimson behind the towering mountains. It was a truly picturesque scene that she enjoyed catching sight of every day.

Had she not been so embarrassed the night before she would have enjoyed it more. Father had indeed been in that evening, but she blew past him on the way to the bathhouse to get cleaned up before he could have a better look at her. Thank the Ancestors he had the mind to not comment on it, or demand she have dinner with him.

Even so, something was off. Blossom could smell food. That in itself was odd. Not even the servants stirred at the hour, which was half the point of her waking up so early. The princess’s first thought was that maybe one of the servants was indeed up and making themselves food before their masters.

“An inexcusable disrespect!” She huffed, quickly throwing herself out of bed and marching into her thick winter robes, armor temporarily forgotten.  She burst out into the sitting room, its decorative twin fusuma doors flying open...to reveal her father, as startled as a tanuki caught raiding the trash heaps.

Blossom yelped, pulling her robes about her as she performed a tight bow, bent nearly double. “F-Father! I’m so sorry! I...what are you doing up?”

The Daishogun recovered quickly but still looked as bashful as the leader of Ark possibly could. “I was...making you breakfast?”

“...Why?”

“To surprise you! I’ve noticed you’ve been working so hard lately. And with me gone all the while I wanted to try and reward you.”

Blossom hid a blush behind one voluminous sleeve. “You don’t have to. I promise I’m fine. Just a little lonely and bored, I guess?”

“Nonsense. Please, my daughter. Get dressed and come sit.”

Grumbling with yet more embarrassment she did as requested. In normal circumstances she would have been making and eating a full breakfast herself. Blossom, ever an independent child due to father being away so often and never growing close to any of her servants, eventually took over all of her chores herself by age seven. It was unusual to have any of that taken care of for her, especially breakfast. Let alone by the Daishogun himself.

When she returned she was fully armored and breakfast had been prepared and laid out in the sitting room, with a cast iron pot already laid out over the hibachi to simmer. Steamed rice and miso soup were served in portions more made for the bellies of men, but Blossom wasn't going to complain. Not to mention Father had the mind to trade out the green tea for peach herbal.

Had he somehow read her mind? More likely, he must have remembered these small, sweet details. Like how impatient she always was at this time of year for the peach blossoms to emerge so she could harvest its fruit. It made those sour thoughts of Father the night before all the more shameful.

"Just a little lonely and bored?" He asked, softly.

The question caught her off guard. "Yes, uh. Just a little. I've missed you a lot. Not being able to get out of the castle much is a hassle and I'm getting bored of the same old lessons. I've already mastered the sensu fan and this old sword I've had since I was born..." She coughed. "I don't mean to sound ungrateful! But, well, isn't there anything else I can learn, Father?"

The Daishogun's own massive sensu fan was closed, hiding what she suspected was a grin as he held it against his chin. "Perhaps that might be on the schedule.”

"Wait! Really?" Blossom glared at him mid-sip. "First you make me breakfast and now you have a surprise for me? What's the catch?"

"No catch, I promise!" He tittered, trying to hide the noise by tapping the fan against his mouth guard. It wasn't working.

Perhaps she would have found this cute as a child, but as an adult she had grown out of it. Even so it was rare to have this sort of attention that Blossom couldn’t help but smile and be excited. “You better be right!”

Breakfast concluded a little over an hour later once the sun was finally up. Blossom stood to help clear the table, but her hands were gently waved away.

“No, no. Let the servants take care of the clean up for once, my daughter.”

Unsure but compliant, the princess moved her hands away, bowing gratefully as two of the younger girls scurried out from the kitchen to collect their dishes. The servants were always girls. The boys were usually away from the castle grounds, training to be warriors or guards for the Daishogun and his many, many vassals. It was rare to see a boy in the castle unless he was very young himself.

Blossom turned away from them quickly, clearing her throat and making to rise, but her father slithered out from under the table and took her hand. His was huge, easily twice the size of hers, peppered with small nick and cuts from wielding a sword for decades. Hers were still so very smooth.

Blossom had to admit she was liking this personal treatment from her father. She giggled as he bowed and helped her up.

“Come, my daughter. I think you will like what I have to teach you. The servants will tend to your chores today.”

Giving said girls an apologetic wink, she grinned wider and scurried after the Daishogun.

Her excitement only grew when they stopped in a dark hallway. She’d been in most places in the palace but more still were kept unlit or locked away. This was one such place. Before she could begin to ramble out a question, her father pointed a finger, the digit glimmering with cobalt energy.

His teleportation powers! Blossom had never seen him use it inside the palace before! With the sound of a brush drawing across fresh silk, the portal appeared. It was in the shape of a hashtag, suspended by nothing and seemingly leading into nothing. He said equally nothing of its destination, only giving her a warm wink as she eagerly gripped his hand and let herself be guided through...

She stepped into darkness, the familiar feel of tatami mats gently shuffling under her feet. Surprised, but not startled she did not let go of her father’s hand even as her wide hazel eyes searched for a light source. There was none. Not yet. The Daishogun muttered soft words in a tongue she was only just beginning to learn, his fan open and glowing.

Air suddenly became visible as bright golden sparks, like flecks of frost at dusk. First it ignited tiny pinpricks of ember, smoldering on the ends of tall sticks. Incense. The sort placed before offering bowls and in front of shrines. For one, terrifying moment Blossom thought they might be in a hidden cemetery.

Then, following a trail of smoke and fire, massive paper lanterns blazed to life. Five of them in total, and it didn’t stop there. The fire and smoke continued to send hot streaks of light against the walls and floor, powering runes and mandalas that squirmed and rotated with a life of their own. And that was the least of it.

The most impressive sights were the huge painted silk portraits that hung low behind the offering bowls and incense. All of them were glowering warriors with decorative crests so fierce and noble they made Blossom gasp. Seen behind a sheen of cyan smoke and golden fire they were epic to behold, almost alive with the energy they extruded.

It was not an illusion. As the princess looked at each one they stirred like dragons in their lairs, waking. They made no sound nor regarded them at all, moving out of frame to draw blades against unseen opponents or cast their arms out to address hidden crowds in the most dramatic and lordly of poses.

“My predecessors,” her father whispered reverently. “All of them. The mighty Daishogun from the past.”

“Oh, wow! Is this what you wanted you teach me?”

“It is. They go back as far as Ark’s founding. The scrolls and archives won’t teach you half of what’s to be learned from this chamber.”

Blossom huffed. “I’m ready!”

And so it was. Ark’s past went beyond Grandfather’s bloody rampage. She knew that well before now, but she hadn’t known just how far and how bloody. Not all of the Daishogun were good leaders either. Some of the first were vicious, bellicose beings with power unto a god of war, whom spent as much time in battle as they did administering to Ark’s earliest people. Their sons, having inherited an Ark carved from the bones of worse things besides, had to fight the yokai—demons of distant legend that sought vengeance against the Daishogun for their uprising. Descendants of those terrifying things still lived today, but in far less capacity and power. Blossom shuttered the think what sort of strength the first yokai held back then.

After that and for a time, Ark was peaceful. The Daishogun were forced to be rulers rather than just warlords. Some were still harsh to their people, but they were revered as demigods, the only ones worthy of presiding over all of Ark. In time that changed too. Technology turned towards more domestic affairs other than just war. The citizens rose cities, better able to care for themselves without the aide of the Daishogun. Eventually the Daishogun became elusive and then vanished all together. Until the Daishogun of Perfect Virtue, her father.

“They were no longer needed,” explained her father. “Ark had its cities and its own rulers. None had to raise a sword in anger for many, many years. They even had a wall built to seal away the last of the yokai.”

“And then came the feudalistic eras,” Blossom replied solemnly.

“Indeed. Warlords like my father gained power that had previously only belonged to the Daishogun. Many saw this as blasphemy, but others agreed with them. They reasoned that this is what the Daishogun would want. To pass on their powers to their subjects so they might better rule themselves.”

“And look at how they turned out. I knew Grandfather was pretty bad but I guess he was just one of many.”

“And the last one at that,” the Daishogun said gravely. “I’m the first Daishogun for nearly five centuries, my dear daughter."

“And I’ll be the first female Daishogun!” She said in turn, tone determined if not outright fiery.

“I...Blossom, listen. About that...I’m not sure if the people are ready.”

“Why? Aren’t they excited there will be Daishogun again after you?”

“It’s not that, it’s...”

“It’s because I’m a woman,” she finished abruptly. “That’s always been it, hasn’t it? It’s not fair! You could change that too, but you haven’t. Why is it just the men who are allowed to be warriors and leaders? It’s lame! Ugh. Grandfather warned me you’d be like this.”

“Like what, exactly?” The Daishogun asked, ashamed and cross.

“Smothering and overly worried. You think I care if people will judge me because I’m a woman? If I have to make them accept me, I will!”

“Blossom! That’s not what I mean! I don’t want you to get hurt. You’re powerful but you’re still so young. You’ll have difficulties no other Daishogun will have ever had.”

“I’m ready for them! Damn you, Father! You’re not going to stop me!”

In an instant the look of compassion vanished from his eyes. In that moment he was not her father, but a Daishogun of old, vicious eyes flashing beneath a vicious crest. He had never struck her outside of sparring practice before, but she could see the concentrated effort it took for him to put down his sensu fan.

“I...Father. I’m so sorry,” she breathed, bowing so deeply her silken bow touched the floor. To her own shame, tears were running from the corners of her eyes, unwanted and unbidden.

Blossom could not see his face, and was therefore spared the sight of her father crying too.

“Go to your room. Do not come out until I tell you to.”

“Yes, Father.” Blossom sucked in a hard breath, throwing herself through the portal. The wicked glares of previous Daishogun chased her through the half-light, vanishing in winks of blue fire.

Chapter Text

The Daishogun emerged from several minutes after Blossom. By then she was already gone and he was too heavy with shame to check on her. In the unlit hall, his only source of illumination was the portal, which he swiftly dispelled, plunging himself into darkness.

“She’s right, you know,” said a voice in the black.

The Daishogun did not need to see to guess who it was. Kibaomaru had an unsettling habit of appearing uninvited--much to Blossom’s delight and his chagrin. Unsure of his father's intentions, he let a hand rest across the sword at his hip in warning as the former warlord approached, “Do you now? Were you listening to our conversation?”

“Of course not, boy,” Kibaomaru replied, suddenly underscored by a flash of blood orange lightning. A finger-thin bolt jumped from his frame and struck an ancient sconce, throwing both father and son in visual range of one another. Since boyhood, the Daishogun had always been fascinated by, and hated, his father. The hate long since ebbed away into an unreachable ache in his gunsoul, but Kibaomaru had never stopped impressing him.

Instead of growing old and ragged, the gundam had aged as well as a master forged katana. Where Kibaomaru had once been dark blue and gold, he was now charcoal grey and silver where the metallic had rubbed off with time. The sharp edges of his armor only became even more jagged with nicks and dings he never fixed. He let his beard grow out, its design modified into a braided rope of metal that looked completely barbaric to anyone who didn’t know him.

To his shame, the Daishogun saw his father had come unarmed. Cursing, he let his hand drop away.

“I am only here to talk,” reassured the former warrior king.

“As you say, Father,” the Daishogun replied, keeping most of the bitterness out of his voice. Even so, he still caught the pained glare the old warrior gave him as a result.

“I was not listening in, but I know what your argument was about because that’s all you two have ever fight over. I don’t see why you can’t just treat her as you would a son. Women aren’t any different than men when it comes to the proprieties of war, boy. You should know that by now.”

“We aren’t at war. We haven’t been since your defeat decades ago,” retorted the Daishogun. “You should know that by now.”

Kibaomaru gestured, “What of the yokai? What of the prophecies? The dissenters and all of the buried secrets of Ark, yet to be revealed? The Daishogun of old left behind more than just a bloody legacy. Yet you continue using the excuse that the people aren’t ready for a woman to rule them? Why?”

“It’s not that simple. Perhaps if she...if my wife were still here, she could tell me what I should do. You know how women are treated out there. How their histories are erased and their power taken away when they stop being obedient.”

“You are making excuses again, Genkimaru. There have been plenty of women in power. History often refuses them that right, but they’ve always fought back. In times of war, such trivial matters stop being relevant. Didn't your mother ever teach you that?”

The barb hurt, as did the mention of his mother. The Daishogun bristled, reaching for his sword again, but forced a breath through his faceplate, “Father. She died before she could teach me much of anything. I can barely remember what she looks like.”

Kibaomaru paused. This was the first time he saw the old man break. It was just a flicker, a tear at the corner of one dark brown eye that was gone before the Daishogun could commit it to memory.

“...I will help you remember, Genki. I was going to show this to you only after you told Blossom about her own mother, but I regret that. I should have shown you this sooner.”

Kibaomaru closed the tense distance between them, pulling a small golden locket from his armor. Held within it was a small portrait. An actual photo. Photographs were still rare, a means only the elite could afford even in the present time. It was old and worn out, but someone had taken great care to restore it at some point.

“Princess Rele taught me a lot when I was studying under her. She also had this locket made for me when I showed her the photo and told her about your mother. She...she was very kind. I miss her company greatly.”

“...Mother, or Rele?”

“Both. Always both,” Kibaomaru closed the locket, pressing it into the Daishogun’s hands. “Take it, Genki.”

He wanted to refuse, but his gunsoul resisted. He let out a shaky breath and quietly secreted it beneath his armor, “Thank you, Father.”

“Thank me by being more open and trusting with your daughter. I...I know what happened with your wife and mother scarred you deeply, but the more you try to cling to Blossom, the more she’s going to run away. Then she really will be lost to you.”

The man who had once been Genkimaru stared at Kibaomaru for a moment, as if thinking of what to say. Before he could utter a reply, his father turned and stalked down the hall. One of the jagged, flightless wings on the old war king’s back flared, cutting the single flame from the sconce and plunging the room back into darkness.

--------

Blossom stormed towards her room, aggressively brushing tears from her eyes. The route she took was a well-traveled breezeway that took her away from the main chambers and down halls that only servants traveled. They mindfully moved out of her path before she could order them to leave, for which she was grateful.

By then it was late afternoon and the former chill of the morning frost left her room feeling moist and stagnant. To her annoyance her chores had been done in her absence. Father said to leave those to the servants but her frustration and need to be left alone made her feel as if she was being lazy. Blossom would feel terrible about it later, but she stuck her head out her sliding screen door and yelled for the guards to leave. When they hesitated, she whipped her fan at them and they went scattering like moths.

“I bet this wouldn’t be happening if Mother was around,” she growled, throwing the curtains shut and rooting around under her bed. The silk painting she withdrew was old. A constant work in progress that transformed as her skills and attitudes developed. Many years ago Grandfather came back from Lacroa with an ancient poem delved from the foreign castle’s archives--one that, at the time, scared her senseless; conjuring nightmares of flaming tigers that stalked her through fog shrouded bamboo forests in the deep hours before dawn. Each time the tiger got a little closer until it she could feel the heat of its flames, molten striations of fur and sinew crowned by flecks of flame and ash. On the last night, it reached her. Blossom saw then it was female, and she was there to guide, not hurt her. When she touched the beast, the tigress's fur was as warm as summer. Eyes, shimmering gems that held such motherly ferocity that Blossom was sad to wake up. Her last thought was that, somehow, the tigress had to be her mother. Since then Blossom dedicated her silk painting activities to recreating the image.

“Tiger, tiger burning bright,” she whispered, preparing her paints. “In the forest of the night. That’s how it went, right?”

The tigress became her symbol, in a fashion. An image of feminine pride that rejected patriarchal rule and encouraged women of all ages to take up arms alongside their men.

“Ugh!” She huffed, gingerly scrapping away mistakes she made the last time she touched the painting. The tigress never seemed to look vicious enough. Not like the sneering eyes and feral crests of the Daishogun of the past. Not like the men. Not like her dreams. But she could try.

Trying took up what felt like several more hours. No one knocked on her screen door. Just the way she liked it. This way the princess lost herself in her work like she always did, comforted by dim daylight and pure solitude.

When there was a noise, she snarled and threw her brush into a water tin at her side, “Go away!”

No one answered. The noise sounded again: a thick, booming drone that rolled in through the curtains like a peel of thunder. That wasn’t a knock.

“Wha?” Blossom bolted from the floor and poked her head through the window. To her surprise it was almost dusk, the town ahead of the palace dark with shadow and sharp rays of red sunlight. She didn’t see it at first, not until her hazel eyes adjusted and noticed that the odd shape in the distance was not a building. It was moving. And it was huge. What appeared to be a massive crab claw lifted up from the ground then slammed into a tower with the sound of a landslide.

“Kaiju!” She screamed, throwing herself back and off the windowsill, “I have to warn Father!”

The way was blocked. She’d been so engrossed in her painting she hadn’t heard someone locking the door from the outside. Fear transformed into anger, shoving her full weight against the frame to try and force it open. It wouldn't budge. In regular circumstances, Blossom could pull the door off its track with enough effort, but the growing numbness in her fingers told her this was a more magically inclined lock. Father’s doing, most likely.

“Think, Blossom think!” She shouted to herself. The princess ran to the window again, peering first at the terrible shape, then down towards the ground below. Her room was located in a spire poised at least a hundred feet above the foundations. There was no way she would be able to climb down. She’d tried before and the visit to the infirmary that resulted had been lesson enough.

All hope seemed lost. Father apparently didn’t trust her, yet she might be the only one who could warn them of the coming threat. No yokai, let alone a kaiju, had ever gotten this close before. Why had there not be an alert sooner? None of it made any sense!

Just as her anxiety and despair reached its peak, a glow emanated from a small compartment in her armor. Her father’s emblem dagger--the one that had once belonged to Kibaomaru. Confused, she took out the blade. Father didn’t know she had it on her at all times, kept secreted away in her armor, but now it was glimmering. With the same cobalt energies that heralded the Daishogun’s teleportation powers!

Blossom was aware she might well have that power too, but up until now she’d never thought to find out, so this came as a surprise. So much so that her fear scattered, replaced with awe and excitement.

Before she could think, the Lotus Princess had the handle in her grip, eagerly sketching out a hashtag in the far wall. It appeared obediently, hardly any different than her father’s. Where it led to she did not know, nor did she care. It was the most welcomed escape and she leapt through it without a second thought.

Just like before she landed in darkness. Unnerved and perhaps regretting her brashness, Blossom’s first idea was that she was back in the secret chamber. Her second idea was that she needed to go back and try again. As she turned, the portal wavered and vanished all together. Whimpering, the princess reached down and did as her father had. She drew her sensu fan and flicked it open, waving it frantically.

During battle, her deadly fan dances could summon a flurry of gorgeous pink lotus petals that dazzled and shocked as easily as a lightning storm. In her panicked state what flew from the fan was more like a gust of pollen. Only when she forced herself to breath properly did her magic activate, filling the black with drifting motes. Almost immediately something became illuminated, and the soft color did nothing to hide its horror. It was a massive, solid disk of teeth and claws filling the entire room in front of her like the back of a dragon’s maw. The walls surrounding her contained no exit and were filled to the brim with the monster’s teeth marks.

“Ancestors!” She yelped between clasped hands, her fan dropped to the floor. “Wait, it’s...”

She reached out a hand. It touched the thing’s flat, metallic throat with no incident. “It’s a...machine! It’s a machine? What’s it doing here, and where am I?”

She toed around in the dark, trying to catch a hatch in the floor, or some sort of hole. “I don’t think there are any tunnels being built around here, let alone with...whatever this is,” she tapped at one giant, tungsten tooth with her fan. “This isn’t right...”

"Hey!"

Blossom barely stifled another yelp, blowing out the last of the pink motes before pressing herself flat against those dirty jaws. Whoever had shouted at, or around her, was a gundam she didn't know. Seconds later stab lamps set high along the machine's throat lit, puncturing the dark. A head appeared out a hatch thus revealed. He was not a Musha gundam and he could not see her from where he was, searching directly ahead of the machine instead of downward. Slowly but surely the pieces started to fall into place. Either she was no longer in Ark, or she was and this man did not belong here. She would find out soon enough.

"I know I heard something," the other gundam muttered, hand poised to close the hatch. Before he could, Blossom moved quickly. The princess found her focus and so when she called out and swiped her fan through the air, her magic was unquestionable. What had previously been a gust of petals was now a solid blade of color that sliced through the hatch, cutting the door off its hinges and startling the gundam badly enough that he lost his balance and tumbled forward. Unlike Blossom, he had no water to cushion his fall and he went thunking to the ground. Head first. The fall knocked him clean out with barely a grunt.

Sighing in equal parts relief and nervousness, Blossom started to climb, ignoring the diamond sharp teeth as they nicked her palms, swinging up and into the permanently opened hatch. Just in time. As soon as her feet hit the floor of the engine room, the machine rumbled to life. By the Ancients, it sounded like a dragon's bowels!

Strange mechanisms and contraptions she'd previously only seen in the battle fortress Tenchijo clanged and chugged with such a din Blossom had to clap her hands over her audios. The segmented ceiling was only twice as tall as her and roared as the machine, quite suddenly, lurched forward. Gigantic coils of blades and spirals lifted and began to eat away at the rock above, showering her with a faint but fine grit of rock dust that she batted at furiously.

"It's a drill! Of course it's a drill, you baka," Blossom cursed herself, ducking down the only other way available to her, eyes squinted and set forward. Thankfully she encountered no one else for several lengths, but just as unthankfully she was starting to think no one else was in the infernal contraption.

She was right. The thing was easily a mile long but Blossom had run the whole length of it without meeting anyone. Apparently the poor goon she'd knocked out back in the tunnel was the only one left to look after it. Confused and more than a little nervous she marched back towards the aft of the machine.

"Yeah, no. This isn't right. Someone has to be piloting it. No cockpit. No controls. Huh..."

She rubbed at her face, irritated. Dust still caked her silken bow and covered her pearl and golden armor trim in a halo of filth. Eventually she reached the hatch and the bladed, whirling ceiling again. As she peered out of the port like the engineer had before, Blossom could not help but feel they were moving through the intestines of a titanic creature. A perfect circle of stone continuously vanished behind the machine, stretching out into infinite darkness.

"Tunnels have to start somewhere, don't they?" She breathed, another idea forming in her head. Brash thinking had gotten her into this situation and brash thinking would get her out of it. Dropping clumsily out of the hatch, she grunted and rolled. Pristine armor chipped and scuffed but Blossom found she cared less than she thought she would. Summoning another gale of blazing petals, Blossom intended to find the end of the tunnel. Where ever, or whoever, it led to...

"It better led me there faster!" Blossom hissed and huffed. She was covered in so much dirt the princess suspected she could easily be mistaken for a statue if she stayed still enough. Hours had ticked by and her leg joints burned from overuse. Her fan has since given up the ghost about a mile back, its magic spent and Blossom could not longer give much of a care that she couldn't see. Eventually the tunnel pitched upwards at such a steep incline the princess was forced to grunt and groan her way up on hands and feet. It was the most undignified and terrifying experience in her life...and she loved it.

Absolutely, without a doubt, loved it. Father would almost surely punish her for this, but Blossom never felt more alive than right now, practically dragging herself through a pitch-black tunnel, trying to find its mouth.

Squeezing her eyes shut against the now constant rain of dust, Blossom nearly stumbled when her scuffed up fingers hooked on a ledge. Warily, blindly, she kicked her feet and frantically scurried up and over the edge, landing in a pile of huffing princess. Stars stared back at her when her eyes finally blinked open. Familiar stars.

"I am still in Ark!" She cheered, only now aware of the bite of ice and snow. Rolling to her feet, Blossom surveyed the area around her as best as she could. Spurs of snow capped stone rose up all around her, lacking vegetation and inviting lashes of harsh winds that threatened to almost blow her over. Shivering, Blossom lowed her filthy head and pawed around one outcropping, and nearly slipped down a sheer mountain face.

"K-Kyoto Town!" She gasped, backing away from the nearly invisible edge with a note of dread, and then excitement as she realized she where she was, “I must be on the summit of Mount Fuji! Ancestors, I’ve always wanted to come here just...just not like this.”

Blossom slunk further away from the ledge, suddenly wary, “So if the tunnel started up here, then...what are these guys planning?”

Keeping glued to the rocks sticking up from the ground like the molars of giant oni, Blossom headed back to the mouth of the tunnel. She was correct in her assumption apparently. Even in the lack of proper lighting, the princess could see heavy tread tracks ground into the dirt and rock from here. Whoever had done this had cored the mountain through the middle, rather than across its base. This wasn’t just some convenient route for them to bypass going around the summit.

Shaking her head, she redirected her attention back to the sight of a dark Kyoto Town, sparkling on the horizon like thousands upon thousands of shrine candles. All of it spoiled by the hideous shadow of the kaiju crashing through it.

“I should be down there...” She glared, “not standing up here trying to figure out where this drill came from.”

Clinching her fists, the princess bit back her own doubts and frustration, “This has to be connected somehow. It’s too much of a coincidence.”

“Perhaps it is!” Someone behind her hooted.

Blossom started and whirled around, secret knife held aloft. The stranger laughed. Between the howl of the wind and the distraction of her own dialogue, the figure had managed to sneak up on her!
He was cloaked and holding a glaive, but she couldn’t be sure if he was a gundam or not, “Stay back!”

“I should say the same of you. What are you doing here?”

“Can’t you see I’m on vacation? Who else wouldn’t want to have a peek at that big, ugly hole someone dug into the top of Mount Fuji?”

Oh, now he was angry. Good.

He clung to his weapon just a little tighter, his stance shifting enough to give him away. Blossom reacted immediately. First dodging to the side as the pole arm went stabbing past her, then she was grabbing him by the cloak. The momentum nearly dragged her off her feet, but she dug in, grunted and spun hard. He stumbled with an ugly sound and then Blossom yanked as hard as she could.

The stranger staggered for only a moment, almost getting his footing, but then the tunnel loomed close and swallowed him when he failed to compensate in time. Already worn thin and ragged from overuse, the cloak torn away from his frame and he went clattering down the steep incline.

As his shouts faded, Blossom found herself staring down at the ripped cloak in her hands. Kanji and other graphics were painted or sewn into the fabric. Names she wasn’t familiar with. Swallowing, she knew she had little choice at this point. The princess flung the cloak about her frame, pulling it tight and keeping her head bowed below the hood. She was going to have to go undercover.

--------

“Ho! Keep your eye on me, beast!” Barked a single warrior. He was clad in elegant crimson and coal armor, swept back into softly curved crests that invoked a sense of martial pride rather than terror.

He was seemingly alone as well, perched upon a high spire overlooking the devastation wrought by the kaiju. In both hands he held aloft a long bladed nodachi that burned bright with a hot pink sheen.

Finally the monster turned ponderously. It was a massive crustacean that glowered at the world through a single, baleful eye. The rest of it was so heavily armored that the weapons of countless warriors stuck fast in its carapace like so many spines. It was also hideously big. Easily the size of the building he stood upon, and it had already destroyed much bigger structures than itself.

But Hatomaru was not daunted. He was the Crested Samurai of the Gentle Heart. When his blade cut it was with the strength of true love and compassion.

And it was all a show.

Once the crab monster lumbered close enough, he let out a whooping call and a flurry of blades rushed towards its single eye in a steel blizzard. Hidden in the lee of the spire, totally cloaked in shadow, Ninjakemaru cursed. His steel rain hit home, flung at speeds that made the countless kunai and shuriken all but invisible to the naked eye, but the kaiju barely reacted. It was as if even its optic was armored too!

“Odd,” said a voice to Hatomaru’s immediate left. A spinning mandala the color of Ark's setting sun appeared on the tiles below his feet, welcoming the owner of the voice. “It’s as if this creature isn’t truly organic.”

Kurobamaru was not a warrior per say, but a monk who had since come down from his monastery in the far South to serve the risen Daishogun. While his physical combat capabilities were limited, his magic was not. Hatomaru watched with a growing sense of pride as the monk emerged from the mandala and uttered words that caused the air to waver.

A second later glowing paper ofuda appeared on each of the monster’s legs, effectively fixing it to the ground before its claws were within range of their youngest member. Ninjakemaru, despite being the fastest member of the Court of the Daishogun, struggled in closed spaces and so was grateful he was not forced to reveal himself. Hatomaru could see only his signature orange scarf trailing in the wind as he was finally given the room needed to break away from the shadows to join his leader on the roof.

“Impossible,” the boy growled, unlimbering his long bow to an experimental shoot an arrow into the thing's eye. Ironically Ninjakemaru was also cyclopean, having lost his left eye some years back. It did little to spoil his aim, however. “There are no more war machines. Our lord had them banned after the wars ended.”

“Yet here it is. Your storm of blades struck only glass.”

“Humph!”

“This changes little, my brothers.” Hatomaru reassured, watching warily as the crab-like automaton continued to struggle. The seals would not last long. Striking again, now, would only exhaust their already limited options and they were running out of time.

“We need to lead it away from the city,” Ninjakemaru pointed out. “If only it weren’t so stupid. We’ve tried a diversion already, but it refuses to do anything but mindlessly attack buildings.”

“Thank the gods it isn’t going after our people,” murmured Kurobamaru, eyes narrowed in concentration.

He was about to say more, but the mechanism let out a mechanical roar. Spine encrusted claws snipped and slashed furiously at the magical bindings on its many legs. Normally such powerful seals could work indefinitely on smaller, less mechanical creatures, but to a thing of metal and spite, magic was a mere hindrance.

The monk cried out, his efforts shattered and the mandala at his feet violently dispelled. Hatomaru and Ninjakemaru both dodged to the side, avoiding a chunk of rock that had once been a lantern, yanking the exhausted monk with them. Just in time. One of the thing's claws went smashing down upon the roof they just stood, blowing out tile and sending fragments of stone raining down on them.

They were forced to the ground, some landing more gracefully than others. At some point during their decent, Ninjakemaru had vanished again, seemingly melding into the shadow of the evacuated ramen shoppe they now crouched beside. The whole district had thankfully been evacuated, thanks to the Daishogun's own foresight. However, the districts beyond were still populated...

Hatomaru quickly took stock of the situation. The monstrosity had been so easily mistaken for a kaiju that, for a while, the leader of the Daishogun's Court had panicked, thinking the wall had somehow been breached. This was apparently no longer the case. Somehow, it was worse.

"Someone...someone smuggled it into Ark," hissed a wary Kurobamaru, stealing Hatomaru's words.

The Samurai of the Gentle Heart nodded, sapphire eyes narrowed. Had this been a living opponent, he would have resorted to using his less...savory powers. When in truly dire straits he could reverse a person's immediate emotions and thus manipulate them to his advantage. It was a nasty, nasty power that hadn't been seen since the last great Daishogun, five centuries back. And now it was his responsibility in the present.

"That means someone could be piloting it too," concluded Ninjakemaru. He appeared at their side once more. "I made a pass after it attacked us on the roof, but I can't seem to find a hatch. Or anything that might be door."

Hatomaru gave the one-eyed boy an admiring look. Hatomaru was fond of Ninjakemaru and thought of him as a son in a way, despite the shinobi's often introverted behavior. "Excellent work. That tells me as much as I should need to know. That means this is very possibly a remotely piloted contraption. Nini, my boy. Help Kurobamaru find a place to recover. I need to call on the others."

The others Hatomaru spoke of were the rest of the Court. Ninjakemaru considered them an odd bunch for sure, more so the kabuki actor Dokeshimaru than the mysterious shinto priest Hishigatomaru. The shinobi watched warily as Hatomaru flicked his long blade, apparently intent on creating another failed diversion to see them safely away, but Kurobamaru gently tapped it with the end of his knotted staff.

"No need, friend. Please. Make the call. Me and the shinobi will make our escape without aide."

Hatomaru hesitated but before he could say more, the shinobi had already vanished with the monk. Alone with the machine, the samurai prepared to chase after it. Having lost sight of its opponents, the thing had already lost interest and continued on its path of destruction towards the heart of the city. The Daishogun’s castle. He didn’t have much time to waste.

Time was not needed. Just as he began to sketch out the heart sigil as a huge, shimmering rune in the air, he heard the uncanny crackle of thunder. Startled, Hatomaru looked skywards. No clouds graced the night sky save for shifts of fire smoke and dust left behind by the machine’s rampage. Could Hishigatomaru already be here?

He got his answer shortly.

The bolt of lightning that struck the metal beast hit dead center, briefly turning night into day and igniting its carapace in a ring of blood orange fire. For the second time that day the machine spoke. A metallic roar so thunderous it hurt to hear, forcing Hatomaru to turn away a moment as he narrowed his eyes against the boom, running to join the new apparent combatant.

It was not Hishigatomaru. Standing as a spot of scorched black upon the beast’s spine was the jagged form of Kibaomaru, wreathed in lightning with his simple wakizashi sword plunged into the dome housing its eye. The pink optical disk rolled around as if the machine was suddenly punch drunk, shaking and stuttering as electricity racked its frame.

If physical attacks and magic did little to stagger it, pure lightning did. Seeing his opportunity, Hatomaru launched himself up the side of a building, hop scotching between adjacent walls until he could hook his fingers into a gap in the carapace. He climbed.

“Lord Kibaomaru!”

“I am not your lord!” Came the retort a bare second before the crab machine seemingly recovered, scrapping both its hind claws along its body. It happened quickly and the former war king was clipped, sending him flying and rolling. Hatomaru caught him just in time.

“Kibaomaru, it’s a machine! Your lightning might have actually damaged it.”

“I know,” the other replied, brushing off the samurai but now carrying a heavy, painful limp. “It’s a Big Zam...but how and why is it here? I was trying to aim for the cockpit.”

Hatomaru shrugged, “Ninjakemaru couldn’t find one. We think it’s being remotely controlled. But how is that possible?”

“Does it matter? Either we find the one controlling this thing and kill them, or we kill the machine. Pick which one is easier. We don’t have time.”

Before Hatomaru could reply, another crack of thunder answered for him. He spared a glance at Kibaomaru, thinking perhaps the man had a sudden penchant for the dramatic, but then rain began to cascade across their armor. This was a true storm. And it was even more uncanny than the old warlord's entrance. Kibaomaru was confused for a moment, then realization flashed in his dark eyes as lighting forked through suddenly gathered clouds.

“Ah. So he did hear my call.”

Before that too could be answered, Hishigatomaru appeared. He was a thundering wraith undercut by cyan lightning, as rain wrapped as a twister and almost totally obscured from clear view. It wasn’t just the theatrics either. Forever perched upon his head was a sugegasa, a rice farmer's hat, in place of a helm. Set low over his eyes, it covered the upper half of his face, while an ofuda covered the rest. The rumor went that no one had seen him uncovered before. Even Hatomaru. Which only added to the mystery surrounding the Shinto priest as he took up a stance beside Kibaomaru.

“I am ready when you are, Lord Kibaomaru.”

“I am not a lord,” groused the other, his own warm colored lightning flickering along both wrists. “Do you see where I left my blade?”

Hishigatomaru nodded, the yari spear in his left hand twirling slightly. Hatomaru had to back away, both due to the brightness and the hot static that licked across his armor from the two warriors. He realized quickly enough he should be grounding himself properly.

Rain continued to pour, becoming a deluge that choked out the fires and threw a haze over the crab Zam as it made its way through another building. It hadn’t seen nor reacted to the newcomer at all, so focused on its purpose of destruction.

“What weakness.” Kibaomaru growled, “It’s obvious this thing is here purely to destroy not kill. What a waste of our time.”

“Then we should make a show of overkill,” Hishigatomaru announced, offering the old warlord the lower half of his yari.

There was an almost excited glint in the other's eyes as he realized what the priest was planning and gladly grabbed on.

Hatomaru scurried out of the way just in time. It didn’t happen all at once. First the puddles collecting under the feet of the two warriors began to steam, then boil. Then clouds directly above their heads stirred with strange light, the air tasting sharply of ozone and iron. The leader of the Court hunkered down and clapped his hands over his audios mere moments before it struck.

The bolt of lightning that hit was titanic. As thick as a tree trunk, it burned through the core of the beast like a meteor. Overkill was an understatement. Its insides simply stopped existing or were otherwise rendered into slagged scrap metal. Sparks and flickers of color still danced across its frame as motes of blue and orange long after. The spectacle would have been beautiful were it not for the tang of char and the explosive shockwave that Hatomaru had to power through.

It was all over in a second. As the flash gradually faded he got up and rushed towards his comrades. Both were slumped over and twitching, their hands still firmly grasping the spear, holding it up to the sky as if in tribute. But they were all right. Kibaomaru was already dragging the smaller gundam from the ground. Most of the ofuda had been scorched away, so the hand not occupied by the spear was keeping his faceplate covered.

At least, for a moment. As Hishigatomaru stood, his hand dropped and Hatomaru was stunned by the vivid blue of the priest's eyes. They were much younger than he expected.

The priest laughed gently, “I only hide my face from yokai.”

“You hardly took your seal off when it was just us either!”

He gave a wink, “You never asked.”

Apparently Kibaomaru thought this was the funniest of jokes and started cackling.

Chapter Text

Blossom could not believe what she was seeing. Following the tread marks left behind by the drill took her further up then summit than she thought anyone would ever dare to go. Along the way she found several paths studded with electric lamps and lanterns, providing wane pools of harsh sodium light along dark stone floors dotted with dirty snow. Scattered to either side were piles of rusted equipment and scrap metal littering what Blossom took to be halfhearted dig sites. Some were burrowed right down to the bedrock, but most were seemingly abandoned and left to collect snow and filth.

Personally, the princess found it to be careless and almost desperate. The more she walked the bigger the piles became and the deeper the excavations went until she was looking down into holes several yards down, the bedrock below scrapped clean. Scaffolding leading into the blackest of the pits were nothing but skeletal apparitions in the night, totally unlit and smacking of danger. She avoided them instinctively. At some point she was forced to tread across a wobbly rope bridge that the princess could find no other route around.

The pit it stretched across was not dark, however. Which, somehow, made it worse. It was also suspiciously shaped, as if they’d uncovered something very specific. To both her validation and surprise, it was vaguely recognizable as crustacean in form.

“I knew it,” she whispered harshly, her breath frosting. “That kaiju is connected somehow.”

She shook her head of the vertigo and hurried across. It was a huge relief when her feet toed across solid stone again. Blossom only just missed a collection of figures but stopped in time before they rounded the corner. From that point on the path was hand carved rather than a feature of the mountain. Cliff faces were turned into walls with windows she became wary of, vividly aware of the cloaked and armed shadows that walked past them. Blossom had not grabbed the gundam’s weapon but then many were seemingly without them as well. At least that’s what she hoped.

Grunting in what she thought to be a dismissive manner, she hunkered down under the hood and nodded towards a passing group, and they returned it. Relief warred with excitement. She felt like Ninjakemaru, ghosting her way through a stealth mission! Women really could do just as much as men if they put their minds to it!

At least that’s what it felt like. Blossom tried to keep the smugness from her eyes and her face tilted away from any passers by, but eventually one or two were going to try and talk to her. Just as that thought addled her mind, it came true.

“Not that way!” Someone barked, distracting her. “We abandoned that dig site already. Aren’t you the one who’s supposed to have the boss’s map of the aquifer?”

Aquifer? “Ahem! Of course not! The drill is still going. Isn’t it your job to make sure it’s getting to the right place?” Blossom gestured wildly, her voice deepened, hands on hips and pelvis thrust slightly forward. That’s...what men did when speaking with one another. Right?

There was a collective mutter. He wasn’t alone. Their shouting had drawn a bit of a crowd. A patrol apparently. As the panic was setting in she quickly noted the direction they’d just left.

“Hey, you aren’t--OW!!” Before he could finish blabbering, the princess lowered her head and tackled him into his fellows. They went bowling over one another as Blossom ditched her disguise and ran.

“St-stop her! Stop that woman!” Another of them called out, trying to paw at the cloak she’d shoved into his face. Pole arms clattered but Blossom was already around the bend and sprinting.

The area they’d come from was an open air warehouse of some sort. Boxes and stored equipment were jumbled under rocky eves and piled up on outcrops of stone to keep them out of the way. Much of the area was dark and empty. Which would have been great if she were a darker color. Even tarnished, her gold and pearl white armor was a sore thumb. Without many other ideas, Blossom squeaked, threw herself under an empty box and rapidly duck walked herself into a corner.

A riot of footfalls ran past her seconds later. There was a small, rounded slit in the box to be used as a handle hold, but Blossom could only see out of it when she laid herself flat. Difficult to do, and the box was already bulging slightly from her bulk. If any one of these goons were smart enough to double-check...

“Start searching!” The one she’d tackled yelled, slamming the pommel of his weapon against the ground. Dark figures scattered. Pole arms clanked against strange construction vehicles and stabbed under desks. More than once someone got a little too close. The last time it happened he nearly tripped over the box, apparently not expecting it to be there.

When he was about to kick it over in frustration, Blossom hissed and snagged his ankles. In a swift move even Ninjakemaru would have been proud of, she yanked him off his feet and dragged him under the box with her. He started to scream, but a karate chop to the neck choked his words, gagging silently as Blossom switched places with him. Flipping out from under the box, she slammed it over his head with such force it burst through the bottom and left him with a mane of cardboard. Dazed, he flopped over backwards.

Blossom didn’t stop to celebrate. She cursed softly and scurried behind a stack of sheet plastic. She had to get away somehow. Now that she was able to steal a look towards the sky she could see just how vast the complex actually was, shadowed against a blanket of stars. It appeared to be little different then the crest of a mountain, save for the glittering lights of windows and the odd gleam of corrugated aluminum. None of it was Ark in design.

“You baka!”

Blossom hunkered down further, daring to peek around the corner. The apparent leader she’d shoulder checked was ripping the box off her victim’s head. “Don’t be playing around!”

“I’m not!” The other protested, fingering at the dent in his neck, “She was under the box, then the next second I was under it instead!”

“So you let yourself be beaten by a woman?”

“You were the one who thought she was Kuromaru in the first place! You let a woman knock you over!”

There was a smack of metal on metal as the flat of one pole blade struck the helm of the other. “Don’t patronize me! I was caught off guard. There’s no way I’d purposefully let a woman best me in anything.”

Blossom huffed. “Ugh! Men.”

Shaking her head, she slunk back from the corner and stalked away. Their arguing continued even as she looped around and found her way to the complex’s courtyard foyer. Subjectively, she knew she should have been scared. Blossom was almost totally unarmed and lucky the guards were struck with a bought of incompetence. Grumbling, her hands went to her hidden compartment...and froze.

“...Nononono,” she breathed. Her knife was gone! “Oh, no...I must have dropped it when I threw that goon down the tunnel!”

Tears began to well up in her hazel eyes. She’d mocked the men for their mess-ups only to immediately experience one herself. “That was Father’s...please don’t tell me I lost my fan too?”

It was there. Still clamped to her hip. It was only a small relief.

Even so she gripped the handle of her magically inclined weapon with determination. “It’s too late to go back now. That goon mentioned an aquifer? I guess there’s a map of it that belonged to their boss. Maybe the one I pushed down the tunnel had it? That baka seemed to think so…”

She tapped her foot in frustration then smothered a yelp when it echoed through the empty courtyard. Blossom had squished herself up against an unlit chain railing, but didn’t trust herself not to be seen or heard again.

“What am I going to do though? I don’t have my disguise anymore and I don’t exactly think it’ll work a second time. No more boxes...a diversion maybe? It’s certainly working for them with that kaiju. Time to give them a taste of their own medicine.”

There was no grand plan, Blossom only picked up a handful of pebbles at her feet and started chucking them with expert aim at the sealed steel door. Her training in archery made the task easy and she hit it on target every time, even from this distance.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

Blossom giggled quietly in triumph as a series of glass eyes mounted in flared plastic tubes winked open and spun towards the door. A few swerved in her direction but she was already moving out of the shadows, creeping closer. She paused again.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

This time she threw the rocks at an empty shed just to the left of her. The glass eyes jerked towards the sound again, alert but seeing nothing. Excellent! She ducked to the right without a sound and slipped under the railing that cordoned the courtyard off from the rest of the rocky clearing. There would be no avoiding the giant, yellow circle of light directly under the door, but that’s not where she was headed. With the eyes looking away, the big concrete pillars off to either side of it were clear. She slipped behind the one on the left, her father’s red silk ribbon in hand.

It was filthy and what she was about to do would only dirty it further. Yet not a wink of regret passed through her expression as she glared and lashed it around the pillar. Planting one foot and then the other against the support column, she found it to be stable. Blossom climbed.

------------                                

"Hail Marisha," hissed one gundam under his breath. The second one off to his side elbowed him, struggling to fit his bulk into Ark's traditional style of religious dress.

"Shut up!" The bigger gundam admonished, "You're going to get us seen. We already look stupid enough waddling around in priest's clothes. Don't forget what we're here for."

The first was forced to agree. The plan had taken nearly a year to get to this point and one misstep could send it all toppling down. They'd gotten through the walls of Kyoto Town just in time to see the crab zam go down in a brilliant bolt of lightning that would have been awesome to witness if they'd not spent so many months digging the darned thing out in the first place. Now it was but a mountain of charred scrap squatting, dead as a doornail, in the outer districts.

The bigger one, named Barru, bulled on ahead. Crowds of bushi and other gundams flowed around him like a river over a boulder. He was unmovable when he wanted to be. Neither Barru nor himself were natives to Ark let alone Kyoto Town, nor did they ever wish to be. Not that it stopped from the Marisha from doing what they wanted. The Marisha always did what they wanted and no treaties or sanctions could stop them!

But this crowd was certainly trying. The congregation was largely calm, but so dense the other Marisha gundam, Margo, could hardly swing a dead crab and not hit someone upside the head. It helped little they were going with the flow rather than against it, letting themselves be gently bumped along towards their destination. Even in the dead of night the palace was a spot of glowing white in the distance where torches and brass lamps kept the pristine grounds lit at all times.

"Such an easy target," grunted Barru. "If only this crowd would move faster."

"I thought I was the one who was gonna get us seen, eh?"

Margo yelped as he received a bulky elbow to the face. “Look. Up there.”

Margo followed to where Barru pointed: a single, brilliant dot of white and gold hanging in the night sky brighter than any star. The smaller of the Marisha’s Gunsoul began to pound. “That’s the Daishogun!?”

“Shh! Yes, exactly. Notice how he wasn’t out there fighting our distraction?”

Margo, still temporarily transfixed on the Daishogun, forced himself to look away with a glare. “What do you mean?”

The bigger one grunted and cuffed Margo across the cranium. “He’s not fighting because he’s evacuating the citizens. Look closer, tungsten brain.”

As usual, Barru was right. The flow of the crowd, while leading towards the castle, was not actually heading for it. Instead, Margo saw a gaping, cobalt door frame the size of a building seething in the distance, just flush with the ground from where they stood. Margo did not want to say that he was impressed, but he was indeed very impressed.

“Jeez. I heard he could do that. Just not like that…”

“Exactly. This is new information.” Barru grunted a short laugh, tugging his companion along. “I’m breaking us out of this crowd.”

Margo could only hold on as his partner snagged the collar of his ill-fitting disguise and yanked. Ark citizens, both gundam and not, shouted indignantly as Barru carefully bowled through them. He was gentle enough not to knock anyone down and cause suspicion, but he was forced to bat aside many worried questions. Why were they not headed for the portal? Did they forget someone at home? More than not, their words were not questions, but curses and even a few pointed gestures almost made Margo feel like someone might attack.

Barru ignored them all, shouldering himself into a darkened alleyway where he finally released Margo, huffing and puffing only slightly despite the effort. The latter coughed and straightened up, looking around. The flow of the crowd gradually snaked past them like a steady river. Again, Margo was impressed even if he would never speak it out loud. The citizens were keeping calm and didn’t even require guards or soldiers to keep them in line. All were in various states of worry or just outright nervousness, but it was obvious they were either used to these sorts of happenings, or were just so trusting of their precious Daishogun that the idea of rioting at the first sign of trouble didn’t even occur to them.

Barru grunted and directed Margo to look behind them. The palace shimmered into view. It was so bright Margo had to squint! Now that they were closer, they could see the massive swath of blue energies that cast a rippling cobalt glow against one entire side of the place. The teleportation portal the Daishogun had cast, and continued to hold open to let everyone in Kyoto Town pass through, must have been at least half as big as the complex itself! The Marisha didn’t dare think of the sort of willpower and sheer magical might it took to do that. He wanted to say the mighty leader of Ark must be struggling, but for all he knew, the old man could be up there in that golden boat of his napping!

Barru grunted and yanked him along, and this time the smaller one went without protest. Their mission was clear. The alleyway, while unbarred and unguarded, wasn’t the best path to travel by if they wanted to be sure they went totally unseen. The winding way they took, scurrying down back alleys and avoiding main roads, personal property and other semi-industrialized yards and buildings, eventually regurgitated them out towards the rear of the palace itself. It was safer and less likely to be visible, of course, but no good palace was indefensible from any angle. Especially from behind where any stupid person would expect to be able to just sneak in without notice. And indeed Margo liked to think of himself as an expert of common sense.

So indeed, while they took the back way and the rear entrance, they were still careful. They avoided exposing themselves in the light if at all possible, having disrobed and stuffed their ill-fitting priest’s clothes in a near by bush so well one would need to actually be hiding in the bush itself to spot them. Crawling through the palace’s less extravagant, but still very, very private back gardens took time. Loose stones would shift and grind underfoot so they had to toe around in the grass or be forced to skitter along walls and duck under eves whenever possible. It was tough going but the two Marisha, like the rest of the plans, had taken a full year to train for this.

Finally, at last, they reached the building itself. No cameras threatened to spoil the action. The Daishogun had banished the use of most war-time technologies developed during Ark’s centuries long feudal era, spying equipment included, so their way inside was to not be seen by anything, living or otherwise. Even so, they were still careful and the duo maintained a heavy silence as they broke into an unlit corridor through a sliding paper screen door. They did not cut through the paper as that would have been the easy, and noisy, option. Barru literally unscrewed the door from its frame and moved inside that way. He replaced it as soon as they were inside to cover their tracks.

Then there was the paranoia over nightingale floors. Information about the palace in general was a bit sparse, the people serving in the Daishogun’s domain either under strict oath or just weren’t told much about the security, but the Marisha knew about this feature simply from how infamous it was. Chirping floor panels weren’t exactly something one could easily hide. And so they crept along at a literal snail’s pace.

All this to kidnap the Daishogun’s more precious treasure of all: The Lotus Princess, his daughter and progeny. Blossom, the ever closely guarded flower of the Kibao family. Sure the crab zam had taken a while to dig free and revive. Sure, the tunnel and the drill had taken a lot of planning and scouting, but getting to the Daishogun’s own child? They could have spent decades carefully conflating information about the woman since her birth all the way to what she preferred to eat for dinner every night, and it all would be meaningless if they screwed up in getting to her.

Margo liked that though. He loved the risk. He loved that excited clenching in his fuel box and the pounding of his Gunsoul as he sneaked around behind Barru, who had gone totally silent.

They were getting close now. They knew that because they’d already figured out where some of the nightingale floors were thanks to the tread of servants still passing through the halls and chambers. Now, within the inner reaches of the castle, the floors were quiet, clean, and made of better materials than the outer sectors. It was also sparsely populated if not completely dark and abandoned. This had to be the section of the castle occupied by the Royal Family!

Even so neither of them relaxed, or took their eyes off the shadows. Despite the fact that it was totally abandoned and unlit save for what streamed in from the outside, the Marisha were cautious. Perhaps a little too cautious. Margo had jumped at the chirping of a cricket just outside a window more than once. By the time they reached a long residential hallway of locked doors, his Gunsoul was absolutely pounding. The single painted screen door at the end of the hall was a bit larger than the others and decorated with striking designs of pink lotuses and curls of stylized wind. That door alone looked expensive.

Blossom’s room!

Barru quite suddenly yanked him away again. Margo heard why a moment later. A high, piping song came from the room’s interior. Feminine and sweet. It had to be her! Margo considered just waiting in one of the other chambers for a while, until the princess went to sleep to grab her, but then their luck turned for the better. The shadowy form of the princess, a bit hunched and walking with the shuffling gait of someone in a heavy kimono, exited the room herself.

Barru did not need to be told. He simply reached out a long, bulky arm and grabbed the woman the moment she walked by unawares. She yelped, but did not struggle, with Barru bundling her up in her own clothes then making down the hall in a muted sprint, Margo just behind him.

They made it as far as the end of the hall before they realized that something was…a little off. For one, the singing continued, another was that Blossom was not struggling. Barru, insistent on not making noise but still more than a little frustrated and freaked out, smothered the head of the bundle he kept crushed to his chest. The princess still sung on, totally unbothered by the lump of cloth the massive Marisha was trying to choke her with.

“…?”

That’s when they stopped and realized something was indeed very, very wrong. The singing was high and piping but it wasn’t feminine like they originally thought. It was a man’s voice. Barru gasped, a rarity for him, and dropped the kimono as if it were on fire. It flopped to the floor, completely empty.

“Oh, no…” Margo whimpered, turning as the very same figure they had supposedly snatched up came shuffling around the corner behind them, singing and walking in that particular pigeon toed fashion. That wasn’t Blossom! Margo, now actually terrified, reached for the short blade he kept concealed in his armor for just such purposes but found it gone. Barru, who had mirrored his actions, also found he was similarly disarmed.

They had little choice but to stare at the Not Blossom as the singing tapered off and the shuffle slowed. To their muted horror, the figure pulled their arms out of their sleeves, revealing the weapons the Marisha should have had on them.

Everything after that happened so rapidly and uncannily that neither Barru nor Margo would have been able to recall it with any accuracy later. First, the haunting claps of wooden hyoshigi. Distant at first, slow, rapidly growing in volume and intensity until it was all they could hear. Just as it all reached a crescendo, the chamber exploded with light, both natural and unnatural. Flurries of music sprang up out of nowhere, always accompanied by that ironic wooden clapping and what they swore was the excited cheering of a crowd that simply did not exist.

Their first instinct, now that they were disarmed, was to run. Yet they could do no such thing. Ethereal, black tendrils of mass had silently, senselessly, snaked around their frames. When they made to struggle, they were almost gently pulled down to the floor.

“Wh-Who are you?” Margo gasped, staring nervously as shapes continued to slowly manifest around them, completely changing the chamber they had been standing in. It was no longer the end of a hall, where Barru and Margo could barely walk shoulder to shoulder, but a massive kabuki stage. They sat on the floor on front of it, bound, and many of the partitions between walkways were filled with vague, wavering figures that blurred at the edges when not looked at directly.

“Wha…what kind of awful magic is this!?” Barru barked and thrashed about however he could. Even that was hardly felt despite Margo being right beside him.

Having stared directly at the Not Blossom the entire time, neither of the pair noticed the figure disrobe. What stood in its place was a gundam of both handsome and riotous design in purples, pinks and golds. Small, narrow feet clad in golden greaves led up into a flare of cloth and rope at the waist, a long odachi at the man’s hip and topped with a helm what seemed to be a dramatization of a bat or a bird. It all accumulated towards a stylized face where the Marisha weren’t sure where the man’s makeup ended and his helm began!

“You…you’re Dokeshimaru!” Margo gasped.

Barru wasted no time in leveling a scathing glare at his partner. “You know who this is? And didn’t say a word until now?”

Margo, suddenly very grateful that the bigger gundam was tied down, cringed. “I d-did, but I had no idea he was in the palace! I thought he was just some famous kabuki idol the women fawned over!”

Spared any harm, the smaller gundam watched nervously as Barru renewed his efforts to get free, but then the discordant slaps of the hyoshigi started up again, startling Margo and making Barru snarl. Before, the stage had been well lit from both natural, and unnatural, sources, falling upon the handsome and uncanny features of Dokeshimaru in a waterfall of gold. Until, quite suddenly, there was darkness. There were no switches to be thrown but one snapped audibly and the unwilling audience was bathed in black. Excited murmurs from the phantasmal spectators wafted through the air for a moment, then gradually, light returned.

To their confusion, the Not Blossom returned, albeit with a visible face and aged at least ten years younger. Not quite a child, but not quite a teenager either. An awkward age for sure. Above her hung a moon, which to the pair looked as real as could be, impossibly blue silver and beautiful upon this single figure. At first Margo thought it was some neat little trick, but no this was indeed A Blossom. Not the true one, for that had to be impossible, but time and reality seemed to have bent Dokeshimaru into her form regardless of silly rules such as physics. No longer did this Blossom walk in a pigeon toed parody of a woman’s gait, but paced in irritation, back and forth, across what was revealed to be a rock garden with a reflecting pool, lit bright white by the moon above.

“Father’s been gone too long again!” complained the young Blossom, voice tiny even in the silence. “I miss…I miss Mommy…she would be on time.”

Music began to play. A koto from somewhere off to the left strummed slowly. Sad notes strung through the air as Blossom stamped her foot.

“It’s not fair! All the other girls still have their mommies and their daddies.”

A whirl of voices filtered through the false crowd at her words, small, soft and young. A group of other girls slowly clattered down the narrow walkway dividing the audience through middle. They could not have been much older than Blossom, but instead of light armor they all wore ornate kimonos and fancy hairpins worked into their helms, as their mothers would have. They stopped just short of the stage, not quite blocking the Marishas’ view of Blossom. They could still spot the annoyed and wary expression on the actor’s face. It immediately plunged the stage into a somber blueish violet.

“Where is your kimono?” One of the girls asked. She looked to be older and a little taller than the rest.

“…I don’t have one. I don’t need one and I don’t like them.”

The voices picked up again, shocked and questioning but none were loud enough to be heard clearly.

“Why not? Only boys wear armor!” Another girl suddenly blurted out. A wave of agreements accompanied her.

“Father made this armor for me because me loves me,” Blossom replied icily. “I don’t need a kimono for swords and fans!”

Most gave shocked gasps. Some were angry. “How can you find a boyfriend if you look like him? You look mannish!”

“I am not a boy!” Now Blossom was frustrated. The growl in her voice, so unusual to the softer characters of the girls, made them whimper and back away.

“I’m telling my mommy! You’re pretending to be a boy! Creep!”

It was in that moment that the princess hissed, tiger-like, and whipped her fan at them. It wasn’t magically enabled like its current incarnation, but the motion itself was so unlady-like that the team of girls went scattering from it, crying.

A long while after they’d vanished, Blossom stood staring. And then, slowly, she began to cry too. The stage grew dark and her form vanished in the shadows. The moon that utterly dominated the background and provided what was left of the light sank impossibly, replaced by a dim red morning sun. It was revealed to the confused duo that Blossom was still here, but she was visibly older now. As an older teenager, her signature fan was in her hands. As the sun drew further up she was seen sparring with a boy of about the same age, wielding a pole arm similar enough to the Marishas’ own typical weapons.

“Close!” She laughed as a swipe from the boy’s spear nearly tagged her fan arm. “But I’m faster!”

“Ugh, not fair!” Huffed the boy. “You’ve been training since you were small. Mother only just now let me actually start last season.”

“Smother parents, right?” Blossom complained, also parrying the next blow that came at her face.

There was a small crowd of others off to the sides of the stage, either jeering or cheering. The duo to see they were all boys. Most were cheering for the boy embattled with Blossom.

“How can you complain? Your father is the Daishogun!”

“So? Not like I had a choice.” A swift whirl of petals knocked the boy off center and he went down. “And all of you know I don’t have a mom. What do you want me to do?”

“Maybe not be so rough?” Grumbled the boy, even as Blossom helped him to his feet. “We don’t exactly enjoy being kicked around by a girl. It makes us look bad to our own dads.”

“Why is that my problem? Why not just tell your dads to stop?”

“Hey!” One of the other boys from the crowd stepped forward. “It’s not our problem you don’t have a mom. Or that the Daishogun dresses you like a man.”

Blossom bristled. “And it’s not my problem you don’t have a dad!”

Silence fell. Some of the boys even went so far as to put their hands on their weapons. They hadn’t needed training blades for sometime now. This was live steel. Yet the princess did not back down, looking to each of them with hazel eyes blazing nearly blood orange.

The silence stretched on. Even Barru became engrossed. When they were absolutely sure swords were going start swinging, they all backed down. Something in Blossom’s vicious eyes had stopped them.

“Fine!” Hissed the oldest boy. “If that’s how you’re going to be, then we’re leaving. My sister was right about you.”

As Blossom continued to hold her tense stance and furious stare, the others melded into the shadows as if they’d been little more then illusions cast on rice paper. As the last one dissipated in a whisper of smoke, she roared and threw her fan down. “Damn it all!”

And once more the stage fell dark.

“…Jeez,” Margo whispered. “That was…dramatic.”

Barru only grunted, “Shut up. We’re here to do a job, not feel sorry for the Daishogun’s spoiled brat.”

“But I mean…Sheesh, if she had to deal with that her whole childhood, she might actually fight back.”

He could not see Barru but certainly felt the other gundam head butt him across the cranium. “I said shut up!”

“Shut up!” Parroted another voice. “Shut up, he says! As if the audience does not enjoy the stage!”

Floodlights of a far more modern make snapped on, blinding them both. Barru growled and pitched to the floor as if struck and Margo, with his bells already ringing, yelped.

Then, very suddenly, the lights rotated and swung towards the stage once more. Dokeshimaru revealed himself, taking up a now totally unadorned stage. He was the sole prop. His face remained unchanged from his usual warrior’s makeup, but he was wearing Blossom’s armor. As he moved and gesticulated the parts shed from him like snow.

“Please, gentlemen,” he pleaded softly. “I can accommodate. You are honored guests after all.”

With a flourish that seemed almost too feminine to be performed by a male, he fluttered Blossom’s fan. “If you did not enjoy this play, I can certainly improvise.”

“W-Wait, hold on now! W-We liked the play! We, uh…we just have to get going!”

“Oh, no. We can’t have that. Unacceptable!” Crowed Dokeshimaru. “Not until my guests are satisfied!”

“We are! Right, Barru?” He knocked his forehead into the bigger gundam several times, but Barru mysteriously did not move. Since being blinded by the light and flopping forward, it seems he had struck his head across a board.

“Insulting! An attendee has fallen asleep!”

With a flick of his wrists, the kabuki actor transformed Blossom’s fan into a harisen. A massive, paper slapping fan twice his height. Which he promptly used to smack Barru awake.

“Gah!”

“Barru!” Margo gasped. His partner now had a neat little dent in his head from where he’d aggressively kissed the board. Just for good measure, Dokeshimaru slapped Margo too.

Dokeshimaru rolled his head in a strange, dramatized fashion when he was finally done tormenting. It took the still dazed Barru a moment to notice the actor now wore a flamboyant wig of a bright crimson hue. It was shortened into an explosion of fur at the crown, but impossibly long at the neck. Its sideburns were exaggerated into a length that reached passed his knees so that his hands could grasp them. The head movements picked up into a helicopter rotation, swishing the mane slowly at first then quickly becoming a tornado of red fur and hair.

More than a few times the duo was flicked with fringes that stung at their faces and left them even more frantic and confused. Dokeshimaru vanished entirely, consumed in red and shining gold until the spinning wig fell away in a pile. In his place was a beast that was not quite a lion, but far too leonine to be anything else. He roared and the same red wig that Dokeshimaru wore now adored the lion’s mane. Its eyes were the most striking. They were Blossom’s as they had been when confronting the boys. Blazing blood orange in color, spitting sparks. Pyrotechnics went off, dousing the Marisha with heat and sound. Margo was almost tagged by a lick of flame and squealed in a very unmanly fashion.

Without warning the strange peg-like teeth of the beast snatched them up, tossed them into the air and landed them on stage in one clean motion. From here they could see that this beast was not flesh and bone, or even gundamium, but cloth! Felt, damask and other expensive, hand dyed fabrics made up every fiber of its being. At first Barru growled, searching for a man that had to be inside the suit, but found nothing of the sort. Its movements were so graceful and natural, it was if the costume piloted itself! His thoughts were interrupted by the loud, echoing claps of the phantom audience. The shishi-mai dance had officially begun and they were to be the center of it! Attendants that were not there before slammed similar looking wigs down on Barru and Margo’s heads. They were soon being forced to whip them about until resistance was futile, unseen forces making them dance to the motion of the play.

All the while the shishi-mai pranced and dazzled, spitting fire that only encouraged the duo to dizzily continue their own dance least their hair be set ablaze. Before them, the darkling audience clapped louder and drums followed their beat. The koto music rang out so loudly through the stage that hearing was nearly impossible, yet it enlivened the Marisha with an anxious energy they did not want.

This seemed to go on forever until Margo hiccuped, overcome with vertigo, and rolled so hard he went straight off the stage. He was so dizzy and crazy with it that he barely noticed when a hole of pure blackness opened up in the floor to swallowed him whole.

“M-Margo!” Barru grunted, trying to force himself to stop before he got nauseous. He just barely managed to stop long enough to tilt the wig off his head. Too late! The shishi-mai dance was finished and only one thing filled his vision. The gapping, wide-open maw of the leonine!

Tensed and ready to fight, Barru tried to struggle against the restraints still holding him down but it was useless. The bite he was expecting never came, however. At the back of the shishi-mai’s felt throat was Dokeshimaru’s flared head, poking out from behind the uvula. Which, for whatever reason, was a small jingle bell. It rang teasingly as the kabuki actor giggled and tittered, vibrating with his efforts at humor and jest.

“I’m afraid our princess is in another castle!”

“What!?”

But Barru said no more. The maw of the beast had closed around his head to the joyous ringing of the uvula bell. He joined Margo in darkness.

Chapter Text

Kibaomaru’s humor had faded sometime ago, prompting him to shake off Hishigatomaru’s supporting arm. His clear, hazel eyes were currently transfixed upon the war machine he and the shinto priest took down only half an hour ago. Hatomaru could hardly guess what the once and former warlord might be thinking, but he assumed it was an attempt at discerning its origins as everyone else rested. Hatomaru’s first instinct, then, was to ensure any survivors of the crab Zam’s attack were recovered and treated, but the samurai ended up hesitating. Most, if not all of the districts in and around the point of attack were already evacuated, and Kibaomaru’s intervention just prevented the rest of Kyoto Town from needing to do the same. Even so, who’s to say this would be the only attack tonight?

“It doesn’t make any sense,” Hatomaru said, more to himself than anyone, but Ninjakemaru materialized at his side just in time to hear him anyway.

“Of course it doesn’t,” the boy replied, his one good eye peering warily as the sparking rain came to an end. Night had fallen a few hours before, but the rain and last remnants of lightning glittered along wet surfaces with starlight specks. Ninjakemaru was barely visible save for his fluttering orange scarf. “The boarders are constantly patrolled so I don’t see how someone could have just set this thing at the edge of Kyoto Town to let it loose. We didn’t even see it coming until it was already through the walls. It’s insulting.”

Hatomaru shook his head again, the swept back crests swaying like the horns of a great stag. “That is what troubles me. It appeared out of nowhere. No warnings, nothing.” He paused, remembering that Ninjakemaru should have had company. “Has Kurobamaru recovered?”

The shinobi gave a causal shrug. “Well enough. You know how he is. The moment he could stand he insisted on helping with the rest of the evacuation. Stubborn old man that he is.”

Hatomaru chuckled. Ninjakemaru hardly showed affection towards anyone, but the monk and himself were sort of the exception. Not that the boy would ever admit to that.

“At least the threat has ended.”

“For now,” grunted Ninjakemaru, echoing his own thoughts. “I am going to find out who did this.”

The leader of the Daishogun’s Court glanced over at his youngest and newest member. He knew the shinobi was asking for permission without…actually asking for permission. He didn’t enjoy making a move without his leader’s approval, but would immediately do so if he felt it necessary. Nor did Hatomaru enjoy his stealth expert going rogue either. It was best just to capitulate, even if he would rather hold the boy back until after he made sure there wasn’t going to be a secondary attack.

When Hatomaru remained silent, the shinobi took it as affirmation, nodded once, and then vanished. By then Hishigatomaru was also recovering, his face once more hidden under the folds of an ofuda. He walked with a shuffling gait, leaning heavily on his weapon. The yari spear was largely intact, but was now smoked as black as the night sky. The energy discharge he and Kibaomaru put out must have sapped a majority of the shinto priest’s strength. Instead of going to Hatomaru, however, Hishigatomaru limped over to where the old warlord stood. The samurai followed.

“Mm, no markings. No runes, kanji or other clues,” murmured the priest, his voice a bass rumble as he swiped his palm across the charred metal. “We both made sure of that.”

As Hatomaru approached, any lingering thoughts that this thing was a kaiju were dispelled. It stank of scorched copper, the glow of still hot metal seen smoldering like embers between rents blown in the armor. At some point it had been a rusted bronze, but the lighting strike baked it black as obsidian.

“I don’t need them,” Kibaomaru replied curtly. “There could be only one faction capable of using these machines.”

Hatomaru spun sharply. “Impossible! You and the Daishogun made sure the Dark Axis were no more.”

“Genkimaru was a boy then. A brat with a unique power, but still a boy. He had a hand in bringing peace to Ark, but it was the Gundam Force that struck down the Dark Axis. A few were able to redeem themselves, but I doubt any other survivors just went to go farm rice out in the fields.”

Both Hatomaru and Hishigatomaru were peering at the warlord now. They all knew Ark’s long, war torn history like the back of their hands. But, the reality of it was that the Court hadn’t been much younger than their master themselves when it all happened. For Hatomaru it was all a blur. He remembered Kibaomaru, though. Everyone did. The Daishogun’s rule was relatively new next to how long his father had presided over Ark. Most of its people who were old enough to pick up a sword at the time still tended to see the warlord as such. Hatomaru and the Court certainly continued to stick the title to his name regardless of what the old warrior said. Not out of any disloyalty to the Daishogun, surely, but one did not simply drop the respect one had for the ruler they literally grew up with.

“Are you sure?” Hatomaru asked carefully.

“…It is a strong suspicion. So no.” Kibaomaru sighed, head bobbing slightly. “Me and Genkimaru put forth the Edicts of Peace specifically to forbid these machines. I see no reason why anyone else would have dragged one to the very capital unless they wanted to declare open war.” He paused to laugh, as if the idea of someone trying to ruin the first era of peace Ark had seen in centuries was funny. “And if that is indeed what this is, then they did so without a calling card.”

Hishigatomaru, who only knew war with the yokai and kaiju beyond the great Walls, stayed silent. Not many of the Court aside from Hatomaru and Ninjakemaru were warriors. Not originally in anycase. War between the peoples was not their way. Only Hatomaru could offer some input and even then it was scattered.

“It does seem very…sneaky. Why remotely pilot it? Was the cockpit damaged, or do they not want to be discovered?”

Kibaomaru snorted, “This is probably a ruse which is why I’m leaning more and more towards the Dark Axis being involved. This is the sort of underhanded tactics they were famous for.”

“We need more than just a hunch,” Hatomaru insisted softly. “Regardless, we should report this to the Daishogun soon. Ninjakemaru is already investigating the matter and I will set out myself to ensure there isn’t going to be another attack.”

“You report it.” Kibaomaru pointed out. “I have my own ideas.”

Hatomaru wanted to make it an order, but Kibaomaru was out of their general chain of command. Had been for a while now. Instead, the samurai sighed, “So you say, lord.”

“I am not a lord,” growled Kibaomaru, moving away from the two Court members. For a moment Hishigatomaru seemed ready to follow, or put in a last word, but the old warlord snapped his fingers.

There was a crackling roar, like a peal of thunder rolling through the firmament. As Hatomaru focused it became a barrage of hooves. Oshogo gave an ear piercing whinny and dropped from the sky, hooves kicking through the air. Like its master, the chariot had changed over the years. Once there had been twin horses lashed to the cart, their back halves becoming the vehicle itself. But two were now one, and the uncanny hoof beats were sounding from not just two, but four forelegs. One pair on each side of the mechanical beast, spitting sparks and raw light. Once more, Hatomaru was reminded of how barbaric Kibaomaru had become since leaving Ark.

Kibaomaru was done speaking, moving to mount the chariot once Oshogo pulled up alongside the smoldering frame of the crab Zam. Oshogo watched them through narrowed eyes, whickered once, then clawed its way back towards the sky.

Hishigatomaru watched a moment longer, then turned towards his leader. “Sir?”

Hatomaru nodded. He needed to assess the situation and put action to words. “I trust Kurobamaru to report back to the Daishogun, but he won’t know the whole story. Please, go and complete the report.”

“Should I share our, ah, Lord Kibamaru’s suspicions?”

“…No. Not yet. I don’t want to bring anything to our lord’s table other than hard facts. Which is why I’m going to check the city walls and make sure that there isn’t going to be another attack. The evacuation still stands. What do you think, my friend?”

“If this were a real kaiju, I could have done more…but I have my own theories.”

“Let me hear them.”

The priest paused, rapping the tip of his blackened spear against the carapace of the monster. “We had a somewhat…limited view of the world from my mountainside shrine in childhood, but I know the Big Zams did not look like crabs. This was modified to look specifically like a kaiju to the point were even I was fooled.”

He was right. Hatomaru began to feel a nervous knot forming in his fuel tank. “I’m liking this less and less.”

“I agree, my lord.” Hishigatomaru took a step forward, but stumbled. He gently declined help from his clan leader. “Leave me. I will do my best to search the remains. Perhaps whoever did this left something behind.”

Hatomaru hated to do that to the shinto priest, but it was a sound idea. And Hishigatomaru was still drained. “Very well. Rest easy.”

“Phew! How did I get so out of shape?” Blossom wheezed to herself, struggling to climb the last few inches of a towering cliff wall. She’d made it up the pillar with little to no effort, scurrying her way to an open framed window looking out into the dirty, snow-covered courtyard. Then almost immediately had to duck as she spotted more of those pesky glass eyes inside the building proper. Cameras, those were called, according to the old war manuals Grandfather used to sneak over to her. The Princess could only guess that once one of those saw her, it was over. Mission busted. Total failure.

So she kept climbing. And climbing…and climbing. Her assumption that the facility was dug directly from the summit had apparently been correct. Because at one point she stopped scaling pillars and support struts and started roughing up her hands on raw, wet stone.

Blossom was about to complain again, using words only her grandfather might have used, but her foot slipped. The Princess held her breath, cold filthy hands grasping rock so tightly she could feel her fingers denting. “Don’t look down…oh, Ancestors, don’t look down.”

That was good advice. It was at least three hundred feet down and she was no longer anywhere near the courtyard. Finally, she exhaled and cautiously reached up…and grabbed not a lip of rock, but a rusty handle.

“…?”

A handle! To a door, perhaps? A lookout hatch? She hoped so, at least. Shimmying her feet along the ice, she lifted herself up enough to run a bare palm over the metal. It was indeed a hatch, and a big one at that. Jimmying it open would be the next step, but it looked and felt heavy. Moreover, if someone was on the other side, she’d run right into them.

“Not much choice, huh?” She grunted, and decided she craved just a little more danger.

With a great effort that left her gasping and breathless, Blossom slowly wrenched the hatch open. It made less noise than she thought it would, already slick with snow, and even more fortunately it led into pure darkness. Blossom wasn’t exactly too thrilled to be recreating her adventures in the tunnel so soon, but it was better than risking a long fall by exhausting herself on the cliffs.

Bunching up both legs, Blossom hopped, flopped then clothslined herself on the rim of the hatch. She yelped as she flipped over completely and landed on a floor. Thankfully the hatch remained open, either frozen shut or catching on a mechanism. Blossom did not care. Her legs felt like she’d taken a lap around Kyoto Town then let Oshogo step all over them. They hurt. A lot.

So she allowed herself the luxury of lying there for a bit to catch her breath. Idly, the Princess let her hands drift out in front of her face. They were gross. Peppered in tiny dents and scratches, the paint scrapped down to the bare metal. Just like her father’s hands after a long day. It was the most unladylike thing she’d ever seen, and Blossom loved it.

“Maybe I should do this more often?” she whispered. Down the hallway a soft bang ran out through the iron walls and the Blossom suddenly remembered she was not alone. “…Or not.”

The Princess rolled over. Her legs still felt like splintered bamboo but at least she could walk. Some what. It took her a second to remember how to balance, the vertigo she’d experienced on the cliffs lingering like bad breath. Yet, as soon as the Princess got herself oriented, the banging got louder, then was immediately replaced by a high, keening whine. Like the screeching of a wounded yokai, but long and drawn out. Badly startled Blossom began to panic, desperately fighting with her sore legs to get her somewhere, anywhere, that had cover. The layout of the room was totally unfamiliar but looked enough like a guard post for her to find a firing step to squeeze under. Beyond the chamber, an odd strobing light the color of the setting sun lit her up in intermittent flashes of red and black.

A klaxon! And those lights must have been the alert! Blossom sat there under the firing step a moment longer, struggling to figure out what to do next. Then she remembered.

“Those goons from the warehouse…I totally forgot about them,” she cursed, dragging a palm down the front of her face. “Baka!”

Just as she uttered that, the strobes flashed one last time and turned a solid, dusty amber once more. Voices drifted in from the adjacent halls and Blossom realized she needed to get out, and fast. Peeling herself off the ground, she crept towards the door, open and without a hatch, and warily peered around the moment it was silent for more than a few seconds. So far, so good…

How would Ninjakemaru do this? Would he just…quickly rush from room to room? Crawl around on the ceiling? Blossom shook her head. Focus!

Gradually she eased herself out into the hall. It was long, at least the length of the castle’s hidden garden where she enjoyed her nightly meditations, but only about as wide as herself twice over. Bigger gundams like her father and grandfather would have had to almost navigate it sideways. Instead of wood or paper screens, the walls were made of iron that dripped with condensation from the ice and snow outside. Blossom could only guess how deep in the mountain she was and how long it must have taken the goons to construct. As if struck by a training sword, Blossom realized that she was actually dealing with not just a group of enemies, but a whole army of them. Right here in Ark! Under their noses!

More over, they were industrialized. Ark’s technology had advanced towards better things once the war ended, but nothing to this extent. Not even Lacroa could have build something so vast and seemingly brutal. As she tiptoed down the corridor, her mind drifted to old tales of Neotopia, and the Gundam Force. Exaggerated stories she thought, but seeing the extent of industry and technology on display here, Blossom realized that maybe Father wasn’t kidding when he said that Neotopia was so advanced.

But this was not Neotopia nor the Gundam Force. This was a hostile army that had somehow smuggled themselves over the Walls and into Mount Fuji without alerting anyone. Blossom shook with the indignity of it. Now more than ever she had to figure out who and what these people wanted!

Well, she could try at any rate.

The hall terminated finally, ending in a door that opened and closed like the eye of a shark. Warily, her own eyes scanned in and around the thing, wary of cameras and enemies lingering about. At some point during her wary sneaking, she heard voices coming not from someone, but from grill faced boxes bolted to the walls. Speakers. Loudly announcing that someone had gotten in. Duh, that was her. Up until now she’d ignored them, but then they began to announce something that pleased her. The goons she’d trashed back outside still thought she was out there, not inside. Blossom smothered a giggle and wiggled around the corner. Maybe this would be easier than she…

Thought…

Oops!

The door very suddenly irised open, revealing a mech that was easily twice her height and three times her weight.

Blossom was so enervated by this that all she could do was sigh and slump forward. “Damn it.”

To her credit, the mech did not grab her all that hard, her body going limb the moment he had her by the back of her collar armor. Despite her crestfallen and half frightened state, the Princess still managed to glare when he lifted her up to eye level.

“And who might you be?”

“The Daishogun.”

He did not laugh. She didn’t know if that was a good thing or not. Honestly, he looked like he was one stone short of a zen garden. Or maybe not. Grunting, Blossom attempted to quickly reach for her fan, but his other hand snatched it from her.

“I don’t think so, Daishogun,” he growled and began to waddle back towards the door. “The boss might wanna meet you.”

“…You really think I’m actually the Daishogun?”

He almost stopped and looked at her, something like intelligence struggling to form in his dull eyes. “What wouldn’t I? Isn’t that what you said you was?”

Oh, Ancestors we got a dumb one here. Maybe the spirits of the old Daishogun were looking out for her after all…

“I did.” She flicked her head as haughtily as possible, remembering how vicious the figures on the scrolls had looked displaying their crests. “And I am. I’m just checking to make sure you understood.”

What little flicker of smarts he still had in his expression quickly fled out both audios. “Feh!” He shook her for good measure. “Then yeah, boss will want to talk with you real good!”

“By all means.”

Internally, Blossom was starting to freak out. The idea that these guys might actually want to hurt her occurred. They’d certainly been trying to hurt Kyoto Town with that kaiju. Who’s to say they won’t just do away with her? She had to think, and quickly. The big guy wasn’t moving too fast at least. Perhaps she could bide her time?

So she stayed quiet, watching warily and paying very close attention to the way they were going. Obviously the brute had not thought to blind her, which was fortunate. Five nearly identical iron doors went by before he took a left at a T-junction and paused. He tapped at a keypad that was way too close to the floor for him, so he had to bend nearly double with Blossom awkwardly held out to the side. Even better, the dumb idiot didn’t even try to hide the numbers he punched in. She saw every finger stroke, memorized it, and tried not to cackle.

After taking his sweet time wracking his big noggin for the combo code, he shouldered in through the now unlocked door. “Hey, I’ve got the Daishogun!”

Oh, well this wasn’t good. Blossom managed to partially climb up his arm enough to look past his gigantic elbow. The next room was massive, housing several hunched over mechs tapping away furiously at what looked to be big metal saisen-baku, shrine boxes, but were full of keys and runes that blipped and glowed nearly every color imaginable. Instead of magic scrolls, the flat tops above them held glass screens where numerics and charts displayed information Blossom could just barely read. She gave up look at them after only a few seconds. The sheer amount of information was staggering, and the knot in her fuel box that had never really gone away since leaving the tunnel was getting worse.

However, the moment the big goon had announced himself was the moment everyone else in the room stopped, fingers hovering over keys, their expressions a mixture of annoyance and surprise. Additionally, Blossom had her own stupid moment.

“Uh…hey?” She waved, held at least a meter above the ground by her collar. If there was anything that suddenly made them think she was not the Daishogun, that would be it.

“So. I see Margo and Barru failed then,” said a voice. A female voice. Blossom was so surprised by it that she froze, eyes roving over the near identical heads of the mechs. Until one of them stood up and look at her, and then the big mech keeping her captive. “That isn’t the Daishogun, Farrin.”

So named, Farrin looked startled, lifting Blossom up above his head as if inspecting her for a name tag. “Are you sure, boss?”

Blossom ignored him. Her eyes, instead, were fixated upon the other woman. Indeed there was very little difference between her and the rest of her men design wise, to the point where the Princess had looked her over entirely. The realization of it did things to Blossom she wasn’t prepared for. Of all the times she was accused of looking and acting mannish, here was another woman who actually looked the part, but was apparently treated no different then her male counterparts. The sudden flash of anger and jealousy bit hard that she found herself glowering at her.

“I am the next Daishogun, after my father! How dare you!” Blossom seethed, loudly enough for Farrin to nearly drop her.

“Hardly relevant,” she droned, getting up from her seat by one of the counsels to relieve Farrin of his struggling burden. “Not that a male dominated society would ever let that happen.”

“I’m going to change that! I’m going to change everything!” Blossom continued to spout and rage, her dented fists flying but doing little damage. She was totally unarmed and the boss was close enough to Farrin’s size that even if she was armed, Blossom would have not been able to do much. As it was, her flailing did nothing.

“Calm down. We should talk.”

“Why should I? You’re destroying my home and invading my country! You defiled a sacred mountain by building this facility on its summit under our noses. I don’t talk to terrorists!”

“My name is Rola,” said the woman, totally sangfroid in the heat of the Princess’s rage. “And we are the Marisha. We are a collective society that puts forth the advancement of its citizens above everything else. You will not have heard of us, in fact I would be surprised if you have, but to put it shortly…we’re here because we can. We’re here because the Daishogun and his war court forced peace upon the bordering nations with the help of Lacroa, and later Neotopia. Most nations were agreeable, but some weren’t. Those that refused were cut off by previous allies. Left to themselves.”

Rola explained as they walked, tramping past other Marisha who continued to gape at Blossom as if she’d grown a second head. Despite her rage, however, Blossom watched them all carefully. Especially where they were and what they were working on. While she no longer tried to read all the information displayed on the strange glass screens, she was paying attention to what she could make out. Particularly, certain schematics of a long, flat faced vehicle that looked like a snake or a worm, and a gargantuan crustacean picked out in flashing red, a telltale X marked directly over it. A little of her pride returned.

Soon they left the room entirely, and as Rola exited, the mechs slowly wet back to work, typing away furiously.

“You were saying?” Blossom sneered sarcastically, but her captor continued as if she hadn’t just been sassed at.

“Those who were left to themselves struggled for years. Most moved on, or allied with one another. The Marisha formed out of such an alliance. But we had to do so in secret, and any old grudges were set aside. There was no longer a difference between male or female. Class and wealth vanished. We became a single people out of a shared need. And what do you think that need was?”

When Blossom gave her a glaring, pointed silence, Rola shrugged and continued, shouldering her way through amber lit corridors of steel and iron piping that chugged and steamed. After a while the Princess realized they were going down at a steady, but definite slope, edging towards the bowels of the mountain itself.

“That need…was to regain what we’d been forced to lose. We wanted our power and influence returned, even if it meant subterfuge and deception.”

“And kidnapping, apparently,” Blossom grunted.

“And kidnapping,” Rola agreed.

Blossom glared at her, but said nothing. The chugging motion issuing from deep within the pipes soon turned into a heavy, liquid swish. Something was pumping water…upwards. From the very heart of the mountain, it sounded like. Rola caught the look of curiosity on the Princess’s face despite her best attempts at hiding it.

“I see you must have figured it out.” It was the first time the monotone woman seemed amused. “There’s a massive aquifer hidden nearly a mile under your own sacred mountain. Enough to create an inland sea should it all be brought to the surface.” Slowly her tone was seeping towards smug. It was chilling. One handing Blossom against her shoulder, the big gundamess tapped at one pipe as it gushed and sloshed towards the surface. “Or, in our case…create a flood of truly titanic proportions.”

The realization of it hit Blossom like a fire sharpened blade. The drill, the kaiju…this whole facility. It wasn’t a headquarters so much as an excavation site and a pumping foundry. All to funnel Mount Fuji’s hidden underground sea directly into Kyoto Town…

“Bu-but why?” Blossom breathed, tears gathering in her eyes. “We’ve not done anything to you! Listen, maybe if we can just talk. W-We can get some of your rights and power back! I’m his daughter, the Daishogun will listen! Please!!”

Blossom began to struggle, began to fight, but Rola was at least three times her size and more than that in terms of sheer strength. It was as useful as trying to carve jade with chopsticks. What had been desperate pleading quickly turned into waspish anger, curses coming from her mouth before she could stop them. Then, all were tears. A thin, helpless whimper that she smothered against her captor’s pauldron, fists almost gently pounding at the other’s collar.

All the while Rola kept walking without pause, or further comment. She did not care, and there was nothing Blossom could do to make her care. Perhaps Father or even Grandfather might have been better at this, but they weren’t here. In their place was their progeny, crying against the shoulder of the enemy as if Rola was the mother she never managed to have.

Almost gently Rola switched Blossom over to a two handed grip, hugged against her breastplate and then carefully placed the Princess in a featureless jail cell. As Blossom sobbed, Rola closed the door and quietly locked it. Blossom heard and felt all of it, but did nothing, paralyzed by the weight of her failure and the guilt of knowing her entire home was going to be underwater soon. That she had done everything and nothing to stop it. No more ideas, no more schemes. She’d been caught and locked away after completely misjudging the enemy. Escape was impossible.

“Mommy! I want…I want my mommy…None of this would have happened if Mommy was still around,” she cried. “What would she do now, huh?”

Blossom seethed, but lacked the strength to do little else but let out another sob. With her zeal and fire snuffed like a spent candle, it was obvious how sore she was. Her joints ached like they were freshly forged, her fuel box snarled and churned its piping in need of food. The only thing that brought any relief now…was sleep. And so, that’s what the Princess did. Sleep.

Oshogo powered upwards through the clouds at the speed of a diving falcon, icy winds buffeting past the chariot in a hollow roar. Kibaomaru stood resolute, hardly bothered neither by temperature nor velocity. Distance vanished under the cart’s wheels so quickly that Kyoto Town shrank to the size of his thumb, seen through a hazy sheen of atmospheric disturbance. Still the four forelimbs of the beast took him higher, having allowed it to have its head. Soon the air grew thin and freezing, and as Kibaomaru craned his neck around with protracted care, he could begin to see the curvature of the planet sloping gently away. A blinding corona of light just beyond the black on black curve signaled that dawn was a few short hours away.

Finally Oshogo slowed to a halt, its jagged metallic mane rimed with frost. It stood on literally nothing, held at suborbital height through means not even Kibaomaru was completely aware of, nor had ever questioned. His breath fogged as he gently praised the horse. Oshogo quieted, lowering its head as if to sleep. Above him stretched a heavy mantel of stars, refracting weakly in what air still remained miles and miles above his head. His horse could not quite reach those lights, but this was already as godlike as any unpowered flight could ever feel. He was practically hitting his helm against the ceiling of the troposphere.

Slowly he turned to look back and down. Everything appeared so toylike and smudged with darkness that he had to focus to see. Kyoto Town was a single flickering candle in a vast ocean of silence as black as the space between the stars. Mount Fuji, its range wrapping in and through the Walls, coiled around this flickering candle like a serpent, protective of its one glimmering egg. The summit itself, a spidery web of blue grey barely discernible from the rest, watched him from below from a hollow dot where the caldera used to be. It had not erupted since time immemorial.

As his eyes adjusted to the dark, he could start to pick out details from the topography. Mount Fuji seen from above was a familiar enough sight to him, but he had not witnessed it in sometime. Even so, he could see flaws in its structure that were not supposed to be there. Thick, slab-like hulks of darkness infected its pristine snowcap. Kibaomaru grunted, gingerly rousing the beast. Oshogo gave a whinny of protest, but a pointed finger directed the equine’s head towards the summit. Oshogo, apparently offended by what it saw, roared explosively and nearly jerked its master off the cart as it spun about and charged.

The old warlord barely managed to get control of the beast as he was buffeted with cloud vapors. Once Oshogo slowed and they burst through the heavy atmosphere, Kibaomaru found he was but a quarter mile above the mountain’s highest peak. He did not need to look hard to see what the shapes on the cliffs actually were. Buildings, carved from Fuji’s very bones, glittering coldly with steel towers and iron piping. Mount Fuji, specifically, had been left free of settlement all these long eons because of its importance to Ark and its culture. To see it became a grafted nightmare of industry like this enraged the former warlord almost worse than the Dark Axis had. At least the Dark Axis had agreed to leave the mountain alone.

Oshogo needed no orders. It merely reared up with a roar and brought itself about so Kibaomaru could strike. Not with weapons, but with pure ire shaped into a storm of blood orange lightning. It struck metallic structures with as much force as a rocket, ringing steel and blasting away tons of rock as the charge raced down into the heart of the facility. More and more lightning strikes rained down until Kibaomaru himself was a miniature sun. Unfortunate gundams still on the ground yelped and scurried for cover under eves or ledges. Most were struck themselves, armor flying off and weapons abandoned as they ran hot and melted. They went down in painful heaps, alive but totally helpless.

Heard above even the horrid thunderclaps, was Kibaomaru’s voice. It was the howling of a vengeful God.

Blossom jerked out of her ill-gotten sleep with a gasp. The thunder outside was enormous, the walls thrilling with the sheer force of it. Confused, she whimpered and slapped her hands against her the bars of her cage, only to yank them back. Blood orange static raced from the metal directly into her fingers.

“G-Grandfather?”

She was so flabbergasted that all the Princess could do was sit there and hope that she wasn’t accidentally zapped. Soon, the klaxons were wailing again, filling her lonely little corner of the facility with distant noise and flashing light. Blossom heard another titanic boom and braced herself, despite its uselessness. Kibaomaru must have hit something essential because the lamps bolted into the ceiling high above flickered, then burst in showers of clouded plastic. At the same time, Blossom heard a heavy click, like a latch falling open. Or, as her hands warily reached out, a lock came loose. With protracted caution, the Princess slid open her jail cell. Grandfather managed to knock out the power!

“Thank the Ancestors,” she hissed softly, well aware that someone could come racing down the corridor at any moment.

One foot left the cell, and then the other. Inch by inch. When no goons seemed to be just around the corner, Blossom made a break for it, literally jumping up a small flight of stairs and steering her way through the darkness until another heavy clunk made her pause. A second set of lights flickered to life, filling the black halls with fire red. Emergency lighting, then? Blossom couldn’t care less.

Grandfather’s attack continued. She could tell because the facility shook and boomed constantly now, a permanent thrill racing up through the steel decking and into her feet. Memory guided her back up the slope and through the forest of pipes. Rola was nowhere in sight, but that hardly meant a thing anymore. Blossom knew where she needed to go and she wasn’t going to let anyone stop her anymore!

Several goons were rushing their way to Ancestors knows where by the time she reached the main floor again. Kibaomaru was prompting a heck of a response, to the point where she’d been completely forgotten. So when she stumbled upon them, they acted as if they were surprised to see her, and Blossom was able to bull through their ranks like a charging tigress. They collectively yelped and slammed themselves against the walls to avoid being knocked over, and those that were, the Princess simply rolled over and continued on.

Faster and faster she ran, pumping her still-sore legs to their limit and seemingly beyond. Even so it still felt like it took forever to make her way back up to the command room. With the power knocked out, the doors were left on an automatic unlock to avoid trapping anyone inside in case of an emergency, unless it was manually locked from the inside. Thank the Ancestors it was not. Blossom was able to sneak in, peering through red-lit darkness into the command center’s consoles and workstations. Most of which were still active, apparently so essential they had their own backup systems. Rola was nowhere to be found, as least as far as Blossom could see. The personnel had all either evacuated or went topside to deal with Grandfather. Which was exactly the sort of luck Blossom needed right now.

Having already learnt her lesson about failed sneaking missions, she took no chances this time and rushed to the console she remember held certain plans. It still flickered and winked, showing long green lit corridors and a wireframe map of the entire complex. Below it, marked out in flowing blue arrows, was the aquifer. This was it! Proof!

But how was she going to capture it? Blossom had no camera and she could hardly read the schematics let alone know how to operate the keyboard. So she had to commit it all to memory, and snag whatever she could that wasn’t bolted down. Old maps, drafting instruments, whatever else seemed important that she could easily get away with. It went right into her arms in a crumpled, desperate bundle of paper and metal.

Then, Blossom made a run for it.

Chapter Text

By the time she made it out into the main halls, she could hear the thunder. The walls vibrated with it almost constantly. Conduits and pipes sparked bright in the dark from the overcharge. Gundams and other mobile citizens totally ignored her, headlong sprint, bashing into each other, shouting out orders, or otherwise trying to find weapons. Grandfather turned years, probably even decades, of careful planning into a literal riot of panic. Fists flew at helms. Goons were getting knocked over by more of their own.

Blossom did not feel sorry for them all, and no one stopped her at all. Oh, they certainly tried to though! Hands grabbed at her from knots of armor or from around surprise corners. She simply slapped them away or dashed around them with a most unwomanly cackle. Crammed into her arms, paper and metal rattled and crinkled so loudly it almost drowned out the sounds going on around her.

Another goon almost tripped the Princess. She squashed his fingers nearly flat for the attempt. Blossom delicately pivoted on the back of his hand and went flying around a blind corner. Stairs! She mounted them, taking them two and three at time until her legs burned with the exertion. As she went up and up, the temperature began to plummet. Ice rimed bulkheads and door frames. Blood orange sparks danced between the walls in blinding sizzles. Blossom barely stopped in time to avoid being caught between a jump!

“Jeez, Grandfather!” She spat in surprise, huddling so close to the ground her chest nearly touched the deck.

“Courtyard, courtyard!” The princess panted, head swerving from side to side. This was as high as she dared to go. Not with Kibaomaru’s vicious attack still raining electric ruin upon their heads.

Where was the courtyard? Blossom wanted to stick her head outside to check, but feared getting a bolt through the audios. Grunting in frustration, she forced her sore knee joints to stand, eyes squinted against the lightning lit darkness. No one was up here, which was good, but also logical. Directing hazel eyes towards the ceiling, she could see smoke leaking from the lamps and wires. Others had been shattered, their glass and plastic bulbs creating a hot sparkle across the ground like pools of tiny daggers. She avoided those where she could.

Moving at a snail’s pace compared to her previous headlong charge, Blossom could finally hear a howling of wind over the bang of lightning. Was she getting close to being out of here?

After several long moments she finally located the source. A door was left open, its iron hinges screeching in the gale as it tried to keep its bulk from wrenching open. Snow and sleet streamed in, blasting the opposite wall in a wet slush. This was it!

Blossom did not hesitate. She blundered through the crack in the door, nearly knocking herself silly when it resisted more than she planned for…and then immediately lost her footing. The Lotus Princess, sole heir to the Kibao family and future Daishogun, went bum over tea kettle down a mountain slope. She let out a scream that was half in surprise, half in rage. Maps, drafting instruments and data slates joined her in a tornado of metal, limbs and paper.

She came to a stop only after her head collided with something…her eyes went wild with static for a bare moment, then went dark.

          
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                                                                                          

The Daishogun of Perfect Virtue sighed in exhaustion as he finally let the portal fall. Cobalt radiance went dim then scattered like fireflies, fading from existence a second later. Slowly, the ship of the Golden Crest lowered him to the ground.

Everyone had been evacuated. Every one. Not a soul remained gathered before the Palace’s main courtyard for many miles. For now, they were safe in the neighboring town of Yasu. When this was all over and he was sure there was no further threat, he would insure he and his personal guard would escort them all back personally. Pride laced his tired GunSoul. Not a single citizen had been unduly panicked or rowdy. Everyone and their extended families all filed into the building sized portal with as much order as they could manage, given that a monster had demolished an entire precinct just due south of the Palace. Within sight of it even!

When he finally opened his eyes and gazed out across the town, he was saddened to see a near flattened plain of debris just a few miles away, ending at a skyline suddenly cut thin. Casting his gaze about, he was about to call for one of his Court, when Kurobamaru appeared as if he knew exactly what the Daishogun needed.

There was not much to tell. The Kaiju was not a Kaiju, but a machine. A Big Zam refitted with a steel carapace in the shape of a crab to try and throw everyone off. It reeked of espionage. Not the most usual happenings, but the Daishogun had prepared for such matters. The handling of it having gone so well was testament to that. Although, most frustratingly, was Father’s involvement. He hated to admit it, but he owed Kibaomaru a favor after that. If the old warlord had not stepped in to eliminate the contraption, his Court would have struggled. And had, according to Kurobamaru. That was more troubling than anything. There was also mention of Hatomaru worrying about a secondary attack, and so had sent out Ninjakemaru to investigate. Kibaomaru vanished to do his own search, supposedly. It was a complicated situation.

Made worse when Dokeshimaru reported Blossom missing soon after.

“Not missing,” the Daishogun corrected softly. “Most likely she ran away. I know her nerve.”

Dokeshimaru tilted his finned helm. “That’s the thing, my lord. I checked the wards you had Kurobamaru leave on her door and window. They were both still intact. Either someone whisked her away by some other means, or she found a way to leave without displacing the wards.”

“…Oh.”

“My lord?”

The Daishogun smothered his face with one hand. It was rare for him to show such exasperation. Kurobamaru and Dokeshimaru backed away, unsure.

“Of course,” their lord groaned. “Of all the times for those powers to activate.”

The kabuki actor made a strange noise. Almost like a girlish giggle. He was nervous. “Have I failed you?”

“Rather, the opposite. In fact I never would have figured this out if you hadn’t foiled those goons. Not only do we have an attempted kidnapping situation, but we also have a Blossom knowing portal magic situation. This complicates matters. I hope you have your…guests intact?”

Dokeshimaru nodded rapidly, stepping aside as a pool of inky darkness manifested under his feet. Ejected from the black came two gasping figures, held together by what looked to be a collection of long, inky arms clasping hands. They wrestled with their captives for a moment before pointing their heads at the Daishogun.

Both Barru and Margo’s eyes were wide in horror. Whatever they’d witnessed within Dokeshimaru’s subspace must have…kept them rather quiet, for they did not even whimper as the Daishogun himself leaned over them.

“I believe it would be very wise to start telling me what you know. Dokeshimaru’s talents are rather…varied.”

Barru glared, saying nothing at first. Margo seemed ready to speak, but his partner head butted him into silence. Eventually though, the sight of the squirming, inky hands and arms broke something in the bigger mech.

“Listen, we don’t…don’t know,” he began. “We were only trained to do this specific task, nothing else.”

“And that task was kidnapping my daughter? Bold. Who trained you? And why?”

“The Marisha. I, we, are a collective of displaced nations that refused your Edicts of Peace. We want our old powers and rights back. Simple as that. The Princess would have at least secured us a bargaining chip.”

“A rather poor choice,” Dokeshimaru snorted. “And I suppose that crab Zam was the Marisha’s idea as well?”

“Y-Yes,” Barru sighed. “That was meant to be a distraction.”

“It almost worked.” The Daishogun rose. It was hard to tell initially, but the mech was furious. His hand was on the hilt of his sword, as if considering their final judgment already. Scarred fingers tapped against the pommel, clearly irritated. “Consider yourselves lucky. I will not be merciful to your masters.”

Margo swayed from side to side. He muttered, glancing from Barru to Dokeshimaru and then the Daishogun. Growling, the Daishogun snapped the tip of his fan against the other Gundam’s head. “You had best stop your whimpering or speak!”

Margo yelped, suffered a furious look from Barru, and then sputtered out his words any ways. “Th-There’s another thing! We have an earth dragon digging below your Mount Fuji. I think maybe Rola knew we’d fail and that she planned for this all to be a big smoke and mirrors act for the big event, yeah? There’s an old reservoir in the caldera that formed the last time the volcano erupted. We were uh, trying to pump that water down a tunnel right into Kyoto Town. Now, now hold up! Please, uh, put that sword away, geez! You’re going to let us off the hook for snitching, okay? That’s the deal?”

In a blur of motion, the Daishogun of Perfect Virtue had drawn his sword. He didn’t remember doing it. He’d felt a righteous fury and that had been it. Slowly, he put his blade back in its scabbard. Barru and Margo were fortunate nothing had been sliced off. It was said that weapon could cut even if it didn’t touch you first. Indeed Margo was either very brave, or very, very stupid for spurting out his confession like that. Barru looked like he wanted to murder the other mech himself. Behind them Dokeshimaru watched his master closely. Eventually the kabuki warrior muttered and pulled his prisoners back into the hold of darkness they’d been summoned from. They would be at least as safe there as Dokeshimaru permitted.

“What shall we do, my lord?”

Slowly, the Daishogun looked up. Not at Dokeshimaru, but at the middle distance, as if trying to avoid staring a hole into a living creature. Eventually his crest shook. “Gather the rest of the Court. This needs to be dealt with. Immediately.”

Dokeshimaru sketched an elaborate bow, bells and rattles hidden in his armor emphasizing the gesture. And then he was gone. Merely gone.

The Daishogun waited for a few moments, ensured there was not a GunSoul around, and then there was a flash of light. A veritable rainbow of spectral fury slashed clean through a nearby tree. So clean was the cut that it remained steady for all of five seconds before it slowly slid off its bottom half. It crashed to the ground, shedding sakura blossoms. His blind display of fury went unwitnessed, but still he felt some shame for it. It took much for his patience to be tested, but these Marisha had quickly proven they’d given him zero choice long ago. This was a planned endeavor. No doubt having taken place years before.

He wasn’t just angry, he was incandescent. Literally. Light seemed to radiate out from him to such a degree his features were backlit. He would find their leaders and they would pay.

  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                                                                                                  

Blossom woke up with a thunderous headache. Her helm had been removed and for a moment she thought it might have gone flying off her head during the tumble. The moment her eyes snapped online, however, she found it sitting in front of her. A truly massive dent marred the forehead of it, exactly where her headache originated.

She then gave a very un-ladylike hiss and rolled over. She found herself staring up at the rather sangfroid face of her grandfather. Very ironic considering the last time she saw him. With zero of the fear, she cried out and latched onto his neck.

“Grandfather!”

The old war king easily lifted her off the ground. Or rather, the floor of his chariot. At some point he’d found the Princess and plucked her from the summit. Blossom did not care to know where they were now exactly, only that Kibaomaru was present. Despite herself and her dignity, apologizes kept flooding out of her face guard.

“I’m so sorry! I sneaked out. I know I shouldn’t be here, Grandfather. I want to go home. Oh, Ancestors, I’m an idiot! A total baka!!”

Grandfather did not even wince or recoil as the onslaught of her voice piped directly into his left audio. Instead he hummed and patted at her back. “There, there,” he was saying. “There, there. I see you managed to take a few trophies for yourself, yes?”

That got her to stop sobbing. “I…? OH, those things! Oh, shit, Grandfather. I know why they’re here! Rola, she—”

“Hush. Not here. We need to get back to Kyoto Town. I will vouch for you.”

“Wait? You believe me?”

“Why would I not? I saw you come flying out of that fortress as if you were on fire. It was obvious as well from the amount of schematics you stole that you had done something with your time in there.”

Blossom blushed. “Ah. Yes, of course I had. But how did you know to come here?”

Kibaomari pointed his glaze past the railing of the war vehicle. She could not see what he glanced at specifically, but it didn’t matter much. “We defeated the Big Zam and then I came straight here. I could see their fortress from above and knew we’d been invaded from the shadows.”

“Right! Grandfather, listen. I know how they did it too.”

Kibaomaro nodded. “Then we should be getting home. Swiftly.”

Blossom yelped as Oshogo immediately obeyed the unspoken order, yanking the cart around at speeds that seemed fit to jerk them from the chariot. Kibaomaru was unaffected, only swaying slightly as he held onto his granddaughter. She had not released him, and only did so after they were already up and away.

It proved to be too much. Unbidden, tears rose to her eyes once more. Her skull ached terribly from the dent in her cranium. Her ribbon was ruined and possibly lost, her heirloom knife was gone, and Father would be pissed the moment he found out she fled the castle. Frustration boiled over as a strangled growl, trying to hide her anguish in her hands. It did her no good. Kibaomaru gently peeled them away from her face.

“Do not be afraid to cry, grandchild. I am here.”

Grandfather, while never very good at soothing tears, had also never once admonished her for crying. Father had, on a rare few occasions. Yet even those few times affected her rather badly. Since then, the Princess continued to insist that crying in public was an embarrassing affair. Especially in front of her stoic Grandfather. Blossom couldn’t even remember the last time she’d lost her cool in front of him. But his words right now were…nice. A balm, if she was to be honest! It felt good to be validated like that.

She curled up under the cowling of the chariot, right by his feet, and sobbed loudly. Anything to release that pressure, not realizing how terribly scared and angry she’d been the whole time. Rola might well have hurt, or even killed her! Any one of those goons could have done something awful. Kyoto Town might well be ruined by that crab thing Grandfather called a Big Zam.

Luck, it seemed, was on her side. But, what if it wasn’t so? What would Rola do now that Kibaomaru destroyed their fortress? Was it actually destroyed? Of course it was. It had to be! Nothing withstood the war king’s wrath for very long. Maybe one day she’d have that sort of power. Enough to not just strike terror in the hearts of her enemies, but to decimate their holdings too. Distantly, Blossom thought of the Daishogun of the past. Their vicious war banners and crests as big as their heads. Father brought her down there just yesterday to teach her an important lesson, one that she now remembered. How…bellicose Ark’s war torn past had once been. And how badly it needed to change.

What sort of leader would she be? A kindly, but reluctant one like Father? Or a stern and iron fisted warlord like Grandfather? Why not…a little of both? Stern, but fair. Kind, but not afraid to carry a big sword. That seemed right? That seemed reasonable, anyways. It eventually calmed her tears.

By the time these thoughts vented from her head, the chariot was starting to slow. When it came to a sudden, dead stop, Blossom flinched.

“Granddaughter. What else did you witness in there? What did this Rola tell you?”

Still blinking tears from her eyes, the Princess grunted and rose to her feet to properly answer. “What do you mean, I…oh. Oh, Ancestors.”

She looked over the edge of the cowling, down at a black, black hole the size of a small shrine, drilled directly into the foothills of Mount Fuji. They were but a hundred feet or so above the gap, starting down into filthy darkness.

“The drill!” She gasped. “They had a drill! Grandfather, I ended up in this very tunnel first before I ever discovered the fortress. But it wasn’t piloted.” She drummed her palms nervously along the railing. “Maybe you managed to stop it when you attacked?”

“I cannot take that chance. Hold on.”

Just as he spoke, Oshogo yanked them forwards once more. Diving down into the tunnel. All Blossom could see was rock rushing past them as perfect, concentric bands. Lightning gently spat from Kibaomaru’s venerable frame. Blossom made a startled noise as orange harmlessly sparked off her frame, then scooted under the cowling once more. Oshogo must have been absolutely flying because it took them perhaps a few minutes before a racket of noise reached them and the chariot suddenly slew to the side. Kibaomaru grabbed her by the scruff of her armor and anchored her to the floor of it with a barked curse. Soft pings and rattles sounded from the forward ram. Oshogo itself wailed with equestrian fury. The cart jumped as it reared up and clawed the air with its four flailing hooves.

“I believe I have found your drill.” Grandfather spoke over the tumult. Blossom realized it was the drill’s shredding maw eating through they rock as they raced behind it at speed.

His voice, so unflappable, now suddenly roared out. His hand flew away from his side, writhed in power. Blood orange lightning danced between his fingers then knifed out into the howling darkness, striking the teeth of the iron beast head on. Tungsten spat and snapped. Internal wiring and piping burst like overheated soup dumplings. The noise was terrible and the Princess was forced to clap her hands over her audios. Even the machinery itself seemed to be in pain, voicing its agony as if it were an actual, living dragon. Stone shards and dust became a blizzard of sharpened hail. And then ceased all together. The fury ground to a halt and so too did Oshogo.

“…Did you stop it?” Blossomed whispered into the sudden silence, batting rock dust from her bare head. At some point her dented helm had gone skittering off the floor, dumped from the cart in a rush. This was fine. She had no intentions of putting it back on.

“Aye,” Kibaomaru muttered, preparing to board the now defeated and dead beast, but the Princess laid a hand on him.

“Don’t bother. Like I said, it wasn’t piloted. It might have come in through the hole I crawled out of when I first got here.”

One hazel eye slowly rotated in her direction. A perfect side eye. “How did you get to be here anyways, Blossom?”

Oh, he called her by her name. The Princess swallowed and squinted her eyes in a nervous smile. “Uh. You know that portal magic Father does? Um…well, your old heirloom knife. I mean! I was able to use it to open one for myself when I saw that crab Zam…thing attacking the town from my window. I really wanted to get out and warn Father, but the doors and windows were locked. Or warded.” She shook her head. “It all just sort of happened.”

The old warlord stared at her for a long time, than heaved a gentle sigh. “Your Father will not be pleased about this.”

“I knoooow,” groaned the Princess. “And I promise I’m actually sorry this time! And I…I lost the knife though. So I guess no more portals for me.”

“You realize your father never needed any magical objects to manifest his talents, right?”

“…Wait, he didn’t? So I’ve been able to use this ability all along?”

Kibaomaru’s eyes never changed expressions for as long as Blossom had known him. But this time, he grinned, eyes shutting with the effort. “Your father apparently didn’t know either.”

“Seriously? Not once did he consider I might have inherited this gift?”

“Did you?”

“Uh…good point.” She sagged forward. “Well! What now?”

“We go home.”

This time Blossom was ready. She grunted in dismay and gripped the railing just in time. Oshogo gave an irritated whinny and whipped the chariot around, glad to be streaming out the dark tunnel.

  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                                                                                                  

“Good morning, Genki.”

The Daishogun stared blankly at the dust wreathed form of his father and daughter as Oshogo skidded to a stop just a few feet away from him. An hour ago, the leader of Ark had gathered his Court and prepared to go to war, but apparently his father had been a couple of steps ahead of him, as per usual. This time the Daishogun wasn’t even particularly miffed at that realization. The sooner these mysterious enemies were dealt with the better. What he wasn’t happy with was the fact that Blossom was there, looking as guilty and filthy as he’d ever seen her.

“Good morning, Father.” She gestured slowly, giving him a guilty little finger wave. Blossom wasn’t all that tall and so her eyes barely cleared the top of the railing. Which was appropriate considering she looked like she wanted to hide any ways.

The Daishogun, for his part, struggled for a few seconds trying to decide how he should be feeling about this. Kibaomaru offered no context whatsoever, and Blossom he doubted would be much better. His first and immediate instinct as father was to scold his child for sneaking out, and then hug her as much as possible for being well, if a total mess. And then promptly both lecture and enthuse with her about the sudden possibility that she had, in fact, inherited his powers.

What he settled on, several seconds later, was neither. The Daishogun sighed, let the gleaming tip of his sword gently clank against the stone floor in exasperation, and greeted the duo. “Ah. Good morning, Father. Daughter.”

Behind him, Dokeshimaru laughed nervously. “Well, well! I guess this might come about peacefully?” He paused, “That is, the situation with the prisoners.”

The Daishogun glanced over at the kabuki actor turned warrior with wary, if diplomatic gratitude. He’d effectively broke up then tension and got the situation moving along, at least. He sighed, sheathed his sword with a bright flare, and stepped aside.

“Yes, thank you. Well, it is a stroke of fortune that Blossom was suspiciously gone at the time, but Dokeshimaru was able to capture two would be kidnappers. They later confessed that these Marisha have an earth dragon drilling through Mount Fuji in an attempt to flood Kyoto Town.”

“Not anymore.” Blossom muttered under her breath, ducking for a moment, then reappearing at the back of the vehicle as she hopped off. “Uh. Grandfather killed the thing.”

“Did he?”

“Aye.” Kibaomaru shrugged and gestured down towards the tunnel as it yawned silently behind them. “Kill shock, same as I did with the Big Zam. Blossom mentioned it wasn’t piloted, and it wasn’t.”

“So that WAS a machine!” crowed Hatomaru. “A clever ruse then, but an unsuccessful one at that.”

“So what was controlling it?” The Daishogun wondered out loud, but Blossom was already speaking, heading towards him slowly at first, but then her feet picked up in a nervous whirl.

“Oh, Father!” She crashed into his chest plate with cough. “I am so sorry! I didn’t mean to sneak out. I just wanted to let you know about that crab thing. I couldn’t just stand there! And then the heirloom knife started glowing, and I have your power, and—”

“Shhhh. I managed to figure most of that out.”

“Oh.”

The Daishogun sighed and carefully tucked her head into the crook of his neck. Blossom didn’t seem all that badly injured, but that dent looked painful. “We…we will worry about all of that later, Daughter. I just need to know what happened. Slowly, now. It’s been a long day.”

The Princess sniffled, apparently surprised or pleased that she wasn’t receiving a lecture, then coughed again. “So that crab Zam started attacking the eastern district of town. I saw it from my window just after sunset. I panicked and tried to get the door open and the window was a no-go too. I just…I remember getting angry, or scared, and the heirloom knife you gave to me started to glow! Like, the same exact color as your portal magic. And that’s what it was! Before I knew it I had created one and it dumped me into that tunnel you see behind us.

“I wandered around and found that drill thing deep in there. I knew something was up because we don’t have machines like those, ever! So I climbed on, saw it wasn’t manned and then got back out of the tunnel. Uh, to turn a long story short, there was a small army and a fortress, right at the top of Mt. Fuji! Father, I was a total baka for not going back down the summit to warn everyone, but I had to do something right then and there! So I kinda…well, sneaked in. Got captured by the enemy leader named Rola, and likely would still be there if Grandfather hadn’t started zapping the place! But I was smart too, I guess. I got out and stole a bunch of their plans and tried to leave. And uh. Well. Here we are?”

The Daishogun blinked once. Twice. Thrice. “That was…incredibly brave, but very, very stupid. I…damn it. It’s exactly what I would have done at your age. Oh, Ancestors you’re growing up just like me.” He shook his helm crest.

Kibaomaru gave an amused snorted. “At least she is lucky enough to have a father that cares about her enough to keep her from doing something too stupid, yes?”

Had his father just admitted he’d been a terrible parent? Not that the Daishogun would have ever agreed against that fact, but…

“Mm…I suppose the only thing we should be doing then is making sure this Rola and her minions receive deserving punishment. Do you know what happened to them, Father?”

“I suppose I would have killed them had I not renounced those ways, but my best guess is they might have fled. They could have strongholds elsewhere, or they could be in their dead fortress still.” He shrugged. “Either way, we have enough proof of their doings. Any one of our neighboring nations could be warned of this and they would be unable to find safe harbor. They are effectively defeated.”

“We can only hope,” sighed the Daishogun, peering down at his now silent daughter. “Mm…I suppose we should be doing something about that lost heirloom knife.”

Blossom peeled her face away from his chest, blinking in confusion. But before the Princess could utter a word, the Daishogun stepped away. He reached for his belt, not towards the deadly sword that was always kept to his left, but to its smaller partner on the right. A sword that would have to be drawn by the off hand. He released both blade and scabbard, gripping it with slight awkwardness.

“I think…it is time that I let you go, daughter. You’ve proven yourself to be a headstrong and resourceful woman. Much like how your mother was. This was her blade, or at least a replication of it. I always kept it with me as a reminder. A sword for my off hand so I would never forget how she completed me. But even with her gone, I see now that you are as much a part of her as you are of me. I can’t force you to be what I think you should be and I have come to accept that. And as a token of that, I want you to have this.”

Blossom peered down at what Father offered her. It was a gorgeous, polished sheath, made of mother of pearl capped with rose quartz. The handle, wrapped in the same silk her ribbon was made from. Barely able to breath, she let the Daishogun place the precious weapon into her palms. With great care, she gripped the handle and let the blade slide free. To her immense surprise, the gleaming blade showed her the image of a tiger, stalked down its length, its jaws pointed towards any potential enemy.

“I…F-Father…thank you.” The words left her mouth guard as a heartfelt sob. “I will make you so proud of me. I promise!”

The Daishogun bowed. “You already have.”