Chapter Text
It was somewhere around the week’s thirty-fifth (-sixth? -seventh?) strategy meeting when General Gorou was found curled up behind the unused archery dummies. Asleep. Then again in the bushes, right after his latest “consultation with Guugi Yae” about “just some thing” she wanted him to do. Like he would ever talk to her on purpose. When Kokomi accidentally frightened the dozing general out of an otogi tree, she knew something had to change: Gorou needed a break.
That’s why, when the other Sangonomiya generals strolled into their [secret] fortieth strategy meeting of the week, the chalkboard usually covered in checklists, battle formations, and Vision redistribution plans had only one question for the day. In Kokomi’s beautiful, bubbly, script, it read:
How do we trick General Gorou into taking a vacation?
It earned a few laughs from the soldiers, but the levity came from understanding.
“Priestess, you can’t be serious. He’s not going down without a sedative.”
She giggled, idly twirling a stray arrow.
“Oh, believe me, I’ve considered it. I am simply opening up the room for suggestions before I drug my beloved right hand.”
Every soldier in the Resistance knew how hard Gorou worked. After they had won against the Shogun, everyone else had taken some earned vacation or another, many leaving entirely to return home. Only Gorou (and Kokomi, but she understood the power of a good work-life balance) had stayed every day since in negotiation with the various clans, in putting their victory into practice. Something to take his mind off of work long enough to sleep a full night would be a win for them all.
“What if you sent him on a mission, that was just a vacation in disguise?”
“You could tell him all the work is done?”
“Someone else could be your right ha- ow! What was that for?
Kokomi wrote down all their suggestions, even if she seemed unimpressed. “Hm. He’s smarter than this, he’ll see right through it.” She turned back to her now fully invested leaders. “You’re strategists . What I’m looking for is something sneaky, so he doesn’t try to paperwork his way through any break we give him.”
“You couldn’t possibly mean…”
Kokomi grinned.
“Subterfuge.”
-
Two pots of tea and half an hour later, they were nearing defeat.
“What if we tape his tent shut?”
“Or put him on a boat without a paddle.”
“We could… get him a dog?”
“He IS a dog!”
“What about a girlfriend?”
Kokomi stopped writing and turned around. “Who said that?”
Everyone went quiet. Takahashi, a samurai who had long abandoned guarding the door, sheepishly raised his hand.
Kokomi was an avid reader. Her meager leisure time, which she cared for greatly, was nearly all spent on books. Strategy, sometimes. Theory of war and historical battle precedent, often. But her favorite books? They had nothing at all to do with that exhausting job. Kokomi’s greatest love was novels about, well, love .
If romance novels had taught her anything, it was that love was the world’s most powerful distraction. Kokomi didn’t care much for romance on her own part. She also despised distraction. However, if the books were to be believed, there was an attraction out there powerful enough to finally take her general down. For a nap, hopefully.
Kokomi grinned at the cowering samurai.
“Now THAT is an idea.”