Chapter Text
The bandit leader's knees hit the mud with a wet squelch. The rain had let up a little since the heavy morning downpour that had kept her lookouts from seeing the samurai approaching until they were already in the camp. They had slaughtered all of the men and women camped out in the forests of Yamashiro. Only the bandit leader had been taken alive, and only because nobody had expected a bandit leader would be a fifteen year old girl. With so little notice, she hadn't had time to run, and had been easily subdued by the larger and heavily armored samurai.
"So this is the great Uguisu," said General Akihito with a sneer. "Nothing much at all, in the end. Just another street rat. You must be the worst bandit I've ever heard of."
Uguisu sneered right back. Her wrists had been tied together in front of her and her hair stuck to her face wetly. The long strands had torn free from the bun she usually kept it in. Only a single piece of string tied it back enough that she wasn't tangled up in a matted ball of hair. She had been beaten severely, and the bruises on her back and sides kept her hunched over even as she craned her neck to fix the general with a defiant grin. "But you have heard of me, haven't you Akihicchi?"
General Akihito snarled. One of his soldiers smacked Uguisu across the face with the butt of a spear. “Know your place, whelp!”
Uguisu wheezed laughter from a puddle. She was already soaked through from the rain and shivering. At least the mud helped make the bruising across her ribs less painful. When it was clear she was just going to lie there, General Akihito nodded to his men. They hauled her back upright, snatching at the back of her collar to drag her up. The force nearly undid the kosode she wore, and Uguisu had to snatch at the front of her clothes to keep her modesty. With her hands tied it was nearly impossible, but Uguisu managed by hunching over again and pinning her hands and her clothes together between her legs.
General Akihito laughed. "What's the fear, Uguisu? You've nothing to show off, young as you are. Maybe if we take your clothes and leave you out in the rain for a while you'll tell us where to find your friends."
"You've killed all of them already," Uguisu snarled. "What more do you want? If you hate me so much then kill me. Or perhaps you're too cowardly to stain your blade with blood?"
"Why you—"
"Hold, General."
Uguisu narrowed her eyes at the new voice. It was the voice of a girl her same age, and came with the sound of wet footsteps in the mud. A polished wood palanquin appeared in Uguisu's vision as she shivered in the mud. The palanquin was carried by four samurai, spears held in one hand as they kept the palanquin balanced on their shoulders with the other. Every single samurai bowed as the palanquin carriers lowered it down to the mud. With nobody looking, Uguisu shuffled around in her sleeves. A small knife slid out between her hands, which Uguisu pinned between her knees.
"She is clearly provoking you, General," said the voice from the palanquin. "If we are to wipe out the bandits in our province, we must keep her alive."
"As you say, princess," said General Akihito from his bow.
Uguisu began to saw at the rope tying her hands together. It was quite a thin rope, but would have been more than enough to keep her bound if it weren't for the knife. "Huhhh? What's this, you're being led around by a little girl, Akihicchi? Wow you really are a dickless piece of shit aren't you?"
The assembled samurai were dead silent. The girl in the palanquin pushed aside the door to her palanquin and an attendant stepped forward promptly to shield her head from the rain with an umbrella. General Akihito hurried up to help the girl step out of the palanquin. Uguisu saw that she was dressed like a samurai page, except that her kimono was richly patterned, as befit her rank. Tall rain geta were placed on the ground in front of her by yet a third attendant.
The umbrella attendant followed behind as the girl stepped carefully through the mud to stop in front of Uguisu. Then abruptly, the girl snatched Uguisu's hair into her left hand, yanking her head up. Before Uguisu understood what was happening, she had been slapped viciously with the girl's right hand, the blow raising a welt on Uguisu's cheek.
"You will not speak to my retainers in this manner," the girl said coldly, letting Uguisu's head drop. "An insult to them is an insult to me, and I brook no such disrespect."
Uguisu spat blood out of her mouth from a cut cheek, making sure it landed on the expensive kimono jacket. "Bite me, princess."
Uguisu was promptly slapped again. "My name is Yamana no Ena, and you will address me with respect."
"Respect?" Uguisu coughed. The knife was making good progress on her bindings. "The Yamana clan deserves no respect from me."
"And why is that?" asked Ena.
"Because you're the reason my family is dead," Uguisu said. "In your fighting with the other samurai, you burned my village to the ground. All this time I've been fighting for revenge. You'll never see me respect a Yamana."
"Silence!" General Akihito roared. "Insolent rat! Do you not know who your superiors are? Princess Ena has done more for the peasants of Yamashiro than any other lady of the court! You should be grateful that she graced you with her touch!"
Ena held up a hand, and General Akihito fell silent. "The other samurai clan you speak of are just as much to blame," she said to Uguisu. "Were it not for their aggression—"
"Oh piss off," Uguisu said. She was nearly through the rope. "You know well as me that all this is just about who has the bigger dick amongst you samurai types."
"We are defending ourselves from—"
"By burning down my village?!" Uguisu said. "FUCK YOU, that's a—!!"
Ena smacked her again, this time raising the welt on the opposite cheek. The motion tugged the rope through Uguisu's knife, and her hands were finally free.
"It was people like you who killed my brother," Ena said, breath coming faster as her anger broke through the mask of coldness she had been wearing.
"I don't even—"
"As far as I'm concerned, any vassal, peasant or noble, of the Hosokawa Clan will receive their justly deserved payment for what they have done to my family," Ena said sharply, her fury scorching the air as she spoke. She swallowed, then let go of Uguisu and tucked her hands into her sleeves, turning partly away to master her emotions. "I would have your head, were it not that I need information from you first. And since I am better than someone like you , if your information is accurate then I will allow you to keep your head."
"Typical noble, thinking all of us know about all the rest," Uguisu said. She spat out more blood onto the ground. "Dumbass, the Uguisu Band works on its own. I don't know anything about the other bands in the area."
"You know what territory they operate in," said Ena. She turned back to stare down at Uguisu. "How else would you avoid unnecessary conflict with other bands? You will show me on a map where they are, and we will see if your life remains your own."
"I told you already that I don't know," said Uguisu. She slid a hand between her knees to grasp the hilt of her knife. "What am I supposed to do, plan out everything my band does with all the others? We take what we need and fuck up the samurai when we can. It don't need to be any more complicated than that, so we don't."
"A likely story," said Ena. She leaned imperiously over Uguisu. "The damage you've done is impossible without planning. You can't possibly expect me to—"
Uguisu sprang upwards, knife flashing through the air. It cut cleanly through Ena's neck, drawing a red smile from right to left.
"PRINCESS!"
Uguisu staggered as two swords punched through her back, skewering her as she laughed and laughed and Ena collapsed to the ground, scrabbling at her throat while her retainers desperately tried to do anything to stop the rush of blood. The blades were torn out of Uguisu, and she fell to the mud next to the princess, the world turning black around her.
"My real name was Chiyo," she whispered with her last breaths. "My father was Shinjiro, and my mother was Kaede. Their spirits are now avenged."
Chiyo closed her eyes.