Chapter Text
Hiroto doesn't feel good about Akemura leaving him behind - even just for a day. Akemura has been walking like a ghost, who's becoming too sure of something, and it's never a good thing Akemura is gathering resolve as a warrior when a peace treaty is being signed.
"Akemura...? Are you okay?" Hiroto whispers and he's not asking about what Akemura feels about one of the only Soga left with Hiroto after his older sister was murdered and the rest were massacred during the war and some time after it. Hiroto's life has been spared twice by the Mikaboshi. Once to humiliate him and Ukizane's legend. Twice to humiliate and treat him as Ariu's leftovers.
"Niisan," Akemura fondly says and faces Hiroto, smiling. Hiroto wonders if Akemura thinks he can see Chiaki in him because all of them are Soga and some shared common physical characteristics. "How is your physical rehabilitation?"
Akemura naturally tries to grab Hiroto's wheelchair bars but Hiroto has to hold up his hand.
"You shouldn't need to look after me. I'm the oldest now. I should be looking after you," Hiroto says, furrowing his eyebrows. Akemura desperately wants to protect something and he's figuring something out. Hiroto doesn't like the darkness growing in Akemura's eyes. But doesn't this mean Hiroto should let himself go weak, so Akemura can switch to fully focusing on him than whatever is plaguing him? Hiroto still can't shake off his pride and it's making him doubtful. He doesn't want to sound like he's wavering, so he's never tried to imply he wanted help.
Akemura looks like he tried not to glance down at Hiroto, who will be stuck in a wheelchair for likely the rest of his life and he has vein-like welts over his body from Ariu's poison, and he tries to keep his face up to be polite.
"You can't fight but I can," Akemura worriedly says. He's been burrowing his way into Hiroto's house. Hiroto let it be. It can't be easy being thrown in war long enough as a dependent child only to come back home not knowing how to stand on his own feet.
Hiroto wishes this was enough to keep Akemura here at the clan estate than to leave and initiate some plan.
I'm counting on you, Hiroto swallows back. That's what Chiaki said and would say. Other times, she would tell him, as one of her elite guards, "I'm sure we will have days of peace ahead of us."
Akemura's eyes widen before he narrows his eyes, refusing to respond for a moment. "... I see. I'll leave you be. I won't keep worrying you." He has a knowing look in his eyes before he walks around Hiroto and Hiroto tries to turn back around but he can't do it easily in his wheelchair and this walkway is too narrow for him to do a full turn without opening a sliding door to back up inside the room of. It's not a very wheelchair-friendly place but Akemura obsessively installed ramps around for him.
Hiroto used to take notice of the other clan members because he was monitoring for potential suspicious behaviors on and before important days, so he thinks, You're nothing like when you were a child.
Hiroto sighs and wheels himself away. He'd be heading to Akemura's house. It was the kid's late mother's house before she used her late daughter's new status as princess to live in a nicer building and in a good location where she has view of the plum blossoms when they bloomed around spring once winter left them. Akemura keeps expired foods and drinks in his fridge sometimes.
Hiroto has to throw it out for him because Akemura thinks he could chug down anything and be fine but Hiroto is not letting Akemura eat that frozen chicken he thawed on his counter for hours.
The bends and turns heading to Akemura's place is not nice, but he mastered not falling into the bushes where he needs to call for Akemura's help, however pathetic and shameful it is as a man. Hiroto blinks when a large centipede crawls onto the walkway, sitting there innocently. Hiroto grimly smiles.
"..." Hiroto was too slow to react to it, so by the time he felt fear, he couldn't associate it with the Mikaboshi's centipedes in time. "Don't stay there. You'd get rolled over."
He attempts to reach down from his wheelchair, leaning over, and he grips his bar tightly but he can't get down.
"Please move," Hiroto calmly asks it before he wiggles his fingers like he's shooing a cat away when the centipede lunges for his face and shoves itself into his mouth. It bites on his tongue before it crawls rapidly down his throat and he could feel every leg on his skin pinching him on its way down. He attempts to force himself to vomit but his body won't listen to him and he pants from losing so much of his dormant spirit energy at once. He coughs up black smoke, covering up his field of vision.
"It's been a while, Soga," Ariu says over the smoke, and Hiroto moves to shout to Akemura to return to him but he can't lift a single finger. "Are you sure you want to do that? Regardless... if I was deposed. He holds deep hatred for us."
Hiroto doesn't like how Ariu is implying Akemura would blame all the Mikaboshi for one man's actions, who the majority renounced. Akemura would never lift a finger towards the innocent.
"Did you come to finish me off?" Hiroto asks, his body twitching as he feels Ariu's spirit energy invade and try to shift and hide under his own spirit energy. "What... Do you plan? He won't... fall for your tricks... He beat you... He could do it... again!"
"My god has been defiled... You made a mockery of who we were as people, when you were the ones who fell us into hell," Ariu says but his heart isn't in on it. "Our people began to think our god was your side. I can't just... walk away doing nothing. It just puts a bad taste in my mouth."
Just like that, Ariu turns away, and Hiroto is left with his thoughts and the question of why Ariu didn't have a hint of hostility for him.
Ariu used his sorcery on me, Hiroto says but it comes out as a thought in his head. Ariu silenced him. He suspects he wouldn't be able to write it down either or make any gestures and signs to Akemura. But Akemura is far superior to Hiroto. Akemura will figure out what's wrong with him. Hiroto carefully makes his way to Akemura's house, where Akemura has also built a sign for Hiroto.
'Welcome!' Akemura still has a bit of whimsy in it. It's precious and small but it's better than wondering when Akemura will just turn into another him.
Hiroto's heart drops when he opens Akemura's fridge and there's nothing in there. He checks the cabinet. Nothing perishable. Nothing in the trash. Akemura's futon is folded up and put away. Akemura has nothing personal left out which Hiroto knew Akemura had laying around just yesterday. Like Akemura doesn't expect to come back to this house. Why would Akemura think he wouldn't be able to come home? Does he think he'd die? Does he plan to sacrifice himself? But how? The war is over?
Ariu's words come back to haunt him and put a shadow over Akemura's strange behavior. It's not possible. Akemura would never kill the Mikaboshi and the rest of their people just for being associated with the royal family - for sharing the same blood. Akemura is a sweet child - yes, it's true, he changed, yes, it's true, he's grown darker, but Akemura didn't feel like he turned into an entirely new person.
"Akemura?" Hiroto looks over his shoulder. No... You wouldn't dare. He looks for a phone. It's been ripped off the wall. The phone lines in this house has been cut. It wasn't that way the other day ago.
Akemura expected him to use the phone.
Akemura said he would protect the weak and slay evil. That is Kunishige's oath he was so proud to uphold.
It's nothing like Hiroto's oath to the clan or to the princess.
You wouldn't join my side of hell. But Hiroto knows. Akemura might've stepped over by the time Hiroto can contact someone about Akemura's whereabouts. Akemura still has access to his enchanted blade. He could've been gone within moments of being out of Hiroto's sight. He could've left for the Mikaboshi.
Does Ariu know? No, the way he spoke didn't sound like it. Ariu sounded defeated. He sounded like a son on his way to do one last request of his father and then disappear.
Hiroto holds his tongue. Akemura...?
He wheels out of Akemura's house and returns to his place. He doesn't have a good feeling about checking the next closest house for a phone. He needs to call Togo. Togo is the fastest he knows. He'd be able to relay anything to Hiroto within seconds. Hiroto shakily takes his phone once he is inside and calls Togo's number. Togo rejects the call. He then calls Hiroto and hangs up the call. It's code.
Urgent business.
Hiroto closes his eyes. Ariu will be back for his head. He's sure of it.
...
..
.
They come at night. It is a pair of Kamunabi employees, where the Kamunabi newly established after the disbandment and end of the Sorcery Bureau. Hiroto is aware the Kamunabi are having trouble. They barely have the same legitimacy than when the Soga was fully intact and it's been reformed down to its core now that the connection between the government and sorcery world has been lost without the prophecy rite. The sorcery clans are breaking apart, away from Kamunabi and the Soga.
The Kamunabi pair looks vaguely suspicious of him. "Please come with us."
"Do I have a choice?" Hiroto asks and the Kamunabi pair wordlessly draws with markers on the floor in front of him. The Masumi, then. He heard there's less than ten survivors. "Where is Akemura?"
The Masumi look confused. "The Kamunabi council wants your audience for a matter unrelated to the Kensei. If you wish for him to be here too, we can track him down."
"There's no need," Hiroto firmly says, knowing the Masumi won't question why Akemura is mysteriously declared dead after the war when he's clearly being treated as alive. He wheels himself into the ink mandala and he reappears in a bright room, even more pure white with the lights on in a pale-painted courtroom. He nearly throws up when someone puts a blindfold over his eyes and a sword to his neck.
"Did you deploy the Kensei?" Kasen says and his voice is accusing.
Hiroto pulls off the blindfold, staring him down. "The Kamunabi are... a group of nobodies with no real legacy. The Soga may have fallen, we are not dead," he coldly says. He doesn't recognize over half of them. "Did you come to interrogate me for the treat or pin me with allegations? Akemura's master is Rokuhira."
He doesn't see a hint of those younger boys or the enchanted blade wielders around. They're keeping them isolated and spread out from each other?
"Five hours ago, the Kensei left to the Mikaboshi's islands... and wiped them clean. A tremendous amount of spirit energy was detected from the delegates and guards leaving by ship back to homeland." Kasen doesn't look upset. "There are no survivors. Rokuhira mobilized the enchanted blade wielders through Shiba to return to the islands and capture the Kensei."
"The Kamunabi are in disagreement over whenever to kill him," Hiroto flatly says after watching the other Kamunabi members who sit at the half circle table. "Without consulting me? You think I am guilty?"
What did Akemura say for them to think Hiroto was part of it? Hiroto would like to see Akemura but he thinks the Kamunabi will think he's guiltier.
"What did Akemura say was the cause of this?" Hiroto narrows his eyes.
"He's insane," one of them says. "There's no cause. He just went berserk. He lost his mind. It's impossible... It's simply... inconceivable."
"The entire islands under Mikaboshi's hand has been overtaken by this 'Malediction'. He never showed such battle capability before..." Another no-name states.
"Akemura did not lose his mind," Hiroto says, and the others don't look too surprised over it. It means they heard it before. Did the enchanted blade wielders say something? There is no way warriors of their calibrate could confront Akemura and think he lost his sanity. "Power is no reason to declare him mentally unstable."
Did the other enchanted blade wielders pin him down? Did Akemura surrender himself? He doesn't care if he asks. He wants to see Akemura.
"Where did you take Akemura to? I don't remember giving Kamunabi permission to move my people, under my jurisdiction anywhere," Hiroto says, ignoring how it'd incriminate him in their eyes with how some of them look like they want to jump him. "I do not trust your judgement. Get him a proper psychologist on his case and perform a proper evaluation of his mental state."
"You don't think we're being fair? He could kill us all in seconds," one of the nameless says. "It's not normal. You don't nod your head at a peace treaty, wake up planning to kill thousands, and be normal. Nothing happened. He just... went out of control. We don't have time to put him in front of his next victim. We're here to protect the country, not to disturb it."
I knew it. The Kamunabi didn't have Akemura evaluated and what was this? Why are the Kamunabi only referring to him as the Kensei when they were so eager to relate me to him as Soga?
Kasen sighs, like he's wondering why he's here. "The Kensei is currently being transported underground, where he will be put into a dungeon that drains him of every drop of vitality to keep him suspended. He can't be trusted or do you think what happened was a sane act?"
"Bring me to Akemura Soga," Hiroto coldly says, narrowing his eyes. "Did you forget who brought order to the country?" The Soga princess did. It's just him and Akemura and he doubts anyone will look at Akemura and want him to have a child or even use his genetic material. "The Kamunabi are lacking in authority. Don't weaken the bare threads that tie the Soga and the 'Kamunabi' together. It won't be in name-only if you keep this up."
"I can bring him to Akemura!" Uruha says, showing up out of nowhere, and everyone goes silent to turn to him, who miraculous appeared from nowhere. "I, uh... No one noticed I was here?"
"Why didn't you slip out?" Kasen asks, baffled.
"Um... I was going to when Soga-san showed up," Uruha throws up a peace sign. He's still holding onto Kumeyuri. "It's true. The Kensei is of sound mind," he says, looking vaguely goofy for someone with a black feather on his hair. Does he know it's on his head?
There's no way the Kamunabi or Rokuhira would have him hold onto it unless Akemura hasn't been finished being locked down in a dungeon.
"Uruha... Your time is over. You fought him down. You don't need to keep involving yourself with Kensei," Ichiki finally speaks up, talking like Akemura's life is over. But is it? Hiroto grips his hands.
Uruha glances at Hiroto. "He surrendered."
"That's not possible," another no-name says, and Hiroto just sighs. The enchanted blade wielders gave their statements, clearly, but it's being outright denied.
"Uruha. Can you take me to the other enchanted blade wielders? That should be fine by Kamunabi," Hiroto looks back at Kasen. He has no intentions of cooperating but he verbally implied he would. It's not an explicit agreement. It'd be hard for them to force him to accept Akemura's treatment.
The Kamunabi members look at each other, whispering, and some of them argue.
"Fine," Kasen finally says after they quiet down.
Uruha eagerly runs over to Hiroto, sparkly-eyed, and he wheels Hiroto out of there before Hiroto could tell him not to.
"Uruha. Where did you go?" Samura grabs Uruha's head like he's grabbing an apple, appearing when the feather disappears from Uruha's head.
"Will you take me to Akemura?" Hiroto asks.
"... Not really," Samura mutters. "I'm just here because Uruha was gone. They told us to stay down there until it's complete!"
"He surrendered! He accepts being imprisoned!" Uruha replies, a little upset. "You know that too!"
Samura grabs Uruha's shoulder and shoos him away from driving Hiroto's wheelchair and takes control of it. "Are you well enough to be transported with sorcery, Soga-san?" He holds out a feather to Uruha, who obediently takes it.
"Yes," Hiroto blatantly lies.
"... May I use Suzaku to..." Samura weakly asks, but Hiroto shakes his head. He sighs and surrounds the three with black feathers, before he pulls them down under, where there are more black feathers circulating inside a dark dungeon with barely visible white pillars with talisman surrounding a single boy sitting at the center of the circle. The other wielders look prepared to jump Akemura if he so as much twitches a muscle while the other sorcerers are finalizing the touches on the pillars.
"... Niisan?" Akemura moves his head and Subaru and Sorano look ready to pounce on him. Ibuki just looks their way, somewhat disinterested in everything. "You came to see me?"
Hiroto tries to wheel over but Samura has a tight hold on his wheelchair.
"Akemura. I'll make an offer with Kamunabi," Hiroto says, nearly sounding toneless to keep his emotions out of his voice. "I should've noticed sooner what you planned to do."
"... I made this decision based... on what I learned was the best way to protect people," Akemura calmly says. "If we hadn't accepted the defectors, the Soga clan would still be standing. It does not matter if 'they' deposed of their royal family. There will always be someone. Who will wave the banner of war."
There's something in Akemura's eyes when he talks - a little too much than Hiroto expected him to explain. Like he wants Hiroto to hear what he has to say.
"The war's over, kid," Subaru stiffly says. "That goes for both sides. They shed blood for it."
"You fashioned your sword style to kill people as many times it takes," Akemura rudely points out, haughty. "To cut them into pieces. Like they're sashimi."
"Uh!" Samura nearly chokes from behind Hiroto.
"You still don't understand what you did wrong?" Sorano speaks up, her voice steady. She's furious. "You shed blood and soiled our country's name! We have to hide this because of you! We won't be able to purify ourselves for this grave sin!" Her non-dominant hand shakes. "You made us the villains! This will taint our souls forever!"
"You consider me as part of you?" Akemura dryly asks.
"No," Subaru interrupts. "No, you're not."
Uruha just glances between everyone, while Ibuki looks at his feet. Samura says nothing.
"Akemura," Hiroto says, and Akemura turns to him so quickly, he catches a glimpse of that something. "You knew you would be imprisoned. That what you did was extreme."
In the end, you sacrificed yourself.
"This... won't tarnish the name of the Soga," Akemura says, empty. "Because I am going to die here. Thank you for coming to see me one last time."
"We might not be family, we are clan," Hiroto says.
"Oh gods, not another traditionalist..." Samura whispers so faintly, if Hiroto really did lose all of his training, he wouldn't have heard it. "Soga-san. This will ruin the country... It will cause public unrest. Everyone just wants to rebuild after the war. We'd never..."
"I heard you're looking to marry a normal woman now that the war is over, Samura-san. Congratulations," Akemura says, almost teasing and serious about it, and Uruha has to jump towards Samura because Samura takes one step forward. "See?" Akemura sounds content when he looks down at his feet.
"You're not a martyr," Hiroto says, furious. "Who said you can sacrifice yourself? Do you think I wouldn't notice? I don't plan on leaving you here."
"Um, Soga-san," one of the sorcerers in charge of sealing shyly speaks up.
Hiroto ignores him.
"If even you believe you deserve to be locked up and die here, do you think this is something you believed you had to do?" Hiroto feels something crawl and click inside of him. Akemura twitches, glancing back up at him. "If you were truly a threat, then all of you should lay down your life with him. You're shutting him away but you won't go through with killing him. Do you fear losing control of his enchanted blade? Then if it's in the hands of a less skilled swordsman, it would easily break."
Uruha stiffens. Hiroto heard about his enchanted blade being the first one to crack before it was miraculously restored by Samura.
"That would involve sacrificing an innocent man," Akemura thinks he has any right to say.
"You're locked down here because of 'Malediction'. Because they think you're insane and will do another Malediction," Hiroto guesses. "If the threat was that great, enough to end Japan like you destroyed another country, Akemura, then the right decision would be to sacrifice the few for the whole."
"Do you think our resolve is half-baked?" Samura sadly says and Hiroto would rather not see what look is on his face because the scars make him look too tough for a soft, wimpy tone.
"You are Soga," Akemura hums, tilting his head. "But I don't plan on doing anything." He looks up at nowhere but he seems a little at peace.
Hiroto sighs, looking down at his lap. "Could you take me back up?"
"What... do you plan to do?" Uruha warily asks.
"Talk," Hiroto admits. "I am no longer a swordsman or a sorcerer. What else would I do? Everyone knows it. Or do you fear the word of someone stuck on his last legs?"
"I see..." Samura turns away Hiroto before Hiroto can see the completion of the ritual and Hiroto squeezes his eyes shut. He feels Akemura's life force nearly drain away into nothingness.