Ch226- Last Chance
The Hoshigaki clan compound was as uniquely decorated and built as all other main clan compounds. Where the Hozuki had ponds and small streams of water rivuletting throughout their compound, the Hoshigaki ensured they had a section of the beach to themselves.
They sat near the edge of Bar Beach yet not too far off from the ports they claimed dominant control of both legitimately and illegitimately. Piracy was an undeniable source of income for both the Hoshigaki and the village, it was also where much of the Hoshigaki’s suppressed subjects were plucked from.
Strangers from other lands, sometimes in a handful and other times by the boatful. Labour sold off to slave fascinated noble lords of the Daimyo’s court, the warlords of other countries or even…Kirigakure.
ANBU had more enslaved orphans than it did loyal denizens.
This was how they’d proven themselves over the decades, a streak of ruthlessness, looting, raucous celebration and a greed inspired loyalty. The clan wasn’t so much a clan when Kirigakure was formed as much as it was a fighting force, and even now their numbers stood lower than some caste clans who’d scribbled their signatures onto the unbelievably heavy scroll Mei brought with her.
Her grandaunt is the reason she knew anything about the Hoshigaki or the main clans. The old woman baking pastries for strangers stuffed into her living room whispered tales of the Main Clans, the overlords of Kirigakure, of every caste child's lives.
She startled her sleep with scenarios of simple, harmless mistakes judged with the highest of punishments. Of girls as cherub as she was sold as pets for bulbous, tobacco stinking masters. Of boyhoods replaced with war and violence and all of it sanctioned by the very people she stood shoulder to shoulder now.
Mei let out a strained breath as she racked her head about what she should say, what would be the right thing to say. She paced right outside Junko Hoshigaki’s expansive home, the floors of her humble palace were charcoal black, its pillars jade as the curved rooftop tiles punctuated with grand, water spitting krakens. A dozen eyes watched her every move.
Mei had been just about everywhere in the village in the course of her service as a shinobi, missions taken from all clans, orders taking her places she ordinarily had no business being in. Just like now, except, she did have a stake in being here.
Those whispers that had turned into nightmares, she’d long tamed them, seen the truth behind it all— Power. And she had quite a bit of it. She clutched the scroll of demands and radical changes the Suikazan coalition had burdened her with. It was a burden she gladly accepted but it was a burden nonetheless.
How do I convince any of these clan heads to give up their power? She stared at her feet, still strapped and comfy in her shinobi sandals, the ones she wore to battle the chaos stills spreading in the street, though at a much more subdued manner than she ever expected.
Do I have enough strength to do this?
“Come.” Kisame’s voice was like a splash of cold water. Mei froze mid step and turned to the frowning Swordsman.
Samehada clipped to his back, docile, undisturbed…yet. He grunted and walked in without another word, leaving Mei to catch up. She gulped, seizing deep breaths as she took her place beside him, they walked down a long hallway furnished with relics and artifacts of significance Mei could only imagine.
The air was salty, like sweat but without the body odour. Kisame led her down two corners before they arrived. Kisame looked down on her, his eyes cold, unfeeling and distant. “Take off your sandals.”
He slid the door open and walked in, his feet already sock sleeved. Mei sighed and hurriedly took off her sandals. The room was dark, quiet, the only source of light was the warm blue of a massive tank, a shark with the Kirigakure headband tied around its fin swam within and in front was a lounge.
Junko sat on a velvet couch, the exotic taste of her smoke filled the air and stained Mei’s taste buds the closer she came. Whatever that is, it's not tobacco.
Unlike outside where eyes and ears crawled around trying to be unseen, there truly wasn’t anyone here besides Kisame, Junko and herself. Mei supposed between a clan head and the wielder of Samehada she’d find herself troubled enough.
Junko hadn’t shifted her gaze from her summon in its ocean lit tank. She blew her smoke and dusted the ash into an empty wine glass, her nails clinking against it before she took another drag.
Mei glanced back at Kisame, the sharkman stood guard in a far corner, his eyes never meeting the confusion in hers. Was she to sit? Introduce herself? Pronounce her purpose? Mei gulped and simply took a seat opposite Junko, it was soft cushioned and perfumed with a spicy fragrance.
Junko’s eyes cornered at her before giving a proper look. Her eyes were red with substance and Mei couldn’t predict what mood or word would come of her until she spoke.
“Mei Terumi, the Boil Release Princess, or is it the Lava Queen?” Junko started, she tapped the ash off her pipe and continued to smoke as Mei sat silent. “Why are you so scared? And don’t lie, I can read it off you. Smell it.”
Junko took a deep whiff of her from more than three metres away, her scent drew the clan head straight as she sighed satisfactorily. Mei didn’t answer immediately. The fact that she was afraid was never something she intended to hide nor was she ashamed of, but the reasons for her fear…what she answered now would decide how Junko saw the rest of this meeting.
Fists balled against her lap, Mei answered with a hiss. “Because I’m desperate.”
Junko raised a brow as her pipe hissed, the stuffed substance crackling as she fed the flame oxygen to burn.
“This needs to work because the alternative is much…much more frightening for everyone. I don’t want that. I don’t want anyone to have to suffer for no reason.”
Junko snorted, a puff of smoke escaping her nostrils as she barely kept from choking. “So what do you want? What have you come to ask for?” Her eyes flickered to the scroll clutched in Mei’s hands. “Equality?”
“Respect.”
“Hahah!” Junko laughed. “That is earned.”
“It can and has been bought.” Mei challenged, this was it. “It can be negotiated for.”
Junko rolled her eyes. “Perhaps, but I’ve bled all I will for the weak and conquered. I will not cut another wound.”
“This won’t be something so hurtful as a wound, Lady Hoshigaki…living as we envision will bring—”
“What? Unity? Yagura-sama must have you fooled too if you think this village can ever share its wealth, its history with slaves.”
“We are not slaves.” Mei barely restrained herself from screaming at the impassive woman.
She shrugged. “Caste clan, servant caste, slaves. What difference does it make? You aren’t worth the same as us and that was decided long before you ever came into existence, little Lava Princess.”
Mei took a breath to steady herself. She straightened her posture and said, “That’s why I’m the one who’s come. I am the future that won’t abide by the present.” Junko didn’t look convinced. “And no matter what fantasy you tell yourself, the fact is Kirigakure wouldn’t be where it is without us, without our sacrifices, the blood we spilled to protect and ensure this village stood in the world it was born. And it has.”
Junko giggled. “I once made that same argument, long before I was ever a competent shinobi. Do you know what my grandfather told me when I asked….why, oh why did the other Main clans look down on us, call us stinking fish, call us mermen and sneer whenever we stepped into the room…”
“He said…those who call for sacrifice and those who sacrifice will never be the same. We were the latter.”
“You never sacrificed as much as any caste clan has had to.” Mei sneered, unwilling and perhaps a little unable to shore up a shred of sympathy for the Hoshigaki’s marauding history.
“No, but will we ever be thanked? No. Do we ask to be thanked? No. You caste clans have a place here because someone thought to conquer you, you built this village because someone thought to use you to do it. There’s no credit due to the bricklayers and labourers when a house is built, all the glory belongs to its master.”
At this point Mei was grinding her teeth, her hands gripping the cushions like they owed her money. She knew it would be difficult, she expected resistance but she’d started with Junko Hoshigaki because of all the main clan heads she was the youngest, the most ‘sympathetic’ and yet…
“What’s it worth to keep an unhappy servant? The kind seeking to bury a blade in your back.”
Junko shook her head. “There isn’t a person living that I trust, not anymore. Servant or no, you all seek to destroy me. To destroy the Hoshigaki!” She smiled and let her pipe clatter into the glass as she uncrossed her legs and leaned forward. “But Yagura-sama…he owes me something and I know what side he’d want me to take in this matter.”
Her eyes fell on the scroll again and her smirk grew. “That’s why I cleaned up in-house. The Poison Mist can have whatever they demand, the Hoshigaki don’t want them anymore as servants, bad rep spreads quickly you know?”
Mei scrunched up her face in confusion. “But…the Poison Mist isn’t the only clan whose demands are listed here.”
“They’re the only one I have any involvement with outside these walls…and they can keep whatever freedom you manage to get them…that is, if you manage to.” Junko stood, beckoning Mei to follow as she strutted out the way they came.
Mei had little choice but to follow, tempering her frustrations at the woman’s strange uncooperative attitude. It felt like she wanted to help but didn’t believe it would mean anything.
“It sounds like you’ve given up.” Mei said as they marched down the hallways Kisame brought her through, the glitter and gold of the Hoshigaki’s pirated wealth allured around the jaded Matriarch, an odd contrast Mei couldn’t stop noticing. “There’s still a chance you know? For everything to go as it should.”
“Hah! Everything? I might have been convinced if you were honest and said few things but all? You’re living a dream aren’t you?”
“I might as well, I’m going to make it a reality you live in too.” Mei retorted.
Junko smiled back at her. “Only if you win.”
“Where are we going?” They’d stepped out into the open and were speed walking out of the compound entirely now. “All I need is for you to show your support by signi—”
“I’ll give you something better than a flimsy signature.” Junko winked, a devious toothy smile forming on her lips. “Right now, the Hozuki and Funato are negotiating their own little peace deals so Yagura-sama doesn’t have anything to chomp on once this is said and done. We’re going to crash their party.”
“What?”
Junko raised a questioning brow at her. “Isn’t a seat at the big boys table what you want? Then take it and make sure you hold it.”
“But I’m just the…Lady Suikazan would be a much better choice to—” A single look from Junko silenced Mei’s self doubting words. She swallowed, took a deep breath and nodded. “Okay, let's go.”
Junko smiled. “You’d have had to anyway, at least this way…you’ll be respected. They’ll have no choice.”
Maybe they wouldn’t or maybe she wasn’t cut out for this at all, maybe she’s been all talk and no bite— urging and pressing others to take action where she won’t, couldn’t. Mei’s gaze lingered on Junko’s forward marching form, the woman had no hesitance in her step even as she hauled what would be chaos towards the two most powerful clan heads in the village.
Respect…freedom. Maybe we can have it.