Heavenfall

Sora sat, looking across the river.

Kinyoubi had thrown herself into cross-referencing her notes for the expedition, and had looked both grateful and apologetic when he'd suggested that he'd better give her the run of the room to spread everything out.

He'd have to tell her when he got back- She'd never have to apologize to him for pursuing her passion.

Especially when it let him touch base with a dear friend who'd been as busy on the march back as everyone else.

Normally, Saruko would've enjoyed the chance to sneak up on Sora. But after having spent days trekking through hostile territory with so many unknown and insidious dangers, she figured not to play with his nerves. Or her own for that matter.

So she joined Sora by the riverisde, rather unceremoniously sitting down herself with her legs crossed. There was a long and heavy sigh. "We made it back..."

There was a weight that had eased from her shoulders now, and something about her was like a warrior that had taken off their armor for the first time in weeks.

----

OOC: Derp, I saw now that it's Day 24, not 22.

"And I don't even have any raw fish to offer you. How remiss of me."

He gave her a sidelong glance and smiled.

"Been a hell of a trip, to put it mildly."

"Literally," she remarked with a laugh at his remark about the trip.

"... We overcame the odds, even managed a couple of miracles along the way; saving a god, closing a rift, and with so few losses. Though the ones we did lose are mourned." Saruko's tone had changed to a more somber one as she spoke. "Why then do I feel so worried about the future?"

"Because the war is still coming. We didn't stop it. We probably didn't even delay it, we just improved our starting position a bit. And that's going to test this Empire of ours in ways it hasn't been tested yet."

She nodded.

"Yes... there is a cycle, and it will come. We can't stop it, no more than we can stop the winter season coming." She took a deep breath. "I'm scared that someone has brought something back with them from this trip."

"Oh. So you've seen Nanzi's fucking bird, then."

His tone was level.

"There is something very, very wrong with that thing, and that preening idiot probably has no clue."

At first she nodded.

"It..." she paused, thinking once again over what she had felt. "You've been around the Ayakashi enough these past years, and you know I have more acute senses for the spiritual than even many of my kin. It felt like a trickster spirit of some kind. Something of Sakkaku."

Her lips pressed into a thin line for a moment.

"However, Sakkaku is not like Tengoku. It's not... resistant to Jigoku's influence. A trickster spirit could be twisted. Changed. Given the timing of where this bird appeared I'm very worried. But I have nothing but just my worry and my gut-feeling."

"It fooled my eye. And I could feel it fooling my eye. But... there was more there. A sense of deeper... evil. Nothing I could put my finger on. And given my own... frictions with Nanzi, I certainly had no grounds to make too big a fuss about it. I did inform Shinsei, and one other, but no overt action seemed advisable."

"The more worrying question then becomes; is he aware or not?"

Nanzi had for a while been considered her friend, but now she was worried... it felt like the future was uncertain on that path. Should I ask Togashi about it too? she wondered to herself.

"I doubt it. The man is a would-be tyrant, a conceited fool, and entirely too sure of himself, but I also think he believes his ultimate loyalty is to the idea of the Empire."

He chuckled.

"Even if the hypocritical moron can go from praising Tengoku's wisdom in one breath and then questioning the policy of Tengoku's victor in the next."

"Oh? Did anything in specific happen?" she looked a little concerned.

On closer look, it seemed like all the concerns and worries she had had on this trip were now fully manifesting. As if she had refused to let it show to others fully, in case it would spread to others.

"Tell me, my friend, what is Shiba's stance on the tribes?"

It was a rhetorical question.

"Now, tell me how Nanzi speaks with, interacts with them. Including those who might voluntarily join us if they weren't being belittled as 'lesser.' That jackass- who gave up nothing to join Doji, since he'd already left his own people- is so concerned with Tengoku's perfection, he forgets that we're in Ningen-Do, and that he's dealing with human beings."

"Mm," she nodded, tucking her arms into her sleeves. It seemed to her the five years since the tournament hadn't changed Nanzi for the better... she wondered how Doji felt about all this.

"I've considered him friend for a while, but... now I don't think I can keep saying that honestly, and still hold to my own values." And that bird did not seem right.

"He is family through bonds, so I can't ignore him completely but... as long as that bird exists, he will not see my children."

"It might not be a bird the next time you see it, you realize..."

He sighed.

"The Crane... have never been the dearest to me, not since I first spoke to Lady Doji. I wasn't at my best in that conversation- you remember how I spoke at the tournament- but... if Lady Doji had cared as much about actually communcating as she did about manners, she might have seen me as a microcosm of the tribes the Kami sought to bring under their rule. And seeing who she took for her husband- a pretty, preening sort who parrots her values back at her? I will confess some worry on that front. Even in Tengoku, they weren't perfect, and they're not in- nor wholly of- Tengoku anymore."

"Gods are not infallible. If they were, Father Moon wouldn't have eaten his own children." Her words were delivered dead-pan and serious.

"I don't... have such a poor opinion of Lady Doji. But I see value in what she says, even if it might not be applied in the way she wants. People simply can't change that much in such a short amount of time. But maybe hundreds of years from now on, we will all speak with such good manners and value art and beauty that much."

She kind of hoped for the latter though.

"It will be interesting to see how the dynamics change now that the lost brother has been saved. Where the lines will be drawn in the sand, because people are already drawing them."

"I've heard of trouble between the Stag and the Spider. The Crab are... well, I'm trying to mend some fences there, but they're about to have a much more unified neighbor to their south than they've had for the past ten years. I hope old antagonisms don't lead to trouble, but hope only gets you so far. The Crane and the Stag are thick as thieves, at least at the command level."

He sighed.

"Anything I've missed that you know of?"

"I find the hard feelings between the Stag and Spider worrisome. You heard yourself how Lady Reiko spoke to Lord Hantei at the meeting, and... the Spider are very close. If Lady Reiko, who has looked after them and cared for them for so long, makes such a hard stance against another Kami, the others will likely follow suit. And once it takes root, it can be difficult to remove... even if Hantei-Kami and Seppun Dawei of the Stag helped save Hisomu-Kami."

She felt they might have better hope with the Crab and the Nezumi. "Lord Hida and Lady Anjing are nothing if not practical, most of the time. I have hopes that they'll be able to persuade for peace with the Nezumi, given that it was Nezumi magic that helped close the rift."

"The Nezumi concern is down the line. The current Nezumi leadership is, of course, grateful... but what happens if they try to expand north or the Crab try to push south?"

He sighed.

"I like the Nezumi. And I flatter myself that at least a few of them like me. But our great-grandchildren might not see things the same way."

"True. But with a Nezumi envoy to Shiba's court, the future has the potential to look bright in that direction. That was one of the matters that were agreed upon during the negotiations with them." She wondered if the Nezumi would send the warrior that had accompanied them, but considering that he had been held captive by humans, he probably wasn't too keen on being surrounded by them further.

"And just because we sealed the rift, doesn't mean the south is safe either. Plenty of dangers there still. Demons, other supernatural terrors... even more natural ones like goblins and ogres, judging by what we were attacked by while you were rescuing Hisomu."