I Enslaved The Goddess Who Summoned Me

Chapter 684: The Daimyos’s Plans

”Now,” Nathan said.

He crouched down beside him, bringing his eyes level, Kyōmei resting across his knee with its dark blade catching the fire’s dying light.

”You are going to answer my questions.”

Sadamasa looked up at him with the last of whatever was holding his expression together — the pride of a man who had ruled his territory without bowing to anyone for thirty years, still present, still working, still refusing to arrange his face into the shape that the situation was demanding.

Nathan reached down and pressed Kyōmei’s tip against the center of Sadamasa’s chest. Not hard — just present, the point resting there with the patience of something that was in no hurry and had nowhere else to be.

The darkness seeped from the blade and pooled against the skin.

”Your pride or your life,” Nathan said. ”You can carry your pride into death if that’s what you want. The choice is yours and I have no preference.”

Sadamasa’s eyes went to the blade.

Then back up.

”What do you want?” he said at last.

”Answers,” Nathan said. ”Why is Norihiro ordering this many weapons from you? Why so much and why now?”

Sadamasa’s teeth came together hard. The muscle in his jaw moved.

Nathan pressed the tip slightly.

”You know,” Nathan said, his voice entirely conversational, ”it wouldn’t take me long to kill you. Then your son. Then move through this domain until there is nothing left of it that anyone will remember. Kastoria will recall you as the family that was wiped from existence by a single ronin on an unremarkable evening. That is your legacy if you choose it.” He held Sadamasa’s gaze. ”Is that how you want to be remembered?”

The silence stretched.

Sadamasa’s jaw worked. His eyes moved — to the blade, to Nathan’s face, to the ruined hall around them, to his son slumped against the pillar at the far end, breathing shallowly, his face colorless.

”He wants to become Shogun,” he said.

Nathan’s eyes narrowed.

”Three hundred years ago, Norihiro’s ancestor held the title,” Sadamasa continued, his voice finding its steadier register now that the dam had broken — the low, flat tone of a man reciting history he had been sitting with for a long time. ”He was Shogun. More popular than the King himself, with the soldiers’ loyalty and the south behind him. The King of that era saw it clearly and had him executed before any rebellion could form around the name.” He paused. ”Norihiro wants to bring it back. The Shogunate. His bloodline’s title restored.”

”And for that,” Nathan said, prompting.

”He is building an army,” Sadamasa said. ”He means to march north. Take the capital. Seize Kastoria and rule it as Shogun — not as a subordinate to the Crown, not as a daimyo in the south that the capital pretends doesn’t exist. As its master.”

The throne room was very quiet.

Nathan said nothing for a moment.

He had expected something. Not necessarily this — not this particular shape, not this particular scale — but something. The weapons, the pace, the accelerated production, the marriage alliance securing Sadamasa’s cooperation — all of it had been pointing at something larger than shinobis and border disputes. This was the something larger.

An army marching north.

The capital. Kaguya. Everything sitting in that city that he had not yet finished protecting.

”I didn’t want any of this,” Sadamasa said. ”He threatened to invade my domain if I refused. I have my people here, my craftsmen, my family. I couldn’t fight him alone.” He paused. ”He didn’t trust my compliance. So he gave his daughter’s hand to my son as a chain — her presence here meant his eyes were here too.”

The picture assembled itself completely in Nathan’s mind.

Norihiro had moved carefully. The weapons production through Sadamasa. The marriage binding Sadamasa’s cooperation with a hostage dressed as a bride. The south’s distance from the capital working as cover, the capital’s deliberate ignorance of the south working as blind spot.

And Sakura had known none of it.

She had stepped into that carriage believing she was doing her duty for her people’s safety, carrying the idea of defending her domain from shinobis, and the whole structure around that belief had been built specifically to keep her believing it and moving in the right direction.

Nathan looked down at Sadamasa.

”Is he acting alone?” he asked. ”Is this only Norihiro? His own ambition, for himself?”

Sadamasa looked briefly confused by the direction of the question. He nodded, a short movement. ”For who else would he do it? He wants to rule Kastoria. That’s the beginning and end of it. His own glory. His ancestor’s title reclaimed through his hands.”

Nathan was quiet for a moment.

Takehiko was not connected to this. The Daimyo’s rebellion was Norihiro’s own construction — a separate problem running alongside the problems that already existed, not born from them. It didn’t make it smaller. It made everything more complicated, the map of threats spreading outward in directions he hadn’t fully charted yet.

Ayame first. Then warn Kaguya. Then decide what to do about a daimyo raising an army in the south with the capital’s blind spot as his cover.

He looked down again.

Sadamasa laughed.

It came out wet — blood still in his throat — but it was genuine, carrying the dark humor of a man in a bad position who had found something to find funny about it.

”Are you going to kill me, ronin?”

”That depends,” Nathan said. ”I don’t see a strong reason to keep you alive if you continue arming a man planning to march on the capital.”

Sadamasa chuckled again, more blood at the corner of his mouth.

”Faithful to the Crown, are you? I didn’t take you for that.” He looked at Nathan with something between assessment and genuine curiosity. ”How much does the capital pay a ronin these days for that kind of loyalty?”

”Money,” Nathan said flatly. ”Is that why you’re doing it? That’s the reason you’re supplying an army that has no chance against the north?”

Sadamasa’s expression shifted.

”No chance?” he repeated. ”You may be confident but Norihiro has—”

”The north has Kaguya,” Nathan said. ”It has the three samurai clans. Whatever Norihiro has built in the south, it goes north and it meets that. He may have a plan. He may be confident. But even if the clans are currently aligned with other concerns, they will not allow a daimyo from the south to walk through the capital gates.” He looked at Sadamasa levelly. ”You know this. You’ve always known this. You took the deal because you had no choice, not because you believed in the outcome.”

Sadamasa said nothing.

Which was its own answer.

”I want the prosperity of my domain,” he said finally. Quieter. The pride gone from it, replaced by something more honest and considerably more tired. ”That’s all I have ever wanted.”

”Then you’ll listen to me,” Nathan said.

Sadamasa’s eyes came back to his face.

”Keep producing his weapons,” Nathan said. ”Keep the alliance in place. Let him believe he still has your full cooperation and your son’s marriage remains on course.”

Sadamasa stared at him.

”You want me to continue arming him,” he said slowly.

”I want him to believe nothing has changed here,” Nathan said. ”Keep his eyes pointed south and his confidence intact. You will not fight for him when the time comes — but he will not know that until the time comes.”

Sadamasa was quiet for a long moment, working through it.

”Of course,” Nathan said, his voice dropping to something cooler, ”you could tell him everything that happened tonight. The moment I leave this castle, you could send a rider north with every detail.” He paused, and the cold smile arrived — small, patient, entirely certain. ”And I would come back. Not eventually. Swiftly. And I would ensure that this domain is remembered for nothing except the manner in which it ended. Your craftsmen, your family, your name — all of it. Gone. The south will spit on what remains of the memory.”

The smile stayed in place.

It was worse than the cold expression had been.

Sadamasa looked at him and swallowed.

The sound was audible in the quiet hall.

The fire on the hammer — which had been lying on the floor where it had fallen during the fight — had gone out some time ago. The lamps threw their ordinary light across the room’s wreckage. Yasumasa breathed shallowly against the pillar, unconscious now, the blood around him dried to dark lines on the wood.

”You have my answer,” Nathan said simply. He withdrew Kyōmei from Sadamasa’s chest and straightened, sheathing it in one clean motion. The darkness receded. ”Norihiro hears nothing. The weapons continue. You do nothing to indicate that this evening occurred.”

He looked down at Sadamasa one last time.

”And get your son’s arm looked at before he bleeds out entirely,” he added. ”He’s useless to me dead and useless to you dead. Keep him alive and keep him quiet.”

He turned and walked across the throne room toward the open doors.

The blood trail from the corridor was still there — the line from Yasumasa’s wound marking the path Nathan had taken inward, running across the floor in dried curves.

He stepped over it and walked out.