Kamado Nana savored the meal.
"This is quite a feast."
Seated at the center of the great hall, Kamado brought her chopsticks forward with quiet composure.
This square thing. What is it. A cushion beneath her.
A texture reminiscent of Madonna's garments. Fine silk, vibrant threads, meticulous embroidery. Considerable effort had gone into this.
This is expensive.
The flickering candlelight reached every corner of the room. If she strained her ears — strange, how distant the rain sounded. The construction technique of eliminating the attic cavity; a hallmark of residences built for important figures.
This place is safe.
The brocade cushion was beautiful — and, notably, it had been prepared in advance. Its color matched Kamado's work clothes. The deep indigo dye had the air of pure nobility. Pride melted on the tongue. It dissolved before she could even chew.
— If I refuse, I can't keep this.
— Don't need it.
"For our protection" — the personnel stationed around them, Hijikawa's personal guard in formation. A kind of "consideration" she had never tasted before. For the first time, the gift of "safety of one's life" was being offered to her. What Kamado did not know was that this deeply moving gesture came with teeth:
"They are armed."
Her cooler self intervened to moderate. Within this lavish defense, what could they possibly want from a simple porter?
Regarding the terms that might shift depending on the nature of the request: refuse? Flee? Stick to the original plan? If she accepted ten ryō and "finished" the board game — then under what conditions would she accept? And what conditions would justify pretending to accept?
Even she — inhuman and indomitable — if subjected to sleepless, ceaseless labor under Kakunari's command, would eventually be cornered. And a spent, broken person receives no favorable terms. Meaning now, this very moment, was the maximum weight her leverage could lift.
Depending on His Lordship's hand, she could foresee: the circulation of wanted posters for illegal gambling. Immediate designation as a spy by the Toyotomi faction.
The proud cushion beneath her brought back a familiar feeling. Impure sake — drinkable, but impossible to get drunk on. That kind of unease. For the first time in her life, Kamado set her chopsticks down of her own accord.
— Well, it was never going to be just sweet potatoes, was it?
— Agreed. Sister Kaku's beloved money pouch.
· · ·
The year of Bunroku drew toward its close.
Winter, too, was ending.
Kamado had spent the season at the estate. From the time she arrived before the cold set in, she had consumed roughly two hundred meals — by which point she had completed what amounted to an apprenticeship.
I — the one they call inhuman — did an apprenticeship.
— Played right into their hands.
— Well, you could say that.
A face committed to memory. That of a bear, admittedly. But a solid outline, present and there. Nearby, a mask swayed. The woman who spoke from behind that mask was called "Kakunari."
"Oi, Kamado. I hear you've eaten through all our silver. Shall we settle accounts?"
Hijikawa estate — Guest Reception Officer. Or perhaps: the dark vessel of the Kashima black market.
— I could have severed her head and gone home.
— If the treatment had been a lie, sure.
A clear autumn day. There had been such a day.
"Room and board provided, five ryō paid in advance. Complete the task, and five more shall follow. Kamado."
The scales of reason were loaded.
"There is a prospect for treating a certain affliction of unknowing. How do you weigh this?"
— "Unmatched operational efficiency" and "foreign Dutch medicine."
JATSU......
The moment the scale's plate hit the ground, the contract was sealed instantly. The hidden cache of five ryō was within expected range; treatment began.
Behind her mask, Kakunari's eyes were fixed on Kamado Nana. Kamado Nana cut ties with the Tokugawa transport routes.
GUKU...... mishi, mishi.....
On the groaning scale, ready to crack — swallowable even without chewing.
The man who sat across from her.
Head of the Nagahama Port Hijikawa Trading Facility. Provincial Magistrate of Iyo — Lord Hijikawa.
The shadow of his aquiline nose fell deep. Dark eyes of profound color. An unmistakable presence, an aura draped about his silhouette.
If he was not of the same class, the same caliber — one would hesitate to treat him as an equal.
"I have long studied the mechanism by which conflict is born."
His voice struck Kamado with conviction. This was no body double. This was the Provincial Magistrate of Iyo — unmistakably Lord Hijikawa himself.
Language can be refined to this degree. What she experienced was the taste of a ruler's weight and pressure, its density. Lord Hijikawa's voice — was each drop, each syllable, this concentrated?
DOSSSS..... do, do, do.....
Startled by her own heartbeat, Nana's chopsticks froze. Whether her reflexive guard had been noticed, or whether his voice had aimed for exactly this —
— Nana, stop eating.
— Phew.
She abandoned the branching negotiation strategy of mapping possible outcomes. She felt greater need for a probe to read Hijikawa's true intent.
"It always begins after knowing. Someone's face, name, words, background, faith, ideology... Because one comes to know, differences are born. Because differences exist, fear is born. And because of fear — eventually, one strikes before being struck. It happens naturally."
In these past months — from the moment she was greeted at the outer gate until just now — Nana had believed the proxy to be Lord Hijikawa himself, never once doubting it. This was precisely the mechanism of ignorance, reflected back at her.
Kakunari's manipulation of perception, and the death-courting second inhuman, had been practiced hands. The truth: one cannot kill a person one does not know.
She pushed her thoughts further.
"...If one never knows..."
To her confirmation, he signaled agreement.
"'Ignorance' is, to use a metaphor, like rice placed in a bowl. The state of 'not knowing' is the state of innocence. In matters of governance, it is akin to Dutch surgical practice — excising with bladed chopsticks the things 'one need not know.' The young shoots of malice, vengeance, insurrection — prevent them from blooming. The art of consuming only what one can eat."
Was the food metaphor his custom?
"Kamado. I wish to fix ignorance in place. To divide West from East. The Hijikawa River is the same — still water rots. The heart must flow like water."
Not a flicker of doubt in his voice.
Lord Hijikawa had drawn up his plan in earnest. From behind the man, something that should not have been there — a mouth of darkness — opened, and Nana perceived it.
"Four mountains running from Ishikawa to Shirahama: Mount Haku, Mount Ibuki, Mount Ōmine, and the Kii Mountain Range. These shall be rendered impassable."
— A daydream I'd given up on, but with this, it could come true. — Migration routes, census management — the beating heart. — To ensnare all that, I can no longer be a watchdog.
A byproduct landed on the scales — the long-held wish of Kamado Nana. A side dish whose scent only Kamado could detect.
Not a shred of interest. That's the face you're making right now, isn't it? Yeah — none at all. Not in the Transfer of Ignorance policy, nor in the menacing lord before her.
Overcast clouds brought heavy rain. As her thoughts continued and she hit upon a practical obstacle:
"That alone won't be enough..."
Lord Hijikawa filled the void:
"It's not enough. Children born in the West must be relocated to the East before a sense of belonging takes root. Those raised in the East shall move West."
Even the laziest of lords — why do they all parade all the way to Edo? If she posed that question to Kamado —
"No one wants to be killed."
— is not what he said. Instead, she heard: "No one wants to pay the penalty." A glimpse of the outline of his power, surfacing from the darkness.
"...Make it so they never learn the name or face of the one they'd fight."
Kamado was attempting to unravel the logic. What resonated deeply with Madonna was rooted in the fact that she herself harbored neither vengeance nor personal animosity.
This, because of her prosopagnosia — the inability to recognize individuals — which, in turn, meant her cognition never channeled into aggression. She understood this about herself.
She recalled the gambling den where she'd made a cheat wet himself. Watching Kamado Nana in rage, one might think a typhoon had been compressed and compressed again until it took the shape of a woman.
— Ha ha ha ha.
A coal in the brazier cracked softly, dissolving gently into the air.
"'The Transfer of Ignorance' — governance that avoids conflict. Unlike the Tokugawa crane's way — a war of invasion dressed as peace."
Kamado Nana operated always on the principle of reason. The desire indicated by reason's scale:
The desire that crystallized was —
"I don't like that way of thinking."
It was not only Hijikawa.
"But I think it's extremely rational."
Lord Hijikawa said nothing.
Thunder rumbled in the distance. The brazier's radiance scattered a cool reflection across the fox mask.
The two of them — still strangers to each other's faces — gazed upon the same future.