Twelve Lies I Told Shingen Takeda

Chapter Nineteen - I Am Not What I Am

Sasuke disappeared back into the ceiling, and I vaguely heard him say, "reinforcements," but it's not easy to pay attention to ninjas in the ceiling when the God of War is at your throat. When I finally breathed enough to take in the situation, to look beyond the immediate danger, it was to see that another set of Kenshin's men had Mai surrounded at sword point too.

Very bad things indeed.

One of the guards took my sword and daggers – not that they'd have been useful given that (a) I was outnumbered, and (b) would have been outnumbered if only Kenshin were in the room. Even so, without them, I felt vulnerable.

Nobody spoke.

While I was tempted to ask what was going on, I didn't know exactly what I was being accused of (for all I knew, it might have been something I had actually done) and figured it was best to keep my mouth shut until prompted otherwise.

From the back of the room, a man strolled up to us. It was Iekane. Of course it was Iekane. He'd gotten more muscular since the last time I had seen him, and he'd let his hair grow long, but there was that same damn smile. He reached toward me, and I ducked automatically back, memories of the last time I had seen him as vivid as if I was still locked in that crate – but he didn't touch me.

Instead, he reached for my sash, and pulled out the hand towel that Mai loaned me earlier. Silently, he handed it to Kenshin. Behind Kenshin's frozen expression was a flash of pain. I still had no idea what was going on, but clearly, we had just become the prom from hell.

"Now do you believe me?" Iekane said to Kenshin.

Kenshin folded up the towel and stuck it inside his kimono. "I gave this to Mai. How did it come to you?"

"Mai gave it to him." The fact that Iekane sounded so disappointed in us added credence to his lies. It was as if he had news that he could barely believe himself. "I saw them together."

Alright, I think I'm up to date on the story that Iekane is trying to sell. At least the 'what.' The why, and the why me, I'm still fuzzy on. "Loaned it to me."

The point of Kenshin's sword was back at my throat. "I didn't ask for your contribution."

He did, but I'm not going to argue with the crazy man with the sword.

Sasuke rushed into the room, with Shingen, Yukimura and Yoshimoto at his heels. Oh, I guess that is who he meant when he said he was getting reinforcements. "What the hell is going on here?" Shingen asked.

I was still wondering that myself. I mean, Iekane, unless he's got a memory like a sieve knows full well that I'm female, so why has he picked me to star in this tragedy? Granted in this era, gendered relationships were not viewed in the same way they were viewed in the absorbed-Christian-taboos-future. Here it was common for men of all classes to take both male and female lovers without anyone looking or thinking twice, although women didn't have as much freedom. But, yes, I could buy that Kenshin is so possessive that gender is immaterial. Still, there were plenty of other people in Mai's orbit whom Iekane could have chosen as her lover. Did Iekane want me out of the way for some unknown reason? And where, if anywhere, did the new information about Yoshiaki fit into all this?

Kenshin spoke in a voice that had been marinating in a freezer overnight. "Your courier and Mai have been..." He couldn't finish.

Iekane could. And did. "Consorting. I witnessed them together on multiple occasions." He hung his head in an attitude of sorrow and commiseration.

If I had been of mind to analyze Shingen, I might have wondered more about what made him flinch when he heard that, but Yuki jumped in. "That's crazy. Mai would never. Maybe he forced her."