Twelve Lies I Told Shingen Takeda

Chapter Twenty-Seven - Shingen's POV - Shelter

It had been too late even before they started terracing the hills and trying to divert the waters into overflow ponds. A project like this ought to have begun months, perhaps years before the flooding, not in the middle of a deluge. Shingen thought this might even be the biggest sin to lay at Nobunaga's feet, for in diverting their attention to battle, needed projects such as this had been postponed, or ignored.

Even knowing that it was a futile effort, they were giving it everything they had to at least redirect some of the water before it reached the river. Sasuke, at least, had instantly grasped what Shingen had in mind, and scurried from one post to another, giving practical suggestions without having to ask for further instructions.

But after working through the wet, miserable night, and into the next afternoon, with the rain continuing to fall, there was that feeling that... it wasn't going to be enough. Homes would be lost. Lives maybe, too. The specter of failure pulled at him. Another project potentially left undone.

He shut his eyes to the raging waters, while the rain poured off his helmet and dripped down the back of his neck.

When he reopened them, she was standing in front of him, looking, as usual, like a drowned rat. Angel or devil, he didn't even know any longer. But what was she – easier to just ask. "Why are you here?"

Katsu, because in those clothes, with that mirage of soldierly decorum, it was Katsu, and not duplicitous woman he had revealed himself to be, said, "Yukimura asked me to deliver a status report and a message."

I don't have time for this. "Well? What is it?"

Since Katsu seemed unusually reticent, Shingen glanced over his shoulder. "Sasuke! Tell them to bring more rocks to shore up that retaining wall!" Sasuke gave a salute to indicate message received and headed further up hill. Shingen turned his attention back to Katsu.

"Kenshin's got the banks of the lowest point of the river built up about this high, and we've evacuated all of the towns up to the coast." She drew an invisible line right about at her waist. That's not going to be high enough. Time was running out, on this, on him.

But she was still talking. "Yukimura said ... that you should return to the castle and have Sasuke take a shift."

Had he? What had he told her? Was that why she was here? Because now she knew about his illness? He studied her face. No, there was no sympathy or knowledge in that expression. She was here because Yukimura told her to be here. Just following orders. For once. "Message delivered. Tell Yuki no."

She continued to stand there, and again he wondered why she was still ... well, with them at all. Once her masquerade had been revealed, she ought to have left. Yoshimoto had told him that he'd managed to prevent her – at least temporarily - from leaving on what would amount to a suicide mission to confront Yoshiaki. But even that didn't explain why she had joined the teams outside. Though if she had been telling the truth about losing her home in a storm – and that was a big if – then he supposed she would feel strongly about helping those in a similar situation. "Anything else?"

"Um. N-no. It's... j-just that Yukimura was pretty insistent that I make you leave, which, I know I have no way of doing, but I've never seen him look that worried about anything," she sounded a lot more hesitant than normal. "I guess if you're not going to leave, can you at least go inside that tent over there and eat something, so I can at least tell him you're not ... pushing yourself."

Yuki was worried – worried enough to send Katsu all the way up here. Shingen wasn't going to leave, couldn't leave in the middle of this project, but he could at least send back some reassurance. "Tell him this is worth the risk. And not to worry. I'm doing fine." For now. He was doing fine for now.