On Thin Ice (Prequel to Guild)

Chapter Thirty-Eight: Leopard in the Snow

          Moments of darkness called forth an eternity of thoughts. An infinite number of questions, possibilities, strategies, schemes and fears. Darkness multiplied, spread amongst them like a disease that lingered both inside and out.

The Illumination came as it always did, but this time, the darkness remained. Even when Dai opened his eyes.

The gong sounded twice. Two serpents, two courts, two agendas- and more plans for violence than that.

Across from him, Osamu straightened. His blue-green eyes scanned the room after boring directly into his shogun. They found the empty spot at the table, and waited for its claimant to speak. But the Snake Court lord simply nodded at the door, grave-faced as some peasant pleaded and moaned, crying out as his bruised knees buckled and he fell to the floor. They kept dragging him.

Steel forbade pity, but this time, Daiki Kimsura found he could do without.

"This is he?" The rebel. The murderer. The terrorist.

Okabe's hired guards exchanged a look, but the bereft lord knew Dai's address had been meant for him. "No, Your Excellency. A servant. Found at the scene of the crime."

"Then why is he beaten and on the ground?" asked Vasu, lifting his chin in curiousity, not distaste. This man may not have held the knife, but that didn't mean he hadn't provided it. He could have opened the door. He could have led the way. He could have held the child down while overconfident rebels hacked, and carved, and cut.

The brawnier of the two guards drove the butt of his sword into the man's back. "Show them."

The band at Dai's wrist started burning again. His steeling couldn't reach it. It wasn't thick enough, cool enough to help.

A beat of silence.

Then, the man lifted his shaking arms and began to remove his shirt.

"If I'd wanted this sort of entertainment, I'd have sought it elsewhere. I would have stayed home. " A cutting glance from Gōruden shut Matsumoto's mouth, but it didn't flatten his smirk. He winked at Dai, but the shogun didn't dare cast his eyes in his direction. Didn't risk looking away from the whimpering man for one. single. solitary. moment.

The man withered beneath his gaze.

So did the vicious rebel flower burned into his chest.

Gasps from the Snake Court. Fear and fury from the court of the Ryuu. Many of them hadn't seen that mark in an age. To much of Dai's generation, it had been but an illustration in a story. A nightmare from his.

But-

"Bring him closer."

The man hit the table with a thud.

"That's not what he meant," sighed his Imperial Second, but Dai did not complain. He merely inclined his head and peered at the wretched thing beyond his nose. Poised. Indifferent. Unflinching and unfeeling. A Kimsura. He couldn't blanch beneath the Snake's cold stare.

He'd sent Ryuu and Yuina away.

"Shirub." Osamu sat forward. "That mark is northern, isn't it?"

Heads turned. Steeled glances flitted to Dai, to the band at his wrist and the bead he wore there. And though no smile quirked at the sides of his lips, Dai could tell he'd found his victory.

But only fools boasted of it so soon.

Steeling away a smirk of his own, the shogun stretched his arm across the war table. The peasant flinched back, but Dai held it still because this was not a display of cruelty, or mercy, or strength. It wasn't a demonstration, but a deflection.