"Close enough to a Spider princess to me, up to the consanguinity. Was she Hyeon-ju's beautiful or more Mumei's charming?"

She played with her hair, imitating badly the style of each girl as she named them.

"Guess your parents expect you to the closest substitute possible. Asahina Fusako maybe? She seems to fit the bill from my talk with her."

"She was just a young girl, really", he shrugged. "Pretty yes, but there are a lot of attractive people in the Empire. Not all of them will hold an intimate conversation with you." He smiled at her. "Most of them will just have asinine expectations and put on airs about bullshit."

Then he sighed a bit.

"Though i admit, Asahina-san is...more than I could possibly handle. I think if I married her I'd spend the first decade or so just trying to catch up to her, and that's if she didn't move forward while I did it." He puffed his cig. "That's a lot of sophistication."

"Do you have much choice in the matter though? Your clan is expecting you to bring back home exactly someone like her.

Or do you have another target that would satisfy them and who's more... let's say on your level?"

She knew this was going to break the mood, but she had to tell him before he learned it through rumors and did something stupid.

"Sometimes, the ability to beat around the bush is quite useful to have. Told to the lord magistrate's face this afternoon I wouldn't name my accomplices in my minor transgression, and she ordered a beating for me by tomorrow morning for my trouble."

he had a cheeky reply until the last part. Then he just kind of deflated and fell backward onto the blanket. It didn't do much for the rock, really.

"I'm going to need like ten more of these beers."

She pointed her chin at the bike's coffer.

"I have twelve in total so if you steal my share I've got you covered."

Squeezed his hand.

"It's no big deal Sho. That's one of the moments to endure like a big person we talked about earlier. And this one will be especially short and only a physical pain.

It's also a choice I've made. Sometimes, you kind of have to take a blow to support the persons you trust."

A pause, then puppy eyes:

"Please don't take my last words as an excuse to do something stupid."

"It's a crock of shit is what it is, I don't care how tough you are, flogging a samurai who was invited here isn't something a host does. If this were Sorrow's path and they were Moto who could barely speak Rokugani, then I might understand them using violence. It's just uncalled for."

He grumbled more, sat up and pounded his beer.

"Yep, need another, this one broke."

Akemi jumped down the rock, and went back with the remainder of the pack.

She opened one for him, another one for herself and sat again by Shoko's side.

"Several people have been heavily hinting at the fact she might be a member of the Mori no Reiou sect, and in direct conflict with the governor on the question of the planet's future. Might be trying to prove her authority. Might be trying to send a message to people susceptible to look a bit too deep into her stuff.

Not sure it's working. The Crab is slowly moving into taking the matter in our own hands territory. And if that happens...

Well, real shitstorm."

he rolled that over with a big gulp of beer.

"I've had people looking into this whole thing myself", he stayed laid back. "Seems like they're planning something in a few days, it'll be a mess. Some kind of portal to Sakakku they're trying to open, I don't know where though."

She shrugged:

"I know that. I don't know who don't know that really. I feel like each member of this merry band of shugenja is reporting to two persons, who themselves are reporting in turn to two other persons."

She took a sip of her beer:

"If I could realize that, the sect must be already preparing countermeasures.

From my understanding, 'our' shugie are working on a magical solution to this magical issue... And the best we can do as non kami-blessed is to punch at people trying to prevent them from achieving their counterspell."

"If you massacre the enemy, they can't cast their magic", he shrugged and finished the whole rest of the beer, sitting up in the process. He crushed the can and tossed it over his shoulder. he was sure he'd get it later. probably.

"How are you going to counter the spell if you don't know where, anyway?"

"I...

Okay. It's not going to work. We need to be fully honest for real or we will just pile up confusion on more confusion."

She grabbed her hands and looked at him straight into the eyes, suddenly dead serious:

"Commander Shokomaru, is anyone from your clan playing zombie master on this planet at the moment?"

"No one who arrived here with me to my knowledge is practicing maho", he grabbed another beer. "I don't care if you ask me, I think you and I are a bit beyond pretenses."

He reached around and put his hand on her butt to make his point.

She was trying to be serious but her lips did twitch into a half-grin for a second and clapped his hand only lightly:

"Well, someone is. We met zombies during our forest exploration. That is the issue the Crab is working on.

And then, there is that Sakakku no Mori stuff, in which the Crab is not actively involved at the moment, as opposed to half the non-local shugenja in the city. And this one is just a big confusing mess for me."

"Sounds unrelated, but maybe not", he said and drank some beer. "When we got scolded by the magistrate about investigating a missing person on our own, it was clear she was hiding something about it. I was suspicious, but Daigotsu Ryuu seemed very certain. It might just be that she didn't want us looking into things that the cult was up to innnnn a more mundane fashion, but when bodies go missing, it smells of zombies."

Akemi sighed. Lengthily. Very lengthily. Then she nestled against Shokomaru's torso.

"Pfffffffffffffff. So two different kind of evil working together and covered by the local authorities? And here I thought my relationship with you was the complicated part of this miai."

She put an arm behind his neck.

"Have a plan for like, not dying?"

"Oh I was going to ask the mushroom people for a date, that would work, right? Obviously no one could resist this."

He didn't even indicate himself, he seemed a bit in thought still.

"Taking real action is trouble, win or lose, you know that right?"

His arm was around her tightly, letting their warmth blend together.

Akemi smirked.

"You're a commander Sho. You know that most of the time a soldier simply does not fight: They await the next fight. They train, they study, they have fun, they keep themselves at top form, mental and morale for the moment of reckoning.

I think we're in one of these waiting periods right now. We know the wave is upon us, but we cannot do anything before it reaches the shore but work out our body, our mind..."

She grabbed his shirt collar.

"... and our spirit."

And went for a hungry kiss.

Shokomaru returned it hard and let go of his beer to take her in both arms, rolling over so he was over her. After a few moments, he scolded her with a pinch, but didn't stop kissing.

"Appetite is dangerous", he told her when he pulled away for a moment, looking into her eyes, he put a hand on her cheek and felt the smooth skin with the back of his finger. "You bite off a lot, but you seem to forget I have just as much to give."

"Promises, promises." she said as pieces of clothes started unceremoniously falling around.

The blanket was too thin and too small, the rock rough and uncomfortable, the beer spilled everywhere, the rumors waiting to happen.

Who cared about any of that?

/ftb

Indeed, and things that happen in the night do happen.

And they fade back in.

Shokomaru had his pants on, but hadn't bothered with much else, cigarette in his mouth as he looked at the rice paddies. His sidearm was close by, as well as his wakizashi. Things that got in the way up until a few moments ago suddenly remembered and important.

Really, nothing else was important except Akemi right then. It was just going through the ritual motions with everything else. He put his hand down on her body, touching muscle and smooth skin, eventually taking her hand and then he looked back up at the stars.

At least it wasn't chilly out, to him it was fairly pleasant, though most would call this breathing in a swamp.

"You know, say we did get married. Put aside everything else", he said. "How many kids do you want with me?"