“I’m Doasanori Shiotani, pleasure to meet you.” Masanori held a friendly smile for Saki trying to make her feel a little more at ease sensing the awkwardness between them.

  Saki felt pelled to return the warmth shown. It made her feel a little better about being in the room, but the sense of being an intruder lingered with her. The thought of Takako pulled her eyes back over to her in the er pletely unresponsive. ‘Still nothing after so many days…I guess it’s not going to improve ht, but still…’ Saki looked back at the doctor with a seeking expression that bordered on pleading. “ you help her?”

  It had been a vague question and Masanori was still partially distracted. “Miss Yamazaki, right… I won’t know until I do a thh test and examination.” An uain answer wasn’t what Saki had been looking for as Masanori could see the hope in her face starting to fade away. He tried to quickly recover from it. “I was just cheg to see if she would make a good didate for our program.”

  “Program? didate?” Some of the details from before had already disappeared on Saki, but hearing what the doctor said refreshed her memory. She had recalled the nurse saying something simir. Saki had uionally verted it into an immediate hope.

  Masanave her a slow nod while he tried to sort through how to easily expin it. “We’ve made some ret advances in neurosce that may help Miss Yamazaki. The program I’ve setup hopes to help recover patients from deep mental traumas through less invasive methods.”

  Even in spite of Masanori trying to simplify his words, Saki still felt very lost. “What do you mean less invasive methods?”

  He rubbed the back of his head looking a little shy suddenly. “Well…I guess you could call some of the things we do today for patients suffering from mental problems to be…a little barbaric perhaps? Our uanding is so limited in the way the brain truly works. It’s my hope our new uanding ge much of that.”

  “…I see…” Saki was a little fused that a doctor admitted to the ditions that patients were being treated. She had only been thinking it i before, but thinking that it could be true worried her. Yet for the moment he seemed to be making her feel like she could trust him with how ear he sounded. “You mentioned didate before?”

  “Ah! Yes, that’s right. As I said our uanding is limited and so I’m looking for patients with specific issues that ect with our researbsp; So I was testing her responsiveoday for some preliminary work.”

  “Is she a good didate?”

  The doctor pulled out the paper that he had on him and began flipping through them slowly. He seemed to be ily focused on them, not even uttering a sound as several minutes passed in strained silenbsp; Once Masanori was finished he looked up at Saki. “I ’t promise anythi…but it does look optimistic.”

  Chapter 67 – Grave Iions

  Nearly outside of the city and pletely surrounded by an rown thick green forest was the ees. Massive trees had grown up around a rge Japanese mansion bing the entire area in shadow with its opy. Most of the teology that they had had trouble w properly through the rapid recmation by nature.

  For Chiharu, her life had only begun to return to normal the day before after waking up. The grounds were in chaos n to find ways of dealing with the forest that surrouhem. They were even being visited by the wildlife that found their home to be much more like a small dot. She was left with managing the heavy burden of the house and the new problems that arrived. No one knew why it happened so it left most of her men uled, however she refused to let it visibly get to her. She kept her men on task clearing aaths o reach the town.

  Chiharu walked barefoot down the hardwood floors to the underground level of the mansion. It was on this floor that they kept most of the things for their trade. Her purpose wasn’t for equipment as she firmly stepped through the hall with a cross expression. The weight of her family was on her shoulders and her grandfather’s death was still fresh in her mind.

  In front of her was a rge metal door that waited for her to put in her code on the keypad to the right. Her fingers pyed across the s quickly inputting the code. Ihe room was well lit and lined with cupboards and ets that housed a different sort of tools of trade. This was the examination room meant for iigation into teology and biological matters. The sterile polished metal table on the right held one of the bodies from the men that they brought babsp; His panions were set oher tables further back.

  Standio the naked corpse was Tamotsu. He tilted his head over to the sound of Chiharu’s entranbsp; “Good afternoon, Lady Chiharu.”

  “Tamotsu…” She barely came up to the examination table that she approached. Her gray eyes traced the figure of the man drawing up images from the night she tried to kill him. Chiharu blinked ond turned her head up towards her guardian. “You’ve had five days. What you tell me?”

  “Yes, my Lady.” Tamotsu walked around the table and pulled out a puter tablet. He ran his finger across the s bringing up the information. “They had no immediate identification on them. Whidicates these were professional assassins. However, because there were three it meant that they were in a group so it was uhat they were hired. Of the known three man teams in the world none of these fit their description.” He flipped through more data pausing for a moment.

  Chiharu walked around the table, crossing her arms. “You said no immediate identification. That means you’ve found identification?”

  “Yes, that is correbsp; After I exhausted my sources through hired els I ged my searbsp; As you know the en has a specific fighting style and trainihods. Someone knowledgeable enough would be able to determihat from just examiniher hting or our bodies. As such roups have their own distins as well. It took some time but I was able to identify through their body’s scars and definition that they are from the Higoshi .”

  “…the Higoshi …” Chiharu carefully measured out her voice to keep the anger from being caught. She was less successful in hiding it in her shaking arms and tensed hands. “One of the three main families…they’ve always cshed with us and now in our weakeate they choose to attabsp; They’ll learn that it was a costly mistake to attack my family.” She marched out of the room with Tamotsu chasing her down.

  “My Lady! Where are you going?”

  She turned around in her paused step causing her short hair to spin out rising in anger. Her eyes fiercely glowed from the restraiions. “I’m going to pn a terattack!” Chiharu disappeared into the darkness of the hall, a pn starting to form.

  Evening already came with her focused on pnning out a strategy for their attabsp; She listeo the repeated protests from Tamotsu about her rashness. However, she plowed through with single-minded determination for her revenge. It was all she could think about once she woke up. She felt as though she wasted her time before and the rest renewed and revived her spirit. Chiharu drove all of her men scrambling to keep up with her pace.

  While she had been unscious it had left ay lingering feeling of direless as for everyone in the household. There were ed to her by blood, but they had all been with the family for years a some sense of familial responsibility towards her. Without her preseo be felt they had no life; it was like death throughout the mansion.

  All of that had ged when she woke up. They all eagerly took to any work and weled her harsh and rough speebsp; Even more than being alive again, it seemed to many that Chiharu had a different light that surrounded her than before. It was ohat they felt could be followed in the darkest of tunnels and surrounded by enemies on all sides with the odds against them, but never feel as though they could lose. It could only be called undaunted charisma.

  A door in a stretch of hall underh the mansion opened allowing Chiharu to march out. An annoyed scowl firmly dug into her features. Behiamotsu hurriedly tried to follow her. There was distress on his fabsp; “Lady Chiharu! Lady Chiharu, please wait!”

  “I’m done listening to your pining, Tamotsu!”

  Tamotsu disguised his frustration and hurried his pace to catch up to her. “I uand how you’re feeling, Lady Chiharu! But—“

  “Do you, Tamotsu?” Chiharu had e to a quick stop and turo face him babsp; The gre that he received from her was enough to make him hold his words. “Do you really? He was my grandfather! The only family I’ve known since I was three!”

  There was a slow swallowing of his words as Tamotsu tested and measured out his words carefully. “Lord Masahiko took me in when I had nothing and treated me like his own son. Lady Chiharu…I—“

  “Then you must feel the same desire to see those that ordered his murder brought the point of the en’s bde!”

  “But what about the sequences of what you’re pnning! The three s have not been enemies iuries, Lady Chiharu!”

  “I’m quite aware of the history of the old ninja s. It wasn't us that broke the truce betweehree s, but the Higoshi bsp; Their arrogance will cost them gravely, Tamotsu.” Chiharu began to walk again with her temper fading to an even boil.

  Her pace forced Tamotsu to keep up through the underground until they came back out to the main level of the mansion. The smell of nature hung thick through the rooms despite the doors and windows being shut. He adjusted his senses before fog ba Chiharu. “The st time this happe meant war. It is the location of the s, but they’ve been petition and not enemies. This’ll ge everything, Lady Chiharu! Please rethink your pn!”

  “I never knew you were so much of a coward, Tamotsu…” Chiharu tihrough the mansion with Tamotsu ing to a halt. He stared at her back as she disappeared around a er.

  Worry and frustration had blended on his face as he tried to search out for his pbsp; “It’s not cowardice to be ed about your well-being, Lady Chiharu…”

  One of the men in the mansion sloroached Tamotsu as he withe exge betweewo. He was a young man in his twenties and carried a healthy grin. “Lady Chiharu is in good spirits today, sir!”

  Tamotsu tilted his head over to see one of her subordinates nearby. “Yes, I’m grateful that she’s better, but her recklessness s me…”

  “You’ve always looked after her like a father, sir. The Lady may be reckless at times, but that’s why we’re here to protect her. Right, sir?” The man had a strangely f smile on his face that pyed at na?ve innoce while burying the dark jaded side that existed in all of them. It was an odd attitude for a killer.

  “I suppose you’re right…” A momentary break of his stern appearance allowed a warm smile to appear on his fabsp; It was gone in an instant as he corrected himself and walked on dismissing the man. His mind remained ihought. Pns of his own were being created and trashed as he tried to figure out his own strategy. ‘…however, what s me the most is the child. She took on the weight of the family without hesitation arategies are surprisingly intelligent. I didn’t think she’d cause my pns this much trouble… I’m still ahead, but this’ll be far more iing than I expected from her…Lady Chiharu…’

  In the right wing of the mansion, where most of the bedrooms were, there was a low echo from Chiharu’s feet marg through the hall. Only a few men were posted along the path with many still trying to carry out the ret orders. Clearing the forest wasn’t reasonable, but making a road out into the city was small enough. It still proved a painstaking task, however Chiharu’s pns couldn’t be put into a until there was a way out.

  She aowledged the low pounding and grinding from her men outside w orees. Chiharu kept her stern expression for her entire walk until she came to a stop in front of her room. Two men guarded the sliding doors. Their expressions quickly ged stiffly as they noticed her approabsp; Her eyes narrowed immediately reading their pints. “Something wrong?”

  Both men became even mid than seemed possible. Sweat quickly began to build up on them as Chiharu leaned in to apply pressure, which actually retty difficult sidering her age (fourteen year old intimidating two grown men). The slow breaking down process in their faces eventually came to loosen their lips. “It’s all really creepy, Lady Chiharu!”

  The guard on the left of the guard nodded in agreement with the other. “Yeah, it’s like something unnatural is at work.”

  “I didn’t know I had such children in my ranks that they’d be scared with a little tree growth.”

  “But it happened so fast!”

  “It’s not possible! How you not be uled by it?”

  Her two guards had pletely lost any posure that they might have had before Chiharu. “You simply accept it as reality. Nothing more, there’s no point in thinking about something you ’t uand. Once you realize that, it’s not an issue.” She s the two of them with a cold gre that put them bato their positions. The guards quickly opehe doors for her so that she could enter.

  “We’re terribly sorry, Lady Chiharu!”

  “We’re an embarrassment to the bsp; Please five us!”

  Chiharu walked in ign the two. “…and they say I’m the child…” The guards closed the doors promptly behind her giving her privacy.

  “It’s amazing…”

  “Lady Chiharu’s so mature!”

  A sigh escaped her lips as she went further into the room. The poor sunlight made her room dark and thibsp; It felt small and ed around her as though every part was ected to her. It made it seem less empty and alohaually felt. There were men all over her home a despite that it always felt as though she was walking alone uo find anyone.

  Chiharu slid open the doors to the back of her room. In the distance she could see a couple men making patrols. ‘…so empty…’ She turned bad approached a small table dispy with a picture of her grandfather at the ter. Chiharu k down in front and brought her hands together quietly. ‘Please watch over me grandfather. I won’t fail you. I’ll show you that I lead the bsp; Grandfather…’

  Night eventually came to the city. Chiharu’s men had finally finished making a rough path out to the entranbsp; It was a stump filled mess of vines and broken greenery unceremoniously being fttened into the ground by r nd rovers. Each of the off road vehicles carried a heavily armed squad of five men dressed in bbsp; Riding at the head was Chiharu in the backseat running her fingers along the bde of her short sword uninterrupted by the bumps of the terrain. o her Tamotsu quietly sat with his eyes closed looking displeased.

  Chiharu sheathed the sword and tightehe belt on her pants. All she could do was run through her equipment waiting for the time to arrive for her. ‘Tonight…we have revenge!’