~~~

The purple tendrils of vapour swirled around the cracks of the chamber wall, drifting in and expanding the holes a little, then apparently getting cold feet and floating back into the room again.

I could do it, thought Atta Noe, keeping her yukata sleeve positioned at head height.

No, I should do it.

Open up a window-sized gap, let the sunlight stream in.

Open up a door-sized gap and swagger out…right up to that little runt’s governing hall…slice his throat and let the blood spill on the map as I drag this insipid clan into glorious times it barely deserves…then ditch it like a fox carcass when I get bored.

She focused on the largest of the wall cracks, glaring purple fire at it for a few seconds.

Then dimmed the flame, and closed her eyes.

Outside the room, she heard a series of violent coughs, followed by the other guard telling the cougher to do that hacking shit out in the trees.

Two ashigaru…stationed outside her chamber…to do what?

Keep her pinned in?

Tadachika wasn’t a complete fool, he knew what she was and the acts she was capable of in mist form. Two lumps of human meat wouldn’t even make her break swirl. Yet, still, he positioned them there.

She shifted to pure vapour and drifted over to the door, rematerializing with her ear to the rice paper panel.

Of course, if she did slaughter them, there would be consequences. That was the flaw of this cursed domain. Rules, punishments, bureaucracy.

Unless she had someone on her side, a human ally who would protect and move her box. Justify to other clans, other retainers, what she had done, how it was beneficial to their ambitions. But here…in Nishio…there was no one.

‘Just what you wanted Yukio Ka,’ she muttered, breathing purple mist at the door panel. 'Palakkji wretch.'

~~~

For the next two hours, Atta Noe killed time by acting like a human.

Lying on the futon, staring at the ceiling, staring at her box, reading poetry that had been left on the pillow by someone signed as ‘Wild Heart’, drinking water [which did actually have replenishing qualities for Atashhka like her].

Plotting out imaginary revenge scenarios.

The latter was made quite easy by the nonsense written on the rice paper, lines and lines of rock garden description, the beauty of a mountain peak covered in a concubine hat of snow, the rising and falling of a woman’s breasts, the judicious yet kind authority of youthful daimyō rulers, the meanness of the old…

She stopped, smirking at the last line, as it was clearly aimed at the poet’s father. Maybe even their elder sibling.

Ah, that’s who this Wild Heart was…the Sakai youngling. Overlooked due to his age and not best pleased about it.

That could be something.

If she mapped out her moves carefully.

The rice paper stayed in her hand as she looked to the door panel again. Apart from the occasional coughing fit, it was pretty quiet out there. Perhaps, they were resting?

Funnelling upwards in a stream of purple, Atta Noe directed herself in a long strip at the underside of the door panel, filtering a little bit through at first, to test the waters.

When there were no shouts or wails from the guards, she pushed the rest of her mass through and, after performing a couple of cathartic rehearsal swipes on the two sleeping ashigaru slumped homo-erotically against each other, drifted to the entrance of the shack and reformed as the human Atta Noe on the pebbles outside.

Ah, sunlight, my old friend, she mouthed, looking up directly into the distant yellow mass. Feels like weeks since you’ve bathed me.

Far too long.

Far, far too long.

Even if it was only three days.

Tightening the sides of her yukata, she scanned the surrounding area, making sure there weren’t any covert eyes or arrowheads pinned on her.

No, seemed clear enough.

Just a rock garden, and the large rear side of a newly constructed ni-no-maru, with the few guards visible all pointing the wrong way. Apparently, Tadachika hadn’t expected her to disobey him on the first day. Or he hadn’t instructed the guards to act like that was the case, at least. Or maybe he just never expected an attack from the forest. Hard to tell with imbeciles like him.

Checking the tree line, just in case there were surprise guards in the canopy, she rubbed her palm and started towards the nearby path.

Right. First things first.

Locate that flowery fop, Wild Heart, and massage his inferiority complex. Say kind words about his poetry.

She put a hand inside her yukata and spread out the sides, revealing the bare skin around her collarbone.

Maybe a bit of seduction too.

To a degree.

~~~

It didn’t take long to work out that the poet who wrote about the beauty of rock gardens might be sitting in the rock garden, though it was slightly odd that he was only staring at one rock.

And holding a blank sheet of rice paper too.

No, not blank…there was one line, near the middle. The rock is like the passing of classical time…

Just sketch the fucking thing, Atta Noe flash-thought to herself as she closed in on her prey from the rear. But she didn’t say it out loud as that would put up a barrier. Make him feel like she didn’t value his art. And she couldn’t let that happen.

Instead, she stopped behind him, bent down and stared at the rock in unison. As with most rich kids, he was so lost in his own bubble that he didn’t notice her at first, not until she said, ‘nice rock,’ and even then he took the time to finish the new line he was writing.

‘Ah, what a relief,’ she continued, placing a hand softly on his shoulder, making him flinch a little. ‘I thought it was a sketch you were making.’

‘That is a relief?’ the Sakai boy asked, turning his narrow, almost rectangular face towards her and almost dropping his brush when he saw who it was he was looking at. ‘You’re the purple lady.’

‘I wasn’t aware I had a badge…’

‘What?’

‘You recognise me, yet we have not met before.’

‘I-…there wasn’t-…’ He coughed, straightening himself on his rock seat. ‘There aren’t many other women in the castle. And my brother informed me that you had arrived.’

‘How kind of him.’

‘Though he said you would be confined to your chamber. I didn’t know he had allowed-…’

‘I am not the type to be confined.’ Atta Noe smiled, the same one she’d used on the farmer who first found her in this world. The original custodian of her box. Before she’d heard of Shingen and…all the other things she’d had to do to progress in this place. ‘Tell me, is it your poetry that was left on my pillow?’

The Sakai boy, technically a young man of seventeen and next in line to the clan throne, looked down at the pebbles, then at the rock he was writing about, all the while stroking the ponytail stump at the back of his neck. ‘I’m sorry, I did not mean to be intrusive.’

‘No need for remorse. It was quite soothing to read something so…alive. Especially after meeting with your brother.’

‘You liked my words?’

‘Words? That is what the mundane world calls them. To me, they are feelings, connective tissue captured and recorded for lonely souls.’

‘That’s…pretty.’

‘Thank you.’

‘So are you. Your face-…it is not what I expected.’

‘Then you gifted your poetry to me, without knowing my appearance?’

The Sakai boy looked down again, using the brush to scratch his neck. ‘I thought you might be lonely…being so far from home.’

Atta Noe lowered herself onto the rock and took the Sakai boy’s hand in her own, garnishing the surface of her skin with the thinnest layer of vapour. ‘You are a very noble soul. Very kind. A quality that I feel all great leaders should possess.’

‘Err…I suppose you’re right.’

‘Saito…isn’t it?

‘Yes.’

‘I am very happy that you left your captured feelings on my pillow yesterday, Saito. They comforted me greatly. I hope, one day soon, you can read them to me…perhaps in my chamber, if you do not consider it beneath you?’

‘No, no…beneath me? Of course, not. I believe we are all equals in this world, that is the meaning of my poetry. I would love to read to you…in your chamber…err…’

‘Noe.’

‘Noe. Lady Noe. I would love that very much.’

Atta Noe dipped her head slightly, held his hand a moment longer then pulled away and told him she had to go now.

‘Ah, it is a beautiful day and you have seen nothing of our grounds. Do you wish to visit the cliffs? I can show you, it is not far. We can walk the trail down to the beach and-…’

‘Perhaps some other time, Saito. I have duties to attend to first. Advice to deliver to your brother. If he is willing to listen to the words of a mere woman.’

‘Impossible, for man or woman. The only person he listens to is himself.’

‘Ah, it is as I thought then.’

‘I mean, he has some qualities, but…’ Saito’s mouth froze suddenly, as did the rest of his face, which could only mean one thing.

Atta Noe turned and bowed almost imperceptibly to an armour-less Tadachika, and then at his obedient pet Gen’ichiro close behind him, as they arrived next to the increasingly busy rock seat.

‘You are not in your room?’ the Sakai daimyō scolded in the guise of a question.

‘A predictable approach.’

‘Explain yourself. Why are you not there? If you’ve harmed the guards in any way, even the slightest nick of their skin…’

‘Of course not. They were asleep, so I decided to come out for some fresh air. Appraise the castle grounds.’

‘That was not my order.’

‘Apologies, decided is the wrong word. Had to is more appropriate. Did you know, without access to fresh air, my kind will perish.’

Tadachika glanced back at Gen’ichiro, who nodded without expression.

‘That would be difficult to explain to Shingen, would it not? His favourite advisor, dead one day after arrival. Much more challenging than simple confinement.’

‘How long?’

‘What?’

‘For you to die from lack of air.’

Atta Noe checked on Gen’ichiro, who seemed fascinated by Saito’s rock poetry as that’s where his eyes were fixed, then adjusted back to Tadachika. ‘A little over two days.’

‘Then we’ll install a window panel in your room. The size of a rice box should suffice.’

‘With a sleeping guard outside?’

Saito giggled, shutting it off instantly with a hand over his own mouth when his brother glared down at him.

‘I will allow you to amble about this garden, for an hour each day,’ Tadachika continued, left hand resting on his katana guard. ‘For ceremonial activities, you will appear at my side, and pour the first shot of shōchū into my cup. And the second, and the third. And the tenth, if I so require.’

‘You have a poor understanding of the role of an advisor.’

‘If you fail to do this, your window will be removed. And your box will be relocated to Kaji Island two kilometres off the coast. Out of range, out of sight. Out of thought.’

Gen’ichiro took a step forward, whispering something into Tadachika’s ear and then getting a grunt back in return.

Atta Noe glanced at the two men – Saito and Gen’ichiro - with their eyes on atoms of arbitrary air nowhere near the little, petulant daimyō, and let the tips of her fingers swirl into faint mist. ‘I will appear at your side, or close to it, but I will not pour your drink.’

‘We shall see. Tonight. When Lord Imagawa arrives.’

‘He’s coming here?’ asked Saito, looking up, eyes panicked.

‘That is what I just said. Lord Imagawa and various retainers. From what I have heard, his exploratory mission into Owari Province did not go well, so his mood is likely to be dark. Hopefully his idiot uncle will take the brunt of it…’

‘An actual daimyō, coming here,’ said Atta Noe, losing the purple glow. ‘How interesting.’

Lord Sakai stared down at his advisor’s arm, hand grating against his katana guard.

‘Perhaps you should run and put your armour back on, young lord. Show him how fierce you can look.’

‘Gen’ichi…’

‘Yes, daimyo,’ replied the general, hand flinching at the sudden bark.

‘Take the witch back to her chamber. Induct into her the expected protocol for tonight.’ Tadachika took the hand off his katana guard and stepped closer to Atta Noe, his eyes only slightly above hers. ‘I may call on you afterwards. If Lord Imagawa declines to take you for himself.’

‘Suicide can be a relief, for the fearful…’

Tadachika reached out his right hand and stopped half an inch from the front of Atta Noe’s yukata, then ran an invisible line down to her waist.

‘Until tonight,’ he said, finally turning and, in the face of verbal protest only, dragging Saito back inside by the sleeve of his yukata.

‘This way,’ instructed Gen’ichiro, when his master had gone.

Atta Noe didn’t nod, but she did follow his gesture, ambling at her own glacial pace around the bends and swishes of the pebble path. Gen’ichiro followed two steps behind, eyes on the distance instead of the ground directly beneath.

As they got to the entrance of her shack, the purple demon stopped and spoke softly to the door panel.

‘Tell me, Gen’ichi, would you really allow that fool to move my box to that little island?’

‘It is not my decision to make.’

‘Would you not protest it?’

‘Advise against such an act. Yes. Protest? No.’

‘A strange answer.’

‘It is my duty. Lady Noe.’

‘Hmm. Were you not close to one of my kind before? Or did I misinterpret that relationship?’

Gen’ichiro reached forward and slid open the door panel, his arm brushing against the side of Atta Noe’s yukata. The two guards, now awake and leaning against the wall inside, gawped at them both, then turned and gawped at the door panel they were allegedly guarding.

‘Do you feel uncomfortable talking to me?’ Atta Noe asked, ignoring the two buffoons.

‘No.’

‘Your body language implies otherwise.’

‘It is not my place to converse with a god.’

‘Ah, that’s what I am. But did you not talk before, with the other god?’

‘No.’

‘Really? Not a single word?’

Gen’ichiro gestured forward with his hand, then added a separate signal to cool down the guards, who were half reaching for their katanas. ‘You should go inside. Prepare yourself for Lord Imagawa’s arrival.’

‘Yes, the ceremony. Protocol.’ Atta Noe placed her hand on Gen’ichiro’s wrist, moving her fingers slowly down onto the back of his hand. ‘I think, Gen’ichi…if it really came down to it…you would do more than advise against. More than protest. For a pretty god like me.’

The flesh of her fingers dissipated and cascaded into purple mist, running soft rings around Gen’ichiro’s hand.

He closed his eyes, stifling what sounded like the beginning of an orgasmic moan.

‘I’m certain of it,’ she whispered into his neck, the particles of her breath floating out luminous purple.