~~~

To drop.

Or not.

To drop.

Or not.

To drop.

Atta Noe paused, the vial in her hand tilted like a snapped human head, the pale green liquid inside on the verge of spilling out.

‘You know, don’t you?’ she whispered to the spider that was also paused, halfway across the futon that she had no use for. That had been placed there to taunt her. Acquiesce or I’m taking you under the covers. Typical child daimyō logic.

The spider maintained its frozen state, clearly aware of the threat hovering above.

To move.

Or not.

To die at the hands of this giant god formation.

Or not.

‘Don’t worry, little one,’ Atta Noe said finally, putting the lid back on the vial and sliding it under her yukata sleeve, then cocooning it in lilac swirls as she transferred herself in one swift, hazy movement onto the tatami. ‘It’s needed elsewhere.’

She looked down at her box, picturing it in a grander room. Inside the honmaru. Next to the erratic coward Imagawa, no doubt.

Or, if the young Sakai wretch got his way, out on that shabby little Kaji island.

Pushed to the bottom of the sea.

Lost. Forgotten.

Water-logged.

There were footsteps in the passageway, something being knocked over, followed by one of the drunk louts blurting out, ‘it’s okay, we’re going in there anyway.’

Atta Noe straightened up, staying instinctively close to her box.

Two juvenile amoebas, she thought, hearing the Sakai wretch give a hushed reply. Come to play with their self-claimed toy.

Okay, then, little ones.

Three can play that game.

She counted out another five seconds, betting with herself that the Sakai lord would be the one to slide open the door panel, and she was quickly proven right. In fact, he pulled it open so hard and fast that it whacked against the wall frame, causing a noise that half the castle must’ve heard.

‘Knock, knock…’ Tadachika said drunkenly, stumbling into her chamber and looking around at the décor as if it were his first time seeing it. ‘Wah, this place looks like shit. Who’s the architect? Let’s cut off his ugly head. Make sure he bleeds enough to…scare the fool into…not do it again.’

The sentence was ended with a cough, then a hacking noise as the young daimyō tried to clear stubborn phlegm from his throat.

Outside, the second toy player was busy running his paws over a fallen salt sack, shouting into the room that it felt like his favourite concubine’s tits.

‘Get in here, you idiot,’ Tadachika yelled back, finishing with his throat routine, pulling down the creases on his shōchū-stained yukata, then slowly moving his eyes around the chamber until they rested on the white and purple yukata of Atta Noe. ‘We are boring our entertainment.’

Smirking at the words, Atta Noe put eyes on the space just to the side of Tadachika’s head. ‘You are drunk, human.’

‘Ha, you spoke…Gods on all the farms…I just told Yosh you’d do the silent act all night. After the dinner tension awkward thing…yes, I do remember it, my cup, slicing it like a melon thing…but that’s the past stuff…all forgotten. I am reborn and revived…ready to merge with the colour purple…my colour purple…no, my sweet colour purple, if that’s the kind of talk you’re after?’

‘It is late, I will rest now.’

‘Wah, the walls…like a prison cell,’ slurred Tadachika’s friend, stepping in exaggerated astronaut steps onto the tatami. ‘Pretty bleak place to fuck…if she doesn’t swirl all that purple shit around…like at the dinner thing before…’

‘Stop spinning so much,’ replied the Sakai daimyō, reaching over and grabbing at the air near his friend’s yukata sleeve. ‘Atta Noe…this is one of my loyal retainers, Yoshihiro…of the nearby province clan.’

‘Retainer? Making me sound like a prop. I’m daimyō of the only clan with-…’ The young drunk stopped, his face finally staying still long enough to take in the form of the purple demon about a metre in front of him. ‘Gods in a see-through kosode, your face…even more beautiful than two hours ago…the banquet…weird cliffside thing…but that table was really long and you were all the way on the other end and…wah, you’re really letting me have her first?’

Tadachika nodded with his eyes closed, then reopened and studied the reaction of his demon advisor.

Perhaps it was the environment, the confines of both the room and Nishio castle, but she did not appear enthused at the prospect of frenetic, clumsy daimyō sex.

If anything, she looked spiteful. Annoyed.

But that couldn’t be right, he thought, pushing his loyal friend and retainer, Yoshihiro, over to the untouched futon. He already said he’d forgiven her for the banquet insults, the obliterated cup, and as soon as he was sure her body wouldn’t melt his dick off if he put it inside her, he’d get rid of Yoshihiro and give her at least three hours of continuous pleasure play. Cos he was a good guy at heart, and there was nothing worse than drilling a concubine who made those fake moaning noises…or the ones who just lay there and took it. No, he was a Heian-era guy in that sense, a romantic who was perfectly willing to go down on his lovers as long as they were sucking him off at the same time.

Would she suck him off?

Did she have the teeth for it? And down below…was there a triangle patch of purple pubic hair? Or faint swirls giving her cunt a misty façade? Did her body-forming powers make it possible to change the size of her breasts at will, to match his desires?

Would she get bored of him afterwards?

Depressed?

Did she understand that this was just a game he was playing, not the way he really wanted to-

Tadachika blinked, realising his balance was a bit off and readjusting. Wait, the room had changed. Yoshihiro was off the futon, topless, tugging on the yukata belt of Atta Noe, ordering her to whip them out, and she was staring back at him, right in the eye, mouthing something…

‘The futon, you fucking mutt,’ he commanded, tilting his head to check if the demon’s yukata was coming off. ‘Let her come to you.’

‘I’m trying…but she won’t budge…won’t show me the goods.’

‘The futon.’

‘It’s like it’s nailed on or-…’

‘Now.’

The tone sailed out strident and utterly useless as Yoshihiro was too drunk to understand anything except the yukata he was trying to peel off, and the odd thing was that the demon witch hadn’t said no yet, or tried to resist, or given a warning that she’d kill him if he persisted, which, in his drunk mind, meant she liked him, and deep down wanted him to-

His thoughts fractured, the yukata of his target dissipating into a purple blur, his right shoulder feeling oddly lighter.

‘Wah…’ he said, staring moon-eyed as Atta Noe’s face reformed, then said wah again as he looked down at the spot where his right arm used to be.

‘Try the floor,’ the purple demon said softly, gesturing downwards with a dip of her head.

Yoshihiro followed the direction and squinted at the fleshy thing leaking blood all over the tatami.

The fleshy thing that looked identical to his arm.

Right down to the soup stain on his yukata sleeve.

‘But that’s…’ he started, running through all possibilities until his brain finally burst through the drunk barrier and told him to start shrieking in pain.

And that’s what he did, clutching the stump that was left, then switching quickly to Atta Noe’s throat.

‘If only you weren’t you,’ she replied, blank as a Saitama landscape, the flesh on her own hand degrading into purple muons and up quarks and swarming forward.

‘Cryptic witch…’ Yoshihiro spat out, the sound of the last word mixing with the crack of his skull hitting a wooden slat on the floor.

Returning her hand to human form, Atta Noe took a step back from the stream of blood seeping out from the fresh corpse and then straightened up, refocusing on Tadachika.

Unsurprisingly, his face was still stuck, the shōchū-soaked brain trying to piece the arm to the head to the blood lake to the friend to the room to the sexual molestation of a minute earlier.

But then something clicked.

Reality broke in.

And he laughed.

Pointed at the head of his loyal retainer, Yoshihiro, and laughed. With coughing sounds and tears.

‘Are you mad?’ asked Atta Noe, keeping her arms guarded.

‘His arm…the head…’

‘It was deserved.’

‘…they’re on the floor. Sitting there. Just…his face…when you cut off the arm…no warning…the gormless look on it.’

‘I do not give warnings.’

Tadachika moved to the futon and collapsed down, laughing into the bedding for another minute, two minutes until he finally got his wits back and stopped. Then propped himself up on his elbow, looked over at his friend’s head on the floor and started laughing again.

‘If you’re done with your games…’ Atta Noe said, stepping towards the edge of the futon.

‘No, no…it’s too much.’

‘It is late.’

‘You killed him. Just like that. My loyal retainer…annoying kasu…I told you that…big consequences…and you killed him.’

‘I am not a toy.’

Tadachika turned onto his back and waited for the laughter to splutter out, then stared up at his purple nemesis. Stared for a long time. Until it morphed into full on surveillance.

‘What?’

‘You are insane.’

‘He irritated me.’

‘Beautifully, recklessly insane.’

Atta Noe flinched, pivoting towards the door panel to check on any incoming guards.

‘Wah, my head is spinning…too stationary,’ muttered Tadachika, pulling himself up into a sitting position.

‘Try a stroll by the cliff.’

He rubbed his head, laughing at the remark. Then asked if a horse was nearby when he heard loud footsteps hurrying down the passageway.

‘Get up,’ Atta Noe barked, grabbing him by the sleeve and pulling him into an awkward bear hug just as the slightly sweaty figure of Gen’ichiro appeared in the doorway.

Being relatively sober didn’t help much as it still took several seconds to process the scene in front of him – the head, the arm, the expanding pool of blood, the hugging enemies – and when he finally got the whole picture, all he could say was how?

‘The man went crazy, attacked us both,’ answered Atta Noe, pulling Tadachika back by the hair and puppetting a nod.

‘You killed him?’

‘No, my fault,’ cut in Tadachika, pulling himself out of the purple demon’s hair grip. ‘I wanted to fuck her, tested the waters first, Yosh got ahead of himself, bit of yukata tugging, dead. Kuso, my head…like a kappa’s dancing in there…’

‘What?’

‘I really need to walk a bit. By the cliff.’ He glanced at Atta Noe, smirking, then leaned forward and kissed her on the shoulder. ‘Respect kiss only. Don’t slice.’

‘This is the young Lord Soto,’ said Gen’ichiro, approaching the bloody mess on the floor, half crouching to get a better view, then thinking better of it. ‘What are you going to tell his clan?’

‘Ah, anything. Slipped on a twig, landed on his own katana. Little runt only had about ten men anyway. No natural resources or road control.’ Tadachika stopped, closing his eyes and hitting the side of his temple hard with the palm. ‘What are you doing here, Gen? You heard the screams?’

Gen’ichiro stared down at the corpse, then up at his daimyō, confused.

‘Do you have something to tell us?’ asked Atta Noe, releasing her grip on Tadachika…and then grabbing him again when he started to wobble.

‘Sorry, I forgot. The daimyō…Imagawa…Lord Imagawa. He wants you to see you both in the hundred-mat-room.’

‘Who?’

Atta Noe shifted her head, moving away from Tadachika’s erratic head swaying. ‘He wants to see us now, tonight?’

‘Yes. Within the hour.’

‘What are you saying?’ demanded the Sakai lord, trying and failing to straighten himself out. ‘Tonight? About what issue?’

‘He did not say.’

‘Kuso…doesn’t that man-child have a concubine to play with? It’s almost one in the morning.’

‘When did he tell you this?’ asked Atta Noe, stepping around the blood leaking from young Lord Soto’s head.

‘About fifteen minutes ago. I came straight away, but it is a long walk down to this…chamber.’

‘The hundred mat room…I believe that is within my range.’

Gen’ichiro moved towards the box, also manoeuvring around and between the various blood patches. ‘I can assist, if you require it?’

‘Unnecessary. I have explored the castle. There is only one room on the western side of the grounds that is beyond me. And it did not have a hundred tatami mats.’

‘Can’t believe this is happening,’ moaned Tadachika, walking a full lap of the chamber, pausing by the futon, walking another lap, treading his zori in some of the blood before planting himself in front of Atta Noe. ‘One in the fucking morning. Like this. Gods, you’ll have to do all the talking. Intervene if I start mumbling or vomiting…’

‘I will do no such thing.’

‘Teamwork, that’s the way through it. Me and you. Lord Sakai and the purple assassin queen. Huh, what did you say? No help?’

‘You have forty minutes to sober up.’

‘Wah, some advisor. Fine. Sober up then. How?’

Before the syllable was out, an ice-cold hand had already struck him across the cheek.

‘Wah, I meant water or herbs…not that.’

Atta Noe nodded and slapped him again, this one with the back of her hand.

‘Stop…hitting…me. Gods on a…’

‘Fine. Stay drunk.’

Tadachika rubbed his cheek and looked over at a very stoic Gen’ichiro…then down at the remains of his loyal retainer, Lord Soto the gormless.

And laughed again.

Then coughed.

‘Okay. One more slap. Then water. Agreed?’

Atta Noe answered with another swipe to the cheek.

‘But only cos I’m drunk. You do this kind of thing tomorrow and I’ll…’

‘Slip on a twig?’

‘…do something…daimyō related. Okay?’

Atta Noe put a fingernail on Tadachika’s upper arm and ran a curved line across, smiling.

‘I’ll take that as agreement. Right. Where’s that water?’