Post by Rika Lefcourt on May 25, 2011 15:24:48 GMT -8
Thursday, September 8, 2011
The conflicts of the muggles are not our conflicts!
The family always comes first!
You will always be part of the family!
She shook her head. The weight of the helmet made it a bit harder than usual. No, not harder. Just a bit unusual. The family came first, sure. But which family was it? Hojo? Nikaidô? Or even Lefcourt? Families seemed to be somewhat fluent for her. Though, it was even more than three. It had been four families. Or at least four names. Rokuhana, Lefcourt, Hojo, Nikaidô.
The family always comes first!
It did, that was true. But it wasn’t the family some people had expected it to be. She had made her choice. Choice, that was the keyword. She had made her choice. She had chosen her path. And right now, so she felt, it was alienating her from the people she once called family. Oh, they had all said that nothing would change. Every single one. And not even just the blood relatives. Everybody had said so. All the officials, all those whose opinions mattered.
Yet... It wasn’t like this at all. Friends had turned somewhat distant. Even the best friends had taken a step backwards, most likely because of the things they had been told or rumors they had heard. Or simply because someone had told them to do exactly that. There was only one person who could have done something like that.
But she wouldn’t, would she?
Her right hand tightened slightly around the grip. Under pressure people sometimes reacted differently, and she knew that. Under pressure, as strange as it was, she tended to react calm. Others did not. She had always considered herself to be part of those others. Her gloved left hand moved up and adjusted the goggles on her face.
You will always be part of the family!
Apparently not. No, that wasn’t exactly true. Any distance between them now was also partly because of her own actions, and not just a reaction to her choices. And there was still this one part that told her that not being part of it was a good choice, was the best choice, was, effectively, the only choice. Otherwise it simply wouldn’t, couldn’t work.
She knew about the talk behind the scenes, about the rumors, the gossip and she knew that all of this ridiculous nonsense was coming from within the family. Ironically their opponents had nothing to do with any of it. Their opponents waited, watched, observed. They were waiting for the right moment to make their move. It was all part of the strategy, all part of the shape of things to come. And things had the potential to go ugly, very ugly. The tensions had been there for as long as she could remember. But tensions often tended to grow. The balance of power could be shattered. The scale could be tipped.
And all it took was one rogue element.
An unexpected development.
One rogue card.
One family.
One clan.
Her eyes narrowed at the door in front of her. Even though it was late summer and going into early autumn and the temperatures were still rather comfortable, she felt a cold shiver go down her spine.
Though...
It didn’t even take one clan.
One woman was enough.
A woman like herself.
Observing what one of the other three signed her she nodded once. She understood what he meant and shuffled closer to the door. Keeping on the right side of the doorframe she waited.
But ultimately it all changed. Power could not be balanced forever and the balance had lasted almost for 150 years, give or take a few. Though, that wasn’t even correct. The balance was ultimately an illusion. It had shifted back and forth for ages. Periods in favor for one faction sometimes lasted longer than for others. Sometimes they switched back and forth within just a few years, and then they could last for centuries. But ultimately all of it was in motion.
The door suddenly burst out of its frame with a bang. That was all she needed to worry about right now. There were no words needed, the four knew what to do.
Attack!
She moved forward quickly and entered the room first, make a fast transition to the right side. The others followed, fanning out. There was no shouting, no screaming, just the typical popping sounds coming from gunshots muffled by ear protection.
The enemies were paper targets, some with painted on weapons, such as guns and wands. Other were clearly not enemies, thus they were spared. She lowered the rifle and went for her sidearm. After firing two shots on her side two more targets popped up. One was an enemy, the other wasn’t, but it was blocking the line of sight on the enemy. Her comrade and she hesitated for a second. Then she squeezed the trigger sending several rounds through the civilian and into the enemy.
A booming voice made them all stop. Safeties clicked, sidearms were holstered.
“Nikaidô! What the hell! You killed a civilian!” He came thundering through the broken door. He wasn’t that much taller than her or the other three members of her group, but he was still rather imposing. After all he was built almost like a British bulldog. “Got any explanations for this?!”
“Sir from my understanding this was not a rescue operation. We were supposed to kill the enemy.”
“And?!”
“That’s what we did, sir.”
His eyes hardened at her. She was right. They had taken out all legitimate targets. “Dismissed!” he barked.
******
Akemi would have hated this, she knew that. The military was something that her best friend could never get herself to like. It was a necessary evil, but evil nevertheless, at least according to Akemi. That included even the Self-defense Force’s very own wizarding battalion. There were plenty of wizards and witches in Japan who had, on countless times, questioned the existence of this unit, just like some muggles. It was, so they had often said, pointless. The conflicts of the muggles were not their problem.
Nikaidô Sayoko, also known as Rika Lefcourt, begged to differ. Japan’s history was full of wizards and muggles fighting over the same things. The age of the country at war, the Sengoku period, was the prime example. And even before that it was essentially bread and butter for those with power in both realms. The Hojo had risen through war, by supporting the Minamoto, a muggle family. They had even ruled the country. Not officially, of course. It had remained the Minamoto shogunate, but the Hojo had been the ones pulling the strings, effectively rendering the shogun almost powerless and at their mercy. It had lasted until another family had toppled them. And that family, too, had been toppled by an alliance of muggles and wizards. And even that alliance had been toppled by yet another one. It was an endless repetition of the same old things.
And even today these things were important. Power was important, even though she disliked it. Influence, power, money, having some pull, no matter what it was called, it all led to only one thing: ruling. Whether it was the country or just a clan, it didn’t matter.
Power, they said, corrupted. And absolute power corrupted absolutely. At least, that was the general idea. And again she didn’t really agree. Some people were corrupted, others weren’t. There were no absolutes. Not a lot of black and white, but lots of different shades of grey.
Shades of grey, she thought. We are all grey, more or less. Her cousin Shiori... No, she was almost white. Bleached white. A straight, upstanding alumni of Shiratatsu house. Unlike herself. A former Kiku, and former Ravenclaw, who never finished Shirasagi. The leader of a bankrupt old family, who was desperately trying to get their finances under control. And, at times, a wanted murderer, at least, until the cases was cleared up.
And yet there was a significant difference. Shiori was a radical, pushing for ending the feudal society that was Japan’s wizarding world once and for all, and rather setting up a democratic, free way of life. Sayoko, on the other hand, was too occupied with the problems of the Nikaidô. While she agreed with the basic goals of her cousin, she wasn’t a radical. Change took time. Things couldn’t change overnight. But maybe that was because Sayoko had been a Kiku and a Ravenclaw, a bookworm, who’d spend hours reading, while Shiori was a Shiratatsu, a noble and brave warrior for good.
Whatever the cause, in the past few weeks Sayoko had had a growing feeling that her cousin was moving too fast. The fact that they had been butting heads a lot wasn’t really helping either. It was something that had begun ever since Sayoko had brought the Nikaidô back among the old clans. Ever since that day the tensions between Sayoko and Shiori had been rising. If what her uncle had told her was true, and she had no reason to doubt his words, then Shiori had made quite an ass out of herself over Sayoko’s latest trip to Great Britain. It had been the trip where she had been arrested for murder, at least for a few hours. And it seemed that her uncle had been right. Shiori couldn’t let go, at least not yet, or so it seemed. There would be more problems ahead of them.
But right now those problems were far away. Nikaidô Sayoko focused her attention back to the people on the bus, the few that were riding on it. Yes, a witch was taking a muggle transportation. Though, that wasn’t really unusual for her. She had grown up believing that her father had been a muggle, thus she knew a lot about their ways of life. Besides, apparating, while being fine, wasn’t really the form of transportation she wanted to use right now.
Inwardly she wondered how many of these people were part of her world. It was impossible to tell, as usual. Wizards and witches knew how to blend in these days and it was unlikely that many of them would be riding on a bus. Especially not up on Hokkaido, heading through Monbetsu. It was a small town, for Japanese standards. The population had by now fallen below 30,000 and would fall even further. But of course, Monbetsu wasn’t her destination anyway. She had to get out of the town, further southwest.
The bus came to a halt and Sayoko got up, grabbed her backpack and headed for the exit. Some of the people watched her, the rest ignored her. Still, someone like her wasn’t a daily sight up there. A young woman in the BDUs of the GSDF didn’t really fit into this town, or so some would have said. It was certainly not a very common thing to see. She hopped off the bus, the doors closed the vehicle moved on. Sayoko scanned the surrounding area. There was nothing going in, as usual, thus she decided to walk a little more and then simply apparate back home.
Home sweet home, she thought. The house was, by now, essentially done. Her uncle’s extension charms had worked wonders. It was now a lot bigger on the inside, almost a little castle, yet it still paled compared to the Hojo or Fujiwara mansions. There was still some work to be done. Her uncle had promised to install a portkey that would take Sayoko to Great Britain and back to Monbetsu again. However, unlike required by different treaties between all the countries that had a wizarding community, they had not bothered with getting any approval by either government. There was no reason for that. The portkey in the Nikaidô mansion would be under constant guard. Any unauthorized people would be arrested or maybe even killed, while the portkey in Britain didn’t require such safety measures, since the only people who’d be able to use it would be part of the Nikaidô anyway.
The Nikaidô, what were they now? In the past months and weeks the resistance against Sayoko’s decision to move to Hokkaido had crumbled completely. People had accepted her choice and their fate. It was a feudal system after all. The leaders needed their retainers and the retainers needed their leaders. Neither could exist without the other.
The system was garbage, Sayoko agreed with her cousin on that point. And it had to be changed. But change was impossible overnight and Sayoko wasn’t too fond of the whole hope & change thing anyway. Proper change took some time.
Finally Sayoko stopped and looked around. Then she disappeared behind a bush. Apparating in broad daylight, on a road such as this, wasn’t a smart idea, even when nobody seemed to be around, she knew that much.
A few moments later she was inside the Nikaidô mansion. They had set up a place for save apparation, known only to members of the clan, while everybody else had to use the front door or specially designated areas. The rest of the building and the entire premises were guarded against unwanted apparations and uninvited guests.
“Welcome back!” Minami greeted her cheerfully. Her uncle’s girlfriend, the term was suitable by now, had more or less turned into part of the household already.
“Thank you.”
“How was your journey?” Minami seemed to approve a bit more of Sayoko’s uniform than most others.
“Long. I’m glad it’s over.”
“I’ll make you something to eat.”
“You don’t have to,” Sayoko tried to decline politely. Minami certainly had other things to do.
“It’s alright.”
“I don’t want to bother you.”
“It’s no bother, really! Just relax and let me do the rest.” With that she left and Sayoko was wondering how Minami did it. How could she always be the way she was?
After removing her boots Sayoko made her way through the corridors towards her office. It was still a strange thought to have one of those. Things had turned out quite strange. She opened the door, stepped in and closed it behind herself again. Finally she removed her cap and dumped it in a corner together with her backpack. Her desk was stacked with files, letters and other papers. As expected. Leading a clan meant paperwork. Lots of it.
But there were other reports as well. The quake, just a few months ago, had also dented Japan’s wizard population. Reports were still trickling in. The muggles had sorted out most of their problems, it seemed. But with the wizards and witches it was a bit more complicated. Some may have used the sudden catastrophe to simply take a dive and disappear from public view. Others may have used it to settle some scores.
At that point Sayoko cursed herself. She had been too occupied with the problems surrounding her family. The attack on her friend, the ongoing battles inside the clan and the struggle with the other families had occupied her to a level where she had barely registered the catastrophe. But maybe that had also been because the Nikaidô and Hojo had no relatives or allies in those areas. They hadn’t lost anyone, not even friends. It had taken until her return from Great Britain for this to really sink in. And now she was feeling bad because of it.
Life was life, death was death, wasn’t it? What could she have done? Donate money? The Nikdaiô were still bankrupt. Lend manpower to help? What manpower? The clan had been torn apart back then. The council itself hadn’t done anything. The great clans didn’t care about muggles, muggle borns, half-bloods or poor pure-bloods. They only cared about themselves.
There was a rap on the shoji door.
“Come in.”
The door opened and her uncle entered. “It’s confirmed, finally.”
“What is?” Sayoko plopped on the tatami floor.
“Konishi, they’re gone.”
“Konishi?” Sayoko tried to remember.
“One of the old ones. You met their leader and his wife in Osaka.”
Her mind raced, then her memory sparked. “Oh yes. All of them are gone?”
“The entire clan. They lived on one of the villages on Miyato-jima. That one got hit by the wave. No bodies though.”
“So they were taken by the wave,” Sayoko noted. But then she stopped and looked at her uncle. “All of them?”
“Yeah, I find that hard to believe. They could have apparated. All of them.”
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Somebody took them out. Somebody who was either waiting for such a chance, or...”
“Or someone with the right manpower to mobilize on short notice, perform a hit on such a scale and pull out before the wave hits.”
They looked at each other. Apart from the great clans now being reduced to only 36, it also meant that one of the other families had attacked them in the wake of the earthquake, and had managed to pull out just before the wave it. Or not. That didn’t really matter. Fact was, a wizarding family like the Konishi could have escaped the tsunami with ease. However, apparently they didn’t. Which left only one conclusion.
“Uesugi or Nakamikado,” Sayoko said flatly.
“Uesugi is my bet. Nakamikado is a planner, a schemer, he doesn’t go for a full assault.”
“What was their stance?”
“Neutral, but I think they were somewhat leaning towards you and your cousin.”
“That leaves 36.”
He nodded.
“And there’s no way anyone can prove anything. It’s the perfect crime. A textbook operation.” Sayoko leaned back on the tatami mats and stared at the ceiling for a second or two. “Do you think they have the capability for such an operation? I mean, it was an old clan. They had retainers, they had guards, they could fight. Even with the shock of the quake that’s one hell of a risky thing to pull off. What if the attack fails?”
“What do you think?”
She sat up again. “Maybe there’s more to it.”
The conflicts of the muggles are not our conflicts!
The family always comes first!
You will always be part of the family!
She shook her head. The weight of the helmet made it a bit harder than usual. No, not harder. Just a bit unusual. The family came first, sure. But which family was it? Hojo? Nikaidô? Or even Lefcourt? Families seemed to be somewhat fluent for her. Though, it was even more than three. It had been four families. Or at least four names. Rokuhana, Lefcourt, Hojo, Nikaidô.
The family always comes first!
It did, that was true. But it wasn’t the family some people had expected it to be. She had made her choice. Choice, that was the keyword. She had made her choice. She had chosen her path. And right now, so she felt, it was alienating her from the people she once called family. Oh, they had all said that nothing would change. Every single one. And not even just the blood relatives. Everybody had said so. All the officials, all those whose opinions mattered.
Yet... It wasn’t like this at all. Friends had turned somewhat distant. Even the best friends had taken a step backwards, most likely because of the things they had been told or rumors they had heard. Or simply because someone had told them to do exactly that. There was only one person who could have done something like that.
But she wouldn’t, would she?
Her right hand tightened slightly around the grip. Under pressure people sometimes reacted differently, and she knew that. Under pressure, as strange as it was, she tended to react calm. Others did not. She had always considered herself to be part of those others. Her gloved left hand moved up and adjusted the goggles on her face.
You will always be part of the family!
Apparently not. No, that wasn’t exactly true. Any distance between them now was also partly because of her own actions, and not just a reaction to her choices. And there was still this one part that told her that not being part of it was a good choice, was the best choice, was, effectively, the only choice. Otherwise it simply wouldn’t, couldn’t work.
She knew about the talk behind the scenes, about the rumors, the gossip and she knew that all of this ridiculous nonsense was coming from within the family. Ironically their opponents had nothing to do with any of it. Their opponents waited, watched, observed. They were waiting for the right moment to make their move. It was all part of the strategy, all part of the shape of things to come. And things had the potential to go ugly, very ugly. The tensions had been there for as long as she could remember. But tensions often tended to grow. The balance of power could be shattered. The scale could be tipped.
And all it took was one rogue element.
An unexpected development.
One rogue card.
One family.
One clan.
Her eyes narrowed at the door in front of her. Even though it was late summer and going into early autumn and the temperatures were still rather comfortable, she felt a cold shiver go down her spine.
Though...
It didn’t even take one clan.
One woman was enough.
A woman like herself.
Observing what one of the other three signed her she nodded once. She understood what he meant and shuffled closer to the door. Keeping on the right side of the doorframe she waited.
But ultimately it all changed. Power could not be balanced forever and the balance had lasted almost for 150 years, give or take a few. Though, that wasn’t even correct. The balance was ultimately an illusion. It had shifted back and forth for ages. Periods in favor for one faction sometimes lasted longer than for others. Sometimes they switched back and forth within just a few years, and then they could last for centuries. But ultimately all of it was in motion.
The door suddenly burst out of its frame with a bang. That was all she needed to worry about right now. There were no words needed, the four knew what to do.
Attack!
She moved forward quickly and entered the room first, make a fast transition to the right side. The others followed, fanning out. There was no shouting, no screaming, just the typical popping sounds coming from gunshots muffled by ear protection.
The enemies were paper targets, some with painted on weapons, such as guns and wands. Other were clearly not enemies, thus they were spared. She lowered the rifle and went for her sidearm. After firing two shots on her side two more targets popped up. One was an enemy, the other wasn’t, but it was blocking the line of sight on the enemy. Her comrade and she hesitated for a second. Then she squeezed the trigger sending several rounds through the civilian and into the enemy.
A booming voice made them all stop. Safeties clicked, sidearms were holstered.
“Nikaidô! What the hell! You killed a civilian!” He came thundering through the broken door. He wasn’t that much taller than her or the other three members of her group, but he was still rather imposing. After all he was built almost like a British bulldog. “Got any explanations for this?!”
“Sir from my understanding this was not a rescue operation. We were supposed to kill the enemy.”
“And?!”
“That’s what we did, sir.”
His eyes hardened at her. She was right. They had taken out all legitimate targets. “Dismissed!” he barked.
******
Akemi would have hated this, she knew that. The military was something that her best friend could never get herself to like. It was a necessary evil, but evil nevertheless, at least according to Akemi. That included even the Self-defense Force’s very own wizarding battalion. There were plenty of wizards and witches in Japan who had, on countless times, questioned the existence of this unit, just like some muggles. It was, so they had often said, pointless. The conflicts of the muggles were not their problem.
Nikaidô Sayoko, also known as Rika Lefcourt, begged to differ. Japan’s history was full of wizards and muggles fighting over the same things. The age of the country at war, the Sengoku period, was the prime example. And even before that it was essentially bread and butter for those with power in both realms. The Hojo had risen through war, by supporting the Minamoto, a muggle family. They had even ruled the country. Not officially, of course. It had remained the Minamoto shogunate, but the Hojo had been the ones pulling the strings, effectively rendering the shogun almost powerless and at their mercy. It had lasted until another family had toppled them. And that family, too, had been toppled by an alliance of muggles and wizards. And even that alliance had been toppled by yet another one. It was an endless repetition of the same old things.
And even today these things were important. Power was important, even though she disliked it. Influence, power, money, having some pull, no matter what it was called, it all led to only one thing: ruling. Whether it was the country or just a clan, it didn’t matter.
Power, they said, corrupted. And absolute power corrupted absolutely. At least, that was the general idea. And again she didn’t really agree. Some people were corrupted, others weren’t. There were no absolutes. Not a lot of black and white, but lots of different shades of grey.
Shades of grey, she thought. We are all grey, more or less. Her cousin Shiori... No, she was almost white. Bleached white. A straight, upstanding alumni of Shiratatsu house. Unlike herself. A former Kiku, and former Ravenclaw, who never finished Shirasagi. The leader of a bankrupt old family, who was desperately trying to get their finances under control. And, at times, a wanted murderer, at least, until the cases was cleared up.
And yet there was a significant difference. Shiori was a radical, pushing for ending the feudal society that was Japan’s wizarding world once and for all, and rather setting up a democratic, free way of life. Sayoko, on the other hand, was too occupied with the problems of the Nikaidô. While she agreed with the basic goals of her cousin, she wasn’t a radical. Change took time. Things couldn’t change overnight. But maybe that was because Sayoko had been a Kiku and a Ravenclaw, a bookworm, who’d spend hours reading, while Shiori was a Shiratatsu, a noble and brave warrior for good.
Whatever the cause, in the past few weeks Sayoko had had a growing feeling that her cousin was moving too fast. The fact that they had been butting heads a lot wasn’t really helping either. It was something that had begun ever since Sayoko had brought the Nikaidô back among the old clans. Ever since that day the tensions between Sayoko and Shiori had been rising. If what her uncle had told her was true, and she had no reason to doubt his words, then Shiori had made quite an ass out of herself over Sayoko’s latest trip to Great Britain. It had been the trip where she had been arrested for murder, at least for a few hours. And it seemed that her uncle had been right. Shiori couldn’t let go, at least not yet, or so it seemed. There would be more problems ahead of them.
But right now those problems were far away. Nikaidô Sayoko focused her attention back to the people on the bus, the few that were riding on it. Yes, a witch was taking a muggle transportation. Though, that wasn’t really unusual for her. She had grown up believing that her father had been a muggle, thus she knew a lot about their ways of life. Besides, apparating, while being fine, wasn’t really the form of transportation she wanted to use right now.
Inwardly she wondered how many of these people were part of her world. It was impossible to tell, as usual. Wizards and witches knew how to blend in these days and it was unlikely that many of them would be riding on a bus. Especially not up on Hokkaido, heading through Monbetsu. It was a small town, for Japanese standards. The population had by now fallen below 30,000 and would fall even further. But of course, Monbetsu wasn’t her destination anyway. She had to get out of the town, further southwest.
The bus came to a halt and Sayoko got up, grabbed her backpack and headed for the exit. Some of the people watched her, the rest ignored her. Still, someone like her wasn’t a daily sight up there. A young woman in the BDUs of the GSDF didn’t really fit into this town, or so some would have said. It was certainly not a very common thing to see. She hopped off the bus, the doors closed the vehicle moved on. Sayoko scanned the surrounding area. There was nothing going in, as usual, thus she decided to walk a little more and then simply apparate back home.
Home sweet home, she thought. The house was, by now, essentially done. Her uncle’s extension charms had worked wonders. It was now a lot bigger on the inside, almost a little castle, yet it still paled compared to the Hojo or Fujiwara mansions. There was still some work to be done. Her uncle had promised to install a portkey that would take Sayoko to Great Britain and back to Monbetsu again. However, unlike required by different treaties between all the countries that had a wizarding community, they had not bothered with getting any approval by either government. There was no reason for that. The portkey in the Nikaidô mansion would be under constant guard. Any unauthorized people would be arrested or maybe even killed, while the portkey in Britain didn’t require such safety measures, since the only people who’d be able to use it would be part of the Nikaidô anyway.
The Nikaidô, what were they now? In the past months and weeks the resistance against Sayoko’s decision to move to Hokkaido had crumbled completely. People had accepted her choice and their fate. It was a feudal system after all. The leaders needed their retainers and the retainers needed their leaders. Neither could exist without the other.
The system was garbage, Sayoko agreed with her cousin on that point. And it had to be changed. But change was impossible overnight and Sayoko wasn’t too fond of the whole hope & change thing anyway. Proper change took some time.
Finally Sayoko stopped and looked around. Then she disappeared behind a bush. Apparating in broad daylight, on a road such as this, wasn’t a smart idea, even when nobody seemed to be around, she knew that much.
A few moments later she was inside the Nikaidô mansion. They had set up a place for save apparation, known only to members of the clan, while everybody else had to use the front door or specially designated areas. The rest of the building and the entire premises were guarded against unwanted apparations and uninvited guests.
“Welcome back!” Minami greeted her cheerfully. Her uncle’s girlfriend, the term was suitable by now, had more or less turned into part of the household already.
“Thank you.”
“How was your journey?” Minami seemed to approve a bit more of Sayoko’s uniform than most others.
“Long. I’m glad it’s over.”
“I’ll make you something to eat.”
“You don’t have to,” Sayoko tried to decline politely. Minami certainly had other things to do.
“It’s alright.”
“I don’t want to bother you.”
“It’s no bother, really! Just relax and let me do the rest.” With that she left and Sayoko was wondering how Minami did it. How could she always be the way she was?
After removing her boots Sayoko made her way through the corridors towards her office. It was still a strange thought to have one of those. Things had turned out quite strange. She opened the door, stepped in and closed it behind herself again. Finally she removed her cap and dumped it in a corner together with her backpack. Her desk was stacked with files, letters and other papers. As expected. Leading a clan meant paperwork. Lots of it.
But there were other reports as well. The quake, just a few months ago, had also dented Japan’s wizard population. Reports were still trickling in. The muggles had sorted out most of their problems, it seemed. But with the wizards and witches it was a bit more complicated. Some may have used the sudden catastrophe to simply take a dive and disappear from public view. Others may have used it to settle some scores.
At that point Sayoko cursed herself. She had been too occupied with the problems surrounding her family. The attack on her friend, the ongoing battles inside the clan and the struggle with the other families had occupied her to a level where she had barely registered the catastrophe. But maybe that had also been because the Nikaidô and Hojo had no relatives or allies in those areas. They hadn’t lost anyone, not even friends. It had taken until her return from Great Britain for this to really sink in. And now she was feeling bad because of it.
Life was life, death was death, wasn’t it? What could she have done? Donate money? The Nikdaiô were still bankrupt. Lend manpower to help? What manpower? The clan had been torn apart back then. The council itself hadn’t done anything. The great clans didn’t care about muggles, muggle borns, half-bloods or poor pure-bloods. They only cared about themselves.
There was a rap on the shoji door.
“Come in.”
The door opened and her uncle entered. “It’s confirmed, finally.”
“What is?” Sayoko plopped on the tatami floor.
“Konishi, they’re gone.”
“Konishi?” Sayoko tried to remember.
“One of the old ones. You met their leader and his wife in Osaka.”
Her mind raced, then her memory sparked. “Oh yes. All of them are gone?”
“The entire clan. They lived on one of the villages on Miyato-jima. That one got hit by the wave. No bodies though.”
“So they were taken by the wave,” Sayoko noted. But then she stopped and looked at her uncle. “All of them?”
“Yeah, I find that hard to believe. They could have apparated. All of them.”
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Somebody took them out. Somebody who was either waiting for such a chance, or...”
“Or someone with the right manpower to mobilize on short notice, perform a hit on such a scale and pull out before the wave hits.”
They looked at each other. Apart from the great clans now being reduced to only 36, it also meant that one of the other families had attacked them in the wake of the earthquake, and had managed to pull out just before the wave it. Or not. That didn’t really matter. Fact was, a wizarding family like the Konishi could have escaped the tsunami with ease. However, apparently they didn’t. Which left only one conclusion.
“Uesugi or Nakamikado,” Sayoko said flatly.
“Uesugi is my bet. Nakamikado is a planner, a schemer, he doesn’t go for a full assault.”
“What was their stance?”
“Neutral, but I think they were somewhat leaning towards you and your cousin.”
“That leaves 36.”
He nodded.
“And there’s no way anyone can prove anything. It’s the perfect crime. A textbook operation.” Sayoko leaned back on the tatami mats and stared at the ceiling for a second or two. “Do you think they have the capability for such an operation? I mean, it was an old clan. They had retainers, they had guards, they could fight. Even with the shock of the quake that’s one hell of a risky thing to pull off. What if the attack fails?”
“What do you think?”
She sat up again. “Maybe there’s more to it.”