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Samojirou said nothing, but the look in his eyes was enough for me. He preferred to see me dressed like this, so I wouldn't be in danger. That was something I was going to have to talk to him about.

"There is another reason I want to send you to Edo,” she shared quietly. “While I may not have control of my
kuni
, there are a number of places that I have gold and other resources stored. I want you to access them. When I am in control again, I'm going to need that money to pay for the cost of the war that we are now in."

"Will they release it to me? How am I going to get it to you?” I asked her.

"There are a number of scrolls hidden in your baggage that can be used to access the funds. They are letters of introduction to those who you need to contact,” she said briskly. “And you can make arrangements when Aboshi contacts you."

"As my lord wishes,” I told her formally. I hesitated for a second, “I'm not angry, honestly. Samojirou-sama and I discussed the matter last night."

"I saw that,” she said dryly. “In fact, your discussion seems to have been very intense."

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to hide my blush. Samojirou looked slightly abashed by her comment, but smug also. I tried not to roll my eyes. I was proud that she trusted me to do this for her. It made me feel like I was contributing something to her cause.

"I will take my leave of the two of you right now,” Tamazusa said. She smiled slightly. “I do fear that all the maids’ work will be wasted as soon as I go."

She was right.

I wasn't surprised when Mason showed up at the room Samojirou and I were staying in. I thought he was bored and at loose ends. I didn't mind the company, though. There was no way I was going to be part of planning the war we seemed to be in the middle of. For one thing, everyone else had centuries of experience with this stuff. And I didn't think I could do something like that. It wasn't that I thought I was stupid or anything like that. I just knew it wasn't something I could do or that Samojirou or Tamazusa wanted me to do.

"You not planning the war?” he asked.

"No,” I told him shortly.

"I think that the two of them are tickled fucking pink if you stayed out of this mess,” Mason said. “Hell, I bet that Samojirou slapped that white face on you so fast your head spun."

"That isn't funny, Mason,” I said sharply.

"It wasn't supposed to be,” he growled at me. “But fuck, Tamazusa's been talking to me about shit, mainly so that I won't stick my foot in it any more than I usually do."

"And?"

"She explained to me why your boyfriend has the tranny kink with you,” Mason said. “And shit, don't tell him that I said this, but I think that it's a good idea."

"I'm so glad that you approve of it,” I said sarcastically, “Did you ever think that I just might like dressing up like that?"

"You like it?” Mason asked me, looking very surprised. “Even the pimp shoes?"

I frowned at him, trying to figure out what he was talking about. “You mean the formal
geta
that I sometimes wear?"

"Them tall sandals that I don't know how you don't break your neck walking in things, yeah,” Mason said.

"Real
tayuu
wear taller sandals when they make their procession in the pleasure quarters,” I explained. “I saw it once. It was impressive."

"What the fuck were you doing there?” Mason demanded, acting like I was a child or something. “Shit. I don't want to know. And I ain't ratting you out to Fuse-hime about it."

"Mother has seven other sons. I think that she's figured out that we've all visited the pleasure quarters at least once. I think that Genpachi lives in them, practically, even the one in Nara."

"Which one is he?” Mason asked.

"The one who reminds me of you a lot,” I told him with a grin. “We all laugh about the fact that you aren't
his
avatar."

"Wolf's got one that has no sense of humor,” Mason grumbled. “They're kinda alike."

"Dousetsu's just shy,” I said, feeling that I needed to defend the man. “He's been very nice to me."

"Mother?” Mason asked me, getting back to something that I had said earlier.

"Fuse-hime asked me to call her Mother,” I shared. “I know that it sounds and looks odd, but she feels like my mother. Not that I'm forgetting about my biological family, it's just that I've been cut off from them for so long that it feels good to have one again."

"I still can't see Samojirou taking you to a whorehouse,” Mason said skeptically, getting back to the start of our conversation, even if he did look really guilty. When the Trust originally captured me, Wolf hadn't been on that assignment alone, trying to find out who had broken into the company's servers. Mason had been driving the car.

"Samojirou-sama took me there to see her,” I said.

"To...” Mason started.

"Not for that,” I said, trying not to sound angry at him. I wasn't really. He was at least trying to understand. I didn't think that Wolf ever would. “But to see her procession. Tomiko is one of the highest ranking
tayuu
in Yoshiwara, the pleasure quarters for Edo. She's someone who is just amazing to watch. I learned a lot about being a
tayuu
from just watching her. I think that if she could have, Yoshinoko would have taken me there when she was training me."

"Who?” Mason asked.

"Yoshinoko was my teacher for being a
tayuu
, a girl, really, for Samojirou-sama,” I said. “I liked it. I actually think that I like being Sakura more than I like being me."

Mason looked a little disturbed, but there was something in his eyes that told me that he understood. I had been the Trust's prisoner for four years, most of that time frightened and abused. Not always physically. Most of the time I had been everyone's favorite target to yell at because something had gone wrong. Who wouldn't want to be someone else after that?

"What's a ‘tayoo'?” Mason asked, mispronouncing the word badly.

"A
tayuu
is a woman who is a courtesan,” I explained. “There are several ranks of them in the pleasure quarters.
Tayuu
is the highest rank. A house can only have one of them. The next lowest rank is
oiran
. Below that are the women who are just prostitutes. All of these women belong only in the pleasure quarters. They only get to leave there if a lord or a rich merchant buys out their contract to live with them. Or if they get too old for the customers. Then they either run their own house or become a procurer in the countryside.
Tayuu
and even some
oiran
are able to retire without having to do that if they are lucky and very careful with their money."

"He's dressing you up as a
hooker
?” Mason blurted out in horror. “The ice bitch wasn't pulling our leg with that one? I thought that she was full of shit on that one."

"You sound like Shinbee or Sousuke,” I snapped. “Samojirou-sama respects me. This is something that amuses both of us. And it does keep me safe. Though after this, I think that Mother is going to have to spread the rumor that Inuzaka Keno has retired from the world, just so that I won't be constantly challenged. Even if they don't know where I am, there will always be the fools who would spread lies and force me to challenge them."

"So you figured it out,” Mason said. “And I don't think that the other two think that you have."

I shrugged. “I know that both Tamazusa-sama and Samojirou-sama don't want to worry me. I don't know everything about who I was, but they'll tell me eventually."

Mason nodded, and I knew Tamazusa had told him. I opened my mouth to ask him what my ancestor—what I had been like, actually—and then shut it again. I didn't want to know yet. And I saw the relief in Mason's eyes that I wasn't asking. “I don't think that you should tell Wolf, either,” I said carefully. “Because I don't think that he'd understand. I don't understand a lot of what happened, and I grew up with legends like this, such as the
Tales of the Heike
and the
Forty Seven Ronin
."

Mason shifted and looked uncomfortable for a second. “Fuck, I know that we hadn't really had time to talk about shit. And I know that the other two are busy too. But I want to be the one that tells you this. We're moving in with Tamazusa when this is all over."

"What about you going back to the real world?” I blurted out.

"Trust fucked us over like they did you, kid,” Mason said tiredly. “Right now, I don't know if there
is
a way back for us. We've been here a long time."

"You have,” I said, now that I thought about it. Before I had been worried about getting Tamazusa back to Nippon. Not to mention I had been exhausted for most of the time Mason, Wolf, and McGann had been here. Then I had been glad to see them and just didn't want them to go back.

"We were screwed from the start,” Mason told me. “Hell, Wolf's worried about his grandfather, which might be the only reason he would be goin’ back. Stayin’ here ain't bad."

"There's a war going on,” I warned.

"But we know who our enemies are, here,” Mason said. “And shit, would you believe that the fuckers from the Trust are among them? So it's like they brought the war to us."

Only Mason would sound happy about something like that.

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Mason

Faster than I thought it could happen, the bunch of them had a plan, got organized, and then were off to war. And shit, that was a scary thing. I thought what probably helped was that there was nothing like a standing army here. Everything was organized around the lord who was your boss. Keno's family had samurai and other people who owed them soldiers and supplies, stuff like that, but nothing like having a platoon or two of guys sitting around, waiting to jump into the next shitstorm because they were told to since you pay them a ton of money to do so. There was some sort of organization they tried to explain to me, and all I did was nod my head a lot and try not to look too confused. It didn't fool them. But they also seemed to have a hard time understanding that the Trust had a ton of mean fuckers whose only job was to go out and kill things.

Because of whatever shit they had going and a few other things, it was decided that me, Wolf, McGann, Tholf, and Helga were going to go to Edo with Hamaji, Fuse, and Keno. It was sort of like packing off the noncombatants to someplace really safe. Well, Wolf and Tholf could fight, as well as Keno, but I was useless here. It was a good fucking thing that a couple squads of samurai were going with us, because if we ran into anything really tough, our asses were toast. I would be the first to admit that. I figured that if I kept saying that, none of these people would think that challenging me to single combat was a good idea. I just had to get the “don't piss off the guys with swords” manners down, and I'd be all set.

Genpachi was the guy in charge of our group, mainly because he didn't have any place that he could raise an army from, because he didn't have a
kuni
like everyone else around here. They wanted someone from the family in charge of our group, because most of us weren't people the authorities or the other lords were going to listen to. I'd thought that Keno would be pissed that he couldn't go with the others, but he wasn't. Smart kid really, because a battlefield was no place for him. Our group was going to take the main road to Edo while Tamazusa and the others were going to quietly march into her
kuni
, claim it, and then start kicking ass. Okay, the plan was a little more complicated than that, but as I said, I didn't understand it. Something about she had to join with the
kuni
again and take control of it. Once that happened, the monsters would calm down and she'd push that asshole Iida's army off her land. Then all we had to worry about was those fucking Trust guys and the Egyptians. I still had to make up my mind on which were the bigger assholes. It was a tough choice, considering what was going on.

Keno and Samojirou were off saying their goodbyes, which in my mind meant the kid was getting nailed to the floor again, but then, I had a dirty mind. Hamaji and Shino were off someplace, too, along with everyone else, so it was just Tamazusa, half a dozen samurai, and me in one of courtyards in this place.

I was glad to see that Seki was one of the samurai who would be with her. What was weird was that she was in some kind of armor, and that drove it home to me that she was going to war. She may not fight, but she was going to be on the battlefield, in the thick of the fighting, and she needed the protection that armor was going to give her. It was heavy-looking, made of some sort of metal and fancy work, and I hated seeing her in it.

"You take care of yourself,” I said. “Shit, I wish that...."

"I need to take back my land,” she reminded me.

"I know that, but... well, thanks for sending the kid with me to watch my ass,” I said. I wasn't sure that I was supposed to call Keno by his real name or by Sakura in front of these people. “You just watch yours."

I figured Seki had a small fit listening to me say that. Tamazusa just shook her head, knowing I wasn't going to act any better. If I had, that would have scared the shit out of her. “I will hold you to the promise that you made me,” she said.

"Salsa dancing and mojitos when you get done,” I promised.

I was glad I didn't say something stupid, like “Do you really need to do this?", because I knew she needed to. It wasn't an ego thing for her; she really needed to care for her land. She liked the power, I knew that, but she also liked the responsibility. Hell, for all I knew, she actually liked those damned Reavers.

"You need any of us, you know that we'll come running,” I said.

"Even Wolf?” she asked with a wry smile.

"He's a damn Boy Scout,” I said. “He thinks that he owes you big now because you're trusting him, so he'll show up, even if you ain't his favorite person."

I stepped over to her and gave her a hug, ignoring the horror of all her samurai. Hugging wasn't something that happened to cast-iron bitches here. Or people wearing armor, because it was damn uncomfortable to hug her since the fucking stuff was made out of metal and ornate as all hell. Seki had his sword half drawn before he realized I wasn't attacking her. He was confused about what was going on, but I wasn't hurting her.