Hayakawa Kaede fussed over her appearance as she prepared for her audience with Lord Ienaga. Yoshika had decided that she would be the best aspect to represent them, only narrowly edging out their usual ‘High Arbiter’ spirit form. It sent a crucial message.

First—it was nearly unequivocal proof that she was both alive, and who she claimed to be. While it would be theoretically possible to use illusions to fake Kaede’s appearance, Lord Ienaga had met her before, and wouldn’t be so easily fooled.

Kaede had gone with one of the dresses she had commissioned from An Chunhei. It had a strongly traditional Yamato style, with just a small flair for what ended up becoming part of Jiaguo’s signature style years after the dress was designed. Her hair was also done up to emphasize her feminine features, and thus her status as a Lady.

While Yamato wasn’t as strongly steeped in ceremony and subtext as the highly political sects of Qin, there was still quite a lot that could be said before the first introductions had even been exchanged.

Kaede’s usual fare was a carefully curated combination of combat-practical uniform, with just enough embellishment to make a statement about both her status and her skill. She could afford those embellishments both because she was a Lady of Hayakawa, and because she had the skill to fight even with her clothing holding her back.

For her audience, she’d done away with the weapons and functionality to present herself solely as a Lady. It was technically a display of submission—especially since she fully expected Lord Ienaga to be in full battle regalia. That was fine. Submission to her father’s main rival sent precisely the message she wanted to convey—that she was no longer fighting for her clan.

There was no way around that. Just the fact that she was having the meeting meant that it would no longer matter whether she was alive. One way or another, Hayakawa Takeo was finished with Kaede. Whether she was dead or a traitor, she was not his daughter or his heir in any way that mattered.

She felt a little bitter about that. Certainly, she’d plotted against her father, but only in the interests of her people. All her life, she’d done her best to abide by his teachings, only to be increasingly disillusioned by his failure to adhere to his own code.

The discovery that he’d already been arranging for her disposal so long before she’d even begun making plans against him stung.

Kaede’s father had been her only real family for most of her life. Her birth mother had died while Kaede was still too young to remember her, and her step-mother was...unremarkable. A trophy at best, and a placeholder at worst. She had not been a mother to Kaede and had barely been a wife to Takeo. She was just...there.

She’d made her peace with that, but becoming part of Yoshika forced her to confront it all over again. Kaede knew what it was like to love her mother and father, to love someone unrelated so dearly that they became family regardless of blood, and she knew what it was like to be loved in turn.

But none of those were Kaede’s experiences. They were Yoshika’s. For Kaede, it only served to highlight how cold and distant her family life had been. Her father had never loved her, and she’d never loved him either.

But...she’d wanted to. And on some level, she’d hoped that her father felt the same. It was painful, to have that hope crushed.

Right on time, the reflecting pool began to shimmer and ripple before going still and reflecting an image on the opposite side.

Lord Ienaga Tsuyoshi was not quite as Kaede remembered him. He was a tall and imposing man, with short-cropped gray hair and a closely trimmed beard. But while his eyes shone with vitality and his armor did much to hide the signs of his age, it was impossible to miss the way his skin stretched tightly against his skull, or the slightly sunken quality to his cheeks.

Ienaga Tsuyoshi was well over a century old, and unlike his daughter, he looked it. When Kaede had first met him, he’d looked like an exceptionally fit man in his seventies. In less than a decade since, his age had completely caught up with him.

Nevertheless, he stood strong. He was a powerful martial artist in his own right, and while Kaede couldn’t sense his ki, she knew that his aura would be just as strong until the day his body finally gave out.

“Lady Hayakawa Kaede. I almost didn’t believe it when General Takeda told me it would be you.”

Kaede bowed politely.

“A reasonable doubt. That you believed it nonetheless is a credit to the level of trust you have in your advisors.”

“Spare me the flattery, ‘High Arbiter.’ Shogun Hayakawa disowning you does not make you my ally. Only the enemy of my enemy.”

“I hope that we can rectify that. Master Ienaga Yumi is very dear to me, and I was distressed to hear of her capture.”

Lord Ienaga narrowed his eyes, frowning.

“You speak as though you had no part in it, yet it was on your orders that Yumi abandoned her post at Okou, giving your father’s agents full control of the border. Later, she was seen collaborating with Qin invaders on the southern coast, hundreds of miles from the so-called coalition army.”

“That was part of the coalition action. We were chasing the demonic sovereign. Reclaiming Jiaguo would have been for nothing if Longyan had been able to acquire the artifact he was seeking.”

“I’ve heard about this artifact. The Sovereign’s Tear—an item of such power that the gods themselves descended on our world to claim it. And now it belongs to you.”

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Kaede pursed her lips. Lord Ienaga had never struck her as a paranoid man, but he was under a lot of stress, and she could see why he might be concerned.

“I know what it must look like, Lord Ienaga—”

“Do you? Let me make it explicit, young woman—it seems to me that my clan has been caught in the middle of a power struggle between Hayakawa Takeo and his heir. I believe you when you say that you oppose your father, but from where I’m sitting you seem quite eager to seize power yourself.”

She took a deep breath before letting it out in a sigh. Kaede had been approaching it from the wrong angle. Ienaga was from a much older generation, like her father. Yoshika sought a relationship of mutual trust and cooperation, but that wasn’t in the vocabulary of warlords like them.

Kaede sharpened her expression and adjusted her stance. It had been a mistake to offer a show of vulnerability, all that had done was give Lord Ienaga the impression that he was in charge of the conversation.

“I do not need to seize power, Ienaga. Jiaguo doesn’t stand because the other nations allow it—we stand because they have no choice but to accept us. You have no choice. I already have power, whether I want it or not. My father, like the relic he is, fears that. Because he knows what he would do with such power, and he can’t fathom the idea that anyone else would be different.

“That’s why he hasn’t attacked yet. That’s why I know he hasn’t harmed Master Yumi. Because he is a coward. He knows he can’t fight me, so he hides and takes hostages. He clings to power at any cost, like a parasite. Will you join him as a relic of the past, or join us in shaping a better future?”

Lord Ienaga scoffed.

“I’m already a relic. There’s no future for these old bones one way or another.”

He grinned.

“But, I may just be starting to see why Yumi threw her lot in with you. I was starting to worry that you were a paper tiger.”

Kaede grimaced.

“That was a test?”

“In part. I still have my doubts. You may be presenting yourself as a Lady of Yamato, but I know how your joint cultivation works, Lady High Arbiter Yoshika. Lee Jia and An Eui are Goryeon, and they are as much the rulers of Jiaguo as you are. I do not know this ‘Li Meili’ but I’m wary of anyone from Qin—especially if I don’t know them.”

“That’s a misunderstanding. While Li Meili was technically born in Qin, as her name suggests, the majority of her life experience was spent growing up in Goryeo, and she considers herself Goryeon.”

It was frustrating trying to work around Meili’s unusual origin while still maintaining some semblance of anonymity. It wasn’t the end of the world if other leaders knew about her, but she’d rather not have her role as Yoshika’s private identity erode any more than was absolutely necessary.

“I see. Regardless, you still have close advisors from Qin, do you not?”

“I do. Yan Yue, formerly of the Awakening Dragon Sect, is a close personal friend, and the Prime Minister of Jiaguo’s high court. Lin Xiulan, of the Cult of Harmonious Stars is an advisor and a councilor of the lower court. There’s also Yang Qiu, but her relationships to both Qin and myself are rather complicated to describe.”

“That’s concerning. Qin are all snakes but you’ve shown me your fangs. I’ll just have to trust that you can handle theirs. Alright, then—let’s talk properly.”

Lord Ienaga removed his ornate helmet and tossed it unceremoniously to the side, where Yoshika heard it clatter loudly on the floor.

“Damn thing weighs a ton, and I’m not as fit as I used to be.”

Yoshika recognized the display of vulnerability as a reciprocation of her own. It was an invitation to finally speak as equals. She bowed respectfully.

“I appreciate your candor.”

“Stuff your candor. I want my damn daughter back. How are we going to prise her out of that old fossil’s grimy talons?”

That was much more like the Ienaga Tsuyoshi that Kaede remembered.

“First, did General Takeda pass on my request?”

“Hattori Koji, right? The Hattori clan records don’t mention any priests by that name. You were duped. He was probably working for your father.”

Yoshika bit her lip. That was frustrating. He’d been such a kind and trustworthy man, and even with her empathy she’d never caught so much as a hint of ill will from him. Had he really been working against her that entire time?

It would explain how Shogun Hayakawa had been able to prepare for Kaede’s actions so far in advance. Hattori hadn’t been privy to her plans, but if he was a spy, then it was possible that he’d sussed them out behind her back.

“That’s unfortunate. In that case, I believe that Master Yumi is being held as a hostage to prevent me from acting. Shogun Hayakawa wants to use my supposed death as an impetus to eliminate you and unify the country against Jiaguo.”

Ienaga grunted.

“Knew most of that already. I’d been wondering why he hasn’t made a move yet, but if Yumi’s a hostage against you then that might just explain what he’s been waiting for.”

“I’m not sure I follow. If I were him, I’d want to eliminate you as soon as possible, to prevent any chance of us joining forces.”

“That’s too short term. Like you said, he’s afraid of you—wants you gone so you can’t threaten his position. It’s not enough to have a hostage, he wants a way to beat you.”

Kaede frowned.

“The unified cultivation corps? That’s a bit of a longshot—and even if it weren’t, I taught Minami and the others myself. They’re friends. If they knew the truth, I don’t think they’d be fighting on Hayakawa’s side.”

He shook his head.

“No, those are just a pet project. It’ll be decades before unified cultivation becomes more than a fringe technique in Yamato. Hayakawa isn’t going to wait that long. He needs a weapon against you now. One powerful enough that he doesn’t need to hide behind Yumi. Powerful enough that he can face her himself—or you, for that matter.”

“Why do I get the feeling you know exactly what that weapon is?”

“Because I do. I’m the one who had it created in the first place, after all. And the only one capable of creating it has also gone missing—probably captured.”

Yoshika had a sinking feeling. There was only one thing that came to mind when she thought of weapons capable of defeating xiantian cultivators and the person capable of creating them.

“He has Murayoshi?”

Murayoshi, the master blacksmith, was once Ienaga Murayoshi—Lord Ienaga’s brother. He renounced his name after crafting a homunculus body for Ienaga Yumi and transferring her soul into it via a grisly ritual that resulted in the death of the spirit that aided them and the destruction of her original body.

It had allowed Master Yumi to break through to xiantian as a martial artist, but the cost had been too high and Murayoshi refused to ever repeat the ritual or allow anyone else to learn it—deeming it inhumane.

Ienaga chuckled mirthlessly.

“Hayakawa always envied Yumi. But he was content to let her be Yamato’s greatest weapon as long as he could be the one wielding it. Now, I suppose he feels threatened enough to have his own weapon made—one that he has absolute control over.”