Utaka was gone by the end of the week after a Hiroki messenger came to give roughly the same report as Takeo. Deciding he shouldn’t linger much longer, he left—and he tried his best to make it better than the last time. He knew he had lied to Kyoumi the moment he said the words—Kuro would probably fight harder once they saw him—but at least she looked reassured. She was at a weird point where she couldn’t quite handle the truth, but she was smart enough to know when he was lying.

It felt bad to just…leave them there with that, but Utaka also wasn’t keen on getting scolded by Izo for waiting too long. He sent a messenger ahead of him to confirm Kuro’s intentions, completely expecting that there wouldn’t be a reply.

After he got there, it was just a matter of waiting. Kuro’s next attack came before the reply to the letter did, although they still waited a little while before they decided Kuro truly was choosing to fight again. It was an expected conclusion, but that didn’t make it any less annoying.

Although he drank more there than at the palace, he actually made sure someone was with him this time to stop him after a bottle or two—some of them let him keep drinking, but seemed to replace the alcohol with water or juice. It was still enough to keep his mind off of things, however.

Utaka participated in forcing back Kuro’s little armies. It was frustrating that all they could do was repel the attacks and prepare for the next one; Gin didn’t exactly have a good enough army to invade someone else at this point, so they could only defend. Creating a large-scale offensive against anyone was unreasonable, hence why they relied on a small group last time.

The older he was, the more pointless the skirmishes seemed. Kuro came, both sides lost about one hundred soldiers, Kuro retreated, they sent a miko out to pray for the dead before burying them—or, in the case of Kuro bodies, tossing them to Kuro’s side of the bridge connecting them for their own people to deal with. Utaka was still considered young, but that didn’t stop it from being draining.

Helping the thought process, of course, was a part of him worrying that Kyoumi would have the same problem. Who knew how long Kuro would try to be persistent? Even with a little occupied country and fancying themselves as something close to an empire, they still wanted the land ‘taken’ from their god. Never mind the fact that it was Emaya and Bekin who told Kurokami and Ginshin which side of the island would be theirs; it was never really Kurokami’s land to begin with, nor was Kurokami’s kingdom Ginshin’s right.

Stolen novel; please report.

Three months passed by without Utaka quite noticing it—and he only realized because Izo told him that he could try to head back to the palace. Utaka was glad to take the chance, vaguely aware that his drinking was probably half of the reason why his sense of time seemed off, but of course he wasn’t able to even try to let Erize know.

One of the older Hiroki boys came to Utaka’s room one morning.

“Are you still in there, Gin?”

Utaka tried not to groan. How early was it? He couldn’t tell, and he had the feeling he had nightmares and odd dreams that he didn’t remember now that his eyes were open.

“Mentally or physically?”

“Preferably both. Kuro’s crossing the border bridge again.”

Utaka cursed. “A few hours out, I hope?”

“We just got word of it, so I’d assume yes. Father thinks there should be enough time to properly prepare, anyway.”

“All right. Go tell Izo that I’m coming—slowly, maybe, but I’m coming.”

“Yes, sir.”

Utaka heard the boy leaving, so he urged himself up and to change into something decent. He put in some dyes and headed out once it seemed to be sufficient to cover up most of his hair. From a distance, no one should be able to see the remaining strains of silver.

He met with Izo and most of the rest of the family—his three sons, the oldest two’s wives and children, as well as Izo’s wife—in the dining hall for breakfast. Izo offered some kind of explanation, and the battle-oriented ones—the older two sons and Izo—joined Utaka to keep watch after everyone ate.

The next few hours passed like that; with the older two being about Utaka’s age, Izo tried to get them all to talk so Utaka could think on something other than worries. A wise decision, honestly—several times, he almost walked right back inside just to get a drink or a whole bottle, so keeping his mind occupied was a good choice.

When the Kuro army could be seen, Utaka was the one that gave the order to head out. The Hiroki trio moved further towards the front lines; Utaka stayed somewhere in the middle for safety’s sake.

The fight lasted for a few hours, and Kuro almost got past them. When the battle ended, Izo sent a few men back to make sure there weren’t stragglers that were wandering around the surrounding area—when they knew no one made it far into Gin, Izo put a few more people to make sure future raids wouldn’t be quite so lucky.

There went Utaka’s chance on going home.