"Everyone," Marie announced right after her party teleported in from Tokyo. "Welcome to Hana Castle."
Located twenty kilometres off the west coast of Hokkaido, nearly fifty kilometres west-south-west of Wakkanai, Rishiri-tou was a circular bit of rock twelve kilometres wide, it centered on a 1.7 kilometre-tall extinct volcano, Mount Rishiri (locally known as "Rishiri-Fuji" given its strikingly close resemblance to Japan's highest peak). Several villages were located on the coast, mostly to the north, west and south-east of Rishiri-Fuji. The rest of the island, save for the uppermost slopes of the mountain, were divided into farming lots, where locals took advantage of the good, rich soil to grow hearty crops that more than feed the rest of the population plus that of Rishiri-tou's neighbouring island, Rebun-tou. Administratively, Rishiri-tou was divided into two townships on a roughly north-west to south-east axis.
Hana-jou was located on the southernmost point of the island, due west of the village of Oniwaki. Gazing on it from the main entrance, Ranma had to privately admit that he was quite impressed. Almost all of the castles which served as the primary residences for Japan's highest peers were of the classic Tokugawa-era format: built on a square or rectangular plot on a high point of land; outer walls built of stone up to about three metres; they made to support multi-floor, pagoda-shaped apartment complexes that were often built of materials less sturdy, such as wood. In other words, places like Kunou-jou in Nerima were built to intimidate the commoners with height and lots of gold plating, but they wouldn't be able to withstand a concentrated attack by a well-armed and well-disciplined military force.
Hana-jou was as different from Kunou-jou as day from night. Clearly constructed during the last century, the home of the Hana Clan demonstrated heavy architectural and defensive design influences from Korea and the West, those merged well with the sloping tiled roofs and well-fashioned walls more common to the typical Japanese lord's keep. The main fortress -- for that was what Hana-jou truthfully was when viewed from a Western standpoint -- was in the form of a Swiss cross when viewed from overhead. Tall guard towers were set up at every outer corner of the ramparts. A glance at them told Ranma that the towers were currently occupied and fitted with machine gun emplacements that could sweep the outer grounds with deadly fire long before an attacking force could get close. To add to that were Martello towers set in the open spaces between the arms of the main fortress. No doubt, underground tunnels connected those towers to the fortress. Surrounding the whole works was a deep, grass-lined ditch four metres wide and three deep. On the inside of that ditch, closer to the fortress, was a metre-tall stone wall topped with steel points that would work just as well as concertina wire. A drawbridge connected the road that circled Rishiri-tou with the main gate of Hana-jou. That gate, on the south side, was styled similar to a Korean walled city's main entrance.
"Oh, my! It's so big," Kasumi whispered as everyone moved to cross the bridge.
"It's the largest castle in Hokkaido prefecture," Ami explained. "Since we're so close to the Northern Resource Lands, there's a profound concern of air and sea pirate attacks staged from hidden bases on Karafuto and in the Chishima-rettou."
Hearing that, Ranma nodded as he filed that little factoid away in his mind for future reference. "Any attacks here?"
"Not on the island itself. But we're always prepared, just in case," Marie replied.
He nodded as the group approached the castle's main gate. The large island located directly north of Hokkaido, known to those of the West as "Sakhalin," served as Japan's forward logistics base for the exploitation of the nearly countless mineral deposits and oil reserves located in eastern Siberia (the "Northern Resource Lands"). The Chishima-rettou (known in the West as the "Kuril Islands"), a chain of volcanic rocks spanning from the Home Islands to the Kamchatka Peninsula, were dotted with remote seasonal fishing villages whose population migrated there from the northeast towns and cities on Hokkaido. Due to the sparse settlements on Karafuto and the Chishimas, the small group of air and sea pirates who operated in the Hokkai (the Northern Sea, also known as the "Sea of Okhotsk") region -- these were gangs normally composed of escaped slaves mixed with commoners down on their luck financially -- pretty much were able to act with impunity. Since maintaining a large standing army to secure the area carried all sorts of political ramifications, the best thing His Majesty's subjects in Hokkaido could do was to see to their own defence, using strong fixed fortifications mixed with well-trained mercenaries who'd be called on to lead local militia in times of emergency. Part of Ranma's mamluk training had been to prepare himself to fulfil such a role if called upon by local lords.
One of the three doors of the main gate opened, revealing a woman slightly older than Marie, she dressed in a casual yukata. Her brown hair had a strawberry sheen to it, it styled into two very long ponytails sticking out from behind her ears. Her eyes were a beautiful shade of amethyst, the same shade of eyes the Princess Nagaiwakai was said to have. "Ah, Sakuya-chan!" Marie called out before she turned to gaze on her companions. "Everyone, this is my oldest sister, Hana Sakuya. She's the lady of the mansion."
A mock-hurt look crossed Sakuya's face on her hearing Marie's words. "'Lady of the mausoleum,' she means," the princess and member of the Joint Privy Council then said as the mamluks and servants gave her very deep bows. Her eyes then locked in on Ranma. "Oh, my...!"
Sensing Sakuya's sharp gaze fall on him, Ranma quickly straightened himself, he assuming a parade rest position, his eyes fixed on the open gate door before him. He would not look on Sakuya unless she spoke directly to him. While Marie was his owner for the next five years, the mamluk realized that in certain situations, he would actually fall under Sakuya's command given her high place in the Dual Empires.
Walking around him as she examined his face and body with a practiced eyed -- even if she was a princess, Sakuya was still an eighteen year old teenage woman with all the desires and dreams of one -- the matriarch of the Hana Clan then nodded approvingly. "Very nice," she then declared before turning to gaze on her sister. "Marie-chan, <<he's a hottie!>>" she declared in English.
"I know," the third sister responded in Japanese. "But there's a problem. We need Yotsuba-chan's help to solve it."
Sakuya blinked. "What sort of problem?"
"My contract with Ranma," Marie replied. "It got altered behind our backs by Ranma's father."
The princess took that in, and then she nodded. "I see..."
Viewing Hana-jou from the interior impressed Ranma even more than its many external defences. The castle had been built to provide as much comfort as possible for its residents while, at the same time, both impressing visitors that the people were truly Japanese and ensuring that its many defensive strengths were not, in the least bit, compromised. Standing now on the east upper ramparts of the southern wing of the castle grounds with Yumi and Akane, he was able to gaze on the many small buildings which housed the residences of all who lived here, the larger ones set aside for the twelve Sisters of Hana and their brother, the smaller ones for the staff and servants who were needed to keep Hana-jou running smoothly. All the buildings were connected with raised wooden walkways, most of them fitted with special overhead canopies to keep the rain away, which allowed people to stay off the soil when they had to move from place to place. The exposed soil itself was either green grass or cultivated as either flower gardens or small vegetable gardens.
"It's a nice place," Yumi had concluded as soon as they had taken a detailed look from their perch. "The castle interior is split into five blocks that can be sealed off from each other in case someone gets over the walls. The guns in the defence towers can easily be used to fire into the grounds in case something bad happens. I can guess that this place has quite the underground complex, too."
"But there's only one gate in and out of this place, Sempai," Akane warned.
"There'll be loads of hidden exits, Akane-san," Ranma warned the apprentice mamluk with a shake of his head. "No place is totally impregnable from outside attack. The people who built this place obviously understood that. I'll bet there're loads of tunnels that reach out beyond the ditch, say to that shrine up the hill there." With that, he pointed to a stone Shinto torii located at the northern limit of the cleared grounds surrounding Hana-jou. Just visible through the canopy of trees were several small structures. Glancing to the west and then to the east, Ranma was able to make out several other buildings. "Plus tunnels to those places, too."
Akane looked herself. While she was nowhere nearly trained to the level of her future partner or her "brother," she did understand some things. "Good fields of fire for all the guns," she noted. "I'll even bet there're buried torpedo fields out there in the clear areas. Maybe also in the areas closer to the castle, say in the ditch itself or behind that small wall surrounding the castle."
"That's a good bet," Yumi said, an approving nod tilting her head.
"Excuse me?"
The three turned to see a woman in a black jersey and hakama trousers standing close to a set of stairs leading back to ground level. Like Akane's sisters, she had the neck choker and tattoos marking her as an indentured servant of the Hana Clan. She also possessed a daishou -- the combination of katana and wakizashi once worn by samurai of the Tokugawa era -- strapped to a cloth belt around her waist. Ranma was also quick to notice strategic slits in the sides of the woman's trousers, no doubt put there to allow her to reach for leg-mounted holsters where a pair of handguns would be ready for the direst of emergencies. The woman herself was Ami's age, quite tall for a Japanese girl, with glittering green eyes and long brown hair pulled up into a high ponytail. "Yes?" Ranma asked.
The newcomer gave them a polite bow. "I'm Kino Makoto, Saotome-san." Her eyes flicked to the other mamluks. "Saotome-san, Tendou-san. I'm the personal guardian, assistant and companion to the Lady Osamu Shirayuki, the eighth granddaughter of the Princess Nagaiwakai."
Ranma nodded, his mind calling up what information he had on Makoto. Class B mamluk who specialized in both edged weapons and pistols (Makoto made use of a pair of hand-built .44 Automag pistols ordered directly from California). She had been interviewed a year ago for an article in International Janissary magazine just after she began her indentured service with the Hana Clan. An orphan; Makoto's parents had been killed in a dirigible crash in Osaka when she was ten. She had been sponsored by Princess Nagaiwakai herself when she elected to begin life as a mamluk. Given that, Ranma strongly suspected that when she was allowed to live her own life in four year's time, she would remain with the family who had given her so much. "A pleasure to meet you, Kino-san. What can we do for you?"
"My Mistress has invited all of you to her residence so you can all have something to eat," Makoto then announced, and then a smirk crossed her face as she stared directly at Ranma. "My Mistress has also been told by your Mistress about the problem concerning your contract with her, Saotome-san. She asked me to take you aside and give you some advice about your working relationship with your Mistress before the renegotiation begins under Mistress Yotsuba's supervision. Personally, I won't presume to tell you how you do your job, but..."
Ranma laughed. "You have your orders," he finished before offering his hand. "I'm Ranma."
Makoto blinked, and then she beamed as she took his hand in her own. "My friends call me Mako-chan, Ranma-kun. Welcome to Hana-jou."
She then shook hands with Yumi and Akane before waving them with her to the north side of the castle...
"I have to say this," Akane declared before a burp escaped her after she, Yumi, Ranma and Makoto had enjoyed a wonderful serving of one of Korea's most well-known dishes, pulgogi, complete with the dozens of side dishes -- yes, including kimch'i! -- that one would expect if they visited a five-star restaurant in Seoul. "That was a better-cooked meal than anything Kasumi-oneechan ever made!"
As she and Makoto moved to start cleaning up, Shirayuki, a fifteen year old girl with coppery eyes and mauve-brown hair curled in on her shoulders, began to blush. "Akane-chan is too kind to Hime!" she declared in a very sweet lilt.
"No, she's saying it exactly dead on, Mistress," Yumi declared, she patting her full stomach. "That was better than anything Kasumi-chan could make. Would you be willing to give Kasumi-chan lessons so she could cook just as well for Mistress Marie?"
Shirayuki's nose crinkled a bit. "Yumi-chan, if Hime had her way, Hime would cook for everyone in the castle. Hime hates the fact that there're slaves here who're made to cook. Can we let them go? Oh, no! We can't because they're lifetime servants to the castle and they're so scared of what might happen if we emancipate them that they refuse to learn what being a freed person is like!!" She stopped as tears appeared in her eyes. "Hime never asked for this!" She then sniffed. "Hime never asked for any of this...!"
Hands wrapped around her from behind. "It's alright, Shirayuki," Makoto whispered into her mistress' ear as she gently rocked her body to prevent Shirayuki from bawling her heart out. "We're all in this together. We'll make it better for everyone. You'll see, Hime-chan..."
Shirayuki sniffed a few more times, and then she smiled. "Mako-chan's so nice to Hime." She then reached up to wipe her eyes before she shifted Makoto's arms away from her. "Here, Mako-chan, you talk to Ranma-kun, okay? Hime'll finish cleaning up."
"Here, we'll help," Yumi vowed as she and Akane stood up...
"So they were all common-born and raised, right?"
Ranma and Makoto relax in the latter's private quarters, which -- as Kino Makoto was the personal assistant to Shirayuki -- was located in one of the two large residences located in the north wing of Hana-jou. The other one was used by the fifth of Hana Nagaiwakai's grandchildren, Tanenobu Karen. "For the most part," the latter replied after taking a sip of her tea. "They never asked to have their lives turned inside-out like they were when Nagaiwakai-sama died, Ranma-kun. Two years ago, Shirayuki was your normal girl living in Nagoya with her parents. She had never been told that the man she viewed as her 'father' was, in fact, her step-father. Then Nagaiwakai-sama died and..." She make an exploding motion with her free hand. "Boom! They all found themselves moved up here to the castle..."
"And they're still recovering from that," Ranma mused before he sipped his tea.
"Yeah," Makoto answered. "Ranma-kun, you and I pretty much knew how our lives were going to work out when we elected to become mamluks. You've trained for ten years, getting yourself rated as an A Class because you've been so willing to drive yourself to become the best mamluk in the Dual Empires, maybe even beyond. I trained for six years and got myself rated a B Class before I took on my duties here. We know what'll happen to us, Ranma-kun." A pause, and then she breathed out, "For Shirayuki and her sisters, they don't know what'll happen to them. They never were prepared for this, not like the normal sons and daughters of the nobility are prepared while they're growing up. Just because she finds herself part of one of the richest families in the Dual Empires doesn't mean that Shirayuki's going to act like one of those people, Ranma-kun. She still dreams, even now, of being what she's wanted to be since she was a child: a chef, owner of her own restaurant, making her own way in this world. But with what being one of the 'Sisters of Hana' demands of her..."
"It's worse for Marie-chan, you mean," Ranma politely cut in.
Makoto nodded. "Thank the gods that Shirayuki doesn't have any public duties to worry about. I couldn't even begin to guess what might have happened to her if she was the one who was forced to become part of the House of Peers. Sakuya's lucky; the Joint Privy Council doesn't meet as often as the Peers or the Worthies, so she can stay up here. But, believe it or not, for a girl like Sakuya, staying on this damn rock in the middle of nowhere when she'd prefer to be in Kyoto where she grew up hurts her, Ranma-kun! It hurts them all!" She then paused to take another sip of her tea before she gazed on her brother mamluk. "At least they have their brother here, too..."
"What's he like?" he wondered. "I don't even know his name."
She laughed. "You know, I always forget his name, too!" They both snickered, and then Makoto carried on, "You probably know that the Hana Clan is matriarchal in its leadership, right?" Ranma nodded. "Well, when it came to bringing the sisters up here to Hana-jou, Nii-sama..." She then blushed. "Sorry! That's Shirayuki's way of calling him." More laughter, and then, "Well, the brother was allowed to live with his father and mother. His father was the sisters' father, too. But he never really wanted to be part of Nagaiwakai-sama's world. I don't know the full story behind that, but I do know that after the girls were born, Nagaiwakai-sama let her son go off and live his life."
"What happened?" Ranma asked.
"Well, just under a year ago -- this was just after I came here -- Sakuya went down to a special slave mart in Osaka to put in a bid for Mai's service." She frowned. "This was just after the HiME Festival. Anyhow, she gets there and gets Mai out of that place. And then, as luck would have it, Mai points out this male slave the dealer had. Sakuya looks...!" Makoto shrugged. "And there was Nii-sama!"
Ranma gaped. "How'd he get there?!"
"That's the mystery," Makoto replied. "Near as anyone can figure out, he was kidnapped from his hometown about three months beforehand, and then he was brainwashed using all sorts of illegal hypnotic procedures to transform him into the perfect male courtesan." A deep sigh. "Chikage, the second sister -- she's a witch and a student at the Hogwarts Academy in Scotland; she'll be back here for vacation sometime this week -- was able to undo most of the brainwashing after Nii-sama was brought up here. But every once in a while, Nii-sama's brain just blanks out and, if you approach him right, you'll find yourself having the most erotic sex you can imagine." She then lowered her eyes. "There was even one time that Shirayuki herself was caught by it. Nii-sama's that good when he loses control over himself."
Ranma blanched. "You mean he...?!"
Makoto empathically shook her head. "No, not all the way, thank the gods!" She then sipped her tea. "Shirayuki was able to stop it just in time. That's why all the girls are going out of their way to find household companions for Nii-sama. Kasumi and Nabiki will fill that role, as does Mai; after all, it was when Sakuya got Mai that everyone found out about what happened to Nii-sama."
Silence fell over the scene as Ranma took that in, and then he asked, "Have you offered to...?"
"Yes. But Shirayuki respects me enough to not force me to do that. Hey!" Here, Makoto shrugged. "I know the problem as much as you, Ranma-kun. Becoming emotionally close to your master gets in the way of the job. But my mistress is a person who's been ripped away from everything that she understood was right and proper, to be dumped into this mausoleum! All because of an accident in birth! An accident in birth, by the gods! And..." She stopped as she considered how to describe what happened as things solidified between Osamu Shirayuki and Kino Makoto, and then she sighed. "At first, Ranma-kun, it was simple. I would hear her crying at night and I'd go over to comfort her. Then we started sleeping together full-time. And then, starting from right after her encounter with Nii-sama, it got more intense. Petting. Feeling. Finally, we took each other's maidenheads and it went to full-blown lovemaking." Another shrug. "What was I to do?"
"Mako-chan, if they wanted sex, why didn't they get normal courtesans?" Ranma asked.
"Because they want more than sex, Ranma-kun. They want to be with people who can understand the position they're in right now. And as mamluks, we can -- no, we have to! -- understand what their lives are about." A pause. "Because that's part of our job."
Silence fell as Ranma took the chance to absorb what his sister mamluk had just told him. Closing his eyes, he relaxed as he recalled when, earlier in the day at the Tendou dojo, Marie had flipped out over the "extra" clauses Tendou Souun and Saotome Genma had thrown into his contract with the marchioness. Yes, it was clearly obvious that Marie had wanted a bodyguard -- and a friend, too -- to serve her and be there for her as Kino Makoto here willingly served Marie's younger sister. And, now that he thought about it, it was no wonder that Marie had so willingly jumped at the chance when she heard from Souun (no doubt prompted by Genma) that Ranma was "full-use." It was an understandable mistake the marchioness had made. Hell, it was a mistake many people could've made under the circumstances!
And the circumstances couldn't possibly get more unique than what now involved the people residing within Hana-jou.
"Normally, I'd try to figure this out on my own," he then said. "After all, that's what I was taught. 'Trust your own instincts above everything else.' But in this case, Mako-chan..." He paused before he gave his host a smile. "I can use a little advice."
"Thank you," Makoto replied. "Now, here's what I recommend you do..."
Now...
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(Posted Mon, 28 Mar 2005 10:38)
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