~~~

The pebble spun awkwardly through the air and landed with crack on a large rock sticking out of the river.

‘Kuso…’ said Kanae, quickly putting a finger to her own lips as two elderly locals glanced over from their game of slap on the bridge railings.

‘Excellent aim…’ replied Misora, attempting to clap her hands and missing the first strike, then staring at the palms of her hands accusingly.

‘Missed the water completely…’

‘Huh? You mean you weren’t going for the rock?’

Kanae looked down at the river below, and the large rock that was at least twenty metres away. Then turned back to Misora and said, ‘little bit.’

‘Okay, step back, it’s meijin’s turn.’

‘Isn’t that pebble very, very big?’

‘Water by that couple groping each other on the riverbank. See it? Ones with the ashigaru nearby, purple yukata, pretending to read that book…’

Kanae squinted down and to the left, vaguely nodding. ‘It’d be nice if they put more lanterns up down there. Too dark now…’

‘Keep eyes on them. Ready…’

Misora performed a couple of rehearsal throws then pulled her rock hand back for real and…collided with the waist of someone behind her. Spinning round the wrong way, she blurted out ‘sorry’ then edited it to ‘walk over that side’ when she saw how close he was to the railings.

The young man was neither an ashigaru nor a socialite, so he bowed slightly and then bent down to pick up her rock.

‘Don’t need any help,’ Misora slurred, taking it from him with a glare then shifting immediately to a smile when she saw how subservient he was and ordering him to watch her throw.

‘Sorry, I have to get home.’

‘Gonna splash that couple down there, maybe the ashigaru too. Five seconds…’

The young man bowed and scuttered off, adjusting his path to the middle of the bridge. Misora watched him go, shaking her head and mumbling kuso when she saw Ichiko walking over to replace him.

‘Still laying low I see,’ the sober ninja said, moving to the wooden railings and folding her arms.

‘Nothing more covert than standing out,’ replied Misora, turning back to her river target.

‘That makes no sense whatsoever.’

‘It is quite strange…’ added Kanae, tagging her own fingers one by one.

‘Quiet, I need to concentrate.’ Misora closed her eyes, sucked in the cool night breeze running through Uehara, then opened them again and launched the projectile.

She let out a whistle as it sailed towards the water, then a wicked laugh as reality hit and the rock struck the bottle of dark purple liquid propped up next to the couple’s feet.

The resulting shattering noise made the lovers jump – the book-reading ashigaru too – and when they looked around to find the culprit, all they could see was Misora pointing a finger at Ichiko beside her and mouthing, ‘she did it.’

‘You are a like a guileless child.’

‘And you’re a sexless monk. The difference is…I’ll be professional again in about an hour, whereas you…’

‘Don’t monks have sex?’ asked Kanae, now pinching little specks of sand up from the bridge railings.

‘Professional,’ muttered Ichiko, glancing at the couple picking up the broken pieces of glass on the riverbank. ‘It amazes me that Lord Shingen lets you out of the compound at all.’

‘I saw two of them once, in the back room of a temple I was visiting…maybe they were just in costumes and pretending though. Don’t know.’

Ichiko glared at Kanae, her eyes enough to convince the drunken low-grade ninja to shut up.

‘Let me tell you a little tale,’ started Misora, putting an arm around Ichiko’s shoulder and instantly being shrugged off. ‘Once upon a time…about four years ago…there was a ninja working for the Later Hōjō Clan. A very serious girl, super austere…seriously austere…and everyone who met her said the same thing, wah, her face, it doesn’t move, she’s so serious and austere all the time. Right? Very serious ninja. And one day, another ninja came to her and said, hey, you’ve gotta loosen up or the daimyō’s gonna have you killed. You see, a good ninja needs to be able to laugh at their target’s jokes and socialise, to blend in, and no matter how much she tried, this serious ninja couldn’t do it. And finally…skipping to the end, sorry…but it got her killed. A rival daimyō, as I recall…pretended a shōchū bottle in his yukata was his penis…and she sat there stone-faced…basically broadcasting, hello, I’m a spy, I’m a spy. When all she had to do was crack the tiniest of little smiles at the penis joke.’

‘That’s so sad…’ whispered Kanae, to the grain of sand between her fingers.

‘A complete fabrication,’ replied Ichiko, folding her arms even tighter.

‘Nope, happened just like I told it.’

‘Well, let me tell you a different story then. About a sensualist ninja.’

‘Ha, this should be good…’

‘Everything was a big joke to her, mainly because she lived most of her life from inside a bottle of shōchū. And, although she had been trained to possess some rudimentary skills of the trade, her hand was never steady enough to implement them. Such was her lack of professionalism that, one day, when her daimyō called her to his chambers and demanded to know why her eyes were so pink, she told him to stop being so inquisitive and give her a mission. Of course, she used cruder words than this, but the result of this insult, I shall leave unedited. A quick signal to the guard, a swipe of the katana and the sensualist ninja was dead. Defeated by her own slovenliness.’

‘Sorry, I nodded off at the beginning. What happened?’

‘Impudence…’ muttered Ichiko, picking up a pebble that Kanae had placed on the railings and throwing it into the river.

‘Ha, you’ve decided to enter the pebble challenge,’ shouted Misora, picking up a medium-sized stone from the ground.

‘I have no interest in your childish games.’

‘It is getting a bit tedious,’ said Kanae, giving up on her grains of sand and rubbing at the burgeoning ache in her head.

Misora ignored both of them and turned to the river, saying ‘large rock’ before throwing her stone and missing it by about three inches.

‘That was pretty close,’ came Reiko’s voice from the other side of the bridge.

‘Wah, the wanderer returns…’ shouted Misora, stretching out an arm to highlight the izakaya owner as she strolled towards them. No one seemed to care much, probably because they were busy rushing to the temple for the totem-raising ceremony.

‘Sorry, it took so long, the road around the temple was like a beehive. Kept getting stopped by the Suwa ashigaru, half of them asking me to bless their katanas. Gods, they’re the weirdest guys…today spiritual, tomorrow back in the gutter, stabbing anyone who looks at them funny.’

‘What did the temple say?’ asked Ichiko, blunt as usual.

‘Nothing substantial. Just a few salt merchants staying the night, none of them from Kai Province. Of course it’d help if you gave me a better description of your targets.’

‘They are not staying at any of the ryokans either,’ continued Ichiko. ‘Though I have yet to investigate close to the lake.’

‘A more likely hiding place for them.’

‘Well, I’ll tell you one place they won’t be,’ said Reiko, frowning as Kanae started punching the back of her own head. ‘East side of Lake Suwa. There’s been an ashigaru company there for almost two months now.’

‘Doing what?’ asked Misora.’

‘For what purpose?’ amended Ichiko.

‘That’s what I just said…’

‘Let her speak.’

Reiko laughed at the two ninjas and switched the container in her right hand to the left. ‘No idea. Guarding something I suppose. Of course, I could tell you the rumours swirling around, but to tell you the truth, they’re quite erratic…even more so than usual. One guy, a poet, tried to convince me that it was the Kusanagi blade they’re trying to dig up…’

‘Nonsense…’

‘Yeah, he was four bottles deep when he said it, so I didn’t believe him either. However, there is something going on over there…maybe worth mentioning to your boss.’

Ichiko flinched at the word boss and turned to the river.

‘So about these targets of yours…’ said Reiko, focusing on Misora, who was staring at the large crimson container in the izakaya owner’s hands. ‘If you give me some basic details, I might be able to refine my search a little.’

‘Well…Kai foreign policy makes that a bit tough.’

‘Why, because of embarrassment? Hang on…it’s not another escaped concubine, is it?’

‘No.’

‘One of your colleagues gone rogue?’

‘Stop guessing,’ barked Ichiko, turning back round with another of Kanae’s pebbles in her hand.

‘Sorry, but you’re not giving me much choice.’

‘We do not need your help.’

‘Okay, fine, go your own way. I’m just letting you know…my izakaya-stroke-ryokan is a pretty busy place, lots of strangers coming in and out.’

‘You have guests that stay the night?’ asked Kanae, surprised.

‘There are a few rooms upstairs, yes. Usually reserved for patrons too drunk to find their way home.’

‘And recently?’ prodded Misora, holding up a finger to stop Ichiko having a hissy fit. ‘Any non-patron stayovers?’

‘The last week…of course, it’s festival season.’

Misora lowered her finger and moved close to Ichiko’s shoulder, whispering into her neck. A few sharp responses of no came back, followed by more whispering, followed by an eventual shrug and, ‘just the basic descriptions, no names.’

Moving back to the her original spot by the railings, Misora told Kanae to stop hitting her head and then faced Reiko.

‘You people are so dramatic…’ she said, shifting the container to her other hand again.

‘It’s a dangerous business. As are the ones we’re looking for. They killed four trained samurai, as well as several civilians.’

‘Ashigaru?’

‘One of them, yes. Around forty years old, survivalist type, fairly tall. The other one is a little more vague…a young man, twenty or so, deceptively simple-minded. Also quite tall.’

Reiko stared back, using her spare hand to wipe her nose.

‘Have you seen them?’

‘They both killed those samurai, and the civilians?’

‘Appears that way.’

Reiko shook her head, making a feeble attempt at a whistling sound. ‘I don’t believe it. He really did seem simple…kind even.’

Ichiko straightened up, throwing the pebble on the ground.

‘So you have seen them?’ prompted Misora.

‘I think so.’

‘When?’

‘Last night.’

‘At the izakaya? Are they staying there now?’

Reiko looked at Kanae, the supposed trained ninja, as she started to fall asleep with her head on the railing. ‘Is there another target you’re after?’

‘No, just those two.’

‘Not a girl as well?’

‘Which girl?’ asked Ichiko, turning to her comrade [the non-sleeping one].

‘We don’t have information on that,’ answered Misora, giving a curt nod towards Ichiko. ‘But she could be a hostage. Or someone they met on the way here.’

‘You won’t harm her?’

‘She’s not on our list. No.’

Reiko looked again at Kanae, her eyelids sliding down, her shoulders falling into that familiar drunken slump.

‘Okay. I’ll tell you what I know.’

‘Good.’

‘Though temper your expectations…cos it’s not much.’

Ichiko poked Kanae in the side, shocking her back into a standing position. ‘We’ll be the judges on that.’

‘Yes…I’m sure you will be.’